Option A was not collecting any child data and that’s most definitely the safer option than collecting data with parental consent. I don’t think they should collect the data even WITH parental consent since most parents will consent without knowing what a company will do with the data. Allowing websites to collect the data of children is the problem, but COPPA allows them to collect it with consent just to appease websites that want to collect child data. And yes, they’re arguing that Roblox allows pedos to set up anonymous accounts and nothing in COPPA stops that. Do you imagine this will prevent pedos from signing up as kids because the pedo’s parents will refuse to consent? I’m pretty sure a pedo can pretend to be their own parent while signing up as a child. Just as they can get around any age verification by signing up as their child, niece, etc. Age verification might stop a minor who can’t pretend to be an adult but not an adult pretending to be a child. D1DDY P13NS
Part of the issue is that rightwingers can’t conceive that anyone could honestly see anything differently than they do. They know what’s harmful when they see it and assume everyone else has the exact same standards unless they’re evil. Making people jump through hoops and punishing sites for things they alone deem harmful are features, not bugs. And the other issue is that many of them are totally happy if large chunks of the internet are off-limits. They wish they could outright decide what is allowed to be online but think it’s a valid alternative if it’s done broadly like this. They need to control all information or nobody would agree with them at all.
Every time I see Musk use the word thermonuclear I just think he watched War Games too many times when he was young, but instead of learning that nuclear war was unwinnable, the message he got was how cool hackers are because they can cheat and steal; as well as thinking artificial intelligence would be easy. The word nuclear is good enough for most, but Musk prefers thermonuclear because he’s fancy like that. And every time rightwingers allege a mass conspiracy by everyone they deem as an enemy it’s a confession that this is what they do. OF COURSE Media Matters was colluding with advertisers to hurt Twitter because that’s what righties do. You use a supposedly independent front group to make a public accusation, then the rest parrot it as if it’s undeniably true. The fact that they can never find lefties doing this is just proof of how powerful we are. But they know if they just look long enough they’ll find we do as many crimes as they get caught doing.
I suspect that the reason many people think algorithms turn third party content into first party content is because they don’t understand what an algorithm is and think it just means sites forcing specific content on people to push an agenda; ie, what normal content sites do but not proper algorithm sites. So they’ve got all this backwards and don’t even understand the basic terminology. I routinely see people complain about their algorithm feed because they think everyone is seeing the same content they do and it’s proof of a biased website when they keep getting fed the kind of content that outrages them enough to click and comment. And when I try to explain that they have their own feed and only have themselves to blame for clicking on content they don’t want to see, they get upset and refuse to believe it. The idea of a program selecting individual content for them seems impossible. It’s GOTTA be a conspiracy!
Most accidents are caused by impaired and distracted drivers, not average drivers. A sober person paying attention is a better driver than a computer. It makes sense for cars to have drivers assistance in case the driver falls asleep or gets distracted, but it makes no sense to have the human as the failsafe in case the computer screws up.
The reason they think they can do unbiased AI is because they think they’re completely unbiased and bias is anything they disagree with. It’s almost impossible to find anyone who will admit to being on the right anymore. They all think they’re unbiased freethinkers who hate both sides as if Trump hijacked the Republican Party to save America from the Uniparty Establishment. Yet they all sound like extreme versions of Bush Republicans from twenty years ago; as if Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, and David Duke were all uploaded into clones of Tucker Carlson. That describes Charlie Kirk, Nick Fuentes, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, and all the other bland white guys who need to be offensive just to get attention. When they attack “both sides” they just mean the left and moderate Republicans, yet imagine they’re somehow in the middle despite being far-right. And they can’t make sense of this contradiction because Cognitive Dissonance keeps these people perpetually angry as impotent rage is their only recourse since rightwing policies only make the problems they want solved worse. And we’ll see the same with any “anti-woke” AI which will do things like claim to be MechaHitler to offend people rather than answer questions. If you want straight answers you’re going to sound like a leftie every time because reality has a well known liberal bias. Rightwing ideology is a demolition derby disguised as a highway. They’re driving really fast and hurting themselves and others yet can’t figure out why they’re not getting anywhere. As it turns out, you can’t insult your way to happiness. Who knew?
Epstein didn’t have kids. He was paying teenage girls which would have been ok if he was their age and not manipulating them. And this sort of thing was considered acceptable until the 90’s and is similar to what Matt Gaetz got away with. That’s why the first time Epstein was arrested they just convicted him for soliciting a prostitute including a teenage prostitute; which only shows how messed up the law is that they pretend teens can consent to being prostitutes. MAGA thinks it’s about little kids based on the Q Anon conspiracy about Democrats abusing kids and drinking their blood to stay young, but that’s not the case. I doubt many of them would even care if they knew it was about teenagers since they typically don’t understand consent and blame victims if they allow themselves to be victimized.
Normal Response: This was just an inside joke between friends and should not be understood in the context of what was later learned about Mr Epstein’s private life. Vance Response: Pics or it didn’t happen, bro! Trump Response: Everyone look at the most disgraceful news article of all time! It makes me look like history’s greatest monster! My former friend and boss Rupert Murdoch must pay!! The first response wouldn’t change any minds. The second is dumb and defensive. The third is the dumbest move possible, which is why it was entirely expected from Trump.
I agree that people overhyped the collusion claims and were wrong to assume that Mueller would save the day, but…the Trump Admin was definitely working with the Russians because they were too dumb to know why they shouldn’t. First off, Trump’s campaign was full of Russian allies, including a dude who had already been investigated as a Russian spy and had been ruled as safe because he was too dumb to be a spy. And they did their best to work with Russia, including when Trump Jr met with Russians to get dirt on Hillary. And the main reason nothing more happened is because they were all too incompetent to understand how this works. But we saw the texts of Trump Jr working with Russian asset Julian Assange to release the hacked emails that came from Russia just to distract from the Access Hollywood story. And so much of the difficulty with proving they worked together was the same reason they weren’t able to do more: Both Trump and Putin are like mob bosses who simply say what they want done and their underlings compete independently to be the one who does it. That’s why there were so many connections between Trump’s campaign and Russians. And another thing: Trump obstructed the investigation, including how Trump pardoned all his guys who were convicted for their dealings with Russia. So we never learned everything. But the main thing is that it’s not even right to separate the Russians from Trump’s people. They all were on the same team and were already undermining the Obama Admin to help Russia before Trump took office. Even now Trump is confused as to why Putin won’t help him by ending the war in Ukraine because he thinks he’s Putin’s buddy. It needs to be understood that the far-right genuinely thinks Democrats are traitors trying to destroy America, which makes Russia their friends. They trusted Putin over Obama when he was president and that hasn’t changed. And at some point we’ll learn that all their anti-government nonsense going back decades came from the Soviets and later Russia. Now Trump is destroying America just like what they wanted all along. But it’s not because Putin told them to. They’re just dummies who are easily duped by anyone who tells them what they want to hear.
Hey, now! Don’t you be doubting Trump’s Sir Stories. Just last week I had five big strong men with tears streaming from their eyes come up to me on their knees and said “Please, sir. Tell everyone that we really do exist and to stop mocking us for our tears. That’s a medical condition and makes us feel like dogs to hear their disgraceful cackling.” Believe me, it’s true.
This isn’t hypocrisy. Rightwingers judge people based on who they are, not what they do. They think we SHOULD have two standards: One for “law abiding citizens” like themselves and another for everyone they hate. They say this all the time, as if a “law abiding citizen” shouldn’t be held accountable for breaking the law because they’re good people and their enemies should be assumed guilty and aren’t even worthy of trials. And if you investigate a “good” person like Trump for wrongdoing that makes you a bad person deserving punishment. And if you defend a “bad” person like an illegal immigrant, that makes you a bad person. Try it all you want. You’ll see this explains everything they say and do. They get offended if you tell them they’re equal to everyone else. And the idea that the Constitution protects noncitizens is an outrage. Being a citizen is one of the few things they’re proud of and they need to believe it gives them special rights that others don’t have.
I don’t think the word fascism is useful anymore. Authoritarianism covers it better. That way we can include supposed communist countries like China who lure in foreign investors with promises of vast wealth, then pull the rug out if you say one wrong thing in your own country. Or letting Chinese become billionaires, then re-educating them if they get out of line. Because capitalist and communist are just economic systems. The political system is authoritarianism and they use the economic system as a way to weaponize money. Whether it’s crony capitalism or crony communism, it’s all about the leaders rewarding loyalty and punishing disloyalty. Going back to Nixon Republicans turned deregulation into a shakedown scheme. You think you’re buying a president but he’s putting you in his pocket and you’ll need to keep paying and say you’re happy about it. This is why our economy does better under Democrats, because we want a level playing field while Republicans only want to help the people who help them. The Dems don’t get everything right but the Repubs will always push things too far and assume they can BS their way out of it.
What we’re really seeing is the end result of authoritarianism. Rush Limbaugh was the true brains behind the conservative movement as it went from Gingrich, to Bush, to the Tea Party, to MAGA; all based on fantasies from a blowhard with an Oxy addiction. Similarly, Scalia was the only rightwing judge who understood how his Calvinball Originalism worked. Now the grownups are dead and we have children following children. They assume Trump knows what he’s doing even though he has the brain of a disobedient toddler and has little impulse control. And they try their best to play Dungeon Master on the Supreme Court like Scalia, but all their decisions are laughable. Scalia still had one foot in reality, while his replacements are fully in the fantasy.
“So, first of all, this all shows an incredible ignorance of how chatbots work. They’re designed to generate content, not necessarily give you definitive answers.” Indeed. I’ve had several people quote AI chatbots as definitive answers regarding constitutional questions while ignoring the direct reading of the Constitution and actual experts I quoted. They even mock me for trusting my own brain over the chatbot’s. They’re absolutely convinced that LLM’s are smarter than humans. Sadly, in their case they’re actually right because LLM’s don’t understand anything while these people misunderstand everything. It’s better to be ignorant than misinformed. And I love how righties can’t understand the difference between facts, opinions, speculation, and beliefs. So an opinion question like which president is least antisemitic is factual if you believe it firmly enough. And if you state facts they disagree with, that’s just your opinion, man. Or if they make a factual claim they can’t support, it’s an opinion or a belief so you’re the jerk for asking them to support it. And if they speculate about the unknowable, these are facts you’re denying because you can’t see the connections that include facts they just made up. Words mean whatever they need them to mean because this is their reality and we’re just silly characters in their personal morality play. Any time we say anything that aren’t the lines in their script it means we’re doing it wrong and need to stop being buttheads with our improvisations. They can only be right if they do both sides of every debate.
“Assume subjective viewpoints sourced from the media are biased” Translation: Reject biased viewpoints if they come from a news organization. This is part of the problem: Rightwingers don’t think they’re on the right. They think they’re unbiased freethinkers who hate both sides while only attacking the left and Republicans who don’t agree with them. They’re the Real Americans, even if they were born in Canada, Hungary, or South Africa; and everyone else is an evil traitor trying to destroy America. The only thing that makes these people conservative is that their rhetoric and solutions never change no matter how much society changes. This is came from Rush Limbaugh’s Oxy brain in the 90’s, went nutso during the Bush years, and now they’re ready to do their purge of every American who disagrees with them.
I’m not anti-religious but I am against bad religion. I was raised Catholic and we were taught that we had to take care of our own problems and prayer is just how you communicate with God. That’s what the Lord’s Prayer is: Jesus’s example of the proper way to pray, which is done in private and is only about praising God. Jesus said public prayer was for phonies who got their reward in this world due to all the attention they get while people who pray privately get their reward in the next world. But the religious right is taught that belief alone is enough for God to save you from your problems and prayer is how you wish for things; as if God is a magic Genie with unlimited wishes if you believe he is. That’s why they oppose government regulations because they think God will solve our problems and government is just about controlling people; since that’s how they use it. And it’s why they’re so angry and confused because nothing works out like they’re told it should. But they’re told to blame themselves or an enemy; not the system of prayer that obviously doesn’t work and isn’t biblical. Never once did Jesus say prayers are wishes. He only talked about helping others and praising God.
This is a distinction I don’t make. We don’t say that Christians are different from christians. An atheist is anyone who doesn’t worship a god. I refer to the rude ones as militant atheists and I’ve always pushed back against them because they’re rude and make the rest of us look bad. I don’t dunk on Christians ever and respect anyone who has a positive belief system. If they say something factually incorrect, I politely correct them; the same as I do with everyone. But if they want a debate, I debate on whatever topic they want. Like I said, I always respected their spaces. But if they come to an atheist space looking for a fight, they’ll get a fight. That’s what they were there for.
I think the point is that framing it as a bubble is inaccurate. Nobody calls their friend group a bubble. It’s only a bubble if you assume you’re required to interact with people you dislike. I myself prefer to interact with people I disagree with, which is why I’m responding to you. But that’s not me going outside of a bubble. I just like debating people as a hobby and consider it a plus if anyone agrees with me. And I don’t think anyone on the left is looking to reaffirm our beliefs. It’s about having people you enjoy being with and sharing news and other stories. Only the right wants affirmation because everything they believe is a lie and it’s so hard for them to find anything that supports the narratives they’re told. They all need to be told they’re the special ones and it’s the fault of liberals and the Bogeyman that life doesn’t work the way they’re told it does. But even they don’t like right-only spaces since they’re only on the right to spite the left. That’s why they want us back on Twitter. That’s not to say all lefties are unbiased or don’t suffer from groupthink, but that’s not what they’re going for. They just want a place where they can feel comfortable, without constantly being told that they’re stupid evil marxist communist socialists who hate America and want sadness, suffering, and crime for everyone. I mean, I take those insults as a badge of honor but not everyone is the same.
This reminds me of the Usenet days when a vocal minority on alt.atheism wanted to ban theists, even though the rest of us were only there to dogpile on any Christians foolish enough to show up for a debate. Like…what would atheists even talk about if we weren’t debunking religion? The weather? I was fine with Christian groups banning us but it made no sense for us to exclude the people we were there to debate. Different strokes for different folks. But that’s why I don’t like any of the Twitter style sites including Bluesky and Mastodon cuz it’s such a terrible format for debate. I can’t even fart in fewer than 500 characters. I actually got in a debate earlier this year during a short time I used my old Twitter account when I had six morons who proclaimed themselves to be the foremost experts on the Kyle Rittenhouse trial try to defeat me in a 6-on-1 debate which was only challenging due to the terrible Twitter format. It’s like shouting across a crowded room. But I actually tried signing up at Bluesky awhile ago just to pump the numbers but some jerk already stole my username even though it’s not his real name. No chance I’m posting as DoctorBiobrain69 or whatever so I just gave up. There can be only one!
I don’t want to use ad blockers and happily watch YouTube ads as long as the creators I like get a piece of the action because I don’t want to pay for them. I’ll even let ads play silently at the end while I read and post comments. But most websites are so terrible about ads that they make the sites unreadable. People deserve to be paid for their work but these sites are ruining themselves. I’ve turned off the blocker on my gaming computer for websites that require it and can hear the fans speed up just to handle the ads. I avoid those sites as much as possible. I prefer using my iPad and never even know the ads exist. Sometimes sites still require I allow content, but Apple lets me easily vanish each one in a satisfying manner. There needs to be a better way.