The reason people buy expensive houses in expensive areas is because of enhanced social networking and housing market stability. Strong communities tend to fare better in economic downturns. Moving to the countryside increases the probability of social isolation. This has far reaching consequences on mental and physical health.
There is nothing you can do about it. You have no meaningful impact on any government policies. Why waste time writing about this stuff if legislative representatives do not care about your writings? Genuinely curious why people waste time complaining about things they have zero control over.
Kinda weird for you to say that, when right in the article:
« Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), the House Oversight Committee’s ranking Republican, seemed particularly incensed during a hearing into the technology last month at the use of driver’s license photos in federal facial-recognition searches without the approval of state legislators or individual license holders. »
These kinds of comments make me extremely upset. Such thinking is exactly why we're losing power in democracy. Such thinking is how authoritarians win. I will go as far as saying that spreading this idea is dangerous at best.
In my youth I spent thousands of hours I will never get back arguing about the merits of various social policies and I have never made a positive impact with my contributions.
Well then do more than just argue. And when you do argue, argue to change minds, not to win. I know I used to argue to win. I found that it just puts people off. It doesn't matter how right you are if you make the other person feel angry (obvious counter examples aside). Arguing to convince the other side is harder because you have to understand them. Not only that, but you have to demonstrate that understanding. It is always a continual battle.
But besides arguing there are things you can do. As coders and techies we can contribute code. We can encourage open source and make our own code open source. We can help others find secure forms of communication. We can also do what many others in the public can do: protest, write our congressmen, and raise hell. How much and how little of this you want to do or have time for is okay. But I wouldn't say that just because you haven't convinced others means you shouldn't try. It just means you should change strategies. You after all, no matter how smart or right you are, are not perfect and neither is the person you're trying to convince.
The geek/hacker contingent has been surprisingly inept at applying the hacker ethos on the political scene. This is despite the wealth and self-assessed brilliance - where are the subversive PACs exploiting loopholes? Or trade groups communicatinf what is "common sense" on HN to the rest of the world? Perhaps the industry attracts the lone-wolf/Randian types who do not see value in unity-of-purpose, because less-wealthy and allegedly "lower-performance" industries are much more politically effective.
Look at Chicago for an example: It's one of the most restrictive states in the union on 'gun control' yet has some of the highest murder rates and death by guns across the board.
YouTube needs to accelerate their banning process so they can become solely focused on mainstream psychological brainwashing clickbait. This way my favorite creators can actually move to other freer platforms and get paid without fascist payment processors and trying to abide by YouTube's insane terms and conditions. YouTube is going the way of cable TV channels dedicated to infomercials. The interesting stuff will be purged soon. The writing is on the wall. Backup and escape while you can. It will not get better.
Aside from D3 most of the world that doesn't regularly eat lots of fermented foods regularly lacks in K2. This results in calcium building up in arterial walls rather than being shuttled into bones and tissues.
I would encourage readers to see Moxie Marlinspike's essay on this subject. The thesis is that the ability to capriciously and selective prosecute anyone is stiffing to dissent, and prevents political change. Students of recent US history understand that this is far from purely theoretical.
"if everyone’s every action were being monitored, and everyone technically violates some obscure law at some time, then punishment becomes purely selective. Those in power will essentially have what they need to punish anyone they’d like, whenever they choose, as if there were no rules at all.
Even ignoring this obvious potential for new abuse, it’s also substantially closer to that dystopian reality of a world where law enforcement is 100% effective, eliminating the possibility to [directly] experience alternative ideas that might better suit us."
Edit: To be clear, I think you make good point that privacy laws won't save you from a subpoena. However, they are probably useful for other reasons; this was why warrants and other notions of due process were created to begin with, including the requirement that a warrant or subpoena be limited in scope to that material which is relevant to a particular charge or investigation. I think one big problem today is that people are ordered to surrender "everything on your phone and cloud", etc. This is at least equivalent to search warrant for "your filing cabinet", if not "everything you have ever written or said."
This is very interesting. We surrender, for example, to the posibility of preventing the suffering of people by the acts of others becouse that, would make us dystopian.
Respectfully, did you read the article? The thesis is that dragnet surveillance is stifling to political change and may result in an ossified society. There are trade-offs other then security vs safety.
But privacy laws can prevent things from being stored, and thus reducing their ability to be gathered by subpoenas etc, particularly some n years later.
There are quite a few lines one has to cross before subpoenas and similar that don't exist with a cloud provider, employer, ex-wife, contractor, hacker, etc.
In this case it's about financial communications in the workplace that are required to be recorded for compliance.
Amazingly enough, there are more than zero traders who are sufficiently arrogant bozos that they will chat, on these recorded channels, about coordinating to break the law, stating on the recorded channel that they know they are breaking the law.
But "strong privacy laws" don't prevent these documents from being created. It's idiots saving hard evidence of the crime, and no amount of legislation can teach people to be better criminals.
