Right, I recall news from years ago where a bunch of celebrities' very private photos backed up to iCloud were leaked. They may or may not have known they uploaded those to iCloud, I dunno. But imagine what's up there if you don't realize you're doing a backup. Not just photos, but like scanned documents with vulnerable information. And all that personal info in a centralized server is a big ol honeypot for a malicious actor.

It's not hard to see why this is a vulnerability, is what I'm getting at.

The affect of the microwave would fall off exponentially with distance. So like if it has X power at Y feet away, and you go out to 2Y feet away, the affect would be quartered. The affect on a drone isn't going to do much, even if it really messes with your wifi close up.

I would question the efficiency claim. Uber and the like claimed incredible market dominance, driving local food delivery and taxi services out of business. They're only now really being forced to find profitability.

I wonder if AI is going to be similar. The powerful models right now, as I understand it, have ludicrous power requirements. I don't know their balance sheets, but in the current race to market share, I'm skeptical that most of these services are in the green.

What that ultimately says about the future I don't really know. Like it could be we reach some point where the models get better, or more specialized, or something and profit arrive. Or maybe theres a point of diminishing returns where the profit just can't be made, and once the hype falls off (and investors stop clamoring for AI) these companies will ask what they're getting for the money spent.

(And of course I could just be straight up wrong about profits today not being there.)

It comes from the case against Henry Ford after he saw his company was making gobs of cash and decided to give some of that to his employees. Shareholders successfully sued him to stop this on the grounds that he has a fiduciary duty to shareholders.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

As with anything legal, there is nuance, but the basic assertion that there is fiduciary duty to shareholders is not wrong.

Look if someone's having a bad time, it don't cost much to throw em a bone. Like sure, that last attack killed them a round early because everyone has had a moment to feel proud today but you. Or like the spellcaster who is feeling a bit shitty because every monster has saved against their spells by some fluke today.

Like if they aren't having fun, what am I doing here?

Video games do this shit all the time. Famously the first GoW gave new players a small boost in multiplayer. It led to a community and better engagement in the long run because people had more fun. BG3 has that goofy 'karmic dice' system, which is on by default. Fire emblem lies. etc etc

Why would you say that? Do you think everyone is just really jazzed about death? I think you seem to have missed the point of the outcry.

Might be worth spoofing your user agent! I mostly just make it look exactly like the user agent my windows machine sends, so I'll still look like a Firefox user. But by default, Firefox will note that it's the Linux build in the user agent.

You really can. Right to work, + free speech is only applicable wrt the government.

The fact that it's legal does not make it moral.

Not the person you responded to, but: left economically is not left socially.

Also, it's cheap to speak total bullshit, but it takes time, effort, and energy, to dispel it. I can say the moon is made of cheese, you can't disprove that. And you can go out and look up an article about the samples of moon rock we have and the composition, talk about the atmosphere required to give rise to dairy producing animals and thus cheese.

And I can just come up with some further bullshit that'll take another 30 minutes to an hour to debunk.

If we gave equal weight to every argument, we'd spend our lives mired in fact-checking hell holes. Sometimes, you can just dismiss someone's crap.

(edit: God I'm sorry about this big ass wall. I ranged and rambled. It's too early to write this much lol. Tl;Dr 1: law enforcement. Police don't need a warrant to buy your info. In the US, we have warrants for a reason. Constitution outlines restrictions on "unreasonable search and seizure. 2: Consent. Like, I should have the right to just say no. It's my data, let me be part of the conversation. 3/4: Safety and equity. It's still illegal to be gay in some parts of the world. An insurance company or an employer could check your race online if they wanted, whether or not you've made that available. )

The problem extends across a few metrics.

First, probably the most tangible. The police can and do use data purchased from civilian companies to bypass regulations. For example, you don't need a warrant to check phone contacts if you can buy it. You might be saying you don't do anything illegal to worry about. Have you ever been to a protest? Have your friends? If climate change bothers you, could you see yourself going to one?

Protests are frequently targeted by law enforcement. Even if you think that would only happen if the protest becomes a riot, you don't control the crowd. If you're there but not rioting, your phone location can be used as proof of participation. There is precedent, too. They used location data to arrest capitol rioters. IMO those were good arrests, but how many BLM protestors were arrested based on phone data?

Second, consent. Even if I change nothing else in your mind here, consider that we might simply value our personal data differently. I should have a right to be part of the conversation about me. Let me pay $20 to use a product without observation. Products should be up front about what is collected too (GDPR has helped lots with website tracking). Facebook is known to collect "shadow profiles", where data is compiled on you even if you aren't on the platform. I should be allowed to say no to that, for any reason, simply by virtue of it being my information.

Third and fourth go together some. Safety and equity. People are still killed for being gay. Legally. And the collection of data on people enables that. Just buy data off of Pornhub to identify who is browsing their gay section. And if someone is found in a country where it is illegal to be queer, all you need is a list of their contacts to find more. Maybe Apple refuses to unlock their phone for you, but that's okay. Just buy their contacts off Meta.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory

But that's the straightforward issue of equity. Consider someone who has gone to jail. They've done their time, they've reformed, and now they want to rejoin society. The judge even goes so far as to expunge their records. Well, a background checking company can buy that info still. And that's just talking about criminal acts that should be reformed. Maybe you don't care about that. What about crimes that just target BIPOC? In the US, weed is legalizing, slowly. People were still arrested for it, and that history is indelible, regardless of the official record. If even the US Justice System wants to wipe the slate, than the slate should be wiped.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_in_the_United_States_criminal_justice_system

Special mention to Google btw. Good and bad. They do a lot to tell you what and how they collect data, and how they anonymize it. Purportedly don't sell your data, since they also own the ad network. Like you say, I'm not really worried about the ads, and a lot of their products really are good enough that I don't mind making that trade. However, I do take umbrage with the idea that it's fine still. A company does have analytics on their ad campaigns. John Oliver did a funny bit where they put an ad targeted towards Congress. He got a couple of hits too, with their location and had the power to fingerprint their browsers if he wanted. Once you click an ad, you're in the care of whatever site put that ad out. That means they collect whatever they want on you. Additionally, theyll know what ad brought you in. So if you put an ad out targeting "pregnant people in Texas looking to make a trip", you'll have a list of people that Google thinks match.

This whole post misses a lot of nuance and context. It's a social media post, ultimately. I'm not sure I have enough mental capacity right now to hunt down more links, and I'm about to start my work day. I don't have any trouble with folks who don't care -- frankly I'm jealous. I'm annoyed that I can't just use products like most people and not care. It's just everywhere. Walking down the street I'm on someone's TikTok, meaning Facebook, YT, Bytedance could get my location without me even interacting with them (shadow profiles from earlier). When I got a covid test recently, I had to download their stupid app to fill out a form. That app has the power to collect endless data points about my phone. Buying concert tickets means signing over my information to your favorite ticket vendor. It's just endless and exhausting for me.

+1 Outward is actually my favorite game. It's so so fun!