I recall Larry Niven had wireheads in his 'Known Space' novels from the 70s.

You might want to look at uMatrix (link for Chrome version). It does some of what you want (site specific handling of calls to different resources with a default that blocks external resources), but I don't think it allows you to substitute your own code.

Probably my 'if you had to use just one ...' extension.

I'd argue that if someone plays devil's advocate and doesn't announce it, then they are taking advantage of one of the social niceties that help smooth communication - the trust that people are being genuine when they represent or argue an opinion. If someone is attempting to examine a position that they don't feel strongly, that should be clear from their manner, argument and response. If they present an appearance of belief that is different from what they actually hold, whether for the purpose of Socratic education or trolling, then they are exploiting that trust. To the degree that this erodes and degrades social interaction, then I'm not sure that there's much difference between a dishonest DA and troll.

Looking at the original meaning (pulling a baited hook through the water, esp. multiple lines or hooks) I'd distinguish a troll as someone who is looking for any reaction, and someone who is playing 'devil's advocate' is someone looking for a specific reaction or interaction.

This isn't perfect. Some of my favourite trolls have been very specific (the chiro posts by DrBob(?), for eg) and someone who just likes to argue and uses devil's advocate as a beard cross over, IMHO.

I like that Slashdot caps both positive and negative moderation. No-one can be modded below -1, nor above +5. Because of that, and by limiting the moderation any one mod can do, you will still see posts at all levels of moderation rather than a few posts attracting the majority of attention (good or bad).

Social media reinforces homogeneity. Part of it is the echo chamber effect, partly because it is so easy to find people based on your opinions and interests.

When you are 'forced' to interact with neighbours, colleagues etc. even with location and social strata providing some conformity, there's still a greater need to accomodate differences of opinion and even belief. At the same time, being accepted and knowing that you 'belong' even if you don't have exactly the same beliefs and opinions means that there's less pressure to conform.

Finding and knowing your role in a community is a powerful drive. Communication technology has taken our drive to belong and exaggerated it into something unhealthy.

Compromise is no longer as necessary. People are unpractised at it and it takes work to overcome our 'us and them' drive. Easier to simply find a place of like minded people and not deal with 'other'. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Straw man.

The examples were provided as a refutation of the 'it is legal' defence.

It states only that "legality is not a guide to morality" and does not make the stronger claim you rebut that 'legality is immoral'.
Not content with your straw man, you go on to parody those you claim to have made it with your "hurt durr, ..".

Please don't. There is always provocation for poor behaviour. It is never an excuse.

And so we return to irony

Thank you for your reasoned reply. I particularly like the use of 'moron'. Very classy.

My first sentence makes it clear that I'm generalising about all systems. Making a distinction between communism and socialism may be useful in a different context, but here it's pure pedantry.

That 'socialism has never been implemented' is a form of the 'no true scotsman' fallacy. Meaningful observations can be made from attempts to implement socialism, from elements of other forms of government that have had strong socialist elements and from limited implementations of socialism either in terms of scale or scope.

Your 'argument' uses the 'true socialism has never been implemented' phrase which is usually used to dismiss a criticism of socialism. You apparently lack the ability to do more than ape the form and deliver an ad-hominem in passing. You've managed to pack name calling, an ad-hominem and a criticism of tone into one sentence. That's the bottom three in terms of Paul Grahams hierarchy of disagreement. An impressive performance.

How about you make a contribution to the discussion and criticise the idea I expressed, or offer one of your own?

This. And the blend needs to be able to change as the country or organisation's needs change.

An industry that used to be reasonably stably self-regulated may become monopolised and require greater regulation; a service that performed reasonably well may become inefficient and/or a drain on government resources and need to be privatised or broken down and rebuilt.

The same blend or balance that works for one nation won't necessarily work for another, or even that same nation over time.

Capitalism/socialism isn't the axis to be worried about. It's the Authoritarian axis that sees the accumulation of power in the hands of a few - whether that starts from the right or left wing hardly matters.

Communism and socialism fail with humans just the same as capitalism and pretty much any pure 'ism'.

Power accumulates. Checks and balances can slow this, but if there isn't an active effort to deconstruct the accumulation, then all you are doing is slowing the process and the process tends to result in rapid deconstruction of the accumulated power via revolution (whether bloody or not) and the replacement of the old with something that differs only in detail. A kind of boom and bust cycle that only looks like progress.

In the 'real world' people and societies are motivated by a mix of selfishness and altruism; co-operation and competition. Some lean hard one way, some the other. A mix of both, with a dynamic equilibrium seems to produce the most stable forms of government/organisation that results in the best outcomes for the most people.

Socialism and communism can and do work with humans - when it's limited to areas where this is suitable and useful (like infrastructure and utilities or services) and where it's kept in check with regulation or even limited competition. Capitalism works with humans in much the same way - with regulation and oversight, limitations to protect society and by not allowing it in areas where monopolies are harmful or extracting a profit reduces the overall benefit to society. Some communism doesn't scale past the family/neighbourhood. Same with capitalism. Some is only useful at larger scales, but again, needs to be regulated, monitored and kept in check.

Observing that communism/socialism fails is trivial. _Everything_ fails.

This is the sort of short-sighted statement that's made by someone who has never suffered a crippling injury. And no, dealing the injury physically and/or mentally may be something that affords you an opportunity to grow and develop, but you are still left with some portion of function that is permanently reduced.

What you are looking for is the idea of being constantly challenged. Too little work/stress/strain on the skeletal system and it grows weaker; too little physical work and muscles atrophy; too little exposure to bacteria and infection and our immune system turns inwards etc.

A reasonably constant, sub-injurious level of stress with enough respite to recover tends to produce a reaction that adapts to that level of stress - whether that's physical load, immune response or even mental health. Too little and our amazingly efficient system scavenges what we aren't using. Too much and we end up with long-term damage from insufficient healing.

Seeing someone not coping with a situation (like your 'sheltered people' in the first line) and shrugging your shoulders with a 'that which does not kill us' is pretty damn cold. Maybe they've been sheltered. Maybe they've had to cope with a few too many incidents without enough down time to get stronger. That your challenges have been of the right scale and interval to allow you to grow is awesome. Not everyone gets to play your hand.

One difficulty faced by restaurants is needing to offer service like Uber eats to compete, but finding that it's disrupting their pricing as those customers aren't having their food subsidy offset by drinks, say.

We've had articles, here, about restaurants withdrawing from these services, and others that are starting up out of the normal foot traffic areas with an aim to target delivered food as a portion of their business.

Technology is pervasive and disrupting most businesses.

Yes, I asked you to provide a link or proof to Steven Burn saying he recommends your software. You didn't

I followed your link. None of them are Steve Burn.

So we come back to my initial point that you've failed to disprove

Malwarebytes describes APKs software as 'small'. Similar software is 'small' and 'useful', but APK is just small. Not useful.
APKs software isn't useful - just ask Malwarebytes. APK thinks this is a 'RECOMMENDATION'

Shall I add

APK claims Steve Burn recommends him, but can't prove it

I have no idea what you mean in your next lines. It's not english. It's some kind of word salad. Try again. In english.
No, I'm not a webmaster. I'm a slashdot user who is tired of your spam and ridiculous claims.

I don't need to cut you down. You can't even provide proof that Steve Burn recommends you. All you have is a list of about a dozen quotes, taken out of context, from nearly a decade on this site. FFS, HomelessInLaJolla got better press.

I agree. I think the article that links to the research paper overstates the case for climate being responsible, and doesn't do justice to the caution of the original paper. It's useful and necessary to publish weak, inconclusive or even failed results. And the researchers have. Criticising the lack of a strong conclusion isn't useful. This isn't bad science, it's inconclusive science - and reporting that is useful.

My contention is with armchair commentators who post things like "They do realize that trees actually do eventually die of old age right?"

Thank you for the reply. It looks like I've misunderstood you when you've used 'successful governments' and appreciate the clarification.