"Parameterizing complexity" is probably a better way to say it. There's no isolation when it comes to software.

Not sure if I agree

Let's say you have a poem program, that reads files from your drive and turns them into poems. A well isolated/abstracted variant of that program is as simple as a blackbox with two or three inputs and a single output.

One of the inputs are the files, the others might be a configuration file or user adjustable parameters like length. The program is well isolated if you can't give it any combination of inputs that doesn't produce a poem or an error message related to the usage of the program.

A badly isolated variant of the same program would be one where the user had to think a lot about the internal behavior of the program, e.g. how file names are handled or where so many parameters of the poem generation have to be supplied as parameters, that the user essentially has to rewrite the core of program with their parameters. Or the user could supply a file that allows them to gain RCE or crash the program.

I don't think it is anything to do with complexity, or grouping code/data, its just a natural tendency of people to categorize things together that display a high degree of class inclusion. And some categories are easier to deal with than others.

> As Carmack pointed out the problem with AR/VR right now - it's not the hardware, it's the software.

The third option is peoples' expectation for AR/VR itself: it could be a highly niche and expensive industry and unlikely to grow to the general population.

Maybe eventually. Based on this quality I don't see this happening any time in the near future.

I'm not sure that's how capitalism works.

Who is "we"?

This isn't your money

It is not. But this kind of money does have impact for society in any field. So, this a proper concern.

> No VC would want it and there’s not a wealthy user base to bootstrap it.

More to the point, VCs invented these apps specifically to disenfranchise workers and vaccuum up the lost cost as a bullshit "service fee".

Well if we aren't going to get the actual fruits of capitalism I'm for damn sure going to fight it tooth and nail at home. Shit sucks and I can't think of anyone I trust less than an American capitalist.

I saw a photo pop up a few months back from a hiring fair at Yale. I guess Skull and Bones isn't pulling them in like it used to.

there are definitely actively people going to Yale that are going to the CIA, I actually think Yale is a more common one

Well something must have changed if they're having to show up at a job fair.

i knew people, they were recruited prior to even entering college crazy as it sounds as part of their scholarship

China is not a geopolitical adversary to me. Why would I want to beef with China when China has never done anything to treat me poorly?

Tbh I think this has a lot more to do with sympathy for Palestinians and the last year of protests on college campuses.

Besides, who cares if China is listening to us through the app. China and I have no beef with one another. China feeds me and clothes me and builds most of the stuff in my life and I give China my money. It's a good relationship! Much better than my relationship with this state, tbh.

> this could just be the beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these platforms.

I think politicians have scrutinized american social media and they're 100% fine with the misery they induce so long as they are personally enriched by them.

> There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was traditionally used in China

TikTok isn't anywhere near as destructive as opium was. Hell, purely in terms of "mis/disinformation" surely facebook and twitter are many times worse than TikTok.

Surely the appropriate modern parallel is fentanyl.