Erik Haugen @ech@qoto.org

@Robert_R_Freitag_II@mastodon.social @randahl Yeah, they're different objectives. IDF has to radically degrade Hamas' ability to do things like 10/7, of course. In some sense the US doesn't really need to take on the analog of that at this point, and killing these 3 terrorists of course doesn't do anything remotely like that.

There's no good way for IDF to do what it needs to do without a lot of collateral damage; this is a tragic situation but unfortunately it's the one they're in.

@danirabbit and stop writing breathless news stories about their every move.

@QasimRashid What's unhinged about that? Surely you would not want another civil war? You surely aren't that barbaric? Right of self-determination is kind of important.

(ofc such a referendum would fail miserably, as it would in literally every state.)

@freemo Yeah, I think that's what I mean.

Heh, it certainly isn't antiracist given Kendi's definition of that term...

It's worth keeping in mind that Mr. Racist represents about, say, 3% of the US (and The West in general). Mr. Woke is probably more like 10x that. Point being it almost isn't worth even talking to or about the people behind Mr. Racist: we all know they're the lunatic fringe: their harmful policy preferences don't matter, because they have no power (good to stay vigilent, though...). But the people represented by Mr. Woke have actual power; what if their illiberal policy preferences are harmful? That is an actual risk.

@trabex @antonyjohnston Yup; seems like a tough business.

Heh one man's "exploiting passion for profit" is another's "derive gains from trade".

@trabex @antonyjohnston programmer here – I am sort of under the impression that because a good chunk of us got into programming because of our love of video games, there's sort of an over-supply of programmers that want to work for video game studios. I mean, early on in my career, working somewhere like Blizzard was certainly appealing to me, for example, it just never worked out for me. This allows them to sort of take advantage of that and pay less, run them harder, etc, etc.

@hoco @antonyjohnston In the near term, AI makes us programmers (i.e. software engineers) more efficient. (I'm thinking about tools like Github's Copilot.) Potentially, more efficient in the sense that we'll do things we wouldn't even have contemplating doing before.

I think over the next couple years it will be very significantly more efficient. It will be interesting to see if this means we have less programmers, or if we just do a lot more programming with the same number of people.

@amerika @freemo If that's meant as a reply to me, I can't make sense of it; beg pardon.

@freemo One annoying thing about Biden is that even though he has this grotesque put-all-black-people-in-prison resume, when he goes to pick a VP he picks.... Harris. Just wat.

@omegaman @freemo Deportations went down under Trump.

@muzzar @Miriamm In the fever-brained mind of a guardian trash writer, I guess. (One who's into bestiality, it almost looks like? read the article.)

Gah the Guardian is such garbage.

@freemo I'd say it's mostly anti-woke. It isn't trying to be anti-racist; the entire point it is making takes it as a given that racism is awful, it doesn't feel the need to make that argument.

@dneto @danluu I wonder if the author of the OP quote would include this as an example or a counterexample of the point. (Search for the phrase "improve the production processes of the silicon ingots and wafers" in your article...)

If the quote isn't true, it seems like the easiest way to debunk it is to provide some compelling counterexamples. In fact, that would feel like such an obvious way, that instead focusing on earlier exponential tech improvements makes me suspicious. So: I'm assuming the quote is mostly true.

@Sioctan @freemo "r/atheism" is this like the New Athiesm thing: 4 horsemen, and the obsessive arguing on Talk Origins and Internet Infidels and the like? If so: wasn't that more before 2010, rather than the 2010s?

@Sioctan @freemo At least we got Bach.

@tobinbaker @danluu That's too bad, it's to a first order approximation the only index of privilege, IMO.

@cdemwell @danluu I'm pretty sure he means the cause of transit workers trying to get a better contract/etc. (Either specifically Vancouver or transit workers generally.)

@danluu I noticed this during the early days of covid, too; various "progressive" commenters would respond to bans on e.g. gardeners by saying "just stay home and take care of yourself" as if not getting any income for months was gonna be a peaceful restorative time for someone.

@danluu Also isn't it pretty cold and rainy there?