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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 15th, 2023

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  • Yeah people don’t really understand that HOAs are a two way street in most states. Bad HOAs exist because of bad neighbors, neglectful neighbors, or both. All it takes to right a ship is to show up and vote (or fill out the paper absentee ballot…) when the yearly elections happen. And then show up to some meetings so quorum can be met.

    My HOA has to reschedule important meetings several times a year because nobody can be bothered to show up for a 30 minute meeting every quarter so quorum is met. Bad HOAs are like bad local unions. They only have power because you let them have power. Lobby your neighbors to do something about it. Unfortunately my experience is such that the typical homeowner who chooses to live in an HOA does so because they want to be rorLly hands off as much as possible. Kind of the opposite of the default pictures people have of obsessive neighbors in HOAs.





  • So the argument boils down to it being due to bad parents rather than evil technology, yes?

    That’s not the main arguments being used to ban these devices and advocate for more radical plans. Removing access to these doesn’t make someone a good parent. Kids turn to other methods.

    And to an earlier point in another comment: guess which cohort has explosive growth in smoking at the moment? Not people our age. Teens and young adults of legal age. Gen Z, in particular, is a huge market for that industry now. Cigars and pipes in particular. Vapes are counted separately but are wildly popular.

    Banning the sale of highly regulated goods where the state is the official and only legal seller of said good in many states is one thing. We are talking about the internet here, though. And cell phones. And computers. And tablets. May as well put TVs and connected devices on the list, and definitely console platforms.


  • That’s the real problem, kids being able to spend unlimited time unsupervised because they have horrible absent parents. Parents shouldnt let their kids have unrestricted time like that. That is one reason why kids suffer in school not because of phones; because their parents aren’t involved to guide them in making good choices and forcing good habits.

    So we take away the phones as the luddites demand. What fills the gap? Definitely not independent learning. Most definitely not suddenly mindful and present parents.

    There is a lot of fear mongering and blaming, but no actual effort to fix it. Banning or removing doesn’t fix it. There is a reason that, when absent parents for latchkey kids were huge problems, they didn’t simply decree gangs illegal and pat themselves on the back. Communities offered alternatives. But no alternative is being offered here. All the woes are shifted onto the unholy smartphone and internet.

    Ya know why predators can find success online? Because shit parents don’t parent. A better use of resources would be forcing the parents to sacrifice their phones contingent on spending time with their kids, right?


  • No, you don’t get. Or didn’t live it. Or are being purposely obtuse.

    None of those qualifiers were attached to those things at the time the applicable fear mongering luddites were vilifying them. What we have right now are 21st century Tipper Gores. People engaging in moral public freakouts over tangentially related things which affirm a much larger fear of the whole (technology in this case). You see it also with how people violently and emotionally react to “AI.”

    Remember when D&D would turn you into a Satanist who’d go on to sexually abused children, maybe even engage in ritualist murder? Remember when similar was said for merely listening to even the radio edits of Marilyn Manson?

    People pearl clutch over hypotheticals. Parents who engage with their kids and set healthy boundaries which are enforced don’t often run into these problems. Hell, the arguments people make about tech right now could also apply as reasons not to let them play outside. Never know where a predator is lurking. I mean, we actually do: in your church and in your house. The two most statistically likely places for children to be preyed upon.

    But let’s blame the internet. Apple makes it trivial to lock things down and monitor it all. No kid is able to outsmsrt those restrictions because adults can’t either.

    No, what’s happening is yet another hype cycle. The entire reason all these schools are banning devices this year is due to a marketing effort from Haidt’s publisher. They put copies of his book into the hands of higher ranking faculty with purchasing authority for their districts. And they talk with each other. What a brilliant way to weaponize ignorance and make a buck doing so.

    And it magically doesn’t make bad parents into even mediocre ones. Who or what will they blame next? Definitely not the person looking back at them in the mirror every morning.





  • I hear what you’re saying, but that is exactly why Discord is shit for official communities like in the meme. There’s no reason why an open source project should rely on Discord for troubleshooting and feature requests and enthusiasm. Discord was meant for things like video games and friend chats, not instances where data discovery is paramount to growing the community.

    There is a reason thar Discord communities trend toward toxic, and it is the insular weirdness that the platform enables and reinforces. Forums make much more sense for projects. Discord ends up with a bunch of no lifers ruining the communities. Been through it far too often with things like genre appreciation groups to open source projects. Reminds me of being a kid and encountering the, frankly, losers chasing people out of IRC.



  • Probably depends on your subs. Most of mine have went far, far left and have become a tiresome dog pile of virtue signaling from behind keyboards and screens.

    And I’m a leftist. There seems to be a huge difference these days in being a leftist and being a “this is now my only personality trait” leftist through which all views must be fundamentally filtered. Even non-political/non-social. It has made some subs unreadable for me, specifically my state and city subs.

    Edit: I guess where I am going with it is that the extremes are becoming more extreme and seeking out new frontiers now that moderation is light.