funklute

Perhaps some meaning is getting lost in translation here...

If you mean curiosity as in academic achievement, then I think this is a deeply disrespectful way of thinking of other people.

If you mean curiosity as in having empathy for the people and world around you, and not being a narcissistic sociopath, then I probably agree with you.

But from what you wrote earlier, I get the impression you're talking about the former rather than the latter...

> The best people are naturally attracted to knowledge and intellect

That is a pretty narrow-minded way of evaluating other people's worth...

> then git gives you the tools to ensure the repos you control are not rewritten

I might betray my ignorance here, but what tools are those?

If I host a git repo, then I can obviously ensure that any branches on the origin are never rewritten. But how can I ensure that people who submit pull requests have not rewritten their history?

It's not actually clear whether you're using Wayland and complaining about X11, or the other way around... (or on a different OS altogether...)

That is a fair point!

> Most people don't think critically about their money

This is a bit of a naive viewpoint. Take your example of putting money in the stock market, regardless of its health and structure:

So I'll follow your advice and I'll think critically about it. I'm not an economist, but I'm technically and mathematically quite literate. And what I see is that historically, it's generally been a good idea to put money in the stock market. But of course that doesn't mean that will apply to the future.

Except, how can I tell whether the stock market is in good health? Even as an academic researcher, that is a really hard problem. The best I can do is look at the past, and then take a risk.

It's not my lack of critical thinking that is the problem. It's that it is a genuinely very hard problem.

I had to look up what a dunkelflaute is... but the last bit you said:

> i.e. dunkelflauts in winter which neither batteries or nuclear particularly help with.

doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Wikipedia defines a dunkelflaute as "a period of time in which little or no energy can be generated with wind and solar power". Isn't that precisely where you have to fall back to nuclear, battery, or fossil fuels?

Also:

> Batteries have already solved baseload for most of the planet

this runs contrary to a lot of what I've read about the topic (which doesn't mean I lot, I know -- I'm not an expert). Do you have a source I could have a look at?

> for political reasons

> (ignoring the fact that t takes longer to build than the available time to transition)

My understanding is that nuclear is necessary, unless you believe in very optimistic development timelines for better batteries. Yes, batteries have come a long way, but they are still a long way off from being able to support base load -- is that not correct? It might be faster to build out nuclear, than to develop the necessary improvements in battery tech...

Or am I completely off here?

> You don't want to end up like the french do you?

Exactly what do you mean is the problem with the French?

Assuming I've understood you correctly, I think it's worth pointing out that the French very consciously hold onto their linguistic identity. Many people would argue that is a good thing, rather than a bad thing. I don't necessarily agree with that, but I do think that your claim of "entirely a bad thing" is something that depends a lot on your perspective.

> This kind of flexibility in the labour market is clearly an advantage because the US and CH have some of the highest salaries and lowest unemployment in the world.

It really is quite a big stretch to assume that this is a causal mechanism. You only need to look to Scandinavia to find a counter-example.

I think it is more reasonable to argue that high salaries in US are fuelled by borderline slave wages for menial labour. And Switzerland's wealth comes in a historical context that is completely different from the US - it's almost impossible to blanket compare them side-by-side. The difference in population size is another huge issue with such a comparison.

hehe yes I can relate to that!

I'm not sure if you had this in mind when you said "non-binary", but I also think along the same lines you just noted, that there is a difference between "not binary", and "non-binary". The latter could evoke connotations to the culture wars and gender identity -- though that of course has nothing to do with accessibility (of TUIs, bathrooms might be another matter).

Then again, I'm neither American nor a native English speaker, so I hardly have much authority on this point.