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Dev.SN ♥ developers

posted by LaminatorX on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'm-so-meta-even-this-acronym dept.

jcd writes:

"I'm rather excited to get going with Soylent and to watch it grow. Nay, help it grow. I have lurked in /. for more than a decade (note: I'm not the same username over there, I know, how sneaky), and always wished I could have been involved with the beginning. So this is a great opportunity, and I joined as soon as I saw what Soylent was doing. Not to mention the fact that I felt right at home with the old style. It's very comfortable.

So here's a question for everyone. Are we going to be the same as slashdot? A clone that focuses as entirely as possible on tech related news? Or will we branch out to other topics? I'm interested to see either way. I posted a comment to this effect in one of our two existing polls, and it may be a community-wide assumption, but I do think it merits a discussion."

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Angry Jesus on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:24PM

    by Angry Jesus (182) on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:24PM (#3903)

    5-digit /. uid here too and as I get older the more important I think the social and political stuff becomes. I'm not talking about the typical nightly news about society or even the sunday morning wonk talk show politics. I mean the intersection of tech and society in general.

    More and more tech sets the parameters of society and politics. Drones killing wouldn't be happening if it weren't for advanced comm systems and computers fast enough and small enough to make them semi-autonomous. License plate scanners wouldn't be a threat if it weren't for Big Data. The NSA wouldn't have been living out their biggest wet dream ever if it weren't for the internet.

    The technical stuff we do has serious repercussions on the world at large and we should be talking about it because simply leaving it up to "the people in charge" doesn't eliminate our moral responsibilities.

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:11PM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:11PM (#3985)

    Agree with just about every thing you say.
    Mankind can't seem to help himself from building skynet one piece at at time.

    However, since we can all pretty much agree there has proven to be no significant difference between Tweedledee and Tweedledum arguments about raw politics are simply pointless.

    --
    Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:36PM (#4006)

    As someone who was spoken at events previously regarding DRM in HTML5 at my local LUG, as well as privacy issues online during SFD 2013, I have to second this.

    I got into technology originally because it was fun, but now the social and political aspects are perhaps even more important to me.

    Posting as AC because I'm at work and don't have my SN account password here with me.

  • (Score: 1) by TheLink on Friday February 21 2014, @03:35AM

    by TheLink (332) on Friday February 21 2014, @03:35AM (#4151)
    Yeah. Same goes for the other sciences. A lot of people seem to be doing things just because:
    1) It can be done
    2) They need to publish
    3) They need $$$

    Few seem to consider whether they really should do a particular thing from a longer term point of view.

    For instance - human-animal hybrids or "Really Strong AIs". Is society even ready to decide which hybrids get the same rights and responsibilities as a human? What percent and how do you determine the percentage? It's all very easy to yell "luddite" but many of us have played those "Civ" style games - we have limited resources and time, there are plenty of other "tech trees" (and arguably more helpful tech trees) we could do first till society gets more ready or it becomes irrelevant (we "Ascend" or go extinct due to some other thing).

    One day some bright spark may produce the "Cheap Big Red Button That Does Great Stuff But Kills Almost Everyone If You Press It Wrong" and society might not have reached the point where nobody will ever press it wrong. With Great Power comes Great Responsibility and all that, but giving everyone great power before they can use it responsibly is a recipe for disaster. No such thing? The research into creating dangerous viruses is one.

    Some say "If I don't do it, someone else will", to that I say "if you don't do it now, at least it buys us a bit more time till someone else does", and history has examples where it can sometimes take a few decades before someone else does it and even more till it gets widespread.
  • (Score: 1) by TheRaven on Friday February 21 2014, @05:26AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Friday February 21 2014, @05:26AM (#4182) Journal
    I think the problem with the other place was not that they had the Politics and YRO sections, but that they broke the filtering. I want to see those stories, but a lot of people don't. I'd like them to be opt-in, so if you come here, don't log in and don't go to the politics subdomain, you don't see them. If you log in and don't explicitly enable them, you don't see them.
    --
    sudo mod me up