My generation did not have access to the internet until we were teenagers, yet we perfectly managed to catch up. In fact, I don't think that the following generations (the so-called 'digital natives') have overall better computer skills, on the contrary.
In general, the last thing young kids need is more screen time. My 5-year-old daughter doesn't have access to any mobile devices. She enjoys drawing, handcraft, reading books, singing and playing the piano. I'm perfectly happy with that.
> I remember watching HN and seeing every time there was something Rust related trending, there was ALWAYS a post made shortly after trying to hype Zig and this went on for like 4 years.
You just got a tiny taste of what Rust enthusiasts have been doing to every C++ related submission here on HN for years.
Yes! Like when Kujau couldn't get the letter A, so he went with "FH" instead of "AH" for the cover initials. Heidemann convinced the people at Stern that it surely stands for "Führer Hitler" :-D
Schtonk! does a really great job at satirizing the Führerkult that was still very much present in large parts of German society.
The whole affair was bizarre. At one point Kujau, the author of the fake diaries, ran out of ideas and let Hitler complain about his flatulence.
There is also a very funny German movie about it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schtonk!) The director later said that he intentionally omitted some facts about the real scandal because the audience would find it too far fetched.
> For urban heat zones, AC seems to be criticized in isolation. There's never a mention of a lack of tree canopy in vast parts of the city, or that reflective pavements and green roofs are nonexistent.
I totally agree on the importance of trees, reflective pavements, green roofs, etc.
However, pretty much everybody who is critical of AC would also support the things you've listed. Is your complaint that people do not talk enough about it? That's not really my experience.
I have the feeling that widespread use of AC would make it even harder to make these changes. At the very least, these things must go hand in hand.
> I literally just read some reports yesterday day about how AC can be a pathological solution.
That's what I have been wondering as well. When I was in Japan (which is notorious for using obscene amounts of AC), I once walked past the rear side of some buildings where all the AC vents were and you could clearly feel the heat these things are pumping into the city. How is this not creating a feedback loop?
> My argument is: that cat is out of the bag, so what do we do next?
I did not see this argument in your first post at all. Instead you tried to dismiss the author's complaints, arguing that none of their complaints are new. (Which is true in a sense, but it ignores the most important point: that of scale)
> I mean, yeah, sure I do, but ranting about the technology won't somehow put that cat back in the bag, either.
Fair enough, the author did not propose any concrete solutions. However, their analysis is still correct. The first step towards change is to acknowledge that we have a problem. Your first reply did not seem to do that, on the contrary, it seemed to downplay the authors concerns. Maybe that was not your intention, but that's how I read it.
I certainly agree that we need to find solutions. Yes, the cat is out of the bag, but with proper legal frameworks and regulations we can keep it from pissing all over the living room.
> We have a concept of fair use in copyright because economic growth is essentially tied to the free proliferation of information.
Who is "we"? The concept of "fair use" is pretty specific to the US. There is no "fair use" in Germany, for example.
Personally, I like the idea of "fair use", but I personally don't think that it applies to commercial closed-source AI model training. The US Copyright Office seems to agree with this assessement:
> Various uses of copyrighted works in AI training are likely to be transformative. The extent to which they are fair, however, will depend on what works were used, from what source, for what purpose, and with what controls on the outputs—all of which can affect the market. When a model is deployed for purposes such as analysis or research—the types of uses that are critical to international competitiveness—the outputs are unlikely to substitute for expressive works used in training. But making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries.
In general, the last thing young kids need is more screen time. My 5-year-old daughter doesn't have access to any mobile devices. She enjoys drawing, handcraft, reading books, singing and playing the piano. I'm perfectly happy with that.