Connect with your community. Work at a local level, and build from that foundation with others doing the same to take on bigger problems
Things are going to get rough for the whole planet, seems like that’s unavoidable at this point, but that doesn’t mean things are going to be bad everywhere all the time
One person can’t fix the world, but you can make life better for the people around you. Things can get better locally. Good, even
Post programming questions online and you’ll inevitably get someone saying, “don’t reinvent the wheel.” Why is it so bad to step outside the box?
This is totally different… That’s not deference to authority or conformity, that’s fundamental best practices
If you want to do more than play with code puzzles, the first question you should ask is “how have others solved this problem”. And the second should be “how have others approached similar problems”
Code is castles upon castles built of sand… Even the language you use and the rock that runs it are entirely manmade. Coding is a fundamentally collaborative process, and if you want to innovate you need to understand how and why things were done the way they are first.
Otherwise you’re going to write really shit code, even if you’re the cleverest coder to ever live, the code will be shit because it’ll be a huge pain in the ass to work with for everyone else. And probably for yourself too, once your realize why things are done a certain way and understand that it’s usually there’s been a ton of thought and discussion that led it to being the way things are done
If you’re asking questions without comparing the proposed benefits of your new solution to the normal approach, you’re not yet prepared to enter the discussion on how things should be done
So of course the correct response should always be to remind you that you should first learn how others did it. That never goes away, it’s something we remind each other constantly even at the deeper levels of understanding
It’s good life advice too. Humans aren’t nearly as creative as we like to think, as a species we hardly ever have truly new ideas. The way our creative process works is by rearranging the concepts we already know in new ways. If you want to be an innovator, you should be constantly finding wisdom in others and the world around you
As for the deference to authority? That’s because we live in uncertain times and people are scared. It’s more comforting to think someone knows what they’re doing instead of acknowledging the truth… We have very big problems that we are not confronting as a species in any meaningful way.
That tendency as a species is one of those very big problems in fact
It’s not about the court’s enforcement, it’s about responsibility
Every organization out there preserves itself. It’s why we have legal and HR departments. They don’t exist to protect their people, they exist to protect the organization
If a police department was caught wildly misusing unconstitutional searches, every case they tried in that period is opened to that exposure. That’s not just a huge embarrassment, it’s a massive amount of work that will tie up the local justice system for a significant period
That’s the kind of damage that can kill a police department wholesale, or at least cleanly sweep away all the leadership
The organization will protect itself against this kind of thing, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because organizations must preserve themselves or fade away. They’ll put in checks that will leave an audit trail and/or require a document ID to use such a system, because that’s what it takes to protect the organization. They’ll offload the responsibility onto the officers, and enforce the rules (even if just a slap on the wrist). That’s simply how organizations act, descriptively
I’m not saying that police in charge would be better, so much as this situation is so much worse. No one has responsibility here. The private company is not limited by the Constitution, and the police are just using a subscription to a commercial service
No one has to take responsibility if this turns into an issue. It’s the same as consulting companies and AI rejections - the primary purpose is to make it so when someone creates manmade horrors beyond comprehension, no one is responsible
Those are basically nuclear batteries, in the disposable reaction sense. It’s not fission, fission requires huge amounts of water. Fundamentally, even if you used another coolant and another way of turning the power to electricity, you need massive heat dissipation (which is very difficult in space)
Nuclear batteries are basically decay powered, they give a small amount of power for a really long time. Totally different technology
I mean, not doing mass surveillance altogether sounds like a great idea… I’m not sure that’s directly possible right now though
My point is that it’s not just a worse version of mass surveillance, it’s orders of magnitude worse. It absolves everyone from any actual responsibility, and in doing so absolutely guarantees these systems will be abused by police
Old America
I’m not saying I trust the police. I’m saying if it’s outright unconstitutional to access without the courts, the IT department is going to put checks in the system
It’s like how you can’t trust HR to protect you personally, but you can rely on them to protect the organization
If the cops were in control, they’d be violating the fourth amendment when they do that without going to the courts
Where as if it’s a private service the police department pays for, it’s a legal gray area
First, you have to decide who you want to be and what you want out of life. You can have anything, but not everything, if you pursue it without stopping
Don’t take on debt.
Don’t get into a relationship with a manipulator.
Be honest in your dealings. Don’t take advantage of people or profit off suffering
Follow that, and you have 10 years to figure out everything else. 20’s are for learning, 30’s are for earning… Just try stuff. Pursue whatever you like, make connections with people, and you’ll build a foundation that will put you far ahead later on
And if you do want to try doing a software start up, I am looking for someone to partner with who can make sales. I’m planning to go after professionals like lawyers and start by making them websites to make the connection, and taking whatever work flows from that. Hit me up if you’re interested
What do you mean? The presidency has enormous power at this point, and when it comes to enforcing regulation the power is actually granted by Congress
All the president has to do is convince these few companies that they’re actually in danger of operations being shut down, even temporarily. They will respond a lawsuit to block this if they think that would be the easier path, but there’s any number of ways to bring them in line. They’d lose an enormous amount of money for every day they’re shut down… If they believe cleaning up their operations is going to be the cheaper path, they’ll make changes unbelievably fast
The presidency also has enormous soft power… If the president calls a company out publicly for food safety, the share price will drop, grocers will switch suppliers if they can, and it’ll affect sales
It all hinges on reputation though… It might take following through on a threat to bring the rest in line, but once they see food safety as the cost of doing business with no cheaper option, they’ll absolutely fall in line
I think it’s more that some datacenters were using significant amounts water in places where there already wasn’t enough to go around
The truth is datacenters don’t even always use water cooling, and even when they do it’s not a ridiculous amount of water
But people latched onto the water thing, even if it’s not true, it’s spiritually true. They are using up insane amounts of resources… Just not water specifically
We just renamed a second body of water because Canada refused to stop speaking French
This is the dumbest timeline
We’re walking tubes of bacteria. If the bacteria switch to alternate energy sources that have weird byproducts, not much you can do about that
Well of course they outperform them if they’re specialized to a purpose… Theres a like 3B model that plays Minecraft and generally kicks the ass of all the more general llms
And in general, the big models are primarily better at remembering instructions and context… An 8B model can hold a basic conversation or perform simple tasks on a similar level to a frontier model
Really, really depends on what they’re specialized to do though
I agree with all that, and it is certainly both a distraction and class warfare, no doubt
My only point of contention is that it’s not a step in a process of class warfare, it is a tool of class warfare
But after you clarified I think that might just be a matter of phrasing
Also, while the system is set up against us, there’s reason for hope. Progressives are coming out of the woodwork and snatching up elections, especially locally. Things could change for the better
But even aside from that - I don’t mean self interest is going to magically win the day. What I mean is that personal suffering causes unrest
You can form a coalition of hatred short term, we’ve seen that people will even hang onto that while the leapords are actively eating their face
The hatred might not go away, but the unity goes out the window the second people can’t get their favorite brand of Oreo (or lose their livelihoods)
You could possibly alter it with effort, but not as easily as a mask.
That’s my point. A mask and a face are the same in nature. We all act differently around different people, everyone has different sides to themselves that are all real
Every mask and face you have is a part of you. It’s not fake, it’s a layer of communication. If you don’t feel comfortable in it, it feels like a mask. That’s entirely what makes it a mask
You have to examine it and figure out where it doesn’t fit right, and then wear it until the changes become ingrained behavior
The final step is to accept you’re not wearing a mask anymore
Not a bad choice, but he does get detached from everything
Q seems to be having a lot more fun, and he has a community (which does cause him problems, but mostly self inflicted)
With what money? We can’t even sell treasury notes at this point
We’ve had too big to fail, this is going to be too big to bail out
At least it’ll give us plenty to tear down as we start our healing process as a country
Remember when he tore down part of the white house for essentially no reason? That was a way bigger insult to the nation
Who cares if he steals a little piece of metal? He does that all the time, he loves stealing tokens and trophies. No one with half a brain would ever be confused and believe that he somehow earned the FIFA trophy and congressional medal of Honor, and a purple heart and whatever else he wants to stick on a shelf
It’s embarrassing, for both him and the county, but it’s entirely meaningless. It’s just a piece of metal if you don’t earn it