mjbale116

I have this image in my mind of a discussion taking place in a high speed rail possibly around 2100 where people will look back and say: "I cannot believe we had people driving 2ton steel boxes back in the day, I cannot even compute those micromorts"

Re-posting an older comment of mine on the subject:

Here's a couple of arguments I had to deal with whilst expressing my support for electronics ban at schools including a blanket social media ban:

1) "Since when do we consider it OK for the government to intervene between the parents and their children and telling them whats good and whats not? They know best."

2) "Whoever does not want to use electronics at school grounds are free to do so who are we to constrain them? Also, forbidding things never works let them learn."

3) "I think you are underestimating children; if they see that what they are doing with electronics affects them in any way, they will stop using them. Lets give them some credit and let them make their mistakes."

All of which are anti phone-ban/anti-regulation/pro-liberal/freemarketeering masquerading as a product of independent thought.

> Black rock isn't buying up all the housing, your neighbors are.

This is a common trope.

"It's not big conglomerates that buy and hodl the homes where families are supposed to live, its mom and pop investors so please be nice."

Having a home is not something to speculate with or leave it to the supposed "market forces".

Housing projects and regulation is what this country needs, yesterday.

On the same note, whats going on with Dell's marketing lately?

Dell, Dell Pro, Dell Premium, Dell _Pro_ Premium Dell Max, Dell _Pro_ max... They went and added capacitive keys on the XPS? Why would you do this...

A lot of decisions that do not make sense to me.

All I want to know, is whether I am talking to an actual person. And I also want that person to have a single account, not multiple ones

> I don't see what you're saying. Are you saying people must think the same things as you do for it to be independent thought?

Indeed you don't; let me help you out then:

Arguments must be made in good faith; and when you hear anyone saying anything I mentioned above it is immediately obvious that they are not arguing in good faith.

If they think they are, then their decision making centre is compromised by cnbc and fox news and their opinion must be dismissed.

If anyone considers the above arguments valid and worthy of discussion, they need to exempt themselves from this discourse.

Here's a couple of arguments I had to deal with whilst expressing my support for electronics ban at schools including a blanket social media ban:

1) "Since when do we consider it OK for the government to intervene between the parents and their children and telling them whats good and whats not? They know best."

2) "Whoever does not want to use electronics at school grounds are free to do so who are we to constrain them? Also, forbidding things never works let them learn."

3) "I think you are underestimating children; if they see that what they are doing with electronics affects them in any way, they will stop using them. Lets give them some credit and let them make their mistakes."

All of which are anti phone-ban/anti-regulation/pro-liberal/freemarketeering masquerading as a product of independent thought.

> A big part of this IMO is that “money won”, for lack of a better phrase. There is no real concept of selling out anymore. Being shamelessly focused on wealth accumulation seems to be socially acceptable in a way it wasn’t fifty years ago.

Fifty years ago you had Soviet Union.

An entity which provided an alternative to the US and Western Europe vassals freemarketeering shenanigans.

With the Soviet Union gone, and the communists in retreat, the Capitalists can shove their ideologies down the populace's collective throat.

It has already been established that "what we have here is the best system" and any failure to ascend in said system is a failure of the individual rather than the system's.

"Here is a feel good story of an immigrant that learned python and made it big in America, why can't you do the same?"

> have left the US

They did not "leave" the US, they were deported without due process.

> though NSA and google have been doing it for years

That does not make it less dismal

> less scope for this to be abused against american citizens unlike in the UK

There are agencies in the US that do as they please without needing to cooperate with anyone. Not sure how you arrived in that conclusion.

anthropic are so sure about the incoming economic impact of their AI that they want to start talking about policy - for our sake.

Incredible stuff...

Can someone explain to me why should I use a VPN when Tor is out there?

It just seems to me odd that one would pipe their communications through a private company, that operates over a jurisdiction when said jurisdiction can compel the company in actions that may compromise my anonymity.

From my perspective, its like shifting my trust from my ISP (an entity with way more oversight) to a pvt ltd.

Isn't Tor as safe as it can get when surfing the web?

While a big proponent of this, to my mind, it seems a bit counterintuitive to place your trust in a community who will probably cannot be held into account once some bad actor slips into their ranks, creates a bad patch and empties my bank account.

> I don't see a downside in requiring public-facing bots to do that

Your statement attempts to give an impression of a middle ground, but what it actually does is delegating the action to the human - who has limited energy and has to make hundreds of other decisions.

Your statement sounds like what a lobbyist might whisper to a regulator in an attempt to effectively neuter the bill.

People not versed in technology do not - and do not have to - know what an LLM is or what it can do.

These matters need be resolved at the source and we must not allow hopeful libertarian technologist DDoS the whole society.

- "It violates freedom of speech!"

- "This is a free market; if you do not like it use another platform!"

- "I thought $conglomerate" had our back! They had rainbows and all; is that all it took them to fold"?

- "No, this is not a systemic issue; conversation needs to be steered away from attacking the system and rather its a few bad apples! Go after them and stop asking for systemic changes!"

- "Any attempt at regulating companies in an assault on #freedom and must not be tolerated"

If you manage to convince software engineers that you are doing them a favour by employing them then they will approach any workplace negotiations with a specific mindset which will make them grab the first number it gets thrown to them.

These statements are brilliant.

Here's the thing:

The reasoning behind the work from office mandate does not concern me; nor I will attempt to rationalize it.

I will not return to office, and I will organize with colleagues to make sure our interests are protected.

See you in the strike.

I have spent my youth in rural Peloponnese and the boredom before the internet came along was insufferable; doing stupid stuff with the car was pretty much how you get some sort of excitement.

Strofara was great, now do O mikros nicolas apo nomo elias and we are all set!

If their service sucks I lose my life.

This isn't a discretionary purchase, let's stop pretending one can go shopping for care.