TimTheTinker

drugs have been making people feel good (and messing with their sense of motivation to behave responsibly) regardless of society's state

Illumos also doesn't overcommit, if you want the more modern OS descended from Solaris.

The iPhone 13 mini feels huge compared to the 4s... I'd still use the 4s if it didn't have such horrible battery life or could run modern apps.

I'm reconsidering here - there's a long distance between "someone believes in a harmful ideology" and "someone is an informant". So yes - there's ample room to talk with people.

"He who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins" (James)

I read the first few paragraphs. It's all critical race theory and intersectionality. A worldview I reject. It leads to odd conclusions like saying it's impossible to be racist against white people, or that a black person can't be racist.

That's absurd. It's possible for anyone to judge another person by the color of their skin instead of the content of their character or their actual traits. No race is morally superior or inferior (and to say otherwise is very racist).

Those happened and they were evil. I'm not arguing with that.

I reject the notion of "structural racism". That's not about civil rights, it's critical theory masquerading. It's a destructive ideology.

It teaches us to suspect everyone around us, which promotes division and hatred, not love and unity.

Racism is an individual sin that arises from the heart, and it can be repented of and turned away from like any other sin.

Do you know the definition of the word "prejudice"? It means "preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience."

You say you think a lot of my acquaintances are racist, without even knowing who I am, let alone who they are, let alone what they act like or say. That's pretty extreme prejudice.

Don't judge people before you've at least learned who they are.

What the ...? Please show me examples of this on the right, and I don't mean random nutjobs on Twitter or 4chan. That's complete insanity.

Heck no. Hitler and Mussolini were deeply evil and their ideology was too. But there's nothing like them happening today.

A racist is known by their speech or actions. Like making prejudicial comments about people of one or more other races, or demonstrating through actions that they do not view other races as equals. If someone does neither, then they're not racist.

The last people I heard do that were my grandparents - like "Did you hear? She married a black man." with raised eyebrows.

You didn't answer my question - do you have racist neighbors?

Real racists in your orbit of regular acquaintances are pretty straightforward to pick out.

Speaking from my own moral compass - I don't think there's a moral obligation to bring up politics with people I know with whom I disagree. They have their opinion, I have mine.

I think that's even true when a horrible ideology is gripping a nation. The Bolsheviks and Red Guards were not to be reasoned with by neighbors in their heyday. "The wise man sees trouble coming and hides himself."

Do you have racist neighbors? If so, I'm curious which county you live in.

Two of my grandparents were racist, but I haven't talked personally with a racist in probably 25-30 years.

If you're in physical danger, then flee. I'm not talking about that. There's a bigger reality than your street - pay attention and be wise.

But at the same time, it is true than many white kids had racist parents but chose not to be racist themselves, largely because they rubbed shoulders with black kids and learned they had a lot in common with them. Don't underestimate the power of patience, kindness, generosity, and general personability to win, eventually. It took a generation of integration before racism disappeared from most US neighborhoods.

> evil ideology

Does exist and should be labeled as such. But it's also always been a term that evil political movements use to label those who oppose their ideas.

Let the wise be discerning. Not all is as it appears on the surface or is reported to be.

> what if your neighbor's political views are an existential threat to you personally?

Then you are uniquely placed to show them you're not the baddie they thought you were. Say hello, introduce yourself, smile and wave, bring cookies or stuff from your backyard garden once in a while, be personable.

> What we used to call "politics" now encompasses some fundamental aspects

That's less true IRL if you just talk to people and be personable. There's something about seeing someone face to face and chatting that helps you intuitively understand you have a lot in common with them (or not) - and regardless of their political opinions either way.

I find that the sorts of life choices people make and the character they have as a result is a far better discriminator of what they actually have in common (or don't) with others.

> The same modularity that keeps a system inside a human’s head keeps each change inside a well-defined boundary the agent can reason about reliably.

Not only that. Good modularity also:

- improves code reusability, reduces unnecessary code duplication

- helps agents and engineers make better data model, data structure, design pattern, naming, and algorithm choices

- surfaces incorrect irregularities or outdated exceptions to a rule

- enables clean, independent upgrades of parts of a system to improve performance

- reduces stale references in code and comments (and the confusion that results, both from agents and humans)

Bad modularity is basically a summary of what usually constitutes pathological code in general, but AI systems seem particularly disposed to sling lots of it (at least humans are constrained in their output rate). How often have you tried to grok an AI-built project and found trivially unreusable code, unnecessary duplication (everywhere!), bad data structure and algorithm choices, and stale references?

Part of it is the psychology of owning vs renting. No one loves a rented house, but the landlord still wins.

> It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem.

AI can help tremendously with the initial leg-up problem of shipping a working prototype -- paradoxically, if you're willing to put in the work. That is, the right kind of work: talking to people, getting suggestions, writing all your own marketing copy by hand, creating a design that has human touch, throwing it away and starting fresh (with less genAI help) when you've learned what the real demand is for, etc.

Perhaps, but is there any modern browser name or brand that inspires the kind of fierce loyalty Firefox did 20 years ago?

It was the alternative to IE6, the first rays of dawn bringing hope to to a desolate, war-torn funereal valley of culpable corporate complacence.

Hatred for IE6 drove people to Firefox more than anything else - IE was horrible. Firefox users crowdfunded a two-page ad in the New York Times, mostly to get people to move off of IE6.

Ladybird is steadily progressing: https://ladybird.org/

Rumors of Firefox's death have been circling for at least 15 years now... somehow it's kept going despite odd incentives and bad corporate decisions.

uBlock Origin (non-lite) only works on Firefox as far as I know. Brave purportedly has a built-in ad blocker that uses the same lists, but I can't vouch for it personally.

> now fully-reversed

Not so fast. The victimhood/systemic-inequality mentality has a perhaps counterintuitive effect: while on the surface it does seem to help individuals, collectively it perpetuates an underclass.

25 years ago, no one thought twice if a minority member or person of color was in a prestigious position. Now, many people silently wonder if the desire to manipulate the distribution of various previously-protected categories contributed to the decision to hire that person.

"Among black students in colleges and universities, those admitted under lower standards face a higher failure rate and those admitted under the same standards as other students graduate with their credentials under a cloud of suspicion because of double standards for minority students in general." -- Thomas Sowell

Bingo. The Democratic Party supported slavery, and they're still at it with modern illegal immigration.

This needs to stop.

Have you ever traveled internationally? Every country I've ever been to especially in Europe had strict rules about how long I could stay.

Iceland and the UK in particular. They wouldn't even let me in at London Heathrow without a printed out return ticket (I had to run over to the British Airways desk to get a copy).

Either way - I was not allowed to stay longer than a few weeks.

That's not a wrong thing, it's very normal. If you want to stay, you have to apply for residency.

So you don't think there's any difference between

- as a citizen, being arrested for trying to leave

- as an illegal alien, being arrested for trying to stay

Those are literally structural opposites of each other.

If US citizens can expect that if they write, post, publish, or say something critical of the government they'll get arrested for it, that's the line.