Telephone companies don't use algorithms that filter everyone's calls to maximize profits. (Facebook does this far more profitably than twitter.)

The post office doesn't tailor your mail to maximize "engagement" by sending each recipient the most radicalizing and divisive junk mail their customers pay to deliver.

Social media users aren't customers, they are products, sold to advertisers and other entities who purchase access to users' personal data-based profiles.

No publisher or government agency of propaganda has ever had this kind of customised targeting of individual readers. Social media monopolies (which Facebook clearly is by their market dominance) are unique in human history.

Despite what some public figures say, it can be argued that social media facilitates extreme right-wing voices rather than silencing them. The fact that we hear conservatives yell loudly about censorship may ironically strengthen the argument that their voices are well amplified. There's also deeper scholarship indicating rightward tendencies online, due to disparity of access and resources.

The most perfect research probably wouldn't sway anybody, but the left-wing bias on the internet could well be a myth. We seldom hear that side of the argument, begging the question of whose voices are stronger. Jen Shradie did an academic study of local political organizing in North Carolina and found much more impact from conservative online activism and amplification: https://www.publishersweekly.c...

Anyways, the result of social media companies' business is magnifying divisions by hyper-targeting users with more and more extreme content to encourage eyeballs. We have click-bait politics, created by companies selling their users to the highest bidder.

So, regulation? Breakup of monopolies? Open-sourcing social media algorithms? Access to all data and the way they target users? Massive abandonment of Facebook in favor of less abusive environments? Taxing billionaire owners at a higher rate than their menial employees? Plenty of possible responses to ponder.

I know you're trolling, but even in theory, in the US the people who are above the law are the Employers of Illegal aliens. They call ICE on their own workers if undocumented employees complain about conditions or pay. Send employers to prison for a couple of years, confiscate a few massive farms and factories, and the illegal hiring practices might change.

Targeting individuals who are offered illegal jobs will have little impact except ironically to keep wages lower (and illegal hiring more profitable).

The independant artists I know make way more from physical merch and music sales than streaming.

"You can't download a shirt."

Vinyl is sold at a premium and may earn more than CD's, but CD's are still more than the trickle of money from putting their stuff on streaming "services." Streaming is seen as promotional, but sort of the way "exposure" is the same as "work hard for free."

If you want to support artists, contribute to crowd funding projects, buy their music directly from them, buy merch, and go to shows. If you want more artists to not be able to afford to make music for you, I guess streaming is the future.

Even the nuclear agnostic in me calls silly on this:

"And Fukushima style cost-cutting for nuclear power won't ever happen again."

Designs need to be good enough that human error/corruption can't lead to catastrophe. This is a high bar, but every time somebody says "can't happen again," their credibility sinks.

The smart-ass in me ponders how nuclear proponents claim it is safe now (not like past designs), while complaining about safety regulations which (ideally) were put in place because of past incidents.

Insurance rates will fix this. They will charge people appropriately for the risk. "You will save X money if you get in this safer car." People will go for the cash and watch tv while they ride along.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there's more habitable space on the roof of my apartment building than in the whole rest of the solar-system off-earth.

The urge to quit Earth is the urge to dump our problems without fixing them. This will not help us survive in more hostile environments. If we send a tiny group of people, or even somehow hundreds or thousands, they will take the lessons our species learned on Earth. Long after a few brave adventurers have fallen to the same challenges we face here (times x), the many billions (or even if disaster strikes millions) of adaptable people at home will be muddling on.

Space exploration is an interesting fantasy. It may be worthwhile, but as an alternative to creating better conditions in the real world, it is a sad escapist trap.

Not disagreeing with "evil" here as far as excuses not to help others.

But I understand the Great Depression led to the largest rise in membership and influence in the Communist Party (when they were ignorant of and/or ignoring Stalin) and other lefty organizing in the US since the first Red Scare in the 1910's. Economic hardship led directly to the New Deal, a response from the powers trying to forestall wider unrest. I don't think people were more selfish, they were pissed and ready for change. Kinda like today. I think crime was way down too?

Broke my link, sorry:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe...

How about: The Disneyland outbreak was in fact localized in the unvaccinated (or those whose status was undocumented.)

"Among the 110 California patients, 49 (45%) were unvaccinated; five (5%) had 1 dose of measles-containing vaccine, seven (6%) had 2 doses, one (1%) had 3 doses, 47 (43%) had unknown or undocumented vaccination status, and one (1%) had immunoglobulin G seropositivity documented, which indicates prior vaccination or measles infection at an undetermined time.

"Twelve of the unvaccinated patients were infants too young to be vaccinated. Among the 37 remaining vaccine-eligible patients, 28 (67%) were intentionally unvaccinated because of personal beliefs, and one was on an alternative plan for vaccination.

"Among the 28 intentionally unvaccinated patients, 18 were children (aged http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe...

I don't think it's hypocritical for someone to say they support paying more taxes for infrastructure, etc, while voluntarily donating money to private organizations working for the public good.

More like walking the talk: "I think it would be good if all my peers paid useful taxes, and I'm willing to give up cash right now to demonstrate my belief."

"Moral decisions should be made by individuals, not governments."

By the time any individual is presented with these choices they've already been filtered by many much larger institutions, including in this case government, pharmaceutical corporations, university research labs, various levels of scientists, (and maybe you should include pressure brought by the media/Slashdot), so I wouldn't single out government influence for wrath as if everything else is individual choice.

It isn't a couple in the back of a car who suddenly flip a coin to decide what hair colours they want their kid to have. There's a lot more people already involved, and the decisions already have a lot of outside pressure when it gets to potential individual parents.

Randomocracy! Your time has come up!

The original "President Bill" was elected by lot and ran the country from a comic in the pages of Washington DC's City Paper in the Eighties. Great strip.

My fave was his environmental preservation policy which started with the question, "When was the environment least polluted?" Staffers then roll out maps of the proposed, "Vast Inland Sea." I still want a t-shirt of that.

http://www.wmlbrown.com/wmlbpb...

If somebody starts to shit graphene, they'll be rich. If it's survivable.

Not one single life will be lost to climate change. Similarly, local weather doesn't accurately reflect change on a global scale. Climate change whenever it happens and for whatever reason seems likely to kill many, many people for many reasons. Drought, disease, war, flooding, heat, cold, hunger, etc. Such things have killed hundreds of millions of people in the past, we may just be speeding on the next example.

When we look back in 100 years we may well be able to map out quite a number of single lives lost, it will take time.

Please hold off on the launch until I discover the planet I want to be launched to. Then my ashes can go by whatever means provides the cheapest space-shipping.