hyko

I guess when we talk about destructive power, this topped out in the 1950s with fusion weapons. It’s unclear if that technology will represent the apex of deadliness forever, or whether we’ll discover and develop something more powerful in the future. As you say, even ordinary munitions are plenty deadly and are causing misery ever single day.

However, if we talk about evil weapons, they are very much in active development; there’s seemingly no limit to the cruel and unusual ways we’re willing to fuck other people up. Technological development on those has not ceased.

I’m actually in agreement that the economic incentives mixed with technology (and a lack of scruples) has led to a vastly degraded information landscape; where we differ is that I think the comparison–even as a literary device–weakens the argument and makes the concerns seem trivial.

Comparing push notifications to the human toll inflicted by guns and bombs is asinine beyond belief.

In the grand scheme of things, nobody gives a shit that someone had the audacity to try and distract you. It’s not super important.

We’ve had the technology to do this for many decades, but we don’t do it because of the insane overheads at modern scale, and because the permanent campaigning and rabble-rousing required would make governance for even the medium term very difficult.

The general public are unlikely to produce a coherent set of policies one bill at a time, and trying to manage the contradictions they produce will suck any government into the quagmire. For example, the U.K. electorate were happy to vote for Brexit paradoxes like the NI border, which parliament and the government are still unable to square after years of trying.

“What about books and newspapers?” I hear you ask, to which I reply: print had expert typesetters eyeballing the whole thing…and even then, some books and newspapers look like ass unless you’re squinting from 10ft away.

Trying to make text fit in a box is an aesthetic choice, but it is technically inferior from a readability standpoint. It was usually paired with columns, which improve readability and would do so without justification.

Cellebrite no doubt thought that hoarding vulnerabilities made them super smart, forgetting that everything they need to operate is now riddled with vulnerabilities that someone else has hoarded.

Doesn’t affect their business model though, which just requires bamboozling a jury of people who think the word crypto means ‘pyramid scheme my uncle invested in’.

Edited to add: the whole point of technological progress is to expand our horizons, making impossible things possible and possible things commonplace.

Otherwise, we’re forever trapped into thinking In my day the only way into orbit was when an asteroid hit the Earth! etc.

What sort of country would have roads only going up to some select houses? A pretty shabby one.

Nothing indicates that the decimal point error ever was made, but the account about it will most likely live a long and colorful life, just like its parent myth

We can do no such damn thing! This analysis completely conflates natural selection and sexual selection, and ignores the role of genetic drift.

This framing has nothing to do with individual psychology, it’s trying to make a political point.

This allows gathering aggregate data on how many users have opted in and out of ATT. What it doesn’t allow is the use of a tracking identifier that spys on your every digital move like an obsessive ghost.

If you’re living in an unjust world, the solution might not actually come from within; perhaps we could modify it somehow?

Don’t bet the farm on findings from psychology.

The government should buy them, close them, and invest in replacing the system with an open and international standard.

Academics are such oddballs they make software developers look normcore.

There’s no reason to think that an equally well funded greenfield effort couldn’t land on the moon from a standing start within a decade; it’s not like we’re living in the shadow of an ancient advanced civilisation with no present day industrial capacity.

won’t keep anyone from getting to work or the store

I can tell you that luxury vehicles transport plenty of people to work or the store just fine, and if they break down, written off, or are stolen they require replacement just the same.

Edit: it’s maybe bad luck that this could coincide with a demand-pull inflation pressure, as people ease back into personal transit.

Nope. “Free” PoW undermines the whole system. Mining has to be a sacrifice, otherwise it won’t work anymore. There is no “and I can use the resulting infrastructure for X”. Every joule of energy that goes into proof of work is a joule wasted by design. There is no free lunch.

I’m starting to think that maybe cryptocurrency is the great filter. It’s actually pretty terrifying.

Edit: we should probably have termed it proof of valueless work to make that clear. There is also nothing to stop a speculative bubble crowding out all other energy uses. Our low-growth world is very vulnerable to these schemes.

Said in a muppet voice.

Edit: I guess ultimately it’s the weakness of being a fanatic about anything that isn’t yourself or your loved ones. Some smart business people realised thirty years ago that there was a massive consumer surplus in football fandom and set about capturing it.

Judging by the way fans vote with their hard earned money I’d say there’s still more to be captured. But the idea that the current FIFA governed world of football is some sort of pristine old-growth forest threatened by commerce is just ludicrous.

Corporations today are essentially authoritarian regimes, whose agents have wide remit to dictate the working conditions of other people.

The bit that usually confuses people about the socialist axis is that capitalism vs socialism is always framed in terms of free market enterprise vs statism; I’m arguing you can keep the free market dynamic while having a truly empowered workforce (not just some management spiel). This is very different to the models where the state either runs everything, or taxes private enterprise to run half the things.