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Joined
5 mo. ago

  • I mean, they already do that, right? If buggy code comes with polished documentation and passing unit tests, that's a verification trail that looks correct but is not. The problem is that, up until recently, those were broadly assumed to be good enough even though we've known for decades that flawed unit test suites can ignore or even obscure bugs, documentation can be incorrect or out-of-date, because their existence implied, reasonably safely, that the dev who wrote the code understood it well enough to write the doc and the tests. The signals of correctness have always been imperfect, they were just good enough that we got by with them until now. Now we need to think of something more rigorous.

  • I don't think it's as simple as there being "good people" and "bad people", and that only the worst people are capable of extreme wealth. I think wealth just happens to some people. Some people are born into it, some stumble into it, a lot of people seek it out and a few of those people "succeed", though I'd argue even then it's mostly chance. Of the people who get substantial wealth, some give it away, some retire into a wealth cocoon and are never heard from again, some lose it, and some actively grow it because they love the feeling of gaining wealth.

    I don't know if it's addictive in the same way that some chemicals are addictive, but I bet it's addictive in the same way that gambling is addictive, and wealthy people can get hooked on the feeling of "winning" more wealth the same way people get addicted to slot machines. I also think that it's not strictly wealth addiction, but power addiction, which is why some super wealthy people tend to extravagantly flaunt their power: building megaprojects, influencing or simply taking over governments, violating laws with impunity, forcing the working class to work in extreme conditions if not outright enslaving them, etc. The use of power is their drug and they won't stop themselves because they can't. Does that make them bad people? It makes them harmful people who need intervention, the same way an alcoholic needs intervention before they get behind a wheel. I feel bad for kids born into wealth, who never had the chance to just be a human without the veil of power being drawn between them and the rest of humanity. The Don Jr.'s of the world. That doesn't excuse their actions, nor does it mean that they don't need to be stopped. But I think it hurts us to think of them as fundamentally "bad" in the same way I think it's unhelpful to categorize alcoholics as "bad". The real horror is that the monsters are just like us, and treating wealth hoarders and power addicts like they're a different, less human kind of human is the same thing that they do to rationalize their own abuses.

  • Will no one rid me of these troublesome conspiracy laws?

  • I know this gets called for so much that it starts to become background noise, but now is an excellent time to call your congressional reps, regardless of party, and tell them what you expect them to do to contain Trump. Don't mince words. They may not agree with you, but they do monitor these calls and they do talk to each other. If enough of them feel the tide turning they will abandon Trump. They are fearful creatures and they move in packs. If enough of them move at once and visible momentum against Trump builds, there's a good chance he can be contained democratically before he has a chance to meddle with the midterms, and even if he's not impeached he'll still have to do damage control with his party, which will limit his options.

    My fellow Americans, please call your reps, and Senators, no matter how die-hard MAGA they are, and let them feel the pressure of the moment.

    https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

  • I don't think escaping the trauma was his intention, not when his books deal so intimately with the corrosive effects of power. I think he was processing the trauma by telling a story that describes the feeling of those traumatic events, and tries to make sense of how regular people can talk themselves into such senseless violence. I think it's fair to describe that as coping, but I don't think his cope was just ignoring it by describing a nice door for 10 pages. I also don't think it's really fair to say he just wanted "a" story to go with his fancy languages. He had a real point about what evil is, and he wanted to tell it in a story.

  • Interesting critique. I do love formatting! This post is formatted as a paragraph, which contains one or more sentences referring to a central topic. I felt it was the appropriate vehicle for this collection of thoughts.

    It's been so long since I read all the books in one continuous go. I should do it again, but there are so many books I still haven't read it's hard to justify the time. I guess that's also true for movies, but it feels different somehow.

  • I am so fucking tired of my taxes being used to kill people so rich assholes can take their land and resources.

  • Based on how many songs from the musical I currently have in my All Songs playlist, Hamilton. Maybe recency bias but that show has so many bangers and I never get tired of hearing them. One Last Time, Satisfied, Yorktown, Guns and Ships, Helpless, Cabinet Battle #1, The Room Where It Happens, Dear Theodosia. So good.

  • Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is great for a lot of reasons but its origin story for Cats is superb.

  • The most common criticism I've ever heard about Les Mis is that it's overdone. Maybe it is, but that's because it's so fuckin good.

  • I am too, now that you mention it. I started using vim early in my career because my team lead used it, and I never really had occasion to switch to emacs as I usually used a graphical IDE for most development work, and vim was mostly for editing individual files. Might have to give it a spin.

  • Arizona's Health department reports an average of >400 heat related deaths every year; I think 400 tornado related deaths would be more likely to be understood as a natural disaster because you get footage of damaged buildings, on the ground interviews, etc. Heat deaths are quieter but I don't think that makes them less of a disaster.

    Fun side note, I was checking figures while I was writing this and Wikipedia cites NOAA when it says the US has an annual average of about 80 tornado related deaths nationally, which I thought was surprisingly low, but the noaa.gov link that wikipedia cites 404s 😕

    https://www.azdhs.gov/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-control/extreme-weather/heat-safety/index.php

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornadoes_in_the_United_States#Injuries_and_fatalities

  • I'm unhappy at how hard it's become for me to tell the difference between Weird Al and Weird AI. When I was a kid it was easy because it was always Weird Al. Now every time I see either I have to take a second, closer look to convince myself I got it right, and sometimes even then I get it wrong. And I resent that.

  • I think oppressors have a conscience already, they've just been taught to ignore it or accept exceptions to it. Or rather, I think it's more that oppressive leaders are in on the game, but the vast majority of their coalition has to be hoodwinked into following along. Look at the modern American news media machine: we kind of forget how expensive it is because it's also profitable, but that's a huge amount of concerted effort directed at making white americans afraid of and angry at non-white people. If people were just naturally OK with oppression none of that would be necessary, they would just do it and not bother trying to justify it with scare tactics. It's also fragile to argument, which is why books get banned and civil rights leaders get assassinated.

  • I personally prefer self-checkout when I'm at the grocery store, but I 100% agree about running the things. I was working at a grocery store when they first started rolling out, and there wasn't any training on them back then. I am not at all surprised to hear that hasn't changed. I distinctly remember the way the # of tills that needed help would seem to spike all at once, like one problem would cause another and soon you have four people all needing help with different things and being very unhelpful about it. Felt like playing a surreal game-show version of whack-a-mole for eight hours.

  • Have there been cycle breaks? I'm not trying to be combative but I am curious to know what examples you have in mind. I don't think human history has ever seen a break in the cycle of violence as I would define it. The active bloodshed has waxed and waned over the centuries, or at least moved from place to place, but violent oppression has been alive and malignant in every chapter of human history that I can think of.

  • I don't even think a benevolent dictator would be all that great. Dictators are always at the mercy of the information they receive, so you'd also need a cabinet full of benevolent secretaries, who in turn would need agencies full of benevolent directors, who'd need benevolent managers, etc. I just don't think autocracy is an efficient form of government regardless of intent. Checks on power exist to limit the damage that those entrusted with power can do, regardless of their intentions.

  • That's a hard question and I don't know. I don't know that a strictly nonviolent movement can work if there's a critical mass of oppressors who believe that those they oppress deserve to be oppressed. I think the theory of nonviolent resistance is built on an assumption that, deep down, we all know that what oppressors do is wrong and that there is a contrivance of convenience that allows oppressors to except themselves, or simply ignore that knowledge. I don't know if that deep down knowledge is universal. But I know from personal experience it's quite easy to ignore it, especially when one's own life is hard, or when the oppression is mostly hidden from view, or simply when the problem of oppression seems overwhelming and unassailable. I believe that most people who don't try to resist oppression either disapprove but feel helpless in the face of it, or they benefit from it and therefore try to justify it, or usually a combination of the two. If that belief is correct, then the answer I think is one of education. Give people the tools they need to fight nonviolently: Educate about local elections, form citizen watchdog groups, show how propaganda uses common tropes to reinforce ideas about the "inherent criminality" of the oppressed, teach the history of how oligarchs use flunkies like trump to implement favorable policies while deflecting blame onto minorities, and the million other things that people need to know to have a well functioning society. Use shame to dislodge the privileged from their comfortable niches and force them to answer for the consequences of their actions or lack thereof.

    I think, especially now in America, this seems so far away that even to seriously consider it seems fanciful. Maybe it is. Maybe we're at the point where violence is necessary to jerk us back from the cliff of autocracy. It certainly seems like trump and his goons want a fight, and it seems likely that sooner or later they'll get one. But I don't think violence can be solved with violence, and even if America goes through some violent convulsions I don't think they'll end us in a place where we aren't doing violence to each other. Nonviolence requires nonviolence.

  • Yeah. The question is whether to work to continue the cycle or work to break it.