As soon as all shit hits the fan guess who starts earning more.

A tech farm in <insert developing country> who will vibe code a patch for half the cost? (h/j)

And she/they will miss the point, that doxxing and surveillance are bad and harmful, because their ability to empathize or draw a reasonable conclusion is fundamentally broken.

Respectfully, they’re more like happy bedfellows with overlapping agendas but uniquely different end goals. They appear to be the same, because they cooperate often.

…but it is time to admit that American society lacks the capability to implement meaningful political and criminal/judicial reform to address the challenges outlined by the article.

That’s by design. Friends across the pond talk about mass protest as a solution, but not only is the US akin to a bunch of countries loosely allied together (300M people), but we do not have the job/civil rights protections necessary such that everyone can protest safely. If you get injured during a protest (or worse), you have to pay a lot of money to get treatment. If you “say something the wealthy don’t like,” you can lose your job, get smeared all over social media, and be blacklisted from future employment. If you snicker at a public event or sit quietly on a campus, you could wind up in jail or in front of a judge who will be more than happy to take cops’ words for it that you are a public nuisance or were resisting. Our “right” to protest is functionally a guideline, in practice.

US becoming an authoritarian/nihilist mafia state is not good for global democracy

I have some bad news. We’re already there. This is already a Mafia State, and although the lower courts still seem to be on the side of the people, the Supreme Court has been handing the Executive Branch more and more power when asked.

…and I have very good American friends (both far right leaning and centre right).

You should reconsider those friendships, because they are the reason we are here at all. They are the problem, and befriending the American far right is just befriending fascists. If you care about the future of global society and democracy, you cannot also hold space for the far right.

Jesus H Christmas, that’s depressing

At that point where it matters, I feel like I should be buying the music from the artist, not streaming. My latest favorite band, Mad Routine, gives you the WAV masters when you buy their albums, and they are meticulous about sound; those lossless tracks actually sound better, even with Bluetooth.

However, I think few bands are actually putting in the effort to have beautifully crafted lossless tracks. Also, I have no way of knowing if Spotify is merely increasing the bitrate but using the same lossy source file, which is what I suspect is probably the case. After all, why share valuable goods when you could pretend and throw out a few buzzwords, instead?

I think the analogy is apt. If you post a price on goods, and somebody walks into a store, picks up the item, and walks out without paying, they can’t simply say, “Well, I didn’t care to read the price, and nobody presented me with a contract, so I just took it,” as a valid defense. There’s sometimes an explicit agreement upon terms, sure, but there are times where that agreement is implicit: they put a price on a thing, I pay it, else it’s stealing. I don’t need to sign a contract every time I get groceries.

I do, however, agree that this will only have teeth once it’s argued and upheld in court the first (few) time(s). If nothing else, it’s good to see people trying to solve the problem, rather than just throwing up their hands and letting billionaires run amok with virtual impunity. Maybe this won’t work to reign in AI tech bros, but maybe it will inspire the things that do.

Eh, I think I’ll just rewatch episodes of Bluey instead.

Not with that attitude! /j

Barf. I try hard not to think about it, since it’s shoved in our faces at every turn, but you’re absolutely right that our data is going to these AI corpos.

Hot take: buy your music instead—direct from the artist whenever possible, or start building your collection from whatever you can find at a thrift store.

…the websites that host stuff and do it free and efficiently.

It’s never free. The instance you’re using isn’t free; it’s paid for by donations. ISPs and server hosts don’t just give bandwidth out of charity or for the public good. One way or another, these for-profit companies are getting their pound of flesh, typically by selling targeted ad space.

The fact that these companies are adding chat features means they’re now going to try mining conversations for additional consumer profile data points, which they can then sell to advertisers.

This new change is gross, and I hope nobody uses it.

…For dinner? …In prison? …Take a one-way trip to Mars?

If so, then I agree.

Those worked pretty well by the end, tbh

I just bought a cassette for my favorite band, Mad Routine. I don’t intend to use it, because it’s a special item with a limited run, but I would if I had a spare and a cassette player.

The next level is getting one of those radio tuners, a discman, and explaining to your friends that you use the discman, because the car CD player is broken.

So the acronym is now AMAMA!

Anyone who uses a Meta product, at this point, and thinks they have free speech, privacy, and/or ownership of their data either just joined the internet or is choosing to stay ignorant of the lengthy and growing list of abuses—abuses that are core to their business model.

That’s only because I left for Linux.

“uBlock Origin developer slams NeoWin, backpedals on recommendation!” —NeoWin editors, probably.