The changes in Earth's rotational speed that leap seconds help account for affect the whole globe. Why shouldn't the effects be noted in the global time standard?
There are degrees of power, of course. All white men aren't at the pinnacle of power, and many are truly disadvantaged, but they collectively share a disproportionate amount of power in the world given how few of them there are.
That should be the case, but the frequent data breaches that I get notified about with little consequence to the companies involved make me doubt that there will be real incentives for good behavior.
The left-leaning vibe is a historical accident reinforced by user-managed moderation.
Bluesky came at the right moment to pick up lots of people fleeing Twitter after Musk's overbearing edgelord enshittification of Twitter.
Now, Bluesky's robust moderation tools allow users to subscribe to user-curated block lists. Users are empowered to decide they don't want to hear certain viewpoints. You don't want to see cat videos? Subscribe to a block list.
Right wing folks mostly don't care to try Bluesky because they have Twitter, but those that do try don't get much traction because no one sees their posts. Trolling and rage-baiting become unsatisfying when you're talking to yourself.
There are many alternative ways to distribute wealth, Cuban communism being only one of them. Capitalists would like us to believe in a false dichotomy between democratic capitalism and totalitarian communism.
Instead of Cuba, why not point to the sovereign wealth funds of Norway or Alaska? Or farmers' co-ops in the American midwest? Or just the generally successful democratic socialist countries in Europe where standard of living is better by many measures than in the US?
None of those are perfect, but they show that commerce and wealth distribution don't have to be purely "it takes money to make money".
Right, it's usually not the inventors, artists, etc. who reap the wealth generated by their creativity. The already-wealthy divert a disproportionate share of that productivity to themselves.
We should be happy with a disproportionate amount of wealth going to rent seekers because they let us buy their goods and work in their companies making them even wealthier?
The wealthy always skew the rules to favor themselves, e.g. US capital gains being taxed at a lower rate than labor. The global standard of living has been going up but could be even higher if wealth was distributed more justly.
Lake Mead is projected next year to be at its lowest level since it was filled by the creation of Hoover Dam. The states on the Colorado River have been fighting over the dwindling water for decades. Locals care about water.
People quibbling about the news coverage only normalizes the unjust sentences imposed on political opponents while the felonious president pardons loyal supporters. It's not normal, not acceptable.
Not enough thought goes into safely transitioning from scrappy startup to mature enterprise. Attitudes, culture, and practices have to change. It gets super awkward, and it's a rare CEO that does both well.
Practically speaking, I spend a lot of time paying down technical debt incurred during the startup years, and practices are only just maturing to where we're not digging ourselves a deeper hole anymore.
It takes a few weeks to acclimate, so visiting for two weeks you experienced just the suffering before you would have adjusted. If you moved there it would feel different. Not pleasant, but different.
The priming didn't prepare us to sympathize with robots that were built to plagiarize our art and literature and take our jobs.
Robocop is an interesting example where we sympathize with a cyborg but not the greedy corporate executives. Blade Runner has the same outlook. The Matrix and Ex Machina don't present AI as entirely sympathetic. Etc.
The priming has been a lot more nuanced than simply AI = sympathetic lifeform.