cassalian (u/cassalian)

cassalian commented on Policy groups ask Apple to drop plans to inspect messages, scan for abuse images reuters.com/article/uk-ap... · Posted by u/arkadiyt

cassalian · 5 years ago

There's been a lot of question about the motivation for this feature. Am I the only one that thinks this could be related to things like the EARN IT (or something similar).

Here's an article from a year ago on EARN IT:

> Theoretically, a system that uses client-side scanning could still send messages encrypted end to end, and so the Leahy amendment would not offer any protection, but many of the same confidentiality concerns with backdoored “e2ee” systems would continue to apply.

Source: https://cdt.org/insights/the-new-earn-it-act-still-threatens...

cassalian commented on Bad News harpers.org/archive/2021/... · Posted by u/jbegley

cassalian · 5 years ago

I'm doubtful of the harms of misinformation and the role it plays in persuading people's opinions (I believe people are fairly intelligent rather than undiscerning parrots of thought). However, if I were to accept the claim misinformation is rampant and that it is persuading large numbers of people, then I would think the solution would be to better educate people on how to "not believe everything you read" by checking sources, questioning what motives the author might have, checking who the author is, finding a related article from a different source, etc. IMO this would prevent the need for platforms to remove misinformation (something that can be easily abused to remove content that doesn't fit a certain political agenda or similar) since the public would capable of filtering out misinformation themselves.

The war on misinformation seems to be driven by the democrats today; however, it could easily be driven by the republicans in the future. Regardless of who is pushing the war, IMO a war on misinformation will always lead to polarization. After all, your opponents aren't rational, rather, they've been brainwashed. As such, there is no need to engage with your opponents views, conveniently leaving your own views completely unopposed (and thus obviously correct and good).

cassalian commented on NYC to mandate proof of vaccination for many indoor settings nypost.com/2021/08/03/nyc... · Posted by u/underseacables

mcguire · 5 years ago

Not tw04, but...

https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/us-supreme-court-a...

cassalian · 5 years ago

Thanks for the link!

cassalian commented on NYC to mandate proof of vaccination for many indoor settings nypost.com/2021/08/03/nyc... · Posted by u/underseacables

tw04 · 5 years ago

I’d argue you not getting vaccinated and adding to the potential of a mutation that makes the vaccine ineffective is a violation of MY individual liberties, and the Supreme Court agrees. Which is why just about every state in the US actually can force you to get vaccinated, they just haven’t.

cassalian · 5 years ago

Could you provide the source for the supreme court agreement? It seems to me that forcing someone to get a vaccine would just as much violate their individual liberties so I'm rather curious what issue the supreme court was specifically addressing

cassalian commented on Ian Manuel, survivor of excessive child punishment, tells his story eji.org/news/ian-manuel-s... · Posted by u/throwawayswede

thatcat · 5 years ago

Sounds good includes police officers and the state itself right?

cassalian · 5 years ago

Yes it does - I do not believe in the "rules for thee, but not for me" type of thinking

cassalian commented on Ian Manuel, survivor of excessive child punishment, tells his story eji.org/news/ian-manuel-s... · Posted by u/throwawayswede

rxhernandez · 5 years ago

> Society does not have an answer to the more extrem cases of deviants, sadly.

This society does have an answer and it's the same lazy answer it gives to every problem that it can't empathize with, lock it up and keep it out of sight for as long as possible. It has never cared to seek another answer.

Frankly, things only change when enough people do research and be obnoxious and cantankerous about the answer. I doubt there is much funding for that research as it takes no effort to see how little this society cares about those that need the most compassion.

cassalian · 5 years ago

Why should society be concerned with rehabilitating the most violent of offenders? To be a bit more specific, assume we are talking about a parent that has brutally beaten their child to death, or someone who has knelt on someone else's neck until death was inevitable. This person has killed someone, an action that is absolutely irreversible. Why should that person be allowed back in society? I don't want society spending time and money rehabilitating this person. In my opinion, this person has forfeited their right to live in society when they chose to take someone else's life.

To be clear, I'm not talking about non-violent crime or even most types of violent crimes - I'm referring to the most violent of offenders. There are 7 billion people in this world, I think society will carry on just fine if we remove the tiny fraction of people from society that commit the most heinous of violent crimes (i.e wanton murder).

So what's society get out of rehabilitating this person? Let's assume this person can add moderate value to society, such as being capable of working an average job decently well (thus bringing value to their employer, the customers they help, and greater society through taxes). Now weigh that value added against the fact that their victim will never re-enter society again. Is that value added worth it, and is it fair to their victim?

I am open to having my opinion changed on this topic so if you have a good argument for why we should be concerned with the most violent offenders, please do share and I will weigh what you say carefully. However, please make sure you are addressing the case of deliberate, unprovoked murder since my response is only addressing this form of crime.

cassalian commented on Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021 adamcadre.ac/calendar/202... · Posted by u/rossvor

mmarq · 5 years ago

> Caltech requires good grades as criteria for admission. Caltech graduates have a disproportionately high percentage of Nobel prizes.

Caltech requires 10-year-old kids to write essays?

Again, are we talking about enrolling 10-year-old kids in highschool or are we talking about hiring microbiologists?

cassalian · 5 years ago

8th graders are typically 12-13 years old, not 10 - 10 year olds are typically in the 6th and 7th grade.

cassalian commented on EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd eff.org/press/releases/ef... · Posted by u/oxylibrium

mkl · 5 years ago

Yes, but my subject is maths :-). 1st and 2nd year engineering maths don't really have projects, presentations, or writing as options, as we mostly care about whether they know particular fundamental mathematical techniques and skills. All those options also have the problem of knowing who did the work.

From talking to remote students, I don't think they feel like they're being treated like cheaters. Instead, they seem happy we're making their study possible, and accepting of what they're asked to do. They know it's important that they can demonstrate unequivocally that they have particular skills.

cassalian · 5 years ago

My sister is still in school and the anti-cheating software gives her a lot of anxiety - not that she's a cheater or anything, but because it is well known that this software flags non-cheaters as cheaters. For example, she is not allowed to look around or talk to herself while working on a problem, both of which help her to demonstrate her knowledge effectively. If the goal is for testing to demonstrate a student's knowledge, then employing techniques that hinder a student's ability to do so in the hopes of catching cheaters is counter productive to the original goal. After all, you want to know if she can apply fundamental techniques and skills - not whether she can apply these fundamental techniques and skills while behaving under a very strict set of rules.

Even in early level mathematics, there are plenty of opportunities to introduce word problems that can only be solved by applying the relevant techniques. As long as the teachers are defining these word problems themselves (rather than pulling them from an online resource), they stand as a pretty good guard against cheating since they require students to first recognize the technique that needs to be applied, and then to extract the relevant variables from the word problem to apply that technique.

Furthermore, in early level mathematics, you can still have students present solutions to problems and explain why the solution works. For instance, say you were interested in whether or not a student has grasped the basics of derivatives - simply get on a call with that student, give them a random function to solve the derivative for, and then have them do so in front of you.

These are all things I've quickly thought of that would have at least be partially effective in measuring knowledge. I imagine any person with a career dedicated to instructing students could come up with many more options that could be even more effective.

> Instead, they seem happy we're making their study possible, and accepting of what they're asked to do. They know it's important that they can demonstrate unequivocally that they have particular skills.

Students are happy to be able to study and know that it's important to demonstrate their skills - but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't be happier if they could demonstrate their skills without the invasive testing software. I argue this is setting up a false choice: "you can either learn nothing at all, or do so under this cheating software". But the reality of the situation is that they can still learn and demonstrate their skills without the cheating software.

cassalian commented on EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd eff.org/press/releases/ef... · Posted by u/oxylibrium

mkl · 5 years ago

Agreed, the lawsuit is a terrible thing to do full stop, and doesn't seem to make business sense either. Maybe they think his critiques are worse than the bad press.

I agree about the privacy concerns, and in normal circumstances I wouldn't use proctoring software, because all my students would be local (or they would have signed up as distance students knowing this kind of thing would be needed). I would also have much less issue with it if it was open source.

I see it as a currently-necessary annoyance, as the least bad option. The alternatives have greater deficiencies: human invigilators using Zoom etc. don't scale (institution experience); oral exams don't scale (my experience moderating such assessments); no invigilation leads to cheating (by few students but enough to be a real problem, especially for professional qualifications - my direct experience and institution experience); shutting down education until the pandemic's over is unfeasible.

cassalian · 5 years ago

> I see it as a currently-necessary annoyance, as the least bad option... shutting down education until the pandemic's over is unfeasible.

Is it necessary though? Have you considered there are ways other than testing for a student to demonstrate their knowledge on a subject? Projects, presentations, and writing all come to mind as effective ways to measure knowledge on a subject and do not require treating all students like cheaters because a few choose to do so.

cassalian commented on Vitamin D: The truth about an alleged Covid ‘cover-up’ bbc.co.uk/news/health-561... · Posted by u/zeristor

scoopertrooper · 5 years ago

I think this direct quote (from your article) best sums up his position:

> “We need to have some humility here,” he added. “We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”

He's not lying, like the rest of us, he doesn't know. Especially, with the advent of the new variants.

Also, it's odd you're pointing out him giving information during an on-the-record interview as evidence that he's lying.

cassalian · 5 years ago

This is a lie of omission:

> Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts... partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.

From wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie):

> Lying by omission, also known as a continuing misrepresentation or quote mining, occurs when an important fact is left out in order to foster a misconception. Lying by omission includes the failure to correct pre-existing misconceptions.

Dr. Fauci believed that the real range was somewhere between 70 to 90 percent as you pointed out; however, he gave lower estimates to the public because he didn't believe the public was "ready to hear what he really thinks". So not only was he failing to correct pre-existing misconceptions, but he was actively spreading misconceptions about how much of the population he believed needed to be vaccinated. As such, he was lying by omission.