Readit News logoReadit News
softg commented on France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s   rte.ie/news/europe/2026/0... · Posted by u/austinallegro
energy123 · 2 months ago
They're doing this because it's bad for teen mental health, and polls keep showing 70% support and 15% opposition.
softg · 2 months ago
Why just teens though? Getting manipulated by algorithms crafted to maximize screentime and ad revenue is bad for anyone.

These platforms rely on ads to survive. Which means it should be easy to regulate them. You can prevent them from selling ads at which point they will be forced to comply. If they don't, someone else will get the ad revenue. Europe is already hostile towards american tech giants anyways.

The possibilities are endless. Pass a law that forces all social media with more than x users to not implement constant scrolling, make their ranking algorithm open source, allow people to use their own algorithms, employ robust moderation etc.

Instead we have a blanket ban that requires id checks but leaves the manipulation machine intact so it can prey on adults. Mental health is not the real issue here. They want to be able to track people and destroy anonimity online. Children are a convenient excuse.

softg commented on Dumb Ways to Die: Printed Ephemera   ilovetypography.com/2025/... · Posted by u/jjgreen
Freak_NL · 4 months ago
Cause of Death:

> Scalded in a Brewer's Maſh, at St. Giles Cripplegate, 01.

That's… quite specific.

And then there is the joker who entered 'suddenly' as the cause of death.

softg · 4 months ago
If the main purpose of this was to satisfy people's morbid curiosity that makes a lot of sense. Maybe they made up some juicy deaths in slow news weeks even.

Deleted Comment

softg commented on Techno-feudalism and the rise of AGI: A future without economic rights?   arxiv.org/abs/2503.14283... · Posted by u/lexandstuff
jongjong · 8 months ago
The Greeks already figured out thousands of years ago that the best way to implement democracy was via random selection. Yet here we are, everyone believes that 'democracy' necessitates 'voting'; totally ignoring all the issues which come with voting.

The concept of voting, in a nation of hundreds of millions of people, is just dumb. Nobody knows anything about any of the candidates; everything people think they know was told to them by the corporate-controlled media and they only hear about candidates which were covered by the media; basically only candidates chosen by the establishment. It's a joke. People get the privilege of voting for which party will oppress them.

Current democracy is akin to the media making up a story like 'The Wizard of OZ' and then they offer you to vote for either the Lion, the Robot or the Scarecrow. You have no idea who any of these candidates are, you can't even be sure if they actually exist. Everything you know about them could literally have been made up by whoever told the story; and yet, when asked to vote, people are sure they understand what they're doing. They're so sure it's all legit, they'll viciously argue their candidate's position as if they were a family member they knew personally.

softg · 8 months ago
I don't see how selecting the Lion, the Robot or the Scarecrow at random is going to help with any of the issues you mentioned. Now some rando (or group of randos) that you didn't even know existed gets power based on pure luck. You will still need media to learn about them and they could still be made up.

At least elections have a veneer of consent since people are asked which of the available options they prefer. Can you imagine anyone going to war because people chosen by a lottery wheel asked for it?

This is a problem of scale. The Greeks back then lived in small city-states where random selection meant that every able bodied male had a good shot at holding an important office at least once in their lifetime. You didn't need to hatch devious schemes to come to power. You couldn't abuse your fellow men because they would be in charge tomorrow. That's the true power of random selection and it's completely inapplicable to today's society at large.

softg commented on Can I stop drone delivery companies flying over my property?   rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/06... · Posted by u/austinallegro
zelphirkalt · 9 months ago
Well,not my country, but I think it is quite a silly and too general rule:

What if 10 neighbors collude and start flying drones over my garden and house, only a few meters above ground or my roof, 24/7? What if one of their drones crashes without my doing and hurts _me_? So the actual rules need to be more nuanced than this, to prevent people doing crazy shit with their tech gadgets hurting others. They cannot be given free reign in that matter.

softg · 9 months ago
at that point you could just buy cheap drones yourself and ram those into your neighbor's (oops)
softg commented on Trump wins presidency for second time   thehill.com/homenews/camp... · Posted by u/koolba
milkshakes · a year ago
he declined the offer
softg · a year ago
I think the point they're making is "Walter White is a well-behaved chemistry teacher who resorts to manufacturing and selling drugs after he gets cancer" would still be true even if he stopped dealing drugs after he was offered money.

Deleted Comment

softg commented on How old is your globe? [pdf]   replogleglobes.com/app/up... · Posted by u/Tomte
softg · 2 years ago
The Czech Republic changed its official name but many places still use the old name. Same with Eswatini, Côte d'Ivoire, Cabo Verde, etc. I suspect name changes aren't that reliable for dating globes since some of them probably have modern borders and former official names.
softg commented on EU Council has withdrawn the vote on Chat Control   stackdiary.com/eu-council... · Posted by u/skilled
127 · 2 years ago
Being a constructive part of a democracy is not just standing in the way of every change without budging. It's also about solving problems and finding solutions. Most social and technological issues will not just magically go away if you wait and ignore them to the best of your ability.
softg · 2 years ago
What's even worse would be enforcing the wrong solution that will cause more damage. The French have a saying, fuite en avant (lit. escape forwards) when someone insists on doing something knowing full well that it will not work but they do it anyways because it's better than inaction.

Considering the rise of the far right in the last EU elections, anyone who's seriously considering weakening public encryption must be out of their minds.

softg commented on Safe Superintelligence Inc.   ssi.inc... · Posted by u/nick_pou
ben_w · 2 years ago
> I know nothing about physics. If I came across some magic algorithm that occasionally poops out a plane that works 90 percent of the time, would you book a flight in it?

With this metaphor you seem to be saying we should, if possible, learn how to control AI? Preferably before anyone endangers their lives due to it? :)

> I think it's inevitable that at some point that smart thing will behave in ways humans don't expect.

Naturally.

The goal, at least for those most worried about this, is to make that surprise be not a… oh, I've just realised a good quote:

""" the kind of problem "most civilizations would encounter just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop." """ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excession#Outside_Context_Prob...

Not that.

softg · 2 years ago
Excession is literally the next book on my reading list so I won't click on that yet :)

> With this metaphor you seem to be saying we should, if possible, learn how to control AI? Preferably before anyone endangers their lives due to it?

Yes, but that's a big if. Also that's something you could never ever be sure of. You could spend decades thinking alignment is a solved problem only to be outsmarted by something smarter than you in the end. If we end up conjuring a greater intelligence there will be the constant risk of a catastrophic event just like the risk of a nuclear armageddon that exists today.

u/softg

KarmaCake day176September 6, 2023View Original