My position is I would rather pay for 50 years of Artemis missions that never leave the ground than spend one more fucking dollar attempting to slow the descent of the American empire, or that of its colonies.

This was inspiring and amazing to watch. Actual history being made. Competence displayed proudly. No culture war bullshit. No insipid speeches by dullards about REAL AMERICA. Just us doing something because we can, and with plans to do even more.

I get annoyed enough when software I use changes arbitrarily in ways that don't benefit me, I can't see LLM vibed software that changes itself based on what it thinks I need being an improvement at all. It just feels like it would be even more annoying.

There’s no reason I really need those four different apps on my phone with a login and ads and tracking and 100 page terms of service.

Claude can write them for me today. It’s be even better if I just ask my phone for them and they pop up in a couple minutes.

* People elect morons because we have been slowly destroying our education system since the 50's and we can barely turn out anyone who can think worth a shit. That's by design, as local elections overwhelmingly swing Republican, and Republicans on balance gain from an ignorant electorate.

* Additionally, we are now bombarded with "information" from wake to sleep every single day, and beyond the actual problems which are already stressful enough, we also have a whole bunch of made up culture war nonsense that mainstream and alternative media loves to discuss, both to fill airtime and because researching and covering nonsense is far less work, less legally actionable, and garners more attention overall. Information overload affects people too and makes them more likely to choose easy/quick things.

* Dark money is also a HUGE issue because it permits capital to influence elections like never before. It's no coincidence all of this shit got turbocharged after Citizens United.

* Gerrymandering is also a huge, huge issue wherein Democrat votes are simply disregarded or packed into single districts, which helps local elections shift further right constantly.

* The courts are also hideously corrupt. The Supreme Court is utterly failing to reign in the Trump administration on everything short of wiping their asses with the constitution, and that's not shocking considering how many of them were appointed by Trump and confirmed by the inept Congress.

And then any time Democrats do manage to acquire something resembling power, they have so many fires to put out that they can barely get us back to an even keel before another "outsider" dumbass comes in and starts screwing it up again.

Then in 2008 Mitch McConnel said, literally to reporters, "I will make Obama a one term president" and declared their job was to not let the government do anything.

And just like that, it became Republican Party Doctrine that you do not cross the party line or else you get fired. This was absolutely supported and highly praised by their constituents! As Democrat politicians continued to work their assess off crossing the aisle, finding any way to keep the country functioning as half of the government declared strike (the irony).

But for some reason we aren't allowed to say this. Republicans directly say their plan and strategy and malice to the camera and we get punished for showing their voters exactly what they vote for.

Democrats are still trying to make deals, because half of them are literally just republicans with a (D), but if you ever ever ever ever cross the aisle as a Republican, even to fix a problem your base has spent decades screaming about, you get primaried.

Republican voters have done this. The republican party has chosen to do this. They own this.

How is electing Trump any different than George Wallace having a slogan of “Segregation Now! Segregation Tomorrow! Segregation Forever!”?

There was no ignorance. Everyone knows that the government has a “monopoly on [legalized] violence”. If they can elect people who will turn that violence against people they don’t like, they are doing it with full knowledge.

Voting based on who the (to be) elected hate instead of on actual policy is ignorant towards the serious matter of the art of leading a state (politics). Being malevolent regarding politics would be to sabotage elections or trying to dissolve state organs.

Cars come to mind instantly. Prices exploded in 2020/1, due to legitimate shortages, most of which have been plus or minus resolved, but the prices for new (and used!) cars never came back down.

Also the cost of shipping never came down and lots of cars and/or their components need to cross oceans. Plus we have a new energy crisis...

For example many attribute rise of totalitarianism back then in 20th century to the power of broadcasting radio and "formation of mass society". We have a similarly transformative factor now - social media. And with the new tech power - propaganda (sounds dated, today it is more like mind control) through social media and total surveillance plus AI "minority report" - we can get a hyper-totalitarianism orders of magnitude more totalitarian than those of the 20th century. And may be we're witnessing the birth of such a new world order.

However there is revolt amongst a good chunk of the fractured coalition that barely brought Trump into office.

Trump's Epstein coverup and sheltering of Ghislaine Maxwell took off the shine with a large number of people. The ghastly behavior around the deaths of major figures takes off more. Exempting producers of the pesticide glyphosate has taken off most of the MAHA coalition. And then, of course the wars, when he promised not to launch any and accused his opponent of doing exactly what he's currently doing...

It remains to be seen just how permanent this is, and whether the post-Trump US can be reattached to reality instead of reality TV, but I use hope.

I'm frankly far more concerned that the Republicans lose next election, and we get Democrats in power who then prioritize "getting back to normal" and once again utterly failing to hold accountable the utter BUFFET of mediocre wannabe dictators who brought us to the brink already.

I also hope. But I'd be lying if I said I thought it was rational.

"Our" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. There were many "ours" whose ways of life, governance, and society were destroyed on the road to making the Jan 6th thing possible..

It's crazy that you continue to push this narrative despite the entire "Russia-Gate" thing turning out to total bullshit oppo followed by Trump being currently at war with one of Putin's allies and having jailed another.

The evidence supporting this claim is what, he wasn't nice to Zelenskyy that one time (despite still financially supporting Ukraine in their war against Russia)?

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...

These are authoritarian countries. Meaning that they don't have an official ideology, the real one that has people willing to die for it. If anything, they are focused on suppressing people and keeping them passive.

Iran is a notable exception here. They _are_ a totalitarian theocratic state, and this makes them more resilient. They are not governed by a single person but by ideology, even if it's unpopular among the people.

Authoritarian states are fragile in comparison. They struggle to survive the removal of their leader, especially the ones that had governed for a long time. The long-time ruler inevitably becomes the arbiter between the elites, a focal point of their undercover agreements.

And once the ruler is gone, the elites are now faced with a new round of struggles. So the smarter ones decide that perhaps it's a good idea to have some kind of collegial power, where people can discuss their disagreements rather than shoot each other. This usually results in the country becoming milder and not so carnivorous towards its citizens.

The USSR was a good example. Stalin died, and his successors decided that a new Stalin was not a good idea. Instead, they gave power to the Politburo, where the General Secretary was "the first among equals". The USSR did not become a human rights paradise afterwards. But it never had any more mass purges, deportations, or mega-projects built with slave labor of GULAG inmates.

Russia is totalitarian today. It transitioned from authoritarian to totalitarian slowly starting about second half of 201x and very quickly down hill during 2022 with the introduction of all those "discreditation" laws and the likes and especially with extreme hardening of application of such laws.

>Meaning that they don't have an official ideology, the real one that has people willing to die for it.

That is the point. In a contrast to being just a kleptocracy for the first ~15 years of Putin, Russia does have such an ideology at the state level today - "Russian world" (known outside as "Russian fascism" - "rushism") with Ukranian war (where at least several hundred thousands of Russians have already died) being one of the real-world implementations of that ideology.

It's really not. There is no ideology. There are no mass rallies in support of the government. No official sets of books, there's no "My Struggle" by Putin that everyone in the country needs to have.

> That is the point. In a contrast to being just a kleptocracy for the first ~15 years of Putin, Russia does have such an ideology at the state level today - "Russian world"

Not really. It's trying to do that, but it looks comical even for people inside Russia. Even true believers in "Russian World" are now either dead or silenced. Russian government systematically punishes _any_ true belief.

Another example to watch is Venezuela. I predict that it'll slowly transform into being a more open country, with at least some electoral freedom. It won't become a liberal democracy overnight, but it won't be completely authoritarian for long.

That was electoral event with mandatory presence. This is nothing like Stalin's rallies where people themselves organized and attended, e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC6bzBTmmhU

> new unified history textbook. The "Talks about Important" school ideology lessons. Putin's propaganda article on Ukraine history (of course no relation to real history).

Yup. They are _trying_ but without at least semi-coherent ideology, it just looks comical. I suggest reading that textbook, it's just trash. It's badly written and is just a collection of unconnected facts. All it can teach is the late USSR norm: "Say what they want to hear, think what you want, and do what you actually need to do".

There can be no ideology in an authoritarian state, ideology binds the leadership. Khomeini in Iran can't just go to a gay party or eat during Ramadan. Putin (and his ilk like Maduro) does not want to get limited in any way.

> the foundational ideology of a fascist state is "interests of state trump any and all rights/freedoms/interests of an individual"

If you want to talk about fine details of political science, then fascism is not necessarily totalitarian. It can be practiced in a far-right authoritarian state. Nazism is indeed different, and it _is_ a totalitarian ideology.

Nazism had its foundational work ("Mein Kampf") and a doctrine fortified by a set of "scientific" proofs of German superiority. And they had plenty of true believers, including the actual core of the Nazi party. It also imposed binding restrictions on everyone. For example, nobody in the Nazi party could (openly) marry a Jewish person and expect to stay in power.

Putin doesn't want any of this. He loves that one day the US is the enemy number one for him, and the next day Trump is his best friend.

> The state TV openly talks about "Ukrainess" being a brain decease needing eradication (reminds a lot how "Jewishness" was talked about back then in Germany).

Yes, and these TV channels now have less popularity than gardening channels. This is another point of difference. In a totalitarian state, the ideology must be, well, _total_ and omnipresent.

The Russian government is trying to make sure the war stays as invisible as possible. Try to find any mentions of it here: https://yandex.com/maps/-/CPVwbS-t

> It definitely lost any chance of being even remotely comical when they actually declared and started that eradication in 2022.

Unfortunately, you don't need ideology to wage wars.

> State ideology never requires true believers.

It does. And that is the true difference. A significant part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran really sincerely believes that they're fighting for Islam. It's not _just_ a way for them to get into power to run protection rackets.

Nobody knowing anything about Russia would make such a gross mistake like you've just made. It is like you'd be discussing physics problems while not knowing Newton's laws.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_Russia

"Television is the most popular medium in Russia, with 74% of the population watching national television channels routinely "

As it happens you just don't know what you're talking about. Most of the other things you said about Russia is similarly just incorrect. It looked strange to me how and what you've been arguing about, and in good faith i thought that we're discussing while each being well informed, and may be you just have different opinion/view and may be a bit less understanding and information than me. Well, it happens you just don't know basically anything about Russia. In such a case instead of arguing, you should just look for and consume the information, and not waste other people's time with uninformed arguments.

I'm Russian with parts of my family in Russia.

> It is like you'd be discussing physics problems while not knowing Newton's laws. > "Television is the most popular medium in Russia, with 74% of the population watching national television channels routinely "

Yes, and according to MediaScope, a company that tracks the TV ratings in Russia, "Evening with Solovyiev" is at the 78-th place: https://mediascope.net/data/

You might not know this, but Russia still has multiple TV channels, and people can (and do) switch between them.

This is both good and bad news. Good news is that there are very few actual rabid nationalists in Russia, and once the war is over, Russian population will gladly return to normality. The bad news is that the war will be over only once Putin dies or is deposed.

>"Evening with Solovyiev" is at the 78-th place: https://mediascope.net/data/

again, it sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. Have you ever watched the Russian TV in recent years? They repeat the same stuff with slight variations again and again. It doesn't matter whether it is Soloviev today or Soloviev yesterday or Skabeeva or Sheinin or any other spawn of Goebbels there - they all would make him proud - their message reaches everybody in Russia.

I'm not addicted in any way to an automatic car. I prefer an automatic car, because it's easier to drive than a manual car. There have been numerous studies already into the problematic nature of AI addiction, and calling it simply "progress" is denuding the experiences of tons of people who have been harmed, up to and including dying, as a result of too much AI use.

> But the invention of the plow did not, in fact, make us lazier or stop using our brain.

No but industrial farming practices are not an unalloyed good either.

> But none of us have "lost" the ability to go backwards if we really wanted.

I mean, we kind of have in a few ways, at least insofar as the AI boom is concerned. I can't have a version of Windows that doesn't have copilot in it. I can't have Microsoft Office without Copilot. I can't have Photoshop without generative AI features. Like, say what you will about the AI doomsayers and yes, even this one I think is overstating it a bit? But the AI push is relentless. It's everywhere, in every product, all the time. Last time I was at Home Depot I saw an AI powered microwave for fucks sake.

And, that's not to say there are no problems at which LLMs are good solutions, but it isn't this many. I use Claude to generate code, usually boiler-plate type stuff or to help me solve problems, and it's legitimately quite good. Conversely, generated images and video have always, always looked like absolute shit to me. Generated music is... okay? But as a consumer I barely have a way to choose a non-AI future if that's what I want.

> You can finally ask a computer to think and solve problems, and it will!

Sometimes. Other times it tries for awhile and gives up. Other times it makes some shit up that would solve your problem, and Omnissiah be with you if you follow those instructions. Other times you argue with it for 10 goddamn minutes because it doesn't comprehend your instructions.

> If somebody finally came out with a fusion reactor tomorrow I would half expect people to suddenly come out and say "Oh, I don't think I can support this. What about the soul of solar panels? I think cheap electricity is going to make things too easy."

That is flatly ridiculous. LLMs do a lot of interesting things, that I will grant, but they are not the problem solver you're pitching them as, and certainly nothing like a Fusion reactor.

Exactly what I keep coming back to.

For me, it feels like you could cut this problem down substantially by eliminating section 230 protection on any algorithmically elevated content. Everywhere. Full stop.

If you write or have an algorithm created that pushes content to users, in ANY fashion, that is endorsement. You want that content to be seen, for whatever odd reason, and if it's harmful to your users, you should be held responsible for it. It's one thing if some random asshole messages me on Telegram trying to scam me; there's little Telegram can do (though a fucking "do not permit messages from people not in my contacts" setting would be nice) but there is nothing at all that "makes" Facebook shovel AI bullshit at people, apart from it juices engagement, either by genuine engagement or ironic/ragebaiting.

And AI bullshit is just annoying, I've seen "Facebook help" groups that are clearly just trawling to get people's account info, I've seen scam pages and products, all kinds of shit, and either it pisses people off so Facebook passes it around, or they give Facebook money and Facebook shoves it into the feeds of everyone they can.

It's fucking disgusting and there's no reason to permit it.

I don't see a good way to make a definite legal distinction between the icky stuff versus normal an unobjectionable things which are, technically, also forms of elevation-by-algorithm:

    rank_by_age(items) // Good
    rank_by_age_and_poster_reputation(items) // Probably   
    rank_by_on_topic_ness(items, forum_subject)
    rank_by_likes(items)
    rank_by_engagement_likelihood(items) // Bad?
    rank_by_positive_sentiment_toward_clients(items) // Bad

    rank_by_age(items) // Good
    rank_by_age_and_poster_reputation(items) // Probably   
    rank_by_on_topic_ness(items, forum_subject)
    rank_by_likes(items)
    <-- here -->
    rank_by_engagement_likelihood(items) // Bad?
    rank_by_positive_sentiment_toward_clients(items) // Bad

Poster reputation is deterministic. How many times has this poster received positive feedback based on their content?

On-topic-ness is deterministic, if a bit fuzzy. That said I think the likes will reflect this, if you post a thread about cooking potatoes in the gopro subreddit, your post will be downvoted and probably removed via other means in which case it's presence in the feed is already null.

Likes are again, deterministic. How many people upvoted it?

In contrast:

Engagement likelihood is clearly a subjective, theoretical measure. An algorithm is going to parse a database for other posts like this, see how much attention it got, and say "is this likely to drive engagement." That's what I'm talking about.

And positive sentiment towards clients I can't quite read? I'm guessing you're referring to like, community sponsors but I'm not 100% certain. But that almost certainly is a subjective one too, and even if not, it's giving people with money the ability to put their thumb on the scale.

> On-topic-ness is deterministic, if a bit fuzzy.

If you permit that exception (even for good reasons) then it reveals how the original "algorithmic elevation" is too vague and unenforceable.

All someone needs is a ToS footnote like "this forum is provided for truthful international news and engaging with $COMPANY in a positive way." Poof, loophole. Anything the moderator (or moderator-algorithm) decides is "untrue" or "negative" becomes off-topic and can be pushed down.

Yes. People make free speech arguments about this, but the list and order of stuff returned by algorithmic non-directed (+) lists is clearly a form of endorsement. Even more so is advertising, which undergoes a bidding process. Pages which show ads should be liable if those ads are fraudulent, especially if they're so obviously fraudulent that casual readers suspect them immediately.

(+) Returning a list of stuff in a user-specified query, on the other hand, is not endorsement. Chronological or alphabetical order or distance-based or even random is fine.

Note that section 230 is, of course, US specific and other countries manage without it.

I've heard it's pretty good for fixing video playback/rendering (e.g. cutscene) issues if both the stable and the experimental branch of Proton can't make it work.

[1] https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom

So aside from the stuff that has been implemented differently, running Proton instead of Proton GE is like trying to game on Windows N editions.

[0] https://github.com/Open-Wine-Components/umu-launcher

I absolutely love my Ally running SteamOS. Incredible work by... everyone involved, really.