I grew up before mobile phones so I know I have the skills to function without one. There isn’t much I would miss. I am ok without social media, maps, chat apps etc.
Its the odd little things that I don’t do very often that could get annoying. Stuff like translating a label in a foreign language. There isn’t really an easy way to do that without a smart phone.
I guess I will be replacing our kids linux desktops with an estasi kommissar approved OS with inbuilt spyware and advertising controlled by her American ex-employer. Who were we trying to protect?
Still stuck on PMG copper with no relief in sight.
We put our balls firmly in their vice and they aren’t moving. If anything every Australian government, regardless of politics tries to tuck a bit more in every year with the standout concessions being digital sovereignty which is truly fucked and about to get much worse. It isn’t just the military/intelligence stuff. They have massive investment here and dominate financial and digital services. Probably the best we can hope for is to be neutral where we can along with a bit of malicious compliance.
If they want to block normies from porn and social media I don’t really give a shit. My fear is they are going to come after the fundamantal technology next: encryption, open source, open computing. eKaren used to work for very Big Tech. Everything about recent moves looks like a huge power grab for big tech and big media to data mine and control us more than ever with the force of government behind them.
They won’t be happy with people like me not buying and using their products, blocking their ads etc. The ultimate enshitification approaches. Total corporate control of our lives.
Which established media? Nine or Murdoch? I think we can assume by their silence that they have a seat at the table and are getting what they want.
I’m still totally stuck on how you’d stop a 14 year old from installing an off-the-shelf Lemmy container into his/her homelab and started using it.
I think Moot was around 14-15 when he started 4chan.
Things rarely proceed to the extremes as they get harder and more pushback the further you go. But the logical extension of wanting access to all public communications and verification of everyone’s online identity is that access to general computation has to be outlawed. Access to a programmable general purpose computer trivially defeats any restrictions you place on commercial services.
We do need to think about how for profit companies forgo their social responsibility and mess with people’s heads in pursuit of profits and if that should be regulated and how. But there are clearly some creepy people online, who might be funded, but aren’t necessarily motivated solely by profit but by ideology who will find ways to target people whatever the government does. Kids need to be prepared to live in that world and be very skeptical and it just isn’t happening. Today’s kids are just as fucking stupid as we were and they can’t afford to be.
The government have leapt straight to regulation, in my opinion likely pushed by some players in the tech industry and possibly five eyes without fully educating themselves. Potentially they are going to do more harm than good. I suspect a lot of kids are going to drift to less regulated and more extreme alternatives and we save a few kids from Tik Tok memes at the expense of more neo-nazi Christchurch shooters.
Meanwhile the “think of the children” Australian government is hands off on any enterprise run by the gambling industry. So much for the wishes of the Labor rank and file to kick gambling influence out of the party. The parliamentary parties allegiances are clear. Do whatever US intelligence and the tech companies say about age verification. Do whatever the mining industry says. Do whatever the surveillance industry says. Do whatever the gambling industry says. Piss weak for a government with a huge majority.
Not sure I actually want a linux phone. Not sure I want a smart phone at all anymore.
I think digital convergence probably went as far as it needed then kept going. Not sure how we went from nokia candybars and palm pilots to having a an always on camera, microphone, location and wifi sensor controlled by foreign advertising companies in our pockets but I think I am over it.
The government could really fuck up the black market if they were smart about it. How much margin do you have to make in a black market to offset the risk of prosecution? Just do the maths. When you control investigation, enforcement, prosecution and excises you would have to be really stupid to fuck it up like this.
This is a huge deflection from real issues. Rich cunts got richer, monopolizing our countries abundance of natural wealth and stacking the system in their favour through decades of government lobbying and corruption. Then they pay some fuckwit influencers to push the line that its the immigrant’s fault. They have been doing this shit for at least a century and its so fucking obvious if you spend 5 minutes researching shit.
BTW Immigration rates are high, not because of bleeding heart lefties, but because rich people have a pyramid scheme based on population growth pushing up property prices and want us to keep fighting for jobs so we aren’t in a position to demand better wages.
Immigration levels are too high because it benefits rich cunts. Join a union or environmental groups and vote on your own self interest and don’t be a sucker.
Only if they ban those shit single serve sauce packets first and go back to free sauce in your pie from a manky old plastic squeeze bottle. if they don’t a person could be forgiven for thinking it was some tokenistic dog whistle bullshit.
On the other side of the world here and the hotels in South Australia stopped serving alcohol at 6pm between 1915 and 1967. Did wonders for our binge drinking culture. People would race to the hotel after work to down as many beers as quickly as possible in what used to be called the 6 o’clock swill. A typical bar was very long to accommodate so many orders in a short time and tiled to deal with all the spills. People passed out in the streets at 6pm from a big nights drinking. The legal system is a very blunt instrument for changing human behavior with often unintended consequences.
Perhaps a worse vice in terms of societal harm currently is the gambling industry which is massive and growing and its just such an obvious scam and abuse by some of the most unethical and evil businesses around outside arms and human trafficking.
People use and abuse both legal and illegal drugs as self medication. They have problems (no such thing as a happy drunk) and until we work out how to help them all deal with those problems people will continue to over expose themselves to harm because from their perspective it is better than the alternative.
Alcohol is implicated in a massive number of very serious health issues. The true extent doesn’t seem to get across in popular culture or media. I like to have a beer with a meal when I am dining out but you don’t have to know many people die of throat cancer for you to cut back your exposure to minimal amounts. Never been one of those people who needs a drink so I guess its a bit of a luxury to be able to step back and take an objective look. The people with the most risk and exposure often can’t do that. I don’t know that labels help them. It might divert new users but to what?
Americans are dumb cunts.
The south is still losing. Doing even worse under Trump. Things are grim out there. People will swallow their pride and their hate for a better life for them and their kids. Well sane people will anyway. It has happened throughout history. Bitter enemies lay down their weapons and go back to living a life together. I don’t believe the US has met my personal definition of sane for some time, accepting stuff no sane society would. The media and for profit religion has a big role in the psychosis I am sure.
They fought a very bloody civil war to avoid that outcome and the US is a much, much stronger country if they bury their differences and work for a common good. In many ways a split would be a much worse outcome than even what we are seeing at the moment.
Has there ever been a more timid, passive, weak, complacent, idiotic population than the current USA?
From afar I watched them passively accept people dying or losing their homes because they couldn’t afford health care. I saw them go off to fight stupid unjustifiable wars overseas with little protest. But it is when I saw them accept their kids dying in mass slaughters in schools with barely any outrage for decades that I realized they had lost their humanity. If you can accept such outrageous things without acting you can and will accept anything.
A large number of them actively cheer their own downfall as a nation, their own impoverishment, their slavery and their stupidity. I wouldn’t underestimate the tasking of rebuilding a civilized society there. They might kick the Trumpists out with some effort but the rot goes very, very deep.
Nobody ask Albo why an Australian gambling industry billionaire operates a youth streaming platform while his government is going through the pretense of acting to protect vulnerable youth from online harm. Kick is for handwave over 18s only so nothing to see.
Can’t get away with accusing politicians of being corrupt here but they never seem to act effectively against the interests of wealthy people do they?
Software enables new revenue streams. Manufacturers can lock out features and force people to pay subscriptions. The industry wants to normalize that so they get bigger margins and a source of revenue that extends long after the initial sale. Motor vehicle as a service.
I like controls that don’t distract from driving. Computers without any internet connection aren’t a problem. I don’t mind all the buttons and switches being connected to a micro-controller. It saves a lot of wiring and complexity. While I don’t like screens I can see how they are useful for some people. Ideally you can use a vehicle offline and with the screens off.