papasquat's recent activity
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Comment on Stop Killing The Internet: No digital ID and no age verification in ~tech
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Comment on We surveyed 6,000 Americans. Here is the winning message for Democrats - Opinion, Dustin Guastella and Erica Etelson in ~society
papasquat Link ParentMost people in general wouldn't mind living in a fascist state, with one giant caveat: as long as they're not the ones being persecuted. Most people would, all things equal, prefer everyone be...One of the most surprising things to me about the rise of American fascism is how okay many Americans of voting age are with it. Not necessarily enthusiastic supporters, but, unbothered about living in an American flavoured version of the definition of a fascist state, or the most useful version I've come across.
Most people in general wouldn't mind living in a fascist state, with one giant caveat: as long as they're not the ones being persecuted. Most people would, all things equal, prefer everyone be treated with respect, but if it comes down to persecuting and scapegoating minorities and their own well being being impacted in any way, they'll choose the fascism every time.
That's part of the reason why fascism has any kind of success at all. If someone came in and said "we're going to put people in camps, and we'll all have to tighten our belts a bit to do it, but it's the right thing to do", no one in their right mind would ever vote them in. It would be a fringe movement by die hard lunatics that have devoted their entire core to hatred.
Facists don't do that though, they say "we'll put those people in camps and that will solve all of our problems. We'll get our jobs back, we'll be prosperous, you can have lots of kids and not worry about crime or anything!" And people believe them.
The human tendency to look out for you and your family's interests over compassion for strangers takes over, and even though fascists are blatant liars, and even if you're in the "in group", life overall sucks under fascism, by the time most people realize that it's too late.
It just takes the right combination of social conditions, and charismatic fascists, and any society is vulnerable to it.
That's why the effective counter message isn't "hey guys actually concentration camps are wrong. We cannot morally vote for these guys". Yeah, it's true, but that's not what people care about.
People care about their own well being, so the counter message should actually be "your life will suck under these policies. Take a look at our real, proven plan for how we can actually make this place better for you and your family, and take a look at all the times the fascists failed at that"
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Comment on Who likes GTA? in ~games
papasquat LinkI love GTA online, with some very, very strong caveats, because the way I play it doesn't seem to match how virtually anyone else I've met online plays it. I detest the open world stuff. I hate...I love GTA online, with some very, very strong caveats, because the way I play it doesn't seem to match how virtually anyone else I've met online plays it.
I detest the open world stuff. I hate the heists, the stupid property purchase stuff, the dumb missions, the random rolling around getting into death matches with players who have the latest overpowered crap that Rockstar had them buy shark cards to use.
What I do like is curating playlists with my friends of custom games in a private lobby. We'll do a round of sumo (everyone is in the same car, they try to stay in increasingly small bubbles around a small, set map while everyone tries to push everyone else out), a race or two. Rockets vs cars (cars go over a huge ramp to try to kill people on a platform, who are trying to blow up the cars with rocket launchers), and lots of other games like that. There are a ton of really fun custom games that involve cars and guns, because that's what GTA is great at.
Its a ton of fun, it's not super tryhard and sweaty, you don't have to grind for anything, and it's not full of hackers, because it's a private lobby.
Every time I play the game though, it becomes more of a pain in the ass to do the one part of the game that I think is any good. They randomly delete fun custom games for no reason, the interface is god awful, the game has always taken forever to load, and they force you to use that stupid in game cell phone for everything.
If there was a similar game that just had the custom game stuff with similar gameplay that I could join my friends via steam with, we'd drop it in a millisecond.
I did mostly enjoy the GTA V single player campaign when it came out, and I've played through all of the games campaigns since GTA III, and they're fun, but mostly forgettable. They're definitely not a top 10 single player campaign or anything, but if I'm buying GTA VI for the multiplayer, and I probably am, I will likely play through the campaign also.
I think most people that are still playing GTA online are either very invested in the grindy min maxy aspect of all the random dumb money making schemes that Rockstar puts into the game a few times a year (which I'd rather gouge my eyeballs out than engage with), or they're playing on custom RP servers, which... online RP has always struck me as a really sad approximation of a real social life with actual friends. Not hating on anyone into that stuff, and I love role playing, but only with actual people I'm actually friends with. I think the people who heavily engage in online RP communities tend to take it far too seriously, and use it as a substitute for actual human connection, which, to me, feels deeply unhealthy.
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Comment on Meta agrees to heavy restrictions on teen users in major lawsuit settlement in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentYeah, it kinda reminds me of smoking companies advertising to kids. They didn't have to have cartoon mascots, or advertise to kids using the flinstones or whatever. They were selling an addictive...Yeah, it kinda reminds me of smoking companies advertising to kids. They didn't have to have cartoon mascots, or advertise to kids using the flinstones or whatever. They were selling an addictive product that grows out of the ground. All they had to do was dry it, wrap it in paper, package it, and sell it for the equivalent of 5 bucks a pack, and they were making money hand over fist. It wasn't enough for them though, and they had to get younger and younger kids hooked, which started the beginning of the end for them.
These social media companies remind me a lot of big tobacco in the 80s and 90s. The feigning of the ignorance around the harms of their product. The sniveling spineless groveling. The failure to acknowledge the harm they've caused and the fear mongering about personal freedom and how good hard working Americans just want an nice cigarette/endless algorithm feed at the end of the day to take the edge off, but the paternalistic government won't get off their backs.
Its all bullshit, and the only thing they're actually afraid of is their bottom line.
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Comment on Stop Killing The Internet: No digital ID and no age verification in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentHonestly, why? Like actually, what are the real political roadblocks here? Yes, there are a lot of special interests that have a lot of financial incentives towards making this not happen, but...The problem with this is that it's not going to happen
Honestly, why? Like actually, what are the real political roadblocks here?
Yes, there are a lot of special interests that have a lot of financial incentives towards making this not happen, but it's also a ridiculously, broadly popular proposal. Its not a left right culture war issue, or some line in the sand for conservative or progressive politics. Almost everyone hates being mined for data, spam, robocalls, and so on.
You'd face increased funding from opposition candidates if you ran on that, but it would be a pretty broadly popular policy proposal as long as you could maintain some semblance of control of the narrative.
There's basically no regular voter who is on the site of giant social media or data aggregation companies.
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Comment on Meta agrees to heavy restrictions on teen users in major lawsuit settlement in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentIts extremely location dependent. Here's a good source from fidelity though: https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/smart-money/average-salary-in-us The number is kind of meaningless though to...Its extremely location dependent. Here's a good source from fidelity though: https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/smart-money/average-salary-in-us
The number is kind of meaningless though to be honest. Like, emotionally, I still have an association with $70,000 a year as a threshold for "a lot of money", and something like $45,000 as "average", which mostly has to do with my age.
The actual number isn't what determines what's a lot versus what's barely acceptable though, the purchasing power of a dollar is, and we've had record inflation in the US in the past few years.
That emotional association with what passed for a high versus average or low salary when you started working sticks with you, probably for your whole life. It explains a lot of the boomer mentality of "you're making $50,000 a year! What do you have to complain about money about???".
When your biggest cost is already paid off (housing) and you don't interact with the economy as much anymore, it's easy to forget that inflation is an ever present force in working people's lives, and that wages haven't kept up with it. Someone making $70,000 a year today is poorer than people who made $10,000 a year when boomers were kids.
That's an easy concept to understand intellectually, but tough to take to heart and feel on an emotional level.
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Comment on Meta agrees to heavy restrictions on teen users in major lawsuit settlement in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI'd agree with you if social media and it's affect on teen depression were something new. But it's effects have been studied for decades at this point. We know that bombarding young, developing...I'd agree with you if social media and it's affect on teen depression were something new. But it's effects have been studied for decades at this point. We know that bombarding young, developing minds with people to compare themselves to, things that make them angry, advertisements that make them feel like outsiders, and features to keep them hooked on that content has a harmful impact on their minds and behavior. We know those impacts can result in depression, murder, and suicide. Facebook knows they have billions of users and that some proportion of them would be driven to do this stuff. They intentionally put those anti fearures in place anyway.
I think they're as directly responsible as anyone that runs a website can be.
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Comment on Young adults in the US are increasingly wary of AI, concerned it will take jobs in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentThat's one of the arguments I hear about the public good of traditional stock trading, (and one I sort of believe) that I still think is pretty weak. I haven't looked into the numbers...Even with normal stock trading, as disconnected as it is from reality, there's at least the argument that you're investing in the company and believe in its future, regardless of what you plan to do with the actual stock
That's one of the arguments I hear about the public good of traditional stock trading, (and one I sort of believe) that I still think is pretty weak. I haven't looked into the numbers specifically, but something like like 99.99% of stock trading is on the secondary market, meaning, it doesn't help the company whose stock is being traded at all.
In theory, the people running a company shouldn't really give a shit about the stock price. If Microsoft's stock jumps 1000% overnight, Microsoft doesn't benefit from that at all, except for individuals who work at Microsoft and also happen to own their stock individually. The company itself doesn't see a dime of that increase.
They get a big cash infusion at the IPO, and that's it. Afterwards, it's just a bunch of people who own a piece of the company getting richer or poorer based on the stock price, and not actually directly influencing the company's operations at all.
So if you're buying stock at in IPO because you believe in the company's mission, I can see that being a public good, but buying it after that doesn't really actually help anyone except for investors. That one is harder to contort your brain into seeing how it helps the world.
I GUESS one argument you could make is that the anticipation of the secondary market drives up IPO prices, and without it, companies would get far less investment, but you really have to squint at that one.
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Comment on Young adults in the US are increasingly wary of AI, concerned it will take jobs in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentThe more that time goes on, and the less that a company's stock price reflects its actual earnings, or even its projected earnings, the more that the entire stock market seems like an entirely...The more that time goes on, and the less that a company's stock price reflects its actual earnings, or even its projected earnings, the more that the entire stock market seems like an entirely pointless shell game, or the world's biggest casino.
It used to be that companies that were well run and had good indicators of solid fundementals had high stock prices, because investors could rely on a steady flow of dividends from that stock based on their revenue.
You own a company, it does something that people find value in, they pay the company, and you earn profit because you own part of it, easy.
Now though, much of the market seems to be growth stocks entirely decoupled from any projection of dividend revenue. We want the stock solely because other people want the stock. Why do those people want the stock? Well, easy, because other people want the stock.
Like imagine if the rest of the economy worked this way? You start a lawn care business and invest a ton of money on advertising and flashy graphics. You don't actually own a lawn mower, and when people sign up, you just hire some kid to do a terrible job and charge the people an insane subscription fee. Anyone paying attention to your business knows that you have no way of actually making money with this model, and you just hemmorage money every month, but your entire goal is just to get as many people as possible familiar with your brand, so that someone else buys it. The person that buys it is also aware that it makes no money and can't possibly hope to make money, but they're banking on the brand becoming even more visible so they can sell it to the next guy.
The whole country would collapse in six months. It's absolute insanity, but that's how some of the most valuable publicly traded companies work now.
I used to understand on a theoretical level what the public good of the stock market was. Now, the whole thing just seems like a massive waste of time and resources.
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Comment on PS3 emulator RPCS3 now supports online trophies through its own PlayStation Network replacement in ~games
papasquat Link ParentI've been playing demons souls on it. It and bloodborne are the only soulsbourne games I've never played, because I never owned a PlayStation, and it's amazing. The upscaling has made it It look...I've been playing demons souls on it. It and bloodborne are the only soulsbourne games I've never played, because I never owned a PlayStation, and it's amazing.
The upscaling has made it It look incredibly good for a console game released 17 years ago, and I've been playing co-op with a friend of mine, which works flawlessly with all of the in game networking features intact. Its really impressive.
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Comment on Meta agrees to heavy restrictions on teen users in major lawsuit settlement in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentDon't forget, they had to pay out less than 10% of their annual revenue also. To translate, for the average American that would be around a $7000 fine. Imagine being directly responsible for many,...Don't forget, they had to pay out less than 10% of their annual revenue also. To translate, for the average American that would be around a $7000 fine.
Imagine being directly responsible for many, many suicides and murders, rampant addiction and depression in millions of kids, and then your punishment is paying a $7000 fine and promising not to do it again?
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Comment on X corp is taking down Nitter instances and demands takedown of project repository in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI normally would agree with you. My threshold for the amount of terrible people on a platform before I write everyone on the platform off as a terrible person is very, very high. Hell, I was an...I normally would agree with you. My threshold for the amount of terrible people on a platform before I write everyone on the platform off as a terrible person is very, very high.
Hell, I was an avid 4chan user for a long time, even though I've always held almost diametrically opposed opinions versus the average /pol/ user. (The /tg/ and /mu/ boards were legitimately good places for discussion for a time).
With Twitter though, not only has the site actively cultivated a Nazi adjacent/white supremacist user base by putting policies in place to make sure they're never banned regardless of how disruptive they are, and unbanning users who were banned for very, very good reasons regardless of their political opinions, but the owner is explicitly a white supremacist.
He's made that really clear on many occasions. He's not just a libertarian type "free speech at all costs" type, he's very overtly publicly racist. It's a site for Nazis, by Nazis now. The fact that some people who aren't Nazis are on it doesn't change that, unfortunately.
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Comment on X corp is taking down Nitter instances and demands takedown of project repository in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentWho cares? Like literally, who cares about twitters bottom line, their business model, and why they make the decisions they do. They're a privately owned company, and they're free to try to stop...- Exemplary
why would a site like Twitter allow third-party front-ends?
Who cares? Like literally, who cares about twitters bottom line, their business model, and why they make the decisions they do. They're a privately owned company, and they're free to try to stop third parties from scraping content by whatever technical means they have at their disposal.
That clearly hasn't worked out for them, so they're now trying to use the law to do their dirty work, which is the part that I do have an issue with.
Twitter is a telecommunications service, which means they enjoy title 230 protections in the US, where they're based. They can't be sued for the things their users say, because under the law, they're an impartial service provider, not a content publisher.
What that should also mean, is that they have no right to dictate what happens to the content on their platform after it's posted. If someone wants to scrape the site, republish it, open up a twitter competitor that scrapes twitter, what the court should say is: "Tough luck shitheads. You didn't write the content, you don't own the content, and you don't get to decide where the content is republished".
If they want those copyright protections, then they can revoke their section 230 protections, review and publish every tweet, and then stand behind them. That's why the New York Times gets to bring you to court if you reprint their newspaper, but Twitter doesn't.
You can sue the New York Times if they publish a false story that send right wing lunatics to your doorstep. Section 230 says you can't sue Twitter for the same.
You can't have it both ways.
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Comment on What are we in a golden age of? in ~talk
papasquat LinkRC aircraft. When I was a kid, I dreamed of owning an RC helicopter. I loved helicopters, I still do, they're fascinating, ridiculously complex machines that I'm still shocked managed to fly all...RC aircraft. When I was a kid, I dreamed of owning an RC helicopter. I loved helicopters, I still do, they're fascinating, ridiculously complex machines that I'm still shocked managed to fly all the way back in the 30s. My parents took me to look at some one time, were shocked at A. How expensive they were, B. how dangerous the guy at the store told them they were, and C. How insanely difficult he said they were to fly, so that was that.
Later in college, I finally got a blade 300, and the guy was right. The thing was absolutely terrifying, and it was so insanely hard to fly that I spent way more time fixing it after crashing than flying it. It took me hundreds of hours, but I eventually was able to hover around the yard. It was fun, but the amount of time, effort and money to fly for a few minutes just wasn't worth it for me.
I've recently gotten back into RC aircraft in the form of fpv quadcopters (drones), and man, it's insane how far they've come.
They're cheap as hell now, durable, stable, with incredible RC links and HD video systems that feel like magic.
I can build a whole quad faster than it took me to fix the rotor head of that rc helicopter after a crash. I can charge batteries in no time and fly around as long as I want. My RC link will reach tens of miles, and the receiver costs about 20 bucks. And I have a camera on the thing that makes your feel like you're flying, so you don't have to worry about losing sight of the thing and crashing. And if you DO lose your video link, the thing has a gps on it, it can fly back home and land itself.
Its so amazing how much more fun and accessible the hobby is now than it was back then.
It makes me really respect the people that were flying rc airplanes back in the 50s where every aspect sucked way worse than it did when I first got into it, but they kept doing it anyway.
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Comment on Router recommendations? in ~comp
papasquat Link ParentYeah, with my AP it's not so bad. With my switch, it's uniquely terrible. Without getting super deep into it, I run everything in my house off of one chassis, my router is a VM, my container host...Yeah, with my AP it's not so bad. With my switch, it's uniquely terrible. Without getting super deep into it, I run everything in my house off of one chassis, my router is a VM, my container host is a VM, so on and so forth, so when I want to get to the server VLAN to the workstation VLAN, I need a router which lives on that sever chassis, and has a trunk port passed through to the VM, and it's just this... Horrible chicken or the egg scenario that involves my internet being down for hours while I rebuild the whole thing and put patch cables in different places.
The whole thing could be so much easier with a console cable and CLI access to my switch configuration, but ubiquiti thinks that's a bad idea for some reason.
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Comment on Router recommendations? in ~comp
papasquat Link ParentThey still do this separate controller garbage, at least with their switches. I have a switch of theirs that I lost the controller container for, and in order for me to manage it ever again, I...They still do this separate controller garbage, at least with their switches.
I have a switch of theirs that I lost the controller container for, and in order for me to manage it ever again, I need to factory reset the switch, which means I have to remember every trunk configuration on every port, and its just such a huge pain in the ass that I've been putting it off for six months. There's no way that I know of to recover the configuration that already exists on the switch.
Never buying another device of theirs again because of that whole experience.
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Comment on Japan tried to build an operating system for the entire world, then the US government intervened in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentWouldn't a denser written language require less text on a screen at a given time, not more?Wouldn't a denser written language require less text on a screen at a given time, not more?
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Comment on Japan tried to build an operating system for the entire world, then the US government intervened in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI always thought the difference between Japanese industrial, interior, and landscape design, and Japanese web design was so striking. In all of the previous areas, Japan basically invented...I always thought the difference between Japanese industrial, interior, and landscape design, and Japanese web design was so striking.
In all of the previous areas, Japan basically invented minimalism. The zen Buddhist aesthetic has been endlessly minmiced, and the wabi-sabi concept has basically ingrained itself in all modern interior and industrial design. If you look at traditional Japanese joinery and architecture, they're master classes in tasteful understated design, less is more, quantity over quality. I mean, hell, look at a first gen sony walkman and you can see the same thing.
Then you get onto the Japanese internet, and it's like your eyeballs are being assaulted by chaos and flashing colors. It feels like going back in time to the 90s. Its like the web equivalent of a cheap mini mall with vape shops, hookah lounges, a payday loan place, and a nail salon, each with their own annoying pattern of flashing rgb lights all trying to grab your attention.
Its such a weird juxtaposition.
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Comment on Chinese humanoid robots smash human records in 100m sprint and high jump at Beijing robot games in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentYou may be right, and I'm guessing that's what all these companies tied to humanoid robots are hedging for, but I've had a really hard time thinking of even an industrial use case where humanoids...You may be right, and I'm guessing that's what all these companies tied to humanoid robots are hedging for, but I've had a really hard time thinking of even an industrial use case where humanoids would be better suited to a wheeled, tracked, or quadruped robot.
The human shape is mostly an evolutionary compromise based on using existing limbs and adapting two of them for tool use and fine motor manipulation instead of locomotion. It's really not beneficial for much except for being an exact stand-in for a human, like for crash testing, or testing chairs or something like that.
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Comment on Chinese humanoid robots smash human records in 100m sprint and high jump at Beijing robot games in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI think it's the second part much more than the first to be honest. This kind of dexterity and motor control is impressive and genuinely useful, the humanoid form factor probably isn't though. Its...The use case as I understand it is pretty much “drop into the billions of situations that are already designed around humans doing the thing, and have the robot do the thing without needing to retrofit the whole environment for them”. That and it’s goddamn cool, of course.
I think it's the second part much more than the first to be honest. This kind of dexterity and motor control is impressive and genuinely useful, the humanoid form factor probably isn't though.
Its a lot easier and cheaper to design robots that can navigate specific environments to do specific tasks that they can do a lot better than a humanoid can versus trying to design one that can replicate everything a human can do. Still, if you want to build a laundry folding robot, or a firefighting robot, it needs to be able to have human level dexterity and object awareness, so the capabilities demoed at events like this are important.
I think most people currently don't care about it because they view it as an inevitability, like the weather. People get data breach notifications all the time, and they don't like it, but their attitude is "well, my personal info has already leaked a dozen times in the past decade. What's one more?".
Everyone hates junk mail, spam and targeted ads, but there's no alternative that's ever been presented.
Yeah, you'd have a lot of money to run against, but so do environmentalists, public healthcare advocates, urbanists, and tons of other issues where people mostly feel one way, but capital feels another, and all of those things have gained at least some semblance of traction. So it's hard, but it's not like it's impossible to take on business.