I am so stoked and appreciative to see so many great projects underway in the EU. Bad for the US right now but good in the long run.

Then we agree. (👁 ͜ʖ👁)

I agree that Valve shouldn’t get a free pass but at the same time, an enemy of my enemy is my friend. So long as they are developing GNU+Linux and enabling people to move away from Microsoft, they have my support.

That said, I fully understand that Valve is doing this out of self interest, their interests may change to be counter to mine.

I think it is unfortunately all cops. I’m not even ACAB.

A police officer may be a good person, and a police officer may be a good police officer, and no matter the case, a police officer may do good things, if we are lucky. The role grants privileges, explicitly or otherwise, which can easily be abused. Cops are an instrument of the government, primarily concerned with law enforcement and working closely with prosecutors to find citizens guilty. They are not required to enforce laws, or provide public safety, so this allows for selective application of these responsibilities.

They are not inherently good or bad, more a necessary evil, and they should never be trusted. Interact with them as little as possible, watch them closely when you see them interacting with the public. In some cases they’re good people doing good work, great. Not all the time, sometimes it depends on the person, the circumstances, or both.

I’ve heard Fedora is looking to integrate AI into the OS.

While I hope they take the opportunity to think about this decision and do it wisely, I have little faith. Investors are foaming at the mouth for AI integration. It’s like, the noodles are definitely not done on this yet and investors want to have the first noodles to the market so the marching orders are for every two noodles you see throw one and see if it sticks. You end up with a kitchen with uncooked noodles all over the place and you’re slipping over them and it’s slowing you down and you’re running out of noodles in the pot so you have to add more and this makes it even harder to to find one of the more cooked noodles but the investors are whipping you to find the perfect noodle as they have a full erection and a crazed look in their eyes.

Sorry, got carried away.

Not every hallucination is generated by an LLM.

It’s not just Indian. There’s an Ethiopian church down the street, every sunday our block is full of Teslas, two of them are cyber trucks. So weird.

You’re saying “there’s a reason reputable economists say”, as if there aren’t reputable economists also saying something else, like “tariffs are a tool and predicting impact is difficult if not impossible due to complexity”. So, whats the point in mentioning that “reputable economists say” unless you’re pandering to an appeal to authority. Economists are just people and can make mistakes, entire groups of people like “reputable economists” can have the wrong ideas at the same time, or collectively jump to conclusions. I don’t care what economists say, I care about why they say it and if it makes sense. Your point is “there’s a reason why” and you load this with “reputable”. How do you qualify reputable and what is the reason they say? Could they be wrong and if not, why is there an economy at all?

Engineers make mistakes all the time too. The idea that an engineer can’t be wrong about engineering and a layman can’t comprehend even intuitively understand engineering concepts is exactly what an appeal to authority is about.

I’m having a hard time connecting what you’re saying and my point. I also don’t really care what economists are saying, I don’t automatically assume economists are correct because they are economists. I understand tariffs are not good, which is why I said “ultimately”, and nothing that you have said yet has changed that opinion, but I am open. I didn’t even disagree with many of your statements I just didn’t see how they connect.

Google “byd china car sell at a loss” and “chicken tax”.

You will see price wars or the race to the bottom in the auto industry and you will see how tariffs on imported cars are one way we have protected domestic manufacturing.

Well the console example demonstrates long term payout strategies. Another example is in free to play games with microtransactions. You develop a game at a cost, you give it away for free, and you hope that it’s good enough to hook people and get them to spend on “hats”. It’s a lot of money up front to make more later.

This assumes the local product wasn’t already cost competitive. If they are close and you slap a tariff on the import that adds further incentive to pick local. Assuming local would capitalize on the added revenue via reinvestment/expansion, it would create jobs and more demand, may even make the product or services even more affordable.

I thought it was targetted but again in California its all items sold are taxed and some at a higher rate.

I’m glad you started your dissertation with “the way you x is via y” because it immediately informed me that I was reading the work of an expert genius and as a smooth brain, when a genius writes, I read.

One question, wouldn’t higher prices on imported cements sort of make local cements automatically cheaper, giving them an advantage without asking them to cut corners? In a free market you will often see a “race to the bottom” on goods, whereby manufactures and producers will cut costs so low that they lose money, so long as there is some other incentives that would lead to profit. Video game consoles are a common example. The console is sold at a loss with the expectation that they will make up the difference on the consumables, games and related services.

If local competitors can produce for lower cost than competitors it may drive more people, who generally just want to save money, to local businesses, creating demand, driving growth.

I do ultimately think tariffs will be good for the US. I feel bad for other countries I guess, but I think the US needs to be more productive.

California, seen as a relatively “progressive” state, has a sales tax on everything, and pretty extreme sin taxes. A tariff is like a sales tax, and a sin tax on specific imports.

Persons, groups of people, governments, territories, borders, citizens, immigrants. I’m pretty sure Nazi Germany had every one of these and now that Trump is president, I’m supposed to believe that we have all of these coincidentally? Next stop: Auschwitz.

People say food is too expensive but they don’t buy rice and dried beans in bulk. The food that they eat, that’s easy to get, that they enjoy, is expensive. If it was a real problem they’d be switching to rice and beans.

Same with “i cant function without the internet raping me i have no choice”. You absolutely have a choice but the truth is, you don’t want it.

I deleted my account back in 2013. One thing I didn’t really think about was that someone else could spin up an account and pretend to be you after you leave. When I found out that someone did this I don’t think I did anything about it, I just looked at the account, cringed, and closed the window and never went back.

Regarding OP’s image…

• They make blanket statements
• They tell you what your problem is and they think they are more qualified than you, to know what your problem is
• They think they have the perfect solution for you, if only you weren’t in the way

Naturally the government they favor would have the same perspective, no?

Eh, Capitalism will do what it can to turn a profit, which includes things that are good for society. People are fucking dumb and they do not read ToS or EULA, they just sign up for “free” shit and get advertised to while companies track them, spy on them, etc.

Even when you tell people about their data, they don’t care. I literally have a shirt which reads “they sell your data” by the way, I take it more seriously, and I feel like a fucking nut. I mean, I feel like the only sane person but you know, if every room smells like dog shit check your shoes.