And we should let them all in - the people who are leaving Russia now have an ardent desire to escape what is fast becoming a totalitarian state, while the Ukrainians are, of course, fleeing an invading army that has shown callous disregard for their lives.
Readit Newsryankupyn commented on Growing number of Russians, Ukrainians seeking asylum at U.S.-Mexico border timesofsandiego.com/polit... · Posted by u/everybodyknows
ryankupyn commented on How the weak can win – A primer on protracted war acoup.blog/2022/03/03/col... · Posted by u/danso
Please take your propaganda elsewhere
It's worth replying specifically to highlight how wrong the original comment is, but the evidence that was cited by the Russian government to justify their invasion was clearly fabricated.
For instance, an alleged car bombing in Donetsk right before the invasion was staged using cadavers,[1] and a video used to claim that Ukrainian troops were moving aggressively into separatist territory was filmed far from its purported location.[2]
If Russia was so sure that Ukraine was committing these atrocities, they wouldn't need to rely on fake videos to justify attacking.
[1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/02/28/exploiting-cadave...
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/22/europe/russia-videos-debunkin...
ryankupyn commented on U.N. talks adjourn without deal to regulate 'killer robots' reuters.com/world/un-talk... · Posted by u/Tomte
How are these autonomous killer robots significantly different from cruise missiles?
I think the key distinction is that, for the most part, the current generation of cruise missiles are targeted and launched with a "human in the loop" - that is, a person actively makes the decision to fire the missile at a specific target. However, the autonomous weapons being debated have significantly less direct human control - they are potentially designed to simply patrol a certain area and attack anything that the weapon classifies as an enemy.
Of course, there are grey areas here - certainly there are existing missiles that can be launched without a defined target and programmed to aim for anything that, say, has radar emissions that match known enemy systems.
Omicron? Was not it Nu like few hours ago?
I like the longer name better. Our ministry of finance has already made a typo in a Facebook post calling it Mu (like the sound cows make).
"Omicron" also has the advantage of being easier to hear and understand in english - "Nu" can cause confusion because it sounds so much like "New".
ryankupyn commented on Unmanned submarine earmarked for Irish Sea freight crossings bbc.co.uk/news/uk-norther... · Posted by u/hanoz
This is an intriguing concept, but given that the submarine is small and suitable for mostly high-value cargo (whisky is the example cargo given in the article) I'm not sure how it'll offer significant advantages over other forms of transportation in practice.
Although submarines are more effective navigating through storms, one could simply wait for the storm to pass when shipping non-time-sensitive cargo, then use a regular surface cargo ship (which could be automated if desired just like the submarine). Surface ships also have the advantage of compatibility with our already-established shipbuilding and maintenance infrastructure, while a submarine would require the proliferation of new skills and tools to support it.
For time-critical cargo (where one can't wait for a hypothetical storm to pass), it's likely aircraft would be a better option for most shipments - certainly in severe storms aircraft can't operate either, but in that case the very act of loading and unloading the submarine would be hazardous as well.
ryankupyn commented on Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust zyppy.com/googlespeak/... · Posted by u/cyrusshepard
I think that a lot of this makes sense from Google's legal perspective, where antitrust litigation is a constant consideration and any internal document mentioning market share or competitors could be used against them.
I'm sure that there is a great deal of discussion about potential anticompetitive issues within Google and with their outside counsel, but in a context where legal privilege protects against disclosure.
ryankupyn commented on Carvana’s success rides on used-car loans wsj.com/articles/carvanas... · Posted by u/bookofjoe
Used car companies buying up all the inventory during a shortage and Zillow buying up properties in cash over their own online estimates. Regulation anyone?
I think it'd be risky for Carvana if they tried "cornering the market" on used cars - unlike houses, used cars fall in price pretty quickly and new-car production has the potential to increase as car manufacturers respond in a way that housing production does not. If Carvana buys up all the inventory to drive up prices they'll need a plan to unload as well - while keeping prices high.
ryankupyn commented on Algorithmic bias bounty challenge blog.twitter.com/engineer... · Posted by u/alexrustic
I never really pay attention to these bounty challenges. Are those rewards reasonable? They seem incredibly low compared to the work involved. I have seen locally sponsored hackathons with higher total prizes.
I think the challenge is that if the rewards were high, Twitter employees (with the advantage of inside information) might be tempted to "tip off" an outsider in exchange for a cut of the reward, rather than just reporting the issue internally.
At the same time, there isn't much of an outside market for algorithmic bias info in the same way there for security vulnerabilities. Probably the biggest effect of this reward will be to pull some grad students who were going to study algorithmic bias anyways towards studying Twitter specifically - after all, there aren't any rewards for studying the algorithmic bias of other companies!
ryankupyn commented on Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content” support.google.com/docs/a... · Posted by u/temp8964
> That if you make a 'free speech' drive/repository place that's widely available, it will host the absolute worst of the human race.
That's only due to selection effects. If being open were the default then they'd be diluted among all the other people. ISPs themselves, (older) reddit, 4chan all serve as examples that the people you don't want to talk to can be mostly siloed off to some corner and you can have your own corner where you can have fun. Things only get problematic once you add amplification mechanisms like twitter and facebook feeds or reddit's frontpage.
> For one thing, it's easy to say 'well we'd only take down illegal content'. But in practice there isn't such a bright line, there's lots of borderline stuff, authorities could rule something posted on your site illegal after the fact- lots of these situations are up to a prosecutor's judgement call. Would you risk jail to push the boundaries?
I don't see how that's an issue? They send a court order, you take down the content is a perfectly reasonable default procedure. For some categories of content there already exist specific laws which require takedown on notification without a court order, which exactly depends on jurisdiction of course, in most places that would be at least copyright takedowns and child porn.
> Pretty soon the FBI & CIA start contacting you about some of the actual or borderline illegal content being hosted on Free Speech Drive. Do you want to deal with that?
That's pretty much what telcos have to deal with for example. Supposedly 4chan also gets requests from the FBI every now and then. It may be a nuisance, but not some insurmountable obstacle. For big players this shouldn't be an issue and smaller ones will fly under the radar most of the time anyway.
Also, having stricter policies doesn't make those problems go away. People will still post illegal content, but now in addition to dealing with the FBI you also need to deal with moderation policies, psychiatrists for your traumatized moderators (which you're making see that content) and endusers complaining about your policy covering X but not Y or your policy being inconsistently enforced or whatever.
I think this is a really good point, and I think that if anyone is really committed to promoting free-speech-maximalist approach to the web they should be focused on building tools that make is easier for people to host and distribute their own content without relying on a centralized service.
Any business with the technical ability to censor what they host is going to be tempted (and likely pressured by other actors) to take down content that people find objectionable. Removing these "chokepoints" where a small number of people have the ability to engage in mass censorship is key if you want to promote more diverse speech on the web. (Not everyone has this goal!)
ryankupyn commented on Ever-increasing home values are a Ponzi scheme theweek.com/business/1001... · Posted by u/tolbish
Housing can be both affordable and profitable with a organized system of infill development. eg: You buy a single family home in an inner ring suburb in 1990 for $150K. You sell it in 2021 to a developer for $2.1M (9% RoR), the developer tears it down and spends $1.5M to build 12 apartments on the same footprint of land that sell for $350K each (~400K profit net transaction costs). People in 2021 are paying the same amount for housing as you did in 1990 but you also made a good return on your investment.
The critical thing is that this also requires a growing population - which is not guaranteed in all places/timeframes!