Yep. What Stallman and his friends call "free software" would not exist if not for the copyright system. The company legal team who tell you to not touch any GPL code would love to see the licensing enforcement mechanism be abolished.
Is spending time with your friends not enough in 2026? Do we must provide photographic evidence of all the fun you have been having or it did not happen?
You’re mistaking your preferences for the majority’s preferences. Huge chunk of humanity now chooses to experience in-person events recording it through their phones.
In the first case presumably the person is focused on their phone/the photo instead of their friends, and in the 2nd it's the opposite (then making the photo after they're no longer with their friends). It could be said the latter is better?
So many people I just stopped spending time with altogether as instead of being present they’d be posing for their 90th instagram shot by 10am - and then of course they want you to pose, too.
So no. Spending time with your friends is not enough in 2026. I’m not even convinced people have friends now - just colleagues and mutual parasites.
I think it depends on who your friends are, and/or culture.
I was in France the other month and walking down to the river in Saumur, I noticed an area serving drinks (out of an old converted bus) with lights and suchlike (opposite the castle on the hill), with a small acoustic band. Nobody (and I mean nobody) had their phone out. The couple of hours I spent there, nobody was observable taking selfies. The age range was from young to old.
I was shocked. It was very different from the UK. Refreshingly so.
I was also recently in France, at a very similar affair - little fortnightly village fete, with a band and food and all that.
Most everyone over 40 or so, talking. Most everyone under 40, preening and posing. I saw so many people holding plates awkwardly in midair to get a picture of themselves, the food, the bunting etc. - to the extent that the organisers were having to ask people to move along so others could order.
Then again this was the Dordogne which may as well be Bognor at this point.
There will certainly be people who will pay a premium for certified 100% natural diamonds. But there is probably not enough to support the diamond mining industry as it exists today.
This idea that people are somehow compelled to like Ai because they lack political power seems a false hubris. Do you know the CCP lets people protest some things, though certainly not party control?
No it isn't. The 1A is held strongly even by the most reactionary parts of American politics and jurisdiction. You will not be thrown into a jail just for expressing your support for a group as it happens in the UK.
Good action can also be a way for bad actors to buy good will so they can extend their other bad actions. Plus some of these actions are done on the interest of furthering the interest of the bad actors.
An example is Meta striking deals with telecom operators to offer unmetered access to Meta services making Facebook synonymous with the Internet in some countries.
>Good action can also be a way for bad actors to buy good will so they can extend their other bad actions. Plus some of these actions are done on the interest of furthering the interest of the bad actors.
We talking tech or Hell's Angels' teddy bear runs.
Oh, wait....
The second sentence of the first post was explication of the sentiment described and criticized by the preceding sentence. It is the sentiment I am calling out.
The first post could or should have been more clearly written with an em-dash, but then people would start calling me a clanker. /s
> Actor and action conflation is incredibly common these days — If someone is bad and worth condemnation, all their actions must also be bad.
My position: Bad person can do good thing for bad motives.
example: The evil wife beating doctor who saves a baby just because they get paid for it.
My "autistic" brain can recognize that saving babies is still a good thing. I don't have to like the doctor, or their reasons. For whatever reason, a large portion of people see a comparable situation and instantly start arguing that saving babies is bad.
You are being downvoted but your reasoning is absolutely correct. We nerds on the nerdy techie HN love to believe that people will act correctly if they are properly informed but people have repeatedly demonstrated that they don't care. This kind of regulation that only targets wording and nothing tangible will likely just blend into the background noise of 1000 other legally mandated notices in the fine print that people skip over. No surprise this is already a law in California which is littered with useless prop 65 warnings.
I expect many people would accept clicking "license" instead but it's unfair to assume that people don't value ownership as such or that they won't in the future. It's fair to ensure that people are made fully aware of what they're paying for in a clear way which doesn't conflate it with other forms of possession.
I'm placing a bet on "at least one NYT editor caught manipulating news stories so he can win Kalshi bets within one year" if a deal like this goes through.
How will that bet be resolved concretely, will you base it on a NYT headline?
In some grim way it will be interesting to see the how this evolves. I mean, in a way betting markets are parasitic on news agencies that have a reputation for objective reporting, in the sense that they need something that can be treated as objective to evaluate their bets. How will it shake out if reporting institutions become “part of the game.” If “editor at NYT” or “knows and editor at NYT” become an advantages that can be leveraged (either for advanced outcomes or to manipulate outcomes themselves).
Maybe the betting groups will eventually need to built institutions that are known for objective/prudent reporting that can be accessed equally, haha.
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