This definitely seems like a good place for either regulation or unionization.
Unionization would likely be difficult though due to the low barrier of entry for the job - artificial barriers would have to be created by the union and those break down pretty easily due to human factors (see Walmart).
I'm all for regulation in this case. Require that folks who review content for illegal posts be limited in the amount of content they review in a weekday, must have certain benefits like mental health counseling, and get some vacation / sabbatical from the work.
Risks might be reduced innovation in the field, but the big boys like Facebook and Google have already found excellent ways to snuff out their competition within the existing market.
Unionization doesn't work very well when you can trivially outsource the job/task. It'd be necessary to entirely remake the US economy, because you'd have to enable union powers that could directly control all actions by the parent corporation, including setting up overseas / outsourcing.
I have a real hard time caring about cops' fears in such a scenario. Innocent until proven guilty is a time-honored maxim of the U.S. justice system, and a cop deciding to kill you completely invalidates that.
Is being a cop scary? Hell yeah and I feel bad for those folks, but if you don't want to constantly be in fear of your life, get another job.
Put cops who murder innocent civilians in jail. End of story. This shouldn't even be a debate in the U.S.
EDIT: Since I had the goal posts moved on me, I want to make it explicitly clear that a cop should be allowed to kill in self-defense, just like any other lawful citizen.
The thing about guns is that there's basically no moment that exists between "in fear for your life" and "dead." Either you shoot the other person while you think they're pulling out a gun (i.e. kill in purported self-defense), or you {get shot and die, nothing happens}. There's no moment, with guns involved, where you can know that someone is trying to kill you, without already being dead.
You've just created a pure strawman. Cops should never lose their rights! I am not making such an argument, and I don't see how you got there from my points. I would never argue such a claim.
The cases I'm talking about are not self-defense. They are like the story above. If A murders B, and A is a cop, then A should go to jail regardless of the fear A had in that situation. But this is not what happens in the United States. Cops don't go to jail for shooting perfectly innocent people because the cop can claim they were afraid for their life and thought that B had a gun.
If I'm a civilian, that defense doesn't fly. But if you're a cop, then it does work. That is a flaw in our justice system that needs to be corrected because a perfectly innocent man can be killed by the state and no repercussions are felt.
The state should never be able to kill an innocent man. If they are shooting at you, they aren't innocent. But if you think they have a gun (especially in an open-carry state like Kansas or Texas) then they are innocent and should not be killed.
EDIT: I am saddened by the downvotes. Does the state have the right to kill innocent people if those people own a gun? Doesn't the second amendment protect against this? I simply do not see the legitimate argument for allowing such behavior. This just seems like rabid tribalism for police.
I don't think I understand what scenario you're talking about. If you're talking about the scenario I posted a video of, I think you are completely off base.
If you're talking a cop straight-up murdering someone, and it getting covered up, then, of course, that's wrong.
I think there is a lot of gray area between these two scenarios, however. I also think if there was a ban on guns that would solve most of it.
The scenario at hand in the OP, where a cop murders a completely innocent man through mistake. I agree that a ban on guns would likely solve the problem in the video that you posted.
My point was that your video seemed out of place since the actual issue is that cops in the U.S. are held to a different standard for murder. If cops were held to the same standard, then they could be held accountable for their crimes and some of the public outrage would be alleviated.
If (for the sake of argument) the amount of guns in this country were significantly decreased via a ban and the police still held to a different standard, police would still be able to kill an innocent person out of fear for their life. Racial biases could also cause a cop to be more fearful in a situation and still kill an innocent person without consequence.
I also think that changing how police are prosecuted for crimes is much easier than repealing the second amendment in the U.S. (although both would face fierce opposition).
> My point was that your video seemed out of place since the actual issue is that cops in the U.S. are held to a different standard for murder.
That video was part of a specific response refuting the idea that if the cops just used drones and body armor, there wouldn't be a problem anymore. I did in no way intend to imply it was a counterpoint to the main story. I don't know why it's being perceived in that way.
> I also think that changing how police are prosecuted for crimes is much easier than repealing the second amendment in the U.S. (although both would face fierce opposition).
Yes, but that runs into the trade-off I was talking about. Either you have a heavy handed, "shoot first, ask questions later" style police force, or one with a lighter touch. In the first scenario, more civilians are killed. In the second, more cops.
Only by banning guns can you reduce casualties on both sides.
How would take the guns out of circulation already? There are millions of them out there and a whole tribe of diehards who will never give them up, and on top of this an entire industry around it -- the amount of people that die from this problem isn't worth the political capital and sustained decision maker attention needed to push this through compared to everything else that could be done using the same limited bandwidth.
Hacker News has a libertarian leaning ideology among both its community and site-runners. As a result, things like deleted posts, changed thread titles, etc could be seen by folks with such leanings as an impingement on their "free speech" by the site's moderators.
Thus folks want a way to check what has been deleted, changed, or modified by the folks in charge. I imagine this exists to help satisfy that desire.
No, the phenomenon is rather that HN readers with strong ideological feelings tend to see the site as dominated by, and the mods in cahoots with, their ideological enemies. This has to be some kind of cognitive bias since the claims people make about HN, and us, are so comically contradictory. If you don't believe me, here are a few typical examples:
By the way, that thread you linked to shows exactly the opposite of what you say, if you read it to the end. This too is typical, except for the part where the original commenter admirably accepts the correction. That bit is surprisingly rare!
> the phenomenon is rather that HN readers with strong ideological feelings tend to see the site as dominated by, and the mods in cahoots with, their ideological enemies.
I agree, but I don't think that's why this is a popular piece. Such a post would not resonate as well on NeoGAF or ResetERA or even Reddit, but the political leanings of this site propelled this to the front page. There's more to it than just seeing the mods as being in cahoots with enemies. It's the ideology that any moderation is inherently untrustworthy and that the power must be constantly kept 'in check'.
You can find endless examples of folks who feel they are pariahs. I still think that Hacker News has a severe idealogical bend, just like any online community. And I don't think it's a stretch to say that bend matches the mindset of many programmers - techno-libertarianism.
To be clear, I'm not claiming that the moderators have some idealogical bias - I've never come across that. Simply that certain trains of thought are very popular here, and the notion of "free speech" being impeded by aggressive moderation is something that has been rehashed on this site time and time again.
I realize you may have taken issue with my comment because I said "site-runners" in my claim of an ideology. I realize that this was poor word-choice, as I actually meant the YC, not Hacker News - they got conflated in my mind and I apologize for the mistake.
Actually your comment is a textbook example of what I described. HN makes this easy, because no matter what you believe about HN, you can always find examples that appear to support it. Not that most people bother to try, or even make the simplest effort at factual truth (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16019042).
Based on what I know about moderation, the penalty on the story may have been overruled by upvotes or reversed by moderators. This does happen occasionally.
And by authoritarianism I do not mean politically authoritarian views, simply authoritarianism applied to moderation decisions (having iron fisted idea police ensuring the quality of HN discussion).
As dang mentioned already, it seems like a good mix. I've seen libertarian, communists, conservatives, anarchists etc. It's one of the few places online where there is a reasonably polite political discourse on topics which touch politics. Yes those articles are sometimes flagged or removed as discussion devolves into insults. It's just that elsewhere it is much worse.
Stereotypes typically don't come from anything. The "stereotype" of an Asian male is someone who
* can't talk to women
* doesn't understand social skills
* has poor hygiene / manners
* values STEM above softer skills
* values hard work and effort
It's pointless to make these claims because such broad generalizations immediately break down the second you meet an Asian man. There's no way to know which (if any) of these stereotypes they uphold.
Some of these sterotypes have a positive bend: Poor social skills imply that they are reserved. Valuing hard work makes you a disciplined person. etc. But these stereotypes are still bad. They lead people to make unfair assumptions about Asian men because they are Asian. There's plenty of literature out there about stereotypes and prejudice and especially about the "model minority" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_minority
From there you may see why folks are downvoting you:
> A common misconception is that the affected communities usually hold pride in their labeling as the model minority. The model minority stereotype is considered detrimental to relevant minority communities because it is used to justify the exclusion of minorities in the distribution of assistance programs, both public and private, as well as to understate or slight the achievements of individuals within that minority. Furthermore, the idea of the model minority pits minority groups against each other by implying that non-model groups are at fault for falling short of the model minority level of achievement and assimilation
EDIT: And as a bonus (since that Wikipedia article is DAMN good) "Scientific studies have revealed that positive stereotypes have many negative and damaging consequences both socially and psychologically." The citations are in the article.
The statement assumes that one considers the poetic qualities as significant as marketability - not useful. You seem to have misunderstood the creators' intentions as they have no interest in providing you a "practical demonstration" or anything practical at all.
Art has little direct use - Michelangelo's David has very little practical value, yet it's significance is immense.
The creators of this project do not care for the practical value of any of this. They wish to experiment in the hope that some poetic qualities of their work will be deemed significant enough to carry on into new works (some of which may actually be useful).
> the less successful ones stay in college and promote "safe spaces" to prolong the coddling.
This is not in any way what a safe space is - stop promoting this completely inaccurate meme to further your own personal viewpoint. It has absolutely nothing to do with being unprepared for "real-life" or some other such nonsense. In fact I'm so confused why you would even bring up such a non-related topic, you must have quite the talent for shifting conversations to your favor.
"In educational institutions, safe space (or safe-space), safer space, and positive space are terms that, as originally intended, were used to indicate that a teacher, educational institution, or student body did not tolerate anti-LGBT violence, harassment or hate speech, thereby creating a safe place for all LGBT students."
(Just to be clear, I have no intention of derailing this thread into the merits of safe spaces - this probably ain't the space. I just felt it was necessary to call out.)
I have upvoted you to cancel the downvotes, since it is right that we see the counter-view about safe-spaces.
But in case you are wondering about the downvotes, it is because you have done the opposite of convince anyone. The tone of your comment seems like over-reaction and is just going to confirm the priors of anyone who doesn't see things your way.
I was not attempting to convince anyone. The above poster claimed that safe spaces were meant to "prolong the coddling" of childhood, yet this directly contradicts the history of creation and specified intention of safe spaces. There is no opinion and thus no "counter-view" to be had about what led to their creation and their creators' intentions as those are facts.
Now one is free to have the opinion that safe spaces stifle discussion, or prevent ideas from being addressed or some other such things - those are all opinions and all views that can have their nuances. But safe spaces were never created to prolong some sense of childhood comfort or safety - like I said, that idea is just a popular meme of the alt-right.
Just look up the EA Star Wars Battlefront 2 stuff. It's a big old mess. You pay money for crates which randomly drop items that improve the game experience.
Some people consider it gambling because you are preying on the same tendencies in people for your own gain. People also don't get any real value for their "gambling". Other people say this makes it not gambling, etc. That's a very simple oversimplification of the subject - there's a lot of articles out there about it right now.
It's turning a game into a skinner box designed to extract as much money as possible from those who buy the game. It operates on the same basic principles as slot machines.
The counter-argument goes that people "should know" and be responsible with their money, but I'm not a fan of that argument. It relies on people being perfectly rational actors that they just aren't.
I'm personally in favor of instituting regulation for these things. Even if it is just purely from the "we have to protect the children" angle - children are arguably the main market for these strategies after all.
> the relevant fields are in the middle of a reproducibility crisis largely due to their political confirmation bias.
As someone who works very closely with academics (specifically sociologists), I would love to see some evidence for this baseless mud-slinging. All of science is having a reproducibility crisis
Do you have a knowledge of the field? Or do you just disagree with their conclusions? I would be happy to be proven wrong so I can let my sociologist friends know that they are doing such a thing.
EDIT: There's also this really neat nature article detailing some of the responses to the current reproducibility crisis in all of science. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-016-0021 Based on this article, it looks like the social sciences are actually the ones spearheading the effort for more reproducible science. One of my colleagues is actually investigating how the typical formulation of ideas with the scientific method can implicitly lead to biases and errors in the science actually performed.
You’re right. Which isn’t to say sociology isn’t a hostile environment for anyone who isn’t avowedly left wing, or that sociologists (or social psychologists, or anthropologists) don’t discriminate against people they know are right wing. But nothing I’ve read suggests that politics before truth is the majority position in sociology. It’s clearly a position, and not a fringe one, but it’s weaker than in the 60’s. Cultural anthropology is a writeoff though.
I would hope the social sciences are leading the charge on reproducibility. If you want to learn more on that topic read Andrew Gelman’s blog.
I completely agree with you, however I find this bit a little mysterious:
> With facebook actively suppressing certain ideologies
The only ideologies I've heard of Facebook suppressing lately are Neo-Nazi and alt-right groups following the Charlottesville stuff. I don't take issue with these ideologies being suppressed.
Am I missing something?
EDIT: Apparently so because someone just went through my history and down-voted all my comments...
Yep, both Facebook and Twitter regularly plop up on media for shutting down or suspending left-wing sites. For example, "Kein Mensch ist illegal" was even awarded a prize by FB (2014) and in 2016 their admin got suspended (https://www.mimikama.at/allgemein/facebook-sperrt-admin-von-...). Problem here is that the alt-right (ab)uses the reporting features combined with sensitive anti-spam measures at the providers. Given enough reporting Nazis, even the biggest accounts are easy targets. That the Big 3 (FB, Twitter, Youtube) don't have a way to reach a human or file an appeal at a court of law (which I can do, for example, if my telco provider shuts down my internet access and with it my email account) doesn't exactly help either. Big-ish accounts with media influence or people with connections to employees of the companies may help, but this is a luxury only a few people have.
> EDIT: Apparently so because someone just went through my history and down-voted all my comments...
Don't worry - had the same thing happen to me recently, I believe after the Charlottesville murder.
> The only ideologies I've heard of Facebook suppressing lately
Conservatives put up a fit when they accused Facebook employees of censoring or otherwise biasing the "Trending Topics" feature to prevent conservative stories from appearing there.
Last I heard, about 2 FB employees were suspended or fired over the story, but that's just from memory so I could be completely wrong. As a result of the accusations, FB reportedly converted Trending Topics to be completely automated. It was probably easier to abuse for coordinated troll armies once it was automated.
> Suppression of opinion implicitly violates the Bill of Rights
NO.
The Bill of Rights are enumerated protections FROM THE GOVERNMENT.
The concept of "Freedom of Speech" is different and more broad than the First Amendment to the US Constitution, but a private entity not protecting it is not a violation of the First Amendment or any other 9. Yes, the double-negative is important.
The Constitution remains amendable. We hear arguments frequently that the Second fails to sufficiently account for modernity. Perhaps the First does, too.
I do not consider Nazi ideology an opinion. Their ideas are purely based on maintaining a power dynamic. There's no logic or legitimacy to their ideas, and thus they are not opinions. They change the ideology as needed to maintain power and promote their own strength.
For a historical viewpoint, simply look at how often the German Nazi party would change what classifies as being a Jew or "undesirable". It was only ever about putting fear into people and maintaining control. They had no real opinions on why these people were undesirable - those could be made up after the fact.
If Nazism was an opinion, I would be willing to defend it. But it's not, and it thrives when it's given the legitimacy as such.
EDIT: To try and tie this back to the topic at hand, are blatant lies still "opinions"? What about death threats and hate speech? My point is simply that we already make distinctions about what kind of speech is free, so I feel that Facebook instituting policies that align with these existing rules makes sense - even though I feel that they are becoming too large to be the de-facto source for information on the Internet.
Even if I use a million sock-puppets to amplify my voice? I generally agree with the idea that one (physical) person's stated opinion shouldn't be squashed, but we are dealing with scale here.
Hmm. I wouldn't say Nazi sympathisers... I'd rather say extreme libertarians. They see every kind of speech as acceptable, no matter how hard history has proven this kind of speech to lead to ultimate desaster and suffering.
Anyway, HN has always tended to the libertarian side of things, doesn't surprise me that there is also quite a bunch of radical libertarians. Thankfully, there also seem to be some Antifas in here, if only to provide some counterweight...
No, far from it. I did not equate them (and I never would), but there are a number of libertarians who believe that fascism is a valid part of the political spectrum and covered by free speech.
That does not neccessarily mean that they support fascism itself - in fact, I have yet to see a libertarian who does not say that he/she despises fascism.
Unionization would likely be difficult though due to the low barrier of entry for the job - artificial barriers would have to be created by the union and those break down pretty easily due to human factors (see Walmart).
I'm all for regulation in this case. Require that folks who review content for illegal posts be limited in the amount of content they review in a weekday, must have certain benefits like mental health counseling, and get some vacation / sabbatical from the work.
Risks might be reduced innovation in the field, but the big boys like Facebook and Google have already found excellent ways to snuff out their competition within the existing market.