SPICLK2 (u/SPICLK2) - Readit News

SPICLK2 commented on EU investigates Google over AI-generated summaries in search results bbc.com/news/articles/crl... · Posted by u/hackerbeat

akersten · 6 days ago

> The European Commission said it would examine whether the firm used data from websites to provide this service - and if it failed to offer "appropriate compensation" to publishers.

While the EU wastes their time with things like this, they fall further and further behind the curve, still wondering why no one wants to start a business there.

SPICLK2 · 6 days ago

Where "curve" = "exporting shiny toys without thought to long-term consequences". Good to see the EU is finally catching up to the harms of this and other US web tech.

SPICLK2 commented on Fighting the age-gated internet wired.com/story/age-verif... · Posted by u/geox

hellojesus · 9 days ago

There was a podcast episode I listened to once, probably Darknet Diaries but maybe some other tech one, where the person being interviewed was an active community member in some bbs back in the day. Everyone decided to meet up to play dnd, and he showed up as a 13 year old kid when everyone else was 20+. They let him stay after cleaning it with his mom.

This is one type of connection that would be unlikely to form if superficial anonymity is lost. That kid probably would be off in some "safe" walled garden.

This doesn't even touch on more obvious forms of discrimination like gender, religion, etc.

And political affiliation / speech isn't protected in the US, so an employer could term you anytime for policy disagreement. Such a policy would destroy the exploration of ideas overnight, as outrage mobs would try to get any dissident sacked.

SPICLK2 · 6 days ago

>That kid probably would be off in some "safe" walled garden.

The technical barriers to entry to that early internet effectively made it a "safe walled garden" for nerdy types.

Repeating that experiment now - meeting up with anonymous posters from a given platform - I'm sure would have very different results.

SPICLK2 commented on CATL expects oceanic electric ships in three years cleantechnica.com/2025/12... · Posted by u/thelastgallon

htrp · 7 days ago

Panamax ship is 5000 teu (twenty foot shipping container equivalent)

I think you get about 4 MWh per TEU ( based on my 12V 100Ah battery)

so about 20 GWh

SPICLK2 · 6 days ago

At 170Wh per kg (and ignoring the weight of the containers and any safety considerations), 20GWh of lithium battery would weigh 120,000 tons. This is a lot more than a typical Panamax DWT of 60,000 tons, which also needs to include the ship's fuel, provisions, crew, etc.

SPICLK2 commented on The web runs on tolerance shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/12/... · Posted by u/speckx

47282847 · 6 days ago

Agreed.

To illustrate, say you live inside a fenced-off city. You say you don’t discriminate, anyone is welcome to come and talk to and trade with you. Somebody points out that there are people outside the city, behind the fence, that aren’t able to come talk to you. You are free to act or not act on that, but speaking out against the one that merely points it out and tries to change it means you take an active position to support the current discriminatory situation, rather than a passive, opportunistic one that supports whatever the political situation happens to be.

All positions are valid positions to take. They do however reflect an active choice and an active act. All of them are political. All of them come from a position of privilege, being inside the city, not outside.

SPICLK2 · 6 days ago

No-one is "speaking out against" the one who is pointing out any wider discrimination, beyond whatever aribtrary circle you choose to draw.

What is being "spoken out against" is the idea that taking the moral (or political) action within whatever circle you feel able or willing to support is insufficient, or even discriminatory in itself. After all, this is exactly how this conversation started. Good for you if you want to change the world - let's not forget 3rd party discrimination against other 3rd parties! For many of us, it's one of numerous pressing problems to be addressed. If you wish to bring privilege into it, having the freedom to make fighting any and all discrimination a primary concern is a sign of privilege that few have.

SPICLK2 commented on The web runs on tolerance shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/12/... · Posted by u/speckx

47282847 · 6 days ago

> I couldn't care less

You do care, otherwise you would not even have thought about it twice, let alone comment.

The most striking argument against this line of reasoning is that there is no possibility for you not to act politically. By ignoring the issue of systemic discrimination (“don’t care don’t personally discriminate”) you actively contribute to and participate in the systemic discrimination.

It’s a choice, and I find it important to leave you the choice, as I do not believe forcing anything on you will actually make you see, but it is true nonetheless that you cannot escape your responsibility: The ability to respond. “You can not not communicate.” Not responding and deciding to remain ignorant about it is also a response, and a highly privileged one.

It would be easy to at least passively support anyone’s attempt at trying to reduce systemic discrimination, but speaking out against it turns it even more into a political act supporting discrimination than doing nothing and by that delegating it to others.

SPICLK2 · 6 days ago

As a person, treating everyone the same is an excellent response (and even a political one, if you wish) to counteract a system of discrimination.

SPICLK2 commented on Fighting the age-gated internet wired.com/story/age-verif... · Posted by u/geox

kace91 · 10 days ago

> I think what you are really asking for

I'm not asking for anything, I was merely pointing out the advantages of anonymity. You don't need to consider a decision the best one to see its upsides.

I don't really get the rest of that argument. What other mediums are legally deanonimised? Privacy in mail and telephone was a commonly supported right, Watergate was a scandal for a reason.

>If you are not happy filling in your workplace questionnaire unless it's anonymous, then something needs to change

That's the point I was trying to make, that it is a shortcut, but an improvement. Preaching a 'good option' that doesn't survive the real world is a common failure of justice systems.

Example: 'Anonymous tip off for sexual abuse' is a very flawed system. Tell the victims 'no, see, what you need is proper handling of abuse by authorities'. Is that useful when we know for a fact that alternative never worked?

Shortcuts should only be removed _after_ the proper alternative is in place and working. Otherwise, you're just making people lives worse.

> It's that very tempering that stops non-virtual discourse from turning into a cesspool.

Agreed, anonimity introduces many problems we haven't been able to solve properly yet. It can platform abusers. It can empower legitimately wrong behavior. It can make people less willing to take ownership of their actions, or less empathic.

Those are all legitimate points to consider and balance, I'm just not ok with pretending it's a no-brainer.

SPICLK2 · 6 days ago

>I'm not asking for anything, I was merely pointing out the advantages of anonymity. You don't need to consider a decision the best one to see its upsides.

You haven't given any yet. You've pointed out that anonymous messages in some circumstances can be beneficial (which they can), but haven't given any advantages for a widespread, anonymous communications network with open access.

>Privacy in mail and telephone was a commonly supported right

It really wasn't. I don't know of any time or place where mail and wire tapping wasn't legal and/or practiced.

SPICLK2 commented on CATL expects oceanic electric ships in three years cleantechnica.com/2025/12... · Posted by u/thelastgallon

adverbly · 7 days ago

Those are some big numbers. It makes me think of a crazy thought experiment:

How many MW could a container ship carry by literally shipping energy stored in batteries?

As in they fill up entirely with batteries, sail to a desert, plug into a cable to charge on cheap solar, charge up, sail to a population center, plug in to discharge. Repeat.

SPICLK2 · 7 days ago

That's easy to work out from the parent comment. They conclude that 16,000 tons of batteries are needed for propulsion, with a total capacity of 3GWh.

For a typical 40kton cargo ship, that leaves 24,000 tons for more batteries, for a energy cargo capacity of 4.5GWh. The average US citizen uses ~770,000 BTUs of energy per day, or 0.23MWh. This "energy cargo" of this ship would provide the entire energy needs of a city of 20k people for one day. (I am being a little unfair, by assuming that everyone uses electricity for all of their energy needs in this scenario).

SPICLK2 commented on Fighting the age-gated internet wired.com/story/age-verif... · Posted by u/geox

kace91 · 10 days ago

>Why is is so important that freedom of speech also be anonymous?

Because it is a shortcut for an otherwise extremely hard to enforce freedom.

Can you afford to defend your speech in court?

Can you prove that an action taken against you by someone in power is retaliation against your speech?

Can you handle social ostracism by a majority that disagrees?

If the answer to some is no, your freedom of speech has practical limits.

This is not to say that a world with anonymous speech is necessarily better, I’m just saying that in terms of guarantees it has a clear advantage.

Case in point: will you answer a workplace questionnaire the same way whether or not it is anonymous?

SPICLK2 · 10 days ago

If those are your concerns, then why is it so important that this freedom of anonymous expression only happens on the internet? I think what you are really asking for is private, encrypted comms but only to a certain subset of people. Otherwise, you should also argue for freedom of anonymous expression over any other medium.

And of course freedom of speech has practical limits. It's that very tempering that stops non-virtual discourse from turning into a cesspool. I worked for a company that permitted anonymous comments to the leadership team, which they would then review in front of the company. It was a total shit show, and I attached my name to any comments I made.

If you are not happy filling in your workplace questionnaire unless it's anonymous, then something needs to change about your company (and something that probably can't be fixed with anonymous comments).

SPICLK2 commented on Fighting the age-gated internet wired.com/story/age-verif... · Posted by u/geox

thewebguyd · 10 days ago

Correct.

None of these laws are actually about protecting children. That's not the real goal. The real goal is the complete elimination of anonymity on the web, where both private companies and the state can keep tabs on everything you do.

Not being able to be at least pseudo-anonymous has a real chilling effect on speech and expression. Even if there are laws in place protecting such rights, people will self-censor when knowing they are being watched.

It's how freedom of speech and expression dies without actually scratching that part off of the bill of rights.

SPICLK2 · 10 days ago

>Not being able to be at least pseudo-anonymous has a real chilling effect on speech and expression. Even if there are laws in place protecting such rights, people will self-censor when knowing they are being watched.

This supposed golden era of communication lasted for a very short period. Why is is so important that freedom of speech also be anonymous? What you're asking for is the right to talk to anyone with all societal, cultural, and interpersonal contexts removed.

SPICLK2 commented on Fighting the age-gated internet wired.com/story/age-verif... · Posted by u/geox

1vuio0pswjnm7 · 11 days ago

It was less commercial then. It was not as much "occupied" by intermediaries who think the internet exists for their commercial gain and anyone who uses it owes them something

I think it is amusing how these commercial third party intermediaries today are trying to frame things like "chat control" and "age restrictions" as attacks on internet users' rights rather than attacks on their intermediation "business model"

Generally, there is no age restriction on subscribing to internet service. However third party intermediaries that have now occupied seemingly every corner of the web, so-called "tech" companies, want everyone to believe that intermediaries _are_ the internet (as opposed to middlemen who seek to surveil as many internet subscribers as they can)

I am glad I grew up before the internet so that I understand and appreciate the only service that matters is _internet service_. People today take internet service for granted perhaps but I can remember when it was a new frontier

With internet service, there were so many possibilities. Today, so-called "tech" companies portray internet service as a given, apparently useless on its own,^1 whilst they advertise themselves as offering "services" (usually for free, a Trojan Horse for commercial surveillance). They utilise bandwidth paid for by the internet subscriber to transfer encrypted surveillance data to themselves

1. For example, when Mozilla claims something like without an online advertising "ecosystem" the internet would be worthless. The greed and self-entitlement behind this framing is both absurd and hilarious

SPICLK2 · 10 days ago

Arguably, those early adopters of online services were "occupiers" of a system designed and funded by military and academic goverment bodies.