Prelude to the Apocalypse

[Hoagtech]

Oh, Air Master Burst, you just aren't being realistic.

Society benefits from Elon Musk having those billions because he's REAL LIFE TONY STARK!!!!

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

* * *

Hoagtech, sit on my knee, son, and let me tell you about something called "stock buybacks."

And how do bad tax and trading policies relate to “Capatalism is BAAAAD” “Mo freee shittt”? Fix the tax code, Regulate trade policies..

You’re all over the the place MM. Take your Ritalin!

[emphatic]

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Demonstrably false!

So who's paying for it? If it's truly free, the answer would be "nobody".

[Vanguard]

Hey, maybe you'll get it right this time. History begs to differ though, but I guess "that wasn't real communism".

Capitalism's supporters are exactly the same. None of them have remotely realistic solutions to the inevitable alliance between big business and big government and all of the ugly things that come with it. Usually they don't even bother to address the problem. When businessmen use their influence over the state to start wars for profit, "that isn't real capitalism." When corporate monopolies merge with other corporate monopolies to become ever larger and more powerful monopolies, "that isn't capitalism's fault." When corporations bribe lawmakers for public handouts or legal advantages, "that isn't real capitalism," even though we see it happen constantly wherever capitalism exists, and the more capitalist a society is the more egregious the bribery gets. When capitalists tell you their plan for your future where "You'll own nothing. And you'll be happy," somehow "that isn't real capitalism," even though capitalists thought up the idea, capitalists intend to implement it, and everything about it is perfectly in line with everything capitalism has done over the last few centuries.

Nestle drains lakes people use as water sources so they can sell it back as bottled water. Monsanto creates famines so they can sell more seeds. Bayer gives out HIV positive blood transfusions because their accountants said that using it and risking lawsuits would cost less than replacing the contaminated products. None of this is capitalism's fault, because it just isn't.

"Private property" and "personal property" are two entirely distinct and different concepts.

You guys need to use better terminology. I guarantee you that to more than 90% of English speakers, private property and personal property are exactly the same thing. Change private property to rentier/rental property or something more clear like that. Maybe just say you want to ban all forms of usury.

[Air Master Burst]

"Private property" and "personal property" are two entirely distinct and different concepts.

You guys need to use better terminology. I guarantee you that to more than 90% of English speakers, private property and personal property are exactly the same thing. Change private property to rentier/rental property or something more clear like that. Maybe just say you want to ban all forms of usury.

It's not like it's a campaign slogan! I'm not in politics or running for office, someone literally asked for a deep dive about my personal beliefs. Frame it however you want to the general public!

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Demonstrably false!

So who's paying for it? If it's truly free, the answer would be "nobody".

In theory, everyone pays for it equally because everyone pays taxes and then that money is used for the betterment of society via things like free lunch programs.

In practice, free lunch programs are one of the few wins the poor common folk actually get, and they keep trying to gut it for exactly that reason.

[Sima Tuna]

I'm surprised nobody is pushing to tear down the libraries, considering they are another example of providing something to the poor for free. As in, taken from tax money we all pay, for the benefit of normal people. A library used to be something a rich person had in their house to show off to other rich people how smart they were. Those damn progressives, giving a free book to the unwashed masses! Poor people should have to pay for their books just like rich people do!

Does it really cost so very much to provide some basic services to our citizens, no matter what their background or income level may be? They are our own citizens. Our people. It reflects badly on all of us when our citizens' children starve, or are denied access to knowledge, or must live on the streets. The whole country looks foolish and inhumane when we treat our people badly.

[Hoagtech]

Let’s take a look at the Omnibus spending bill shall we?

The bill that liberals who wanted musk to step down voted against in high poll numbers. 71% opposed.

The spending (wasting bill) that no one wanted but got because the house is turning red next year so let’s make a dash with your cash. One last Pelosi fucking for us small guys.

The majority of it is a defense bill in disguise.

They claim the 845 billion!!! in Defense is to help guys like Air Master Burst get more VA and better wages in the military. That sounds like a good thing. Oh wait less than 2 billion is going into wages of enrolled military?

What about the other 843 billion? That my stupid voting sheep friends is reserved for “Ukraine and Taiwan defense”

There is even a seperate 45 billion dollar donation going to Ukraine as well

Well I’m sure these Dems meant well and strived for bipartisan measures right?

Of course.. Like the 45 billion Jan 6 pocket fund given directly to FBI, dept of Justice, and January 6 prosecutors. Gotta pay to protect our tender minds and “democracy” from that one day the rednecks went too far..

To give you an idea of 45 billion. That’s more than the net worth of over 70 countries in this world.

Stupid things like “child tax credits” to help the Bryan M moms of the world were non existent.

The supply chain causing inflation is starting to sour like milk.

How’s that saying go again..

‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice. This feels nice”

Doesn’t surprise me that the cheating censor monarch’s are stuffing their pockets with your money and buying your votes with irrelevant social issues.

The best part is you guys think affordable housing will solve homelessness. What do you think the fed will do to regulate this inflation? A: Charge you a lifetime of debt on your future mortgage.

At least you still got that virtue cape and N-95, so thank you so much for demonstrating how to live as a good person. I’ll make sure to save you a cockroach sandwich in my garbage bag tent house as a thank you

[Mischief Maker]

You're right, yet another government shutdown under republicans would have done wonders for the economy.

[BIL]

Bwaaaahahahaha! (very rude language!) Caribbean prisons = NOT NICE HOMIE Not quite the unbridled gang-controlled horror shows of Central/South America, generally - but most def *arf arf! ruff* for soft-arsed university grads... particularly ones dodging the ol' Spicy Bedsheet!



I mean I'm sure he's more dopey fallguy than anyone of real significance, I just like seeing assholic Burgers n' Crumpets come round my hood only to get... OWNZ0RED BIGLY!

At least he's a bit less likely to get bummed! The lads don't get down like that, or if they do it's typically consensual and mutually sympathetic. The region doesn't even have that one Iranian "It's not gay if you're the one on top!" clause that Sheiky Baby always cites, while telling other men he's going to

1: put them in the Camel Clutch
2: break their backs, then
3: bum them (making them humble).



God bless Sheiky and he lady wife and their children, they've endured through some hard times.

Well anyway lads, that's what regionally-entrenched homophobia can do for you - and your battycrease!

[Air Master Burst]

Let’s take a look at the Omnibus spending bill shall we?

I love how this dude keeps pointing out how democrats are almost as shitty as republicans like it's some sort of gotcha. We know this, we've literally spent half the last 5 pages of this thread complaining about it.

Are you really so entrenched in the political-party-as-sports-team mentality that you can't fathom someone NOT blindly supporting literally anything the guy with the right color behind his name chyron says?

The majority of it is a defense bill in disguise.

Stop all the ridiculous military spending and tax the shit out of corporations and the top 1% and suddenly that stuff is easy to pay for.

Hey, you agreed with me on something! I'll make a socialist out of you yet!

The best part is you guys think affordable housing will solve homelessness.

No, but giving everyone a free home sure would!

[BryanM]

The latest annual increase is more than enough to cover Sander's free tuition thing, and that's without any price control provisions to clamp down on price gouging a bit. Not once in a million years will you ever see a single solitary person on TV ever ask "but how are we going to pay for it."

Like the old guy always says. You can say whatever you want, it's a bunch of useless noise; but show me your budget and I'll tell you what you care about.

Anyway, the collapse of the Tesla bubble is a little cathartic. The entire thing was pumped up in faith in one man, and Musk blew it. All he had to do was stop being such a little egotistical shit, and stick to the shadows a bit. Like the grown-up billionaires do.

It's still at least ten times higher than it should be. I expect the entire company to flatline and disappear completely once the guy passes on.. this ain't exactly Apple with their iPhones, you know?

[Vanguard]

The best part is you guys think affordable housing will solve homelessness. What do you think the fed will do to regulate this inflation? A: Charge you a lifetime of debt on your future mortgage.

No, but giving everyone a free home sure would!

I hear that in Finland they tried making it the government policy to straight up build or purchase apartments for homeless people to use for free (eg with public money) until they're able to start paying their own rent, and that this has not only curbed homelessness and crime, but it even saved money because the cost of having the police constantly deal with the homeless was higher than the cost of paying for the apartments.

Personally I'd also like to see strict limits on how much residential property any one individual or business can own, and foreign investors should not be able to own American residential properties. The way the US government gives money to banks and landlords is one of the worst possible ways to reduce housing costs. It's probably really intended to do the opposite.

[Sima Tuna]

The best part is you guys think affordable housing will solve homelessness. What do you think the fed will do to regulate this inflation? A: Charge you a lifetime of debt on your future mortgage.

No, but giving everyone a free home sure would!

I hear that in Finland they tried making it the government policy to straight up build or purchase apartments for homeless people to use for free (eg with public money) until they're able to start paying their own rent, and that this has not only curbed homelessness and crime, but it even saved money because the cost of having the police constantly deal with the homeless was higher than the cost of paying for the apartments.

Personally I'd also like to see strict limits on how much residential property any one individual or business can own, and foreign investors should not be able to own American residential properties. The way the US government gives money to banks and landlords is one of the worst possible ways to reduce housing costs. It's probably really intended to do the opposite.

Not only that. I know some dude in Germany and he's told me it's basically impossible to be homeless there, because the government will give the basics of living to any citizen who wants them.

Giving free shit to poor people to keep them off the streets is not only a good idea, but it's one with a history of success. We give free books to poor people and they can get into college. We give free food and they don't starve. Why not give free housing so our cities don't look like garbage dumps?

The main argument against offering basic living spaces for all seems to be that then the poor, underprivileged plebs won't feel encouraged to ruin their health in wage slave jobs for the benefit of the super-rich. I don't see that as a compelling reason, particularly given the existing level of suffering we're seeing in the United States among society's downtrodden. It takes a callous and cruel government to do its own citizens so dirty. There is no country without the people and there is no power without citizens over which to exercise it.

As far as the issue of cost, the question really is whether or not it would cost more. Or if it would save money. The other question is, even if it *did* cost more money to offer basic standards of living to all US citizens, wouldn't it still be worth doing? Wouldn't the long-term benefits be substantial? Cleaner cities. Less crime. Less violence. Fewer kids going to bed hungry. A greater spirit of national unity and comradeship among people of all income levels. The knowledge our old people/veterans/disabled will be cared for, even if they don't have family.

I have a grandmother who was in a car accident young in life and effectively disabled from holding full-time employment by it. She's now old, infirm and has no money. Without the help of the family, she would be very poorly-off. Now imagine if she, like so many others, had no family and was in this position. What country treats its seniors so disgracefully? Old people, war veterans, the disabled... We use these people up and then throw them away.

[Rob]

The few shelters we have are filled to beyond capacity almost instantly, after which point there cease to be any shelters, ya dig? If all the shelters are full, what happens to the rest of the homeless horde who can't get into a shelter? I drove past some fifty of them today on my way home from the grocery store. Vast tent cities stretch across our streets. BTW it's supposed to be 20 degrees tonight with 30+mph wind gusts. We're also due for an ice storm in a few days. These poor sods are stuck in fucking tents. It's a disgrace.

I don't think you understand how big this problem is and how long it's been building. A few shelters run by churches or non-profits or whatever the fuck aren't even a drop in the ocean of need.

Do you volunteer? I don't think your last line is accurate and it also downplays the work people do.

The other question is, even if it *did* cost more money to offer basic standards of living to all US citizens, wouldn't it still be worth doing?

How much of your wealth and comfort are you willing to sacrifice?

[Mischief Maker]

The other question is, even if it *did* cost more money to offer basic standards of living to all US citizens, wouldn't it still be worth doing?

How much of your wealth and comfort are you willing to sacrifice?

Rob, sit on my knee, son, and let me tell you how marginal tax rates work.

[Air Master Burst]

How much of your wealth and comfort are you willing to sacrifice?

If I didn't have to pay for health care or housing then I'd gladly sacrifice a bunch of my income; people do it every day. This isn't theoretical, either! "Better health insurance vs. higher pay" is one of the biggest things most americans have to factor into a job search.

There's a very small portion of the population that could afford to give up a whole fuckload of life-changing wealth without sacrificing a bit of comfort, but they won't ever do it unless someone forces their hand.

[Vanguard]

How much of your wealth and comfort are you willing to sacrifice?

I'm willing to sacrifice as much of Bill Gates' wealth and comfort as it takes.

[BulletMagnet]

I don't think your last line is accurate

If current efforts to address homelessness were anywhere close to adequate we wouldn't be having this conversation. If you can even call it that.

Still waiting, by the way, for you to explain why, as an "environmentalist", you're somehow less concerned with bringing birth rates down than keeping Those People away. Some things never change, it seems.

[Sengoku Strider]

I've heard enough about this Santos guy already. So what if he never worked for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, his company is fraudulent, he never ran a pet charity, he didn't graduate from college, he's not Jewish and his grandparents didn't flee the holocaust, he's on the lam from a cheque fraud conviction in Brazil and he has massive personal debts but somehow lent his campaign $700 000, why isn't anybody talking about Hunter Biden? Seems pret-ty suspicious if you ask me.

[Sima Tuna]

How much of your wealth and comfort are you willing to sacrifice?

For free housing and health care? Fuck man, the government should bring me an offer! Set me up with a contract! It cost me $2500 dollars last time I had to have a crown fixed because the dentists fucked up the first time. I was out of pocket on that crown TWICE. I think the first time was $1500, second was like $2500 ish. For one fucking tooth.

Comfort? Wealth? Must be nice to have those things at all, never mind to sacrifice a portion of it for basic housing and healthcare.

[orange808]

Still waiting, by the way, for you to explain why, as an "environmentalist", you're somehow less concerned with bringing birth rates down than keeping Those People away. Some things never change, it seems.

Family planning? Blasphemy!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk

[BulletMagnet]

I've heard enough about this Santos guy already.

My favorite response - from the pitifully minuscule handful on the right who have so much as bothered to give one - comes from the Republican Jewish Coalition, whom Santos directly lied to regarding his heritage; as zealous representatives of our culture and faith we're so outraged by the situation that we won't invite him to our fancy parties anymore.

Now THAT'S what integrity looks like. Assuming they don't just eventually pussy out on that too.

[Sengoku Strider]

I've heard enough about this Santos guy already.

My favorite response - from the pitifully minuscule handful on the right who have so much as bothered to give one - comes from the Republican Jewish Coalition, whom Santos directly lied to regarding his heritage; as zealous representatives of our culture and faith we're so outraged by the situation that we won't invite him to our fancy parties anymore.

Now THAT'S what integrity looks like. Assuming they don't just eventually pussy out on that too.

Noted centrist Tulsi Gabbard somehow accidentally found herself filling in for noted non-centrist Tucker Carlson on his show and grilled Santos for them. Asking, without irony, "Do you have no shame?"

[BIL]

Ah, Christ. Comical fat black nerd and confirmed paedo Eatdatpussy445, the man with the username I envy the most, has stage 5 kidney failure! He needs a new kidney, or he's fucked.

Well anyway, this didn't really fit in any of our other junk threads, so I thought I'd make a PSA of it and remind folks that sub-Saharan descent = prone to high blood pressure and The Beetus, both of which will fuck your kidneys (and eyes, and everything else!) up. Go easy on the sugary and salty junk if you plan on much of a life post-40. 3;

[Sengoku Strider]

Don Jr admits he doesn’t know where $240m Trump fundraised to fight election results went in Jan 6 transcripts

During one point in Mr Trump Jr’s testimony, an interviewer noted that the Trump campaign raised about $250m to fight the election results, but only used $10m in litigation.

Asked if he knew where the rest of the money went, Mr Trump Jr replied: “I do not.”

Again I ask you, why is nobody talking about Hunter Biden?

[BryanM]

I'm surprised you haven't collected and presented a selection of internet comments of people furious at their guys for throwing Hitler under the bus, after Kanye forced them to run little "Hitler bad" segments.

-

The kamikaze drone ships Ukraine used a few months back are an interesting step in the future of warfare. The things are put together mainly with consumer grade jetski engines and an aluminum shell. In total, far cheaper than a missile costs.

A major reason navel ships trended to size is to retain personal... and morale. No one wants to ride in the sacrificial dingy. At least our government is competent enough to be aware a wave of these things could allow small states to blow up an air craft carrier...

It reminds me a bit of the background story in the OGRE tabletop war game. Where removing a human being from a tank made them substantially better weapons: without having to carry meat around, they could be smaller. That they were smaller and lighter, they could carry thicker armor. (You may remember one tank fetishist by the name of.... Hitler.... who desperately made his guys make prototype giant super tanks that were completely useless because math. Tanks were quite new and glamorized in his developmental years, I would assume.)

The ideal here would being able to send a control signal through the water and have kamikazi submarines that are completely invisible, right up until they hit a ship right up its thin delicate sphincter. More feasibly.... piloting the things manually to a certain location, then handing them off to an AI to kill people once they need to submerge.

[BulletMagnet]

A brief reminder that when the US fails to provide the same basic ingredients for a higher quality of life that so much of the rest of the world has already been providing for years - in this particular case, child care that's both affordable and pays its workers decently - it's not an inevitability, but a very conscious and deliberate choice.

[Sengoku Strider]

I'm surprised you haven't collected and presented a selection of internet comments of people furious at their guys for throwing Hitler under the bus, after Kanye forced them to run little "Hitler bad" segments.

Whhaaat? Support for Hitler, here in the 2020s? Poppycock!

Ah-aAah, SIX MILLION!! Gotcha!



A very happy Saint Hitler's Day to you and to all your loved ones.

[orange808]

Remote control warfare won't last. They'll eventually need to make autonomous machines. Any design is only as good as it's weakest link; in this case, communication is the weakness and there's no way to fix it. Works fine against people that are broke and unprepared, I guess. Just don't expect it to work against anyone that gets help from China or America.

Never liked the term AI very much. Exhausting a tree with brute force isn't intelligent. Then again, it's definitely artificial and phony. Maybe AI is the right term.

I'm impressed, but not floored with the new AI stuff out there. We are still using brute force. Moore's Law and time are the only things that prevented the current "innovations" from happening sooner. Had we developed proper computers sooner, we would have had lots of handy tensor cores around years ago. We've understood a concept of decision trees for a very long time. I bet Greeks wrote about the idea of possibilities forming a tree. Simply waking up one day with the necessary brute force hardware isn't a real innovation or discovery from a software or thinking standpoint; it's winning the "born on time" lottery.

In terms of game development, finally being able to brute force ray tracing isn't the most impressive thing to me. The greatest display of cleverness was the way we faked it and created reasonably good lighting without ray tracing. We're most clever when we need something and can't quite afford it.

And, there's the magic of real intelligence. We don't have to exhaust entire trees in our heads to make decisions. We have a machine that finds short cuts. We are short cut machines in practice, as well. Now, if I could just get around being recycled and interated by the larger cycle. Uh oh, I hit on evolution. I'm probably going to offend someone's religion if I keep going... Most every intelligent and honest thought eventually leads to offending someone--and here I was: going on about how clever we are.

[BryanM]

Latent spaces are a bit more like the pruned decision trees we use than the brute force search that old chess programs used to use.

I am quite fond of the scale maximalist meme.

Listening to really bad takes by lefty humanists dismissing the crappy machine art does get kind of annoying. Of all biases to have, thinking humans can make things better for themselves on their own is pretty risible. We've had over 100,000 years to do so, it wasn't hippy power or benevolent santa claus capitalists that changed anything.

[orange808]

Listening to really bad takes by lefty humanists dismissing the crappy machine art does get kind of annoying. Of all biases to have, thinking humans can make things better for themselves on their own is pretty risible. We've had over 100,000 years to do so, it wasn't hippy power or benevolent santa claus capitalists that changed anything.

Better is subjective.

In practice, AI models are okay at generating ideas. Right now, it takes a human artist to shape the inspiration into something interesting.

There are already music models that work like a jambox. Although, playing around with a physical little jambox to find interesting riffs is actually easier than trying to find/train a model and seed it to get the sound you want. Not to mention the time and hassle of digging through hundreds of "takes". Direct output from any model produces boring shit--even if there isn't anything ridiculously off key or out of time. There might be an inspired nugget in there, but the results are never presentable real work (unless you are going for boring background music to set a mood and complement something visual). Anyone can slowly run through a chord progression using soft pads. Don't need an AI for that.

Straight copy pasta DALL-E or Stable Diffusion sticks out like a sore thumb. Although, some people can get more milage by fine tuning models and carefully seeding their work. AI for image generation has an advantage over music, you can look at an image very quickly; artists can find something interesting faster.