The thing is, the US is so big that even once you account for the few biggest ones, all the rest of the states in the top 10 each have a population as big as something like Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, or Greece.

Those aren’t additional Frances, granted, but still pretty significant.

You’d need about 5 Frances just to cover the population, ignoring the area.

Maybe they meant the end of “the United States as we know it,” which could be right. Or, arguably, already is.

But as a lifelong resident of the US, your point about how long regimes can last is extra scary. Two of the biggest facets of this country’s identity have been that we have a lot of money/resources and that we have a lot of weapons. Plus we have our special brand of “fuck y’all; got mine” culture.

It seems like a nasty recipe for a fascist regime to isolate and turtle up and just grind along for half a century.

Even 5% per year sounds pretty reasonable, honestly.

If you are a billionaire within a lifetime, then the yearly growth of your assets has been so insane that a 5% headwind should not scare you, you big crybaby.

Or if you inherited it and don’t have a rapidly growth net worth… cry me a river.

There are some exceptions to the “no kids” rule, which I sometimes represent.

If my wife is out of town or has all-day plans with some of our friends, you will occiasinally see my son and me at the local grocery store with a small cart full of products of questionable nutritional value that seem best suited to an upcoming LAN party.

He might waste some of my time while shopping, but when it’s time to check out we usually hit a self checkout and are out of there in seconds.

I suggest we start calling this The Musk Argument.

As in, I won’t spend an inconsequential fraction of my money to solve world hunger – after I literally challenged you for a proposal to do so – because I don’t think you will be 100% successful.

Instead, I think I will take public actions to kill untold numbers of poor people around the world while I continue my quest to be the first smart boy with one million million dollars.

Oh I’m an engineer that works on physical products (embedded software) and you will get zero disagreement from me there, lol. That is the case even with expensive stuff that’s sold to other businesses rather than cheap consumer tech.

And the way I meant “better” was more like “superior specs / technically better.” I mean, as far as “good enough” and “meeting user needs at lowest cost > exceeding needs at higher cost” you cannot argue with the success of USB. It has succeeded beyond the scope of its own name.

I remember reading that one reason firewire was so great was that every device had a controller chip or something like that, whereas USB used the system processor for a lot of stuff.

So the cheaper option won the mainstream market over the better option. Now where have I heard that before other than all of the times?

Outdoor back-to-basics stuff has only proven more beneficial the more I have integrated it into my life.

Carpentry, landscaping, gardening, and taking care of my many animals all help me get fresh air and exercise in addition to whatever else I get out of the activities.

I am living the superposition of that meme where the resume or linkedin profile goes from Senior Systems Architect to Goose Farmer. My day job is software for embedded systems. At home, in addition to the indoor projects I am slowly transforming my little fenced-in back yard into a combination of oasis, hobby farm, and town from an old RPG or zelda game.

To be fair, a not insignificant portion of that ad’s target audience is probably considering impulse leasing a Volvo and showing off all of its gadgets to their friends.

Oh, my sweet summer sausage.

I say we go with fake unintelligence, so that we can shorten it FU.

If you switch the first two instances of “left” with “US Democrats” then it kinda makes sense. Maybe that’s it?

Even though it is a right-of-center party on the global stage, there are a LOT of people in the US who think the Democrats are literally far left wing, full-on Marxists. That’s what they are told by the people who engage their attention.

This situation reminds me of the realization at the end of Terminator 3. Only instead of “Skynet wasn’t hardware; it was software” the real-world version is going to be “it wasn’t intelligence; it was access. Access willfully given, in a thousand pieces, because it was convenient.”

At least with the internal thermometer you could plausibly use some kind of control loop. But all the recipes you get are going to assume a normal fixed-temperature oven anyway.

I think all the “AI” magic beyond that is a con, in the purest sense of the word. They are trying to get people’s money by building unearned confidence with bullshit.

Oh good. I was only 98% sure I was done buying consoles forever. It’s good to really know.

I might make exceptions for consoles/devices that run linux off the shelf. (I want to get a steam frame, ok?)

I’d say those things are important for a good fulfilling life whether you are in a peaceful and equitable world or in the dystopian hunger games cyber baron reality we seem to be sliding into.

So I say we lean into those values even if you think you cannot solve any problems.

You could say the same our very DNA. Natural selection provided the guard rails that shaped evolution over the eons. And you know that was on the other side of those guard rails? Blood and death! :D

That, coupled with putting a reasonable level of ass into things that actually improve your life. That does not necessarily mean increasing your money. Often the opposite!

It’s fun to stumble upon this argument subthread a day later.

Once you get to the end of the multiple-screen, several-paragraph smackdown comment with multiple actual citations, the crickets are SO much louder!

Well, if the output varies in a way you can’t predict, then even if one of the inputs is “don’t do anything negative” it might not always follow it exactly.