I’m a gen Xer in the US. I and most of my peer group have our own places. The ones with good careers and stable relationships generally have houses in more desirable areas, but even folks with more blue collar or less fancy jobs have a place further out in the suburbs or have a small condo. The only younger people I know who own are either in a situation where they both make serious money (like doctors or do well tech), come from money or occasionally just make it happen with just serious hustle and grit (and even then, I’m amazed they can do it).

But individuals do have power to make Twitter less important. Well, maybe not Twitter, just because it’s 95% bots, but social media companies are usually only valuable if they have users. There are people who depend on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram for their business but 99% of users absolutely do not need to use those services. The analogy with recycling and climate fall flat because it takes many orders of magnitude more effort to avoid most/all plastics/packaging/fossil fuels than it does to just avoid IG/FB/X. The biggest barriers to getting rid of these shit companies is 1) too many people don’t realize how awful they are 2) too many people just don’t give a shit and 3) too many people are addicted to the dopamine hits from these trash sites.

Seriously, just don’t use them. When you’re presented with something that tries to force you to use them, say “sorry, I don’t use Meta products, do you have another way for me to get [the pop-up dates, the invite, etc]”

It’s rainy here today and my dogs aren’t happy about the whole walk situation. It’s nice to have a reminder to try and enjoy it.

The glasses are much more difficult to detect than someone holding up a phone to record. Will the glasses always look super obvious? The old Google ones were ginormous, I don’t know if I would recognize the FB ones in the wild.

You can generally tell when a phone camera is pointed in your general direction within a reasonable range. It’s uncommon enough for people to do this in public outside of large crowds (concerts, sporting events, etc) that avoiding those situations isn’t an undue burden. With the glasses, can you tell whether they’re recording or do you just have to assume that they’re always recording?

This is a non trivial escalation and I will definitely shun and or shame anyone I encounter with this trash tech.

And there is nothing wrong with hating Zuck, his companies and the other billionaires destroying society. If you don’t have issues with existential threats then that is a bigger issue.

I just saw a US Department of Justice report that 1 in 3 women are stalked in their lifetime. People with immigration issues are getting disappeared to concentration camps. US prisons are notoriously inhumane and people on parole can get violated for trivial reasons. The failure to understand that there are people who will feel seriously threatened by getting recorded without consent is just frustratingly ignorant.

Yeah, there are a million security cameras everywhere but at least it is mostly just ignored and not an issue until law enforcement is actively looking for you (IDK what kind of Palantir evil is happening on the back end but that’s a whole nother issue). Social media is super random and chaotic. Why take the risk that your life will get blown up because you happened by a viral moment?

People with legal issues, immigration issues or violent exes will absolutely dip if they see someone recording. I have none of these problems and I will always avoid gettIng recorded by randos if it’s easy to do so. I can’t reasonably avoid every Ring cam in my neighborhood but I will happily slide 10 feet to the left to avoid becoming collateral damage in some dbags insta reel.

This may be perfectly legal but it is absolutely a dick move and people will HATE you for it. The are so many scenarios where perfectly reasonable people will find this behavior extremely unsettling, at best, and possibly threatening.

And you are incorrect in assuming that “there would be nothing [the subject] can do about it “. In the real world there are plenty of people who will risk an assault charge to deal with someone being a disrespectful dick, and many more who will act if they feel threatened.

Now, might doesn’t make right, but are you right? Going against social norms and risking extrajudicial retaliation to fight injustice is commendable. But this isn’t sitting at a lunch counter during segregation or protesting at Stonewall. In a world where 1 in 3 women will be stalked in her lifetime ( in the US according to the Justice Department), why is this the hill you want to die upon?

Or is it “mar-kuhwan-ye”, rhymes with Kanye (West)?

So my view of him from my vantage point is that he’s unoriginal, and needs other peoples work to survive.

I’m a huge rap fan and this is 100% correct.

Although, not for the reasons you listed. Having a huge hit that leans heavily on an obvious sample of an older hit song isn’t necessarily awful. But the guy writes corny shit, is a terrible rapper and is just not very talented. He built an empire off of surrounding himself with amazingly talented people and exploiting them in the worst possible ways.