Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just wait for the brain scan tech to pan out. They'll call you in for a routine scan of your thoughts to make sure you haven't been up to any wrongthink.
I fail do see how can't be pessimistic in the face of this. And yet one must continue the good fight.
Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
421–430 of 663 posts
Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
#422If we taught systems thinking in schools things like internet age verification would never get past being an idea on the back of a napkin. People struggle to consider the second-, third-, and nth-order effects of anything so asking them to consider what else might happen if we bring in laws and technical mechanisms to 'protect the children' is unfortunately too a big leap for a lot of them. Most people are bad at spo…
most people that learn systems thinking is coz life forces them to.
Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
#423I don't like age verification. However I'm not concerned about it. The internet needs new spaces that are more decentralized and less in bed with governments. We already lost our freedom when we agreed to move from IRC to Discord, from phpBB to Reddit, etc. The teenagers who are blocked from mainstream social media will deliver us new free online spaces that are better than what they're blocked from.
You do realize the next step is ISP-level tagging of traffic? And VPNs are already being outlawed in much of the western world. Unless you expect the teenagers to run underground mesh radio networks and risk FCC's hammer (real jailtime), it's just wishful thinking.
Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is what I fear the most. It is gas lighting and just manipulation. The idea of privacy will become associated with crime. Further down the line technical solutions that are private will become illegal and in general not being pro survailance will get you in trouble
Do you acknowledge that for many people and practically e2ee and crime are connected? e2ee is a very useful tool for crime and combined with crypto useful tool for monetizing crime. Criminals used to speak in code, meet clandestine, use burner phones and websites were easy to shut down. Now they don't need to. The solution to privacy problem is not to shout while closing your ears but to make it clear that you see th…
I think that most common currency for criminals are still just cold cash... But maybe some use crypto yes. And maybe criminals use e2ee. And Marybe you are rigth that it is a problematic thing for law enforcement. That is not the point though.
The point is criminalizing ordinary people for something completely reasonable like wanting to have the ability to talk in private. And talk in private about what they think of the current leadership...
Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
#425If I say something illegal during a meeting, people will notice it and will report it to the police. Then I may get arrested or fined. Why should it be different on the internet ? Provided we live in countries where freedom of speech is enacted. Of course in Russia or china it's different but surely they already have tools like that.
How do you "say something illegal" ?
Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
#426If we taught systems thinking in schools things like internet age verification would never get past being an idea on the back of a napkin. People struggle to consider the second-, third-, and nth-order effects of anything so asking them to consider what else might happen if we bring in laws and technical mechanisms to 'protect the children' is unfortunately too a big leap for a lot of them. Most people are bad at spo…
people are plenty good at systems thinking. if we made them better at it, their emotional immaturity would still bypass it.
Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
#427No, they don't. The proposed EU verification system provides a proof of age to the service but no physical identity data.
This is possibly a slippery slope, but I don't think it's correct to state the two things are equivalent.
Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think the average person - ~98 IQ, at most one year of college but likely none, working some sort of retail, home health, or counter food service job - is truly capable of synthesizing third-order effects of a legal proposal and how it interacts with the current environment? If you do, what about someone 10% below average? 20%? Even at 20% below average intelligence we're still talking about one out of every t…
A consequence of democracy means average people get a vote. However average people are actually pretty good at making the right moral, common sense calls, if not the technical legal detail. I suspect that's in part because they are not living in the Westminister ( or whatever your seat of power is ) bubble. So any system needs to blend that common sense, with specific expertise. In theory that's what a representative…
It's easy to make decisions when you are the benefactor and the costs are born by someone else. Unless you are in a country with overall population density approaching that of an urban hub, there are high chances that the benefits afforded and costs born by the seat of power bubble versus an average person barely overlap.
> however one of the failings currently is the party system where capture of the party by a few people has become too easy and some options that the majority of people want never being offered at the voting time.
I'd argue that the fiefdoms within parties come primarily from their corporate likeness. Since the ultimate goal of any party is to capture power and remain in power, the structures that emerge serve this goal first, everything else second.
Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
#429If we taught systems thinking in schools things like internet age verification would never get past being an idea on the back of a napkin. People struggle to consider the second-, third-, and nth-order effects of anything so asking them to consider what else might happen if we bring in laws and technical mechanisms to 'protect the children' is unfortunately too a big leap for a lot of them. Most people are bad at spo…
In fairness, the evidence is that people already pretty firmly against things like chat control and the will to push it through tends to come from the political circles more than popular belief it is a good idea. I expect that if the measure itself went to a general vote, the majority would be against it once they have to deal with a specific proposal. It takes repeated pushes by the authoritarians looking for an opp…
Lee Kuan Yew would like a word.
The world is complicated. There may be more than one way to get to a good place, if we can even agree on what good looks like. Most people, even libertarians, think that some kind and degree of authoritarianism is beneficial in a government, we just disagree on the details.
Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I say something illegal A situation that should be impossible due to freedom of speech.
Here are some crimes you can commit by speaking, where freedom of speech cannot be used as a defence: - assault / terror threats - extortion / blackmail - fraud - conspiracy / solicitation to commit a crime - treason / sedition - perjury - slander
Sedition, the bugbear of would-be censors, has never really caught on as a tool of prosecutors in the US. There have been several attempts to use laws against sedition to attack dissidents in the US, but only a few cases have stuck, and it was usually during wartime or with extremely unfavorable defendants. Courts have (rightly) slapped down most uses of sedition laws as violations of free speech.