cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
1mo ago
Why only visit certain countries?
Why only be in contact with certain governments?
Why only now and not earlier?
cjet79
1mo ago
Was playing around with chatgpt. Got it to write an article about "Say goodbye to Say goodbye to [thing]"
I was crunching it into smaller sizes, and then getting it to be more insulting. It started adding ads between sections at one point. The ads were funny, I asked for more ads. It delivered:
“Tired of being tired? Try UltraSleep Pills – because apparently, eight hours just isn’t enough anymore.”
“Want to lose weight without trying? MiracleShred—because working out is hard, and this bottle promises to do it for you.”
“BrainBoost+ – Turn those foggy thoughts into slightly less foggy ones. Results may vary, but hey, you clicked, didn’t you?”
“Improve focus instantly with ConcentrationMax—for when reading past the first paragraph feels like climbing a mountain.”
“Feeling sluggish? InstantEnergy Gummies—because chugging coffee is so last year.”
“Procrastinator’s Fixer – A pill that probably won’t make you more productive, but it’s worth a shot, right?”
“No time for the gym? AbFlex 5000 – Get ripped while binge-watching Netflix. Science says it’s impossible, but the ad says otherwise!”
“Want to skip the effort and just look smart? Try InstantIQ Glasses—because it’s all about appearances anyway.”
“MiracleFocus Supplements – Stop forgetting why you walked into the room... most of the time.”
“PenultimatePenisPills – Say goodbye to disappointment with this one easy trick.”
cjet79
1mo ago
I think you are espousing the normal take.
My main counter to that take is that they are just not effective. The good ones give the appearance of effectiveness because that is how you get more money and resources.
There is no need to get rid of them. Something can be negative, but the costs of dealing with it are far higher than just leaving it alone. I think that is the case with think tanks.
cjet79
1mo ago
I think they are starting to suffer. but I doubt you are satisfied with how much suffering and how fast it is happening.
A bunch of people did not trust the results of a major election in 2020. I'd say that is largely a trust issue brought about by the fact that many important institutions are clearly captured.
State legislatures have started banning DEI at universities. Next step is for them to give up entirely and start just cutting funding to them.
Many social sciences have reputations in the gutter because they spent too many years ideology focused rather than rigor focused. Psych, Sociology, etc.
Climate science is not trusted.
News orgs are hated.
cjet79
1mo ago
To be clear, I wouldn't wish them away if it was an option. Something can be negative but the overall correct solution is to just do nothing about it.
cjet79
1mo ago
I think the inside view for a lot of these people paying the tax is that it feels about as "voluntary" as actual taxes. Many of them have a sense that their political opponents pose a credible threat and danger to them and theirs.
I think ideologically capturing professions is short term gain for long term cost. These institutions will cost off their reputation for a time, and then everyone will learn to discount their value as neutral organizations. And their funding sources will start drying up.
cjet79
1mo ago
I believe it is a race to the bottom type of situation. If the other side has ideological Institutions then you need their own to counter them. Wokeness came from ideological universities, and a bunch of orgs had to pop up to defend against it.
My point about these organizations being bad is that the woke fight might not have happened at all. There was a lack of things for leftist organizations to gather on. So they invented one.
cjet79
1mo ago
Ideological Institutions
The other day I was explaining my understanding of think tanks to a younger friend. They had a reaction of "no way!? Is that really how they work". This is the most common reaction, followed by "yeah of course that's how they work, why are you telling me this like I'm stupid?"
The purpose of ideological Institutions is two-fold:
- To be a standing army of sorts for a particular ideology. That way anytime a new issue comes up in political discourse there is a ready and willing group of people willing to advocate for the ideology. I'd sum this up as "political coordination".
- To extract funds and resources from wealthy people of a particular ideology. I'd sum this up as "a tax on political beliefs".
These may sound like they are at cross purposes, but they are not. A successful think tank does both very well.
Some of you here might have the immediate complaint somewhat along the lines:
Universities can also be ideological Institutions but they don't have their people paying a tax on their beliefs. But this isn't true on two dimensions:
- Tuition costs for parents and students. Some of the most clearly ideological small liberal arts colleges are private and very expensive.
- Ideologically captured departments within universities also impose a cost on their graduates: 4 years of their life and a useless degree.
I think the existence of these ideological Institutions has had an overall negative effect on American politics. Similar to news organizations they benefit from ongoing political conflict.
But they are also a necessary set of institutions for balancing out democracy. They act as a way for people who care and hold strong beliefs to feel like they have more of an impact on politics than their single vote would normally allow.
cjet79
1mo ago
I like STE more, but that is going to be personal preference.
Helldivers is 4 people. Most of the STE matches are 16 (but they also have a single player campaign, and a 4 player game mode)
Lines of sight are much further in STE. Bug corpses can pile up.
cjet79
1mo ago
Starship Troopers Extermination came out of early access.
There is cross play with consoles.
A galactic war that everyone is a part of.
A new ice map.
It's been hella fun playing with a group of other players that have organized into a military structure.
I'm a corporal and usually I'm in charge of a squad.
There have been some growing pains and problems with the game, but from my experience in alpha I'm pretty confident they'll get ironed out.
cjet79
1mo ago
They might not care either way. If they only talk to or visit the people with control of the nukes, then the secret is secure that way.
cjet79
1mo ago
I mostly agree with your viewpoint, but the alien enthusiasts have a simple explanation for the visitation pattern: nuclear weapons.
This would also explain ongoing secrecy about Aliens. If the Aliens have any degree of control over nuclear arsenals, then part of the illusion of world powers is shattered.
I do think we have had unusually good luck in that nuclear weapons have been used exactly twice in a real conflict and then never again.
cjet79
1mo ago
First one was just a simple table. Haven't built any charts yet, but thinking about Tableau because one potential gig I know about wants to use them
cjet79
1mo ago
I was thinking more public policy oriented data sets. Right now I'm looking at using TaxFoundations state tax data, that might get me some interesting stuff. I also know a potential contractor position where I can help someone create table or chart to display homelessness across different states.
cjet79
1mo ago
I lost my job this Monday. Officially my job was outsourced to contractors. But I feel the bigger problem is I had no political cover.
I have a suspicion that the contractors that replaced me might have paid off an employee on the inside. It feels so paranoid to say that, but people also told me I was paranoid 9 months ago when these contractors were hired. Once I was kicked out and the contractors were in the employee that I think they paid off left the same day.
My initial emotions were close to relief. The axe that was hanging over my head finally dropped. Now there is some mix of anger and resignation. I feel like I am often on the losing side of office politics. Some of my anger has me wanting to get back at the organization's president, I've heard rumors of him being an unwitting Russian or Hungarian asset. Which would be funnier if it wasn't so real.
Doing alright now, thinking of doing contracting work in the near future.
cjet79
1mo ago
I built a state tax burden calculator with react.
I was thinking I want to build more little form and graph things, but the main limitation is data, anyone have any good clean datasets they know about?
cjet79
1mo ago
Simple economics.
Labor unions compete with compete with non-union labor.
You can compare the economic effects of most unions to something like a plague that kills only teenagers or inexperienced workers.
Any employer in that situation would try to keep their current employees, possibly pay them more, or provide other non-monetary side benefits to keep them.
But there is an obvious loser in both situations: the teenagers and inexperienced workers.
An anonymous online forum would actually allow the teenagers and inexperienced workers to anti-coordinate with the striking workers. What's a great time to walk in and get a job ... The same day half the workers are no shows.
cjet79
1mo ago
There was at some point issues like that. Nowadays its more true that if something is releasing radiation, it can be used as a nuclear fuel source.
Similar concept with engines and biofuels. Early engines and modern hyper focused engines need clean perfect fuel for burning. Then along comes the diesel engine, and the fuel requirement is instead more like "will it burn". My loose understanding is that modern nuclear plant designs are closer to diesel engines.
Storage of nuclear waste fuel is not difficult, unless you choose to make it difficult. Which is what the environmental lobby has been trying to do for a long time.
cjet79
1mo ago
The political problem with Nuclear shows one of the main problems with democracy.
When downside risk is a single major event, and not lots of spread out minor events than it becomes a lot more important in people's minds. Even when the costs of the minor events adds up to more than the costs of the major event.
This is clear on a bunch of metrics with nuclear, where the radiation released from a nuclear plant is less than the radiation released by a typical coal fired plant. Other metrics like deaths, safety incidents, spills, and particulate pollution are all the same.
cjet79
1mo ago
They will often tell us why they have left, and none have given us that as a reason. Usually it's complaints about low quality comments that don't quite break the rules, but are bad enough to annoy them when aggragated together.
Im fine dropping this, I did feel like new things were coming up.
cjet79
1mo ago
The mods all talk. Netstack ask us to come by and check this. And noticeably Netstack only said not to do it. Which is basically the minimum level of "mod action" that we can take. It is impossible to be softer.
I don't think as many people would be apprehensive about it if every time this came up there wasn't a cadre of posters making it sound like we have super strict requirements for top level posts.
Doing it after we have warned you not to do it isn't treated very well, but same with most rules.
I have a good computer.
There are a lot of minor bugs.
Some of them are even silly, like a problem where the melee weapon became affixed as a bayonet to all weapons, the Engineer class has a shovel melee weapon. The engineer whipping out their sidearm pistol has a shovel attached to the front that lengthens the weapon by about 80%.
There are major bugs. Matches being broken and kicking you out. Crashes to desktop in the middle of a match. Social settings being broken and making cross play difficult. Etc.
Overall I am having a lot of fun. And it doesn't feel like dribbles of fun that im constantly seeking out while being blue balled by bugs constantly. I can consistently get two hours of good experience for every game breaking type bug I encounter.
That kind of bug experience is just not acceptable for a lot of steam users. I don't really blame them for that opinion. Its just not my opinion.
You'd have to ask yourself how much you are bothered by problems in a game. If you feel you are easy going and might laugh off minor issues, and easily get past major issues then I'd say the game is great for you. If major bugs infuriate you, then definitely skip this game.
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