Not really... This isn't people being empowered, this is people being chewed up and spit out

I think that's the sign of a good person

If you build a world for good persons, it'll collapse in your lifetime.

Good persons want to understand each other. People don't - they want to think as little as possible above all else

I think there's a few core reasons

Some people would act like him if given the opportunity, so they identify with him or think he'd give them opportunities

Some people just feel isolated and know the world is getting worse but not why, so they latch onto the guy giving easy answers and simple solutions

And some people are just drawn to the idea of fascism or authoritarianism, even if they don't realize what that entails

I'd put the self loathing in the first camp - many of them get through life through projection. They think everyone is like them

their fortunes

I think the term for that is "the economy"

Ok, let's be real here. A charger can last a decade even if the charging speed slows...a cord will not outlast a phone. If it does, there's a serious issue

They can definitely misfire, but humans are more likely to misfire

When the adrenaline is pumping, it's real easy to squeeze slightly harder... That's why your finger shouldn't be on the trigger until you're ready to shoot

You want to tell me your gun shot two rounds instead of one? I can believe that. You want to tell me a cold gun, with a round in the chamber for more than 5 seconds, suddenly decided to override the required mechanical safety because you waved it around?

By getting in early, and having a lot of child branches on the tree of life

It does help that "actually they haven't destroyed a single work of art" is a pretty good entry point to explain how protests are just a way of displaying group outrage

Civil rights were won by relentlessly challenging the courts, exhausting the public so much it blew back on the government administration, and with the armed black Panthers present as an implicit threat - "if you decide to throw out the law, so will we"

There are levels to programming.

It's fun to solve simple problems effortlessly. It's fun to solve hard problems after banging your head against the wall for a week

Simple problems that require a lot of code are not fun. Neither are medium problems that require a lot of code. Herd problems that require a lot of code fill me with joy.

Programming is like an abusive relationship. Mostly days it just hurts you. But when it's good it's great... It doesn't just give you the satisfaction of a job well done, it expands you mind

I once got on the topic of the moon lending with a creationist co-worker. He said he wasn't sure, but that if it happened we should be able to see it from satellite pictures. So I said "yeah you can", pulled it up, and zoomed in on a landing site. You couldn't see footprints or anything, but you could see the shadow of the flag next to clearly man-made debris

I showed him exactly what he agreed would be proof in a difficult to fake form, and it just temporarily nudged the needle for him

Now, I fight conspiracies with the opposite conspiracies.

Earth is a 4D hypersphere, the earth isn't hollow, Agatha is just another part of the surface reached by holes

The elites are hiding all the best vaccines, like the ones that cure cancer

Fun fact, we did have a 20 year start on COVID. This was bird flu, SARS, MERS, swine flu... Scientists have been saying this was coming forever

This was basically as prepared as we could get. There were protocols in place for everything

Fortunately, enflamed beings often are already in motion, so ceasing immediately should provide some rotation

I respect it. We think of the Olympics as this Grand international unity thing, but it's not. It's a for profit entertainment company

It's not the best in the world, it's hundreds of feeder organizations that submitted the paperwork, and the people they chose to select

No one had submitted paperwork for Australian breakdancing... So she and her husband did

It's art - intentional or not. Skilled or not (it was not). I don't even know what county won breakdancing... But that couple made an impact on the world, undoubtedly. I could do some of her moves and anyone would instantly recognize it

Also, every other week we get another reason to make it a priority

The arguments against it boil down to "it's different and scary/I don't understand it", "there's compatibility issues that might be complicated to fix", or "well what we have now is good enough for my needs"

I don't disagree with that position... As a next step, it seems pretty sensible to me

To truly understand where you stand, you have to break false dichotomy - political platforms aren't one or two dimensional, they're multifaceted. IMO you have to pick an end goal, and chart a course towards it

Personally, my end goal is solar punk. I want to live in a green world with technology. To get there, I full throatedly resist authoritarianism or centralization of any kind- I believe the larger it is, the more it'll attract sociopaths seeking power for powers sake

Eco socialism is a step in my desired direction - I have no issue with it. It's a sensible waypoint and I'd gladly join hands with those who see it as the end goal. But I'd encourage you to chat with gpt (or better yet, local AI) in the context of your end goal and the next step to get there - LLMs are an extension of the user, and I think this is a proper use of the technology

I'm not sure customers are falling for it - this is why voting with your wallet doesn't work. People rage against games that launch in an unfinished state, particularly when they're full price. Steam reviews often incorporate price point - statements like "don't buy this at full price" or "this might have been worth it at $20, but this is not a $70 game" come up a lot

Sales for AAA games are way down, we just saw the biggest failure in gaming history. Casual reading of steam reviews show people clearly have different expectations based on price, Twitter sometimes explodes with anger at specific moves (like Helldivers requiring PSN) and they back off (temporarily), but they always go back to the bullshit

The feedback mechanism of "voting with your wallet" doesn't communicate this message. Metrics show purchases, refunds, and active users... That's what fits on a spreadsheet. They see a game failing, but that doesn't mean they've understood why

AAA studios don't want to understand what makes a game succeed or fail - they just want a formula to min-max ROI. They want strong numbers at launch, but they also want to minimize production costs, and they treat costs (like developers) as line items - they learn the wrong lessons, because they aren't concerned with the creative part of game design. They want to be the next Madden or assassin's creed, they want to figure out how to get players to pay $70 + micro transactions (or better yet a subscription too), but they also want their employees to be interchangeable cogs they can push to burn out then replace

AAA gaming is dying from this, but it's an oligarchy at this point - large corporations are unable to understand nuance or truly innovate - these are things people do when they have autonomy. They don't do team building or R&D anymore - that's a gamble that sometimes pays off big, but not in a quarter or two. They aquire then kill off what made the team work in the first place - any individual can tell you that's a recipe for failure, but by nature they keep the decision making far removed from the people actually doing the work

But then someone will see a spreadsheet and calculate the "missed" revenue, and whoever made that decision either gets replaced or given strict orders next time

Even if they manage to dig their heels in, it will come up again and again. It looks like a money shaped hole, and so organizationally they'll keep coming back to it

It is a great way to make games, many indie games do this. A team can do this, but a corporation can't - subtlety doesn't fit on a spreadsheet

That's what makes you a leftist. Noticing we waste 1/3 of food and less than 1/5 are starving, and thinking "clearly there has to be a better way, let's figure it out" is what separates leftists from liberals

I think this is one of those societal level conspiracies

I like by taking life, in death I want to give life. It's legal, it's ethical. Unless I die from a bacterial disease or nasty virus, I find it ghoulish and cruel to be cremated or pumped full of preservatives - let me return to the earth. Feed me to birds, bury me under a tree, i don't care - I just want to feed life as I fed upon it

It's legal, it's ethical, and if I died tomorrow I'm sure my frequently expressed wishes would be ignored

Yeah... That's not going to work, because it turns out people will in fact pay a premium for green choices

Which sounds great, except it's a lot cheaper to lie and misdirect than to be green

And you have to be real, companies will do anything before producing less. Like plastics - the companies making them won't make less plastic just because we stop using straws - they'll pivot. They'll make them cheaper, ship them further, or cut back the straws to make more disposable cups - the only way they're cutting back on plastic is if the same processes and machinery can make a biodegradable version, if the government forces them, or if they shut down in whole or in part