Sometimes I feel like “shareholder first” mentality has gone a bit too far. Most of the majority shareholders are a handful of people who have too much money, they don’t really put in any work, but are more than happy to put people out of work if it meant they’d get a bit more money.
Depends, I love it and am happy to pay for it out of privacy concerns and supporting a non-monopolist. It's got some neat features that I use all the time that google doesn't have. Is it's search results better than google? Maybe. Maybe not. I do know when I can't find something on kagi, google doesn't either.
> If software is the commodity, what is the bespoke value-added service that can sit on top of all that?
It would be cool if I can brew hardware at home by getting AI to design and 3D print circuit boards with bespoke software. Alas, we are constrained by physics. At the moment.
> I love when leftists are so willing to have such a weak grasp on reality that they're able to convince themselves that the sitting president of the united states ate babies.
Quite a statement to protect the president that claimed immigrants ate cats and dogs, and the base had no problems with it. There are problems with the left, but this is a hypocritical take.
> Something about how the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Well, have you tried to educate them instead of insulting them? Like Carlin said, there are a lot of dumb people out there. But belittling them doesn’t seem to be the solution if you actually want a functioning democracy. Education doesn’t seem to be anywhere near the top priority for the right as that’s too woke these days.
> Ah yes, because claiming that people are eating cats and dogs, something that actually happens in some parts of the world, is the same thing as claiming that the president ate babies.
We are actually saying that the president raped teen girls. Which is something that happens around the world - even happens within the orbit of Trump given the conviction of Epstein.
And when your favored divine-right monarchy comes for their "divine right" with your underage daughters and sons? Will you still be willing to give all for the cause?
I'm going to draft a new theory of sociopolitics called Pedophile-Oriented Ontology. It's when someone's political critique becomes entirely oriented around accusations of pedophilia or lack thereof.
Monarchy? Le bad, because the king could be a pedo!
You didn’t answer the question. Is it because:
1. You think the question isn’t applicable
2. You think doesn’t happen
3. You think justice is served for pedophiles
4. The president didn’t do anything wrong and so none of these discussions are valid
Well in this case it would be "is" rather than "could." Maybe Thiel himself doesn't partake in the forbidden underage fruit (although I don't see why we would rule that out, as it seems to be how the Epstein club binds its members). But then Thiel isn't set up to be the king either, right?
But yes such a critique would be interesting! I think all of Moldbug's florid prose about enlightened monarchism would land much differently if the apogee of that enlightenment isn't some sort of assumed societal grand plan or direction, but is rather just the old base desire for increasingly-immoral perverted debauchery.
Tens of thousands of years of political history and the only known paranoia-fueled scandal and suspicion of the elite being immoral pedophiles that I'm aware of is currently happening in a democracy, because a guy who based his identity on knowing as many other powerful people as possible happened to know many powerful people (really??? no way!), and anti-capitalists are desperate for moral superiority so they're willing to psy-op themselves into thinking it's plausible that every person this guy ever emailed must have been a pedo too.
Monarchy never had any of this nonsense. Bring back King George. We made the wrong choice.
You're saying that monarchies never had perverted debauchery? It sounds like you need to read a little more broadly, rather than just contemporary writings that seek to burn down all of Chesterton's fences.
And keep in mind that the monarchies of old were still constrained by religion, and by the lack of digital communications! What is being pushed today is better characterized as autocracy. The "monarchy" label is merely meant to evoke simpler-seeming times that are comfortably in the past.
Also I think you meant "capitalists" rather than "anti-capitalists". That people who were successful under capitalism want to move to a different system does not imply that their favored system is also capitalist! If monarchy/autocracy is "capitalist" then North Korea is also "capitalist" and the word is meaningless.
(also it seems like you're still in denial about the implications of Epstein's emails, regardless who was or was not partaking in the minors)
> Also I think you meant "capitalists" rather than "anti-capitalists".
No, I'm very much talking about talibanized socialists/communists/whatever they want to particularly call themselves. "Eat the rich" has become "The rich eat babies" because it doesn't matter what you try and get people to believe as long as they align themselves with your side and against the people you don't like. The Big Lie of our times, perhaps?
> I'm very much talking about talibanized socialists/communists/whatever they want to particularly call themselves.
So you're just bashing a strawman that you've pigeonholed all opposition into? Okay then...
We had a previous exchange that I ended up dropping. I was a bit sorry about that because I thought it would have been interesting to critique "universalism" on its own merits, rather than the term generally only being mentioned by its detractors.
(For context here I was reading Moldbug while he was writing, and spent a bunch of time internalizing other reactionary writings. I actually credit Moldbug with my transition from a right-Libertarian to an unaligned libertarian that sees left vs right as mere modes of thinking, each with their own merits)
But after seeing how quickly this conversation went downhill, I'm not sure that conversation would have been terribly productive either!
> So you're just bashing a strawman that you've pigeonholed all opposition into?
If you think radicalized left-wingers are a strawman, you live in a separate universe from mine. Unfortunately, I live in the one where I have to wake up and see flyers around my town unironically claiming Trump ate kids.
I understand. In fact, I've been there - I was working on ecash and cryptography before bitcoin and the bastardization of the term crypto. "Code is law" and all that.
I'm sure some of it is due to getting older, but with open cult-of-personality autocratic authoritarianism (aka fascism) upon us I have become quite conservative. I had been taking a lot for granted about the freedoms we do have, and the position of the Western world. Don't let a desire to make things better goad you into wanting to destroy what we do have.
But regardless, if you recoil from the groupthink of the leftists you should be similarly allergic to the groupthink of the rightists. They have taken up the mantles of so many of our longstanding societal problems, only to be led by outright con men and liars who are doing nothing to actually address those problems. And I don't just mean hate-but-hold-your-nose-for-some-greater-good, but rather hold them in the same exact regard as the leftists. Especially as that red tribe groupthink is now in power, and its results are not pretty.
I want a functioning democracy because we have an entire history of monarchies and dictatorships being far worse. And because I want everyone to have a say, not just a minority of elites who are only human and just as fallible as the rest of us.
Most people in California don’t have PG&E. Most of the land area in the northern 2/3 of the State or so is covered by PG&E, but people and land area aren't the same thing. Southern California Edison alone serves almost as many people as PG&E, and other smaller utilities, including public utilities like LADWP, SMUD, Silicon Valley Power, etc., serve another big chunk of the population.
SCE will screw you nearly as hard. We are on a tiered usage which is the cheapest they offer and it's $0.32/kWh and even at that rate the EV isn't much cheaper than the non-hybrid I replaced. I'd need to switch to a ToU plan which would increase my other electricity costs.
Also for depreciation:
2020 Mazda 3 - sold $18k at dealer, originally $28k, 64% retained
2022 Kia EV6 - bought $25k, originally $55k-$7.5k federal, 53% retained
I'm also gonna be that guy - hand wringing is a stereotype of an expression of distress, not coercion. You're thinking of the idiom "twisting someone's arm".
Weapons can come in all forms and sizes. When wielded with the blend of censorship and propaganda, (social) media is absolutely a weapon. Is there a reason why it won’t be?
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