I say the same thing every time I read a "slacktivism" post, but here we go again: if this is useless, what do I actually do to help? Seriously, I'm not posing this as rhetoric.

I've already filed a fairly long, unique comment to the FCC, but I've heard that the FCC ignores most comments unless they come from well-known players.

I donate money monthly to the EFF.

I've signed the letter to the lawmakers on Battle for the Net.

I don't have a personal website, so I can't put up a banner ad.

So, given that I've heard comments on this site and in person that all of the above counts as slacktivism, just makes me feel better, and doesn't contribute to an actual solution, what do I do to influence this issue? Ignoring the possibility of coming into large sums of money and buying myself a congressman of my very own?

Calling or writing letters (not emails!) to congressional representatives is another thing you can do.

FWIW, I think that donating money is pretty real.

Are letters taken more seriously than emails? That's good to know, thanks.

I've spoken to several reps and they say yes.

This is mainly because they get inundated with email. Letters and snail mail? Not so much. You actually have a captive audience to a degree when you send a letter.

I don't know if they consider it consciously, but it's about the costs to the sender: emails are cheap and easy to fire off. Phone calls and letters a bit less so.

This is a known problem with C's (and other functions in languages based off C's) "rand" function.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10984974/why-do-people-sa...

> I have rarely had anyone complain to me about my seat recline, and nobody has ever offered me money, or anything else of value, in exchange for sitting upright.

I bet no one has ever made that offer. Saying that "oh, no one has offered to pay me to stop something, therefore people can't care all that much" is the Homo Economicus fallacy gone wild. Would a majority of people accept that deal, if someone brazen enough actually offered? I doubt it. It would just cause needless conflict in a small space where everyone is stuck together for hours and hours, which is why people don't do it in the first place.

> When you buy an airline ticket, one of the things you’re buying is the right to use your seat’s reclining function.

"Rights" aren't god-given things. You can't look up in the cosmic rule book who has the right to do what. The argument is how we, as a society, want to allocate that right, and just stating "I bought the ticket therefore I own the right" isn't really useful.

I'm not coming down on either side of the Great Recliner Debate, but this article kind of irks me. We don't work the way the author is assuming, and I don't think saying "I have X right, pay me to stop if you don't like it, even though such a payment is unusual, socially uncomfortable, and potentially insulting" really adds much value to the conversation on this (frankly largely irrelevant) conversation.

Paying for rights to the space behind a seat may not be a great solution, but at least it's a solution, and debating about its merits may lead to a better one. The current situation is that there is no right answer: neither the seat-recliner nor the space-requester can be objectively said to be in the right, so who gets the space comes down to who is less polite and more assertive. If everyone agrees that whoever bought the ticket can claim the space or sell it to the person behind them, then that's an objective property right one can appeal to without having to just say "Well, I want the space, I don't care that you want it too, and I can be more of a jerk than you about it."

That's a good point. That said, I still take objection to the tone of the article. The author didn't motivate his solution in the way you just did; it was more of a "this is the obvious solution, and I don't really care about what other people say" approach. I'm fine considering this as a starting-off point, as long as everyone recognizes that having on-board reclining rights negotiations isn't really a long-term solution.

I agree that the article is irksome and illustrates the worst caricature of the economist, but as a confound: some airlines do charge differently for seats that recline and don't recline. United Economy Plus seats that don't recline are cheaper than United Economy Plus seats that do recline. Some people certainly are paying money specifically for the ability to recline.

The interesting thing is that I would pay a bit more for seats that don't recline, in front of my seat. I say that as a 190cm/6 foot 3 tall person, who barely fit in modern seats on some flights, in the first place.

United will totally let you do this, actually. You simply look for the seats right behind the Economy Plus seats that don't recline, and buy them. I think they may cost more than other Economy Plus seats, actually. I presume other airlines are similar.

I wonder if any European airlines have non-reclining seats? I don't get to fly United often.

Ryanair has non-reclining seats, but that is more due to the fact that they pack their seats so tight that reclining would be impossible.

True, but I avoid Ryanair. I really don't like their corporate strategy.

Ditto.

I would also happily give up my ability to recline if it meant the person in front of me couldn't either.

Maybe aircraft with three distinct blocks of seats should have 1/3 which just simply lack recline. You want recline? Book the other 2/3 of the aircraft, I'm going to be booking that 1/3.

How many minutes do you think it will take the airline to work out that if the seats don't recline there doesn't have to be so much space between them and you can fit in a couple of extra rows.

Well, putting aside the endless war between cars and bikes... Several of my friends who bike regularly (hasn't happened to me, thankfully) have been hit by cars while biking, even though they were following the law and had all manner of blinky lights on their person.

I think that while the biking culture in Boston is great, it won't be a good replacement for cars until there are more bike lanes and more careful drivers.

Copenhagen has curbed lanes dedicated to bikes and the people take full advantage. I saw several Christiana Bikes on the road while there (In fact one lady used one to drag back a loveseat sofa!)

http://christianiabikes.com/en/

That's very different than being able to examine the source code and the data to see where everything is going. Also, though I'm not a rabid proponent of FOSS software, in this case, I would prefer to have many eyes on this code, since the authors are unknown (to me) and the data is sensitive.

I think you're placing too much emphasis on genetics. Genetics play a major role in determining the traits of an individual, but the way the individual was raised and the culture they grew up in also play a major role. The exact balance between the two is different depending on the trait, but an argument to the tune of "treat the likelihood of reproducing solely as a genetic trait" isn't going to have enough predictive power to say that people who don't want to have children are going to die off.

The same argument (falsely) applies to homosexuality. Since homosexual people don't pass on their genes, surely they must be bred out of the population? Well, estimates put the rate of homosexuality between 1% and 10%, so that didn't really turn out the way the purely-genetic argument would predict. It's just more complex than pure genetics.

The things I mentioned aren't just genetic - culture is also very heritable. So selection will work on that level, too.

The argument about homosexuality is similar to asking why amazon hunters keep getting killed by jaguars - you could "disprove" evolution by asking "why hasn't evolution just selected the ones resistant to jaguars?" But it's because getting as close to danger as possible is an effective strategy. That's one of the more reasonable genetic explanations for for why homosexuality still exists, too.

Poor customer service? That would be enough for me, in the purely hypothetical scenario where I had a choice other than "no internet", "hook up an antenna to steal internet from the Starbucks down the street", or "Comcast".

What were you trying to do? I don't understand your original post at all.

I'm not sure I understand. It seems like you're implying that the two people would be moving away from each other faster than the speed of light, but I was under the impression that that's not the case. I thought that each person would observe the other travelling at C?

I think they would observe each other traveling at C but would experience visible time dilation (in the other person's frame of reference).

From the abstract of the actual study:

- "Cool" => "Pseudomature behavior—ranging from minor delinquency to precocious romantic involvement"

- "Lose" => "Early adolescent pseudomature behavior predicted long-term difficulties in close relationships, as well as significant problems with alcohol and substance use, and elevated levels of criminal behavior."