WoodScientist @ WoodScientist @lemmy.world

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12 mo. ago

We're on the eve of what future generations may refer to as "The Great Hunger." The worst impact of climate change won't be rising sea levels. It will be Biblical scale famines from multiple simultaneous bread basket failures. On our current path, we are likely to lose 2-10% of the total human population due to famine over the next 20-30 years. Having a way to grow bulk sustenance cheaply, in a way that is immune from the disruptions of the weather? That is a technology we desperately need right now. I agree that UPFs are not ideal. But this and similar synthetic foods could prevent what is likely to be the greatest famine in human history.

They'll pull the same crap they do with digital content you "buy." Technically you're just buying a license to use the vehicle, not actually buying the vehicle itself.

Eh, at this point can we just agree that word doesn't apply to people with actual disabilities? It hasn't been used as such for decades. Maybe we just agree to only use it to refer to morons, the same way "moron" was once a medical term.

I would prefer a mixed system. All wealth over 1000x the median household income taxed at 100%. So no one should have a fortune larger than that, a number that would be approximately $80 million today. But if you secretly gather a fortune much larger than that? If you somehow secretly amass a fortune 10,000x the median household income? At that point I would apply severe criminal penalties, like a mandatory minimum 20 year sentence. I don't want to throw the book at someone just because they accidentally let their fortune grow a bit beyond the limit. But if you're a whole order of magnitude above it? Then that's when severe criminal penalties should apply. At some point your wealth becomes so large that you personally become a threat to national security. Amassing a fortune in the billions should be treated like a private citizen trying to build their own nuclear bomb. No one should have that much power, and we should treat both the same.

I like the 1000x threshold because that is approximately the maximum possible fortune one can amass in one's lifetime off of ordinary salary work and extreme frugality.

1000x the median income would be about $80 million. Consider the highest-earning non-executive salaried employees - people who spend years in school in very challenging fields. People like neurosurgeons. Imagine if there was a couple composed of two neurosurgeons, and they earn very good salaries. They're also so frugal that they spend basically nothing. You have a pair of neurosurgeons literally sleeping on the sidewalk out front of the hospital. They live like that, and they invest and save every penny they can. The highest salaried incomes combined with pathological frugality.

Even if they did all of that. Even if two highly educated workers lived off nothing and saved everything, even then those people would still struggle to earn, over their whole life, a fortune that exceeded 1000x the median household income.

Such a system allows for a capitalism that actually does live up to the marketing. You're allowed to earn a fortune as large as your own labor and skills will allow. However, the only way to obtain a fortune larger than this is to get into the business of labor arbitrage - hiring other people and harnessing the surplus of their labor. I want people to be able to earn as much money from the sweat of their own brow as they can. But I don't want people to be able to hoard strategically dangerous fortunes by exploiting the labor of others. And 1000x the median household income is a nice even number that's easy to explain to people and that achieves this goal.

Exactly. And remember, we're talking about people who explicitly choose to live in an overtly racist community. We're not talking random white people who may have passively benefited from society's innate racism. If you got a job that a black person didn't simply because the company you applied for is subtly racist, well, acknowledge your privilege, but you're not really a villain yourself.

But this? We're talking about people who woke up and chose racism.

In the Year of Our Lord 2025, it's perfectly moral to burn down the home of anyone who chooses to live in a whites-only community.

Having wealth over 1000 times the median family income.

You can't practically "trust but verify" with LLMs. I task an LLM to summarize an article. If I want to check its work, I have to go and read that whole article myself. The checking takes as much time as just writing the summary myself. And this is even worse with code, as you have to be able to deconstruct the AI's code and figure out its internal logic. And by the time you've done that, it's easier to just make the code yourself.

It's not that you can't verify the work of AI. It's that if you do, you might as well just create the thing yourself.

The only place conservatives fit is in a box six feet under ground.

Fed into woodchippers like they deserve.

Canada is full of brown people...mostly those immigrated recently enough that their citizenship could be declared invalid because 'reasons' and forcibly deported back to their ancestral countries.

Yeah that works right until China or Russia start arming the Mexican military. We've been supporting Ukraine for years. Russia or China would be more than happy to send whatever arms they can to help Mexico. And it's amazing how effective an active invasion of your nation is with addressing military corruption.

"Houston, I no longer have any problems."

Presentation matters!

There is nothing morally wrong with killing health insurance CEOs. In fact, it is a morally positive act.

And yet people still voted for Biden in 2020. Maybe the idea that the left will simply never support Democrats and will always move the goalposts is just a shit idea.

They should trade Netanyahu to Hamas for a hostage. Just let them do with him as they please.

It's called MAGA.

Exactly. Because they're not prepared to do what's actually necessary - reform the filibuster to allow it to be removed. Democrats have all these high-minded plans, but they all require a margin in the Senate they will never reasonably achieve. And even if by some miracle they did get 60 seats in the Senate, there will always be a rotating villain to throw a wrench in the works. Mamdani won not just because he had plans, but because he had very specific plans. He could tell people exactly how he intended to pass those plans. Democrats don't actually have a plan for repealing Citizens United. They just have vague notions about repealing Citizens United.