Yup, exactly what I noticed. And I do think the content is really cool but the writing, the section titles, the entire site design, it all reminds me of ai :(
Not to say anything negative about the author though, im sure this took a long time to put together whether it was written with ai or not. But I definitely noticed those ai-isms
Maybe I’m a Luddite but I find AI prose completely tiresome to read, and its presence in an article forces me to be skeptical about whatever the author wrote. The latter was obviously a problem pre-AI but these tools simply make it much easier to tell stories, narratives, etc. that aren’t yours.
Yeah, and there is no pleasure reading this. It's way too long and verbose for what it's trying to say. I'd much rather read the prompt, in bullet points or whatever format they were provided before inflating a few example pictures and notes into a short novel
How is this criticism not just ad hominem slop? You could have said "It's way too long and verbose for what it's trying to say". The writer is orthogonal.
No it's not simple to call "he" did this. WH people, half? of the country supporting him for 2nd time, and wealthy people that donated so much too, it's never "he". Nothing big like that is one persons responsibility. Actions have cons. ?
All elected and supported, especially AFTER how he and his supports lead the so many extra deaths in covid. I know your media does not bring facts but truth is out there.
That's reasonable enough, but you have to consider it in the context that we don't vote for president, we vote for state electors to vote for president.
If you live in a 'safe' state, tacitly agreeing with your state's electors doesn't mean tacitly agreeing with the electoral college result.
If you can’t be bothered to make your disapproval seen at least once every 4 years, then I consider it a tacit approval. So that actually makes 2/3 of Americans in support of Trump’s brand of America.
I disagree with your take. You have the right to not vote when you disagree with all parties running.
In fact, from a moral point of view voting for the lesser evil is highly objectionable because you are voting for someone who you do not even support just so that another person you support even less does not get elected.
Its perfectly fine to say, I don't agree with either and I am going to sit this one out otherwise you end up in weird political dynamics that you can see playing out in real time in France for example.
If your political system does not present you with a candidate that aligns with your interests or beliefs, you should vote to change the political system. Not voting is consent to the status quo.
While I tend to agree with you in principle, that not voting is consenting to the status quo, in the US (outside of swing states) voting is almost an act of futility.
For the executive branch, the US president is not elected by direct vote, but instead by the electoral college, as enshrined in the US Constitution Article 2. The average voter has essentially zero voting influence to change the Constitution, and the plurality voting created by the electoral college intrinsically promotes a two party political system, and further political polarization. There is also a chance in some cases of “faithless electors”.
For judicial seats, while some states hold elections for state/county seats, all federal judges are appointed by the executive branch, which is therefore (IMO) essentially held hostage by the pluralist electoral college.
And for the legislative branch, candidate selection is heavily influenced by the primary elections of the two dominant political parties, before even reaching national elections. It’s also heavily influenced by campaign funds and lobbyist interests. While states have the authority to adopt alternative systems, the vast majority still use plurality voting, and the currently entrenched two-party system is incentivized to keep it that way.
So I can understand why some voters see not participating as a valid protest against the status quo, even if I don’t agree with that action.
Not voting is simply not making a choice. If the choices presented do not align with my preferences then I do not vote. Why would I vote for someone who I don't support? I don't pick the candidates that are offered. Want me to vote? Then get better candidates next time! Until then I will exercise my right to not vote.
Your status quo also assume that either one or both candidates are presenting you with potential change to what has happened in the past whereas most of the time, the choices are simply a continuation of what has been happening aka tinkering on the margins without pissing too many people off.
I think purposely spoiling your ballot is a better signal to the parties that none of them are acceptable. Is that possible in your elections? Around here, a spoiled ballot is scrutinized by the party observers, so your message would definitely be heard.
I'd love to see a ballot with ranked choice voting that includes a none of the above option.
I could technically vote in 3 countries but I vote in none.
My preferred voting system is the ranked choice one in Australia but Australia also has compulsory voting which I disagree with.
I think in a democracy, it is up to the voter to decide if and how much they want to get involved in the democratic process just like a person has the right to join or not a parti, listen or not to a political debate and so on and so forth.
I wish the blank vote was more represented in the democratic process somehow but I don't really have a solution for this problem.
In Australia voting apart from compulsory (with exemptions) as well as anonymous, so the voter is free to mark the paper such that they don't support any of the candidates and suggest what they think is a better candidate. It will be an informal vote, these informal votes are counted and published, but as I've been told, that informal vote count is then split 50-50 between the top two contenders. My locale is in an area with a high informal vote.
Compulsory voting just means that there's no space where some of the population can hop on the high horse of saying the political troubles of the country have nothing to do with them as they didn't vote. I used to work around the loop holes and got out of voting until my early mid 20s when I just didn't give that much of a hoot either way for state or federal politics.
You have the right to not vote on the moral grounds that you hate every candidate. You also have the right to crap your pants because every toilet is too dirty. By not making a decision, a decision is made for you that's worse than all of the options you could have decided between. You have the right to act in a way that causes the worst outcome to happen and rationalize it somehow as being a good person, when acting differently would have caused a better outcome to happen but you rationalize that causing a better outcome would make you a bad person. Doesn't mean it's a good idea.
It's not even the trolley problem since the same person is tied across both tracks.
This! I get frustrated when i hear folks in the US claim Trump has failed them. You failed yourselves. The system is falling apart and barely half of people turn up to participate in elections? What are the rest of us expected to take away from this? Apathy is what I take away from it, and that does not earn my trust.
The legend about the sole man in charge has been carefully crafted and cultivated for ages, but it's never the puppet and always puppet masters in this clown show.
Sadly, the way people vote is more complicated than you might believe. Trump is the symptom of malfunctioning system that doesn't give people good options in the ballot box.
I'll say something controversial: Clinton and Harris were both better options than the guy who started his campaign mocking a reporter's disability. If voters had any sense it should've ended right there.
The rationalizing, the "corrupt DNC" arguments and everything else is a cop-out.
Here's a real controversial opinion: If Clinton had won, the eventual backlash would be much greater and have elected a far more odious figure than Trump. America is lucky that Trump is kind of a bumbling oaf that channeled populist rage.
Disagree. Trump has done way more damage than Clinton ever could have. The backlash would’ve been similar to post Obama cuz the racists are also the sexists.
That kind of normalises Trump, which is totally the wrong thing to do. You should not accept this as fact, nor should you tolerate this current regime. Doing so without protest is the biggest problem you have. Your defeatism is a self fulfilling prophecy.
> You should not accept this as fact, nor should you tolerate this current regime.
Should folks who disagree with you politically tolerate the Obama or Biden regimes then? Or are the only regimes that should be tolerated ones that agree with you politically?
That explains how he got almost half the votes on election night, but it does not explain the 1/3 that still to this day support him 100%. There is a pretty substantial underlying problem in play and Trump is the symptom, but the problem is deeper than a malfunctioning political system.
That explains how he got the votes on election night in 2016. A vote for Grump in 2016 was completely understandable. But he should have plainly been a one term president, after his abjectly terrible handling of Covid (for starters, we needed leadership rather than dividership). But unfortunately in our upside-down world, Covid actually handed Grump a big excuse for why his first term was such an exercise in failure. And if there is one thing Grump is good at, it's weaseling responsibility onto others - a quality that his followers greatly admire as it soothes their own consciences as well.
> if there is one thing Grump is good at, it's weaseling responsibility onto others
That is true, I struggle to think of a single time he has taken responsibility for anything. But it works, his supporters actually believe that he is infallible and just can't get competent help. Or it's the deep state. Or something.
As an outsider is see i culture that is based on winning. Not on cooperation. That extends to politics. Were i live we are used to many parties and they must work together to form a working political system. This working together is pervasive throughout the society. This also means that individual idiots are kept in check.
It is almost unheard of in the US for an elected politician to poll lower than 30%, it seems to be a floor. This is for both parties, and all sorts of terrible behavior.
> almost unheard of in the US for an elected politician to poll lower than 30%, it seems to be a floor
Alan Keyes apparently set the floor at 27%, which is not far below 30%
> Obama vs. Alan Keyes. ... Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement.
- being a last minute insert when Jack Ryan was caught in a sex scandal (who was already fighting an uphill battle with sharing a last name with the corrupt former governor)
- being a carpetbagger (he didn't live in Illinois at any point until running for senate)
- running as a hard-line social conservative in a state where the GOP is torn between appealing to suburban Chicago fiscal conservatives and downstate Illinois social conservatives
And also being a person of colour, which is tough in the "hard-line social conservative" lane, where that is often a negative with those voters. Against another person of colour, who could pick up the other voters for whom it is a positive.
I disagree not because "brainwashed MAGA crowd" but because people saying "it can't be worse" are almost always wrong. Unless you're starving in the ruins of your house in one of the world's war zones, in which case you're likely focussed on survival, not saying that.
Pick any of the leader's third-rate third-tier henchmen or failsons for example of a worse option. Don't dismiss it out of hand.
People in the UK voted for Brexit because "well it can't be worse, can it?" They were suckers.
>> People in the UK voted for Brexit because "well it can't be worse, can it?" They were suckers.
I don't think that's true it all. They were promised that it would be better and sold pretty obvious lies. Same applies to Trump. Unfortunately the intelligence of the average voter is now at the bottom of the barrel and I wouldn't expect that to improve soon. Just look at the support people like Andrew Tate get among young people.
I am not sure why you are being downvoted, because IMHO you are correct.
If Trump was an isolated incident, sure, but he is not. In Europe the far-right and far-left parties are rising in many countries and the traditional parties are crumbling.
I think there is a serious lack of trust in the institutions and in the politicians that is spreading around the world at a quick pace and many people are just fed up with the status-quo that has been in place since the fall of the USSR.
People want change, not small marginal tinkering on the edges, they want to see that things move decisively in one way or the other and they are not afraid to flip the table and see what happens.
Technically, he campaigned on not starting new wars... so he's doing the worst combination of what he said he would do, AND what he said he wouldn't do. Amazing!
When he ran, did he say that he'd make tariff rates bounce around like a kangaroo on speed? No, I don't think he did.
Did he say that he'd threaten to annex Canada and Greenland? Not that I recall.
Did he say that he'd start a war with Iran? No, I'm pretty sure he said "No new wars."
Look, he's a loose cannon. Everyone who voted for him should have known that. But no, he's not doing "exactly what he said he would do when he ran". Some of what he's doing is what he said, and some is completely contradictory to what he said.
(Credit where due: I stole the "kangaroo on speed" line from an unpublished short story. Don't remember the author, or I'd give them credit by name.)
So what? None of this is a surprise at all, if his voters fell for his "president of peace" bit then thats on them, at minimum they KNEW they were voting for a loose cannon who had no morals, cared about himself, insulted everyone around him, had terrible monetary and international policy... He bank rupted CASINOS for gods sake. They had every sign the 2nd time around, anyone who voted for him and regrets it now mainly does so because his bad choices are now personally affecting them lets not get it twisted. They were all happy as long as "others" got owned and not them
If you vote for a man that thinks he can "grab women by the pussy" because he's famous, and then you vote for him AGAIN, you should be held accountable for everything he does. It's patently obvious he's an absolutely awful person and completely untrustworthy.
The elected official is held accountable if he doesn't do what the voters want. This one is doing what his voters want, so there's nothing to hold him accountable for.
> Anyone can be held accountable for things they are responsible for, the question is how they'll react to being held thusly.
Voters are responsible for selecting representatives, but they are not responsible for running things and making the kinds of decisions that elected officials need to and do make.
> If they could have known or suspected those things, then yes, they bear the responsibility.
In a situation like this, I like to do a thought experiment where I replace "Trump" with "Republican voter" in a headline or a story to see whether that idea holds up.
That doesn't make sense. People let other people do the dirty work. Your imaginary Republican voter may or may not be capable of some action, but if that person voted for the persons executing that action, he or she cannot disclaim responsibility for it (unless truly misled, of course). You cannot disconnect yourself of consequences you helped set in motion.
Trust in the US started to decline dating back in the Obama era when they listened to Merkel's phone etc. Trump has finally eroded what was left of it. Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe are still trying to keep a good relationship with thd US regardless, because they don't want to lose US support due to Trump's whims… err transactional diplomacy.
He opened the door, and I find it very, very unlikely that either side will close it after this. Dems and Reps will both use this to take control in ways that would have been unthinkable prior to Trump's first election. The only way to restore any measure of that trust would be to pass laws that prevent this kind of abuse, and there's no way that politicians will give up power they've gained.
They had the laws to stop him but since congress stopped legislating, it gave the supreme courts wide discretion to approve executive actions. Strong executive isn’t a flaw of the system, it’s the inevitable consequence of years of media illiteracy and vast sums of money in politics enabled by citizens united.
Passed laws don't seem very constraining. Between simple disregard and disregard plus eventual compliance after lengthy court review, there's a lot of time spent under unlawful orders and regulations. There's no personal liability for (most?) of these unlawful actions and Trump doesn't seem to care about continuity of government or having a legacy of doing unlawful things.
Impeachment could be a check on his power, but impeachment is a kangaroo court with a political jury, so he would need to piss off a lot more Republican senators than he has.
A few presidental impeachments over unlawful acts ending in conviction would change future behavior. But it seems unlikely that we'll get there.
The ideal would be that a new president is elected who uses current powers to reverse/rebuild what Trump has torn down and have their "one big bill" that Congress seems to pull off per president be a reforms package that locks in additional checks and legislative powers against the Executive. The Unitary Executive theory is the most dangerous attack on our Constitution in a long time.
On the other hand, a right-wing Supreme Court may try to block any reforms that check the Executive. The Legislature's ultimate oversight power of the Exec is impeachment, and they have decided that no amount of corruption or crime or destruction should be checked as long as it "feels right".
Respectfully disagree here. People have always hired code monkeys and arguably they will hire more of them as engineers become increasingly able to defer their judgment to LLMs. It might be true that the top level companies expect strong mental models of the code but in my experience many companies (especially startups) really just want the 0->1 ability and don’t care how you get there.
Help me understand: depthfirst seems to be bigging up their “security agent” here, but is it not just prompt engineering + writing skill files? What goes into producing a “security agent” beyond this? Feels like they’re really gussying up a process that is ultimately just LLM usage
The locust jump scare got me. Great article though - super fascinating. I had no idea an organism could effectively become a different species based on its environment.
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