voters-eliot-azure
patently unbiased
No bio...
User ID: 3622
You can't run moonshot companies like as is literally the case for SpaceX, or Tesla, if you don't make sure you've done your best to account for all relevant factors.
As someone in the tech industry, I actually have the exact opposite take, to say the least.
The quiet "Mittelstand" of tech is based on domain expertise, driven by B2B sales, and moves slowly but is actively transforming industries as the largest corporations don't want to be "left behind" with new innovations. This, for me, is calculated and matches your pattern of doing the "best to account for all relevant factors".
Moonshot companies and big tech are strategically opposite: operate on hype-cycles and vibes driven by marketing and build enormous moats that will plug the holes of the flaws of the Version 2 of your product (see: enshittification). This is not only "move fast and break things", but also "fuck you got mine".
Edit: This is also my experience as someone who has worked for both types of companies, one which was sold for $3XXm as a portfolio subsidiary, only to later be shuttered as a $3XXm loss once a hike in interest rates exposed it as smoke and mirrors.
voters-eliot-azure
patently unbiased
6mo ago
At some point I'm going to have to start assuming people just don't listen to him.
I actually don't think they do, aside from little quips that are (accidentally?) designed to be repeated memetically.
I would imagine most people form their opinions of Trump following marching orders from their news outlet of choice. If Trump has a truly nuanced take, I'm not sure if it will ever make it past the initial polarization filter of Fox News, Reddit, etc.
voters-eliot-azure
patently unbiased
6mo ago
Huh, I always thought the void ray change was because it was overpowered, not because it was awkward within the context of the lore.
Worth noting that SC2 still has the viper (caster type unit) which converts health (of other units / buildings) to energy, and you'll often see Zerg hatcheries on nearly 0 health in end game scenarios because it's used as a battery for the vipers, especially in PvZ.
In true culture war fashion, it seems like there's a dilemma that is "obvious" from either side of the lens.
The strategy from the left is well-documented here: any opposition can simply be hamstrung with "lawfare". This is especially effective since within recent history the left's opposition in the "West" is led by strongmen populists of personality - there's no depth in terms of charismatic leadership within the movement at large, so if you cut off the head the beast is dead. Unfortunately for the left, that's also the case in places like Russia and Turkey, where it seems like it takes a cult of personality to "grassroots" a movement capable of opposing the entrenched right - so the whataboutism is baked in (as seen in your write-up).
But the strategy from the right can't be ignored either: snowball small crimes and cry lawfare on your way up to the larger (antidemocratic) crimes. White collar crimes are hilariously underpunished (unless you've already climbed the "lawfare" ladder), so the risk is extremely low: move a few decimal points here or there on some tax returns, make the SEC slap you on the wrist for misreporting on financial statements, etc. Then, when you're punished for something meaningful, simply appeal to your followers that you're only being punished because of your politics, and bring up all the other cases where white collar crimes were hilariously underpunished as a double-standard.
In fact, to "climb the lawfare ladder", you don't even have to have personally performed the smaller crimes first, like some perverse inversion of "guilt by association". It appears to be possible to utilize the (just) prosecutions of others as evidence that you yourself are being unjustly persecuted. Maybe one could even pardon those individuals, some of them on the left, to cast even more doubt!
Unfortunately for us plebeians of the non-accelerationist variety, I don't see this deescalating any time soon. Reactionary strategists have surely caught on to the pattern, and are probably quite pleased how much the term lawfare has spread like wildfire amongst the even the most moderate conservatives, thanks especially to news outlets that act like a memetic megaphone.
Likewise, the left seems to view a stronger judiciary as one of the only ways of stalling a full-on reactionary revolution - something that some on the right seems to acknowledge as well judging by comments from the Speaker of the House and the once-leader-cum-ex-leader-cum-leader of DOGE. Just browse Reddit for a bit to see how much the left sees the judiciary as the last bastion of hope against a unitary executive and a doormat legislature.
Edit: spelling, formatting
It all started when Kennedy put on some make-up for his televised debate with Nixon (/s, sort of).
I think you might be falling prey to some sort of rose-tinted lens bias when looking into the past. Americans love to deify the founding fathers and other notable people in our national mythology, but there's not really too much evidence that they were not (and I don't say this lightly) giant pieces of shit - horrible, awful people. Especially for the most charismatic ones you can find accounts of them being duplicitous, deceitful, and all-around lacking in personal morals that betray their virtuous musings in various publications.
I've noticed a tendency in pop history to equate "doing something notable" with "being someone good", whereas within academic history, historians are much better about maintaining an objective distance from the figure being studied. I think it's pretty telling that this objective distancing is often labeled "wokeness", but that's a digression.
Coming back to the present, there's plenty of people who are now "doing something notable", but you're realizing that you have plenty of access to the information that they are not "being someone good". So something must have changed? No, my hypothesis is that notable people have always been giant pieces of shit: back to 1700AD Louis XIV, back to 750AD Charlemagne, back to 30BC Cleopatra, back to 1300BC Ramses I, etc.
I'm not sure how many people I speak for, but I've always dabbled with the thought of personally unseating my local congressperson. But there's nothing really remarkable about me as a person that people would want to rally around. I write well, I speak well, and I rise pretty quickly in whatever companies I happen to jump between. Because of that competence, I guess I would be an ideal bureaucrat in a world where bureaucracy would have to exist.
I want to improve my community, but running for office seems to be even more performative than making sure to pick up litter at rush hour, rather than picking up litter for the sake of picking up litter.
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