Hmm. Maybe what "counts as an observer" is relative to your reference frame, and so is the concept of "superposition". And thus, though the cat is making observations within its environment, since the environment is sealed off, the cat is not "an observer" from our reference frame because there is no interaction between us and the cat. From the cat's reference frame it is probably not in a superposition - If it is observing anything, it is alive, and if it is dead, it is not observing anything. But if we observe the cat, the wave function is collapsed from our reference frame and the cat is in one or the other state.

My understanding of quantum mechanics is pretty shallow so take this with an ocean of salt.

That would mean we are all alive and dead.

Well yes. That is many-worlds.

I love your advice for beginners (last 3 paragraphs of your comment). It definitely rings true that the attainment of desirelessness can become a desire in itself, just another dragon to chase.

I like your comment so much I was tempted to share it with my FB friends. Would you be ok with that? No worries if not. If so, would you like to be mentioned by your username?

Sorry if this is not an appropriate thing to comment here. I would have messaged you privately but HN doesn't seem to provide a way to do that, and I don't see an email address for you. Cheers

That's okay, you can share it :)

> I mean, what data is going to get extracted? Your favorite color?

For instance, a log of every time I turn my lights on and off? Coupled with of course all kinds of fingerprinting info about my phone which is also tied to all my accounts. Others mentioned it could also scan the local network. Creepy.

So sick of apps being required for basic things. My ISP is trying to require one to admin my router...

Sure, but what debt does the average person own which is eroded? The money in their bank account.

For an article about privacy and not being snooped on, some HTTPS would be nice!

But then again, the author could understandably reply that TLS is an example of a system that has evolved to require "checking in" with a central authority - the opposite of what they want. So fair enough.

I can relate to the feeling of anxiety when the all-too-short weekend is drawing to a close. Glad you put this up! Hope it helps you feel a little more in control and able to do something creative. It makes sense that you chose to just get something out there without worrying about the details or polishing up the rough edges.

Happy Sunday! :)

Thanks a lot, happy sunday too !

Bon Dimanche ! (am I late for last sunday or just early for next?)

> you can choose what companies you interact with but you can't choose your government.

On the contrary, you can vote to change your government, but the corporations get to do what they want with 0 accountability. If they have a pseudo-monopoly (like several large tech companies do today), you can "choose" to use them or miss out on basic life services.

This is true, so I should have prefaced that part with 'in theory'. But companies that become a monopoly or pseudo-monopoly can be broken up by the government. The government cannot become broken up by companies.

The fact that these monopolies can exist is a failure of the government.

Some, like telecom companies, exist because they have ownership over a scarce resource (spectrum). I might argue that because of that scarcity, internet should be a function provided by the government and not private companies at all.

Others, like smartphone OS's (iOS vs Android), exist because they are years ahead of any competition, and then entrench themselves by using custom parts and protocols. In an ideal world, there would be an OS-agnostic language for developing mobile apps, just as web pages are (mostly) browser-agnostic. Likewise, as manufacturing parts gets cheaper hopefully it becomes easier for tech enthusiasts to build their own phones with an open source OS. The government should have a role to facilitate this outcome.

But yes, monopolies leave us helpless

Yes.

I've long wondered about this as well. I think asking questions would be an important part of any self-editing process.

Off topic, but I really, really wish we could stop overloading the word "crypto" to refer to cryptocurrencies when it already is an abbreviation for cryptography. It's worse when we start saying things like "crypto networks", which is likely frequently misinterpreted/conflated with any kind of secure or encrypted network.

We owe it to ourselves to keep clear language available to talk about the concept of secure, private information storage and transmission. Blockchain is cool, but it's a very distinct concept from crypto.