General_Effort
@General_Effort@lemmy.world
- Comment on No justice, no peace. 11 hours ago:
I’m surprised they had a robot radiation hardened enough to actually try.
It’s not like this was the first time, such a situation came up. And it’s not like we have to guess what plan B looks like.
- Comment on How decentralized Bluesky is compared to the Fediverse. 23 hours ago:
Be strong now. Mastodon is a gGmbH. That’s the German version and translates to public benefit limited liability corporation.
- Submitted 1 day ago to games@lemmy.world | 25 comments
- Comment on Mastodon says it doesn't 'have the means' to comply with age verification laws 1 day ago:
I mushed a lot of things together in my post. Copyright and political censorship have very different motives behind them. The point is that, to enforce copyright, you need extensive surveillance of online content and the means to shut down the exchange of information. That requires an extremely expensive technical infrastructure. But once that is in place, you can use it for political censorship without having to fear pushback over the economic cost that would come even from politically sympathetic actors. Conversely, if you introduce political censorship, you might get support by the copyright industry, including the news media, for helping their economic interests.
Where it gets to political censorship, the paradox of tolerance is exactly the lunacy that I’m talking about. In mad defiance of all historical fact, there is belief that liberalism is weak, that political dissidents must be persecuted, information suppressed. Never in history has democracy fallen because of a commitment to tolerance. All too often, they fall because majorities feel their personal comfort threatened by minorities and support the strong leader who will “sweep out with the iron broom” (as a German idiom goes).
Do you notice how that Wikipedia article has nothing to say on history?
- Submitted 1 day ago to technology@lemmy.world | 31 comments
- Comment on Hep mak fren 2 days ago:
Awww. That reminds me of the ending of A Boy and His Dog. Good movie. Lots of cultural influence.
- Comment on Mastodon says it doesn't 'have the means' to comply with age verification laws 2 days ago:
But entering a pornography website is the equivalent of entering an adult video store where the clerk cannot see you, cannot hear your voice.
There’s the problem. I was tempted to call this Boomer logic, but that would extremely unfair to Boomers. We are only seeing this now, that the Boomers are on the way out.
I think the Boomers understood better how this works. It’s not like entering a store. It’s like making a phone call to the store, and the store may be on the other side of the world. The Boomers understood borders, long distance calls, international mail.
Now the digital natives are taking over. And they understand nothing beyond tapping and swiping.
Spoilered is a post I wrote earlier. Just so you know what’s coming.
spoiler
The problem is that meat-space logic is applied to the cyberspace (as it might have been said in the 90ies). You go into a store and the clerk sees you and knows your age. If it’s borderline, then they ask for ID. They are applying that thinking to internet services. Where this falls down is that no ordinary Mastodon instance can comply with the regulations of the close to 200 hundred countries in the world. Of course, just like 4chan, many wouldn’t want to out of principle. The only way to make this work is to introduce another meat-space thing: Border posts. You need a Great Firewall of the [Local Nation]. At physical border posts, guards check if goods comply with local regulations. We need virtual border posts to check if data is imported and exported in compliance with local regulations. Such a thing, a virtual Schengen border, was briefly considered in the EU about 15 years ago. It went nowhere at the time. But if you look at EU regulations, you can see that the foundations are already laid, most obviously with the GDPR but also the DSM, DMA, DSA, CRA, … Eventually, the border will be closed to protect our values; to enforce our laws. We will lock out those American and Chinese Big Tech companies that steal our data. We will only allow their European branches and strictly monitor their communications abroad. We will be taking back control, as the Brexiteers sloganized it. Freedom is just another word for having to ask the government for permission when you enter a country. And increasingly, it is another word for having to ask permission for how you use your own computer. It won’t be some shady backroom deal. Look here. People in this community love these regulations. Europeans here are happy to tell US companies to “FO if they don’t want to follow our laws”. Well, the Great Firewall of Europe is how you do that. lemmy.world/comment/19119670
- Comment on Mastodon says it doesn't 'have the means' to comply with age verification laws 2 days ago:
Yes. I had always worried about the copyright industry. That was the big money pushing for censorship. Controlling access and exchange of information is part of their business model and even personal ideology. But I don’t know how much this has actually to do with them, and how much is simply the will to power.
What I did not see coming at all was how the left would completely 180 on these issues. That, at least, I blame on the copyright industry.
Right wing people have screeched about “the intolerant left” forever, but I always ignored the obvious hypocrisy. I took it as a debate on what is permissible in polite society. But now Europe is at a point where there is simply a consensus against free speech. Only the most illiberal forces will be able to use these legal weapons to full effect. That will be the extreme right.
- Comment on Mastodon says it doesn't 'have the means' to comply with age verification laws 2 days ago:
The problem is that meat-space logic is applied to the cyberspace (as it might have been said in the 90ies).
You go into a store and the clerk sees you and knows your age. If it’s borderline, then they ask for ID. They are applying that thinking to internet services. And so are you. You are just trying to figure out a better way to ask for ID.
The UK doesn’t have a system of mandatory national ID. Brits feel that that is totalitarian. So obviously, they do not use the scheme you propose. It’s not their meat-space logic.
Where this falls down is that no ordinary Mastodon instance can comply with the regulations of the close to 200 hundred countries in the world. Of course, just like 4chan, many wouldn’t want to out of principle.
The only way to make this work is to introduce another meat-space thing: Border posts. You need a Great Firewall of the [Local Nation]. At physical border posts, guards check if goods comply with local regulations. We need virtual border posts to check if data is imported and exported in compliance with local regulations.
Such a thing, a virtual Schengen border, was briefly considered in the EU about 15 years ago. It went nowhere at the time. But if you look at EU regulations, you can see that the foundations are already laid, most obviously with the GDPR but also the DSM, DMA, DSA, CRA, …
Eventually, the border will be closed to protect our values; to enforce our laws. We will lock out those American and Chinese Big Tech companies that steal our data. We will only allow their European branches and strictly monitor their communications abroad. We will be taking back control, as the Brexiteers sloganized it. Freedom is just another word for having to ask the government for permission when you enter a country. And increasingly, it is another word for having to ask permission for how you use your own computer.
It won’t be some shady backroom deal. Look here. People in this community love these regulations. Europeans here are happy to tell US companies to “FO if they don’t want to follow our laws”. Well, the Great Firewall of Europe is how you do that.
- Comment on Mastodon says it doesn't 'have the means' to comply with age verification laws 2 days ago:
What gets me is how many people in this very community have the same level of ignorance. And on top of that, they don’t understand that these laws also apply to the very service they are using.
- Comment on Google will block sideloading of unverified Android apps starting next year 2 days ago:
Hast du da eine Quelle dazu? Soweit ich weiß, verlangt Apple, dass alle Apps “notarized” sein müssen. Also das, was Google jetzt auch einführt.
Für Apps im offiziellen Store ist das explizit EU-Vorschrift. Warum sollte die EU was dagegen haben, wenn das freiwillig ausgedehnt wird (falls es freiwillig ist)?
- Submitted 3 days ago to technology@lemmy.world | 191 comments
- Comment on They didn't stop to think if they should 4 days ago:
For those who don’t get it: That’s promo for the Schwarzenegger + DeVito movie Junior (1994). Schwarzenegger and DeVito play scientists who have developed a new drug. A little self-experimentation has Schwarzenegger pregnant.
Social media critters would so explode today.
- Comment on They didn't stop to think if they should 4 days ago:
Photo of the expectant couple and their doctor:
- Comment on Intelligent Design 4 days ago:
George Carlin, I think.
- Comment on Intelligent Design 4 days ago:
Where is Doctor Pangloss when you need him?
- Submitted 4 days ago to science_memes@mander.xyz | 33 comments
- Comment on Uhm 4 days ago:
Wow, can you imagine the collective melt-down if that movie came out today?
- Comment on Authors celebrate “historic” settlement coming soon in Anthropic class action 4 days ago:
There is going to be so much wailing and gnashing of teeth when the settlement is made public. So many people are just completely out of touch.
Free advice: When that happens, have a little think about what news sources caused you to wallow in disinformation. Consider that that makes you completely incapable of advocating for your own interests or even understanding where those interests lie.
- Comment on 4chan and Kiwi Farms Sue the UK Over its Age Verification Law 5 days ago:
The complaint is hilarious. So on brand.
I guess they’ll win. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens then.
- Comment on 4chan and Kiwi Farms Sue the UK Over its Age Verification Law 5 days ago:
Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.
- Comment on Google will block sideloading of unverified Android apps starting next year 5 days ago:
The DSA requires people offering apps (“traders”) to provide certain information. For example: address, email, and phone number must be made public. When Apple introduced that, this also caused some outrage and calls for EU regulation. Despite the fact that this was exactly the regulation called for. Hence, why I mentioned that trusted trader scheme.
Google may be legally required to do this. I’m not sure how the DSA is to be interpreted on this. It’s certainly not a stretch (see Article 31). It’s out of touch to believe the EU will push against this.
- Comment on Google will block sideloading of unverified Android apps starting next year 5 days ago:
The Cyber Resilience Act may also have something to do with this.
- Comment on Google will block sideloading of unverified Android apps starting next year 5 days ago:
You mean when they forced Apple to implement the “trusted trader” scheme.
- Comment on How do I "sabotage" my own online content to throw a wrench in AI training machines? 6 days ago:
Maybe a little, but it’s like spitting in the ocean. The SEO people are now targeting genAI; calling it GEO. They might be able to help you. Take other suggestions with a grain of salt. People who hate technology are generally not very good with it.
- Comment on bmw 6 days ago:
429k views
(X) Doubt
- Comment on Ponder not the Demoncore 1 week ago:
Never put in just the tip. Always go as deep as you can. It’s a rule that evolution has chiselled into every brain, and yet…
- Comment on It Took Many Years And Billions Of Dollars, But Microsoft Finally Invented A Calculator That Is Wrong Sometimes 1 week ago:
Hah! That was my first thought, too, when I saw the headline.
- Comment on Should we remove XSLT from the web platform? 1 week ago:
Thanks, but I understand that. Where does that come up? There’s RSS feeds. Anything else?
- Comment on Should we remove XSLT from the web platform? 2 weeks ago:
What do you guys need this for? And why?
