I still think targeted ads should be illegal. I would accept static ads that are based on the content of the site rather than me as a compromise.
So like if I’m looking at example.com/cool-bikes you can show me bike ads. You don’t need to know who I am or track me.
It’s good enough for the past few decades (centuries?) it’s good enough for now. The Superbowl doesn’t serve a different ad to every viewer.
I mean… If I was playing like The Sims and one of the Sims was like “yo can I get a new bike?” I might be like sure bro. From their perspective I’m a god that exists outside time and space.
That’s not really how Christianity talks about its God though, usually. But also like the story of Job does seem like a kid and his friend fucking with their game.
I’m pretty sure that simply putting a picture of eyes in the scene reduces theft. People are emotional creatures , and if they feel like they’re being watched by someone who doesn’t approve of stealing, they’re more likely to refrain.
No other crisis at the moment, but you never know when you’re going to wake up with double cancer or whatever. I try to appreciate the nice moments.
The point is to make it harder for “those people” to vote and participate in society. If you came up with a magical, iron-clad, mechanism for everyone to have ID, the conservatives wouldn’t support it because that’s not what they want. They want minorities to suffer.
That’s not the point. The point is people spend most of their day under an authoritarian regime. Taxes and services are irrelevant to this.
It’s funny because the US is usually like “rah rah democracy!!” but also loves private corporations, which are extremely authoritarian.
Many people are kind of stupid. Not ignorant. But like, incapable or unwilling to evaluate what’s a good source and what’s nonsense. Also incapable of drawing plausible conclusions even when given good sources. It’s all emotional. It’s how you can have stuff like “the outgroup have all the money and power, but they’re also poor and taking all our welfare” at the same time. Feels truthy. Anti-vaxxers get the high of bonding with their anti-vax friends and feeling like they’re part of the in-group.
There’s not really an answer. Invest in public education for 100 years, maybe. But we’re going always going to have authoritarians shitting life up for everyone.
Every night he jumps onto the computer keyboard until it beeps. I tried turning the computer off and he turned it on somehow.
I don’t know why. It’s after I’ve fed him. I always pick him up and bring him to the bedroom after.
This is bad. I’m so tired of people doing bad things. Stop undermining public education you donkeys.
New Jersey is fine. A lot of north jersey is overshadowed by NYC being right there. One of my friends moved here from florida, and one of her friends was like “Why don’t you move to jersey city? it’s cheaper” and she went “I didn’t move to new york to live in new jersey”. But even if you do live just outside the city and none of your friends want to visit, you’re still a short train ride away from it.
I don’t know as much about south jersey, but, like, it’s fine. And unlike, I don’t know, Iowa, you can usually get on a train to a world class city.
I don’t think you can eat deep dish pizza with one hand while riding the subway quite so easily.
I have very little patience for people who can’t or won’t do the hard thing. Like, yeah withdrawal is going to suck but sometimes you have to do something unpleasant to get something better.
I mostly keep it to myself though. A lot of people have this problem. Not just about smoking.
Conversations like
“I’m so tired I don’t know why.”
“When did you go to sleep and get up?”
“Uh sleep at like 3am and up at 7am.”
“Well that explains it. Why up so late?”
“… YouTube videos.”
“You should probably stop staying up so late watching videos so you’re not exhausted all day.”
“No.”
But I mostly keep it to myself because there’s not really anything I can do to make someone listen.
Most smokers I’ve talked to get really defensive about it. “it’s not that bad! Sugar is worse for you! It’s not like you exercise or anything! I don’t smoke as much as so-and-so!”
It’s pathetic, really. I’d respect them more if they could just own “this is bad for me and everyone around me.”
You might enjoy this 1964 essay “the paranoid style in American politics” : https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/
American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.
Many people are bad at delayed gratification and long term thinking.
That’s just how people work. Belief is social. We all value input from people we see as members of our in-group more than outsiders.
But those bots don’t have any intersection with my network, so their trust score is low.
If they do connect via one of my idiot friends, that friend loses credit, too, and the system can trust his connections less.
The trust level is from my perspective, not global.
Sometimes people’s priorities, needs, and desires are bad.
I’m told one time in my sleep I sat up, looked down the hall, and said “You can’t see it from here but it can see you.”. Then laid down again and went quiet. My partner at the time was not amused