2,050 karma · joined December 20, 2013
The issue in America is the president has more power to act unilaterally (maybe to address his/her own interests, maybe not) than any European politician.
I've not seen an ad from Youtube for probably 10+ years on my devices (since whenever Vanced made the apk customisations popular).
Dr Evil's notepad in his evil lair.
"To Do: Kill Austin Powers tomorrow!"
Personally I think 4k (with HDR) is good enough for consumer use, so agree with the parent theoretically just not quantitatively.
It did take around 20 years from DVD to 4k Bluray though.
Obviously it can impersonate art, but where creativity and the human story matter artists need not worry.
Not that I think a back door to the shit Disney and other corporate content onwers pull is nessecarily a bad thing. But it is funny to see people here gaslight themselves into believing they have some moral right to just take what others have created.
The idea that being anonymous online will save a society from a dictator/repression is wishful thinking.
Only good faith engagement with an existing democractic system will ensure the success of democracy, but that is too hard for most poeple.
99.9% on anonymous engagement online is bad faith.
They were trying to run trains faster than typical continental high speed lines, which meant custom design work that needs loads of additional testing and certification. Rather than just use the Spanish or French high speed designs.
"who also have the rights to freedom of expression and privacy", plenty of outlets for people to be expressive in the UK (more so than in the US for example, where the right wing will obviously attack any social media restrictions) that don't involve being fed junk divisive content from mainly US tech companies.
Privacy != anonymity.
Feel free to route your traffic via Wireguard. As long as it is not setup as a service for the mass evasion of age gates by children.
The "rights" of my children to not be exploited by Zuckerberg and the rest of them are far more important as far as I'm concerned.
To counter the privacy nuts, no age gates and social media bans won't lead to a North Korean style government. If anything it is the antidote as children will have a chance to grow without being radicalised by the attention stealing algorithms. The Stasi in East Germany did rather well without internet age gates.
I read an article where some children were asked about their social media use. A few made the point that they just felt crap after a scrolling session. I think everyone here knows what it's like to realise you just lost an hour to two of potential productive time to HN. And this is just a text site.
Social media is engineered to steal your attention and feed you junk, divisive information. Why on earth would we allow kids to become addicted to that?
The US was on course to invest more as well (I guess the reason Musk saw the opportunity in Tesla), but then fracking happened and the US became energy independent with fossil.
Add the energy industry lobbying to kill clean tech and two Trump terms.
To get something better I expect more than a one-shot is needed, and the knowledge to guide it in the right way.
But it's not because I'm cool with my government "[not] doing it for protecting children" or any other conspiracy theory nonsense.
It's because governments ALREADY have all this information if they want it. Most people freely log in to their favourite services, and corporations will hand over data when asked. There are vast amounts of hacked data available, which any government with a competent intelligence service has a copy of. Then there are all the existing laws and intelligence apparatus that can track people.
Age gates wont help the government find out what porn you watch, or who you message on WhatsApp, they already know if they really wanted. But they will create a social contract that letting your kids loose on social media and unfiltered internet is unacceptable. At the moment bad parents have all the power, drawing the line somewhere and enforcing it will give power back to parents that want to raise their children responsibly.
Raising a generation of kids not addicted to internet brainrot is the real way to make sure democratic governments don't overreach with the data they have.
In the same way kids should not be infecting their minds with social media slop, or porn, or plenty of other internet content.
The only way this is stopped is when a social norm is created which shames all but the most negligent parents into compliance.
At the moment the absent and bad parents have all the power. Their kids scroll all night for memes, injest YouTube brainrot and turn up at school disruptive. Kids with responsible parents either want to that as well, or can't escape it.
Surveillance from age gates is a red herring. That horse bolted long ago. You are surveilled already by tech bros when voluntarily logging in, or by making yourself stand out a mile by using a VPN and a uncommon browser setup. This data gets handed to your government on request.
Having an anonymous VPN won't stop the tech bros or an authoritarian government forming, or bring one down.
People taking part in their existing democracy and maintaining the foundation of that is the best course of action. Raising a generation of kids not addicted to internet brainrot is a key part of this.
But that would spoil some good click bait for the media, and ad hominem attacks from political opponents.
The only hope is China spoils the party.
It is run to maximise growth for example, so even though Norway is way ahead with electric car usage and infrastructure (presumably because they have a climate likely to be most affected by global warming/heating) their fund still invests in fossil fuels as they are a profit/growth opportunity.
Anyway, i don't think it's as easy as "simply stuff shit loads of cash into buying whatever they need". I believe there would be a serious political discussion needed for that to happen.