No. Speaking as a Freemason, it's completely understandable that the Vatican would ban masonry for Roman Catholics, both from a practical perspective and a theological one.
What's frustrating me about this is that theoretically this list should include every MUD and BBS, if they don't want to get in trouble. It's a horrible law, which forces people into the pockets of the largest sites which can afford to do the age verification.
Speaking as a Brit, I wish Wikipedia would just go black for the UK. That might focus some minds.
Making content restrictions easier for parents to implement would help a ton — like being able to block all sites in a browser and create a whitelist of the ones kids are allowed to access. Similar whitelisting should be available and easy to implement for YouTube and social media. Having to individually block each site/video/profile you don’t want your kid to access is a futile game of whack a mole.
A more sensible approach to this law would be to require adult sites to include a clear marker in either an HTTP header or an HTML meta tag. For example:
This would allow locally run browser content blockers to automatically detect such sites without blocking them individually, and it would be trivial for site operators to implement. Since it would be mandated by law, sites that refuse to comply could be subject to legal action.
Of course, this would still rely on parents taking the basic step of setting up a content blocker before allowing their children unrestricted internet access.
But you can do this now: I made this for my sisters kids and my friend his Alzheimer dad years ago. Agree: its not mainstream or installable by just anyone, but if you are on HN it will take an old laptop with linux and chromium and a few hours.
I'm able to do this using the Google Family controls for my kids' mobiles. I've tied it down so much that they use them rarely and for specific purposes.
This is already fairly trivial to do. There are many DIY and commercial off-the-shelf solutions. The problem with all client-side blocking is that it can be bypassed by just...using a different computer. People who want this legislation want restrictions to apply everywhere, not just on parent-managed devices, so shifting the discussion to client-side blocks just makes our arguments trivial to dismiss as irrelevant.
WHITELISTING. It's utterly infuriating the obvious, time tested strategy with all the technological pieces already in place and an easy slot-in for government isn't at the tip of everyone's tongue. Just setup a set of new TLDs, ".kids1", ".kids2", ".kids3" etc, with kids1 being appropriate for anyone ages 0-4 years old, kids2 ages 5-9, kids3 ages 10-14, etc. Or whatever permutation experts and the public say make the most sense. Governments can set the requirements for anyone or any organization who wants to register a domain there to ensure all content is controlled, no user submitted content (or only submissions from registered people/orgs like schools say), no algorithmic engagement usage allowed, no advertising or whatever else is desired. It's also trivial to add that in under country TLDs so every single nation that wants to regulate their own can do so to their own standards. An alternate similar approach would be to have a single ".[ccTLD].kids" domain and then legally required DNS txt info site-wide as well as standardized metadata tags at the top of every single page going into more granular detail about content by category (like if some parents though their kids were ready for a higher age bracket of world news before being ready for a higher bracket of something else).
With age-appropriate content under its own TLDs, all the other technical pieces are easy to slot in as well. It'd be absolutely trivial for OS makers to have parental control mode simply gate a given user into whatever TLDs match the age or content levels set by the parents. It's very easy to imagine a nice GUI at the router level combining TLD-restrictions with VLANs and PPSKs such that a parent can "add a child" and it spits out a separate WiFi password that gates the child into their own age appropriate stuff.
The general internet should be a free for all for adults (or adult level), period. Access at all should imply someone is ready to navigate it. Trying to restrict and sanitize it is evil, wrong, and also just plain fucking stupid since it'll never work well. We can easily make a child internet however.
They're also one of the few sites in a perfect position to; enough usage to make people/government really notice, not typically NSFW related to make the message clear that its not just a "porn ban", and without the profit incentive that makes the likelihood of such an act unlikely or to give the government room to "wait them out".
Regarding Wikipedia - the people in change of these recent anti-consumer laws and ideas would love to shutdown Wikipedia permanently. It is not immediately bad for them, but it is in general a source of objective information which they hate. They would rather warp public opinion through paid for media and social accounts.
This doesn't seem accurate to me - Gambling sites legally operating in the UK already have strict KYC requirements applied to them via the Gamling regulator.
Visiting a gambling site isn't restricted, but signing up and gambling is.
If age restriction technology is now being introduced to prevent kids *viewing* "inappropriate" websites, then why are gambling websites being given a free pass?
They’ve already found a loophole for that: If you gamble with fake money (acquired through real money and a confusing set of currency conversions) and the prizes are jpegs of boat-girls (or horse-girls, as I hear are popular lately) or football players, you can sell to all the children you want.
But in that case it'd be easy for supporters of the law to argue it was just performative and clearly not really needed since they're otherwise accessible.
They are free to do that, but what of it? Sanctions and boycotts are "performative" in the same sense, and yet they continue being a popular tool to compel voters and politicians of other countries to act or refrain from acting in particular ways.
Wikipedia is a popular website that many people depend upon; denying access to UK users would not only create a massive inconvenience along with the temptation that it could be avoided if the law were rolled back, but would also encourage more UK users to adopt VPNs, which would subvert the law's effectivity along with that of a plethora of other authoritarian measures that the UK has in place.
I think the risk is that it becomes framed as extortion, and would cause some proportion of voters - who at least right after the OSA was put in place remained relatively in favour of elements of it (though the polls have been wildly flawed) - to double down.
Hence, I think a total block would be better than a partial block, because that can be framed as legitimately risk mitigation and would be a lot harder to attack.
That said, some pressure would be better than no pressure, so if the alternative is no block, I'd prefer a partial block.
That could drive users to LLM services to fill in the gaps. I know a lot of people who just use LLMs instead of good ol internet searches because they are that lazy.
Many MUDs/BBSes operate via Telnet/SSH rather than HTTP, potentially creating a technical gray area in enforcement that highlights the law's poor adaptation to the diverse technical landscape of the internet.
In fact that would likely devastate Labour’s already slim chances of reelection. And would make the argument for repealing that idiotic law wholesale something else than “let my constituents watch porn”
It's the Online Safety Act 2023 and was going through parliament from 2019, I'm sure the moment it becomes sufficiently unpopular in the wider public we'll see the "2023" part gain more prominence. Starmer won't be able to say it's a bad idea, because he and his party have been supportive of it since, but there'll be the usual political maneuverings. I can't see people switching to vote Green because they suggested a digital bill of rights.
Yes, these days our prime ministers normal, everyday knights, etonians and billionaires. Sometimes they'll be photographed without a tie, or they'll have a chummy nickname like Tony or Dave or Liz.
If they release in a week it was all AI generated I’ll be ultra impressed because they nailed the mix of corpo speak, mild autism and awkwardness, not knowing where to look, and nervousness with absolute perfection.
The other side of this is related to morals. People learned self-discipline by having to moderate their diet. Replacing that challenge with an injection is another example of a world in which people are not challenged to grow as people, but merely go out and buy something to make themselves feel or look better.
People who don't experience difficulties moderating their diet and could flounder their "self discipline" are now on a level field with people who did have difficulties with their diet. So they feel threatened by it.
Another example of a world in which people are not challenged to grow as people; instead of being happy that more people can get healthy they dismiss the medical advances as "moral failures" since they can no longer feel superior.
I've worked out my entire life. Always one of the strongest people in the gym. Almost always overweight. Not obese but overweight. Once I had kids I really packed on the pounds. In January I got on GLP1s and over 4 months dropped from 6'1 at 240lbs to 209lbs. I'm 46 years old with defined abs and a bench of over 405lbs. My BP has gone down and I am in a healthy range for the first time in 20+ years. My cholesterol is perfect now. I feel 20 years younger. I stopped snoring for the first time in 2 decades. My wife sleeps like a baby now which is probably the most important change. I wake up and jump out of bed fully energized and rested for the first time in decades.
Sometimes people just need a helping hand. There is no shame in that.
It appears your issue is that you just don't think its fair and that people should have to take the long way. I would argue that's a you issue and not an us one.
I'm continually frustrated with the four thousand year old history of people being surprised that other people "don't just ${something good for you} and don't just stop ${something bad for you}." Great, we've tried the "Acting surprised people do unhealthy or bad things" strategy and the "scolding people for doing unhealthy things" strategy for a couple millennia and people still do the things.
Will we continue this strategy or will we try something else now?
youre distant ancestors chased every meal they ate. your more recent centuries old ancestors probably worked 6.5 day weeks, 12 hour shifts, and had to have all the children working as well, for a pittance. YOU on the other hand have no problem finding any kind of out-of-season food and probably drive everywhere, barely lifting a finger in comparison. THIS IS THE DIFFERENCE.
Why were there no obese (poor) people 100 years ago?
Of course it is an option - I lost 100 lbs this way, and kept it off more than 5 yeads. As you know, that's very, very hard.
But I think these drugs are awesome. I have family members who are obese and don't seem to have whatever I have that allowed me to lose weight the old-fashioned way. I hope they'll be able to lose weight safety with the drugs.
Exercise is undoubtedly good and has many benefits. Unfortunately it's not a realistic way to lose weight for most people.
Our bodies are just too efficient. We can't "outrun the fork" (unless it's our full-time job). We must modify our diet. Which is not easy for many reasons.
Of course it is, and I used to basically 100% agree with you but i've changed my mind over the years. It's so wildly asymmetric that I don't think this is a useful framing anymore.
what i mean is, on one side you have huge teams of absolutely brilliant well-resourced food scientists A/B testing their products to maximize addictiveness and other related metrics. On the other side you have a stressed out parent tired from a full day of work just trying to quickly get some food for their family.
This isn't fair! It should make you angry when you see regular people who are probably a lot more like you than you think being preyed on by others
That's only relevant if socialized medicine forces you to pay for the moral failures of other people, though. Spending your own money to feel better is widely accepted behavior.
Socialized medicine forces you to pay for the victims of drunk driving accidents, for when people shoot themselves in the hand with a nail gun, for the hospital bills of vaccine deniers ending up in the emergency room, for....
At some point I think you just have to accept that the whole point of socialized medicine is to just make sure people get healthcare regardless. If you want to engage in some kind of market analysis and means testing, you can always live in America, where it's guaranteed that people get exactly as much healthcare as they deserve, since net worth and liquid cash is correlated perfectly with an individual's moral success.
Unfortunately, for those who are obese no amount of diet or exercise will give them the "perfect" body.
I see many who were overweight lose weight and get ripped, while others have no chance to reach that far. Someone with a BMI of 40 has basically ruined their body and while they may look better with a shirt, they will keep it on while on the beach because of the excessive skin.
The reward and motivation for a person with a few pounds extra and a truly obese person are simply too different. Someone who has not reached whatever weight threshold that fits their body type has a chance to look "normal", while the more obese person will reach a point where losing more weight has less impact even after plastic surgery.
This has failed though. Over 40% of Americans are obese. This costs us as a society hundreds of billions in healthcare costs, much of it federally subsidized. Being obese is a simple choice now, one can choose to be fat or choose to take a once weekly shot and not be fat.
Take Elon Musk, he is clearly overweight. Is your argument that he lacks self-discipline as a person and is as such a complete failure? Of course not, the man is clearly more disciplined and driven than most people. He just eats like crap as he has other priorities.
I am open to you explaining the argument as to why 40% of people being obese so that they have to learn self discipline in just that single area of their life and all of the associated social, health and financial costs is more beneficial to society as a whole than people taking a shot and losing weight and gaining all of the benefits that being obese robs society of.
Society evolves as its technology does. I'm sure its not the case but your argument appears to devolve to "Back in my day we didn't need a shot to be thin like you young kids, we walked up hill both ways to school with our little brother on our back. IN THE SNOW!"
Honestly, this is essentially BS. I'd say that 95% of healthy weight people stay that weight because their metabolism and appetite works properly. People who stay in shape by paying careful attention to their diet are a tiny minority.
Where I live (Spain) there’s a massive intergenerational gap between how our parents ate and how we eat and exercise. A huge number of people around me go to great lengths to control what they eat and make an effort to move. I see it at the beach, at the restaurant or at the gym. You can ask anyone in the older generations if younger people are physically healthier and you’d find an almost unanimous yes. Coincidentally we have one of the highest life expectancies in the world. None of this is given.
I am not sure I would rely on observations of gyms and beaches for whether people are healthier for fear of selection bias. Going to the beach and seeing mostly fit bathers is like going to the hospital and seeing mostly sick people and thinking that can be generalized to society.
Why would you ask old people if young people are healthier than they were? Surely, Spain compiles medical statistics.
Anyway, Spain appears to have the same weight issues as everywhere else:
> Coincidentally we have one of the highest life expectancies in the world
Those numbers are relying on how long the older generation lives. If the younger people are physically more active, how do you know that they will also live as long? It could be that modern expectations of what a "healthy" body should look like takes it too far, and that you will end up with a shorter life.
I see a lot of former athletes dying in their 60s/70s from heart failures and other conditions. Perhaps the body has limits to how much abuse it can take.
I felt the same when I discovered I was a Gemini. Come on - someone has created a category which describes a group of people in a fairly self-consistent way. Of course a large number of people will spot it and say: "Finally! The agency lies outside of me! My struggles are no longer my fault!"
But they never were in the first place, and being in a category doesn't change your responsibility to do the best with what you've got.
At least star signs don't medicalise you.
There are plenty of other ways of characterising this - Ayurvedic medicine or the Humours - in fact, those are so effective that they've been taken by business coaches and turned into "colour personality types". And they describe the same thing.
You have a deficiency of phlegm and black bile. Ask ChatGPT about how to treat it, and it'll essentially suggest a permanent dopamine fast.
"This thing that medical professionals say is real isn't real, and you can tell that because astrology isn't real either".
The reality is that, for a lot of people, their struggles aren't "their fault". People with visual disabilities aren't as good at playing darts, people who have issues with gross motor skills aren't as good at baseball. That's all accepted, but as soon as you get into invisible disabilities everyone leaps to say "I can't see it so it doesn't exist". It's a load of BS, and it's why so many people who do have these issues struggle - because they're being told, by people who don't care to understand what they're going through, that it's all their fault because they're just shitty people who need to try harder.
One of the things that people spouting nonsense like yours seem to miss is that these issues that people with ADHD have aren't just laziness; it's not just "I don't want to do work". People will find it impossible to do anything, even things they enjoy. It's not just slacking off from chores and playing video games instead, it's not being able to bring yourself to do chores but also not being able to bring yourself to play video games, or read a book, or go get groceries. It's a fundamental inability for you to direct your executive function, and until people like you stop spouting uneducated nonsense and start actually listening to people's experience it's going to continue to be an uphill struggle for people who have to go through what you're dismissing.
Where did I say I was absolved of responsibility to do my best? In real life, I’d told fewer than 6 people about the diagnosis. I haven’t told my bosses and have no plans to. I’m not looking to game the system to lower the bar for myself. I was simply looking to understand myself better. I even said it was probably good I didn’t know when I was younger, as it forced me to not use it as an excuse.
I ran into situations countless times where I have things that had a big negative experience on my life and when talking to others, people just looked at me weird; they couldn’t relate. My sister was the only one who ever got it (her doctor has suggested she get tested, but she hasn’t done it yet). When I stumbled across people talking about their experiences with AuDHD, for the first time in 40 years I heard other people saying the same stuff I was trying to say, when others just looked at my like a weirdo. It’s not about looking for what to blame, it was about finding out I wasn’t the only one dealing with some of this stuff, which is how it felt for the vast majority of my life.
Also worth pointing out that ADHD is one of the most well understood diorders out there, and one of the most easily testable and medicated.
I can't count how many people I know or have heard from who have struggled with "motivation" all their lives, and then they took one ritalin one day and, instead of getting hyper and bouncing off the walls like their friends do, they were suddenly able to just sit down and focus on something in a way they'd never experienced before, without any of the struggles that they've suffered their whole lives, and been blamed for by the ignorant parent poster above.
And yeah, you don't have to medicate; it's definitely not for everyone, and I know someone personally who very clearly has ADHD (and a diagnosis) but cannot tolerate any of the available medications. Instead, she just has to find a way to work her life such that the downsides of ADHD don't affect her as much and she can lean on the benefits of ADHD to get through it. Still, just hearing "you're not a fuck-up, it's just how your brain works" can be extremely healing.
Stop medicalising everything. These people don't have sufficient motivation to finish the things they've started. Yes, their hobby might be learning things. That's actually a pretty good hobby. Are they kidding themselves sometimes, do they lack self-knowledge, yep. This is just a slice of humanity, and giving it a label that helps people to sell amphetamines doesn't really do anyone any good. Teaching morals and self-discipline does.
It would be great if you spent any time at all educating yourself about the science and actual experiences behind it, rather than spouting off about what you assume to be true based off of nothing.
Your willful ignorance of objective fact does nothing to improve the discussion, and just shows you as being unwilling to engage intellectually.
Put aside your preconceived notions and do some actual research and you might learn some really interesting things.
They're not really being arrested for criticising a law though.
They're arrested for supporting a group that's been banned for causing around £30 million's worth of damage to our national defences at a time of hightened national security.
There's the implication that Palastinian Action are going to continue attacking us.
If they just stuck to protesting they would have been fine.
And at the same time, while people burning down hotels have been arrested, other people who have been egging them on and causing "stochastic terrorism" have been left alone.
What gets classed as "support for" and "terrorism" is not evenly enforced.
I think this is an inaccurate description of what has been happening: people have criticised the government heavily for being extremely harsh on people "just making tweets". A woman was sentenced to nearly three years in jail for posting a message online that said "set fire to the hotels for all I care" (paraphrased).
These riots are spontaneous and "organised" via people getting riled up online. There isn't a central organisation that people see as leading these anti-migrant riots/attacks. They seem to be an emergent property of the protests. If there is a named group organising criminal action and it includes things that threaten/damage national security then that group should be banned.
Palestine Action was conducting organised criminal raids with the specific intent to cause damage to anything it felt was Israeli, Israel related, or somehow benefited Israel. A lot of the time the link was tenuous at best. They also attacked national security assets. Honestly this group's actions has done more harm than good for the Palestinian cause.
That can be a good thing depending on the group. I think people who support the NSDAP should be arrested. We know what happens if you don't arrest people who support the NSDAP because it happened once.
https://www.phatcode.net/articles.php?id=247
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