chasing

This is reductionistic gibberish. If you want to understand how USAID had actually benefited the region, go read some of the actual reports and analyses on the matter.

But just to engage with your numbers (which I don't agree are fully accurate and are definitely not at all a complete picture):

Getting the rate of starvation down from 33% to 20% in an already food-stressed region that has experienced 5x population growth could be presented as an accomplishment, yes. Flip your numbers around. In 1961 200m Africans were food-secure. Today 1200m are. A billion extra properly fed people, by your (possibly bad and definitely over-simplifed) numbers.

Because we're rich and powerful and we believe the world should be a better place.

It doesn't matter what other countries do. We should want to step up and help. Leaders lead.

And racism.

By design, no?

Good artists copy. Great artists steal.

Plagiarists also steal.

I find that younger software engineers sometimes take the attitude of: Why would I pay for that when I could easily just do it on my own? As they grow and gain more responsibilities that flips to: Why would I build and maintain something on my own when I could pay someone else a few bucks to do it? At least I feel I went through this change as I grew professionally...

So many things I am completely capable of doing on my own I simply don’t want to. I have better things to do. More valuable things.

Yes, build versus buy. The eternal question!

Trump's tax cut on the wealthiest 1%? $1,000,000,000,000 over ten years.

Daily cost of the Iran debacle: $2,000,000,000.

We sure as shit have money to fund research.

We prefer to fund second yachts, third vacation homes, and bombs.

It certainly is when people are typing the word "black" into the search field when deciding what programs need to be cut...

Poop like an elephant, pee like a bee.

Yeah, it's not just my job to generate the code: It's my job to know the code. I can't let code out into the wild that I'm not 100% willing to vouch for.

Unions empower the middle class.

That's why the ownership class fights so hard against them.

Cybertruck is a gimmick. And the fad has passed. No wonder they're not selling well.

And they don't age well. Most of the ones around here are starting to look... grimy. Or dingy. After just a couple of years. It's a poor advertisement for itself.

And, yeah, then there's cultural eye-rolling. It's really the only vehicle I hear people openly mock when they see one... And that's not a Tesla/Elon thing entirely, since people don't have the same reaction to other Tesla vehicles.

Alternate take: The cost of building software will remain the same but software will need to be 10x as feature-rich to remain competitive.

If you can build it in a weekend so can I. So you're going to have to figure out bigger things to build.

They're wonderful but, yes, the cost is out of control.

Higher education delivers a fantastic ROI for the country as a whole. The people who benefit most from a strong economy are the wealthy. So tax them more. And put that money towards lowering the cost of education. Win-win-win.

Young people get sick and have accidents, too.

If life was perfectly predictable then, yes, insurance wouldn't have much of a point. But alas.

We all pay in a bit and those of us unlucky enough to need a huge amount of help can have access to the resources they need. Hopefully that will never be you! But as they say: The reward for a long life is to get to experience the decay of your own body. Good health is temporary for all of us.

That said, you're right: Single-payer would be a huge improvement. Let's do that.

My thing is: If you have something to say, just say it! Don't worry that it's not long enough or short enough or doesn't fit into some mold you think it needs to fit into. Just say it. As you write, you'll probably start to see your ideas more clearly and you'll start to edit and add color or clarify.

But just say it! Bypass the middleman who's just going to make it blurrier or more long-winded.

Crypto is a psycho solution to payment complexities.

It'd be like putting an Indian scammer call center in charge of the telephone network because there are some dropped calls. Or electing a guy who spent a career committing fraud at every turn President because the price of eggs went up a bit. Or solving the problems of the American healthcare system by putting a guy in charge who...

Oh, wait. We're definitely going to do the crypto thing. Dammit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaregions_of_the_United_Stat...

This seems like a much saner breakdown of the US into mega-regions. Feels much more intuitive and doesn't involve wacky stuff like grouping Philadelphia; the Oklahoma panhandle; and Mooseknuckle, Ontario together.

Anyone who thinks Austin is more culturally aligned with Indianapolis than San Antonio is a maniac.

I feel like this is the theme of our entire country at the moment: Many powerful people seem willing to torch stuff worth billions of dollars to the country as a whole in order to squeeze out a few million for themselves.

If we had a functioning regulatory environment... Haha. Nevermind. We vote for our leaders based on how loudly they promise to hurt trans kids.

Why should something like "patient harm" get in the way of profits? What is this, communist Canada?

The problem with openness and anonymity is that it invites bad actors. Social media is an unsolved problem and any platform that gets sufficiently large will be more valuable as a tool to disseminate misinformation and propaganda than as a tool for people to actually communate freely and openly.

I think a lot of AI-generated stuff will soon be seem as cheap schlock, fake plastic knock-offs, the WalMart of ideas. Some people will use it well. Most people won’t.

The question to me is whether we will lets these companies do completely undermine the financial side of the marketplace of ideas that people simple stop spending time writing (if everything’s just going to get chewed to hell by a monster our corporation) or Will writing and create content only in very private and possible purely offline scenarios that these AI companies have less access to.

In a sane world, I would expect guidance and legislation that would bridge the gap and attempt to create an equitable solution so we could have amazing AI tools without crushing by original creators. But we do not live in a sane world.

incompetence and cowardice rather than immorality

Why not all three?

Yes, they had that bias towards reality that authoritarians can’t stand.

Sadly, I think you’re right. And a nation of citizens who don’t care about good government is a nation that is in collapse.

Yes, if the executive branch is trustworthy. We need to send a clear signal to the Republican Party that this sort of general behavior is not acceptable to Americans.

That’s the point. When Trump disagrees with facts the facts must be destroyed. When people are actually trying to solve problems they desire more information, not less.

Fair enough. I’m using the term colloquially to mean a market in which actors are participating out of free choice and essentially getting what they pay for and what they expect. A market in which consumers are informed and empowered.

Scammers don’t like informed and empowered consumers.

Authoritarians don’t like informed and empowered citizens.

It’s a match-match.

Afloat in what sense? Usage is down. At least for me, the vast majority of my social and professional network has moved to other platforms. And every time a public figure (journalist, politician) does post it feels like they're immediately swarmed by right-wing propaganda idiots/bots. Feels like a complete mess.

But, yes, I guess it still exists. So props?