That was my first thought too. (Assuming the article is correct - all kinds of stuff gets published that doesn't hold up in the longer run.)

Remember that time is also big. Suppose that there have been 1000 interstellar civilizations in our galaxy during the past 5 billion years, and that each one lasted a million years before collapsing. How many would be active right now?

Frankly, I don't consider it a paradox at all. We've explored approximately 0% of our galaxy and found nothing. That doesn't tell us much.

Even so, law enforcement would also have access to the cellular records of countless individuals, the vast majority of whom were merely passing by a location at the 'wrong' time

What if, instead of asking: "Give us the list of everybody using this tower during this period", police asked for something narrower, like: "Give us the list of everybody using this tower during this period, and this other tower at this other period" (which is, what police would've done themselves)? What would make the request palatable to the Court — and Slashdot?

Enough AND-clauses until the resulting list is shorter than a certain number? 500? 50? 5? What if it becomes so short, the phone company employee(s) themselves can identify the suspect(s)?

I can't place a Polymarket bet on there being a hurricane and then go out and cause a hurricane.

Admitting your weakness is the first step towards growing strong!

Seriously, though, I do acknowledge this as a (potentially) valid concern in my next paragraph. But there are lots of other cases, where the bettor either has insider knowledge prior to betting, or can affect the outcome afterwards — both legally and otherwise. Lawmakers betting on financial markets' moves in response to their own legislation is still legal, for example. Other methods exist for the rest of us.

Yet, this proposal is limited sorely to setting wildfires and for the most bullshit reasons of all: "all so the rich and powerful can profit". Hence my contempt...

Doesn't he know he's supposed to play the fiddle while he destroys his country?

I'm skeptical about that second part.

As for trolls, I wonder if some anti-vax propaganda is being pushed by hostile foreign powers as a way of hurting us.

It's just a story about Meta and AI.

Oh, nevermind.

For extremists of all flavors, violence is always preferable to the voting booth.

Same.

I'm almost hopeful that in a few years, Starlink Mobile will be the push I need to change. I'm waiting until then, or it gets even worse with T-Maybe

Offering bets on destructive wildfires threatens to minimize communities' suffering

Totally different from hurricanes, floods, and tsunamis, right?

There's also the heightened risk -- according to state and local fire officials -- that individuals could be tempted to commit arson in order to make sure their bets are successful

This is, actually, a valid concern. I don't think, freedoms — including the freedom to bet one's own money — should be curtailed by such concerns, but it is valid.

Funny, how the authors don't hate the would-be arsonists — nowhere close to their disdain for the "rich and powerful", who might (might not!) profit from the betting...

The act of surveilling someone is a form of search (Carpenter v. United States (2018)

You are incorrect. What the Carpenter determined, was not about generally "surveilling", but the particular act of requesting historical cell-site location records from wireless carriers.

The Court's majority did rule, that the 4th Amendment protects reasonable expectation of privacy, and the collection of the particular records violated this. But not in general case. What's between your cellphone and the cell-tower can be expected — reasonably to stay private. (Though personally I disagree even with that — anyone carrying an active radio should not expect it to be unnoticed.) But a visible presence in public — detectable by unaided human senses — definitely not. Police have tailed suspects for as long as law enforcement existed — and Bill of Rights' authors certainly knew about the practice existence — and there is nothing wrong about it.

Further, they didn't extend the "third-party doctrine" to the particular case of cell-site records, but they didn't repudiate it completely either.

While the average citizen is allowed to record anything they see in public [...] When the government does it, it is considered a breach of an individuals 4th amendment rights

Nope, it does not — not per Carpenter. Maybe, that's how things should be — though I'm not certain even of that. But it is not, how they are. And the list of earlier court-decisions (which I already posted twice) — the Knotts in particular — shows it.

Further, I was not talking about "the average citizen" — I was talking about a police officer. If one can watch you — without a warrant — he can also record you.

Surely they're not going to cut off the data centers just so ordinary people can have electricity?

Like a bat outta hell.

My mini-1 is working as a photo frame.

Well, yes. But the politicians say the scientists are wrong.

Who are you going to believe? Geeky nerd types, or the people who actually run the real world?

Yeah, it's going to be hard to establish a plausible positive ROI for interstellar travel. I think even public funding for probes will be problematic, since it will take years just to get flyby photos. Probably the first flyby will be funded by some rich guy.