Wait, the give Europol access if and only if a swiss judge order it. They protect your privacy but neither you or them are above the law.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

I agree on this.

If it is worth doing, it is worth getting it done, even if we aren’t 100% certain or ready on a lot of things.

From the article it seems we are not even 10% certain. In summary, we don’t understand (yet) the problem, we have no clue on how complex is, we have no hard number to tell us how big it is.
I agree, something need to be done. But for now the “something” is just to try to understand better the problem, or at least how big it is.

Doctors don’t wait for the worst before starting treatment.

True, but they start treatment when they know what they need to cure or at least they have solid evidence that indicate something, not before.

Specially if corrections carry none or way less risks than what is currently being done.

Hard to decide that corrections carry lower risks of something we don’t understand.

Ah yes, the usual method of waiting until the issue becomes confirmed and also way too severe to fix instead of acting on precaution and harming profits of private companies.

No, but as even them don’t understand what the complications are and how much the damages could be, maybe to wait to have at least some hard number looks like a good idea.

What could go wrong?

And what could go wrong if we start to fight a problem that we don’t understand how big it is, maybe using the wrong solution on a wrong scale ?

They didn’t just vote for the right wing though, they voted for Nazis. So yes, they are literally bigoted, racist, homophobes. If you support people who admired Hitler, guess what? You’re a fucking asshole of a very high degree.

Listen here, as long as people like you don’t understand that AfD (and all the other extreme right wings) are the consequence and not the cause, you will never solve any problem.
People voted AfD because they are the only one, as bad as it is, that at least aknowledge the problems people have (or think to have).
Do you really think that when someone tells you that they see [something] as a problem the better course of action is to insult them, consider them as part of the problem and then call them nazis when they voted for someone else ? Because that is what everyone else except the extreme right is doing.

Yeah, it is bad, but do you really think that people will always continue to vote for the side that they see as the cause of what they see as a problem ?

Being poor or troubled doesn’t make you an asshole.

True

My parents grew up in extreme poverty in El Salvador, and they didn’t become extreme racists. I was in extreme poverty in university in the USA, I didn’t suddenly start voting right wing either, let alone extremely far right. I hated the democrats over there, but knew the right wing wouldn’t solve it because bad people don’t go good things.

The point is how much you should endure before you become an idiot. Yeah, to vote for the bad guys do not solve the problems, but also to continue to vote for the cause of the problem do not solve it.

You don’t end up voting for genuinely bad people who admire one of the most atrocious regimes in human history because of frustration.

True, you end up voting for genuinely bad people because the supposed good people are the one that in your view are the cause of the problem and you do not see any other option (if not do not vote).

You only do so because you either already have a broken moral compass, or are extremely ignorant and stupid. In Germany though, it’s more likely to be the former rather than the latter considering their history. And it’s that recent history that makes it that much more shameful for Germany, and that shows that Nazism was still not extinguished.

Nazism will never be extinguished, you cannot. But you can relegate it to the point that it is irrelevant. But what are you still missing is the cause.

You don’t deal with an intolerant group like Nazi or AfD by excusing them or reaching out to them. You don’t tolerate the intolerant (paradox of tolerance), because otherwise it’ll only be a matter of time before you or someone else is no longer tolerated. And that’s something history has proven repeatedly.

True. You deal with intolerant groups like Nazi and AfD removing the causes that make them rise before they can rise.

Thank you for your reply. I think there is little point in continuing this thread as we are unlikely to agree.

Too bad, but it was a nice discussion.

Yes, it is somewhat true that the AfD addresses people’s problems - at least they make it seem that way. But their rhetoric also ensures that people blame the wrong groups for these problems.

More than that, they target the consequences instead of the cause.

The conservatives in the USA do the same, as do the right-wing populists in other countries. The Nazis in the Third Reich also did exactly that - it’s nothing new.

All these are consequences of something else, not the cause.

AfD rises because people see problems that the other parties did not even aknowledge to exist and not because they create the problems.

Believe me, I have tried to understand why so many people don’t see through these simple tricks and even allow themselves to be misled into voting against their own interests.

That’s easy. People are more worried of the day by day problems than some hypothetical future problem so they voted for the side that at least say they will resolve it.

However, I am not prepared to abandon a fact-based political discourse just because some particularly loud and snivelling people make life too easy for themselves. So I don’t think that the left should also spread lies, rely on sub-complex explanations and blame some make-believe enemies. Nor do I think that is even possible.

Fine, but the fact-based political discourse should be on both sides. Currently the only one looking at the facts are AfD. Granted that they then bend them to their agenda, but the Left simply ignore the facts as for now.

So I must honestly say that I have lost faith in the functioning of democracy.

That is something that it is always said by the people that think to be better than the other when they lose, I am sure you are better than that.

The AfD will always remain unelectable for me - if only because of its openly fascist rhetoric and the associated ideas, which I reject as immoral and inhumane. The claim that the AfD is not a dangerous radical right-wing party is simply false - see Björn Höcke, for example, who is obviously a Nazi with links to various anti-constitutional groups.

I agree and I never said that AfD is not dangerous. What I belive is that people did not become nazis overnight, I don’t belive that people wake up one mornign and say “you know what, from today I will be a nazi”.
I understand and respect your point but what I am seeing is everyone talking about the AfD (and the right wing in generale) that increase their power, that they are a danger to the democracy and so on but nobody ask the simpler question: why ? Why the right wing is getting all these new votes ?
Until the left wing politicians don’t start to ask themself this simple question and are honest giving the answer, the right will continue to rise, that you, me or everyone else like it or not, because they (the left) are missing the point.

And the point is that, for better or worse, the right wing are listening to the people and promise to solve the problems the people have (or that the people think to have: a perceived problem for a person is a real problem, even if the problem itself does not exist in the first place) while the left wing, at least in Italy, is only able to insult me when I express my doubt or ask a solution for what I see as a problem.

In addition, their EU election manifesto denies climate change, wants to limit freedom of movement in Europe and wants to abolish the euro as a common currency as well as the GDPR alongside other protectionist, anti-European demands across the board. In my opinion, all these demands are completely absurd and only show how little substance the AfD really has.

Yeah, and that is why I said that some of their ideas are not that bad (at least in principle) while other are beyond stupidity. They know that they will never be able to act on their plan, but they are reading what more and more people are thinking and act accordingly. The main problem is that nobody else is doing the same.

The right wings win because the left, often, are too busy to keep some sort or moral superiority and fighting for irrelevant details instead of focusing on the real problems.

All they are doing is profiting from the fear-based mood towards immigration that they themselves have helped to create. I can’t understand how anyone can vote for such a party.

Simple, because they have an answer to the people’s problems. Wrong but an answer.

What I mean is that the right-wing parties in Germany have focused their entire election campaign on the issue of migration - even the moderate conservatives (CDU). I think this one-sided explanatory approach is wrong and dangerous. On the one hand, I think it is a case of problem shifting.

Evidently migration is seen as a problem from at least some of the people.

Important issues such as economic and energy policy or climate protection take a back seat to this one, disproportionately presented issue.

Got your point, but I suppose that what can happen next year is more “urgent” than what can happen in 10 years. People can think about what happen in 10 years if they are relatively sure of what will happen next year, nobody will sacrifice the imminent times for a possible gain so far in the future.

On the other hand, I think that the isolationist policy advocated by the extreme right (in Germany, the AfD) is an outdated approach, as it does not solve the problem of illegal migration, but merely creates a counterproductive negative mindset towards immigration. And this is precisely what I consider to be very problematic: due to demographic developments, Germany urgently needs workers from abroad - not only, but especially in so-called low-skilled jobs such as nursing.

Yes, it is outdated. But the alternative we have seen until this point it is worse than the problem. I am pretty sure that the people are not afraid of the Italian nurse that come to work in a German hospital but they are afraid of the illegal immigrants who comes to Germany. AfD simply took advantage of this and of the missing answer from the other political parties.

This fact is being completely overlooked in the political debate, which in this country is characterized by xenophobic and even openly racist rhetoric. In short, I believe that the focus of right-wing parties on migration policy is nothing but empty polemics that is based on attributing blame instead of constructive proposals for solutions - we have other problems that need to be solved. I assume that the situation is similar in other European countries.

I think you are wrong. Yes, AfD focus on migration policies but it is more than empty polemics, they intercepted what the common people are starting to think, more and more, that these migration policies and the de facto concession to every minority has the right to do whatever they want even violating the country’s laws are simply unacceptable.

It would be fool to simply think that all the people who voted for AfD (and the right wing in general) are suddently become fascist without any reason and such reasoning will only end in AfD (and the right wing in general) to gain even more power since the left wing are ignoring what the underlying message really is: “we have these problems, solve them or sooner or later someone will, in a way or another”

Ok but the AfD is literally just modern Nazis.

True, but people (and politicians) still don’t understand (or don’t want to admit) that like the Nazis, AfD are the consequence, not the cause.

Calling people who voted for them stupidity is the extremely charitable label, because malicious and vile would be more accurate in that case.

Why ? Just because they voted for the Right wing that promise to solve what they see as a problem while the Left wing call them bigot, racist and homophobe, if they even acknowledges what people see as a problem ?
Yeah, maybe the problem is only perceived and I am pretty sure that AfD has no way, other the easy slogan, to solve their problems, but do you really think that ignoring (or worse, insulting) the people who ask you to solve a problem is the right way to get their vote ?

It is not that all the people who voted for the right wing became suddently fascist, it is simply that the other side has no answer to what people are asking, so people go for the only side that has an answer, even if stupid.

Only problem is the fascists are smarter this time and are pushing everywhere, so this time might not have nation states on the good side.

Putting that way is stupid. Yeah, maybe what you call fascist this time are smarter but on the other hand what should oppose them is dumber.

I had somewhat hoped that my fellow countrymen in Germany would not fall for the obtuse populism of the right, but that is exactly what has happened.

Maybe if you (in the generic sense) stop to say that the people who vote for a certain party is (basically) stupid, we all can start to solve problems. The people who voted AfD, like the people who voted for the Right in every other country, are simply saying that they have (or they think to have) a set of problems. Are they real problems ? Maybe, maybe not. But not even acknowledge what these people are saying cannot end in nothing different.

I’m afraid there’s nothing left to counter this, because voters obviously no longer care about rational arguments and don’t even want to acknowledge the real problems of our time.

Voters don’t care for rational arguments because the Left throw them out o the window.

Speaking for Italy, the right wing is in government exactly because the Left wing tried way too hard to lose. If the only thing the Left wing can offer is a multi-gender (whatever it means) leader who dont’ even speak about what the people’s problems are (or, again, what the people perceive as a problem) why someone should vote for them ? Rationally, why I should vote for a person that don’t even talk about what I see as a problem instead of a person that at least talk about it ?

And I think that in Germany it is the same thing, even if for different reasons.

They make it easy for themselves and just blame everything on illegal migration or whatever - just as the right-wingers tell them to do.

Yeah, and the problem is that when the right wing say “the illegal migration is a problem” and people say “the illegal immigration is a problem” the only thing the left wing say is “we need to get more illegal migration”. See how the left wing is basically let the right wing win and on easy mode ?

It’s about the big, long-term picture. Companies spend money on branding and advertising because it works. You create the perception that your product is for a certain type of person, which makes them more inclined to buy it. By making cigarettes boring, you make them less appealing, and on average less people will smoke.

Fine, but if that the point, a more honest (intellectually) thing to do would be simply ban cigarettes advertising. The way it is done seems to me something like “I want to ban this but I don’t want to be the one that do it”.

Tobacco companies fought it tooth and nail. Kept arguing it wouldn’t stop people from smoking.

They are right, people will not stop smoking only because the packaging is dull.

Well then why are you lobbying so hard against it? Obviously the only reason they will ever fight anything is because they think it will hurt their revenue. So whatever they oppose, I support.

Because they lost advertising opportunity.
People recognize the brand by the packaging before even reading the brand name. This way your country just make any type of advertising for the cigarettes useless. And maybe as a collateral effect some younger people will not start to smoke since they will not see the advertising, but as far as I know people don’t start to smoke because the package is cool.

The fine is just the first step. They could also block entirely from operating in the EU.

EU: Hello OpenAI, what do you think about the choice “Follow GDPR or here is the fine” ?

Vanilla gnome is perfectly fine by itself if you understand the workflow.

Well, maybe it is the DE that should be able to adapt to my workflow and not the other way around

There are two tensions here:

Community building Code production

Community building can be done without any coding, coding can be done without any community. However, to build a large project you need them both.

We agree on that.

In a large volunteer project like this, not everything can be worked on. You become selective. We are going to major on this thing, or specifically talk about that project to get community engagement and get the thing done. This drives the project, she helps it to stop chasing hairs. Someone has to decide what feature is going in this release to make it ready to be a release candidate.

That group of people, ultimately making and influencing those decisions, is the CoC.

Nope.
CoC mean “Code of Conduct”. It dictates how the interperpersonal relations should be in the community, not the direction the project need to follow. Which means that if you make a request I should not answer with “fuck your request” but with some more appropriate “we have not the manpower/motivation/infrastructure/whatever reason to do it, but feel free to do it yourself and submit it for review” answer (that’s of course is a simple example, bear with me in this case) if I am not interested in your request or there are some real limitations.

Let’s take a for-instance: Sign up boxes.

For years, Linux sign up allows you to record random data into your profile, office, phone number, etc. These are text, and can be anything. Now, what if there’s a rising need to add a minicom number(minix, used to be used by the deaf to send messages to an organisation, before email). As a hearing person, this is going to be a low priority for me, so I work on something else. I’ve got spare capacity, so if the project leaders are calling for help on this thing, I can go and help.

True, but if you think that it is the CoC that produce this result, you are way wrong.
What produce this result is that people are willing to work on a feature even if they don’t need it and if there is enough request for that feature. If you are the only one person who ask for a feature you will get low priority even if you are deaf (just to keep up with your example).
What do you think you can do if I don’t want to work on your feature ? Use the CoC to compel me to do the work ? Do you think you can threaten me with a ban from the project ? Try it and you lose one developer (and probably others).

This, ultimately, builds a better over-all product, but it’s not something I’d have noticed by myself, because I’m not part of the deaf community.

True, but it is simply the fact that the developers lowered the barrier to make a request on one side and on the other side someone made a good and motivated request.
The point is that this has nothing to do with the fact that a deaf person is in a leadership position.

In this case, the merit, the qualification, for being on the CoC is being a member of a section of the community. It brings valuable a viewpoint, and adds a voice at the table that can make a real difference. Most coders know that having a wish list of features at the start can make it infinitely easier to add them, than having to go back an rewrite to make them happen. Having a voice that might need that feature makes a difference

Again, what you are asking for is to have a way to communicate with the developers and possibly a clear way that indicate how a request is handled.

But having a way for the community to communicate with the developers and the leadership of the project is not the same as having a CoC that mandate that the leadership must include members from minorities.

But in the end we are debating about nothing, the project was forked so I suppose that we just need to wait to see how it will end.

I guess it can be simple like that when you are the maintainer. It is definetly not as simple when there are many of them. Of course you can run it like that and many do, but the whole mentality is pretty limited.

Why limited ?. In the end I am pursuing my vision for the project.

Not really about what is the absolute correct answer. Our values are clearly different. More like what I believe works best in the long term.

I just acknowledge that at some point the vision of the author(s) and the vision of the community (or part of it) can differ and that at this point it is better for everyone to follow their vision.

where the committee perform worse because the “forced” member

Ah, the common strawman. A committee where everyone thinks pretty much the same is somehow better than one where a few have a different opinion?

Sometime yes, sometime not.

It all depend on the context. The direction of a project ? Then maybe the fact that the committee has at least roughly the same vision is a good thing, it keep the project focused and progressing, as long as there is a way to offer suggestions.

A political group ? Then it is better to have more points of view, as long as you can decide something in the end.

There is not a single best solution.

Such discussions took place decades ago when pretty much every manager was only male. And they often honestly thought they did the right thing. When there were more women forced to be managers the group as a whole got better insights into different opinions. Which helped to see that certain things could be done a different way.

That to me is history, plus rather logical.

On the other hand I can point to examples where when a woman, to stay within your example, were put in charge the result were disastrous, so what ?
Maybe if we start to think that being in some groups does not inherently make you a better candidate to something than we will start to solve the problem.

Having a few people with different opinions is further usually good for a committee.

As long as they know what they are talking about yes, else it is just stupid.
The point of all this discussion is that Jon Ringer objected to have an hard requirement for one person in the committee need to be from a minority, which honestly is not that stupid thing to say.

It’s not about “satisfying the minorities”. It’s about ensuring a basic base level of respect and behaviour for people from all backgrounds.

All true, but here is the point: what you are asking for is to have decent people and not assholes. And to be a decent person has nothing to do with the group you are part of. So as long as you have not the guarantee that someone from a minority cannot be an asshole (which you cannot) you still have the same problem, only with a different target.

So maybe we should start to look at the single person rather then from which group it come from.

It’s really not that hard! If you don’t feel minoritised in your daily life and therefore don’t see the importance, fine, but all of us are only one incident or cultural shift to end up being the target so if you aren’t motivated by the plight of people you are happy to “other” than do so because one day you might be the other.

Honestly, and without any second meaning, I think that there are way more complex reasons than the “we are a minority” on why some minorities are is the position you describe.