Viewing profile — SmirkingRevenge

I remember looking around at the people in my friend and family circles who supported and defended the imprisonment of migrants at CECOT, often repeating the propaganda that they w…

> That over 35% of the population are completely fine with this stuff is frightening Most literally don't even know, because what little information filters down to them, is all ra…

I think the biggest risk of war between nuclear powers is from mistakes and accidents that might trigger nuclear escalation/MAD. Systems can malfunction. War can spiral out of cont…

I think this comes out in the wash mostly. While we're going to have lots of officers who've been to war for a while yet, turnover eventually evens the playing field. The people wh…

> For the most-dominant military power in the world to "whoopsy" run out of weapons because of a low-stakes engagement isn't readily believable. Sadly, I find it very believable. T…

Eh, I think there's a kind of survivorship bias in this POV: "We've survived authoritarians in the past, so the system working as intended, everything is fine". I don't think thing…

Better to say the current US government is run by authoritarians, doing everything they can to convert the US government into an authoritarian one. And they've gotten way farther t…

So many of those books are basically like those "Here's one weird trick to succeed at X" style articles in book length form.

Tesla could have found a path forward without Musk. It might've been painful or even dangerous financially, but they could've come up with something. Same with the other companies …

Blame Musk himself. He did this. He jumped right into the center of US politics, and turned himself into one of the most toxic figures within it, while acting like an unhinged cons…

> I don't know I felt like for 4 years we were hammered about defunding police or something. If you tell me that's far-left that's fine, but realize that's what your news has been …

I think it's pretty likely it would have been mostly left alone if not for Musk. No one was asking for PEPFAR to be killed, for example - it's one of the few things in Washington w…

> It did some good, yes, but from what I can tell, it was better to shut it down. Whatever you are reading is badly misinforming you. I'm sure there was some reform and cleanup to …

A good recent write-up with more links to follow in the article. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/opinion/usaid-elon-musk-d...

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I'm not sure asking the AI to support or oppose something is the kind of bias I would really worry about, unless those "opinions" degrade other kinds of queries. I'd be more intere…

Maybe it's just that conversing with something or someone that is acting manipulative can be unpleasant in and of itself, even if the manipulation is not successful. Each time I he…

My preference would be to turn down the fake emotional expressions and notes in the responses. No cheeky quips, etc. Otherwise it's kind of like being manipulated by a psychopath

In one of the videos the AI quips back things like "Happens to the best of us" - its basically pretending to be human and that feels kind of creepy and weird, like it's trying to c…

The goal was simply to display performative strongman machismo using the military (just like the missile strikes on alleged drug boats). It's a branding exercise for Trump personal…

B/c they have nukes

Money is important, but there's a point of diminishing returns when it comes to lobbying and campaigning. Elon's success at putting candidates into office isn't great, despite floo…

Yep, this is exactly right. When people are added to the economy, demand increases, including demand for more labor. The downward pressure on wages that one might intuitively expec…

The Biden admin was not far-left. Biden was basically a mainline Liberal Democrat and much closer to the center than far-left. The far-left basically hates mainline Liberal Democra…

The truth is, assimilation is usually a process that takes a generation or two. First generation immigrants don't assimilate very well. Many never manage to even learn the host cou…