What good solutions are there that prevent the age verification service and the website from comparing notes (because Big Brother told them to) and figuring out who you are and what you're doing?
If they voluntarily collude then yes, you can't avoid that. It's like third party cookies - once two parties collude it's game over. But that just outlines a situation where the user's chosen trusted service is hostile to their interests and they need to find one that isn't.
If Big Brother starts mandating the collusion - then yes, there's a hill to die on. But in some ways that's the point here. There are hills to die on - this just isn't it. And if you pick the wrong hill then you already died so you are losing the ones that really mattered. If the EFF pointed out to everyone that there is a privacy preserving answer to the core issue that is driving this, they could then mount a strong defense for the part that is truly problematic, since it isn't actually required to solve the problem.
This is only hypothetical for government ID's, but in theory government IDs could provide pairwise pseudonymous identifiers with services. Your ID with a single service is stable, but it is different with each service.
Can't read the specs at the moment, but what prevents the age verification service and the age-gated website from coluding and de-anonymizing your porn use?
Haven't either had time to fully wrap my head around the details.
At least in the EU solution they say there would be multiple attestation serivices the user could choose to use. So that would be technically better than nothing.
It's literally true that cancerous cells happen all the time in our bodies and no treatment is necessary because the immune system handles it. The ideal diagnostic test would only detect cancers that need intervention.
Why choose that metric rather than income, corporate, capital gains, etc. tax rates? Seems like it could obfuscate who bears the burden of those taxes.
That assumes the status quo ante was a meritocracy. It wasn't, hence the need for actions that promote merit based hiring and workplace inclusion for historically oppressed groups.
The efficacy of current DEI efforts is debatable, but the need should be obvious.
Sounds like we kind of agree but you wouldn't include blind hiring under the label of DEI. Also, I wouldn't agree that historically hiring was more meritocratic before DEI programs.
Not to disagree with the overall point, but because this comes up a lot I'll nitpick it: issuing debt is not the same as printing money
With debt, along with the proverbial "cash" comes an opposing "IOU" -- any change* is thus only temporary, in the time dimension (essentially that's what's being exchanged: time)
Printing money out of nowhere is different, because it's missing that other half
* at the risk of stating the obvious: "change" meaning "difference" and not "cents"
A lot of debt also arises because of savings needs. If everyone is saving for retirement, for example, that savings has to be debt marked somewhere else. Examples:
* Social security used to have a huge surplus, that was savings that had to go somewhere (even if it was just a savings account in a bank, the bank would then be able to lend it out). They instead buy treasuries and that savings becomes debt to the USG.
* China likewise needs to save dollars because it doesn't want them sloshing around in their economy leading to inflation, so instead of using it to buy things they buy treasuries, and their savings becomes debt to the USG (not always a great deal for China if interest rates are below inflation).
The dollar has been so useful in the past as a currency of trade because you could save large amounts of it easily by buying US treasuries. One reason China doesn't want the RMB to be used so heavily for trade is that they don't want to do the same yet.
Actually it kind of is, in as much as it expands the money supply.
When a bank issues debt, the money is created 'out of thin air'. When the debt is paid off, that money is destroyed. However usually more debt is being created than redeemed as things go on, so the total money supply increases (this is a good thing, as it allows the economy to expand).
Various regulations and central bank market interventions (quantitative tightening/easing) control this process, which thus can be induced to 'print money' if the government wishes - assuming they have a sovereign currency.
Fractional reserve banking is still not the same as printing money outright
If you borrow $100 USD from the bank, and pay it off immediately after, it's clear no money was "created" as such
If $100 USD is "printed" outright, it's clear that there's no way to achieve that same result
The fact that the debt isn't generally paid back immediately doesn't change that fundamental. That's what I meant when I said any apparent "change" is about "time" rather than "money"
It is true that the money supply should expand with the economy. Turning raw materials into finished goods represents a larger "net economy" at the end of the process than at the beginning. (Indeed that's basically how it makes sense to have interest on debt in the first place)
Nevertheless, printing money out of whole cloth is different from issuing debt
> If you borrow $100 USD from the bank, and pay it off immediately after, it's clear no money was "created" as such
The bank "printed" money by handing out cash that it didn't have. It only had a fraction of it. That new money went free into the world with the same respect any other cash gets. You and I can't pull that off.
Ok fine I'll agree call it "creating money" rather than "printing money", because it's not the same mechanism the central bank uses to "print" permanent money (technically not printed either but whatever), but money is still created by the bank.
The CDC says 4,000 underage drinkers die in the US every year. Maybe we could reduce that with stricter controls, but at what point does that become too burdensome to the rights of legal drinkers?
It's even harder to get the balance right when it comes to free speech issues like online pornography.
> The CDC says 4,000 underage drinkers die in the US every year
That's not quite correct. They count both deaths where the decedent had a high blood alcohol level and deaths where someone else who was responsible for the death had a high blood alcohol level. Because of this many of those in the count were underage but were not drinkers.
For example if I'm driving drunk and you are my sober passenger and I drive us off a tall cliff killing you your death will be included in their count because I was drunk and responsible for it. It also works the other way. If I'm sober and you are drunk, and I drive us off the cliff and you die it counts because you died drunk.
I've long argued that lecturer positions should also be tenure track, depending on metrics about effective education rather than research. Being taught by a researcher is overrated at the undergrad level. I've had lots of shitty courses taught by great researchers.
The UPF category isn't helpful to the person at the grocery store trying to decide what's to buy because it significantly overlaps with very healthy foods.
Loose terms like junk food and whole foods are more helpful because they don't come with the patina of scientific rigor, you can use personal judgement about what fits in those categories.
I can only repeat myself: you guys are trying to pick me apart while you know exactly what I mean. Sometimes hard definitions won't cut it and you have to use common sense. 80-90% clean is sufficient.
Some things need to be processed to be edible. Wheat is one of those. And wheat is typically trash. It's cheap carbohydrates.
Also: I don't buy bread typically. Sometimes, rarely, wholegrain sourdough bread. But I'm also german and have access to "healthy" bread.
Life is really simple:
veggies, fruits, raw meat (no sausages and not that much red meat), dairy (you can buy UHT milk obv.) but not much cheese, wholegrain carbs if you must (pasta is ok, rice also). Some processed foods are ok: cocoa, coffee beans, see salt, yoghurt, kimchi (check label), tofu (occasionally), olive oil etc. etc.
As basic as possible with pre-checked exceptions. This isn't something you can define in a clear cut manner. And it also depends on the country.
The thing is that if you only skip junk food you'll still eat sooo much junk.
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