I always wonder with these sorts of things, is it the person who is 'wrong' or it the society?
Perhaps the society has too narrow a definition of 'normal', or perhaps the society we experience causes these issues (overcrowding, poor food+water, stress), etc.
I also wonder whether 'mental illness' is a field where you can literally create illnesses in order to then treat them.
Obviously, there are some genuine mental issues - I just don't think we are able to ascribe causality correctly, when the only ones trying to 'treat' the issue are the same parties that stand to make financial gains.
We should sue the government for all the bad designs that they have forced on us for so many years. Without holding historical errors to account, we are bound to repeat well-meaning busy-body interference from planners etc.
I don't understand the emotion, or even the idea that I have to feel something about cars or roads. What is it to do with me, why should I care? Its not as if I can do anything about it.
The governance structure provided us with road infrastructure in the past. We were sold this idea and developed our lives around it.
Now the governance structure wants us to live in smart cities, with no cars. This allows for greater control and tighter management of the tax paying stock.
No one gets to vote for this stuff. It is not a way of life I would choose - I don't like being manipulated. I'm not going to stand at the sidelines and clap these changes on. It is communitarianism - but its not a good thing.
"Our revealed preference seems to be that we'd rather have homeless people live in tents than have poor people get free or nearly free housing."
Well, I'm sick of your preferences; they make no sense to me.
I'm being facetious, but why talk that way? You are an individual. If you have an opinion state it.
Government and its decisions are not you, you do not need to pretend that you agree with these decisions, or that they are somehow the result of a benign expression of voting decisions that you are bought into.
UBI is such blatant bribery by the existing governance structures, in order to ensure conformity to their ever increasing dictats.
I don't see how anyone things this action is a good thing - it's inflationary, it's bribery. How will people voice alternative opinions, when to do so will risk loss?
UBI is just a trick to have everyone willingly sign up into assimilation into the government's citizen-borg.
"Pegasus takes advantage of so-called zero-day vulnerabilities of software running on mobile phones, meaning built-in flaws that not even developers and manufacturers are aware of."
No one has 'the truth', it's just not that sort of thing. Everyone has opinions. Some opinions are lies. Transparency is the way to deal with the lies.
But if you're the one lying and have your hands on the levers of power, censorship is a great tool.
"Few pause to think that their phones can be transformed into surveillance devices, with someone thousands of miles away silently extracting their messages, photos and location, activating their microphone to record them in real time."
They were designed to be surveillance devices! Remember when you could replace your phone battery? They corrected that 'design flaw'. Smart phones, smart meters, smart cities, 5g... this is the infrastructure of the technocracy.
Smart = spy.
When papers like the guardian present articles like these as if they care, they are in fact doing a different job. They are actually acclimatising us to the future so that we are not shaken into action, but wring our hands for a bit and move on.
To those talking about journalists needing to protect freedom, what world are you on? Have you heard of 'project mockingbird'? Have you not yet realised that journalism is just a part of the governance structure, along with education, and of course the government?
You can't blame them! What seem like valid differences of opinion are political, national security threats, etc. Intolerance abounds.
But please - that 'storming of the US Capitol' was a joke - those people were pretty well behaved, and waved in by the police. I suspect to provide a justification to portray republicans badly later on. All those riots, in Portland etc, in the middle of epidemic? Those are fine and can carry on for months.
My thinking exactly! Do not extend trust - extend the attempt to try to verify, if you think the matter is important.
On living with uncertainty - this seems to be our major struggle. We can't say "I don't know", we would rather the life-raft of a comfortable story that assuages us. Most of us are both arrogant not because we know/have verified but because of stories/beliefs. It is hybris!
There are bad things all over the world, deaths, crashes, collapses, etc.
But what does that have to do with technologists working hard to eliminate freedoms and privacy, not just for themselves but for everyone? Do technologists have the truth, do they really know what is better for everyone else?
I'm totally fine personally with other people doing what they want to do. Buy a phone knowing you are being spied on.
But do you forget that we did not know we were being spied on. Some of us suspected perhaps, but this only became blatant with the Snowden revelations. The point is that this is not an open, free-sharing system - it is plainly deceitful, designed to extract our most personal information, to provide it to a corporation/governance structure whether we want it or not.
And now we see the long path we are on coming to fruition - we will have to have a phone, a vax passport to simply get into shops. We are facing a world like East Germany, but on techno-steroids.
So, fine, choose what you like. But do you not think a line is crossed when the techno-snooping becomes mandatory, with smart phones, smart tvs, smart meters, etc? Must I hand over all of my information to what is shaping up to be a fascist (government+corporate) governance structure?
I am absolutely on the path to self-liberation - the policeman in my head is gone. Its been a work of years.
Why do you say wild animal? Are you a wild animal if someone doesn't tell you what to do? I think you need to check your assumptions. We are naturally joyful, trusting creatures, but this is used against us.
And having children personally made me double up my efforts. I needed to find answers - I didn't want to commit my children to automaton living.
I was not in control - I was not the author of my life. I was provided a story, and that is now rejected. I write my own story - and fyi here is a good essay that captures how I feel:
The job we have - as I see it - is to act according to what we know. There is a big difference between what you know and what you *think* you know. Eg, do you know your date of birth? No, you do not. You do not remember it - you only know what you are told. Knowing is personally verifying! Say what you see and don't lie to yourself or others.
If you do not personally verify the stories you are told, you will be 'lost in stories'. Someone else (not you) is controlling the narrative. Technology is just the latest iteration of the stories - we also have government, religion, law, our 'educated' peers, etc.
Isn't it amazing how easily people are controlled? Why force people to do something, when you can actually make money off whatever slave device or process you've got.
This comes down to education. We have been educated to follow and accept, rather than think critically and take the long term view on something, and act on it. Very few people are even able to consider just how much of how they view the world is on account of the way they have been taught. They think the values they have are their own, but it is not on a basis of truth, it is repetition and being told what is right. It is not their personality/individuality extending into the world - it is consensus thinking.
Frankly, its quite sad! And for some of us it is like living amongst the borg, with all these received opinions.
If there was ever a time you'd think that legislation could be drafted to help the common man, here is a great case! But I'm not holding my breath.