Criticizing Effective Altruism: to program people as donation robots is desocializing, isolating and alienating.

I suspect those things reduce people's lifespan.

Congress is considering a kind of "link tax" to require discussion platforms to pay for hosting links to news sites. It would harm libraries and smaller news media.

It would also give lots of subsidy to Big Media.

(satire) *Progressive In Year 2180 Blasts Gender Discrimination In Conscription Practices Of Nabisco's Corporate Military.*

Denying the call to boycott Russian music.

I take a stronger stand: it is misguided and destructive to blame "Russia" for Putin's crime of aggressive war. Putin is the one responsible. Let us not refer to the army that invaded Ukraine as "the Russian army" — call them the Putin forces.

The US rescued hostage Brittney Griner by trading an important Russian arms dealer for her.

Griner deserved to be freed for the simple reason that what she did was not wrong. However, I don't understand why Americans clamor for Griner's release more than for the release of everyone imprisoned in the US for possession of marijuana. There are many Americans unjustly imprisoned in the US for doing nothing more than what Griner did. They too deserve to be freed.

It is a shame to let arms merchant Viktor Bout go free, though.

I think we should not pressure the US to try to ransom hostages, because that pressure benefits the regimes that take hostages at the expense of the US. If I were a hostage, I would say, "Don't ransom me if the ransom hurts my country!"