Major international incident/ escalation/ act of war prevented by a bus driver kicking a drone.

1000%

I have a 2020 Mini Cooper, and we took it in for service and got a loaner 2026 Mini, and it has this massive, ugly touchscreen.

Look at these gorgeous physical toggles! And even more overhead! All gone! FFS!

He had a duress password, and told it to a border agent (who had no warrant, but that is no longer legally required for border checks), which then wiped his phone.

He was targeted for being part of the Stop Cop City protest movement (and they were likely looking for contacts), and now the feds are claiming that because he could have had anything, he should be allowed to be charged with possession of whatever they can think of (I.e. they already tried to claim in a press conference that he may have had CSAM, because they couldn’t search it to prove he didn’t).

Which they, as the governments, can choose to legally treat as the same thing. “You are guilty of whatever someone does with your account” is not a new concept, it’s just one that most places have chosen to reject. It can always be overridden, such as for the Palestine Exception.

Luckily, revolutions have never required the majority of a populace to actively participate in to succeed, just a majority going “meh, sure”.

But yes, I am personally also very worried that we’re reaching a point with technology that state surveillance and violence will both be too easily applied and too pervasive for the revolution to overcome.

I think this is actually advantageous to us in a way, because clearly AI is something of a system shock to many people right now, whereas in a hundred years it may have not been nearly as apparent as the danger it is (and I don’t mean LLMs, I mean AI in general, especially for surveillance and weapons).

I don’t think it’s a doomer comment at all, I think the last paragraph is trying to tell you without saying the word “datacenter” to go look up the addresses of data centers.

They’re villains created by transphobes?

Had to use 'runk", because 'runc" is already taken. :P

That’s true, but the reasons they did it are not their fault.

There’s a name for the thing that demands minimal spending on public services and national spending on private business, even at the expense of human life…

People in power knew, but it served their interests to pretend otherwise.

Force does not require hierarchy, and force is not authority; if someone is opposing or harming the collective group, the group can choose collectively how to respond, including with force. They can even decide these things beforehand.

You’re just describing an invasion. That’s how all invasions work, state or none.

In other countries than the US that distinction actually means a lot more. For instance, some countries will not allow a bank to repossess cars or houses once a simple majority of the loan has been repaid. In the US, you could be on the final 1 cent payment and the bank, from a legal standpoint, can foreclose on the whole thing if you fail to pay it. In realistic terms, it’s theirs until the loan is entirely repaid.

I don’t know, I think that a “hobby” should be linked to use or an activity, specifically, not simply ownership. Consumerism for the endorphins isn’t really a ‘hobby’, it’s an addiction at best (and I have some personal experience in this area).

If you’re renting or leasing cars for a specific use, like racing or camping, I think that’s completely defensible; I even think certain vehicles like RVs should probably mainly be rented or leased, to make sense.

But “having the newest car for my ego” isn’t a ‘hobby’ without diluting the meaning to nothingness.

No one would surrender to the Dread Pirate Tom.

This is so good

I hate to say it because I’m on the side of cars being both an effect and a cause of major negative social issues, but he’s right that you’re dismissing the fact that society forces people to interact with it as it dictates unless you have the money to force otherwise, whether that’s building a whole-ass off-grid house because you have the money, taking a helicopter instead of a car because you have the money, or taking a bike instead of a car because you have the time (which is only going to be the case if you have the money to not have to rely on a time-sensitive wage-based job).

The alternative is often being jobless, which usually means being unhoused, which has so many negative knock-on effects involved that it certainly should not be held up as a reasonable alternative.

I just started a new job, and after I (imo) aced the remote interview, they brought me in for an in-person, which didn’t seem unusual. I was surprised when they started asking all the same questions as in the remote and take-home interviews, but clearly they’ve been hitting issues with this.