Yeah people don’t really understand that HOAs are a two way street in most states. Bad HOAs exist because of bad neighbors, neglectful neighbors, or both. All it takes to right a ship is to show up and vote (or fill out the paper absentee ballot…) when the yearly elections happen. And then show up to some meetings so quorum can be met.

My HOA has to reschedule important meetings several times a year because nobody can be bothered to show up for a 30 minute meeting every quarter so quorum is met. Bad HOAs are like bad local unions. They only have power because you let them have power. Lobby your neighbors to do something about it. Unfortunately my experience is such that the typical homeowner who chooses to live in an HOA does so because they want to be rorLly hands off as much as possible. Kind of the opposite of the default pictures people have of obsessive neighbors in HOAs.

So the argument boils down to it being due to bad parents rather than evil technology, yes?

That’s not the main arguments being used to ban these devices and advocate for more radical plans. Removing access to these doesn’t make someone a good parent. Kids turn to other methods.

And to an earlier point in another comment: guess which cohort has explosive growth in smoking at the moment? Not people our age. Teens and young adults of legal age. Gen Z, in particular, is a huge market for that industry now. Cigars and pipes in particular. Vapes are counted separately but are wildly popular.

Banning the sale of highly regulated goods where the state is the official and only legal seller of said good in many states is one thing. We are talking about the internet here, though. And cell phones. And computers. And tablets. May as well put TVs and connected devices on the list, and definitely console platforms.

That’s the real problem, kids being able to spend unlimited time unsupervised because they have horrible absent parents. Parents shouldnt let their kids have unrestricted time like that. That is one reason why kids suffer in school not because of phones; because their parents aren’t involved to guide them in making good choices and forcing good habits.

So we take away the phones as the luddites demand. What fills the gap? Definitely not independent learning. Most definitely not suddenly mindful and present parents.

There is a lot of fear mongering and blaming, but no actual effort to fix it. Banning or removing doesn’t fix it. There is a reason that, when absent parents for latchkey kids were huge problems, they didn’t simply decree gangs illegal and pat themselves on the back. Communities offered alternatives. But no alternative is being offered here. All the woes are shifted onto the unholy smartphone and internet.

Ya know why predators can find success online? Because shit parents don’t parent. A better use of resources would be forcing the parents to sacrifice their phones contingent on spending time with their kids, right?

No, you don’t get. Or didn’t live it. Or are being purposely obtuse.

None of those qualifiers were attached to those things at the time the applicable fear mongering luddites were vilifying them. What we have right now are 21st century Tipper Gores. People engaging in moral public freakouts over tangentially related things which affirm a much larger fear of the whole (technology in this case). You see it also with how people violently and emotionally react to “AI.”

Remember when D&D would turn you into a Satanist who’d go on to sexually abused children, maybe even engage in ritualist murder? Remember when similar was said for merely listening to even the radio edits of Marilyn Manson?

People pearl clutch over hypotheticals. Parents who engage with their kids and set healthy boundaries which are enforced don’t often run into these problems. Hell, the arguments people make about tech right now could also apply as reasons not to let them play outside. Never know where a predator is lurking. I mean, we actually do: in your church and in your house. The two most statistically likely places for children to be preyed upon.

But let’s blame the internet. Apple makes it trivial to lock things down and monitor it all. No kid is able to outsmsrt those restrictions because adults can’t either.

No, what’s happening is yet another hype cycle. The entire reason all these schools are banning devices this year is due to a marketing effort from Haidt’s publisher. They put copies of his book into the hands of higher ranking faculty with purchasing authority for their districts. And they talk with each other. What a brilliant way to weaponize ignorance and make a buck doing so.

And it magically doesn’t make bad parents into even mediocre ones. Who or what will they blame next? Definitely not the person looking back at them in the mirror every morning.

There’s also credible reports that Reddit is testing an even sneakier method. They will hide the “deleted” comments when you are logged in and looking for them in your history. But other people can still see them; Reddit just understands you are a hostile actor in their eyes so they pull manipulation games like with shadow banning.

Fark still exists with that small monthly payment to support the site model. Drew, the owner, regularly meets up with folks, too. And if you’re a subscriber he must buy you a beer if you ask him per the “terms” of service.

A nice, relatively small, community. That’s what Reddit used to be. Your post really resonated with me.

How do you mean “the other side?” EFF has a high factuality/credibility but is marked as left of center in bias.

EFF, like ACLU, are mostly orgs that stick to their expertise. Look at entities rated as “Very High.” The climate science orgs don’t and shouldn’t give time entertaining the deranged conspiracy theories of science deniers, nor should EFF focus on advancing rhe worldviews of entities looking to limit speech on the internet. It would be like demanding AA set aside time at meetings to discuss the merits of getting black out drunk once in a while.

Sure, many sides exist. But mere existence doesn’t make them equal.

I have family that are similar. I wouldn’t classify them as racist, but they straddle that line with opinions. I’ve never seen or heard them classify an entire group of people or act discriminatory in person. It is more along the lines of “everyone is equal and nobody should get special treatment” regarding things like affirmative action or the more extreme DEI practices of some companies.

My experience is such that these people can be reached if we keep the lines of communication open rather than do the easy thing of cutting them off. I’ve been able to use their own logic and verbiage (especially verbiage) against them but one can’t go in guns blazing. To change minds, it must feel like their idea. Turn the heat up slowly and introduce doubt and ideas.

My big take away, with people like I described above, is that they are reacting to the more extreme people who would feel right at home in the racist far right if things were just a tad different. Cultural warriors and grievance politics leaders are cancerous regardless of which side of the spectrum they occupy because their goal remains the same: divide the normal people and turn us against each other.

And judging by what happens in my extended family and how it is breaking down on political lines… it is sadly working.

This is most definitely a feature here. What ARS won’t say (but their source articles do) is that Newsbreak is an app right out of China. That’s why they don’t care that this creates entirely fictional stories. This is the leftwing equivalent of all those rightwing agitprop sites that pretend to be local news in order to trick people

Not really. I mean, this person who everyone here is hailing as a hero has a long and documented history of making even worse jokes about his fellow soldiers dying.

If it’s good for the goose it’s good for the gander.

This is why they refer to the cohort as “blue MAGA.”

And they rightly do so.

I hear what you’re saying, but that is exactly why Discord is shit for official communities like in the meme. There’s no reason why an open source project should rely on Discord for troubleshooting and feature requests and enthusiasm. Discord was meant for things like video games and friend chats, not instances where data discovery is paramount to growing the community.

There is a reason thar Discord communities trend toward toxic, and it is the insular weirdness that the platform enables and reinforces. Forums make much more sense for projects. Discord ends up with a bunch of no lifers ruining the communities. Been through it far too often with things like genre appreciation groups to open source projects. Reminds me of being a kid and encountering the, frankly, losers chasing people out of IRC.

And the hardware is often total junk. There’s a reason people still recommend the Shield, a device which is 5 years old and runs Android 9.

People here don’t want to hear it, but using an Apple TV will ruin the experience for everything else from a hardware perspective. Software aside, of course. There’s no reason for Android devices to exist on such sub par hardware. And yet…

Probably depends on your subs. Most of mine have went far, far left and have become a tiresome dog pile of virtue signaling from behind keyboards and screens.

And I’m a leftist. There seems to be a huge difference these days in being a leftist and being a “this is now my only personality trait” leftist through which all views must be fundamentally filtered. Even non-political/non-social. It has made some subs unreadable for me, specifically my state and city subs.

Edit: I guess where I am going with it is that the extremes are becoming more extreme and seeking out new frontiers now that moderation is light.

Yup

Gen Z is just as gullible. Technically, more gullible than Boomers because Gen Z fall for scams at the highest rate as a cohort.

This opinion piece may be correct. I think it is more their personal politics informs their religion, and no main stream religions available in their areas cater to that in the US. Even finding things like Buddhist temples, that aren’t really just some ethnic traditions that necessarily keep peopleout,are hard to find. A lot of churches are ideologically just as awful as we remember. Mosques even worse. Reform Jewish temples are open minded and progressive but Gen Z has a huge problem with Jews in general.

I really think we are going to see a big problem with the cohort as they age. Not just religiously. Teachers have been warning for years that Gen Z as a group have severe deficiencies with critical thinking and reading comprehension. Normally, I think these divides are too rough to be useful. However, there definitely seems to be something there.

Huge CEX have huge liquidity. Probably why Binance got hit with failure to follow antimony laundering practices.

Now, parking stuff there? Maybe ease. People are lazy and most are ill informed. Plus, CEX tend to offer other services such as staking or other ways to earn yield.

Yeah you could go to a DEX. but there’s a lot of risk there. A lot in CEX too but I get why some might trust them more than fly by night DEX that are one bridge attack away from insolvency.

I highly recommend Death Must Die. It is early access, as a fair warning. But it successfully mixes up Hades with Vampire Survivors and a few others. Runs great on Deck as well. The dialog can be cringe and the story is clearly under development. But if you want a fun gameplay loop–this is the game.

Yes generally, but it can be very cheap. Some places sell block accounts which let you pay a one time fee for a set amount of data. Black Friday deals are coming up, and you an usually get amazing deals (1TB for under $5, able to be purchased multiple times, or subscriptions which work out to a couple dollars/euros a month).

The other thing you’d need is an indexer. Some are free, but for the best experience you’d want to pay for acess to a private indexer. Usually a few bucks as well, almost all of the big ones run sales this time of the year.

For subtitles: there are several solutions. Jellyfin (and Plex) support finding subtitles that you either download with a tool like Bazarr, or via Jellyfin/Plex’s own interface. Bazarr auto downloads them based on your parameters you give it though.

For me, it is the mindless reptition or task accomplishment. Showers work well because I don’t have to think about what I’m doing, which frees my mind up for something else. There’s no rush, there’s plenty of soothing ambiance, and it just works. I find doing chores around the house can trigger the same type of state. Putting dishes away lets my mind wander and problem solve. So does putting away laundry, dusting, sweeping, stuff like that. I usually need to wear earbuds and play an ambient noise to help me along.

But showers are still the best. You hit the nail on the head in your description about why it works. I think the key is anything relaxing, but not too relaxing such that you get drowsy.