theduckparticle's recent activity

  1. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~misc

    theduckparticle
    Link Parent
    Have fun with this one then (coming from Belgium)

    Have fun with this one then (coming from Belgium)

    Casteur says that he learned that Godelieva had struggled to find three doctors who would say that she had an incurable illness, as the law required. One psychiatrist wrote that her desire for euthanasia was “not mature,” because she had “ups and downs.” According to Casteur, a second concluded that she could still be helped; the psychiatrist observed that when Godelieva discussed her grandchildren she became emotional and expressed doubts about her decision to die. In addition to Thienpont, Distelmans consulted Godelieva’s former therapist, who wrote that, “after recent rejection by her latest partner and by her children, her psychiatric issues will not improve.” Two weeks before Godelieva’s death, Distelmans asked if he could call her children, but she refused. “It would not change her decision anyway,” Distelmans wrote.

    1 vote

  2. Comment on Podcasting is not walled (yet) in ~tech

    theduckparticle
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    It should probably be noted that, of the four platforms mentioned for banning Infowars - Apple, Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify - two of them didn't ban his podcast because they are not podcast...

    It should probably be noted that, of the four platforms mentioned for banning Infowars - Apple, Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify - two of them didn't ban his podcast because they are not podcast clients; one of them primarily exists as a streaming service (and therefore (a) already curates the content it provides to a great extent and (b) may have issues with users adding uncatalogued content to their libraries); and as for Apple, Rakhim notes above that both Apple Podcasts and iTunes accept RSS.

    1 vote

  3. Comment on Shenzhen Tech Girl Naomi Wu: My experience with Sarah Jeong, Jason Koebler, and Vice Magazine in ~tech

    theduckparticle
    Link Parent
    All else aside, I'd say the very topic at hand, which is to say her slandering another woman of color to defend a white man, should provide a fair helping of evidence against the "racist against...

    All else aside, I'd say the very topic at hand, which is to say her slandering another woman of color to defend a white man, should provide a fair helping of evidence against the "racist against white people" canard.

    (Related to which - it seems quite likely that, when she posted those tweets originally, she had numerous white friends & colleagues who saw them, and that none of them felt in any kind of danger, or that she would treat them as lessers because of their race - in short that they saw them as satire, examples of a widely-used form - and moreover none of them decided to raise an objection to her book deal, or her move to the Verge and then to the Times, or her fellowship at Yale, etc.)

    3 votes

  4. Comment on Thoughts on permanently limiting the number of people who use tildes? in ~tildes

    theduckparticle
    Link Parent
    I get the impression that what's typically meant by "scaling" here is roughly "person-hours of paid labor scales sublinearly with the number of users". And in that case, I agree - of all the major...

    Personally I don't think it's possible to have proper scaling without involving the userbase in moderation

    I get the impression that what's typically meant by "scaling" here is roughly "person-hours of paid labor scales sublinearly with the number of users". And in that case, I agree - of all the major social networks right now, Reddit's model is the only one that can theoretically enforce any kind of sitewide community standards without a content-moderation staff proportional to the userbase. (Not that, to anyone's knowledge, they've ever acknowledged that they even need a dedicated content moderation staff at all, let alone scale it up as the site continues to grow.)

    But I'm not sure that kind of scaling is necessary. Facebook and Twitter both have roughly one employee for every 100,000 users. I wouldn't be surprised if they could both solve their content moderation problems by hiring one additional remote employee per 100k users to review user-flagged and auto-flagged content for 10hr/week at $20/hr, and that surely would not dramatically increase the price of doing business.

  5. Comment on I think we need more conservative voices to balance out the intense liberalism of tildes in ~tildes

    theduckparticle
    Link Parent
    Why should diversity of opinion have to take place on the standard right-left axis? There are much more than two sides to any debate, and far more positions still on an issue writ large; and...

    Why should diversity of opinion have to take place on the standard right-left axis? There are much more than two sides to any debate, and far more positions still on an issue writ large; and that's without getting into issues like free trade that don't really hew closely to a left-right divide at all. If keeping out *ist views happens to exclude far more of the right than the left, then so be it.

    Not to say that a platform should reject conservative voices outright; rather I see no reason why it should try specifically to be welcoming to ideological groups like conservatives in the same way I'd expect it to be welcoming to various marginalized groups.

    21 votes

  6. Comment on How do you discuss open minded topics with close minded people? in ~talk

    theduckparticle
    Link Parent
    If I am arguing with someone about gun rights, there is at least a 95% chance that they agree with the premise that, in certain circumstances, that the state should be able to "seize or ban the...

    The notion of the state being able to seize or ban the ownership of private property for the benefit of society is widespread and accepted.

    Being widespread and accepted does not excuse the abhorrent.

    If I am arguing with someone about gun rights, there is at least a 95% chance that they agree with the premise that, in certain circumstances, that the state should be able to "seize or ban the ownership of private property for the benefit of society" (though we necessarily disagree on which circumstances).

    As for the other 5%, that is not an argument worth having, except perhaps to discredit the other guy before an audience.

  7. Comment on How do you discuss open minded topics with close minded people? in ~talk

    theduckparticle
    Link Parent
    In cases like these it's especially important to consider another point , understand who your audience really is. If for example you're arguing with an ardent global-warming denier on an anonymous...

    Be aware that this will only work in maybe one in ten cases. This especially applies to the internet, where the feeling of consequence free expression further limits peoples ability and willingness to consider another view.

    In cases like these it's especially important to consider another point , understand who your audience really is. If for example you're arguing with an ardent global-warming denier on an anonymous public forum, there's basically no chance you'll convince them in anything close to the future, but what you may be able to do is help everyone else understand why that line of reasoning isn't valuable. So for example you don't necessarily need to avoid hurting their feelings (within reason), but you do need to avoid alienating people who are receptive to, but not already sold on, their arguments.

    1 vote

  8. Comment on TSA looks at doing away with security screening at 150 smaller airports in US in ~transport

    theduckparticle
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    How confident are we that "cut screening" means eliminate all screening, altogether? When I first saw this I assumed it meant reverting to the "keep your jackets & shoes on, keep your electronics...

    How confident are we that "cut screening" means eliminate all screening, altogether? When I first saw this I assumed it meant reverting to the "keep your jackets & shoes on, keep your electronics & liquids in your bags, put your bags on the conveyor belt and walk through the metal detector" routine that they've started doing randomly on occasion, but all the commentors that are quoted seem to be reading it as the former.

    2 votes

  9. Comment on TSA looks at doing away with security screening at 150 smaller airports in US in ~transport

    theduckparticle
    Link Parent
    I've flown through CHS a bunch (which, with a whopping 15 gates, might be a bit too big for this?), and in my experience there's a similar range in wait times to many larger airports, maybe even a...

    I've flown through CHS a bunch (which, with a whopping 15 gates, might be a bit too big for this?), and in my experience there's a similar range in wait times to many larger airports, maybe even a bit towards the longer end.

    2 votes