An argument so cliche, it has its own Wikipedia page[1]. In the US, we currently have a presidential candidate from a major party threatening harm to people based on their political, social, and biological qualities, which outsiders often determine by inference from data such as who people are in contact with and where they travel. Further, I would argue the need for individual privacy is innate in humans; as every child matures they find a need to do things without their parents over their shoulder, even without their peers, no matter how innocent the activity and it is a need that does not vanish in adulthood. We generally agree that things like removing bedroom doors as punishment is abusive because it robs the person of privacy. The same goes for installing monitoring software on your partner's phone, or a GPS tracker on their car. Privacy means we are able to be ourselves without our lives being scrutinized, criticized, judged, rated, shamed, blamed, or defamed by every person on the street. I close the door when I defecate, I draw the blinds when I copulate, I don't tell people my passwords, and I don't scan my grocery receipt to earn points because there are some things other people don't need to know.
Lol. So who does "deserve" privacy your highness? I'm guessing you do at the very least since you seem so judgemental on those with an "incessant, insatiable need to broadcast their lives 24/7" - which you presumably do not.
You're pretty judgy and seem incapable of even conceptualising a nuanced position on this topic. And your take on Assange, Snowden and Appelbaum is clearly first order trolling.
Unless you forgot the /s at the end of your whole comment.
>For example, people spent hours exploring wikipedia, this could never be done with physical paper.
I must not understand what you're saying here. I'm envisioning someone reading an article, seeing a reference to something unfamiliar, then stopping to read another article in a nearby source about that thing or any other random topic, recursing for hours. This is easily done, and often was by children a few decades ago, with any encyclopedia set.
> This is easily done ... with any encyclopedia set
I get your point, the problem is that, a good set of encyclopedia is NOT available to every household everytime, it takes lots of space and storage. You can't go to a park with a set of encyclopedia, on the other hand, an iPad with offline wikipedia, navigating by clicking links is much, much easier than stacking many, many opened books on your fixed desk.
In study sessions in school I would sometimes look things up by thinking "it was on the lower left about this far into the book." I remember studies done years ago that showed reading a physical book improved memory and learning due to the geometry and positioning reinforcing the neural paths, and anecdotally that was definitely the case for me. I don't think I'm hallucinating them, this article cites several studies that support that. Anyone who suggests PDFs are just as good "because they have pages" is missing the point - they aren't physical objects, and that matters.
Incredible! Songs in the Key of X was the only album I ever knew to do this, and it wasn't even the first. I had no idea so many others did the same thing.
Edit: Son of a *, I've had a copy of Sister Machine Gun's Burn for almost 30 years and never knew there was a hidden track!
Classic X-Files album is the one I think of too. And how they hinted to everyone that there even was a hidden track on the sleeve: "'0' is also a number". (and the technical fineprint about the disc possibly not being Redbook compliant)
Seconding System76. I bought one for my wife after HP and Dell refurbs failed to be stable for her, so instead of trying to find a reasonably priced (<$800) business-class laptop we blew the budget on a $1500 Pangolin that's done well by her for several years.
My daily driver is a desktop because I'm an old fart that likes to build computers (with optical disc drives!), but I have a truly ancient HP Elitebook refurb with a dented lid that still takes care of me on vacation. Neither of us do anything fancier than use an HDMI projector with them so we're not asking for much. It really stung to be compiling Realtek modules for the HP only for it to crash every week and the Latitude to have a disappearing sound card, even for budget refurbs.
Why not consider it alive? The same with the fires mentioned in other comments. In The Andromeda Strain (the novel, don't remember if it's in the film as well), there's a scene where the characters are trying to determine a single quality they can look for that signifies life. They come up with energy conversion, and they do consider luminescent watch hands and geologic formations. It's been a long time since I read it, I don't recall them ending with back-patting and "mission accomplished" cheers, but the point of the scene wasn't to make a definite answer for the readers nor the characters - it was that when you're looking for life, perhaps your definition of "life" will need expanded. So why do we need a definition that absolutely includes This, and absolutely excludes That and The Other? What if we settle on a definition and found out it does apply to The Other, why must we change the definition instead of changing how we categorize The Other? Both are adjusting our model to fit new evidence. Why be so determined that Life Must Be Like Us And No Other?
Generally with life we require some form of replication or it would quickly go extinct. Now, if you add in a 3D printer/assembler to the aforementioned solar-panel/battery the loop is getting rather complete for something to be considered life.
Oh that's good, I like that one! But a counterpoint for fun: weather is a system. I wonder if we can find a rule that seems sane but would classify an inert gas as alive? Imagine defining life and someone rebuts with "Argon."
An argument so cliche, it has its own Wikipedia page[1]. In the US, we currently have a presidential candidate from a major party threatening harm to people based on their political, social, and biological qualities, which outsiders often determine by inference from data such as who people are in contact with and where they travel. Further, I would argue the need for individual privacy is innate in humans; as every child matures they find a need to do things without their parents over their shoulder, even without their peers, no matter how innocent the activity and it is a need that does not vanish in adulthood. We generally agree that things like removing bedroom doors as punishment is abusive because it robs the person of privacy. The same goes for installing monitoring software on your partner's phone, or a GPS tracker on their car. Privacy means we are able to be ourselves without our lives being scrutinized, criticized, judged, rated, shamed, blamed, or defamed by every person on the street. I close the door when I defecate, I draw the blinds when I copulate, I don't tell people my passwords, and I don't scan my grocery receipt to earn points because there are some things other people don't need to know.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument#Criti...
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