beloch

Up here in Canada, we've seen vet clinics rapidly go corporate in the last couple of decades. Even ignoring prices, the degradation in the quality of care offered is stark. Vets working for corporate clinics are heavily micromanaged. They get less time per animal, are pressured into certain diagnoses and prescriptions, etc.. A lot of us now refuse to take our pets to clinics that aren't owned by the vets working there. Unfortunately, in many places there aren't a lot of options.

To put humans through this kind of misaligned system is the stuff of nightmares.

At least they haven't relaxed restrictions on sulfur dioxide emissions, etc.. yet. Making rain acidic again would be completely on brand for this administration.

Those people run stalls at fairs. The amount of slop I see at fairs is really on the upswing.

At a certain point, pottery that looked like a child made it became the high end, because well-executed pottery was coming out of machines.

We've officially reached that point with advertisements. Save your tokens. Hire your 9-year-old niece to draw the poster by hand and you'll likely get a far better reaction from most people. Nobody goes to a fair because the poster had a "modernist / Bauhaus-influenced graphic style".

Sometimes intelligence "finds" evidence that suits political goals. e.g. You want to invade a country but are having a hard time convincing allies, getting UN approval, etc.. So, you let it be known to your spooks that you're not going to look too closely at their sources if they could just, pretty please, find something/anything juicy right bloody quick. The WMD evidence for the second U.S. invasion of Iraq was likely a case of this.

Then there's old-fashioned F'ups that don't fit your political agenda and are often quite damaging and embarrassing, not to mention lethal for people who don't deserve it. e.g. The U.S. used AI tools meant for rapidly picking targets in the middle of a war to plan their initial strikes on Iran. They had time to double check everything and do their due diligence before striking, but they didn't. So, a school next to a military base was targeted and a lot of kids died. This was a genuine F'up resulting from relying on a tool meant to give rapid but merely okay target selection under time pressure when there was no time pressure. The real mistake was made by humans.

The current case of the mistaken nuclear weapon parts shipment seems like an old-fashioned F'up, updated for the times. The people who didn't simply trust the tools and actually double checked should be commended. Others in their situation wouldn't have. I fully expect AI will be scapegoated for a lot of similar F'ups in the future even though it's still the responsibility of human beings to use ethics, caution, and restraint. AI doesn't get fired. Doesn't sue. It's actually pretty awesome for taking the blame.

When the Carney government decided to let a small, capped, number of Chinese EV's into Canada's auto market, it was clearly meant to send a message to Trump. Namely, if you succeed in destroying our auto sector, we'll drop all tariff's and import bans on auto's from abroad so de-Canada'ified American autos will have to compete on a level playing field for what is, currently, their #1 export market.

Instead of treating this concession like something that could be negotiated away at any moment, BYD is going hard right out of the gate. Even Tesla only built a small and inadequate charging network in Canada. If BYD builds a more substantial charging network while they have the access, that access will be much harder to take away. It would go from a potential negotiating chip to something Canadians won't want to do without.

Like a car accident that prompts you to start commuting by bicycle and gets you into the best shape of your life.

This is going to be the hardest lesson of Trump's ridiculously sheltered, silver-spoon life. I suspect he'll fail to learn it:

Shut up. Just shut your mouth.

The U.S. has a long history of easily pushing Canada into new and more disadvantageous trade agreements. There's usually not much you can do when the 800 pound gorilla takes your banana. However, this time around, Trump's constant yapping about annexation and economic domination have given the Canadian government something they almost never have: A strongly unified Canadian public that wants them to push back for a deal that's actually fair. Canadians are so fired up that signing even a marginally bad deal would spell certain doom for the Carney government.

If Trump had just kept quiet on the Canada front for the last year and a half, we'd likely have a new trade deal signed that set significant tariff's on Canadian goods in stone. Now, mainly thanks to Trump's big mouth, what is typically a snooze-worthy affair for most Canadians is a dire matter of national sovereignty. The Carney government doesn't even have to ban goods to push back. Canadians are boycotting American goods all on their own!

Now Canada's leaders are doing formerly unthinkable things at unprecedented speed because Trump still hasn't learned to shut up.

Trump needs to just close his mouth. His incoherent lip-flappings are only hurting himself and his nation. Does he really think these threats will have any impact on Canada-EU relations other than to drive them closer together even faster? What a fool.

Consent makes all the difference. Trump's talk of forcing Canada to become the 51st state via economic pressure stiffened the spines of Canadians and made it impossible for the Carney government to accept the same sort of deal other countries were getting. At the same time, it made closer relations with Europe look like a solution.

The reality is that the joining the EU as full members involves too great a sacrifice of sovereignty for middle powers like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, etc.. Brussels is too far away and the EU itself barely functions with the members it already has. There is, however, broad will among middle powers to work together more closely than they do now. This associate EU member thing needs to strike a balance where countries who join it can cooperate and contribute without feeling like the EU is becoming another U.S..

Carney has said Canada is not looking to become a "member" of the EU. Meanwhile, "associate member" is an entirely new thing that has yet to be defined. These aren't incompatible statements.

It appears more accurate to say that Canada and the EU want to work together more closely than they do now. There will be something more than CETA. Perhaps more shared standards on food, etc.. Likely more military procurement cooperation. Perhaps something akin to NATO style military cooperation, just in case NATO implodes*. Perhaps there will be some cooperation in trade disputes as well.

I suspect there is recognition that middle powers like the EU, Canada, Australia, etc. can do a better job of cooperating without everyone joining the EU and giving up an uncomfortable amount of sovereignty. Slightly more cooperation than currently exists may be all that's required for middle powers to do a better job of standing up to the supers.

_________

*NATO imploding is unlikely, but it's always good to have a fallback.

There absolutely can be a price shock that will make current prices look economical. Oil is priced on a global market, and if the price is high enough, that might mean many Americans are priced out of some of their own oil. The only way to decouple the domestic and international markets is export and price controls. One need only look to Canada's NEP of the 80's to understand how that's likely to turn out.

Also, the U.S. is currently prosecuting a trade war against Canada that has, thanks to Trump, become a question of sovereignty for Canadians. The U.S.'s largest source of foreign oil is, potentially, one outburst from Trump away from Canada placing export duties on oil. It has been discussed in Canada, and it's viewed as an extreme option, but an option nonetheless. Trump would have to say or do something truly outrageous for that to happen, but his ability to turn allies into enemies should not be underestimated.

Bottom line, fuel could become a lot more expensive, quickly. Even if there's still gasoline to be had, it still qualifies as a shortage if it becomes unaffordable. Fuel prices affect food production, delivery of goods to markets, and pretty much every aspect of the economy.

Oil tankers travel at about the speed of a bicyle. If a price shock does happen it will last for months. If the war with Iran is not resolved promptly, this is precisely what will happen.

Oil tankers move about as fast a bicycle. If fuel prices start really spiking tomorrow and the conflict is resolved the very next day, the crisis will still last as long as it takes for bicycles to fan out across the globe. i.e. Probably a month or two. At least.

If a resolution to the conflict is not reached in very short order (i.e. days, not weeks), the crisis will be in full swing right when the midterms are going on. Of course, foresight and the ability to understand consequences do not seem to be strong points of this administration.

This just adds to the list of reasons not to accept a position in the U.S.. The U.S. is a country that doesn't want you and whose elected government is dedicated to making you feel unwelcome. The money had better be damned good to even consider it, and now you'll probably have to demand 60-days of vacation and a written guarantee that you'll be able to take it before your employment can end.

It's probably better to make a little less in a country that will treat you far better.

We should tax data.

Hear me out. Google, Meta, etc. offer "free" services to a significant portion of the world's population. This isn't charitable work. They do this for data that makes them money. Lots of money. Data has real monetary value, but governments don't treat it as such. Few, if any, jurisdictions view data exports as taxable. It's simply not tracked. If data collection isn't tracked, how can one realistically enforce privacy standards?

If we tax data, then we'll have an incentive to track how data is being used and corporations will suddenly have a direct financial interest in not just casually collecting data if they don't need to. Such taxes should be gauged to be tolerable for Google and Meta, but high enough to make companies who make their money via other avenues (e.g. Smart TV sellers) to take a pass on data collection.

Carney is pursuing what he calls "associate membership", which has yet to be defined[1]. If the EU wants to form the backbone of a group of middle powers that can hold their own against superpowers like China, as Carney has suggested in the past, they are motivated to offer a deal that doesn't include unacceptable loss of sovereignty. If they can do that, other nations might follow Canada's lead.

One thing the EU has not done is threaten to use economic coercion to force annexation, as the U.S. has done repeatedly. If becoming an associate member of the EU involves some loss of sovereignty, it will probably be less than we'd surrender by choosing not to diversify our trade away from the U.S..

___________________

[1]https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/carney-pushes-idea-ma...

This is one major reason why blocking ads is now a safety issue. If you have a family member who, for whatever reason, might be fooled by this sort of ad, install an effective adblocker on all their browsers and uninstall/disable browsers that don't support an effective adblocker.

If you are reliant on ad revenue, you should be expressing your displeasure to google right now.

It's the current CPC line of attack. A month or so ago they tried arguing that Carney, a former governor of two national banks, is worse at economics than a career politician. That didn't go well. Now they're trying to make the case that some kind of conspiracy is going on because a working agreement, which probably isn't in a neat and tidy state and which would probably embarrass and anger the Americans if released in full, wasn't immediately sent to the press.

It's the CPC's job to be critical of Carney. It's everyone else's job to decide when their arguments are grounded in reality.

Go look up what the U.S. was demanding by the end of the recent trade negotiations. They wanted Canada to give up its ability to set its own cultural and trade policy independent of the U.S.. That's a huge step to becoming, not the 51st state, but a protectorate. We wouldn't even have been the Puerto Rico of the North!

Lost jobs can be created again, but signing away sovereignty is not reversible. If the democrats take over in 2028, they're not going to give back what we let Trump take. We know that from past history. We also know, from very recent history, that giving Trump everything he asks for would likely not have spared us. If we had capitulated he'd just come up with new demands.

When your largest trading partner violates its signed commitments and betrays you, there may simply be no way out that doesn't involve some pain.

The dependency goes both ways. We could cut off potash and they'd starve. We could cut off the oil and electricity. We could cut off steel and aluminum. The response would not be pleasant, but neither can they afford to risk our response. As dire as the trade-war seems, it doesn't affect even 5% of cross-border trade. No matter what Trump claims about "not needing" anything Canada has, we are dependent on each other.

Broadening our trade is similar to building a new oil pipeline. Nobody is sure a new pipeline will ever pay for itself, but one we started a decade ago would be making us a fortune right now. Trade diversification won't help us much in the current trade war, but it could help us out considerably in the next one.

Trump is a symptom, not the root cause. He may die of old age soon and MAGA may go dormant for a few years if the midterms and/or 2028 election beat them down sufficiently, but they'll be back eventually with some other clown at the helm. Americans voted Trump in twice. They'll vote clown again, and having options will help Canada when that happens. American checks and balances no longer work. If we'd known this was going to happen ten years ago we'd be in a better position today. Now we know it's likely to happen again in another ten or twenty years, so we'd be fools not to prepare.

Doing things as we were told to is sometimes called "following tradition". Traditional knowledge can be based in superstition or valid information that's out of date, but it can also be based on things that remain relevant.

e.g. Bitter cassava is a staple crop in parts of South America and Africa. Unlike apple seeds, it contains substantial quantities of cyanide. It's a great crop because you can plant it and forget it. No need for fences. Animals won't eat it. A chemist would be hard-pressed to come up with a more effective method for removing cyanide from it than some of the traditional methods of cooking it. However, problems arise when people cook and consume it in non-traditional ways.

Traditional knowledge can be both constraining and protective. It's like a fence whose purpose you don't know. Tearing it down is a gamble. You might win. You might lose. It's probably not a bad idea to try to figure out why a tradition is there before you mess around.

LG’s Approach to Privacy

Our approach is guided by four principles:

Transparency – Helping users understand how smart TV features work and how related data may be used.

User Choice – Giving users meaningful control over optional features and services.

Informed Consent – Supporting informed decisions through clear and manageable consent choices.

Continuous Improvement – Continuously improving privacy controls, transparency, and security protections.

--------------------

Transparency:

This document isn't terribly easy to understand by the standards of traditional TV's. You have to pay close attention to figure out what is and isn't going on, and when. It also should have been taped to the front of every LG TV when it comes out of the box.

User Choice:

There is extensive explanation of how what LG TV's are doing isn't nefarious, but the fact remains that there's no switch to turn it off. Why not just put a simple hardware on/off switch on these TV"s to turn off all connectivity? Maybe some users want dumb TV's, or maybe they just don't want to worry about all of this.

Informed Consent:

Buyers apparently consented to this at the store. Now you're finally informing them. That's now how informed consent works.

Continuous Improvement:

I'll believe LG and other Smart TV manufacturers are serious about this when they add a hardware wifi on/off switch, and not a moment before.

People need light to see in cities. This light serves a function.

Starlink satellites are emitting unintended and useless EMR that serves no function. It is not necessary for the function of these satellites.

This is a money issue. The question you should ask is whether it will cost more for SpaceX to fix their satellites than it will to build radio telescopes (which are not small devices) in space. Personally, I suspect launching radio telescopes into space will not be the cheaper solution.

Ask for regulation.

If progress is coming easy and fast and you're worried about the danger your product poses, you should also be worried about the danger your competitors' products pose. So, you reach out to governments and ask for rules to constrain and slow things down for everyone, so that your company isn't put at a disadvantage for being cautious.

"War is merely the continuation of policy by other means."

"Since war is not an act of senseless passion but is controlled by its political object, the value of this object must determine the sacrifices to be made for it in magnitude and also in duration. Once the expenditure of effort exceeds the value of the political object, the object must be renounced and peace must follow."

----------

Clausewitz would have been flabbergasted by this war. If we're being overly generous to Trump, we might call it an act of senseless passion. The reality is probably worse. The U.S. still hasn't seemed to figure out what it's policy goals or winning conditions are, aside from the president's desire to be an all-powerful winner. Trump seemingly places no value on his nation's blood or treasure, so it might be a very long time before he begins to feel the effort his nation is expending isn't worth the value of his own vanity.

The U.S. needs to have its magna carta moment and reign in its mad king. Maybe that will come with the mid-terms, or maybe this war will drag on for two more years. Trump isn't going to stop it, now or after the mid-terms. As far as he's concerned, the pain isn't his.

There is an undeniable conflict between "Don't be evil." and "Evil pays.". A lot of what militaries do can be best described as the lesser of two evils. Murdering people is bad, but sometimes a little murder can prevent a lot of murder. However ethically or unethically a state uses force, there's usually a lot of money to be had in supplying that state with the means of force.

Is there room for ethics in military research and procurement? Absolutely. An AI company might say, "We will help you choose the best targets when under time pressure, but we won't provide an oracle that lets you justify indiscriminate killing of civilians." An explosives factory might say, "We'll build precision missile warheads for you, but not white phosphorous or cluster munitions, because these kill civilians indiscriminately.". People working for companies that do defence work have a moral obligation to observe how their labour is used and refuse to give it if the results are unethical. It's no different from soldiers having a moral duty to refuse illegal orders.

To answer your question, I'd say that participating in the defence industry can be justifiable if you remain guided by ethics, and unjustifiable if you abandon them for money. e.g. If you're currently doing anything to help develop the IDF's Lavender or "Where's Daddy" programs, it's pretty hard to argue that you have a functioning moral compass.

It's also completely fine to say, "I don't want to deal with moral grey zones" and refuse to work for companies that do military work. You might make less money, but you'll almost certainly sleep easier.

I'd like to think that, if I had that kind of money, I'd avoid doing so much ketamine that I fail to realize a few meters of concrete won't protect me if things go wrong. In all likelihood, tech billionaires will be the first ones against the wall.

NMS's art-style is low-detail, but highly aesthetic. It can look amazing at times, but only when you're looking at grand cinematic vistas. It rarely looks good in closeups. This parallels the game's systems in many ways.

NMS is a technically impressive game. You can build a custom-spaceship, either with the in-game editor or by importing one from outside the game, dogfight in it, land on alien worlds, etc. and that's just one of the loops. However, the spaceships you build aren't simulated physical objects. They don't even feel as substantial as styrofoam fins tacked onto a model train. There's no real challenge to flying them. They all just float through space like nothing.

The game has dozens of ways to progress, finding resources and earning cash. They're all so easy to break that you have to consciously resist doing so. Craft a few donuts and you're rich. You don't have to worry about finding buyers for your obscenely high-end pastries. The market board will buy anything at the listed price. Game breaking bugs that trivialize finding resources have been left in the game forever because the developers were afraid that some people might be upset if they actually had to grind for resources. Why what is, ostensibly, a single player game with multiplayer support tacked on even has grind mechanics is another valid question.

I log into NMS occasionally, but my big problem with it is that it's gameplay devolves into a sequence of grinds that are all optional. The things that should offer a challenge (e.g. ship combat) don't. Every play session becomes a case of, "Where do I find this stupid mineral I need to build an upgrade that will make what's already too easy even easier?".

The technology on display in NMS is absolutely impressive, but the gameplay isn't. I'd love to see a fork of this game where they focus on more challenging gameplay with less focus on grinding and sandbox elements. I see the expeditions as an attempt at this, but they don't go far enough.

"A common response is “if they truly believe this, why are they still building it?” At OpenAI, many have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes. At Anthropic, the stakes are well-understood, but they are locked in a race to get there first - they believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk."

------------

This is very similar to the race to create nuclear weapons. The Axis and Allies both realized, at roughly the same time, that it was possible. Both had programs to build one. Both knew the other side had programs, but they weren't certain how far along they were. So, the Allies devoted astounding amounts of resources to get there first while sabotaging the Axis's attempts. They knew the result of their efforts would be terrible, but they felt they had no choice.

A key difference between then and now is that THERE ISN'T A FREAKING WAR BETWEEN THE AXIS AND ALLIES. If one company loses, some billionaires bank account numbers don't go as high as that of some other billionaires. That's it. They're rolling dice with the planet for bank account numbers that won't even matter if they F up.

Am I the only one who thinks this is astoundingly, gobsmackingly stupid?

A trade (money) deficit is a goods surplus. The U.S. is getting more stuff than they can make themselves because the world likes to invest in the U.S. and American consumers are still confident enough that they're not socking away savings. Only if Trump succeeds in driving away foreign investment and shaking the confidence of American consumers can he reduce the trade deficit. That won't be pleasant for Americans, but Trump sure seems to be off to a solid start.

I've commonly seen this trade war called "purely random", or the result of Trump holding a personal grudge against Canada. However, the most convincing argument I've seen (and I wish I could recall the source) is that Trump is simply playing to his base.

Blue collar MAGA workers have seen manufacturing jobs slowly bleed to other countries over the last few decades. Nevermind that the U.S. have moved up the value chain while this has gone on, or that the same thing has happened in Canada. It's not about logic. It's about pain and (perceived) revenge. Blue collar MAGA workers want to see other countries punished, regardless of whether they're punished along with them. That's why Trump goes out of his way to humiliate his allies even though it puts him at a disadvantage in negotiations. (If this trade war were purely economic, Carney would have an easier time backing down and giving into demands. As things stand, he has no choice but to dig in and fight.)

If you buy this, what MAGA wants is to punish anyone "not us". It's not about economic gain. It's not some well-reasoned desire to redress past grievances (Canada has lost jobs in the same way, and probably more to the U.S. than vice-versa). It's purely an emotional desire to inflict pain.

A more disturbing question is: "Why is Trump alienating independents to cater to a shrinking hardcore MAGA base?". He can't win elections this way. This does, however, maintain a fanatically loyal base that's willing to do unconscionable things for their leader.

___________

Disclosure: I'm Canadian, not Conservative.