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0 points4bpp6y ago0 comments

> some users blindly do whatever anyone tells them, or even just flip every switch the opposite way around to see what happens

So... let them? It's not like they typically wind up harming anyone other than themselves in the process. I don't understand why it is considered okay now to run the whole adult world like a kindergarten.

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nimih6y ago· 3 in thread

Using computers is essential to the jobs and social lives of huge swaths of people, and providing safe tools to accomplish those goals is a very valuable social good. In particular, most people who use a computer don't have the time or the interest to really learn the details of computer security or how the internet/their web browser works, nor do they really have a choice as to whether they use these technologies in the first place. The upshot of this is that any time a browser vendor takes time and good-faith effort to try and keep the metaphorical gun pointed anywhere other than firmly at the user's foot, we (as folks who /do/ understand computer security to some degree) should honestly be celebrating it.

It's not running the world like a kindergarten, it's building good and useful tools using sound engineering practices--something admittedly foreign to most web developers, but the rest of the adult world embraced the idea millennia ago.

eitland6y ago

By treating all users as hopelessly incompetent we are making great progress towards a society that is less tech literate than 10 or 20 years ago.

Nice work guys, keep it up!

Seriously: it is one thing to add airbags, seatbelts and all kinds of crash protections but at the point where you are geofencing the cars, weld the hood and limit max speed to 60km/h you know it isn't about safety even of each of those can be proposed as a safety feature for smaller or larger parts of the population.

It is about control. Or I'm tempted to say it could also be about software designers who are more nannies than engineers and user advocates.

nimih6y ago

Please don’t lose sight of the fact that this discussion is occurring in the context of Mozilla reprimanding an extension developer for not putting a big enough warning label on what they view as an extremely dangerous—but ultimately allowed—action.

4bppOP6y ago

> Using computers is essential to the jobs and social lives of huge swaths of people, and providing safe tools to accomplish those goals is a very valuable social good. In particular, most people who use a computer don't have the time or the interest to really learn the details of computer security or how the internet/their web browser works, nor do they really have a choice as to whether they use these technologies in the first place.

What business do those people have "[flipping] every switch the opposite way around to see what happens", then? I think expecting users to have some humility when using technology they don't understand, or to be prepared to take responsibility for the consequences if they don't, is rather different from and much more reasonable than expecting them to "learn the details of computer security or how the internet/their web browser works".

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