FrontierPsych

Yeah, but it all depends.

I live, work, and shop all within a few blocks, so traffic for me is the exact same as any other mid-sized city suburbs.

Oh, sure, occasionally I get caught in traffic on the freeway because I have to go somewhere farther away. But even then, I only travel between 10 am - 2 pm to reduce chances of freeway traffic jams. Or after 8 pm, too. But, of course, jams can happen at any time. So for when it happens, I just turn on some tunes, and chill out. I think about 150 years ago when I'd have to travel by horse or carriage over rough and dusty roads. So, I get a sweet climate-controlled vehicle, comfortable, with great roads. Traffic jams in my car are still faster than horse and buggy. That's how I look at it.

Absolutely.

Takes all types.

It's the best thing I've ever done and I'll never move from here.

How much can they make from selling this type of information?? Hundreds of billions?

It would seem to me that the amounts would be pitifully small as compared to making their customers angry. Even if it was $20 million, or $40 million, or $100 million - that's small potatoes compared to their annual revenue of $42 billion.

Nah. How would any civilization be able to distinguish it from any other tiny piece of material moving through space.

As far as radio waves go, no way.

Anything that we have sent out from Earth is indistinguishable from background noise of the universe.This propagation follows the inverse square law, which states that the intensity of the wave decreases as the square of the distance from the source increases. If you double the distance from the source, the intensity of the radio wave decreases by a factor of four. This means that the wave disperses and weakens as it travels away from its source. Its intensity diminishes according to the square of the distance.

First, more people means more outliers—more super-intelligent, super-creative, or super-talented people, to produce great art, architecture, music, philosophy, science, and inventions.

There might be 1,000 certified geniuses per billion, but we are still slaves to probability. That genius might be born in the slums of Calcutta or in the middle of the Amazon rainforest or in the vastness of the Mongolian steppes. I guess the hope would be that 3 or 4 might have the luck to be born to a middle class or higher family in the first world.

Also, whatever this dude wants, the world is in major decline. For example, because of China's one child policy, their population will be halved in 50 or 70 years and nothing can stop that. Japan has a high over 40 population, Italy, Germany, Spain, and especially South Korea. Russia has been declining in population and with the war, the best and brightest have left Russia, never to return (they are devoloping lives, wives, children wherever they are now), and the meat grinder of the war. Same with Ukraine.

The same thing happened in ancient Rome as well. It got so expensive to raise a child in Rome (yes, inflation existed back then as well), because of money pouring into the administrative city of Rome - for the same reason now in the first world, that people stopped having children. Even back then they had rudimentary birth control. The Roman Emperors gave all kinds of incentives for families to have children - grants and tax reductions, but it was not enough.

Workers, yes, but mainly consumers. A million dollar fine, if you sell 500,000,000 cartridges (just a guess, but in 2012 I searched and saw they sold 315 million worldwide) means they would have to charge .2 cents per cartridge to pay for the fine. ''

I hardly think that issuing any fine would make them care. Why would the CEO give one little tiny shit about a million dollar fine, or a ten million dollar fine for that matter. They just pass it on to the consumer. And that is only passing on the cost of the fine only to the ink division. They could easily pass on the costs to all departments.

Fines are silly and useless. I guess if they were to have a $500 million fine, that would get the company's attention, but I don't see that ever happening, honestly.

But I think if they put the C-suite and board of directors into jail for 8 years, that would have a major effect on all boards and executives.

And right now, corporations are claiming supply chains and inflation for raising their prices, yet they have the largest profits ever. This can only mean that they are raising their prices but their costs are staying the same or rising very little. All of them should be put in prison - robbing the poor and middle class to put that wealth in the hands of the rich. More siphoning money from the poor and middle class. Put them in prison, I say. Make some example. This is not about price controls, but against holding the US population hostage. Is there collusion? Because that is against the law. That is not controlling prices. Collusion is collusion.

You are bringing up the exceptions.

If everyone you know played Russian roulette, well, that is a stupid game to play, even if nobody you know landed on the chamber with the bullet in it.

"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" as the saying goes.

Personal responsibility plays probably 80% of it, and that really points to the company one chooses to keep.

When one keeps drug addicts or drug-friendly people as friends, that is the worst possible decision that one can make, of all decisions in life. It is all of our personal responsibility to to associate with "good" people - and cut out people that must be avoided. If one avoids the drug-friendly, then the odds go way down that one will take drugs. If drugs are not easily available, then the tempation goes way down if they are never around you. As an example, I personally have no idea as to where to get drugs. Who has them? Where would I go? Why would I make some special trip driving around everywhere trying to find drugs - spend hours and hours, maybe never finding them? And one might hang out with friends, and not take drugs as they pass them around, BUT, all it takes is one moment of weakness, and boom, there goes another life flushed down the toilet - notwithstanding the whole "exception argument" drug users give: "Yes, but I am functional" argument - that one works and takes drugs. Heard that one a million times and good for you, but that doesn't apply to most, which is what the point is.

I've known a couple of people who told me that they tried drugs, and I immediately cut them out of my life. I wasn't a dick when I happened to see them around town, but I certainy was not hanging out - just polite, then said that "I had to be somewhere else."

How many times have I heard someone say, "These are my friends, I'm not that shallow that I am going to turn my back on them." Foolish thing to say.

The reality is, if you hang out with successful businesspeople, odds are you will become successful in business. If you hang out with artists, you'll have a greater chance of being an artist. If you hang out with scientists, you'll have a greater chance of being a scientist. If you hang out with drug users, odds are exceptionally great that you will become a drug user.

The company one keeps. You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Personal responsibility is to chose one's friends wisely.

whatever you say, dude.

whatever you say, dude.

oh, wow, ok. 19...

I went to university and didn't get out until mid-1980s. We're the same age.

About 5 years ago, I did work in a tech company startup with 21 and 22 years old. On my side it was just fine. Don't know what they thought, but it worked out ok for me.

ChatGPT is the bomb. I use it to create content, to help me find weird words, to help me find films that I totally don't remember the name of but just describe one scene that I remember, just the other day, I needed to find out how to pound nails into my office walls, but my fingers were too big to hold the nail so I asked for a solution using common business items and it listed 10 of them and one of the solutions was to use a rubber band to hold onto the nail which I did and it worked like a charm. I was trying to jury-rig something, but couldn't think of anything. It thought up 10 solutions in 10 seconds. So I didn't have to fiddle fuck with it for 45 minutes, only to give up and have wasted all that time.

I'll ask what kind of electronic equipment to buy. So many things.

I have found a lot of bugs with it, too, though, so I'm getting educated. For example, at least for me, I will ask for a citation of something, and it just gives me urls that to to 404. Never once have I got an actual real citation. So I'm careful about that.

There have also been many funny things, to me, that I have asked and got weird responses that amused me.

Cool, good on you.

I did write: "except for exceptions." which of course, there always are.

Even back in the day when you and I were getting our first jobs in tech in the mid-1980s. I'm sure you were very aware of the whole thing about getting pushed out of tech when you are 35-40, no?

And even back in the day, we also knew people mainly got pushed out because people stopped keeping up with the latest trends, langauges, etc, and if someone did, then that is the kind of person who will have a much greater chance of coding into their 60s.

Personally I stopped and moved onto other things.

I didn't claim otherwise here, either

You implied it, you didn't say it.

I literally didn't mention political beliefs or forcing people to accept what's best for them at all

To him and to me, you didn't literally say it, but you implied it. You don't have to say something explicitly to have people know what you meant. Certainly Donald Trump didn't explicitly say for people to attempt an insurrection, but every one of those cretins knew exactly what he was saying.

perhaps you're upset that such people are choosing for themselves to avoid right-wing hate, and you don't like their reasoning (they don't want to be restricted / harassed / threatened / murdered by right-wingers) ?

On the other hand, the poster you are replying to did not say nor imply anything of the sort of thing that you are saying.

we can't be surprised there, given said right-wingers don't care about politics when they're mowing people down with a range rover on a sidewalk, or in a shopping mall with a gun, just for looking different than them

You are using emotionally laden wording here, rather than just having a healthy dialogue where you disagree.

BTW, you never explained why you felt the comment about privilege was wrong.

Because the person you responded to above didn't use the word privilege. I did in another comment, which I just explained in my response to you on the other thread. I just logged back on right now and answered your other statement to me.

If you are going to respond, perhaps respond to only the other one as it is difficult to have two separate conversations happening at the same time.

Because "privilege" is a code word and a slur on those who do not agree, and a way to try to shut down rational conversation. Words can have more than one meaning, they can be nuanced, and they can mean something else entirely to the "in-crowd."

like one just did in Texas

This could have happened in any state, including New York City or San Francisco or Seatle or any other liberal city and you know it. You are arguing unfairly.

if you feel shame as a result of this, look inward and ask why, because nobody here is shaming you for simply being privileged

I didn't say that I felt that way. This is yet again another way that you are using ad hominem attacks by saying that I feel shame.

I'm sorry that you feel that you have to try to use shame to shut down dialogue.

And you seem to indicate that I am privileged. How do you know I am not a black lesbian trans woman? You have no idea.

All I am asking of you is to have a dialogue without using loaded language.

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As it says in wikipedia:

*Loaded Language:*

"Loaded language (also known as loaded terms, strong emotive language, high-inference language and language-persuasive techniques) is rhetoric used to influence an audience by using words and phrases with strong connotations. This type of language is very often made vague to more effectively invoke an emotional response and/or exploit stereotypes. Loaded words and phrases have significant emotional implications and involve strongly positive or negative reactions beyond their literal meaning."

And read again the last sentence.

*Ad hominem attacks*

Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself. This avoids genuine debate by creating a diversion to some irrelevant but often highly charged issue.

Dog whistle language

In politics, a dog whistle is the use of coded or suggestive language in political messaging to garner support from a particular group without provoking opposition. The concept is named after ultrasonic dog whistles, which are audible to dogs but not humans. Dog whistles use language that appears normal to the majority but communicates specific things to intended audiences.

Choosing broadly appealing words such as "family values", which has extra resonance for Christians, while avoiding overt Christian moralizing that might be a turn-off for non-Christian voters. Same with many words on the left.

Code words

A code word is a word or a phrase designed to convey a predetermined meaning to an audience who know the phrase, while remaining inconspicuous to the uninitiated.

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I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you are not familiar with these terms, but now that you are, maybe you will use discussions to the fairness of both sides of the discussion.

And to repeat, I'm not really taking sides in the actual argument. I'm saying that your language usage is unfair, both to the original person you responded to, and to me in response to my last comment.

If you have more to say to me, I'd appreciate it if you didn't use the automatic words of things like "privilege," "white supremacy," "transphobic," "toxic masculinity," "patriarchy," and all those types of language.

But it is a free world, we have free speech, you can do as you wish. I'm just asking this as one rational person to hopefully another.

This is a comment that originates in privilege.

This sounds like a comment about privilege that originates in privilege.

The person just expressed his or her opinion, and bandying words like "privilege" shuts down communication by route of shaming someone.

Not everyone is LGBT+, ethnic minority.

If someone was to offer someone $20 million per year to do a job in Kansas, I guess many people would turn it down to make a point, but no reason to crap over someone who wants to make that $20 million.

The fact of the matter is that in most red states, there are blue cities.

Texas - Austin (Travis County) - 72.8% voted for Joe Biden Georgia - Atlanta (Fulton County) - 72.6% voted for Joe Biden Arizona - Phoenix (Maricopa County) - 50.3% voted for Joe Biden North Carolina - Charlotte (Mecklenburg County) - 67.5% voted for Joe Biden Tennessee - Nashville (Davidson County) - 61.7% voted for Joe Biden Florida - Miami (Miami-Dade County) - 53.3% voted for Joe Biden Ohio - Cleveland (Cuyahoga County) - 68.1% voted for Joe Biden Indiana - Indianapolis (Marion County) - 60.2% voted for Joe Biden Missouri - Kansas City (Jackson County) - 60.7% voted for Joe Biden Utah - Salt Lake City (Salt Lake County) - 62.9% voted for Joe Biden

And remember, geographically, California is MAJORLY red. Look at the last election map. What happens if someone moves there. Sure, you get abortion in California, but your neighbors are going to still be hard-core MAGA Republicans.

I must say, it is extremely disheartening when people throw around words like "privilege" just as an easy way to shut down communication by shame. I know you'll most likely deny it, what else can you do, but it is what it is. So I'd appreciate it if people would argue their case without these types of coded words. Just my opinion, don't tell me I'm privileged or misogynist or transphobic or fat-shaming or the million other words designed to immediately shut down a conversation by name-calling. I mean, I know that's the game these days - continual virtue signalling, de-platforming, gotchas for showing the world how virtuous one is and tallying up one's "I'm good" checkmarks. And if you say you aren't or that isn't the purpose...right, ok, sure. If you say so. Whatever you say. I believe you. Right.

discriminate against older and more experienced people -- a practice so widespread in tech we joke about it. Hint: seniority usually implies higher pay, lower chance of getting blinded by free pizza and dry cleaning, and more independence of thought in the workplace. Less work experience usually means a more compliant employee.

As someone who started in the industry in the mid-1980s, this practice was very well known back then, as I'm sure it was very well known before then.

At the start of my career in my mid-20s, we all talked about it all the time - that by 35-40, you are either in management or whatever else. But not a coder, for the most part, except for exceptions.

oh, yeah. That was a bonehead move on the part of Digg. I was happy with it until that disasterous change.

It reminds me of a bar I used to go to in San Francisco called The Rat and the Raven. There was a bartender there named Storm Large and she was great. This was a long time ago. It was packed every single day. People from all walks of life went there - from bikers to investment bankers.

Then it was bought out. Instead of leaving it alone, they decided they could make it better. They changed it to some kind of upscale thing. Put nice floors down, tables, nice railings.

I went in every once in a while and it was crickets on the weekends. Nobody there ever.

If one goes in there in the due diligence phase of checking it out, and it is packed every night, why fuck with a good thing?

I would be, except for the fact that a religion like islam will cut off your head if you decide you don't believe in a god anymore. And christianity was like that as well, until the Western World secularized. With the ugly head of evangelicalism raising it's head, don't think that the USA couldn't backslide into a religious regression and start executing gay people or putting their own children to death if they disobey their parents, as the bible outlines that parents can do.

So yeah, I get your sentiment, but there are a whole lot of people out there who want the USA to go back to fundamentalism and have the church run the government, just like in Iran, except we will have a bunch of loathful evangelicals the power behind the presidency.

So personally, I think I have to fight religion at every point that I am able to fight. It's a war of ideas and ideas matter. Because ideas lead to actions.

Just sayin'.

what system isn't?

if "time" is infinite

And if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his ass every time he hopped.

But back to reality, there is not infinite time and matter. All that heat death of the universe and everything. The arrow of time.

Just becaues the concept of infinity exists, doesn't mean something can happen. For example, I have started reading James Joyce's Ulysses probably a dozen times how and have never been able to get more than a few pages into it. I know if there was infinity time, I'd never be able to get more than a few pages into that book. It's mathematically proven.

Being an atheist, I vehemently disagree with his assertion and give reasons for why I disagree:

Religion is not “ancient superstition.” The great religions caught on because they successfully communicated something vital about the human condition to a large number of people. Their founders are probably some of the wisest and most insightful people our species ever generated.

So the only wise people that ever existed lived 1400 or 2000 years before today? There has been nobody wiser since? That nobody has communicated something vital since, that speaks to the modern world?

Or is it that there is a thing called inertia? That once started, it is almost impossible to bring something as large as the biggest religion to an end. Parents teach their children from birth about religion, and if you don't follow it correctly, you will burn in hell in the worst torment that you can't even imagine.

It hasn't "stood the test of time." It is inertia. Another example: we still use the 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour since 3500 years ago. We still basically use the Julian calendar from 2000 years ago, with the upgrade in 1582 with the Gregorian fix. I could name all kinds of things like that.

So, no, This is just some kind of mysterioso "the ancients" non-argument that people use all the time.

Hardline atheists and hardline fundamentalists make the same mistake when they regard religious texts as collections of factual claims, rather than instructive works of literature.

Does this dude even know anything about atheism? No. Atheists don't make that mistake. He is the one who mistakes atheists for making mistakes.

Atheists are some of the best educated in the USA when it comes to religion. This is because most started as religious, but logic'ed there was something wrong, so the former religious study their religion in great detail to understand and try to avoid becoming atheists, until they just can't support the illogic of religion anymore and must therefore be atheitic.

Atheists know full well that religious texts can be read as metaphors and analogies and allegories. The issue is that we use it as literal in order to mock the religious. And it is hilarious because the religious will quote the bible as literal if it serves their ends, but say it is a story if that fits their goal.

I personally could interpret Matthew 14:13-21 many different ways. Dozens of ways. But most christians DO take it literally. And the biggie, most Christians think that Jesus literally died and rose from the dead, which is ridiculous.

How is thinking Jesus being a necromancer - bringing the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:21-42), the young man from Nain (Luke 7:11-17), Lazarus (John 11:1-44), and self-necromancy of bringing himself back to life - any different than a talking snake in Genesis?

Finally, almost every single person is an atheist, no lie. Christians are atheists of Vishnu, Kali, Brahma, Ishtar, Zeus, etc. Almost everyone is an atheist when it comes to L Ron Hubbard. I'm exactly like the religious who are atheist about other gods, except I just am atheist about one more god.

Some will smugly say that they are are different versions of the same thing, all of them are manifestations of the same god, but almost all don't, except when it is convenient to say it.

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Here is a muslim that seems urbane - but he says literally that Mohammed split the moon in half and went to heaven on a winged horse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ-Y5NWV9kc&t=870s

Religious code switch back and forth between religion being literal and it being a story, as it suits them at the time.

And I don't mean all religious, there might be one or two out of the billion christians in the world who don't.

I read about an experiment where they had people draw a pencil. However, with each iteration, the next person to draw the pencil had to do it in a new way that was not done before.

The first drawings were regular drawing of a pencil, but as time went on, you'd get pencils with purple lead instead of black lead, then circular pencils, until it just devolved into Jackson Pollock and beyond.

The thing is that you have to try to try to change the character so it isn't a repeat of the week before, so over time, it all morphs out beyond all recognition.

This is exactly what is happening in politics. Each new right and left news person has to go further to the right and left in order to differentiate themselves from the other guys, and it keeps going farther to extremes.

Because there are a ton of ill-informed consumers, not just in regards to automobiles, but everything.

There are only 4 cars that I ever shop for. Toyota Corrola, Toyota Camry, Honda Civic, Honda Accord.

It really makes it easy to shop, too. Only ask for those 4 cars. You're not just wandering aimlessly, ready for getting fleeced by an auto salesperson because you don't know what you want.

And of course, there is also the guy with the little penis buyer, needing to buy a Ferrari or Porsche or whatever. The funny thing is, my Honda Civic is just as fast as a Ferrari, Porsche, Bugatti, or whatever. I go 25 miles per hour in the suburban streets, 35 on main arteries, and 65 on freeways. None of those supercars can go faster than my Honda. So why pay $500,000 for a supercar??? Little penis.

Why worry?

Nobody is going to stop driving their car, nobody is going to stop taking plane trips.

And those are utterly nothing as compared to the largest generators of CO2 --- children. Every single thing that a person can do is miniscule compared to having a baby. Are we going to convince every female from 15-years-old to 40-years-old to not have any children?

If you are past childbearing age and have children, are you going to try to talk them into not having children, and therefore you will have no grandchildren?

Let's all just sit back and watch the world burn, because that is exactly what is going to happen. As far as we know, we may have already passed the point of no return and just don't know it yet, as some things might take a decade or more to unwind, but it is too late to do anything. This is what I think is the case. There is no action that can be taken. It's too late. It doesn't even matter about trying to slow it down. It's like people saying to stop an avalanche with a cardboard box to catch all the snow. Too late, too late.

The future is going to be bleak, people are going to be eating each other.

The circle in the middle is for each child you have, or grandchild. Can you imagine how big that circle is with 2 or 3 or 6 children??? https://imgur.com/FmNUUeB

Because fine artists are something cultural that adds beauty and a new way of looking at the world around us. The Mona Lisa is different from a 1982 Ford Escort.

I mean, maybe you don't see it that way, but most of humanity does.

Same.

Used Firefox from long ago, but switched about 3 years ago when I just was getting way too many problems with firefox not running SaaS stuff. Couldn't run Salesforce on Firefox. Maybe there was some way that someone knows of here, but I didn't and was not going to spend 200 hours trying to find out. So after extensive decision-making process of looking at everything, I chose Brave.

But was he doing a great job on Firefox before being fired?

After watching Russia's performanc in Ukraine, I'm sure the thought has flitted across Xi's mind once or twice.