thinkingemote (u/thinkingemote)

thinkingemote commented on Id Software devs form "wall-to-wall" union rockpapershotgun.com/id-s... · Posted by u/simjue

I like the idea and encourage software workers unions. Is there an umbrella union that they can belong to? How effective are these new unions? I imagine these new tech unions don't have the same "shop floor" power as in industry. Why is this?

Perhaps generally the ideals the new unions are advocating for are different than traditional ones?

thinkingemote commented on He set out to walk around the world. After 27 years, his quest is nearly over washingtonpost.com/lifest... · Posted by u/wallflower

compounding_it · 4 days ago

>The world is a much kinder, nicer place than it often seems.

I realize that a lot these days. People are not inherently so bad but greed is a nasty drug that has the potential to ruin the best.

When you have nothing to offer but kindness and compassion, it is very simple to see the humanity side of things in this world and it can feel really amazing.

thinkingemote · 4 days ago

There's a kind of stereotype we have of people that we have not met. The truth is that those groups of people that we think are nasty people are often kind and nice and full of empathy and compassion.

There is a kind of psychological pain of cognitive dissonance when we discover this "Wait, but they are meant to be ${group_member} why are they so nice and kind to me?". But one can only experience (e.g. via travelling) and learn from these experiences, it's hard to convey to others that the world really is __much__ more kinder and nicer than our preconceptions demand it should be.

It's easier and less painful to box away people into nice and not nice groups. And it's often most common to label people similar to ourselves in the nice group. It's a narrow view of the world. Travelling opens up our preconceptions of people, the opposite of a narrow view: travelling broadens the mind.

thinkingemote commented on American Prohibition was suprisingly successful (2019) vox.com/the-highlight/201... · Posted by u/thinkingemote

thinkingemote · 5 days ago

Changed the title from the original and more click baity "Prohibition worked better than you think".

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American Prohibition is being raised in the context of present day social media bans.

thinkingemote commented on Trains cancelled over fake bridge collapse image bbc.com/news/articles/cwy... · Posted by u/josephcsible

crazygringo · 10 days ago

To be clear, you don't need AI for this.

You can also just call the railroad and report the bridge as damaged.

Hoaxes and pranks and fake threats have been around forever.

thinkingemote · 9 days ago

I love hoaxes. But this also neglects the social and viral aspect. If lets say if an aged local member for parliament sees an image of the bridge after coming back from the pub, he will call into the authorities responsible. Now you can think of many other people who, upon seeing this, and having an initial reaction to it, have the power to enforce an action.

Calling directly into the railroad bypasses an authority chain. It negates the virality of it. These viral images are viral because they get shared and spread on their own just like a virus.

Telephone calls into authorities were never viral, they could never be spread. Although they may well have caused the desired reaction without spreading first! Many hoaxes back in the day were somewhat viral and did get spread, but the hoax went to the newspapers or the community first and spread there. A well crafted press release, some additional letters to the traditional media etc. A believable image makes for more believability. The hoax got spread because it was hard to debunk it as it was distributed before the debunking. Bypassing the effort to spread the hoax removes chances of effects.

Edits: my initial thought was "no trains run after midnight anyhow" as except on a few main lines its hard to find trains in the UK at night - so the cost of the bridge closure may have been very small. That with the amount and quality of the staff operating at that time of night. Taken together this leads to less of a cost of reaction, more of a chance of a knee jerk reaction from staff, less ability to consult nearby awake engineers and survey damage IRL. So while the hoaxers cannot plan an earthquake(!) it probably wouldn't have succeeded if the earthquake happened at 11am.