The article makes sense for me.
I see it like the broken windows policy of software development. If you allow sloppiness in the small places, the places where you allow it will grow, until your code base is riddled with it. The fight for code quality is also a fight against damaging bugs and against exploitable vulnerabilities.
One big problem with the fight is that industry is incentivized to cut corners. '(Fast, Cheap, Good)..pick two' often results in managers picking fast and cheap. In some ways,they seem legally obligated to fast and cheap due to fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders. That's only if you look at the potential profit and risks from a very short term. Alas, that is what most of the world's businesses do at the moment. To paraphrase Dom from the Fast and the Furious, "We live our lives one business quarter at a time". Eventually Dom discovers the futility of that during the course of the series. Hopefully we will too, before we crash.
Bjarne Stroustrup said "C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off". The same is true of Rust macros. When you need them they're awesome, but you should almost never need them - add a new macro as a very last resort.
I agree with this, mostly because all the macros I would use are mostly written already. If const generic expressions arrive, a lot of those could go away too. In languages like lisp or zig where metaprogramming is a central feature, what do they do differently to make it better? Would those things have worked for rust?
I used lit for a project a couple years ago, and loved it. It had some warts, mostly around working with React components and the Shadow DOM. But it's barebones IIRC. One of the things I loved about it was that it was focused on implementing and using WebComponents via the standard, rather than re-inventing all their own thing.
This brings back memories. I enjoyed following the travels described in the She's a Flight Risk series. I never did quite buy that it was a hoax either, though perhaps I am too gullible. If Isabella V. was real, then I hope she's chilling on a tropical beach in Buenos Aires, or somewhere else.
Great idea, and I'm looking forward to trying this out!
Each person with ADHD is affected a little differently, based on anecdotal evidence from family and friends. What are the available customization options?
Thank you! For now, there are customization options only for background sounds. But in the future there will be an intelligent system for selecting self-help techniques. And you can take a short test to find out your current state.
I also do not see Google parting with something so critical to their advertising. With their own browser they control the full length of the wire between the ad-server and the user. Without it, they don't. Only way I could see this happening is if Google then released what they considered a better browser.
> I also do not see Google parting with something so critical to their advertising. With their own browser they control the full length of the wire between the ad-server and the user. Without it, they don't.
They've already been convicted of anti-trust behavior for precisely this reason. Now the trial is in the remedy phase where the DOJ is asking that they be forced to divest ownership of Chrome and other properties.
Google will have no choice in the matter. It's entirely up to the judge at this point.
Up to 'the' judge', plus the many other appellate judges, unless DoJ and Google come to an agreement and Google decides not to appeal. Google can both appeal the original verdict and any remedies.
> I also do not see Google parting with something so critical to their advertising.
This is not really their choice at this point. They were already found to have abused their position so it's up to a judge to decide what Google has to to next. Google doesn't need "a browser", they need a tool that allows them to exercise more control and this whole court case is about preventing that.
OpenAI is just looking for new ways to funnel data into the training of their models. And I'm afraid so many people would eat it up as long as OpenAI gives them some AI candy in return.
We've seen down that road. We know where it leads. Look at the imagined futures of games such as Shadowrun and Cyberpunk. This way lies an extreme dystopia for everyone except the ultra-rich.
Funny that the future Cyberpunk 2077 envisions is IMHO optimistic about AI. Unlike ours, in that world AI has already presented itself as a threat, and worst of them were somewhat successfully contained behind Blackwall. Perhaps because of that and NetWatch, there isn't a strong positive outlook on AI as we have, neither from corporations nor from most people. There are some AI and robots, but they are more specialized and many jobs still require humans, so those who aren't already rich are still to a degree needed. It's a dystopia in many ways, but AI isn't one of them.
None of that has been tested yet in the real world of course. Perhaps we'll manage to build a world that makes Cyberpunk look better. :)
Uhh… cyberpunk 2077 literally had AI Wars and made a big wall around most of the internet to prevent AI from affecting anyone, except for one taxi company.
I think parent poster's point is that those AI were independent equal-opportunity menaces, as opposed to tools of powerfulb humans to seize more power.
I don’t think he’s a dumbass. He’s selling pseudo-philosophical guilt-washing to the neo-oligarchs and their temporarily embarrassed billionaire posse, which is a product worth its weight in gold. He hosted the post-election party for all of the trumps, bezoses and Zuckerberg at his estate, so no small player. It’s reminiscent of the growth of the neocon movement – I mean the ideology doesn’t have to be comprehensive or consistent. It just has to be convincing long enough for short sound bites and hot takes, so they can legitimize the rapid transformation of society faster than people have time to refute it.
If I had a dollar for every time I've seen someone embrace cyberpunk aesthetics while misunderstanding its ethos, I'd have enough money to buy my favorite social network and run it into the ground.
But would you have enough to buy your favorite society and run it into the ground?
Re: embracing aesthetics while misunderstanding ethos - I've noticed this about religion too. There is frequently a divide between subscription to deep ethos and social aesthetics and the latter often seems more popular.
This is especially puzzling to me with Christianity considering that a fair bit of the New Testament (and some of the Old) appears to be a criticism of exactly this problem and attempts to transcend it.
It might be that style over substance is a long-running human problem.
> But would you have enough to buy your favorite society and run it into the ground?
If you pull it off right, you can get a 2-for-1 deal on the social network and parlay the result of your ketamine bender into a role as Shadow President.
I’m taking it meta. Not only am I properly embracing high-tech, low-life in game world, my design is of a metaverse preemptively designed to learn the lessons to avoid a corporate dominated abusive version.
A valid strategy against the monarchist oligarchs is to politely tell the MAGA part of the Republicans that they are being sold out and deceived.
But it has to be really gentle and honest. Many people on YouTube already have gotten the message.
If on the other hand there is a true uniparty, then we are doomed. People have to select more honest candidates in the primaries on both sides to have any chance.
> If on the other hand there is a true uniparty, then we are doomed. People have to select more honest candidates in the primaries on both sides to have any chance.
I know it sounds trite, but I fully believe that a big cause of the current situation is the broken election system in the US, which has made it practically impossible for any new party or independent candidate to establish themself.
Yes, there are the die-hard MAGAists, but I think a lot of the votes that brought the win for Trump were really protest votes against Biden. The reasons were varied, but I think anger about the continuing inflation and the Biden admin's Middle East policy were two big issues.
With a different system, this could have empowered a third party candidate, maybe Jill Stein or (a hypothetically independent) Bernie Sanders. But here, the election was presented like Discworld's "you always have a choice": Vote Harris, i.e. "ignore all problems and continue as before" or jump into a pit full of spikes.
> broken election system in the US, which has made it practically impossible for any new party or independent candidate to establish themself.
As in ballot access restrictions and how the two big parties collude to keep other candidates out of the presidential debates? Or the low turnout for primaries? Or how voters don't pay enough attention to local races?
Isn't it more structural than that? The first-past-the-post system can only support two parties in the long run. It's an extremely old and simple way of structuring elections, but the US government has a system that has remained mostly intact for centuries now. We're stuck with it for now. If we wanted this system to be peacefully replaced with something more modern, the parties who benefit from this arrangement would have to be the ones to champion its replacement. That doesn't seem likely.
> Isn't it more structural than that? The first-past-the-post system can only support two parties in the long run.
Canada and the UK have first-past-the-post too, yet lack the hard two party system the US has.
One factor is both Canada and the UK have much stronger regional identities than the US - some Americans talk up how strong American regional identities are, but the US has nothing comparable to Scotland or Quebec.
Another factor is the parliamentary system encourages stronger party discipline, which leads to more parties having narrower definitions, compared to the two big tent parties in the US who have such weak party discipline, the party leadership has very little control over its elected officials.
The greater significance of primaries probably also contributes - although in recent decades Canada and the UK have started copying that institution, but still to nowhere near the same degree. A strong primary system weakens a party’s self-control and internal cohesion, and hence promotes it becoming a bigger tent that helps further further entrench the two party system.
Look at the current split of the UK right between Conservatives and Reform - such a split would be far less likely in the US, because the Republican brand is so vague and generic it is much harder for a renegade right wing party to succeed (and the same applies on the left)
> We're stuck with it for now.
One advantage the US has, is electoral systems is mostly a state-level decision, even for federal elections. In most other federations, the voting system used in federal elections is a federal competency. And with 50 states, it only takes one to introduce reforms. But, while there has been some experimentation with alternatives, by and large American states haven’t used their competency to carry out electoral reform. I suspect that is because Americans are fundamentally conservative-in the sense of resistance to change, even self-identified progressives in the US tend to focus their energies on changing certain key issues, and on other issues will let the status quo be.
> The first-past-the-post system can only support two parties in the long run.
And yet the two main parties here do feel the need to collude to exclude third other parties. Which demonstrates that they see third parties as a legitimate threat.
And third parties can get enough vote share to tip the outcome ("if only all those people hadn't thrown their votes away, my side would have won!"). Which means they're not the non-entities that theory suggests they are.
And parties aren't static, but have to adjust to match the electorate. There isn't a static steady-state to eventually reach.
And if you've seen discussions about the Democrat party in the US being a "big tent" party that's hamstrung by needing to appease moderates or the Republican party needing to kick out various extremists to gain legitimacy (why yes, most of the discussions I see do come from people on what we call the "left" here, how could you tell?), they sound like there's something similar going on to what I see in discussions about countries with proportional / parliamentary systems having to form coalitions post-election. Ie there's the same sort of coalition-building going on, it just happens before rather than after and isn't explicitly made legible in the labels candidates use for themselves.
> the two main parties here do feel the need to collude to exclude third other parties
The spoiler effect means you don’t need collusion to explain the results. Both parties are enormously incentivised to stamp out and subsume ideologically-near competitors. If they don’t, the other party wins.
I don't think it's trite at all. The US electoral system is insane. President is chosen by the same few states every time. I haven't had a vote for president that has mattered ever, and I'm kinda old and have voted in several states.
1. Overturn citizens united. (get money out of politics)
2. Rank-choice voting. (get extremists out of politics)
3. Remove cap on House of Representatives (washington only wanted 1 rep per 30,000 people... we're currently at 1 per 750,000...) (get lack of representation out of politics)
4. Mandatory voting / national holiday.
e.g. at its core, people are not being heard (or even worse, feel like their voice doesn't matter) and vested interests have fully taken the wheel.
Biden supported our allies while also pressing for a path to peace. Jill Stein had a terrible foreign policy especially with regards to russia. Anyone who thought Trump would do better ...
Inflation had largely been contained, and top including conservative ones economists agreed that Trump's plans were terrible for inflation
Biden was a competent president who brought real positive change.
Harris like Biden actually had a plan for non revolutionary but real gradual change to improve things. Trump promised to destroy stuff(if you actually listed to the meaning of his words) and promised unicorns if you didn't
Also, the period where Biden was President may have been competently run (subjective) but Biden himself was not competent when running for re-election so running on his record didn't really work.
Harris wasn't Biden but, despite what VPs say, they don't get much credit (from voters) for their administrations accomplishments. In fact, VPs tend to get the worst assignments (Border Czar) to take the heat off if the President which they usually fail at (because they were set up to).
People saw Harris as the worst part of the previous administration who was selected by committee to be their candidate.
I think I (or attempted to) invalidate everything up to the final paragraph because everything before that was about the Biden presidency which was not positively relevant to the Harris campaign.
Joe Biden's record is Biden's and Harris' responsibilities under the Biden administration was not positive. Let alone questions about her emphatic statements attesting to his mental capacity right up until the emperor had no clothes on national TV.
Unsurprisingly, people were not enthusiastic about being given a candidate who struggled nationally and was widely considered a bad candidate, right up until she was the candidate. Harris is and was a horrible candidate. Everyone knew it, even Democrats.
Democrats spiked the football on fourth down when they were losing with 30 seconds left.
Whatever people want to say about Trump, apparently Democrats didn't find him enough of a threat to democracy to put up a candidate that had a chance to win.
Democrats put up the only candidate likely to unify the party at that stage. I'm not defending a campaign which lost to Trump. But at some point we also have to blame ourselves and the voting population at large. As well as a media way too forgiving to Trump. How could they vote for something so self evidently self harmful.
The uniparty is absolutely real, but it can be defeated through the exercise of democratic power. To be clear, I don't mean voting. Voting is the thing you do at the end of the democratic process once your power is asserted and coordinated decision-making needs to be done.
What you need is political action: organization, protests, strikes, infiltration, and targeted exercises of power. And, most importantly, discussion and coordination, especially among people outside your ideological bubble[0]. This is how you assert your democratic power. Get off social media and make friends[1].
The uniparty thrives on an antisocial politics where the majority of people don't vote, most of each party's voting support is gimmies[2], and elections are decided by inches. That is, when people show up to vote and then just disappear from political life for the next 2 to 4 years. Ironically, the MAGA hats are better at democratic exercises of power, even though the end goal of their thought leaders is to dissolve democracy.
You have to keep in mind that if there's two people in the room, Trump is telling them three different contradictory things. The MAGA coalition is stronger than, say, the "everything's fine" DNC one, but it's still full of contradictions that can't be reconciled. Actually listen to what the MAGA hats are saying - instead of getting into apoplectic fits over the dog whistles they spout - and you can start to spot the cleavages.
Here's some examples of how that could work:
- Do you have a neighbor that works for the government who got that weird Elon Musk fork offer e-mail? Maybe slip them a copy of the Simple Sabotage Field Manual.
- Are you in a terrible workplace? Get to know your co-workers. Find time to talk with them when the boss isn't watching. Plan shit.
- Take any opportunity you can to get to know people who work in service. Economic stratification and the lack of third spaces mean there are precious few opportunities for the "middle class[3]" and the rest of the working class to socialize and co-mingle.
- If you have family members who have their head in the gaping maw of the MAGA cult, point out the contradictions between what they want and what Trump is doing. Don't try to disprove Trump with facts and logic. Just plant the seed in their minds.
What you want is to build multiple overlapping coalitions of people who are willing to fight for their democratic rights in whatever way they can.
[0] This means hold off on the purity tests. Those are for you, not your friends.
[1] To be clear, I am not ruling out all computer-mediated communication; merely the kind of communication that is designed as a substitute for socialization. This means less political Twitter, Mastodon, or Facebook; and more IRC, SMS, or Discord.
[2] In game design, gimmies are the portion of your score, tokens, or performance, that must be played for, but can safely be assumed to be taken by one player at the start of the game. This would be the person who's voted D or R all their life no matter who or what is running.
> What you need is political action: organization, protests, strikes, infiltration, and targeted exercises of power.
Or maybe instead of focusing on destruction, go speak in favor of good policies?
Lying to people that the only way to win is to destroy anyone they perceive as the other team sounds like an excellent way to make sure that everyone loses.
Moreover, the vast majority of the callbacks to cyberpunk-- both aspirational and critical-- somehow miss that the entire aesthetic was a response to Reaganomics! Moreover, and somewhat ironically, Reagan was the last US president that used the Heritage Foundation's publications as his policy template.
I wonder what great aesthetic and fiction we'll get from Trumpism?
One big problem with the fight is that industry is incentivized to cut corners. '(Fast, Cheap, Good)..pick two' often results in managers picking fast and cheap. In some ways,they seem legally obligated to fast and cheap due to fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders. That's only if you look at the potential profit and risks from a very short term. Alas, that is what most of the world's businesses do at the moment. To paraphrase Dom from the Fast and the Furious, "We live our lives one business quarter at a time". Eventually Dom discovers the futility of that during the course of the series. Hopefully we will too, before we crash.