A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

Post by ajnin » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 12:56 AM UTC

SllX wrote: post #124

fangpenlin wrote: post #67

There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in California—they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about, add them to their achievement page, cheer for themselves, and declare, "There! I've made the world a better place." There are just too many examples. For instance: - Microstamping requirements for guns—printing a unique barcode on every bullet casing (Glock gen3 cannot be retired, thus, the auto-mode swi…

The incentives are all wrong. You can serve up to 6 two-year terms in the Assembly or up to 3 four-year terms in the Senate, but regardless of which combination you do, nobody in the California legislature can serve more than 12 years combined across both Houses of the legislature. So we don’t have professional legislatures with long-term electability incentives or leadership goals, we have a resumé-building exercise…

Post by wredcoll » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 12:58 AM UTC

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #338

cyberax wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah. I feel sooooo good dealing with Comcast. At this point in life, I spent more time on the phone with Comcast support than I ever spent time in various DMV offices. > A company must maintain profitability to stay alive. Yeah. And once it becomes a monopoly (like Comcast), it can just keep raising prices.

Have you ever called the DMV? In my state it's worse than Comcast. 45min wait time when the lines open in the morning, only increasing from there. I "owe" Comcast $200. They say I didn't cancel at an old apartment. I say I did. I have the email. They insist. They've sent me a letter once a year for a decade. About 2yr in it went to collections. They're still trying. Imagine the consequences if I did that with governm…

Post by wredcoll » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 12:59 AM UTC

SunshineTheCat wrote: post #288

palmotea wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know that the next step is you explaining why these don’t count, or saying “wow only 3” or whatever, but Oh, there's more: Medicare, Social Security, the highway system. The whole food/medicine regulatory system is also a big one, and it's the reason a lot of US (and European) products like baby formula are imported into China, because they can be more trusted. My bet is the GP's going to weasel out using his "th…

As with anything, they are all things that could be done better by a company. Airlines are a great example of this. They have changed very little in the last 30 years (again, thanks to all the government regulation and red tape). Smartphones, TVs, (and literally anything else not in the hands of the government) has also seen rapid improvements. Anything the government handles is always rife with overspending, ineffic…

Post by Supermancho » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 1:01 AM UTC

dddgghhbbfblk wrote: post #324

Supermancho wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Term limits are anti-democratic, and it's just a way for voters to not take responsibility for their voting. That is one aspect, but not the important one. The most important element is anti-corruption. Legal bodies can always entrench themselves and their own interests. Term limits significantly weakens entrenchment...excepting when the same legal bodies inevitably gut it.

You're saying that term limits reduce corruption? That's in fact not at all what the research says. There's a decent amount of research that suggests that they actually increase corruption. There's overwhelming evidence that they increase the power of lobbyists and interest groups. This is a classic one of those ideas that many people intuitively "feel" makes sense but is actually just terrible policy.

Post by sealeck » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 1:02 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #219

userbinator wrote: post #156

Richard Stallman's "Right to Read" is disturbingly prescient, as usual.

Stallman has always been right. It's mind boggling just how right he was about everything. The narratives are changing. All these locks and controls used to be about curbing copyright infringement. Now that AI has more or less rendered copyright irrelevant it's turned into a straight up attempt to control the population. They're barely even making excuses anymore.