The average human considers the Pythagorean theorem “sophistication”. Let’s not take our education for granted.

The educated and the well-travelled may have a broader set of view points to see how many different ideas and values work (or don’t work) in practice.

I don’t disagree on some just lacking empathy. But I also think not all education creates exposure to a wide range of ideas and values that stick (or the education is just too narrow), so you’ll still find plenty of people who are educated on paper, but not cognizant of a broad set of world views. I also think we are too quick to label foreign ideas==bad ourselves. Empathy is a two way street. The key in navigating this may be in identifying when an idea comes in good faith or if it is hostile.

We’ve got these things called “social media” that are built expressly for the purpose of influencing people to buy more stuff (literally in the name: influencers). And if it can get people to part with their money, you can be sure the same tools can be used to get people to vote against their own interests.

We thought the internet was a tool to spread democracy. We were wrong. The Internet is a tool used to undermine democracy, so long as people using the Internet are not strongly inoculated against organized interests, foreign, and domestic.

Can’t tell if you are joking. I know a lot of junior developers who think this is a legitimate solution.

To be fair, most tools are pretty bad at all other jobs besides the one it was made for. Same goes for an OS. If Ubuntu is made to off ramp people more comfortable with Windows, then that’s just a fine purpose for aln OS.

I wouldn’t describe Microsoft as a walled garden (and Canonical even less). But maybe that term comes with degrees, and different perspectives of what’s tolerable.

Agreed. Some (mostly different) positions here are arguably more entrenched, or at least absolutist, with just as much reactionary down voting instead of nuanced debate.

Asking your employer for more compensation because you are exerting more effort due to inexperience isn’t so different than a AAA studio charging high fees for a crappy product because of corporate bullshit and inefficiency.

In fact, these two things tend to be two sides of the same coin.

I have a more realistic description of “Dead Internet Theory” that involves no conspiracy theories:

The Internet is becoming a monoculture, which is killing the vibrant, diverse, resilient, innovative space it used to be. Manifestos about a better way of life, and creative personal websites have been replaced with vapid social status posts in bland bootstrap layouts that double as data collection schemes. Technology that empowers people has been replaced with technology to restrict people. Bots masquerading as people is just the cherry on the sundae, the inevitable outcome of having created such a monoculture, a place where large orchards of content are so easy to pollute. The modern Internet ducking sucks, it has been ruined by people.

You correctly answered OP’s question. But the question was irrelevant to begin with. The ban on TikTok has nothing to do with data collection. It’s about controlling potential sources of foreign interference: controlling what is said or how platforms (pick and choose what to) broadcast what people are saying.

Sounds like this is the inevitable outcome of ethnic/theocratic nationalism. It matters little which group is doing. The mere act of drawing boundaries on the basis of personal identity will inevitably devolve into genocide of certain groups, as a means of abusing power.

Shutting down TikTok on US soil for 99% of people is trivial to execute and sufficiently effective.

Silly of you to assume that that is about end user’s free speech and not the “free speech” of a company to release a product to market.

In all seriousness, I think hostile foreign governments have an interest in destabilizing the public discourse of other countries. I get the memes comparing data collection between TikTok and American tech firms. But the fact remains that the US government can reign in foreign influence of domestic social media, where as it has absolutely no control over foreign social media. The fact that border protection never extended to the digital space is in hindsight kind of strange. It’s also completely asinine to expect any sort of free speech on a platform subject to an authoritarian government.

The second part of this comment doesn’t make a lot of sense.

My understanding is that the tax system allows for the declaration of depreciation in assets as a business expense. This is fine for assets with transparent market valuations.

The part where this system could be abused is in willfully withholding the release of a movie, overvaluing the expected revenue, and then subsequently declaring the lack of revenue as a depreciation in assets which is then declared as a business expense to reduce the tax burden.

A clearer example of this, with very obvious fraud, might be:

• I paint a picture, spending about an hour of my time and 30$ of paint and canvas.
• I then organize a silent/shady auction for my painting, and secretly bid $1,000,000 for my own painting
• Then I decide to not pay for it and at the same time I decide to retract the sale instead of opening it up.
• On paper I have a $1,000,000 asset that has been depreciated by $1,000,000 which allows me to deduct $1,000,000 from my other taxes.

So obviously this example was fraudulous. It’s possible that the expected revenue on the cases involving movies was estimated transparently and was fair, because of market forces.

Maybe something more scummy was at play?

Who knows.

3rd party app support…

There are many other reasons, but let’s be real. A lot of us ditched reddit because they dropped support for third party apps. Having an interface that isn’t trying to constantly milk you for all sorts of monetization schemes matters a lot, as it so happens. Enough to say goodbye to a lot of familiar and large communities with otherwise good information.

Your dystopia doesn’t account for automation. Corporations don’t even want your labour.

A social crisis seems inevitable on our current trajectory.

For just a bit more than a VPN subscription, you can rent a VPS and route your traffic through it. Basically, be your own VPN.

Maybe this law will spur innovation and skills in sysadmin, like how people who grew up before smart phones actually had to learn how computers work.

https://shinobi.video

I’m pretty sure per mile, train tracks are more expensive than asphalt roads. Even per passenger the cost savings are a bit questionable. A single urban rail line typically runs hundreds of millions to billions to construct, and more to operate.

Let’s be real, there are many advantages to mass transit, including safety, easing congestion and reducing emissions. But cost? No. Just no. If that were true, a capitalist system would have already capitalized on the opportunity

My rule of thumb is it takes one year of grief for every year invested in a relationship. The fact that it’s been two years for a one year relationship is a bit concerning.