To follow on your coattails...

There's a reason extinct species went extinct, even if humans hunted them to that point. Who's to say they'd survive, much less thrive, after reintroduction? Native habitats would likely have adapted to their absence and be even more hostile to their survival. And any that would be reintroduced would be a from a very shallow pool of genetic diversity, anyway. Worst case, they'd become an invasive species that ravages the habitat that they once called home (because the native predators that once hunted them ALSO went extinct) and would likely die off in a couple generations, anyway.

Farming them or keeping them as public exhibits? Yeah, okay, fine. But that gets more difficult to do as the natural ecology changes. How much value is there in keeping old species alive? If we're farming them, I'd think there'd be a suitable cross-breed that has the desirable traits from the extinct species mixed with a native, non-extinct one. We do this all the time with plants (e.g.: corn) and, to a lesser degree, animals (e.g. cows, chickens, fish). If they're for zoo exhibits, what happens after a couple generations of basically inbreeding from that small pool of diversity?

The guy with the company must have missed the part of the movie where it's said, "Nature, uh, finds a way." The system finds its own balance. Putting a hand on the scale will only lead to more drastic changes that may or may not be desirable.

Even if the healthcare system took anxiety and depression seriously, they're literally only able to treat the symptoms, not the root-cause. And that's more of a societal problem than anything and not likely something that can be fixed in any clinical way.

I was about to prattle on about the sources of greed and consumerism but it's been done to death by others - both here and numerous other outlets. I'll leave the extrapolation as an exercise to any readers, here.

They... already are.

Everyone pays for their internet connection - both the content provider and the content consumer. The ISPs pay each other for peering with each other, as well. There is literally nothing about the current connectivity schema between content provider to content consumer that isn't already monetized at every step. The consumer-side ISPs are just getting greedy. If they're not getting paid enough to maintain connectivity between the providers' networks and their consuming customers, they need to adjust rates they charge either side. Getting a 3rd party (read: content providers) to pay for some portion of the consumer-side networks makes zero sense.

"Hey, there, retail stores! This is the local, municipal government from the next town over, here. We noticed an 'excessive' amount of traffic from our citizens going to/from your stores and want you to pay part of the upkeep on the residential roads in our town. Yeah, we know you don't have a presence out this way, but it's all your fault our roads are more travelled than we planned for. We simply cannot cover these costs. Wait... You say you pay the taxes imposed by your local, municipal government already and you want US to charge our residents more taxes, instead? We can't do that - they'd leave us for a different town! Oh, wait. No they won't - we're the only residential neighborhood around. In fact, we CAN do that, ARE doing that, AND we still want to charge you because, we feel, it's still all your fault so we can get some extra money."

I HIGHLY suspect this action (and others like them) is less intended to "make everyone safe" and more "take control away from the public." If they REALLY wanted to make everyone safer, officials would demand better driver training programs. As it stands, it's stupid easy to get one's license and, in most states, that includes the ability to operate a vehicle/trailer combo up to 26k lbs. And renewing that license at whatever interval each state mandates usually requires little more than an eye test.

It would be much more effective to have regular re-tests and evaluations at renewal times. And have renewals occur on a more regular basis, increasing in frequency as people age into "senior years." Funding for the increased workload would be covered by the licensees - no general tax increase required (though that is also an option).

Technology cannot (yet) replace the judgement a human can/will make. Yes - humans are fallible but we can also more intuitively handle the oddball corner cases technology simply cannot account for. No amount of coding will ever cover the outliers. In some cases, the technology that is supposed to make us safer makes certain corner-case situations LESS safe. And so, I argue, the solution isn't MORE technology that takes the human even further out of the decision loop, but training the humans to operate better and enable the technology to better respond to human inputs.

I will cite ABS systems as a prime example as it is one of the oldest safety technologies in our modern vehicles (short of seat belts). The technology, itself, can perform wonderfully in probably 90% of everyday situations - dry pavement, damp/wet pavement, etc. But it utterly fails on surfaces that haven't been anticipated or programmed for such as loose sand, deep and heavy snow, etc. Those are situations where locking up is the more appropriate action. And manufacturers have, at the insistence of government regulators, denied an operator of a vehicle the ability to disable ABS for those situations where ABS does nothing positive for vehicle control.

I'm fine with the additional safety systems but I'm NOT fine with forcing them to be enabled (or unable to be disabled when needed) because "the public cannot be trusted." Train the public, then trust them to use the tools at their disposal.

As should all binding arbitration between parties of non-equal standing (e.g.: companies and individuals).

You're only partly correct. Yes, humans want to be in control. The problem is that humans, in all our imperfect-ness, can sometimes perform better than a computer at some tasks. Computers are programmed and are limited in what inputs they get and how a programmer has determined them to react. No programmer can account for 100% of all cases. And, while they may be able to account for a large majority of cases, there are still instances where a human can analyze the situation faster and determine a better course of action.

Mix that with the liability expected of drivers (read: full). These automated systems are taking actions on behalf of the driver but for which the driver is fully liable.

My position is, as noted in other replies on this subject, I expect to have full control over the vehicle I'm operating if I'm assumed to have total liability, as well. If an automated system takes an action I did not intend to take and it causes a crash and/or injury I could have prevented by acting without the system, why should I be held liable?

The solution is to either allow the systems to be disabled as-needed at the discretion of the driver/operator of the vehicle as they assume full liability OR update the laws to remove liability from the driver/operator if the system activates in such a way as to cause a crash/injury. Take your pick but you can't (shouldn't) have it both ways.

Here in the U.S., those systems trigger an audio alert AND the automatic braking system at the same time. There's typically zero delay between them. While I admit this is anecdotal based on my own personal experience, I've had the "pleasure" of driving vehicles with these systems from GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Kia, Hyundai, and probably a few others I'm forgetting. They all behave the same way due to what I assume is a set of rules from the U.S. government in order to allow those vehicles to be sold in this market.

And, for the most part, these systems work as intended. The problem is that the systems cannot work for corner cases where activating actually causes problems. And, yes, I've had instances where the activation of the automatic braking system was VERY MUCH undesired and caused more problems than it was trying to solve.

If the rules in the U.S. demand that I, as the vehicle operator, am liable for all actions while I'm supposedly operating it, I should be given full control of the vehicle including being able to disable the safety systems at my disposal if the situation warrants. I refuse to take blame for something my vehicle does because it believes its doing the right thing when its really not. If lawmakers are taking the time to pass rules mandating these systems, they need to update the relevant laws about driver liability, as well. Unfortunately, they're not and THAT'S why I (and a lot of other people complaining about how these systems are becoming mandatory) have a problem with this.

Look, I'm in favor of LEO satellite internet as much as anyone else but I have VERY serious reservations about Amazon operating it in any capacity. They've shown, time and again, that they're not willing to do the Right Thing (tm) if it means any kind of hit to their bottom line. Going further, they seem quite intent on weaseling their way into our lives and using data about us all as a competitive advantage, both to their direct competition as well as to ourselves.

And, last I checked, this is at least the second proposal that's offering to launch a constellation of LEO satellites to provide internet services. Didn't SpaceX propose exactly the same service no more than a few months ago? If Amazon manages to do this alongside SpaceX, that's TWO separate and distinct constellations of satellites in low-Earth orbit to contend with. The complications of getting ONE constellation in place without interference are quite high, let alone two. Plus, as more and more nations flex their satellite-hitting technology for military purposes, it can only lead to trouble with regards to dangerous space debris.

Let's nationalize - no, GLOBALIZE this project so that a single constellation of satellites can serve multiple providers. That way, if China wants to censor content, that provider can do that for their territory. Heck, it wouldn't be that difficult to geo-lock signals to prevent, say, a North American provider out of Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. But - one of the advantages of a global constellation of internet-providing satellites is that you could, in theory, get your internet subscription from your home territory and travel literally anywhere int he world and still get access.

Regardless - this seems very much like a "Me too!" move from Bezos to counter Musk. They seem to be fighting over how much control one hyper-wealthy billionaire can have over the rest of us plebes. And I'm already tired of it.

It's not the soldiers with or without maps that are the issue, it's the other equipment that relies on GPS to know where *IT* is so it goes where it's supposed to go or report to the chain-of-command where it is.

That said, for the life of me, I cannot fathom why this would be an issue today. We, as civilians, have known that GPS can be jammed and hacked for quite a while. And the military would have been able to know about this from Red/Blue exercises for a lot longer than that. The question becomes - what have they done to mitigate that attack vector?

If they were smart, they'd use GPS as only one source of location input and use a pool of additional sources to get a consensus. If any one of the sources wildly disagrees with the rest, pitch that data out. This way, if GPS is jammed altogether or, worse, hacked to give an incorrect location, it could be detected and mitigated.

I think we need to stop focusing on the cards. Those aren't really the root of the problem. It's the retailers that set up insecure or insufficiently secure networks to transmit this data in the first place.

Payment processors should take this out of the hands of all retailers and provide direct, secure communication from the payment terminals. That is, a private VPN from each terminal back to the payment processor. The terminal is still technically connected to the customer network but wouldn't be directly accessible. The data that comes back from the terminal to the retailer's POS system is stripped of any full identifying data but with enough info for the retailer to conduct business.

That would stop all the MITM attacks and the scouring of stored data on the retailers' networks which seems to be the vast majority of the breaches.

That's actually the CEO's job, he just phrases it badly. And maybe something he's failing to realize (or articulate) is that automation can empower the workforce to do additional things that the company may want to branch out into or take on more customers.

I'm sorry that you're so cynical about this. What you describe hasn't been my experience - AT ALL. In fact, I've been given more and varied responsibilities, pay raises, and promotions as I've found more tasks to automate over the years at various employers. It allows me the time to explore new skills to benefit the company and, by extension, myself. It's one of those rare *virtuous* cycles.

It sounds like you may need to find a different employer if they don't value your efforts at streamlining things.

I'n not a coder but I do a lot of general IT work. Automating tasks is a big part of my responsibilities and it has never once put me out of a job. Instead, it made me more effective and productive, able to pass along the more mundane tasks and take on (and help to streamline or completely automate) additional tasks.

Automation, if done correctly, is simply a force multiplier. As noted, it allows you to get the mundane, repeatable tasks out of the way in order to address and tackle higher-level functions. This is, ideally, how you would advance in any organization. If you've automated yourself out of a job, you're probably doing it unethically and not stepping up to lead additional projects.

Insight: GDPR would likely cover this. As would a lot of the other PII laws in other countries that are getting closer to being fully aligned with GDPR. The U.S. isn't there just yet (Privacy Shield? Please...) but a new law in California is close and I hear Oklahoma is about to do something similar. It's only a matter of time before every country puts a strong law on the books protecting PII.

And make no mistake - the GDPR is no joke. The regulation body is self-funded from fines levied against violators. If you do ANY business with the E.U. or nations that have laws similar to GDPR, you need to comply. Failing to do so is VERY expensive.

Is GDPR a silver bullet that solves all the issues? No, but it's probably the best compromise between being able to do business and protecting PII for every individual.

Have we forgotten that Mars doesn't have a magnetic field to shield the solar winds from stripping away the atmosphere that's already there? Trying to terraform it to the point of having a stable atmosphere is a fools errand. It'll be like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it.