mfed1122
@mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de
- Comment on Experts raise privacy concerns over Michigan bill targeting pornography and VPNs 10 hours ago:
Don’t think the fact that corporations use VPNs will protect us. There are all sorts of products that are legal for corporate purchase but not for individuals. Typically dangerous equipment, chemicals, tools, etc. The precedent is there as long as you can establish that a VPN is dangerous or unfit for the public. I’m very sure this will be the angle taken for Phase 2 of the “finally fuck up the internet for everyone” plan.
- Comment on Arizona ‘VPN’ searches surge amid Pornhub ban in state 1 day ago:
All politicians are united in their love of surveillance, as it allows them to subjugate the population via panopticon-induced threats. “We are always watching, so don’t try anything”
- Comment on Arizona ‘VPN’ searches surge amid Pornhub ban in state 1 day ago:
My issue is that the ones who aren’t bothering you with it are essentially not doing so because they know other people in their group are already handling that for them. Religions, especially those you named, come with a mandate to spread themselves and force others to comply with their standards.
It’s kind of like a really selfish kid who would steal all your lunch every day, but he’s not strong enough to do so, so instead he’s just nice and kind and smiles at you and lets you be. But if he ever gets strong enough, he’ll start taking your lunch every single day forever.
The religious people who aren’t forcing it down your throat either (1) think someone else is doing it for them so they don’t have to, or (2) don’t think they could get away with it without being counterproductive to their cause, and are waiting for a more opportune moment.
These are people who believe that they factually know what constitutes objective good. Imagine if raping children was legal and you ones your neighbor was raping children. You might just leave him alone about it because, what can you do? But the moment you have an opportunity to vote for a law to outlaw it, the moment you have a chance to kill him and get away with it, etc. you’ll try to act against him. Your polite indifference to him is a lie. This is how religious people are to you, except for instead of it being about reasonable things like raping children, it’s about stupid bullshit that makes no sense, like the fact you don’t pray every day at a certain time, or the fact that you’re attracted to the same sex, or the fact that you don’t want the ten commandments posted in schools.
- Comment on I Quit 2 days ago:
I feel ya, I also generally am very against “it’s just common sense!” type reasoning. But have you ever spent time with, like special education students? Like someone who will need to live with their parents forever because they can’t learn to do things like read or write? It’s nice to believe that maybe if only they had been given the right environment, they wouldn’t have those problems - it’s also just not true. Or perhaps we can take a more extremely example of someone who suffered a major brain injury. It sucks, and it’s unfair, but at the end of the day some people really are definitively less smart than others. And by that same token, those others are definitively more smart than them. Of course, once people are at a certain level, it gets a lot harder to tell, but that dynamic is still in play. Likewise, if you’ve ever had the experience of interacting with a gifted kid, it’s pretty clear that they’re smarter than others.
That’s a good distinction about intelligence being generally advantageous. That is why I said generally - it has some clear disadvantages like loneliness or a deeper awareness of the world’s problems, etc. But most of the time, being smart is advantageous, don’t you think? I mean, what is intelligence other than an ability to correctly understand reality? I do agree that sometimes having a false understanding of reality can coincidentally help you out, but knowing how things really are is certainly the superior strategy. If you think otherwise, it’s always easy to make yourself dumber and reap the rewards. I don’t mean that sarcastically or cruelly. I just mean, there’s a reason we don’t see intelligent people lobotomizing themselves to have better lives.
Agreed the chart only shows correlation and not causation in either direction.
- Comment on I Quit 2 days ago:
I mean, look. While it’s true that IQ tests aren’t a great measure of intelligence, it’s not like all humans are equally intelligent. We all know some people who are clearly smart and some people who are clearly dumb. And I think it’s completely expected that being smarter gives you some advantage at getting money. I don’t think anyone can reasonably deny that being smart is generally advantageous in life. This chart seems perfectly fair and reasonable to me…there is a slight correlation, moreso on the low end (how can severely mentally retarded people do most jobs or even have incomes?), and less so on the high end. It makes a mistake in talking about income rather than net worth, which is really the more pertinent thing in “being rich”. I bet we would see a much lower correlation there, because you can be born into having a high net worth. But the correlation isn’t too high, because, as everyone reasonable already suspected, being rich is almost entirely about being lucky. I don’t think this chart really has any import to the many social discussions about meritocracy or wealth or intelligence, except for maybe to disprove someone who believes that we live in a fair world where “if you’re smart and work hard you can make it”. But even then, that would rely on a misunderstanding of what the chart tells us.
- Comment on Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid 1 week ago:
Ahhh I see, I was confused about what you were getting at. My mistake. And yes that’s very true…hmm. More dire than I was even thinking then…
- Comment on Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid 1 week ago:
Yes, it does apply to every operating system - hence, the differentiator becomes whether the operating system has hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on dedicated security development. This is why a lot of companies now don’t even let you use Android devices for BYOD aside from Google or Samsung, because they’re the only companies with the resources to keep their security really up to date.
- Comment on Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid 1 week ago:
I think the big problem with this, as far as I know, is that this code needs pretty rapid security updates that require a fairly huge and experienced team of people to both find, understand and implement the security changes. Otherwise it becomes very insecure very quickly. So yeah we can always use 2019 Android, etc. But it would just put you at a huge security risk.
- Comment on It's depressing, man 2 weeks ago:
My very rough very compressed minimal definition is something like:
“Ability to determine truths from falsehoods within the confines of available information”
- Comment on It's depressing, man 2 weeks ago:
Probably true, but I don’t think that warrants the stupidity being put in scare quotes like that. Regardless of whether it is intrinsic or extrinsic stupidity, stupidity by nature or by nurture, the result is genuine stupidity all the same
- Comment on Lies, all lies 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on 2 weeks ago:
But people are talking about it on Twitter, and what happens on Twitter is more real than reality itself!
- Comment on rawr xD 2 weeks ago:
Sun bears are definitely justifiably cursed.
So when she first said this. It was long ago, a time when red pandas were much less popular. So many in the group did not know what they looked like, I among them. From her fear, I inferred it must be something like, well, a panda, but red, and maybe skinnier and freakier. Then she pulled up a picture, and everybody lost it
- Comment on rawr xD 2 weeks ago:
This was asked of her. The answer was no, and the reasoning was that they won’t walk like that. She knew it was irrational lol
- Comment on rawr xD 2 weeks ago:
I once knew a lady who was terrified of red pandas for exactly this reason, the fact they would stand on two legs “like a human” despite not being human just freaked her out. So maybe there’s something to it.
- Comment on Kinky 2 weeks ago:
Dolphins stay freaky
- Comment on TikTok To Be Sold To Trump’s Right Wing Billionaire Buddies And Converted Into A Propaganda Mill 2 weeks ago:
If we’re lucky they’ll do something that speaks to the youth, like doing Tiktok dances in protest
- Comment on Senators Press Amazon’s Bezos on Unfair Scheduling Practices Hurting Workers: Amazon’s “just-in-time” scheduling leaves hourly workers with volatile schedules, uncertain paychecks 3 weeks ago:
Senators: You are doing something very bad
Bezos: No
Senators: Yes
Bezos: What are you gonna do about it?
Senators: …
This concludes today’s session
- Comment on You donkey 3 weeks ago:
This has gotta already be a popular kink within the restaurant industry
- Comment on No I'm really not sorry. George Floyd was a father too, and before old Charlie had his personal turning point he called him a scumbag. 4 weeks ago:
Better, but not ultimately valid :)
- Comment on No I'm really not sorry. George Floyd was a father too, and before old Charlie had his personal turning point he called him a scumbag. 4 weeks ago:
The “he’s a father” line has got to be the most slave-morality, don’t-ask-questions, get back to work and serve the Economy, don’t make trouble for the system, obvious bullshit I’ve ever heard.
One can make plenty of better arguments for why not to make fun of him posthumously, so why pick such a bad one? Oh right, because the vast majority of our society has never been educated to care about the logical validity of an argument, but only its emotional gut-feeling truthiness.
- Comment on gun, nuts 4 weeks ago:
The Black Panthers got a lot out of theirs. It’s very likely that African Americans wouldn’t have rights in America today if not for those guns.
- Comment on Has Charlie Kirk ever changed his views on a subject during a debate? 4 weeks ago:
Fair, fair
- Comment on AI Startup Flock Thinks It Can Eliminate All Crime In America 4 weeks ago:
We need to start badgering our local politicians to remove this shit. This is one area where local action could feasibly make a big difference. If a few towns start becoming “flock dark zones” then the network, and value prop of the company, as a whole loses efficacy.
- Comment on Has Charlie Kirk ever changed his views on a subject during a debate? 4 weeks ago:
The best thing that could possibly come of his death is if nobody ever spoke of him or thought of him again
- Comment on Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline’ 4 weeks ago:
Yeah I know more than a few people fitting that description. But I do believe things can turn around. It’s less likely to make converts of people who already have that mentality, but things can resurge among new people and I think there’s a real movement there with tech literacy.
- Comment on Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline’ 4 weeks ago:
Exactly my thinking. You could even have some sort of containerized environment so that people can easily just download and run containerized apps for various things. A podman image for your music server, for your photo hosting… almost like apps but less proprietary and less closed source
- Comment on Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline’ 4 weeks ago:
This makes me think that a big part of the solution is some sort of very low barrier to entry guide or product for self-hosting. Like something even a non-technical person can do. Imagine if it became the norm to have a little always-on device that serves up your personal website, instead of social media accounts…
- Comment on YouTube is now flagging accounts on Premium family plans that aren't in the same household 5 weeks ago:
I had recently heard about that service for the first time and I do think it’s a good step forward. But like you said, being properly walled off is a big miss w.r.t the ideal vision of Internet culture. I think that’s why I like the idea of server bill crowdfunding (same model that Lemmy instances use basically). Some people need to step up and pay for it, and once a threshold is reached, the content is publicly available for all. But it’s not like the people who pay are martyrs, since of course if nobody pays then the thing is lost entirely.
For a video hosting service, I feel like paywalling features is a good compromise, too. Once the bills are covered, everyone gets to enjoy ad-free, unsponsored videos… something along those lines would be preferable, at least to me since I feel like the openness of the internet is a great component to what makes it such a special place. Not that I mind private internet spaces either. I think both are important. So I think Nebula has a place in my utopian internet landscape too lol
- Comment on YouTube is now flagging accounts on Premium family plans that aren't in the same household 5 weeks ago:
Yeah no denying YouTube is particularly hard to replace, hence why there’s been nary a competitor even after all this time. I think paying for server upkeep could be a model that ekes out a victory…it would be drastically cheaper to users, and would come without ads or any of that other annoying junk. Ultimately someone needs to pay the bills, so it’s not like I even blame YouTube for making you choose between ads or subscriptions. It’s just when they push it further than that, always further, forever further and further…