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gumgum45 karma

You are leaving out the fact that it is the unions that prevent Transport for London from advertising externally for drivers, and that the last time they ran a public recruitment campaign was in 2008.

gumgum18 karma

There is no effective snake deterrent no matter what the snake oil salesmen tell you. The only thing you can do is make your yard unfriendly to snakes - clean the yard of all snake hidey holes and prey.

gumgum16 karma

I agree. It's one thing for the victim of something like this to heal and move on, but that doesn't make what he did right. I'm very happy she has managed to heal, but I'm not going to stop opposing the wrongness of what Polanski did because of that.

gumgum16 karma

Insecure people need to create an in-group so they can fit in. People with delusions of grandeur and control issues need to create an out-group to maintain or exert control over the in-group. This won't change in any kind of hurry.

gumgum15 karma

I'm sorry but this seems like a horribly simplistic answer, even for a quick answer on forum like this.

Big data is dehumanizing because it reduces people to algorithms. If you can't see that I despair.

Social networks - don't, but what they do is encourage people who have a lack of social skills to avoid learning strategies to cope / change in the real world and facilitates their desire not to interact face-to-face. This isn't to say all people on social media are socially inept, but that those who are are aided in their withdrawal by the fact that they can avoid stressful interpersonal interactions more easily online, whilst getting some social interaction that every human desires without ever actually risking anything. So no, I don't think that social media dehumanizes but it does negatively facilitate certain psychological issues.

Real identity is a crock. The excuse that people will behave better when they have to use their real names online is total BS. There is a long long list of valid reasons why people need to practice pseudonymity online and good governance will ensure the protection of the right to privacy. Including the old American favourite - free speech. If anything real identity is the dehumanizing element as it silences people from expressing themselves freely. There is little more destructive to the human spirit than being denied freedom of expression. Imagine a world in which no-one spoke up, or spoke out, no whistle blowers, no contentious debate of issues, no debate at all eventually because of the fear of saying something wrong, that will be found out and followed back to you, affecting your job, your life, even your freedom if deemed to be criminal. Imagine the field day governments would have if they had that kind of control over all citizens? Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Removing the right to speak freely under the protection of anonymity is handing governments far too much power. The founding fathers of America recognized this and codified the freedom of anonymity and the right to free speech in the First Amendment.

As for drone strikes vs face-to-face combat - may I suggest that the entire point of military training is both dehumanize you - to the point you don't question orders at all, and simultaneously dehumanizing the enemy. A soldier is of no use if he thinks before he shoots or has any empathy for the enemy. Hence all the dehumanizing language directed at recruits during basic training and all the dehumanizing language describing the enemy (and of course a whole host of other psychological techniques to turn an individual thinking person into a good soldier who will shoot down his fellow man without thought, whatever the choice of weapon is).