I'm so tired of hearing business people talk about how Elon laid off 80% of engineers at Twitter and "it still works!"
It doesn't work well. X is a buggy mess, and a way worse user experience than Twitter was prior to Elon. For the past several weeks, threads have failed to load whenever I click into a Tweet.
I am logged in, but for the past few weeks, replies won't load and I get an error message on my iPhone. The whole website is much slower too. I'm sure someone will tell me to use the app, but I don't have any intention to do so.
Until someone decides it's enough and makes a board elsewhere paired with a browser extension that takes the X URL and creates a thread where people can comment disregarding completely the one at X. The same can be made for Youtube for example; want dubbing in a different language, or play a different music that would trigger a copyright claim? All it needs is to sync the video with an external audio source, possibly shared through p2p; also doable by a browser extension.
Problem is that things like "manifest V3" may make this technically impossible (or you'll get a "manifest V4" to address this), and even then, software distribution is now controlled by a handful of gatekeepers who will quickly delete such extensions.
Saying that problems are completely outside of someone's control or completely their own fault is a false dichotomy. Reality is usually somewhere in the middle, especially in studies like this one on teenagers. Everyone's situation is shaped by a mix of personal choices and the world around them. It's not just about blaming people or the system; it’s about seeing how both play a role. Voting is one way to make a difference, but it’s not the only way—people have a lot of ways to shape their lives.
There’s definitely a difference between leaking secret information to the public, and keeping it yourself to use for your own purposes. Without getting into which one is worse, surely you can see they’re not really comparable.
If Donald Trump had declassified the docs and shared them publicly, we would be having a totally different conversation, and he wouldn’t be under federal indictment.
Hello? The purpose of the classification is to keep the information secret. Do you seriously believe that printing the info on the front page is somehow not as indictment-worthy as keeping the documents stashed away?
The reality is that what Trump did by hiding the papers was much more consistent with the spirit of classification than what the NYT did with the Pentagon papers.
Responsible actors will try to balance security with transparency. It is not surprising that a newspaper would have a different view on where the right balance lies than the government. You might disagree with the NYT editors’ judgment, but they decided it was worth harming national security to expose government lies about the Vietnam War.
Trump’s hoarding of classified documents and refusal to give them back did nothing to increase transparency, because Trump did not make any information public. So it’s not surprising that the NYT views Trump’s actions differently than Ellsberg’s.
My state (Oregon) has no sales tax, but does have a 20% tax on recreational cannabis, so in our case the cannabis tax revenue would be a net gain for the state.
These examples highlight the deficiencies of the Soviet economy, and it's evident that such failures caused considerable suffering among the population. Nevertheless, given more time to engage in activities akin to the first two examples, and separated from the threat of malnourishment, I believe I would experience greater happiness and a stronger connection to both my food and community. Through shared struggle, bartering, and communal work, we can create a sense of connection that is absent from the isolation brought about by specialization, which, although more economically efficient, also contributes to the social problems present in western society.
I used to go foraging for mushrooms with a close friend. That friend developed depression due to his perceived failures to keep up in the rat race of career advancement, and committed suicide last year. I know this because of some pretty explicit conversations I had with him about feelings of inadequacy due to money and career path. So now I don’t have a friend to forage mushrooms with. I can do it by myself, but that doesn’t really address the alienation issue.
My parents and grandparents were forever traumautized by this experience leading them to leave objectively worse lives. Instead of actual leisure they'd spend their free time working on their car in the garage (because there are no car services), working in the garden (because food supplies aren't too diverse and you can't just go to the store to buy jam), or doing something else. They still feel weird about me ordering apartment cleaning once a month.
My grandma would continue working in her garden until she was extremely old because she was used to this, even though we could have bought any veggies or fruits to her. This likely affected her health in a negative way.
Living in a pre-industrial society isn't "good". It doesn't bring any advantages.
As someone who also lived in that society, albeit briefly, I can tell you that "experiencing a stronger connection with your community" is not necessarily a positive. Especially when you don't exactly have much choice when it comes to picking said community in the first place.
Certainly, I completely agree that it's not always a positive. Western capitalist culture is better suited to providing freedom to non-conformists, and it's true that life can be arduous in communal cultures if one deviates from the norm.
On the other hand, there are psychological advantages to collaborating with one's community to address shared issues. In western capitalist culture, many individuals are predisposed to feeling that their problems are their own responsibility, leading them to believe that any misfortune they experience is solely due to a lack of effort or poor decision-making on their part.
I wonder if it would be possible to build a society that gets the positive parts of both approaches, or if there is a better balance to be sought between individualism and collectivism.
I don't recall much "collaboration with one's community", at least not in urban Soviet landscape - perhaps things were different in the villages (but if they were,
I don't think the Soviets could claim credit for that). The society that they ended up building was actually very cutthroat in many ways once you got past the guaranteed basics that everyone had, precisely because anything above that was that much harder to get.
Thing is, you fundamentally can't enforce good socialization. You can enforce socialization in general, but the more it is forced, the less likely it is to actually be good. A good society is the one that gives opportunities for people to socialize if and when they want it, and accepts that some people really just don't and that's fine too.
This would not only provide a break from work but also offer opportunities for personal growth and exploration.
This could reduce the career growth penalty for mothers. Companies may be hesitant to hire or promote women to leadership positions, fearing that they will take significant time off for childbirth. However, if taking sabbaticals every few years becomes normalized, women wouldn't be viewed as a special liability for taking leave around childbirth.
Furthermore, during these sabbatical periods, there could be programs created for potential career switchers to try out new jobs. These internships could provide workers with opportunities to explore different fields and find work that aligns with their skills and interests. This could ultimately benefit the economy as a whole by increasing job satisfaction and promoting a better match between workers and their jobs.
* My company has a very large codebase, and I am not familiar with 99% of it. I can use an AI assistant like Sourcegraph Cody to explain parts of the codebase to me at a high level, and suggest areas where I should dive in to address my specific problem.
* If I am working with a language, library, or framework I have not used before, I can ask ChatGPT to explain how a certain function works, and provide some code examples. If I write some code an get unexpected results, I can paste my code and results into ChatGPT, and ask it to tell me what went wrong.
* Someone sends me a spreadsheet that specifies some business logic, and I want to transform that spreadsheet into a YAML file, and write some code to parse the YAML config and take some action based on user-supplied data. ChatGPT is pretty good at this.
In all of these cases, I have to take the AI output with a grain of salt, and may have to do some supplementary research or debugging. But that's also the case when I ask coworkers for help. Right now, I would say generative AI provides a small boost to my productivity, but I can see that boost growing larger as language models improve.
At the risk of sounding callous and uncaring, I will be blunt - I am wary of mental health advice that comes from a person who killed himself at age 26.
I admire Aaron for his technical ability, his unique perspective, his writing, his courage and passion. I sympathize with persecution he dealt with towards the end of his life, and I think that the prosecution against him was unjust. I find myself agreeing with most of his writing that I've encountered.
On the topic of following the news, I am tempted to agree with him as well. However, I wonder if keeping up with the news reinforces the idea that the world can be a scary place, and that if we stray too far outside of the bounds of normal human behavior, we might face hardship. One could argue that that idea is detrimental to human society as a whole, but I think it is generally has a net positive effect on a particular person's mental wellbeing.
It could be argued that Aaron was in the prime position to dish out mental health advice, being a sufferer of mental illness. Compare that to mental health professionals who, while educated and more knowledgeable than your average joe about mental health, might not have first-hand insight on practical coping strategies that actually work (as opposed to some of the "let's talk about it -- we're out of time, here's a script").
I don't think that would be a very convincing argument. At best, he would know strategies that helped him personally. A mental health professional would know strategies that help many people cope and have some idea of how to match different strategies to different people and situations.
First hand experience is valuable but the idea that it can't be translated effectively into second/third hand experience by trained professionals is misguided.
It is not that it cannot be translated into knowledge by professionals, it's that they'll never be able to comprehend what exactly is going on unless they've also suffered from mental illness. I can tell you how to catch a fish, because I've read all of the books on catching fish. I've watched fishing tournaments, and I've even helped people get into fishing. But I've never fished before. I won't be able to tell you how to really work the line. I can fill in the gaps, but it's usually not as effective as first-hand account.
There's also the other side that most trained professionals are not equipped to handle serious cases. The lack of literature on quality-of-life increasing treatments for serious illnesses (major depressives, schizophrenics, etc.) is another factor. Most professionals get their information second-hand from textbooks and their education. Then secondly, from practice. Where as the first-hand experience of mental illness is the primary source of practical guidelines for those who suffer from them.
There's also the statistic that around 60% of people with mental illness don't get or stop getting treatment. With schizophrenics and more serious sufferers being on the tail end of that.
>It is not that it cannot be translated into knowledge by professionals, it's that they'll never be able to comprehend what exactly is going on unless they've also suffered from mental illness.
This sentence reads to me like "It's not that professionals can't effectively use other peoples first hand experience , it's that they can't effectively use other peoples first hand experience".
They don't need to know exactly what's going on. It's impossible for anyone to ever know exactly what is going on in another person's mind. Psychology as a profession is completely useless if that's the bar for it being useful.
I apologize if my response comes off as aggressive, but I strongly believe that propagating the idea that mental health professionals can't really help people is dangerous for those that would benefit from their help.
>This sentence reads to me like "It's not that professionals can't effectively use other peoples first hand experience , it's that they can't effectively use other peoples first hand experience".
It was reinforcing the point you were disagreeing with. They can make use of it, but not efficient use of it.
>They don't need to know exactly what's going on. It's impossible for anyone to ever know exactly what is going on in another person's mind. Psychology as a profession is completely useless if that's the bar for it being useful.
To use anecdotes: I've seen assistance from friend's and loved ones, who've experienced first-hand the illness, to have a more profound effect on the quality-of-life and recovery of the person suffering, than the average medical professional (psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, etc. ranked in their own groups). There are some astounding medical professionals out there that will definitely be very helpful in getting someone "back on track," but in my experience, they're never covered under your average joe's insurance. That leaves the bulk of available professionals' quality to be lack-luster, and arguably, a waste of time -- even detrimental in some specific cases.
The bar for doctor involvement and vested interest is nearing the ground, in the U.S.A. Unless surgery or extremely specialized treatment is needed (chemotherapy, gene therapy, etc.), you'll almost always get better care doing the research and treatment yourself.
>I apologize if my response comes off as aggressive, but I strongly believe that propagating the idea that mental health professionals can't really help people is dangerous for those that would benefit from their help.
And I believe if you don't first become aware of shortcomings, you'll never be able to fix problems. And mental health treatment, as an industry, has a lot of problems.
His comment on mental health was peripheral enough that it didn't worry about it.
It was more that he complained about the "The news’s obsession with having a little bit of information on a wide variety of subjects" and then ends with "You should follow me on twitter here."
The societies we live in are doing insane things for profit and greed, and there is very little compassion for people who make mistakes or who is weak. The way we treat each other is quite bad on this planet.
We are quite insane in how we worship money, power and science.
It doesn't work well. X is a buggy mess, and a way worse user experience than Twitter was prior to Elon. For the past several weeks, threads have failed to load whenever I click into a Tweet.