Most current usage of AI is as useful to society as Facebook. In other words, it's crap garbage that should be banned.

AI that's going to eliminate jobs? Cancel it. AI that hallucinates? Ban it. AI that makes people harm themeselves? Stop it.

And then save the electricity for AI that's actually beneficial.

I strongly believe that social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter need to be banned.

Now, hear me out before you go all "freedom of expression" on me.

I don't advocate banning social media. I advocate banning the business model that relies on ads plus "engagement" to earn money, because algorithms that maximize for that are incredibly harmful to both our mental health and to our democracy.

In my opinion, any social media platform with more than 5 million users (say) must be forced to follow the following rules:

• 1. It may not derive revenue from advertising.
• 2. It may not show users content unless they have specifically asked to see it (for example, by following an account or joining a group.) It may not accept money from anyone to promote content to people who haven't explicitly asked for it.
• 3. Content must be shown to users in strictly reverse-chronological order.
• 4. Users must pay a nominal amount for an account, let's say $3/month. (This will make using massive swarms of AI bots infeasible.)
• 5. Users must verify their identity with valid government-issued identity documents. They may post anonymously, but the platform must know who they really are and be able to tie their online identity to their real identity if necessary.

These rules are draconian, but IMO are needed to protect our health and our society. They'll let us keep using Facebook for good purposes like keeping in touch with family and friends, or joining groups related to our interests, without opening up the floodgates for disinformation.

Yeah, I don't know why the /. edgelords have so much hate for Firefox. It's my daily driver and it's fine. I certainly would never use Chrome as a daily driver; Google doesn't need to hoover up all my data, thanks.

Beat me to it! But here it is as a conveniently-clickable link. Life imitates art.

Right... there will be a hallucination deficit!

Alternatively, the UK (and indeed the world) can give a big F-you to AI and the tech bros pushing it.

28% of boys ages 3-17 have mental, emotional, behavioral or developmental problems versus 23% of girls.

Is this new, though? Or has it always been the case? Especially among adolescents, testosterone can do quite a number on their thinking, especially with as yet under-developed frontal cortexes.

Labor force participation...

Ah, so men still participate at a higher rate than women, 89% to 78%. How is this falling behind?

Additionally, 19% of men ages 25-34 now live with parents, compared to 13% of women.

Sure, but how many of the 87% of women who don't live with parents are still economically dependent on someone else they're living with? I bet a higher proportion than men.

Male suicide rates for ages 15-24 have nearly doubled...

This is indeed a disturbing statistic. I think it has to do with unrealistic expectations and conflicting messages given by society to young men (just as women are given unrealistic expectations about body image, for example.)

The contemporary American economy is not rewarding a lot of the characteristics associated with men and masculinity

"Characteristics associated with men and masculinity" are stereotypes. Men and women can both be gentle, kind, nurturing, and other "feminine" things, and men and women can both be rough, assertive, cruel and aggressive and other "masculine" things. Men should forget about these stereotypes and not try to live up to them, but just be themselves.

• 1. Cancel your Facebook account.
• 2. See friends in person, or if you don't have many friends, go to in-person events to meet some.

I've ridden American public transport in four different cities: New York, Chicago, Atlanta and San Diego.

It was fine. I never felt unsafe and while it wasn't as clean as the typical European train or tram, it wasn't gross either.

Is public transit in the US really that bad? I've taken it in my city in Canada (Ottawa) as well as Toronto and Montreal, and it was fine. And I've taken transit in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta and San Diego and again... it was fine. (In Atlanta and San Diego... fine in terms of safety, not convenience.) I never felt unsafe or grossed out or anything like that.

In a properly-designed city, this isn't a problem. For example, I spent 10 days in The Netherlands recently. I got off the plane, grabbed my luggage, made my way through customs, and then down to the train station under the airport. Within a few minutes, I was on the train with my luggage stowed near me. 15-20 minutes later, got off at Amsterdam Centraal and walked a few hundred metres to the hotel.

In the city where I live (Ottawa, Ontario), you get on the train from the airport, which takes you a few kilometres... to where you have to change to another train which takes you most of the way downtown, except... you have to change to a third train to make it all the way downtown. And the trip takes close to 90 minutes (driving from the airport to downtown is about 25 minutes if traffic is light.)

Then our politicians say "well, nobody's using transit, so we shouldn't waste money on transit" and our city turns to shit. This is the North American way.

Or admit that they could learn anything from other countries.

I don't know what city you live in, but my mid-sized city of about a million people in Canada takes a few months to implement changes to its bus routes.

This is just going to continue the enshittification of cities by reducing transit ridership, which encourages politicians to reduce transit, which reduces ridership, etc. until your city is a car-dependent mess with a mostly useless transit system.

I wish my city would grow a spine and ban Uber and other ride-share companies. They are clearly violating the taxi bylaws and regulations of the city, yet politicians do nothing.

Unfortunately, that's probably true. In which case, Canada should simply ban Facebook and Instagram. I know there are free-speech issues in play here, but if we don't protect our democracy, we'll lose our freedom of expression anyway.

Please fine Meta $290 million. Thanks!