Because not all content deserves to be on a real blog.
brazenautomaton : balioc : brazenautomaton : nonevahed : why the fuck did we have to give Donald Trump another presidency. right now, in 2025-2028, at the hinge of history. like fuck we couldn’t have just had a bunch of DC empty suits with Kamala or Biden. we really had to go for the angry, self-centered, volatile senile old man at what might be the most important moment of human history.…
brazenautomaton : nonevahed : why the fuck did we have to give Donald Trump another presidency. right now, in 2025-2028, at the hinge of history. like fuck we couldn’t have just had a bunch of DC empty suits with Kamala or Biden. we really had to go for the angry, self-centered, volatile senile old man at what might be the most important moment of human history. The people who stayed home…
I really do have a lot of sympathy for anyone who finds himself trying to say: “Let’s imagine what would happen if we did X. Yes, I know, we wouldn’t just decide to do X, because X is very unpopular. Yes , I understand that doing X would make a lot of people mad, and there would be riots in the streets. That’s not the kind of consequence that I’m talking about. YES, I…
Ford has 5,000 open mechanic jobs with up to 6-figure salaries: ‘We are in trouble in our country’ | Fortune “We do not have trade schools,” he said. “We are not investing in educating a next generation of people like my grandfather who had nothing, who built a middle-class life and a future for his family.” Buddy - your grandfather was probably able to find a job that would teach him what…
If you have positioned yourself to be a tastemaker, you do actually have some obligation to make taste. Neither politics nor the market can absolve you of your responsibilities to the world. Culture is important for its own sake.
It is possible for X to be factually correct and morally superior to the alternatives - and yet for human quality to be correlated with not-X, and anti-correlated with X. Sometimes the good, decent people systematically lean towards the bad thing. If you can’t process this from both ends - if you insist on believing that everything that the good people do and are is good, or that people must…
Thinking today about litform theater LARP, and the ways in which it’s a good art form and the ways in which it’s a bad art form, and in particular about the power to induce commitment and then build on that commitment. I’ve said before that theater LARP is an amazing mindfuck technology for making people care. It’s true. You start by handing your players the shortest and…
brazenautomaton : samueldays : brazenautomaton : captain-price-returns : captain-price-returns : Arrest everyone involved. Money saved: maybe a couple million dollars. People killed: around three quarters of a million. Okay but no though. I finally said “fuck it” and looked it up. Everyone quoting this number is quoting what certain people predicted would be the number after a year…
I’m aware that the entire world became acquainted with Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” in 2020. But my connection to the mainline of pop culture is very attenuated, and I first heard it three nights ago. It was a very disconcerting experience, for two unrelated reasons. One reason was context. I was at a July 4th house party that, these days, is mostly a venue for families…
balioc : brazenautomaton : saltandmetal : brazenautomaton : saltandmetal : brazenautomaton : priveetru : brazenautomaton : priveetru : arizonaconservativegal : Basically every argument I hear about minimum wage or working conditions boils down to “I don’t think someone else should be allowed to decide they are willing to accept employment terms that I don’t like for myself”…
brazenautomaton : saltandmetal : brazenautomaton : saltandmetal : brazenautomaton : priveetru : brazenautomaton : priveetru : arizonaconservativegal : Basically every argument I hear about minimum wage or working conditions boils down to “I don’t think someone else should be allowed to decide they are willing to accept employment terms that I don’t like for myself” and…
blogofex : balioc : bambamramfan : balioc : People are just sorta starting to realize it now, a little bit, because of AI, but it’s been true forever: Much of the time, the only motivation that matters is internal motivation. Much of the time, if you want to cheat at the thing or cut corners, you can , and the results will be…not necessarily as good, depending on your skills, but…
bambamramfan : balioc : People are just sorta starting to realize it now, a little bit, because of AI, but it’s been true forever: Much of the time, the only motivation that matters is internal motivation. Much of the time, if you want to cheat at the thing or cut corners, you can , and the results will be…not necessarily as good, depending on your skills, but vastly more efficient.…
People are just sorta starting to realize it now, a little bit, because of AI, but it’s been true forever: Much of the time, the only motivation that matters is internal motivation. Much of the time, if you want to cheat at the thing or cut corners, you can , and the results will be…not necessarily as good, depending on your skills, but vastly more efficient. Much of the time, if you…
There’s a big idea here, but let’s start with a very simple illustration - I recently watched the first Spider-Verse movie with my son. And it’s really striking, how much fundamental conceptual contrast there is between the movie’s three different Spider-Men from three different eras, in a way that feels so obvious and necessary that it’s not even really worthy of…
“In times of great uncertainty, people-at-large will act cautiously and avoid committing themselves to major resource outlays, or else make desperate flailing gambles when they feel really backed into a corner. This isn’t because anyone is being evil or stupid. It’s necessary, predictable, and wise on a micro-level.” “The nature of technological development is such…
bambamramfan : balioc : balioc : So now you’ve got the largest cash flows in the history of commerce, a closed M&A window, buybacks already maxed and getting politically smelly, and dividends — these are growth stocks, you start paying a dividend and you’ve announced you’re a utility, your multiple gets repriced overnight. There is exactly one remaining way to move a hundred…
It’s not the kind of thing that flatters anyone’s self-image or fits well into anyone’s politics, so - I think that most people haven’t appreciated just how much damage will result from the kind-of-AI-that-worked-first being a thing that’s going to come for the intellectuals and artists before the menials.
balioc : So now you’ve got the largest cash flows in the history of commerce, a closed M&A window, buybacks already maxed and getting politically smelly, and dividends — these are growth stocks, you start paying a dividend and you’ve announced you’re a utility, your multiple gets repriced overnight. There is exactly one remaining way to move a hundred billion dollars a year that…