Olives @olives@qoto.org

https://reason.com/2023/10/30/brickbat-tiny-homes-big-problems/

"In March, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the state would spend $30 million to build 1,200 prefabricated tiny houses across the state, including 350 in Sacramento, in an effort to ease the state's housing shortage. He promised the houses would be ready this fall. But local media in Sacramento report the state still has not hired contractors for the project in that city, much less broken ground on any of the houses."

The really interesting thing here is that someone will probably always be able to do whatever they want with a home-brew "AI" tool (whether they like it or not) but they have this fantasy of control (which involves whipping good actors).

On occasion, they might try to create a pseudo-intellectual air, though their arguments tend to verge on the conspiratorial.

Things like trying to associate something with "deviants" someone couldn't possibly understand, with high levels of paranoia, and outright ignoring the obvious negative implications of their actions (and sometimes trying to spin this as a "good thing" to try to take the bad taste out of someone's mouth).

Vague, tangential, and unbounded speculation with language like "maybe" and "possibly" becomes a "gold standard". Any evidence (no matter how solid it is) to the contrary might as well not exist.

There are many reasons why it's hard to take anything they say seriously.

AI, VR, fiction, taboos, and more.

One of the most important points:

"When I say that debunking things takes time and resources, I really do mean that, as can be evidenced by this very post. Frankly, I'm of the opinion these people tend to be bad faith actors, and know damn well they're talking crap. People should stop letting them get away with it."

The reason here is really quite simple.

They plug their ears to censorship not being useful, and actually, harmful, and go out of their way to conflate concepts, and even to instruct others on how to do so.

Ironically, I didn't use the prison analogy because of the penal colony history, it's just a very useful analogy.

I think I'd be more concerned about Australia being more like a giant prison (the controlling aspect) than crime (which I don't think is a problem compared to other countries?)

Satirizing the crime is a bit odd (I suppose it comes from the place historically being a penal colony).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2023/10/24/youth-mental-health-independence/

"For years, Peter Gray, a research professor of psychology and neuroscience at Boston College, has been closely following two disturbing trends: the dwindling of independent activity and play afforded to children over the past half-century, and the accelerating rise in mental health disorders and suicides among youth during that same period."

"There are familiar factors that surface in discussions of the youth mental health crisis in America, with screen use and social media often topping the list of concerns."

https://qoto.org/@olives/111307215953208580
Gray actually mentioned in his paper that it had nothing to do with those, and put in a bunch of studies showing that. You have to read a fair bit in but it's there.

"But Gray suspects a deeper underlying issue: The landscape of childhood has transformed in ways that are profoundly affecting the way children develop — by limiting their ability to play independently, to roam beyond the supervision of adults, to learn from peers, and to build resilience and confidence."

Though it has that tag, he is actually also a pest elsewhere.

I'm concerned Salter is advancing an anti rehabilitation argument (quite a few of his arguments are anti rehabilitation arguments and it's irritating). This time effectively arguing that former child porn photo criminals shouldn't have social supports (which is not uncommonly argued to lead to less crime at that...), because a few can be jerks in their personal lives to others (really).

What a ghoul. I'm tired of his pseudo-intellectual language undermining every practical effort to avoid crime probably because it doesn't jibe with his bizarre take on "tough on crime". He doesn't have to like these people, or be their friends. But, what sort of person actively thinks up ways to make the world worse? That is the practical implication of what he does. Why is it any of his business? Why do we let him get away with this?

#auspol

https://qoto.org/@olives/111306160700543981 I think this is talking about the same thing, although the things people are mentioning there doesn't seem to jive with this particular text. Perhaps, I'm missing something.

https://www.makedmssafe.com/ What do you think of this?

International Justice Mission is not a new name. They've been accused of progressive groups previously of exaggerating rates of sex trafficking and of being anti sex work.

In a submission over chat control, they submitted a rather sleazy and manipulative proposal where they pointed to "terminology guidelines". These guidelines are far less guidelines than they are puritanical propaganda of how they want terms to be interpreted.

Usually, this is in a very harmful manner. A victim / survivor writing about their abuse? Well, you have just produced "child porn" and we've got to investigate you. IJM doesn't really care about the harms of what they do though. These kinds of groups never do.

#chatcontrol

https://xnet.maadix.org/nextcloud/index.php/s/NZX7cxbQSETid6g

Looking at this, I have a few points (though, I'm not entirely sure how it'd work out in practice):

1) The conditions for "reasonable suspicion" seem a bit vague. It feels the language could be stretched.

2) Presumably, the proportionality requirements might limit this (or to some extent), but one requirement for being served a detection order is that a service has been known to have been used to disseminate this content (no reference to frequency or volume) within the past year. That seems... Very broad?

3) Taking action to "prevent" things is fairly vague / broad, and could be a threat to freedom of expression, due process, or privacy.

Though, it seems like more of a strong suggestion in this particular document than mandatory per se?

4) Some terms look okay at first glance, but only when you completely ignore that lobbyists (including the religiously motivated group, International Justice Mission) are pushing for them to be interpreted in harmful ways (i.e. "child" not being an actual child).

#chatcontrol

https://reason.com/2023/10/26/damning-new-audit-finds-san-francisco-takes-3-years-to-approve-new-housing/

"San Francisco takes three years on average to approve and permit a new housing development, the longest timeline of any jurisdiction in California, and the city is out of compliance with numerous state laws requiring expedited housing approvals."

https://reason.com/2023/10/27/what-we-do-in-the-shadows/

"Review: A Vampire Mockumentary Takes on Local Politics"

"On the outside, Colin Robinson looks like every other boring schmuck who wears a boring tan suit. But he's no ordinary man. He's not even a human being. Robinson is an energy vampire—he feeds not by sucking blood, but by draining people's energy by boring or annoying them."

""Bureaucracy is the gum that clogs the gears of every human endeavor," the vampire council's chairwoman says. "All hail bureaucracy.""

https://reclaimthenet.org/internet-is-cut-off-in-gaza-as-israel-steps-up-operations

"Amid escalating bombing in Gaza by Israel’s forces, the region is now essentially cut off from the outside world as almost all communication networks are down.

With the absence of internet and phone connection, escalating the harsh reality of people and families becoming unreachable, concerns over censorship and free speech are rising exponentially."

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/10/trans-sex-worker-aclu-sue-tennessee-over-hiv-criminalization-law/

"The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Transgender Law Center have filed a federal lawsuit against a Tennessee law that requires HIV-positive sex workers to register for life as a “violent sex offender.”"

"The plaintiffs, which include a transgender woman, allege that they have faced discrimination and life struggles because of their violent sex offender status. These struggles have forced the trans woman to continue doing sex work, since finding a job can be difficult for someone on the registry."

"Medical professionals have said that HIV criminalization laws do nothing to stop the spread of the virus and may even encourage people not to get tested for fear that the knowledge could subject them to criminal penalties."

https://www.eff.org/pages/speaking-freely-nadine-strossen An interview with former ACLU President Nadine Strossen.

https://reason.com/2023/10/27/government-misuse-of-data-rightly-worries-americans/

"In news from the world of "what took you so long?" it seems that Americans are concerned about how governments and tech companies use the information they gather. Much current discussion is about the potential dangers of the data hoovered up by social media companies, and while people tell pollsters that worries them, they have no faith that regulators will hold private companies to account. Well, of course not; Americans know government is a big part of the problem and that officials are all too eager to misuse private information."

""Americans – particularly Republicans – have grown more concerned about how the government uses their data," Pew Research noted on October 18 of a survey of 5,101 participants. "The share who say they are worried about government use of people's data has increased from 64% in 2019 to 71% today.""

"Americans are actually more concerned (81 percent) about how private companies use their data."

"No matter the occasional congressional press release, government officials like it when private companies scoop up data. That's because the information can then be purchased in what officials insist is a legitimate end-run around the Fourth Amendment and other privacy protections."