I like that he even gives us an unusual leftist strawman. We don't think CEO's are profit optimizing machines. In fact, most leftists I know believe that if you got rid of your C.E.O. you would probably get more profit, because you don't have a 10 million dollar a year albatross pretending to work at the top of your company. What we believe is that C.E.O.'s, regardless of their intentions, are systemically forced into attempting a position of profit maximization, as will forever under a capitalist system, because that is what the system requires you to do.

Which means any and all 'socially progressive' measures they take are, whatever their intentions or beliefs about their own intentions, are ultimately for show. They went bananas over D.E.I. because it was the pizza party they give workers, but for liberals.

Truely a cursed liberal mind, if he actually believes what he says.

Also seatbelt regulations are anti-consumer choice.

Ah, our own "Tianamen Square moment" except you know, real, and the man was simply just existing.

Literally had a conversation with a guy who assumed that all roads were just paved over old 'naturally made' wagon trails, and I had to explain to him that for most American parceling, the roads usually came first, then the government parceled the lands, which is why areas without roads are usually unparceled, and that most American cities were created by proximity to either trains, harbors or highways. It genuinely escapes people that you don't build infrastructure around development, you develop around infrastructure.

Personally I also hate it because cars are effectively privatization of transportation costs. The government doesn't have to pay for your car repairs (which are inevitable given how much people have to drive), you get to pull yourself up with your bootstraps and pay for it yourself. And people wonder why this country is going to shit when there is no real support to even get people to jobs with the infrastructure we have.

School green-beans literally made me despise (like have an actual gag reflex towards) green beans until my mid-twenties when my parents got into gardening and I was presented with fresh, roasted green-beans. It's more than just presentation, the vegetables they make taste astoundingly bad.

And the applesauce they serve is usually some sugar or high-fructose corn syrup infused fruit mush.

Likely only for freshman level work. It works for short answers (sometimes) but it struggles to create coherency with anything that is mildly complex, unique, or unusual. Mostly teachers seeking to avoid it will have to start actually changing their prompts. The question is more if teachers will actually bother to do so, as they are really not paid enough to actively alter the curriculum year by year.

Of course ChatGPT isn't inherently evil. It's a tool. The issue is that we, as a society, are nowhere close to the level of social progress that is required to use these tools in a way that doesn't result in more advanced forms of oppression or ignorance.

For me, the problem isn't even one of vagaries of social dynamics and use. The problem is that ChatGPT is ultimately just a more complex, more energy inefficient, search engine. That, on it's own, isn't evil, just stupid, but in the context of a global climate crisis driven by energy usage, it becomes evil. In this context, there is very much no discernable ethical use for this technology.

Perhaps under a clean energy economy, an argument could be made for it's use, but even then, why? For what actual purpose does this serve other than as an intellectual exercise?

I agree. This is the most low-energy bat-shit insane thing I've ever read from her.

The sad thing about this is that they would be complaining about how China built too many clinics, and not enough EV's if it was the other way around. And even that doesn't make sense because cheap EV's also have an indirect benefit to public health, reducing smog in the cities.

Wow they really just seem to be doing the 'full scale model' approach to engineering. Never thought I would see that again in rocket science.

Ah. My bad. I was being overly snippy.

'Moving the goalposts' is when someone, during a conversation, rather than admitting they were incorrect about something, changes the subject to be about some other matter, as if that was the point of the discussion. Basically, it's something people do to be annoying.

I suppose the only way to assume the 'liberal vs. conservative' context is to read into it, and assume the media consensus American political context applies to it, but I personally don't do that, since we are far away from media consensus around here, I just try to read people as they say. Which you have now been doing so, awesome!

I'm not sure why they specified 'NY' either, but I don't think it particularly matters other than that the bill is clearly some sort of attempt to curry favor with those who were opposed to the Mangione killing.

Anyways. Cheers, comrade.

Technically, they are all conservative liberals (in the legislature) at this point. There was a point in time when there were radical liberals who wouldn't be opposed to a little outside the law tomfoolery.

Do you just make a habit of reading incorrect context into things that aren't there?

It is legislation being introduced and supported (colloquially 'pushed') by NY liberals, I never implied it was being shoved through committee or forced through the legislature.

Look, not to be pedantic, but you've already moved the goalposts once, care for a second time?

It is NY liberals pushing this bill though. It is specifically an American NY liberal bill.

Just because he is specifying the particular sect of capital class ideology doesn't mean he is incorrect, nor that he is specifically positing a 'liberal vs. conservative' dichotomy. You are reading that into the statement for some reason, which is outside my business.

The thing is they can keep crossing whatever red lines they want, it doesn't change the equation that it is the U.S. is fundamentally in a reactionary position to China's economy. While the financial and government elements think they have the tiger by the tail, whatever shenanigans they pull ultimately hurt the U.S. domestically far more.

When we, in American industry, lose access to Chinese inputs, we are the ones who are scrambling to fill those inputs, with suppliers that fundamentally don't exist (a.k.a. are three to four years out in manufacturing at volume, which is an eternity in business), but we still have to compete internationally with companies that do have access to Chinese inputs. Some people are conning a free lunch from China, but most people in this country are not. If anything they are in a tighter spot because China is the one paying for their lunch and if they do not, then they will starve, and everyone in manufacturing that knows anything knows that.

If the U.S. wants to compete with China at all, it will have to fundamentally change it's domestic industrial policies, and actually organize production to combat these inevitable shortages, something that it ideologically will not, and honestly at this point does not have the ability to do. Perhaps China does not want to press the 'socialism' button, but honestly, if I were them, I would wait for the U.S. to drive itself into a wall attempting to compete with something it fundamentally cannot. Let them be the ones to pull the trigger.

There is a short essay I read by someone (can't recall the name) where he was talking about his career as a newspaper editor, and that they never got more violent letters to the editor about what the writers would do to the perpetrator than after they ran a particularly nasty story about some animal abuse. People love their moral high ground.

Right! My apologies I forgot it wasn't until his son that the moniker was adopted. Mixing it up with 40k lore obviously.

The point of the book is that even the God emperor (the guy I was talking about, Paul Atriedes) doesn't get to make his own future. He gets to choose a future, which is incredibly powerful, but he never gets to make one that satisfies everything he would ideally want.

Edit: It's a subtle difference, but it is the driving problem through all of the rest of the Dune books, with future emperors growing increasingly esoteric and warped in their attempts to use spice to predict, and more importantly shape, the future, a path that Paul sees as unstable but inevitable.

Not bad for Cali. I remember when gas could be as high as 7 a gallon.