I'm not sure what the point of quoting that is really. I guess if you subscribe to the idea that reality is somehow modified by your age, sex, race, education or whatever the heck then it has some relevance but then the whole idea behind an encyclopedia seems pointless and we should just each maintain our own unique knowledge bases as they will have no relevance to someone other than us.

That an article like that exists is patently absurd in my view and kind of makes me a bit ill. Things like that is what led to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9SiRNibD14

I really firmly believe that if you think there is a European (?) science and an African science and they are distinct and equally valid then either me or you do not belong on Wikipedia and I would actually like Wikipedia to clarify their mission in this light.

I don't see the point of linking that either, but your "reality is neutral" argument is severely flawed. Wikipedia doesn't cover merely technical topics. Obviously there's not going to be a problem with systemic bias in an article on merge sort, but you don't think there's a potential issue with mainly wealthier, whiter, younger people writing articles on topics, for example, related to the history of colonialism? Think about how drastically perspectives on figures like Christopher Columbus have changed over just the last generation from bringing more diverse viewpoints into the conversation. Hell, we demonstrably see this today on the Japanese language Wikipedia with topics like the Nanking Massacre.

> Think about how drastically perspectives on figures like Christopher Columbus have changed over just the last generation from bringing more diverse viewpoints into the conversation.

In my view Wikipedia should not be a repository of value judgements or specific values that one should adopt - perspectives on Christopher Columbus is important and should be included but in no manner should those perspectives be made out to be incontrovertible or something other than value judgements and perspectives from specific points of view. I think it is valuable to understand the European perspective and native american perspectives at the time and throughout the following centuries for events.

But I don't think Wikipedia should be telling me I must think what Columbus did was good or bad - Wikipedia should not be trying to teach me morality - and as long as it does not do that I don't see how there is any problem with what topics Wikipedia covers and who writes it.

I think the only problem comes in when you attempt to do something which is impossible - like incorporate something which is fundamentally specific to specific people (morality) into something which purports to be valid for everyone.

Those judgments appear organically through mechanisms as simple as how much coverage a topic gets. The worst case is that a bunch of circa 1900 Europeans write this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_indigeno... and the impact of colonialism is mentioned in half a footnote rather than taking up the bulk of the article. If systemic bias were completely unchecked, entire articles might not exist.

You might also be interested in reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Wikipedia#Self-censors...

I honestly struggle to reconcile what I read in the linked wiki article with what your comment mentions. "Systemic Bias"[1] doesn't seem to match with "reality is modified by your age, your...".

One can understand a possible path that goes "xyz information source is biased", "xyz info source isn't suitable for abc group", and "xyz info source is specific to xyz people, we need our own abc source". However, that seems to require a few assumptions? And still isn't as negative as that youtube video linked.

Would appreciate if you could elucidate on your views.

[1] (please forgive the scare quotes)

Quote from the article:

> The average Wikipedian on the English Wikipedia is ... (some characteristics)

This builds to conclusion:

> The systemic bias of the English Wikipedia is permanent. As long as the demographic of English speaking Wikipedians is not identical to the world's demographic composition, the version of the world presented in the English Wikipedia will always be the Anglophone Wikipedian's version of the world.

I don't see how you get to that conclusion form the premise other than by thinking that reality is modified by personal characteristics.

If there is an Anglophone Wikipedian's version of the world which includes things like gravity and science - then it is not valid for Africa (as the woman in the video is expressing) as Africa is not the Anglophone world ... not sure what about this is not clear.

And it absolutely is as bad as that youtube video I linked - you think that poor unfortunate woman came up with that drivel on her own? She is not nearly dumb enough - no single person can be that stupid.

You need years of academic circle jerking and hand picking of the dumbest arguments from the dumbest people to come up with something that stupid.

>But this is one of those things that was historically only available within a government office

If you want to know where a person lived pre-internet, you looked them up in a phone book, which is substantially less privacy preserving than looking up the owner of a house.

Well, post-internet, 2FA has been leaked to advertisers.

I was typing something in response, but I think the best advice is advocating mental health services. Sorry if that violates the rules.

Don't worry, Trump tweets assist in my mental stability.

Some IRC clients would change the nick of the user if the user toggles that they are AFK.

No, the millions is not backed by bonds. It is a complex topic, but Brazil stopped their inflation by issuing a new currency and implementing price controls.

Much of economics depends on expectation, there is nothing inherently logical about any of it.

You're right, Epstein was engaged in a platonic mentoring relationship with scandalously young women who by many metrics were also good looking.

The Anti-Masonic Party was a thing for a time.

There are certainly mood and history defining events for various historical periods that are under reported.

The earliest secularists were all freemasons.

Horses are still just as expensive as they were. Railroads are faster now, and more efficient through diesel-electric engines.

I think Electron's advantage is to shorten training time, not development time.

I don't agree. I've implemented GUIs with raw Xlib, Tcl/Tk, Qt, GTK, MFC, SDL, XUL, and DHTML. Of all of these, DHTML is the most productive for me, and by a significant margin. The Tcl/Tk topic in Dercuano goes into those experiences in more detail, if you're interested.

Training for what or for who?

Training for developers, presumably, especially web developers who want to build native apps. If retraining was free, Electron would have approximately no market.

Who? Whom do you think I'm talking about?

Well I as an innocent bystander have no idea what you mean either, unfortunately.

I'm also an innocent bystander!

ryacko is perfectly clearly stating that Electron reduces the amount of training that developers need. This is different from making them develop faster. It just makes them more replaceable.

I have no idea how to parse twobat's question. The "or" is especially confusing. I'm not surprised that ryacko is baffled by it.

Training is an abstract term these days. Could've meant training an algorithm, or training a person, depending on context.

Hence the training for "what" or for "who" not being immediately parseable.

Until @ryacko said "Whom do you think I'm talking about?", I wasn't sure either.

Electron gives you a UI and some standard library stuff. That's pretty obviously a totally separate issue from training an algorithm... I think? Am I missing something?

I still think asking "what or who?" with no other elaboration is really confusing. It's such a vague question that you have to guess how to answer, and it's super easy to answer it in a way that doesn't satisfy what the asker actually meant to ask.

Collateral Murder was disturbing in the enthusiasm by the soldiers for what is a grainy video. I wonder if WWII bombardiers when looking down and seeing miniature sized vehicles and buildings were as enthusiastic as well.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstri...

Amusingly, the video starts with Wikileaks decrypted the video, but all drone feeds are unencrypted.

It’s not a drone feed it’s form the gun sight camera of an Apache attack helicopter.

Drone traffic is now predominantly encrypted it’s not the early 2000’s anymore when you could tune into drone feeds with a satellite dish and $30 worth of software.

The aircraft flies like a plane, not a helicopter. Helicopters have very small turning radii.

I think it is from a drone.

You seem to not understand that the gunsight is gimbaled and can rotate and zoom independently of the helicopter flight path.

Also the turn radius of a helicopter is what ever the pilot wants it too be.

For CAS you wouldn’t turn on a dime you’ll take slow wide turns to allow the gunner to maintain their engagement and for you to have better situational awareness you aren’t evading incoming fire here.

This isn’t a drone you do get such angels form fixed wing drone footage, not to mention that drones don’t come with auto cannons...

Yeah, it must've been at a pretty high altitude far away.

Too bad the pilot was flying past a building, blocking view of the civilians carrying indistinct objects. Maybe the pilot didn't know what he was doing. I suppose I will be downvoted for my views, but I abhor dishonesty.

The video is heavily edited, it was cut and over 20 min were removed by WikiLeaks that showcase the entire engagement.

There was an inquiry into this, yeah mistakes were made and quite a few lessons had to be learned but this wasn’t a joy ride.

I don't want you making decisions with ambiguous information over life or death situations.

The first sentence of the wiki page mentions that they were in two AH-64 Apache Helicopters.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...

This is just the following orders excuse, but with more institutions participating.

As much hay is made of "just following orders" being no excuse, one sees it made so often because it does work, depending on the context.

(In a sense, it even worked in the Nuremberg trials---basically everyone tried was executed, but the entirety of the German army and the civilian populace who supported the Nazi party were not, even though they, too, were "just following orders").

It would be more honest if they all said, "we weren't thinking."

I think they would have even been acquitted on the charges of criminal conspiracy if they used that argument.