techdmn (u/techdmn) - Readit News

techdmn commented on Want to sway an election? Here’s how much fake online accounts cost science.org/content/artic... · Posted by u/rbanffy

tbrownaw · a day ago

No, mass media had been around much longer than just a couple years.

But also, that bug is why our government was initially set up with the structure it was. And why you'll occasionally see complaints about parts of the structure being "undemocratic".

techdmn · a day ago

It was set up the way it was because the founders didn't trust voters. Voters don't always make optimal choices. Nobody said democracy was perfect. It's just a lot better than every other system we've ever tried. Benevolent dictatorship is good in theory, but quite rare in practice.

techdmn commented on EFF launches Age Verification Hub eff.org/press/releases/ef... · Posted by u/iamnothere

thinkingtoilet · 3 days ago

I am someone who is very privacy focused. I've literally never had a social media account on any platform and I'm 42. From day one of facebook, I never wanted my information online. Like many here, I'm deeply concerned about privacy and surveillance.

In real life, we think age verification is a good thing. Kids shouldn't buy porn. Teenagers shouldn't get into bars. etc... There has to be room somewhere for reasonable discussion about making sure children do not have access to things they shouldn't. I think it's important to note, that complete dismissal of this idea only turns away your allies and hurts our cause in the long run.

techdmn · 3 days ago

Hate to break it to you, you're on social media right now.

techdmn commented on Horses: AI progress is steady. Human equivalence is sudden andyljones.com/posts/hors... · Posted by u/pbui

pzo · 6 days ago

> And not very long after, 93 per cent of those horses had disappeared.

> I very much hope we'll get the two decades that horses did.

Horses typically live between 25 to 30 years. I agree with OP that most likely those horses were not decimated (killed) but just died out and people stopped mass breeding them. Also as other noticed chart shows 'horses PER person in US'. Population between 1900 and 1950 increased from 1.5B to 2.5B (globally but probably similarly almost 70% increase in US).

I think depends what do you worry about:

1) `that human population decrease 50-80%`?

I don't worry about it even if that happen. 200 years ago human population was ~1 B today is ~8 B. At year 0 AD human population was ~0.250 B. Did we 200 years ago worry about it like "omg human population is only 1 B" ?

I doubt human population decrease 80% because of no demand for human as workforce but I don't see problem if it decrease by 50%. There will short transition period with surplus of retired people and work needed to keep the infrastructure but if robots can help with this then I don't see the problem.

2) `That we will not be needed and we will loose jobs?`

I don't see work like something in demand. Most people hate their jobs or do crappy jobs. What do people actually worry about that they will won't get any income. And actually not even about that - they worry that they will not be able to survive or be homeless. If there is improvement in production that food, shelter, transportation, healtcare is dirty cheap (all stuff from bottom maslov piramid) and fair distribution on social level then I also see a way this can be no problem.

3) `That we will all die because of AI`

This I find more plausable and maybe not even by AGI but earlier because of big social unrests during transition period.

techdmn · 6 days ago

I think the phrase "fair distribution on social level" is doing a lot of work in this comment. Do you consider this to be a common occurrence, or something our existing social structures do competently?

I see quite the opposite, and have very little hope that reduced reliance on labor will increase the equability of distribution of wealth.

techdmn commented on GrapheneOS is the only Android OS providing full security patches grapheneos.social/@Graphe... · Posted by u/akyuu

fainpul · 8 days ago

I guess antitrust is the keyword here. Something that is considerably weakened in today's USA.

techdmn · 8 days ago

I continue to be of the opinion that many of our economic problems could be improved with more competition. (Depending on your definition of "problem" of course. The current state of affairs is fantastically profitable some.)

techdmn commented on You will own nothing and be (un)happy racc.blog/you-will-own-no... · Posted by u/showthemfangs

lrvick · a month ago

Not carried a cell phone in over 5 years, and only carry any internet capable devices at all when traveling.

Generally I only carry cash, a mechanical watch, and an ID.

For banking I use webapps.

For parking I choose lots that accept cash even if I have to walk a bit more.

Never stopped me from doing anything I wanted to do in the SF Bay Area.

techdmn · a month ago

I've been working in this direction as well. I treat it like a game. Sure I /could/ just order thing off the internet, but if it were a scavenger hunt, where could I find thing at a locally owned business and pay cash?

Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard, sometimes I give up and order it online. But the more people do this the more it will (continue to) be a supported use-case.

I've had some interesting conversations, interacting with people in the real world, just by going into a store and telling them I'm trying to find a thing. I tell them what game I'm playing, they're usually pleased to hear it and happy to help if they can.

techdmn commented on Nasdaq 100 set for worst week since April meltdown fortune.com/2025/11/07/na... · Posted by u/pera

bobsmooth · a month ago

They shouldn't. Day trading is a plague.

techdmn · a month ago

I'm curious about a system where capital gains are 100% for the first... I don't know, let's say a month. Then you ramp down over the course of the next year until it matches the regular income tax rate. I'm less concerned about the specific time periods than I am about the idea that it would be beneficial to society to have our financial systems encourage long-term thinking.

techdmn commented on Man who threw sandwich at US border agent not guilty of assault bbc.com/news/articles/c5y... · Posted by u/onemoresoop

ethin · a month ago

These people will literally claim that just bumping into them is "assault". Where do you think they're getting the "1000 percent increase" stats from? (For those who aren't aware, what the DHS is really trying to say is "well ,before all this started, there were just 10 assaults per year on ICE officers and now there's 100".)

techdmn · a month ago

I've read / watched a few different stories now, where what happens is the police / ICE assault a protestor, then charge the protestor with assaulting the officer and resisting arrest.

You don't bump them, you attack their fists and clubs with the softer parts of your body.

techdmn commented on How to Enter a City Like a King worldhistory.substack.com... · Posted by u/crescit_eundo

quacked · 2 months ago

I often think about how much human labor there is available at any given moment, and how in any minute some percentage of "available labor" is bound up doing something.

Back in the day, with billions fewer people, you could still bind up some percentage of available labor making beautiful gates for the coronation, or staging mock battles for the king as he passed. Today, I guess people make marketing copy for cat food and run professional sports. And yet a great many of us are still alive, having continued to survive despite our countrymen spending all their available labor on frivolity.

What percentage of that "available labor" is really truly usefully bound up in making sure we don't all starve to death, get violently invaded, or die of exposure?

I wish I could see what kind of society would appear if that pool of "available labor" was turned toward purposes I personally consider worthy--caring for the weak, erecting and protecting great monuments and cities and wild areas, etc. Obviously this has been attempted before in various different regimes--merely having full dominion over all "available labor" and turning it toward "worthy purposes" does not automatically create a great nation, as the USSR and China found out--but it doesn't stop me from wondering, if Man wasn't so busy making gates for the king or increasing user conversion from 17.805% to 17.873%, what would that society look like?

techdmn · 2 months ago

Speaking as a U.S. citizen, I think the problem should not be approached as "stop people from doing frivolous things", but rather "government should fund the commons". Of course this doesn't make government perfect, but generally it appears to be the most successful way to achieve things like caring for the elderly and disabled, building monuments, protecting wild areas, etc. Turns out we do all these things to some extent, just not as much as some (myself included) might like.

Which is to say, a well run society should have room for BOTH frivolity AND supporting the general welfare of its people. Perhaps our current troubles are the result of many people thinking that supporting the general welfare IS frivolous.

techdmn commented on Ireland is making basic income for artists program permanent artnews.com/art-news/news... · Posted by u/rbanffy

dizzant · 2 months ago

An underrated reason to remove eligibility testing is to make programs accessible for people in poverty. Navigating a means-tested welfare program is byzantine in the worst way-- accessing and submitting countless forms with confusing, often ambiguous or incomplete instructions; standing in long lines at specific times/locations far from the city center to get help or make progress; complete lack of process transparency; and dependence on faceless bureaucrats to decide your fate.

My family once had to navigate Medicaid. I was well-resourced, understood the expected outcome thoroughly, was motivated to get it done, and committed the time to follow the required process. When our initial application was mishandled due to inaccurate guidance, it took over 2 years of persistent failed communications with the various county, state, and federal agencies, back-office middlemen, doctors, and legislators to get any response beyond "apply again and hope for the best", which we did several times to no avail. In the mean time, having a Medicaid application open changes the availability of medical care, as some doctors will not or cannot by law accept additional Medicaid patients. Eventually by some mild social engineering I procured direct access to a specific empowered bureaucrat who had knowledge of a separate set of applicable rules/processes and resolved our case immediately.

Most people in poverty do not have the time, attention, or stamina to persist through means testing on top of struggling against whatever landed them in poverty in the first place. Every time I visited the county office, I would hear someone complaining about how they had applied 8 times without success for a program everyone in the room agreed they should qualify for. Means-testing is designed, by popular demand, to make accessing benefits difficult for the sake of spending less. UBI, for all its faults, at least addresses that problem.

techdmn · 2 months ago

I had a similar experience helping a disabled family member. Without being too specific, it's amazing how much effort and expertise it takes to access benefits to which a person is legally entitled. It's almost as if the means testing is inverted, you cannot access benefits without the means to navigate a system designed to prevent benefits from being distributed. We have a homelessness epidemic for a reason.

techdmn commented on Smartphones and being present herman.bearblog.dev/being... · Posted by u/articsputnik

dripton · 2 months ago

I'd like to see more effective anti-fingerprinting. I know it's just an arms race though.

techdmn · 2 months ago

It's almost like one of the leading browser developers is also in the advertising business. (To be clear I completely agree, fingerprinting is evil.)