VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
No bio...
User ID: 64
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
7d ago
I think it's at least worth considering the other direction too. "What jobs are not currently worth paying a human to do, so nobody does them?"
One place that IMO would be unsurprising (and is probably happening, if quietly) is ML for trash sorting. It's not really worth paying someone to pick recyclable cans from the trash can (something something minimum wage and homeless people redeeming bottle deposits, but that isn't really at-scale anyway), but it seems like something AI could do without hazard pay.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
8d ago
It seems it really depends on what you do with it. If you borrow from your children to build a something that gets a positive return after interest, it seems like a win still. There are legitimate business reasons to take on debt that aren't fatal spirals, and for various reasons printing cash looks more like printing shares, which can also be a positive.
The general question of which debts are useful is not trivial. And it doesn't just apply to debt: spending your capital assets for this isn't really much better even if it doesn't accrue interest.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
8d ago
I remember people expressing existential concerns about the party that last lost an election for at least a few decades now. It's never quite materialized as-promised, but your intra-party gang fight model does sound familiar from 2008, 2020, and maybe 2004 and 2016. Being the opposition is easy: governing is harder.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
10d ago
But I say this as someone who remembers original Facebook where you just got a feed of stuff your friends posted, in chronological order, without the site itself trying to guess what you would find most engaging/catering to your worst impulses directly.
I remember this era as well (Facebook recently "shared a memory" old enough to vote). My dark-ish take is that very public efforts for "trust and safety" failed miserably because the median user looked at the drama that was strongly associated with "trust and safety" and decided that the site felt neither trusted nor safe for sharing going forward. Maybe it was inevitable, but it felt like a decent chunk of it was an own goal on the part of the social media companies.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
10d ago
Are we honestly supposed to believe that a people requested from foreign stock a new ruling class?
There are recorded instances of something like this happening: the Glorious Revolution, Texas seeking US annexation, or Napoleon III in Mexico.
Frequently it seems to be "please invade us to replace our rulers with better ones."
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
11d ago
"Big Beautiful Bill"
Does anyone know why they named it to have the same acronym as Biden's "Build Back Better" plan? It feels like a deliberate choice, but I'm not sure why.
I know Musk has in the past been accused of tweeting keywords in other contexts to maybe confuse search terms, but I can't think of any good other reasons.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
11d ago
I'm pretty sure that's a tankie slogan from those that see things like the concept of private property as too far right. Maybe also an element of out group/far group dynamics, or referencing Stalinist and Maoist purges of the inteligencia and such. I don't have any friends that attend such things (that I know of).
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
11d ago
Heh, I remember a page linked from HN of a similar vintage that was giving away what was at the time a couple fractions of a penny in Bitcoin (IIRC 0.01 or 0.001BTC when 1BTC was a couple pennies). At the time it didn't seem worth the effort, so I didn't create a wallet. If I had done so, it'd at least be worth my while these days.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
11d ago
I know millennials who bought in (youngish, but out of college) at that interest rate. Post-2008 was an interesting time for most of a decade. Also very quietly, I suppose: their equity is also up 200% or more.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
11d ago
what you programmers call The Big O.
Somewhere in a coding boot camp, the drill sergeant is calling for a trainee to "Show me your Big O Face!" /s
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
11d ago
"No officer, there are no firearms in this vehicle. I do have two 18-pounders in the bed of the truck, though."
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
11d ago
Could you elaborate on the intra-state impacts of AI you'd expect states to want to regulate? I don't think any of the AI companies even tell you where their data centers are based, so "this all happened in Oregon" seems unlikely to even be true. Isn't most regulation of the Internet as a whole at the federal level? Even nationwide collection of state sales tax online didn't happen broadly until 2017.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
12d ago
Desegregation enforced by Paratroopers dispersing peaceful protestors, including children, with fixed bayonets is what a Supreme Court victory looks like.
This level of victory really requires winning two (or really three, in this case) of the branches of government. Roberts has no divisions directly: those paratroopers appear at the behest of the President (nationalizing them from the Governor, representing the counterparty in this case) to enforce the court order.
I suspect Trump could call in the NY National Guard to protect the Columbia library and it's Jewish students, but he hasn't as actually done so.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
12d ago
Has SCOTUS jurisprudence found literally any rights to be established by the 10th amendment?
In practice, the anti-Federalists demanding an explicit enumeration of rights seem to have been right: nothing unenumerated is ever found to exist. Sorry, Hamilton stans.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
12d ago
I think it's a more general pattern of referring to (some) adult male-coded things that way. "Toy" wouldn't be out of place referring to motorcycles, power tools, or construction equipment either. Loosely, I think it implies "nice to have" in a way that maybe isn't really necessary.
I'm not sure I'd use it for weapons in a hot war, though. Maybe for (morally-justified?) exercises of technical superiority: the F-22 is a very shiny toy that has but one (unmanned) aerial combat victory to its credit, right up until it isn't. Quasi-disposable drones operated from safe and secure Nevada are maybe toys. A battle rifle handed to a grunt in a trench with live fire overhead is not a thing to joke about.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
13d ago
I don't think the writers intended Spock to be the sole voice of wisdom in the series. If anything, he's used to show that pure rationality, while probably at least functional, isn't the best most human way to make decisions.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
13d ago
it also brings in undesirables
This is a weird one that, while I'm generally YIMBY, I can see that if houses in my neighborhood were $20, the calibre of my neighbors (who are generally great folks) would drop precipitously. Price discrimination is in practice keeping the meth addicts living under bridges downtown out of my neighborhood.
It's the one part of the circle that "abundance" doesn't square for me. But marginal supply seems generally good and reduces prices in a mostly-stable fashion.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
14d ago
When I was last in the market for soccer shoes in the US probably ten years ago, they came in three varieties: cleats (which are what you see professionals playing in with hard plastic knobs), turf shoes (which look like yours with heavily textured rubber outsoles), and indoor (flat rubber soles for playing on hard gym surfaces). The indoor shoes would be completely reasonable as casual street shoes, and I've definitely seen similar styles sold as such. Turf shoes are a bit of an odd choice, and you might track more mud indoors with them, but I suppose they would work tolerably. IMO, try to get indoor shoes at least, but it looks like such a variant exists for the model you pictured.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
18d ago
Over time, sure. But Harvard may well win by hanging on until the next administration reverses course.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
18d ago
Observably, this is why we never got an abortion rights bill, even after Dobbs.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
18d ago
I have wondered if he could massively expand the APA notice-and-comment regime by executive fiat. He lost a number of cases to APA procedure questions in his first term (and seems somewhat likely to again), but "now all executive policy changes require 4 years of notice and comment, effective 60 days from now, conveniently the day before I leave office" seems like, if IMO a poor governance choice, the sort of live policy grenade Trump likes tossing.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
18d ago
The (rural) South has, if anything, done better than most of the rest of the country over the last few decades. The entire Sunbelt has no shortage of brand new construction suburbs and schools and infrastructure (even some factories!) while the Rust Belt, when I've visited, has, at best, maintained the infrastructure from most of a century ago. Pick a suburb in Ohio and compare it to one in Florida or Texas.
Air conditioning has really changed things.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
21d ago
In some ways the precedent for the administration was set long ago. The only real question is whether the executive can deem Harvard, of all institutions, of similar legal stature to Bob Jones University. They may have the text of the law on their side: Congress not infrequently writes "If the Attorney General decides...", presumably giving her a lot of discretion in this case, subject to its other rules about capriciousness.
Alea iacta est, but I know not which way the legal cards will fall in this case.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
22d ago
or establish some sort of Egyptian civil control of 'just' Gaza, which renders the war premise of war moot.
IIRC Israel has tried to offload Gaza to Egypt at least a few times before, and Egypt isn't interested (nor is Jordan in the West Bank, despite both having held those territories in the last century). My read on this is that nobody likes the Palestinians, even those trying to use them as moral bargaining chips. That said, the three-state solution with those annexations is one of the few outcomes I can imagine achieving long-term stability on the region.
Whether or not those conservatives should be required to pay taxes towards your seen-as-elective medical treatments is probably also a sticking point. That one comes up with abortion too, and has with birth control in the past --- I'm not sure if anyone beyond Hobby Lobby really cares quite as strongly there these days.
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