I think this might be the best time to start having these conversations: when things are getting bad for almost everyone, and there is so much governmental upheaval that changing the economic system becomes a lot less disruptive than it would be during good times. It’s only going to become more and more clear that capitalism is failing.

My favorite economic system so far is a land value tax with UBI. I still don’t know exactly how businesses would operate, but this system would eliminate the parasitic generational wealth siphoned from hoarding property and housing. It would also allow for people to not work if they’re unable to.

I’m sure it’s probably just delusional hopium that we could ever get through the threat of fascism and come out of it with a better system than what we had, but that’s about all I got left right now. The rest is just doom.

I want to know how a university can just revoke a degree after the fact. Unfortunately the article didn’t say a damn thing about it, not even how many they actually revoked.

There’s really no way we could invade half of those places and still fight the unrest that will be happening inside the US. I bet you’d find plenty of Americans willing to defect and fight for Canada.

It’s not that uncommon for smaller or private planes to crash, I think partially due to private pilots not having as much training and experience as commercial pilots, and the fact that smaller planes probably aren’t as stable in turbulent weather. Pretty sure the one in Alaska had more to do with the weather than traffic controllers. We tend to only hear about the small crashes when they have famous people on board.

No, those are different things. Intrusive thoughts are your brain telling you terrible things like you suck at your work or your hobbies, you’re worthless, your friends don’t actually like you, and hey remember that time you did a cringey thing in front of people? They’re not true, and you’re not intentionally having these thoughts, but your brain can’t easily rationalize them away. It’s usually something that builds up over a lifetime so that you don’t even realize it’s happening. Thats how so many people get stuck believing the intrusive thoughts.

What? How is it a property grab if no one can live there? Only the stupidest and/or richest people would buy an uninsurable home. You can’t get a mortgage without insurance, because the banks want to make sure they still have an asset to repossess if you default. Even if you were that rich, why would you throw your money away on something that will almost certainly be destroyed, sooner rather than later, without a way to recoup any of the cost? If a company like Zillow comes in and snaps up all the uninsurable homes in these regions, they’ll be declaring bankruptcy within 5 years.

Find a hiking group or partner then. It’s free, you’ll get a little exercise, and it doesn’t have to be much of a commitment.

Exactly. I don’t think you meant to, but you just described the majority of billionaires.

But with digital boarding passes, they can get access to your entire phone. Last time I flew, I tried scanning my digital boarding pass at TSA. The guy stops me and basically just takes my phone to do it himself. I was trying to watch what he was doing with it, but he was sitting behind a terminal. When he handed the phone back, the web browser was open, showing my phone carrier’s website, instead of my boarding pass like it was when I handed it to him. There’s a small chance it could have been accidental, but if not, I don’t know what he was trying to access or why. Very unsettling.

I love how everyone’s already completely forgotten JD Vance exists.

But why do we need to recreate “real life?” Don’t we already do this relatively well in books, TV, and movies? People keep saying we won’t use AI to replace creative writing, but this (and propaganda, making bot conversations seem like real people) are the only use cases for this kind of data. LLMs don’t need to improve their conversation skills. What they really need is to stop hallucinating, and this kind of data won’t help with that.

I mean, sure, you could argue we’re already there.

These kinds of vague titles are not helpful. Every article is just the same fear mongering speculation.

Mormons have three tiers of heaven. According to some, even Hitler would make it into the lowest tier. I’m not sure what you’d have to do to actually go to hell, which is supposedly just lonely infinite darkness away from the presence of God.

There’s a $4000 credit for qualifying used EVs.

Corps have been complaining for years already that people aren’t buying enough. Millenials are killing this industry and that industry because we don’t consume enough - “enough” being whatever level they’ve decided we should consume. They feel entitled to our dollars, whether or not their product or service is any good.

If they were smart, companies would lower prices to be more competitive and incentivize people to buy more. Instead they’ve doubled down and posted armed guards at the store exits to intimidate the customers they have left. They’ve slipped data collection into every interaction. It’s pretty obvious they’re not playing the long game anymore.

That’s why you flash your lights on and off at them, to get them to unfreeze before you get too close.

At 1.2 million, it’s overpriced. They’ve likely priced it that way because it’s now an Airbnb - “look at all the income you’ll make by buying this property!” But what really changed in the two years they owned it? Did they remodel the whole place? Possibly, but probably not enough to warrant adding $550k to the price. This house is now an investment, not a place to live.

I have noticed a particular attitude with a lot of sellers, though. They think because other sellers have been having great windfalls that they can just list for any high amount and it’ll work for them too. Those are the ones that sit, and they’re usually priced at 1m or more.

The homes flying off the shelves, so to speak, are the starter homes. You have both younger and older generations fighting for the same small affordable homes, and developers generally aren’t building as many of those.

When I am amazed by a piece of art, it’s because a person was able to conceive of a scene and then use techniques they’ve learned to bring that scene from their mind into reality. I think, “Wow, how did they decide to blend those colors together in such a way, and why? I wonder how hard it is to get that right? How long might it take me to learn the same technique?”

But when I look at a piece of art made by AI, I think, disappointedly, “Oh, they didn’t. Nobody leaned the technique to paint this, there may not be any feeling behind it, or any point at all, other than ‘it looks good.’” It’s just not impressive.

And I’m pretty sure that most people could learn how to prompt successfully in a matter of days or weeks. Real artists practice their craft for years, learning and perfecting techniques and often developing their own unique style.

That’s not where the surprise is coming from. The surprise is that the hospital failed to tell you there might be out-of-network staff that might be involved in your surgery, even though you were careful to choose a hospital that is in-network. So your insurance won’t cover the out of network doctors, and you don’t have any choice of how many or which other doctors (other than your scheduled surgeon) get involved. Those out of network staff then bill you separately from the whole procedure. That’s the surprise.