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The societal downside of providing yet another revenue stream for criminal organisations seems like it might be worth taking into consideration.

Actually happening in Australia, almost any smoker buys illegally imported cigarettes at a quarter of the price ($10/15ish vs $50/$60) a pack. Pure government tax hikes created the most ripe opportunity for criminal orgs in such a long time.

We’d just end up in the same situation as Australia - where up to one third of all cigarettes consumed are purchased on the black market.

if this source is to be trusted it's now half https://wrdnews.org/illicit-tobacco-in-australia-half-of-all...

(I did not vet anything, I just googled your words because I wanted to know more)


It’s likely a lot more than half.

More or less, yeah. There might be some nuance about the threshold for maladaptive behaviour, but if it’s all or nothing I’ll take all.

How would you get around the First Amendment difficulties?

There are plenty of public interest limitations on free speech. Food labels, cigarette warnings, deceptive ad laws. Regulating addictive social media isn't really an outlier here.

Even commercial speech regulations need a stronger basis than, “People spend a lot of time listening to it.”

The parent comment set up a false choice and then had to adapt to the response calling their bluff.

The issue isn’t with reading or consuming content, as was set up in the challenge above.

The issue is with designing feeds and surfacing content in ways that take advantage of our brains.

As an analogy, loot boxes in video games, and slot machines come to mind. Both are designed to leverage behavioral psychology, and this design choice directly results in compulsive behavior amongst users.


I live in New Zealand, so I don't have to.

So if the UK gets a court to ratify these orders then you’re on board with them being globally enforced?


The article above is about US ISP ordered to block sites for US customer. Not 'globally' enforced. Important difference.

Ofcourse, everybody ( well, outside the UK ) are OK if UK orders UK ISPs blocks sites for their customers.


I think one advantage is you can directly appeal a court ruling. To challenge an administrative order you need to sue the government. In some cases, you need to sue the government in a separate trial first, in order to get permission to start suing them for cause in another one.

Another advantage as the other reply has mentioned is that courts have broad authority but must narrow the effect of their rulings to the minimum necessary to address the suit. In this case it would certainly lead to 4Chan being blocked by UK ISPs by order of a UK court. I think even 4Chan would be fine with that.


Honestly, I look around the world and don’t see much, if any, practical difference.

The US has had two presidents that were direct relatives, I can’t believe that’s by pure chance or some kind of genetic skill at being president.


If you don't see any difference between people who won US presidential elections and those appointed for political favoritism, then I don't know what to tell you. Also, if you look at the current state of the UK vs US and don't see any difference then you need to get out more.


Well. Looks like you don’t know what to tell me, hopefully someone who does comes along.


It's because people find comfort in what they know, nothing more complicated than that.


I don't see how it's fundamentally any different to mailing someone harassing messages or distressing objects.

Sure, in this context the person who mails the item is the one instigating the harassment but it's the postal network that's facilitating it and actually performing the "last mile" of harassment.


The very first time it happened X is likely off the hook.

However notification plays a role here, there’s a bunch of things the post office does if someone tries to use them to do this regularly and you ask the post office to do something. The issue therefore is if people complain and then X does absolutely nothing while having a plethora of reasonable options to stop this harassment.

https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-Options-Do-I-Have-Regard...

You may file PS Form 1500 at a local Post Office to prevent receipt of unwanted obscene materials in the mail or to stop receipt of "obscene" materials in the mail. The Post Office offers two programs to help you protect yourself (and your eligible minor children).


Grok posts the pictures publicly, everyone can see them.

The postal network transports a letter, and only the person reading the letter can see the contents.

These situations are in no way comparable.


The difference is the post office isn't writing the letter.


I think they misspoke - they likely meant the north atlantic ocean: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/ghana-becomes-dumping-grou...


Personally, I’ve got fatigue at the phrase “AI slop”. It’s used as a catch all to dismiss the content due to the source, regardless of the quality or suitability when taken in context.

Just like everything else these days the responses skew towards both extremes on the spectrum and people hand waving away the advancements is just as annoying as those who are zealots on the other end.


I thought the US had a “FIFO” rule for 4 way stop signs? I had to drive through Nevada and Arizona last year so read up on the rules.

Keeping track of which cars entered at what time was kind of stressful and I’m pretty sure I didn’t do a good job of it.


The US has a FIFO rule but it only applies once you reach the stop sign itself, so the FIFO is never very deep. Yielding to the person to your right is the tiebreaker if you get there at exactly the same time.

I have seen an increased number of drivers have no idea how to handle 4-way stops, but the rule is relatively simple in practice.


How do you/I know that? I implemented OpenTelemetry in a project of mine recently and was shocked to see the number of AI authored commits in the git repository.


> How do you/I know that? I implemented OpenTelemetry in a project of mine recently and was shocked to see the number of AI authored commits

Do you pay for OpenTelemetry? How is this related?


If I did, I likely wouldn't have access to the source code and wouldn't be able to verify the degree of AI input.

So, I ask again - how do you know that the service you're paying for is all of those things?


> So, I ask again - how do you know that the service you're paying for is all of those things?

How do you know anything? How do you know the bank won't lose your money? How do you know the bank note you hold is worth what it says? How do you know?


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