“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H. L. Mencken

It’s hard to tell if a post like this is intentional propaganda, or just “the enemy of my enemy must be my friend” brainwashed babbling.

Fair. That or Teddy banging out the second half of a speech with bullet in his chest have got to be the craziest moments in presidential medical care.

If you look into the “excess deaths” studies, it’s probably between 15 (WHO study) and 18 (Lancet study) million people who died beyond what we would have expected without the pandemic.

We really undersell how horrible a time it was.

That isn’t the smoking gun you think.

What are we to infer from the fact that after 50 years not one mRNA drug had been approved by the FDA? Human clinical trials on mRNA drugs started in 2001. Human trials on mRNA vaccines started in 2013. By 2021 no mRNA drug had FDA approval after years of development and testing.

But the COVID vaccines were all set after 7 months? No longer term data might have been beneficial in decision making?

For comparison AdderalXR was in clinical trials for 2 years, and this was after Adderal was already approved by the FDA and it was part of a well known class of drugs.

The COVID vaccines were among humanity’s greatest accomplishments. I’m not suggesting the FDA cut any corners. I personally believe taking them was the right thing to do.

BUT they absolutely were a calculated risk, with no long term data, and there was a concerted effort to mislead the public about that.

I think most people fail to grasp how much danger he must have been in for someone to say “lets inject this experimental drug into the President of the United States” and everyone else in the room going “yeah, that’s probably our best course at this point”.

That is one of the craziest things in presidential history IMO and almost no one seems to think it’s a big deal when I bring it up.

I worked in pharma at one point. I was not working in a scientific capacity, but in a role where I had to be familiar with testing, and the way safety data sheets are updated. I get very frustrated at any black and white depiction of the “experimental drug”.

It’s a very grey area.

Anyone who claims they had the same grasp on the long term effects of a new class of drugs, and a drug that had only existed for a few months, is not being honest. You can’t know the effects that may occur two years down the line after seven months of testing. Famously the Johnson and Johnson Janssen vaccine had to be briefly “paused” for re-evaluation due to the TSS (blood clot issue) risk before it was deemed a worthwhile risk. Still millions of people were exposed to the risk of this rare side effect which would more likely have been discovered over a 2 year trial.

That doesn’t mean they didn’t have a very good understanding of the safety risks. They were able to make a competent risk analysis. It also doesn’t mean that they didn’t conduct all the tests or go through all the procedures. The rapid approval and deployment was not due to cutting corners it was mostly due to cutting burocracy and getting the supply chain ready before they even knew what drug would be approved.

The COVID vaccine was one of the greatest accomplishments in human history. It was an overwhelming success, and likely saved millions of lives (check the excess deaths studies during the pandemic), trillions of dollars, and had an immeasurably positive effect on public mental health.

Most of the rest of the argument is bullshit too.

• While many things were closed, and others were limited, we weren’t locked in our homes. Many small businesses folded due to those limitations, but it wasn’t a mandated prison term for the public.
• As far as vaccine mandates there were no sweeping federal mandates on the public (though there was an attempt), and institutions in the US have always been allowed to have vaccine mandates for safety and readiness. George Washinton inoculated the Continental army with live small pox. I needed my shots to go to a public school 40+ years ago. It’s not tyranny to decline to work with or employ someone who needlessly presents a severe safety risk to the rest of the organization.

Worse than that people and brands are going to enshitify the internet In an effort to get their products and brands into the training data with a more positive context.

Just use one AI to create hundreds of thousands of pages of bullshit about how great your brand is and how terrible your competitors brands are.

Then every AI scraping those random pages trying to harvest as much data as possible folds that into their training data set. And it doesn’t just have to be things like fake product reviews. Fake peer-reviewed studies and fake white papers. It doesn’t even have to be on the surface. It can be buried in a 1000 web servers accessible to scrapers but not to typical users.

Then all the other brands will have to do the same to compete. All of this enshitifying the models themselves more and more as they go.

Self-inflicted digital brain tumors.

You’re presenting a false dichotomy. There’s the distinct possibility he WAS a drunken idiot and no longer is.

I’ve got no skin in the game here, but to compare those options:

1. He quits working in the lucrative military industrial complex to become a fascist sleeper agent (because if he didn’t know in advance his reddit history wouldn’t make any sense). So he spends the better part of a decade making functionally anonamous reddit posts on lefty and socialist subs while oyster farming (presumably) to build credibility as a lefty… In Maine… but curiously he does so while not building any sort of real political capital or credibility. After 7 years the Democrats are weak, he activates with bonafides to flank the party from the left and emerge as a working class fighter. He decides not to get rid of the tattoo that could expose him to the public as a fascist (perhaps because he needs to secretly maintain his fascist bonafides).

2. He’s authentic, but as a young guy in the service, he gets shit faced and makes a terrible decision in a tattoo shop. Accepting this theory does require one to believe that Platner had not committed the first 10 pages of the ADL hate symbol database to memory.

Occams razor makes a pretty clear case here.

Still, I would be concerned about getting Fetterman’d if I were a Maine voter. Platner comes with some baggage and requires a good bit of faith. I also don’t think there are any clearly, better options for voters in Maine.

All 3rd party data collection of identifiable information on users, IPs, domains, and devices (anything that can tie back to a consumer) requires line item affirmative consent from the user with a disclosure of what is being collected and all known current and future uses. That should put an end to websites with 4,000 trackers.

Sale of identifiable consumer data (including device information, etc…) to a 3rd party requires the affirmative consent of the consumer.

Targeted advertisements must include a link to information about why this advertisement targeted the user, and the source of the data that informed that decision.

Government agencies, political parties, PACs, and religious organizations are barred from collecting consumer data from 3rd parties. They are barred from commissioning others to collect 3rd party consumer data on their behalf for opposition research purposes. The single exception being narrowly targeted data for criminal investigations with a warrant.

A user’s microphone may not be engaged without affirmative user consent or a warrant. A ban on transmitting data for the purposes of mapping a residence or the movement of parties within a residence without user consent or a warrant.

Absolute consumer freedom to install whatever software and firmware they so choose on any consumer grade computer hardware they have paid for and are in physical possession of. So you may be prohibited from dumping malware on a server you rented, but you can hack your car, video game console, exercise bike, PC, etc… to your heart’s content.

A codified “right to be forgotten” upon request for all concluded commercial transactions, disused online profiles, and online media not pertaining to public figures, ongoing litigation, criminal matters, or matters of otherwise significant public concern after X length of time.

A government registry to be formed for the purpose of identifying which companies are storing personally identifiable information about you (not actually containing any of that info itself). Simply requiring companies to register who’s data they’re storing and what type of data, and providing a means of demanding that information be removed.

I installed gcompris for my 5 year old. FOSS childrens educational software and games from KDE.

I also bought her a cheap, pink, 65% keyboard and mouse set that make it “her computer”.

There’s also a few free resources to teach typing once your kid can read and write enough to understand what they’re typing. I’ve heard good things about Typing.com and typingclub.com but we’re not ready to start typing yet so I haven’t used them.

Also, if my kids ask a question that’s a little tricky to explain I’ll show them how I use a computer (or phone) to look for answers. One of the few practical applications I’ve ever found for AI is “can you explain [abstract concept] in a way that a 5 year old can understand”. This isn’t explicitly teaching computer skills, but showing them a practical use case and how to dig into their curiosity.

Taylor ham.

Admittedly, as the best state in America, there is very little reason for us to leave. But we do still like to travel, just like the folks in the lesser states. We shouldn’t be deified like this.

It’s not a question at all. We ransomed the election on video.

“We’re a symbol of independence… Also feed me more boot please!” These people deserve every single thing they’re getting.

Yes they did. That’s where this discussion started. In fact it was stated “record low interest rates.”

I hope they are able to grow this without compromising the quality or vision, because I’m sure they’ll have lots of people willing to get involved, but maybe not all for the most ethical reasons.

Are the down votes because people genuinely think this is an incorrect answer, or because they dislike anything remotely pro-AI?

The thing I think a lot of people miss when talking about how harshly billionaires oppose him, is that the billionaires are not afraid of a socialist, or a democratic socialist, or paying 2% more in taxes. Not just that anyway.

They are afraid of having elected officials they can’t buy. If you’re a billionaire, it doesn’t matter if Cuomo, or Adams wins. You may have a preference, but you can “donate to” either of those guys. They’ll take the money.

Taxes are nothing compared to the way they fear public support for ethical, economic-populism.

The irony is they could have gotten rid of him for a fraction of the cost, by donating to him and when asked about it after the fact saying they’d “come to an understanding” with his campaign. That would erode trust faster than all the racist mailers money can buy.

“He’s spending more money than that I would even tax him… Habibi, I don’t even want that much” - Zorhan Mamdani on Bill Ackerman’s efforts to buy the election.