The difference is that we’ve allowed a private, for profit company to do the surveillance, and they are not beholden to all of the laws that we put in place to keep the Government in check. Capitalism’s latest innovation is outsourcing fascism. The privatization of all of this oppression is accelerating.

“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself.” -FDR

To shreds you say…

“Get out of here, mop, I’ve got a good thing going and I’m not gonna let you ruin this for me!!”

I just feel like posting this completely unrelated story on every automated traffic camera thread, I can’t understand why I feel this compulsion.

https://cybernews.com/editorial/israel-hacked-iran-traffic-cameras-us-war/

2026: it did end, the transition to hell was subtle, but I see it now.

IANAL, but doesn’t settlement mean they don’t admit fault, they have no judgement to actually force changes, and the same case can’t be brought again, aka, they get to keep harming kids, just have to cough up some tiny slice of profit and offer some lip service to doing better? Or, to rephrase, as long as the government gets a cut, they can keep abusing?

You are in fact right, but given a binary choice between war crimes, or war crimes AND Fascists, I’m afraid the right choice is war crimes without the side order of Fascism.

Hilariously, you are right. It certainly wasn’t his intention to do so, but it is happening. Strangely aligned with China spending like crazy to pivot to a green energy super-supplier. End of an era, although no one will admit it yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal:_The_Invisible_War

https://rpggeek.com/rpg/1774/immortal-the-invisible-war-1st-edition

It’s a hot mess out of the box, but the core mechanics make good bones, and they integrate the rules into the lore in a way that makes metagaming hard (Or in character, anyways, for example at high perception, you can actually see stats)

My favorite system only uses d10s, and they should be color coded. 9 colors are assigned, and you always have to have a random, and frequently you will need to roll two of the same color, but you also have to keep track of which color was for which effect… And as I introduce more players, I usually end up giving them a set to play with… I’m sure I’m well over $2k on this over the entire life of the hobby.

The dice goblin cannot be satiated. Just a few more…

To me it seems like all of the corporations and western governments are in a race to the edge of a cliff. All of them see the cliff and all of them know the race is going to end in disaster. But they also refuse to slow down because then they will lose the race.