Still, something like a masked identd used for masking system usernames for irc would go a long way to break the link between actual user accounts and display names for finger.

Not saying we don't have alcoholism now, but the scope of it has dramatically changed. Some of it is that people recognize the dangers, some of it is that people have found ways to mitigate the harm, and some of it is prevention methods.

People went into gin when it first hit the scene treating it like a relatively neutral new beverage that felt pretty good. They'd drank beer for centuries (small beers or regular), and it just seemed like a mostly harmless innovation. Or if not harmless, at least the harm wasn't as interesting as the positive experiences.

We find ourselves in many ways in the same boat now with our tech.

And the perhaps sad reality is, when we're talking about physiologically damaging innovations, these adaptations can take generations. Children seeing what they did to their parents deciding that they want something else -- parents who may have regrets but at least a difficult time detaching themselves from their addictions. Though also, in that process, some of them finding ways they can replicate to cease further damage. And, somewhat helpful, the regulation of the production such that some of the harmful aspects are removed simply by improving quality, giving people some of the experience without as many side effects (see: Bathtub Gin).

It's worth noting what didn't work as well: prohibition.

There are ways we can have a lot of the benefits of social media and dispense with the negatives. The brainrot dopaminergic algorithms. The constant surveillance. We can preserve the beneficial aspects: the exposure to diverse perspectives, and innovative ideas. And there is plenty of awareness that can be shared around just how harmful overexposure to even the best implementations can be. And we can iterate and adapt to see what works well for some people and what leads to ruin.

The way out is through.

Nothing ever stopped a sufficiently skilled pencil artist from sketching someone in the nude without their permission.

People have been making fake nude photos since the 90's with Photoshop and related software.

Is it crass and disrespectful? Sure.

I think it's also, however, more alarming because when it first happens it's something people worry that it will be accepted out of hand as real. Once it settles in that this is just the sort of media that is trivial to make, that matter falls off, and it's just like any other sort of harassment at most.

Attempts at censorship won't go well. Even blowing the whistle on it happening has likely added fuel to the fire of it happening more -- how many only know deepfakes are a thing because a news article exposed the practice and how awful it was?

It won't go anywhere. Especially as more and more models become capable of being run on cheaper and cheaper hardware at home. Time for society to adapt its expectations for what sort of media exists, and how trustworthy any of it is.

Who ever heard of a kid getting ahold of a beer?

Kids CAN absolutely bypass a lot still. Jump on Nostr and nobody can stop anyone -- a server can be run on any device (mine is on my phone), and it'll even run on non-TCP/IP networks (FIPS is in early days and still largely runs on existing infrastructure but absolutely doesn't rely on it staying there). Give it another few months with some LoRA build out (and enough motivation for the kids) and even the ISP gateway stops being a filter point. Not that ISP level controls have ever really been the most effective anyway, given the existence of VPN's and other tunneling methods (to say nothing of public wifi networks).

We see this happening in real time as India tries to stamp out Bitchat. The codebase has appeared on more and more repositories, and the most recent version of Bitchat is capable of transmitting itself for install to other devies without relying on any server or Internet at all.

So should we push back? Of course. At some point we would need to worry that they'll say enough is enough and make the hardware itself inaccessible. We're a long way off from that, and it'd be a surefire way to get a LOT more pushback.

But in the meantime, we shouldn't despair too much. The cypherpunks that gave us private and secure access on the Internet used by everyone today despite being once illegal to export didn't go anywhere. They're still here, kicking down every wall that gets put up, or at least pointing out that there are multiple ways around (or through) it.

I don't want my browser just paying everything willy nilly but I also don't want to be nagged every time I access a news article as to whether or not I agree to 6 satoshis.

There could be ways of addressing that; browser extensions may make it a configurable option with the default of "ask for everything" being the absolute safest way forward.

Decent use of the http/402 error code, and sort of exactly what the L402 folks are working toward resolving.

Nostr purity spirals have a great way of resulting in 5 people ever seeing what you're publishing. I love the protocol but when trying to get people using it you sort of need to put apps where they are.

Even nesting geohashes would be cool, though I think the concern is the chaos that happens when you see half a conversation but not the other (as with radio when one party is in range but the other is out). The fact is that geohashes as it is get basically down to the level of acre or so which is just a wildly precise level of granularity (though might be useful if you had a whole 12 story college dorm building all in a chat or something).

It is handy if you're on a plane with someone but your seats are separated because you didn't want to pay an extra $50 to sit next to each other though.

That said, dextromethorphan works just fine on its own (if you take enough -- 2 tsp is nonsense). Why they feel the need to mix in a bunch of other actives is beyond me.

Also works wonders for COVID spike protein detox.

It'd be like intentionally eating death cap mushrooms.

When your measurement is "that looks about right" when purity is entirely unknown, not much really is all that safe.