People forget that ‘efficient’ in a capitalist sense means that all resources are used. So when you privatize security, prisons, public transport, etc. guess what happens: those companies try to extract as much value as possible and do as little as possible. Because that is what capitalist efficiency is.

So it’ll end up being a platform of trolls and bigots just screaming into the void and paying for the privilege. What a fabulous idea.

This. If you need anything more complex than that, there’s nothing wrong with creating an organization.

I think I heard a story like this on This American Life. Story was from the perspective of the driver. He thought he was picking up his Grindr date and realized after a short while he was wrong. Kept up the act, even made up a whole backstory about why he was an Uber driver.

So, like bicycles? Afaik we don’t exactly understand why they stay upright.

Yeah, not everything is super utilitarian. The other day we were in Antwerp’s old harbor, which has these big open hangars. The roofs and pillars are pretty ornamental, and these are basically 19th century industrial buildings. Built today they would be all straight lines and flat panels.

I think it’s cool if people imagine a future that’s not just about technological progress but also culturally very different and even disturbing. I think Dune does a fairly good job at that.

You can’t sue scissors. They have deep knowledge of the law.

Amazed that I had to scroll down this far to read this. Capitalism does not magically create a fair society through the creation of value (which seems to be what its proponents keep saying: investors generating economic activity and wealth). But similarly you could have a socialist economic system, with no real democracy. Which, as we’ve seen, devolves into a corrupt oligarchy. We’ve seemingly lost this perspective in the decades since WWII, but a solid representative parliamentary democracy and separation of powers are the best way to create and maintain a fair society. It requires some other conditions too, like good education, free press, etc. but the core is a system where power is distributed and temporary, depending on democratic processes (elections). This democratic legitimacy is what we should be defending at all costs, imho. It’s not sexy, though.

An irrational fear of suddenly using all of it up. Before they got their phones, we drilled it into them to be conservative in their data usage. It’s not that they complain that they have too little data, or how annoying it is that they have to leave it switched off to conserve it, they somehow are convinced that it is pointless to leave it on. We have mentioned numerous times that we’d be fine with upgrading their data plan, but they don’t want to. It’s like us in the nineties dialing into our ISP to download e-mail. Weird. Cheap. But weird.

I send SM’s to my kids when they’re on the go, as they religiously disable gsm data and only use wifi, which means they regularly don’t get my WhatsApp messages.

Before they got their own smartphone I was scared that their data plans would cost me an arm and a leg, but it turns out they’re extremely stingy with their data 🤷‍♂️

There are degrees of monitoring. This is basically my approach:

• no smartphone before 12yrs old
• no computer, tablet, smartphone or similar in their bedroom before 16yrs old, specifically at night.
• family link (android) installed, with tighter controls the younger they are. This is discussed and also explained as a measure to protect them
• if they are under 16, we create social media accounts together and discuss what is appropriate, what can/should be public/private etc.

That is basically it. A lot of it is being around, available and approachable. It’s not perfect, but it has several layers of protection, and is built around creating trust and teaching valuable media skills.

If I had to pick one, I’d say the ‘no internet devices in bedrooms’ would be the most valuable one. Because of that, I know what games my kids play, they can deconnect at night, and it’s fairly easy to enforce.

Yeah, but not models that are trained on data that raises copyright concerns, which is currently the case.

‘People’ in this respect are also the owners of media sites.

The larger danger is the erosion of kids’ privacy. People are so panicked about all the dangers out there, and there are so many monitoring tools available to parents and educators, that it’s no wonder that kids develop trust issues and/or are afraid to take up responsability.

I say this as a dad of two teenagers: the kids are allright. Love them, hug them, talk to them, show interest in their lives. Don’t use surveillance as a substitute.

Can’t have manslaughter without laughter.

Taking the logic too far, I think. There is also a business interest in selling you storage and storage devices, it’s not just Hollywood calling the shots.

Of course, in a totalitarian system (North Korea style) the ownership of storage media will probably be tightly regulated and controlled, but that’s a wholly different scenario.