PendingKetchup's recent activity
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Comment on We techies are responsible for "You'll own nothing, and you'll enjoy it." in ~talk
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Comment on Facebook is a global mafia in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentFacilitating access to information is part of being a good computer. You make a good point that facilitating unrestricted access to all information is quite likely to be a net negative and produce...If I make computers, suddenly I have a moral duty beyond just selling a good product?
Facilitating access to information is part of being a good computer. You make a good point that facilitating unrestricted access to all information is quite likely to be a net negative and produce a lot of collateral damage. But a system used by many to access news deciding that they will cut off that access to prove a business point is also quite likely to be a net negative with a lot of collateral damage.
Who gets to decide the morals they're required to follow? I think following the law should be sufficient.
Complete moral consensus is impossible and probably undesirable. But that doesn't mean that morals and moral obligations don't exist, just that reasonable people will sometimes disagree about what they are. A lot of times, the vast majority of people will agree in their moral judgements.
Following the law is almost certainly not sufficient if one wants to be a good person, natural or otherwise. The law defines what we all agree is so wrong that it is worth engaging the state to punish or prevent it, often through coercion. Not meeting that standard of wrongness isn't the same as being right.
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Comment on Facebook is a global mafia in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentIsn't facilitating citizens' access to information the moral duty of information technology, media, and telecommunications companies? If Google decided that, say, refusing to answer searches about...No corporation is under duty, neither legal nor moral, to facilitate the access that citizens have to information.
Isn't facilitating citizens' access to information the moral duty of information technology, media, and telecommunications companies? If Google decided that, say, refusing to answer searches about abortion, or QAnon, or just anything they couldn't sell the ads on, were best for their bottom line, wouldn't that be wrong? While as a private company they can do whatever they want, exercising that right in a lot of cases would make them a piss-poor communications service, and suddenly providing terrible service for no good reason to people who rely on you is wrong.
The problem with Facebook, Inc. is not that it behaves like a for-profit corporation is meant to behave.
Isn't it? For-profit corporations in general tend to (and I can only conclude are thus meant to) behave like sociopaths: they can interact with people but lack the internal conscience, empathy, and fear of rejection systems that constrain the actions of people to be safe for those around them. Is the real problem with Facebook completely orthogonal to its lack of the capacity for empathy?
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Comment on Silicon Valley’s safe space: Slate Star Codex was a window into the psyche of many tech leaders building our collective future. Then it disappeared. in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentI don't actually read SSC comments much either. The impression I get is not that the comments sections tended to devolve into cespools, but that avowed racists were permitted to inhabit them so...I don't actually read SSC comments much either. The impression I get is not that the comments sections tended to devolve into cespools, but that avowed racists were permitted to inhabit them so long as they behaved civilly there.
Also, I need to add that I think the Charles Murray "alignment" is in fact wrong; it's irresponsible to pull out somebody like that as an example and not mention their racism.
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Comment on Silicon Valley’s safe space: Slate Star Codex was a window into the psyche of many tech leaders building our collective future. Then it disappeared. in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentI think that's just how NYT refers to everyone they write about. Every one is Mr. or Mx. or Ms. or Dr. Whoever.I think that's just how NYT refers to everyone they write about. Every one is Mr. or Mx. or Ms. or Dr. Whoever.
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Comment on Silicon Valley’s safe space: Slate Star Codex was a window into the psyche of many tech leaders building our collective future. Then it disappeared. in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentI almost get the feeling that the NYT author didn't read the tribes essay, or rather read it and took it as a style guide. There's a lot of "was read by". The "said that affirmative action was...it's pretty clear that the NYT went out of its way to draw negative connotations on the guy.
I almost get the feeling that the NYT author didn't read the tribes essay, or rather read it and took it as a style guide. There's a lot of "was read by". The "said that affirmative action was difficult to distinguish" line seems like we're not supposed to read it as what it actually says (i.e. an allegation that it would be hard to measure any discrimination in the presence of affirmative action) and instead is meant to imply that the two are being equated.
it's not fair to just imply that SSC was toxic ergo THE GUY HIMSELF was toxic
Here in Blue Tribe we are pretty strict ethical consequentialists. If it's your blog comments section, you're responsible for the tone of the community. If there are toxic people there, you are ethically required to contradict and exclude them; silence is assent. This is because the toxicity is generally in agreement with things like racism that undergird the prevailing society; they have a sort of inertia where they will be taken to be true by default if not convincingly rejected.
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Comment on Slay the Spire for Android is out in ~games
PendingKetchup LinkI never really liked FTL much because of the constant dying, but Slay the Spore is fun.I never really liked FTL much because of the constant dying, but Slay the Spore is fun.
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Comment on Why Robinhood disabled buys but not sells in ~finance
PendingKetchup Link ParentHertz tried to do this a while back: they were going bankrupt but the stock had been bid up by randos. They canceled the plan, IIRC, after the SEC made vague investigatory noises.Hertz tried to do this a while back: they were going bankrupt but the stock had been bid up by randos. They canceled the plan, IIRC, after the SEC made vague investigatory noises.
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Comment on Why Robinhood disabled buys but not sells in ~finance
PendingKetchup Link ParentI don't think it would take a lot of energy to secure; you would probably just make the exchanges sign and countersign the blocks, instead of running proof of work or something. But the...I don't think it would take a lot of energy to secure; you would probably just make the exchanges sign and countersign the blocks, instead of running proof of work or something. But the settle-for-difference model does indeed let you do higher throughput; only the aggregate information needs to be agreed upon with the upstream exchange.
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Comment on Why Robinhood disabled buys but not sells in ~finance
PendingKetchup LinkWhy, when any vaguely competent IT person can spin up a blockchain that makes trades irreversible in 15 seconds, are we still settling stock trades two days later?Why, when any vaguely competent IT person can spin up a blockchain that makes trades irreversible in 15 seconds, are we still settling stock trades two days later?
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Comment on Discord bans the r/WallStreetBets server in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentIt seems a bit disingenuous to require a mod team to enforce community guidelines on arbitrarily many posts per second, and only tell them about posts at a lower rate than that. If Reddit wants...It seems a bit disingenuous to require a mod team to enforce community guidelines on arbitrarily many posts per second, and only tell them about posts at a lower rate than that.
If Reddit wants mods to mod, they need a way for the mods to rate-limit posting to what they can actually mod.
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Comment on The Great Deplatforming: An alternate explanation for the Parler, et al, shutdowns in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentThis honestly is starting to sound a lot like the QAnon theories: the State has a Plan to make everything OK. Evidence for the plan can be found by examining a series of initially...This honestly is starting to sound a lot like the QAnon theories: the State has a Plan to make everything OK. Evidence for the plan can be found by examining a series of initially unrelated-seeming events, while any lack of evidence for this Plan is just how good they are at keeping it secret until the time is right.
I mean, it might be true this time, but that's not because there's better evidence for it.
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Comment on PeerTube v3 : it’s a live, a liiiiive ! in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentFederated systems let you turn a differentiated product like YouTube into a commodity. If you have one large major provider of a commodity instead of a product, you still get a lot of the...Is it the great irony of the fediverse that most people gravitate toward one flagship instance, when the objective is to decentralize? I'm concerned that without one, PeerTube will struggle to grow past these niche corners.
Federated systems let you turn a differentiated product like YouTube into a commodity. If you have one large major provider of a commodity instead of a product, you still get a lot of the efficiencies of centralization, but anyone who wants to switch providers can, and therefore the large provider has much less power.
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Comment on The lab-leak hypothesis—for decades, scientists have been hot-wiring viruses in hopes of preventing a pandemic, not causing one. But what if …? in ~health
PendingKetchup LinkThis article is far too long to evaluate in less than several hours. But it is not particularly "unlikely to have four amino acids added all at once" to a protein. Our surveilence of viruses is...This article is far too long to evaluate in less than several hours. But it is not particularly "unlikely to have four amino acids added all at once" to a protein. Our surveilence of viruses is too terrible for it to be unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 is related to but not actually derived from a virus sample that happened to be in town at the time. The virus appearing to have spent time in humans before we detected it doesn't strike me as particularly unusual; we don't sequence that many new zoonotic diseases and, again, our surveilence is terrible.
Is it flat out impossible? No. But the evidence I could pick out of the article (hidden among vague question-raising and scarry anecdotes instead of aggregated for analysis) doesn't seem particularly strong to me.
Writing extremely long articles about the theory that SARS-CoV-2 is not apolitical: it throws a lot of shade at China and their biotech and/or any bioweapons work.
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Comment on LinkLonk - A link aggregator with a trust system in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentAre we always supposed to be using front-end frameworks and build systems now? I've always felt like they're overkill of you're making a page instead of writing an application.Are we always supposed to be using front-end frameworks and build systems now? I've always felt like they're overkill of you're making a page instead of writing an application.
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Comment on LinkLonk - A link aggregator with a trust system in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentHow do you get inine SVG to... not be inline? With something like Font Awesome you can say "download icon here" and get a download icon. With inline SVG you need to manually copy-paste the SVG...How do you get inine SVG to... not be inline? With something like Font Awesome you can say "download icon here" and get a download icon. With inline SVG you need to manually copy-paste the SVG everywhere you want it, right? Or can you get it to be inline in the style sheet somehow?
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~comp
PendingKetchup Link ParentDocker is great for deployment on consumer machines. Using it for every tool like the linked article does is completely preposterous, but Docker is the only practical way for an individual to run...Docker is great for deployment on consumer machines. Using it for every tool like the linked article does is completely preposterous, but Docker is the only practical way for an individual to run a bunch of web-based applications and wire them up to the backend and database stuff that they need.
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Comment on Why is evil more charismatic than good? in ~humanities
PendingKetchup Link ParentHis public health work is (for the sake of this argument at least) good. But he still has a bunch more money not donated to foundations than he should. That doesn't really explain why Gates gets...His public health work is (for the sake of this argument at least) good. But he still has a bunch more money not donated to foundations than he should.
That doesn't really explain why Gates gets cast as the villain and Trump as the hero; the article seems pretty right to me on that front.
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Comment on Why is evil more charismatic than good? in ~humanities
PendingKetchup LinkResentment for the rich isn't so equivalent to resentment of success that you can just abut them in the same noun phrase. People resent the rich not because they are successful but because they've...At first, you might suspect that this is just the effect of general resentment for the rich, resentment for success.
Resentment for the rich isn't so equivalent to resentment of success that you can just abut them in the same noun phrase. People resent the rich not because they are successful but because they've leveraged their success to appropriate tens to hundreds of thousands of times their fair share of society's resources, and retained them for an appreciable length of time. Bill Gates still has something like a hundred billion dollars; he needs maybe two? ten? million dollars for everything a single person could ever justifiably own. He's quite deliberately doing good as cost-effectively as possible, which he can only do because of all the money he has collected and retained, and it's not clear how we should count it.
(Of course, it is mainly nerds who are the best people and who are moving society forward.)
This is not an "of course".
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~space
PendingKetchup LinkThis is great. Now that the dangerous high-tension cables are gone, the area should be safe to work in again. There's no need to defuse them with some kind of controlled demolition, so rebuilding...This is great.
Now that the dangerous high-tension cables are gone, the area should be safe to work in again. There's no need to defuse them with some kind of controlled demolition, so rebuilding the dish would be possible now if enough money were thrown at it.
A good union would help quite a lot. You can't just fire people until you find someone willing to sell out the users if the union contract says you can't, and the union can negotiate broadly with the company to find a strategy to make money that the workers actually like.