For the last few years I've been working on a project, before I buy anything online I try to find it at a local retailer (ideally locally owned). If I do find it, I pay cash. I treat it like a game, it's a scavenger hunt. I'm putting money back into the local economy, helping local shops stay open. Makes it significantly more difficult for pervasive modern surveillance to track which items I look at or purchase. I don't get any emails about it later.
This is both one of my pet peeves and a thing that legislators seem to love: Somebody does a thing that is already illegal, but in a slightly novel way. Perfectly valid statute exists to prosecute, but legislators want to be seen as doing something, so they pass another law to make the already criminal action more specifically criminal.
Arguably bans on cellphone use while driving are a good example. It's not that it isn't bad, it's that distracted driving already carries a hefty fine without being specific as to the mode of distraction. So does causing an accident, which presumably is the harm we're actually trying to avoid.
Making laws more explicit in important cases is valuable because it reduces uncertainty about legal interpretation. Using your example of cellphone use, under distracted driving laws the prosecution would have to prove that the specific case of cellphone use was distracting enough to be a safety hazard. With the more specific ban on cellphones, that is no longer an obstacle.
Increasingly headed in this direction. Already have the old Toyota and use cash. I've been saying for years that advertising ruined the internet, we're getting to the point where surveillance is ruining computing.
As an old man yelling at clouds, I've been hanging onto a car from the 80s. Not only does it have physical controls, the controls are directly attached to the mechanical systems they operate. Currently the door locks are a little sticky (I need to pull the skins and lubricate everything). The electric solenoids can't quite overcome the friction, but with a little extra pressure I can muscle the lock to open or closed.
If the controls were a touchscreen, OR an physical switch that operated the locks electronically, the locks simply wouldn't work at all. I hate all the latency and ignored commands from physical buttons that work through software almost as much as I hate touchscreens.
The empowerment and psychological difference between a world where I /make/ things happen and a world where I /request/ things that may or may not happen feels like it is often overlooked.
I'm not a gambler, but when I consider it I think the worst thing that could happen to me would be to win a substantial but not life-changing amount of money. I think that's where most people get hooked. They get lucky once (or a few times), then get completely sucked in trying to replicate that success.
I would argue the opposite, that having members of government who CANNOT be prosecuted like normal citizens is not compatible with democracy. I would think arguments to the contrary would have to assume other impediments to a properly functioning justice system, such as politically motivated prosecutions, widespread selective enforcement, etc.
Exactly. And the same is true of the judicial system btw, who must stay separate from other powers, meaning that it also has to police itself, which can create its own issues.
These are just the (little) costs of democracy. If you aren’t ready to pay them, you haven’t really considered the alternatives.
Carriers have also sold customer location data, no search warrant required. Though we can rest assured that the FCC has slapped the carriers' wrists with the utmost seriousness.
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