It’d settle for it being neutral for us but bad for them.

If libertarian tech bros are against it, we must be on the right track.

We need a lot more candidates like Mamdani. We don’t need any billionaires. Nobody voted for them, they only exist due to a flaw in the system.

I’m sure they’re not including Russia, Israel or Saudi Arabia, though.

Yep. Crying about the world no longer having billionaires would be like holding a funeral for a tapeworm.

The scammers are already all over it like flies on shit.

Now factor in the launch costs, and make sure to include the probability of launch and deployment failures.

And keep in mind that, if they don’t do it, the sun transmits energy to the earth for free.

Or make more use of renewables. Nuclear has never been cost-efficient, it’s just that the costs have been buried in state subsidies to the industry and its supply chain.

Someone wants public subsidy money.

Look at the ROI, and if the full lifecycle cost is greater than earth-based solutions, fuck 'em.

Chinese infrastructure and manufacturing lead is real.

And if you ignore the theory of comparative advantage, not only is it real, but it also matters. Otherwise, not.

I also run a consistent payment deficit with my barber. Should that be corrected?

Technically there should be a ratio of young to old to take care of all of the elderly

That’s a rule of thumb that assumes a lot of things about elderly people’s need for care, how much that’s funded by the young, productivity in how that care is provided, and a huge number of other variables.

Lower population will make resource allocation easier and improve quality of life, and obviously is necessary to prevent further environmental damage.

The environmental damage is more to do with bad choices about the mix of technology currently used to power the economy, and the poor ratio of GDP per unit of energy consumed. So I dispute that “obviously.”

Because the big rationale for it being a problem is that GDP declines as population declines. But GDP is an aggregate measure that’s dependent on population, so that’s not a problem, it’s a tautology.

Its AI goals are bullshit.

I hope that their failure crashes Meta.

And almost all those cameras are privately owned and operated, and not integrated into any kind of centralised surveillance apparatus. More typically, they’re in place to deter graffiti or to keep drunks from pissing on the walls outside pubs. Police can and do request footage when investigating crimes, but if a camera owner’s retention policy means the footage has been deleted, that’s the end of the discussion. And such footage is useful if some arsehole has just jammed a broken beer glass into someone else’s face.

The worse forms of authoritarian overreach are the increasingly pervasive number-plate recognition cameras that track the movements of every vehicle, and the inane attempts to regulate the internet and to ban peivate use of encryption.

As for “quiet, polite fascism,” I’ve lived for extended periods in the US and the UK, and so far, despite the seemingly draconian laws, I’ve always found there to be more personal freedom in the UK. The police don’t kill people very often, people tend to ignore the laws and the government can’t be bothered to enforce the most intrusive of them, and there’s far less social pressure towards brainless conformity and mindless obedience than there is in the States.

Sorry, pal, thorn hasn’t been a þing since Middle English.