> I wonder if there is some major propaganda push on HN to discourage actual software engineers from ever running their servers. Judging from the comments in this and similar posts, sounds like it is common belief that it's super expensive and a full time job to run bare metal services. AWS and GCP free credits have created a generation of developers that think running a webserver, a webapp and a database is rocket science, and when stuff breaks the whole company might go bankrupt because no one could ever save a corrupted database.

Related to this observation you really should watch DHHs keynote talk at Rails World 2024 from about minute 20 to 30: https://youtu.be/-cEn_83zRFw?t=1296

He addresses exactly this phenomenon.

EDIT: changed URL to include timestamp to the start of the relevant content.

The problem is that what is legal should not be decided by social media platforms or their users but by the law & the courts. But most often this is not the case.. maybe the OP is addressing this issue.

This is basically X's position – they will enforce countries speech laws, no more, no less.

But OP says:

> Other places such as x/twitter, has some liberty but not very much. Real subjects are not getting through.

So I'm not sure if they're saying that isn't what X is doing, or that they're criticising X for not going beyond the law (illegally), or that perhaps they feel that some legal speech is not treated equally?

> This is basically X's position – they will enforce countries speech laws, no more, no less.

It may be their stated position, but not their practice, as has been recently demonstrated in Brazil.

> So I'm not sure if they're saying that isn't what X is doing, or that they're criticising X for not going beyond the law (illegally), or that perhaps they feel that some legal speech is not treated equally?

I'm saying that posts get removed if they contain certain subjects. Nothing offensive is in them but only facts.

The law is clear in the US: with a few carved out exemptions, the government cannot penalize you for what you say.

Private platforms and citizens can do what they want.

I am sure a forum where any and all speech is tolerated quickly turns to 4chan but with all kinds of extreme porn. I am sure those places exist on ToR. I do not know why you would want to go there.

Ironically, a lot of the forums which value free speech will kick you out for even sounding like you have the wrong opinions.

The platforms don't decide what is legal, but they do have the right, and in many cases the obligation, to moderate their platforms. They can be held liable for allowing CSAM for example. And these platforms have business goals that can be in conflict with, say, allowing anti-LGBTQ or Nazi content.

Sounds like the problem (for a platform like this) is that they have "business goals" in the first place. Freedom of speech shouldn't be up for sale, especially when it comes to discussing sensitive topics and creating a for-profit business around that would do just that.

so people shouldn't create apps/tools/sites where others can communicate with each other unless they're willing to forgo any moderation? how does that work?

Not every service with user-generated content need to try to cater to maximum freedom of expression, so it first of all doesn't apply to any service with user-generated content.

Secondly, my point is that if you do have a service that is trying to optimize for freedom of expression, mixing in needing to earn money on top of that, is bound to leave you almost penny-less, as advertisers don't like an environment like that and people needing to be anonymous aren't as happy to donate.

Social media companies are private companies. You can set up your own servers and no government will interfere with you as long as you aren’t doing something illegal

If I start spewing political speech on HN, you will soon be banned and dang and company have every right to do so.

> You can set up your own servers and no government will interfere with you as long as you aren’t doing something illegal

Might have been true in the past but no longer. Once your platform gets a large enough audience, governments will try to artificially sway public opinion on the platform. This has been true for every single large social platform so far.

then don't make it a platform, just a self-hosted blog. then you can say anything you want.

Government always tries to sway opinion. They are made of politicians. I’m not in love with Musk by any means. But do you think the Biden administration could have convinced Musk to change his moderation policy!

unless they are some local jack booted thugs…

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/13/mari...

Yea.. this kind of behavior seems everywhere. I once saw someone take the elevator to the gym and then he used a stair climber machine..

Just a week ago during camping vacation I saw someone use a Quad to fetch baguettes in the morning (<1km). Then these people go jog later.

It's all just some big WTF to me sometimes..

I think that's a bad argument. Founding your own cooperative makes you kind of an entrepreneur but joining one doesn't. Most workers are joiners not creators in terms of companies. And I bet more than a few of them would gladly become a partial owner of the company they are working for.

But there are so few cooperatives that the chance of you joining one is very slim anyways.

I have a dual boot system but actually have not booted Windows in maybe half a year. Basically all games work via Steam these days.. some even native, most via Proton. I have it on my TODO list to finally delete the whole windows partition. Even my taxes I can now do on Linux(browser).

That depends a lot on the domain of the code.. just saying they are massive problems is plain wrong. There is a huge percentage of applications that need not care about GC at all.

It is a figure of speech and surely was not disrespectful to blind people.

Except that a person who is literally blind found it disrespectful.

People say all sorts of stupid stuff that they don’t intend to be disrespectful but which is. When it’s pointed out by someone the appropriate response is to change your behavior, not double down and make excuses.

Here’s another example: In my state (MN) it’s not uncommon for (largely) women to refer to themselves as hunting widows when their spouses go away for the weekend to hunt during the season. They say it as a joke but it’s disrespectful and diminishing to actual widows. How do I know? I’ve been widowed.

I've personally tested my ability to "drive by feel" on a road i travel at least once a day on average for the past 12 years. Like, new moon, no headlights or parking lights. It's all farmland and fences and curves, with no foglines or detents to let you know when you're straying out of the lane.

I couldn't do it in an emergency unless somehow i was in 100% beta brainwave mode (i think), but it isn't really hyperbole. Obviously if a deer or a tree or a brick or something was in the road i'd run straight into it, but that happens tops (TOPS!) two, maybe three times a week.

ETA: also if you've ever seen military vehicles with their no-show lights, it's not hard to fathom that some people can drive with next to no visual clues.

> When it’s pointed out by someone the appropriate response is to change your behavior, not double down and make excuses.

Actually, the HN response is to reflexively hit downvote to silence the blind guy, to keep the world of the offender clean and nice. I kind of expected better from the "Hacker Community", however, I continue to learn that I am pretty fuckin naiv.

Am I the only one that uses light mode at day and dark mode at night? I see this topic light vs dark so often and wonder why nobody mentions that approach..

I have a shortcut in my vim which just toggles my light/dark themes and I use it regularly.

I thought that’s what everyone did! Apple OSs have a setting to do this at sunset/sunrise or at certain times. I have mine go dark at 10pm and light at 10am.

Same here, I cannot stand looking at dark mode UI in a well lit space. There's not enough contrast. When I work after dark, I'll swap over of course.

One solution to this problem is to just consume less articles. Just only pick what seems really interesting to you.

Will you miss some cool stuff? Yes

Will you still encounter time wasters? Yes

We are consuming too much and not doing enough productively ourselves.

I mean the song is funny but it's hilarious that they still mispronounce it.. he constantly sings susAH instead of susEH .. how it should be pronounced, at least if you pronounce it as a German word.

“Zooz-eh” for English speakers who are curious: https://translate.google.de/?sl=auto&tl=de&text=SUSE&op=tran...

the only guy I've ever known to correctly pronounce SUSE was an older fellow who was, towards the end of the 00s, pronouncing "Ethernet" with a short e, as though it were to rhyme with "meth"

anyway, that's why I'll always call it Soos even if I know I'm wrong

that guy probably also pronounced it "GIF" but it's been too long to say for sure

>pronouncing "Ethernet" with a short e, as though it were to rhyme with "meth"

Well it's a network across the ether (æther) right? :-D