UtopiaPunk

I think becoming proficient in some form of artistic expression is very helpful for achieving self-actualization.

My biggest frustration, currently, is a lack of time and energy to devote to my creative projects. I still give them some time, but between a full-time job, child care, and other day-to-day responsibilities, it is not as much as I would like.

My wildest hope for society in my lifetime is that we will experience dramaticly shorter work weeks. Keynes predicted 15 hour work weeks by 2030 or so. If I could afford a modest life on only 15 hours of labor, and devote other time to family, friends, and art, I would feel so amazing. I'm skeptical of the claims of AI, but a society where a shorter work week is the norm would turn me into its biggest fan.

Anyway, despite my frustration, the time I spend with my creative projects results in my greatest self-satisfaction, after the time I devote to raising my children. And the creative outlets I pursue today are directly related to the artistic skills I developed in my youth (including music). So yeah, it probably won't pay the bills, but there's much more important things in life than bills.

I'm a staunch leftist and anti-capitalist, so I think I sort of understanding where you are coming from with the question.

If "the state" is indeed a tool used by "the people" to accomplish the will of the the people, then sure, I think nationalization of large, nation-wide or world-wide corporations is probably fine and good. But this requires a totally different world order. It's hard to imagine something called the USA as participating in such an arrangement.

I don't think a "less corrupt" USA government is one that should be taking over the likes of Google, however. Even the more polite version of the USA is one that dominates the world through military force and local communities through a surveillance apparatus (see Flock now, but basically every town in America gives half of its general budget to the police). The data that Google holds needs to be regulated by the government, not handed over to the government.

There's no particular reason why the USA government (or some other country) couldn't spin up its own new search engine service that provided something akin to 2010 Google search, with no advertising to boot. There's no political will to do something like that, but that seems much more imaginable than nationalizing Google/Alphabet, and I think perhaps still entertains your hypothetical.

You should pick up a collection of Frog and Toad stories. I read them because I have little kids, but they are genuinely great little with stories. The stories are simple, but it is amazing how well developed the two characters are, and how they play off each other in different situations.

Arnold Lobel is also just very funny. Grasshopper on the Road made me laugh out loud the first time I read it my kids. The opening story about beetles that love morning ("The Club") feels so timely.

Lol, I grew up in a place with miserably hot and muggy summers, but I was very self-conscious of my skinny legs because someone made a weird comment one single time, so I almost never wore shorts through all my teenage years.

I eventually got over that, but now I live in a much cooler climate where shorts aren't really expected, even in the warmer seasons, and I'm grateful because I do feel more comfortable with pants (and long sleeves, for that matter).

Different strokes/neuro-eccentricities for different folks!

Ugh, my little kid talks to me like this.

Let's try again. What's a nicer way of saying that?

How is technology adoption in education not political?

LLMs are also more flattering

Copyright is broken and needs major reform, but copyright must exist in some form as long as we are operating under the current economic system. If we want a society where some people have the job of creating art, then they must be compensated for their art. The leverage that artists have to demand compensation is controlling who access to their art. Said another way, the artist owns the right to make copies of their art. That is protected by law.

I think copyright as it exists is abused by large companies and stifles culture. Broadly speaking, I think copyright should be a much shorter term, lasting more like 20 years rather than the 100+ years that is typical (life of the author + 70 years). The exact term is debateable, but the purpose should be to allow the artist sufficient time to monetize their creation for themselves, and then allowing the art to belong to the broader culture. There should be a worthwhile financial incentive to create art.

My utopian dream would be a radically restructured society where we do not expect people to have "artist" as a career. Instead, people would work 15 hours a week doing the work that must be done to contributue to society. The compensation from that 15 hours of work guarantees all their needs to live in modest comfort. People then have more leisure time to pursue whatever they find self-actualizing, which for many will mean creating art and sharing it with the world.

The artist still owns their right to distribute their videos. If someone copies their videos and uploads them to a place with no ads or no patreon subscription that eats into the profit the creator of the art could be making, because someone else is essentially giving it away for free. Only the artist has the right to copy their art.

If they are in the public domain, they could publish them. How many books are in the public domain but have never been digitized and shared in a public archive?

And if the books are not in the public domain, then they should not be allowed to train their AI models with the material without some kind of license or agreement with the owner of the copyright.

This page provides a great overview of several popular translations of The Odyssey. It lists line-by-line translations as well free translations: https://readtheodyssey.org/best-odyssey-translation

I don't see this happening, but I really wish that the Mastodon model centered on joining your city's local Mastodon server. Your server is centered on local people and local conversations. Maybe one would find this local community sort of annoying, but it would be at relevant, at least some of the time.

From there, you can connect with other individuals on other servers with similar interests or whatever. But your online identity would be rooted to where you actually live.

Time to move to a new city? You just migrate to a new Mastodon server. Makes sense.

As it stands now, Mastodon servers are primarily centered on some kind of shared interest, but I don't think that makes much sense. I am a person with many interests, so which do I pick? Over time, I might gradually lose interest in a subject, or simply prioritize something else. Do I leave that old server? It seems like a hassle to move, but it seems weird to stay. The result is that Mastodon servers seem so arbitrary, when they should be really important.

Other servers could still exist for the misfits or for people who otherwise find their city's server objectionable. But I think a city being the "default" option would make a lot of sense.

Have you tried Bookwyrm? https://bookwyrm.social/

It uses ActivityPub, so you interact with Mastodon and stuff, if you are into that.

Does anyone here handwrite a blog? I've been thinking about doing that, but I'd be interested in how people accomplish it. Personally, I'd like this to be a hobby that gets me away from screens, so I'm looking to focus more on handwriting and minimize how much I'd need to interact with a digital device.

"Paper Website" seems appealing, but I haven't tried it yet: https://paperwebsite.com/

If you want to hear the difference between an audio file recorded at 44.1 and 88.2kHZ, then you need slow the audio playback down. Otherwise, a trained ear cannot physically hear the difference.

I agree, legal immigration is much too difficult and I think that's awful!

Are you proposing a different solution? Or are you content to be a cynic that does nothing?

The USA has never had a leftist president. No president of the USA has ever sought to end capitalism.

I think you know that, and that you are alluding to that with quotation marks. But I'm not sure how the person you are replying to is using the term "left." I feel it is important to clarify when discussing how the Left views immigration.

Clarification aside, I agree with what you said.

I don't want to speak for European countries. Never lived there, and I think people living there should be responsible for deciding how they navigate such issues.

In the USA, where I live, there is not much of an ethical or cultural defense to prevent immigration. The dominant culture, white people, are themselves immigrants. To deny others the right to live and work here is selfish at best. If some people are allowed here and some people are not, the only logically coherent next step is to return all land and resources back to Native American hands. If we do not have the stomach for such a bold transition, then the next best thing is to welcome everyone. To do otherwise means allowing and denying people a life here on extremely arbitrary, hypocritical reasons (and usually racist reasons, frankly). So, at least in the USA (and I believe more broadly, North and South America), the political Left must necessarily be pro-immigration if they wish to be anti-racist.

Speaking even more broadly, Leftists have generally be in favor of internationalist cooperation (a la the famous song The Internationale). But how exactly that relates to immigration policies is debatable.

Sorry if I'm being dense, but what parts of the USA? Or, I guess more specifically, what is it that you are needing to clear?

Is your point that taller trucks and SUVs provide considerable benefits over shorter ones? What are those benefits?

Or do you mean simply that trucks and SUVs, regardless of their height, provide benefits? I don't doubt that and do not mean to imply otherwise.

Ugh, ok. Most people do not need one.

I'm not sure what the need is for a very tall pickup truck that can also hold a family five? But maybe there is one. Perhaps there is also a need for an excavator that holds a family of five, idk. If a real need is demonstrated, then sure, please do not ban the manufacturing of an excavator that has the necessary hook-ups for modern child carseats simply because I, a commenter on HackerNews, made a statement that was a little too sweeping for the needs of past, present, and future human beings on Earth and across potential settlement across the universe and dimensions beyond.

But most people do not need a very large truck or SUV. Vehicles with hoods closer to the ground and better lines-of-sight are safer for those around them, while having practically no impact on the utility of said vehicles as they drive on roads and highways in the USA.

Nothing in the article is suggesting that we do not need cars and trucks.

It does make a compelling case that specifically large trucks and SUVs are causing preventable deaths. And I certainly find no reason that we need very large trucks or SUVs.

I think society only works in a high trust society. Well, maybe something exists functionally in low trust society, but it sounds miserable.

Is the concern that we'd marginalize parents and kids? As a parent of little kids, that's a concern that wasn't even on my radar. I had no idea that that was a major concern of people. Wild. I'm not saying it is a fabricated or unfounded fear, I just don't have that concern at all for myself.

As a parent of little kids, I worry much more about them living fulfilling lives as they grow up in the future. I'm concerned about climate change, wars, and an economic system that will allow them to live self-actualized lives. I have no doubt that the population number plays some factor in that, creating problems that must be solved. But ultimately, humans have created amazing technologies and the Earth is bountiful. We can support whatever number of people is on the horizon (whether that number is larger or smaller), but society must choose to do so and adapt.

My greatest fears are that governments and corporations consolidate their wealth and power to only an elite few, bending society to serve that elite. That is a fear exists regardless of the fertility rate.

I think Charlie Chaplin's speech at the end of The Great Dictator is relevant and inspirational: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7GY1Xg6X20&t=2s

Thank you for sharing your article. It's from a view so unlike my own, and it's been eye opening.

"Might makes right," you know?

I personally control my life by spending almost all of my income, after bills, towards expanding the elaborate tower-defense-like automated weaponry on my plot of land. If I must leave my fort, I always drive my T-34 into town (I'm saving up for a Sherman).

If anyone is interested in their own tank, this is a fun little listicle of what is possible: https://militarymachine.com/military-tanks-for-sale

Two points on that: 1. This would require hardware to be affordable by mere mortals. That hardware is not financially beyond our reach yet, but AI is making the cost of buying good computer parts very expensive. The big corporations are working against the goal of local LLMs in a major way just by soaking up most of the hardware on the market. And I don't even think that's intentional - they're just too hungry to consider otherwise. They can pay high prices where normal people cannot.

2.Local LLMs would have to be designed to be very convenient to use. As it stands, the big players are making their online models very convenient instead, and that let's them charge a subscription. It's a proven business model that our society has gotten used to (even if we grumble a bit). Even if the hardware were cheap, local LLMs are mostly for businesses, with a few hobbyists running it in their basement because they can.

It's extremely hard for me to imagine local LLMs being a threat to the powerful in any way.

"With luck, it might even help us find methods of reducing their influence and power."

If it started to look like that might happen, the ones with influence and power would adjust the AI behavior. They own and control them.

I understand that the war between Russia and Ukraine, and now Iran and Israel/USA has set back the slow progress that was being made on nuclear disarmament. I don't understand your claim that nuclear disarmament caused a war, though.

Maybe I'm a big idiot, but I think nuclear disarmament is a good geopolitical strategy. The USA has treaties in place pursuing that end on a global scale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_disarmament