IIIIIIIIIIII's recent activity
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Comment on Do other people who grew up with an anonymous internet feel a bit hopeless at the moment? in ~society
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Comment on Do other people who grew up with an anonymous internet feel a bit hopeless at the moment? in ~society
IIIIIIIIIIII Link ParentI think the sweet spot for me was the idea that these companies would make being an asshole difficult through moderation. We've seen over the past 10 months how quick they were to abandon that. As...I think the sweet spot for me was the idea that these companies would make being an asshole difficult through moderation.
We've seen over the past 10 months how quick they were to abandon that. As soon as it became clear they weren't going to need to abide by hate speech policies or even (in Meta's case) many jurisdictions laws about inciting violence and showing illegal content.
The other big one that sticks out is the Reddit API incident, where it wasn't even a demand for pay, just better tools. In my view that site should have had paid moderators a long time ago but even for the dedicated volunteers what was being offered wasn't enough to keep them around, and the asshole ratio went up significantly after they left.
My tiny history of the corporate internet would be The Invisible Hand™ flipping off a befuddled politician reading a document they neither understand nor car about.
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Do other people who grew up with an anonymous internet feel a bit hopeless at the moment?
I'm posting this in ~society rather than ~tech, as I feel like it's more a question of societal change and policy decisions rather than tech change. Please feel free to move if I'm wrong. Seeing...
I'm posting this in ~society rather than ~tech, as I feel like it's more a question of societal change and policy decisions rather than tech change. Please feel free to move if I'm wrong.
Seeing the predictable Discord data breach for age verification, it feels like the walls are closing in. My country has announced a similar policy to the UK just recently and I feel a sense of loss for a crucial part of my life that may go away.
I don't think I'm being too nostalgic by saying that I felt much more comfortable speaking freely on the internet when anonymity was the default. I didn't engage in any illegal activity - or even in my view immoral activity. I just made friends from around the world and learned a lot.
I am not making the argument that the internet of the 90's and 00's were 'safer' - I'm sure there is plenty of bad things that happened without me being aware. But this theoretical bad stuff is still being used to make us mandatorily give our government issued identity documents to corporate entities, and it's not paranoia to think they want to find a way to profit from this, and not invest heavily to defend it.
I get the structural forces that are driving this change, but it still makes me sad. I feel like I'm running a defensive cyber operation with no training or expertise. I do my best to stay private with VPNs, tracker blocking, DNS filters, but I feel like I'm losing. We have a whole department for this at work and they are very busy - I am just a lay person doing their best.
No matter what I do, either the governments of the world or surveillance capitalists will build up a picture of who I am far beyond what I am comfortable with. My meagre efforts are like trying to stop the tide by kicking it.
Do others who grew up with a more open, more anonymous internet feel similarly? Do you try and protect your privacy, are you resigned, or are you somewhere in the middle?
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Comment on ‘Taylor Swift: Showgirl’ at $33m an awesome anomaly for album pic launch; Dwayne Johnson sees lowest opening ever with ‘The Smashing Machine’ at $6m in ~movies
IIIIIIIIIIII Link ParentI had the chance to see one movie this weekend, Smashing Machine or One Battle After Another. The idea of giving Dwayne Johnson any momentum for a transition to Serious Actor is what ultimately...I think it’s at a bit of an odds as to its audience. Cinephiles would be the ones most prone to supporting this but OBAA took up all the attention and Johnson’s presence was more of a deterrent for them.
I had the chance to see one movie this weekend, Smashing Machine or One Battle After Another.
The idea of giving Dwayne Johnson any momentum for a transition to Serious Actor is what ultimately put me off.
It is weird, as I normally think actors' public images are just manufactured, so I can't trust them, so it doesn't impact my decision making.
But the Rock just seems like such an asshole to crews he works with that it impacted my decision, even though I was on the fence about One Battle After Another and don't particularly like Leonardo DiCaprio's acting.
And now hearing even oldhead MMA fans say 'uhhh it's kinda boring', I think I'll give it a miss when it's streaming.
You've probably got to be a pretty big prick for even the Hollywood PR machine not to be able to insulate you from persistent talk of your shitty behaviour. I'm not into celebrity gossip but his unprofessionalism and difficulty on sets seems to have breached that sphere and entered into discussion of movies he's in.
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Comment on Was prehistory a feminist paradise? Visions of matriarchal utopia may be wishful thinking, but there’s growing evidence of women wielding power. in ~humanities.history
IIIIIIIIIIII Link ParentYeah I thought that was really neat. I would like it to become standard in more articles written by deep experts, it makes the subject more accessible.Yeah I thought that was really neat. I would like it to become standard in more articles written by deep experts, it makes the subject more accessible.
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Comment on Was prehistory a feminist paradise? Visions of matriarchal utopia may be wishful thinking, but there’s growing evidence of women wielding power. in ~humanities.history
IIIIIIIIIIII (edited )Link ParentBret Devereaux is a solid public intellectual dealing with classical and Ancient military history and tactics from the Mediterranean. I don't think he's got any qualifications in prehistory,...Bret Devereaux is a solid public intellectual dealing with classical and Ancient military history and tactics from the Mediterranean. I don't think he's got any qualifications in prehistory, archaeology, or prehistoric anthropology, so I think conflating what he thinks about 'pre-modern' times with this is a mistake. Pre-modern is used interchangeably with 'early modern' in history, so 1400s to 1700, and highly focused on Europe.
As far as linking to the article about current polling on technology and how 'women are persuadable' and 20th/21st century autonomous cars and cycling, it seems like a non-sequitor. I'm not sure that a tech article from 2025 supports an argument that matrilineal societies in prehistory (or modern feminism, for that matter) 'fundamentally depends on technological progress.'
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Comment on Flush with cash and soaring with hubris, Donald Trump appointees are supersizing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in ~society
IIIIIIIIIIII Link ParentI was in America during the last election and can't even remember what the Harris campaing had to say about immigration. America's migration situation as a political issue is obviously pretty...I was in America during the last election and can't even remember what the Harris campaing had to say about immigration.
America's migration situation as a political issue is obviously pretty singular. But when I was watching the debates I don't think I could describe what the platform was. I definitely could not describe what it is now.
If I am not totally off-base, the centrist-Democrats who seem to hold the most power post-election have gravitated more towards mimicking pre-MAGA Republican policies. Plus the 'Abundance' stuff, my guess would be Obama-era and Biden-era tweaking without wholesale change?
If anyone knows what the most common opinion among American non-Republicans is, as well as what the Democrat party platform is, I would also be very interested. I have been so focused on the descent into fascism, particularly with ICE forming a federal paramilitary role, I don't know what the opposition is actually offering as an alternative - or whether likely left-leaning voters have any apetite for it.
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Comment on Was prehistory a feminist paradise? Visions of matriarchal utopia may be wishful thinking, but there’s growing evidence of women wielding power. in ~humanities.history
IIIIIIIIIIII Link.... ... ...There is a stubborn and widely held idea that in some earlier phase of our species’ existence, women had equal status to men, or even ruled, and societies were happier and more peaceful for it. Then along came the patriarchy, and much bloodshed and oppression later, here we all are.
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This notion of matriarchy and patriarchy as polar opposites – with a switch having been thrown between them – was seeded in the 19th century by Marxist theory, taking root in archaeology without much evidence. From there it spread to public consciousness.
Anthropologists tended to be more sceptical. They saw plenty of diversity in gender relations across human societies, both modern and historical, and some of them suspected that diversity was the rule in prehistory, too. It was difficult to prove, though, in part because biological sex – let alone gender – was often hard to determine in ancient remains. Then about 20 years ago, that changed.
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Matrilinearity (where wealth passes down the female line) and matrilocality (where female kin stay together) often go together, and both are associated with higher female status and influence. In 2017, American geneticists reported that for more than 300 years around the 10th century an elite matrilineal group inhabited Chaco Canyon, in what is now New Mexico. Then, this June, Chinese researchers reported a matrilineal farming community that thrived for nearly as long in eastern China, more than 3,000 years earlier. These findings join others, suggesting that matrilineal societies have existed on all inhabited continents, at least from the arrival of agriculture on.
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But though they enjoy higher status, women in matrilineal societies don’t necessarily make decisions. That generally remains the preserve of men – just of women’s brothers rather than their husbands. And since ancient DNA and isotopes can’t tell you much about female agency, gender power relations in prehistory remain a matter of debate. In fact, this line of work has forced researchers to ask themselves what they mean by power. If the female consort of a male ruler influenced his entourage through patronage and back channels, and his own policies through counselling, was she any less powerful than him?
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Was prehistory a feminist paradise? Visions of matriarchal utopia may be wishful thinking, but there’s growing evidence of women wielding power.
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Comment on Flush with cash and soaring with hubris, Donald Trump appointees are supersizing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in ~society
IIIIIIIIIIII Link Parent...unlike your previous workforce before the hiring-spree? It sounds like these old-hands genuinely believe in their mission. And at least with that official being quoted at the end, there seems...“We have had enough problems trying to clean up the workforce to make us a really viable law-enforcement organization and get a smarter, stronger, more mature workforce that isn’t gonna make mistakes on the street,” the official said. “And now? You’re gonna get a lot of people who are just power hungry and want authority.”
...unlike your previous workforce before the hiring-spree?
It sounds like these old-hands genuinely believe in their mission. And at least with that official being quoted at the end, there seems to be a lack of insight that seems farcical, but comes across as sincere.
There was an article published on Tildes this week that made me contemplate this topic.
But yes, I thought when these revelations were made things would change, and then I thought the next line would be it, then the next one. Then I realised I was running out of breath talking about this and my friends and family didn't care as long as they got free online services. And most of them use the 'well, nothing to hide' line.
Unfortunately I think many of them will be finding out what @Tukajo put so well below: