HaiZhung

joined 1 year ago
[–] HaiZhung@feddit.de 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Good man. I agree 100% - the more warming we get, the bigger of a difference each .1 degree makes. So we should only get more aggressive about climate change the worse it gets instead of giving up.

[–] HaiZhung@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

While I appreciate the sentiment, I think it’s unrealistic to expect the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere to decrease. For that, we already would need net 0 emissions AND some sort of carbon capture system in place.

For now, what must decrease is greenhouse gas emissions, and the article admits that that is what happened (but the decrease was so low it could be attributed to natural fluctuations).

[–] HaiZhung@feddit.de 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Im not sure what you are talking about, carbon taxes are one of the best ways to mitigate co2 emissions.

If two producers produce the same good, but one of them emits less co2, that one will have higher profit margins.

This is just one of the levers to nudge industries (who, let’s be real, are the main polluters) towards cleaner operations, and as far as I am informed, it’s one of the most effective ways.

So this is good news. It’s good. We have to celebrate that, too, lest we all suffer from doomerism. Can more be done? Yes, there is always more to be done.

But is this a good, important step?

Definitely.

[–] HaiZhung@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

This is not a trial of trump.

This is a trial of the American justice system.

[–] HaiZhung@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

Wouldn’t it be boring if everyone just agreed on everything? :-)

Don’t get me wrong, I am the first one to criticize Google when they mess up, but recently I have observed that piling on Google is just appears to be en vogue. I think it is important to understand what you are criticizing/outraged by, otherwise you are letting yourself be manipulated somewhat too easily.

I, for instance, don’t fully penetrate the WEI proposal, I admit. All the more I am befuddled by the overwhelming news cycle this generates, and I can’t help but wonder … why?

Anyway, when I wrote the top level comment, all other comments were just “suck it google” in various flavors, and I was disappointed by the lack of depth in the discussion.

In the meantime, this has changed, see my edit.

[–] HaiZhung@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

I do not see how my advice applies to my own comment. To me, this proposal is exactly like all other proposals, I don’t really think about it at all, and I don’t have the context or the background knowledge to judge its usefulness.

But okay, if I try to understand it: this seems to be an attempt at stopping the cat-and-mouse game between browser fingerprinting tech and browser obfuscation tech, and instead make it - optionally - possible to identify yourself as a „real“ user. You can opt out, and I sincerely doubt that Google would lock out users that will opt out or use another browser. Why? Because they would be leaving free ad money on the table, and they don’t do that.

So I don’t really see how that changes the ways of the internet, since fingerprinting is being done already, so, I guess, I don’t really care for this proposal one way or the other.

[–] HaiZhung@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Google does not sell data to advertisers, that is incorrect.

You are correct that Google cross-correlates some data for integrating features, but as I said, you can just go and delete your data, and it will continue to work just fine.

Maybe it’s also useful to remind oneself that you do get lots of services from Google for free - and considering they are free (!), imho, Google is taking about the most ethical approach it economically can. (Ie., they will use your data to tune full integration of their products and serve ads for you, BUT you can always opt out and delete it)

I fail to see how meta and twitter are so much different in the range of products they offer. Meta e.g. operates the larges private messaging app on the planet and they DID sell (or accidentally leak, however you want to put it, see Cambridge analytica) their data.

[–] HaiZhung@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

Makes sense to me!

[–] HaiZhung@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Isn’t it already effectively very easy to force a specific browser on a website? The explainer touches on that, browser fingerprinting is so powerful to date that you can already easily tell individuals and their browsers apart. What’s changing with this proposal wrt your examples?

[–] HaiZhung@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

Great comment! I don’t understand the proposal well enough to answer that, but I still would like to commend you on taking the time to look into this and writing it up.

[–] HaiZhung@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

From what I can tell, out of all the big tech firms, Google goes to the greatest lengths preserving your privacy. You can even go to your profile settings right now and delete all your data. This was possible even before GDPR, so I am not sure how you get this picture.

[–] HaiZhung@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

As a counterpoint, IMHO Google has the best track record regarding privacy of all the big tech firms. Googles data was never sold, leaked, or abused by employees as far as I can tell.

This is in stark contrast to companies like meta and twitter.

Maybe Google isn’t as good communicating that fact, but what is your reason for the distrust in this particular case?

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