pstuart

I know that there was no ill intent but it certainly seemed to be conflating things.

I know that I am neurospicy and seen extreme evidence of same in family members. I have my grief, and the ongoing worry of wasting my life and all that fun stuff. That part feels like various forms of therapy would help, but there's other aspects that are just flat out biochemical failures. It's an adventure in how to deal with all the above the best one can within the given constraints.

What would be extra helpful is to not do it alone, but alas, one can't always get what one wants, or needs.

Bell was a goldmine of technological discoveries. Academia as well.

Now it's all be sold off to ensure next quarter's numbers are up so the execs get their bonuses.

seemingly don't care about UX

That seems to be the case on every project with the folks that sign the checks or contracts for integrating other vendors.

I think Jobs was the rare exception there.

ICE is Trump's private army, and their only loyalty is to him (and Stephen Miller, who's actually the puppet master here).

All of this is a painful lessons that institutions are not things, they are agreements and if someone with enough power does not agree than the institution is reshaped by that disagreement.

Sure, one's origins should not lock one into a particular mindset.

There's a fair amount of "cultural" attitudes I'm not thrilled with: child genital mutilation, honor killings, child brides, hijabs, forced marriages, etc.

Tradition/culture gets treated as sacrosanct but all of it should be open to reconsideration as we ostensibly evolve as a civilization.

don't respect the culture

That's where it gets messy, at least in the States.

note: I have family in Sweden that are non-white but I've never discussed the issue as it felt a bit too "delicate"

Indeed. It feels like we're at the equivalent of what the original IBM PC offered in the personal computer revolution.

Just seeing how much has progressed as far as capability in the past 4 years as far as capability and efficiency, it's clear that there's so much more to learn and refine from.

Sometimes brain chemistry obliterates agency.

Everybody's different. I am approaching the problem from multiple angles (pharma, non-pharma); CBT is on the table and I'm open to other non-chemical routes.

Your comment conflates depression with "being sad/hurt". There's biological aspects that no amount of trauma processing (whether talk therapy or spiritual (psilocybin)). Sometimes the machine itself is broken, not the programming.

I've experience significant trauma in my life and, while it shapes my being, is not the basis for my "depression".

Bandaids are valuable tools. I know there are plenty of non-chemical remedies, exercise being a foundational one, that a proper treatment plan includes.

So for everyone, YMMV, but clinical ketamine use has been borderline magical in readily perceptible improvements, with the caveat that it does seem to be temporary. This is a pity, because it's easy to grow mushrooms and DIY in that regard but getting K requires going through expensive gatekeeping.

And to address the addictive concerns of K, for me, the treatments have had their own elements of joy but I see no recreational value for me personally. I've delt with addictive issues in the past and I have no problems facing those particular demons.

This is awesome! As others noted, it would be cool to have some YT videos about this that might inspire others and promote your project. I'm sure you have copious free time to do this ;-)

Agreed. I use the term as "a sense of connectedness" rather than "seeing God"

Also an atheist. Used psychedelic recreationally/recklessly in my youth but that was a long time ago.

Recently returned to psychedelic use to treat depression and the best takeaway I have for the experience is "swimming with God". By God I mean "the Universe as an entity" for lack of better words. Pro tip: ketamine wins out over psilocybin for treating depression.

I did try DMT once a long time ago and saw the machine elves (prior to ever hearing about them) but it felt more like "ROM artifacts" rather than alien consciousness trying to connect.

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear about "vote against their interests".

Of course nobody's going to vote for a candidate who doesn't promise what they want. But if the promises are lies and never honored, and instead the winner does things that leads to making things worse for them, they have effectively voted against their own interests.

Very little of what Trump promised was related to the common voter's best interests:

* lowering prices and inflation

* ending the war in Ukraine (in one day, to boot!)

* "fix" US trade

Most of the other stuff was ideological red meat, much of which he actually has done, but I'd argue that it wasn't in the interest of the common person in the end (tariffs fucked up US manufacturing and businesses, and in the end was revoked because it was illegal).

Meanwhile, he started a new war with no clear way out, has ballooned the national debt, destroyed the US's relationships with our allies (likely permanently), etc. In the interest of brevity I'm just putting some relevant nuggets, but the list is quite long.

If you look at his promises and platforms, a majority of it was a revenge and hate spree, and the hunger for that hate was actively indoctrinated into his base.

Great! I engage to try and reach consensus, not dismiss. Sometimes it even works!

I want to point out that there were enough viable voters for Harris to win (but I am in the camp that believes there was actual election fraud done by Trump supporters).

The anger at blessing Harris without a proper primary, the genocide in Gaza, and the "everything's fine in the economy because the market is doing great!" -- none of that should be tolerated, and I recognize the anger leading to not voting for her because of that.

But by not voting in that unpalatable compromise we have an administration that is as evil, corrupt, and anti-democratic as could be. It's not clear if we can ever wrest control again. I'm frankly terrified.

We have to be strategic in our opposition, but that involves all of us reading from the same script -- a power that the Right excels at and the Left seems incapable of doing.

Case in point: "wokeness". It's been artfully weaponized by the Right and is the Achilles heel of the Left. It's the GOP's golden ticket to victory.

One of the superpowers of "wokeness" is that it's definition is never acknowledged on the Right other than "shrill libruls trying to boss everyone around and make everybody transgender and gay". That vagueness is intentional. To the Right it's an opaque blob of hate that requires no thought, no reason, other than "I hate that shit".

As "woke" was really about becoming aware of the institutionalized racism of the US I would call myself "fully woke" in that regard. But as it's more of a amorphous entity now I'd call it "human decency".

That said, I believe the Dems need to bail on "woke" and follow the model of the Tea Party, where a subgroup can espouse the more "extreme" stuff, and the main party can say "oh those silly people, that's not us, we're the serious party of populist economics and foreign policy"; then once that is framed in the public's eye, to go "oops, the extremists made me do this".

Politics means 2 distinctly different things: tending to the rules of governance, and tribal warfare. It's the latter that makes people hate talking about it.

This is all a game, a very important game, and a very strategic game. The rules used to be more clear but now its Calvinball.

Our only viable choice is to play the game the best we can, and recognize and act on what will help us "win".

Disclaimer: while I shit on the GOP, I recognize the value of "conservatism" and would love to see a GOP that existed to be the check and balance of any follies that the Dems enage in. If we're stuck with a two-party system, that would be our best bet for the country to survive, let alone succeed.

Let me try this again.

A two party system is a rigged game. Period.

The Democratic party absolutely needs to be taken to task and none of their bullshit should be tolerated or defended, ever, except one small exception: election day, in the general election -- because we can't fix the government if it's no longer a democracy.

I agree with the former, and conceptually with latter. But we've seen people vote against their best interests because of the promise of destroying those who've they've been taught to hate. Contemporary US immigration "policy" is a case in point.

an actual threat to panic and pearl clutch about seems to be largely a creation of the US right.

"woke" has been a goldmine for the Right. Who needs policy when fear, panic, and anger get the voters in those booths? After all, drag queens and trans people are scary -- think of the children!

will you give up identity politics for the deplorables vote?

That phrase gets used a lot, I'm curious what you mean by that.

If you mean "woke", then you're probably missing the irony of how that is actually used politically. Based on the phrasing of your question, I'm guessing you might have an irony deficiency. But please go on.

Political discussion here is frowned upon because it usually devolves into partisan name calling -- which justifies it not being tolerated.

But if you want to discuss policy or "hacking society", please do. I am of no political party and am more than happy to acknowledge the foibles of those I might associate with, as well as any of my own because everybody makes mistakes, no?

On corporate whoredom? Absolutely.

My pushback is that now is not the time for both-sides-ism. It needs to be addressed but most voters are poorly informed or vote their emotions and that talking point needs to go in the back pocket for later, if there is one.

I get your point, and the other one stating that Democrats are not "the left", but they are the the least worst option that a 2 party system offers.

The game is rigged, but this quote nails it:

On Undecided Voter s: "To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I inter est you in the chick en? ” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broke n glass in it?”

To be undecided in this elect ion is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chick en is cooked.” ― David Sedaris

If you're going to play the "both sides are the same" game you need to be more precise in what that means. DNC is absolutely subservient to their patrons and party leadership in general owned by the donor class.

But the similarities stop there. The party platforms are in stark difference, and the GOP is now literally a cult of personality run by a mob boss. The naked corruption is off the charts.

In fact right now Trump is working to cancel or refusing to acknowledge mid-term elections and acts as if he were king.

I say this as someone who used to be a Democrat but left in disgust when Clinton remade the DNC into pro corporate puppetry. Partisan politics is a cancer on the citizenry and may very well be the end of what we call democracy in the United States.

I've tracked presidential politics since watching the Watergate hearings and what is happening today is beyond the political pale.

I think you missed my point: it is incredibly useful. But its important to recognize that there are indirect costs that come from it and more in store.

Smartphones are cool, but do you think that they don't have issues?

* Distracted driving

* Attention span decimators

* A culture of zombies staring at their screens?

The list goes on for everything I mention: virtually all of them had some sort of cost to society and it's important to recognize that.

Are you capable of dialectical thinking?

merci!

That was not a very insightful article. It's super easy, and in most cases, correct to hate on AI. But that ignores a couple key facts:

* It's not going to go away and will only get more sophisticated whether we like it or not.

* It has legitimate super powers that can enable people do things that would either be impossible or insanely expensive.

I've been fascinated by tech my whole life and have watched various waves of technology transform society:

* solid state electronics enabling portability and functionality hitherto not possible

* integrated circuits bringing down the cost and increasing the capability of electronics, including microprocessors

* the personal computer revolution

* mobile telephony

* the internet

* smart phones

* AI

Most of those wonders have come with significant societal costs (e.g., silicon valley promised a revolutionary new industry without pollution, but instead gave us multiple superfund sites to clean up the toxic materials they haphazardly dumped without care, etc.)

We can't stop AI but we should try to have serious conversations how how to live in a non-dystopian world that it threatens to bring us. The small flaw with that idea is that those in power have no fucks to give in that regard and will sell out humanity if it means they can have the deluxe bunker package and enough slaves to serve them.

I only glanced at the video thumbnails and was repulsed. But then again, I'm not the target audience for this garbage.

You are probably correct, but I imagine the SQLite team's dedication to backwards compatibility has things the way they are so that existing systems can user later versions a swap without worrying about changing the SQL using it.

Skeuomorphism was an interesting idea but should have been basically just that -- a design inspiration, not a full fledged embrace of extending old school ways of things.

The folder metaphor for the Mac desktop was reasonable, but it effectively stopped there (as it should), rather than try to embed filing cabinets and document archives into pretty pictures to click and point as if it were a game to be played once rather than a daily driver.

This is why every kratom vendor should have explicit warnings about addition risks as well as being tested for potency, and purity / contaminants.

Your certitude is not supported by your ignorance of history:

Prohibition was that generation's war on drugs, and it's not pretty.

The government went to obscene lengths to "discourage drinking": https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/government-poison-10000-am...

And the "voting" was the money'd class, not "the people": https://www.hagley.org/librarynews/prohibition-centennial

Let's not forget how well it funded organized crime, but not nearly to the extent that the current WoD has literally created the drug cartels south of the border.

Moving on to your "observations" of failure. The fact that we literally have a fent crisis nationally shows that the war not only was an abject failure but literally created the fent crisis (cheaper and easier than heroin and easier to smuggle).

As far as the oppression angle, there's plenty of documented history on this issue. For starters there's this: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/race...

I've lost friends to drugs, my brother died of a heroin overdose and my mother died from complications of alcoholism and smoking. Your simple-minded dismissal of the problem is insulting to their memories and millions of others.

Nobody should be doing fent recreationally, let alone passing out on the street. But if your answer to that problem is "Give the DEA billions of dollars more, and fill our prisons with those moral degnerates" then you are sadly mistaken.

Drug regulation should be very simple:

1. Purity, strength, and disclosure of ingredients.

2. Responsible advertising/promotion/distribution.

I'm pro kratom but I find it abhorrent the way it's marketed and sold without any warnings or acknowledgements of addiction.

Voters tend to get what they want

I wish that was true. In the case of tobacco and alcohol, there's enough monied interests to ensure it would never be illegal.

So this defines the classic simple argument about the issue: alcohol and tobacco are dangerous and other than a weird House episode, have no medical value, and yet society has decided that some dangerous drugs are ok, because the right people are making money from it.

Propaganda has effectively sold the War on Drugs as "protecting people", but it's never been about that -- it's about enabling tools of oppression.