Erik Haugen @ech@qoto.org

@aardvark "healthcare is a human right." From context, I assume by this you mean individual healthcare professionals should be *compelled* to provide certain services, to be enumerated by the government, even if the individual provider finds that procedure immoral or something. Does that sound correct?

I think a lot of people disagree with that kind of claim.

It seems like a tricky problem to solve, as I was saying these laws address a very serious problem: what if e.g. you're in a small town with only one doctor nearby and that doctor doesn't like covid vaccines or something! Flip side, though, do you trust the government to enumerate the list "correctly" for *your* values? (I was hoping that people who weren't concerned about that sort of regulatory authority previously would start becoming so during Trump's presidency.)

I suspect the best answer here isn't to compel services, though. I doubt I'll be able to convince you of this: I'm kind of out-in-the-weeds politically when it comes to government coercion and the role of police. Maybe one argument is this, though: do you really want medical services from someone whose heart isn't in it, who is being forced by the threat of losing their career? Feels like that may not be the best way to foster good healthcare outcomes, to say the least.

Hopefully you don't see me as someone who's trying to kill trans people, though; that's my main point here.

(The law doesn't seem to be particularly specific to e.g. hormone therapy for trans individuals, although we might be justified to conclude that that was the impetus for this bill. It sounds like some kind of covid vaccine concerns might be involved as well. A concern I have about this law is that it seems (can't tell for sure) like it prevents hospitals from firing doctors that refuse to provide certain services; I'm not sure where that could go but it sounds like it might make it hard to run a hospital.)

@aardvark I think this is a good example of the kind of law that's hard to square with the rhetoric that was being used about Florida. (The category of problem here is a huge one, but I think using laws to solve it is the wrong way.)

@aardvark A lot about medical regulation is problematic.

@JonKramer @freemo @ariaflame @GeePawHill @agilealliance Consider this example: most of the book bans, as far as I can tell, are ostensibly about age-appropriateness of the material. Don't get me wrong: I'm sure there's *someone* out there using age-appropriateness in bad faith to further their nefarious crusade against <some group>, of course. But still: there are pretty reasonable cases being made – even if I disagree – most of the time about age-appropriateness.

If you use age-appropriateness bans as an example of how Florida and Texas are a literal risk to the life of a group of people, normal readers are going to dismiss you out of hand. (And rightfully so, of course; this is nonsense.)

This is an example of one of the most unfortunate outcomes of the rise of idpol: any discussion of a banal policy issue like how to decide age-appropriateness of school materials or medical regulations quickly descends into hysterics like "you are literally murdering people!". Other examples include things like single-family housing, minimum wage, and ice cream trucks.

I'm not saying these issues aren't important – they are! That's the problem! Look at these threads here and all the confusion about what anyone is even talking about.

@aardvark That's an interesting way to look at medical regulation. Medicine is very highly regulated; using this phrasing, which is weird, we could conclude that it is illegal just to be, at all, in every state.

But those aren't what those words mean, so your statement is untrue.

It's a bold rhetorical trick; I'll give you that. I suspect it backfires wildly when the normies read it, they generally aren't interested in that kind of obvious hyperbole.

@aardvark @freemo I have no reason to doubt the facts reported in this article. (I have not independently verified them.) Why do you ask?

@aral @Kadsenchaos heh. I was very careful to only comment on Amazon's political activities.

@Hyolobrika@berserker.town @freemo I've been accused of "mansplaining" for answering a direct question 😂

@freemo they don't care about that kind of community risk, though: they *want* an idpol grievance echo chamber, not a place to critically examine their positions to make them stronger. Comfortable patting each other on the back, not any kind of intellectual growth.

In this case, there's a race to describe Florida and Texas in the most hyperbolic nonsensical language possible. You get brownie points and encouragement from the crowd if you do that. Questioning it in any way is spoiling the fun.

@Kadsenchaos @aral They don't, of course.

Companies like this donate to all kinds of politicians: you could write an article like this from pretty much any political position, breathlessly claiming that Amazon etc support the other side of my favorite issue. It's misleading to the point of dishonesty; a garbage article that inspires outrage for clicks.

Why do they donate to all kinds of politicians? I guess to keep a "seat at the table", i.e. get their ear when some issue important to them (net neutrality or AI regulation or whatever) comes up. Hate the game not the player? I don't know.

@George In what way did they "fold"? (I'm trying to figure out what all the hubbub is about; the Daily Mail article you posted says something about Marxism but I can't find any Marxism. Granted, I am no expert on Marx.)

@pairko@mastodon.cloud @glynmoody With laws like this you have to wonder if we'd all be better off if big tech (or literally anyone besides the CA senate) were indeed writing our laws.

@HeathAllyn @eniko Yeah I think the idea was it would be even better than fediverse/mastodon in this respect – you pick your own algorithm or whatever; a la #ProtocolsNotPlatforms

@GreenFire @fade @rosemarymosco So then you have a bucket of rats? What do you do with it?

@HarveyEsq Which part of his argument demonstrates impairment?

1.) we can make something smarter than ourselves
2.) that thing might have unexpected goals, since we can't really understand how it works
3.) there are lots of reasons why a superintelligence would kill us with and/or without intending to

To me, I feel like (1) is a lot farther away than he seems to think it is, but I don't know of any great analysis of that question to link to.

@ShekinahCanCook@universeodon.com @davidho I think the theory is that it would be able to lay its own cables and so on. 😂

@davidho Eliezer Yudkowsky suggests AI might use climate change to kill us all: it needs more compute power to accomplish whatever its goals are, and that process inevitably creates waste heat which will eventually make the planet uninhabitable. (I think he wouldn't say this is the most likely thing that kills us first, though.)

Normally, climate change as we think of it wouldn't cause human extinction, of course. I mean, worst-case scenario is bad enough, just not that bad.