DecaturNature @DecaturNature@social.cleverlibre.org

I'm looking into using @signalapp, and came across this horrible op-ed at NYT that basically used reverse-psychology to convince me to use Signal. The arguments are trashed in the NYT comments and elsewhere, some of my own thoughts are below.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/28/opinion/jack-dorseys-twitter-signal-privacy.html

1. Jack Dorsey has pledged $1M per year to Signal, which will help guarantee their stability. (they have other plans to expand their revenues also).
2. The op-ed asserts that privacy can be used for evil purposes. No shit. What he ignores is that invasions of privacy can also be used for evil purposes -- and historically have created much more harm that regular people having some privacy. The example he provides (seditious conspiracy among some Oath Keepers) undermines his own point. He claims that Signal facilitated this conspiracy -- and it did to a point, but the conspiracy soon fell apart. The likely reason it fell apart is because someone snitched. Our protection against evil conspiracies is not an authoritarian state that can monitor our every move, but our fellow citizens who will reveal the evil conspiracy once it extends to more than a few people.

@Beth @AbandonedAmerica Follow-up question: Do you know if the building was once in an urban area, or was it always out by itself? It looks like an urban area due to the power-lines.

@godpod Because it's how you made us.

@Pepsilora Is there a language setting? I can't find it, but I seem to only be getting English language stations -- in Berlin, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia...

@begrudging_recluse I'm familiar with the risks, but generally people look to social cues for how to deal with risks at the social level. Attending parties or meetings unmasked is inherently risky; Xs knowledge that she had been exposed (and tested negative) didn't really increase the risk much for others attending. For her parents and boyfriends, it depends on how cautious they are being in general (which X should be aware of, and I hope she would respect). Dealing with society-level risks are inherently society-level decisions. Maybe this exposes your/our society for being more reckless and inconsiderate than it often pretends to be...but that really was clear long before Covid (at least in the USA).

@NeAlTen The basic premise seems sound -- if a candidate makes religious comments during their campaign, then it's appropriate to discuss exactly what they mean and they can't expect to be treated with kid gloves. A bit trickier component is how to handle affiliation with religious groups that participate in political activism. Should the candidate be expected to answer for the activism of their church/congregation, given that the candidate is providing moral and probably material support to the institution?

@begrudging_recluse One difficulty in this situation is that risk is on a continuum -- each person first has to judge their risk, and then decide which activities are worth the risk. The USA CDC says that you do not need to isolate if you test negative (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/isolation.html) -- so perhaps X judged that her risk was minuscule. For instance, how would you judge X's risk of infection vs. a person who goes out dining or shopping for a day without wearing a mask? The person who goes out for the day will probably be in the same room as an unmasked person who is infected, even if they can't identify who it is.

@begrudging_recluse Do you know if either of them wore masks when they 'suspected' it, and if not, why not? This is one thing I'm struggling with -- masking seems like a reasonable compromise between isolating and being totally reckless. But if you wear a mask only when you suspect you are infected, you are basically announcing "I really should be isolating". I've heard that several East Asian nations have normalized mask wearing when sick... but don't know the specifics of how they interact with people wearing masks.