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An American Privacy Emergency

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Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#41

Post by an0malous »

jmyeet wrote: post #6

Yeah, calling your legislators is going to do precisely nothing [1], just like data centers are almost universally opposed by the communities and the negative externalities are way more real and direct. Yet they keep getting approved anyway. The true crisis here is in the captured political system. In the 1990s in Australia a racist, white supremacist party arose called One Nation through a very weird confluence of e…

Ranked choice voting would go a long way, the two-party system is an intentionally forced false dichotomy like when parents give their kids the choice to eat broccoli or carrots so they’ll think it was their decision. Both parties are controlled by the investor class.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#42

Post by tzs »

Fomite wrote: post #23
alexpotato wrote: post #18

One of my favorite recently learned facts about Congress: Federally mandated parental leave (paternity and maternity leave) polls at about 80% in favor with the US adult population. This is regardless of political affiliation, by the way. Democrat and Republican voters both support it. Upon reading this, you might be surprised as to why it's NOT federally mandated given how popular it is. One group it's NOT popular w…

One of the things I have found so alarming about a lot of recent revelations is just how cheap congress goes for.

Watch out though because many of those revelations are bogus and only look at how much money people lobbying for a position donated to some member of Congress who voted for that position. They fail to look up how much money people lobbying against that position donated to that same member of Congress.

Often times it is about the same amount, which means you cannot infer that the money influenced the vote.

Some do it right, but enough do not that unless you know you are getting the information from one of the ones who does it right you really need to check for yourself.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#43

Post by cassonmars »

jmyeet wrote: post #40
anonymousiam wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free housing, free food, free health care, and free income are also wildly popular with the US adult population. The problem is that those things are not really "free" because somebody else needs to pay for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

This is such a straw man argument. Consider health care. The US spends by far the most per-capita on health care of any OECD country [1]. It's roughly 50% more than the number 2 on the list, which is Switzerland , a notoriously expensive country. Yet (almost?) every other country on that list has universal healthcare. Yet life expectancy is lower than Costa Rica [2] and generally health outcomes are worse in the US t…

The problem with attempting to provide universal healthcare in the united states is that, despite health professionals attesting to the necessity and validity of certain health related topics, the current administration in particular is very keen about stripping away access to these forms of care, as far as they legally can (medicare/medicaid, VA, federal funding).

UHC requires the removal of politicians from qualified input, and this country's politicians love nothing more than to get overly involved in things they know nothing about.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#44

Post by King-Aaron »

anonymousiam wrote: post #28
alexpotato wrote: post #18

One of my favorite recently learned facts about Congress: Federally mandated parental leave (paternity and maternity leave) polls at about 80% in favor with the US adult population. This is regardless of political affiliation, by the way. Democrat and Republican voters both support it. Upon reading this, you might be surprised as to why it's NOT federally mandated given how popular it is. One group it's NOT popular w…

Free housing, free food, free health care, and free income are also wildly popular with the US adult population. The problem is that those things are not really "free" because somebody else needs to pay for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

> The problem is that those things are not really "free" because somebody else needs to pay for them.

This line of thinking is exactly why America is sliding backwards.

It is not a problem to pay for things provide a net benefit to society.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#46

Post by jmyeet »

alexpotato wrote: post #18

One of my favorite recently learned facts about Congress: Federally mandated parental leave (paternity and maternity leave) polls at about 80% in favor with the US adult population. This is regardless of political affiliation, by the way. Democrat and Republican voters both support it. Upon reading this, you might be surprised as to why it's NOT federally mandated given how popular it is. One group it's NOT popular w…

This has been studied, famously by Princeton [1]. The chance of any given bill passing is roughly 30% and any amount of public support from 0% to 100% has almost zero impact on that 30%.

Elected offices have become fiefdoms to enrich oneself and maintain the status quo. Anyone who bucks this trend has historically rarely gotten into office or been chased out once they do. This could be from funding another candidate, simply starving an existing candidate of campaign funds or in some cases by redistricting somebody out of a seat.

And look at the reelection rates for Congress [2]. They tend to hover between 90% and 95%.

[1]: https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba

[2]: https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/reelection-ra...

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#47

Post by anubistheta »

anonymousiam wrote: post #28
alexpotato wrote: post #18

One of my favorite recently learned facts about Congress: Federally mandated parental leave (paternity and maternity leave) polls at about 80% in favor with the US adult population. This is regardless of political affiliation, by the way. Democrat and Republican voters both support it. Upon reading this, you might be surprised as to why it's NOT federally mandated given how popular it is. One group it's NOT popular w…

Free housing, free food, free health care, and free income are also wildly popular with the US adult population. The problem is that those things are not really "free" because somebody else needs to pay for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

Exactly. Giving people free stuff is extremely popular. If people actually want those things, we can collective open our wallets and pay for it. But that changes people's opinions quite radically.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#49

Post by vor_ »

anonymousiam wrote: post #28
alexpotato wrote: post #18

One of my favorite recently learned facts about Congress: Federally mandated parental leave (paternity and maternity leave) polls at about 80% in favor with the US adult population. This is regardless of political affiliation, by the way. Democrat and Republican voters both support it. Upon reading this, you might be surprised as to why it's NOT federally mandated given how popular it is. One group it's NOT popular w…

Free housing, free food, free health care, and free income are also wildly popular with the US adult population. The problem is that those things are not really "free" because somebody else needs to pay for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

Yet we apparently have money for military parades and wars and ballrooms. Go figure.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#50

Post by vineyardmike »

Fomite wrote: post #23
alexpotato wrote: post #18

One of my favorite recently learned facts about Congress: Federally mandated parental leave (paternity and maternity leave) polls at about 80% in favor with the US adult population. This is regardless of political affiliation, by the way. Democrat and Republican voters both support it. Upon reading this, you might be surprised as to why it's NOT federally mandated given how popular it is. One group it's NOT popular w…

One of the things I have found so alarming about a lot of recent revelations is just how cheap congress goes for.

I only-kinda-jokingly say that I'd be willing to be the sacrifice and get a second mortgage on my house if it could buy the entire nation some new rights.

Our politicians routinely sell out smaller issues for "downpayment in a coastal metro" level of money. It's just about within reach of a middle-class urban adult to directly fund with some personal sacrifices.

I feel like we like to imagine that these corporations are budgeting big-bucks to bribe/lobby politicians, because they have more money than most humans can actually mentally picture, but their budgets are often closer to a small team of software engineers' salary. Meta spend ~$25M on all lobbying last year - and they're the top corporate spender. That's under 1 hours of revenue for them.

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