I’ll post that clip of the wonderful John Belushi at his inspired best every year, if I can remember to to.
Stupid drugs…
But I digress….fascinate me!
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Ethics Alarms 
I hope to get to this issue in greater detail either here or on my own blog, but I wanted to get something posted somewhere ASAP. Texas Governor Greg Abbott this week issued an executive order purporting to be an attempt to quell antisemitism on university campuses. In fact, it strikes me as profoundly problematic in 1st amendment terms.
Having worked at a state university in Texas for 20+ years (and with a likelihood of returning to the classroom for a couple of courses this fall), I have a personal interest in this one.
I do take some consolation that both FIRE (https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-statement-gov-abbotts-campus-anti-semitism-executive-order) and Eugene Volokh (https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/29/call-to-update-free-speech-policies-to-address-supposed-hate-speech-at-public-university/) agree with my take.
Can’t argue with this. We cannot complain about the left trampling on free speech and then try to do the same ourselves — I’d also agree that calling out a couple organizations by name is problematic.
I firmly believe that Israel has to take the steps it’s taking to try and defeat and eliminate Hamas. I am dismayed at the erosion of support by the Biden administration. But one cannot become just like your enemies or what use are our principles?
The squatting issue has become a much-reported story over the last few weeks. We read about the arrests of actual owners, the unwillingness of police to evict these folks, lengthy legal processes and fees necessary to remove the derelicts. There is also some evidence that illegals are passing the word around about how to take over someone else’s house.
Ron DeSantis has signed HB 621 to make it easier for Florida residents to get trespassers off their property.
Am I missing something? I guess I don’t understand why any state would allow a person to break into a house where someone has died and and the heirs are trying to sell it and be allowed to live there with the law treating that person like a legal tenant and not a trespasser.
This isn’t really like pioneers taking shelter in an abandoned cabin during a snowstorm or displaced people finding a place to live in a bombed out city. I assume that’s where squatting laws have their origin.
What ethical argument can exist to allow someone to take over someone else’s property without permission?
The best argument I’ve seen for “squatter’s rights” is when a building has been abandoned for years, and the only ones taking care of it are the squatters themselves. One YouTube video I watched about the squatter situation had somebody in the comments griping about rich people buying up real estate and upping the price so no-one can develop it for the low-income types. While part of me sees this as anti-capitalist schlock, I can sympathize with annoyance at places being bought up but never developed. To that end I do agree with laws they have in some places where if a building is abandoned for a specific amount of time, whoever is living there gets the title for it.
I doubt that applies to most of the current squatter situations, though.
I’ve read about a number of video game developers being sued for their intentionally making video games as addictive as possible, using dark patterns, and data mining minors in order to better target them. Many headlines are leaning into this as ‘parents can’t parent, kid gets fat, parents sue, but I think there may be something here. I’m getting a strong whiff of the ‘lady spills McDonald’s coffee on herself and sues – what an idiot, right?’ treatment.
A number of video game developers are now specifically hiring people trained in psychiatry to better shortcut around people’s resistances, and more are looking for programmers who are specifically skilled in coding addictive game play loops. They’ve been bragging about it for 15-20 years or so. Honestly, toy manufacturers, tv shows, and social media all utilize the same techniques. I wouldnt be surprised if the current iteration of video games ended up being as harmful to the dopamine cycle as porn and drugs. Maybe we shouldn’t be intentionally training an entire generation to be gambling addicts?
The parents do have responsibility. But if it came out that a food company was putting ingredients into their food to make it as addictive as possible, AND marketing it specifically toward children, there’s a problem there. Sure, individual parents can forbid their kids from partaking, but if this an industry wide/society wide issue, it does feel like the companies should at least be seriously questioned.
And on the hook in 10 years when everyone goes bankrupt in vegas.
Not just video games, but social media and mass-produced content in general have this addictive effect. While our host has criticized NYC’s social media health advisory I do believe that small children in particular need to have their screen time carefully monitored, even more so than in ages past when the only screen was the one in the living room.
So I just read on a box of N95 masks that “NIOSH does not evaluate respirators for use as surgical masks”.
The so called gold standard mask during the pandemic is not actually rated for medical purposes.
The whole response is a factual house of cards.