649 karma · joined January 8, 2022
I think I need to work up a Claude skill named marie-kondo, so that when it breathlessly presents its triumphant solution, I can go “yes, but does it spark joy?” And have it go into an aggressive refactor loop with me.
Every media mogul puts their thumb on the scale of public opinion. Broadcast media aligns and controls talking points, while new media manipulates visibility of user generated content via algorithmic weights.
I think most folks do, in fact, want to “perform a skilled role or responsibility that's useful for your tribe”, but find themselves railroaded into bullshit office jobs full of performative nonsense, soul crushing frontline service work, or body destroying blue collar work with no safety net, all of which are recipes for burnout later in life. Compare Keynes’ “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” [1] to what we ended up with and you’ll find the root of the discontent is perhaps warranted.
Though I’m not particularly looking forward to living through the decline of the empire, I cling to the hope that a post-imperial America can emerge and attempt to live up to the dream of FDR, MLK, and that Jesus guy everyone seems to like so much but ignores all the inconvenient tolerance and sharing stuff he was so obsessed with.
On the plus side, plenty of employment opportunities in the US these days. They’re offering us all the former meatbag jobs :)
It’s not that GDP is a poor measure, just that it is isolated as the only measure most policy is based on improving rather than being one metric in a portfolio of related metrics that balance technological progress, accumulation of wealth, and human thriving.
As Gary Stephenson rightly points out the culture of Economics in modern practice is not one of open query and scientific skepticism, but of proselytizing. More akin to a religion than a science.
Suddenly everyone is competing for limited slots, the minimum standard for hiring goes from high GPA to perfect GPA, any misstep in your learning process, any teacher who didn’t like you, any elective that may have enriched you personally but you weren’t particularly good add it, etc… gets distilled down into a numerical value (like a credit score) that bureaucrats treat as some sort of object truth. The ATS filters you out without you ever having had a shot, orgs optimize for low-risk tolerance individuals and organizations are starved of potential creative problem solvers and other types of change agents.
Say it with me: “Living in a police state is bad no matter who’s running it”.
- iOS keyboard doesn’t appear when it should - iOS keyboard button press detection and autocorrect have degraded badly - UI Layers are missing, misaligned, or stacked in such a way that I can’t actually interact with the element I need to proceed - mystery Internet slowdowns that resolve only after a restart - security misbehavior such as refusing to allow a usb device I’ve already approved (MacOS resets approval of my main USB hub every update for some reason)
It is clear that public schooling in the US was originally designed to build obedient citizens and efficient factory workers. Horace Mann’s love of the Prussian model, the use of bells to condition timely synchronized movement between activities, the focus on testing and measurable output, etc… All other goals over the years were half-heartedly bolted on to that structure and it’s showing its age.
Those who are fundamentally humanist want to tear down systems of oppression because it pains them to see their fellow humans abused and brought low by corrupt laws and regulations. They (perhaps naively) imagine that if the system was dismantled or at least shrunk to minimum size, basic human decency will step in to fill the vacuum and people will thrive. Folks like Penn Gillette are the face of this group.
The narcissists are drawn to the movement because they feel like “if only everyone would get out of my way, I can do GREAT THINGS™ “. They like ideas like social Darwinism because they are already privileged enough to not be worried about losing in a survival of the fittest contest, and don’t tend to concern themselves with the second order effects of dismantling the system because it is simply an immoral impediment to their greatness. Peter Thiel and folks like him are the face of this group. This is largely the strain that has taken root in SV.
I really hope there’s enough viable competition over time to keep costs down or I worry this will evolve into robo-limos rather than a nice cheap default option for areas without good public transit infrastructure. The DUI prevention alone is such a huge win.
There is the matter of surveillance though. I don’t love that I have to take their word on not abusing the cabin recordings, but I guess that’s pretty much all modern vehicles (via onStar and the like) not just robo-taxis. Pretty much every Sci-fi dystopian with urban infrastructure has that scene where the corrupt authorities have someone’s self-driving car pulled over remotely, that seems important as well given the state of things lately.
Combine this with an Apple Pencil, Pixelmator pro and Blender and you’ve got yourself a great little hyper portable game kit. Don’t think I’d do too much hardcore coding in this form factor, but if I had an existing prototype that I just wanted to tweak a bit and play around with, it seems legit.