okay, look, apparently we need to say this
yes, mandatory identity verification to use a computer is bad. it infringes on fundamental civil liberties.
yes, this current bill would do that. it smartly leaves the details up to the FTC to decide later, which confuses the public conversation because people don't want to believe bad things that they don't read in extremely plain language.
there's more to be said but we don't really have the patience to say it, we're just really irritated right now at people who minimize it without having, like, ever thought about it before this month.
we need to work hard on letting go of those feelings and directing our anger at the appropriate targets - legislators, lobbyists, and the forces of hate - before we say more.
it's not going to protect children, for a long list of reasons
it's not going to be easy to subvert
it's the direct equivalent of needing a permit to own a typewriter
@ireneista not to speculate too wildly, but the endpoint of this current trajectory looks very bleak, when you connect up the sort of thing with the bizarre ongoing insistence that the tech sector can now deliver "intelligence too cheap to meter", by which I'm guessing they mean the tech bosses would love to eliminate what we think of as "personal computing" altogether. that would explain why they're so hot to proclaim that the era of the computer programmer is over. the masses are to be confined to using single-function answerboxes and usage of general-purpose computers will increasingly be associated with criminality.
I guess we're getting our cyberpunk future all right.
@mxchara hope is not a thing we arrive at through reason
hope is a prerequisite to survival. we have to take it as a given
.... while not allowing it to damage our ability to do reasoned analysis about the situation, strategy, all that
can't say it's easy
@ireneista So the first thing I see is that it can be circumvented by installing a Linux distro that doesn’t have a US presence and therefore is not subject to US jurisdiction.
The second thing is that forcing open source developers to comply might well be unconstitutional on first amendment grounds.
@nycki
That's a new understanding of professional for me. Rule bound perhaps, but that's rarely the same as fair. Accepts payment for services is the distinguishing mark from amateur, as I've always understood it.
Especially with politicians.
@ireneista
@nycki @hypostase so like as a neurodivergent trans person we actually consider the concept of professionalism in its unmodified form to be kinda oppressive, in respectability-politics ways.
we think it's a redeemable idea if nudged slightly towards, like, actually caring about whether the people you work with live or die, but we're careful how we use it because we do feel the need to do that nudging.
@ireneista
My claim (if I think about it) is that professionalism is unredeemable. It's too closely tied to modern capitalism as a part of the process of limiting responsibility by setting formal standards. Responsibility through standards isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when the driver is money, rather than a socially embedded capacity to care, it's too easily perverted into a system to avoid responsibility.
This is why we have CEOs who destroy the planet to make billions, who receive 1000 multiplier salaries, who can justify all the harm.
Because they are professionals.
@nycki
Irenes (many)
Joe Vinegar
tony 🏳️⚧️ 🏴 🚴🧗🏻
Mx. Chara Aznable (they/them) of Pnictogen
Demi Marie Obenour
kit
Klay