Hacker News: downWidOutaFite

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "They see your photos"

downWidOutaFite — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 07:24:59 +0000

My real problem is with the claim that they have a mandate to tear the government apart. That's not what they told voters during the election. They don't have a mandate for that.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "They see your photos"

downWidOutaFite — Sat, 14 Dec 2024 22:48:51 +0000

No it isn't. A democracy only works with informed voters. The amount of lies and obfuscation spewed by Trump's campaign is a successful attempt to deliberately break democracy. They don't have a mandate to do much besides mass deportation because they didn't talk about firing the entire federal workforce during the campaign. Project 2025 does talk about that but Trump lied during the campaign and said he disavowed it.

I think oligarch Peter Thiel gave away the game in this clip at 3:26 where he says "you can make pro Trump arguments but that's the democratic question"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luTHVKFi3dc&t=3m24s

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies"

downWidOutaFite — Sat, 14 Dec 2024 06:33:21 +0000

The public option in 2009 would have helped, let the profit-skimmers compete with the government program and prove that they really can deliver better service while taking their 20-30% cut. But the "free market" captains of industry are liars, they say that they want competition but they don't, they want market manipulation and safe cozy profit margins.

It's funny (not funny haha) how Democrats always seem to have a few undercover sabotagers in their ranks that get elected having lied to voters and then undermine Democrat's agenda, Lieberman, Manchin, Sinema, now Fetterman.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "The world of tomorrow"

downWidOutaFite — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 08:29:16 +0000

There's plenty they can do. For one, control all your media (for example banning of tiktok, since chinese oligarchs are not aligned with our oligarchs), with control over media they can prevent your message from getting out (e.g. Luigi Mangione's manifesto being disappeared), or if the message does get out they can spread propaganda to turn the population against you (see, BLM and many other movements). Also they can remove all your privacy so that any subversive action has a high social cost such as losing your job. Also they can overspend on a stifling police state even as surveillance and control tools get better and cheaper.

Really, they're getting better and better at this, they have tons of practice and their population control tools are getting better.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say"

downWidOutaFite — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 08:01:48 +0000

I don't expect that rule to survive. Last time trump took office he went on a petty vendetta through all government departments to try to undo every little thing obama did.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "Mysterious New Jersey drone sightings prompt call for 'state of emergency'"

downWidOutaFite — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 22:56:04 +0000

Israel has been mounting guns and speakers on long-distance quadcopters and shooting at Gazans. Only a short time until that tech becomes widespread. Israel seems to be a proving ground for mass population terrorizing tech like this. I'm having a hard time seeing how society is not going to devolve into capitalist tech fascism as we lose all our privacy and tech becomes more powerful than our governments, aka the will of the people.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "From where I left"

downWidOutaFite — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 06:47:53 +0000

I hate that people feel the need to so strongly attach the generic term open source to Open Source InitiativeⓇ OSI Certified™ license's marketing (anti Stallman) propaganda as the one and only true open source. Redis' license is open in all the ways that matter.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "Save Music, Save the Archive"

downWidOutaFite — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 06:10:35 +0000

Probably less than 1% of musicians make any real money off of selling licenses to their copyrights.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "A critical history of the FDA"

downWidOutaFite — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 22:28:55 +0000

The question is if i'll he able to get it. I wouldn't be surprised if all vaccine development is defunded. And HPV specifically since christians have a weird hate bonner against it.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "A critical history of the FDA"

downWidOutaFite — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 10:43:23 +0000

Agree. These dangerous conspiracy theorists will soon be tearing our FDA apart. I just got my latest covid shot and pressured my doctor to get my 10 year old daughter's HPV vaccine a bit earlier than recommended to get it in before our vengeful extremist billionaire overlords take over. God save us all.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "The 70% problem: Hard truths about AI-assisted coding"

downWidOutaFite — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 07:31:02 +0000

I think the tech chauvinism (aka accelerationism) comes from the crypto-hype era and unfortunately has been merged into the culture wars making reasonable discussion impossible in many cases.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "The 70% problem: Hard truths about AI-assisted coding"

downWidOutaFite — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 07:27:48 +0000

There was a step change over the last few years but that rate of improvement is not continuing. The currently known techniques seem to have hit a plateau. It's impossible to know when the next "Attention is All You Need" will materialize. It could be in 2025 or 2035.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley"

downWidOutaFite — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 09:05:56 +0000

I disagree. There's no principle involved. It's all polarized partisan politics. Your "particularly dysfunctional" is extremely in the eye of the beholder. The rich and powerful silicon valley CEO/VC guys tearing the country apart over their woke crusade are just as ideologically irrational as the next twitter blue check.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "’Brain rot‘ named Oxford Word of the Year 2024"

downWidOutaFite — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 08:02:33 +0000

Just do what we've done since the dawn of time: hang out with friends and family, prepare and eat food together, maybe play card or board games. It feels good and it's good for you.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "Who Is Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky?"

downWidOutaFite — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 23:52:03 +0000

I think they are wrong. We are fleeing X because a lot of right winger's mental model for appropriate political discussion with liberals is mostly mean trollish harassment, purposefully putting people down and trying to make people feel bad so they can "drink liberal tears". It's not good faith counterpoints. Avoiding that is not censorship of ideas.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "Who Is Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky?"

downWidOutaFite — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 23:44:58 +0000

If you want to be catered to as a right-leaner you can just stay on X.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "Bluesky is currently gaining more than 1M users a day"

downWidOutaFite — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 20:18:06 +0000

Ads are the only price most users are willing to pay.

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "Maybe Bluesky has "won""

downWidOutaFite — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 01:50:04 +0000

So Gab, Parler, Truth Social, etc were all left-leaning?

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "$8k Suzuki from India received a 5-star crash test rating"

downWidOutaFite — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 09:43:10 +0000

It feels almost selfishly evil to buy cars that increase your safety at the expense of others. It also promotes a race to the top, bigger and bigger cars over time, which is indeed what we have seen in the US market over the last 30 years. Does SUV safety ratings include the likelihood of killing others?

New comment by downWidOutaFite in "M4 Macs can't virtualise older macOS"

downWidOutaFite — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 17:01:02 +0000

Or any interest in reducing the incentives to buy their $200 Bluetooth headphones.