jfengel

24 ms·

571.
by jfengel 7mo ago
Yes. It was sarcasm. (Sarcasm is always much clearer in your own head than to other people reading it on the Internet. But I'm quite certain that this was what was intended.)
572.
by jfengel 7mo ago
They're not even going to pretend to pay for it. As Dick Cheney said, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." Republicans like to make a big deal out of them when they're out of power, but never do anything abou
573.
by jfengel 7mo ago
*wittingly
574.
by jfengel 7mo ago
The Ukraine war, like so many modern wars, is a proxy fight. The major powers dare not face each other directly, because that would destroy both. So everybody operates on the fiction that one side isn't really involved. Nobody knows ho
575.
by jfengel 7mo ago
The war in Gaza is over. There are still deaths, but they're the "ordinary" deaths of two countries who hate each other. Hamas is back to chucking rockets over the wall; Israel is back to disproportionate responses. https:&#
576.
by jfengel 7mo ago
Yeah. I vote for the lesser evil. My ethical status is less important to me than trying to make the world a better place, even if imperfectly. I believe that my ethical status would be in more jeopardy right now if I could have prevented a
577.
by jfengel 7mo ago
It kinda doesn't have a body count limit. After October 7, practically all Israelis (even ones who are deeply opposed to the current government, the settlers, etc) said "This will not happen again, ever. And if that means steriliz
578.
by jfengel 7mo ago
Why should anything be done? This is what America voted for. We get another vote in November. Americans can express whether they think this was a good idea or not. If they aren't overwhelmingly opposed to it, then democracy has spoken.
579.
by jfengel 7mo ago
Approval rating is different from preference, which is what the OP was talking about. He may have only a 40% approval rating, but if the approval rating of a putative Democratic opponent is lower, he'd still win an election. Of course
580.
by jfengel 7mo ago
This is the reason I refuse to refer to the Supreme Court members by their chosen title. Conversion therapy does not work . It harms children. These facts are not in dispute. Conversion therapy is not talk therapy. It is humiliation, threa
581.
by jfengel 7mo ago
Are any of them scientists? I don't recognize all of the names, but of those I do, every single one is a tech magnate. Most of them had at best one technological idea 30 years ago, and has been running the business every since. Googlin
582.
by jfengel 7mo ago
Fact checking as a separate job is more for journalism than books. But editors have fact checking as part of their jobs. (It is not copy-editing, which is a different job.) Many nonfiction authors will hire a fact checker separately. They d
583.
by jfengel 7mo ago
It does nod in its direction, though. Or at least it used to. Mass production printing was high overhead, and publishers had reputations to protect. That wasn't perfect but they'd usually try to avoid the worst propaganda. (Or at
584.
by jfengel 7mo ago
Because the edited title is incoherent and grammatically incorrect. Until recently that would have marked it as likely done by simplistic automation. These days, it's hard to tell, because humans seem more likely to make simple errors
585.
by jfengel 7mo ago
Regulation is impossible. The AI barons literally control the federal government, so not even state regulations get tried.
586.
by jfengel 7mo ago
Except this time the criminals are police.
587.
by jfengel 7mo ago
Now the "qualified" immunity kicks in.
588.
by jfengel 7mo ago
We have done quite the opposite. We have insisted that the government allow, and even encourage, unreasonable outcomes, so long as they benefit the right people at the cost of... well, if you have to ask, it's you.
589.
by jfengel 7mo ago
It's falling that people support this without even pretending that it's about something other than their hatred for you. In the past we had to pretend to be civil, and that illusion let us get back to work between elections. The u
590.
by jfengel 7mo ago
"Amateur hour" is basically their theme. They were swept in on a wave of distrust for people who know what they're talking about. They were elected to tear down Chesterton's fence, even (and especially) the parts holding
591.
by jfengel 7mo ago
Meatbags are versatile but really, really expensive. They require a really vast support system, and it has to be highly redundant because the cost of a loss is so high. You can send up a lot of less versatile bots for the price of one meatb
592.
by jfengel 7mo ago
I don't think Starship has gotten to orbit yet. It's gotten to altitude but not speed. That's a very big deal, because slowing down from that speed is a massive challenge unto itself. Orbit is scheduled for the test after nex
593.
by jfengel 7mo ago
It is. But usually there's at least a fig leaf of an excuse. Nobody can even say what it is we're doing, much less why.
594.
by jfengel 7mo ago
Maybe. It's hard to know what kind of world that would result in. I could well see it being so much less effective as to not be a problem. Or maybe they'd be even more effective, and if we caught them explicitly knowing that they
595.
by jfengel 7mo ago
I do feel as if threats to apply the crime of treason while are, if not treasonous, crimes themselves. Threats are a criminal act, and there is a long precedent to disallow "I wasn't really gonna do it" as a defense.
596.
by jfengel 7mo ago
The Constitution put a pretty high bar on a lot of things. They put an enormous thumb on the scale of the status quo, which benefits some and harms a lot of others. Especially since the proponents of the status quo get to now put their hand
597.
by jfengel 7mo ago
I was referring just to this bit of profiteering. For the administration as a whole... Honestly, as disgusted as I am, I can't think of a case where a significant fraction of the country looked at a treasonous action and said "yea
598.
by jfengel 7mo ago
"Treason" seems a bit much. We put a very high bar on that term because it comes with the most serious consequences. The fact that nobody seems particularly surprised by it suggests that the damage is long since done.
599.
by jfengel 7mo ago
Maybe governments should stop killing people over drugs.
600.
by jfengel 7mo ago
The personalization component takes this a step above. Making something very broadly appealing is one thing. Targeting what will keep you specifically from turning it off is a whole new level.

More ›