Yep. I think the right approach is to expose the browser's primitives and just have people write their own markup/layout/style languages if they want to. Keep HTML/CSS as a fall-back and because a lot of work has gone into optimizing their performance, but start the long-needed move to opening up mainstream browsers on a lower level. Also, of course, leave JS as a fall-back but introduce a lower-level language. Re-implement HTML/CSS/JS on top of the new exposed primitives in order to expedite moving to the new standards. So you'll be able to use either original, optimized HTML/CSS/JS, or the new HTML/CSS/JS that has been re-implemented on top of the new exposed primitives, or just new stuff built on those primitives.
>If they pardon him, they say it's alright to release national secrets based on "feelings"
Ah, but the thing is, they built the domestic surveillance infrastructure based on "feelings" — after all, the real threat of terrorism is minor compared to all sorts of other dangers the resources could have been spent on.
And the idea that they really did it because of terrorism is pretty much the most charitable interpretation of why they did it — it is easy to devise darker ones.
If they don't pardon Snowden, then they are saying (yet again) that it is alright for the government to waste our tax money — in secret and in order to spy on us, no less — based on feelings.
I doubt it. Trump has praised NSA surveillance in the past and has hinted that Snowden should be executed. Unless he was just saying such things to try to get the intelligence community on his side pre-election, he's in favor of authoritarian tools.
The only retaliation I can think of that would be both proportionate and ethical would be to hack secret data of the Russian leadership and release at least part of it to the world public. The Russian government is accused of two things: hacking and creating fake news. Assuming that the allegations are correct, a perfectly mirrored response would include hacking and fake news. However, it would be unethical for America to create anti-Russian government fake news of its own. So the only part of a mirrored response that would be appropriate is hacking followed by an at least partial public release of the hacked data.
I don't think there's a problem reconciling the brain with the mind, if by 'mind' one means problem-solving ability. The problem is in reconciling the brain with consciousness. There is, as far as I know, no theory that explains how consciousness can arise from matter.
Behavior? Yes. Consciousness? Maybe not. As far as I know, no-one has ever come up with an explanation of how matter can give rise to consciousness. Obviously consciousness is affected by changes in matter — if I take certain drugs, I feel different, etc. — but there is no explanation at all for what mechanisms may give rise to consciousness in the first place, and the very idea of the material giving rise to consciousness might actually not make sense.
I have the opposite dream right now: I've spent almost my entire life in large cities and now that I'm in my thirties, finally have a career going, and am no longer obsessed with my sex life, I'm longing to move out of the city and somewhere a bit more suburban. I don't want kids or a wife — I just want space to be able to walk around half naked if I want to, sing at 4 in the morning if I feel like it, and indulge my own weird rhythms. I'm a software developer, and my company actually allows me to work remotely, so I'm seriously considering making the move. I seem to become more productive when I have more space, so even from a productivity standpoint the idea probably makes sense.
I actually love going on long walks, so the thought of walking a half hour to buy groceries if I don't buy a car seems ok.
I've spent the last decade or so in San Francisco, and none of the local scenes really attract me. There used to be some cool artists around, but a lot of them got priced out. Maybe some other city has a more thriving cultural life, but San Francisco's isn't doing anything for me. I just have to figure out where to move.
Well, I hope that we both manage to figure out a way of life that is good for us.
In many situations, it does make financial sense to live with family — however, sometimes one is simply happier and more productive when one has sufficient space that one more or less controls. Living in close proximity with others can be wonderful, but it can also take a toll. Even when those around you are nice people, it can take some energy to interact with them. I wonder how much productivity society loses when people who long to live alone are forced by circumstance to live together with others.
Out of curiosity — how would you feel about a rural suburb if you could work remotely from it and make the same money that you could make in a big city? What other things would you need the rural suburb to provide if employment wasn't an issue?
I wonder what the math is on the 0.1%'s money. If the 0.1% became significantly more generous with their money, how much would that actually benefit everyone else?
Bit of a conspiracy theory sort of question, but... is there any reason to believe that maybe self-driving car technology is being backed by the military-industrial complex as a way to run R&D for military automation and related technologies? That could explain why there was a sudden spike in interest in this technology several years ago, and it could also explain why enormous amounts of hype are continually being generated for a technology that is probably still quite far away from being approved for fully automated road use.
It's interesting what a difference there is in people's perspectives. To me, Reddit seems excruciatingly polite and well-mannered, often to the point of dishonesty. This is probably because I've been to 4chan and similar places.
If that someone is working for the campaign of a politician/party which supports NSA spying on Americans, he or she has no right to privacy in my eyes. The way I see it, if you want me to respect your privacy, you have to respect mine.
'Secret law' is not law at all, and I consider it the duty of every American to expose and, if necessary, disobey it. Any legal professional participating in 'secret law' should be disbarred.
I think tomp is pointing out that doing something equivalent to circumcision to a female baby would be illegal. Rightly so, in my opinion. I strongly believe that male circumcision should be illegal as well.
There's also the issue of self-driving car hype vs. the actual progress of the technology. Despite a growing number of successes in the field, I still can't really imagine that we are anywhere close to having self-driving cars that could be trusted to maneuver around public roads without human supervision.
I'm mostly with you on this one. I like mass transit. It's a fun opportunity to people-watch. What I don't like is riding with smelly and/or loud and/or violent people. I don't care how people dress, though, as long as it's not unhygienic.
I think that the reason why there is so little enforcement of any conduct rules might be more practical than political, though. To effectively enforce conduct rules would probably require there to be an extra government employee on each bus or train. The driver can't really be expected to do it, nor would it be a good idea to try to get them to split their attention in such a way.