The subtle point I read in GP is the historic correlation between storage systems and data structures. Your point is equally valid in that this correlation is not indicative of non-general applicability.
Both points need to be kept in mind imho in design.
Let’s be pedantic here and get all religious over the words “Science” and “hard”.
Computer “science” has a difficult conceptual problem with caching. The optimal cache, this science tells us, is indistinguishable from a fortune teller who is never wrong (oracle). Fortune telling is a “hard” problem for a science based on reasoning. The best we can do is hedge bets (which is what the science of caching focuses on).
This same science also has a difficulty with naming things. Now numbering things is easy and science loves maths and maths love sciences, but science and letters have a more difficult history. Science would approve of “factoryfactoryfactoryImpl” btw ... it’s “a rational scheme of naming”. .
Here we see a “science” that is facing actual difficulties.
The rest of your list are difficult but not “hard”. The science of these matters is clear and the rest is up to the “scientists” struggling with “scope creep” and “bounds checking” ..
> I suspect the private desire to please oneself motivates apathy to a strict morality forbidding that self-pleasure. More so than any supposed rationality; see atheists and religion.
That theory of yours has legs, imo. (see below ;)
> Through the long years
Russell is borrowing heavily from king Solomon here .. /g
Bertrand Russell came to mind when I read this. I remember reading some story featuring a flustered Russell at the dinner table with his wife Dora, her baby (by another man), and the other man. Now Russell had gone preaching and practicing free love for a long time but now he was on the receiving end.
A society of emasculated males will tolerate the situation. It’s possible we’re watching patriarchy molt into matriarchy or some bonobo monkey thing. TBD, but as for OP, my perception is that the media conglomerates are leading indicators and not trailing indicators. They introduce these subjects to normalize them.
For Palestinians to say the want to be “free from river to sea” means the “genocide of Israelis”. But, amazingly but unsurprisingly, for Israelis to say they want to be “free of Palestinians” (who happen to currently be in part in the area “from river to sea”) it does not mean “genocide of Palestinians”. This must be Schroedinger’s genocide. Now you see it now you don’t. Amazing.
A conversation somewhere in the area between river and the sea. That oh so special place on earth that is worth having a world war over. “How long o lord?” Seriously lord.
Here it goes:
- Palestinians say they want to be free from river to the sea!
- Hah, really? The nerve. Why can’t they just go to some Arab country or maybe America?
- They say they are not Arab, they are Palestinian.
- Hah. Nationalism is a sickness.
- Agreed.
- I can’t believe they want to kill us all.
- How you figure?
- Well, they ain’t gonna be “free” while we’re here. That can’t possibly work.
- Hmm.
- And they know that we know that they know.
- Aha.
- Yeah, so obviously, they want to kill us all. A genocide.
My pet theory regarding the recruitment efforts of this class: two broad fronts, one to drive the herd and the other to pick candidates.
The first front permeates our head space in form of content in the full spectrum of the bandwidth of this class: entertainment, news, organizations. Here the message is insistently that “Only suckers play straight”, “crime pays”, “winners and losers”. This is a consistent message.
The second front is more selective and here I am speculating (unlike the former which one gets to experience first hand, whether one likes it or not.) Here I suspect a more ‘direct’ sales pitch is used, and likely references the former.
Imagine you are a bright young thing from ‘not money’ raised in that “cultural” environment just mentioned. Now you open your favorite “journal of record”. You read barely disguised lies, note how these lies lead designated demographics by the NOSE with them not even aware of this fact, and finally your mentor has a conversation with you:
“Do you really think that the general population, these same people we were discussing being led by the nose with lies, are actually capable of self-governance and should have a say in “important” matters?”
> For example, the phrase "from the river to the [sea]" is considered hateful by many, so it was taken down.
That’s convenient. Zionism, the ideology and its propaganda, “is considered hateful by many” too. Actually, that happy slogan of “from this body of water to that other body of water is all our precious” is shared by both parties. Israel’s flag even has it diagrammed in case you missed the slogans. The two blue lines are RIVERS. One in Egypt the other in Iraq. Believe me that many many find that “ambition” harboring “violent intent” one way or another and don’t like it.
So, Is Facebook really concerned about sensitive feelings of “many”?
Interested in this theory of middle class controlling the world. My personal yardstick is: “whose interests are most served by the system?”
For example, “middle class” doesn’t want wars, revolution, things shaking up. Which is why comrades hate them. Upper classes despise them and lower classes want to kill them. :) So seriously, is it the “middle class controlling the world” that has cash fire hoses gushing dollars “abroad” while “middle class” struggles to hold on to its shrinking perch?
Person A using the couch for its intended function (a place to sleep over) vs B who is using it also for social function with possible slight degradation in faculties (drunk), lowering of social barrier (socializing).
What you say is true: it is cool and positive social experience on travels are fantastic. However, objectively, A has a lower risk profile. B is creating doors to possible negative outcomes. These doors may never open for B, but for A’s risk profile, some of these doors (paths to potential negative outcomes) do not even exist.
Additionally, for the potential predator, A’s behavior raises risk for the predator and B’s lowers it. So B type behavior raises possibility of negative outcome at both levels: vulnerability is raised for victim, and control over the situation and outcome (i.e. assault) is increased for the predator.
The book Ancient China in Transition - An analysis of Social Mobility, 722-222 BC (Cho-yun Hsu, Stanford University Press, 1965) discusses this transition in rather great detail.
As an almost life long New Yorker it pains me, truly, to read this. People used to fear this city and that kept the “average tourist” (which includes super lovely people like my parents btw) well away from the Big Apple. Oh how I miss those days. Now any average tourist feels perfectly safe in our city and no longer fears us locals. This is not good. It’s almost like being colonized, like what happened to those poor poor Barceloni. One day they had a beautiful city (though it did smell like dog shit everywhere) and before you know it they lost it to the tourists. I fear this has already happened to Manhattan, though over here in Brooklyn we do our bit to instill the necessary respect for locals and their customs for the tourists. (Yes they come over here and look at graffiti on the wall to the great amusement of us locals.)
This is all true. You also can ask for ice with your coke. This will endear you with the wait staff as they can not resist snickering and muttering “American ..”
Both points need to be kept in mind imho in design.