Hacker News: expedition32

New comment by expedition32 in "Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society"

expedition32 — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 19:58:05 +0000

Indeed. The industrial age led to great things to be sure but there were also 11 year old girls working in factories and families living in basements.

It took a long time for politicians to notice that Karl Marx had a fucking point.

"May you live in interesting times" as the Chinese say.

New comment by expedition32 in "Only 16 Percent of Americans Think AI Will Have a Positive Impact on Society"

expedition32 — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 19:47:32 +0000

Now you are fired by a computer not a completely disinterested person! Progress.

New comment by expedition32 in "GPT‑NL: a sovereign language model for the Netherlands"

expedition32 — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:34:32 +0000

Tech sovereignty is a response to American imperialism. It has not gone unnoticed that the White House has summoned the tech bros and weaponised tech.

New comment by expedition32 in "Dutch children are unusually happy and healthy. Because of this walking ritual?"

expedition32 — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 17:37:32 +0000

Dutch citizens tend to forget just how good they have it. An oasis on a fucked up planet. It takes hundreds of billions just to maintain it.

New comment by expedition32 in "Hetzner Price Adjustment"

expedition32 — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 19:27:33 +0000

The money always runs out. The dot com bust (Nina Brink forever!) and more recently "let's give a homeless man a 250k mortgage" 2008 bust.

New comment by expedition32 in "Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai speech"

expedition32 — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 09:31:49 +0000

The argument that all Palestinans deserve to be genocided because of the actions of a terrorist organisation is so asinine that people should be ashamed of themselves.

It is the same reasoning Americans used for their war against the Apaches.

New comment by expedition32 in "US and Iran reach cease fire agreement"

expedition32 — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 07:27:06 +0000

At least Trump knew he fucked up and democracy forced him to make a deal. A certain leader in Moscow is still pretending everything is fine.

New comment by expedition32 in "Trial of 12mph bike lane speed limit grinds gears of Dutch cyclists"

expedition32 — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 09:43:52 +0000

In most countries people use bicycles as some form of leisure travel but Dutch cycling is a need for speed!

Tourist tip if you are ever in Amsterdam: check the ferry next to the train station during rush hour. It is the equivalent of Shibuya crossing only for cyclists. Pure madness but somehow it all works like clockwork.

New comment by expedition32 in "Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes"

expedition32 — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 08:28:04 +0000

A Dutch commentator said something incredibly profound that stuck with me: Israel is a Middle Eastern country instead of an outpost of European civilization.

New comment by expedition32 in "Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher"

expedition32 — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 15:09:30 +0000

"We don't accept misleading and deceptive practices in other areas"

Religion and politics.

New comment by expedition32 in "Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows"

expedition32 — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:58:14 +0000

The lack of attention span and calling more than 3 sentences "needlessly verbose". I am just happy that I didn't grow up in the brainrot era.

New comment by expedition32 in "Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time"

expedition32 — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:55:16 +0000

I am amused about how emotional people get about AI killing people. In my mind the idea that someone sitting at a screen chosing to blow up other humans is frankly far more terrifying.

A computer is unlikely to go "colonel Kurtz".

New comment by expedition32 in "Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time"

expedition32 — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:38:08 +0000

Would this not be preferable to 20 year old kids crawling in the mud?

For all the moralising I am sure most of us would prefer AIs battling it out to enlisting.

New comment by expedition32 in "Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time"

expedition32 — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:18:04 +0000

That's because for NATO or the USSR cost was irrelevant.

The Ukraine war is a concept that was thought to be abandoned: an industrial war between near peers.

New comment by expedition32 in "Digital Sovereignty Becomes an Imperative as the US Reads Dutch Emails"

expedition32 — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:09:15 +0000

Can you run an empire democratically? Imagine if the US president instead of being a dictator had to actually spend EVERY SINGLE DAY convincing Congress members.

New comment by expedition32 in "Discovery of Cold War-era rare Eastern Bloc computers in a German hangar"

expedition32 — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 01:41:56 +0000

It makes me worried for Ukraine. I fear parts of that country will just be wasteland no matter who wins.

New comment by expedition32 in "Discovery of Cold War-era rare Eastern Bloc computers in a German hangar"

expedition32 — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 01:39:36 +0000

In my country museums have accumulated so much paintings and historical artefacts over the last 200 years that most of the collection is sitting in climate controlled vaults.

New comment by expedition32 in "Cheap Iranian drone downed $25M US Army helicopter–maybe by chance"

expedition32 — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:16:38 +0000

Friedman was right. Unfortunately the world does not consist of civilised nations trading with eachother.

If the entire world was Dutch we'd be colonising the stars by now...

New comment by expedition32 in "Why SpaceX 2040 Revenue FCST $4.3T in highly unlikely"

expedition32 — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 21:04:55 +0000

Yeah but with Starlink I can watch YouTube on a remote Pacific island! (I never visit remote Pacific islands).

New comment by expedition32 in "Meta steals a tactic from Tesla and builds data centers in tents"

expedition32 — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 19:25:50 +0000

Microsoft had a neat trick here in the Netherlands: instead of opening a new site they decided to make a their existing site higher by adding a few floors.

Ofcourse that only works once the Dutch borg adapts!