They banned porn with choking in it. They banned toy advertising in the evening. They tried to ban client side encryption for iCloud. Make no mistake they will go for vpns too.
Funnily enough. They just need to claim it's "protecting the children" and people fall for it.
The funniest part is that high profile criminal cases go unpunished very visibly. Even if they have minors in their context, because the elite figures in question must be protected from the enforcement of rules.
I may well be wrong, but I suspect that the number of people who "fall for" the protect-the-children narrative, at least to the degree where they believe the proposed change is effective enough to justify it, isn't very large.
I'd argue it works because it's a rhetorical tactic that's highly effective at suppressing dissent. Anybody sticking their head above the parapet is going to get painted as somebody who favours pornography over the safety of children, even though this legislation and opposition to it has very little to do with either.
In my experience, people in real life do absolutely parrot the talking points that are deemed to be good (TM). Whether they do it out of fear or not, ends up being a moot point since they create an environment of apparent cohesion.
Banning porn depicting choking "to protect women from violence" is so funny. You could not ask for a better example of moral panic from people that didn't do their research. Choking is a strongly women preferred kink.
There's also a reported epidemic of women being choked during sex unprovoked, and who certainly don't want it. Unfortunately these laws are being made from things happening in the real world that get traction.
Is the law a good way to stop this? I don't know. The main tool of governance for our elected leaders are laws, and so that's what they do.
I have no reason to believe pornography caused that. If anything, I'm more quick to assume puritan values caused that.
We don't teach people about consent and sex. We tell them stupid things like "don't have sex, it's evil" and then send them off. And then stupid things ensue.
I mean, it's a sovereign state. The government can legislate for the sky to be purple if it wants to (though obviously that won't affect actual reality).
I'm not sure if this is quite related, but I can't help but feel that a lot of the ills of society that we're witnessing is simply coming down to the fact that we're living a lot longer as people.
I feel like knowing that we might live well-beyond our working age has caused all sorts of odd/irrational behaviours in the way we approach life. I think for example, having to save for retirement makes us rethink how we spend our money. Which then means people are ultimately spending less on other things i.e. clothing. Then it becomes a kind of vicious cycle of hoarding wealth, but then expecting everything else to be cheap (at any cost).
Whereas it's like, if you expected that you would die in your 50s/60s you'd probably be happier spending your money on stuff that you felt served you better, irrespective of the cost, cause you're still working and able to service that lifestyle.
Have you considered that it's not that we are spending money on cheap stuff, it's that even expensive stuff is built to not last with the incentive you come back for more? You do realize there are whole R&D departments working on planned obsolescence.
- Apple's refusal to change their idiotic charging cables to a standard one, so they can sell you crap that works on no other device. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66778528
I know Apple are mentioned a lot here, but they are a perfect example of what happens when nobody calls out a monopoly on their shady practices.
> but I can't help but feel that a lot of the ills of society that we're witnessing is simply coming down to the fact that we're living a lot longer as people.
Ah yes blame it on the consumer, who dares to live longer.
> Whereas it's like, if you expected that you would die in your 50s/60s you'd probably be happier spending your money on stuff that you felt served you better, irrespective of the cost, cause you're still working and able to service that lifestyle.
I don't get the logic here. If I knew I would live to 100, would it not make sense to buy stuff that serves me well over the long run (i.e more expensive)?
I'm not sure if those examples are really applicable when there are perfectly fine alternatives i.e. linux, desktops etc. that don't have those issues. Ultimately it's a choice to be part of those eco-systems, at least from a consumer point of view.
With that said, I'm not sure why both our arguments have to be mutually exclusive? Why can't it be that things are being planned for obsolescence + we're living too long?
Regarding your last point, let's say that you did know you were going to live to 100, I think you'd be hard pressed to be able to afford a lot of that nice stuff which would serve you in the long run without working into retirement age (unless if you just happen to very wealthy).
I earn a relatively high salary and even if I was making the most of my retirement contributions and considering compounding, it would still only last me by 90 without requiring state assistance. And most importantly, that's if I were to maintain my current lifestyle, which includes buying the cheap shit I can afford (in part so I can keep up with funding retirement).
I couldn't imagine how much harder it would be for those on an average salary.
This is such bullshit. I'll address the Apple points because while I buy "Windows" hardware such as Lenovo I immediately wipe it and install Linux.
No one knows how to make batteries that live forever. Apple's slowing down the clock speed allows people to use a phone with an old and dying battery for longer before they need to replace either the device or the battery.
And it's not that their batteries are bad. I have an original late 2015 iPad Pro, bought in 2015, which I use daily and which still goes (with my usage pattern) a couple of weeks between charges. Has it been slowed down? No idea, I haven't noticed.
Lightning cables are superior to the "standard" USB-C. It's a travesty against freedom of choice that the EU has legislated against them. It's not even that you have to buy Apple's cables -- you can readily buy both much cheaper 3rd party cables (in every gas station and supermarket!) and better quality armoured cables.
Every iPhone I've owned since 2007 still works. They just seem sooooo slow now because of the march of technology. And the networks they used -- GSM 2G, Edge, even 3G now -- no longer exist. I also have Apple laptops dating back to the 1990s, which I used heavily while they were current. They all still work. I just a year ago replaced my 2011 17" MacBook Pro.
If anything, they exhibit an EXCESS of quality, lasting for far longer than anyone wants to use them given the rapid improvement in their replacements.
I don't find the complaints valid about anything else either. The tshirts in my weekly rotation were bought -- I just checked my emails -- from myvintage.co.nz in 2018 and 2021 and still I think look the same as new. Colours haven't faded. Of course at standard price NZ$45 (US$27) they are not the cheapest you can buy.
My Subaru car is from 2008, almost never needs anything other than scheduled servicing and the usual wear items. I'll probably still be driving it in another ten years. My previous ones have lasted 25 years and 300k+ km and I don't see any decrease in quality. My BMW motorcycle will be 30 years old in October -- bought new in October 1995. Hondas also last forever -- I had 1980s XR250 and XR600 dirt bikes and you still see plenty of them around.
Maybe the new stuff won't last as long. It's impossible to say until it gets old -- or doesn't. I bought a Honda CRF250 Rally the day before the first lockdown in 2020. It's just passed five years old, I have no plans to update it, let's see how it goes.
In short: yes, there is plenty of cheap crap around -- I actually think this is a good thing for people who will not be using it heavily. But I think there is still plenty of great quality things around. They are not as cheap -- but usually they are a LOT cheaper compared to salaries than they were 20, 30, 40 years ago.
> Apple's slowing down the clock speed allows people to use a phone with an old and dying battery for longer before they need to replace either the device or the battery.
That's laughable. Apple before 2023 didn't even allow you to replace yourself unless you had their crappy plan.
And their lightning adapters were a deliberate strategy so they keep you on their system and sell you commodity hardware at a premium pricing.
Until the EU forced them to use standard chargers to reduce the mountain of e-waste that's directly tied to Apple's shady practices.
> Lightning cables are superior to the "standard" USB-C. It's a travesty against freedom of choice that the EU has legislated against them.
You have the freedom of choice to use an old IPhone with an old Lightning cable, since they are "superior" to USB-C, and old IPhones are apparently of such high quality.
OR you can go with the far worse (according to you) USB-c standard which allows charging, video and data transfer and internet connectivity.
> 2018 and 2021 and still I think look the same as new. Colours haven't faded
Wow, a shirt lasting 4 years, impressive!
> I don't find the complaints valid about anything else either. The tshirts in my weekly rotation were bought -- I just checked my emails ....In short: yes, there is plenty of cheap crap around -- I actually think this is a good thing for people who will not be using it heavily.
"who will not be using it heavily" is a reference to the fact that sometimes cheap nowadays crap is poisonous and you might not live to see another day?
> You have the freedom of choice to use an old IPhone with an old Lightning cable, since they are "superior" to USB-C, and old IPhones are apparently of such high quality.
It's so bizarre to act like this is a crazy thing to do, like, yeah, my iPhone does have Lightning, I haven't upgraded since they switched to USB-C and have felt no need to? Like that was pretty recent? It's not like the Dock Connector where the only iPhones that support it use wireless networks that are being actively dismantled?
I've got a question since I know nothing about perfume, but overtime do you just acclimatise to the scent? So that in the end it's like it's not really there?
At least I've noticed this with listening to music, personally speaking.
Sometimes you get nose-blind to the scent but IMO that's not a good thing, because it means it contains something too strong.
But more interesting to me is the effect that your perception of the scent will change, like it's different to hear a piece of music the first time and later. You can find new nuances, new depth, start to like it more, or less.
If you only smell it after you've sprayed it on yourself, but later on your nose doesn't send you pings that it's present, then that's a perfect perfume, since your nose can get used to it.
If you are always reminded by your nose that the smell is present, then... it's subpar. But YMMV. I hate perfumes that are so strong that you literally leave a trail behind you and you can smell it all the time on yourself... and others will carry it on themselves if they spend 15 minutes with you in a room :D.
When you spray these on yourself you become a pollen bearer. It's like your perfume has a social life of its own - it sticks with everyone who gets too close to you.
That's why perfume reviews are total nonsense. You go, get 15 samples and try them on yourself one by one (right after a shower, just sprinkle it on your chest).
I would refrain from referring to it as incompetence, as I feel that ignores the true nature of the system.
The problem is that the Australian political system needs to appease to the centre. That's how parties get into power. As long as that's the case, it doesn't leave a whole lot of room to meaningfully tackle the problems plaguing the country (in particular, housing).
Your point about not tackling the hardest challenges is well made. However the benefit of needing to appeal to the political Centre (a factor of compulsory voting) is that Australia also avoids the crazy swings and debilitating division of left and right that other nations can face.
Correct. Though it'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the end. I wonder if the centre will change, or if the centre by design remains the same and the outliers merely grow. I'm not sure how it'll play out.
I actually have this flashcart. The issue with it is that it drains a heap of battery, so it's not ideal if you're just playing NDS stuff.
I also tried to fit the entire DS game library on an SD card for this flashcart, and the main challenge was figuring out how to organise the files so that it wouldn't crash the cart.
Basically you can't have everything in the one folder cause I think it tries to load everything all at once, so I had to separate it by a-z. And even then, I think I've limited to around 100 files per folder.
Not that I necessarily believe it, but isn't the rationale that technology allows us to scale without the need for additional humans? A bit in the same way that oil provides us many multiples of manpower?
So for example, if AI can replace the need for additional humans, then overall we're using net less energy?
Whose rationale? More efficiency leading to less resource use never happened, it always leads to more resource use (jevons paradox).
AI companies currently simply are a major contributor to climate crisis, justified by racing for future riches for a few people, provided by some imaginary moat. Probably right near the one built by Uber.
It does, but this due to the demand created by humans. If you create a technologically advanced civilization, with robots doing a lot of the work, and considering their lack of desire to own things like pretty houses, it could be possible to scale down civilization to a few select millions in such a way that the entire system is then respecting earth's resources.
If you were to ship a big group of people through the galaxy, you'd also have to put some constraints on how many people will be on that ship, yet it will have to function regardless of how little people exist on that ship. The same could be applied to earth.
This would also give animals more room on this planet.
No vision here, but it looks like developed countries are already working on it by themselves, with the demographic change we're able to observe. If that were the way, strong borders would need to be built.
Do you see fewer humans working ? Fewer humans taking their cars to do groceries, fewer humans going to school, fewer humans cooling down their houses ? All AI does is potentially make said humans jobless, with a job here and there created with a bullshit title like prompt engineer. The energy you're "saving" is absolutely nothing. When you pay someone to do data entry, the majority of their energy expenditure isn't the computer they're working on, it's the transportation systems they use, the food they eat, etc. These never go away. Well, not unless you kill said person. The current AI trend is purely additional energy consumption, without any tangible benefits.
Capitalism as a system is fundamentally incapable of functioning without continously running forward, and stopping means the system collapses. It needs consumption, it needs perpetually renewing debt, perpetually working humans. It's a death cult.
FWIW the decade of capacitor plague destroyed at least two of my AC/DC Converters. I haven't seen magic smoke since 2010, and honestly know little about it.
