Ethics

The ruling classes always work to keep the powerless from understanding how power functions. This assault has been aided by a cultural left determined to banish "dead white male" philosophers.

The post Chris Hedges: The Pedagogy of Power appeared first on MintPress News.

Valiant attempts have been made to measure happiness and wellbeing. People much smarter than me have developed fancy indices, and people even smarter than that, such as our own Nicholas Gruen, has called bullshit on many of them. What I … Continue reading →

Influential Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, well-known for his work on philosophical questions related to ethics, the future, and technology (existential risk, artificial intelligence, simulation), posted an apology for a blatantly racist email he sent to a listserv 26 years ago. You can read his apology, which includes the text of the original message, here. In the original message, which appeared in a thread concerning offensiveness, Bostrom complains that the statement “Blacks are more stupid than whites” (about which he says in the message “I like that sentence and think it is true”) would be mistakenly interpreted as racist. He then, in the same message, conveys that the reason he thinks that it would be interpreted as racist is that it would be seen as “synonynous” with using a racial slur to declare one’s hate for black people. To put things in an understated way, one thing to conclude about this is that in 1997, Nick Bostrom did not have a good understanding of racism. Nor of good communication norms. What about the Nick Bostrom of today? In his apology, he writes: I completely repudiate this disgusting email from 26 years ago.

For the second time in two years we have seen the supporters of a far-right president violently object to the democratic removal of that president
Read the full article...

I have posted this thread on Twitter this morning: I criticised Labour, Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting for their comments on GPs and their financing
Read the full article...

I am not a fan of the monarchy. That has nothing to do with the people involved, excepting those of them who might think they
Read the full article...

           Mark Twain said: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” Ironically, he didn’t. The quotation should correctly be attributed to Jonathan Swift. The lie remains in high orbit.             Even when the truth comes to light, it gets nothing close to the wide distribution...

The post How about Equal Time for the Truth? first appeared on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

I can’t believe I have to spell this out, but:
free/libre/open-source software developers and open web activists selflessly running independent services online are people too.

It seems this idea is especially difficult to grasp for researchers (including, apparently, whoever reviews and green-lights their studies). The latest kerfuffle with the Princeton-Radboud Study on Privacy Law Implementation shows this well.

“Not a human subject study”

The idea of that study seems simple enough: get a list of “popular” websites (according to the research-oriented Tranco list), send e-mails to e-mail addresses expected to be monitored for privacy-related requests (like privacy@example.com), and use that to assess the state of CCPA and GDPR implementation. Sounds good!

‘In 1989 I was invited to go to Los Angeles in response to a request from the Dalai Lama, who wished to learn some basic facts about the brain.’ Besides being my own selection for ‘name drop of the year’, … Continue reading →

In this discussion, Peyton Bowman and I discuss my term ‘fast-foodification’. I coined the word trying to describe modern politics. The techniques used by politicians and their professional enablers are optimised to attract votes in the same way that McDonalds and … Continue reading →