Fair statement but it is generally accepted that extraordinary measures, like extraordinary claims require extreme evidence. That's just not the case here. To paraphrase Ben Frnaklin "Those who would give up liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." I think the corollary is that we actually get neither liberty nor safety.
The interesting thing is that the laws being created to protect against such extreme attacks will be used against the people when they are controlled by an extreme group.
That's how radicalization works, a pretty well-defined tactic as I understand it:
How do you get free, prosperous, safe people to give all that up for what you offer? It sounds almost impossible. You manufacture fear and division - look at terrorism, or the uses of demonization in many places - and then they may be willing to change.
Remember that Eisenhower said, 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself'. Eisenhower, who led the militaries of West through arguably the greatest crisis in their history, who was leading the West through the Cold War. He knew crisis, and that is what he said. That's what genuine leaders do.
Those who use spread fear and radicalization are not after security and freedom, but after power.
For what it's worth, I remember coming across this claim a couple years ago about AWS on HN. I don't think it's fiction, it's possible that their PR has scrubbed these allegations from the internet.
Irving Kirsch, psych professor at Harvard, wrote a book called "The Emperor's New Drugs" which argues that antidepressants are basically just placebos. I haven't read the book but I have seen a lot of interviews and articles on his research and it's pretty damning.
I have read this book, and can confirm, it is extremely interesting and pretty damning.
I'm frankly surprised it hasn't had more of an impact; it really does seem like SSRIs are causing a lot of harm to a lot of people in the form of side effects, and the scientific evidence seems to point strongly toward them being no better than any other active placebo. Yet, they continue to be prescribed in ever-increasing numbers.
Well, to be blunt, it's because there are billion dollar pharmaceutical companies that want to keep making money off of these drugs, with around 20% of adults taking anti-depressants at any given time.
They're only subject to large fines if those laws are in place and actually being enforced, though. Companies keep getting away with these huge data breaches in the United States with almost no real consequences.
It's getting harder and harder to ignore these laws unless you're willing to stay out of some major markets (such as Europe and California).
I think we'll see a national privacy law in the United States at some point in the next five years. There's appetite for it in both major parties (Democrats to protect bodily autonomy, Republicans to stick it to Big Tech), and I think the targets of the regulations themselves will at some point lobby for a consistent national law rather than the patchwork of state laws that we have now.
The RESTRICT Act suggests that there's political will in the US to solve the same problems that the GDPR solves. If the RESTRICT Act fails, the US might get federal-level privacy protection (subject to the PATRIOT Act, of course).
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