iprayiam3
1mo ago
In the 90s software dev was probably a more rarefied and in-demand skillset than in 2026 where we pump out over 100,000 CS degrees a year.
Actually, no I know what my father did in the 90s and how much he made. He was working at IBM through a period of massive layoffs. But again. All these comments quibbling the complaint are just making my point and the point of the folks responding to the responses.
Every response that tries to justify the current state as not real, is avoiding the actual discussion of political policy goals or visions of the good. Kamala LOST in part because 'inflation isn't real ackshully' was a losing message.
There is a populist movement that wants specific political goals, and one party is saying "yes! socialism", and the other is saying "no you suck! you're not allowed to have that. You can have high gas prices instead."
iprayiam3
1mo ago
I am sure someone could sit down and make the math math. I am sure Caleb Hammer could compare the monthly finances and find things to yell at me about.
...
I don't disagree with any of the above points, or probably other reasonable ones, but they all miss the point: I want to live the life I grew up in, I am willing to work hard for it, I held up my part of the implied social contract, I think that the failure of the implied social contract is a BAD thing, something to be seen as regrettable, and I want my politicians to focus on fixing it.
Again this kind of commentary is missing the point.
But moreover, no. "You're just eating out the otherwise advantage you would have over your father" is trivially not true. That's why I brought up my life as natural experience. I live basically the same life that was grown up in. It shouldn't need fine tuning to be able squeeze into. Especially when I am so much further in my career.
My father was a mid level engineer in the 90s, even by generous standards, I make twice what he was making in inflation adjusted dollars. My house and family are half the size.
iprayiam3
1mo ago
So first of all... yes.
Second, this goes to the point about missing the point of the meta commentary. "Ackshully, you are doing great!" and "Ackshully, you got this other thing instead", and "Asckhully, you just aren't working hard enough" aren't acceptable answers to people asking for political focus on addressing specific things.
Burrito availability isn't fungable with housing affordability. My kids are 4 in a single bedroom, but we have more expensive burritos per square mile than when I was a kid isn't a useful point.
These are all fine empirical discussions to have in the abstract. They aren't a response to a class of people who are explaining that their political party isn't focused on the right things.
The point is that "the burrito" test is intentionally obtuse.
There is a class of voters saying, "address affordability", and the response is, "no, you're good."
The online discourse, I've been watching this week is the $20 Burrito. As a super TLDR; this is an intra-right argument that got started by one conservative saying young conservatives are upset about food affordability, and gave an offhand example about '$20 burritos'. The response was a combination of:
Burritos aren't actually that unaffordable, the rate of increase in unaffordability has come down, also you can make them at home for cheaper, also you aren't entitled to eating out.
The response to the response is that this is a losing message to one's own side, avoids accountability for losing focus on why 2024 went Trump, and suspiciously aligned to Iran war support.
Before I address that specifically, a little about my personal burrito.
I am as close to a controlled middleclass experiment as possible.
I live in the same zipcode I grew up in; my kids go to the same Catholic school I went to. I work in the same industry as my father. I aspire to give my family the same life I grew up with. I can't live the life my parents lived.
In the 90s my parents moved us into a new construction. Today, I live in smaller a house, on a smaller lot built in the mid-70s. In realtive terms, I live in a house that is not only smaller, but nearly 50 years older than the one my father did.
My parents had >8 kids. I have 5.
Here's the kicker: My father was an individual contributor, software developer. I am a Director-level at a mid-market software company; This isn't title inflation, I manage an org of about 25, including multiple layers of leadership.
While being considerably more successful than my father in my career, I financially struggle to same life he lived.
- I am sure someone could sit down and make the math math. I am sure Caleb Hammer could compare the monthly finances and find things to yell at me about.
- I am sure you can make arguments about why this city is more expensive, and how I could make out better if I moved. But I didn't ask for that. I don't reap the benefits of my home becoming less affordable.
- Arguments about lifestyle creep fall deaf when food, housing, and healthcare the big 3 cost considerably more. OK my TV is bigger. I have a phone. fuck that.
- Finally we can make the argument that I don't have any fundamental 'right' to that life, and this is where the burrito debate comes in.
I don't disagree with any of the above points, or probably other reasonable ones, but they all miss the point: I want to live the life I grew up in, I am willing to work hard for it, I held up my part of the implied social contract, I think that the failure of the implied social contract is a BAD thing, something to be seen as regrettable, and I want my politicians to focus on fixing it.
Burritos aren't actually that unaffordable, the rate of increase in unaffordability has come down, also you can make them at home for cheaper, also you aren't entitled to eating out.
This is all arguably true. But yet, is a losing message. Especially when your side won on addressing the real and percieved reasons we can't get affordable burritos, and super especially when the other side's solution is 'free burritos for our friends, mass immigration for our enemies'
The US middle class opportunity has changed in negatives ways for reasons that don't benefit me, and I didn't ask for, and instead of my political side agreeing to help address these issues, they are telling me to support a foreign war
iprayiam3
1mo ago
With three hangry kids running around it changes things.
I wouldn't know. I have 5 kids running around.
iprayiam3
1mo ago
Ultimately cooking is, most days for most people, not motivating.
This is so foreign to me. I love to cook, if I’m busy and stressed cooking is a nice relaxer
iprayiam3
2mo ago
For proficient AI users, the outcome of both ideologies is surprisingly similar: in times where AI saves little time, it's a wash, and in times where AI saves a lot of time, both types of people will use it. And proficient users will be able to produce output that is comparable or even better in quality than they would have been able to before the signularity. There is a potential intangible benefit to the manual approach though: doing trivial tasks by hand will let you see a little bit of the innards with your own lying eyes directly, giving a slim though present chance of spotting misalignment.
This isn't the only intangible benefit - there's also the iterative benefit of practice, and personal improvement, which has downstream effects on which bucket future tasks fall into.
Math is a good analog. As you outsource basic math, your ability to do mental math degrades, and the cost/benefit snowballs in a bad direction
iprayiam3
2mo ago
I agree it’s a bad post for the reason you think it’s a bad post, but it’s not a gish gallop. Beyond that, even though the Gish Gallop proper is pointing at a real bad argument tactic , I hate it for the reasons demonstrated here. Incorrect accusations of Gish gallops are too common, and becomes its own bad argument itself.
Anyway, the problem with the bad post is that it is, as you point out a long post with multiple topics but no thesis or theme. Personally, post length is much less interesting as a heuristic of quality than having a strong thesis with some supporting material.
A pithy post with a strong thesis delivered in a few sentences or less is much better than some of the meandering mess of stream of consciousness. Unfortunately too many folks fancy themselves lil’ Scott Alexanders (who himself, while a great writer is overly long to his own detriment).
So you get people (1-2 who really over do it) writing cute little anecdotes and tedious stories with many words and little point beyond a vibe, and that’s treated wrongly as the gold standard.
iprayiam3
2mo ago
I mean that’s a triviality compared to the Starks ruling Winterfell unbroken for 8,000 years!!
Timescales don’t make any sense in Westeros. The only helpful explanation is that the multiyear winter cycles basically frustrate change momentum and society is stuck in a particular local minimum of social technology it can’t escape. Basically can’t risk major upheavals without risking the entire continent plunging into famine on a hair trigger. Armies become thus much less willing to mobilize, lords don’t go along with destabilizing plots etc.
In this scenario, aegons Conquest, the Dance, Robert’s rebellion, and the Wo5K are extreme aberrations against otherwise bias toward extremely careful stability
Unfortunately, this isn’t actually played out at all in the books or shows, and the actual limitations of preparing for and surviving long winters is just ignored. Winter doesn’t even seem to exist on House of the Dragon.
iprayiam3
3mo ago
I’m not saying that I have faith in the government here, but it is shocking that anyone might find “self regulating” private SF company of weird tech elitists to be a superior path.
I recall once Rush on a monologue saying that global warming can’t possibly be real the way the left says because if it was true, it would require government intervention in a way that undermined capitalism and he couldn’t accept that.
I remember being just shocked at the backwards reasoning. Obviously there’s a true point about backwards incentives reducing trust in the claim. But Rush himself was just openly engaging in the reverse mindset.
Here we have the same people saying that this threat exists also not wanting to have to overturn their grip on power over it.
iprayiam3
3mo ago
I can’t say it means anything or not, but I can tell you many companies I sell to have already burned through all their AI budget for the year.
iprayiam3
3mo ago
My point had nothing to do with whether the election was actually stolen. I was responding to the claim that democracy can’t work if the losing side doesn’t accept the legitimacy.
Many didn’t in 2020, yet hour democracy continues.
iprayiam3
3mo ago
No I think 2020 disproves this quite soundly.
If you arrest dissenters and punish them severely enough; you’re fine
iprayiam3
3mo ago
You’re missing the point: the question isn’t why they lean Democrat by why they lean Raman very disproportionately from how they leaned for bass in earlier batches.
You don’t just need to explain why late votes are Democrat but why they are a different kind of Democratic, and the exact one to bring 3rd place into 2nd to keep an R off the ballot.
If late votes leaned D, but with a propoetion
iprayiam3
3mo ago
I don’t know that my parents have worried about my health since I was a small child. Not in any active way that I was made aware of. My worry about my parents health is abstract. Yes they’re getting older. My father is definitely in worse shape these past few years. It is what it is.
iprayiam3
4mo ago
Again, I don’t see this anywhere except people on the internet saying this is so.
iprayiam3
4mo ago
The only place I see the left right distinction is in online spaces where right adjacent ai enthusiasts claim the distinction is there.
In real life every conservative I know is very AI skeptical and the people least skeptical are your tech savvy blue tribers (like programmers) and those folks seem split between enthusiastic or doomers
iprayiam3
4mo ago
In your mind how is the idea of a human being eternally damned irreconcilable with the a loving God, but not a fallen angel?
iprayiam3
4mo ago
Is it the universalist belief that Satan will also be reconciled with God?
iprayiam3
4mo ago
I am always surprised at much praise season 4 gets. In my mind it’s the worst of the first four; as it’s a giant retcon/reboot that just creates a new show inside of another one’s skin using the familiarity of the characters to sneak it through.
I think each season is dramatically worse than the one before it.
As for season 5 - go ahead and finish it. However, enjoyers and haters of season 4 alike find it bad. The only camp of fans I think is those who like all of ST uncritically
iprayiam3
4mo ago
they wanted me to try and lose weight and get fitter the old fashioned way (which I did).
Ozympic?
iprayiam3
4mo ago
“Selected for Aellea’s social network” makes any kind of social commentary or inference from the results completely meaningless.
No, I'm not. I know the numbers, Im just not going to write an autobiography here. Again, I am very close to a natural experiment. I know what cost what then and now. No I'm not going to deanonymize myself to show my reciepts.
Holy fuck. way to just do the meme.
'Tsk.Tsk. Afforability is fine.' - is going to bring us DSA rule, and fuck it, we deserve it because of this shit.
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