Former landed gentry

  • 0 Posts
  • 36 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • That isn’t a middle ground. You’re just saying the state can publish a recommendation, which it always has been able to. That’s absolutely in the “unregulated” / “no safety nets” camp. It’s caveat emptor as a status quo and takes us back to the gilded age.

    To put it another way: The middle ground between “the state has no authority here” and “the state can regulate away a product” isn’t “the state can suggest we don’t buy it.” It still puts the burden on the consumer in an unreasonable way. We can’t assess literally everything we consume. If I go to a grocery store and buy apples, I can reasonably assume they won’t poison me. Without basic regulations this is not possible. You can’t feed 8 billion people without some rules.

    Let me be clear, I agree with the EFF on this particular issue. ISP’s should not regulate speech and what sites I browse. But it’s not the same as having the FDA. For starters, ISP’s are private corporations.


  • It takes me several dozen hours every 6-12mo to keep up with the arms race that is privacy. I can’t imagine what it’s like for people who are less technically inclined. It must be a completely impenetrable problem.

    4 years ago everybody told me to get on Brave. Look what happened lol

    Arguably the most well known VPN is Nord. Yet you can find dozens of posts on HackerNews and other sites saying not to use it.

    It’s one thing to diagnose and try to solve the problem, but then you need a bunch of technical knowledge and knowledge of where to find good answers to even know what solutions are viable or are just a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s a total minefield sometimes, it’s hard to not simply land with someone else who wants to take all your data and strip away your privacy.


  • The idea sounds nice in theory, but there is a reason people bring their car to a shop instead of changing their own oil. There are a lot of things we could/should take responsibility for directly but they are far too numerous for us to take responsibility for everyone of them. Sometimes we just have to place trust in groups we loosely vetted (if at all) and hope for the best. We all do it every day in all sorts of capacities.

    To put it another way: do you think we should have the FDA? Or do you think everybody should have to test everything they eat and put on their skin?