I appreciate anyone who has the courage to do this. I've done it before, and it's definitely hard. Congrats and I wish more people would stand up for themselves and others.
It's always better to receive downvotes and do the right thing, than merely sit by and go along with the hive. Especially when you know in your gut the hive is wrong.
Wealth of Nations is such a good book, I implore everyone to read it. I think a lot of people misunderstand what Adam Smith was about, and it's good to go back to the early ideas of what capitalism was meant to be, and how far we have diverged from it.
If the issue is on the collection side, what technical mechanism does Google have for identifying incognito traffic? There's already a game of whack-a-mole being played because news sites are detecting if you're in incognito mode, but that's in JS, so the access logs were already collected, and the the hacks for detecting incognito are slowly getting fixed, so it's not a viable solution.
DNT is a header, but it's a preference and not legally binding.
The only thing Google did that was "wrong" is that incognito gave uses the impression that they weren't being tracked externally, when in reality the only thing it does is not save your history and start with no cookies.
What you're saying only serves to support the argument that the tracking is wrong in the first place, IMO. Google doesn't have a right to follow everyone around the web and flex their muscle just because they can. Since they have a monopoly and nobody is even close to challenging them, someone needs to step in and regulate them.
I think this plays into the current social unrest as well. People have been trying to separate the looters and protestors, but they seem to completely ignore the extreme inequality that exists throughout the US, especially in this period of high unemployment.
People at the bottom have it bad, very bad. Being ignorant of that problem is just going to make it worse. Lashing out at fancy retailers in fancy neighbourhoods makes a lot of sense as a way of sending a message to rich people, whether you like it or not.
In all likelihood lashing out at fancy retailers will be effective. Additional police powers and crackdowns will be paired with throwing the rioters a few bones (e.g. greater checks on police powers and throwing the book at George Floyd's murderers).
Of course, the elites will pretend that they meant to throw that bone all along and will vehemently deny it has anything to do with a smashed up Gucci store in Beverly Hills and a lot of Americans (perhaps most) will believe this denial.
Wait, so if there were some elites in charge of everything, and if they felt personally threatened, you are suggesting that their response would be to decrease the power of their security forces? Wouldn't they want to make the police even more powerful?
> Wouldn't they want to make the police even more powerful
Civilians outnumber police 500-1. The people who were lead to the guillotines also wanted more police power but you have to throw a bone to the civilians to make them think 'you care'.
Here's $2 extra to come to work and risk coronavirus and we totally won't cancel your insurance when you get sick.
Yes of course they'd want that, but compromise is often a necessity to prevent things from spiraling totally out of control.
The French and Russian revolutions are a testament to what happens when the ruler tries to effect the appearance of compromise without actually doing it (e.g. Constitution of 1906). It ended very badly for the rulers in both of those cases.
They fucked up a lot more than just that, but that was a key contributing factor to their deaths.
The difference is in the times of the French revolution, the elite lived only mere miles away from the angry poor, within striking reach of their wrath whereas now the elites can move to super safe heavens, isolated from the mess they created and suffer no consequences from the angry masses.
Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett can move with their families to some private island in the Caribbean and wait while things cool down while running their gigs remotely.
I could see Louis 16th's failed flight to varennes being repeated in a different form. It wasnt a lack of technology that stopped him, it was a man recognizing him and arresting him.
Part of the problem was that he left it too long to attempt fleeing.
Indeed, peaceful protests are good for the status quo because they're easy to ignore. They want you to sit down and be quiet so they can ignore you. Once you start to inconvenience rich people, or god forbid cause the stock market to go down, real change will begin to happen.
Gucci doesn't control the police, no. People who shop at Gucci do.
Do you think that they are not going to see the smashing of their favorite shop as an implicit threat against them personally?
Gucci is a powerful symbol of unchecked gaudy wealth as much as it is a retail establishment. The handbags themselves aren't really the point, which they'd be the first to admit to.
I'm not sure anyone controls the police. They look a lot like self ruling autonomous entities to me. The mayor of New York, supposedly their boss, is in a conflict with NYPD, and is mostly losing, from what I hear.
The current "looting" is in no way confided to Gucci type stores. All retail with anything of value is being plundered.
But even in a world where the gaudy rich control the police, and only their favorite stores were destroyed, I can't imagine that leads to police reform.
If people attack something you hold dear and makes demands on you, few people just give in. The normal reaction is to fight back as hard as you can, ignoring costs, until your enemy is defeated. I offer the US reaction to 9/11 as an example.
In your model, the Gucci customers are extremely powerful, so they can mount very strong counter attacks.
I was reading this this morning, on the subject of "who controls the police," seems legit (the answer is, the economic elites, absolutely represented by Gucci patrons):
> More than crime, modern police forces in the United States emerged as a response to “disorder.” What constitutes social and public order depends largely on who is defining those terms, and in the cities of 19th century America they were defined by the mercantile interests, who through taxes and political influence supported the development of bureaucratic policing institutions. More than crime, modern police forces in the United States emerged as a response to “disorder.”
> These economic interests had a greater interest in social control than crime control. Private and for profit policing was too disorganized and too crime specific in form to fulfill these needs. The emerging commercial elites needed a mechanism to insure a stable and orderly work force, a stable and orderly environment for the conduct of business, and the maintenance of what they referred to as the “collective good” (Spitzer and Scull 1977). These mercantile interests also wanted to divest themselves of the cost of protecting their own
enterprises, transferring those costs from the private sector to the state.
> Maintaining a stable and disciplined work force for the developing system of factory production and ensuring a safe and tranquil community for the conduct of commerce required an organized system of social control. The
developing profit-based system of production antagonized social tensions in the community. Inequality was increasing rapidly; the exploitation of workers through long hours, dangerous working conditions, and low pay was endemic; and the dominance of local governments by economic elites was creating political unrest. The only effective political strategy available to exploited workers was what economic elites referred to as “rioting,” which was actually a primitive form of what would become union strikes against employers (Silver 1967). The modern police force not only provided an organized, centralized body of men (and they were all male) legally authorized to use force to maintain order, it also provided the illusion that this order was being maintained under the rule of law, not at the whim of those with economic power.
The pandemic demonstrated that luxury retail is non-essential (you can still buy your Gucci bags online). When luxury retail was closed the world did not fall apart. Nobody is protesting because they can't shop at the Apple store.
For someone in desperation all I hear is further reason to riot and loot. Nobody cares about these people, and politicians keep going on TV saying how they're going to put everyone in jail or shoot them.
Statements and actions are two very different things, and as far as I can tell the rioters have the support of both corporations and the state, as absolutely nothing has been done to deal with the unrest.
I'm not sure why people are eating up the media lie idea that the government is some fascist entity supporting corporations, because the government's actions show that the rioters, politicians, corporations, and government (state and federal) are all on the same side.
Revolutionaries that signal on the same lines as Sony, Target, Walmart, Google, the state governments, and the federal government... It's honestly laughable how well this is orchestrated and how incredibly naive or stupid the people are that are eating it up for social brownie points.
The only people not being represented by anyone are the small business owners who don't wan't their homes and businesses eviscerated, and normal citizens who keep their heads down.
Do you really think so? These stores all have insurance. The deductibles will hurt a little but I don't think it's going to be game changing, especially for any national or international chains.
Yes. I don't think it's a problem for them financially, it's just it's a a powerful symbol of the control that they have lost.
That's why they'll pull out all of the stops including heavy handed propaganda, agent provocateurs, sending in the army (if it gets much worse) and even (finally, with gritted teeth), appeasement.
Historically riots have often presaged regime change as it can uncover how dangerously exposed the elites are and how little support the elites have. Unlikely in this case, but it's still the same process that scares the bejesus out of most regimes.
We're already seeing agent provocateurs in the current protests. White nationalists are purposely trying to incite violent riots throughout the U.S. as part of their "accelerationist" plans. The regrettably widespread opinion that the original, peaceful protest against police brutality is per se violent and thus to be opposed is very much a false and racist claim.
> We're already seeing agent provocateurs in the current protests. White nationalists are purposely trying to incite violent riots throughout the U.S. as part of their "accelerationist" plans.
The amount that this is actually happening is vastly overstated. I've watched this narrative blow up within 48 hours, but the reality is that a lot of the "looting" is from frustrated, angry, low-income people.
In no way is that a racist claim - poverty and extreme inequality breeds desperation and anger and you can't pretend that away.
Angry and frustrated people will always be vulnerable to provocation. We can't pretend that away, but we can't wish that away either. So both claims could be true in some sense, but agent provocateurs (acting under fictitious monikers such as "Antifa", "Anonymous/4chan" or the like) are clearly playing a key role.
The big chains won't run risky or unprofitable stores. It's the communities that will be hurt by this. Despite interest-free loans and over $100 million in federal funding, Baltimore still hasn't recovered from the 2015 Freddie Gray riots.[1] Moreover: government funding is a rather blunt tool, and directing it at a city tends to cause most of the money to flow to the nicer parts of town. That's what happened in Ferguson.[2]
Riots tend to widen the disparities, not reduce them.
The big chains were suffering outside of a handful of affluent neighborhoods in all cities even in good times, I don’t see why this wouldn’t be a problem. Margins are low, and consumers’ ability to spend is low, so raising prices might not be possible leaving closing down as the only option.
If you don't run a viable business, should your business continue to exist? Which one do you want, socialism or capitalism? In a capitalist system, failed businesses are allowed to fail and don't get free money from the government.
It's easy to see this in graph form. 100K+ COVID deaths, 15%+ unemployment, wide spread homelessness, unaffordable housing crisis, riots and curfew in every major American city.
Google DJIA to see a graph of how this has affected the wealthy...
I am not blaming the players (well some), but the game is rigged.
And this is all _before_ evictions and foreclosures are allowed to start again. With the number of people already behind on rent and the number of people paying rent on credit cards it could get really ugly without any policy to mitigate this.
This IMHO defends, not defuses the preceding argument. When there was risk of the market crashing, the federal government injected trillions _into the market_. This primarily benefits those with significant capital investments, not those whose ability to provide for themselves and their families is tied directly to regular employment.
Small business, retail and service workers, and employees whose jobs can't be trivially moved online are in desperate straights right now. The Fed's action did almost nothing for them.
It's an interview with Cornel West. You may not agree with his political philosophy, but he "gets it" with regard to the current social unrest. If you want to understand what's happening, you should try to empathize with what he's talking about.
Politicians, police, corporations, media... the institution is trying to pushing the idea that protestors == looters. And therefore the protests should be quelled. Several states even went so far as to declare, without any evidence, that the majority of the people in the protests were from out-of-state troublemakers... which makes no sense. Even more fitting, President Trump called the protestors thugs and terrorists. It's all part of a design to stop the momentum of these protests.
It's not the people who are 'ignoring' the inequalities. With 40+ million unemployed, unable to feed or pay rent, watching their tax dollars get gulped up by big corporations from the 'small business loan program', unable to get their unemployment checks, and getting beaten by police for no reason other than race and deep pocket money from politicians/rich elites. People at the bottom know exactly what's happening, because it affects their personal livelihoods very deeply, and the combination of those issues is why they are on the streets protesting day and night, while computer people like HNers who are generally well off are still behind a corporate desk with no unions, and only observing from afar.
It’s a protest! You want someones attention. What good would it do to shout slogans in some hick town in the middle of nowhere. Of course You want to go somewhere where someone actually notices. So people protesting out of state/town/county makes perfect sense to me.
That said, completely agree that narrative around ‘trouble makers coming out of town’ was overblown and likely put out to take attention away from real issues at hand.
>Politicians, police, corporations, media... the institution is trying to pushing the idea that protestors == looters.
You cannot say that corporations are doing that when Google, Sony, Target, Home Depot, EA, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Facebook, Apple, Intel, Levi's, Banana Republic,Amazon, Spotify, Snap, Netflix, Microsoft, Zillow and Disney are in favor of the protests/riots. And those are the ones I found on the first article I clicked.
Agreed, I (unfortunately) know many of these people. They simply don't understand the problem, and do not want to empathize with "the other side".
It's worth trying to help others understand why people are angry. People need real help, police need to be held accountable, and we can't just keep shoveling cash into the pockets of the rich.
That may be true, but as someone who has been actually poor before, and have also known many people who were born into money, I don't think rich people really understand what it means to be poor, hopeless, and also discriminated against.
I forget where I saw it, but I appreciate a comment that says: When faced with extreme inequality, you can redistribute wealth through taxation or you can redistribute poverty through revolution.
There are 600 billionaires in the US. There are 40 million unemployed Americans. There are about 700k law enforcement officers in the entire country. The math is straightforward.
Indeed, the math is simple: 600 + 700k + 40M = 40,700,600 people who stand to lose if supply chains stop working and the recovery from the downturn is not swift. If you look at the history of insurrections, the poor tend to eat it just as much if not more than the rich. Examples: French revolution, Russian revolution, Chinese revolution...
The rich aren't needed for supply chains to work, and taking their wealth and redistributing it would likely make the recovery quicker. That was basically the entire goal of the New Deal.
Is that really true? The rich mostly put their money in the growth instruments like debt and equities. Someone needs to invest in businesses. Diverting the money presently sitting in investments towards spending would break the current system.
The Federal Government can deficit spend to invest in any necessary infrastructure or supply chains (funded by central bank operations), if the wealthy fail to do so. There is too much capital chasing too few returns, which indicates capital has lost a lot of its value.
Are you suggesting that the federal government start a federal hedge fund, or are you suggesting that they directly operate industries? Neither one sounds very efficient, especially given the government we're talking about here. (How satisfied are you with the current administration? How much more power should they have?)
The Federal Government operates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest mortgage GSEs. The Federal Government operates the largest military in the world. I am suggesting the Federal Government take whatever actions are necessary to ensure and protect a functioning economy, whether that's acting as a consumer or producer of last resort.
I am aware of the devil's arrangement this is with the current administration. This administration, like all administrations, is temporary.
Note how current "cost effective" supply chains have collapsed significantly [1]. Survival of certain supply chains, distribution networks, and institutions is preferable over a few percentages in cost savings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security ("National security or national defence is the security and defence of a nation state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government.")
Emphasis mine. Conversely, "efficient" businesses like Hertz (who ran at max capital leverage) are realizing the cost of doing so (including Carl Icahn, who lost $1.6 billion in the process). I think it's a bit silly to assume all private businesses are more efficiently operated than government (and does a grave disservice to hard working civil servants), but I'm happy to reply with bankruptcy after bankruptcy to prove my point [2].
They're the mechanism by which it is ensured that only efficient organizations stick around. They're the economic equivalent of a civil servant getting pushed out of their position because an elected official is afraid of losing an election, except they are much more direct.
Most commentators here are the "rich people" in the scheme of American wealth inequality. Sure, not the tippy tippy top but members of the relatively affluent professional class.
Assuming they had to pay the full amount, sure, it might make a dent, but it's also a one time event. It amounts to losing ~11 days of revenue, less than 2 weeks.
About time, but my guess is this won't go very far. Google can afford better legal counsel than the government itself. Still, this is a good step in the right direction, and the only way to push back on privacy violations is to make it unprofitable for corporations to get away with it (through fines, taxation, etc).
When privacy violations become unprofitable, "tech" companies will have to go back to making new technology.
The police seemingly operate with impunity. If you accuse them, they will deny wrongdoing. Trying to gaslight people about their tactics seems like par for the course.
The question is: who will police the police? They can't be trusted to police themselves as we're seeing.
there are a couple of criminological issues too which are important with regards to UK and USA.
Concept of punishment - in the USA punishment is most often about vengeance, retribution and restitution. It's why victims families can watch the criminal get executed when on death row. In many other countries and the UK there is no death penalty, and punishment is more about the deprivation of liberty of the criminal and less or not at all about restitution of the victim. Victims in the UK don't really get much of a look in outside of a victim statement in court after sentencing. Criminals are prosecuted by the Crown and not on behalf of the victim. In the USA it's common for civil cases to be used to get more restitution against criminals. A stronger example would be looking at Scandinavian countries and their approach to prison and punishment and rehabilitation.
Police self defence - in the USA, the police are allowed to use deadly force to defend themselves and their buddies against danger, which explains the more liberal use of guns. Literally "shoot first and ask questions later" is allowed if the officer feels their life is in danger. But mainly the protection of the police is the most important thing, above the protection of the public. In the UK and someplaces elsewhere, the police consider pro-active self defence as not automatically allowed. They will often not engage and retreat and get backup in numbers if under danger. They do not rank self protection as the most important thing.
UK police aren't armed, which means that they are well trained in de-escalation because it's the main thing that's protecting them.
One of the biggest worries of introducing tasers is that it diminishes that aspect. Why try to calm someone down if you can reach for your taser instead.
In the US they reach for a handgun instead.
Disarm the police. That might require disarming the population too.
So step 1 is ban the guns.
Which tragically means the USA will likely stay at step 0 for a very long time, because it seems the second amendment is held to a higher regard than the first.
Some of the most calm Americans I know have a gun or two, it's so normal. Given America is where it is, I can't see how you take that first step. That's the deadlock.
If you want to talk to dang, send him an email instead of hoping he randomly sees your comment. Also, flagging is something users do, he also can just guess why they might have done so
> Disarm the police. That might require disarming the population too.
I totally agree -- As long as I am last in line to turn in my gun. And many civilian and government gun owners agree with me. Remember that the military has guns too, which shoot just as straight domestically and abroad, so we also need to disarm the army, which requires disarming all foreign nations. Now what? I think we'll need a Paxos or Raft cluster or something.
For anyone who wants to keep an eye on what's going on, the subreddit /r/PublicFreakout is full of videos of police (and rioters) engaging in violence. I haven't found a better source yet. There's sometimes misattributed content, so be sure to wade carefully. Many of these cases have multiple videos from different people from different angles as well. The evidence is quite damning.
Could you clarify your use of "permitted" here? In the sense of "allowed", it seems redundant, since you go on to say that they were or were not forcibly dispersed.
The other option, more literal, is "they got a permit to do this protest", but there have certainly been plenty of peaceful grassroots protests that got no sort of official go-ahead and yet were executed perfectly fine on both sides.
It's always better to receive downvotes and do the right thing, than merely sit by and go along with the hive. Especially when you know in your gut the hive is wrong.