On that basis, we can just send people money and skip the job part. It's just a massive giveaway - mostly to people who don't need it (who can get other jobs).

Even saying the space program is semi-productive doesn't make sense - on that basis, the money could go to many, many places.

Economic growth and wealth - and societal investment in healthcare, education, etc. and also in science and space exploration - increases when economic efficiency increases, and that requires redirecting resources (especially money) to where it has the highest ROI. Corrupt and state-run economies are poor because resources are used used inefficiently - resources go to the corrupt or to the unproductive.

Again, I think the space program is highly productive (though of course not universally). But otherwise we should spend money where it is most productive.

All I would say is, put something on your website that persuades admins that it won't be a headache, that it will make their workday easier, not harder - regardless of benefits to overall IT goals. Maybe a 1-2-3 screen clips/animations (fantasizing a bit of the content for this example):

1 - Deploy: Add this pref to the FFE application deployment package and FFE management is deployed in every installation!

2 - Open the management console - there's the new installation, and it's automatically listed under the user/device synced from directory services!

3 - Manage: (shows user/device in a group, and a nice set of clearly defined - non-ambiguous - hierarchical checkboxes for that group's prefs).

And actually make it reliably that easy - which I know means more work on your end and isn't always practical, but it makes an enormous difference IME. Get people talking about how easy it is. Solve their busyness problem.

There is some return on that investment but it's necessarily much lower than ROI for direct investment in the needed non-space technologies. I do think there's some argument that we wouldn't spend the R&D at all without the space program, but that's speculative and still doesn't make the ROI worthwhile IMHO.

What makes the R&D worthwhile is space exploration itself. That is of incredible value itself. If you start trying to justify the cost with incidental tech development, you implicitly agree with the framing that space exploration really isn't worthwhile and needs other benefits to justify it - you undermine what you believe in. It's like humanities professors who argue that a history degree has good value in the job market - it does somewhat, but they are accepting the framing that their field and college education has no other value but early career employment and income, instead of life-changing understanding and skills (really embarassing for humanities professors who should understand framing better than anyone!).

Managing browsers - portals to almost every use and risk - is a PITA and I don't trust Chrome for confidentiality of data or users. Access to actual Mozilla personnel (engineers?) would be a big differentiator. But I wonder about a couple of things:

1) What are Edge and Safari management like? Are they competition here? If IT wants to move off Chrome to a management-friendly browser, the first thought would be the platform's native browsers which might integrate easily with native management.

2) How well does Firefox's management solution work? One-off management solutions for single applications have a bad history: They are often buggy, poorly designed (how much is Mozilla investing in UI design for this small number of users), complicated to learn, deploy (is this some sort of client-server? require another app client-side?), operate (what about WAN users? intermittent connections?), have poor features (multiple profiles? per-user or per-device? multiple users per device and multiple devices per user? group management? integration with other directory services - or do they reinvent the wheel and I need to input every update in multiple applications? multiple platforms? mobile apps?), manage (the management app needs management), etc. Does it reliably autodeploy or do I need to manually do something for each of my 10,000 users? Again, how much will Mozilla invest in this small group of users, the IT admins? I already have Microsoft's / Apple's native platform management solutions and those are enough of a headache.

I'd advise Mozilla to make it a delight for IT admins - immediately remove their fears of an additional headache in their busy days - and they will jump right in. As long as it works, I don't think users would care. Everyone, users and admins, is too busy.

It's predictable: The ROI of attacking cryptocurrencies in this manner is high enough to make expensive attacks worthwhile. It doesn't make other expensive attacks on typical end-users worthwhile, and they remain far-fetched.

Almost everyone needs a solution that allows them to send and receive communication, including using the Internet, at arbitrary places and times.

> (Cape)

Cape is cofounded by Palantir alums; national security agencies are their main market. That doesn't condemn them - and it may speak to technical chops and requirements - though people should be informed so they can make their own decisions.

> They also donate 100k/year to GrapheneOS

Their valuation, as of this past March, is $900M [0]. GrapheneOS is mostly silent about donors and any arrangments with them, afaict.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2026/03/19/ex-pa...

> research into carbon capture and other mitigations a top corporate priority

Do you have evidence? Evidence in the OP says otherwise:

"The documents include some statements which, according to the attorney general’s office, show Exxon knew that technology was also unlikely to present a scalable solution to cutting emissions.

A 2014 presentation on Exxon’s carbon capture portfolio included a slide listing challenges to reaching commercial scale. It noted widespread deployment would require a “massive investment” and an eventual storage rate “comparable to current oil and gas production.” It said costs were high and there were no market-based incentives."

Also, where are the results from this top priority of some of the largest companies in the world, with all these good-natured earnest scientists working on it?

I don't know your experience but I wish I could have gone to a serious music school even if I never played professionally. I suppose you've heard that before. A cousin of mine did that for piano - they knew they weren't good enough for the very few performing jobs in their instrument, hadn't started young enough, etc., but they pursued it through the undergraduate level and lessons beyond that. (I wasn't nearly good enough for music school.)

I was shocked when I learned about the age thing. I thought my cousin was exaggerating and asked an accomplished professional musician and teacher at a leading music schol about it. They agreed with my friend absolutely - unless someone starts as a child, they couldn't advance far enough.

It's not always simple; it's not always perfect; but practically we do it all the time as a matter of course. Everyone makes decisions like that every day; every authority makes those decisions - managers at work, politicians in hearings; the public does it listening to political messages, parents do it listening to teenagers explaining where they were all night ...

This phrase is problematic and dangerous:

A country doesn't want anything; it's not a person. People use this phrasing to claim some authority (always for what that individual wants, of course) over others who disagree - 'the country wants, and I speak for the country'.

More importantly, humans have fundamental individual rights, including freedom - again, not countries but individuals. The rights are no less because some other people don't like the individual - immunity to the majority's desires almost defines rights in a practical sense; otherwise they aren't generally needed. You can't force people to leave or to do anything else because you don't like them.

It's dangerous because it's often used to violate rights and rationalize cruelties.

There are other universal exceptions which I'm guessing you are forgetting:

  * Slander
  * Fraud
  * Treason (actual treason - e.g., passing info
    to the enemy in a war for survival)

Unfortunately, real life always has grey areas; no simple algorithm can address it.

That isn't the standard. The OP addresses an unavoidable, fundamental paradox of freedom: Someone can use their freedom to limit the freedoms of others - if we support that person's freedom, are we supporting freedom or oppression? Are we free to oppress others?

The philosopher Karl Popper famously addressed this issue. Here are a couple more ways to think about it:

* Freedom as a social contract: I support your freedom and you support mine. If I support yours and you take away mine, you've violated the contract and it's void.

* In a society built on freedom, those who use their freedom to take away others' freedom are parasites on society.

Arguably, the only speech not to tolerate is intolerance.

But that's all philosophy. Practically, nobody believes any freedom is absolute. Freedom of speech is revered and in the first amendement in the US Constitution, but nobody thinks it's absolute: you can't slander people, defraud them, threaten them, create dangerous situations (famously, you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater), etc.

* Opinions opposed to US administration policy on AI (including data centers) is called Chinese propaganda. A month or two ago, when someone tried to roll out a bunch of pro-data center opinions across the media (coincidentally all on the same day making similar arguments), they included this theme.

* Opinions opposed to US administration policy on Iran is called Iranian propaganda.

That's not really new: News reporting and opinions critical of the US administration have lead to the authors being called traitors, 'enemies of the people', and sometimes being prosecuted by the Department of Justice. Some leaders in the defense industry call critics of military spending and pro-warfare policies, 'traitors', etc.

Of course some could be, might be, likely is true. That's the nature of effective propaganda.

(A side effect of nationalism - 'nation uber alles', defining nation as 'what I believe' - is that individuals and freedom are relegated to second place or lower.)

* Due to the highly persuasive, human-like, manner in which AI output has been designed, users are persuaded to believe absolute falsehoods. As one popular example, lawyers filings with courts sometimes include fabricated citations - even the experts (the lawyers) are fooled.

* AI software is used for mass disinformation campaigns.

That's not all AI software does, but it's a significant part. You might say that the persuasive human tone is the defining characteristic of AI for most people.

You can still learn something from it: Look at what they do, not what they say - look at how sophisticated their public communication is. They deliver that information in the perfect manner - not only the redirection and striking a blow against their rival, but they use an anonymous "person with knowledge of the matter": A named source at OpenAI might betray the self-interest in the statement, but some anonymous third party is just reporting what they know.

These guys are very good at it, though that shouldn't surprise you. Look at their product, in one sense a highly effective disinformation machine.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50002073

Points: 5

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They need a head on a pike to save face for the FBI, both in front of the public and for internal credibility in government, law enforcement, and within their own origanization. Imagine how the FBI would look if they couldn't find or apprehend the perpetrators. And the current FBI - the leadership and their superiors, at least - seems much more focused on politics than predecessors.