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25 years of mass surveillance is enough

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Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#341

Post by AngryData »

tpmoney wrote: post #300
ux266478 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we live in different worlds? I can't think of a single meaningful way my comfort has increased in the past 25 years. In fact, with the rise of the homeless and mental health crises, the encroachment of more and more people who have no business touching computers into cyberspace, the increased relevance of flash mob power on the internet, I would say my comfort has been actively degraded on a fundamental and signif…

A useful thought experiment is which 80 year period of history would you prefer to live in other than now, with the caveat that you wouldn’t know how things turn out when you lived in that time. It’s easy to pick a single brief moment in history that is in some important ways better than right now. But many of those time periods are bookended by their own periods of strife and struggle. If you had to pick a different…

Well if you don't know anything then it is just a numbers game. Most people pre-industrial has a high likely hood of you being a random subsidence farmer. And provided you didn't pick a standout point in history you would most of the time land on and live an uneventful life as a farmer.

And I know plenty of people that would take that kind of life. They would do it today if it didn't completely isolate themselves from society. But atlest in pre-modern times you could trade some random grain or booze for some other goods and pay your taxes with it. But today neither walmart nor the IRS will accept handspun yarn or a sack grain in lieu of money.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#342

Post by danielmarkbruce »

godelski wrote: post #340
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because no one is in charge, it doesn't mean favors disappear and it doesn't mean no one can throw a wrench in your system.

It really sounds like you're trying hard to define a square circle. Your argument isn't even self consistent because what you described sure sounds like someone has power...

Nope. It's perfectly consistent. No one has much power at all. No one is in charge, there is no greater power sitting above us all calling all (or even most) the shots. To use someone else's term, there is no cabal.

You seem to conflate "no one is powerful" with "no one has any power in any situation at all".

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#343

Post by MentalM »

ok_dad wrote: post #328
MentalM wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard for those who have no choice, and those who've made different choices, to relate to the insatiable appetite of billionaires. If we talk about US, your statement is outrageous hypocrisy. Median income world-wide is less than 50 cents per hour. Average American person "who have no choice" could start working for like 30+ times more at any moment they want and choose any US government they want. And how much…

The average American struggles to pay rent, utilities, and food, actually. They can’t just go donate 99.999% of their wealth and still survive like billionaires could.

> The average American struggles to pay rent, utilities, and food, actually.

Do you think your average Billionaire do not struggles to pay for their 500m yacht or flock of supermodels and Hollywood stars?

> They can’t just go donate 99.999% of their wealth and still survive like billionaires could.

They totally can. An average American worker with 12 dollars salary in terms of excess cash is way closer to Elon Musk than to a tantalum mine worker in the Congo who earns 22 cents per hour.

Not 99.999% obviously, but they can easily pay 80%, 90%, 95%, or even 98% of their incomes as fair share to people, who really need it. But they choose not to. They choose to get more rent, more utilities, more food (even if they will literally die from that amount). Or even new iPhone, that has been created by those highly underpaid tantalum mine workers. From the point of view of the average human on planet Earth, average American just as much exploiter as any billionaire.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#344

Post by asaddhamani »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #184
darksaints wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a weightlifter (masters olympic weightlifting, nationally ranked). TRT and steroids are actually the opposite. Once you go off of them, your body starts to revert, muscle mass is lost, and often by more than you started with (because the body's natural production rates change with supplementation). It does take time, which is why sports regulatory bodies typically require specific time periods of hormonal therap…

Agreed you lose your peak, however once a steroids user you will mostly retain more mass than a natural . It only takes a fraction of stimulus to retain mass versus adding it. The extrapolation I'm making, and admitting it's an extrapolation, is that a sexed at birth male competing in womens sports will have had a developmental period of hormonal advantage over females which follows them regardless of gender identity…

So here’s the thing with that. My testosterone is in the cis female range. Has been for a while. I strength trained for years and even after having started estrogen. I continued going to the gym while on HRT and my capacity kept decreasing rather than increasing. So I looked into this. Because visibly I still had the muscles I’d gained. To actually activate said muscles, you need testosterone. That’s how it works. No testosterone = the muscles never activate = they atrophy away. While I looked the same in terms of muscles that I had while I was doing 12 pull-ups, I quickly came down to being able to do 0 unassisted. Now the visible bulk is also reducing because they just never get activated. A cis male on steroids still has testosterone after cessation. Hence the muscles they gained can retain stimulus for activation. I’ve been tracking my body comp through DEXA scans for years now and after starting HRT, within a year I was at the higher end of cis female muscle mass and had lost kilos of muscle throughout my body. Can I still beat most cis women at lifting? Yes. Only because I’m trained, not because I lived for years under heavier testosterone influence. I cannot outlift or outrun trained cis women, only untrained ones. I am unable to outlift my brother who is completely untrained. I used to be able to hold my own arm wrestling with cis men but now I know it’ll be foolish to even try it because even cis men with zero training ever have arms twice my size and active testosterone stimulus to be able to activate their muscles.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#345

Post by asaddhamani »

intrikate wrote: post #143
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And as a fellow enjoyer of HRT, I assure you it didn't enhance shit for me, beyond what I was hoping to get: longer, more full hair, boobies, and smoother skin. My muscles are gone y'all. Like I've had to buy more breaker bars and larger tools so I can keep working on my cars, otherwise I simply could not break bolts anymore.

I've had to explain to people that lifting something as simple as a case of bottled water can be genuinely difficult after eight-ish years of feminizing HRT. It's gradual, it's not all at once and I am still slightly taller and heavier-set than the average American woman, so I do have an advantage through having more mass, but anyone that's larger than the average American woman will also have that so it's not really…

Same. You’re further in than me, but it was so alarming at the start when my body looked the same and my remembered priors in strength and cardio capacity, were at my testosterone-dominant baseline. If I didn’t know to expect the steep drop in strength or hadn’t been on HRT knowingly I’d have been incredibly alarmed and probably visited a dozen doctors. I’d look at objects, say to myself, pfft, easy, and be humbled immediately. TBH it’s incredibly affirming and men have been pretty sweet helping me with lifting objects and opening jars.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#346

Post by jan_m_savage »

Orwell is claimed to have written his books directed at the other side of the Curtain, but in fact, he was merely predicting the effect of power at the hands of the few self-elected (due to randomness -> wealth --> power).

"All animals are equal, some animals more equal than others."

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#347

Post by abustamam »

frumplestlatz wrote: post #335
abustamam wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Muslim. Born in the US. I've seen politicians and right wing public figures call my entire faith anti-American. One of them just had a nice memorial for their one-year since their death. The term may have had an agreed upon meaning at some point, but not anymore. Edit: it seems like most right-wing people conflate "non-Christian" with "anti-American". i don't know what's worse; the fact that these people say and…

I’m as atheist as they come and I see the tenets of Islam — as widely practiced throughout the world, and self-reported in a litany of surveys — to be clearly anti-woman, anti-freedom, anti-free speech, pro blasphemy-law, et al … and as a result, anti-American. Charlie Hebdo was not that long ago. Anti-women practices are the predominant norm. The list of regressive and oppressive political norms is practically endle…

> the sexism is on another scale entirely

Several nations that are predominantly Muslim have had female heads of state before the US has. If your perception of Islam is based on how Middle Eastern countries practice it then you are only looking at the countries that choose a theocratic way of ruling. Islam mandates that women (and men!) cover certain parts of your body but the most populous Muslim country (Indonesia) you'll see women in hijabs wearing short sleeves or low cut shirts.

Additionally, Christians are the predominant voice on many female-regressive laws in the US, such as the overturning of Roe. Women have been arrested for having miscarriages. If that isn't "anti-woman" i dont know what is.

> we’ve been far more successful as a global society of separating those religions from their political aspirations.

Have we though? Just a few years ago right-wing politicians were complaining that the woke left wanted to cancel Christmas. As mentioned above, Christians won the lobby on overturning Roe. Christians won the lobby on banning same sex marriage.

A religion taking over a country isnt every citizen bowing down to that religions faith. Its everyone in the country being subject to that religion's laws and beliefs regardless of your faith.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#348

Post by [deleted] »

MentalM wrote: post #343
ok_dad wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average American struggles to pay rent, utilities, and food, actually. They can’t just go donate 99.999% of their wealth and still survive like billionaires could.

> The average American struggles to pay rent, utilities, and food, actually. Do you think your average Billionaire do not struggles to pay for their 500m yacht or flock of supermodels and Hollywood stars? > They can’t just go donate 99.999% of their wealth and still survive like billionaires could. They totally can. An average American worker with 12 dollars salary in terms of excess cash is way closer to Elon Musk t…

[deleted]

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#349

Post by Pannoniae »

Havoc wrote: post #224
Pannoniae wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how not? All of this is "soft" control, if tomorrow 75% of the people in any country decided "this can't keep on going on", all relevant public buildings would be occupied everywhere and the relevant government imprisoned promptly. On a more positive note, the fact that this doesn't happen indicates things aren't that bad right now. No amount of KYC or age verification can stop large amounts of angry people who want…

>if tomorrow 75% of the people in any country decided No kings protests was a very respectable effort....peaked at 2.3%. Even the current administration inept as it is is basically home free on this one. Senate neutered, Courts sidelined, Treasury subjugated, loyalist in charge of military, JAG core silenced, secondary personal goons squad established and lavishly funded, Social media captured, Stats department disma…

Marching on a street holding placards with permission from the police is a very different thing than an angry mob marching into the town hall searching for officials.

Think more like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Nepalese_Gen_Z_protests

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#350

Post by mschuster91 »

pesus wrote: post #294
ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reason to believe this is how things work? Rather than "within a democracy as long as 'trans rights' means something that most people disagree with, it will be harder to advance the pro- side of the issue"? Is there evidence of 'momentum' being a real thing in politics, as opposed to the 'pendulum' that I've witnessed over the last decade?

If you go back 15 years or so, you hear the exact same "concerns" about gay people pretty much word for word. Now that they're no longer an acceptable target for most people, they've moved on to regurgitating the same baseless fear mongering but targeted towards trans people. If society manages to progress further, they'll eventually come up with another group to serve as the "other" that they can blame everything on…

they're already shifting to immigrants for that reason.
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