We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop. Someone else posting a bad comment doesn't make that ok.
That's what I've been wondering ... will they ever try using "we need zero rating to prevent network overload" again if they'll demonstrate now that they don't?
I wish I could say no, but: Yes. In time they could claim - potentially truthfully - that an increasing number of increasingly connected devices engaging in more complex applications by ever more data hungry end users drove additional demand relative to the levels seen in the past, even during past crises.
> That power could be the love of your family, wife/husband, kids, the energy that moves the cosmos, or a fucking Zagnut bar.
So, either you actually believe that a Zagnut bar is an agent that can help you out of your desparate situation by using its special powers. Or you are intentionally obfuscating the rather obvious fact that indeed, people do not need to surrender to anything or anyone, because obviously it's not the Zagnut bar doing the work, but rather exclusively they themselves.
I'm not an AA person, and frankly, from what I know about it, I find it somewhat off-putting . still, I will try and be charitable here.
I have a hard time going to the gym consistently. I know it's good for me, but I just don't like going very much. so I make plans with other people to go to the gym together. if I flake, often they say something about it the next day, which is annoying but ultimately helpful. acknowledging that I can't (or at least probably won't) go to the gym consistently on my own, I have voluntarily created a system where there is a social cost to not going. I still have to do all the work myself, but the other people help me stay on track.
The point here is that there is no "higher power" involved. It's other people or you yourself, or possibly both, neither of which in any meaningful sense qualifies as a "higher power", and either of which has a completely unambiguous, non-confusing term to refer to it: "Other people" and "yourself". The point is that it is dishonest to then pretend that somehow a Zagnut bar could plausibly be an agent helping you instead of simply saying the obvious: It's most certainly not the Zagnut bar, so what's left is you yourself and/or other people.
tbh I always feel like AA people are shooting themselves in the foot with these silly examples of a "higher power", especially on forums like this one. I doubt anyone earnestly surrenders themselves to a candy bar or fire extinguisher, but I'm certainly not knocking it if it helps someone.
I think the point is that you need some sort of mind hack to escape the paradigm of will vs. desire which has been a losing battle thus far for most addicts. it is ultimately your will that prevails, but you have to trick yourself otherwise for it to work.
> I doubt anyone earnestly surrenders themselves to a candy bar or fire extinguisher, but I'm certainly not knocking it if it helps someone.
No, of course, noone does, that's the point. Possibly, some people somehow think that they do (and even that seems a bit unlikely to me), but it just is a nonsense concept: You can, as a matter of semantics, not surrender to something that doesn't exercise power. You might as well be saying that you need to wash yourself, but you can also do so by looking at a horse. Looking at a horse makes you washed as much as following instructions of a candy bar makes you do anything, for lack of any washing effect in one case, for lack of any instructions in the other.
> I think the point is that you need some sort of mind hack to escape the paradigm of will vs. desire which has been a losing battle thus far for most addicts. it is ultimately your will that prevails, but you have to trick yourself otherwise for it to work.
That might well be the case, yep. And I see two big problems with not clearly stating that that is what's (likely) going on: In more than one place, it seems to cause harrassment of atheists, and I am not so sure it's actually helpful for mental health when people externalize the credit for the work that they have done themselves. And also, even if that's a hack that is needed in the "therapeutic context", a discussion about the scientific evidence of the efficacy certainly is not a place for such intentionally onfuscating language.
If you think logic is so powerful, why don't you use it to cure alcoholism instead if spending it in HN comments? :) The use of surrender is to admit you don't know how things work. At least not to the point to actually cure yourself of addiction.
A sane rational logical person has an addiction. The sane rational logical tools he has do not help him to get rid of it. This means he cannot trust them. There's a flaw somewhere and he doesn't know where. They are not good for any conclusion, including the agency and power of that bar. The best he can do is to drop them and admit he knows nothing. Then there's a chance to learn something new that may help with that addiction.
The point is, you find a power greater than yourself that you can surrender your will to. That "higher power" is different to everybody. A lot of people let them selves get hung up on the higher power bit because they can't abstract the idea of surrendering to a non quantifiable or tangible thing (hence the Zagnut bar for those who can't surrender to the idea of love or the ideas of forces of nature). Believe me, I was one of those people for a long time. But my suffering got so great that I eventually had to admit to myself that I cannot do it on my own and I need to find something I hold sacred and dear. And if a Zagnut bar is that higher power for you...then so be it. It's better to believe a Zagnut bar could restore me to sanity, then to continue to kill myself with alcohol and drugs.
Again, the point is surrender. I am in no way saying the Zagnut bar is doing anything but inspiring hope in the alcoholic. And you are 100% correct that the work comes from inside, not a candy bar. But without the surrender of self-will, nothing else is possible. Steps 1, 2, 3 are saying I am powerless over alcohol, that I cannot stop on my own, and need to have faith in a higher power of my own understanding to make it through this thing alive.
> The point is, you find a power greater than yourself that you can surrender your will to.
So, you think that a candy bar is a power, in any way whatsoever?
> A lot of people let them selves get hung up on the higher power bit because they can't abstract the idea of surrendering to a non quantifiable or tangible thing
Because it's nonsense?
> (hence the Zagnut bar for those who can't surrender to the idea of love or the ideas of forces of nature)
Which makes it only more nonsensical?
> Believe me, I was one of those people for a long time. But my suffering got so great that I eventually had to admit to myself that I cannot do it on my own and I need to find something I hold sacred and dear.
... and then you did it yourself, thus demonstrating that you were simply wrong about not being able to do it yourself.
> It's better to believe a Zagnut bar could restore me to sanity, then to continue to kill myself with alcohol and drugs.
Only if that actually "restores you to sanity". And if it does, it was still you who "restored yourself to sanity".
> Again, the point is surrender. I am in no way saying the Zagnut bar is doing anything but inspiring hope in the alcoholic
Yes, you are. You are saying it's "a higher power". It's not. It's a candy bar. Possibly a candy bar that is inspiring hope in an alcoholic.
> And you are 100% correct that the work comes from inside, not a candy bar.
So, why all this dishonest mumbo-jumbo about a "higher power"? Mind you, this is not a therapeutic setting, this is a discussion about scientific evidence of efficacy.
missing the point entirely. alcoholism is illogical. alcoholism is not something one can control. surrender is a key part of the program because to get sober the alcoholic must accept that they cannot do something that it seems everyone else can (drink)
It's one thing to criticize religious impositions on a secular activity (like addiction recovery). What you have just done is criticize religious people as a group, and claim that they are abusive.
Criticize ideas and policies; not groups of people.
> I sell my car and the day after tomorrow I have $10,101.
That doesn't change your net worth, so it's a nonsensical example.
> I'm not saying your wrong, but can you provide a link to a reputable site such as CDC/WHO that supports your claim?
How does that need much of a "reputable site"?! It's an infectious disease with long incubation, infectiousness for a bit while not having symptoms, no vaccine and no cure ... what do you think would happen if we didn't do anything to prevent spreading?
Current R0 estimates seem to be around 3, so you would need 66% immunity to drop that below 1, currently the only likely way to get immunity is through infection and survival, so that's 200 million americans infected before infected cases shrink naturally.
You do realize that cash was in use before electricity as a utility was a thing, right? And that food is actually more critical for survival than electricity, right? And that you can exchange cash for food without electricity, right? And that blackouts is a thing that actually happens, right?
> The main thing I want to see is stronger privacy laws regarding transactions. There's some hope here with the EU.
There is some hope here ... that there will be new rules to ignore?
Like, how do you think such rules could ever be enforced effectively and in a way that the public can actually trust that it is being enforced effectively (to avoid chilling effects)? Plus, how do such rules prevent data leaks due to security problems?
It's like you want to build a system that is maximally vulnerable to abuses and then just declare that using those vulnerabilities is theoretically not allowed instead of using the technology that we know reliably preevents all those problems. How isn't that completely naive at best? Next we'll remove all authentication from IT systems and just make it illegal to log into systems without authorization? How well do you think that would work?
You build good systems with a combination of technical and legal measures, of course. Ban sharing of purchase data (legal measure) and also build systems to the data is encrypted with your on-card key (technical measure). It's no different from any other system. Violators need to be punished accordingly, but that's a broader failure in tech, that fines for abuse are very small.
Of course legal restrictions don't work well without technical measures, but anything privacy-related is a social problem first and foremost, so it needs legal solutions in addition to the technical ones.
> You build good systems with a combination of technical and legal measures, of course.
How is that "of course"? Not excluding one or the other a priori is one thing, but why would it be the obviously right choice to always use a combination of both?
> Ban sharing of purchase data (legal measure) and also build systems to the data is encrypted with your on-card key (technical measure).
How would that "encrypting with your on-card key" thing work?
> Of course legal restrictions don't work well without technical measures, but anything privacy-related is a social problem first and foremost, so it needs legal solutions in addition to the technical ones.
How does it follow that when you have a social problem, you need a legal solution? That seems like a complete non-sequitur to me.
> How is that "of course"? Not excluding one or the other a priori is one thing, but why would it be the obviously right choice to always use a combination of both?
I guess I've always thought of the two as complementary. You have a goal to encourage or discourage some behavior, or address a problem, so you want both technical and legal measures. You don't want cars stolen, so you make that illegal and also add anti-theft technology to the cars. You want people to pay taxes, so you also develop a system that makes declaring and paying very easy for most. You want protect privacy, you complement legal protections with technology that helps achieve it.
> How would that "encrypting with your on-card key" thing work?
I don't know exactly, it's not my area of expertise. My understanding is that EMV cards have a unique keypair stored on them, in which case it's not a big stretch to imagine a process that encrypts the exact record of what you bought with the card's private key, so it's a technical impossibility to decrypt without your consent.
> How does it follow that when you have a social problem, you need a legal solution? That seems like a complete non-sequitur to me.
I'm a bit baffled - it seems pretty clear to me that legal changes have been a major part of our general progress as a society, and have in most cases been part resolving social problems. Sometimes we change the law to get to a desired solution, sometimes we change the law to enshrine an established solution. With privacy being a social problem, we need both better technology and better laws.
> I guess I've always thought of the two as complementary.
In general, sure, but in any particular case? Essentially what I said before: It's not useful to exclude one or the other a priori, but it seems perfectly sensible to end up with purely technological solutions to some problems and with purely legal solutions to some others. Or phrasing it differently: It's not useful to set the balance of technological vs. legal solutions a priori. For some problems, a 99% technological/1% legal solution might be the right balance.
> My understanding is that EMV cards have a unique keypair stored on them, in which case it's not a big stretch to imagine a process that encrypts the exact record of what you bought with the card's private key, so it's a technical impossibility to decrypt without your consent.
Well, I'm not sure that that's the case currently, but given that they are smart cards, that sure would be a possibility. But it wouldn't really help much anyway, because that (a) doesn't hide who paid how much when to which vendor, which is already a huge privacy risk and (b) can not prevent collusion between vendors and banks. The vendor knows what they sold you in that transaction, there is no real way to force them to forget that. And also, if it's a card handed to you to your bank, how do you know they don't know the key? The only way to reliably enforce privacy there is to make the payment anonymous the way cash does.
Of course, one could maybe build something like digital cash, but that would probably look closer to bitcoin than to credit cards or bank transfers.
The point here is: It's not helpful to just say "solve this with crypto" if you can't really explain how crypto would actually solve the problem while sort-of dismissing the actual technological solution to the problem: cash.
> I'm a bit baffled - it seems pretty clear to me that legal changes have been a major part of our general progress as a society,
Well, yeah, sure!?
> and have in most cases been part resolving social problems.
Have they? That seems questionable to me, and also pretty difficult to even quantify. And also, it doesn't really get you to your claim anyway if is't just "most cases", does it?
> Sometimes we change the law to get to a desired solution, sometimes we change the law to enshrine an established solution.
And sometimes neither of those because technology simply makes the problem disappear?
I mean, I don't have any objection to legal solutions to problems, I just don't see how it makes sense to say a priori that legal measures must be a part of the solution to some problem, instead of looking at the effectiveness of various approaches and choose a good approach based on that. If legal rules regarding personal data are basically unenforceable and we have strong evidence that the ones we already have are constantly being ignored, then maybe the technical solution of using a payment system that doesn't give anyone even the chance to collect personal data to abuse is the effective solution? Why should we prefer a (more) legal solution when all the evidence suggests that it doesn't work?
I guess another way to look at this is to consider that legal solutions without some sort of technological foundation can actually not work for anything. What I mean by that is: Writing down a bunch of rules alone does not solve any problems. Only when there is some structure that ensures that those rules are actually being followed does a legal solution become effective. Which thus also means that if you make rules where it is impossible in practice to ensure that they are being followed, you do not actually have a solution at all.
