Notices by Lisa Kalayji (lisakalayji@sfba.social)

Oooh this is interesting - I uninstalled Google Play from my phone a day or two ago, and now Signal is giving me a "permanent Signal communication failure" error message saying it can't function without it. I was able to send and receive a few messages this morning (it warned me when I installed it that in the absence of Google Play it may be "unreliable", but didn't say it would flat-out refuse to operate), but I guess now I can't use it at all.

I just re-installed Signal this morning after a forced week-long lockout that wiped all my message history. Only a couple people I message with are willing to use it instead of SMS anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter much, but yeesh Google really is the central pivot of a LOT of stuff.

#Signal

Apparently $35K is the going rate for the state stealing someone's ability to have a family while keeping them locked up in government-run dungeons, and they won't even pay up that amount.

"In 2021 state lawmakers passed a reparations program to provide $35,000 to each person who was involuntarily sterilized while in state custody...

The board has denied more than 430 of the 549 applications it reviewed, rejecting about 4 in 5 people who sought compensation, according to documents from the board...

California’s shameful history of involuntarily sterilizing people goes back to the early 1900s, when about 20,000 Californians were forcibly sterilized in state-run facilities, mostly mental institutions, from 1909 to 1963 to rid society of people labeled “feeble-minded” or “defectives.” California was such a leader in eugenics that historians say the Nazis sought the state’s advice for their own sterilization program in the 1930s."

https://boltsmag.org/forced-sterilizations-california-prisons/

#Prison #Abolition #Police #ReproductiveJustice

So many people think that the guy who killed a health insurance CEO is a hero that politicians have to make public statements contesting the idea. 😆

We laugh, but honestly this is one of those powerful flashpoint moments that can change the political landscape if we insist on it doing so. With one move the conversation went from "healthcare denials by insurance companies are wrong" to "the people who run health insurance companies are mass murderers." A critical mass of *ordinary people* are saying this, not just movement organizers. This is a big deal.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/josh-shapiro-unitedhealthcare-shooter-no-hero_n_67578e57e4b09f860cac332e

#Health #HealthInsurance #UnitedHealthcare #HumanRights

Oh my GOD, Pacific coast people, stop whatever you're doing and go look at the Venus/moon conjunction 😍

It's worth thinking about this policy change alongside the news of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare being shot dead in NY outside a conference of the insurer's investors. The specific individual human beings who run health insurance companies and other institutions of class war wage that war in the smug certainty that they will never be among the scores of casualties.

"In an unprecedented move, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield plans representing Connecticut, New York and Missouri have unilaterally declared it will no longer pay for anesthesia care if the surgery or procedure goes beyond an arbitrary time limit, regardless of how long the surgical procedure takes.

“This is just the latest in a long line of appalling behavior by commercial health insurers looking to drive their profits up at the expense of patients and physicians providing essential care,” said Donald E. Arnold, M.D., FACHE, FASA. “It’s a cynical money grab by Anthem"

https://www.asahq.org/about-asa/newsroom/news-releases/2024/11/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-will-not-pay-complete-duration-of-anesthesia-for-surgical-procedures

#Health #Capitalism #ClassWar #HumanRights

🌱

#SilentSunday

TIL that on newer Samsung phones, you can't use the camera *at all* unless you give the app permission to scan your environment for other devices. There is no way to opt out of this. Little by little, inch by inch, the surveillance infrastructure that surrounds us is becoming total/complete/absolute. If you were trying to assemble a fascist dystopia, this is exactly the kind of equipment you'd make everyone carry around all the time.

I was one of the last hold-outs to finally give up my old-timey flip phone and hop on the smartphone bandwagon, and tbh I'm seriously considering going back.

#Privacy #Surveillance #Samsung #Tech

Looks like Google is next to clamor for nuclear power in the "AI" energy consumptions arms race. This, since it bears repeating, is to power a technology that *everyone hates*, both because it's shit and because Google has used it to (among other things) technologically enable the Israeli genocide on Palestinians.

(And because this always also bears repeating, "AI tools" consume the amount of energy they consume precisely because they are not actually artificial intelligences.)

https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/google-strikes-a-deal-with-a-nuclear-startup-to-power-its-ai-data-centers-201403750.html

#AI #Tech #Google #Data #Nuclear #Energy #Sustainability #Environment #Capitalism #Genocide

Always remember: any piece of info a corporation has about you can potentially be seized by the government and used against you. Neither companies nor governments are set up to care what's true, right, or fair. If they can harm you, they will.

"Popular car brands are collecting and sharing driver data from braking patterns and odometer readings to vehicle location and voice recognition information...

As car makers add microphones, sensors and other internet-connected features, cars are fast becoming all-seeing data-harvesting machines dubbed "smartphones on wheels".

Kia and Hyundai, which have the same parent company, collect voice recognition data from inside their cars and sell this to the artificial intelligence (AI) software training company Credence.

Tesla workers have been caught sharing among themselves highly invasive camera recordings of Tesla customers in the nude, as well as images of crashes and road-rage incidents."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-10-09/car-brands-are-tracking-and-sharing-your-data-with-third-parties/104440742

#Privacy #Surveillance #Data #Tech #AI #CivilRights

When I was a sociology teacher, the question that always got posed around tech issues was whether technologies can ever be inherently bad. It's the wrong question. The real question is how the unequal distributions of power in each society where the tech might be used can be made worse by the intro of the tech.

"Efforts to protect neurological data have proliferated in recent years, as electronic devices available directly to consumers become capable of capturing medical-grade brain data similar to what neurologists would use to diagnose patients.

Experts at the Neurorights Foundation and other groups say sensitive data could be used to decode users' mental states without their permission.

Earlier in the year, the Neurorights Foundation released a report analyzing the privacy policies of 30 consumer neurotech devices and found major privacy gaps. Half allowed companies to broadly share a user's brain data with third parties."

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/10/11/world/data-privacy-brain/

#Privacy #Surveillance #Tech #Data #Meta #Science

Floofy Boy Visits the Creepies
🎃👻💀

#Halloween #DogsOfMastodon

If amidst this incredibly stressful and confusing historical and political moment, you're thinking "what do we do??", and some of the people in your IRL or online universe are like, "anarchism", and you're thinking, "but wait, isn't anarchy bad and full of mayhem and unchecked harm and murderous vigilantes?", I warmly recommend you check out the dispatches on post-hurricane anarchist mutual aid from @igd_news

Anarchism (in spite of the goofy nonsense you may have heard/read about it) is a political project/way of life based on the principle that people are actually pretty good at figuring out how to do things and solve problems and help each other without granting other people/institutions power to force them to do things, and that in fact granting others the power to force us to do things more often than not has the opposite effect. There are a lot of examples of this, but one of the most resounding is what folks do to help each other after natural disasters. 💗

#Anarchism #MutualAid #HurricaneHelene

"Ford Motor Company is seeking a patent for technology that would allow it to tailor in-car advertising by listening to conversations among vehicle occupants, as well as by analyzing a car’s historical location and other data.

A Ford patent filed in July proposed technology that would enable vehicles to monitor the speed of nearby cars, photograph them and send the information to police... That application pointed to how hard it is for police to pinpoint speeding cars and said “it is desirable to provide systems and methods that assist traffic police and/or other law enforcement officers [to] perform such tasks.”

Ford quietly walked away from another controversial patent application last October after a firestorm of criticism for its plans for a system that would commandeer vehicles whose owners were late to pay and allow them to repossess themselves."

https://therecord.media/ford-patent-application-in-vehicle-listening-advertising

#Surveillance #Privacy #Tech #Transportation #Data #Cars #Ford #Police #Advertising #Capitalism #CivilRights

"Four Thieves Vinegar Collective, an anarchist collective... has spent the last few years teaching people how to make DIY versions of expensive pharmaceuticals at a tiny fraction of the cost. Four Thieves Vinegar Collective call what they do “right to repair for your body.”

Crucially, unlike other medical freedom organizations, Four Thieves isn’t suggesting people treat COVID with Ivermectin, isn’t shilling random supplements, and doesn’t have any sort of commercial arm at all. Instead, they are helping people to make their own, identical pirated versions of proven and tested pharmaceuticals by taking the precursor ingredients and performing the chemical reactions to make the medication themselves.

‘Look: intellectual property law is based off some ideas that came out of 1400s Venice. They’re not applicable and they’re being abused and people are dying every day because of it, and it’s not OK'

https://www.404media.co/right-to-repair-for-your-body-the-rise-of-diy-pirated-medicine/

#Medicine #Health #Anarchism #DIY #Capitalism #HumanRights

"These “true crime” shows describe women like Olivia, victims of domestic violence who kill their abusers in self-defense as evil, manipulative, promiscuous, insane, and monsters. The prison staff who watched the episode recounted how the prosecutor called the actor portraying Olivia a violent psychopath.

In 2015, nine years after my conviction for killing my abusive boyfriend, I was contacted by a production company... When I didn’t reply, the next set of letters was menacing: We’re going to do the show with or without you. You should want to help others avoid your fate."

The goal of women’s “true crime” shows is to make us look like violent monsters instead of victims of violence. This media operates as the carceral state’s cultural minister—it manipulates viewers into believing we, as survivors of abuse, should be punished for being alive."

https://theappeal.org/true-crime-shows-exploit-and-lie-about-incarcerated-women/

#PrisonIndustrialComplex #VAWG #VAW #Media #TV #Film #Patriarchy #Misogyny #StateViolence #Abolition #AbolishPrisons #Capitalism

"UPS announced this week that they will be laying off 12,000 people, approximately 2.4 percent of their global workforce...

As you may recall, UPS drivers won a hard fought battle earlier this year for higher wages and less batshit working conditions so they don’t die of heat stroke.

Is the company truly suffering? Well, no. It still had an adjusted operating profit of $9.9 billion... they “returned $7.6 billion of cash to shareowners through dividends and share buybacks".

At the same time the company is laying off workers, the board of directors approved — for the 15th year in a row — an increase to the company’s quarterly dividend. This means that people are getting laid off, but shareholders are getting a raise."

https://www.wonkette.com/p/ups-laying-off-12000-people-because

#Labor #Union #Layoffs #Capitalism #ClassWar #Exploitation

The reason why Zionism is so deeply dangerous to Jewish people is that the cynical, disingenuous cries of "antisemitism!" every time anyone somehow suggests that Israel's settler colonial dispossession, torture, and genocidal mass slaughter of Palestinians is wrong make it seem as though antisemitism were *only* this morally bankrupt rhetorical stunt. Which it is not! Real antisemitism absolutely does exist, and it's terrifying! It just isn't *this*.

There is also, of course, the fact that in a world where ethnic cleansing is tolerated against any people, it can always be turned against *you*, and for Jewish people, it certainly has been before.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/jan/26/middle-east-crisis-live-updates-icj-genocide-case-ruling-israel-hamas-gaza-hostage-talks-cia

#Palestine #Gaza #Israel #FreePalestine #ICJ #Genocide #Antisemitism #WarCrimes #Ceasefire

Abolish capitalism, exhibit eleventy-million:

"Moderna is quadrupling the cost of covid vaccines, from $26/dose to $110-130. Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel calls the price hike "consistent with the value" of the mRNA vaccines. Moderna's manufacturing costs are $2.85/dose, for a 4,460% markup on every dose...

What will Moderna do with the billions it reaps through price-gouging? It won't be research. To date, the company has spent >20% of its covid windfall profits on stock buybacks and dividends, manipulating its stock price, with more to come...

It's not an outlier. Big Pharma is a machine for commercializing publicly funded research and then laundering the profits with financial engineering. The largest pharma companies each spend more on stock buybacks than research."

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/25/nationalize-moderna/#herd-immunity

#Pharma #BigPharma #Corruption #Medicine #Covid #Vaccines #Capitalism #Healthcare #HumanRights

Considering that I'm learning one of the most difficult languages for native English speakers to learn, I'll take it.

I echo what so many others have said, though - you can gain some vocabulary with Duolingo, but you can't do anything even approximating actually learning a language.

#Duolingo #Arabic #LanguageLearning