yeah the level of technical competence on this site has plummeted since the influx of the reddit crowd.

just enough consumer tech enthusiast knowledge to delude themselves they can smugly and self righteously shit on the average non-tech person.

and now they’re the majority, drowning out legitimate curiosity by loudly parroting headlines from articles they didn’t even read. slowly turning lemmy into the regurgitated reddit pop media shithole they wanted to escape.

this topic is especially difficult because of the clear emotional desire for it not to be true. hence the degree of fragile cope in this thread.

thankfully not everyone here is a lost cause, and you’ve been given some good advice on delineating the other possible causes for what you’ve observed. when we do a careful analysis we must ofc consider all possibilities.

what i’ve not seen properly acknowledged in this thread, however, is that the possibility of alternative explanations doesn’t preclude the possibility of voice-based surveillance either.

always listening

i never claimed always, i specifically advised op to refrain from claiming always.

how can you pretend to represent a sound scientific approach when you misrepresent the scientific claims made in sources you cite

piss easy

many domain experts dedicating significant resources to it’s study

pick one.

when your sources repeatedly don’t say what you claim they say, maybe its time to revisit your claims ;)

Of course a researcher is never sure something is 100% ruled out. That’s part of how academic research works.

once again, that isn’t what they were reported to have said. [and researchers don’t need to repeat the basic precepts of the scientific method in every paper they write, so perhaps its worthwhile to note what they were reported to say about that, rather than write it off as a generic ‘noone can be 100% certain of anything’] it’s a bit rich to blame someone for lacking rigor while repeatedly misrepresenting what your own article even says.

what the article actually said is

because there are some scenarios not covered by their study

and even within the subset of scenarios they did study, the article notes various caveats of the study:

Their phones were being operated by an automated program, not by actual humans, so they might not have triggered apps the same way a flesh-and-blood user would. And the phones were in a controlled environment, not wandering the world in a way that might trigger them: For the first few months of the study the phones were near students in a lab at Northeastern University and thus surrounded by ambient conversation, but the phones made so much noise, as apps were constantly being played with on them, that they were eventually moved into a closet

there’s so much more research to be done on this topic, we’re FAR FAR from proving it conclusively (to the standards of modern science, not some mythical scientifically impossible certainty).

presenting to the public that is a proven science, when the state of research afaict has made no such claim is muddying the waters.

if you’re as absolutely correct as you claim, why misrepresent whats stated in the sources you cite?

no, they don’t

Please be careful with your claims.

In my experience, whenever investigating these claims and refutations we usually find when digging past the pop media headlines into the actual academic claims, that noone has proven it’s not happening. If you know of a conclusive study, please link.

Regarding the article you have linked we don’t even need to dig past the article to the actual academic claims.

The very article you linked states quite clearly:

The researchers weren’t comfortable saying for sure that your phone isn’t secretly listening to you in part because there are some scenarios not covered by their study.

(Genuine question, not trying to be snarky) Will you take a moment to reflect on which factors may have contributed to your eagerness to misrepresent the conclusions of the studies cited in your article?

Anyone saying they know for 100% certain it’s not happening is probably speaking from their emotional desire for it not to be true - rather than actual fact.

Anyone who has looked into the actual technical aspects, rather than spouting the usual surface-level “tech facts” or parroting headlines (rather than the actual academic findings), cannot seriously claim to know for certain its 100% not happening.

@op i would advise caution on stating ‘24x7’ until there is evidence of that specific claim. (unless you’re referring to while voice assistants are enabled.)

its BIG. could be great to see some different teams tackle different issues.

for example a transcode team to tag and convert different media to the latest efficient formats might save alot of space.

and eg. voice-only recordings could be suitably encoded vs music etc

also some methods for diffing snapshots, or some kind of compromise on snapshots storage with minimal changes? not ideal but might be enough to get across the line maybe?

re. the “most important”, aside from specific items or archives, imo a crucial role might be text-only snapshots of most of the web. would help increase accountability amongst modern media outlets, journalists etc

incredible! can you please describe it a little more, how it worked and especially what the jets did and how that was pleasant vs being bombarded in an unpleasant way. what type of stream was coming out of the jets?

reddit is a cesspit, on reddit it used to be that misinformation or incompetency cope would be promptly identified, now its the top 5 comments on any thread…and the next 5 are circle jerks.

in other words: welcome reddit refugees. please please feel free to leave the reddit mindset at the door on your way in :)

gonna use this as an opportunity to launch my ted talk:

there’s no such thing as anything but “race mixing” since every single human on the planet is a mix of different ancient races anyway

(or to put another way, race is a bs term anyway since we’re all homosapiens)

How do you benefit from clinging to an untruth?

OP is objectively and demonstrably incorrect in a number of their claims. So your question is quite valid. Are they in sheer denial and this is a certain flavor of cope? Or are they actually intentionally spreading propaganda?

The difference between inflation and cost of living.

Glad to see they’ve adjusted for inflation, have they also adjusted for cost of living?

Edit: For anyone (such as OP) who is confused by these terms:

The difference between inflation and cost of living.

really? cos you’ve left me smitten

Below is my general sleep guide.

From your post these points sound the most relevant:

• Once in bed, no work/study/planning thoughts. Identify and then free your mind of any thought patterns which keep your mind going. Resolve to address them at another time.
• You can even pre-allocate a time to resolve them during regular waking hours. eg. before getting into bed, remind yourself that any thoughts which ‘need attention’ will be resolved at ‘12pm tomorrow’ or ‘during your commute’ etc. If they pop up during the night, you already have a precooked answer which doesn’t involve waking your brain up even more.
• Don’t keep looking at the clock or trying to calculate how many hours of sleep you can get.
• Avoid looking at phone screen once you’re in bed, if you need to adjust volume use buttons or remote etc with your eyes still closed.

General

• Observe if caffeine plays a role, you can eg. avoid it after lunch or after dinner - whatever works for you & your body.

Late Evening

• Avoid cold (bluer) colour lighting & use warm (redder) colour lighting from late evening until bed. This is important and melatonin effectiveness is directly controlled by this ¹. To put it very very simply, we’ve evolved for redder light = sunset->sleep, bluer = day->awake. Angle of the light can also play a role if you want to go deeper into it.
• Schedule blue light filters on your phone & computers. Should be standard on modern phones & use something like f.lux for computer ².

Before Bed

• Avoid alcohol, lots of sugar or sugary drinks for at least an hour or so before bed.
• Some other otc/“natural” sleep aids to consider: l-tryptophan, valarian, hops, passion flower, chammomile. There’s some ‘complex’ products which are basically derived from these kinds of things eg. ³. [Always check anything you take for possible interactions with eachother or medication you’re on].
• Supplements like magnesium can help reduce effects of muscle tension.
• Ensure any herbal teas or other foods, drinks etc don’t contain more caffeine than you’d planned for. eg. some chocolates contain caffeine.
• Showering or bathing just before bed can help you relax.

In Bed

• Once in bed, don’t keep looking at the clock or keep trying to calculate how many hours of sleep you can get.
• No work/study/planning thoughts. Identify and then free your mind of any thought patterns which keep your mind going. Resolve to address them at another time.
• Is temperature or air flow effecting you? Some people find an oscillating fan can help regulate the airflow & temperature, and the repetition can be soothing.
• Are sounds keeping you alert or waking you up? Consider fan, white noise machine or rain sounds ⁴. You can adjust the EQ to mask specific problem sounds, eg. bass for thumps, mids/high for clatter or voices etc.
• Is light making problems? eg. light from electronics in standby mode, light coming through or around edges of windows, other lights in the house? Identify and cover them or your eyes as needed. Remember blue light is not your friend at this time, blue LEDs might look nice but can mess with the brain chemistry of sleep ¹
• Avoid looking at phone screen once you’re in bed, if you need to adjust volume use buttons with your eyes still closed.

Sound

Falling asleep to sounds can sometimes help. Different people like different things on different occasions: music, YT, movies, TV, audio books, ambient soundtracks (rainforest, crackling fire), even boring monotone talking can be good. Avoid any ads if streaming or TV as they’re designed to grab your attention.

There are music genres almost designed for sleep, various ambient genres can be great especially if they employ low frequency variations and alpha, theta and delta wave type transitions ⁵. There’s a bit of bs around this, but also some legit bio-entrainment science too. In general find what works for you.

If listening, consider using your phone & use a sleep timer app on your phone to automatically gradually lower the volume and switch off after a scheduled time, this can help avoid being woken up by it later in the night. Find the timer periods which work for you. Also ensure your alarm will still wake you.

References

¹ https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article-abstract/88/9/4502/2845835

² https://justgetflux.com/

³ https://www.flordis.com.au/products/redormin-forte/

⁴ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JyE47-Ykjo [Download rather than stream to avoid interrupts/ads during the night.]

⁵ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography#Wave_patterns

no idea

but google cache is being shut down, then google announces they’ll be participating with IA.

now this.

really not a good time in history for our ability to easily document web history to be getting messed with.

jami has so much potential. just wish it ran a bit more reliable

look deeper, i think he’s trolling

excellent writeup

i agree with alot of what you said and will try to hit a few key issues and hope i can add something to the excellent perspective you’ve cast.

The sad truth is that the right are pandering to homophobia because it’s a vote getter for them not because they really care about it.

exactly, they know its a very useful mechanism to accumulate power. so imo we should constantly remind ourselves - they’d be doing this anyway. if homosexuality didn’t exist or was non-viable for this, they’d be onto something else. they’d have used any topic to get what they want. (you could ofc have a metadiscussion about why certain topics are more powerful than others. but thats a different discussion).

anathema to Christian society as it’s been for over a thousand years

another critical point, as you correctly identified, this is how christianity has become, not what christianity was even purportedly about. if you take the actual words attributed to jesus in the bible, afaict never said a god damn thing about being gay trans whatever. according to their own book - after centuries of fucking with the bible - it STILL says the greatest commandment of all is to love your neighbour as yourself and you can’t judge cos you’re all fuckin sinners afterall.

so it’s all hypocrisy built upon hypocrisy , basically typical “there are 5 lights” bs. in other words it has all the fingerprints of a propaganda pathology not an expression of positive spirituality.

Things have changed so much just in my adult lifetime

yeah to that end i think the OPs timeline of 40 years was a bit optimistic, or we at least have to recognise that represents a cross-section of OPs experience which wasn’t necessarily universal 40 years ago. that said i feel there has been a backslide in the last say 10-15 years)

conservative people see the ‘gay agenda’ exactly as you see the ‘homophobic agenda’ in that they believe it’s political narrative being pushed just to destabilize morally virtuous power structures to allow corrupt and evil people to take power and steal money.

tbh i think thats because its probably both at the same time, its a documented soviet technique to covertly fund two sides of an issue to control the outcome. not picking on the soviets btw, just that they did a great job perfecting these kinds of things, wrote it down and then the power structures keeping them secret began to collapse and the methology leaked to the public.

we see this in a simpler form where corporations invest in pride month and also unironically heavily invest in homophobic organisations, (so i guess it doesn’t always have to be a cold war operation for powerful entities to effect control via seemingly conflicting interests).

and in what is presumably a less consciously aware context, consider how jk rowling veils her attacks on the trans community behind a thin veneer of “caring about gay people”. i’m strongly of the belief if she’d been born 50 years earlier she’d be jumping on the homophobia bandwagon instead of the currently “trendy” transphobia bandwagon.

to say another way, not everyone pretending to be our friend has our interests at heart, infact sometimes they’re just trying to accumulate power by taking the positive stance on this issue - probably for no other reason than the negative position won’t currently yield them as big a return.

and this can lead to eg. conservatives becoming outraged about a stance taken by someone who is vocal and politically motivated, but who has no business speaking on our behalf, then conservatives end up feeling like they’re “under attack from the homosexuals” when it wasn’t even a homosexual who said it!!

next the conservatives says some hateful thing in retaliation, people respond to that and it spirals…everyone loses (except perhaps the actual perpetrator). this is definitely a flaw in human thinking where our tribalism clouds our perception, we feel under attack and in the heat of the moment incorrectly assess which side someone is taking (or even that there’s only 2 sides, when in life there’s probably rarely ever only 2 sides).

Companies that shoehorn a poorly written gay character into everything for the sake of inclusivity feel like a pandering cash grab to me but to the homophobic Christian it feels like asymmetric warfare from a deranged and selfish elite hellbent on ruining western society.

again, its probably both? tbh i don’t think that laziness is the only explanation for the woefully shoehorned characters we’re currently getting. honestly its fucking insulting (to us, not the biggots - though the biggots might feel insulted too?). as you mention its a profitable cash grab, and i’m sure it hasn’t escaped their notice that a certain type of aggressively half-arsed inclusivity will provide alot more value to them from the hysteria it generates vs actually doing it ‘right’ in a sensitive and compassionate way, which might actually lead to healing.

if healing is what they actually wanted i think it’d look very, very different than how it currently looks. and the kindest interpretation is they’ve realised it’s more profitable short-term to produce hysteria instead of healing.

compare in contrast to what i still think (despite modern news) was a great example of inclusivity characters with the lesbian main characters in buffy:

in 1999 no less, it showed a lesbian couple in bed and instead of a cheap sexiness grab, they’re literally sitting up in bed reading & having a mundane conversation. no sexualisation of the lesbian relationship as something existing only for hetero male gratification, or out attacking heteros. just plain, believable real life characters living a boring normal part of their life. so yes i very much agree that the boring normality is a very powerful thing. surely ALOT more positive overall than aggressive hysteria.

In summary my take-aways are:

• their MO is to use a scapegoat, they’d be attacking someone vulnerable, regardless of whom

• not everyone pretending to be our friend actually wants to help us

• hysteria is sadly apparently more profitable (short term) than healing

A positive note?

I honestly have no idea what the best thing for the greater good is

i really don’t either, though something think how homosexuality has been hijacked in modern perception (by that 1000 years of fake christianity as you mentioned). in eg. parts of ancient societies, men could love men and women could love women, someone could be a third gender, and it wasn’t even a thing to get upset about it, because it was just normal life. why do we suffer when they didn’t even know they were supposed to be suffering?