Yeah, I was surprised they didn’t mention flora…

Tasmania has tasmanian devils. Do you really want to be on an island inhabited by devils?

That’s way too deep for a weekend…

I would delete my account the moment I’m too lazy to check if I’ve already deleted it.

Maybe they played it, but never repeatedly attacked cuckoos.

I disagree that anything you describe could actually be both commercially viable and deployable without authoritarian involvement

You haven’t heard of Ring cameras? Commercial security systems? They do basically what I’m describing, just not as well because they don’t have as much of an incentive. Are end users willing to pay for these more advanced models? No, so consumer grade cameras stick to object detection like deer vs racoon instead of specific individual detection (e.g. scanning eyes).

Governments, however, are willing to pay that amount. Why? Because they think it’ll help them detect criminals, and they think that helps keep people safe. It’s an extension of the HOA idea, just with government-scale funds backed up with law enforcement to go after threats. That, in itself, isn’t authoritarian, but setting up such a system opens the door for authoritarians to take control and misuse it.

I’d go so far as to say that the people in your theoretical HOA are analogous to supporters of a authoritarian regime.

Analogous, sure, but the HOA has no enforcement arm for non-residents, so all they can do is ask the police to intervene. That’s the difference with a city, it has a police force it can order to intervene using information from that system. It’s the mixing of enforcement and surveillance that makes it authoritarian.

So a surveillance system is not itself authoritarian, it’s only authoritarian of there’s some enforcement arm to enforce obedience or punish disobedience.

If it is nearly impossible to meaningfully use apolitically, then it is not apolitical.

Again, I disagree. Something is only political when used for political ends.

Yup, all we know is that there’s some connection to the shadow world (“and in the darkness bind them”) and other rings of power, we don’t know the specific impact it would have on each individual or race.

The ring’s primary power is control over the other rings, and it seems like the shadow realm is part of how that works (“…and in the darkness bind them”). I’m guessing Frodo is overwhelmed by the power of the ring and is taken to the shadow realm, whereas Sauron has more control and can stay in the real world.

Other races may have different effects. The elves have some amount of magical ability, so maybe they can stay in the real world too. Maybe the dwarves would concoct some device to block part of the ring’s power to stay in the real world. We don’t know, the only examples we have are halflings and Sauron.

That would be sick.

All three are half-lings, and all three wanted to hide the ring instead of use it to rule, so it makes sense it would have a similar impact on all three of them.

The necklace obviously still had an impact on Frodo, so Sam had to carry him. The chicken takes the place of Frodo, so both Frodo and Sam can carry the chicken.

Why let the chicken wear it? Frodo wore the ring on a necklace most of the time, why not do the same with the chicken?

Sauron wore it in the great battle, and he was by all accounts visible, otherwise how could Isildor cut the finger off? That would be a very lucky swing if Sauron was invisible.

No, I think its power depends on the wearer. Frodo didn’t want to be seen, so it made him invisible to everyone but Sauron, who understands its power.

What’s crazy is I agree with some of what he says, but disagree entirely with his company.

Basically, he says the Antichrist promises security in exchange for giving up your freedom. However, his company does exactly that, it promises security in exchange for taking away freedom from the people. So at best he’s a hypocrite and at worst an accelerationist.

I agree that people are willing to trade freedom for security, but I disagree that’s what governments should do. Governments need to protect freedoms first, and security second.

I doubt it’s the line, but the stupid thorn.

Similarly, even if HOAs could deploy a system like that, that’d make them authoritarian.

That really depends how the system is used. If it explicitly doesn’t record regular residents and people who have signed up officially as visitors (and homeowners can review footage), I don’t think the camera system itself would really be authoritarian. Yeah, the system would be capable of violating privacy, but as long as the system is transparent and reviewable by the residents, I think it can be privacy-respecting. Basically, it would be like a home security system, but across a neighborhood, and it can even be self-hosted to not let third parties access the data (and police requests would go through the HOA board, which consists of residents).

That’s my point. If the system itself can be used in a privacy-respecting way (and the vast majority can), even if it’s typically not used that way, the system itself cannot be authoritarian. If an institution uses it in an authoritarian way, then the institution is authoritarian.

In short:

1. cameras are not authoritarian
2. databases are not authoritarian
3. license plate and face recognition software isn’t authoritarian
4. connecting 1-3 together in a searchable way isn’t authoritarian (would be a fun hobby project)
5. Sharing info from 4 isn’t authoritarian (again, could be a fun hobby with friends)
6. An institution (gov’t, business, HOA, etc) using 4 and/or 5 to enforce policy on citizens/employees/residents/etc is authoritarian

I have friends that use home cameras to do object classification as a hobby, mostly to identify and fee record wildlife. I’ve also heard of people doing this to identify package deliveries and catch package thiefs. Sharing those models with others on the internet is largely the same idea as what flock is doing, and with enough data, similar solutions to what Palantir is doing could be done entirely by hobbyists.

The products Flock and Palantir aren’t authoritarian in and of themselves, it becomes authoritarian when those products are used to enforce policy.

Letting the shampoo sit is only needed for medicated shampoo, like for dandruff, and that’s so the medicine has time to work. For every other type of shampoo, you should rinse it right after thoroughly getting to the scalp to not irritate the scalp.

I use dandruff shampoo, hence why I wait before rinsing. If I didn’t have dandruff, I’d probably do shampoo last.

I just checked all of my shampoo bottles (apparently we have almost 10… we have shampoo for dyed hair, dandruff, kids, dry hair, etc). None of them recommend waiting before rinsing, not even the dandruff shampoo (well, Selsun Blue doesn’t, can’t check the other since it’s in my SO’s native language, which I can’t read). I remember seeing some other brands mention waiting (I think Head and Shoulders?), so YMMV.

Some solutions here are technically illegal to make laws about. The government cannot force a company to give away its copyrighted server code, not even in compiled form. Since there are alternatives that don’t require giving away copyrighted material, it’s better to keep it vague.

So it’s both the friendliest to companies and the easiest to pass as a law.

Yeah, I never appreciated how long it takes to wash hair until I washed my daughter’s shoulder-length hair. My hair has always been short, so a shampoo would only take 10-20 sec to get everything lathered and maybe 30 sec to rinse. My daughter’s hair took about double that time for both steps.

So yeah, I can see dealing with long hair taking significantly longer. That said, that’s more like 10-15 min instead of 5 min, not 30 min.

If you’re struggling with body dysphoria, wouldn’t you want to be naked for a shorter amount of time?