Corvos
4hr ago
Generational wealth, and / or optimism. Everyone is clinging to assets because they're terrified of the future.
Corvos
1d ago
A: You're a shitty friend.
B: I helped you move house.
A: Sure, but that was weeks ago. What have you done for me lately? And anyway, you wouldn't do it again.
B: Since it got me this, I sure wouldn't.
A: See, you don't want to be my friend anyway!
You see the issue, right?
Corvos
1d ago
Last time it went really badly, and not 25 years later Americans are calling us the worst allies ever. We’d have to be insane to do it again.
Corvos
1d ago
I hope this means we drop Europe even harder, because they are far worse allies than Israel is
Remind me, which of those shed blood and treasure when America asked them to go into Afghanistan to avenge 9/11?
Corvos
1d ago
Having owned smaller phones in the past, I think it's a double-edged sword. It doesn't actually mean you stop using it less, it's just less pleasant and involves more eyestrain.
But also there are visible costs in the short term that the government seems to have had no interest in, and resultant long-term problems that the government doesn't seem to have had any interest in mitigating. For example, hobbyists can no longer legally buy drones from China, or which use Chinese parts.
In theory, this is the first step in creating a big beautiful American drone industry. However, the replacement American manufacturer is shoddy, way more expensive, and focused on military use. It is also part-owned by Trump's son. And it uses American labour, so even in the best case scenario the prices are never going to be as good again. Even in the best case scenario, hobbyists (plus photographers etc.) aren't going to be able to buy DJI-quality drones for years.
Yes, it's not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. But for this group something they liked has got suddenly worse, it's going to be worse for a while, and there is no guarantee it's going to get better. Scale that up 100x and you have a lot of annoyed people.
Corvos
1d ago
Big new phone is really addicting
Sounds awful. Which awesome new phone is this? Asking for a friend.
Corvos
1d ago
Sure. I wasn't being pointed, I checking my assumption that you feel it's important for people to at least gesture towards knowing that bribery is wrong.
Corvos
2d ago
I'm not sure that's good. I would have thought you'd appreciate having this stuff in the open where people can get mad about it, rather than buried in the bottom of a balance sheet about providing teddy bears for orphans.
Corvos
2d ago
Class in the UK is genetic, of course, and used to be more so. You get some children who fall out, and some bright talents who climb up.
I think Rowling was drawing on this at least a little bit, though probably not consciously. Notably the Squibs in the books aren’t failsons, they’re lower-class coded (Filch, the cat lady). But smartest-in-the-class, daughter-of-two-dentists, charitable-work Hermione is definitely the kind of person rising through the upper-middle-class.
Corvos
2d ago
My understanding is that (now) disabilities include mental disabilities, which are trivial to fake.
No doctor and no government wants to be the guy to say to an angry and potentially violent veteran, "You were in Iraq, but you never actually got into combat. I don't believe that you really have PTSD from that time your buddy's drinking-partner's friend got blown up driving out of Helmand".
It's easier to pay them all off with a lifetime pension.
That said, the fact that a Civil War was fought seems to me to make it clear that at least one side infinitely preferred one-party rule to "the Overton window moves [until you are no longer included] but the parties continue to exist as separate entities [arguing how to implement things you hate]".
Corvos
3d ago
This is my third dip, but have you got access to the Scholarship exam papers used by Eton/Westminster/Winchester? They (used to) emphasise strong mathematical reasoning skills and problem-solving over rote regurgitation of skills, and they're aimed at 13 year olds. If your son still needs mathematical enrichment, you might find them valuable.
Corvos
3d ago
If he likes animals, the Willard Price books ("Undersea Adventure" and the like) are also perennial classics.
Corvos
4d ago
I, Robot? It's old-school but there's the satisfying 'oh... that's how the laws of robotics go wrong in this scenario' that he might appreciate, and it's short stories.
Corvos
4d ago
Oh, I agree. But it's fascinating to live on the other side of that boundary. And I think "able to entertain logical propositions without being bound by them" is "smarter" in a meaningful way.
Corvos
4d ago
Spending on American products and partnerships with American companies. Any Chinese tech / people interfacing with European infrastructure is treated as a security threat; nobody acts the same way about Americans and American products. The EU would certainly like to be self-sufficient but they ultimately trust and rely on Americans in the way that they absolutely don't trust the Russians and Chinese.
I get that this isn't the warm fuzzy sort of thing that would make you happy to support Europe, but geopolitically it's extremely important.
Corvos
4d ago
As the "bad mod" (yawn)
I will chime in with the others to say that this kind of thing is a blatant violation of the site’s rules on tone, and obviously hypocritical. You regularly insult and demean posters in your comments and your mod notes; many of those users are admittedly no better, but as a mod I think that you should be setting an example for how users should behave rather than pulling rank.
I deeply respect the volunteer work you have done for years, and as the most active mod I recognise that you are in many ways keeping the show on the road. Perhaps this kind of letting off steam is required for you to do that. Nevertheless, I do think that it is corrosive to the norms of this site which you are trying to maintain.
Corvos
7d ago
Humans actually did it. They created AI.
This struck me recently when replaying Portal 2. There’s a part where you’re going up against a rogue AI, armed with nothing more than hope and a logic paradox, and I remember suddenly being struck by the fact that this isn’t sci-fi any more.
I have GLaDOS and Wheatley in my pocket.
And it’s smarter than they are.
I hit ChatGPT with “this statement is false” and the reply was broadly, “Lol, indeed. Would you like to hear about some systems of formal logic where that statement can be valid?”
Corvos
7d ago
I can't wait for my transhumanist utopia... so that I can do "modernity was a mistake" without massive economic collapse and with the more genuinely horrible bits removed.
Actually, I just want to be a neo-Victorian gentleman of leisure with a country house and one of Gwern's Guardian Angels.
Corvos
7d ago
Nine democrats vote against late-term abortions
Democrats who rejected the bill included Reps. Brian Ashe, Lisa Field, Michael Finn, Dennis Gallagher, Russell Holmes, Christopher Markey, Francisco Paulino, Alan Silvia and Jeffrey Turco.
It is rare, to be fair.
Wow, now I feel really old...
Basically, a huge proportion of Americans and the White House were determined to lead a punitive expedition on Afghanistan and anybody else who had hidden Osama Bin Laden. The British PM was very clear that we had to keep the Americans close no matter what (common culture with the Americans had been our most important diplomatic relationship since WW1) and so we went in to support them, with the UK government manufacturing excuses to allow it to do so.
The major complication of our military support is that, under American direction and with the goal of keeping that relationship strong, we had essentially retooled our entire army to be a support wing for the American army. We do reconnaisance, intelligence, and a few other things really well, but we don't have a full stack any more. Everything we have is either purchased from America, or was designed to be interoperable with NATO (American) supply chains and nothing else. It was a very slow thumbscrews process, essentially: we continue to get American support to project power on the global stage, as long as we retool our army and economy so that we can never act independently or ally with anyone except the Americans. Then, as with software, enshittification arrived once we had no other options. The level of influence the Americans gave us declined, the level of support we were expected to provide increased.
The main thing that we really needed to get out of an alliance in this specific case was aid in 2016. A post-Brexit softball trade deal for 20 years would have given us a roaring start, shown confidence in us, and allowed us to negotiate much better terms with the EU. But we didn't get that support when we needed it for internal political reasons:
So basically our military and economic support for America has resulted in hamstringing our military and letting us down in the moment we really needed it. You say that this is good reason to break up, and in theory I agree with you, but I can't help feeling that the balance of support is very much in our favour and it would be appropriate to bring it back to equal before that. Also, the UK government and civil service (and anyone over 40) just isn't emotionally ready for that.
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