Indeed, the suffix '-oid,' when appended to nominal stems, frequently functions as a significant etymological marker, often denoting mere semblance, superficial imitation, or, with particular pertinence to the present deliberation, an inherent spuriousness or ersatz quality. Accordingly, the primordial definition of 'factoid'—a term whose coinage is frequently attributed to Norman Mailer—designates an item of information presented as if it were an established fact but which is, in reality, unverified or demonstrably fallacious, yet achieves widespread acceptance as truth through its persistent promulgation, especially within journalistic or mass media contexts. The subsequent, more contemporary construal of 'factoid' as merely signifying a 'trivial' or 'minor piece of information' represents a notable semantic deviation, a misconception whose widespread dissemination has been paradoxically facilitated by the very media channels implicated in the term's original, pejorative sense. Ergo, in a compelling instance of recursive irony, this now prevalent, albeit technically inaccurate, understanding of 'factoid' (as a diminutive datum) has itself metamorphosed into a quintessential exemplar of a 'factoid' according to its original definition: an unsubstantiated assertion that has gained popular currency through sustained, uncritical repetition.
But public perception doesn’t necessarily reflect actual levels of corruption. Having dodgy planning approved is not the same as buying a seat at the head of the government for a quarter billion dollars.
Corruption is always measured by perceptions. There are many reasons for this but when it comes to high level corruption it's especially clear - high level corruption, in most countries, is rarely pursued, let alone prosecuted. And efforts to do such may themselves be driven by corruption. And people's actions, as on all things, will be guided by their perceptions. And so things like corruption's influence on things like starting a business will be driven largely by perceptions.
> Societies always have a taste for fascism/authoritarianism.
But so too can religious and parental belief systems, so a balance must be struck. Children belong to neither parents nor society, they are simply different guardians and stakeholders of them at different points in their lives.
I think this attitude is exactly why the birth rates are down so much. Humans are intelligent, and do things for a reason. Including having, or not having, children.
There used to be reasons for having children in the west. They were your pension, and they were the financial success of both you personally, your village, even your country.
Today such systems survive: certain factions expect to win through children, and see it both as a way to attack and an exploit "against the west" (an exploit against human rights regulations). The most egregious example of that is in Palestine. There, if you have a kid and they attack "the enemy", mostly their mother and father get money for life. The more "enemies" killed, the more money. Paid with UN money.
(note that the wikipedia article is not accurate. In the description of the fund on the PA website it does NOT say "violence against Israel". It does not even say "Violence against Israeli", although it does refer to persons. Another inaccuracy is that the fund was ended. It was not. It was renamed and the conditions changed, slightly, as discussed here:
I remind you Turings fate by his own government for being gay not 60 years ago. Today being gay or straight is a non issue in most countries, and Turing life would have been different.
My take is the following: we have governments because we tolerate them. Constitutions are nothing more than a social agreement, and they could be torn apart and remade at any point in time.
Politicians are our employees - we hire them, we pay them, we can fire them. Sadly in the past 80 years we have started seeing them as our saviors and forgot their power emanates from us.
I don’t want my employee (the government) telling me what to do and tracking me. It’s irrelevant whether I have or not something to hide.
The OP, and that’s how it started, said he switched to signal due to “data harvesters” like Meta.
I feel like the conversation here diverged from that to something different.
PS: I absolutely follow the logic of restricting politicians. Unfortunately these people are versed with power and how to use it. Otherwise they would have not ended at the top…
1. This is default expectation (to have privacy, to have doors)
2. If you go abstract, it’s not too useful (its good to have of control of information sharing/ it’s good having control who access your house)
3. It seems impractical to go into details, due to very many different scenarios, details, expectations.
Take a set of different “motivations” (incompetence+personal gain+for terror+for ideology push), multiply it by types of actors (phone manufacturer, government, enemy state, criminals), mix in the possibility that law and approach can be changed/ expanded, while keeping in mind that motivations and actors will change year to year. (One thing when such tool is available for consertive gov., other thing when such tool is available for extreeme right/left gov.)
Parallels do diverge eventually, with door if somebody breaks it you most probably can see it immediately. While negative effects of privacy breach can take years to surface.
For me it’s a very bad analogy avoiding to give an answer.
Doors and how they’re used is highly cultural and has evolved. There’s nothing “fundamental” you can derive from your mental model of today.
Same goes with bike locks and the like. I used to live in a student town where people simply never locked their bikes. It was a custom of that time and place.
> Each of these fines would be drastically increased with further non-compliance
Meta has a history of non-compliance, bad faith and obvious incentive to breach EU regulations given they are in direct opposition to their business model. It has been in breach of the GDPR since it went into effect in 2018 (after a 2-year grace period designed to give businesses time to get into compliance) and is in breach of it to this day. Is it even possible to be more non-compliant than that?
At this point Meta has made so much profit from breaching the GDPR that even actually being hit with the max fine would still not offset what they earned breaching the regulation over the last 6 years since the max fine only considers revenue over the last year.
The EU has repeatedly demonstrated it is incapable or unwilling to stand up to these companies and the companies know it, that's why Meta is still around doing business as usual, and Apple is messing around with malicious compliance and will keep doing so for the foreseeable future. That's why Microsoft is now back at anticompetitive shenanigans despite getting burnt previously - they (correctly) determined that whatever EU enforcement capability burned them before no longer exists.
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