I believe Organ Donation should be mandatory and not opt-out/in
In my perspective after death we no longer exist and thus can't own our body or organs anymore. Therefore we should have no say in what parts are used to save lives.
I believe that a person stops existing after death. What you wanted while you were alive should not matter at all when the body can be used to potentially save lives. I also don't believe family or friends should have any say.
Their views hold more value as they are alive, but ultimately it's not their organs, and the organs can do a whole lot more good by helping someone else.
I have lost close family in the past, and I definitely understand the will to keep your loved ones "intact" in a way.
But at the same time the options are either
A: perfectly fine organs go to waste cremated or buried during a shortage or
B: those same organs can potentially save lives and make many, many people happy.
When these are the options it seems clear that feelings should be ignored and the family can bury whatever isn't useful.
At this year's DEFCON, a group of 50 children aged 8 to 16 participated in a hack of 13 imitation election websites. One 11-year-old boy changed the voting results in 10 minutes. A 11 year-old-girl was also able to change the voting results in 30 minutes. Overall, more than 30 of the 50 children were able to hack the websites in some form.
The so-called "DEFCON Voting Machine Hacking Village" allowed kids the chance to manipulate vote tallies, party names, candidate names and vote count totals. The 11-year-old girl was able to triple the number of votes found on the website in under 15 minutes.
The National Association of Secretaries of State said in a statement that it is "ready to work with civic-minded members of the DEFCON community wanting to become part of a proactive team effort to secure our elections." But the organization expressed skepticism over the hackers' abilities to access the actual state websites. "It would be extremely difficult to replicate these systems since many states utilize unique networks and custom-built databases with new and updated security protocols," it read. "While it is undeniable websites are vulnerable to hackers, election night reporting websites are only used to publish preliminary, unofficial results for the public and the media. The sites are not connected to vote counting equipment and could never change actual election results."
The Ross Ulbricht trial made a mockery of the US justice system. It's truly one for the history books. He took money away from cartels and shit. He facilitated a safer drug trade where people had a better understanding of what they were getting.
There will always be a place for Silk Road of some kind. Especially with the drug war and government letting you get drugs from cartels rather than people that care about purity of substances. I’m all for education not control. People do Drugs. I just want them to be safer and Silk Road was where people got rare psychedelics or cocaine etc. and it wasn’t tainted with this or that.
I remember seeing a pretty detailed series of events around the time of Ross’s arrest that showed him hiring a hitman, demanding proof of the kill, and a few other nasty things.
Is his claim that this was all made up? I don’t think he should spend life in prison for running Silk Road, but ordering someone killed is a serious crime that people seem to brush off because he was a “freedom warrior” for libertarian ideals.
I’ve seen a few people mention that this was fabricated and the only evidence of fabrication provided is the cops were corrupt and he wasn’t convicted. Innocent until proven guilty is a thing but he’s also in prison for the rest of his life on the distribution charges so if the murder charges were going to make the case messier I could see them not pursuing.
I don’t exactly think Ross is as squeaky clean as he’s being portrayed. The dark web is for the better.. these markets truly do keep people safe and off the streets and get true products. Until legalization, taxation, and regulation, it’s going to be the safest route to take at the moment.
Artist Leena Kejriwal’s MISSING campaign, which aims to raise awareness about child sex trafficking, found an unusual ally in 2016—gaming. The MISSING game, developed by Kolkata-based Flying Robot Studios, has today crossed the one million mark across app stores.
This number is significant for a game that intentionally makes the player live out the struggles of a trafficked girl. You play the role of a young girl attempting to escape the brothel she’s been put in. You engage in the sex trade to save up money, look for clues that could get you external help, run through dark corridors desperately trying to not bring any attention to yourself.
All in the hopes of finding freedom. When you fail, you’re censured, abused, and even violated. Along the way, the gamer learns about the harsh realities of the sex trade in India.
It’s an idea that Kejriwal and Parag Mankeekar, the founder-director of software company Neeti Solutions, share. Mankeekar is currently working on RealLives—a global simulation game that lets you engage with the lives of individuals in different parts of the world. - Source: The Ken
Kejriwal insists that the game has never been consumed the wrong way. “We’ve had people hate it because it’s frustrating, but they’ve always gone back, downloaded and played it again. Some of the gameplay is a little sketchy, not smooth, and that’s because it was made on a limited budget, but it only helped us build that frustration.”
The developer of the MISSING game, Satyajit Chakraborty of Flying Robot Studios, was “shocked” when he first understood how harrowing the game could be. “I was aware that this game would make people uncomfortable. Despite having made the game, to play it is a harrowing experience for me as well. That is the theme though. This game shouldn’t make you happy or energetic, it should make you [think].”
Chakraborty talks about how powerful a game like this could be, emphasising how the utility of games could really expand. “This is also a kind of entertainment. Tragedy. It’s powerful. The most acclaimed films are tragedies. Games don’t go that way. MISSING is a similar experience; it’s not comfortable at all. It wasn’t meant to be a comedy.”
Chakraborty’s notion of what a game can be is interesting because it goes against what the word “game” typically connotes. Ordinarily, it is associated with playfulness, frivolousness, something light, something distracting, something that sometimes allows for deep introspection, but, ultimately, exists in the world of fantasy.
Two students were ran over by public transport buses racing to pick up passengers.
Since then, high school and college students have been protesting peacefully against dangerous road conditions (No driving and traffic regulations and poor enforcement ). They took it upon themselves to manage traffic (creating emergency lanes; laning according to vehicle size) and checking licenses of every passing vehicle (including police vehicles) on major roads.
In retaliation, the Awami league government run student body (Chatro League) along with police officials have started firing guns, tear gas, stick charges, committing rape against these students. Keep in mind the victims are mostly teenagers between the ages 14-18.
The major broadcast networks have been censoring any related news, and major news portals have also stopped reporting the events. We are currently relying on Facebook to spread images and videos of the situation.
I don't live in the country but all I can do is be petrified and see things unfold in bits and pieces from random Facebook posts. And the rate at which things are deteriorating with literally zero media coverage, both local and international, I'm getting more and more fearful about how this might end up.
The most concerning thing in all of those articles is how the government backed brutality and murders are being covered up and not reported by anyone. And all this because the bus drivers do not want to get driving licenses, follow basic traffic rules and not be penalized for hit and run injury and/or deaths.
The streets of Dhaka appeared deserted Sunday, as student protesters are yet to take up positions at main thoroughfares as part of their ongoing safe roads movement.
The Dhaka Tribune correspondents posted at key points of the capital reported little activity since Sunday morning.
In Shyamoli and Mohammadpur, our correspondent saw no students on the streets, and the police presence was almost non-existent.
No public buses were seen plying the streets.
In Mirpur, a small number of students was seen gathering in groups in the area.
Speaking to the Dhaka Tribune on condition of anonymity, one of the student protesters said: “We are not sure how this movement will go forward, following the incidents that occurred on Saturday. We might organize a human chain, but so far, this is just a plan.”
The police presence in Mirpur 10 was normal. Vehicle presence was minimal, but no public buses were seen moving on the streets.
Students have been out on the streets since July 29, demanding safe roads and justice for the two students who were killed in a road accident on Dhaka Airport Road.
Shaheed Ramiz Uddin School and College students Diya Khanam Mim and Abdul Karim Rajib were killed, and several others were injured when a bus of “Jabal-e-Noor Paribahan” ploughed into a group of students on July 29.
For the last six days, the ongoing street movement of students demonstrating for road safety remained largely peaceful, except for some incidents.
The situation worsened yesterday afternoon, with violence fueled by rumour-mongering, claims, and counter-claims on social media.
Why is anything "impossible"? I feel as though the word "impossible" is in itself an anthropocentric assumption based on the axiom that what we know now has absolute metaphysical merit. To say something is "impossible" is to say that our knowledge now is sufficient to place limitations on what "reality" can do. Science and philosophy are so often concerned with attempting to track down fundamental "laws" that govern reality, consciousness, etc., but doesn't each law just demand a new explanation for that law? What could an ontological primitive even be - in other words, what is the meaning of a "fundamental" if it cannot be justified?
Sometimes I feel that our attempts to search for the "true nature" of reality are based in a wholehearted and yet misguided faith that there is a distinct set of simple fundamentals. But imagine, if you will, a being with the capability of altering reality itself, including the laws of physics and even perhaps logic. We don't even have to condone a traditional sense of monotheistic omnipotence; just consider an extraterrestrial intelligence or something (i.e. a Singularity entity) which is able to change some of the apparent rules governing the universe. You might say that this intelligence is bound by more fundamental rules, but are those "more fundamental" rules ever truly "fundamental"? In other words, where is there any justification for limitation? Why is our physics or logic "absolute"?
In my opinion, all of this seems to indicate that there really is nothing "impossible," at least not within human understanding. Sure, we have our soft limitations, but even the most trying of difficulties can be resolved. Many of the things we consider "inevitable," such as death, are seeming less and less inevitable just based on the advancement of technologies such as medicine. And, if I am to humbly use an old argument, nobody in 1890 would believe we'd land on the moon in 1969. Why, then, are we arrogant enough to continue to use the word "impossible," to place limitations on what we may be capable of?
I feel that reality is much more fluid and subjective than we'd like to believe it is, and because of that, I don't give much merit to the word "impossible." I don't see this fitting well with materialism, but I think idealism might allow for a paradigm like this. If anyone feels the same way, I'd love to hear about it.
