@peterbrown @georgetakei Well, at this point, a lot of people are saying things like that!

@georgetakei Nothing demonstrates one's sincerity about a commitment to improving communication like immediately ceasing it.

@mookie @stux Well, I did say it was unscientific, and I hope you're right! But the flipside of being decentralized is that there's no financial force to seek media attention and otherwise push adoption, so I'll admit to being concerned.

@stux I realize this poll is unscientific, but if it's all accurate that's bad news. One would want to see more responses for the youngest category.

@georgetakei Meanwhile, "Kid Rock" would be a workable alternate name for "Epstein Island"....

@noodlemaz @eff @ericabp Right, so implying that parents who support age limits are all "controlling parents who can't deal with the fact their children are individual people and not their property" isn't even slightly disparaging, got it.

@eff @ericabp I don't want a world in which people need to identify themselves to use the Internet any more than you all do.

But disparaging parents who are rightfully concerned about their kids' mental health in an era of greatly increased depression and anxiety in young people is a really shitty way to argue against it.

I feel attacked.

https://poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/purpose/

@lemay I could 100% see my kid doing this at the vet with her smol void baby.

@anneapplebaum I'm so sorry for your loss, Anne. I'm 52, and a lifelong Northern Virginian who grew up reading whichever sections of the Post my parents were done with. I know times are tough for print media, but to see my hometown paper be needlessly eviscerated is a tragedy.

@cstross @bhtooefr @mstrife @jbenjamint Let me get this straight: I'm supposedly the one deflecting, but you see fit to ask a deliberately offensive "have you stopped beating your wife" style question? If you're going to stoop to cheap rhetorical tricks, at least don't use mutually exclusive ones.

For the record, I loathe Trump and ICE. And to bring this full circle, that's why I've long been opposed to the sort of mass surveillance society that you're foolishly cheering on, because subjecting us all to a panopticon isn't about safety, it's about empowering those like Trump and his latter-day SS, who seek to control and dominate people.

@cstross @bhtooefr @mstrife @jbenjamint The UK, which literally left the EU in a popular referendum in an attempt to curtail immigration, is a glass house in this regard.

@bhtooefr @mstrife @jbenjamint @cstross That might be better, if one could reasonably trust government to do so well. You'll have to forgive me if I'm all out of trust.

@cstross @jbenjamint @mstrife Doing the wrong thing because of having done the wrong thing doesn't make it the right thing.

@jbenjamint @mstrife @cstross Yes, it would mean that, and good riddance. We live in too much of a surveillance society as it is. If someone is a genuine danger to others, they will come to the attention of competent law enforcement.

@mstrife @cstross Still not fine, IMHO.

Better would be for police actually to pull cars over if they're speeding so dangerously so that (1) there's no question who was driving, and (2) people accused of an offense could actually face their accuser, as one should have the right to do in a liberal democracy.

@lerxst @falseknees Indeed! I've written instrumental music my whole life, but recently wrote my first choral anthem. It didn't turn out the way my brain thought it would, but as you say, I learned a great deal about how to make the next one turn out more faithfully.