indirection's recent activity

  1. Comment on A Nazi tattoo exposes US Democrats’ greatest weakness in ~society

    indirection
    (edited )
    Link
    We should forgive people for what they've done decades ago, that they apologized for and seem to be different about, regardless of their race or gender. The solution isn't to exclude white men...

    I find it hard to imagine that we would be having this conversation at all were Platner anything other than a fit middle-aged white guy who dresses like a stock photo of a “real man.”

    We should forgive people for what they've done decades ago, that they apologized for and seem to be different about, regardless of their race or gender. The solution isn't to exclude white men from such forgiveness, it's to include everyone else. That means we should forgive Platner.

    People today have issues forgiving others and accepting them despite their flaws. That doesn't mean forgetting others' transgressions or allowing them to repeat, or accepting others' flaws. See this description of "Christian love" from another thread; it should be used on bigots instead of trans people, but the method (shun someone until they repent, then re-invite them) is OK, certainly better than "cancel indefinitely". I'd actually prefer something more lenient, embarrassing and shaming people without fully excluding them; but the main point is, we can and should have zero tolerance for bigotry while accepting people who are formerly bigoted, since even close-minded small towns have zero tolerance for "sins" while accepting people who have "sinned".

    The Democratic party's real issue isn't that they're too radical or too centrist, because politics isn't one-dimensional. The Democrats should be more "radical" in that they should be more blunt, confrontational, and active (as the author says). But I really think they should tolerate and forgive people much more, even if that makes them more "centrist", and that's not the same as tolerating or forgiving specific words and actions.

    2 votes

  2. Comment on A Nazi tattoo exposes US Democrats’ greatest weakness in ~society

    indirection
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I agree that the backlash towards trans issues is misleading, but it's not impossible to defeat. The solution is general honesty. I'm sure most voters would pick a pro-trans candidate over an...

    I agree that the backlash towards trans issues is misleading, but it's not impossible to defeat. The solution is general honesty.

    I'm sure most voters would pick a pro-trans candidate over an anti-trans candidate, if the pro-trans candidate was obviously better in other ways. They wouldn't believe Republican distortion of Democrat trans views, if Democrats seemed honest.

    The real reason that Trump won is that most people's lives weren't better during Biden's presidency than Trump's, and most Democrat politicians (including Biden and Harris) were very dishonest. Hence why centrist and right-leaning voters didn't favor Democrats over Republicans, and nothing Democrats said shifted their perception more than negligibly.

    Harris not speaking about non-binary people did, and Democrats openly rejecting trans issues would, actually damage the party's appearance further. Voters know that Democrats support trans people, the question is whether they have moderate "live and let live" support or Republican-propaganda "enable sexual assault" support. Unfortunately (as you note), even outright stating the former and giving the most centrist trans-friendly policies (e.g. no women in competitive sports) while explicitly disavowing anything further, won't convince many people. Because (as stated), Democrats have spun and outright lied so much, anyone not far-left doesn't believe anything they say anymore; especially when it contrasts their prior statements and the perceived effects of their prior policies.

    That makes the situation seem pretty grim, but I don't believe most centrist and even moderate right voters like or believe Republican politicians either. The economy is still getting worse for the average person, and barring some miracle where Republicans fix that, voters will get sick of them. Eventually they'll start listening to Democrats again, simply because they're unhappy with the status quo and Democrats are an alternative (unless a third party rises).

    Granted I'm bad at persuasion, so maybe it's not even worth saying. But my lesson to Democrats (am I a Democrat?) is: if you cannot improve people's lives, your policies have unintended consequences, and you have unpopular goals, at least be honest. Write and promote a detailed plan for when you're elected ("Project 2027" and "Project 2029"), then follow it. If the plan differs from what voters want, explain why if you think voters will understand, otherwise just admit it; the popular opinion for some policies is wrong and ignorant, voters don't know how the world works at a large scale, I say this as a voter myself. If part of the plan is infeasible or impossible (e.g. struck down by courts), apologize, then ask voters for next steps, and either do them or (again, being honest) admit you won't. Speaking of, the plan should be feasible and contain actions ("I'll create a fund for small businesses"), not outcomes ("I'll restore the middle class"); and although most voters won't care, the specific details of the actions should be somewhere, at least for you to prove to yourself that the plan really is feasible.

    Voters are so disillusioned by lying politicians, I suspect even a candidate who's authentic but has terrible policies would be elected over the current ones (I suspect that helped Trump get elected). But even if voters don't intrinsically prefer honesty, it's important because it makes people in the other party actually listen to you. If the Democrats build credibility, they'll have no issues clarifying their policies and fighting Republican distortion, on trans rights and everything else. And I imagine Democrats would build credibility by being honest even when it embarrasses them, and taking concrete stances on policies that will alienate both some of their party and "centrists" in the other party, because taking any concrete stance on some policies will alienate many people. This includes being honest about trans rights, but they're only a small part; if the Democrats rebuilt credibility on trans rights it will mainly be from being honest about other policies.

    2 votes

  3. Comment on Millennials: How do you feel about nostalgia pandering? in ~talk

    indirection
    Link
    Nostalgia can be good, but in pure form it's never as good as the past itself. I'm nostalgic for software and the internet of the 2000s, and people who grew up before me are probably nostalgic for...

    Nostalgia can be good, but in pure form it's never as good as the past itself.

    I'm nostalgic for software and the internet of the 2000s, and people who grew up before me are probably nostalgic for software and the internet of the 1980s. But 2000s-style software and websites today aren't the same, because the culture surrounding them is different, and because we've been desensitized.

    Instead of just trying to recreate the past, I think people should combine the best of the past, present, and experiment (for the future). The best "nostalgia" isn't pure nostalgia, it's integrating aspects from the past that have temporarily gone out of favor but are once again useful, and combining them with something completely new.

    5 votes

  4. Comment on Traditional criticism is in trouble. Demand for cultural commentary is higher than it’s ever been—but now that commentary is coming from unconventional new sources. in ~society

    indirection
    Link
    I see this as a net positive. "Conventional sources" can (and have) been influenced by money. For example, product and media review sites sometimes get paid by sponsors; even if they're only...

    I see this as a net positive.

    "Conventional sources" can (and have) been influenced by money. For example, product and media review sites sometimes get paid by sponsors; even if they're only "paid" by getting a free product to review, that implicitly incentivizes a good review for more free products and out of goodwill.

    Now, some unconventional sources are corrupted even more (some "reviewers" are the sponsors themselves in disguise), and funded groups use SEO to promote these sources so they appear before others. However, the keyword is some. Because there are far more social-media reviewers than traditional ones, some will be particularly principled (and too niche to be offered much, if sponsors even notice them), and these are the reviewers I look for.

    Furthermore, "conventional sources" have conventional opinions. My preferences aren't mainstream and I tend to like niche works (e.g. indie games) that aren't covered by mainstream reviewers. The "decentralization" of criticism means there are now niche reviewers with similar preferences to me, who look for these games so I don't have to.

    That being said, there are negatives to the replacement of a few traditional reviewers with many social-media ones. A big one is that I have to actively look for social-media reviewers that are unbiased and share my preferences, whereas there are (and used to be more) traditional reviewers with commonly-agreed-upon quality. Another is that traditional reviewers, generally being more experienced and well-paid, tend to have better presentation and more in-depth analysis; though this is a small issue and shrinking, because hobbyist camera setups and production software are getting really good, and many social-media reviewers make up for lack of reviewing experience with passion and hands-on experience.

    5 votes

  5. Comment on Tech companies are finding out everything is political in ~tech

    indirection
    (edited )
    Link
    I thought the point of platforms like BlueSky is that you control the moderation. If one authority controls what is on 90% of users' feeds, doesn't that defeat said point? I get that people don't...

    I thought the point of platforms like BlueSky is that you control the moderation. If one authority controls what is on 90% of users' feeds, doesn't that defeat said point?

    I get that people don't want Jesse Singal on the main instance, but there's a deeper problem, which is that BlueSky employees have that power in the first place. That employees aren't listening to the community can only be solved temporarily. The community needs to learn how to function without the employees being fully aligned, otherwise BlueSky is just left-wing Twitter.

    Open-source code and decentralized platforms, by definition, nobody can be prevented from using. The maintainers can accept or decline suggestions and sponsorships from certain people, but they can't control how their project is used. The maintainers don't even have full control the project themselves, in that others can "fork" it; the only advantage the original has over a fork is initial prevalence, but that can be lost (and has for some real code and platforms, e.g. OpenOffice->LibreOffice, freenode->Libera.Chat).

    Personally, I'd rather use a service that can't ban people I don't like (but I can filter effectively), than one that can ban those I do.

    9 votes

  6. Comment on Flight fares surge after US President Donald Trump's surprising H-1B visa move; ‘Extremely bad situation’ in ~society

    indirection
    Link Parent
    As someone vaguely thinking about starting a business (probably not...) this seems like something that would bother even billionaires. What if the leader gets pissed off because of something inane...

    As someone vaguely thinking about starting a business (probably not...) this seems like something that would bother even billionaires. What if the leader gets pissed off because of something inane you did? What if he demands something you especially don't want? What about competitors in other countries whose leaders are more flexible, so they focus more on innovation and cost-cutting?

    5 votes

  7. Comment on Wallet voting in ~life

    indirection
    Link Parent
    Not just for "mental health". While it doesn't really hurt BigCorp, it really helps the small businesses. I buy from small businesses, use open-source software, watch indie films, etc. first and...

    Not just for "mental health". While it doesn't really hurt BigCorp, it really helps the small businesses.

    I buy from small businesses, use open-source software, watch indie films, etc. first and foremost, because I like the product. Second, because I want to support the creator and encourage others, partly so they produce more, and partly so they are happier. I don't even think about the negligible impact me not using a bigger service has on their revenue; I don't care that those companies exist, I care that there aren't enough alternatives (...and downstream effects like environment pollution, but as Cory Doctorow says those requires collective action).

    For example, Tildes. I doubt most users here are active to spite Reddit, people are active here because of Tildes's intrinsic value: at least I am because I like the community and sometimes find interesting links and discussions

    22 votes

  8. Comment on Samification of the current Web in ~design

    indirection
    Link
    Today most mainstream sites look similar, but there are plenty of oddly-formatted niche sites. There's the "indie web" (ex: indieweb.org, neocities.org, melonland.net) which emphasize Web 1.0...

    Today most mainstream sites look similar, but there are plenty of oddly-formatted niche sites. There's the "indie web" (ex: indieweb.org, neocities.org, melonland.net) which emphasize Web 1.0 style, and old sites that are still updated and haven't been redesigned. There are also new-style sites that still do something to try and "stand out", like hermes4.nousresearch.com, although they get lots of criticism (ex: that site for hogging memory, other sites for scrolljacking or being hard to read, generally along "just show me the content").

    I think it's unfortunate that mainstream taste is what I'd call "bland", but if most people prefer that, I think it's not worth caring about. What we should care about is finding our own groups with interesting taste. The nice thing about the web is that random people can publish almost anything they can create, and you can visit almost any site. There's nothing really stopping groups like the indie web from becoming mainstream except that the mainstream audience doesn't notice them, and when it does doesn't find them worthy of attention/contribution.

    5 votes

  9. Comment on Sydney Sweeney’s Hollywood career just got a whole lot more complicated in ~society

    indirection
    Link Parent
    This is spot-on:

    This is spot-on:

    While everyone argues about whether blue eyes constitute Nazi imagery, real fascists implement actual policies: detention centers where people drink from toilets, mass deportations to foreign countries, systematic capture of independent agencies. The cultural grievance theater serves oligarchic interests perfectly because it keeps democratic resistance focused on symbolic battles rather than material power.

    22 votes

  10. Comment on predawka - quasiorganic [full album animation] (2025) in ~music

    indirection
    Link
    An electronic/IDM album with a full-length music video. I thought it was incredible

    An electronic/IDM album with a full-length music video. I thought it was incredible

  12. Comment on The terribly tragic, totally avoidable, absolute collapse of the gaming industry in ~games

    indirection
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    My understanding is: Games produced today are generally better than ever. The game developer career is worse than ever. Getting into a big company is hard and you'll be overworked, underpaid, and...

    My understanding is:

    • Games produced today are generally better than ever.

    • The game developer career is worse than ever. Getting into a big company is hard and you'll be overworked, underpaid, and assigned projects that get cancelled. As an indie, you have an astronomically low chance of making profit (factoring in living expenses during development), because games produced today are generally better than ever. Working for a small company is in-between; you may or may not have better working conditions (although you're probably still not paid well), and you risk the company going bankrupt.

    • Some AAA franchises and companies produce bad games: uninspired, buggy, and with microtransactions that affect gameplay. Not all though, e.g. some of Nintendo's recent games. However, some of the best games produced today are by AA studios, whose capabilities are comparable to AAA thanks to better tooling like Unreal Engine 5.

    11 votes

  13. Comment on Everyone is crazy now in ~society

    indirection
    Link
    I think the author suffers from the availability heuristic. They notice famous people who have lots of money and power because famous people are, well, noticeable. They don't notice people with...

    I think the author suffers from the availability heuristic. They notice famous people who have lots of money and power because famous people are, well, noticeable. They don't notice people with money and power who have obtained it the old-fashioned way and don't explicitly seek attention; for example, those born to wealthy families, or the CEOs of "boring" companies like finance, insurance, etc. I'm confident that the latter far outnumber the former.

    Their examples also don't really help their case:

    • Tesla was not "just a meme"; it was the first company to really popularize the electric vehicle, which is a genuine good thing because it helps the environment. It's also suffering financially despite constantly being in the news, possibly more than ever and/or because of it's (negative) publicity.

    • Meme stocks like GME have seen occasional success, but are dwarfed by real companies. Even Bitcoin's market cap (~$2.3 trillion last I checked) is dwarfed by the S&P 500 (~$49.8 trillion). One exception: you can get far richer investing in a meme cryptocoin than a reliable stock or government bond, if you're lucky (or in on the grift). But only if; most people statistically would be better off with the "boring" reliable stocks.

    • VCs like Y Combinator support the author's argument the most, because their entire function is investing in companies based on their appearance. And indeed, YC has invested in some companies which put all effort into appearance and none into content, like PearAI, the company which simply cloned an OSS project and rebranded it. However VC isn't the only way for startups to succeed, and directing all energy towards marketing isn't the only way to appeal to VCs. There are a lot of AI companies in YC's 2025 batch, but how many will still be around in 5-10 years? I can't say, but suspect those who remain will be those with real engineering talent, not the shiny ChatGPT wrappers.

    • Donald Trump didn't only win because of social media. While nobody can quantify how much it contributed, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had many vocal online supporters themselves, and their campaign failed for other reasons (among them: Biden dropping out late, and incumbent governments (including right-wing ones) lost almost everywhere).

    Lastly, Elon Musk is the "richest" man in the world (as in, he is the single person with the highest net worth according to Forbes), but he isn't the most powerful. There are families with more combined net worth, people in government positions, and sometimes both (for example, the royal family of Saudi Arabia). Also, Elon Musk's xAI and Sam Altman's OpenAI aren't the only leading AI companies, there's also Anthropic (whose CEO isn't nearly as well-known), Google, DeepSeek, and others.

    13 votes

  14. Comment on The America Party in ~society

    indirection
    Link Parent
    I really want to see more third-parties in general. I don't trust Elon Musk, but even a third party launched by him could have good outcomes. Both the Democrat and Republican parties are widely...

    I really want to see more third-parties in general. I don't trust Elon Musk, but even a third party launched by him could have good outcomes.

    Both the Democrat and Republican parties are widely seen as out-of-touch. Politicians don't accurately represent their voters, but get re-elected anyways because they're better than the other party's candidate. Even if they get zero seats, just by running, AP candidates pressure the Democrat and Republican candidates to align closer with their voters. Plus, one third-party getting any success will inspire others.

    1 vote

  15. Comment on The rise of Whatever in ~tech

    indirection
    Link Parent
    In fairness, I attended some hackathons before LLMs. Most of the projects followed the current hype (blockchain, early ML, and VR) so they were similar. They also "kinda sorta did the job and only...

    An intern asked me 'What were hackathons like before LLMs' and I nearly cried.

    In fairness, I attended some hackathons before LLMs. Most of the projects followed the current hype (blockchain, early ML, and VR) so they were similar. They also "kinda sorta did the job and only broke 10% of the time" and boasted during the presentation (some presentations I couldn't even tell if the app worked). I'm sure the main part (crypto/ML/VR) was provided by a library, in some cases the demo team wouldn't have needed to understand any of the underlying technology to integrate it, and the rest was boilerplate that could've been taken from a "starter project".

    Also, if it's a work hackathon and the projects are work-oriented, they're almost guaranteed to be uninspiring. If there are expensive prizes, many people will be competing and aiming to show off, not to make something interesting and have fun. Even with total creative control and no prizes, hackathon quality can vary significantly; some hackathons just have a much better culture, they are more fun and motivational and inspire more original projects.

    I will say that not every hackathon project was uninspiring and buggy; some were very creative, impressive, and (as evidenced by the demo) functional. I doubt there was much hand-written code since most hackathons are ~24 or ~48 hour coding marathons, but some projects did complex things that wouldn't have come from a library. Especially in some hackathons, in particular game jams, more projects were like this. But in every hackathon I went to (even company-focused ones) there were teams that didn't compete for the prizes, but made whatever they felt was cool in order to have fun and learn something useful themselves.

    6 votes

  16. Comment on America’s incarceration rate is about to fall off a cliff in ~society

    indirection
    Link Parent
    On second thought I think you're right. In theory we could regulate and incentivize to try and fix those things, but in practice it would be whack-a-mole, and less efficient than the government...

    On second thought I think you're right. In theory we could regulate and incentivize to try and fix those things, but in practice it would be whack-a-mole, and less efficient than the government running the entire prison themselves.

    1 vote

  17. Comment on America’s incarceration rate is about to fall off a cliff in ~society

    indirection
    Link Parent
    My main issue with private prisons is that they get paid for every prisoner, so they're incentivized to have more prisoners. If they were paid a fixed rate regardless of prison population, and...

    My main issue with private prisons is that they get paid for every prisoner, so they're incentivized to have more prisoners. If they were paid a fixed rate regardless of prison population, and given a bonus for every former prisoner who stays out of future prison for N years (maybe another if the prisoner has a job), they would be incentivized to have as many empty beds as possible, and lower recidivism.

    5 votes

  18. Comment on Brazilian comedian sentenced to eight years over discriminatory jokes in ~society

    indirection
    (edited )
    Link
    A big issue I have with jailing people for hate speech is second-order effects*. In summary, you can't hurt your enemies without your friends getting hurt by retaliation or crossfire. Perhaps a...

    A big issue I have with jailing people for hate speech is second-order effects*. In summary, you can't hurt your enemies without your friends getting hurt by retaliation or crossfire.

    Perhaps a ideal world, nobody would be allowed to make these "jokes". However, we don't live in an ideal world, and when someone gets jailed for hate speech, it creates factors that make it more likely for someone else to be jailed for something mundane or even good. Violence must be punished because it can't be ignored, but nobody was forced to watch the YouTube video this man was convicted for.

    A good counter-argument is that hate speech encourages targeted harassment and violence, and this is true. However, I still believe that prosecuting it leads to more harassment and violence overall. I can't prove this, and maybe I'm wrong, but the rise of far-right in the past decade strengthened this belief (are there other, historical examples of such a resurgence?). Also, my experience and looking at world history and events, most people are passive unless they feel threatened (or that their friends or family are threatened); taking away freedom from someone for saying horrible things would threaten others who think and say the same things, but are otherwise too comfortable to act them out.

    Remember that war puts everyone at risk within a large vicinity, and usually both sides end up worse overall. That doesn't mean always choose pacifism, sometimes you must war, but only for self-defense. Similarly, I believe we should lock up some people, but only to prevent them and others from committing similar crimes in the future. The problem with this conviction is that I fear it straight-up won't work, and in practice cause more harm than good.

    * I also don't believe he or anyone deserves jail time for speech (with exceptions like hiring a hitman or revealing secrets to an enemy at war). I believe "live and let live", and speech generally doesn't prevent others from living. But the idea that this man's conviction and related ones could hurt others in particular is what makes me feel the need to post something.

    7 votes

  19. Comment on Becoming an asshole in ~life

    indirection
    Link Parent
    There's the trope of a person who acts nice but betrays others behind their backs (or at best, acts nice but is unhelpful). Others see that and prefer those with "asshole" personalities, because...

    There's the trope of a person who acts nice but betrays others behind their backs (or at best, acts nice but is unhelpful). Others see that and prefer those with "asshole" personalities, because they don't trust anyone.

    Would you rather be hurt by someone who scowls and curses, or hurt just as much by someone who smiles and sweet-talks? Ideally someone would be both nice and honest, but if they're parasitic the next best is for them to still be honest, meaning they are openly mean. It follows that, if you believe most people are dishonest, you want most people to be mean.

    I agree with @Greg idea that we should teach people to be nice and trust others who are nice because of "enlightened self-interest". I'll add that we also need to teach people how to spot and prevent deception and betrayal, because that's what eroded the veneer of public "niceness" in the first place.

    5 votes

  20. Comment on Walmart and Amazon are exploring issuing their own stablecoins in ~finance

    indirection
    Link
    As someone in tech, but not crypto, I don't see the point. Not even from a grifter perspective. These are stablecoins, so they don't gain value. Walmart is unlikely to go out of business, but it's...

    As someone in tech, but not crypto, I don't see the point. Not even from a grifter perspective.

    These are stablecoins, so they don't gain value. Walmart is unlikely to go out of business, but it's more likely than the US dollar collapsing (I think...). Why would I use Walmart coin instead of USDT? Why would Walmart use Walmart coin instead of USDT?

    In the article:

    Stablecoins could allow merchants to circumvent traditional payment rails, which cost them billions of dollars in fees each year, including the interchange fee they pay when customers make purchases using their cards.

    Payments can take days to settle, delaying the time it takes for merchants to receive the proceeds from sales. Stablecoins offer the possibility for a quicker process. They could be of particular interest to merchants with suppliers who are located abroad.

    But that doesn't explain why they don't use an existing stablecoin. Later:

    The companies have also weighed how to use outside stablecoins, some of the people said, even if they decide not to pursue their own. That could be through a consortium of merchants led by one stablecoin issuer, for example.

    14 votes