Just want to call out that these are both not great examples?
High performance sports teams have a captain that is often elected in some form from the team.
Likewise the crew of a pirate ship used to elect their captain.
Both examples serve contrary to your point, and there's no reason you couldn't have something similar in business: a cooperative that elects a CEO, rather than it being done by a board of other CEO's.
The health care system is pretty abysmal here which I think is why the government is acting so strongly now; The city I'm in has just 18 ICU beds for a population of around 500,000. We're heading into winter as well and from what I've heard the government is expecting to hit peek case-rates in August.
If that is the case, I expect the full lockdowns will be a periodic thing over the coming months in order to keep cases manageable.
Too early to really tell how this is going to play out, but I don't think the current financial measures are enough; I expect we'll continue to see them expand in the coming weeks in an attempt to keep businesses a float.
I read that in Australia there are a total of 2,200 ICU beds for the ~25 million population. As a result of COVID-19 they're increasing this number as much as possible, but if the infection rates continue the current trend, then there are going to be large numbers of people dying due to the lack of resources.
18 in 500,000 is 0.00366%
2,200 in 25,000,000 is 0.0088%
More than double, but still likely to be woefully inadequate.
If you are a New Zealander, then you should know better. Freedom of speech is NOT an unalienable right in NZ, nor has it ever been.
The ridiculous scare-mongering by some of the sibling comments on this post about this being "the start of the end for NZ" is not representative of:
A) New Zealand
B) Most countries outside of the US.
(Because it's a continuation of existing policy; That not all speech is protected).
As a society, at some point we have to make the decision: Where do we draw the line with speech designed to incite hate and violence; and where do we draw the line on those that enable that speech to reach the masses?
In the US, the answer has been "We don't". In NZ, the answer has been "some speech is reprehensible and we will not tolerate it." This means there's an expectation that anyone of the scale and influence of Facebook should be able to moderate violent speech as it pertains to NZ (Keep in mind that something like 80% of the countries population is on FaceBook. That's an enormous amount of influence they have on the nation).
I'm also a New Zealander, and I work in tech; I agree with the Government here. Facebook will effectively benefit from this event in multiple instances:
1) It drives engagement with there platform (outrage -> views -> engagement)
2) It's more data for there technical god, which will in turn use it to better sell the people (political/fear-mongering?) adverts.
The easiest solution, and one that I think is entirely reasonable, is to not offer live videos in New Zealand. If they're unable or unwilling to moderate the content with regards to NZ law, and given the scale of there operations in NZ (even if that's small fry compared to facebook's scale in other nations) then it's reasonable for the government to impose restrictions on them.
(More generally, I feel government exists to ensure the collective safety and security of society. NZ's government serves the collective safety/security of the people of NZ; That's their role. If they feel the existence of facebook's live streaming threatens NZ's security, then bringing action against it is the reasonable response.)
> More generally, I feel government exists to ensure the collective safety and security of society.
Do you honestly believe that if FB (and no other platform except self-hosting) offered no live videos (in NZ or worldwide), the shooting would not have happened?
“If you are a New Zealander, then you should know better. Freedom of speech is NOT an unalienable right in NZ, nor has it ever been”
I do know better. It should be an inalienable right. We probably will pass these hate speech laws. We will suffer for it. The founding fathers of the USA got this one right. Trying to engineer society is not a good idea.
It’s not the governments job to descide what speech is okay and what speech is not.
What if that speech is child pornography, or assault and threats, or intellectual property?
Child pornography, is not speech. Should be banned.
Assault, is not speech. Should be banned.
Threats, you are correct threats and incitement to violence should be banned. This is the special case to freedom of speech it results in direct harm or coercion. Harm and coercion should be prevented.
Intellectual property is interesting. Yes the government should be able to enforce contracts. But this raises a good point.
You are correct however the blanked statement "It’s not the governments job to decide what speech is okay and what speech is not." is too simplistic and is incorrect.
>You are correct however the blanked statement "It’s not the governments job to decide what speech is okay and what speech is not." is too simplistic and is incorrect.
Why isn't it? We already allow the government to decide many other things, such as what we are allowed to sell (i.e through food safety regulation). Is there any reason why speech is different from other actions that it should have special treatment and be untouchable?
Speech is verbalisation of our beliefs. Once the state starts dictating what we can believe we lose much of our freedom and liberty. As such any restrictions on speech should be done with extreme care.
I'm pretty libertarian on many of my views. I think the government should have as little influence in peoples lives as possible. That's the only way, that I can see, you can have a society that allows for a truly diverse range of cultures and beliefs living as they desire under one government.
Where the government does need to step in is on interaction between people. Such as enforcing contracts and keeping actors in the markets honest. This doesn't infringe on personal liberty nearly as much as restrictions on speech.
But there are plenty of regulations I disagree with and think people should be left to make their own decisions freely.
Also I'm not sure you understood my concession above. You're question doesn't seem to follow?
Hate speech, is protected speech in my mind, no matter how abhorrent. The founding fathers of the USA had a reason for the 1st amendment. You milage may vary in your location, but at the end of the day, censorship of speech is very very slipper slope. This type of speech needs to be countered by education and by people standing up and saying "we will not listen", not a bureaucrat. Allowing the government to censor what you do not like is an aberration of personal responsibility.
that's a very American stance to take. I don't mean that as an insult; I mean that Americans value individual liberty above all else.
That isn't the case in NZ; Most of the population trusts the government and value's collective good above individual liberty, the policies and responses to events like these are born out of our culture and focus on those values. It's apples & oranges with the US culture of valuing individual liberty.
I do feel that to say that it's solely personal responsibility is to disregard easily mislead demographics (specifically the youth). Of course the plan is to educate them so that they can reason these situations out for themselves, but until then it's societies duty to look out for them, and to ensure they're not being exposed to unnecessarily harmful views.
Personally, I believe some people can't actually be reasoned with all that well; You can try, but eventually you exhaust yourself without ever changing there mind; What's the saying about "the world changes when old men die"?
As a final counter-point. My understanding is that Osama Bin Laden never personally attacked the US. It was his hate speech that incited violence, it was his ideology that was his weapon. The response to that was to condemn a man who was not US citizen to death without ever having a trial. I'm not saying he shouldn't have been killed; I'm asking why one incitement of violence, of hate speech; is acceptable and should be allowed when another is not? (keeping in mind that both are in relation to a terrorist attack).
that's a very American stance to take. I don't mean that as an insult; I mean that Americans value individual liberty above all else.
It's a modern American stance that dates back to the 1969 case of Brandenburg v. Ohio. The reason that this particular standard for free speech, formulated by the US Supreme Court has permeated segments of the English-speaking world is an example of the cultural dominance of the United States, and internet culture.
Besides bin Laden, another even more striking case is the cleric, a US citizen, who was killed in a drone strike in Yemen because of his advocacy of violence. And no sane person who values their freedom, in the English-speaking west, would dare advocate on behalf of ISIS today.
No society in human history has permitted absolute free speech, and the United States doesn't either.
Individual liberty is a huge part of it, however it is not the final arbitrator of society. It is an act of the individual that inspires change. One person can make a difference and change to course of history. They do so by having the ability to speak freely, or baring that the ability to speak and then except the consequences of that speech, in order to insure change (MLK, Ghandi, etc.) Regulated speech can lead to a dictatorship. Look at the Nazis or the USSR. The first thing to go is the right to disagree without threat of imprisonment or worse. I do understand that you trust this government (I have visited NZ a number of times and I am a huge rugby fan). But that is this government. It is not a good idea to set the precedent on the limitation of speech as it can be used in the future to limit it by those that do not have the ideals of the government you currently support. The regulation of speech is a slippery slope. Only the collected efforts of the people can counter those that speak hate. Making it illegal only strengthens those that hate, giving them another boogie man for their own cause. Yes, I am being an idealist. Oh, for what it is worth, half of my family is Muslim and they share my thoughts on this. That half came here because of the limits on their freedom.
Bin Laden was directly responsible for the planning and support for attacks on the USA and others. Wikipedia is a good place to start with links to items, including transcripts etc.
I emotional agree it is hard to trust the masses to do the right thing, never the less, we have to. It’s the only way. Everything else leads to opression.
Personally I think hate speech is a term which cold use more precision - I personally term it the rather uncatchy '<ethnic> intimidation' with ethnic substitute for the appropriate other term as it encompasses the parts of it that cause harm.
To use an example of an obscure half-joking religion just say calling Pastafarians a bunch of stupid useless colander-heads is hateful speech but not hate speech. Saying that we should all go out tomorrow and lynch Pastafarians would be religious intimidation and captures where the wrong is - not the speech but the actual 'verbal assault'.
> The founding fathers of the USA had a reason for the 1st amendment.
When the 1st amendment was written the US had approximately the same population as new Zealand does now (4M versus 5M). New Zealand is about the size and popolation of Oregon.
Our political landscape is wildly different, simply because we are so much smaller, and we don't have states.
Our politicians and our government are not "them": they are us. This is the general feeling towards the Muslim community too We all (including our politicians) see the affects of policy upon our friends and family, because most New Zealanders have direct connections to a range of backgrounds.
The question isn't whether what he did was "hate speech", but whether the definition of "hate speech" that can be utilized for this purpose makes any sense in a free society.
Actions do have consequences, and the New Zealand government should be aware of this. Sentencing an 18 year old to 14 years in prison has the consequence of making them a non-functioning member of society in the future. This is not a reparative way to respond to what he did.
Guh, I'm done with the internet for today. No one has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for this and they won't be, the lack of informed people participating in these discussions kills me.
trying to be charitable here; could you perhaps expand on the point you're trying to make by posting this exchange?
It otherwise looks like a very insensitive, small-minded person responding overly aggressively to what is otherwise a very reasonable and restrained request from the NZ Police.
Sure, the meat of what I thought interesting was the initial email. I thought it was concerning that the NZ police were looking to get IP/email addresses of people merely conversing about the attacker.
The rest of the thread is just funny because the police respond in the best way possible to the site operator's freakout.
in what world is that concerning? They've been trying to discern if there was a cell of people around who harbour the same intent as this man, or if he was acting alone. New Zealand, a sovereign nation, has every right to request that information. The email was simply a case of whether the maintainer of the site would respond reasonably to a request from the NZ judicial system, or whether they would need to subpeona the information using the US judicial system. If that maintainer of that site is serving content to New Zealand, that it seems reasonable that he should be beholden to NZ laws.
As a part of there investigation into the act this man committed, they're looking at all activity around the event and the sort of people engaging with it. From a quick look at that website and the thread you linked, I expect (and at least hope), that most of the people who frequent it are now on a watch list after the events of last week.
> If that maintainer of that site is serving content to New Zealand, that it seems reasonable that he should be beholden to NZ laws.
So should be also be beholden to Chinese, Saudi Arabian, Russian, North Korean, and other governments' laws for simply having a website? That's beyond absurd and by that line of reasoning, most website operators should be jailed in some country or other. This is one of the most absurd arguments I've ever read. Luckily, it has no legal basis. Hopefully it never will.
Wow I just checked the thread, most seem to be "online memesters" but there also seem to be some really bad people on there. I didn't understand the nature of the site. I'll remove my opening post - thanks for pointing this out.
However, the fact that NZ police are looking for personal information of the site members, especially since the site is hosted outside NZ and by a non-NZ citizen still doesn't sit well with me.
>If that maintainer of that site is serving content to New Zealand, that it seems reasonable that he should be beholden to NZ laws.
On what planet is this reasonable? If I set up a website accessible to the world, I should be beholden to the laws of all the lands? Am I misinterpreting?
depending on the scale of your operations, absolutely yes. This already exists in most nations specifically for eCommerce websites once they're earning more than a set amount from direct sales in that region.
Should Facebook, a company who profits by directly selling the data of the population, not be beholden to the laws that govern the people who's data they're selling?
Once a company is profiting from a certain number of people within in a given region, it seems reasonable for them to then be beholden to the laws that govern the people in that region. Otherwise it's too easy to skirt the legal system of a given country.
I don't know the size of the company in the original comment, so it's possible that they're not at that threshold with regards to the NZ population they serve, but companies like facebook and google are. It seems to reasonable to expect there offerings within NZ to comply with NZ law. Equally other websites should as well once they reach the given threshold (where-ever that is set).
I'm unclear on why the police, in the course on investigating a terrorist attack, asking for information about people who may be associated with the attacker (who was a non-national of the country he attacked) who are non-nationals themselves, would make you uncomfortable.
This is tangential, but I believe vanity has been increasing with every generation for a while now. Each generation is more vain then the generation that came before it.
I don't know if that statement holds beyond the last 100 years, but certainly it does till then. I would chalk it up to being the result of the communications expansion, with each year our audience increases (by virtue of our increasing ability to travel the world, and by the ever expanding internet), and with that expanding audience comes a desire for us to be liked by the greatest number of them, which involves out-competing everyone else.
The only "valid" (imo) complaint in this comic is in 1905:
>"The profession of letters is so little understood"
I wish the humanities played a larger role in our engineered society. I see a lot of technical people who've never read Popper (which is relevant to technical fields) or any other philosopher (which are always good reading, or at least interesting).
So I'd like to learn more about modern C++ and how to write it, but I'm not really sure where to begin. I've tried a couple of times, but coming from a C background, my code tends towards C styling with only the occasional use of C++ features.
Is anyone aware of a good tutorial or reference list for writing good modern C++ (C++11 or newer, I guess)?
I'd second C++ Primer. It's a great overview of the language and has been updated for C++11. Unfortunately it was written too early for C++14 and beyond so if there is a newer edition planned (I've no idea) it might be worth the waiting. In any case C++11 was the big change for C++ so the fifth edition is still worth while.
One word of warning though, there's a confusing similarly titled book called "C++ Primer Plus" which you should avoid at all costs.
I really enjoyed "Efficient Modern C++". I'd describe it as a good overview of new features in C++11 and 14, how to use them, and how they fit together, but I'm not sure whether it makes for a good "C++ for C programmers" book.
I really enjoyed "A Tour of C++" by Bjarne Stroustrup, which is a short book giving an overview of C++ features. It sticks to modern C++ practices from the very beginning.
Unfortunately, the book is C++11 only and correspondingly does not talk about C++14 or C++17.
This is entirely off-topic; But you've misread that table. those are the stats for the north island, The total split is actually:
57% hydro, 16% gas, 16% geothermal, 5% wind, 4% coal. As an aside, the South Island generates 98% of it's electricity via hydro, so if he's in the south island it would be fair to say his PC is powered entirely by hydro.
Are you able to add any further info to this? I assume you know about this courtesy of your position in the developer community, but do you know what's being upgraded, when it's expected to hit, or can you point us at a press release / etc?
Not sure what the parent is referring to, but Steam Direct [1] is the most recent change to the Store. Before that there was the Discovery Update [2] released at the end of last year.
I would second this. The way the AI was pervasive and controlling, without ever being obvious / well-known.
Definitely an underrated show, and one I suspect that more or less nailed its predictions of how AI will eventually be used/abused to control and manipulate populations.
It also nailed Snowden leaks before they actually happened!
I also recommend watching Person of Interest. It's a really in-depth discussion of issues a superhuman AI could create within the level of technology we enjoy today, as well as ethical problems relating safe AI and people's right to determine their own fate.
High performance sports teams have a captain that is often elected in some form from the team.
Likewise the crew of a pirate ship used to elect their captain.
Both examples serve contrary to your point, and there's no reason you couldn't have something similar in business: a cooperative that elects a CEO, rather than it being done by a board of other CEO's.