Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com>
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Schneier, Data and Goliath: no hope for privacy
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2025 21:58:39 -0300
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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D <nospam@example.net> writes:

>>>> I think that's already more or less true in commerce.  For instance,
>>>> I've been at times confronted with the situation that without using
>>>> Whatsapp, I could not get service.
>>>>
>>>> During the pandemics, for example, so many people could not find a way
>>>> out of following protocols they did not want to follow and even taking
>>>> chemical substances they did not want to take.  So many people I know
>>>> did not want to do it and did it anyway because it was a hassle
>>>> otherwise.
>>>
>>> Oh that was a pain. My wife got vaccinated once against her will
>>> because of it.  I did not, and I spent many 100s of hours avoiding
>>> the unethical restrictions. I printed my own corona vaccination qr
>>> codes for a while, until that didn't work, I found a medical loop
>>> hole to allow me to travel without a mask, towards the end, I copied
>>> other peoples foreign qr codes, which would get me into stores,
>>> despite being unvaccinated, since the system in the stores only
>>> checked if the qr was valid, and nothing else like last country of
>>> use, or matching it with id checks.
>>
>> I did the same.  (It's amazing the kind of parallels we can find on the
>> USENET.)  I'm happy to hear you managed it too.  I did a COVID exam
>> every week, getting it negative 100% of the times, for an entire
>> semester and archived my exams with my employeer.  I was very happy with
>> the alternative: I would not have taken any substance at all.  I would
>> have gone to the last resort.  I saw no point in taking in an unknown
>> substance so try to avoid an aggressive /cold/.
>
> It is amazing! It was the 2 worst year of my life, and destryoed my trust in
> democracy. I stopped voting after that.

I stopped voting by never quite beginning.  As soon as I could vote, I
went to live abroad.  I got back 10 years later, when I didn't want to
vote anymore.  A vote contributes to a perpetuation of a system.
Politicians use our votes to make their money.  I want nothing to do
with this.  Similarly to why I don't run Whatsapp.

> I did one corona test and they almost damaged my nose by showing some stuff up
> into my brain. Extremely painful, and I had an irritated nose for several days
> after that. That's when I decided, no more tests for me.

Yeah.  (Sorry to hear that.)

> But I found a company that did saliva-based tests, and I called a doctor who
> watched me perform the saliva based tests on the phone, and eventually she was
> so tired of the process that she said, what ever... write your own certificate,
> slap my name and signature on it, and just email me if you travel so I know.
>
> So for 1 years, that's what I did. =D

Lol.  She got tired. :) 

I believe I also tired the two pharmacists who did my tests by looking
up the sensitivity and the specificity of the tests and then trying to
explain to them what it means.  That's what they get for holding me for
some 20 minutes.

> But towards the end they hooked up all testing facilities to some EU
> surveillance register, so then it did not work anymore, but it was towards the
> end, so I didn't have the energy to get connected to it, but if it would have
> continued, I would have started my own corona clinic.

That wouldn't been wild. :)

>>>>> As for children, no such thing for me, since biologically I have an
>>>>> extremely low chance of having children. On the other hand, my parents
>>>>> got the same diagnosis from the doctor, and they had me, and the
>>>>> doctor said it was not possible according to science, so who knows? ;)
>>>>
>>>> I am sorry for hearing the news, but I also feel that we should hope for
>>>> the best here.  I think nobody should trust doctor's predictions.  I
>>>> certainly don't know the reasons you might have low chance of having
>>>> children and let's remember this is a public forum.  The subject does me
>>>> remind me of a conversation with epidemiologist Shanna Swan, which I
>>>> have been slowly rewatching again---it's a 2h conversation.  The entire
>>>> conversation is very interesting.  In this conversation, we can learn
>>>> that male fertility is decreasing by 1% *per year*.
>>>>
>>>>  Shanna Swan on male fertility (et cetera)
>>>>  https://youtu.be/C9aqGqjC1kE
>>>
>>> I've actually seen the video before, when my wife was the most crazy
>>> about our problem. In my case, it is just a chance mutation that
>>> resulted in low quality sperm. That's all. It is not impossible, but
>>> but very, very low probability of fertilizing eggs.
>>
>> I'm not a religious person in the traditional sense of the word, but
>> turns out I find myself one of the most religious person I've ever met
>> because patience, perseverance, lack of ambition and a certain mastery
>> of the art of listening seem pretty religious to me.  For instance,
>> pretty much every religious person I know has at least one tattoo on
>> their skin.  I think that's totally non-religious because a tattoo
>> effectively destroys (at least a bit) something natural that took a
>> zillion years to be prepared---to protect the person.  I think that if
>> God speaks to us at all, it is done through the movement of nature.
>
> Never been a fan of tattoos. But in my case it is a conservative upbringing
> where tattoos where seen as low class. 

I also grew up in a world that didn't approve them, but I think for the
wrong reasons.  Today, I don't recommend them for religious reasons. :)
Although I'm not religious (at all), I don't think we should destroy the
health that's given us at birth.  Destroying your skin, even if it's a
tiny bit for something so frivolous... It's appalling.

> It is strange how things like that still stick with you. On the other
> hand, it is permanent, and since I don't have anything permanent to
> say, I don't really see why I should get a tattoo.

Precisely.

  ``I would never die for a cause because I might be wrong.''
  -- Who said this?  The Internet says it was Bertrand Russell.
  But I don't buy it up front.

Even if I had something permanent to say, I could put it in a book and
make lots of backups of it.  It doesn't have to be on my skin.

What about those who wear t-shirts with messages and put stickers in
their cars?  Why is it that they want to keep shoving the world with
their messages?

> It was funny, at a consulting gig there was a woke witch, constantly harping on
> how evil I was as a white man.

Lol.

> She tattooed the logo of the company on her arm.

Omg.

> Then 6 months afte I quit the consulting gig, she kicked her out.

They kicked her out.  Sad.  But pretty typical.

> I laughed a lot! What goes around, comes around. I still wonder if she has that
> tattoo? =D

She could do another one on top, which is a typical thing.  But the more
you do it, the more it hurts your skin.  So if she removed it (somehow)
or did something over, it's just getting worse.

Sad, but can we do?  People can be pretty... You know.

>> Lol.  I'm saying all of this to say that I would never believe that it's
>> really impossible for you to have kids.  Life is full of adversities.
>> My idea is that we should work on them 'til the end---unconcerned with
>> the end result.
>
> This is a very sound philosophy! I do feel perfectly at ease with either result,
> child or no child, but I have told my wife that as long as she wants it, I
> support us continuing trying. No matter the outcome, I'm fine with it. She is
> not however, which does make me sad.

She's not fine with either result?  Meaning she wants kids no matter
what?

>> End results imply a direction, a strategy.
>>
>> We try to fix the bug in the software because we want to understand what
>> caused the bug and how it works.  Not because we want the software to be
>> flawless.  So we don't fret if we can't figure it out, but we always
>> work on it.  We work directionless because we don't really mind not
>> getting to the end result.  Anywhere we go is natural enough; it's
>> divine enough.
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