thejdizzler
21hr ago
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Work: Had a mild freakout at work when my (published) software wasn't working. Part of it was a quick bug fix, part of it was the user not exploring the parameter space correctly. Worked a bit extra today and fixed it. Planning on getting some Claude Code help with cleaning up the GUI (back button, fixing weird window pop up, etc.) by the end of this week. Other than that experiments are going to plan!
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Fitness: 11 hours last week again. Amazing workout this morning: 2 x 20 min at 5:55 and then 5:37 pace. Feeling on track to run sub 2:35 at Boston. Annoyed at the Baltimore youth for stealing my nice UA jacket.
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Intellectual Stuff: Very happy with Marx blog post. Wrapping up the last half of Toll's final Pacific War book, and then really trying to finish my Italian book. Spanish surprisingly has not suffered from my lack of practice, and I still speak fine during my weekly lesson.
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Finances: Expenses are no longer so low this month because I went to a jazz show when my friend was in town and booked a flight to Florida to see my other friend. Parent's transfer kicked off successfully, and will gradually be liquidating the assets over the next few years until I need to buy a house. Now that it's spring I'm realizing how little I actually need a car, so that may not be happening after all.
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Dating: Still seeing the same girl, but I'm no longer very enthused about it. She's began to come off as very childish/delusional which I don't want to deal with long term.
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Tarot: Good session last night
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Socializing: My friend Simon was here this weekend and we had a great time biking around Baltimore and hanging out.
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Screen time: 1.2 hours.
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Mental health: have been very anxious for some reason waking up. Would like to get to the bottom of this.
thejdizzler
3d ago
Final book in Toll's Pacific War Trilogy! Also still chugging on the Golden Compass in Italian, and we've started After Virtue in philosophy book club.
Indian Wars: Battle of Little Bighorn
Spanish-American War: None
WW1: None (was surprised by this)
WW2 (Pacific): Pearl Harbor, Java Sea, initial campaign in the Philippines in WW2, Battle of Savo Island in the Guadalcanal campaign.
WW2 (Europe): Kasserine Pass, Market Garden.
Korea: Yalu River
Vietnam: None
Gulf War I: None
Gulf War II: None
Afganistan: None
thejdizzler
3d ago
Wow love that Djikstra essay!
thejdizzler
3d ago
This is my least favorite of his books to be honest. The best in my opinion is A Brightness Long Ago
thejdizzler
6d ago
I did get a lot of out of it, so it wasn't a total waste, but yeah the theory doesn't really fully clarify things. Back to being a pretty shelf decoration I guess.
thejdizzler
6d ago
No I think we have the same understanding here, I think there's just a confusion of terms. If you're in a factory making widgets, maybe the first twenty have a positive use value for you (maybe you can feed your robot pet with widgets). After that the use value of each widget quickly approaches 0, so you'd rather sell them on the market. The same is true for any commodity you might produce, as a subsistence farmer or otherwise. The only situation in which use value and exchange value are exactly equal (or use value is always higher) is when you have a society of hunter gatherers, as you note.
thejdizzler
6d ago
This is a good question. I think the massive labor glut eventually would have happened (see the US in the early 20th century/developing countries today where people voluntarily leave/left productive farms to pursue wealth in the big city), but labor saving would probably been a priority for capitalist investment even more than it already was. I think we would also probably have a much weaker union culture, although that might be a good thing depending on who you ask.
thejdizzler
6d ago
Other than mere survival, but that brings us back to the subsistence farmers, which we're not, and revealed preferences even at Marx time show that people would rather work at Dark Satanic Mills than farm.
Well not exactly. The enclosures act made subsistence farming less than subsistence for most farmers, so people either had to starve or migrate to cities. It wasn't a preference.
Medication free!
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