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astronaut_sloth

@ astronaut_sloth @mander.xyz

Posts
5
Comments
176
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Americans are waking up. A grand reckoning awaits us

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  • He's right, but (and this is a huge but) it will get worse before it gets better.

    Like others have said in here, there's a hard 30% that will always side with Trump, the Republicans, fascism, etc. That won't change. And in 2024, there was a swath of voters who just wanted change and voted for Trump (without realizing that the change would be bad and already attempted), and an even larger group was just apathetic.

    The "change" people are the first to start to wake up. How many posts on Twitter, etc. can be summed up as "I didn't vote for this"? Eventually, as things get worse, the apathetic will start to care. That's when things will start turning but not a minute before. Trump and company are trying to consolidate power and can't help but be incredibly cruel, brazen, and stupid in the process.

    They will cause an economic crisis, hurt untold numbers in all communities, and more. That's their undoing, though. If they left it to simple corruption, isolationism, pro-Russia, anti-trans etc. policies that only hurt small pockets of the country where it's easy enough to stick your head in the sand, then the apathetic will stay that way. But this administration can't help but generally immiserate everyone in pursuit of their fascist goals. When general immiseration arrives, that's when we'll see the reckoning. For now, it's still too easy to ignore what's happening if you want.

    Like the apocryphal Churchill quote says, "Americans will always do the right thing, when they’ve exhausted all other options." We still haven't exhausted all other options, but we're getting there.

  • BREAKING: Elise Stefanik Drops Out of NY Governor’s Race and Is Leaving Congress

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  • I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be more GOP reps who will be looking to "spend more time with their families" in the coming months.

  • Removed

    Is AI really a simulation of God’s mind? What do you think?

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  • If God's mind were a soup of linear algebra doing stupid number tricks, then sure (with the assumption we're just talking about LLMs).

    In reality, no.

    Source: I study AI and work on it professionally.

  • Episodic FTW!

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  • I totally agree with this. Babylon 5 is by far my favorite show when it comes to plotting and structure. I wish more shows would be like B5 in having 22-episode seasons with an overall arc to the series but more-or-less self-contained episodes.

  • Gregory Bovino and Border Patrol agents plan to leave Chicago area, sources say

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  • Exactly. The leadership and a chunk of the imported foot soldiers. That gives the admin time to regroup and let the city cool off. Meanwhile, Bovino and his coterie will use the same tactics elsewhere. If the early rumors of him going to North Carolina are correct, then the courts may be more deferential; this can then be used as evidence if/when they return to use the same tactics again because they were "fine over there" (where there are judges more friendly to their position), and that can be used as evidence in the inevitable case.

    Plus, he's from southern CA. I doubt he's had a real winter ever in his life and is afraid of it.

  • Gregory Bovino and Border Patrol agents plan to leave Chicago area, sources say

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  • I think there are two possible reasons for this:

    1. Winter is coming and these good ol' southern boys can't take a little bit of snow and ice from our own General Winter.
    2. They're escaping before their brand of brutality is ruled completely unconstitutional, and they have to face the possibility of facing real consequences or openly defying the court.

    Personally, I think it's mostly 2 with a little of 1. As lawless as the administration is, they really like to have a fig leaf of legitimacy by not openly defying the court, just flouting rulings and orders at the margins where they can pretend they're still abiding by what the courts say. I don't think the administration is quite ready to go full mask off just yet.

  • Border Patrol commander admitted he lied about tear gas incident, judge says, as she restricts use of force by immigration agents in Chicago

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  • ...That's perjury on top of acting in contempt of court. Is there some reason why he hasn't already been put in shackles for that?

    On a separate note, Bovino is so stupid. He has no clue that he's being set up to be the fall guy. He's racking up all the points to get all of the excesses of this evil operation in Chicago pinned squarely on him. He's giving the ghouls at the top plausible deniability should accountability ever come.

  • Graham Platner’s claims that he didn’t know tattoo was Nazi-linked undercut by new evidence | CNN Politics

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  • That's a very fair point.

  • Graham Platner’s claims that he didn’t know tattoo was Nazi-linked undercut by new evidence | CNN Politics

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  • Bottom line is that I'm skeptical of this guy, but this is my take on his whole deal.

    He reminds me of a lot of young, infantry people I've met in my time: young and full of stupid decisions. I genuinely believe that he got a Totenkopf without realizing what it was. That sounds like something an idiot, young infantryman would do. However, I don't for a second believe that he didn't know what it was until recently. That's a bald faced lie for someone who claims to be a student of history. My read of it is that he realized what he had on himself and he was too ashamed to actually do something about it and instead tried to just keep it a secret. That is, he tried to keep it a secret until he was outed for it. If this is the case, he should have just come clean about it when it came out and just said this, but he didn't.

    As for everything else, I'll extend him some grace on some (except one) post. Being a trolly edgelord is whatever. Infantry, especially at the time, was very sheltered from the military sexual assault issues, and war is really hard on someone. It can send you to really dark places, especially if that's all you've known. So, apologizing for saying stupid, offensive things and demonstrating change is fine. The one thing I am having a hard time reconciling is the "black people don't tip" post. He's actually defending that, which...is a choice. If he disavowed it saying that it's something he observed but is obviously untrue, then fine, but he didn't.

    I don't think he's a closet racist or a closet nazi. I think he might just be kind of dumb. If he's elected, at least he won't furrow his brow and vote with Trump on everything.

  • MTG Turns on Trump and Tells GOP to End the Shutdown

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  • That's a great overview of it. I think you're right; as soon as Trump dies (and I do think it requires his death, not just leaving office), MAGA will fall on each other like wolves. This is why I'm not concerned about "who comes after Trump" because in choosing, MAGA will splinter and self-destruct. I'm actually concerned about actually getting there. If Trump dies (naturally is best), and the country isn't completely destroyed, we'll have a hell of a cleanup project, but I think it could be fixed in a generation or two.

    The fact that MAGA potential heirs are starting their succession fight tells me that they know and are privately acknowledging that he's not healthy and are trying to get a headstart in kneecapping the opposition.

  • Democrats could have more shutdown leverage than people realize

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  • I'm cautiously optimistic after these polls and hoping that they learned their lesson after caving the last time. I think the potential for bad polling spooked them the last time, but with this, they might find their spines and get some concessions from the Republicans. At this point, we really need some sort of victory.

    But I always leave room to be disappointed.

  • Judge finds Trump violated law in firing inspectors general, but allows dismissal to stand

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  • But there is something the courts can do that doesn't involve punishment: simply order the administration to re-hire the IGs with back pay and scrub the termination from the record. That's the actual legal remedy in this situation.

  • Major US brands sound alarm over rising anti-American sentiment

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  • Same. At this point, I'm only buying stuff that's local to my community from small businesses. I don't want to help American mega-corps, and I don't want to contribute to any tariffs going to fund the government.

  • Deleted

    Permanently Deleted

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  • Everyone should have a strong base in STEM and the humanities. It irks me to no end when STEM majors can't write, communicate, or understand a wider historical context just as it irks me when humanities majors claim to not understand basic algebra or scientific concepts. It's fine to have a preference, but an expert engineer should have a passing familiarity with philosophy and ethics, just as a historian should have a passing familiarity with scientific laws and mathematics.

    Then there's business majors who have no familiarity with anything at all. If I had my druthers, "business school" wouldn't even be an option at a university.

  • Chicago Democrats issue warnings about their mayor amid Zohran Mamdani's rise

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  • I worry that poor execution or bad decision making is what will sink the progressive movement. People assume that Johnson’s poor performance is due to inherent issues with democratic socialism, when in fact it he’s just not good at his job.

    Exactly! It's why I'm not concerned with Mamdani based on what I've seen. He seems fairly level-headed, and he has a bit more governing experience than Johnson had.

    Not all progressives have the right disposition and skills to do great things - and if progressive voters can’t or won’t distinguish between policy and performance, then the movement is likely to fizzle out.

    We need to have the ability to self-criticize and be pragmatic. There's room for pragmatism without compromising core beliefs.

  • Chicago Democrats issue warnings about their mayor amid Zohran Mamdani's rise

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  • Absolutely! Some of it is definitely racism, and it is at the root of some criticism. His issue is that he seems to attribute virtually everything that's negative or even questioning to racism. Honestly, I get why he's defensive because of that, but that doesn't make it any less of an overreaction.

    Questioning investing in the south and west sides (to be clear, a good thing) is probably rooted in racism. Questioning why another pastor is being nominated to some position is probably not. He treats both the same.

  • Chicago Democrats issue warnings about their mayor amid Zohran Mamdani's rise

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  • So, being from Chicago, Johnson's problems are mostly personal and of his own making. Like the article highlights, his staffing and approach has been pretty abysmal. He has a tendency to appoint unqualified pastors to positions (which, to be fair, is classic Chicago graft and not unheard of in the city with other mayors), and he doesn't handle criticism well (that is, everything is "because he's a black man" even if the criticism is justified). Plus, antagonizing the very popular governor from the same party is just a stupid thing to do. Some decisions are taken haphazardly (like trying to house migrants on toxic land). Others are just insanely stupid given the history of Chicago and basic financial literacy, like trying to take out a high interest loan to satisfy the Chicago Teachers' Union or paying over $1M per unit of affordable housing.

    The closest thing to an indictment of progressive policies is how Johnson wants to balance our budget, i.e. through taxes, even though Chicago is one of the most highly taxed places in the country already. He seems constitutionally incapable of reviewing for waste in the budget, of which there is plenty thanks to graft built up over decades. In this case, we don't really need more of a tax in the city; we need the money that's already being sent to be used more effectively. Decades of financial mismanagement and straight up corruption (which are, to be clear, not Johnson's fault) led to where we are now. Even that, though, is not really because he's progressive.

    In all, Johnson's problems are not because of overarching progressive policies; it's because he personally makes poor decisions and doesn't really have a grasp on how to effectively govern. While I haven't looked too far into Mamdani, if he can simply make sound management decisions and not alienate those who should be allies, he'll have a better time.

  • We Asked 100+ AI Models to Write Code. The Results: AI-generated Code That Works, But Isn’t Safe

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  • Yeah, I've found AI generated code to be hit or miss. It's been fine to good for boilerplate stuff that I'm too lazy to do myself, but is super easy CS 101 type stuff. Anything that's more specialized requires the LLM to be hand-held in the best case. More often than not, though, I just take the wheel and code the thing myself.

    By the way, I think it's cool that you use Old English characters in your writing. In school I used to do the same in my notes to write faster and smaller.

  • The First Trailer for 'Star Trek: Khan' Lifts the Lid on a Legend

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  • I agree, but this does sound cool for a one off--like Picard s3. Ultimately, though, I want new adventures with new characters exploring the vastness of the universe.