We could do a lot for climate change, world hunger, homelessness, disease prevention and eradication, and so on with that much money.

All of these people are doing mass murder via opportunity cost, and I hope they pay for it.

Emotions aren’t good (or bad). They’re often like a heuristic. Fast but inaccurate. This is great when it’s like “a bear wandered into the house” and emotions say “RUN” and cold logic would be like “what? Why? How?” until you get mauled. It’s not good when it’s like “climate change makes me feel bad so I don’t believe in it”

…what do you mean by using dev containers? Are your people doing development on their host machine?

Huh. That’s neat I guess.

My initial guess was it would somehow capture the energy from hitting keys. I guess that’s implausible? Too little energy without making the key press resistance too high?

This seems like obvious advice.

I mean, way back when Myspace was new (I’m old) I looked at it and thought “This is going to make me sad.” Like, if people post fun stuff without me I’m probably going to feel left out. If people post sad stuff about their life, I’m going to feel sad. If people don’t interact with me at all, I’m going to feel lonely. There’s such a narrow path forward on that kind of thing that’s a consistent, net positive.

People could keep in touch with email, or texts, or even ancient modes like phone calls and letters. Would probably be happier. The social media stuff is a black hole.

Also remember that time Facebook tried to see if they could just make people sad? And they could? And somehow no one went to jail or anything?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Food_and_Drug_Administration provides some historical context.

You can also read The Jungle by Sinclair

Without the FDA, you’re going to get sawdust in your bread and worse.

Musk is a dangerous idiot and I hope he dies.

I set my dad up with Ubuntu some years ago. He wasn’t the worst windows user, but he had some troubles.

Now he’s a big Linux fan. Updates his OS himself sometimes. He’s not extremely savvy, but he gets by enough.

American conservatives are trash and shouldn’t be allowed to make political decisions.

Flawlessly clearing Genichiro in Sekiro was deeply satisfying. Parry parry parry, dodge, mikiri counter. Don’t think I got hit once.

Trump should be ineligible per the 14th amendment.

But also the Republican party is going to send everything down the shitter

“”" And I know you’re going crazy

And I know you’re going broke

And you’re sitting here and laughing like that’s some kind of joke, but I’m not laughing

And I want you to be careful

And I want you to be smart

I don’t want you to romanticize falling the fuck apart

And I want you to remember that you’re better

And I love you and I’ll see you tomorrow “”"

One of the more powerful supportive songs I know.

https://batboymusic.bandcamp.com/track/snyder-ave

100% this.

There’s no cosmic law that says you must build a sprawling social network. If you can’t build it safely, then don’t build it.

If someone build a very profitable machine in the town square that shot out rusty nails and killed people every so often, people would shut it down. Well, hopefully.

If there’s going to be fantasies about murder, can his whole posse go out?

It would never even occur to me to eat at fast food (unless you count like the pizza by the slice place on the corner).

I just feel so alienated from everyone else sometimes. Just… The food isn’t good, isn’t good for you, isn’t cheap, isn’t fast. The org isn’t environmentally or politically friendly. Just stop eating there. Be mildly inconvenienced if you have to.

But I guess that will slam right into the constant problem of “someone feels bad and now they’re not going to listen”

I don’t disagree with anything here, really. As we both said, some responsibility remains on the user.

I do think Match is aggravating the situation. Men aren’t getting traction so they search for why. They find right wing MRA stuff saying that it’s women’s fault blah blah blah, but really part of why they’re not getting hits is because Match is hiding them unless you pay (and even then maybe).

Part of why may also be they’re creeps or bad at dating. It is not wholly the apps’ fault. But I do think they’re making it harder for people to connect, and that can be the top of the funnel for far right ideas.

And I do think a lot of people are on the apps when they aren’t really ready. People of all genders. But that’s a separate topic, probably.

Anyway. Good talk. Amusingly , I’m heading out to meet someone from a dating app. Here’s hoping they don’t think I’m a creep!

The other day in a video game public chat, someone said something like “these zombies are so fast in the cave. They keep killing me!”

Someone replied “skill issue”

I looked at this interaction and was like, huh, why? Why say that? It’s kind of trite but I guess very mildly funny in the “I understood that reference” kind of way. But also it would’ve taken about the same amount of effort to be like “I hear you bro. those zombies are assholes.” Just, like, be nice.

So I asked the guy why he chose to be unkind rather than supportive. He was confused, but after I elaborated he responded by saying I’m “soft”

I think about this sometimes, now. He could’ve been nice. But he decided not to. Because he views being nice as being “soft”, and that’s bad.

That’s not a set of norms I really want to live under.

There was a meme the other day about how Aragorn from lotr is the kind of male role model men need. Kind, shows his emotions, strong without being cruel.

I was thinking the other day there’s probably a pretty straight line between Match group owning so many dating apps, men’s unhappiness, and violence.

Like the apps create the illusion that you can meet someone and be happy, but their primary goal is to make money. They don’t try very hard to introduce you to good matches. They also haven’t solved the experience from the woman’s point of view. So men feel like they’re just shouting into the void, that people don’t like them, etc etc. Some of those people likely go on to become incels or do violence.

This isn’t to say that violent men are not culpable. They are. They retain agency. But Match group (that’s tinder, okcupid, hinge, match, plenty of fish, and more) is making the problem worse.

It’s like if there was a food shortage, and someone bought up all the grocery stores. Then they made all of them mazes and had half the cereal boxes empty.

One of the offices I worked in the HVAC was bizarre. The thermostat was by sales, but the cold air came out of a vent by eng on the other side of the building. Sales was hot, so they’d set a lower temperature. Eng would then get blasted by cold air, and sales would still be hot.

“Nothing to be done about it. Wear a hoodie” said management. Fuck that.