431–440 of 484 posts
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> a failing of modern corporate culture. There is nothing wrong in reaching a stable equilibrium, becoming profitable, and if you are a public company, paying dividends It’s the failing of a culture. Plenty of companies do this. (I cautiously venture that most American companies do this?)
Its not a failure of culture, it's Capitalism.
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>Sure, we can speak about political correctness from West in campuses, but that has no future by definition. Why ? political correctness in progressive-dominated spcaces like western uni campuses goes back to the 70s/80s. I was browsing Ted Kaczynski's (better known as the UnaBomber) Industrial Society and Its Future[1], and he spoke about political correctness as an established thing. A 40-year phenomenon seems like…
>most of modern wesern democracies is a pathetic and transparent sham that is trampled at the earliest encounter with any real established power I agree with this on a knee-jerk, but it still seems to me 'the west' is different from China, Russia, etc. Why do I feel that, what's the source?
In truth, not only votes are a placebo that doesn't measure anything but the crudest of desires, and not only those worthless votes are further made worthless and pointless by the fact that vast hordes of uncoordinated humans are exceptionally easy to manipulate and control to give their votes to anything, much more than individuals or small groups. The reality is that votes and elections just don't matter. Bush didn't need votes to invade Iraq, he just went ahead and did it. The vast vast majority of anything done by an elected official is due to his or her very own desire (modulo reality, of which you as a voter are not part of untill the next election). Democracy is just tyranny except there are multiple competing tyrants (not a novel feature) and you get an extremly small chance to depose the tyrant every n years.
"But Term Limits" oh you think 4 or 6 years in office aren't enough to form connections and make favors that can last you 20 outside the office ? "But Free Press" oh okay (1) lol, look at who owns the press (2) what good is a voice that can't affect things, you scream and rage and cry and then what ? someone comes along and convinces you they can solve this problem, For Real This Time^TM, and you vote them into office (if you manage a majority) and after an intial 100 days of theatrics, nothing.
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I can't see IRC coming back as there's just slightly too much friction for the common person to get up and running. I could see websites coming back (I mean like the way people used to actually browse websites instead of social media). The problem with websites at the moment is discoverability. Google's SEO is a major roadblock to this at the moment. A way around it might be a "web of discoverability", with meaningfu…
Yeah, chat and email basically prove that the vast majority of the public don’t actually want to run and maintain a server themselves, which basically leaves * carriers (universally disliked by the population, tolerated at best, and pretty scummy trying to trap you into their own networks or bloatware if they can get away with it) * apps that monetize using ads * apps that monetize with payment * an OS-level standard…
At some point, MSN Messenger was the most used chat app, and then it simply... was left to die.
This was the single most anti-monopoly action of MS in all its history.
The key point here is that TikTok is now beating all the US social networks. This may be the beginning of the end for what Silicon Valley calls "tech", but is just ads with social content. Peak Facebook was in Q2 2021.[1] Instagram is losing to TikTok. (If you think the "metaverse" is going to be important in the social space, check out what's happening in China in that area. While the US has been distracted by the N…
I'm a huge admirer of TikTok and love to use it -- once a week only! -- but I sort of agree with the US government that it's crazy to give that much of (mostly) your youth's attention to an adversary. However I find it baffling that all the VC in the Global West is unable to come up with a popular alternative, even though it's glaringly obvious[0] what the "secret sauce" is in TikTok and why it works so well. Instead…
You mean an adversary from China rather than an adversary from the US?
There's a small, but not that significant advantage in having the company having ~questionable~ societal effects be from your own country, especially if you're not going to regulate them anyway.
If at least the algorithm was any good, people might not have complained as much. Like, I only follow sport stuff. Some triathletes, professional bicyclists, skiers etc. What does Instagram then decide to show me? A female cyclist with her zipper down and lots of cleavage, a skier in bikini, ass pics of swimmers etc.. Probably that's the most trending stuff related to my interests, but I follow no accounts related to…
Theory on facebook failure/Google failure to innovate: They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. They hire people that basically memorized computer science algorithms. And so their employees are bookish, not innovative people. Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon do not have the same issues with creating new products. Keith Rabois (top VC), mentioned that FB has always prioritized optimization over…
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Not that bad as Chinese investments in European universities. Shaping education by foreigners that not accept democratic principles is far more dangerous. Sure, we can speak about political correctness from West in campuses, but that has no future by definition. However... Both trends has similar goal to steal freedom from citizens.
Ah yes, democracy . Is that when you fire up the tanks and shoot natives until they tell you you're a big boy? Or is it the terror campaign of school drone strikes after?
It does not change the validity of democracy if democratic nations make mistakes.
And it does not legitimize a tyrannical government just because democracies have made mistakes.
Edit: I'll double down. The whole point of democracies is to hold our governments accountable for those mistakes, something that is (at least by design) much harder in non-democratic governments.
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Only for politicians, it’s been 20 years that I haven’t met an European who consider the us an ally, and I’ve lived in Uk Germany Netherlands and Italy, but so far we’ve voted US allying politicians because of the threat of nationalist parties, but at least in Italy is about to change due to the energy crisis we’re going through thanks to us
> I haven’t met an European who consider the US an ally, What hyperbole. There are plenty, myself included. Don't confuse criticism of the US with us not being an ally. > the energy crisis we’re going through thanks to US ??? The finger is clearly pointed at Putin and Germany's naivity over the past 10 years for this mess we are in. I'd be curious to read a European publication that even suggests this is due to the U…
It's a bummer that there doesn't seem to be a great place to grow or maintain old/distant friendships (like the early days of FB) but hopefully this will open space for smaller players to get involved in that, if anyone has any time left in their day for it...
An interesting next step would be to generate real-world friendships from TikTok's acutely tuned interest graph. Friendships are still mostly outcomes of a certain circumstance in the meatspace. You met at a party, or are the friend of a friend etc. It's a really weak algorithm for finding the right people to hang out with IRL.
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Ah yes, democracy . Is that when you fire up the tanks and shoot natives until they tell you you're a big boy? Or is it the terror campaign of school drone strikes after?
you can have an acceptable domestic government that had made unacceptable mistakes in foreign policies. It does not change the validity of democracy if democratic nations make mistakes. And it does not legitimize a tyrannical government just because democracies have made mistakes. Edit: I'll double down. The whole point of democracies is to hold our governments accountable for those mistakes, something that is (at le…