Hopefully the next places will be more durable. It is still SAD and damaging when vibrant communities get destroyed though. I am more lamenting that.

People haven’t adjusted yet to the reality that online social ecosystems matter, they affect so much in the real world. Decimating multiple online spaces in such a short time has consequences and i hate that a handful of random guys with no stake in any of it except money get to make decisions like that.

This sure is a take.

You have articulated exactly how I feel whenever I see that word in a headline haha.

I feel you’re coming at this from an abstract angle more than how these things actually play out in practice. This isn’t reliable software, it isn’t proven to work, and the social and economic realities of the students and families and districts have to be taken into account. The article does a better job explaining that. There are documented harms here. You, an adult, might have a good understanding of how to use a monitored device in a way that keeps you safe from some of the potential harms, but this software is predatory and markets itself deceptively. It’s very different than what I think you are describing.

Yeah, I just fundamentally don’t think companies or workplaces or schools have the right to so much information about someone. But I can understand that we just see it differently.

An issue here for me is that the kids can’t op out. Their guardians aren’t the ones checking up on their digital behavior, it’s an ai system owned by a company on a device they are forced or heavily pressured to use by a school district. That’s just too much of a power imbalance for an informed decision to my mind, even if the user in question were an adult. Kids are even more vulnerable. I do not think it is a binary option between no supervision and complete surveillance. We have to find ways to address potential issues that uphold the humanity of all the humans involved. This seems to me like a bad but also very ineffective way to meet either goal.

Kids going to school cannot reasonably be expected to have the knowledge, forethought, or ability to protect themselves from privacy violations. They lack the rights, info and social power to meaningfully do anything about this. That’s why it’s exploitative and harmful. Edit: that’s also to say nothing of the chilling effect this is going to have on kids who DO need to talk about something but now feel they have to hide it, or feel ashamed of it. Shit is bad news all around.

This is awful. Surveillance is not a replacement for childcare. How many times must people say it. It is also not a replacement for managing employees or any other thing. I hate this timeline.

This was a great read. These dynamics are so prevalent.

It isn’t.

Breitbart? No, thank you.

Yeah. I am trying to find ways to disengage from the nonsense without disengaging from my like, actual responsibilities to my society. But the jury is extremely out on how I do that right now. Having my emotions (and everyone else’s)manipulated for the gain of others no longer feels useful or like staying informed.

These people need to redirect their followers’ attention and anger onto literally anything but real circumstances. I’m so tired, it keeps working.

Yep, I use it. I like it.

Thanks for posting this context. I’ve been wondering about this aspect of this event

A disabled and chronically ill writer, who goes by @broadwaybabyto on social media, views masking as community care, saying she wears a “mask to protect others and show solidarity with all disabled and vulnerable people.… Many of us have sacrificed four and a half years of our lives, going to great lengths to preserve whatever health we have left.… As more and more COVID restrictions were dropped, masks remained as the single best accessibility tool disabled people had.… Taking that away…tells us you want us dead.… You don’t want us in your world. And it hurts.”

This part.

I want to believe this will remove the plausibility deniability for at least some voters and tank his chances, but. I’ve believed that before.

I daresay I’m feeling a little hope.

Ummmmmmmm. This seems illegal. Is this not illegal?

I am room-temperature on Harris, but the coconut tree anecdote is a really great quote.

This is just not true, though. Not according to the DSM or to anyone actually living with these conditions. Tons of people with personality disorders seek help, want relief from their symptoms, and have no desire to hurt people. There are a bunch of vlogs and articles and podcasts by the exact people you are saying do not exist. NPD and ASPD are just two highly stigmatized disorders that plenty of people live with. It sucks to struggle with social functioning, so of course people seek help.

It is also generational - the idea that ‘x people never get help’ probably has a lot to do with how flawed mental healthcare has been in most places in the past 100 years. Even seeking treatment for something like anxiety can still lead to bad outcomes today, so it makes sense that people struggling with something very stigmatized would be more likely to hesitate to see someone about it. People can still lose their rights over mental illness in many countries, not to mention their social status/ability to find work/etc. the risks are real.

Sociopath and psychopath are not medical terms. They don’t refer to anything real, they’re a crime-media thing. Also, people who say that anyone who is violent or abusive has a personality disorder are talking nonsense - lundy bancroft’s Why Does He Do That has a good section on why/how abusers usually are not mentally ill (or are not doing abuse because of their mental illness) but instead want an excuse for their behavior. Abuse is almost always intentional and thought through. It’s about power, it isn’t an accident.

Most mental illnesses are also not ‘only episodic’. Ocd is all the time, depression is all the time, etc. There is a lot of misinformation here. I would suggest getting info about mental health from reputable medical sources and people who live with the conditions you’re talking about. There are a lot of myths out there.

None of those things are true. True crime media’s misuse of sciencey sounding words is gonna be the death of us. Pds are mental illnesses, pds are treatable, and psychopath is generally a pejorative term for someone having an experience that the dsm would categorize as psychosis.

Edit: I want to add that the criteria for personality disorders is not cut and dry, but has a lot to do with social norms and a lot of marginalized people (i.e. women) get scooped up into those categories whether or not they actually fit them. Insurance (or other healthcare systems) also require diagnoses to pay for treatment, so the process is often sloppy and rushed. The truth is that mental illness categories are not irrefutable truths or a reliable way to tell much about an actual person from afar. They’re just different kinds of people + circumstance. So you really can’t say that “people with X are BAD and always dangerous”. You just don’t know. The world and people are just not predictable or simple that way.

This kind of thing just hurts all the regular non-fascist spicybrained people. He’s not dangerous because of a mental illness, he’s dangerous because he keeps doing horrible things on purpose with full knowledge and self control and the backing of other powerful assholes.

!!! Yay for them! This is great to hear.

Exactly this. I hope that privacy is talked about in these terms more often going forward. It’s about so much more than what’s illegal or might put a person in danger. We cannot be authentic and connect to one another if we are constantly wary of some imaginary audience!!! Surveillance and what buzzfeed called “panopticontent” have absolutely wrecked and flattened self expression and in so many contexts where people used to be so vibrant. People who say “I have nothing to hide” miss the point entirely.

Tears of the kingdom over here. It’s bringing me joy