Seems like you're only thinking of one piece of the puzzle, which your Android phone sending RCS thanks to a carrier allowing you to. Doesn't address this part of the problem:
> "Even if Google could magically roll out RCS everywhere, it's a poor standard to build a messaging platform on because it is dependent on a carrier phone bill. It's anti-Internet and can't natively work on webpages, PCs, smartwatches, and tablets, because those things don't have SIM cards. The carriers designed RCS, so RCS puts your carrier bill at the center of your online identity, even when free identification methods like email exist and work on more devices. Google is just promoting carrier lock-in as a solution to Apple lock-in."
> Google is just promoting carrier lock-in as a solution to Apple lock-in.
But, there is no "carrier lock-in" (at least not in the USA). In the USA, carriers are legally required to allow users to port numbers to and from any carrier thus creating competition rather than lock-in.
With iMessage, you must commit to doing business with one company as long as you use the service. That is vendor lock-in and is what Google is complaining about. With RCS, there is no one company that you must do business with to continue using they service.
porting numbers is a royal PITA with some carriers. "legal" and "usable" are worlds apart, and the cost of screwing up a number port is potentially gigantic.
Porting numbers from one carrier to another is always possible (even it is "a royal PITA"). However, if I want to switch away from Apple, I will immediately lose the ability to use iMessage entirely. It is not just a PITA, it is completely impossible to switch providers when using iMessage.
That's a fair point that I hadn't considered. I agree that's a negative, but for me, personally, I don't consider it a showstopper. I do get that other people might, though, and am understanding of that position.
On the flip side, most people using RCS would otherwise be using an @gmail.com address as their identity if that was how it worked. I'd say that's probably better than the carrier owning the identity, but it's still not ideal.
The underlying question here is: Should Facebook be forced to obey the government of a country in which it operates or be an agent for US values and ignore the government of any specific country in which it operates.
I don't think there's a simple answer here and the default should likely be 'listen to government, regardless of how terrible they are' because we want to respect other countries' sovereignty as we want our sovereignty respected.
"US values" aren't the issue. It's Facebook values, whatever they chose to be.
Here in the US we have battles over whether to cooperate with and enable the US government (military and immigration are two obvious flareup points, as is all the free speech and privacy protections that require a warrant to overcome.)
When an issue is a matter of "US values", the US government can step in and give Facebook an order or engage with the enemy directly.
I wholeheartedly disagree. No matter how terrible? Seriously? What if an oppressive government asks for a list of religious minorities? A list of people with with certain medical conditions?
Funnily enough if you asked certain parts of the U.S govt it's very likely they would say: "obey local laws, just make sure you keep operating".
Facebook can provide a valuable "window" for figuring out what's going on inside a country, will have some (probably small?) direct intelligence value, and provides a potential (not proven...) platform for influence operations. We can only speculate on _exactly_ how friendly Facebook is with the three letter agencies but they are very unlikely to be "estranged". In-Q-Tel know potential when they see it.
The behaviour of U.S. platforms overseas tends to make more sense if you ignore U.S. values for a moment and consider U.S. _interests_.
The alternative is of course replacement by a homegrown service or, more likely, one from a rival nation. There's no outcome where human rights win.
Respecting sovereignty and supporting dictators in maintaining power are separate things. One does not imply the other.
Our 401Ks are not amoral tools. They provide necessary resources that companies use to grow. A publicly traded company in our country should not be allowed to support oppression, genocide, exploitation, and other violations of human rights anywhere. If we allow it, we are all complicit in crushing the lives of others. We are culpable for their suffering.
> In the field of modern business, so rich in opportunity for the exercise of man's finest and most varied mental faculties and moral qualities, mere money-making cannot be regarded as the legitimate end. Neither can mere growth of bulk or power be admitted as a worthy ambition. Nor can a man nobly mindful of his serious responsibilities to society view business as a game; since with the conduct of business human happiness or misery is inextricably interwoven. -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. "Business — The New Profession", La Follette's Weekly Magazine, Volume 4, No. 47 (November 23, 1912), p. 7.
The right, just, moral, and American thing for Facebook to do is to treat Vietnamese people the same way they treat western people. Ban people who abuse the reporting system. Ban folks that dox others. Push back against unreasonable government demands. Provide comprehensive privacy features for vulnerable folks, with local-language instructions and how-to videos. Facebook would quickly get banned in many places and the company would make less money. This hasn't happened yet because of the greed and callousness of Facebook's leaders, the greed and cowardice of Facebook's employees, and the U.S. doctrine of shareholder primacy.
>Respecting sovereignty and supporting dictators in maintaining power are separate things. One does not imply the other.
A lot of sovereign states are run by dictators. How could those things not be intertwined?
> Our 401Ks are not amoral tools.
401ks are an elective retirement tool. Nobody is forced to use one. Even better, if there is such a market for something akin to "fair trade" investment, I bet such a thing exists or you could start one.
Most people focus in returns instead of morals, what do you do?
Might be a specific issue for this restaurant. Tried googling several restaurants in SF that are open at the moment and the link from google to the delivery company goes directly to a page for that restaurant, not a generic page for the type of food.
I might be simplifying too much, but I would be surprised if more remote work didn't catch on. A decentralized workforce is easier to control in some aspects that are incredibly attractive to corporate leaders.
Fewer spontaneous and f2f interactions between people makes it easier to:
1) Ensure folks are focusing primarily on work instead of anything else associated with being a part of a company
2) All hierarchical decisions (promoting / not promoting) can be done without much personal interaction so turns employees more into school children where grades on certain things determine moving up or not
3) Easier to fire folks if you don’t get as close to them and if they’re not right there in front of you
Not advantageous for small/mid-size companies with strong cultures. Advantageous for small/mid-size co’s with weak cultures. Large companies obviously benefit, surprised more don’t go remote.
Agreed - I do miss the days of Netflix's star ratings. I would be able to browse content I wouldn't necessarily be drawn to, but would consume anyway because, 'oh wow - tons of people gave it a great rating.'
I get why they've moved to 'this content matches [x%] to your tastes', but I'm watching similar stuff over and over again without any insight into whether other content is also good, unless I want to spend hours pouring through IMBD and Rotten Tomatoes.
> "And the best thing reading philosophy teaches to the non-academician is how to think with structure and method, avoiding dogma and bias, and embracing scepticism. Reading the dialogues has changed my life entirely because of that."
Completely agree - I find my philosophy degree being most useful in what you've laid out and also in empathizing (or at least understanding) with what someone else is saying, especially if that person is bad at communication or cannot express themselves as clearly as they'd like.
The older philosophers tended to take the reader on a mental journey / through a mental exercise, and not always a clear one, so you're forced to extrapolate what's important from what seems to be nonsensical stream of consciousness.
I come across folks at work all the time who can't really explain what they're saying, but I'm able to extrapolate based off a few key words / phrases. It's a valuable skill for product discovery / design.
Caveat here is that one can develop the above skills without philosophy so it's not a requirement to read old philosophers, but rather one path among many.
I don't know if the need to have the entire program written out is most important.
The best candidates I've hired show aptitude to ask the right questions and, in return, ask probing questions about what led to our decisions, have we thought of [x], this is how [x] might work, what about [y] competitor or space within our industry, etc...
The most memorable interviews I've come out of / been a part of are the ones in which the candidate leaves me thinking or scratching my head about why we're doing what we're doing and whether they'd be a great fit to help us achieve our goals.
This is all from a product management perspective so might not be the same across the board.
Had a similar experience while taking a break from studying. Picked a random row of books only to realize it was entirely dedicated to genital reconstruction and sex-changes. Being in college, my curiosity was piqued. I may never unsee some of the pictures in those books.
This isn't surprising because humans will do what they're incentivized to do (speaking mainly in a professional setting here).
Might be effective to add a measure to the transparency that shows something to the effect of, "likelihood to perform life-saving and risky procedures." Therefore a high win-loss with a lower risk threshold would be weighted lower than a so-so win-loss with a higher risk threshold.
1) Docs using it to double check themselves before diagnosing patients, thereby, hopefully, limiting their liability.
2) Patients getting second opinions from Deep Patient and suing the previous doc for not catching a disease.
3) Patient getting diagnosed at a very late stage of an illness and patient + family thinking earlier docs should've caught disease. Hire lawyer, lawyer runs through Deep Patient simulation, Deep Patient identifies illness, DP identification used to prosecute earlier docs. I guess kinda like 2.
> "Even if Google could magically roll out RCS everywhere, it's a poor standard to build a messaging platform on because it is dependent on a carrier phone bill. It's anti-Internet and can't natively work on webpages, PCs, smartwatches, and tablets, because those things don't have SIM cards. The carriers designed RCS, so RCS puts your carrier bill at the center of your online identity, even when free identification methods like email exist and work on more devices. Google is just promoting carrier lock-in as a solution to Apple lock-in."