In the eighties when cell phones started being installed in cars, some people posted their phone numbers on their back or side window. That didn’t last long.

They’re not “speed enforcement cameras” they’re part of a mass surveillance system with the feature that records speed and adds that data along with all the other data it collects and associates with your plate number and any beacons your cell phone is transmitting.

If it was about speeding or safety they’d design the road better or have police patrolling more often.

Just take a look at how these systems are abused by the government in the UK and US. Does this still make you feel safe?

I’ve always assumed this (and assumed that other people assumed this), because if you talk to homophobes they’ll eventually say something like “it’s a choice!” because it’s a choice for them. It’s not a choice for me because gay porn doesn’t turn me on – and if it did I wouldn’t care anyway because that’s how I was raised. But it DOES turns them on, AND they were raised in an environment where this is THE WORST THING EVER, so it upsets them and they get all irrational and punchy (lesson learned: DO NOT discuss this theory with a homophobe.)

TLDR; IMHO Homophobes who think orientation is a choice are closeted gays because logic.

It would be nice to see a better study. Interesting if one hasn’t been done in all this time…

It’s likely your phone, specifically Apple, Google, or Facebook location services. A bluetooth beacon in the vending machine gets the identity anyone standing near (and everyone walking by!) directly from any number of advertising vendors, including the big three scumbags mentioned. Even if the identity code is “anonymous”, the machine knows it’s you because it’s the same “anonymous” code as last time – so not really anonymous and easily demasked with enough datapoints.

Could be facial recognition too, but the above method has been used for more than a decade now and is everywhere since it’s built in to all ecommerce platforms.

If it is facial recognition then it probably just stores datapoints like the distance between your eyes (etc…) and doesn’t know who “you” are until you pay with a card.

I think all of the marketing and advertising industry is bullshit. It’s manipulation and propaganda made to appear normal and proper. If it all suddenly went away nothing would happen other than a mad scramble for jobs and alternate revenue sources.

Many Americans are fine with what’s going on. After all, they have Jesus to help them through the tough times.

The rest have been brainwashed to think they need to kill people or do useless violent shit that just gets them shot or imprisoned. Otherwise all they can do is march around or vent.

Instead forget about the government (they don’t care), and go after the true cause: Billionaires and their corporations, propagandists, fascists, and their supporters. Just quietly take away their assets. Make fascism too expensive for them, financially and personally – because that’s the real problem: there’s no punishment for bad behavior if you’re wealthy or connected. They only care about money, so take it and the remove their ability to make it. Hit them where it hurts them.

Be non-confrontational and asymmetrical.

I find it astounding that Americans STILL think there’s democracy in America.

It’s gone and it’s not coming back for a long, long time.

Yeah, that last protest – the biggest ever in the US wasn’t it? – did so much.

Protesting is what got you here. And they want you to keep protesting uselessly while they continue to take apart America.

I don’t think this has anything to do with autism, ADHD, or neurodivergence.

Intelligent people are curious. That’s what makes them intelligent.

IMHO neurodivergent people don’t have a trait for “curiousity” – they’re just more intelligent (if their neurodivergence isn’t too severe) and so are interested in things. That’s why there’s so many in technical and engineering fields, mathematics, science – the really hard stuff (hard for most people.)

Yeah, it’s still not easy because there’s so much other stuff going on inside the mind, but all that other stuff is going to lead to some pretty cool thoughts that could turn into a paper, project, business, thesis, etc. (if you manage to remember them long enough to write them down!) Over years this builds brain matter and this is where the intelligence comes from (again assuming the neurodivergence isn’t severe.)

By “intelligence” I mean the raw ability to process information and gain understanding from it. Not IQ.

That’s why accountants and auditors exist.

If you’re suggesting that it shouldn’t be done because its too hard – it’s not. That’s just a dumb excuse.

This is the stupidest thing I’ve read today – and I just came from Reddit.

Not talking about something isn’t going to prevent it from happening.

They’re already building a police state and it’s happening in front of your eyes. Pretending not to notice is exactly what they want.

That’s not how it works. If you’re American, you pay taxes to the US no matter where you live. If you work overseas you may have to ALSO pay taxes to the country you’re living in, unless you expatriate yourself (where the word “expat” comes from) or denounce your US citizenship completely and emigrate. It’s a mess.

Let them cry all they want, because they’re not going to leave. And if they do – good riddance. They contribute nothing to society anyway.

Americans are brainwashed to believe that there’s only one particular and specific way to protest, and beyond that all you can do is kill people.

They haven’t yet realized that there is a huge swathe of options in between, and it requires no organization or depending on others, and no violence against anyone. You can just quietly do stuff. Probably less risky than doing anything publicly in a country with ubiquitous surveillance and the law no longer matters. Protests are great for showing the level of public support for a movement, but if the government doesn’t represent the people their effect will be minimal for producing real change.

There currently is no cost for ventures into fascism. Make it so expensive they’ll think twice next time (if there is a next time.)

That’s the best part, you monsters.

LOL at your downvotes. I went to Catholic school and was taught BY PRIESTS AND NUNS that Jesus probably wasn’t one person but a composite of numerous roving preachers (a fad at the time). Oh, and early Christianity probably started as a mushroom cult. If the Catholics (Catholics!) could learn to apply reason to religion anyone can.

Reddit is useless for questions. If you’re a subject-matter expert in something, find the subreddit for it and prepare to be horrified.

Trying to be a Reddit clone.

Reddit was shit to begin with. It was a dumbed down forum site for people who found sites like Plastic or Kuro5hin too intimidating or complicated(!).

Slashdot-style upvoting would instantly solve a lot of “Reddit”-type problems, because instead of just good/bad, or like/dislike, the reason for the vote is noted, such as “insightful”, “funny”, etc., and you can then filter and sort comments much easier. Just filtering out “funny” comments saved soooooooo much time.

Another thing: Why don’t creators of threads have the option to admin their own threads? It’s their thread! It wouldn’t be appropriate for discussion threads (for obvious reasons), but for interpersonal posts and questions, it makes perfect sense for the creator to be able to have control over what appears in the thread to keep it on topic and the trolls at bay. It’s pretty rare to see a post where someone asks a question that doesn’t quickly devolve into an offtopic mess, and the creator is usually attacked for trying to bring it back on topic. This has made Reddit useless for question-answering (and besides, the most upvoted answer is almost always wrong.)

Is the purpose of these forums to enable authentic conversation, or just to farm content regardless of quality (to be sold to AI companies, presumably)?