Probably why he does philanthropy.
“God, the company I started has such a reputation as the evil monopolist that we can’t even hire talented programmers to make our system decently usable. There’s not enough money in the universe that could convince people to work for us. I have to repair the world.”
Much could be said about this.
Some people are prudish. Some people are not. Media could have two different versions: the sanitized version made for the first group of people, and mature version for the second group. Sometimes this is not possible in which case it’s better to just have the first version so that it’s suitable to the largest audience.
There’s also been (I think justifiable) backlash against adult stuff because kids now are big users of the internet thanks to the addictiveness of social media and the tiny supercomputer they carry with them everywhere that is now necessary to participate in society. Sanitizing everything for everyone is one solution to this problem. The other is keep the mature stuff but require age verification to view it.
Also, people often browse social media in public and are aware someone might look over their shoulder and see something that might be misinterpreted as porn. Nobody wants that.
There’s a great article in The Atlantic about the disappearance of communal showers without curtains or dividers in the US. Nude beaches and nudist colonies are apparently disappearing as well.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/2025/11/naked-locker-room-end/684907/
Summarizing in my own words,
Progressive era reformers had communal baths built before municipal plumbing systems existed so that the poor who could not afford their own private bath could keep clean. Bathing suits at the time would fall apart and clog filters, so boys and men were required to bathe naked (apparently women had to be clothed). People naturally also showered naked without dividers or curtains. By cultural momentum, this practice stuck around long after bathing suits had advanced.
Fast forward to today and people are realizing that separating showers by gender isn’t enough to prevent any discomfort or sexualization of naked bodies because there’s awareness of different sexual orientations. Additionally, the internet exists and cell phones with cameras are ubiquitous. Nobody wants to have an image of their nude form spread to half the world over social media where it previously would only be seen by a few people for a few minutes. Add to this the fact that easy access to a vast amount of internet pornography has massively sexualized nudity. Communal showers are disappearing because a large number of people (including me) hate them.
No, it’s corruption. Big tech loves the attention and he’s giving it to them to repay the favor of helping elect him.
Certainly the oligarchic part of the government doesn’t want that. But if the government is of the people, then it should. Meta wants people hooked as early as possible. If kids can’t access big social media, a competitor will fill the niche or kids will work out how they can run their own infrastructure that can easily do some of the things big social media does. That’s a win.
To get around blocks, we just configured the internet connection settings to use a proxy server. Once someone figured that out, word spread and then we all had access to everything.
Kids will always work around blocks. Whitelists don’t work because they inevitably block something you need to access and that’s frustrating. Blacklists don’t work because you can’t review every site and everything it does. Even if you can, new ones they shouldn’t access are popping all the time. And even if they aren’t, it takes one clever kid to run a proxy server at home and give access to the whole school. The adults don’t realize that computers and the internet are built like Russian nesting dolls. Inside your site can live the entire damned internet or an NES emulator or an LLM that does your homework or whatever the hell you want. Having internet access means having access to the whole internet. Kids interpret censorship as damage and route around it.
If you squint, you can make the right side look like the left side. Kind of amazing. Instantly increase resolution with this one weird trick.
Shhhh, honey. The telescreen might be listening.
People think TikTok took off because the algorithm has some magic sauce the other platforms don’t. Nope. It’s because the content was more authentic because creators couldn’t monetize. It was like YouTube in the early days.
2018
wake up feeling sick after a late night of playing video games
excited to play some halo 2k19
“xbox on”
…
“XBOX ON”
"Please verify that you are “annon332” by saying “Doritos™ Dew™ it right!”
“Doritos™ Dew™ it right”
“ERROR! Please drink a verification can”
reach into my Doritos™ Mountain Dew™ Halo 2k19™ War Chest
only a few cans left, needed to verify 14 times last night
still feeling sick from the 14
force it down and grumble out “mmmm that really hit the spot”
xbox does nothing
i attempt to smile
“Connecting to verification server”
…
“Verification complete!”
finally
boot up halo 2k19
finding multiplayer match…
“ERROR! User attempting to steal online gameplay!”
my mother just walked in the room
“Adding another user to your pass, this will be charged to your credit card. Do you accept?”
“NO!”
“Console entering lock state!”
“to unlock drink verification can”
last can
“WARNING, OUT OF VERIFICATION CANS, an order has been shipped and charged to your credit card”
drink half the can, oh god im going to be sick
pour the last half out the window
“PIRACY DETECTED! PLEASE COMPLETE THIS ADVERTISEMENT TO CONTINUE”
the mountain dew ad plays
i have to dance for it
feeling so sick
makes me sing along
dancing and singing
“mountain dew is for me and you”
throw up on myself
throw up on my tv and entertainment system
router shorts
“ERROR NO CONNECTION! XBOX SHUTTING OFF”
“PLEASE DRINK VERIFICATION CAN TO CONTINUE”
I think I have you all beat. I’m still rocking an iPhone 6S Plus released in 2015. The latest update was for iOS 15.8.8 on May 11, 2026.
I bet there’s some degree of sensationalist reporting here. It’s a bit too reminiscent of WarGames for me to believe this actually happened.
“Well, I obviously choose to have the numnums. Where are the 5 people? I don’t see them.” – baby without object permanence probably
Telnet support has become highly unusual in new applications, though amateur radio operators and multi-user dungeons do continue to utilize it. Telnet is a popular protocol to connect to the roughly 1000 Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) that are on the Internet.
https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/285267
RIP flash
Oh, here it is on the Internet Archive in a flash emulator: https://archive.org/details/The_Ultimate_Showdown_of_Ultimate_Destiny
No pause button, though. For whatever reason, Newgrounds just presents a .mp4.
$10 says the dev is doing the project to pad their CV to try to score a job they’re not qualified for. We’re all having to deal with sorting the chaff and the grain because silicon valley loonies thought giving people access to a stochastic parrot was a great idea. Crackpots are now empowered.
These AI labs shouldn’t be private profit-seeking corporations. They should be more like publicly-funded nonprofit research institutions like Fermilab or something. It doesn’t seem possible to even talk about the labs without feeling like you’re increasing their value. That’s a problem. It’s also a problem that the research and announcements from the labs sound like publicity stunts. It’s hard to tell what’s genuine and what’s buzz for the press. There’s this arms race between the labs that’s negatively affecting seemingly everything. This should all just be put to an end. Step on the brakes. I don’t claim to know how to do that when the Constitution makes private property sacred, but, you know, just throwing the idea out there… The Constitution can always be changed.
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