gameman144 (u/gameman144)

gameman144 commented on Computer fraud laws used to prosecute leaking air crash footage to CNN techdirt.com/2025/08/22/i... · Posted by u/BallsInIt

ghurtado · 6 days ago

"lots of theft is not theft. Like for instance, all these things that are not theft"

... Lots of murder doesn't have a victim...

.... Lots of arson doesn't involve a fire...

... Lots of trespass involves not taking a single step from your work desk ..

... War is peace, peace is war...

gameman144 · 6 days ago

I think the above things are commonly considered theft. Totally fair to contend that the definition is wrong (and IMO that's a reasonable-minded contention), but I don't it's particularly double-think to bucket these digital "thefts" in the same category as physical thefts, either.

gameman144 commented on Computer fraud laws used to prosecute leaking air crash footage to CNN techdirt.com/2025/08/22/i... · Posted by u/BallsInIt

ipaddr · 6 days ago

Those are labels. Identity theft is more identity fraud. Theft of digital assets is copyright infringement.

gameman144 · 6 days ago

This is interesting, I definitely use "theft" colloquially for all these things.

For the digital assets, I mentally bucket copyright infringement and theft differently. For instance, if I copy someone's photography and sell it, that's copyright infringement (not theft). However, if I hacked into someones Google photos and sold the contents, I'd consider that theft (since there was no intent for the material to be available)

Granted, it's fair to disagree here, so I'm not adamantly against the definition that requires removing access or anything.

gameman144 commented on Computer fraud laws used to prosecute leaking air crash footage to CNN techdirt.com/2025/08/22/i... · Posted by u/BallsInIt

burnished · 7 days ago

It is in no way close to theft because theft involves depriving the victim of some good or asset.

gameman144 · 7 days ago

Does it? There are loads of types of theft that don't remove the good or asset from the owner:

Identity theft, IP theft, theft of private digital assets (e.g. photos, writings, music)

gameman144 commented on Americans Are Ignoring Their Student Loan Bills news.bloomberglaw.com/ban... · Posted by u/paulpauper

cricketsandmops · 12 days ago

I look at it more as an investment in our citizens . If you don't keep your grades up or fail out you should have to pay it back, but if you graduate and start your life, pay taxes etc the loans should be forgiven. The country would eventually get their investment back via taxes. They could implement this and some type of oversight to reign in the university costs. Easier to control indebted people though so it wont happen.

gameman144 · 12 days ago

I think one difference is that for most investments, you get some say in what you invest in.

For public schools, you have school districts. For infrastructure you have utility districts. For libraries and parks and amenities, you have municipal government.

For student loans, though, the individual students are the ones making the decisions. The taxpayer is subsidizing students pursuing highly employable careers like engineering or medical science, but is equally subsidizing students pursuing unemployable degrees like cultural studies or literature.

And to be clear, these areas do have value, but it also seems reasonable for taxpayers to call out the fact that these are terrible ROI investments, money-wise.

gameman144 commented on "None of These Books Are Obscene": Judge Strikes Down Much of FL's Book Ban Bill bookriot.com/penguin-rand... · Posted by u/healsdata

DudeOpotomus · 15 days ago

At no time in human history have the people who banned books been on the good side.

gameman144 · 15 days ago

I mean, if there really was a book that was too harmful to allow at all and it was successfully banned, we likely wouldn't know about it at this point.

I am extremely against book banning, but the possibility of some time in history where they really needed to disallow access to a book seems at least _possible_.

gameman144 commented on NSF and Nvidia award Ai2 $152M to support building an open AI ecosystem allenai.org/blog/nsf-nvid... · Posted by u/_delirium

Difwif · 15 days ago

You're right. It's time to ban the evil numbers from being matrix multiplied. Contact your local representative about CPU control.

gameman144 · 15 days ago

I'm not even in favor of banning/heavily-regulating AI developments, but I think this position here is a little reductive; you could boil anything down to the point of absurdity.

The point of nuclear weapons bans, for instance, isn't to control "evil atoms from touching", it's to prevent the higher-order effects that those atoms touching can cause.

gameman144 commented on Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial trial.medpath.com/news/5c... · Posted by u/amichail

some_random · 24 days ago

I find it fascinating how much a pretty large group of people just hate semaglutides and seemingly need to believe that it's some kind of Faustian bargain. I'm not talking about the people who are cautious or suspicious, that's more than reasonable, but it's clear that it's not cautious optimism in many.

gameman144 · 24 days ago

I think there's a justifiable fear/dread when things that used to demonstrate virtues no longer do so.

For instance, being in shape used to (usually) demonstrate discipline. Art or music used to demonstrate attention to craft and practice. Knowledge demonstrated time devoted to study.

This isn't to say that the world is worse with these advances (I'd be hopeless without search engines, and I am grateful that people get to live longer and healthier with semaglutide), but I think a little bit of mourning is understandable: what used to be the fruits of hard work are now a dime-a-dozen commodity.

gameman144 commented on Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second lanl.gov/media/publicatio... · Posted by u/LAsteNERD

gameman144 · 24 days ago

> Your answer to this question determines whether you believe in ideology or data.

I mean, you're technically right, but that doesn't invalidate anything the parent commenter said.

I could equally ask "What if it turned out that turpentine was actually _healthier_ than water?".

Like, yeah, if that assertion turned out to be the case and you rejected the new data, you'd be following dogma rather than data. That doesn't mean that the assertion is likely to actually be true though.

gameman144 commented on Visa and Mastercard are getting overwhelmed by gamer fury over censorship polygon.com/news/616835/v... · Posted by u/mrzool

infecto · a month ago

I don’t know why everyone brings up telephones or electric grids. Your ability to purchase porn with credit card is not a right. It’s hilarious to even think about. Also given the stance in some countries like the US or parts of Australia it’s a hard argument to make. It’s far easier for these companies to self regulate for matters where there are constantly changing social and government norms.

Nothing is stopping you from buying porn but it’s quite possible Visa does not want their brand tied with more niche content.

gameman144 · a month ago

As an analogy:

Your ability to make calls on a cell phone is not a right.

Nothing is stopping you from setting up a cell tower, but it's quite possible AT&T does not want their brand tied with your calls.

gameman144 commented on Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death energyvanguard.com/blog/t... · Posted by u/almuhalil

shakow · a month ago

> people parking their cars on their lawns.

Indeed, God forbid people would like to park their cars on their property!

gameman144 · a month ago

Some people like living in communities that look nice. It seems fair that you can opt-in to those rules by buying in an HOA, and if you do want to park on your lawn, buy elsewhere.

(And I am not a fan of HOAs personally, so I do in fact live elsewhere, but my neighbors house is also an eyesore)