No kidding... gee, I wonder how they know quasi-monopolistic consortiums "will have leverage to demand higher retransmission fees"? Where could they have seen that play out before? Oh right, that's their own usiness plan.

Mod parent derivative funny, but I wish the thread had continued with the other funny comment about Sam Altman leading the way as recipient of the bad things.

The joke I was actually looking for would involve the conflict of interest more directly, but it's still early and maybe something will show up. I wish I could help, but my capacity to write jokes is limited.

Hmm... Would it count as a bad thing happening if I asked the AIs for help in writing jokes for Slashdot? Some of the things they say are pretty funny, but usually unintentionally.

(Just had another funny-not-funny encounter with the google's AI today. This one involved a special case of traveling salesman problems. I had noticed that the google was having difficulties and that many of the answers were terrible, but yesterday I, the lowly human, managed to find a better solution for one of main routing bottlenecks. This must mean something about how the google is approaching the problem incorrectly... All I can guess so far is that there's an arbitrary limit in the AI's planning that is blocking it from finding this path. Or maybe the bus companies have their own AIs that are at war with the google's AI?)

Mod parent funny but the low-hanging joke I was looking for was "It couldn't happen to a more deserving and persistently vicious moronotron." He's earned more than the sudden need for a new phone number.

I wonder how often the YOB's own phone number leaks? Credible reports say that it's widely known. (More likely that a certain phone number is widely known but that the phone number just reaches some sycophants who get lots of taxpayer money to carry that phone around on shifts.)

No funny here, but the Subject is the low-hanging fruit I was looking for.

What Flock does is mass surveillance of the most massive sort. However, I can imagine one way to provide legitimate probably cause. Link the cameras to speed detectors and only take pictures of license plates when speeding has actually been detected. But that approach would obviously harm shareholder value, so...

This. Fox News did the same to engineer doubt about the 2020 election. Always be suspicious of the framing of "a growing number of people think...".

How about Stupor-Intelligence? I think it rolls off the tongue more easily. But it could end well if it somehow persuaded the YOB to read Bostrum's book? At least he might know who the bad machine is...

Other parts of the discussion were more focused on the story as one of bad military leadership. So the joke along those lines would involve a certain infamous corporal who became commander-in-chief of a big military. But these days the Americans couldn't even reach a consensus on whether that ended badly... "If only he'd waited another year before attacking Stupid Joe..."

I can't tell if you're going for funny or you don't know much about how good young children are at seeking their own destruction. It's really hard to keep 'em alive and it takes a whole lot of love. Even for the kids that turn out badly, perhaps because of unlucky genetic draws.

Doesn't seem like you want to discuss genetic counseling and reproductive rights in the context of possible solutions. And it's not like Slashdot is the most suitable venue for such discussions. I strongly suspect this crowd is below average for the numbers of children produced.

Nice FP, though yet to be modded Funny and I wish you'd had the leisure to add some more humorous examples beyond the vague "this". However in the context the reference is clear enough to establish the recursive humor. Yet it was basically an obvious and low-hanging joke.

The other one would be the anti-social media thing, but it's still early in the discussion and perhaps someone will do a good version. Getting harder and harder to remember the "good old days" when Slashdot was some sort of social media...

However I still persist in asking such silly questions as "Why?" and "Isn't there anything we can do to make the situation better?"

So for the why part, my basic answer is "bad economic models". I can't decide whether to blame free radio and TV broadcasts that led to an illusory Golden Age of idealistic public-service journalism without worrying about profits or the fools who created the weak and uncompetitive profit-driven versions of journalism. That's mostly "60 Minutes" and CNN, but there are so many flavors, none of which can compete.

Making the situation better? I used to think solution-oriented journalism might be an angle. Basically a charity approach, trying to dodge the pressure of the big money. However my expectations have been reduced, mostly by time. Apparently my last residual purpose in life is to do my tiny bit to boost the life expectancy statistics? So have a nice day.

Mod parent funny-not-really-funny.

But the SCOTUS disagreed with you by creating absolute presidential immunity out of nothing.

I know it's silly to contemplate solutions in the context of Slashdot, whatever it has devolved into, but I keep thinking about that new recusal thing: "A nonpartisan Justice may compel two junior partisan Justices to recuse themselves." I think that could create the incentive to go upstream in fixing the problem, whereas every other solution proposal I've seen simply accepts the underlying problem as incurable.

Clarifications in response to polite requests, though I'd actually prefer to see a better solution approach that has a better chance of being implemented. (I think the most likely path to the recusal rule would basically require an escalation of political threats... I'm not saying "That trick never works", but it's always a dangerous path.)