malicka

Cell-phones. Noone’s having sex because they’d rather watch Tik-Tok; it’s got lower friction than going outside.

When the data ends up inevitably in the state’s hands (almost certainly thanks to the AI company they’re contracting), it is 100% part of the surveillance state. Same reason telecom providers and Big Tech generally is part of the surveillance state; they’ll just hand over data, no questions asked, no warrants provided.

> My high school also had cameras. Isn’t that rather typical?

Security cameras are incredibly typical. Having cameras that record _audio_ are not, and having cameras whose audio and video recordings are handed over to an AI company is _absolutely_ not typical.

Exactly. Their process prioritizes seniority generally, and this is another case. The process is, if the president wants another go, he gets another go; and he sure as heck wanted another go.

> This will have some of the unfortunate effect of collectivism. We don't want the govt to tax you into poverty.

Weird framing. In any case, this would lead to less taxes for most folks, at least compared to property taxes.

“Robotic productivity” is taxed in every country, including China — the profits go to some entity, to some company. With exceptions for the companies that manage to wrestle themselves in paying virtually nothing in taxes, that profit is taxed somewhere down the line. Nothing special about AI productivity, it’s just money.

It’s both superior engineering-wise and morally. The moral framing is probably more popular with folks that don’t care about engineering superiority, too.

No, we're supposed to hate all passively-surveilling cameras. Except for dumb ones that dump to local storage. Dash-cams are often pretty dumb, so they’re fine; your phone only takes photos when you ask it to, so it’s fine. :)

They definitely shouldn’t. Mozilla has talented engineers, but it’s been catastrophically mismanaged for almost 20 years at this point. Keep Firefox, but let Mozilla finally die.

Cute and clever gimmick, which is more than I can say about most AI-related software churned out these days.

Information was made to be free: Sharing jokes shares the joy!

Working on mine, but… sluggishly.

> Or maybe you know enough people are just generally mean and jerk enough that you don't want to listen to their silly criticism and over-the-topness.

Yea, that’s lacking the bravery. Thickening your skin and sharpening your tools is 100% beneficial to you, at least for your personal development. It’s good for culture and society, too, to have more fledgling and amateur artists and creators put themselves out there.

Because when you are in a country, you are subject to it’s jurisdiction. Can you be arrested for petty crimes? Yes? Then you’re under that country’s jurisdiction.

Do remember that without the government, there very literally would be no forty-hour work week. Individuals don’t have the same bargaining power as employers, not by a long-shot.

Every piece chipped off of our right to privacy and freedom from surveillance is another strike against civil society; it normalizes data-collection further and gives any government contractors (Palantir et. al) a bigger database to profit off of.

The issue is, you can’t solve social problems with technology alone. The most challenging problems for our species (inequality, starvation, homelessness, etc) are social, after all. And we don’t have the incentives nor political will to solve them.

On your points: You won’t wake up in your vacation destination until you swap the cars out for rail. Infrastructure won’t be cheap until the social problems making it expensive (land, middle-men, quid-pro-quo, endless subcontracting) are solved.

The seeming ubiquity is definitely new.

Unless you’re the type who wants their HTML to be valid XHTML! :^)

You’re missing the point: These poll watchers made things up about what they saw, kicking off a media circus – which would’ve happened even if the system was different, because it is distinct from reality. The one at fault is the media, not the system.

We also had some recounts in the US, and they found the same results as the original election… but that didn’t stop the conspiracism, either. Because it is impervious to reality.

This kind of gatekeeping isn’t about knowledge (which is free and should be freely shared — basic hacker ethic), but about social standing.

If the critics don’t respond to facts or data, what makes you think they will once you “secure” the election? Even those recounts after the 2020 election — which found no substantial fraud — did nothing to convince them. The media tells them there is fraud, despite the evidence, and they believe it. If the media lies to this entire part of the voter-base, what you do won’t convince anyone.

Catering to propagandist’s lies is hardly productive or useful; you’ll just sink to greater and greater lows trying in vain to win them over, to the detriment of society.

The USA is pretty dang diverse, and definitely mixed. That mixing is a core part of it’s culture and history, actually. And now, the country that mixed (USA) is stronger than the Old World that didn’t (Europe).

Which is to say: There is no inherent psychological tribalism that makes having a diverse country impossible or ruinous; rather, this tribalism is manufactured and spread by hatemongers. The New World is a very good case study, here.

> cede your land to some other people who will

This is an insane way to frame immigration reform. It isn’t “ceding” anything, it just means being OK that not every single person you know is the same race. Having some cultural exchange, growing as a person, learning about the world beyond your borders… these are virtues.

For one, this article doesn’t claim that immigration increases overall crime.

Secondly, the article hints at a sampling bias we have run into before, during the Syrian refugee crisis: Immigrants are not more likely compared to their peers.

If you compare a block that is predominately young men to the general population, they commit more crime – because they are young men, not because they are immigrants.

A proper statistical comparison looks at the sub-demographics, comparing immigrant and native folk to their peers in age and sex.

Compare 18-year old men from Algeria to native 18 year-old men, and they aren’t any more likely to commit crime. But between 18-year old men and the general population? Well, duh, because one group has more young men in it.

Which is to say: No, immigrants aren’t more likely to commit crimes.

> the deep psychological truths about human tribalism

… that the races should keep to themselves? Yea, I’m going to have to disagree on this one.

This was pretty handily disproven by the New World. Mixing, sharing, cohabiting… this creates culture and makes us stronger. Isolation, protectionism, and fear makes us weak.

Crime-rates going up + Immigrants being no more likely to commit crimes = There is no causality

> crime rate hikes.

No, not really. Broadly, immigration has no effect on crime-rates. In case-study after case-study, it’s shown immigration has little to no impact on crime-rates. This was even disproven after the height of the Syrian refuge crisis! But media likes sensationalist reporting, so public perception doesn’t match the statistics.

> cultural demise.

Meaningless, also created by the media. If you listen to the media, Britain is under the fierce grip of Sharia law, enforced by… the 6% of the population that is Muslim. Yes, yes, how scary. I guess English culture was pretty weak, to meet its demise from such a meager blip.

You could block the default DoH services for Firefox, I reckon.

I think it was sarcasm.