Its interesting to me to see times change. My high school years didnt have a single pregnancy AND we had sex ed classes. I still remember the day they showed us how to put a condom on a banana. Hell, even my daughter had to bring home a baby-bot for a few days that cried until you "changed the diaper" or "fed" it. Maybe its a state-by-state curriculum thing?

5 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Maybe its a state-by-state curriculum thing?

It very much is. One only needs to visit a Southern state...

 

3 hours ago, Malcador said:

 

this sound like the plot of that johnny english movie

5 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

Its interesting to me to see times change. My high school years didnt have a single pregnancy AND we had sex ed classes. I still remember the day they showed us how to put a condom on a banana. Hell, even my daughter had to bring home a baby-bot for a few days that cried until you "changed the diaper" or "fed" it. Maybe its a state-by-state curriculum thing?

But thats a good observation  and accurate,  Im  only a  few   years  younger than you so we went to school  in the same time period more  or less.  I was at  high school from 1988-1992 

And we didnt have a  single pregnancy,  we had  almost no  sex education and Apartheid was a very parochial and conservative system  around sex  education. So it raises an  important consideration, why do we see such   high levels  of  teenage pregnancy  in the USA and SA? It gets raised in SA all  the time and the general consensus is there is  a breakdown of family values and modern liberal views  means you cant discipline your  kids  anymore. Often on talk-shows when these  topics are discussed   black callers  will phone in and say things like " young people  dont have to listen or respect   parents anymore and we  cant even discipline them  anymore " or something similar or they will say " kids dont respect  teachers anymore  because teachers are powerless   to discipline  kids like in our day ". In SA  many parents actually want more   discipline   and they think  corporal punishment should be returned as a  solution to whats happening. But this doesn't happen at every public sector school  and some schools have  almost  no teenage pregnancies and discipline is fine ? 

But if the problem is modern  day liberal values why dont we  see this in  places  like the Nordic countries? I dont think they have a problem with large  numbers  of teenage pregnancies  

I am  not sure  where the   problem lies   but I do think respect for parents and respect for teachers must be part  of  it?

 

 

 

 

 

RFK Jr. sits at 24% in the latest New York Times poll of the 6 battleground states, Trump is at 35% and Biden is at 33%. RFK Jr. is beating both Trump and Biden in those same states with voters under 45. This is significant because Ross Perot, the most successful independent presidential candidate of my lifetime never reached 20% in any state during his entire (wildly entertaining) campaign.

To burst my own bubble a bit, 3rd party candidates traditionally fall off as the election draws near if and when voters feel he or she has no chance of winning and they chicken out and vote for "the lesser of 2 evils". There's a long way to go and things can, and will, change many times over before November 2024, but this should be interesting. If RFK Jr. could take even just 1 or 2 states we could wind up with nobody getting to 270 delegates at which point I think it goes to Congress. I'm not sure how it works, I've heard 1 vote per state, which would presumably favor Trump since there are more red states than blue, but I've never seen this happen, so I don't know if that's true.

Edited November 10, 20232 yr by Keyrock

Genocide Biden has only himself to blame.

If we're going to ultimately wind up with another establishment puppet that's going to further peel away the veneer of democracy (federal republic if you want to get specific) from the American Oligarchy underneath, can we at least have an interesting race? That's not too much to ask for, is it?

Edited November 10, 20232 yr by Keyrock

Supreme Court attempts to address ethics concerns with new code of conduct but leaves many questions unanswered

Quote

The Supreme Court on Monday announced a code of conduct in an attempt to bolster the public’s confidence in the court after months of news stories alleging that some of the justices have been skirting ethics regulations.

In a brief statement the justices said that the code is “substantially derived” from an existing code of conduct that applies to the lower court but has been adapted to the “unique institutional setting of the Supreme Court.”

However, the justices fail to explain how the code would work, who would enforce it and acknowledged they had more work to do, including on financial disclosures.

Though I prefer the Fox News headline, Supreme Court adopts modified ethics code after pressure from Hill Dems.
 

The European Union has come to an agreement on digital identities. These DEFINITELY NOT in any way shape or form dystopian digital IDs will be available to member states in the near future. Worry not, these will employ the highest level of security and governments would never dare misuse your data without your consent. Why would you even suggest such a thing? Think of the convenience! Plus it's solving this giant list of important problems (I spoiler tagged the list to keep the post tidy ) :

 

How long until these become mandatory? 20 years? 10 years? 5 years?

16 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

The European Union has come to an agreement on digital identities. These DEFINITELY NOT in any way shape or form dystopian digital IDs will be available to member states in the near future. Worry not, these will employ the highest level of security and governments would never dare misuse your data without your consent. Why would you even suggest such a thing? Think of the convenience! Plus it's solving this giant list of important problems (I spoiler tagged the list to keep the post tidy ) :

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

How long until these become mandatory? 20 years? 10 years? 5 years?

always fear the imcompetence of authoritarian bureaucrat more than their authoritarianism

most likely outcome will not be the cold efficiency of dystopian oppressive rule but more likely confusing mess people struggle to comply even if they try

Im an outlier, but I dont mind the thought of a digital future. The Ministry of State Security already knows everything it wants to about Gfted1, and they are disappoint.  But I do agree that everything the US government touches will run wildly over budget and barely function as intended.

Inside the takeover of Texas school boards

TL;DR: Rich men who want to privatize education are behind it.

1 hour ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Inside the takeover of Texas school boards

TL;DR: Rich men who want to privatize education are behind it.

Yeah, I mean I thought this was all pretty obvious when Betsy DeVos got her time in the spotlight. Rich people really need to get better hobbies.

Huh, dunno, we've had a digital ID for a while now. I can do my taxes online, register for mail-in votes, sign documents with it, change my place of residence, use my phone as replacement for various ID cards (driver's license, passport, etc.), request various official government issued documents online and receive them digitally signed with no paperwork (e.g. birth certificate, marriage certificate, etc.), request reimbursement for private medical services, and a whole bunch of other things I don't really need, like getting all the documents in order for a newborn kid.

Can also check a bunch of information, like my projected pension and how much money I cost my health insurance this year, which is about a thousand euro as of right now.

All without having to deal with any public officials.

The amount of extra data I had to provide for the ID was pretty much zero, except for my mobile phone number. Which the government could find out any time they would want to, so that is not any more dystopian than it already is, thanks to the EU, which mandated fingerprints in passports back in 2009, and our fantastic conservative-right wing government of 2017, lead my Mr. Kurz, our glorious leader, and their coalition partners the freedom party, who mandated that any and all mobile phone numbers must be registered, before that we had the option of having anonymous mobile phone numbers - well, mobile phones bit that government and Mr. Shorty in the arse, so there is some poetic justice in that.

We have digital ID in Colorado but it's entirely opt-in and it holds state licenses like driving, fishing, hunting, and agricultural stuff. You can put other stuff in there if you want like COVID vaccination records, vehicle registration and titles, and insurance. I don't because I'd rather hand a cop a piece of paper or plastic rather than my phone but my COVID stuff is in there. Online taxes and voting by mail, in this state, since voting is by state, we can do without that. I just had to give my SSN and phone number which they already have.

Edited November 15, 20232 yr by ShadySands

I'm not getting digital anything from the government unless it's at gunpoint.

We've got RealMe, which is basically an excuse for the government to skimp on actual people answering phones or reading hard copy to provide services more than a clandestine scheme to monitor people online.

For that they already have google, aws, fb, PSP/ IME/ Pluton, 5eyes partners/ GCSB etc.

I don't think Australia has any kind of "tracking system" of its people. The closest thing would be the bank knowing most of what you do as more and more stuff becomes payable by plastic card only. You literally become your bank account no. But then, you can have multiple accounts 🤷‍♂️

That was a culture shock when you come from Denmark, where you get assigned a literal serial no. when you are born and it follows you throughout your life. Every transaction, every doctors visit, every traffic fine and the address your currently reside at is known to the governments big database.

The number is called CPR Nummer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identification_number_(Denmark)

The government database is the Folkeregisteret http://www.folkeregister.dk/

The system is/was so effective, the last 4 years I lived in Denmark, I didn't need to do tax returns, as the tax department already knew everything.

3 hours ago, Keyrock said:

I'm not getting digital anything from the government unless it's at gunpoint.

Keyrock dont be a luddite,  technology is designed to help you.  How  is   government supposed to effectively track you if you dont have an updated digital ID?

 

Should probably be in the "funny stuff" thread.

For me, the digiID I'm already highly suspicious of, however, go ahead and call me a conspiracy theorist, but I strongly suspect that it's a gateway drug. The endgame is CBDCs. If and when they manage to sucker people into CBDCs and make it effectively mandatory (once all major businesses use only CBDCs it effectively becomes mandatory) that's game over for democracy, what little of it we have left.

to most it is easier to simply accept the inevitable megacorp destopia future than to imagine most people united to fight for a better possibility

Edited November 15, 20232 yr by uuuhhii

15 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

For me, the digiID I'm already highly suspicious of, however, go ahead and call me a conspiracy theorist, but I strongly suspect that it's a gateway drug. The endgame is CBDCs. If and when they manage to sucker people into CBDCs and make it effectively mandatory (once all major businesses use only CBDCs it effectively becomes mandatory) that's game over for democracy, what little of it we have left.

I  was just  teasing you, there are lots of legitimate reasons to  object to digital IDs  and most of them  are around what the  definition of personal  freedom  means and why must  you have one just to function in a society

It reminds me  of something  in  SA,  my bank has an app and you cannot get a new card without  your cell phone because you need to accept the SMS. But what if you dont want a cell  phone  and even if you go to the bank with your ID they cant give you any new credit or debit cards  without you accepting the automated   SMS

There   is something wrong when  you  as person  or your ID arent as credible   for  security than an app

 

 

This whole digital ID thingie reveals yet another example of how what is called progress tends to operate. So, it's not only that new things become possible, which does indeed happen and is not a joke as such, but the equally important point is that previous ways of operating and even living tend to become almost impossible or even totally impossible to maintain.

For example, if we look at the Romani people whose whole tradition was based on itinerant life, we can see that they were one of great losers in Europe when the current nation states started to come into being. Their whole mode of existence was made quite difficult, through no fault of their own, and indeed, they tend to be poorly educated and in at least some kind of trouble, as a group, pretty much everywhere. They have not changed, and that has not done them any good, in the eyes of the modern world.

I can see a future where certain things are indeed quite simple and effective -- but if you happen to be a person who wants to live outside the digital world, your life is going to be hard indeed, because you will not be able to get anything from anywhere (no cash anymore, etc.), and this is likely to make you quite unhappy. In that kind of world, which is at least partly the world we're already in, a personal struggle against "the government" or something may feel heroic and empowering and whatnot, but I'm not at all sure that it does anybody any good.

Edited November 15, 20232 yr by xzar_monty