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The Independent Variable

Posts on page 13

đŸ“± The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

Politico

The fact that the Commission said TikTok should change the basic design of its service is “ground-breaking for the business model fueled by surveillance and advertising," said Katarzyna Szymielewicz, president of the Panoptykon Foundation, a Polish civil society group.

Honestly, I really love this idea. It’s so easy to just fall into doom scrolling and go down a never-ending rabbit hole. So forcing some kind of decision-making to continue is a good idea, given some of the addiction we’ve seen arise from these types of apps.

I’ve also been thinking defaulting to an algorithmic timeline should be nixed. If a user wants to make that decision and switch over, let ’em. But even on Instagram, where you have the following feed, you have to switch to it every single time—that should be the default. Then you can switch to a discover feed or the algorithm or whatever if you so choose.

Or maybe I’m just a weak human being with no self-control. But both could be true.

đŸ€– OpenAI amending deal with Pentagon, CEO Altman says

Reuters

Surprisingly absolutely no one with half a brain, OpenAI actually couldn’t fulfill the same deal as Anthropic while holding to the same high standards and principles.

And it’s all of these shortsighted nincompoops that are going to absolutely destroy the economy—and not just the stock market, but the everyday lives of normal folks—along with the idiotic policies, actions, and war (crimes) of the current administration.

I’m rambling and getting a bit off topic now, but we are at the point (and, to be clear, have been for sometime) in a post-capitalistic society where outputs don’t actually matter. Instead what businesses make is irrelevant as all they care about are numbers on a spreadsheet to appease Wall Street. The best ideas or products don’t prevail, just those who have inherited or “created” wealth, sitting on billions of dollars with companies that make billions in profit, but somehow can’t afford to pay full-time employees enough to keep them off of welfare.

It’s almost funny when the right wing made up this fake idea of a “welfare queen” who just wanted to sit at home and collect a check, when, in reality, they created a system where those same people have to work two jobs to survive—working harder than any CEO pencil pusher—while still sitting below the poverty line because of the actual welfare class that was created due out of Regan and trickle down economics.

đŸ» Bears Pro Bowl center Drew Dalman retiring at age 27

Athletic

Shit.

I mean good for him—hopefully there’s no medical thing pushing him to this—but go enjoy your money while you’re young and have a restful life with your family. That should be the goal for most folks anyway, but boy is this going to be a huge hit to the Bears for next season


đŸ—łïž Gallup will no longer measure presidential approval after 88 years

The Hill

“This change is part of a broader, ongoing effort to align all of Gallup’s public work with its mission,” a spokesperson for Gallup said. “We look forward to continuing to offer independent research that adheres to the highest standards of social science.”

Yeah, I believe them when they say it has nothing to do with the current administration and the fact this president has the lowest approval rating ever. Makes total sense they’d stop to “align with its mission.”