>Hey Americans this might be a good time to do something about that lunatic you put into office. You're the ones constantly bleating on about keeping government power in check, don't you think this is an opportunity to put your money where your mouth is? The world is watching, and judging.
That's all true. And we even have a mechanism for removing said lunatic. We call it the 25th Amendment[0] to our constitution. The only problem with using that mechanism is that the folks who are in line to succeed[1] the aforementioned lunatic are at least as un-serious, and are, in many cases, religious zealots who see nuclear war in the Middle East[2] as bringing on the second coming of their imaginary sky daddy.
As an American, I'd be even more afraid if a jackass like J.D. Vance became president, and heaven help us all if Mike Johnson or Marco Rubio became president. Or how about Scott Bessent or Pete Hegseth. Yeesh! Scary stuff!
>Iga Swiatek (the tennis player) was denied entry in the player area for her own match. Situation was quickly resolved.
>I doubt VIPs go through the same entrance, lines and checks as regular folks.
For those of you unfamiliar with professional women's tennis, Swiatek is currently ranked #4 in the world and to date has spent 125 weeks as the #1 women's tennis player in the world.
>Each ticket is a unique code, and they are scanned on entry to match with the codes in the system.
>As for resale: The attendee name is tied to the ticket in these cases, and ID is checked at the door. I guess an app could be more effective for preventing this than normal digital/paper tickets.
That's as may be, and that would be great for MLB games, but it's not the way it works[0]. The process requires the smartphone app from purchase through accessing your seat after using the restroom during the game. No paper tickets ever any more.
>For sure. If that was true the answer would be "charge the non-app users a nominal fee to cover the cost".
>Invasive tracking is the point, not the cost. It's anti-consumer.
The last (and likely the last) time I went to an MLB game (not the Dodgers), perhaps six years ago or so, I was required to install a smartphone app when I purchased my tickets, keep that app on my smartphone for before and during the actual game. In the several months after buying a ticket and seeing the game, I received no less that 100 spam email messages (I was required to provide an email address as well) from the team's "partners."
What's more, not only was there no option for a paper ticket, if I left my seat during the game to get food/drink, I was required to have my smartphone and present my "ticket" via their app to security personnel when I returned to my seat. Every time.
As I said, even though I was (and am) a life-long fan, I will never go back to the stadium to see a game. It was far too invasive and inconvenient.
Edit: I'd add that I couldn't even block emails (which I routinely do at the server for other emails) from those "partners" because there were emails that were required to obtain my tickets. That isn't me not wanting to "learn" something, that's me not wanting to receive multiple spam emails every day from the same source.
>Surely there's an option to unsubscribe from marketing emails. Did you try? It's highly illegal not to have that.
IIRC, agreeing to receive marketing emails was one of the terms of installing the app which was required to use the tickets.
No matter. I just corralled that spam in a folder and ignored them (which is how I knew how many -- >100 -- I received) for the couple of months I had the app installed.
Once I attended the game, I uninstalled the app and told my mail server to reject any emails (with a permanent/"User Unknown" rejection error) to that email address and deleted the folder.
I probably should have filed suit against MLB for coercive licensing of their app. Which would likely be finishing up around now, seven or so years and tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees later, so the court can tell me that I have no legal recourse.
But I didn't. Mostly, I'm sure, because I don't have your keen legal mind. Why don't you try that and let me know how it works out for you. The actuarials say I should live another fifteen or twenty years, so I can wait. Do tell.
I think you are not remembering correctly. The app does not require you to receive marketing e-mails. It can't supersede law, and it does not in my experience.
Unsubscribing from marketing e-mails does actually work. It's vastly simpler than trying to filter, reject, etc. And this way you still get the actual important emails. Like when an event gets cancelled, or other important information.
You don't need to get all snarky. Just consider this a learning opportunity.
Protip: always use plus aliases when signing up for things like this. Use a unique plus alias for everything you sign up for (the convention I use is e.g myemail+yourcompanyname@mydomain.com). This convention lets you be sure exactly who sold your info when the spam comes, based on the to address, and it also lets you easily block email from that source after you've got your tickets.
The only downsides are that sometimes it doesn't work if their shitty form verification insists that the plus character isn't valid in an email address. In those cases I tend to set up an actual mail alias (yourcompany@mydomain.com), but that's an annoying extra step - pluis aliasing is simple, requires no configuration, and works everywhere. But this is pretty rare. And if you're using it to sign in to things, you'll want a password manager so that you can remember what plus alias you used for each site.
Don't misunderstand me - I'm not defending the behaviour you're posting about - it's reprehensible and I wouldn't have bought tickets at all under such a system. What I'm offering is a way to make it more manageable for people who don't want to go without things that you can only buy under these user-hostile models.
>Protip: always use plus aliases when signing up for things like this. Use a unique plus alias for everything you sign up for (the convention I use is e.g myemail+yourcompanyname@mydomain.com). This convention lets you be sure exactly who sold your info when the spam comes, based on the to address, and it also lets you easily block email from that source after you've got your tickets.
I don't use "plus aliases." I don't need to. I've owned my own domains for just about 30 years, so I just use <whoeveritis>@mydomain.com and then block any emails that start spamming or are just annoying.
Protip: Host your own emails so those greedy scumbags can't cut you off whenever they please, leaving you unable to access all the crap you authenticate through your "plus aliases"
Edit: N.B., I appreciate that you brought that up. Some folks may find that useful even if I don't. That said, I still say folks should host their own email if they have the resources (minimal) and inclination (less so).
So in other words you could have easily blocked the spam emails you were complaining about after the first one arrived.
Regular aliases are fine, but they're more difficult to set up. And don't work everywhere.
I do host my own email. But not everybody has the knowledge/inclination to do so. Which is fine if that's their choice. Plus aliases work for those people too.
>So in other words you could have easily blocked the spam emails you were complaining about after the first one arrived.
That's not what I said at all[2]. In fact, I said[0]:
I was required to install a smartphone app when I purchased my tickets, keep
that app on my smartphone for before and during the actual game. In the
several months after buying a ticket and seeing the game, I received no less
that 100 spam email messages (I was required to provide an email address as
well) from the team's "partners."
I also said[1]:
IIRC, agreeing to receive marketing emails was one of the terms of installing
the app which was required to use the tickets.
[2] And yes, I know you're being a trollish jackass, but I have a little time to kill this morning, so lucky you. That's all the feeding you're gonna get. Now back under your bridge!
I'm being a trollish jackass?!? Fuck off. I posted a helpful tip - for you and for others - on how you can avoid the bullshit you were whinging about, and that you specifically claimed you couldn't block. You replied with condescending trolling pointing out how amazing you are and how you don't need my advice because you run your own email, as if that's some amazing achievement. What it does mean though is that, as I pointed out in my last message, you could have easily blocked the trash email you were whinging about once you had your ticket, making your whinging about it entirely redundant boo-hooing about nothing.
> I also said[1]: IIRC, agreeing to receive marketing emails was one of the terms of installing the app which was required to use the tickets.
Uh-huh, sure, you pointed out, after I had posted and in a different thread that I haven't looked at since, that you theoretically agreed to receive spam according to a shitty set of T&Cs. I'm not sure how this is relevant to managing/blocking said spam? Or your assholish response to my attempt to help you?
Oh noes! They might cancel your subscription to their shitty app that you have explicitly stated you don't want! Maybe they'll call the police! I mean, you have your tickets and have been to the game already and have said that you don't plan on going to another one, and there's no way they could detect that you'd blocked their mail, so the net effect on you for violating their T&C is vanishingly unlikely to ever be anything other than zero, but sure, whatever, keep receiving that ridiculous volume of spam because you theoretically agreed to it, I guess?
>And what happens if the state level election workers are up against federal level gunpoint?
It's not like ICE can just roll into a state capitol and stop elections.
How many folks would be required for that at each polling place? Ten?
Fifty? There are 3500+ counties in the US, usually with multiple polling places. You'd need tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of troops for that.
And that's a lot of armed thugs. Likely the National Guard would need to be federalized, but I find it hard to believe that commanders would follow such illegal orders.
To swing Pennsylvania, they'd probably just need to send ICE into Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Tell them to ignore anybody with a MAGA hat. Big and blue cities in purple states are the only necessary targets.
Right, in a close election, there are only a handful of swing states, and probably only a handful of polling places in each of those where they'd need to deploy ICE to make a big difference.
>Unlike in Mexico there was no pre-colonial, indigenous empire that had ruled and named the land which eventually became the 13 colonies.
Actually, there were multiple indigenous political entities both along the Eastern Seaboard (where we find those 13 colonies) as well as across what is now the US and Canada[0].
We just took their land and killed most of them, but they were still pretty organized -- with political groupings of various types.
Of course colonists committed genocide against indigenous people everywhere they went. No one's denying that. I'm addressing precisely what you yourself said
> there were multiple indigenous political entities both along the Eastern Seaboard
They were fragmented and smaller than the Aztec empire. That doesn't make it right to take their land. It does explain why their names didn't apply to the entire land. Because none of them was so big and centralized. If you look at the geographical features of the Eastern seaboard - mountains, lakes, streams, rivers, cities and towns, even 2 states (Massachusetts, Connecticut) - native names abound.
The lands that became the US and Canada really did have fewer people living on them than the lands that became Mexico. [1] Again because Mexico had centralized states and large-scale agriculture capable of supporting large populations.
What about Iran? Iran was conquered by muslims. So should we conquer it and kick muslims out because it wasn't ok to take that land? What about every muslim country? Muslims stole mecca from the Jews, as is extensively detailed in muslim history books. Should it be conquered and returned?
What about China? The kingdoms did most of the conquering of course, then "unification" took their land and then communists did ethnic cleansing until Han Chinese were in most places all that's left. Hell, a number of the people they cleansed aren't even gone yet. There are still Tibetans. There are plenty of original Hong Kong'ers still alive.
What about Russia? What about North Africa? What about ...
>No, the people in power do not have our interest in mind and anyone believing otherwise is an enemy, and I don't find them cartoonish at all, I find this all very very serious and terrifying, I will not comply.
Do your elected representatives support such legislation?
If the answer is "yes," and you live in a place that has free and fair elections, that's on you for not electing folks who will actually represent you.
Sure, feel free to blame the people you voted for. But since you and your neighbors elected those folks, it's hard to see how it's only the fault of those you elected.
That's not to say there aren't other forces/special interests trying to tilt things in their favor, but the solution is electing people who will have your (collective) "interest in mind," not blaming those you had a hand in electing.
In a representative democracy, the voters are the government. We decide who will represent us. If you don't like those that do, look in a mirror.
>Um, why would you do that instead of waiting for someone more knowledgable to reply, and learn from? Replies are not mandatory, and experts/insiders participating is one of the best parts of the human Internet. Let them shine.
As Isaac Asimov pointed out[0]:
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
This thread runs through many cultures and isn't just a problem on the Internet, although the Internet certainly has accelerated/worsened the problem. And it has created a distrust of experts which (as has been obvious for a long time) has made us, as a whole, dumber and less informed.
I recommend The Death of Expertise[1] by Tom Nichols for a sane and reasonable treatment of this issue. If books aren't your thing, Nichols did a book talk[2] which lays out the main points he makes in the book. During that talk, he also gives the best definition of disinformation I've heard yet.
Again, the question is who blesses the expert? There’s a difference in having a voice and your voice being taken seriously.
If someone posts a link on a a new laptop, who should respond? I am not an expert on the current laptop market, but I have options about it. Maybe my English is not the best so I run through an AI to clean it up of ambiguities or wrong wording. Maybe I say “I like to take my laptop from behind” when I meant “I lift my laptop from the back”. An AI could point out this type of error.
>But I think there will always be that feeling of: a human being took the effort to write this. No matter how informative or well written an AI article or comment is, it isn't something we instinctively want to respond to, the way we do when we know there is a person behind the words.
Over and over again, when reading comments from some folks who lionize the usage of LLM outputs, as well as other folks who demonize such usage, I'm reminded of this bit from Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle[0], specifically from the "Books of Bokonon"[1]:
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds
himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people
who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
And I wonder if, (myself included) those who demonize LLM usage are those who "came by their ignorance the hard way."
I'll admit that the analogy isn't great, but there is something to it IMNSHO. Mostly that many who distrust (and often rightly so) LLM outputs have a strong negative impression (perhaps not "murderous resentment," but similar) of those who use LLMs to spout off.
I suppose this is a bit tangential to the topic at hand, but if it gets anyone to read Cat's Cradle who hasn't already, I'll take the win.
That's all true. And we even have a mechanism for removing said lunatic. We call it the 25th Amendment[0] to our constitution. The only problem with using that mechanism is that the folks who are in line to succeed[1] the aforementioned lunatic are at least as un-serious, and are, in many cases, religious zealots who see nuclear war in the Middle East[2] as bringing on the second coming of their imaginary sky daddy.
As an American, I'd be even more afraid if a jackass like J.D. Vance became president, and heaven help us all if Mike Johnson or Marco Rubio became president. Or how about Scott Bessent or Pete Hegseth. Yeesh! Scary stuff!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_lin...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon
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