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The term "brainwashing" is so misleading and fear-baity here. Humans are gullible and can be convinced of falsehoods. You have just as much if not more "brainwashing" power than any chatbot. The only difference is that a chatbot can reach more people faster, but we can also inoculate ourselves to the effectiveness of AI by things like "media literacy" and "skepticism". If you know that an AI can be programmed to promote falsehoods (or otherwise fed falsehoods), you can perhaps double check sources that an AI uses to promote their claims. It's not brain control its just media baby

1. It's important to remember that having struggling poor people is expensive for the system. Emergency shelters, health issues that go untreated until they need emergency intervention, desperation crimes like theft (affecting policing and prisons), foster care, drug use intervention. These are all expenses that are reduced by a system like UBI. If you keep people healthy and fed, you can keep them peaceful and working and the program pays for itself.

2. I don't see the inflation effect as purely linear. Having $10 when things cost $10 is better than having $0 when things cost $5. There are thresholds that affect peoples ability to even engage with the market that you put your trust into. Also the market wants people to buy things, so it should welcome more people participating in it. And lets not forget that most of the price gouging over the past few years went straight to shareholder profits instead of increased supply costs, we can try to decentivize systems like that that profit off of economic crises.

> we should foster competition, incentivize innovation, and let markets do their thing

"letting markets do their thing" is contradictory to "fostering competition". Markets fundamentally drift towards consolidation. Source: the past sixty years. Markets do not fundamentally organically move towards progress. Often times the profitable thing is to pay workers shit wages and raise prices, and if you try to wait it out for a magical class of well financed competitors to come along and disrupt that status quo, millions of people will have been put into poverty in the interim.

Ah yes the old "banning things=bad" argument that doesn't offer alternatives to fixing the issues with AI. Just ignore the issues with environmental impact, plagiarism, CP and other non-consensual shit in the data sets, scamming capabilities! All the groups asking for regulation here have **funding** and that means they are evil but we are good for using this tool that is massively subsidized by megacorps that have a vested interest in this market.

In my lifetime school stopped being about teaching life skills and started being about college prep. I never had home ec, wood shop, auto shop, any life skill class. Hell even drivers ed was privatized in my town. I understand that these programs are expensive to keep running but that slack was not picked up by other community resources like community colleges. (theres also a lot to be said about the stigmatization of community college and adult education courses)

The decline in public funding of education and public transit in my lifetime have gotten us to this point

you know all this shit is connected right? the rich in America exploit labor to accumulate profit -> funnel that shit into investments to passively increase their income -> investment firms squeeze their controlled companies to generate more profit to increase shareholder value -> companies outsource labor to the 3rd world to reduce costs and give savings to shareholders -> those foreign businesses exploit their workers to a greater degree because there is less/none regulation -> people in other countries get paid $1 a day

Fighting corporate greed in the US is in effect fighting for the rights of laborers internationally that are negatively affected by American business interests. No one who fights for this kind of change does so for selfish reasons, it's for all of us.

if your opinion is that some people make millions a day and some people make $1 a day and thats just life and we shouldnt try to change that, I think you are fundamentally lost.

Also consider: where do the billionaires in the US get the resources to fuel their empires? Do they get their cobalt from slave labor mines in the Congo? Do you think maybe there is some kind of connection between corporate greed in America and people on the other side of the world making $1/day or less?

"a bad thing happens somewhere in the world therefore you shouldn't complain"

imagine if i told you that i think everyone deserves to make a wage that allows them to thrive and have stability.

Also consider that A) things are more expensive here and B) our economy is debt based and many people with homes and cars in the US have negative income after expenses, just because aesthetically our poverty looks different, it doesn't mean that it's good. It's not comparable.

idk what their profit structure or founding story is, but the poison pill for every company is investment capital. The second you take VC money you are beholden to someone other than your coworkers and clients. If you can get off the ground and become sustainable on sales alone, you are golden. Stability is possible but the problem is that most VCs demand 10x return, not 1.25x return.

> It implies you are not living in a communist society, and therefore allowed a measure of control over your own life

OK red scare calm down. I think you overestimate how much control capitalism gives you. Criticizing the economy does not make you a commie. If you wanna lay down and accept oligarchy because you are afraid of communism be my guest, but I would highly suggest you fight for slightly better circumstances for yourself and your neighbors.

> STOP GIVING THEM MONEY If oligarchy was limited to Bezos, Zuck, and Musk that would be easy! But billionaires kind of own everything? Our food supply is controlled by a handful of megacorps, our communication network is administered by a few others, real estate is a game for giant investment groups, health care is a fucking joke... It's impossible to elect to not participate in the economy, or at least its impractical for everyone to live off the grid.

Listen I know you think that communism means the goberment controls everything (it doesnt), but at least I can vote for my gov reps. I don't get a fucking vote when Blue Cross Blue Shield is deciding where I can go to the hospital.

actually no, I don't think anyone should look at the wealth spread in the US and think that it's normal or good. It's objectively dangerous and undemocratic. If someone can earn millions a day from passive investment but someone who actually provides meaningful goods and services day-to-day barely makes 50k a year, I think we have totally misunderstood as a society what to value and how to distribute resources

only if you are content with the way the US economy works, which requires wearing some pretty large blinders

You shouldn't just lazily lay down and accept the negatives of changes like this, you'll just create a techno-oligarchy. You should fight for change to be slow and deliberate to protect your neighbors instead of taking their floor.

If your income is $0 it doesn't matter if prices go down by 20%. When the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" economy is designed to be sink or swim people are gonna drown when shit like this happens. It's not about "luddites are forcing us to do manual labor", it's "corporate greed is destroying our communities". If you want automation you should be fighting for things like Universal Healthcare and a UBI so people can survive periods of change.

I agree with you that generally people who complain about assistive devices do not consider any form of disability in their analysis. But the way that the consumer tech industry is shaped makes selling assistive devices really hard. Investors only want to invest in things that will be the next iPhone which makes actual assistive tech a really tough industry because the market is too small. So companies broaden try to broaden their reach but in order to do that they sacrifice the resilience, durability, reliability that those under-served communities really need. Most abled people can handle the 80% accuracy of a voice assistant, but for someone who needs an assistive device, that 20% failure rate can be brutal. The bar is so much higher to help those communities, and most companies wont bother.

Basically, if you want to make a medical assistive device, you kind of have to be all in on it, instead of trying to convince everyone that your device is the future of human-computer interaction (because its probably not and you'll just forget and ignore those communities)

it's not as black and white as you make it out to be. those social norms affect men's ability to endure hardship, find community, and empathize with the struggles of others. The article is not just talking about written rights, it is talking about achievement and happiness, which are emergent from a combination of written policy and social norms.

I disagree with the headline that "the left needs to talk about it" because fundamentally we do every day. The problem is that men tense up when we talk about things like "patriarchy" and "feminism", despite every piece of literature that explains that patriarchy and traditional (toxic) masculinity are actively harmful for men too. So men aren't listening to leftist talk about these issues and need to be baby-fed them using different words.

Starfield is fine. It actually runs pretty smoothly, just not at 4k 120fps. A lot of AAA games these days require a DLSS-like solution to run well, which is kind of frustrating but we are already a few years into the roll out and its only a matter of time before it is ubiquitous. There is also a problem with tech IP lockout: Bethesda made a deal with AMD where they would support AMDs Super Resolution tech, the terms of which required them to not officially support NVidia DLSS. There are however Mods you can install to support DLSS.

An interesting sidebar there is that allegedly, a popular community modder was given advanced access to the game, allegedly so that DLSS support would be available near launch.

Anyway idk man, all these issues are manageable. Its janky but its fun jank.

I think you conveniently stopped reading before point 3.

> The government does, in fact, have the power to regulate some speech. When the rights and liberties of others are in serious jeopardy, speakers who provoke others into violence, wrongfully and recklessly injure reputations or incite others to engage in illegal activity may be silenced or punished.

The twitter files only showed that the government lobbied for changes, and that Twitter agreed to some changes. There is also evidence in those files that Twitter also refused some requests. we can hem and haw about the validity of the requests all day but I want to ask this: If you were a big enough media site that you become a potential public safety/national security risk (something like 90+M American users), what do you propose you should do when the government takes notice and starts contacting you?

Do you think Twitter should have just ignored all emails from the government about public safety threats? Do you think they should have had a policy of just throwing government correspondence in the big ole customer service heap and handled national security and public safety issues in 10-12 business days? when government agencies contact you about potential threats/issues would you take them seriously or laugh in their face? Did these government actors threaten Twitter with legal action or just request action be taken about certain content?

I don't want to be in the position of defending the FBI or a big corporation here, but I think if you have concerns about the conduct of Twitter or government here, the 1st amendment can't be your legal foundation here. You need to 1) contact your representatives about reducing FBI/DHS overreach and potentially restructure their responsibilities and funding. If you have an issue with the FBI we can do something about it together other than yelling about liberal bias at Twitter 2) actually have meaningful conversations about how you think social media should handle things like misinformation, extremism, and hatespeech. Because 0 moderation is not the answer and will never create healthy communities. And 3) think critically about what avenues government can and should use to make requests when it comes to issues of public health. Government is always going to want to keep tabs on what goes on in public forums and have concerns and it's the platforms decision as to whether or not to heed advice. I agree that we should be concerned about any legal threats are attached to requests, but I dont think you'll ever stop government from contacting major platforms that have a major affect on their constituents altogether.

Rent Control Now

Everyone here has provided some good advice about looking for what you are missing. In any part of your life, if your conclusion is "everyone here sucks but me": you are probably missing something. Understand that your equation of "more story points faster = better" is a philosophical decision you are making, that your team does not agree with. Your team may not capture all of their work on a jira board or may scale their tasks differently than you. You may value fast completion of tasks, and they may value slow but intentional design and testing. No one's value can be completely captured "on paper".

Also just chill out about perceived relative effort! If deadlines slip, if bad code is being shipped, then you should be concerned about your coworkers effort. If your team is meeting deadlines, then it is managements responsibility to fill the work queue, if you want more work ask for it. Your job isn't to manage your coworkers who all have their own lives and relationships to the work. If you are worried that you are doing more work for less money, do less work or ask for a raise.

there isnt like a trans spokesperson. Individual trans people arent responsible for every bad event you attribute to them. I'm sure trans people will agree with you on isolated cases but others might reject bad-faith characterizations of drag overall. Also i don't know what you mean about "lying to parents".

> I very much don't want my kids to be trans as it's a much harder life.

How cowardly. Why do you think its a harder life? Might it be because trans people are hated by society? Might that be because people continue to perpetuate myths that they are corrupting education?

> That's my preference

then dont teach my kids that there is only one way to live your life. Do you also want your kids to reach 18 and be surprised by the existence of trans people when they finally leave your shelter? How do you think they'll react after being taught that "boys should be boys"?

Trans people largely dont want to be "sexual" around children. The problem is that you are conflating a performance art (drag) with an entire demographic of people (trans people). Do you actually think trans people are sexually assaulting kids or do you just perceive them existing in society as an assault? Why are trans topics in education bad if they describe the lived experience of your neighbors? I don't genuinely believe you would leave trans people alone, if they gave up any ground. you just want them to shut up and get out of sight so they don't legitimize a lifestyle that you disprove of.

> as long as they just live their lives like everyone else

The way you live your life and your opinions around what to teach kids about gender are a cultural choice. You make the active decision every day to teach kids that boys cant wear dresses, or that girls and boys need to be separated in sports. You can justify those beliefs all you want but at the end of the day, you are saying that your perspective is right and that trans people are wrong. So no you are not asking them to "live their life like I do" because you don't want them to advertise a lifestyle different from yours

responding with violence is also "being affected by words". It also enforces the point that words can incite violence.

our current system does not prevent sexual assault from occurring in public restrooms, men can enter restrooms and assault someone if they really want to and sexual predators arent transitioning to get more access to women. Trans women also experience a high proportion of sexual/physical assault from men, should they be asked to enter a potentially dangerous situation? Is 1 trans woman a threat to a bathroom with 3 cis women in it? Or are 3 cis men in a bathroom a threat to 1 trans woman?

Any enforcement of bathroom norms sounds more dystopian than this fiction of rampant trans sexual assault. Do you want genital checks at the bathroom door? Maybe you want to have a security detail watching people piss. Do you want trans people to be reported to the authorities for using an enclosed stall alone?

I wrote that comment and I don't want to make speech illegal I want acknowledgement that speech can be harmful and allow communities to self moderate if they are threatened.

> The recent movement against trans is wholly due to the movements attempt to bring kids into it

Frankly this is a lie. The root of your issue with trans people is that you think they are gross. It's circular logic to say that trans adults shouldn't exist because it will encourage my kid to grow up to be a trans adult. It's like saying that you don't want to live around Atheists because you want your kid to be Christian, fine enough but you can't stop people from being a thing you don't like, and your ability to stop your child from being it probably wanes earlier than you'd like.

> Stop doing that and no one cares about drag queens anymore.

no yall will find another reason to demonize trans people because you actually don't care about safety you care about your delicate sensibilities. It's a witch hunt and drag shows are the current "spell"

Where is the line with where one persons existence affects children? Sure your libsoftiktok "citation" is an example of an entertainer being too lewd for the audience but in no way does an entire demographic need to take the fall for a cherry-picked example of lewdness. Also who gets to decide what is too lewd? Do you want to give the government that power? Should it be illegal to show your kid an R rated movie? Is it the parents responsibility or the production team of the movie? Or are movies and movie likers at large to blame? Is a trans person going to the grocery store a danger to your kids? Is telling kids that trans people exist a danger? Where is the line between telling kids that its ok that some people in the world are trans and turning kids trans?

IDK Maybe we should also not tell our kids anything about "traditional" gender norms lest we anger any indignant parents who might agree/disagree that girls should have aspirations beyond motherhood.

> Trans people are for some reason the only large visible group yelling that speech is violence and saying mean things about them should be illegal.

this in an incredibly disingenuous take. Who is trying to make saying antitrans things should be illegal? last i checked trans people were still trying to access affirming medical care and not be attacked in the streets. If you are referring to like pronouns/names, I still think you are being disingenuous. I think right to self determination is a meaningful thing to fight for, you can argue that one persons request to be called by their chosen name impedes on your speech but i think you're wrong.

> I don't really see F2M people doing it

This is actually a really interesting phenomena! It does have to do with existing double standards in how society treats men and women. The fact is a lot of trans men either have an easier time passing bc masculine aesthetics are easier to adopt or they are dismissed because they aren't seen as a threat by people who think a penis is the thing that makes you dangerous. Of course trans men have their own battles but they largely aren't being branded as a sex offender for existing in the way that trans women are. Also they absolutely are fighting for the same rights, it may seem quieter because the popular culture war talking point is specifically about drag queens. I don't think the media has figured out how to villainize trans men.

> Stop asking for special treatment.

Every minority group fighting for their rights has been told this

this is the most disingenuous response i've ever seen

you could have said "I know you are but what am I" and it would've been easier and have the same effect

nuance is dead and internet comment sections killed it

> Why?

why are you compelled to respond to me? why do you listen to anyone? why speak at all?

> No speech can ever suppress that of others

Only if you believe that no one has ever changed their behavior after recieving a death threat. Or if you want a more subtle example, try talking to a minority group about microaggressions and what situations they feel safe to speak freely in. If you are in a minority group but don't feel oppressed in that way, I'm sure you have a peer who does.

> how do you feel about the developers of Hogwarts Legacy?

Truly a nonsequitor but since you asked nicely: the developers were paid to do a job, no shame in that. JKR is a bigot who filled that world with inescapable racism and the design lead ran a youtube channel that pushed some bigotted views about feminism and "sjws". Im too exhausted to care who plays it although personally think its easier on the conscience to not. Reviews are fine, but if you wanna talk about separating art and artist and media crit's place in that, its a long nuanced discussion

I think that's my main frustration. No discussion of free speech is ever allowed to be nuanced. Disagreeing with Free Speech absolutism is impossible to argue with because to say that "sometimes bigotry should be discouraged" is seen as an affront to the idea of speech itself.

I wrote a long thoughtful response to this but then YC crashed as I tried to post it. The gist was: Im not offering a solution, I just want some acknowledgement that there are harmful voices. we can bicker about who they are, but we need tools for dealing with them. And no the government shouldnt be the ones to wield them.

Also your tangent on liberalism is gibberish