I mean, it's more than that. I _want_ to protect kids' right to be part of the human connectome. The "protect the kids" (by disallowing them their freedom of thought on the internet) is just naked ageism.
I did. Restricting children’s access to certain things is not ageism.
We can argue the merits of restricting children’s access to the internet, or certain books, or alcohol, or pornography, or whatever else. We can debate the merits of those various restrictions based on the benefits and costs to both the children and society at large.
But it is not ageism to attempt to protect children. It is not ageism even of the restriction is a bad idea. To claim it is ageism is an emotional appeal (“ageism bad!”), not a logical one.
I used a rhetorical device to demonstrate why restricting children’s activities is not simply ageism.
I don’t know how you can seriously come here and accuse me of engaging in bad faith when I’ve taken the time to make my viewpoint explicit multiple times in this thread now, including directly to you.
Hyperbole is a rhetorical device, if that’s what you mean.
Just because I had a hard time following your logic doesn’t mean I didn’t engage in good faith. You also seem to be arguing in a heated way with every person who responds to you.
It depends on what you're restricting and why. Restricting access to things based on age can absolutely be ageism if the thing does not need to be restricted.
I don’t think it’s ever “ageism” in the normal sense to restrict children’s activities for their safety. But even if that’s the right term in some cases, it hinges on “if the thing does not need to be restricted”.
The burden is still to demonstrate that a restriction is wrong. If that can’t be demonstrated, then labeling it ageism is a purely emotional appeal.
Ageism is a legally defined form of discrimination as well as the subject of ethical discussions. It's a real, defined thing. Just because we disagree on what qualifies as ageism doesn't mean you get to call foul and say it's irrational/emotional.
This is literally a “think of the children[‘s freedom]” appeal. You’re not arguing for or against the restriction on its merits.
In the US at least there’s also no such thing legally as age discrimination against minors so far as I’m aware.
Edit:
Let me frame this differently. “Ageism” is basically by definition bad, so applying the term “ageism” to a restriction is a an attempt to label the restriction bad without establishing that on its own merits.
If you try to provide a consistent definition of “ageism” that applies to restricting access to the internet but not restricting access to alcohol, you will most certainly have to resort to phrases like “reasonable restrictions” (if not, I’m very interested in your definition), which means that there’s still a need to establish what is reasonable. Applying the label “ageism” without establishing reasonableness is then a circular argument.
You* are using “ageism” as a synonym for “bad”. You are also labeling restrictions as “ageism” without establishing that they are actually bad.
In effect you are saying “that’s bad!” without accepting the burden of establishing why it’s bad, but hiding this behind a different term that carries more emotional weight. It’s a very politically effective strategy but it’s not logically sound.
These deals / arrangements / affronts / conspiracies will continue as long as there are sums of money too large to say no to.
It's so unbelievably obvious at this point that the Pentagon, and everything like it across the globe, needs a deprecation plan. We don't need these massive states anymore for security or regularity; we can communicate around the world at the speed of light and bypass their notions of how we're supposed to relate to one another.
Enough is enough. Spin down the nukes. Bring home the ships. Send the money back.
> When you pay taxes you have no say in the bombs acquired with that and where they are dropped. The latter though doesn't seem to provoke the same push back
Indeed - paying "taxes" to a murderous entity is a horrible affront to morality and humanity. We do it because we're terrified; we are not perfect moral creatures. But we still know it's wrong.
Victims are not the ones running red lights, cutting across pedestrian sidewalks/pavements at 20+ mph, going down one-way-streets the wrong way, screaming at pedestrians to get out the way so they don't have to slow down when pedestrians are crossing on a green man etc etc etc.
At least in London the cyclists are absolutely lawless. Yes a lot are injured and some sadly die, but many many many totally ignore the rules (assuming they've even bothered to find out what the rules actually are).
It's only got worse with ebike hire (Lime at al) as people will hop on after drinking, or have never even got a driving license etc so have no actual idea on the rules that car drivers have to prove etc before they're let behind the wheel at all. And when they're done with their lime bike they literally just dump them wherever they're done with it, blocking sidewalks/pavements for everyone.
This antisocial cycling social-ill is very much at a "scourge" stage in London and is getting a lot of press.
Same behavior in Tucson and Denver. I hate cyclists. They're threatening, break the law, and self entitled. Drivers and walkers seem to get along fine for the most part. The one courtesy cyclists extend to the rest of us is that they self-identify by wearing spandex branded with logos from companies that don't sponsor them - some weird role-play poser fetish I guess.
But be honest - you don't really care about evidence.
Please don't do this on HN. It's against the guidelines to post “internet tropes”, and the purpose of HN is for curious conversation, whereas a link to this kind of URL is low-effort snark.
Also, your comment upthread breaks several guidelines; particularly the lines “some weird role-play poser fetish I guess” and “But be honest - you don't really care about evidence”.
Please make an effort to observe the guidelines if you want to participate here.
The actual trope in this conversation is "citation needed". That's a phrase which pretty much everyone here, yourself included, knows is the superficially civil (politely hostile) way of saying "you're full of shit".
Telling someone they're sealioning is just using a recently coined word. You also know that person wasn't sincerely asking for evidence - they were sealioning, and very hostile about it.
As for mocking cyclist fashion, that's just a case of falling on the wrong side of the fence. It's completely acceptable here, encouraged even, to mock certain groups and not others. In any given conversation, snark is allowed so long as it points in the agreed direction. And it's self-reinforcing, because anyone who goes against the grain is weeded out - as in your moderation here.
Anyways, I'm not sure what you could do differently. The alternative chat forums do seem consistently worse, so maybe this is as good as it gets.
> As for mocking cyclist fashion, that's just a case of falling on the wrong side of the fence. It's completely acceptable here, encouraged even, to mock certain groups and not others. In any given conversation, snark is allowed so long as it points in the agreed direction. And it's self-reinforcing, because anyone who goes against the grain is weeded out - as in your moderation here.
People who have conviction about issues with moderation include links to demonstrate what they mean. When people make vague insinuations like this without links, it's an indication that they just want to spray a little poison into the atmosphere, and evade accountability for their own conduct or examination of their claims.
If you have evidence of what you mean, please share links or quotes in the comments or email us (hn@ycombinator.com).
Either way, the guidelines apply to everyone equally, and it is never “acceptable here, encouraged even, to mock certain groups”.
> People who have conviction about issues with moderation include links to demonstrate what they mean.
Yes, I see you're using extra words to say "citation required". It's borderline clever, and fits the obvious intention of telling me I'm full of shit, except you're making a strong statement that also needs bolstering. How would you know if the alienated people just quietly go away or silence their opinions to fit in?
Regardless, it's acceptable here to mock climate deniers, capitalists (landlords, CEOs, Billionaires), SUV or truck drivers, religious fundamentalists, various flavors of conservatives, fans of "AI slop" (music or art), etc... You've got better search tools than I do to find the links.
I don't particularly want to defend any of those groups. I just wish we could add cyclists to the approved set, because they're frequently self-righteous hypocrites. I can see I'm unlikely to succeed in this endeavor.
> it's an indication that they just want to spray a little poison into the atmosphere
That seems a more than a bit uncharitable. Do you have any evidence to back it up? :-)
> evade accountability for their own conduct or examination of their claims.
I contradicted a jerk in defense/support of someone who said something I agree with. When the jerk doubled down and became truly belligerent, I bowed out of the conversation and let them have the last word before it turned into an actual flame war.
You came in 12 hours later with an "I don't care who started it" approach, looking for a reason to chastise both of us, and the worst crimes you could come up for me was some weird thing about troping and making fun of cyclist fashion.
Is that accountable enough? Am I supposed to feign penitence like the belligerent kid did?
> Regardless, it's acceptable here to mock climate deniers, capitalists (CEOs, Billionaires), SUV or truck drivers, religious fundamentalists, various flavors of conservatives, fans of "AI slop" (music or art)
No, it’s not acceptable to mock any of these categories. Never has been in the years I’ve been doing this job. Yes, people do it, in breach of the guidelines, and the community flags them and the moderators warn them then penalize or ban them. This has been consistent for years. What’s also consistent is that people who are strongly partisan towards one position are convinced we are biased towards the opposite of that position.
This isn't an example of that. You claimed something in your initial comment. You did not back it up.
I'm asking you to back up your initial claim. If you had addressed it you'd have a point, and that would be a correct example of sealioning.
But you haven't, so don't accuse me of sealioning.
This isn't me arguing in bad faith. This is me asking you to back up the claim you made in your first comment. That's arguing in good faith, if you only you are willing to provide the other side of the argument.
The “sealion” link and the abusive parts of their earlier comment are unacceptable and I've replied to their comment to make that known. However, these lines in your comment are also clear breaches:
> Back up your fucking claim.
> Really? Do you actually want to argue your point or is negative attention your fetish?
> ^this kind of argument is not fucking productive.
> So CITE YOUR SOURCES.
Please don't fulminate or post flamebait on HN, or use capitalization for emphasis. The entire purpose of HN is to engage in curious conversation about topics we find interesting, and to avoid furious battle like this.
Apologies, and noted. I wasn't my usual self, which is honestly what prompted me to give in to replying to them. I usually try to do better, and will do in future.
> Can't find a Waymo article about this, but Lyft and Uber (let alone trad taxis) also do this. I'm not sure that this is a particularly autonomous-car-shaped sin.
It depends on expectations. If the pitch is (and, let's face it - it is) that automs will be less violent, then this is a problem. If we're OK with them just adopting the existing levels of misery and death visited upon our communities by cars, then the upside is far less than we've been sold.
Pulling into the bike lane for 30 seconds causes bikers to have to unsafely pull around the car, possibly causing accidents. In some cities and lanes you may be endangering dozens of bikers during the 30 seconds.
I had to commute by foot for two years into a city, and I have to say I understand the rage. Cars nearly killed me a dozen times and I was always more safe than the law required of me as a pedestrian. Most drivers don’t understand their power with today’s massive cars.
> Waymos pull over into bike lanes all the time for pickups and drop-offs and that’s neither legal nor safe.
While perhaps drop-offs are often relatively quick (though perhaps more risky; see the dooring accident description in the article), I'm also really annoyed by Waymos waiting and blocking for pick-ups, which can be multiple minutes.
> I want to hear how you equate "misery and death" with "unloading a passenger in the bike lane for 30 seconds".
I didn't say that.
I'm saying that the toll of traffic violence is unacceptable - tens of thousands of unanticipated and often gruesome fatalities, along with much larger numbers of injuries and traumatic experiences. So we look to autonomous vehicles to be better-behaved - particularly in terms of speed and attention, but also in the little things, like lawful/traditional engagement with lanes for smaller conveyances.
I'm an avid cyclist and I kinda hate bike lanes; I don't blame cars for not knowing how to treat them. I much prefer either a shared lane with a slow pace or a totally separated trail for bikes.
But at the end of the day, the standard for autonomous vehicles isn't parity with the negligence and aggression that cars currently foist upon society, it's much higher.
The source article describes an incident where a cyclist was seriously injured after Waymo's cyclist detection system failed while it was parked in a bike lane, allowing the passenger to hit her with the door. I don't think this represents some terrible sin where Waymo executives should all go to prison, but I do think we can reasonably expect and if necessary demand that Waymo take action to prevent similar incidents in the future.
If the cyclist was doored by an exiting passenger, would t that imply it should further block the bike lane to increase safety as it is not safe for a bike to pass while a passenger is exiting? If the car door opening is what injuries the cyclist it wasn't really in the bike line very far.
It’s easy to skew perception with anecdotes when you don’t include anecdotes about the accepted status who.
What I’m hearing is that the system that creates a higher safety bar failed and the result was the same as you’d get with a human driver. It’s fun to lie with anecdotes when you don’t include stories and statistics of uber passengers dooring bicyclists. See how easy it is to draw the wrong conclusion?
It’s a big enough problem that personal injury industry actively seeks plaintiffs because there’s so many:
> As ride share vehicles have skyrocketed in popularity, we are increasingly seeing bicycle crashes involving ride share vehicles
The conclusion itself is biased and wrong claiming that uber lacks the markings of cabs without actually presenting any evidence that cabs are involved in fewer such incidents per passenger driven. They’re also doing the same thing you’re doing but at least it’s likely a website by cab drivers looking to actively paint Uber in a bad light. Oh, and Waymo taxis are actually branded clearly as taxis thus by that argument already they outperform ride shares.
I did a quick search on this, but was nothing but PR articles about how they lower cyclist/pedestrian collisions. Are you suggesting the Waymo car sees oncoming cyclists and somehow prevents the rider from opening the door? This would be interesting in how it could be done. Does it indicate in any way that the door will not be able to be opened until the cyclist clears, or is the rider left wondering why the damn car won't let them out?
It sees oncoming cyclists but only warns the passengers inside via visual cue on the displays and an audible cue through the speakers. Apparently external cues to the cyclist are also given that a door may open (blinking lights?)?
From my experience, a tiny alarm sounds, a voice says cyclist approaching and the door clicks to locked. At least I believe it did, I heard a sound. I didn't check the handle.
I don't believe the car was specifically in a bike lane at this time but I'm new to the city and may have missed the markings.
In general, Waymo keeps track of all nearby vehicles and pedestrians and shows them on the car's nav system. I've been in one before when it detected a cyclist coming from behind, and it gave clear warnings both audibly and visually, although I don't know whether it actually locked the door.
Pasting my comment from the other article here - curious to understand the degree to which I'm understanding this.
----
The article itself is maddeningly vague on exactly what happened here.
At first blush, it looks like the quantum computer was just used to generate random noise? Which was then checked to see if it was the private key? Surely that can't be.
The github README [0] is quite extensive, and I'm not able to parse the particulars of all the sections myself without more research. One thing that caught my eye: "The key insight is that Shor's post-processing is robust to noise in a way that raw bitstring analysis is not."
"This result sits between the classical noise floor and the theoretical quantum advantage regime. At larger curve sizes where n >> shots, the noise baseline drops below 1% and any successful key recovery becomes strong evidence of quantum computation."
So... is one of the main assertions here simply that quantum noise fed into Shor's algorithm results in requiring meaningfully fewer "shots" (this is the word used in the README) to find the secret?
Someone help me understand all this. Unless I'm missing something big, I'm not sure I'm ready to call this an advancement toward Q-Day in any real-world sense.
Commit history looks vibe coded doesn't it? Don't read too much into anything you see there. It's what Claude or Codex wrote after being asked to solve the challenge.
...all the more reason to reduce spending on them.
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