Many Americans seem to think other nations are NPCs in a video game that only exist to make the main character — the US of A — feel good. They conveniently forget that other nations have their own national interests that are often at odds with ours.
This line of thinking might have worked in 1950 or 1990 when the US had the leverage over others, but we don't live in that world anymore. And it's up to us to get used to the new world instead of making bad decisions based on the one we grew up in.
I don't know how global consistency is actually useful, but I can easily think of ways it is less convenient.
For example, DST starts and ends on different dates in the UK and the US. Which dates should google return when someone from either country searches for just "DST end date?" Someone lives in Orange County and searches for "Orange County Sheriffs," which one of the eight Orange Counties should google return?
These are both examples where a localized — not even customized, just localized based on IP addresses — search results will easily help reduce headaches.
I wouldn't mind that one. That a man in the US and a woman in Japan would get different results for a search for "sushi restaurant" is perfectly reasonable (even if the woman in Japan was searching in English).
It's when two people in the same neighborhood got different results for the same search that I said "wait a minute, they're personalizing search results now for ad-targeting purposes" and ditched them. The potential for them to deliberately hide things from you was too great.
When I search Python I should get the programming language but when my neighbour searches Python he should get snakes. That is a valid use of personalised search.
Good example, which is why both you and the other commenter gave it. And if that's as far as it went it wouldn't have bothered me so much; it was when conservative people I know were getting different results from liberal people for the same search terms that I started to realize the potential for an echo chamber, and decided it was a bad idea.
It's good for your mental health to be exposed to arguments you disagree with. Many times they will be bad arguments and you can dismiss them, but it's good to know what the people who disagree with you actually believe. And sometimes, just sometimes, you might see something that makes you realize that it's your own worldview that was mistaken, and adjust your worldview to better fit reality. If your search results only show you echo-chamber results that already agree with yours, you'll rarely learn the areas where you were mistaken. (And nearly everyone is mistaken about some things; the person who is right about everything is a rare creature indeed, and you should never gamble that you're that person).
This is your opponent's lawyer speaking. Don't let business decorum and scary legal words scare you. Keep posting through it like a real thought leader!
LLMs are incredible tools if you are knowledgeable enough about what you want to spell out exactly what you want it to implement for you. The long tail of Wordpress users are, in my experience, not knowledgeable enough to come up with their own solution.
Why are people so eager to gatekeep who gets to call others mentally ill? I don't understand it. I don't have to be a doctor to say that someone who is constantly coughing and having a fever is sick, nor do I have to be a doctor to call someone with no legs disabled. What's different about mental illness?
I don't disagree that there might be more subtle cases that are hard to tell by a lay person. But Matt is not like that. You are free to read his posts from the WP Engine lawsuit, including his post on hacker news, or his prior posts from some tumblr moderation drama. To me, the consistency and degree of his actions crosses the boundary of "bad day at work" and lands firmly in the "crazy guy in the park screaming at squirrels" territory. In fact, I'd argue that if he doesn't have tech wealth and was instead working a more traditional white collar job he might have already ended up just like that.
> Why are people so eager to gatekeep who gets to call others mentally ill?
Because calling someone mentally ill is a serious thing to do, and doing so without being qualified to offer that diagnosis is irresponsible and cruel.
> I don't have to be a doctor to say that someone who is constantly coughing and having a fever is sick, nor do I have to be a doctor to call someone with no legs disabled. What's different about mental illness?
If you can't understand the obvious, huge difference between those things, then I'm not sure what to tell you.
Because some people would go insane without having an external authority to appeal to; the extant systems of academia and qualification create an "objective" truth these peoples' psyches can cling to.
because it contributes to stereotypes and increases stigma around mental health. this leads to even more social isolation and self-doubt for people with those disorders which worsens their quality of life, something that is already much lower on average than those without
it's the same idea as not calling people the 'r' word and why that word itself is no longer used in official diagnoses. it's a boundary condition grounded in compassion. advocating for using a new word doesn't need some soapbox tantrum about the fatuousness of the modern world a la Ignatius J. Reilly
That's not what anyone is saying. There are many classes of human (and non-human) condition where it's best to allow a subject-matter expert to diagnose, and where armchair diagnosticians can do a lot of harm. This is one of them.
The idea that you can "diagnose" someone with a mental illness based on reading their court filings and things they've written online, without ever speaking to them in person, is... well, just bonkers. It's irresponsible, at best.
Someone can exhibit anti-social behaviors without having a mental illness.
This is as frustrating as people I know who are constantly saying "I think so-and-so is autistic/has ADHD". Yes, sometimes it's correct, but often it's not, and the outward symptoms of those two conditions often lead to a true diagnosis of something else entirely.
how is that in any way what I am saying? you are not describing the actual condition. you're ascribing what you see as anti-social or negative behaviors you heard about an individual (who has not disclosed any diagnosis) to a complicated illess that requires years of training to formally diagnose
this bloviating about free speech when all anybody is asking you to do is to not be an asshole is so overwrought and childish
becase most people are not qualified to distinguish mental illness from emotions, stress etc, and obviously you are not either. A broken, protruding bone is obviously broken and protruding; you see it with your eyes and you know that it's broken. Mental illness is much tougher to diagnose because you're looking at symptoms, not the actual brokenness. You said it yourself - you are a layperson, not a doctor, which confirms that you are nowhere near qualified to diagnose mental illness. Your "argument" stinks of ad hominem.
Just for the record, I did see him posting on HN, and he seemed highly motivated by $$$ (and pride). He certainly seemed rational, other than the fact he shouldn't have been posting here. Businessman makes bad business decision and doubles-down. Not quite insanity.
Yep. What Stallman and his friends call "free software" would not exist if not for the copyright system. The company legal team who tell you to not touch any GPL code would love to see the licensing enforcement mechanism be abolished.
This line of thinking might have worked in 1950 or 1990 when the US had the leverage over others, but we don't live in that world anymore. And it's up to us to get used to the new world instead of making bad decisions based on the one we grew up in.
reply