Hacker Cinema
cinema?
Film · documentary · 9 min
Directed by Gilles Diniz
Scenes from real life come together as a piece of cinematographic sonata. We see people in moments of joy, pray, contemplation and work. An reunion of life fragments to compose a film about human feelings and actions.
5 neutralfrom 5 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
5 comments on Hacker News
What a sobering indictment of our screen-obsessed world. It seems all roads lead back to the introduction of the smartphone —the mid-2010s, a critical turning point:
> "Never before has there been a technology like the smartphone. Where previous entertainment technologies like cinema or television were intended to capture their audience’s attention for a period, the smartphone demands your entire life. Phones are designed to be hyper-addictive, hooking users on a diet of pointless notifications, inane short-form videos and social media rage bait."
> "The average person now spends seven hours a day staring at a screen. For Gen Z the figure is nine hours. A recent article in The Times found that on average modern students are destined to spend 25 years of their waking lives scrolling on screens."
Of course some people want that. And at the moment they can prevent it. But those methods may stop working. Will it then be alright to do it? Of course not, so why bother mentioning that they are able to prevent it now - just give a justification.
Your license is probably not relevant. I can go to the cinema and watch a movie, then come on this website and describe the whole plot. That isn't copyright infringement. Even if I told it to the whole world, it wouldn't be copyright infringement. Probably the movie seller would prefer it if I didn't tell anyone. Why should I care?
I actually agree that AI companies are generally bad and should be stopped - because they use an exorbitant amount of bandwidth and harm the services for other users. At least they should be heavily taxed. I don't even begrudge people for using Anubis, at least in some cases. But it is wrong-headed (and actually wrong in fact) to try to say someone may or may not use my content for some purpose because it hurts my feelings or it messes with my ad revenue. We have laws against copyright infringement, and to prevent service disruption. We should not have laws that say, yes you can read my site but no you can't use it to train an LLM, or to build a search index. That would be unethical. Call for a windfall tax if they piss you off so much.
As the article doesn't dive into the statistics, I have taken some time to go through the official statistics.
In this graph, found on the Singapore Government's website, https://www.cnb.gov.sg/images/default-source/drug-situation-report/2010/das2010_3.jpg?sfvrsn=9b006c39_2 (source: https://www.cnb.gov.sg/newsandevents/reports-(overview)/drug-report/Index/updated---drug-situation-report-2010).
The numbers are,
2000 - 3,157 2001 - 3,417 2002 - 3,393 2003 - 1,809 2004 - 956 2005 - 793 2006 - 1,218 ... 2008 - 2,537 2009 - 2,616 2010 - 2887 ... 2018 - 3,438 2019 - 3,526
It is almost certain that this data is misleading. The police have a wide latitude on whom they arrest, why they arrest them and when. From the article and my reading, it seems more like a way to deal with poor people, minorities and the occasional sex worker than a coherent drive.
Discounting the fact that there are almost certainly more than 3,500 drug abusers in a city with 5.6M people. It is apparent that between 2000 and 2019, they've run very very hard to stay where they are.
A more interesting indicator are the reports of drugs seized. As drugs fall in and out of style, I am going to focus on Cannabis, mostly because of its increase in popularity worldwide, and that it more accurately reflects middle class and upper class casual drug use.
The statistics from the government page I linked above suggested that in 2000, Singapore seized,
Cannabis - 8.53kg (18.8lbs)
I found two distinct news articles in 2021, where Singaporean authorities broke their own multi-decadal records twice in as many months,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-singapore-drugs-idUSKBN2BB0DQ
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/singapore-says-makes-biggest-cannabis-seizure-25-years-2021-04-19/
For these two busts, one month apart, the data is,
Cannabis (Bust 1) - 20.5kg (~45.2lbs) Cannabis (Bust 2) - 23.7 kg (~52.25 lb)
These are two shipments that they've seized. Assuming that they've gotten better over time, as have the smugglers, it means that the amount flowing into the country, is probably in the 500lb+ range. I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the thousands of pounds.
On the other hand, in the US, with the legalization of pot slowly across the States, the cartels are being forced to go legit, enter other businesses or go bankrupt. As it is cheaper (when not too heavily taxed by other businesses and governments), safer and more pleasant. These figures have been obtained from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, “Independent Review of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Reporting of Drug Control Performance Summary Reports,” 2008, 2011; Customs and Border Protection, “Sector Profiles,” 2012–2017; Customs and Border Protection, “Enforcement Statistics FY 2018,” August 31, 2018; Carla Argueta, “Border Security,” Congressional Research Service, April 19, 2016.,
2013 (pre-legalization) - 114lbs/agent 2014 (post) - 92lbs/agent 2015 - 76lbs/agent 2016 - 65lbs/agent 2017 - 44lbs/agent
And it keeps going down from there. Although the Cato Institute is a biased source, this article has excellent material, https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/how-legalizing-marijuana-securing-border-border-wall-drug-smuggling-lessons#less-marijuana-smuggling
Overall, the drug war is a fantastic tool for beating and suppressing the other in society, but it's a very poor tool for actually controlling drugs.
One of the (arguably) best introductions in Cinema history spells out why fairly clearly, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwoCyF6qJzE , perhaps someone should ask the Singaporean politicians to watch the movie?
I am biased. I am coming from an extreme on the pro-drug side. It is my hope that eventually humanity will get past these immature hang ups and genetically engineer/implant drug glands into ourselves that would allow us to alter our neuro-chemical states as we wish.
I first read about them in Iain M. Banks' Culture series and they seem like an amazing idea. Feeling stressed? Gland calm. Need to stop reading HN and work? Gland focus. In a life-or-death situation? Gland combat.
Perfectly tailored mind states, when you need them, delivered when you ask for them. It sucks to be "Human-basic" as Banks' called it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Physiology
And yet people in countries with primarily rice-based diets didn't have widespread obesity issues until they started introduced modern empty calorie-laden soda drinks and candy.
You can eat thousands of calories of candy or drink a similar amount of calories from soda in a day, and not feel particularly sated. Try doing that with rice and you'll feel bloated in no time.
A ~200g bag of peanut M&M's can easily be eaten by most people, during the ads in a cinema before the movie even starts. That's over 1000 calories right there, consumed in 10-15 minutes.
60% of 60 hours would still be pretty much full time.
You have a salary???? You have money??? Both unknowns to me.
Maybe cut both your salaries and employ some more people, that can help put more of your ideas into action.
You need to work less hours yourself. Delegate more. Spend some time on a hobby / interest / go to the cinema / anything.