See, the devil's advocate in me can't get past the question of why "washing" code through a brain is better?

I didn't invent, say, php. I learned from being exposed to countless examples of it.

When I "write my own code", I'm surely drawing on those examples. Which examples, under what licenses? Who knows?

Yet somehow that's okay.

Ah, you've discovered the arms race.

And yes, all you can do is complain about it. You actually can't opt out of it. But please, carry on ...

Well, we've solved that big bad social media problem for sure now. What's next??

Dang lucky it was them then, seeing how anybody could have done that.

Do you ... ever have like a moment of non- black and white thinking?

Just a little nagging, uneasy feeling, that perhaps things and people are not all good or all bad?

Well, that's nice.

Fortunately, we're still a sorta free country, so they are doing it anyway. Regardless of what you think, commissar.

... that Google's laptop strategy was "thin, cheap client"? I guess that's changed.

Yeah, exactly. I definitely don't need or want an "agent" to do things in my life.

Research and organize some info, maybe. Write some code, maybe. Draft something that won't piss people off as much as something I would say off the cuff, maybe.

Buy things for me, or do personal communications for me in non-draft mode? Definitely not.

Isn't the more salient question whether you want to read it?

Why not indeed? I'm sure that Eurocrats and their supporters are widely known for their devotion to parents being in control, right?

Oh sure, society will support that. Why, let's take a poll right here on /., shall we? Bark phones for all!

Fine with me. Actually fine with the people here who are complaining about this system? Not so much.

Well, you get the idea. Complainers are fine with blaming parents for everything. Letting parents have actual control over their own children though (which would be needed, to go with responsibility), not so much.

...surely if we can ban metal tubes with things that go boom inside them, then we can ban pre-teens from using social media, yes?

We've never let the impossible stop us before!

I'd be more than happy to vote for smart guys. The problem is, the "smart" guys were all busily importing millions of hostiles, and pretending that boys could magically turn into girls. When they weren't deciding to "defund" the police ... I could go on. And on.

If you are worse than the clown, then the problem isn't the clown ...

Yeah, that's my experience too. I haven't seen anyone flip the T'birds the bird.

Back when Top Gun owned Miramar, I'd go down to a relative's house for the yearly airshow. The Angels had a rendezvous point nearby, and we'd see them go by at perhaps a 60 degree angle right over the house. It seemed like they were at 200' as we could clearly see the pilot looking out. Then we'd go to the nighttime show afterwards. Good times.

All good points. Somewhat OT, I remember aircrews hating the Balanced Budget Reconciliation (2012 or so?), where the grownups in the Capitol decided to live within a budget, and each side gave up certain things. Training funds for the military was one of the losers.

Both sides hated it. Hated! And that was the last time the government tried to live within a budget, regardless of administration.

Well said.