ahje

The idea is that the fines as supposed to act as a deterrent, but unfortunately there's been a shitload of really bad practices stemming from the fact that many consultants have drawn the erroneous conclusion that pre-ticked opt-in boxes are legal. Fines were handed out regarding a few specific cases, but very few businesses know about this and most of the ones that do claim it doesn't concern them for whatever reason. Furthermore, the Danish authorities set a very dangerous precedent when they refused to take on Google with the sole reason that Google are to big and that someone else have to do it.

But yes, until the situation has stabilized and someone has gotten very badly hurt from a financial perspective, the only sensible thing is to block non-HTML content by default and only whitelist the stuff you actually want to run.

The LGBTQ-movement, for example, is extremely vocal about any technique that could potentially be used to determine the sexual orientation of a person. They've spent a huge amount of time and resources in order to get society to redefine homosexuality from an illness and into a personal matter which should be included in societal norms.

If someone discovered a reliable way to detect the future sexuality of a child then those efforts would suddenly be contradicted, because 1) it would be harder to argue that it's not just a condition, and 2) no matter how controversial, there would be a demand for such screenings, and the LGBTQ-community would most likely interpret it as an existential threat.

Obviously, I chose sexuality as an example as it's an easy metaphor that most people get, but this reasoning can be applied to quite a few other things that are (possibly) caused by genetical factors and where there's a community involved. As an example, I've heard people mention an on-going "genocide" of people with Downs syndrome, simply because pre-natal screenings are quite effective at detecting it and that parents therefore terminate the pregnancy instead of having a child with Downs.

EDIT: Simply put: If you start screening for X, thereby allowing it to be prevented or treated in any way, then you imply that the X is something negative. People with X might take offence to that.

You're right, there are definitely people who choose a specific lifestyle willingly and by all means let them do so.

We shouldn't assume it applies to anyone just because it applies to some indivuduals though.

I get what you mean and I do sympathize somewhat.

The fact is, however, that modern society doesn't fit everyone. Since we won't allow people to withdraw from society that means we're actively forcing people to live a specific way of life that some simply cannot handle.

Simply putting more pressure on those groups will result in the forming of parallel societies and in the long run that means that those parallel societies will form a separate culture and try to secede. If we stop that there will be conflict. History tells us such conflict will be very bloody, no matter who ends up on top.

This is a cycle that Western Civilization has dealt with for thousands of years. Personally, I wouldn't mind trying to break it this time.

So increased inequality on a local level is good as long as the global average goes down? I thought the idea was to make _everyone's_ lives better.

I'm hopeful that the research might bear fruit at some point, so I am glad to see it continue. We definitely shouldn't put all eggs in one basket, though.

We don't have a finished design yet, so who knows what parts are needed (yeah, a turbine is a given, but still...)?

That's indeed a big if, but even if it ends up being cheaper to use solar for most applications I can imagine fusion power would be a nice thing to have locally around major production centres where the power demand is much higher.

Solar is great for decentralized grids where one's neighbour basically buys excess power from you, but transferring gigawatts of power from a large amount of solar panels to something like a major industrial area /might/ be trickier.

> If you build a house on rotten stilts, and some neighborhood kid comes and kicks one of them, it's not the kid's fault when the house collapses.

If you build a house that isn't fire proofed properly and a pyromaniac sets fire to it then you won't blame the contractor, even if the house wasn't properly built. Sure, there might be fines involved for breaking rules etc. but the blame for the fire is still attributed to the person who lit it.

Soros and his associates did this to a number of countries, includingMalaysia, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand and others; this is not about a single incident where someone used a small loop hole to make some profit -- it's about the financial sector deliberately playing nation states for massive profits, affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people in those countries.

Should the banks have been better prepared? Yes, definitely. Does that in anyway shift the blame for playing with the livelihood of millions in order to turn a profit? Not a chance.

Yes, and yes. I saw some video of it once, so it can be done.

It sounds more like it's akin to wage slavery rather than blindly following orders. Assuming there aren't other jobs for those workers then they most likely have to chose between that job and a meagre existence based on government subsidies and goodwill of others.

> Both are really good plans if you want to get 0wned.

It is wise to point that out; running an old OS on old equipment or in a VM is perfectly viable, but one should NEVER connect those machines to the open Internet.