Nice theory. But why would they need to ask? They just offer a salary that is insufficient if the candidate has a family and the candidate with the family quickly answers "No".

If none of the candidates accepts, then they can look for more candidates or call around with slightly better offers until they find a fish.

I think most of those things are clumsy bandages. The fundamental requirement of a real solution would be to transfer money to people who are doing the really difficult work of raising children. However, it looks less expensive to count on lust for sex and love of your own children to get as much as possible of the work "for free". And CPS is another bandage for the resulting problems...

NAK

No thanks. YouTube is the largest scam in this story. (That'll teach you not to ask me? And I'm still going to fall short of Funny...)

It would be interesting to see the real financial data. I think the google actually knows how the money works in YouTube, but revealing how the trick works could create a "That trick never works" again situation. However the general outlines are pretty clear.

YouTube gets lots of eyeballs. That's largely because there is lots of new content all the time, and creating that content is not seen as a cost on the google's side. They basically take a free-speech-ask-no-questions approach, but I'm pretty sure the real data would show that most of the most attractive content is not little guys exercising their free speech, but either big guys trying to get some free publicity, normally with excerpts, or outright criminals pirating the best stuff they can find and copy. But the real question is how much loot google is making from advertising versus how much comes from people paying to avoid some of the advertising...

So yeah, I'm glad the cops finally got around to doing something about this flamboyant and moderately profitable scam, but "Heck no thanks" to watching the YouTube spin version, even if it was cut under ten minutes. Crime is too profitable these years.

Disclaimer needed? I sort of listen to YouTube while I'm doing other stuff. Whenever I notice an ad I flip back to that tab and cut it off. But there's some recursive humor in there because some of the listening time is while I'm scanning the fresh videos (in the subscribed channels, mostly humor) to see if there are any to add to the "watch later" list. Equilibrium around 10 per day? (So my "best stuff" is mostly advertising for tickets to live comedy.) But my actual "watching" time is minimal. I mostly don't look unless I hear something that doesn't make sense without looking at it...

"And we are just letting it happen because why the fuck not?"

Who is "we"? You? Are you letting it happen?

"...our love of moral panics and knee-jerk reactions."

Like your post?

Ever heard of a race to the bottom?

So you have two candidates for a job. But one of them has a family to support and the other one is still living at home. You don't think that's relevant to the salary offer that each candidate will consider acceptable?

Too bad the future of society depends on people having families and therefore on having incomes high enough to support families. Unintended consequences and all that stuff.

Actually the big winners are pretty clear: Netanyahu and Putin. And they are NOT tired of winning yet. Especially not on America's dime. And speculators with insider information. They also won too much and are still winning.

I'm not sure who the biggest losers are yet. Obviously the Iranians are leading candidates, especially any moderate Iranians running loose in Iran. They were probably the most targeted victims the day after the war started.

My growing concern is with Xi's plans to get in on the winning. What sort of "other shoe" is Xi going to drop on the YOB when they meet? Some kind of deal providing Chinese boots on Iranian ground to "fix" the Hormuz problem? Perhaps in exchange for a permanent military base on Taiwan? Let's have a "great deal" to eliminate any threat of a messy amphibious invasion? Or maybe offer the YOB a couple of hotel towers with golf courses near Shanghai and Hong Kong? The corruption also knows no bounds.

Actually they take pictures that include the driver's face. Just recently read about someone being impressed by the high quality of the images. They sent copies with the citation. The question of the identity of the driver seems like a minor one at that point. They would only need to confirm that the face matches a known face. If you tried to claim you had loaned the car to someone else, then it becomes even easier, just proving the photographed face does not match the claimed face. But it reverts to the general facial recognition problem if they send a photo of an unknown person who would then have to be identified using a large database of faces...

However the direction the world seems to be heading, the next step will be real time checking of registration information to make sure the car isn't stolen. After all, that could explain some of the speeding. A car thief is extra likely to be in a bit of a hurry.

Not a bad FP branch, and I can add a relevant citation. The book is mostly about abusing people to increase the profits of giant tech companies and Amazon gets plenty of mentions. They tried to focus the book on AI, and that's where most of the examples come from, but it's really a broader thing. If there is interest in more books [On Slashdot? ROFLMAO] I can dig up some others from the last few years. But this one was published last year:

Feeding the Machine by Muldoon, Graham, and Cant.

They're especially good at enforcing silly rules. The rule-making process in Japan sometimes produces terrible rules, which then get enforced with enthusiasm. Or is it worse when the rules get case-by-case treatment that can make them effectively meaningless except as threats?

So anyway, I think the opening joke was weak and the story itself didn't get any attention in Japan. The FP numbers work out at a thousand bucks per "cybersecurity engineer", which is just silly. If the decimal place slipped twice and it was supposed to be $100,000/engineer, then it's only 10,000, which is actually a reasonable number to hope for some good. Unfortunately, cybersecurity is a weak chain game, which in this case means finding any vulnerability defended by a lesser engineer. The value of a top "cybersecurity attacker" is unlikely to be capped at such a small number as $100,000 and someone is gonna git overrun and breached.

Returning to the topic of "attention in Japan", absence of evidence is not proof of anything. However if it was a big deal then it should have made the local news... My bad. Turns out it did: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworl... Or did it?

Oh wait. Is it possible the Slashdot version is wrong? NHK says it's about AI with cybersecurity getting a side-mention. Investing in AI? Where have I seen that story before. Oh yeah. Everywhere.

And one more thing. About the new Subject. The particularly stupid new rules I was thinking about involve a new campaign against bicycles. Enough to convince me to get rid of my bike. Not worth more hassles, but my typically negative prediction is that bike problems are minor and bike benefits are significant, so if the new rules push more people to buy cars then the net effects will be mostly negative...

No conversation cannot be improved with more bigotry, right MAGA?

With the rise of MAGA, it seems there is more than that. SuperKendallism is pervasive.

This is not only true, it is the most important takeaway. AI has not created these two kinds of users, they have always existed.

"Religions generally accept wisdom from sacred texts."

This is false. Religions CREATE privileged texts, which they call "sacred texts" or scriptures, which contain stories that are fabricated. Religions do not "accept wisdom" from these created texts because religions create those texts.

Now, parishioners could be said to "generally accept wisdom from sacred texts." Perhaps that is what you meant. Religions are a mechanism to control people, scripture is a tool that is used.

Personally, I think the entire premise here is absurd. AI usage doesn't create two kinds of users, there were these two kinds of users before AI came into existence. Religion is particularly effective on one of those two kinds.

2) Police officer hides, catches unsuspecting driver speeding, stops driver, issues summons.

This is the very best approach. It's got the perfect tension leading to the greatest safety.

When you're expecting such an ambush (getting caught a few times will teach you to do that), and you're really paying attention and playing "spot the ambush" then they won't catch you. But because you're being so damned focused and alert, you're also a safer driver.

OTOH if they nail you, that means you weren't paying attention. So you weren't merely speeding; you really literally were speeding unsafely, and the ticket is the proof. (If you were so safe, then how come you didn't see the guy with the radar gun in time?)

Every. Single. Time. I got ticketed, my mind was wandering and not fully focused on the road. I wasn't looking for a speed trap, so I didn't see it in time. Busted. And those times I was looking? I didn't fall for it. I slowed down and avoided a ticket.

The ideal system (in terms of safety) happens to also be downright sporting! The ol' classic speed trap was almost .. a game?