In a city? A
I step off my bike
I was stopped at some lights one time and there was a guy next to me on a pushbike doing the balance thing where the bike is upright but not moving. He suddenly lost balance and fell on the side of my car, no damage to anything but his dignity. I only wish I had a photo of his face because the mental image of it sliding down the passenger window still makes me laugh.
If Slashdot had posted a story about "the Lone Gunmen" pilot episode, then they would have a scoop that anticipated the 9/11 attacks with a civilian airliner, by several months...
For one, you don't edit the news. You relay the facts as is.
They did. The relayed fact was both correct and relevant. All this noise is about choosing one fact over the other when both could not be picked.
as activists are all too aware, false copyright claims can can knock legitimate content offline.
As not only activists but almost everyone aware of the rampant abuse going on has been claiming for years, it is high time that the "under penalty of perjury" part of the DMCA claims is actually enforced. Mistakes can happen, nobody is perfect, but some companies have been taking down large amounts of content for years, repeatedly and with not even a slap on the wrist.
"All things come to those who wait"
Yes, but we want asteroids, not meteorites. Or worse, an impactor that doesn't just break up and lie there.
How about instead of trying to spin it one way or the other, try publishing the facts.
The facts of what? "Intoxicated man takes a taxi, family of four gets home safe and sound"?
Worse than that. It's like Brave New World news. The only things fit to publish are the things that keep us happy(and thus amendable to advertisements in this case). It's not trying to make on specific entity look good, it's trying to engage in actual mind control via selection bias.
Ironically, this might actually end up giving a more accurate picture of the world, because disasters and scandals tend to be big and flashy, while good news come as constant stream of small things. Overall, the stream drowns out the flames - our civilization would had never gotten off the ground otherwise - but it's the odd flame that becomes ever so more newsworthy by its very rareness.
Politics of fear are based on and enabled by this very phenomenom, and we've all seen them cause completely irrational - and often very destructive - decisions. So feel-good popular newsfeed could very well end up undermining demagogues by acting as counterpoison to fearmongering.
Why didn't I think of that.... penal colony for illegal immigrants involving long term imprisonment and hard labor.
Does a private prison company gaining sentience and posting on Slashdot count as AI, some kind of group mind or just a regular evil overlord?
Nature -- specifically evolution -- disagrees.
Evolution doesn't deal with life or death, it deals with the relative abundance of properties in populations. If anything, our innovation - cultural evolution - is such success precisely because it removes death from the equation. Now the main thrust is on the evolution of our various superorganisms - cultures - rather than our bodies, thus allowing adaptation at blitzkrieg speeds compared to even bacteria, much less any other complex organisms.
And that is a mechanism making it okay for innocent people to die because _______________?
It is not a mechanism for innocent people to die. It is a mechanism for me to be indifferent whether criminals die whilst committing a crime.
Sure, but what does that have to do with law enforcement? They're not the "car enthusiast revenge squad."
Of course they are; the middle classes pay taxes to try and get a police force which frowns on this sort of thing and reacts accordingly.
Actually when it happened to me they chased the car intermittently across 3 counties and couldn't catch it.
Your car is a mass produced automobile, it's not part of your soul.
My car was anything but a mass produced automobile, maybe this will help you
In other words, even though the statement about cars kill a lot of people is true, the statement does NOT make the cyclist are menace to be false.
"Menace" is a subjective value judgement. "Cars kill a lot of people" does affect "cyclists are a menace" because both are statements about the dangers of various forms of locomotion. Locomotion itself is unavoidable, so the question becomes which form is safest, and "menace" implies cycling is far from it.
"The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl." -- Dave Barry
