I am living in Germany, which has one of the stronger privacy protection laws.

But this was
a) more than 20 years ago
b) considered public data (distributed to every household in printed form any way), so the privacy laws of the time didn’t apply.

The only legal disputes I remember were over questions of copyright for the entries in the phonebooks.

[Edit]
Just checked: at least one of the services still exists and works exactly as I described it before:
https://www.dasoertliche.de/
If you click on “Rückwärtssuche” you open the reverse search.
Here is a phone number to try it with: 0897003671
Note the “Routenplaner” link on the result entry, which shows you a map and lets you plan your route to the number owner.

They already digitized the books and put them online in searchable databases 30 years ago.

Even including reverse number search (which my socially awkward self loved back then) and later integrated map routing to the address of the number’s owner.

So this argument doesn’t hold.

Yes, but even then it was generally only true for the remaining fixed landline phones. Felt just like a public knowledge part of your address, like putting your name on the doorbell button.

To be generally valid for mobile phones you probably would have to go back another 10 years.
Those truely were different times still, also online.
I even remember posting my mail address to a public register at the end of the 90s to distribute the public part of my pgp key…

Well, I am pretty convinced most of the mentioned issues are actually intentional design choices.

Google does want neither the users, nor the app owners to have the best experience, but to control their actions in a way that generates the most revenue for Google.
Prime example for Enshitification.

From Google’s point of view, it must not change any of the issues, as everything is working perfectly for them already.

Sequential or concurrent playback of the sinewaves?
Or even both?
Then lyrics could be anything you want, look up Fourier Transform.

He probably assumed the sentence selection to be a statistically independent process, which it is not.

This sounds like a generic AI aphorism while the discussion has long moved on already.
Sorry, dude, not fitting any more and missing the point by now ;-)

Your statement is true and valid for the first few months of the pandemic, when everyone was frantically trying to get the infection rates down.

It didn’t apply any more to the longer lasting second phase of the pandemic (that’s the one I’ve been talking about).
Goal was to reach the endemic phase, meaning that almost everyone should get infected at least once, but without straining the healthcare system beyond its limits cause severe cases pile up in the intensive care units.

Kids had been known by then to:
a) not develop severe symptoms, thereby posing no problems for the hospitals themselves
b) being much less likely to infect other persons than grown-ups due to smaller lung volume and lower virus counts
c) be the most vulnerable group to lockdowns due to critical development stages happening in the early years in rapid succession

So the logical and responsible way to increase infection rates (which was wanted at that point to reach endemic stage) would be to keep schools and child centric activities open as early and much as possible, and only lifting restrictions for other groups of people gradually if numbers permit.

What happened instead is that restrictions were lifted globally for everyone based on incidence rates and hospital capacity (often divided by regions).
So, yes, school was open, but also the closed room restaurants and bars, where everyone was partying.
This rapidly let to shutdowns again to bring the incidence down (which took longer than the increase, due to involved infection maths).

So, for one and a half years the typical cycle was: Everything completely open for 2 weeks, followed by 3-4 weeks lockdown again, when the numbers had become to high.

In the analysis of the pandemic looking back, the handling of the school- and childcare situation has been the most criticized in my country, together with some nonsensical measures during lockdown (e.g. severe restriction of movement under open air).

So yes, children have been screwed unnecessary during the pandemic, mostly because some more influential lobby groups managed to push their agendas (e.g. hospitality industry and the influence of right-wing anti-vaxxer groups).

I looked into this and the complete truth is:
No films were shown in cinema during the time of lce Age’s release, as cinemas were banned as a whole between 1983 and 2018.

That’s actually interesting, didn’t know that (and also have no idea what Piefed actually is, I have to confess…)

Might especially be crucial information to OP, as she might not be aware that the pronouns she supplied on the page aren’t visible to a whole bunch of people.
Did you tell her already?
(Edit: I just did)

Did you realize you posted two different versions of the meme?
I just now realized when looking at this post via web browser. My phone’s Lemmy client showed me the first one, the second one was only tiny in some corner, so I didn’t notice it.
Changes the context somewhat.

Good that it turned out well for you!

My elder son (very late GenZ) wasn’t affected much, but my daughter developed severe issues, we even had to visit a child psychologist and youth counseling for quite some time.
She was four when the pandemic hit, and started school just when the worst was over, after having had almost no social contacts in her age group for almost two years and with some obsessive compulsive traits caused by all the strictly enforced rules and had anxiety issues after they were lifted.
Went into outright school refusal that took the better part of three years to get somewhat right again.
Friend’s daughter same age as my son developed some severe fear issues and psychological reversal issues. E.g. started crapping in her pants again and refusing to sleep alone at age 10.

Nothing funny with that at all, so please understand my initial harsh reaction after having only seen the first version of the meme in your post (the one with the dark dude).

@Speedforce@multiverse.soulism.net’s pronouns, which you can find by clicking on Her profile.

Except you can’t. I actually had a look at her profile before writing the comment and would have used the pronouns, if there had been any:

what could we have done differently

Lifting the schooling and meeting restrictions on the kids first, before every other relaxing measure, as they are the most affected by social deprivation and the least by Covid.

Instead we often did the opposite, making concessions to the loud “I can’t breath with masks and won’t vaccinate” lobby.

Cynical! Thank you, that was the word I have been looking for the whole time!

But I still think that posting the meme to this funny community reduces it to an actual joke.

Placing it under c/memes or so would still preserve its cynical form while much less affecting its serious core premise.

You didn’t quite get me I think:
In my opinion, only the putting of the meme under c/funny is taking away from its seriousness.
The meme itself is totally fine.

I’m GenX and we are also very much into fatalistic satirical humour (and absurdist humour - I actually enjoy brainrot - shoutout to GenZ: great work here!).
So I absolutely agree with trying to deal with dreadful stuff in form of biting satire.
But posting it under c/funny I perceive as derogative, as it implies: hey don’t take it serious.

Well, I don’t know OP, so maybe.

But the meme he posted is about a generation’s trauma and its dark consequences.
Totally belongs in a serious meme- or society-community, but seeing it filed under “funny” really annoys me.

ls it dark?
Yes, no question here.

But is it humour?

Compare to this statement:
“Me, a Catholic having been taught that using condoms is evil: happy because it feels more intense.
I now have an STD.”

It’s basically the same as the meme.

Funny?
Some still might think, but I really don’t.

Worth talking about?
Definitely!
But not as a joke.

Yeah, but putimg this (actually not bad) meme into a “funny” community feels a bit like taking a whole generation, that we seriously fucked up, not seriously.
Even if OP is still in his teens or so and was actually telling about his own struggle.

Downvoting because, honestly, not funny.

Seen too much socially and emotionally seriously crippled kids during the last few years to be able to laugh about that.

This has been in the article though, among other alternatives.