FriendOfDeSoto

I don’t think that’s the case in France. Technically, there was consent from the parents. The age of consent is 15. What they did was morally questionable but not illegal.

Eh

Then you haven’t been to China. It’s a shorthand gesture there. The character for ten is 十 so I’m not sure if the gesture informed the character or the other way around. What is noteworthy is just that both cultures ended up with a cross to denote ten.

You’re right, you used to be able to do that but it’s been a while since it stopped.

https://www.lifewire.com/view-instagram-without-account-5271416

Just as an aside and in addition to the other comments here:

There is a phenomenon called regulatory capture. It can take many different forms but the short version is that agencies and policies get perverted to only benefit one group. When the intention should be society at large.

There is a process where the big players, say OpenAI, call for regulation of their industry, not because they feel it needs regulating but because the regulatory hurdles will keep competitors at bay. Meta pulled a stunt like that as well with social networks. So big hype company calling for regulation in their field is a red flag, accompanied by a loud alarm bell.

A good faith argument kind of presupposes that all people constantly objectively question their convictions. And I don’t think we humans do that. We’re very happy with the way we think. And very capable of holding opposing viewpoints at the same time.

It is easy to be caught up in jingoistic fervor. It’s easy not to register all the incremental changes that go against your ideals. It’s easy to overlook atrocities that are committed “by your team, for the cause.” It only takes mental gymnastics we’re perfectly capable of as a species.

You’re trying to apply conventional logic to this. Stop. They only want more power and money and they would say anything to get it.

Most of us don’t have the luxury of choosing our families. We can just try to do the best with the hand we’re dealt. I’m sorry for your loss.

Maybe delete the picture, put the phone down, and try to think of 20 great things about your grandmother.

Nobody here can really give you specific advice based on the few facts. You’re part of this family, you know them better than all of us. If you feel off about it, there’s a reason for it. You’ve come here to ask the question. So I think you’re well within your rights to reduce contact with that side of the family. I would only suggest you quietly ghost rather than making a big stink.

I think for answering that question we would need a baseline to compare with.

Lacking that, with kindness and empathy in conversations. And with resoluteness in the face of injustice.

I think ads on Gmail are also a thing of the past, aren’t they? The answer to your question is: no income. But you’re having a constant time share lunch with Google to actually buy a share in a beachfront condo. By which I mean subscribe to their cloud and AI plan. Or YouTube. Or their business suite. Etc. And then they have converted you to a paying customer. The free service is an investment to get you hooked and then paying.

And in the meantime they can collect some data from you so when you’re faced with ads they might be more effective.

Obama benefited from being barely in office in 2009 when he got the prize. I imagine the committee in Oslo regretted their decision later.

In a time of handwriting, you could make clearer that This Was a Title without having to say it was a title or putting it in quotation marks.

I would say the powerfulness of the narrative remains strong. The big corporations find ways to the cheapest way of doing business like most rivers find the sea. It doesn’t have to be switching from a developed country with socialist tax code going to a developing country where labor is cheap. You can see it in the microcosm of the EU. The Republic of Ireland has favorable taxes and a less harsh data security watchdog so big tech companies headquarter there. Amazon sits in Luxembourg for similar reasons. Wages are cheaper in the East so manufacturing jobs tend to move there (or, sadly, the workforce moves west and gets paid cents on the Euro working in Central and Western Europe). If a government increases labor costs by demanding more benefits for workers, you reach a tipping point where companies pack up and move. Not all at once but after a while the creek becomes a river. That’s the spectre haunting Europe these days. It’s not just about a billionaire wealth tax, it’s also about the levies in employment, etc. They all need to be similar in the tax codes for the equal playing field the EU apparatus idealizes. When they’re not you move the mountain range out of the way for the river to find the sea more directly.

Trump’s terrific tariffs are supposed to create a pull effect, making the US attractive to manufacturing jobs. I think he will fail because be will drive up the cost of living so much that market demand will not rise along with his expectations, making investing in factories in the US ultimately not enticing enough. Never mind the fact that corporations fear uncertainty more than the Beelzebub.

If my glib comparison is what you jump onto here, then have at it and virtue signal to your heart’s content.

You know who has the government’s ear? Ultra rich people. And they feed the legislators the horror scenario that higher taxes would mean they take their money and all their business and all the jobs attached to those to somewhere with lower taxes. And then they won’t get more in tax revenue while at the same time increasing benefits spending. It’s the billionaires’ lose/lose scenario. It’s a powerful narrative. The only way to fix this is to have all countries adopt similar tax codes. And that is about as likely as Putin getting the Nobel Peace Prize.

Are social media the root of all problems? No. Do they have a significant influence? Yes.

You mentioned spineless billionaires who eff around. There are instances of real harm. There is bullying (everywhere), there are schemes to make groups depressed (teenage girls on Insta), there is a lack of moderators that lead to genocide (Myanmar). These things deserve to be looked at by legislators when the sycophants don’t do it by themselves.

Social media addiction is a thing as well. Addictions in young people are bad. Parents should be on the front line of this. But that does not absolve social media companies from taking measures to curb certain excesses. Tobacco companies are not allowed to advertize to toddlers either.

So saying they’re just a tool, like, say, a hammer is insincere. You can use a hammer to cause real harm. You can deploy social media to cause real harm.

One of the greatest issues of social media is scale. People on the fringes of society who would be largely outcast in their communities can group and organize with much more ease. In the past, this was limited to the pub in three sheets to the wind discussions. Now you get sh!t like Q Anon, flatearthers, vax nuts, etc. - stuff that common sense in smaller communities would have moderated or stamped out now gets mass appeal. They seem much bigger as an online presence than they often are. But they get dedicated believers to start shooting.

The introduction of the internet has been compared to the introduction of the printing press in Europe. Both events caused a quantum leap in the dissemination of information with profound influences on society. After the printing press we got a century and a half of conflicts and wars. We’ll be well off if all we get here is a century of people typing in caps lock at each other.

We limit things in society. The availability of nicotine products, alcohol, the ability to drive, the availability of weaponry, antitrust laws, environmental protections, etc. I think we will not get past regulating social media somehow. By which I mean I don’t know how either.

One thing that is certain will benefit society is investing in education, teaching media savvy-ness to young children and all adults if possible, giving them the tools to sort the relevant from the distorted. We are largely unprepared for this and I include myself here having grown up with papers and landlines. But education is the saddest item in any budget, as the costs are high and the results take a generation to bear fruit.

Trump wants to dismantle the DOE…

The pyramids at Giza used to be smooth on the outside so people took pieces of them and built something else. I think they’re in a category with places like Angkor Wat. The sites’ importance decreased (religions changed, trade shifted, natural disasters, etc.) and it was easy for nature to cover them in sand or jungle and, poof, out of sight, out of mind.

It is very likely that they weren’t in fact totally forgotten. There probably was local knowledge about them that led white men with too much time and money, thinking themselves superior and as preservers of culture, to “discover” them. Tourism was for the elites and there wasn’t any money yet in preserving these old sites.

Even blue states vote on a working day and can have ridiculously long lines due to the booklet voters are asked to fill in. That’s already bad from my POV. All the other shenanigans are extra, on top of that.

I have stated elsewhere in this thread that I have limited sympathy for the US non-voters. So refer to that if you’re curious. I am trying my best not to condemn everybody equally. A free election, in most democracies, means you’re free not to go. Perhaps we’d all be fine with non-voters if Mrs. Harris had won. Putting blame at their feet is also shutting the barn door when the horse has already bolted. We should motivate the ones willing to stand up and resist. You don’t want to injure their pride and get them to jump on the MAGA bandwagon out of spite.

There are protests taking place. I just saw Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were in the news leading rallies and protests. American and Canadian protesters gathered on either side of one of the lakes, forgot which one. There are people who are saying something. Even GOP voters are shouting down their elected leaders in town hall meetings because Elon chainsawed a benefit that affected them and theirs. It’s easy to draw parallels to 1930s Germany but this Trump 2.0 administration will plot its own despicable course.

One of the reasons why you don’t see so many mass gatherings like you saw in Serbia recently or Slovakia is also US infrastructure. It’s real hard to get thousands of Americans into one place anywhere when there isn’t sufficient public transport and it would statistically be 1.2 people per car - you’d need a Rhode Island just for parking.