Im not sure that applies here, isn’t he literally a prisoner because of all the raping.

Depends on what the definition of bad means here.

If it’s “bad” as in low quality work, i agree.

If it’s the employer version of “bad” as in limited productivity/throughput then no, fuck 'em, they get what they pay for.

That’s why understanding the difference between “cheap” and “inexpensive” is important.

Sounds like they want the governing bodies for certain open source technologies to be picked up by the UK.

They’d use the term govern rather than control id imagine, though thats a fine line and not a distinction the UK has been good at observing historically.

Thats a fucking terrible title, even though its technically accurate.

Read the article, it’s actually pretty interesting.

What do you mean instead? why is what they are doing now insufficient ?

At this point i doubt they give a fuck what the general populace thinks, unless it affects their bottom line.

But you seem to want an answer, so let’s work through the “options”

This would depend on what their goals are.

Assuming they want to continue with their track record of maximum capitalism, their best option is to eat shit, and by that i mean do whatever the fuck they want and ignore anything that isn’t inline with profit/control.

Complaints from the populace, sure. Maximum profits, also yes.

If they really want to stop people complaining about them their best best would be to stop doing sketchy, illegal and unpopular things.

That wouldn’t stop all complaints, this is the internet, but it would probably bring it down quite a bit.

if they wanted partially rehabilitate their image over this specific instance of terrible PR, they could:

• Release the data of the scanned books directly.
  • if they can afford the lobbying and legal costs to ignore copyright for their environment destroying slop-machines^*1, they can probably afford the same for straight up releasing the scans.
• Use any of the myriad of non-destructive means of scanning books + release the books in to the wild after
  • More expensive, requires you to do something with the intact books after
  • See the previous comment about the affordability of lobbying/legal fees
• Not do this at all

*1,

“Environment destroying slop-machine”

&

“Useful tool in some circumstances, as long as you can personally square away the ethical and moral concerns”

aren’t mutually exclusive, if this is the hill you choose to die on you’re going to die mad about it.

That’s true, but sitting in a warehouse is costing someone money and I’m sure they were more than happy to sell the books even if they knew they’d eventually get destroyed.

Sure, thats a possibility, I wasnt arguing otherwise.

But the other thing is, what should these companies do instead? They scraped the internet and got skewered for that. They pirated books and got in trouble for that. Now they are legally purchasing books to scan.

For me, them doing sketchy and illegal shit, mostly getting away with it and then charging you for access to said ill-gotten gains is a valid reason for people to be upset at them, rage inducing, even.

That aside the equivalent of mass book burning isn’t a good look regardless of legality, even less so when its the same people that did the sketchy shit before.

There is no benefit of the doubt left.

I can see how someone could get to:

“all they do is sketchy shit so even though this might look legit, let’s vocally show our disdain for them and anything they are doing”

It’s one of those lore things, like the SCP Foundation or any folk tales, this one just happened to come from 4chan.

The idea of liminal spaces being creepy or unnerving isn’t new, the cumulative lore around an example of that is where you get this particular story.

The SCP Foundation is another good example of this.

Is it full nerd to read through fictional files on pretend beings, sure.

Is it enjoyable, also yes, for a particular subset of people.

The reason I think this is a good example is because this particular aggregate folk tale is bleeding into other projects.

The game Control has strong SCP vibes, as does abiotic factor.

You’ve also got niche stories like "There is no antimemetics division"

Here is a short (15 min) film covering the opening of that book

Spoilers obviously

deleted by creator

deleted by creator

They aren’t in current circulation, not the same thing.

Not arguing that they are useful, just that sitting in a warehouse and physical destruction aren’t equivalent in terms of potential use.

Iirc affordable housing isn’t unavailable because of the cost of construction.

I could be wrong though

If their parting message is to be believed it’s because they are the last bastion of sanity.

Can’t link to the original because they added a script that ddos’d an instance they don’t like…you know…like a well adjusted saviour would do.

The “small steps” comment was me.

The shift described in the overton window is the shift in the perception of normal.

If 5 steps down are taken, then the window shifts, followed by another 5 downward steps, you’re still down 10 steps from where you started.

Are those designations mutually exclusive?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Just because the baseline has shifted doesn’t mean the change never happened , it just means we collectively haven’t noticed as much as we could have, because the change sometimes happens at a timeframe larger than our collective memory.

That the “absolute worst” didn’t come to pass doesn’t negate the change that did occur.

.I’m usually on eternity so I’ll see if there is a tagging feature in there, thanks.

Hah, where is that feature, is it a website thing?

You would know better than I, I suppose.

Have you considered that it might just be the only overlapping space between you two?

Perhaps if there were more surface area overlap you’d be able to disagree over a wider range of subjects.

Meh, not my business either way.