wormlord

How do I know the earth didn't spontaneously appear into existence yesterday? This line of argumentation is stupid.

The desire to be "centrist" on HN is perplexing to me.

The fact that Elon, a white south african, made his AI go crazy by adding some text about "white genocide", is factual and should be taken into consideration if you want to have an honest discussion about ethics in tech. Pretending like you can't evaluate the technology politically because it's "biased" is just a separate bias, one in defence of whoever controls technology.

Holy shit I can't imagine being so anti-human that I would worship a piece of paper. Pray to your contract Gods bud, I'll live my life the way I want

It also conveniently benefits him greatly.

Remember when Gates refused to lift IP restrictions on the COVID vaccine

https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-world-loses-under-bi...

Bernie is a good example of the alternative approach. I personally don't think he's radical enough, but he promises people things and makes people feel listened to. If you can establish a two-way street where people feel seen and heard, they will start to believe you again when you show them numbers. Of course you can see the response of the Democratic party to progressives like Bernie and AOC. The democratic party isn't going to win until they abandon the neoliberal technocrat schtick, literally nobody likes it. (also who knows if we will even have elections anymore so whatever)

From what I have seen, personally, the younger guys that would follow in their dad's footsteps and enter trades do not because of a few reasons:

1. Their dads tell them to go to college because trades are hard on your body. 2. For whatever reason, their kids end up really lazy. Doing drugs and trying to live life the easy way, ending up in their late 20s still living at home with their parents and not having any skills. 3. They join the trades but their coworkers are extremely toxic. Either always starting fights, being racist, shitting on apprentices. One guy told me a story of how a disgruntled coworker got kicked off a job site only to come back with his AR. Needless to say that guy has been trying to pivot into civil engineering instead of concrete work.

It's a bit of a rabbit hole to go into, but I think that the reason is that the idea of "every generation having a better life than the last" is easier said than done. Parents in the trades who want their kid to be white collar workers end up sorely disappointed when they don't give their kid any of the advantages that white collar worker parents did-- early childhood education, summer camps, SAT prep, etc. Or when their geographical location doesn't have decent white collar jobs. The kid ends up not prepared for either type of work.

If a lot of these jobs were better unionized (I know many already are), there would be no need to view them as "stepping stones" to a better life. You could have several generations all working the same trade, making good livings.

Damn maybe if the democrats didn't kill any progressive or grassroots momentum, or ceded ground to conservatives on issues like the border (Kamala endorsing building the wall) they wouldn't have hollowed out their base of support and lost to fascists.

See my other response in the thread. It's not about being more right than fascists. Fascists always lie that's their main strategy. If you want to defeat them though you cant just keep acting like a bunch of technocrats. You must project power, you must provide something transactionally for voters and make them feel good, and you must go after anti-democratic elements viciously without fear of being perceived as "too partisan" or authoritarian.

Sure yeah conservative leaders are evil most of us get that. My point is that if you want to WIN if you want to DEFEAT fascists you have to change tactics. You can't just ignore people's complaints and tell them they're wrong, they will go to the other side. Politics is transactional-- liberals think of quid pro quo as a dirty word, but why have democracy if you're not gonna get something out of it?

Yeah this completely ignores the fact that many people would rather work on making things with their hands that they can physically see, rather than pushing numbers around on a spreadsheet.

This article ignores alienation, cost of living, social atomization, enshittification, the police state, and many other factors that contribute to everyone feeling like shit. The liberal intelligentsia need to learn that voters don't care about their numbers and charts, education has been hollowed out and the populace is going to respond to material promises and aggression. Not "hmm well did you consult my graph??"

You have too much faith in US leadership.

What could go wrong?

Ask and don't tell people not to be concerned about their own government systems that you know nothing about.

Are you expecting a perfect system that would never even accost an innocent man? Or do you suggest we just give up and eliminate all such enforcement?

Eliminate all enforcement.

You realize that it is (or was) legal to walk into the United States and claim asylum. At that point you have a legal right to reside until the US immigration system decides you need to leave. The alternative is Visa expirations.

The US labor system is designed so that asylum seekers and people on expired Visa's exist in limbo, so that this exact kind of violent force can be used against them to create a hyper-exploited labor class.

The solution is either 1. Close up the border entirely (inhumane and also not beneficial to capitalists) 2. Actually process immigrants instead of keeping them in limbo.

The US benefits from the ambiguity and terror it can inflict on your fellow human beings. I personally don't give a fuck about the law, so that's my bias, but I find it absurd that there are people who still believe that there is some legal basis to be followed, when this administration has already dropped habeas corpus. You value the rules created by the rich and powerful (your class enemies) more than the lives of your fellow humans-- you are truly a fool and I hope you can wake up soon.

Maybe if you don't know anything then don't comment.

The problem is a large portion of Americans are either ignorant or chauvinists who don't know what happened in Chile in 1973, or anything about history/politics at all for that matter.

Dude come on

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_imperialism#Strategy

Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, are locations that are directly under US control. The entire western hemisphere is within our sphere of control, and a huge chunk of the planet was either directly aligned with us (EU, AUS/UK) or was compliant for fear of regime change.

The country itself was founded on the destruction of dozens of civilizations, a victory so total you don't even consider it as part of US imperial conquest. I can't believe I even have to explain this to people on here my God.

My pet theory is that he was in his 30s when the Plaza Accords happened and they really imprinted on him. If the rising Japanese economy could be brought to heel then so could the Chinese (ignore the fact that Japan was under the US security umbrella). It's no more rational than the fondness you might have for the first car you drove.

The Five Eyes Nations are part of the US Empire, that is a correct assessment.

You realize that an Empire does not need to be configured the exact same way as the Roman Empire, right? A combination of soft power, clandestine operations, and targeted military intervention is more resource-effective than a constant occupation, and should still be considered an empire.

The American Empire never existed

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

I think the collapse of the American Empire is no more preventible than the collapse of the British, Spanish, or Roman empires. The issues with the US being the reserve currency has been known for a while now (and was even predicted by Keynes before the Bretton-Woods summit):

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

Any discussion of "bringing back manufacturing" that doesn't mention government spending or social programs to educate and upskill the population is not genuine. The current leadership are fools and ideologs who will only hasten the decline, which might actually be better globally if it lowers emissions. Time will tell I guess.

America's gun culture is very closely tied to its settler culture. Most right wing gun nuts are barely able to conceal their fears/hopes for a race war in all but name.

That said, there are plenty of examples of progressive forces arming themselves. The Black Panthers are a good example. Without their armed militancy I think the US government would have been a lot less likely to capitulate to the demands of the peaceful civil rights activists.

How you are getting downvotes is beyond me. People are finally waking up to the idea that the whole point of the Trump admin is to privatize the government, but haven't woken up to the fact that we are entering an era of state terror. Keep your heads buried HN, you'll be dragged kicking and screaming into reality in a few months anyways.

I think its possible to hold 2 conflicting views simultaneously. I put on my profit optimization hat and take it off when I leave work.

I take no satisfaction in seeing someone who has drank the kool-ade getting a wakeup call, it's just a shocking realization that there are people out there who still dont get it.

You are probably gonna get downvoted for lack of empathy but I completely agree. I feel bad for OP, but simultaneously if you are a technocrat who thinks they are somehow insulated or not part of the larger system, you need a reality check.

I was supposed to help with the developer keynote, ensuring things matched reality and were beautiful. Gone.

Maybe I am too much of a jaded asshole but anyone who writes something like this needs perspective.

I get that there's a discussion here over the minutae to be had in good faith. I am not qualified enough for that discussion. My point is that funding a genocidal empire is inherently bad whereas public health funding can have inefficiencies but is overall a net good.

The discussion is moot however because the agencies aren't being gutted over concerns of efficiency, but because of an ideological commitment to free market shock therapy. It's like arguing if you should order the fish or chicken while the Titanic is sinking. Sure there's an argument to be had, it's just not relevant right now.

Wasting money in pursuit of public health

How do you define waste? If research isn't harmful, but doesn't produce results, is that waste? Are inconclusive results wasteful? What ratio of public utility to cost would you consider non-wasteful spending? What about the benefits of effectively subsidizing your biotech sector by keeping biologists in-demand?

There is more upside (globally) to public health spending than maintaining a global empire that deals death and destruction. Trying to nitpick is missing the point entirely.

We are all serfs