If philanthropy became a bigger part of our culture, I believe we could achieve something similar to basic income. Of course, that starts with individuals getting in the habit of giving and encouraging others to do the same. A couple things I have found:
1) The starfish parable ("it made a difference to that one") is the right mindset. It can be daunting when you consider how much is needed compared to how comparatively little is in your bank account. Instead visualize at what was made possible by your donation.
2) As a general rule, I think it makes more sense to give habitually over the course of a career than it does to wait until the end of your career. This probably applies more to stable jobs than startups, though.
I have been on Reddit for eight years, and only came out with my name today. People should be encouraged to use aliases for any number of reasons. To name a few:
* You should be able to express an idea without that idea being attached to a known identity (partly because people may judge the idea based on the known identity)
* You should be allowed to "start over" (heck, I might want to start over soon)
* In the face of an Orwellian government or an unaccepting society, you should be able to safely express your true opinions
The Snowden documents revealed that Germans visiting the Tor project website would be subject to permanent NSA surveillance. Does that make you more or less likely to click the link below? If the answer is "less likely", how does it feel to be intimidated out of your free expression?
I don't think "tyranny of the majority" applies here. The proposed system makes minority opinions more visible, if anything. There would even be an incentive to have a minority opinion, if you truly believed the majority was incorrect about something. In response to your last point: that sounds like an interesting modification: letting every bot see every other bot's (possibly evolving) code. But perhaps to avoid Skynet, bots should use the other bots' published APIs (which could opt to include a "getCode" method), and judge each other by their actions.
Reddit actually brands itself as a "platform for online communities". Given the nature of subreddits, this does not seem like an unfair characterization.
There are a lot of good use cases for throwaways (suppose a former cult member wanted to share their experiences, for example). And the fact that an account is brand new is also a data point. You'll notice that Reddit/HN have produced a lot of insightful/informative comments from throwaways.
This made me realize: Reddit/HN wouldn't be nearly as valuable without usernames. They allow you to scan someone's posts to see if they have a history of being mean, intellectually dishonest, etc.
If Twitter and Yahoo really wanted to disclose this information, there is nothing the government could do to stop them. Civil disobedience is one of the most important tools we have against Orwellian governments. And doing the right thing is infinitely more important than following authoritarian orders.
This post does a great job of showing a simple truth that many people forget: when you genuinely help a person, you are also helping everyone in that person's "sphere". There is a kind of exponential echoing effect when you are good-to.
A service that facilitates company matching of employee donations to non-political charities. Ideally, the service should make it as effortless as possible for all participants: employee, company, charity. This could be generalized into a kind of philanthropic social network.
Edward Snowden is not currently in a country with press freedoms, and people have to pick their battles. Snowden has already picked some pretty huge battles. Besides, if you've been paying the slightest amount of attention you already know his feelings on Internet freedom.
If I scroll the Reddit frontpage (without being logged in), I am not seeing any NSA stories, despite being on the top of /r/WorldNews, /r/news, etc. Anyone know the story behind that?
It seems wrong to say both that he has the "social instinct of a cockroach" and that he's selfish (implying his oversight was a choice). I'm inclined to believe it's the former, given that he is making a post like this. Social instinct is not easy for many programmers, myself included. Your comment almost amounts to assigning blame via the butterfly effect.
edit: rewording my first sentence per comment below
There exists no recourse any person alive can do to stand up against the TSA.
Civil disobedience is always an option. The protester at Tiananmen Square changed the world because he realized that there was recourse in doing the right thing.