Edward Snowden showed that this is not as true as you seem to think it is.

LK

Then, let them serve the warrant.

What is different is that for the first time in human history, it's not only possible but it's practical to have encrypted communications that no one can access except for the intended recipient.

All of "the most heinous of crimes" take place in the real world, there is some physical action that can be detected and punished. I don't care if this makes the job of law enforcement harder. I want law enforcement to be a difficult and time consuming job. Idle and bored cops tend to find ways to fill their time and it's never good.

LK

I've been thinking about adding solar panels to my house. I would love if I could get a federal subsidy to do it. However, just like with my student loan forgiveness, I'm NOT giving Biden my vote in exchange.

LK

Government... productivity?

Facebook asks you to pay them not to abuse you. If that's not a Mafia-style protection racket, I don't know what is.

But besides that, even if you do pay, how can you trust Facebook not to put you under surveillance, invade your privacy and monetize your data anyway? The one thing Facebook has proven again and again over the years is that they're not to be trusted in any way, and it's not like an independent body will ensure they're true to their word.

All you'll see if you pay up is the outward appearance that Facebook is not invading your privacy. Whether it's true or it's just theater... I know what my money is on.

Just as well as I use my left nipple for unlocking.

Clearly this is a great step forward for humanity.

Well, I'm living it. Perhaps I'm lucky, or perhaps it's because I'm late in my career and I have enough experience to have that luxury, but I definitely choose who I work for.

In fact, I have for a long time:

Back around 2000, I had an opportunity to work at Citrix. I didn't really know who Citrix was back then. but they were already big and definitely an attractive employer to land a job at.

They came to the offices of the company I was working for back then to hunt for potential recruits, because my company was closing and they were nice enough to organize job interviews in their facilities before throwing everybody out.

So I got interviewed by the Citrix head hunters. When they explained what Citrix did, how they had a tight partnership with Microsoft, and would I like to join the team, I told them "Thanks but no. If you're in cahoots with Microsoft, I'll decline if you don't mind." Then I walked out of the room. Them guys couldn't believe that this 30-something junior programmer just blew them off, because they expected everybody to want a job at Citrix really bad :)

So yeah, if you don't feel like working for certain companies, unless you're desperate for the money, just don't.

It's only a problem if you seek employment with companies that have no ethics.

Getting fired for protesting unethical things your employer engages in is something to be proud of, especially when you're willing to endanger a cushy or prestigious position at Google. If I ran a company, I'd hire someone like that in a heartbeat.

My wife had an M1 8G air and it was a Miserable stuttering POS.
She sold it and bought a 16G MB M1 Pro which works fine.

Customer service jobs have seen high losses. As soon as the current AI is combined with a physical presence then jobs like stocking, shelving, janitorial services, security, and many more will see rapid replacement.

I agree there's a problem with confabulation. But see the CNBC article, 'TECHNOLOGY EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
Recent data shows AI job losses are rising, but the numbers donâ(TM)t tell the full story" where it says, "According to a recent report of 750 business leaders using AI from ResumeBuilder, 37% say the technology replaced workers in 2023. Meanwhile, 44% report that there will be layoffs in 2024 resulting from AI efficiency."

As I said,

You haven't been following A.I. closely have you? Because it's being used in many high value applications and exceeding the current human experts in those fields.

Even in it's current dumb state, combined with robots, the current A.I. can replace about 60% of human beings and that includes some fields that require a masters degree or doctorate to get a job.

Most manual labor jobs are easy to replace (stocker, shelving, janitorial services, landscaping, simple assembly, etc. etc. etc)
And A.I. is already replacing radiologists and other analytical jobs.

I agree with the other guy, if your breakeven is over 9 years, then solar isn't worth it yet.

Get a smaller off grid system for disaster planning and then wait for prices to drop further (and another 40% decline is due within the next 5 years.) Plus the panels are getting smaller for the same power. 10 years ago, a 100w panel was 32sq feet and $750. Last summer, a portable 100w panel was 16 sq feet and $129. A fixed panel was under $100 and also about 12 sq feet. And that's after 10 years of inflation on the price.

You face significant risk of inverter failure over 15 years. Maybe twice. At about 10 years, you would need new batteries.

But you can have a small, non-grid tied system to keep your refrigerator, a fan, a router, a laptop/tv, and a couple lights going. Saving a fridge full of food is both a reduction in misery *and* potentially a $200 to $400 savings so one disaster outage will reduce your payoff period quite a bit (2 to 4 panels are suddenly "free" or 1 battery is suddenly "free").

You haven't been following A.I. closely have you? Because it's being used in many high value applications and exceeding the current human experts in those fields.

Even in it's current dumb state, combined with robots, the current A.I. can replace about 60% of human beings and that includes some fields that require a masters degree or doctorate to get a job.