6 ms·

No, the US is the main country that loves these messages. Have you seen the size of universities or the government ? It's just clerical staff doing make believe

No, the US is the main country that loves these messages. Have you seen the size of universities or the government ? It's just clerical staff doing make believe work. Go to any .gov website. They'll throw up a wall of bs before you log in (e.g., https://ttp.dhs.gov/ https://ttp.dhs.gov/ ).

thrw42A8N 2y ago
Sounds like you have never been to Europe. Here they make you actually sign (as in pen and paper) this stuff before they give you access.
- vundercind 2y ago
  I used to read an Eastern European world traveler photoblogger who’d been to damn near every country (even a lot that most folks from even semi-developed countries would consider far too dangerous or boring to be worth going out of your way to visit—he’d surely been to at least 150 countries, several more than once) and according to him the specific behavior of posting regulations and signs all over the place is practiced nowhere as much as the US, with only Australia coming sort-of close. I was a bit blind to it, being a born American, but once he pointed it out I can’t un-see it. The land of the free really does love posting regulations everywhere.
  - reaperducer 2y ago
    It's the sort of cultural blindness that comes with not being able to read the native languages in all 150 countries this person's claimed to have visited. Once you're able to read a new language, you see all kinds of new signs, especially when you visit a new country. It's like how people who only read English think of Japan as some kind of blissful artspace, when the reality is that it is far more overloaded with ads than Western countries. Your mind just processes it as abstractions because you can't read the language.
    - vundercind 2y ago
      > in all 150 countries this person's claimed to have visited. They had mountains of boring photos of traffic signs and fire hydrants and bollards and normal people on the street and in other public spaces living their lives and that kind of stuff in lots of countries, so I'm fairly sure they had been to them. :-) I don't think their take was a result of blindness to languages they don't/didn't know—we really do seem remarkably keen on posting lots of regulations and restrictions at the entrance to every-damn-place, which I've noticed since he pointed it out. Other places may have those restrictions and one may well find a variety of laws and norms enforced in any of several ways in places with less regulation-posting, should one violate them—they're just (I gather—my own limited traveling supports his take, but I've only been to a few other countries) usually not quite as obsessed with posting lots of notices about regulations on every flat surface where strictly-public spaces meet slightly-less-public or private spaces. Since having it pointed out, I've noticed that I'm (when not thinking about it) ignoring a bunch of notices akin to a click-through EULA when just entering stores, and it's not hard for me to believe that lots and lots of places get by just fine, and not necessarily with fewer de jure and de facto restrictions on behavior, with far less posting of notices about those restrictions. Clearly it's not terribly necessary since I'm pretty sure most of us hardly pay any attention to it.
      - reaperducer 2y ago
        They had mountains of boring photos of traffic signs and fire hydrants and bollards and normal people on the street and in other public spaces living their lives and that kind of stuff in lots of countries, so I'm fairly sure they had been to them. :-) While I'm not familiar with the particular blogger of which you speak, I'm always skeptical about travel bloggers who claim to have been in an incredible number of places. I say this because it's very easy to hire someone on the other side of the planet to take a series of digital photos of their lives and tourist attractions for a week or so and then you, yourself, post a travel blog with their content. Because of exchange rates, often the more exotic the location, the cheaper it is. Sometimes incredibly cheap. Like $20 to some far-off rando can reap thousands in Google Ads for a web site. I know because I used to do this for an American travel company way back in 2015-ish. Back then, I'd often hire cab drivers to do it because they always had a camera phone with them, and they were always going to airports and restaurants and tourist places and standing around with time to kill anyway. Back then it would be weird to have a picture of yourself in a travel blog, but since everyone is a narcissist these days, you'd have to Photoshop or AI yourself into the photos and videos to be believable, but that's trivial now. Again, I'm not saying your guy is a big faker. I'm just saying there are big fakers out there, so be careful who you believe.
  - thrw42A8N 2y ago
    The European way is to post a gigantic wall of text like 1.5 by 1.5 meters with small letters and a full binding contract somewhere close to the entrance.
    - vundercind 2y ago
      All US parking garages have exactly that and it's so weird. Nobody reads them (what, from your car before paying and entering? LOL, nobody even reads the smaller notices attached to the payment machines, nor half the text the displays print during an interaction) so all the work at writing, printing, and posting them is just a kind of weird secular-religion ritual.
      - thrw42A8N 2y ago
        Now imagine it's everywhere. Entering a mall? You bet it's long. Entering a post office, bank, government agency? Of course. Entering a barber, restaurant, bar? Yep, even there. Entering a residential building? Yes, the inhabitants actually have a contract about their co-living and how they and others should behave in the common areas. This translates to ecommerce too - check out the terms of service and privacy policies of some European web shops.
        vundercind 2y ago
        The US does it, too, but it's often separate sheets of printed paper and a few standard-issue laminated posters. Plus a few briefer notices posted to the doors, especially at larger businesses. It's possible EU states have gotten worse ("worse"—I mean, it's basically harmless, which is why it just fades into the background and it's easy to not even notice it, aside from that the whole thing's a little bit of wasted work) about this since his writing and since I've been there, as the latest of his posts I read were probably from travel in the late '00s, and I haven't been to any part of Europe myself since not long after that.
        thrw42A8N 2y ago
        This has definitely been the case since early 90s all around Eastern Europe. I grew up there. Maybe he didn't notice - these walls of text are close to the entrance but definitely not the most highlighted feature there. I'd guess many locals don't even know - it's just that I like to read random stuff.
- bubblethink 2y ago
  Europe has its own version of this nonsense (GDPR cookie banners), but that stems from a different misguided belief. Europe believes that banners can affect markets. The US believes that banners can affect the law. Both are wrong.
  - Ylpertnodi 2y ago
    >Both are wrong. What are 'GDPR cookie banners' [possessive, as in GDPR mandates them? And, what is the 'a different misguided belief...that can affect markets'?
    - thrw42A8N 2y ago
      GDPR demands consent, which naturally means a blocking modal that needs to be answered before any interaction is possible. The misguided belief is that this is going to stop people from clicking on "accept".
hunter2_ 2y ago
But it seems unnecessary given the existence of its laws. For example, CFAA makes unauthorized use of a computer system illegal regardless of whether the system communicates it. Perhaps these messages originated prior to the CFAA, in which case perhaps they were necessary back then, and nobody has dared to remove them. This is unlike trespassing in the US, however, which does require informing the person (written in a conspicuous location, or direct verbal conversation) they are unwelcome on whatever land they began accessing, and allowing them to promptly retreat, before any violation is committed. Access is generally permitted (e.g., to allow for unsolicited deliveries) prior to such communication.
- kube-system 2y ago
  There are other legitimate reasons: 1. contractual obligations, with a lower burden of proof than criminal cases, and different remedies 2. helpful reminders

thrw42A8N 2y ago

Sounds like you have never been to Europe. Here they make you actually sign (as in pen and paper) this stuff before they give you access.

vundercind 2y ago
I used to read an Eastern European world traveler photoblogger who’d been to damn near every country (even a lot that most folks from even semi-developed countries would consider far too dangerous or boring to be worth going out of your way to visit—he’d surely been to at least 150 countries, several more than once) and according to him the specific behavior of posting regulations and signs all over the place is practiced nowhere as much as the US, with only Australia coming sort-of close. I was a bit blind to it, being a born American, but once he pointed it out I can’t un-see it. The land of the free really does love posting regulations everywhere.
- reaperducer 2y ago
  It's the sort of cultural blindness that comes with not being able to read the native languages in all 150 countries this person's claimed to have visited. Once you're able to read a new language, you see all kinds of new signs, especially when you visit a new country. It's like how people who only read English think of Japan as some kind of blissful artspace, when the reality is that it is far more overloaded with ads than Western countries. Your mind just processes it as abstractions because you can't read the language.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    > in all 150 countries this person's claimed to have visited. They had mountains of boring photos of traffic signs and fire hydrants and bollards and normal people on the street and in other public spaces living their lives and that kind of stuff in lots of countries, so I'm fairly sure they had been to them. :-) I don't think their take was a result of blindness to languages they don't/didn't know—we really do seem remarkably keen on posting lots of regulations and restrictions at the entrance to every-damn-place, which I've noticed since he pointed it out. Other places may have those restrictions and one may well find a variety of laws and norms enforced in any of several ways in places with less regulation-posting, should one violate them—they're just (I gather—my own limited traveling supports his take, but I've only been to a few other countries) usually not quite as obsessed with posting lots of notices about regulations on every flat surface where strictly-public spaces meet slightly-less-public or private spaces. Since having it pointed out, I've noticed that I'm (when not thinking about it) ignoring a bunch of notices akin to a click-through EULA when just entering stores, and it's not hard for me to believe that lots and lots of places get by just fine, and not necessarily with fewer de jure and de facto restrictions on behavior, with far less posting of notices about those restrictions. Clearly it's not terribly necessary since I'm pretty sure most of us hardly pay any attention to it.
    - reaperducer 2y ago
      They had mountains of boring photos of traffic signs and fire hydrants and bollards and normal people on the street and in other public spaces living their lives and that kind of stuff in lots of countries, so I'm fairly sure they had been to them. :-) While I'm not familiar with the particular blogger of which you speak, I'm always skeptical about travel bloggers who claim to have been in an incredible number of places. I say this because it's very easy to hire someone on the other side of the planet to take a series of digital photos of their lives and tourist attractions for a week or so and then you, yourself, post a travel blog with their content. Because of exchange rates, often the more exotic the location, the cheaper it is. Sometimes incredibly cheap. Like $20 to some far-off rando can reap thousands in Google Ads for a web site. I know because I used to do this for an American travel company way back in 2015-ish. Back then, I'd often hire cab drivers to do it because they always had a camera phone with them, and they were always going to airports and restaurants and tourist places and standing around with time to kill anyway. Back then it would be weird to have a picture of yourself in a travel blog, but since everyone is a narcissist these days, you'd have to Photoshop or AI yourself into the photos and videos to be believable, but that's trivial now. Again, I'm not saying your guy is a big faker. I'm just saying there are big fakers out there, so be careful who you believe.
- thrw42A8N 2y ago
  The European way is to post a gigantic wall of text like 1.5 by 1.5 meters with small letters and a full binding contract somewhere close to the entrance.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    All US parking garages have exactly that and it's so weird. Nobody reads them (what, from your car before paying and entering? LOL, nobody even reads the smaller notices attached to the payment machines, nor half the text the displays print during an interaction) so all the work at writing, printing, and posting them is just a kind of weird secular-religion ritual.
    - thrw42A8N 2y ago
      Now imagine it's everywhere. Entering a mall? You bet it's long. Entering a post office, bank, government agency? Of course. Entering a barber, restaurant, bar? Yep, even there. Entering a residential building? Yes, the inhabitants actually have a contract about their co-living and how they and others should behave in the common areas. This translates to ecommerce too - check out the terms of service and privacy policies of some European web shops.
      - vundercind 2y ago
        The US does it, too, but it's often separate sheets of printed paper and a few standard-issue laminated posters. Plus a few briefer notices posted to the doors, especially at larger businesses. It's possible EU states have gotten worse ("worse"—I mean, it's basically harmless, which is why it just fades into the background and it's easy to not even notice it, aside from that the whole thing's a little bit of wasted work) about this since his writing and since I've been there, as the latest of his posts I read were probably from travel in the late '00s, and I haven't been to any part of Europe myself since not long after that.
        thrw42A8N 2y ago
        This has definitely been the case since early 90s all around Eastern Europe. I grew up there. Maybe he didn't notice - these walls of text are close to the entrance but definitely not the most highlighted feature there. I'd guess many locals don't even know - it's just that I like to read random stuff.
bubblethink 2y ago
Europe has its own version of this nonsense (GDPR cookie banners), but that stems from a different misguided belief. Europe believes that banners can affect markets. The US believes that banners can affect the law. Both are wrong.
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago
  >Both are wrong. What are 'GDPR cookie banners' [possessive, as in GDPR mandates them? And, what is the 'a different misguided belief...that can affect markets'?
  - thrw42A8N 2y ago
    GDPR demands consent, which naturally means a blocking modal that needs to be answered before any interaction is possible. The misguided belief is that this is going to stop people from clicking on "accept".

hunter2_ 2y ago

But it seems unnecessary given the existence of its laws. For example, CFAA makes unauthorized use of a computer system illegal regardless of whether the system communicates it. Perhaps these messages originated prior to the CFAA, in which case perhaps they were necessary back then, and nobody has dared to remove them. This is unlike trespassing in the US, however, which does require informing the person (written in a conspicuous location, or direct verbal conversation) they are unwelcome on whatever land they began accessing, and allowing them to promptly retreat, before any violation is committed. Access is generally permitted (e.g., to allow for unsolicited deliveries) prior to such communication.

kube-system 2y ago
There are other legitimate reasons: 1. contractual obligations, with a lower burden of proof than criminal cases, and different remedies 2. helpful reminders