[HN Gopher] Banned journalism housed in virtual Minecraft archit...
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Banned journalism housed in virtual Minecraft architecture (2022)
Author : cratermoon
Score : 163 points
Date : 2023-07-20 15:32 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (99percentinvisible.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (99percentinvisible.org)
| [deleted]
| mcpackieh wrote:
| I visited this server a year or two ago and tbqh I think it's
| more about the library building (a very large and impressive
| build) then the contents of the library. The library building so
| so huge you can spend several minutes walking from one book to
| the other. If it were just about distributing the books through
| minecraft they could have created a much more compact library
| where all the books are within convenient reaching distance.
|
| Basically it's more of an art installation than it is a serious
| censorship circumvention tool. Still neat for what it is I guess.
| [deleted]
| last_responder wrote:
| >Basically it's more of an art installation than it is a
| serious censorship circumvention tool. Still neat for what it
| is I guess.
|
| Why cant it be both?
| hot_gril wrote:
| Reminds me of the UC Berkeley Minecraft server, where they
| recreated the entire campus during the boredom of 2020. Maybe
| they could put real books inside Main Stacks.
| [deleted]
| ninja-ninja wrote:
| the weirdest title in the history of time
| peepeepoopoo20 wrote:
| [flagged]
| LoganDark wrote:
| the sheer overuse of scare-quotes in this article turned me away
| from it almost immediately. do you really have to quote the word
| 'items' as if it's that much of a foreign, unprecedented concept
| verall wrote:
| It's just distinguishing what is in-game for legacy audiences
| it's not scaring anybody
| LoganDark wrote:
| > it's not scaring anybody
|
| i don't use the term 'scare-quotes' to mean "to scare
| people", but rather because that's actually what the practice
| is called
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes
| verall wrote:
| I know what a scare quote is, and their implication could
| be to "scare" like calling someone "an artist" or saying
| that you made a "good comment".
|
| But the article isn't trying to imply skepticism or
| disclaim particular words, it's just trying to distinguish
| what is in-game for people who don't know what minecraft
| is.
| LoganDark wrote:
| maybe it was slightly too subtle for me to have used
| single quotes in my comment and not pointed it out. in
| this case they would have been more appropriate
|
| it's entirely likely this was just a formatting mistake,
| but it still feels "off" enough for me to get
| uncomfortable and stop reading
| pessimizer wrote:
| If you're using the word 'item' to describe a data
| structure in minecraft, you're not using it in the
| traditional way, you're using it in a technical way.
| LoganDark wrote:
| i think it's perfectly reasonable for them to have used
| double-quotes for 'chests' because that _is_ a very
| gaming-specific item (perhaps not minecraft-specific-
| _looks at every dungeon crawler_ ).
|
| however, something being a data structure or not doesn't
| really matter when 'items' means exactly what you would
| expect it to mean within minecraft, especially when said
| item is a book!
| hot_gril wrote:
| People who don't play video games don't know what an item is in
| a video game.
| londonReed wrote:
| Really? I have a hard time believing that. The concept has
| been around since the 80's, if not before then. Should we be
| putting scare quotes around the word "Mouse" when we use it
| to refer to a computer mouse because it's not a literal
| animal mouse?
| hot_gril wrote:
| There are probably way more people familiar with computer
| mice than video games.
| LoganDark wrote:
| that's like saying people who don't use computers won't
| understand that text is in a computer even though it has the
| same meaning as, say, text in a book
| hot_gril wrote:
| Item in plain English means basically anything that can be
| counted, usually something small. Item in a video game
| usually means something players can pick up, maybe use, and
| drop, as opposed to something that's part of the
| environment. Item in Minecraft has a technical meaning,
| basically anything that can go into a hopper inventory, as
| opposed to particles, blocks, mobs, stuck arrows, other
| entities...
| LoganDark wrote:
| saying there is an item called a book in minecraft will
| not go over the average person's head
| tivert wrote:
| > "The criteria for inclusion is handled by Reporters Without
| Borders, which ensures the library's content is accurate,
| truthful, and sensitive," reports Cian Mahar.
|
| Whenever I see a project like this, I have to ask: what kinds of
| true things are censored from the "uncensored library"?
|
| > But even where almost all media is blocked or controlled, the
| world's most successful computer game is still accessible.
| Reporters Without Borders (RSF) uses this loophole to bypass
| internet censorship to bring back the truth - within Minecraft."
|
| For how long? They used to say the same thing about the internet
| itself.
| hot_gril wrote:
| At least now a country has to ban Minecraft to ban those books,
| or force MC to drop its encryption and invent a very obscure
| Minecraft packet inspection technique that players will more
| easily circumvent some other way.
| gorwell wrote:
| "sensitive" as a criteria is a dead giveaway they are censors
| advertising themselves as the opposite. It's an evolved brand
| of censor; like some types of predator snakes that have evolved
| to mimic its harmless prey.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Feel free to back up this assertion with examples. I hope
| you'll come back with something better than 'I couldn't find
| anything about Hunter Biden's laptop.'
| gorwell wrote:
| Feel free to explain why an "uncensored library" would have
| this criteria.
| itronitron wrote:
| time and money
| LoganDark wrote:
| having criteria for inclusion is not censorship
| DinoDad13 wrote:
| that's all moderation
| LoganDark wrote:
| i fail to explain how they differ so you are probably
| right
| tivert wrote:
| > having criteria for inclusion is not censorship
|
| So if the State of Florida sets a criteria for inclusion
| for it's library collections of "not gay," then it's not
| censorship in your mind?
|
| "Criteria for inclusion" and "censorship" are the _exact
| same thing_ , the only difference between them is how the
| _speaker_ feels about it.
| LoganDark wrote:
| i'm not performing censorship by selecting which files i
| download from the internet, am i?
|
| > "Criteria for inclusion" and "censorship" are the exact
| same thing, the only difference between them is how the
| speaker feels about it.
|
| yes, this is very important, which is exactly why a
| library like this selecting which works to include is not
| censorship. now if people intentionally submitted their
| own works and the library tried to hide or deny the
| existence of those requests, now that would be censorship
|
| i think state libraries are in a slightly different
| situation. it is definitely fuzzy though
| tivert wrote:
| > i'm not performing censorship by selecting which files
| i download from the internet, am i?
|
| Yes, because that's an irrelevant activity to this topic.
|
| > yes, this is very important, which is exactly why a
| library like this selecting which works to include is not
| censorship.
|
| At least in contemporary liberal culture, words like
| "censorship" and "ban" are frequently used to label
| "criteria for inclusion" that the speaker disagrees with.
|
| > now if people intentionally submitted their own works
| and the library tried to hide or deny the existence of
| those requests, now that would be censorship
|
| That's _one kind_ of censorship, but not the only kind
| (see above).
| pessimizer wrote:
| Are you sure? Doesn't it depend on the criteria? What if
| my criteria is that the author not be Catholic, or that
| they aren't competing with my son in the pork industry?
| LoganDark wrote:
| that depends on whether your definition of censorship is
| the prevention of speech or prevention of _dissemination_
| of speech, whether books count as speech, whether
| choosing to include existing books in a library counts as
| speech
|
| i think it's fairly common knowledge that preventing the
| publishing of a book in the first place probably counts
| as censorship, but considering the nature of this library
| it becomes pretty fuzzy
| anigbrowl wrote:
| You made the claim. I suggest you back it up instead of
| trying to redirect. Lots of propaganda tries to wrap
| itself in the moral mantle of journalism, I am fine with
| the curators being somewhat opinionated.
| Levitz wrote:
| Do you require examples of this library specifically or
| general examples of this happening?
|
| If you are ok with general, the cases of Monkeypox not that
| long ago are an evident example. The reality of the matter
| is that it affected almost exclusively homosexual men, yet
| since that would have hurt LGBT sensitivities, it was often
| omitted and even campaigned against.
| dmbche wrote:
| Spent a few minutes looking into "monkeypox"
|
| It's a illness coming from a virus.
|
| Don't understand why homosexuals are related in any way
| to censorship here....
|
| (Edit: for anyone interested : https://glaad.org/mpox/
|
| The censoring is nowhere to be seen
|
| Edit2:https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/16/opinion/gay-men-
| mpox.html
|
| Like what do you even mean? What was censored? )
|
| Maybe find a solid example?
| pessimizer wrote:
| > I hope you'll come back with something better than 'I
| couldn't find anything about Hunter Biden's laptop.'
|
| Why wouldn't that be good enough?
| dmbche wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_contr
| ove...
|
| How is something that has a wikipedia page censored in
| any way?
| brightlancer wrote:
| Exactly. Where is the line between "curation" (or "moderation"
| in discussions) and "censorship"? If the line is subjective,
| how do we handle disagreements on that?
|
| Even supposed objective measurements such as "Is this factually
| true?" can fail because we aren't omniscient, we learn new
| things and realize what was "true" yesterday is actually false,
| and sometimes an authority keeps telling us something is "true"
| and anyone who dissents is "moderated" and "curated" into
| effective silence.
|
| I would trust Reporters Without Borders more than most, but
| maybe that's because their biases align with mine and I don't
| object to their censorship.
| itronitron wrote:
| >> Where is the line between "curation" (or "moderation" in
| discussions) and "censorship"?
|
| They don't have authority to 'censor' anything, so what they
| choose to include is their choice as curators.
|
| If I have a bookshelf in my office that is full of banned
| books, then any banned book not on my bookshelf isn't banned
| by me.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Reality requires bias.
|
| Without bias and interpretation omniscients is required. A
| human mind does not have the luxury of knowing everything. We
| have limited compute power, and limited time. Furthermore our
| systems only have capabilities for limited data. We have to
| filter against junk or our systems get overwhelmed, but
| deciding what is junk is also a bias.
|
| The best we can do is state our biases, and design our
| systems to reflect or biases properly. If others don't like
| those biases they are free to create their own systems that
| reflect their biases.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Bias is only necessary for editorialization or conjecture
| regarding another's intent. Facts are facts, though
| omission of facts is also an issue..
| pixl97 wrote:
| >Facts are facts, though omission of facts is also an
| issue.
|
| Because you are a human, the 'facts' you acknowledge are
| anthropomorphic. We align our filtering of facts to the
| scales at which humans and society operates. When we
| change the scale of what we consider to be fact, then
| quite often what we consider to be a fact is really just
| an interpretation of events based on the perspective of
| the observer. Reality exists in a state of thermodynamic
| truth, that is if we could reverse the arrow of time you
| arrive at exactly one state at whichever slice of time.
|
| "Facts" as told by humans do not work this way the vast
| majority of the time. They are incomplete observations of
| a system using incomplete information. Time reversal of
| human facts can lead to situations where multiple
| starting states can lead to the same factual finding.
| Causality is uncertain without searching for even more
| facts, those facts which have been lost to thermodynamic
| scattering, leading us back to interpretation.
|
| Bias is absolutely necessary to operate on a human scale.
| ElectricalUnion wrote:
| > Bias is only necessary for editorialization or
| conjecture regarding another's intent.
|
| I'm gonna assume you're taking a hard science approach to
| bias, then:
|
| It is statistically non-plausible to observe all facts in
| the universe, so the facts you can observe suffer from
| the selection bias fact sampling error.
|
| Bias is required in any useful model of the universe to
| explain the difference between the expected and the
| observed.
|
| Even assuming a non-plausible, accurate model with no
| biases whatsoever, such model is very likely to require
| high variance to encompass all fact observations and
| models with too much variance are useless.
| tracker1 wrote:
| So the observed never happened? If the observed was
| recorded from many angles, did it happen then?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I agree with your statement in the theoretical. However I
| disagree in practice because of this:
|
| > If others don't like those biases they are free to create
| their own systems that reflect their biases.
|
| Those who create alternatives are attacked, chased, banned,
| deplatformed. Even if a webhost is happy to work with you,
| the credit card network may not be or their bank may ban
| them.
|
| Not that the signal doesn't find a way - the good work of
| Anna's archive and all that - but it's not just "go build
| your own platform". It becomes "fight at every turn for
| your basic existence".
| pixl97 wrote:
| The existence of society demands this in practice. This
| is how humanity has worked at least since the beginning
| of agriculture, and likely long before that. Step out of
| line too far, and someone caves your head in. At best we
| can hope for is that the rock holder is accepting, and
| not a fascist.
|
| You will find that it is impossible to create a society
| that does not exist in this manner. Since a society that
| accepts everybody also means it accepts people that don't
| accept everyone by means of violence, hence destroying a
| society that accepts everyone.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| You're conflating actual violence and "viewpoints I
| dislike".
|
| Yes every society will resort to vigilantism to protect
| itself in the absence of a policing power.
|
| But death threats to someone because they made a tweet
| you disagree with or abusing your power as a bank to
| control speech isn't about protecting yourself from
| violence - though that excuse is often used.
|
| It's a form of denial, of shutting down uncomfortable
| debate. It's an ideological sort of end, like a dictator
| who has a pathological need to execute his critics. The
| "inner ring" of acceptable opinions grows ever smaller -
| it has to. It's not about making the world better, it's
| about attacking outsiders and the beast always needs new
| outsiders.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >But death threats to someone because they made a tweet
| you disagree with or abusing your power as a bank to
| control speech isn't about protecting yourself from
| violence -
|
| It's about causing violence. It's no different than "You
| happened to say something against our religious book,
| don't do it again or you'll get hurt".
|
| Outsiders are a useful target because sometimes they are
| also the monster. This is the effect of existing in a
| reality with uncertainty. Accept everyone uncritically
| and you may be attacked by those you accept, this leads
| to fear, that fear is then manipulated by those that want
| power. There is no solution here, there is only the
| attempt to balance between malicious outsiders and
| malicious insiders.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The market of ideas fails under capitalism. The market of
| ideas is denominated in votes, but capitalism requires it
| to be denominated in dollars. The market of ideas also
| fails under governments and corporations who pay
| thousands of people to work covertly and overtly to
| eradicate ideas.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| The problem isn't Capitalism. In Capitalism we can simply
| buy our services and anyone who can fund can play.
|
| What is happening when a bank refuses to do business with
| someone, when App stores ban a twitter clone and prevent
| sideloading, is not Capitalism. It's ideological. It's
| about service to an end outside just capital.
|
| Capitalism is the only system that freedom of speech can
| exist under. No Communist or Socialist author has ever
| entertained a freedom of speech concept - it is contrary
| to a centralized government. Such systems can not even
| handle mild political dissent and must (both in the
| theoretical and practical) literally kill or exile anyone
| pushing against the central authority.
|
| Capitalism can always tolerate disagreement because
| disagreement is profitable.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >Capitalism can always tolerate disagreement because
| disagreement is profitable.
|
| Eh, that depends. The US in particular like to 'two
| party' problems. Capitalism loves two sides in problems,
| but that is very problematic if a problem is multi-polar
| and not bi-polar.
|
| You're also confusing socialist/communist with
| authoritarian. Capitalist systems are completely fine
| with being authoritarian if its profitable.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "No Communist or Socialist author has ever entertained a
| freedom of speech concept "
|
| Maybe you have heard of Animal Farm or 1984, written by
| George Orwell?
|
| Or do you think, he wrote those books to endorse the
| concept?
| pixl97 wrote:
| No authoritarian has entertained a concept of freedom of
| speech. Just so you're aware, yes, capitalist can be
| authoritarian too.
| lmm wrote:
| The point is the converse: socialism can be liberal too,
| as exemplified by Orwell.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I don't get your point, do you claim Orwell is authorian
| and anti free speach?
| guy98238710 wrote:
| > Reality requires bias.
|
| There's only one reality.
|
| > We have limited compute power, and limited time.
|
| Simplified models of reality don't need to be biased.
| Unless you consider every viewpoint to be a kind of bias,
| which is really stretching the term.
| brightlancer wrote:
| > Unless you consider every viewpoint to be a kind of
| bias,
|
| Yes.
|
| > which is really stretching the term.
|
| No.
|
| There is an objective reality which we can only perceive
| subjective. We then get together as groups and agree upon
| what we're going to call "true", building upon what we've
| previously agreed was "true". This is bias.
|
| But not all agreed "true" are equally accurate! Not all
| biases are as subjective as others.
|
| So we can (and IMO should) recognize that we're all
| biased and we're all subjectively interpreting the
| objective reality, without embracing some kind of
| fatalism or post-modern idea that all subjective
| interpretations are equally valid.
| atlantic wrote:
| If reality can only be perceived through a subjective
| lens, then that is the only reality there is. Reality as
| something independent of any observer is just a fantasy.
| And if you think about it, it's actually meaningless.
| guy98238710 wrote:
| > There is an objective reality which we can only
| perceive subjective.
|
| Observation is not inherently subjective though. The
| defining quality of objective reality is that it leads to
| shared, repeatable observations.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Repeatable observations typically simplify assumptions to
| achieve stability in face of combinatorial explosions. We
| gain statistical insight on the probability something is
| true in particular conditions, not that something is an
| absolute truth.
|
| For example, if you take someone in the medical sciences
| when it comes to pharmaceutical treatment if they don't
| tell you there are wide ranging statistical truths that
| are difficult to apply to individuals, then they are a
| bad scientist.
|
| Systems complexity leads to subjectivity due to feedback
| loops inside the system itself. Think of deeply nested IF
| statements customized for a particular application, but
| no one bothers to give you the source code.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >There's only one reality.
|
| You're almost, but not quite there....
|
| That one reality is what I call thermodynamic truth. Now
| any time someone brings up thermodynamics other
| statements like arrow of time show up and other issues
| with informational incompleteness become problems.
|
| Simplified models of reality can quickly collapse in
| uncertainty in complex situations. Lets say an explosion
| and subsequent fire at a factory. The people working on
| the device that exploded where killed, so we only have
| second hand information on what they where doing. The
| fire was especially intense so the device expected of
| causing the explosion was melted completely and only
| mixed slag remains. The machine was made in the 1950s so
| other forms of entropy have been involved on information
| on the metals used in the machine.
|
| There is no simple model of reality that can tell you
| what occurred with certainty in situations like this. The
| additional entropy from the fire creates a situation
| where many possible input situations lead to the same
| output situation.
|
| We see this kind of entropy in social situations. The
| game of telephone is a good example of this. You start
| with "X5W1" and end up with "EXU1" after a few steps and
| everyone along the way would tell you thats exactly what
| they heard.
|
| >Unless you consider every viewpoint to be a kind of
| bias, which is really stretching the term
|
| Not stretching the term at all. Biases exist at all
| levels, physical processes and mental processes, human
| and inhuman.
| guy98238710 wrote:
| > Simplified models of reality can quickly collapse in
| uncertainty in complex situations. Lets say an explosion
| and subsequent fire at a factory. The people working on
| the device that exploded where killed, so we only have
| second hand information on what they where doing. The
| fire was especially intense so the device expected of
| causing the explosion was melted completely and only
| mixed slag remains. The machine was made in the 1950s so
| other forms of entropy have been involved on information
| on the metals used in the machine.
|
| If I cover an apple with a cup before you have time to
| look at it, the apple does not disappear nor is there any
| alternate reality with pear under the cup. It's just a
| blank space in your knowledge, which you are free to fill
| with any bias-free probabilistic model.
| trelane wrote:
| > Whenever I see a project like this, I have to ask: what kinds
| of true things are censored from the "uncensored library"?
|
| I was curious about this as well.
|
| The "criteria for inclusion" link takes you to a page on
| "weeding:" https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/weeding-is-
| fundamenta...
|
| It describes the _process_ (a few different ones, MUSTY, green
| /yellow/red) but not a lot of concrete facts (what books were
| "weeded" or which books were suggested but not purchased.)
| hot_gril wrote:
| There isn't going to be an exact process. The answer is, they
| say so, and someone else can make his own library if he
| doesn't like their choices.
| golemiprague wrote:
| [dead]
| starkparker wrote:
| (2022)
|
| I remember when publicity stunts like this would ship in Second
| Life. The more things change...
| dmbche wrote:
| I'm reminded of the people that were chatting in MW2 games by
| writing on the walls with bullet holes!
| itronitron wrote:
| It's common for players on minecraft to take turns placing
| signs next to each other if they want to have a 'private'
| conversation with another player (which is handy in some
| competitive game modes), and I've also seen muted players name
| their pets in-game with messages that they want to communicate.
| slow_typist wrote:
| The kids are doing a lot of impressive stuff. When building
| together, the owner of the plot leads other builders by
| literally showing them what and how to build, it's way
| quicker than chat, they are very disciplined, repeat the
| building steps, then stop and watch the owner in order to see
| if they did it right. Sometimes they need a few iterations
| but it's still quicker than chat.
| hot_gril wrote:
| > messages that they want to communicate
|
| Very nice way of putting it.
| tuukkah wrote:
| In the context of Russian war in Ukraine:
|
| > _"As the Russian government has de facto suppressed its
| national press and blocked access to foreign media, Counter-
| Strike has remained as one of the rare channels that allows us to
| communicate independent information to Russians about real events
| from the war"_ https://www.pcgamesn.com/counter-strike-global-
| offensive/csg...
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| I've always wondered how this could work in practice. It's hard
| enough to convince your average American fox news fan that
| putin might not be a great guy, how exactly are you going to
| convince a Russian?
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > how exactly are you going to convince a Russian?
|
| That is flaming you for not rotating fast enough.
|
| To be clear this is commentary on your average counter strike
| player, not necessarily Russian cs players.
| tuukkah wrote:
| Not all Russians are stupid: many (most?) understand that
| they are being lied to and some (especially the younger
| generations) are interested in reading independent sources. I
| think these services are for those people -- facts can be
| highly valuable (and worth jumping through the necessary
| hoops).
| cubefox wrote:
| N=1, but ... a few months before Russia invaded Ukraine, I
| talked to a Russian girl at a party in Germany. She said
| she "voted with her feet" when she decided to move out of
| Russia. So she wasn't very Russia friendly. Moreover, young
| women are probably the most progressive demographic full-
| stop. Yet when I asked her about Ukraine, she repeated all
| the standard Russian government propaganda about an alleged
| NATO threat and stated that she was "neutral" on whether
| Russia should invade Ukraine. I was pretty shocked. If even
| young female expats think this way, what do older Russian
| men think? Perhaps she was a rare outlier. Or perhaps it's
| not an accident that so many Russians appear to continue to
| vote for Putin's party.
| xwdv wrote:
| Is it possible Ukraine isn't entirely innocent? Sure we
| assume they are from our point of view, but that's the
| nature of propaganda, how do you really know what is
| reality?
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Not innocent of what!? Even Putin justifies the invasion
| by saying Ukrainian people want to be part of Russia.
| That is not justification for invading and killing them.
| Being skeptical of what you hear is one thing, abandoning
| reality to say "who knows, anything is possible" is
| another.
| xwdv wrote:
| If you can't prove things are impossible, then
| technically anything _is_ possible.
| staunton wrote:
| At which point you can stop using the words "prove" and
| "possible".
| themitigating wrote:
| If the probability of something is below a certain amount
| it should be treated as if it is impossible.
| tuukkah wrote:
| You are speaking as if truth wasn't a thing...
|
| Also, there's _nothing_ Ukraine could have done that
| would have made Russia 's actions justified.
|
| Finally, when you follow the Russian statements for a
| while, you notice that they are self-contradictory. This
| lets you disregard their arguments as pure lies - the
| truth is not self-contradictory.
| teekert wrote:
| Is it indeed possible that the whole thing started in
| 2014 with whole "f the EU" shenanigans and "Biden being
| in on it"? And that that truth is suppressed here, and
| perhaps amplified over there?
|
| I thought this was an insightful podcast: [0]
|
| [0] https://podverse.fm/episode/ds2T0EjC8
| tejohnso wrote:
| I don't think you have to listen to Russian government
| propaganda to understand the NATO threat if you have any
| cognitive empathy whatsoever. Angela Merkel is on record
| saying that the negotiated Minsk peace agreement was a
| complete sham.
|
| "The US and its allies "simulated supporting the UN
| Security Council resolution" which endorsed the roadmap
| to peace while pumping weapons into Ukraine and "ignored
| all crimes committed by the Kiev regime ... for the sake
| of a decisive strike against Russia," she explained in a
| social media post on Thursday [1].
|
| Also John Mearsheimer, an American, laid out the case for
| Ukraine as a massive NATO threat in a public talk many
| years ago. Available on youtube.
|
| Would the United States welcome Chinese and Russian
| nuclear capable installations in Mexico or Cuba?
|
| How are you attempting to balance your point of view
| against the intense western government propaganda that
| you're exposed to?
|
| [1]: https://www.globalresearch.ca/merkel-acknowledges-
| that-2014-...
| cf141q5325 wrote:
| >Also John Mearsheimer, an American, laid out the case
| for Ukraine as a massive NATO threat in a public talk
| many years ago. Available on youtube.
|
| Russia has also been vocal about this for decades. The
| CIA director summarized it rather well during his time as
| Ambassador in his "Nyet means Nyet" cable.
|
| https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
| natechols wrote:
| > Would the United States welcome Chinese and Russian
| nuclear capable installations in Mexico or Cuba?
|
| Personally, it's none of my business what Mexico or Cuba
| do on their territory, but are you saying the US has
| nuclear installations in Ukraine?
| stevenally wrote:
| So.... where's the decisive NATO strike? They won't even
| supply adequate weapons to Ukraine.
| _kbh_ wrote:
| [dead]
| slow_typist wrote:
| No, Merkel didn't say that. Zakharova did.
| cf141q5325 wrote:
| She mentioned it in an interview with the ZEIT recently.
|
| Here the article debating the interpretation of what she
| said. https://web.archive.org/web/20230103062022/https://
| www.zeit....
|
| > Merkel sagte der ZEIT: "Das Minsker Abkommen 2014 war
| der Versuch, der Ukraine Zeit zu geben. Sie hat diese
| Zeit auch genutzt, um starker zu werden, wie man heute
| sieht."
| themitigating wrote:
| "Would the United States welcome Chinese and Russian
| nuclear capable installations in Mexico or Cuba?"
|
| There are already NATO counties extremely close to
| Russia, Poland shares a border
| permo-w wrote:
| Poland shares a border with Kaliningrad, but not the
| Russia proper. this is much like how Russia is very
| nearby to Alaska, but not the US proper
| ElectricalUnion wrote:
| But last time the USSR tried having weapons installed in
| Cuba the world almost ended because the USA got angry
| about it.
| andrepd wrote:
| And after installing weapons in Turkey themselves!
| lmm wrote:
| The US doesn't see Poland as US territory, and cares
| rather less for Polish citizens than American ones.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| People are sensitive when it comes to the sovereignty of
| their home countries even if they're not particularly
| fond of their governments. When I lived in China a lot of
| young, laissez-faire, liberal minded people who were
| critical of the increasingly repressive culture were
| nonetheless allergic to any kind of foreign encroachment.
|
| The attitude is largely that, "our government may suck,
| but it is ours", and when foreign countries are perceived
| as strangling their development, you'll turn even the
| most raging regime critic into a reluctant supporter. And
| of course they don't view NATO or the rules based order
| or what have you as some benevolent thing, but tools of
| power.
| constantcrying wrote:
| ISIS and neo-nazis can host websites on the public internet. What
| possible reason is there to host it _on minecraft_ instead of as
| html on the internet? Or on tor if need be?
|
| This seems really, really stupid. (Except for the actual
| Minecraft building, which seems quite nice)
| oersted wrote:
| It seems to me more of an artistic/social statement rather than
| an actual practical resource. And it is an effective one:
| interesting enough to become somewhat viral, and the
| architecture itself conveys a strong message.
| npteljes wrote:
| I see it more as an art piece. And I think instead of stupid,
| it's better described as superfluous.
|
| Second thought: since it's Minecraft, a secondary purpose can
| be that it signals the values not just the supposed target
| demography, but to all people interested in Minecraft.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Cause random kids and other people have an easier and more fun
| time hosting Minecraft servers. Makes it go viral more easily
| and also adds one more way to access it.
| itronitron wrote:
| Most intelligence agencies probably aren't set up to crawl and
| index the book content on a minecraft server.
|
| If the server operators wanted to make that even more of a
| challenge they could render the books as maps.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| You're not wrong but what is it about hackernews comments which
| focus on debunking the utility of something. I feel like the
| top comment on most articles I see are observing the ways in
| which something is useless. It's pretty staggering.
|
| Again, you're not wrong, and I'm not even saying these comments
| are bad or anything. I'm guessing hackernews commentors tend to
| be skeptics and are tuned to poke holes? But clearly it was
| posted based on some apparent merit. Other reactions would be
| totally normal too, like "oh wow, that's really impressive. I
| didn't know this existed." Or how so much of the real world has
| been modeled in minecraft (archival libraries, computers using
| redstone, etc.). Or noting what works they consider worthy of
| entry in the library.
| LexiMax wrote:
| It seems to be trendy these days to be a "doomer."
|
| It's a mindset where nothing good happens in the world, and
| no cloud has a silver lining. Skepticism is a default, and
| earnestness or cleverness makes you naive or a sucker who
| will get their deserved reality check soon enough.
|
| It must be a horrendous headspace to constantly be in.
| networkchad wrote:
| [dead]
| lmm wrote:
| It is, or rather was (sadly it's been deliberately suppressed
| by the mods of late), the HN culture. It's a part of what
| makes this place what it is, and was why this used to be a
| high-quality site.
| ertian wrote:
| There's a tendency on the Internet to default to negativity,
| skepticism, and cynicism. It seems worse amongst programmers
| and tech people. I think it's just a way of demonstrating how
| clever the commenter is: _I_ can see through this! And, less
| charitably, there 's maybe a tendency to tear down the work
| of others as a way of feeling better about one's own lack of
| accomplishments: sure, I haven't done much, but at least I
| didn't do something stupid like this!
|
| Is this project useful as a way of circumventing censorship?
| Nah, almost certainly not. So consider it a thought
| experiment. An art piece. A way of illustrating the
| importance of free speech to a younger generation that maybe
| hasn't thought that hard about it yet. A browsable _museum_
| of censorship, the likes of which no government would build.
| Maybe an inspiration for people to build better tools.
|
| Or just a neat project for people to spend some time working
| on, that's more interesting than making a copy of Big Ben in
| Minecraft.
| haswell wrote:
| FTA:
|
| > _"In many countries, websites, social media and blogs are
| controlled by oppressive leaders. Young people, in particular,
| are forced to grow up in systems where their opinion is heavily
| manipulated by governmental disinformation campaigns. But even
| where almost all media is blocked or controlled, the world's
| most successful computer game is still accessible. Reporters
| Without Borders (RSF) uses this loophole to bypass internet
| censorship to bring back the truth - within Minecraft."_
| crest wrote:
| You can walkt through the (virtual) halls of forbidden
| knowledge and hiding text on textures visible in complex game
| engines can be an effective to bypass censorship using
| inconspicuous tools.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Authoritarian regimes have lots of infrastructure in place to
| censor http(s) traffic, and at least China is getting quite
| good at restricting tor usage. Meanwhile they probably don't
| have much in place to ban specific minecraft servers, and their
| deep packet inspection might not cover Minecraft books. There's
| value in using obscure technologies.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Highly relevant hackernews comment from 2020:
|
| > It's worth noting that this project will likely not benefit
| the people of China. A somewhat obscure fact is that China
| has its own edition of Minecraft which cannot connect to
| servers of the mainstream edition.
| https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Minecraft_China
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22569178
| debugnik wrote:
| > In-game text content is heavily censored, including but
| not limited to chat, Book and Quills, Written Books, Signs,
| Command Blocks, renamed items (via Anvils) and mobs (via
| renamed Spawn Eggs or Name Tags)
|
| > Censorship also applies to any text in the launcher, such
| as community posts, comments on contents, and private
| messages. Rental servers and virtual LAN games are not
| allowed to have names altogether, instead being referred to
| by a numerical ID
|
| I guess you don't need any obscure packet inspection if you
| can just censor the clients and servers directly instead.
| This feels like the censorship equivalent of the wrench
| XKCD.
| alpb wrote:
| No oppressive government has gone through the lengths of
| blocking access to a Minecraft server. That's why. Many
| oppressive governments will actively block access to pages that
| post narrative countering their reality.
| cratermoon wrote:
| ISIS and neo-nazis have the backing of powerful friends and
| allies with lots of money and power.
| bboygravity wrote:
| Example: the bank of international settlements (BIS) or: "the
| central bank of central banks" (confirmed nazi's
| likely/possibly neo-nazi's).
| themitigating wrote:
| Governments are more likely to censor threats against
| themselves over people.
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