I don’t know where I read it but IIRC religion is being used as a simple answer to very difficult and possibly uncomfortable questions: why are we here and what is our purpose?

It is fairly easy to believe that something, a god, created us instead of that the existence of humanity was just a fluke, a stroke of luck enabling us to evolve were we are now because it is just easier to grasp even if it is proven. That we evolved from simple beings into more complex organisms instead of just “being created”. Evolution creates so many quite difficult questions that it is easier to understand and believe that someone just wanted us to exist.

When someone is believing in a religion they also always have some form of " it won’t be over" scenario like when you die, there is nothing truly “the end”. You just won’t vanish and this can be terrifying for many because the following question could be, what sense does it make to live at all when our existence is just so insignificant in comparison to everything else?

So, in short, it is an easy too to make sense of things that almost everyone can understand it.

Unfortunately, things like this can and will be abused.

Connectivity or rather the lack of it…

I have a Samsung TV and recently got a new cooling fan and now when I start the fan when my TV is on, it says it detected a new device. I don’t know what my TV would want with a fan maybe control the speed for more immersion?

But there is also no way for me to disable that. I also got regular requests of my neighbor’s to connect to my TV until I disabled the notification for it. No, I couldn’t disable that my TV doesn’t even allow it to be seen, I had to enable to not automatically connect devices and disable that notifications are being shown. That thing isn’t even connected to the internet.

My phone still doesn’t know what fuck means or suggests it to me when I want to write it even though I use it fairly often. I also daily greet my coworkers over threema and it still hasn’t learned what I want to write when my sausage fingers and the too smal keyboard are at a disagreement what should be written.

My neighbour asked me to take a look at her refrigerator because it wasn’t working. I am a software developer.

What audio problem? because I had issues with my surround sound in which the channels where jumping all over the place. Support wasn’t much help and if that was the same problem then I wish I had found that sooner

As long as people pay for it and they make massive profits through it.

I mean, look at the last situation in which netflix addressed account sharing. Their user number actually increased because of it from what I have read.

Those people that can’t afford it will most likely switch to a less expensive tier and then probably see ads. I have seen that recently with my father who wasn’t even bothered or annoyed by the constant ads while watching a single episode.

I use a pihole which is a small computer that checks every domain request and blocks them when they are on one of my blacklists. This works great for browsing the web because you just don’t see most ads anymore. I also use adblocks for, for example, YouTube because pihole can’t distinguish between ads or legitimate requests when they come from the same domain.

I also download all videos from YouTube to watch. And I also don’t have cable.

Basically, I see so few instances of ads anymore that any few ads are getting so annoying. The 1-2 ads in front of a YouTube video or in the middle, I just don’t watch that video anymore.

But when I really noticed that was when I was spending the day with my father and we were watching a TV show on some free provider, every 10 minutes there were 1.5 minutes ads. Which is by far better as normal TV in my country (Germany) but damn, this was really annoying after just a single episode and I’m glad I don’t have to see those at home. It just interrupts the flow.

This is the same problem/argument you have with the argument/perception of planes being unsafe.

In 2022 almost 43000 people died in “motor vehicle traffic crashes”. And yet many believe that Planes are much more dangerous to use than cars because hundreds of people die all at once in a Plane crash.

A Plane crash is automatically a sensation, something that doesn’t happen every day but a car accident happens every day but this isn’t reported as much because it is already a daily routine.

The same goes with the “Coal kills more than nuclear” argument which is even less likely to be grasped by the normal population.

I mean just look at the climate change denier who say “but it is snowing so climate change isn’t real” while at the same time complaining that each summer is so incredibly hot.

All of those things are so incredibly complex that the vast majority can’t understand and outright deny them because they read/heard somewhere that they actually can understand, that it is a hoax. I mean, I wouldn’t count myself to the people that understand climate change but I can understand that it will have a drastic impact on our lives if this goes on.

I just skimmed through the “right to be forgotten” site from the EU and there is nothing specifically mentioned about “search engines” or at least not from what I can find.

Basically, ANY website that has users from the EU needs to comply with the GDRP which means that you have the “right to be forgotten” when:

• The personal data is no longer necessary for the purpose an organization originally collected or processed it.
• An organization is relying on an individual’s consent as the lawful basis for processing the data and that individual withdraws their consent.
• An organization is relying on legitimate interests as its justification for processing an individual’s data, the individual objects to this processing, and there is no overriding legitimate interest for the organization to continue with the processing.
• An organization is processing personal data for direct marketing purposes and the individual objects to this processing.
• An organization processed an individual’s personal data unlawfully.
• An organization must erase personal data in order to comply with a legal ruling or obligation.
• An organization has processed a child’s personal data to offer their information society services.

However, you cannot ask for deletion if the following reasons apply:

• The data is being used to exercise the right of freedom of expression and information.
• The data is being used to comply with a legal ruling or obligation.
• The data is being used to perform a task that is being carried out in the public interest or when exercising an organization’s official authority.
• The data being processed is necessary for public health purposes and serves in the public interest.
• The data being processed is necessary to perform preventative or occupational medicine. This only applies when the data is being processed by a health professional who is subject to a legal obligation of professional secrecy.
• The data represents important information that serves the public interest, scientific research, historical research, or statistical purposes and where erasure of the data would likely to impair or halt progress towards the achievement that was the goal of the processing.
• The data is being used for the establishment of a legal defense or in the exercise of other legal claims.

The GDPR is also not particularly specific and pretty vague from what I have read which will also apply to AI and not just “google searches”.

https://gdpr.eu/article-17-right-to-be-forgotten/

That means that anyone who gathered the data with or without the consent of the user will have to apply for that if they are serving the application to EU users. This also includes being able to be forgotten so every company has to have the necessary features to delete the data.

And since the Regulation (it is NOT a law), is already a few years old now and the company that should delete your data does not in fact delete it “without undue delay”. So the arguments “but we can’t” or “it takes too much time” aren’t really valid here, this should have been considered when the application was written/designed.

However, as stated in the contra points above, someone might argue that AI like ChatGPT could operate in the interest of research or the public interest and that a deletion of that data or data set could “impair or halt progress to that achievement that was the goal”.

That means that from my knowledge right now it is pretty clear. If someone has private data about you, you can request them to be deleted and that should be done without delay which seems to be that the company has one month to comply with that request.

But, these are just the things I could gather from the official websites.

A couple of years back we had a day in December (I think it was the week before Christmas) in which it was so hot that people were sitting in T-Shirts in the “Beer Garden” (German thing for an open-air Pub). I think it was like 23°C, in December…