My country (USA) doesn't recognize any right to be anonymous. It's a problematic position when it comes to freedom of speech, but a pretty common problem in many governments in the world.

The Internet as we remember it is coming to a close. It's already mostly a platform for purchasing shit and stealing people's personal information. Perhaps one day average people will get fed up and demand reforms. But I believe things have to get a whole lot worse before they get better.

That joke is a running gag with my wife and I. I hear furious typing from her, and ask: "honey, is someone wrong on the Internet?"

And definitely the trick of being wrong is more effective than simply asking a question. It can be as simple as posting on Reddit:
"How does (thing) work on Linux?
I thought (thing) was (some plausible but clearly inaccurate understanding). But it's not working, is this a bug?"

And then some insufferable pedant will show up and solve my question, usually in the most abrasive way possible, sometimes getting completely unhinged at the end. It's great. I get an answer, some verbal abuse (oolala), and free entertainment from someone's needless emotional instability.

The end game is technofeudalism.

Star Trek warned all these guys that if left to our own devices, the common people would expect equality, security, free expression, and leisure in a post-scarcity age. We gave away our playbook to the enemy and they have spent the last 50 years trying to steer us away from a society that doesn't seem to have class of ultrawealthy that can pull the strings of government.

The plan right now is that we're all users. Our data belongs to a handful of corporations, and we are being driven to have our data also be our social identity. And once that social identity is also used to control credit rating, housing, finance, jobs, and access to basic services. Then the new rich will finally own us in a very real sense.

The absurdity of this behavior isn't limited to the Pope, it's been a major factor in many of the US's Presidents too.

“George Bush says he speaks to god every day, and Christians love him for it. If George Bush said he spoke to god through his hair dryer, they would think he was mad. I fail to see how the addition of a hair dryer makes it any more absurd.”
— Sam Harris

Pew research believed that only 4% of Americans identify as atheists. So there should be approximately zero Supreme Court justices that are atheist if you want the representation to be proportional.

The real problem with too many atheists on the Supreme Court is it can balloon our budget was the Bibles would keep bursting in flames. It's far cheaper and safer to limit the number of atheists that are in a position where they have to hold a Bible. ;-)

America got over the fears of having a Catholic in office when JFK was President. I mean someone still disliked him enough to kill him, but most of America was more focused on JFK's policies, on either side, than on his religion. (There was a handful of cranky protestants writing nasty editorials in their local papers, but they did that even before a Catholic was in office)

But both for JFK and Biden it is known that they struggle with serving the people of a secular government and serving the Catholic church. I don't see why it ought to be any different for other Christians, but the perception is that Catholics have some obligation to take orders from the Vatican.

Why not have both? We can have robots toiling for the cost of capital and maintenance. And we can have humans toiling for subsistence wages, hopefully their labor value driven down by the threat of competition from robots. It's a win-win, meaning that whoever owns the factories wins doubly so.

Disclosing business practices to parents and children seems like something businesses should have been doing if they were willing to self-regulate. They aren't willing to do so, so various governments are going to step in and do it for them in a less efficient way.

I feel like you are stepping close to an informal fallacy. I don't know if it's moving the goalposts or strawman or nirvana. But my problem with these kinds of arguments about a perfect solution wasn't found therefor the imperfect one should be rejected on the grounds that it is not perfect.
What matters more to me is moving in the right direction, even if it takes more than a single step. Because protecting, let's say 80% of children, while 20% of children manage to find work around is a funny definition of failure.

Because slashdotters are not immune to the lure of clickbait. Look at how fast thia comment's section has grown. There isn't a nerd on this morning that could resist adding his two cents.

But thank the Lord that you're not eating Cincinnati's chili.

This is the single dumbest thing I've read on slashdot in 20 years.

An issue of terminology. Smog is a broad term that describes multiple phenomena. From ground-level ozone, such as the photochemical formation of ozone, and the most "traditional" meaning of smog. To simply trapped particles and exhaust in the air from industry, cars, and homes running their furnaces in the winter.

For the photochemical case you find in sunny cities in a valley, that's not tire particles that's ozone and VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and NOx. With all of the NOx being the biggest portion of the smog.
For particle smog, like you'd find in the winter. It's more complex and the components vary from region to region. I could not find a single region where tire particles were the biggest contributor. But things like wood smoke, NOx, and sulfur dioxide were near the top of the list for most. (yes, NOx isn't a particulate, but even in the winter time it makes up a big portion of the air pollution that can be describe as smog.)

When you ask "leaked methane" are you referring to coal mine methane (CMM), or to an escape from methane storage.

Consuming this product can expose you to [name of one or more chemicals], which is known to the State of California to cause cancer.

Fat Lou Gerstner for IBM into the position of:

Mainframe rep explaining reliability, availability, responsiveness.

Mid-range rep explaining performance, cost benefit, expandability.

RISC rep explaining flexibility, performance, cost benefit.

And they all poo-poo'd the services rep, who explained next-generation, flexibility, low cost...

With IBM out-competing itself, not a lot of room for big competitors.

Was it Fat Lou who warned 'if you don't make it, deliver it, or touch a customer, you need to look for a job that does'...

PS - why is he Fat Lou?