480 karma · joined May 28, 2026
It feels like making these sorts of systems exist outside of the periphery would be good for everyone.
How many times have politicians for example wasted your time with promises and asks and rhetoric with no follow through? Not unlike some "stakeholders" I know. It's called "office politics" for a reason. What if they were punished for this by some system?
It feels like sitting there while stakeholders yap is not so different than electing a new rep every two years and hoping something changes. The fundamental setup is broken in a world with ever accelerating growth in complexity. Doing it in this way also would probably trend to enforcing rigor in the original ask. A big problem with stakeholders is they don't really know what they want, like politicians who make economic promises yet never show their work before showing up and asking for your vote.
The idea of cheap, modular base and a focus on user accessibility/customization is in my view a very cool and sorely needed model in an industry that looks more about shoving in features, consolidation and ever increasing costs and complexity. Not to mention the rampant protectionism in the United States because Musk is terrified of Chinese EVs.
Sounds like things to be codified in statutory regulations. I suspect some of these must exist in bills somewhere, will enjoy checking on that later. Have a good day!
One reason I hope Slate does well - newer cars have too much useless tech across the board. At least with a sports car the gimmicks are part of the appeal. Entry level new cars should be simpler, modular, and cheaper. Just let me drive and stop trying to be so helpful.
Does it not work this way? Don't the terms you sign often say something like these terms can be updated at any time? Yet they still often want you to agree to the new terms to proceed, right?
> That way if you stop using the service because of the new TOS, it actually means your old activity is still bound by the previous TOS not the new one.
Are you suggesting a statutory remedy? What is the average diff of a terms change? Are they really that meaningful? I would think the scope of what they can actually change is controlled by various other areas of law. If you don't accept the new terms are you concerned your old data is going to be used in a new way, while you remain opted out of the future? Is that actually how it works? It feels like it would not, which I gather is why they often want you to explicitly accept the new terms.
Once again it would be helpful if a specific change or event was brought up here that better explained your concerns. I feel like there are times when I am forced to agree to new terms to continue using the service, and other times where it feels like I am not. I would suspect this relates to some controlling law regarding the nature of the update itself, as not all updates are equally meaningful?
Most people don't care about the Terms of Service. Would you have a more positive assessment of the judicial system if it infantilized its citizens? If someone doesn't read it the first time or ignores an email what is the system supposed to do? Stand over your shoulder and make you read it? Do you want citizens to be prosecuted for signing things on the theory they didn't actually read them?
What number of people actually read the terms, actually read the new terms, decide they don't like the new terms, but after caring this much decide they don't want to "opt out" (I'm still not clear what remedy you want to invent for this)? Do you think this number is so high that you should be shocked that for some reason this is not a priority? I'm not even sure you've actually articulated a problem.
Is there a Terms of Service change you find particularly offensive that might better explain your concerns here? If so, I would be interested to hear you describe it with greater specificity.
Those are certainly among the most interesting engineers. For example, what were the American Founding Fathers, if not "legal engineers" (and certainly many of them were also "financial engineers", given this was one of their most pressing needs).
I guess if you find yourself preferring the status quo all the time they might be scary but given I can't think of any time in history where the status quo was totally desirable I'm not sure what there is to be scared of exactly.
Could you be more specific?
I'm speaking about the Electoral College for President, which is rather notorious for making only a small fraction of the overall electorate count.
If you care about something, take in interest in it and learn to advocate for it. Don't conflate handing someone money with making them care about you.
Do also remember though that more people are struggling than you probably realize. That includes the people you are paying. The world is not easy right now, but it rarely has been. I'm not religious, but the concept of grace does have an appeal.
Ultimately, I find thinking macro helps. Realizing it often doesn't matter or would create an unnecessary trade off can help. Advocate. But pick your battles. More and more of us are running on empty, part of taking care of yourself is learning what to care about and what to let go.
Actual expertise, competence and integrity is typically extremely expensive and hard to come by. Luckily, most cases are fairly routine that the majority of the time for the average person it doesn't really matter in the end. It's not like most can afford the best anyway.
Just take any profession that your retail consumer might get access to and the same spread applies.
On what basis are you deciding what is or isn't an issue? You think right wing media doesn't talk about DEI and trans people all day? It's like the only issue they have left to win "middle America" over on.
Who likes seeing ICE thugs round up non criminals on the basis of skin color and nationality alone? Not enough of the middle. I'm seeing more and more Trump voters saying they didn't vote for this. The presidency is won on the Obama-Trump-Biden-Trump voter not on partisans. How many of these voters have articulated the same regret when it comes his policies re DEI or trans rights?
Maybe you are projecting because it's easier to come up with an excuse based on alleged economic malaise?
When you signup to ChatGPT you agree to some terms as a predicate to access. You can also instruct them to and opt in or out of certain data sharing arrangements, violations of which I would think would (or at least, should) be punishable by law. Many of these agreements are taken quite seriously, especially in the cases of enterprises who want their chats, logs, IP, etc. protected.
Now perhaps there is already a clause in the terms I never read that says something like, "If we suspect you of plotting against our company, we may share your data with the authorities (a third party) even though we agreed to keep your data private". Or maybe under a more general suspicion of a crime, though as OpenAI is a frontier lab, not a detective agency, I'm not sure how they would make that call. Usually, those calls come from outside the house. Idk how it works. But I am far less confident than you that the instructive model here is Target. You may be right though. I simply find myself less reassured by your knowledge of Target security protocols and petty theft as instructive in this case than you are. As I say though, you may have it right.
Have a nice day.
You said (emphasis added):
> We should be careful to distinguish when credit-cards are used for credit purposes versus the common scenario where they're just the default/convenient payment method and a debit-card could substitute just fine.
So it wasn't about "credit" in the anthropological sense, as credit cards are never used in such a way. Unless you are going to suggest there is some bifurcated way of using credit cards where one offers a more "direct relationship to my community". In short, my misread wasn't as you indicated - about failing to misunderstand something about credit cards. Rather it was conflating a general sense of "credit" (such as credit cards) with what they had meant, "I'm talking about "credit" in the David Graeber sense, where people effectively just remember who has done good things for them and reciprocate, not in the modern sense of credit cards and bank accounts." - which is what you term the "anthropological sense".
So I appreciate the nudge in the right direction, but I hope you see my point given what you actually conveyed. Thanks, have a good day!
I mean in the sense of, state formation was of such significance that I don't think you can say something like "currency came first" as if currency prior and post state formation is the same thing. It feels like the same sort of "pseudo-currency" with "currency" equivocation.
So if your model is - basic credit in that communal reciprocative sense, then you start trading with more distant outgroups, for this credit doesn't work, so everyone agrees on a currency, someone off in the distance doesn't agree, then states form to adjudicate disputes.
Then it is sensible as a primitive model, but I would just merely suggest that in the same way trying to say currency comes first is kind of a blurring the meaning of currency perhaps to the point of being a stretch, I think in this case to, it will be less orderly. One way this is blurred almost intrinsically in your articulation is via the term dispute resolution process. This could mean anything. It occurs to me that outright conquest and banditry is one way to resolve a dispute. Perhaps in places were there was "spontaneous" centering around a particular currency, this sort of violence was a predicate. I tend to think the need for violence and domination (and mitigations against the same) - what I think of when I think of states "resolving disputes" - was baked into the germ of humanity much earlier than what we might term "state formation". This gets back to the "pseudo-government" point I was trying to make earlier. I think of these things in parallel, rather than in sequence. If at their core humans are violent, such that they make violence, fear violence, and seek tradeoffs to manage violence, then this violence is a driver across currencies and states and trade networks, regardless of a determination of which "came first", if such a determination is even meaningful without greater specificity.
Similarly, I'm not sure if "State formation is a consequence of extended trade networks transacting with currency, currency and trade is not a consequence of state formation" is accurate in the same way. I suppose we have to unblur what "state" means.
I thank you for the back and forth though, which I enjoyed. I feel a need to do more reading on this topic, though I would guess much of these questions are not really falsifiable, as some of the answers are surely lost to history. Thanks, have a good day!
If the implication is the Google search is an implicit confession, because in a Google search you think you are not being watched, and thus are confessing your honest desires, why would his search of love be a "claim of innocence" rather than a "confession of love"?
Sure it's evolved, but I don't see anything in your comment that really disputes the tie to force. Of course, taxation is connected to force. Additionally, as I addressed in another comment, a lack of modern "central authority" does not mean a lack of connection to "force" or violence. People can come up with distributed or atomized versions, which nevertheless arise under a similar tradeoff with respect to the fear of violence.
If so, I'm confused. Why wouldn't it matter? Wouldn't this necessarily only be the case where the Google search doesn't really matter at all (i.e. there is sufficient other incriminating evidence).
Anyway I also think you're missing what was merely meant to be a comment in jest. But now I'm actually confused what point you are trying to make.
Well I mean technically they are always for credit purposes, even if they are the "default/convenient payment method"? That's part of the advantage, but it's still credit. You get to spend and pay later. It wouldn't be a very good evaluation for credit purposes if it didn't work like credit? Or am I misunderstanding you?
It's just to say that "credit" isn't just about an in vs out group anymore than debt is. Or anymore than "currency" is? I'm not sure how the distinction you make helps clarify that question. The point is why would credit be for people you know, and currency for people you don't? Isn't credit just a particular agreement around said currency?
I'm not sure your in group/out group thing really holds up. I think of your credit/wife examples as not "credit" but something like basic reciprocity, closer to barter.
I think it's just a bit of blurring of terms. In my mind, bullets and ammo are just not currency in the same way a coin is. You can call it a "pseudo-currency" but the pseudo is kind of cheating.
I'm also not sure "There are lots of documented examples of currency emerging spontaneously from trade between groups where the groups all mutually decided that one type of object had value" disproves the point about violence/government. Can't I do the "pseudo" move back at you? What is the mechanism of the "mutual decision"? Would it be unlike the ones that lead to states? It sounds like everyone agrees something has value so we can have a dispute resolution mechanism. The implication being if you don't agree the other choice is violence? What if I say this "spontaneous collective of groups" is a "pseudo-government"?
Where would that leave us?
Completely unnecessary. Secular humanism for me, thanks.
Are cigarettes really currency in this case? Aren't they more like one of many possible barter units? Can't you also price things in ramen packs in prison?
Similarly, I thought the sea shells thing had been sort of debunked. In that scale of society you don't need currency, you know the guy. David Graeber summarizes this rather intuitively. Why would you need to give a guy a sea shell in a "hunter gatherer group"? You're gonna see him every day of your life and everyone is gonna know/remember he owes you one. It would be like giving your sibling a sea shell because you did them a little favor or something. It doesn't actually happen that way because it would be a complete waste of time, just actually return the favor next time. I believe the sea shell thing is more like a gift, rather than a currency. Like you might give someone a flower to tell them you think they're swell. Presumably you think that because they helped you at some point. That doesn't make it currency. People just liked giving each other shells.
I think on most modern theories, currency really comes about from conquest. The idea is as you expand these informal IOUs are not enough. You don't want to have to lug around ramen packs or cigarettes. So at the point of a sword or w/e you say hey take this coin and give us food and then you honor the coin enough and people trust it, not because it's "fungible, tradable, generally-durable commodity that the bulk of society decides to accept as being worthwhile" but because if you don't accept it the government will kill you. And if you do accept it then not only will they not kill you but they'll give things back to you later, which you will end up being a positive incentive for everyone. Now instead of a presiding over a killing field you've created a market. But without the threat of the state, it is not coherent. That's what government is.
That's basically what it says on American money. "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private". So sure a business can refuse you service, that's a separate issue. But if you have a debt in the United States and you try to give them US dollars and they refuse and say, no thanks actually we demand cigarettes - well now they are breaking the law, aka inviting the wrath of the state. So everyone uses dollars because the last thing anyone wants is to be in debt and think a pack of ramen is gonna work and they just get to say no thanks cigarettes for me please.
And of course, you also don't want to get impaled on a spike by a dude who looks suspiciously like that guy on the coin you probably should have taken.
He should have searched "I love my wife".
Then law enforcement would know he couldn't possibly. Open and shut case, Johnson.
Who decides what the "real problems" are?
Imo most of the economy and wealth creation is around activity that is not solving a "real problem", but who am I to say if someone else is willing to pay for it? Presumably, for said person, the problem is "real" enough.
I actually am curious if they were able to volunteer the information to the government of their own volition, without a government subpoena first. I would think that could violate their own terms if done sloppily. Maybe different if an employee or maybe they had to invite the government to ask for them or something? In any case, the mechanism aside, the state would have asked anyway (say if he used another company's chatbot) so the fact that it's the "same company" is rather irrelevant. The evidence would have ended up in the state's hands one way or the other, and I would think a search warrant in this case would have been rather routine. Search warrants are infamously not a high bar to climb in most jurisdictions, as often the presiding judges tend to default to deferring to the state.
Not just your AI.
You could have stopped the sentence at "uncle Sam can see anything" and these days it's pretty much true. They will use all of it against you if they can. Unless you truly want to live off the grid, if the state takes a sufficient interest in you, expect everything you do to be seen.
Uncle Sam tried to get MLK to kill himself by sending him letters alleging knowledge of an affair [1]. Getting some idiot's wife's chatgpt logs represents a fairly routine law enforcement action these days, and as such is really rather unremarkable. The State is always something of a terror. Really under most (if not all) conceptions, it necessarily has to be. The monopoly of force is a comfort until the Leviathan knocks on your door.
As an aside, trying to enforce some cultural more without the backing of senior leadership is a waste of time. You should probably follow your colleagues example and get a better return on your time with Claude and stop caring. If you are the only one at your company who cares and you aren't the largest shareholder I have to ask under what economic theory you are operating. Unless you work for a charity or something you should probably either find a new job or stop complaining about the relative luxury of being handed a fistful of money just to be able to say "Claude wrote that".
Apparently no one at your company cares, so why do you?
History teaches us changes for the good only happen after changes for the worse percolate deeply enough through the system. The idea that there will be hard times ahead is therefore not incompatible with my view at all, rather it is taken as a given.
Personally, I think the chances of most humanity surviving to the next century are already pretty slim (AI only marginally increases the chances of the worst case here imo). Hitler was not that far from a nuclear weapon. Our collective capacity for terror and self-destruction has only increased since 1945, while the lessons that have held the world together since increasingly fade. I have found it amusing to note that the demonization of AI has come with an accompanying valorization of human judgment as if all the evils of the world have heretofore not been the proud acts of some human somewhere, often with throngs of fellow humans in support.
Whereas, AI increasingly offers a chance that the best case (UBI, human survival through the next century), however unlikely in totality, is still far more likely than without it.
You are not incorrect. I am merely endeavoring to be optimistic. If only for the self-interested reason that I need to be able to sleep.
It helps to be optimistic I think, even if accompanied with a wry acknowledgement of futility. The future has always been frightening.
I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.