4ntonius8lock

You are thinking in the realm of theory.

None of that works in the realm of reality.

Creating a fake ID = super illegal.

Credit cards: prepaid can be detected and blocked, same as the privacy.com ones - especially when the credit card is being used to validate something. Look at any major fraud prevention software, these things are trivial.

In the real world, if you want to make money, you need to show and prove ID with matching banking details. Any inconsistencies and you don't get paid. This isn't something you can outsmart. People smarter than you and I have been thinking very long and hard about these points, much more so than the two minutes you took to think up your post. The idea is like those videos of 'primitive underground dwellings with a swimming hole on top'. Cute, creative, but terribly impractical and useless in any real world situation.

This works. And I do it. Too many unhinged people out there. Here in the US, I've found things in restaurants a couple of times and pointed it to the staff.

It clears the liability for all involved, since no one can claim that the staff or a fellow patron 'took it'. It was pointed out by a customer and removed with witnesses. I generally mention it to more than one staff.

I try to baseline assume that the person I'm dealing with in public is not fully there (which would include the property owner). It makes it easier to deal with when it is actually the case.

The funny thing is, the most up voted comments on this topic don't even seem to be about the FA. They are mostly just 'generic advertising is bad comment/anecdote related to the title'.

Another idea I had after reading the article is that advertising is more pervasive in big cities. From what I can recall, big city inhabitants tend to have a lower life satisfaction rating than smaller town dwellers. So countries with more urban dwellers might normally have more advertising and less life satisfaction... because big cities, not necessarily advertising. Also richer nations tend to be less happy, and by being richer have more advertising. There's a lot of ways to interpret the data.

It's funny to see the group-think dynamic on display needed to make non relevant comments go up and comments related to the article be down-voted (which aren't even stating anything specific... you and I never even said 'it's this' just questioning 'maybe not that')

Another super interesting thing that I glean from the down-votes is the bottom down view only when convenient.

If you post on HN that tech companies are evil and conspiring against our privacy, people will say (IMO mostly rightly BTW) that it's mostly bottom up, with consumers CHOOSING bad options. But as soon as advertising comes in the mix, now the world is top down, with evil marketeers manipulating the masses anyway they want.

To all the down-voters: your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer!

Having read the article, it seems they are concluding a causality that isn't necessarily there.

The whole study is based on: there's a correlation between advertising spend per capita and life satisfaction between countries in Europe.

Now that COULD mean advertising is making people unhappy.

Or it could mean that people who are less satisfied tend to buy more crap and when people buy more crap they get more advertising. It's not as if advertisers are stupid.

The researcher in the article even admits to this being a one off with no other studies backing his claim. Now what's more likely, he discovered something no one else has, or he misinterpreted the data?

> Do you really want to spend your time writing to Congress to have them pass a law making smoking a protected class?

No, but I do like writing about restricting employers ability to discriminate employees based on their off-the clock personal hobbies and preferences.

Basically using your language, I hope that 'everyone is a protected class' when it comes to legal forms of entertainment and hobby.

I agree with healthcare insurance being changed.

I will say, just because it costs them more money doesn't mean they should legally be able to act on that.

Many times someone from a certain religion might cost an employer more than someone who doesn't need religious prayer breaks. But legally employers can't act on that.

I'm not saying smoking = religion, but I am saying information available to make logical decisions != the ability to act on that information. Just saying we've already made the decision that we will legally restrict companies from acting on certain pieces of information and therefore we can expand this existing framework to protect other life choices (eating fatty foods, skiing hobby, driving a sports car, having kids, etc)

You're also confusing something: that plenty of legal things are not socially tolerated.

If a company came out saying 'sorry, we don't hire feminists'... they might... face consequences. Even if that is legal.

Right now U Haul is going after an easy target, since most people hate smoking - but the idea that just because it's legal it won't have any consequences is silly.

Companies can be boycotted, they could get grilled in congressional hearings, new laws can be passed, and because of incendiary behavior they can get scrutiny for the non-incendiary behavior (see Shkreli) and other negatives can happen.

The law is supposed to codify what makes sense, and when it doesn't, it many times will soon. Many times that includes nailing someone to the wall to set an example.

I hope enough people call their lawmakers to pressure the system into dragging the U Haul executives who made this decision through the coals. This 1984 style 'we are going to see everything you do' is getting out of hand.

Great. Personally, I've changed my mind on some very serious topics: death penalty, addiction, government regulations, capitalism, etc.

In each case, it took someone patiently going over points to help me see better. It takes time for me to fully incorporate new world views. It was a process that required the patience of another human who helped me work through thoughts without judgement or ridicule.

In my case, satire did not help. In fact, it has generally made me double down on my perspective, since it has an inherently ridiculing tone (you might not agree, but that is so by the very definition of the word) - Most people I know double down when confronted with ridicule. In fact most people generally double down on their opinion no matter how thin the evidence in favor of it.

So I'm asking, what deeply held beliefs did you completely change your mind on when confronted with satire? How did it go?

Hearing people's actual experience that is outside of my common conceptions is always super interesting. I'm always open to changing my mind.

I clicked through. Source material is about 200 pages. Linking to a news article is one thing.

Linking to basically a book, without so much as saying why the book is good, is another.

I'm not relying solely on what the OP says. But I'm not spending hours reading through 200 pages to figure out what is being shared. I read a lot of books, but generally I'll read the jacket, then the intro, then maybe the first chapter, and if that grabs me, then the book.

Not sure why you are trying to imply that I only read summaries, but that's on you.

I clicked through. Source material is about 200 pages.

Linking to a news article is one thing.

Linking to basically a book, without so much as saying why the book is good, is another.

I didn't say it was bad. Just asked the OP, why submit this? What's interesting in it? If I find the summary interesting, I read further. I also mentioned that when posting 200 pages without so much as a summary, most people won't read, leaving the less intelligent 'title commentators' (something I think is discouraged in this forum, which is why I participate)

There's over 100 pages of material here. Why has this been submitted? What's interesting in it?

These type of submissions attract the worst commentators; people who will talk about the topic based on what they can infer from a title. Mostly just rehashing some personal anecdote or curious fact semi-related to the title.

Not sure I want to invest so many hours of reading to get to why this was posted. Maybe the OP could provide some context?

Satire definition: "the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues."

From Wikipedia: "satire is a genre of literature and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement."

Not only is satire bad for communication, it's bad for learning, since it must presuppose the person creating the satire is not in the wrong. Generally people who are open to learning start from the perspective they too might be wrong. Of course, you are welcome to show me examples of when satire changed your mind... that would make me reconsider a different perspective.

Good satire is entertaining.

It does not help build bridges of communication between people who think differently. That's why I think it's looked down upon here.

You are right on the /. point. :)

It has to do with the concept of government transparency. In the US, from what I understand, the founders of the country feared secret courts issuing secret sentences for secret reasons.

So the idea is that almost all government stuff is public information. It's why FOIAs are so powerful. Literally anyone can ask the government to open up it's docs on virtually anything as long as national security isn't involved (and this is abused, but to a degree only) it has to comply.

Now, such a tool will inevitably have good and bad. Just as having private court cases will also.

Personally I think we need to create a privacy reform similar to the Civil Rights act of 1964 to address this and many other concerns. I'm simply explaining the thought process where our current tradition came from.

Florida actually has much broader public information laws than the rest of the country. That's why you see so many 'Florida man' stories. My understanding is FL takes it a step further than just being public, they publish much of it by default, making it easy for reporters to sift through and find headlines.