_Understated_

You make some good points but is the trade-off worth it.

Finding out where someone is from these days is fairly trivial using the IP address: the shortage of IPV4 means that it may not be 100% accurate sometimes though.

So, using your example, working out that I am in Minnesota should be easy enough. At that point, I'd wager that people will either buy from Amazon (sell many cheap/fake/knockoff stuff that does the job) or would buy from Minnesota Bob's Local Car Parts Emporium... no data to back that up but I'd imagine either of those scenarios would account for a large number of people - My own preference (for the most part) these days is local business with a delivery option (not Amazon any more due to reasons).

With your example, there is a whole bunch of extra options in there that I would put serious money on that no one can tell what I want from mining the shit out of me. Not Google, not anyone.

Even with all the data they can muster, there is no way that they can make the decision that "this guy wants ad number 15, not ad number 16" with enough accuracy that the people paying to have their ad shown are actually getting a return.

With context-sensitive ads, I'd wager there'd be a high chance that someone in Minnesota searching for carburetors that sees an ad for Minnesota Bob's Local Car Parts Emporium would want to buy from him... again, no data to back it up, but equally, I have yet to see any substantive data that mining actually results in an appreciable, measurable increase in sales... none!

I still believe it's all (mostly) a ponzi scheme.

Although I've asked before, a great many times, can anyone explain to me why, if I search for "Carburetor for Ford Fiesta", just showing me ads for carburetors with no intrusive data mining isn't enough for companies these days?

I would, in all likelihood, click on something like that.

It's easy to infer "oh, this guy needs a new carburetor for his Ford Fiesta" from my search. What possible additional benefit is there to mining the ever-living hell out of me further?

Who is paying for this shit?

Is advertising and tracking a massive ponzi scheme?

Edit: I should point out that although the content piece doesn't explicitly mention ads, the creator is an ad-man from Google and I'd put money on it having ads anyway... hence my comment.

This made me wonder:

Is there a parallel between the advertising industry and their ever increasing quest to mine more data and the games industry with their incessant need for DLC, microtransactions and whatnot?

It seems that middle-management/VC's in both of these industries are pushing the same processes (or could we use "dogma"?) without any empirical evidence that what they are doing is the right thing, all the while patting each other on the back because that's the way everyone else does it...

Edit: edited for clarity

Did she honestly say this? Do you have a link?

If this is true then, wow... just wow!

Edit: given that Zuck took the piss out of his customers many years ago [0] as a teenager and is now a billionaire then I guess anything's possible.

[0] - https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a19490586/mark-zucker...

From September 2020 I had to work at an Amazon Warehouse in the UK. Nightshift.

Our shifts were 4 x 10.5 with two 30 mins breaks (which you only got paid for one!)

It was absolute shite and the toughest job I've ever done but, hey, I kept my roof over my head.

It's not nice but unfortunately when you don't have a job and prospects suck then they hold all the cards :(

Let's say they do tap the cables (I reckon they do too but in case they don't) what can they actually see if the traffic is encrypted?

But isn't the immune system classed as anti-fragile? By this, I mean that if you don't use it then it gets weaker.

With all this constant disinfecting, are we not doing ourselves out of our ability to fight things off in future?

I'm talking about balancing the risk! Yes that 400 figure is foundational to my argument and yes, we should lift the restrictions.

But if you are really sick, you'd be at home, in your bed taking it easy anyway especially if your symptoms are as severe as some of the COVID reports suggest.

And it's not balanced reporting I want either, it's accurate reporting with facts that can be challenged or verified: most articles are incredibly vague when it comes to COVID and some have incredibly low numbers that, at first glance, look damning but are still tiny numbers.

Edit: deleted the 100,000 sentece - In response to that number, yes it may be a large number but there is no breakdown of the cases. For all you know, they were all 90+ years old with previous underlying conditions. All the figures we see have very little behind them that can substantiate the measures taken, while at the same time trigger responses in all of us that make them hard to argue against without coming across as callous but the numbers are not there to justify the lockdowns.

> It isn’t possible to protect the vulnerable while having rampant covid in the young and healthy, society doesn’t work like that.

Then why do the numbers keep going up despite locking down everyone? Why didn't governments institute a policy that keeps people away from those in vulnerable groups with a £1000 fine for breaches? Mandated masks etc. That would have been just as manageable. Lockdowns do not work, the figures clearly show that yet people still mandate for more lockdowns? I don't get it.

> and despite the huge effort, covid still escapes into the community every so often.

yes, but who is dying from it? It's the old and vulnerable, not the young and non-vulnerable: the vast majority of people will not die from this!

The cure is worse than the disease.

I didn't advocate for "do nothing". Not at all.

I live in the UK and we have the NHS so their job is to look after people when they get sick (and, to a certain extent, use preventative measure like education where appropriate).

But the UK governments largest spend is the NHS. We pay a fortune every year for it. So if they can't do their job then heads should roll among politicians and NHS brass.

My argument is that the death rate does not justify the measures that are being taken: by all means protect the vulnerable (my parents are in that class) but the rest of us have been locked down when the stats absolutely do not justify it.

I haven't even mentioned the economic cataclysm we are facing... that's another story!

Balance, that's what I'm pushing for.

Assess your actual chances of catching and suffering from covid. Then balance it against the risk of a rushed experimental gene therapy still in initial trials.

Edit: Remember that none of the media and government published figures show recovery rates - this is hugely important.

> Excess mortality shows us ~100,000 extra people died in the UK since COVID started.

It still doesn't negate the argument that it only affects the vulnerable.

And those in the hospital beds: what were their conditions while in there? What were their underlying health issues (if any)? Did they recover?

I'm not saying people don't get sick, I'm saying the cure is worse than the disease especially when the ones dying are a tiny fraction of the population.

Edit: I live in Scotland - we have had the "sick man of Europe" title for a long time and we have an obesity crisis here [0]

[0] - https://www.obesityactionscotland.org/media/1026/obesityfact...

We're talking about serious stuff: cancer, immune disorders, diabetes, obesity etc.

That's not an argument...

Healthy is subjective but when you say it like that then, yes, everyone has something.

However, there are a bunch of things that will greatly increase your chances of dying from COVID: diabetes, obesity, cancer, immune-related illnesses so this is what I am referring to. It's fair to say that people with one or more of those (not an exhaustive list) are "unhealthy".

So, it's not misleading: it's people who are vulnerable either due to age or health reasons that are at risk of dying, no one else.

It was even raised by an MP recently and he asked Boris Johnston why we're getting locked down when only 400 or so people with no underlying conditions have died... everyone else had underlying conditions related to poor health that made them susceptible so they should have been locked down and the rest of us left to get on with things.

And you have every reason to be incredibly cautious. Were I in your shoes I'd likely err on the side of caution too.

Hospitalisation rate says nothing other than they were in hospital. It could have been because they were feeling a bit rough but utterly terrified due to all the scaremongering that's going around. Or they may have been close to deaths door. No way to tell.

The figures don't lie: There are vulnerable groups that can be severely symptomatic and even die from this but they make up a tiny tiny fraction of the population.

Sorry, it says nothing of the sort. All the evidence, including government statistics, tell is it is precisely that, a dismissably small number outside known vulnerable groups.

I meant "underlying conditions", not underlying symptoms... that's my fault.

So, basically, if you are healthy, your chances are absolutely tiny that you will die if you catch it.

So, yeah, it matters a whole lot actually.

> exhibited a severe chest X-ray 70%-80% of the time

With a sample size of what? That's a nonsense statement that can't be scrutinised.

Edit, found this: The finding is promising but will require further research given the small size of the study with only 82 patients, mostly male and average age over 50

82 people over the age of 50. It also doesn't mention how healthy these people were.

This is typical of pretty much all media coverage: very little facts but also very little to throw back at them...

Sorry, but I take issue with that statement: 100% protection against death and hospitalization for a tiny minority that are susceptible.

Your statement makes it sound like everyone that gets it will die when that is absolutely not true.

In fact, the statistics show the exact opposite: here in the UK, for example, only around 400 people under the age of 70 (I think!) that have no underlying symptoms, have actually died from COVID.

Edit: Oh here we go again... drive-by downvotes. Care to state your reasons?

Ok, a bit of a hijack here but it's looking like encryption is going to be backdoored! All govs seem to be gunning for it.

So, what is the solution? Having my own public/private keys that I sign everything with?

> only 32% [0] of people care enough about privacy to switch to a service that preserves it

This statistic reflects my unscientific view also.

I am very privacy conscious (I still have a gmail account but that's for job hunting only!) but I know few others that are, however, if these others experienced something detrimental as a result of giving away their privacy then I suspect that 32% figure would increase... but until that happens, people won't care.

Protecting your privacy online these days is time-consuming and, if I'm honest, exhausting: it's a constant arms race between stopping evermore intrusive code from data mining the hell out of me and just being able to use things without constantly analysing them to ensure they're legit.

In fact, yesterday I went to the eff site [0] to see how much data my browser was giving away and even though I have it locked down (I still have js) I was unique anyway...

I've asked myself in the days when I feel like just giving in "what is the danger from <shady company> knowing all this stuff about me?"... And, in all honesty, I haven't come up with an answer that would satisfy that 68%.

[0] - https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

For me, the issue is not black and white: it's not "we're all gonna work from home" / "we're all gonna work from the office"... it's being given the choice based on my circumstances.

If I was king of the world I'd tell businesses (where feasible - warehouses still need people to be onsite, small businesses may not have the money for the tools for example) that they need to be able to offer home working for those that want/need it and office working for those that want/need it.

With that comes the correct tools and equipment, e.g. video conferencing, desktop sharing, telepresence, laptops, whatever.

I have been working remotely for several years with only occasional visits to an office and it works for me. I would hate to have to travel every day to an office but I like the occasional visit.

I get enough interaction with my family and friends (current COVID restrictions not withstanding ofc) but I have a separate room upstairs where I work so I don't have to sit in the kitchen.

It's horses for courses imo... the future needs to be flexibility-based.

If I had to guess, they were banned because of this:

"The SWP Facebook page regularly posts in support of Palestine, Black Lives Matter and against Boris Johnson’s Covid policies"

In particular, the COVID part is where I'd put my money.

Fyi, in Scotland, museum access is free... Something I'm grateful for and happy to contribute my taxes towards

Credibility is in the eyes of the viewer: what you view as credible may not be what I view as credible.

And, to that end, whether you would agree with the criticism or not, there is none anyway. No questioning or investigation by media of any sort around COVID science. That was my point.

Even if a hillbilly right-wing conspiracy theorist came onto CNN to talk about aliens or lizard-people that would at least be something but there is nothing but acceptance that what the government says is the ONLY answer.

But there is NO criticism at all... credible or not.

See my edit above... couldn't reply at the time for some reason

No worries. Noted.

My point wasn't about vaccine distrust although that's part of it. It's more about not having a competent media that will at least say "we will question everything" and investigating along those lines. COVID is the prime example in my opinion so I provided links when asked.

Well, in salmon30salmon's defence: the mainstream media are completely and utterly missing in action when it comes to COVID.

They only parrot what the gov tells them and investigate nothing these days.

There are countless credible scientists saying that we are getting this incredibly wrong on so many levels yet mainstream media does not mention anything other than government narrative.

When did you see any news coverage of criticism of the "vaccine"? I mean, on a scientific level, not government ineptitude at rolling it out.

Edit: I can't reply for some reason but here's a video talking about the "vaccine"[0] and here's the Great Barrington Declaration[1]. Here is criticism from the BMJ [2] stating that (according to my maths) it's only 19% effective... in addition, it's designed to TREAT the symptoms, not cure you... what kind of vaccine is that?

[0] - https://www.bitchute.com/video/edombs4NcvQ6/

[1] - https://gbdeclaration.org/

[2] - https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/04/peter-doshi-pfizer-and-...

Remember that AWS can terminate (as shown recently with Parler) any time they want.