Perceived? US politicians are all mutli millionaires no matter what happens they will be golfing in Hawaii.

At least Roman emperors got assassinated by their own bodyguards.

Tech bros deliberately made digital crack for kids and corporations refuse to moderate online content.

There is no conspiracy the general public is faced with a crisis and they are desperate for a solution.

The teen suicide statistics do not lie.

> The teen suicide statistics do not lie.

Teen suicide rates in the US are lower now than they were in the 1990s.

This doesn’t paint the entire picture. Suicide rates peaked in 1990 and then declined to its lowest point in 2007 from there the rates started rising again.

Like all metrics, they fluctuate over time. But they've remained pretty for decades stable at around 10 per 100k per year. The recent rise doesn't really coincide with social media adoption. By 2008, >80% of teens were using social media. If social media adoption was driving the increase in suicides, we would have started to see a rise in suicides around the early 2000s, reaching it's peak around 2008. But that adoption of social media by teens was coupled with a decrease in suicides. The more recent rise in teen suicides occurred during a period of largely flat teen social media adoption (because nearly 100% of them were already on social media by the end of the 2000s).

This idea of teen suicide painting a clear picture about the impact of social media just isn't borne out by the data. And lastly, people ought to remember that teens have the lowest rate of suicide among any age cohort.

The general public is being told they are faced with a crisis. This has been a problem for at least a decade, yet suddenly it's at the forefront and conveniently ties into ID verification for everyone to use general purpose computing.

I'm sorry but if you don't think there's a conspiracy I have a bridge to sell you. It was already unveiled that Meta has lobbied billions towards promoting this legislative change

You're arguing there's a conspiracy, but even if there is, what is the best action for governments to take given the devastating impact social media has been demonstrated to have on young people especially?

I don’t know what the solution is, but introducing mass surveillance of ALL users on their own devices hurts the general population - do you think it will solve the problem?

> The general public is being told they are faced with a crisis.

> This has been a problem for at least a decade.

I get you're point, but anyone that doesn't is asking "Which is it?"

I think everyone can see there is problems. Is there a crisis? I don't think so. Same problems we've always had, but on a computer.

People that know tech, know these laws cross a MAJOR line. Not a little slippery slope thing, this is off a cliff. But I don't think most people, that are already used to having to sign in with an online account on every device they use, even their TV, see it as that big a step. They don't even realize how predatory it is that they are required to sign in. What they need to see is that the sign in requirement was a choice by the vendor. These are LAWS, demanding no one ever be given the choice to not reveal personal information about themselves to use ANY computer. That's the point that needs to be driven home.

> Zuck and tech as a whole pivoted to drop safety investments the moment this government came to power.

I think the question to ask here is, if both Meta and the current administration don't care about child safety, why is the age verification stuff going so smoothly? Is helping them do this really the right move?

When was the last time American intelligence agencies were held accountable?

Literally your own Congress is not even allowed to review their budget! Not that any US politician even WANTS to know.

The Chinese kicked out American companies when they were sure they could replace them with their own.

Keeping money in your own country and not funding the B2s that will bomb you one day.

This is why I'm sticking to Spotify.

Maybe corporations can start to market this: we are not an American company.

Explaining to people that invisible creatures exist that make you sick... Better pack a microscope!

I live in a country with a functional government with an unlimited creditcard. The prepping is their business not mine.

I remember when Russia invaded we were all supposed to freeze to death- in reality 2.5% of GDP was diverted and it was Bangladesh that didn't get their LNG tankers.

The riches that most Americans will never see. But every couple of years they go to the voting booth to chose which millionaire gets to lord it over them.

When do you think the last time was when Trump pumped his own gas?

In the Netherlands the energy network is undergoing a huge upgrade because of wind and solar- technologies nobody predicted in the 1970s.

Things used to be simple: big power station makes energy and lines transport it to every home. Now you have vast wind farms far out on the North Sea and millions of buildings have solar panels. And to top it all off electricity replaces gas for heating and cooking.

We're gonna need bigger cables.

At least they're upgrading your network, over here in Australia they've realized (about 20 years after we became one of the biggest users of household solar) that too many people having solar makes the grid unstable and the load unreliable, so they want to start charging solar owners for feeding into the grid instead.

Imo one of the biggest wins of renewables + battery is you can skip most of that infrastructure - you can have solar panels on your roof, on the edge of town, and you can skip most of expensive transmission infrastructure.

The Catholic church has a very shall we say complicated stance on democracy, freedom of religion and human rights. Nowadays they realise that the Western world has shifted from their theological and biblical position so they couch it in word salad sophistry.

Perhaps one unifying principle behind all the iterations of the Catholic church as social mores changed over time and its influence waxed and waned and was coopted by secular kingdoms, is that every single one of them might have written an article entitled "should Peter Thiel be burned at the stake", if someone had taken the time to explain Peter Thiel to them in terms they might understand. And concluded "yes, probably".

The "nowadays" Catholic church, for better or worse, is also very, very different from the Catholic church that existed before "nowadays". They don't even engage in holy wars anymore, as just one example, that's up to other governments nowadays.

The interesting thing about religions as a whole is that the timespan is so big that you can really see how the backbone of the narrative stays the same while the fanbase and how they pick winners changes a lot, the Vatican state itself is a theocratic state created by an agreement between the pope and the Mussolini.

And if you wanna go back even further just remember that while Europe and christian countries were living in the dark ages the Islamic world was the one driving forward scientific knowledge and the exchange of ideas with the East. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age

They're not selling 'indulgences' these days either.

Luckily people like Paula White-Cain have picked up that banner and they're running it, hard.

One could also say that a two millenia old institution has evolved alongside the rest of humanity.

Two thousand years and they still haven't figured out that Christ wasn't covering himself in gold and jewels. The Vatican has evolved, but not to conform to the ideals espoused by Christ. Note also that evolution isn't synonymous with progress. Lamprey eels evolve too.