#but it's 2023 and we need to accept that kids WILL use the internet and we don't regulate how then they'll just do it unregulated

[cheetour]

"Friendship between adults and minors has an innate power imbalance and can easily be exploited by predatory adults" is an important statement and it's good that everyone is concerned with it

But it sucks that internet culture has gone, "Therefore, adults and minors should never interact in a social environment" or "We should ban minors from social media" and not, "As an adult on the internet, you have a responsibility to be kind, patient, and gracious with minors who interact with you, especially if they like and admire you, and if they cross an inappropriate boundary, it is 100% your responsibility not to take advantage of that"

Mainly because forbidding adults from interacting with teenagers outright just means that when adults DO go looking for young immature friends to exploit for sexual favours, there aren't any normal adults in those online spaces modelling what ACTUAL healthy adult/kid friendship looks like, e.g. mentors, stand-in parental figures, career role models, etc etc

[httpsserene]

𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐡 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐰/𝐥𝐧𝟒

📖𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆: you’re upset with the switch up the internet has pulled on you. a few years ago, everybody was saying you were too pretty for lando, but now they’re drooling over him? you will not be letting this slide.  📖𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴: fluff. mild angst. humor. twt users being twt users. reader is a fashion designer (not important but mentioned). reader is also wild af. brain-rot. not beta-read. 📖𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: lando norris x fem!black!reader 📖𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗿𝗲: smau. 📖𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸: spice girl • aminé

𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲: in honor of lando's birthday :) look y’all—i saw one tik tok edit that was like “why is lando kinda…” and i audibly said KINDA???? and then i got mad like, how are people just noticing how fine he is. and then i saw another one that was like, “oh everybody thinks charles is the prettiest on the grid…but now introducing: lando” and i almost threw my phone across the room :) so this is inspired by me flexing that i have always thought lando was fine, and that i’m also mad that i have to share him. loves, this is complete brain rot and it took me years to recreate these ig posts for some reason; have fun reading !!!

all pics are from pinterest/op's

want to be added to my taglist or submit a request? send me an ask!

all of my posts can be found from my table of contents

anything on your mind? talk to me!

twitter • three years ago, 2020

instagram

yninstagram • three years ago, 2020

liked by landonorris, mclaren, maxfewtrell, lewishamilton, and 16,175,978 others

yninstagram lando norris is the man i want to spend the rest of my life with. he’s perfection personified. the most soft, kindest, sweetest, considerate, and funniest man has allowed me the privilege of being his girlfriend. i’m forever thankful that we get to grow together. he’s the cutest, hottest, and prettiest boy to ME–and that’s all i care about, and that’s all you need to accept. i don’t give a FUCK about your opinions on who *i* should date. i’m the only person who’s decisions matter concerning my romantic relationships. why the hell should y’all bitches who don’t even use their own photos for their pfp’s and use a k-idol’s face instead, dictate who is hot or not. it’s incredibly vein, disgusting, and immature behavior from people who think they’re my fans. acting like jealous school children isn't cute; i was never your property. it’s hilarious too, considering some of y’all are grown women DOUBLE my age talking shit about my business–go worry about why your kids don’t want anything to do with you anymore.

tagged landonorris

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yninstagram matter of fact, go ahead and change your little profile pictures to real pictures of you, i don’t want to see any filters. then we can all see that all y’all want to do is spread insecurity stemming from your own self-hatred 🙂

yninstagram and while i have you all here, my winter season clothes will be restocked on the 15th.

comments have been disabled.

twitter • imessage • 2023

instagram

landonorris • august 24th • zandvoort ⚑

liked by yninstagram, mclaren, carlossainzjr, and 547,930 others

landonorris back in my favorite place

view comments

yninstagram first!! stay back hoes 🤺🤺

➥ user being called a hoe by y/n is not what i expected this year

➥ user she has notif’s 😭on 😭 for 😭 lando 😭

yninstagram how r u so HOT 🥵

yninstagram that sweater is mine now 👺

➥ landonorris i can just get another for you love

➥ yninstagram …i want this one lan🫤

➥ landonorris okay it’s yours 🫠

user neither of them have any backbone when it comes to each other

➥ yninstagram as it should be 😤

user might have to trip and fall into lando’s arms this weekend

➥ yninstagram i’m flying in tomorrow rethink your plan 🙂

➥ user i think i’ll avoid lando like the plague this weekend 😅

➥ user smart decision babes

landonorris • september 12th

liked by yninstagram, lnfour, tumitravel, and 425,395 others

landonorris coming in hot @ tumitravel

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yninstagram come in me—i mean come home to me haha 😳😊

➥ landonorris babe please not in front of the sponsors 😧

➥ tumitravel oh no pls don’t stop for us 🫣 we stan y/n

user i saw this photo shoot LIVE!!! lando was so sweet, he signed my hat for me, and he smells so good 😩😩

➥ yninstagram i’ll chop off your nose and then you can be voldemort for halloween 👺

user i don’t know if i want to choke him or have him choke ME

➥ yninstagram how about me choking you

➥ user omg i’m down for a threesome 😳

➥ yninstagram choking you to death :)

➥ user i don’t wanna play this game anymore

landonorris • september 18th • singapore ⚑

liked by yninstagram, mclaren, oscarpiastri, and 950,706 others

landonorris whatttaaaaa weekend ❤

view comments

yninstagram GODDAMN

carlossainzjr vamossss landito ❤️💪🏼🏆

➥ landonorris ayyyy 🧡🥳🥳

➥ yninstagram my boysssss 🥰

yninstagram that’s my boyfriend 🤤

➥ landonorris last photo is just for you 😋

yninstagram so proud of you baby, i’m running out of room to put all these trophies <3

➥ landonorris v happy to be your trophy husband

user i’m in love with this singapore haircut 🤤 thank you for not fucking it up lando 😅

➥ yninstagram mmm yes, i’m thrilled it’s still long on the top 😍 it gives me something to tug on

user surprised y/n allowed him to post that last one

➥ yninstagram he doesn’t need my permission, but i get to see him naked so i rdc

user quadrant helmet it so beautiful! i want it to stay 😭

➥ user i want him to fuck me with it on

➥ yninstagram out of pocket…but completely valid honestly—delete your account 😊

liked by landonorris

yninstagram carlando 1-2 makes up for the war i’m fighting in these comments

mclaren • novemeber 8th

liked by landonorris, f1, yninstagram, and 97,293 others

mclaren pulling up fresh with @ landonorris

view comments

yninstagram not pictured: @ landonorris pulling up to OUR flat

➥ user y/n said “he’s coming home with meeeee”

f1 does he come with the jacket👀

➥ yninstagram no, but the price of me folding you like a lawn chair is included in shipping & handling

➥ f1 i’ll go sit down 😅

➥ user she’s fighting the f1 main??? this is mentally-ill behavior y/n!!!

yninstagram mclaren admin go stand in a corner and stare at the wall

➥ mclaren they made me post this!!! i would NEVER risk upsetting you ma’am 🙇🏼‍♀️

➥ yninstagram no talking from the timeout corner 🫵🏽

user we don’t care about the jacket. which organ do i have to sell to buy an hour with him?

➥ yninstagram both kidneys

➥ user but you need at least one kidney to live?

➥ yninstagram how,,,unfortunate

user model!lando always glowssssss

➥ yninstagram it’s the 9 step skincare routine i have him on, you can follow steps 1-8 on his ig

➥ user what’s step 9?

➥ yninstagram kissing me 🤭

lando.jpg • novemeber 13th • with my wife ⚑

liked by yninstagram, carlossainzjr, mclaren, team_quadrant, and 976,234 others

lando.jpg lucky to have found you so early in my life. you're my best birthday gift.

tagged yninstagram

view comments

yninstagram posting my side boob on the jpg account? forgiven since you called me your wife 🥺

➥ lando.jpg thought i’d start practicing your future title, mrs. norris

➥ yninstagram come back to bed. you can start practicing giving me your kids too.

user i want y/n to bury my head in between her boobs

➥ lando.jpg no. i sleep there also—you’re blocked 🤗

danielricciardo as long as i’m the godfather, i can forget i’ve ever read this 🤮

➥carlossainzjr get in line mate, i’ve called being baby norris’ godfather ages ago

➥maxverstappen wait your turn mates, clearly i am the correct choice for godfather

➥maxfewtrell ah, i believe you lads have forgotten my existence

➥yninstagram baby norris doesn’t exist yet, no need to fight to the death rn 🙄

➥lando.jpg i’ll convince the mrs to have four, for my racing number and so you each have a godchild 😅

user y/n may have won the war, but i’ve won the battle—bisexuals have been fed today!!!

➥user girl, i’m straight and i’ve zoomed in on the last photo an unhealthy amount of times

➥user i diagnose you with y/n-sexuality it’s incredibly common in humans

liked by lando.jpg

oscarpiastri you two are made for each other 😀

➥lando.jpg this sounds like an insult 🙂

➥yninstagram i thought kids under 13 weren’t allowed on ig

➥oscarpiastri you’re not even a year older than me @ yninstagram

mclaren mama y papa

➥ yninstagram still on timeout.

➥ mclaren :(

taglist: @saintslewis @cherry2stems @lorarri @inloveallthetime @mindless-rock @biancathecool @barnestatic @my-ylenia @katekipshidze @darleneslane @lovingaphroditesworld @smoothopz

© httpsserene2023

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Everything advertised on social media is overpriced junk

In “Behavioral Advertising and Consumer Welfare: An Empirical Investigation,” a trio of business researchers from Carnegie Mellon and Pamplin College investigate the difference between the goods purchased through highly targeted online ads and just plain web-searches, and conclude social media ads push overpriced junk:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4398428

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/08/late-stage-sea-monkeys/#jeremys-razors

Specifically, stuff that’s pushed to you via targeted ads costs an average of 10 percent more, and it significantly more likely to come from a vendor with a poor rating from the Better Business Bureau. This may seem trivial and obvious, but it’s got profound implications for media, commercial surveillance, and the future of the internet.

Writing in the New York Times, Julia Angwin — a legendary, muckraking data journalist — breaks down those implications. Angwin builds a case study around Jeremy’s Razors, a business that advertises itself as a “woke-free” shaving solution for manly men:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/06/opinion/online-advertising-privacy-data-surveillance-consumer-quality.html

Jeremy’s Razors spends a fucking fortune on ads. According to Facebook’s Ad Library, the company spent $800,000 on FB ads in March, targeting fathers of school-age kids who like Hershey’s, ultimate fighting, hunting or Johnny Cash:

https://pluralistic.net/jeremys-targeting

Anti-woke razors are an objectively, hilariously stupid idea, but that’s not the point here. The point is that Jeremy’s has to spend $800K/month to reach its customers, which means that it either has to accept $800K less in profits, or make it up by charging more and/or skimping on quality.

Targeted advertising is incredibly expensive, and incredibly lucrative — for the ad-tech platforms that sit between creative workers and media companies on one side, and audiences on the other. In order to target ads, ad-tech companies have to collect deep, nonconsensual dossiers on every internet user, full of personal, sensitive and potentially compromising information.

The switch to targeted ads was part of the enshittification cycle, whereby companies like Facebook and Google lured in end-users by offering high-quality services — Facebook showed you the things the people you asked to hear from posted, and Google returned the best search results it could find.

Eventually, those users became locked in. Once all our friends were on Facebook, we held each other hostage, each unable to leave because the others were there. Google used its access to the capital markets to snuff out any rival search companies, spending tens of billions every year to be the default on Apple devices, for example.

Once we were locked in, the tech giants made life worse for us in order to make life better for media companies and advertisers. Facebook violated its promise to be the privacy-centric alternative to Myspace, where our data would never be harvested; it switched on mass surveillance and created cheap, accurate ad-targeting:

https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1128876?ln=en

Google fulfilled the prophecy in its founding technical document, the Pagerank paper: “advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.” They, too, offered cheap, highly targeted ads:

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

Facebook and Google weren’t just kind to advertisers — they also gave media companies and creative workers a great deal, funneling vast quantities of traffic to both. Facebook did this by cramming media content into the feeds of people who hadn’t asked to see it, displacing the friends’ posts they had asked to see. Google did it by upranking media posts in search results.

Then we came to the final stage of the enshittification cycle: having hooked both end-users and business customers, Facebook and Google withdrew the surpluses from both groups and handed them to their own shareholders. Advertising costs went up. The share of ad income paid to media companies went down. Users got more ads in their feeds and search results.

Facebook and Google illegally colluded to rig the ad-market with a program called Jedi Blue that let the companies steal from both advertisers and media companies:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/11/google-meta-jedi-blue-eu-uk-antitrust-probes/

Apple blocked Facebook’s surveillance on its mobile devices, but increased its own surveillance of Iphone and Ipad users in order to target ads to them, even when those users explicitly opted out of spying:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Today, we live in the enshittification end-times, red of tooth and claw, where media companies’ revenues are dwindling and advertisers’ costs are soaring, and the tech giants are raking in hundreds of billions, firing hundreds of thousands of workers, and pissing away tens of billions on stock buybacks:

https://doctorow.medium.com/mass-tech-worker-layoffs-and-the-soft-landing-1ddbb442e608

As Angwin points out, in the era before behavioral advertising, Jeremy’s might have bought an ad in Deer & Deer Hunting or another magazine that caters to he-man types who don’t want woke razors; the same is true for all products and publications. Before mass, non-consensual surveillance, ads were based on content and context, not on the reader’s prior behavior.

There’s no reason that ads today couldn’t return to that regime. Contextual ads operate without surveillance, using the same “real-time bidding” mechanism to place ads based on the content of the article and some basic parameters about the user (rough location based on IP address, time of day, device type):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/05/behavioral-v-contextual/#contextual-ads

Context ads perform about as well as behavioral ads — but they have a radically different power-structure. No media company will ever know as much about a given user as an ad-tech giant practicing dragnet surveillance and buying purchase, location and finance data from data-brokers. But no ad-tech giant knows as much about the context and content of an article as the media company that published it.

Context ads are, by definition, centered on the media company or creative worker whose work they appear alongside of. They are much harder for tech giants to enshittify, because enshittification requires lock-in and it’s hard to lock in a publication who knows better than anyone what they’re publishing and what it means.

We should ban surveillance advertising. Period. Companies should not be allowed to collect our data without our meaningful opt-in consent, and if that was the standard, there would be no data-collection:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/22/myob/#adtech-considered-harmful

Remember when Apple created an opt out button for tracking, more than 94 percent of users clicked it (the people who clicked “yes” to “can Facebook spy on you?” were either Facebook employees, or confused):

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/facebook-says-apple-ios-privacy-change-will-cost-10-billion-this-year.html

Ad-targeting enables a host of evils, like paid political disinformation. It also leads to more expensive, lower-quality goods. “A Raw Deal For Consumers,” Sumit Sharma’s new Consumer Reports paper, catalogs the many other costs imposed on Americans due to the lack of tech regulation:

https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/A-Raw-Deal-for-US-Consumers_March-2023.pdf

Sharma describes the benefits that Europeans will shortly enjoy thanks to the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, from lower prices to more privacy to more choice, from cloud gaming on mobile devices to competing app stores.

However, both the EU and the US — as well as Canada and Australia — have focused their news industry legislating on misguided “link taxes,” where tech giants are required to pay license fees to link to and excerpt the news. This is an approach grounded in the mistaken idea that tech giants are stealing media companies’ content — when really, tech giants are stealing their money:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/18/news-isnt-secret/#bid-shading

Creating a new pseudocopyright to control who can discuss the news is a terrible idea, one that will make the media companies beholden to the tech giants at a time when we desperately need deep, critical reporting on the tech sector. In Canada, where Bill C-18 is the latest link tax proposal in the running to become law, we’re already seeing that conflict of interest come into play.

As Jesse Brown and Paula Simons — a veteran reporter turned senator — discuss on the latest Canadaland podcast, the Toronto Star’s sharp and well-reported critical series on the tech giants died a swift and unexplained death immediately after the Star began receiving license fees for tech users’ links and excerpts from its reporting:

https://www.canadaland.com/paula-simons-bill-c-18/

Meanwhile, in Australia, the proposed “news bargaining code” stampeded the tech giants into agreeing to enter into “voluntary” negotiations with the media companies, allowing Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp to claim the lion’s share of the money, and then conduct layoffs across its newsrooms.

While in France, the link tax depends on publishers integrating with Google Showcase, a product that makes Google more money from news content and makes news publishers more dependent on Google:

https://www.politico.eu/article/french-competition-authority-greenlights-google-pledges-over-paying-news-publishers/

A link tax only pays for so long as the tech giants remain dominant and continue to extract the massive profits that make them capable of paying the tax. But legislative action to fix the ad-tech markets, like Senator Mike Lee’s ad-tech breakup bill (cosponsored by both Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren!) would shift power to publishers, and with it, money:

https://www.lee.senate.gov/2023/3/the-america-act

With ad-tech intermediaries scooping up 50% or more of every advertising dollar, there is plenty of potential to save news without the need for a link tax. If unrigging the ad-tech market drops the platforms’ share of advertising dollars to a more reasonable 10%, then the advertisers and publishers could split the remainder, with advertisers spending 20% less and publishers netting 20% more.

Passing a federal privacy law would end surveillance advertising at the stroke of a pen, shifting the market to context ads that let publishers, not platforms, call the shots. As an added bonus, the law would stop Tiktok from spying on Americans, and also end Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft’s spying to boot:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/30/tik-tok-tow/#good-politics-for-electoral-victories

Mandating competition in app stores — as the Europeans are poised to do — would kill Google and Apple’s 30% “app store tax” — the percentage they rake off of every transaction from every app on Android and Ios. Drop that down to the 2–5% that the credit cards charge, and every media outlet’s revenue-per-subscriber would jump by 25%.

Add to that an end-to-end rule for tech giants requiring them to deliver updates from willing receivers to willing senders, so every newsletter you subscribed to would stay out of your spam folder and every post by every media company or creator you followed would show up in your feed:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

That would make it impossible for tech giants to use the sleazy enshittification gambit of forcing creative workers and media companies to pay to “boost” their content (or pay $8/month for a blue tick) just to get it in front of the people who asked to see it:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

The point of enshittification is that it’s bad for everyone except the shareholders of tech monopolists. Jeremy’s Razors are bad, winning a 2.7 star rating out of five:

https://www.facebook.com/JeremysRazors/reviews

The company charges more for these substandard razors, and you are more likely to find out about them, because of targeted, behavioral ads. These ads starve media companies and creative workers and make social media and search results terrible.

A link tax is predicated on the idea that we need Big Tech to stay big, and to dribble a few crumbs for media companies, compromising their ability to report on their deep-pocketed beneficiaries, in a way that advantages the biggest media companies and leaves small, local and independent press in the cold.

By contrast, a privacy law, ad-tech breakups, app-store competition and end-to-end delivery would shatter the power of Big Tech and shift power to users, creative workers and media companies. These are solutions that don’t just keep working if Big Tech goes away — they actually hasten that demise! What’s more, they work just as well for big companies as they do for independents.

Whether you’re the New York Times or you’re an ex-Times reporter who’s quit your job and now crowdfunds to cover your local school board and town council meetings, shifting control and the share of income is will benefit you, whether or not Big Tech is still in the picture.

Have you ever wanted to say thank you for these posts? Here’s how you can: I’m kickstarting the audiobook for my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

Image: freeimageslive.co.uk (modified) http://www.freeimageslive.co.uk/free_stock_image/using-mobile-phone-jpg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

[Image ID: A man's hand holds a mobile phone. Its screen displays an Instagram ad. The ad has been replaced with a slice of a vintage comic book 'small ads' page.]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Richard Hanania

Published: May 14, 2023

The topic of black crime has taken over Twitter. It all started when Elon Musk responded sympathetically to a Tweet that presented data showing black-on-white crime is the most common form of interracial violence. The original tweet was completely correct, and you can see Noah Carl for some of the sophistry that has been used to try to deny or obfuscate on the underlying facts.

I personally don’t have the patience for taking part in these kinds of arguments, at least in the way that Noah is engaging here. It’s like the people who spend all their time arguing with trans and feminists by pointing to *scientific studies* showing that boys have penises and girls have vaginas. Men have more grip strength. Scientists just proved it! I guess someone has to do it, and I’ve run into some actual human beings (on the internet anyway) who tell me that they accepted the blank slate view of sex until they looked at the data. This makes me sad. But since the data does convince some people, I guess I’m glad someone is providing it.

Race and crime is similar. The numbers are there if you need them. I suppose foreigners might. But I grew up just outside of Chicago, and data on black criminality is to me just as unnecessary as sex comparisons of grip strength. Chicago is about a third black. Like many midwestern cities, it is extremely violent, with nearly all of the crime concentrated in black neighborhoods. When crime does spill over into the nicer areas, it’s committed by the people from those neighborhoods.

I knew many family friends who were Middle Eastern immigrants and store owners in the city. Every now and then, some distant relation or acquaintance would get their store looted or, in at least one instance I remember, shot and killed. Michael Jordan’s greatness was much appreciated and respected but its consequences used to fill the community with fear, because another championship tended to create another possibility that stores would go up in flames. The Arabs would speak in shorthand. “What happened to Walid’s store?” “You know, the blacks…” “Ah.” Actually, they would say “the slaves,” if you want to really know how Arabs talk.

Here’s the thing: while only immigrants and white proles explicitly discuss this aspect of their reality, every single person within the orbit of the city behaves as if they know the truth. No matter who you are, unless you’re one of the residents of those communities, your life is organized around avoiding the pathologies of the inner city. If you’re a desperate immigrant, you might open up a store, put up a “We Take EBT” sign, and take the risk of being shot. White Americans are less inclined to do this, so they instead just flee black neighborhoods and do what they can to get their kids out of black schools. They’ll make any commute or pay whatever tuition is necessary. No one is confused about this — liberals are correct that entire swaths of a major city don’t end up with zero white people by accident. They just attribute this to “racism” rather than the desire not to be sexually assaulted or physically harmed.

I’ve been talking about Chicago, but the same things are true for Milwaukee, Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, Baltimore, and countless other major cities. It’s also true for the cities where American elites and policymakers live like Washington, DC, which is why I’m always amused by theories that say they are actually acting in their own interests by coddling criminals. Other than blacks themselves, no group would benefit more from solving our crime problem than wealthy urban whites.

We can therefore ignore those who deny the reality of black crime. They’re either too stupid or dishonest to engage with. Among others on the left, there has been an acceptance of reality combined with pleas to simply frame the issue differently.

When liberals talk about perspective here, what they usually mean is that the likelihood of a white person being victimized by a black person is small in an absolute sense, so why worry about it? It would be a fine argument, except that we are constantly told to obsess over the harms done by police shootings, white supremacist violence, and vigilantes falsely accusing innocent black men of crimes.

I thought about showing you NYT and CNN headlines implying that blacks have to live in constant fear due to racism. But you’ve probably seen them, and instead I’ll share this clip showing how the topic was addressed a few years ago on a major network TV show.

As a digression, I would recommend checking out a few episodes of A Million Little Things if you want to see the horror that is the PC therapeutic slop that normies are being fed these days, but that’s a discussion for a different time.

So the crime debate has been going something like this.

Conservatives: Look at all the black-on-white crime.

Liberals: Get some perspective man. It’s nothing compared to the chances of being murdered by your own race. Not to mention heart attacks or covid. These are very small numbers.

Conservatives: You guys are the ones telling us blacks are living in constant fear. Stop doing that.

Now, when having these debates, what’s frustrating is that people are usually talking past one another. There’s not like one guy named “conservatives” and one guy named “liberals.” The liberals who are telling you to have some perspective on black crime often aren’t the same ones pushing the narrative that blacks should live in fear of whites. It’s easy to “own” the other side by putting together views of different people and finding contradictions.

That being said, the myth of substantial white-on-black violence is so deeply embedded in the culture that it’s a storyline in network TV shows. I think it’s fair to ask people to take a position on it. If you dislike racists on Twitter focusing too much on black-on-white crime, know that they are closer to the truth than the race obsessives on the other side, and have a lot less power.

One odd thing about these calls for perspective is that when liberals say that intra-racial crime is more common than crime that crosses group boundaries, what they are essentially saying is don’t worry about black crime, because the victims are overwhelmingly black people. But wait! Since when are liberals uninterested in problems that disproportionately affect blacks? These are the people who write serious NYT think pieces about how national parks are too white. They now turn around and say, let’s not talk too much about murder, because blacks are the victims? It’s a very odd thing, and it’s hard for me to even steelman their lack of interest in solving this issue as they obsess over every other black grievance, real or imagined.

Some years ago I noticed that fact checkers started providing “perspective” on claims rather than simply saying whether they were true or false. Of course, what perspective to take on facts is a huge part of what political discourse is about. Do blacks commit a lot of violence against whites? Compared to the number of cancer deaths, no. But in the context of a comparison to white-on-black violence, absolutely. One can conduct a similar analysis of issues like covid, terrorism, and school shootings.

For me, I like cost-benefit analysis as the way to understand what problems are worth worrying about and what we should be doing about them.

Black-on-white violence is not the biggest issue in the world, but it is useful to talk about in order to challenge narratives that pose much more serious problems. Arguments about supposed racism committed by whites against blacks are why we can’t effectively fight crime in this country and why we can’t have freedom of association or meritocratic criteria in hiring. The belief in white racism as a major factor in American life is the force that distorts all of policymaking and culture. Any arguments that are effective at discrediting that narrative are worth making.

And no, I don’t consider acting on statistical realities to be a kind of racism society should solve. Once you remove reactions that are based on group behavior, and private preferences that are none of the government’s business in a free society, the remaining “racism” in the United States against blacks is negligible, and more than balanced out by the ways in which they are advantaged.

The truth of the matter is we have a disgraceful amount of crime in the US, and the costs are not simply a matter of the number of people robbed, raped, and killed. It’s also a tragedy that what could be some of the most valuable urban real estate in the country is basically uninhabitable. In fact, part of the reason that black-on-white violence is rare in this country is because whites have overwhelmingly fled places where blacks live due to the threat of violence.

Other pathologies of American life, like NIMBYism, which drives up the cost of housing, are also downstream of the crime issue. If you’re a resident of Tokyo, you don’t need to worry about greater density leading to a decline in public safety, the way that Americans have to.

There’s no “perspective” one can take from which a reasonable observer won’t find that inner city crime is a major problem, and something we should do our best to solve. The chart below shows the ten American cities of at least 100,000 people that have the highest murder rates, and how they compare to the most violent countries in the world. The murder rates for cities come from CBS, while the country data comes from the World Bank.

[ How the ten most violent US cities with a population over 100,000 compare to the most violent countries in the world. Red is US cities, blue is countries. ]

You might be saying that it’s unfair to compare cities to entire countries, since urban areas might have concentrated violence. Yet the most violent countries in the world tend to be small. For example, St Louis, which is number one in murder in the chart above, has 293,000 people. That’s a larger population than St Lucia (180,000) and St Vincent (104,000), which are shown on the graph. Detroit has 632,000 people, making it more than 50% larger than either the Bahamas (407,000) or Belize (400,000). New Orleans (384,000) and Cleveland (373,000) are close behind. So this isn’t a matter of cherry-picking areas with minuscule populations and making them look bad. These cities are the size of small countries, which means we are pretty much comparing apples-to-apples in many of these cases. And if you want to make a real apples-to-apples comparisons, try contrasting American cities to those in other first world countries, like London.

As I argue in my articles on El Salvador, any polity that has a high enough murder rate needs to make solving crime its number one priority. This was true for that nation before Bukele came along, as it is for major American cities today. It’s not a big mystery how to do this, it’s just politically difficult, because literally everything that works is considered racist. You need more cops, more prisons, and more use of DNA databases and facial recognition technology. You can’t have concerns about disparate impact in a world where crime is so overwhelmingly committed by one group. And yes, liberals are right about one thing, which is that gun laws matter too.

But the left is so out of its mind on everything touching on race that even though they’re right that gun laws matter, when it comes to actually enforcing them, they tend to shy away from doing so for the obvious reason.

While I support policies that can make incremental improvements, actually solving our crime problem to any serious extent would take a revolution in our culture or system of government. Whether you want to focus on guns or the criminals themselves, it would involve heavily policing, surveilling, and incarcerating more black people. If any part of you is uncomfortable with policies that have an extreme disparate impact, you don’t have the stomach for what it would take. And, unlike some, I’m not naive enough to think that non-criminal blacks would end up grateful towards those who took the steps necessary to make their communities safer.

Dealing with the crime issue is complicated for reasons that go deep to the heart of the American psyche, which means there’s little hope that things will change any time soon. Until they do, we should continue to at the very least push back on the most malicious lies being told about race in America.

[ticholasnesla]

Nimona (2023), friends.

First of all thank u to the people who made these great gifs!!! This is presumptuous of me but i truly hope u dont mind me featuring them! This is the first of - hopefully many - years of my Media Gifventure for the Holiday Season of 2023. I will go into more details if i need. So.

🥺

man of the hour. Man of the Year. Gold Star. 🌟

Gif use Disclaimer, I hope me making this post with these gifs isnt overstepping 🙂‍↕️💛 people who upload gifs, which, 9/10 times, they made themselves, are one of the most supportive vertebrae communities of Tumblr. 🫡👏👏 bravo chudovyy splendid чудовий mykola please tell me what i should remove and i will remove.

Above all else, Thank u.

anyways here's3 something i hope is going to be fun. Last chance. Gif heavy, flash warning excessive emojis, stupid shite and a dog.

🐕 . . . 🤎

nimona beat my ass yall. It beat my family's ass yall.

That's a Ss²+Gold ranked film if ever i saw one. Congrats Neæs@tflix - Nimona, and congrats ND Stevenson.

Ss²+Gold means Soupsoup Squared PLUS Gold which MEANS

+4 of thees bad boys!!!!!!!!

Enjoy!

i stop talking about strictly Nimona Heere.

so with that all said and done...i was Thinking... part 2?

disclaimer pls read the 👎 RULES. Trans rights human rights. Protect trans kids. Pronouns for your Hostess this evening are she/he/they. this isnt a nft thing so dont talk to me about that. and im not writing free reviews or reading your book. I just wanna award movies and webtoons and webcomics without putting any real artistic effort in (except when i WANT to put real artistic effort in) and also feature some great indie/non indie stuff In a (hopefully) positive light 🔮 shit i might even do requests. Or sketches. Imagine. 🐙

PROCEED 👎to RULES and engage in critical thought and problem soliving before sending me asks.💢

That being said, keep it PG. All asks are good asks and i will develop an FAQ if need be!

Rules 👎 down dere keep scrolling and reading. Thx. But first

Do u wanna submit something to be considered for a Soup GoldTM? Submit your favourite,

Webcomic

Youtube channel

Trending topic

Webtoon

youtube series

Manga

Anime

Plot twists

Lesser known artists

Indie artists

Podcasts

Heartbreaks /no actual bummers pls.

Memes etc etceteree

that kept you warm this 2023! And for my immediate needs, Happened in 2023. For this thing, i will only accept submissions til new yrs day. Is that peechy?

👎👎Ok finally rules for real. Proceed to pig 🐷 for tldr

Keep it pg🦉

K.I.S.S - keep it simple, Saoirse🦆

Stay in your Lane 🫎🦍🐏🪿

Dont message strangers on the internet if you're under 18.🔴And if you do KEEP your age out of their inbox. 🪺🐣🐊

Adult media is fine but i want to keep it Prime Time 🦐🐚 🪸🪼🐠🚦🐬

66I know i might be typing like a fucking bunyak but i wanna have FUN and talk about FUN STUFF my past 3 years has been ROUGH, BAYBEE. I miss my parents, Tails. I miss them a lot. /not a joke.

💐🦋🕊🐝🦂🦈🐄🐓🦤🦀🦀🦅🪱🥀🦽🏥🏥🏥🏥🏥🏥🫀🌎☀️🌜🪐🌬🌪🌦🌈☔️🔥☃️🎅🏡🎆🪻🌷💐🫀🐦‍⬛🚜👨‍🌾💚🤟💒💊🌋🏞🎡🛝🚛🚚🛻🚲

I am but flesh n blood n bone.

Please keep in mind i will only do what i have the jnj marbles for, but i will dedicate a lot of my downtime to this and i really want to have a good experience so um if u know a friend, or maybe want to tag cool accounts to maybe look over here yoo hoo hi there hello and do u wannaaa 🐕🐕🐕

Click that rebwog pwease 🥺 pppwease. Ding that like button smash that like button Uw0

This only works on Good Will so dont Play with my heart. We want to have fun.

I do have a DO NOT PASS GO list in my head but i wont reveal whats on it til i come across it ya? 🦩

Thank y for reading the rules. Now.

Me vs you the reader

Proceed to pig for tldr🐷

The Soup Golds and other Soups utilize a vector of Grandma's Soup from Lengend of Zelda Wind Waker that i edited with my phone. I do not claim to own this graphic and am just fucking around.

Submissions that dont pass my sneefing test are welcome and valuable! Incoming bee gif:

🐝

love rubbin my dusty little fingers in new Things and readings. So they will be rewarded either with Unseen, Uninterested, or Unwatchable badges, and might be featured as (dis)/honorable mentions! More nuance on that if the need arises. 🦄🔮👀

🐷Asks are open / pending! Feel free to Lurk/ask questions. Dont be rude or ELSE..u get The PIG 🐷🐷

✋️HYYYYYY

🤘🪑YAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!🐖🐖🐖🐖💨💨💨💨💨💨💨💥⚰️🪦🐽🍄

.. and then the Anon is going off. i dont want to have to do that. 🫠

🐗Let's keep it Frosty🐗

🐖💨💨💨💨Inbox closes Boxing Day! Get ur submissions in Today and get some fun ?

Write a letter and leave me a cookie pls. Im not asking for money i just wanna spend some quality time with u as we ____ 2024.

Here is the dog btw and she's a rottweiler mix.. She's sitting on my foots here and has curly furs all a on her butt. She was a foster fail and is living her best cushy life last i heard about her. I wanna see her again. 🖤🤎🧡🖤🤎🧡

The end. Play Sims 4 but try not to spend money on it. EA's starting to offer free packs that u can download for Free. Console and PC as far as i understand.

Love u. Be back soon.

[naylor]

I think she was intentionally vague about who a lot of songs on ttpd were about, but cososom seems very specifically about Matty.

Decade would play us for fools - 2013-2023

Who seems like he would’ve bullied you in school - Calvin Harris

Needed drugs more - as far as I know Joe is not a known drug user but Matty is

Have some kids with an internet starlet - Matty dated Instagram influencers immediately before and immediately after dating Taylor last year

Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t see any references to Joe in the song

see, that's the thing, isn't it? "as far as i know" but the truth is we don't know much about joe other than the few things he's said in interviews (which aren't many) and things we learnt from taylor herself. and i'm saying this as a joe alwyn fan, i will defend this man even now, but the truth is we only know what taylor wanted us to know, and as an addict myself i can tell you how hard it is realising and/or accepting that your significant other is an addict *if that were the case* so you obviously don't want the whole world to know that because it's quite frankly embarrassing. people knowing you're an addict or that you're dating an addict brings lots of shame, and as i said before in a different post, i think that's the piece of the puzzle some people are missing. because you don't understand what that feels like, but i hear it all over this album, because i've been there.

but like i said, i personally think that with this album she purposely mixed things and songs aren't entirely about just one thing or person, but about different things simultaneously because the heartbreaks and betrayals echoed each other. i don't think it's entirely about joe, i just think there's more about joe than others do, and unless taylor comes out and explains song by song we're gonna have to go with personal interpretations as we've always done

[boneless-mika]

nothin gbaout being cis and aroace is queer. lol. and you cannot be bi and aroace. so. congrats on being a waste of everyone/s time.

While you were writing this hate message where you couldn’t even be bothered to check you’d actually used an apostrophe, providing you meant to say “everyone’s”, I cleaned my kitchen and went to sleep.

I used to be told to kms over the fact I expressed I was suicidal on the internet (yeah that was very disturbing in hindsight) so being called a “waste of everyone/s time” really does nothing to me (also like just don’t look at my blog if I’m a waste of time like that’s fully within your control)

Unfortunately your words cannot stop me from being bi and aroace which is a complicated identity I decided I wouldn’t bother explaining to strangers a long time ago. Being cis is not queer no, but being aroace most definitely is (I mean even the “cis heteroromantic aces aren’t queer” people way back when generally accepted that aroace people are (because functionally we used to be included under the bi umbrella though I admit I’m not an expert on queer history) but maybe you’re one of the people who think I have a “medical condition” and could be cured lol)

This is honestly kind of hilarious to me. Did you really think you were going to change the mind of someone with the aroace flag in his icon? Telling me I’m a waste of everyone/s time would make me see the truth of how everything y’all did to asexuals (not you specifically, ace discoursists in general) was totally justified?

I’ve decided to give you the benefit of the doubt because you might be a 14 year old who still is likely to change their opinions because your writing style really doesn’t read my age to me and I’m guessing this is how the kids talk but like maybe don’t go around calling people a waste of everyone/s time

I don’t mean to mock anon for misspellings, I’ve written subtitles when I meant credits before, but I think I can have some fun if they’re going to send me rude anons

Also like are you just checking my blog frequently to see my response or do you follow me? Because I’ve posted about being aroace and queer a lot before. It’s not a secret. Well, my theory is you found my original post because you search for ace discourse I guess specifically to annoy asexuals?? Because you cannot have been following me and not known I consider myself both ace and queer (refer once again to the aroace flag in my icon)

And why do you feel the need to hide behind anon? Surely just reblogging my post would be easier? Or are you afraid I’d block you (I know you at least used to be able to block anons but I don’t know how and I’ve talked about how I don’t know it before)? Or are you afraid your followers would find out you’re an aphobe? Because I would be, it turns out a lot of people think aromantic and asexual people are queer and harassing us is wrong

TL;DR

I don’t care if anon thinks I’m a waste of everyone’s time. They can’t stop me from existing lmao

Sorry to expose y’all to ace discourse in 2023. I really thought it was over (guess I was wrong lol)

[jayhorsestar]

re.'voronca sebastian, former security guard JUMBO BRV, former air-defense 'felcer, surgeon, yet not Medicine Bachelor, only the military booklet skilled under UN and NATO coding. retired from the active service and 401(k) recipient of more than 2,000 RON, into his 44 of age, married, and house not flat in a block nor condominium. his 'superior RO ranking officer, suffered IED explosion in Afghanistan and 'sebi cut him open, as military employed three months contract 10 gees a month in Afghanistan. fella officer died, 'sebi returned Sacele south. JUMBO HR and Cashiers team considered calling a Police precinct 4, and Mr.Policeman instructed 'sebi he had better study as Security Guard and reveal Internal affairs HR records, instead of military booklet where Athens could READ records of NATO ops abroad. LAW does not forbid any of that, btw. LAW recognized ALL DOD and DOI same jobs opportunities onto PRIVATE grounds, namely JUMBO alike employers, not discriminating any of those backgrounds at HR filing level!!! (where we have Beatrice 19 old, from Sanpetru north). when you enter 'security guard, and fall under the DOI affairs, first couple of years should be rotation of premises, various missions, and posts, so that to be filtered more properly. 'sebi stood '250, never entering '251 on JUMBO, and never leaving JUMBO for another security guard on RO. we do not know actually where he be at.. some say he bought an EV and had monthly installments of more than 1,000 EUR a month, and thus accepted mercenary job in Congo, three months, 15,000 EUR at least. others say he left working the agri at his in-laws from wife, so that to ask to return later in August again at JUMBO, and by 2025, JUMBO happy they do not need pay him the 13th salary, in february, lacking continuity. others would winkle head and eyes, 'sebi entered sort of sex affairs, and was manipulated to drop off and allow current PSD fella 'cristi 54 of age enter the scene. because his wife knew 'Denisa Accountants at Prodlacta Inc (who also retired 401(k) during 2023). re. 'cristi security guard, he had salary paid by Transylvania Bank, but JUMBO insisted he became UniCredit Bank. so he activated e-transactions w UniCredit Bank onto his Android, ten days ago. 'sebi had desktop and laptop at home, 'cristi only uses smartphone internet, no laptop at home. 'cristi is familiar to 'oancea chief policeman at precinct 4, and police arrived at half whistle time when called for a verification ping, two weeks ago. 'sebi never did that. 'cristi does not click the stolen attempts of tiny sweet candies and lollipops from kids, as often, so Chief cashiers team sort of let him know June not gonna be his month w JUMBO. and 'cristi felt like telling me end of MAY i might not be S1 as written down in the kitchen on the wall. but S2, late eve. he actually told me three days ago. yet on MAY 1st i was not coming to job paying a TAXI, and used the NEXT avail BUS 17. because we all expect 3,700 RON in couple of months. because the EURO and the E.U. also. m

[artcalledtattoo]

WritingInMyTumblrBlogs

Silo

That lovely dragonfly

The Whole

I wanna thank

Out loud I scream

My Da Loved

I heard

That was categorized

Hey playlist

I’m here

You Are

Don’t Get Mad

In album of today this very Sunday

September 10, 2023 @ 0715

I left a few titles from test of yesterday

Lessons

A layering of titles

Just

Read in

I’m watching a doc on Justinian’s

32 minutes of still 7hours 48 minutes

That’s seven plus to eighty/infinity

I should thank

In liner notes

Linear just ways

I’m out of control

No lassos of West

Began in dear Hispania

Our cowboys of lifestyles

Not something old in a child

We are the West before West began

Slap a Country

Pinned in a history

Caballero word of older

I liked ladies, it brought it all back

Timelines of stolen

Or gaining unflowered blossoming my plants in 3.5 span stolen

Looked like dragonfly wings

Just in crevice

50 times larger

Stolen

My Titled flower

Some fucker did

Was it you

Or next on A I visit

Where a fucking shirt!

I’ll stab again

I reread my titles it calms

Those which were dead

I’m relaxed by tires rolling over

I could be an Armadillo

New feeling not opossum shoveled

I categorized sounds

A son gave me

Curled coiled what’s the impact

Fuck’em Shakespeare

This is noise from UR beyond’s

How could you know?

You just started a living

Pay attention

No one listened

Hybridization

Or still lost in translations

I could be motivated by watching

48 minutes in near six months before 50

What my unsic since

Walmart poisoning 2012 macaroni

No CoVid

A First Lady brings more in now

Not sick from present

Diseases

Sum keep ‘em along for

My writings

My spoken again upon US

Killings

I was just writing titles

Now a sound like Ren

Watch him

Not a bollocks

Boxed in little people

Boxed in little middle people

Boxed in little middle lower people

Boxed in

Asphyxiation

Building

Built

The same

I’m raving in music now

Pay attention

Chem lights

Moving

For a puncturing

In the oceans

56 minutes in

I want a break

Probably to smoke a cigarette

Can’t do until works done

Old philosophy

I accept my Vices

Art in NOT

——— enough

Clenching in vise

Not squeezing

What you want

I try

Hold the press

In myself I heard

Can’t be around company

Dumb is as dumb was

I’m better off alone

I have blogs writing & pictures

Look into the flaps for hidden gems of the more who look within the folds

My Daily Title

I’ve just in a while still writing of thee

Instances for my writings

And I’m barely English

Grammar don’t apply

Not imply

A graceful note of past before

A writing of English and there after

I have writings

Of Global

Circumstances

My Titles

On an internet

Controlled by know one

You can read

Can’t you

Folds and flaps

Catching

Titles

Obey sums

I need UR’s

If you readers just paid

Instead of gathering for free

I could have a helicopter

It would be my buy

Move like a dragonfly

I hear sirens

Day after day

Around a Globe

A Planet

UR on

Earth

1:09 in talks of Earthquakes

I’m not kidding

The life of Emperor Justinian

Algorithm

Another post of Byzantine

Mosaic

But corruption by algorithmic

But I’m still watching

1:12 stuck in before my

Evacuation of pee

I’m leaving for pisser

Arrived back

Going out to see a sky

Smoke nicotine

Persians arrived men and horses

Where to replace this

A give in the titles

Over Silo

1:23 Just in viewing’s

Crunch watching

Only in third episode

[sarah-dipitous]

Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 188

Devil May Care/The Angels Take Manhattan

“Devil May Care”

Plot Description: Dean shocks Sam when he opens the Impala’s trunk to reveal he’s kidnapped the King of Hell. Meanwhile, Abaddon rises with plans to take over his role.

Would I Survive the First Five Minutes??: oh, we START with Dean dragging in a corpse, but it doesn’t seem like anyone else is dying

I really hope she has even ONE episode where she doesn’t get brutalized…

Ok maybe it wasn’t Dean dragging in a corpse, just some shmuck recruited by Abaddon. Love that ❤️ she’s back

I don’t like whatever’s going on in this bunker now. You don’t get to keep both Kevin AND Crowley there

Honestly, yeah. That’s probably the best way to torture Crowley: leave him alone in a dark room with no one to make snide quips to

I would 100% accept her as queen. She’s as cruel as she is beautiful

Abaddon is having so much fun and I love that for her

I can’t believe Kevin 1) chose Solo as his fake last name (I actually can) and 2) basically blackmailed the military officer

ABADDON HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING WRONG EVER. Everything she’s done is completely right

Nooo…honestly, it was inevitable, but you shouldn’t have left Kevin and Crowley alone in the bunker. He’s just a KID, and Crowley’s a centuries old demon. I can’t even blame him if he gets manipulated into freeing Crowley

PLEASE. I’m begging. Just ONE episode. A little holy water splash is fine but she’s already been through so much at the Winchesters’ hands

I……….she could possess me any day. I wouldn’t want to actually do the things she’s threatening to make Dean do should she possess him, but the way she talks about it 🥰🥰🥰 I’m very normal about her

I still don’t trust Ezekiel.

Fuuuuck. It does look like…oh, Crowley’s still here. But where’s Kevin??

Mmmmmmmmmmmm, he’s gonna think that this is Dean only needing him because he’s useful…..omg, ok, so turns out if Kevin cries, I cry. He’s needed cuz he’s FAMILY. Eat your heart out, Fast and Furious franchise

Godddd, when will the secrets STOP?!

“The Angels Take Manhattan”

Plot Description: the Angels are back, and this time they’re taking over Manhattan

This little girl’s got no business playing peekaboo with a Weeping Angel. The fuck

Wait. That’s not how they work. You disappear from your timeline…you don’t…you don’t make it back to your same timeline, do you?? And meet your old self? But…I guess…wibbly wobbly timey wimey

I’ve been to that rock they’re sitting on.

Oh. Oh Rory. Oh dear, sweet Rory who has apparently never been on the internet????? “Only [the Doctor] could fancy someone in a book”??? Good thing ao3 is down. It’s completely blow his mind to bits. Then again, just send him to any character tag here and same difference

And I had my picture taken at that fountain

Of course the protagonist of the book is actually River. (I remembered the author even now but I forgot the main character was River)

That giggling though. Creepy

Omg. Okay, I like all the weird time travely stuff. It’s one thing to go to one destination but it’s another to get a book from the past and then influence that book by going even further into the past. Just. Delightful

Ohhhhhhh the Doctor’s freak out about saying goodbye to Amy…telling River to get out of the Angel’s grasp without breaking her own wrist, to change the future that’s already been written. AND SHE WANTED TO LET HIM BELIEVE SHE HAD 😭😭😭

I can’t believe Amy just had to watch Rory die again…this time as an old man

Amy’s love for Rory is so beautiful and endearing, and it’s so dumb they ever made us doubt it

OMG YOU CANNOT MAKE HER WATCH HIM DIE AGAIN. TWICE?? IN ONE EPISODE??

I know this is supposed to be an emotional moment but the music is killing the mood

Except now we’re back in that graveyard……and I know what’s gonna happen and I hate it

It was the right thing but it doesn’t make it less heartbreaking. She’ll take any chance to see Rory again. Every time

Donna🤝Amy: gingers who tell the Doctor to not travel alone

[straycatboogie]

2023/02/22 English

BGM: The Eagles - Take It Easy

At last, the equipment of Wi-Fi I have used for a long time got broken, so I can't use the internet from my personal computer. I asked this for the staff of my group home, and I went to Aeon as usual because it was a day off. I bought a cheap keyboard at there. I want to use it with my smartphone to input long sentences by synchronizing them. After that, at the food coat, I read Yoshio Kataoka's "Afterwords" with Silent Poets and Ry Cooder's music, as I always do. Reading this, I was really impressed because Kataoka declares with his very clear and strong voice to express his opinions. When he wants to tell something, he doesn't hesitate to say that. He shows his ones with his responsibility clearly. Therefore, his writings are crisp and clear. But, how Japanese readers accept such clear writings of him?

I am just an amateur, but I guess the reason why Kataoka can build his opinions logically is that his thoughts are based on the English language. Indeed, I explain this idea based on my feelings, which is a really fuzzy one to reference as a source, but I can feel that, in English conversations as writing and thinking, the "individual" which confesses their opinions starts showing its existence. That "individual" can say their opinions to the "collective" (I remember that Kataoka also said this in his books). In contrast, when I speak my opinions in Japanese, it's difficult for me to show the "individual" and I have to say them with an ambiguous attitude trying to synchronize myself to the public. That might be the difference. Then, Japanese and English need us to have a completely different attitudes to us.

Of course, we can't judge this as "this is better than that". It would be too simple. I say that I like Japanese attitude which treats the "harmony" as important. But I also say that I feel comfotrable to use the English language which allows clear declarations and enables the "individual" to face the "collective". This topic would allow me to write even one or two book so it is out of my capacity. But I have been suffered from the unclear aspects of other people's words which have the difference of truth and false, private and public. Probably therefore, I think that English conversations are good or better to me. When I was a kid, I couldn't understand others' words, and they treated my words as completely strange things. That might make me think about communication like I wrote above.

The Wi-Fi equipment didn't get normal again, so I read Yoshio Kataoka's "I am coffee" with The Eagles' greatest hits and Eric Crapton and B.B.King's duet which i had recorded in the personal computer once. This book also tells me how Kataoka can write his essays in varius ways. The essay about coffee and Kataoka himself in an orthodox way, and Kataoka's criticizing about Japanese and English, and his rich knowledge of literature, movies, and music. I want to enjoy coffee too because of his great essays which come from the simple topic "coffee", and I exactly can feel very comfortable with reading his writings. With listening to Ry Cooder, I thought that I am glad to meet his writings. But I might have to read English books to follow him, and learn from him. I want to try like him from Paul Auster and Teju Cole's books  I bought on Amazon.

[sheminecrafts]

Senator Warner calls on Zuckerberg to support market research consent rules

In response to TechCrunch’s investigation of Facebook paying teens and adults to install a VPN that lets it analyze all their phone’s traffic, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) has sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg. It admonishes Facebook for not spelling out exactly what data the Facebook Research app was collecting or giving users adequate information necessary to determine if they should accept payment in exchange for selling their privacy. Following our report, Apple banned Facebook’s Research app from iOS and shut down its internal employee-only workplace apps too as punishment, causing mayhem in Facebook’s office.

Warner wrote to Zuckerberg, “In both the case of Onavo and the Facebook Research project, I have concerns that users were not appropriately informed about the extent of Facebook’s data-gathering and the commercial purposes of this data collection. Facebook’s apparent lack of full transparency with users – particularly in the context of ‘research’ efforts – has been a source of frustration for me,”

Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on them

Warner is working on writing new laws to govern data collection initiatives like Facebook Research. He asks Zuckerberg, “Will you commit to supporting legislation requiring individualized, informed consent in all instances of behavioral and market research conducted by large platforms on users?”

Senator Blumenthal’s Fierce Statement

Meanwhile, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) provided TechCrunch with a fiery statement regarding our investigation. He calls Facebook anti-competitive, which could fuel calls to regulate or break up Facebook, says the FTC must address the issue, and that he’s planning to work with congress to safeguard teens’ privacy:

“Wiretapping teens is not research, and it should never be permissible. This is yet another astonishing example of Facebook’s complete disregard for data privacy and eagerness to engage in anti-competitive behavior. Instead of learning its lesson when it was caught spying on consumers using the supposedly ‘private’ Onavo VPN app, Facebook rebranded the intrusive app and circumvented Apple’s attempts to protect iPhone users. Facebook continues to demonstrate its eagerness to look over everyone’s shoulder and watch everything they do in order to make money. 

Mark Zuckerberg’s empty promises are not enough. The FTC needs to step up to the plate, and the Onavo app should be part of its investigation. I will also be writing to Apple and Google on Facebook’s egregious behavior, and working in Congress to make sure that teens are protected from Big Tech’s privacy intrusions.”

Senator Markey Says Stop Surveiling Teens

And finally, Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA) requests that Facebook stop recruiting teens for its Research program and notes he’ll push his “Do Not Track Kids” act in congress:

“It is inherently manipulative to offer teens money in exchange for their personal information when younger users don’t have a clear understanding how much data they’re handing over and how sensitive it is. I strongly urge Facebook to immediately cease its recruitment of teens for its Research Program and explicitly prohibit minors from participating. Congress also needs to pass legislation that updates children’s online privacy rules for the 21st century. I will be reintroducing my ‘Do Not Track Kids Act’ to update the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by instituting key privacy safeguards for teens. 

But my concerns also extend to adult users. I am alarmed by reports that Facebook is not providing participants with complete information about the extent of the information that the company can access through this program. Consumers deserve simple and clear explanations of what data is being collected and how it being used.”

The Senators’ statements do go a bit overboard. Though Facebook Research was aggressively competitive and potentially misleading, Blumenthal calling it “anti-competitive” is a stretch. And Warner’s questioning on whether “any user reasonably understood that they were giving Facebook root device access through the enterprise certificate” or that it uses the data to track competitors oversteps the bounds. Surely some savvy technologists did, but the question is whether all the teens and everyone else understood.

Apple bans Facebook’s Research app that paid users for data

Facebook isn’t the only one paying users to analyze all their phone data. TechCrunch found that Google had a similar program called Screenwise Meter. Though it was more upfront about it, Google also appears to have violated Apple’s employee-only Enterprise Certificate rules. We may be seeing the start to an industry-wide crack down on market research surveillance apps that dangle gift cards in front of users to get them to give up a massive amount of privacy.

Warner’s full letter to Zuckerberg can be found below:

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg: 

I write to express concerns about allegations of Facebook’s latest efforts to monitor user activity. On January 29th, TechCrunch revealed that under the auspices of partnerships with beta testing firms, Facebook had begun paying users aged 13 to 35 to install an enterprise certificate, allowing Facebook to intercept all internet traffic to and from user devices.  According to subsequent reporting by TechCrunch, Facebook relied on intermediaries that often “did not disclose Facebook’s involvement until users had begun the signup process.” Moreover, the advertisements used to recruit participants and the “Project Disclosure” make no mention of Facebook or the commercial purposes to which this data was allegedly put.

This arrangement comes in the wake of revelations that Facebook had previously engaged in similar efforts through a virtual private network (VPN) app, Onavo, that it owned and operated. According to a series of articles by the Wall Street Journal, Facebook used Onavo to scout emerging competitors by monitoring user activity – acquiring competitors in order to neutralize them as competitive threats, and in cases when that did not work, monitor usage patterns to inform Facebook’s own efforts to copy the features and innovations driving adoption of competitors’ apps.  In 2017, my staff contacted Facebook with questions about how Facebook was promoting Onavo through its Facebook app – in particular, framing the app as a VPN that would “protect” users while omitting any reference to the main purpose of the app: allowing Facebook to gather market data on competitors.

Revelations in 2017 and 2018 prompted Apple to remove Onavo from its App Store in 2018 after concluding that the app violated its terms of service prohibitions on monitoring activity of other apps on a user’s device, as well as a requirement to make clear what user data will be collected and how it will be used. In both the case of Onavo and the Facebook Research project, I have concerns that users were not appropriately informed about the extent of Facebook’s data-gathering and the commercial purposes of this data collection.

Facebook’s apparent lack of full transparency with users – particularly in the context of ‘research’ efforts – has been a source of frustration for me. As you recall, I wrote the Federal Trade Commission in 2014 in the wake of revelations that Facebook had undertaken a behavioral experiment on hundreds of thousands of users, without obtaining their informed consent. In submitted questions to your Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, I once again raised these concerns, asking if Facebook provided for “individualized, informed consent” in all research projects with human subjects – and whether users had the ability to opt out of such research. In response, we learned that Facebook does not rely on individualized, informed consent (noting that users consent under the terms of the general Data Policy) and that users have no opportunity to opt out of being enrolled in research studies of their activity.  In large part for this reason, I am working on legislation to require individualized, informed consent in all instances of behavioral and market research conducted by large platforms on users. 

Fair, robust competition serves as an impetus for innovation, product differentiation, and wider consumer choice. For these reasons, I request that you respond to the following questions: 

1.      Do you think any user reasonably understood that they were giving Facebook root device access through the enterprise certificate? What specific steps did you take to ensure that users were properly informed of this access? 

2.      Do you think any user reasonably understood that Facebook was using this data for commercial purposes, including to track competitors?

3.      Will you release all participants from the confidentiality agreements Facebook made them sign?

4.      As you know, I have begun working on legislation that would require large platforms such as Facebook to provide users, on a continual basis, with an estimate of the overall value of their data to the service provider. In this instance, Facebook seems to have developed valuations for at least some uses of the data that was collected (such as market research). This further emphasizes the need for users to understand fully what data is collected by Facebook, the full range of ways in which it is used, and how much it is worth to the company. Will you commit to supporting this legislation and exploring methods for valuing user data holistically?

5.      Will you commit to supporting legislation requiring individualized, informed consent in all instances of behavioral and market research conducted by large platforms on users?

I look forward to receiving your responses within the next two weeks. If you should have any questions or concerns, please contact my office at 202-224-2023.

from iraidajzsmmwtv http://bit.ly/2G9lE1o via IFTTT

[beckerblogging]

I think that it is time for us as a society to start going forward with the idea that four-year college degrees are outdated, irrelevant, and causing massive issues in society right now. We have the resources now to shrink that degree to make it 1-2 years long and that is something we desperately need to do in order for the next generations to have a shot in this world. 

My top reason for saying this right now is that I am currently a senior in college and it befuddles me every single day how much time and money is wasted on pointless classes. There is a class I am in right now where I think the professor is literally just giving us busywork until the end of the semester because it does not take 16 weeks to teach this subject.

As for the subject itself and the class, I am not going to say what it is since I don’t want to take the tiny chance of my professor seeing this and giving me a bad grade in the class.

Another reason why I think we need to move towards this model is that I believe that college should be set up like a trade school. You go in, learn what you need to know, and get out. There is no need for students to be spending two years of their lives on general education courses that they previously took in high school (no, nothing changes from high school to college, it’s a lie advisors and professors tell you). It’s a waste of time, money, and resources, not to mention that they do not get you anywhere. Also, the high school diploma shows that you have thoroughly learned that information, so having required general education classes pretty much pointless.

Just this past week, one of my professors told me that “those general education classes really do matter.” Here’s the thing. The reason why your professor is going to say that is because they need classes like that to exist because it gives them a job that gives them a paycheck at the end of the month. That’s the real reason why they advocate for them.

Getting back to the subject at hand, I can tell you that as a 21-year-old, I don’t like being in school, especially since I have been this since I was five. At some point, this has to end. At some point, you have to just go out and do the work that you were taught to do. Having students spend four years in school to learn a single subject is nonsense and it does not take four years to teach a single subject either.

Additionally, colleges need to accept the fact that they are an outdated system and that anything that can be taught or anything that a student wants to learn can be found on the internet…for free.

Tonight, my professor had an announcements video for my online class and in it, he mentions that he is having a class about marketing and branding. However, the class is not going to cover how marketing is done today but instead cover the theories and history of marketing itself.

I’m no time traveler, nor do I own a TARDIS (sadly), but I looked into the future and I saw that that class is just going to be another one of those classes where we talk about theories and answer questions like “What would YOU do if YOU were in marketing today?” Meanwhile, you’re not learning anything about the industry. I mean, this class is going to be as big of a joke as those social media classes that are being taught by people who probably had to have their grandchildren explain Facebook to them.

I do not consider myself a social media expert (although I think I’m pretty close) or marketing, but I learned everything I needed to learn about the fields through Gary Vaynerchuk books that cost me less than $100, and also videos from Mike Baxter on Last Man Standing who was a marketing guru at a outdoorsman-like store, which is available through Hulu, which I get for free thanks to my best friend from Iowa State.

With the social media part, I learned that by using the networks themselves and seeing what I could and could not do with them. Heck, even now I ‘m learning about Vero and what you can do with that. A social network like that won’t be in a college textbook until five years from now and when it is in one, it will already be five years outdated because I don’t think (as of right now) that it will be around in 2023.

These are all reasons why we need end the four-year degree. If we could have the best professors teaching all students online (because having kids drive to school and classes every day is not eco-friendly) and taking the classes when the students can or want to, I think the colleges would be more successful and maybe even have more respect than what they have right now.

Of course, this is a hugely massive change to college and college education, but if the colleges are going to want to quit seeing budget cuts, students leaving/transferring/dropping out, and see more of their graduates getting jobs in their fields, I think the 1-2-year degree is going to be their best option.

Why It Is Once Again Time to Reconsider Four-Year College Degrees I think that it is time for us as a society to start going forward with the idea that four-year college degrees are outdated, irrelevant, and causing massive issues in society right now.