Justifying privacy!

Trying to justify the right of privacy is like trying to justify any other human right. They are called rights, not because you need to justify them, but because we came to a consensus that they are integral parts of a working society. The right to privacy is like the right to not being harmed, your right to free speech or right to freedom. All of these are nothing you need to justify in order to acquire them, you innately have them, period.

You may choose not to use them, but you can never use that as grounds to deny them to others. The answer “because I have a right to privacy” is enough to satisfyingly answer the “I have nothing to hide” paradigm; no justification needed for making use of basic human rights.

Roe v Wade overturned by American Taliban

In a predicted event, SCOTUS overturned the Roe v Wade decision and decided that every state in U.S. should decide on its own about women abortion rights. This overturn holds that there is no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion.

While those in Germany are abolishing Nazi-era laws, forbidding doctors from providing information about abortions, those in Supreme Court of the United States are bringing them back. While those in Germany are making progress about human rights, Those in United States are taking America back to the Middle Ages. I’m pretty sure if they could, they would’ve burn some women accused of witchery.

“For almost a century, doctors have been forbidden and punishable by penalty from providing factual information about methods and possible risks to women who are considering terminating a pregnancy,” Justice Minister Marco Buschmann of Germany said in a statement.

“Today, this time of distrust in women and distrust in doctors is coming to an end.”

Any criminal court sentences handed down based on the law since October 1990 will also be repealed, and any ongoing proceedings will be discontinued.

However, in America, English speaking Taliban is taking power and enforces sharia laws on people. Speaking of which, neo-Republicans are constantly emphasizing the lie of Christian foundation of United States. I guess they know how to repeat a lie just enough times to make people believe it. After all, they are professional liars from Middle Ages.

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Paralogism

Paralogism: a piece of illogical or fallacious reasoning, especially one which appears superficially logical or which the reasoner believes to be logical.

How to become a Republican in modern day

Disagree with Democrats, even if you truly agree with them.
Resist understanding.
Lie.
Be racist.
Claim to be an advocate of freedom while passing laws that violates people freedom.
When you feel there’s no attention on you, spread conspiracy theories; or make them.
Use the word “regime” to scare people.
Claim anything wrong happening is because if Obama.
If you disagree with someone or something, say it’s Marxist.
Anything goes wrong, blame it on Antifa and BLM.
The only science that matters to you should be the ones that may suit your agenda.
Claim to be working for people while in fact you’re serving capitalists and the rich, only.
Claim banning people from social networks is bad, then ban books and information.
Blame every destroyed family on homosexual and trans people.
Spread conspiracy theories like white replacement.
Embrace hypocrisy.
Bully ones you don’t like, then act like a victim.
Claim elections are rigged while you’re in office as a result of those elections.
Get roasted and owned frequently by media that reveals your lies, but never give up and feel ashamed.
Never be good for anything. Serve your masters, yourself, and whatever benefits you personally, and don’t care about anything or anyone. Be absolute garbage.

Do we need blockchain?

No.

Online debates

I’m sick and tired of online debates. I used to do them. I used to spend a lot of time trying to convince people of certain matter or trying to trigger them to become angry and explain certain things to me.

It’s not been so long since I’ve come to understanding that online debates are no more than a waste of time. For me, online debates always had trolling, misinformation, and intense deviation from the main subject. It’s needless to say that it is very rare for an online debate to end well or actually help some parties.

Real debates are moderated. The debaters actually agree on the context of the debate, agree on the major concepts and meanings on the subject of discussion, and they agree on definitions mostly. A debate will be moderated by a third party, supposedly neutral, and the moderator will handle the stream and direction of the debate.

That is very important. Often in online debates, parties end up somewhere far from the original subject of the debate. Most of the times, people find themselves arguing about definitions instead of the original subject. There are many trolls as well who only enjoy angering people or spend their time by wasting others’.

Real debates have dialogue. Every party will have a say and every party will be asked to behave with a good manner and intention to actually educate others while, at the same time, challenge others. Online debates are too much focused on challenging part or the illusion of winning the argument.

In a real debate, the parties involved in the argument are clear but in an online debate, everybody can hop in and throw a comment or get involved with no prior coordination. That makes the debate take/waste much more time.

A real debate has a point. There is a goal to reach in every debate but when it’s online, often on social networks, the goal is simply to show the other person is a loser. A real debate consists of educated people on a specific matter, while in online debates, people with any level of understanding on the subject just writes a comment and hits enter.

Online debates seem like a competition to convince people that some party is right or the others are wrong. The good feeling of so-called owning people makes people do whatever they can to win the fight. I’ve seen people spend hours to research a matter, while they’ve already made up their mind, to win an argument. It is good to get educated on a subject but I don’t think that’s a healthy way to do it.

Online debates are waste of time. They are no good for anything but for trolls to spend time and satisfy their need to be seen. I try to avoid them, and I try to simply not get involved with them as much as I can. I also have been blocking and avoiding interaction with people who I see as trolls so I don’t unintentionally entrap myself in a meaningless conversation with them.

Assumptions

There’s a story about a little kid who keeps shredding paper and his parents take him to all kinds of doctors to get him to stop shredding paper. And finally, they take him to the most expensive doctor in the world.

The doctor turns to the kid and says “kid, if you stop shredding paper, your parents will stop dragging you to doctors.” The kid turns to his parents and says “why didn’t you just say so?”

Sometimes I realize the most rational solution to many of conflicts I have is to just let go of my assumptions and ask for what I just assumed to be true or the case. Sometimes I just take some assumptions as evidence for my conclusions.

What those parents needed to do was to simply ask the kid to stop and that would make the process of ending the paper-shredding much easier. What I do need to do is to take a rest and give a fresh eye to problems and conflicts I have. Some of those for sure have much simpler and easier solutions I haven’t thought of.

Of course sometimes it’s needed to see the most expensive doctor, that’s even needed so we get reminded of the story, but that’s not always the case, I’m pretty sure about that.

Consequences of Roe v. Wade overturn

The expected reversal of Roe v. Wade will trigger the most significant and far reaching challenge to Big Tech Trust & Safety policies in the history of the Internet. Anti-choice states will demand access to search and location data. And that’s only the beginning.

Internet security should not be taken for granted. We already know that data-collectors sell these information to one who pays the most and buying such data is easy even for a normal citizen. The fact that these data can end up in the hands of dangerous people who will give you death sentence is frightening.

This is a time for reconsideration of our safety and privacy practices as well as a demand for more strict regulations on people’s privacy-related matters on internet.

If Roe v. Wade is overturned, states should pass laws on people’s privacy to protect people from being recognized as someone who did or aided an abortion. Every humane legislator should fight this law and pass other laws that will practically make this overturn ineffective.

Human privacy was always essential to freedom and security but these are the times we should take it more seriously. Every major player in the field should now act upon the matter and spread the information about the consequences of this overturn for our privacy and the consequences of privacy-violation for this overturn and our lives.

This is a great example for us and everybody to see how privacy is essential for us and is far more serious than what anyone could think. Privacy is a matter of human right and it should be respected as one of the most important of our rights whatsoever.

Toxicity around programmer community

See the above picture? That’s what have been annoying many people, specially between programmers. We have been trolling many people into a cult and a fashion to make everybody look like us. We made it to a point that whenever we see a (relatively) weird-looking person, we know he’s a programmer. We even call ourselves nerds.

We constantly are in war for our text editors (while we know Emacs is superior), we constantly talk about our operating systems, we constantly are looking to compute and write small programs, we bang about not having a life or not being able to live a normal day, and we pressure ourselves to show everybody that we’re familiar with computers.

For the last 3 or 4 years, I’ve been avoiding to call myself a programmer and emphasize that I just know how to code. I’ve been avoiding the cult we’re in for a long time now and I hope I succeed.

A programmer should have a life. Instead of banging about how fucked up we are, we should instead show off how our lives are keep becoming better. Instead of joking about how anti-social we are, we should show off what a great family we built.

Few days ago, Kev Quirk shared this picture (of a tweet) and shared his thoughts:

This is what’s wrong with the tech industry. The expectation that one should give their free time *EVERY DAY* or you’re somehow “not passionate”.
My response to that would be fuck you and your shitty fucking culture.
My kids and family are FAR more important to me than your ridiculous expectations.

I fully agree. We should stop participating in this cult and start caring about ourselves. Nothing is wrong about caring about ourselves. Nothing is wrong about having a good night sleep. Nothing is wrong to take our life as serious as our job.

It’s OK to care about politics and environment and other important matters. We’re not robots built to do certain jobs. Just because we have passion, talent, and skills for creating and working with programs, doesn’t mean we should sacrifice everything we have for it.

Freedom to hunger

White America must see that no other ethnic group has been slave on American soil. That is one thing that other ethnic groups haven’t had to face. The other thing is that the color became a stigma. American society made the black people’s skin color a stigma.

America freed the slaves in 1863 through the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln but gave the slaves no land, or nothing, in reality, as a matter of fact, to get started on. At the same time, America was giving away million of acres of land in the west and the mid-west which meant that there was a willingness to give the white peasants from Europe an economic base.

And yet it refused to give its black peasants from Africa, who came here involuntarily, in chains, and had worked free for 244 years any kind of economic base and so emancipation for the black person was really freedom to hunger.

It was freedom to the winds and rains. It was freedom without food to eat or land to cultivate and therefore it was freedom to famine at the same time. And when white Americans tell the black person to lift himself by his own bootstraps the don’t look over the legacy of slavery and segregation.

Now, I believe we ought to do all we can and seek to lift ourselves by our own bootstraps but it’s a cruel jest to say to a bootless person that one ought to lift himself by one’s own bootstraps. And many black people by the thousands and millions have been left bootless as a result of all of these years of oppression and as a result of a society that deliberately made its color a stigma and something worthless and degrading.