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nivenkos

2,570 karma · joined February 16, 2015

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nivenkos··on Who Would Choose Socialism?
Yeah, but I think kibbutzim is really extreme, and not how even socialists would want to live.

It's a full commune - more like a cult than normal society. So it's quite a strawman in that respect.

nivenkos··on Startups Are Scooping Up Big Tech’s Cast-Off Workers
But those jobs should be automated so no-one has to do them.

And that process should be supported by a high minimum wage - hitting the employers, not taxing productive work to provide tax credits to subsidise such terrible jobs.

Automation leads to more high-tech jobs and investment, and higher productivity, which leads to higher wages as companies compete for highly skilled employees, etc.

Economic mobility and productivity is the key to prosperity.

> And yes we're is your proudness for your country when you know there are people who can't afford going to the dentist and have to wait for a year with a rotten teeth to get it fixed 3h away in a sports gym because there is the once in a year free dental service event?

This is sadly the same in Europe, as dentistry mostly isn't covered under public healthcare in the UK and Sweden for example. So we pay almost 50% tax just to be in the same position!

But I support universal healthcare (including dentistry and opticians), it's a critical part of economic mobility. People can't move jobs or take risks if they'll lose healthcare coverage.

nivenkos··on Startups Are Scooping Up Big Tech’s Cast-Off Workers
I'd love to move, but getting a green card is a nightmare.

I don't want to work for 5 years trapped with one employer and facing deportation with a matter of weeks if I lose my job, on an L-1 visa (and to do that I'd still have to find a position to move to in my company).

nivenkos··on Who Would Choose Socialism?
But what is a "socialist community" in that respect?

The only thing I can think of that's achievable is worker co-ops, and a lot of start-ups are like that for early employees and founders.

nivenkos··on Who Would Choose Socialism?
I mean economic mobility like making it easy for people to switch jobs, move city, work for startups, etc.

So separating healthcare coverage from your employment is one important step, as is providing modern, in-depth STEM + Medicine education so people are able to work in highly skilled jobs where we really need them.

That's a big part of driving disruption and progress.

nivenkos··on The Leverage of LLMs for Individuals
But the awesome part is that you can ask it to explain parts and it usually does pretty well.

I was using it for debugging WINE - where I have no DirectDraw4 / DirectX6 experience, and it's much nicer than trying to trawl through ancient MS documentation myself.

nivenkos··on Scientists Use GPT AI to Passively Read People's Thoughts in Breakthrough
Or even arthritis.
nivenkos··on The rise of ChatGPT-enabled GitHub spam
Sad to see people always use tools maliciously, I found ChatGPT quite helpful for rubber duck debugging. Give it some log files and code excerpts, and it can help grab API docs, causes of similar issues, etc.
nivenkos··on OURphone Is a Fully Open-Source Smartphone Based on Linux
Ubuntu Touch and Mobian don't seem so bad.

But good support is still far away.

Especially since I'd really need Whatsapp and banking authentication on the phone, which both only support Android/iOS atm.

nivenkos··on Rising Share of U.S. Adults Are Living Without a Spouse or Partner
I meant even in the case that man is not the child's father.

France has this law. The US has it too if the man signs the birth certificate, and there's no way to force a paternity test.

nivenkos··on Rising Share of U.S. Adults Are Living Without a Spouse or Partner
While together is much more reasonable than absolutely all of your assets as with marriage though.
nivenkos··on The AI PR Industrial Complex
Loads of places where before you'd just have amateur art / no art.

We used it for department logos, etc. - it makes sense when it's so cheap.

For it to really grow though it needs to be able to be more domain-specific, like being able to generate 2D and 3D animations, spritesheets and isometric sprites, 3D models, normal maps and textures and being able to maintain a consistent style as a context (like ChatGPT).

nivenkos··on Arianespace CEO: Europe won't have reusable rockets for another decade
Compare European and US salaries sometime, you have no idea how lucky you are.

There's a reason tens of thousands of European engineers, doctors, lawyers, developers, etc. are desperate to move to the US.

nivenkos··on Public Money, Public Code
It takes more effort to make internal code FOSS (i.e. upstreaming changes, protecting internal parts, etc.) - and often very few other people use it or contribute back anyway.

I think it'd make more sense as part of a unified effort - like all EU countries agreeing to provide one digital ID service. But that itself is a much bigger issue due to differing levels of digital services, bureaucracy, etc.

I still support it though, and donate to FSF Europe every year with my company donation.

nivenkos··on Public Money, Public Code
Wow, even using "Russians under the bed" to attack FOSS now.
nivenkos··on Google “We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI”
Microsoft wanted to control it all with Blackbird and ActivePlatform.

Their greed ended up with them losing out (thankfully).

nivenkos··on Is ChatGPT Securities Fraud?
"Open"AI
nivenkos··on 22% jump in airfares expected as airlines tackle climate change
Because people don't want to pay more for things.

It isn't astro-turfing.

nivenkos··on 22% jump in airfares expected as airlines tackle climate change
It reminds me of the story about the New York beaches where they deliberately designed the transport to try to prevent public transport access to the "better" beaches, so they'd mostly remain only accessible to the wealthy (although it's not clear if this was actually true).

Like they want to make transport so expensive that the poor people stay away, and the rich can travel the world freely without having to share space and attractions with them.

Same for eating meat, and living in the suburbs and larger residences.

That said, an induction hob doesn't take 20 minutes to boil water.

nivenkos··on 22% jump in airfares expected as airlines tackle climate change
Like Bill Gates saying he's part of the solution - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/im-part-solution-bill-gates-1...

"Billionaire philanthropist" - the definition of an oxymoron.

nivenkos··on 22% jump in airfares expected as airlines tackle climate change
In the EU private jets are exempt from the new fuel duty as long as they make less than 243 flights every 4 months:

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PETI-CM-731622...

They don't even try to hide the hypocrisy. They're unelected and steal our money with ever-increasing taxes which they exempt themselves from.

nivenkos··on The socialist calculation debate
Income inequality is good, and fighting markets is like trying to stop the tide.

It's accumulated wealth that is the problem (and leads to the corruption of free markets and democracy).

Policies should be focused on that - taxing wealth rather than work, and encouraging profitable investments rather than sitting on assets.

Whereas now the so-called "left-wing" policies are awful - rent control is popular in Europe despite being an unfair disaster in Sweden. There are high taxes on income and high VAT, whilst inheritance, land and wealth taxes have been abolished, greatly hurting social mobility while benefiting established, inherited wealth.

Same with a lot of focus on patching up symptoms - like not prosecuting low-value shoplifting, allowing squatting on "empty" properties, etc. rather than trying to improve market conditions, education and training and the housing market, etc. to ensure that everyone could get a much better salary to begin with.

nivenkos··on The layoffs are here for those who chose to ‘learn to code’
Now? It was the same since the start.
nivenkos··on Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station
Putin is the chosen successor of Yeltsin, who was backed by the USA. I wouldn't pin the current state of Russia on the USSR - the Orthodox Church, etc. have far more influence.

Your point is definitely true for the psuedo-occupied countries like Romania, Poland, the DDR, etc. though. My point wasn't to defend the USSR but that we need competition to drive progress.

For example now the EU has almost none of its own industry - Concorde failed, ARM was sold (and the UK left), there is no equivalent to Big Tech. There is almost no competition (literally the only major examples I can think of are AirBus and Volvo/VW/Renault, and then some industrial ones like ASML and Nordvolt).

China poses more competition because it's chosen to actively protect its own developing industries. So they do have Baidu, WeChat, Bytedance, Huawei, Xiaomi, etc.

I'm also not sure about an EU-led world - the EU isn't even democratic in its current form (the Commission makes most of the decisions, and there are no EU-wide elections). I think it's best if we don't have any leading nation at all but true competition.

nivenkos··on Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station
Yeah, but if you speak to Cubans they really think it become Miami overnight if they get rid of the Communist Party.

Whereas the reality is probably much closer to Haiti.

It'd be best if there were a steady transition of ending the blockade, allowing markets in non-natural monopoly industries and services (in practice this largely exists already), multi-party democracy without persecution. Cuba has pretty great education in comparison to similar nations and a relatively large population, so I think there's a lot of opportunities.

I can understand why they're so defensive though, the USA has openly admitted to dozens of assassination attempts on the Castro family, etc. - literally no different from Russia poisoning Yushchenko.

nivenkos··on Cuba’s Unfinished Nuclear Power Station
Hopefully it will be finished one day.

It's a shame how much the world has taken a step back with the collapse of the USSR and the rise of US unipolarity.

The once-great Buran space shuttles lie derelict in Kazakhstan and Russia (not even in a museum!). The huge An-225 that took it to space has been destroyed in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Investment in nuclear power has collapsed as projects like this show (and Germany's recent decision to shut down all nuclear power plants).

The lack of competition has also lead the USA to rest on its laurels - no longer investing greatly in STEM education, NASA, national infrastructure, etc. as they did in response to the sudden achievement of Sputnik.

nivenkos··on The loophole that made cars in America so big
Also low energy prices - people pay for heat pumps, triple glazing, solar panels, etc. in Sweden because it pays itself back.

But when energy is so cheap, why bother?

nivenkos··on AI is taking the jobs of Kenyans who write essays for U.S. college students
But that in turn creates political and economic pressure to improve the situation.
nivenkos··on AI is taking the jobs of Kenyans who write essays for U.S. college students
It fixes itself over time.

Now these people will have to find other sources of income, and that will create economic and political pressures.

nivenkos··on Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
But it is the Biden administration that has pushed forward with the Inflation Reduction Act subsidies.

Western Europe has the issue of much lower wages though, and they keep importing cheap labour to offset the "aging crisis", rather than embracing it and labour-saving technology like Japan. Like I'd definitely rather be an engineer in the USA, if I could magically get a green card.

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