EGG_CREAM

It’s included in a list of things bad for “ society/health.” While overconsumption on that level would certainly be a health issue for an individual, it doesn’t even register compared to the other things he lists as a social issue, like chronic obesity and Tobacco use. It’s just weird and misleading to include it in that list, is all I was pointing out.

It’s very strange to include caffeine in that list of unhealthy things. Everything else in that list is proven to be bad for society/health, except for caffeine. Why did you choose to highlight caffeine consumption when there is not really any evidence it causes health issues?

Not GP, but I appreciate the discussion.

Don’t you find it odd that the thing that consciousness emerges from just so happens to be a text prediction algorithm trained on all of human output? Which is also the thing in all the world that would be most likely to be a stochastic parrot?

As for your appeal to expertise, I don’t think it really applies when all of the experts refuse to share their data.

If it has a subjective viewpoint, i.e. sentience. Otherwise it still doesn’t actually experience any of those things, and can’t tell actually you what it’s like to experience those things. It can give you the data readings though.

The sun would come up even earlier without dst. It’s just the earth’s tilt that’s causing the sun to come up earlier after spring, nothing we did to the clocks.

Having it, physically. It’s harder for companies to play silly games like put the media into a vault, take it off their streaming platforms for tax reasons, etc… I started collected physical blu rays when HBO randomly took a million things off its platform so that it could do accounting tricks.

I want to support artists who make content I like, but I also want control over my media library. Physical media is the best way to do this.

Agreed about the 2-3% target. Seems like a crazy low target for a country that has been, historically, a strong exporter. Or at least seems to want to be an exporter. I wonder if one of the reasons behind this low target rate is that inflation will ultimately decide how expensive government debt is, since under normal circumstances people will want their bonds to at least pay out enough to cover inflation.

3. Is an interesting perspective, because it’s not at all how I see it. There really isn’t anything for Apple there right now except that they stumbled into making hardware that is perfect for the technology right now. They could a.) burn all their cash and go into massive debt chasing a big foggy question mark that may be entirely overvalued or b.) focus on the hardware right now, wait for the technology to mature and apply it judiciously as applications for it come to light, rather than racing to hamfist it in unnecessary, expensive, and ultimately broken ways.

Siri is useless, so is Alexa and Hey Google or whatever they are calling that. LLMs will change that but cost has to come down to make that feasible. On-device AI would be the gold standard there, I hope that’s not a pipe dream. Apple seems to be positioned niceley for that outcome, if it comes to pass.

UBI is the opposite of centralized planning. Instead of the state deciding what resources people need, and who “deserves” help, it leaves it up to individuals to decide how best to divvy up resources, and everybody gets it.

As for tools that make citizens obey, the government already has the best one: a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Everything else is child’s play compared to that.

I kind of lost the UBI plot, to be fair. I don’t really understand what UBI actually had to do with this exercise fundamentally, the exact same thing happens with or without it, it’s just that the floor of what “affordable housing” is gets risen. Unless you think that an unfettered, UBI-less economy doesn’t produce expensive housing? Which, I think we have many real world case studies in almost every major city in rich countries to disprove that assertion.

I do see what you mean, I think, now that I’m rereading and contemplating. A monthly stipend probably does more to raise prices than anything useful, unless you also pair it with regulation to stop the wealthy and powerful from taking it all for themselves. And at that point you could have just done those regulations without UBI. Hmm.

Do you think a few lump sum payments over a citizens lifetime would have the same effect? Maybe some large sum paid when you reach age of majority and then again at retirement?

I am a progressive government. The free market has failed to provide a necessary service. So now I pass a law that creates a not for profit contractor that builds houses. It’s not that complicated. We do it with fire departments, police, and many other services already. Free market might have been more efficient theoretically, but when it fails in practice we find another solution.

That’s because our mass protests are focused on the overseas concentration camps, illegal detainment and arrests, and the other authoritarian moves our president has made. It’s true that Americans in general care little about foreign policy. It’s not an anti-Europe thing, it’s just that people care about stuff that more immediately affects them. European countries are smaller and more integrated, so foreign policy has a more immediate affect on them. Foreign policy has a dramatic affect on Americans lives, but it’s usually indirect and therefore not top of mind for the average citizen. That doesn’t mean we like our government’s foreign policy. And all that’s without mentioning that many believe the Greenland talk is not serious, and simply a distraction, and therefore mass protests would actually be playing into the admins hands.