A thought experiment:
Let's say half of the population of the country is dying of a plague. There is a scientist who has a method, that
only he can perform, which will save all those people. If he refuses, or
stops once started, the people will die.
If that method includes killing the scientist, does the group have a right to force him to do it?
What if it involves the torture of the scientist for the rest of his long life?
What if they only have to imprison him for the rest of his life?
What if they only have to force him to work 12 hour days, 7 days /week for the rest of his life?
What about 8 hours/day?
What about 2 hours/day?
What if he only had to press a button once?
Does he have the right to refuse all together?
At what point does the imposition of the will of the masses, upon the individual, become slavery?
Whether or not he would voluntarily do these things is irrelevant. We are exploring his right to choose.
I submit that ANY
such imposition is slavery. The "common good" argument is just a rationalization to allow some degree of slavery in your society.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
An open letter to @twitter @support & Development
Dear Twitter Support & Development,
This letter is in regard to the increasing abuse of the "block and report for spam" function. It has become such a problem that at least two groups have sprung up to defend against the practice, #TGDN and #UniteBlue. Instead of requesting not to be contacted with posts with which the individual disagrees, or merely ignoring such posts, the trend has become to report the account of the individual for spam, when it is clearly not. Some accounts even actively draw others into conversations, with the aim of reporting them and getting those others suspended. This has got to stop.
Twitter has increasingly become an important venue for political expression. The ability of some to abuse the rules, to silence those with whom they disagree politically in such an important venue is not only damaging to political discourse as a whole, it damages the reputation of the Twitter brand, as people feel less free to express themselves, for fear of retaliation.
I have a few suggestions for features which will reduce the number of false reports & enable tweeps to express themselves freely, all while maintaining their ability to report true spammer accounts.
1) Limit the number of accounts that an individual can "report for spam". Let's say they get 2 "freebies" then they have to wait an hour, or fill out a captcha, to report another account.
2) Have the "report" button on the individual posts (not on the account), so a false report (abuse of reporting feature) will be obvious.
3) Add an "Ignore" feature, so that if you ignore someone, they cannot see any of your tweets, your lists, account, etc. nor can you see any of theirs. All you or they see is the avatar and a blank tweet. If you want to report for spam, you fill out a questionnaire. (This ignore feature would work much like /ignore from IRC.)
It is my hope that Twitter will begin to take the abuse of the reporting feature seriously so that everyone can have a more enjoyable twitter experience.
Thank you,
@copycat042
To others reading this, please RT and also copy the following & paste it in your TR, to draw Twitter's attention to it:
Open letter to @twitter @support on the abuse of Spam Reporting: http://tinyurl.com/a987upz
This letter is in regard to the increasing abuse of the "block and report for spam" function. It has become such a problem that at least two groups have sprung up to defend against the practice, #TGDN and #UniteBlue. Instead of requesting not to be contacted with posts with which the individual disagrees, or merely ignoring such posts, the trend has become to report the account of the individual for spam, when it is clearly not. Some accounts even actively draw others into conversations, with the aim of reporting them and getting those others suspended. This has got to stop.
Twitter has increasingly become an important venue for political expression. The ability of some to abuse the rules, to silence those with whom they disagree politically in such an important venue is not only damaging to political discourse as a whole, it damages the reputation of the Twitter brand, as people feel less free to express themselves, for fear of retaliation.
I have a few suggestions for features which will reduce the number of false reports & enable tweeps to express themselves freely, all while maintaining their ability to report true spammer accounts.
1) Limit the number of accounts that an individual can "report for spam". Let's say they get 2 "freebies" then they have to wait an hour, or fill out a captcha, to report another account.
2) Have the "report" button on the individual posts (not on the account), so a false report (abuse of reporting feature) will be obvious.
3) Add an "Ignore" feature, so that if you ignore someone, they cannot see any of your tweets, your lists, account, etc. nor can you see any of theirs. All you or they see is the avatar and a blank tweet. If you want to report for spam, you fill out a questionnaire. (This ignore feature would work much like /ignore from IRC.)
It is my hope that Twitter will begin to take the abuse of the reporting feature seriously so that everyone can have a more enjoyable twitter experience.
Thank you,
@copycat042
To others reading this, please RT and also copy the following & paste it in your TR, to draw Twitter's attention to it:
Open letter to @twitter @support on the abuse of Spam Reporting: http://tinyurl.com/a987upz
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)