Came here to say the same:
"wtf how are bananas and pineapples trees? Shall we get him to look up the pictures or ask some AI model to get the images of wikipedia and to classify them?"
There are fern trees (Tree Fern to be precise), but they only grow in tropical regions. Bananas and pineapples are clearly grass with huge leaves.
I think it's interesting how I discover in this comment section that many people use the word grass for any member of the order Poales, where I would only use it for members of the family Poaceae, and even then only when speaking in very general terms when it comes to things like bamboo.
But bananas? Who calls bananas grasses? They're not even in Poales!
So would you like to a live in a country where the government can mandate a vaccine and you have no way to find out who owns the VAXXPROD company, whose vaccines are mandated? What if the owner by pure coincidence is the nice of the Vax Minister?
On the other hand, how will John Doe's privacy be affected if it was public information that he owns Flush Pty Ltd, as long as Flush Pty Ltd is not doing anything of public interest?
Obviously, would get into the realm of public interest if John Doe also owned Flush-A, Flush-B, ... Flush-Z Pty Ltds, and these were purportedly competing for the tenders to install toilets in the City Council Building. Or would you rather keep this information private?
Your questions address a completely different part of this conversation that I acknowledged, but specifically clarified wasn't what I was commenting on. The moral dilemmas that may be hiding in this change are already discussed elsewhere in the thread.
"there are objectively no advantages to having your privacy taken away..."
Your words, correct?
My claim is that whenever you do something of high consequence, it is safer for you and the society to have your privacy taken away. (or the link between whatever you do and your name be public knowledge)
*The vaccine produced by an anonymous scientist*
*The car crashtest and certification site operated by an anonymous owner*
*The airplane designed by an anonymous engineer*
Talking about airplanes. An air traffic controller in Switzerland is a largely anonymous job. But after causing an aviation accident (a rather high-consequence deed) it would have been safer for the controller, if he and the police assumed that the air traffic controller's name and location were public knowledge:
The information that John Doe operates XYZ Pty Ltd does not affect their privacy too much, but if either John Doe or XYZ do or even consider doing something of high consequence, they better know that the link is public.
there are objectively no advantages to having the link between your name and your high-impact activity be hidden.
I was referring to my own interests - as the one who would be losing his privacy - not the consequences for society. I made that very clear in the first sentence of my OG comment. There are no advantages to me losing my privacy. That is, me specifically. Not individuals in general. Me. As I was saying from the start.
The discussion you seemingly want to have you can have plenty of times elsewhere in the thread, so why instead ignore everything I said and pivot the conversation to the one thing I said multiple times now wasn't what I was talking about?
It is perfectly valid and I appreciate that you want to talk about the bigger picture of this change, and how it affects different aspects of society. That conversation should go along with conversations about individual experiences and expectations and interests, not happen in their stead.
No, it's not!
When you surf, you get used to punching through the surface and then holding your breath and dealing with the water movement.
You have to consciously remind yourself to not do the equivalent of going head first through the face of the wave or stretching out your toes when bailing of the board.
> you're all drawing a distinction that I don't see?
The distinction you are not seeing is between actual harm and a pretext for lawyers to sue.
Actual harm to the environment and real business profits result from manufacturers producing and selling proprietary charing devices (I bought at least 3 and disposed of at least 2 Apple magsafe2 chargers, while having perfectly working generic chargers around my home).
An indie developer hosting a free website is neither causing permanent and irreversible damage to the environment nor is he making any money as a result of his websites not being accessibility compliant.
> An indie developer hosting a free website is neither causing permanent and irreversible damage to the environment nor is he making any money as a result of his websites not being accessibility compliant.
Odd complaint seeing as how Apple no longer includes chargers with iPhones, on environmental grounds. There are many people who complained about that, as well.
No, I’m saying that the law actually reduced access for this set of lessons, and perhaps we should figure out ways to make things accessible for everyone other than putting the onus on the little guy. Maybe if you’re just one person, then there could be a program where larger companies are required to pay a small tax or donate developer time (in lieu of tax) to help you make your site accessible. That way, the larger companies who can afford to make their site accessible follow the law and do so, and then they also take some of the profits they made off of the public to do a public good.
If I am a dictator sitting on an oil well, exporting more and more oil and keeping 100% of profits to myself, the GDP will still grow in line with the amount and price of oil exported.
There is little correlation between what the population is doing and what the countries economic and social potential is. Isn't that in-part the definition of a dictator?
Just realised that the point I've made in response to a comment probably should be a level higher:
Don't trust the radiation monitoring system, the actual monitoring system has been destroyed by a rocket impact three days ago.
The monitoring system has been shot down on 1 Sep.
Here is the statement from the Nuclear Agency in Ukraine:
On March 1, 2022 at 11:40 as a result of rocket impact, the communication network of Zaporizhzhya NPP was damaged. As a result, the Automated Radiation Monitoring System (ARMS) of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant lost its full functionality and stopped the transmission of data to the international radiation monitoring network IRMIS. IAEA has been informed about the incident.
The link doesn't load right now (HN overload?) but I wonder, if the comms are down, shouldn't the system report "no data" as opposed to "all clear"? Why should there be an explicit warning about not trusting it when the system itself should easily be able to tell whether it's getting fresh data?
I can’t speak to why you’ve been downvoted, but it might be worth considering the incentives to fight aren’t the same between the “sides”. One is fighting to survive an attack by the other. It’s difficult to maintain safety measures while people are trying to kill you.
Hey that’s a valid point and one I agree with. The way the US has treated Cuba is also completely indefensible and based in no plausible threat scenario.
> One is fighting to survive an attack by the other.
This statement, while true, changes denotation depending on the scale at which you view this conflict. If you view it as a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the existential threat is to Ukraine. If you view it as a conflict between Russia and NATO, the existential threat is to Russia.
I don't quite understand Russia's paranoia around NATO. Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia already border Russia (+ Poland if you count Kaliningrad). Why is it such a big deal for Ukraine to enter a defense pact, unless Russia wants to retain the right to invade when they see fit? Not trying to be rhetorical, this existential threat to Russia is news to me.
Russia _hates_ that Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia are all part of NATO.
But when they were accepted Putin didn't feel strong enough to do anything about it.
Russia has been advancing it's "sphere of influence" political theory, whereby independent countries with that "sphere of influence" don't get the right to make their own alliances. That "sphere of influence" includes all Eastern European countries that border on Russia at least.
It hasn't been widely reported on, but the initial demand that led to this war was that NATO withdraw all infrastructure install in post 1997 expansions:
Russia published two lists of demands — for Washington and for NATO — the latter calling for the removal of all NATO military infrastructure installed in Eastern European countries after 1997, effectively attempting to rework the consequences of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, which left Russia weakened for years.
If you want to achieve victory, you must understand your enemy as well as yourself. The Russian attitude towards NATO expansion into Ukraine can be roughly viewed from an American perspective as well equivalent as the old Warsaw Pact attempting to bring Mexico into their treaty. Or, at least, this is part of the explanation used to frame it as an ‘existential threat’ for Russia. This, combined with a somewhat precarious economy based largely on fossil fuel exports and the fact that in some sense Putin serves at the pleasure of the group of oligarchs, and only as long as they can earn. This combo of circumstance makes it pretty easy to guess at how we got here, and frankly how easy it was to provoke. Unfortunately for Putin, and fortunate for pretty much everybody else, at this point, it appears that outside of complete and total victory and annexation of Ukraine, it looks like he loses no matter what.
Putin is a ham-fisted dictator, and the world will be better off without him, but his motivations here aren’t mysterious.
How would annexation of Ukraine further Russia’s strategic goals at this point? NATO expansion is getting more popular by the hour, as is joining the EU. Economic sanctions weaken Russia, and will continue for years to decades if Ukraine is annexed. Sure, the Russian army can get total victory given enough time, but winning the war doesn’t benefit Russia.
Not to mention full control of a Black Sea (and therefore entrance to Mediterranean) coastline with multiple ports. As well as a major agricultural products. As well as a huge transit country for Russian energy pipelines.
What does slightly more access to the Mediterranean get you when no European country will buy your goods? All of those things you mentioned are worthless without buyers.
Except the farm land. But it’s not 1444 — trade is vastly more profitable than agriculture nowadays.
IMHO, Putin is looking at this from a century perspective. I.e. in a hundred years, the sanctions will be gone, Europe will be trading with Russia again, and Russia will still have the land.
I dont think this take advances understanding of Russia. This is how Americans sees the world. Americans are not trying to make America larger, therefore they will project same lack of wish to get larger on Russia.
They are literally doing total war without provocation. The theoretical threat of NATO has not been a part of this conflict at all. Treating that imagined threat as if it’s equivalent to the very real war is navel gazing excuse for a mass murdering fascist.
Third, the theoretical threat of NATO is not so much to Russia: I agree that NATO is not a threat to Russia. However I do also see that NATO and EU are a threat to Putin's long term vision for a renewed Russian Empire.
To be clear, I agree that this vision is bogus and that a threat to a bogus vision is not a valid excuse for a war.
Please also be careful with accusing people of being fascists or Nazis. Putin and his predecessors in the USSR employed the same tactic. And whether anyone does or does not fulfill the textbook definition of a fascist is besides the point here.
This is total war. RF targets infrastructure and kills civilians on purpose. More than 2000 civilians are killed by RF in one week on territory controlled by Ukraine. RF uses weapons of mass(1) destruction freely, to force humanitarian crisis, then ask for tactical pause, to let civilians escape, while using reinforces to fortify captured land. They are shutting at hospitals, gas pipes, power lines, humanitarian convoys, to make situation desperate for civilians, to force tactical pauses. We learned this tactic very well.
(1) Not WMD like chlorine, or nuclear, of course, nor biological weapons except coronavirus released by accident from Vector lab in Siberia on Sep 16, 2019, just conventional weapons designed to maximize damage to civilian infrastructure.
> First, yes, Putin's Russia has started a war of conquest.
Glad we agree.
> Second, no, it is definitely _not_ a total war. See
It’s a total war.
> Third, the theoretical threat of NATO is not so much to Russia: I agree that NATO is not a threat to Russia. However I do also see that NATO and EU are a threat to Putin's long term vision for a renewed Russian Empire.
By this logic all conflicts are both sided. England is equally justified in bombing India because they “threatened” the British empire by rejecting being under its power.
> Please also be careful with accusing people of being fascists or Nazis. Putin and his predecessors in the USSR employed the same tactic. And whether anyone does or does not fulfill the textbook definition of a fascist is besides the point here.
I’m well aware of the importance of being precise and cautious with this term and I chose it carefully.
The monitoring system has been shot down on 1 Sep.
Here is the statement from the Nuclear Agency in Ukraine:
On March 1, 2022 at 11:40 as a result of rocket impact, the communication network of Zaporizhzhya NPP was damaged. As a result, the Automated Radiation Monitoring System (ARMS) of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant lost its full functionality and stopped the transmission of data to the international radiation monitoring network IRMIS. IAEA has been informed about the incident.
There are fern trees (Tree Fern to be precise), but they only grow in tropical regions. Bananas and pineapples are clearly grass with huge leaves.