This was my experience (You do it to improve your life...), and I'm very glad I did. It's almost the same feeling I had when after quitting smoking for a month, almost elation - I had really done it. The space that twitter occupied in my life was in amazing disproportion to the actual point of it. "Cred" doesn't come in to it.
This is the case for my mother. Facebook has her thoroughly filter bubbled, and it's sad and worrying. I don't know how to wean her off the Facebook brain-rot. Her ipad is Facebook, and Facebook is the internet.
She recently told me she wouldn't get a flu shot this year, and I know where she got that idea. I got mad, and gave her a lecture about the insane anti-vax people, and the many ways in which their beliefs are complete bullshit.
But my anger wasn't at her, but rather frustration that Facebook might indirectly cost her her life.
Some days I feel like null routing Facebook on her router. I won't do that of course, because it's not my job to interfere with her choices. But I'm becoming increasingly concerned.
You aren't alone. My Mom went full on conspiracy with FB. She was always a little nutty, but its let her take it to a new level. I once told her "You better not make me watch you die over this (antivaxx/antidoctor)"
A. It's only speculated that Trump has some sort of special relation with Putin; it's by no means certain, and if so, this might not be part of their relation.
B. A relation between Trump and Putin doesn't have to mean much for the rest of the administration.
C. Assange is just a pawn.
D. Why would Trump draw even more attention to himself?
When Iran coordinated attacks on American soldiers, Trump almost started World War III. When Russia coordinated and put bounties on American soldiers' heads, Trump tried getting Putin invited to the G7 summit.
Saying that Trump has a special relationship with Putin isn't even close to speculation. It's an easily observable understatement of the decade.
The Australian consumer has already lost. This whole country is an exercise in trussing up the public and making sure they pay the very most for the very least.
I've long given up on Australian journalism - at least in the main stream. Obviously the Murdoch papers are garbage, but the Age and SMH are almost (and becoming) as appalling. The ABC and SBS have been cowered to the extent that they jump at their own shadows and now _have_ to include cometary from utter fuckwits like Gerard Henderson or that vast twit Greg Sheridan lest they appear biased. It now seems that the ABC almost has to ask permission to publish a story. The Age was a great newspaper, now it's almost unreadable - apart form the NYTimes and Wapo stories they run.
Google are not the good guys. They are a rapacious monopoly that have their shareholders interest at heart, NOT the Google consumer. And in terms of "trusting them with our data" - like that's the very least we'd expect from a product that purports to do this - and they don't do this for free - WE pay for it.
Like cry me a river Google - like News Corp, they pay fuck all tax in Australia, and, just like Murdoch, are more than happy to take advertising from fake news and conspiracy pushers that does nothing but fatten their profits and damage society.
There is good media out there - Crikey, The Guardian, New Matilda, new Daily etc, but it isn't mainstream, one has to, dare I say, search for it.
You and the parent post both sum up my feelings better than I can. We Aussies are being used as meat in the grinder between two companies that are each pretty awful in their own ways. I struggle to feel bad for either of them, really.
Probably the most depressing of all of this is how the ACCC - what has always been a very closely treasured and respected independent government body - has been used here as a pawn by the government-media oligarchy. It really soils all the really good work they've done to give us very robust and fair consumer laws and protections we enjoy. They've been used as the shitkickers for what is obviously a Murdoch-driven government play, where (not unlike the Five Eyes playbook) he hopes to ram through some draconian bullshit here as a proving ground, to which he can later point in the UK and US for similar laws there.
One of the best decisions I ever made was adding Newscorp's bullshit to my ad blocker so accidentally clicking URLs to it fails to load. One of the other best was disconecting myself from Google as much as I have.
Yep, it is offensive that the ACCC would even contribute to this nonsensical "debate". There is not a shred of preserving Competition in the News Media and digital landscapes in Australia. There is certainly no way the ACCC has acted in the interest of the Consumer. This whole debacle serves a few financial and political interests and works against healthy debate, democracy and the population's interest.
Access to a variety of editorial positions in the media is not possible for the average Aussie. Newscorp control the opinions of the country and the electorate - a balanced view is not within the grasp of Australia anymore, regardless of how this legislation turns out.
It hit me a couple of years back, a night time drive through the Australian countryside and your car would be plastered with insects - not anymore. And fireflies, I haven't seen one in years,
Yes 10 or 15 years ago driving from Adelaide to Melbourne would require a halfway pit stop to manually clean the windscreen because the wipers weren't able to cope with all the bug guts. Last year i did it and didn't need to even use the wipers once.
Our insect loss is much more likely due to climate change than light pollution though due to our sparse population between the cities.
