Matthew Lane

I don't know how Valve did it but people in Deadlock are like kind to each other? Or maybe I'm just in the nice person queue.

Maybe that's why matchmaking takes so long

So yeah everything is stupid and we do what we can. Abolish ICE and end DHS surveillance.

But instead what will happen is that those vital agencies will run out of money and their employees will be expected to work without pay while ICE sits on $75 billion already allocated, which is 7.5 times their normal budget.

So while I'm a big fan of this and actively work on putting pressure on exactly this, I'm also frustrated because the correct solution is admitting DHS was a bad post-911 idea, spinning out Coast Guard and FEMA, and rethinking TSA.

This is a good example of why politics sucks and policy is so messy. DHS should be abolished but they put FEMA, Coast Guard and TSA in there. And the first two are underfunded and will run out of money (coast guard rescues people at sea). And people can't fly without the last one operating.

The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday is essential listening. It's like a window into a world where Gen Xers became Millennials instead of Boomers.

We always find energy for spite and FRT.

"The world is too on fire for anyone to meaningfully oppose us."

Oy.

FDA declines to review Moderna's mRNA flu shot Under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Food and Drug Administration has taken an aggressive stance against mRNA technology.

I genuinely cannot believe the degree to which we are pissing away this generational breakthrough, even given the fuckmuppets who are involved www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

New resource for repro privacy: a digital safety zine from NIRH & OTI! nirhealth.org/resources/di...

With Ring, American Consumers Built a Surveillance Dragnet Ring's 'Search Party' is dystopian surveillance accelerationism.

Ring is a wildly dangerous company. Always has been. But it has sort of flown under the radar the last couple years as it tried to soften its image. Make no mistake that this is an extremely dangerous surveillance dragnet:

www.404media.co/with-ring-am...

i mean, the assholes who pushed SESTA/FOSTA (and are currently pushing KOSA and 230 repeal) deserve a good portion of the blame but ... yeah

Arcs Campaign is one of the coolest boardgame experiences that's only held back by its scope and the difficulty of managing the real world logistics of either playing for a full day or 3 evenings with its weird save system.

If the scouts cave just rename them the Trump youth. Unforgivable.

Is it a crime to break into your neighbor's house to replace their smoke alarm battery?

This is a fantastic article.

From the technology community on Reddit: Hi! We're 404 Media's Jason Koebler and Joseph Cox. AMA (us) about the tech ICE is using, Flock and the state of surveillance in the US on Feb. 4, 12 pm ET Explore this post and more from the technology community

We're doing a reddit AMA! right now! come!

www.reddit.com/r/technology...

Screenshot of letter, full text linked in reply.

Screenshot of letter, full text linked in reply.

Screenshot of letter, full text linked in reply.

I am calling on @icegov.bsky.social Director Todd Lyons to immediately confirm or deny the existence of a “domestic terrorist” database. If true, you’re violating the Constitution. If not, maybe talk to your “border czar” to get your stories straight. This isn’t a game–it’s the Constitution.

As ICE uses Palantir tech to find neighborhoods to raid and Flock cameras track people across the US, how can you protect yourself?

@jasonkoebler.bsky.social + @josephcox.bsky.social take your questions in an AMA today at 12 pm ET.

Get your questions in now:
www.reddit.com/r/technology...

We've known what Palantir was for a very long time. It makes it more egregious that a number of privacy luminaries spent years taking the company's money and defending it.

If you were one of them, I remember. I'll wait for your email admitting you were wrong.

Anyways, I find this specific problem fascinating and welcome any recommendations for fiction that tackles it.

Or are necessary resources so cheap that we have thriving pockets of communism - communities owning and living off the means of production? This raises the question of IP laws, does the system protect AI and automation to the point that only capitalists can use it or does "open source" thrive?

So where do we end up? Do we recreate feudalism where people have to become vassals to corporate lords in order to gain access to resources that should be easy to produce and freely available because the powerful are otherwise hoarding them?

But every capitalist will be looking for tax loopholes for themselves and those that can't get those carve-outs will reject a system that depends on them giving up their wealth. Another free-rider problem. Another prisoner's dilemma.

Universal Basic Income would solve these problems but is currently a political non-starter. And it will rely on taxing the capital-class and redistributing so that people will buy goods from the capital class and the system doesn't jam.

In fact it kind of looks like a classic game theory problem. The capital-owning class need business to thrive but business requires people with incomes. They won't want to pay people themselves but will need customers somewhere. Those that automate will be free-riding off those that haven't yet.

It does feel like a rough sketch of where we are headed right now. Those with capital see AI an automation as a way of cutting all their labor costs. But without money moving down to lower classes, who purchases the goods? This is a problem capitalism can't solve.

Life is cheap because a lack of scarcity means labor is extremely low value and the system sees the only value in those that remain as sources of labor. Meanwhile, life on the space station is precious and overly protected by military force. The sort of extreme of the gated community.

To me the best fiction to capture this is Elysium. And even though it's a campy action movie, it does paint a society in which the rich live free of scarcity in a space station while everyone else has to deal with consequences of an increasingly barren planet.

However, the corollary there is that capitalism is probably going to be awful at dealing with a lack of scarcity. When combined by the capitalist drive to hoard resources and the late-stage capitalism drive to cheat the system to win, it really does feel like a recipe for disaster.