The politicization of everything and constant doomerish on here sure has echoes of early 2000s Slashdot. That's not a compliment. Reading the comments here is actually depressing. Human progress is never all at once, we can't even celebrate this triumph? Life is almost never "one or the other," the program could be scrapped to a junk yard and that wouldn't solve global hunger or global conflicts. Setting human eyes forward is good.
I pray to never reach a point of cynicism where my response to watching humans leave the planet on a rocket is immediately "meh, whatever, here's my political complaint of the week"
Global hunger's a great example. When we last left the moon (1972) 35% of the global population was undernourished. Today it's ~8%. Optimism is a choice, and generally a more rational one. That doesn't mean we don't have real issues.
Don't confuse bureaucracy with "gutted." The federal government is bigger than at most any point in US history. Arguably that fact is -why- it's 15 years behind schedule.
That's per 100k (which just says it's mostly flat per 100k), net spending of the federal government is more than ever, and actual workforce is bigger than ever. Federal spending as a percentage of GDP is stubbornly high despite us being in "peace time," and not recession spending.
If you all don't think bureaucracy is the main driver of government delays...well you clearly have never worked with or in and around government. I try to live in reality.
No, it's a plain headcount. Your first link is a chart of non-inflation adjusted spending. Your second link is all government, not just federal employees so it's not really germane to the discussion, and your third link includes things like Social Security, and frankly...good. Without the government stabilizing spending the economy would be even more of a dumpster fire of random investor panics.
I'm close to a number of people in the public sector. They're brilliant, they do great work and they aren't paid what they're worth. I've also worked for a long time in a mega-corp. It was frequently just as bureaucratic and wasteful, if not more so, than the government.
> They're brilliant, they do great work and they aren't paid what they're worth
The headcount of such wonderful people you are describing has been reduced but then replaced by 3x+ times the rates Gov is paying for the contractors that were hired (I am one of them). so this headcount being low is a nothing more than political smokescreen that will probably be used in campaigns leading up to November election (not probably, certainly cause there is nothing else to run if you are member of the ruling party)
I am willing to concede that it would be more financially responsible for the United States to greatly increase the size of the permanent federal workforce, and to stop making its size a political football.
The US attacking one of Russia's only remaining allies, and one of their biggest arms dealers, is a backdoor effort to help Russia? How does that even make sense? I really think people should log off for a while and actual evaluate what they are saying instead of listening to totally online grifters.
Could this help Russia in the very short term? Sure, does it mostly hurt them in the long run? Probably a lot more so, assuming the regime were to actually fall especially (feels like it's not going to at this point.)
The US not being able to control their strait also shows China just how difficult controlling the "South China Sea" would be in the event of an invasion of Taiwan. Which is just a stupid coincidence.
I cancelled Netflix long ago, they started cancelling their best shows (like 1899, etc) and producing absolute garbage. I mean just look at the quality of early/peak Netflix to now. Stranger Things is a great example, the decline is visible not just in the story but in the visuals. The documentaries are also bad now, I watched the "Manosphere" at someone's house, and while you can agree with the premise that these people are deranged, it was clearly a cash grab and didn't really move the needle. Then the catalogue has been gutted, and it's just mostly garbage now. Just awful stuff.
The last truly remarkable series they had was Dark. Everything since has slid into being for low attention span people on their phones, and for that reason I no longer give it my attention, or money. I guess it's working out for them, since they keep printing money...but I think it won't last forever. Look at Disney, the decline can come quick once the cracks turn into fault lines.
While I haven't watched it, the fate of _1899_ is why I've pretty much given up on TV --- I'm _not_ going to watch anything until I know that:
- the story has been completed (_Dark Matter_ is the poster child for this)
- the ending makes sense as part of a coherent whole (the _Battlestar Galactica_ reboot still enrages me)
then, maybe I'll find time to devote to something --- until then, I've got books to read, code to write, projects to build, home improvements to make, and a yard to weed/maintain and trees which need to be harvested for lumber....
Isn't Toyota betting big on the Hybrid EV? To me, at least in the US, this seems like the best medium-term bet. The EV infrastructure just isn't there yet, despite there being a lot of Tesla chargers. Even with that, the charge time, etc are too long to get going again. Hybrid EV seems to resolve this, and eases the customer into an EV future. Current EVs are great for being around town, but a lot of people in the US live 45min to an hour each way just to work, have to get their kids to school or practice in the meantime. It's just added stress thinking about finding a charging station or having time constraints.
The biggest issue I think every auto maker needs to solve is cost. The average car payment is insane, with dealership markups it's even worst than it would be otherwise. I'm not sure how we got here on that, to me car interiors are no nicer than they were from 2005ish on. I don't even know what the cost is going into.
Russia has been mass producing its own copies or the drones - the Russian version is called Geran 2 - for several years now. They use a lot of western and sanctioned components and they assemble them in big factories eg Kupol plant in the Russian city of Izhevsk
It is 2026. Germany - as a densely populated country - still does not have a safe location to store all the radioactive waste that came from those nuclear power plants.
Why is it, some always repeat the same argument without giving a single thought to the follow-up challenges and costs?
It's 2026 and Germany's rich neighbor is so good at nuclear power, and logistics and storage of said waste, that it sells Germany power from their nuclear power plants.
Why is it, some always repeat the same argument without giving a single thought to the follow-up challenges and costs?
I've lived in Germany, it's always so funny seeing Germans always complaining but never taking action, or a lot of "too late for that" nonsense. Always tons of excuses for bad policy.
Considering the German economy has been faltering, energy prices have soared, they buy nuclear power from a neighbor, and their shortsightedness emboldened a regional enemy (Russia)... probably until I'm dead.
Maybe it will help stop other countries from making the same mistake if people don't let everyone forget.
BlueSky is vastly worse than Twitter/X now or ever was. It was a good idea, but it ruins the "community square" aspect when BlueSky has just become a total echo chamber. Twitter is still diverse, even if voices that were once banned now have bigger platforms. Now I'd rank BlueSky has a net negative for society. It's basically a DailyKos leaning miniblog with a small userbase. Things you would just used to find in comment sections of left leaning sites.
The difference is diversity of opinions. There is none on Bluesky. Anybody can voice their opinion on Twitter/X. On Bluesky you'll be quickly shun by the entire community or straight out banned for not agreeing with specific partisan talking points, no need to list them, it's similar to reddit editorial policies. If you deem Twitter an extremist social media, then Bluesky is even worse,as it just only allows one sort of extremism, one kind of ideology.
I agree with GP. Twitter does have diverse viewpoints across progressive, centrist, and right wing voices. I abhor the alt-right stuff, and it is more widespread now under new ownership. However BlueSky is exclusively urban lefties. It's not diverse
I really don't think advertisers will ever embrace bsky. No one wants their brand under communist scrutiny all the time, one step away from another "cancellation." They will definitely return to X.
If anyone thinks Anthropic or OpenAI are the "good guys," they've already lost the plot. If you look at additional reporting on the topic, not just the Anthropic PR spin, the disagreements were much more nuanced than it was portrayed by Anthropic. They aren't exactly a reliable narrator on the topic either. In fact it actually just seems like Amodei fumbled the deal and crashed out a bit. He's already walked back his internal memo, and is reportedly still seeking a deal with the Pentagon. I don't trust either CEO, I use their products, but if you're even leaning 51-49 on who is "less evil," I think you're giving too much slack.
I've done the same, and I tested the same prompts with Claude and Google, and they both started hallucinating my blood results and supplement stack ingredients. Hopefully this new model doesn't fall on this. Claude and Google are dangerously unusable on the subject of health, from my experience.
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