Just accept that you can be laid off and manage your life and finances accordingly.
I know people who got laid off recently, with like 6 months severance. They're planning vacations, getting around to the projects around the house they've been putting off and maybe casually posting on Linkedin to see if anyone in their network has good opportunities. Even after their severance runs out, years of tech salary should make it trivial to build up a decent cushion of savings.
Getting laid off is only a big deal if you've mismanaged your finances. 15 years of FAANG is enough to retire. 15 years of regular tech is enough to save years of living expenses.
The problem is we've all seen this pattern before.
Push the disabled by default, opt-in only version. Face only small backlash because it's opt-in. Then in a later update, switch it to on by default but with an easy opt-out. Then make the opt-out harder or disable other functionality unless users opt-in.
This general pattern happens for all sorts of privacy-invading data collection, advertisements, etc. Companies release a good product, then the enshittification slowly happens over multiple updates, each of which is only a small enough step to not cause too much outrage, until the end product is completely user-hostile.
There is much about China that I don't understand, but I'm curious about the ownership in the "ghost cities".
Given the ability of the CCP to significantly control major industries and movement of people, is it not possible that someone might buy an apartment in a "ghost city" while living in a rural area or renting in another city, expecting that people and jobs would flow to the city once it was completed?
Basically I don't really understand all the details, nuance and different corporate and governmental players involved in the "ghost city" phenomenon, but I'd almost expect that the government could make a "ghost city" into a "real city" in no time, by shutting down factories in one city and opening them there, or by changing internal migration restrictions.
Can you step outside of your own point of view to realize this is all kinda silly?
When you walk down the street, people might look at you and imagine you in ways you don't like. They might whisper about you to their friends. They might write a story where you're the villain or the fool. They might draw an unflattering picture of you. You might experience anxiety or fear or other "psychological harms" worrying about any of these things happening.
I have compassion and sympathy for the fears, anxieties and discomforts people might experience from worrying about how other people imagine them, or use their likeness in works of fiction. But that sympathy doesn't mean I want the government to police people's thoughts, stories or art.
| If you want to fight against non consensual AI porn, you need someone to be the face of it
Isn't this just an emotionally charged way of suggesting people fight against artistic freedom, freedom of speech, etc?
I have literally zero concern about someone making AI porn that looks like me (or my spouse, family, celebrities, politicians, etc). People have already had photoshop and before that imaginations. It's maybe a little weird, icky or uncomfortable to think about, but that's a small price to pay for living in a free liberal democracy.
I'm far more concerned that this will give powerful people another tool to crack down on journalists, artists, activists, documentary filmmakers, etc. Or even just any independent creative who attempts to publish work outside of one of the major copyright cartel corporations.
Curious how different our experiences of "culture" can be.
I'm an American in my 40s. I've never seen "glorification of scams" in any mainstream culture and can't really think of any subculture where that would be the case... maybe used car sales, crypto or drug dealers or something?
I've also never seen any sort of "hyper-masculization" shown in a positive light in mainstream culture. I've always been pressured by society to present as less masculine and it's common to see masculinity referred to as as "toxic" and equated with negative traits or externalities. In fact, it's an entirely one-sided debate at this point. Suggesting any positive aspect of masculinity is considered sexist, misogynistic and unacceptable among the people who's opinions carry power in society. Negative aspects of masculinity are of course strongly encouraged, reinforced and amplified.
"People are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work" from https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed
So if someone is retired, a student, a full-time parent, etc then they don't count as "unemployed" despite not working a paid job. If someone lost their job and wants a new one, and at least once every 4 weeks they check a job website or whatever, they'd still be counted.
One could obviously exit the limbo by just ending up lower status.
Imagine an actor or director who's very successful and high status. Then their subsequent work is less well received. They might have a period of "status limbo" while their cultural relevance and status are unclear. If they end up teaching improv in Chicago, they've arguably exited the limbo at a lower status than a star of Hollywood or Broadway.
Young people could also be in "status limbo" by for instance completing a prestigious degree but not yet securing a corresponding job. A 22 year old taking a year after graduating to study for the MCAT is in status limbo. If they score well and get accepted into a top med school - high status. If they don't get into med school, they're an unemployed 23 year old with a minimally useful BA.
"Woke" started as a term used by young American social progressives as a reference to becoming aware of things which they had previously been unaware. Sort of a "Neo waking up from being in the Matrix" type of waking from a dream, delusion or false reality.
This could cover almost any social, economic or political issue. Generally though it was used around issues related to race, gender or sexuality. People would sometimes use the phrase "Stay Woke" as a shorthand for something like "Stay aware of racial or gender disparities and work to counter them".
The term was subsequently used in a derisive, pejorative or mocking manner by people who perceived the first group (the "woke" people) to be factually incorrect or excessive in their demands.
People using a phrase like "woke nonsense" are expressing disdain for inserting race/gender/sexuality issues where they don't belong or being frustrated by too-extreme measures being advocated to address such issues.
There's my attempt at writing a very neutral etymology of the usage of the term.
> "American conditions" - is a term with decades of use in Norwegian politics to scare voters.
Neat, I always enjoy learning about the various bits of propaganda and stereotypes that exist in different cultures and this was a new term for me.
I've many times had fairly entertaining conversations with Scandinavians about what life in the US is actually like compared to their expectations. They always seem a bit in disbelief at how safe, comfortable, easy and secure life is in reality. I've learned to reassure them that things would be different if I were an entry level worker at Walmart or McDonald's, and that that life might look more similar to their expectations.
Norway is projected to produce $122,421,000,000 worth of oil next year, against a population of only 5 million people.
That's about $24,400 in annual oil revenue per citizen. Their sovereign wealth fund (profits from oil re-invested into the global stock market and real estate) is about $270,000 per citizen. Take the risk-free rate of putting that in US Treasuries and it's an additional $13,500 per citizen per year.
Judged in the context of Petro-states with tiny populations there is still a lot to like about Norway. But it's important to realize that UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are realistically their peers, not countries like the US.
Norway was a lower income country until they discovered an infinite money glitch in the North Sea. When looking at the country, it's critical to realize their oil wealth enables them to have the government programs and society they currently enjoy, rather than mistakenly thinking those programs are the source of their wealth.
Do you think students should need a specific license to read a book? Do visitors to an art gallery need a specific license to look at paintings? Do audiences need specific licenses to watch a play?
Those people will be influenced by what they've read/seen/heard and their own future writing/drawing/filming/acting/editing/playing might draw inspiration from what they've learned, and they might incorporate things they've learned into their own future work.
Literally every book, song and work of art is "violating copyright" on the thousands of other works that the creator learned from while growing up, if we hold the same standard.
"Violating copyright" is a completely imaginary problem. We have a somewhat arbitrary set of laws, rules, guidelines and social norms about using existing ideas.
American law for instance has limits on the duration of copyright before something becomes public domain, explicit exemptions for "fair use" for education, journalistic reporting, commentary, etc.
If "copyright" is a problem in the way of training AI models, then we should all collectively vote for politicians who fix that problem by updating the laws to make the training explicitly allowed. Problem solved.
(Alternatively, if you're evil, vote for politicians who will let the billionaires strengthen their domination and subjugation of the other 99.9999% of humans by making copyright laws even more in favor of TimeWarner-Disney-Miramax-FoxNews-Lockheed-GE or whatever the current conglomerate is).
Delivering food is a legitimate, respectable and productive job. Fraudulently deceiving lonely men to coerce them into paying for more fraudulent interactions, less so.
I wonder how long before an article is published about someone committing suicide when they find out they were talking to a man in the Philippines rather than the woman they thought they were talking to.