What's the point in writing something while "not caring" if the reader understands or not? Seems like a false confidence or false bravado to me; it reads like an attempt to project an impression, and not really an attempt to communicate.
Basically: If you understand the topic well, you’re not the target audience.
This is a type of information arbitrage where someone samples something intellectual without fully understanding it, then writes about it for a less technical audience. Their goal is to appear to be the expert on the topic, which translates into clout, social media follows, and eventually they hope job opportunities.
The primary goal of the writing isn’t to get you to understand the topic clearly, because that would diminish the sense that the author is more knowledgeable than you. The goal is to sound guru-like while making the topic feel impenetrably complex for you, while appearing playfully casual for the author.
This style of writing is very effective at convincing people in their impressionable years of a narrative or viewpoint, often one that is hard to defend with more traditional writing styles.
I hope I'm wrong, but this looks like an effort to normalize such writing style. As this happens, intelligent discourse and rhetoric become harder.
Well, that's pretty much how China behaves with respect to foreign companies operating in China. They all need to be joint partnerships with owners in China.
The world is more than just China and the United States. That was the point of my original comment. The United States here feels entitled to own and run an app used on every continent of the world. No other country could get away with demanding this.
> The United States here feels entitled to own and run an app used on every continent of the world.
This isn’t correct. The US law only applies to the services provided within the US.
ByteDance could spin out the US userbase while retaining the rest of the userbase. Many US companies already have to do exactly this for their Chinese userbase. Spin it off to a JV with a Chinese partner.
I’m not aware of anyone doing this, but you could even have a content syndication model whereby the global TikTok and the US TikTok share a common pool of content and username reservations so that both services appear global to their users, but with separate companies controlling distribution of their own apps and the recommendation model used to serve content.
That's false. The US law requires TikTok to be sold to a non-adversary. A US company could buy it, or some German or Spanish company, and either would fulfill the requirements to avoid a ban in the US.
> No other country could get away with demanding this.
TikTok is already banned in India. Brasil banned Twitter for a while until they caved to Brasil's demands.
India banned TikTok a few years ago. Brazil banned X until it agreed to take down posts in violation of Brazilian law. The European Union fines US-based tech companies frequently.
"Entitlement" in the context of nations is irrelevant. Nations exercise power in accordance with their interests.
> The world is more than just China and the United States.
But this particular situation is not. A Chinese controlled company that operates in the US. If you want access to $CC market you are subject to $CC's rules. Other countries do exactly the same thing (aside from China, GDPR comes to mind) so it's unclear what the basis for your complaint is here.
In historical context, the “militia” was everyone, every able bodied person who could participate in common defense. It wasn’t a specific organization like we’d think of today
Beyond that, the right is entirely unconnected with service in a militia. That clause at the beginning “A well-regulated Militia …” does not scope or bound what comes next; it offers one explanation for why that right is protected.
SCOTUS explained the historical meaning of these words in more detail in District of Columbia vs. Heller, including an in-depth examination of the language as part of its opinion that the right is an individual right.
> 1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a
firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
> (a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but
does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative
clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
In current federal legal context, the "militia" is all men between like age 18-45, plus all people in the national guard, or something like that. That's what the US CFR says.
Are we really to believe that slave states ratified the 2nd amendment with the belief that they were giving every individual the right to keep and bear arms?
Because that seems absurd given their rather large population of slaves.
Yes, but a person can still choose which job to work in order to optimize their happiness, trading off compensation with the work's enjoyment. A person can also invest in themselves and develop new skills to unlock additional types of jobs, etc.
This is geographically variable: the more rural you are, the less choice you have. And between comparable geography, there's a lot of variation. It's not just job, it's profession. To get an OK nursing or teaching job, you may need to move across counties or even states. You can invest in yourself if you have capital.
You can invest in yourself if you have a library card. You can invest in yourself if you have internet.
Yes, some people might have to move to get a job, but living somewhere isn’t a right, at least in my mind. There’s emotional and sentimental reasons to live where one currently does and it would be “painful” to live somewhere else, but is doable.
Are you suggesting that everybody has the choice to study through library books and get a more fulfilling job? Everyone has the aptitude for book learning? So all those people stuck in dead end jobs in a factory (that could be done by a pigeon) are choosing not to learn CS and earn $mega at FAANG? That rather undermines the meritocracy cult of SV doesn't it, if anyone could do it?
The merit concept - true or not - is that it takes extra work to both survive and study enough to earn $mega at FAANG. The work is what earns the merit.
You're arguing that it's not hard work that gets people good jobs; that the people stuck in dead end factory jobs could never work hard enough to earn $mega. Right?
I usually hear this argument being presented as one where factory worker was not given equal opportunities and/or that FAANG worker didn't earn their position. I'm not sure if you're saying that, or that the people doing pigeon jobs are naturally incapable of doing anything else, but both of those ideas sure take all the agency away from individuals.
It rings especially hollow to me as someone who didn't go to college, and taught myself to code, and makes $x per hour, and knows a lot of people (including my partner and her friends) who did go to college, who work in a factory and make 0.2*$x. While the sour grapes element and the jealousy (or covetousness mixed with some bafflement) is always there under the surface, I find it so petty. I have a hard time understanding it. If you want my job, go download a free IDE and start spending all night making stuff for 10 years while doing your day job. I did it while driving a taxi and waiting tables for minimum wage.
I think a lot of people could do it. The fact that they could, and don't, is exactly the basis for the sense of earned merit for those who do. Hot tip: Skip the marriage and kids till you get where you want to be financially. But if you do want to prioritize having a family, don't then be jealous of those who prioritized their career.
Why should there be a corporate tax rate at all though? Why not just tax income and leave it at that?
All of the money that corporations earn (and would be taxed on this way) will always be taxed as income before it's distributed to an individual, after all, no? Corporate tax never fully made sense to me.
The point is that they would be able to earn money without being taxed money anyway. It'd mean fewer accounting tricks, or none.
Those would be shifted to individuals. You'd see an uptick in high earners trying to avoid taxes. It's just a question of whether high earners would be better or worse at hiding income than corporations.
Taxing income rather than profit would actually account for that. I'm not sure I'd want to see that change, but you can't employ clever accounting to hide income like you can hide profits.
Yes, it can. It provides a feeling of excitement or enthusiasm for whatever you're doing, and can be channeled into working hard for long periods of time. Especially if your job already brings you some satisfaction, then doing your job on amphetamine will provide more. Pilots in the airforce (and possibly other warfighters) are given amphetamine to augment their performance.
I think of it as basically stealing energy or enthusiasm from the future, though. You might feel energized and focused now, but it comes at the expense of less energy and focus when the drug wears off. The withdrawal effect is pretty mild if you take prescription doses of it though, e.g. Adderall (which is amphetamine). At normal moderate doses, taken in the morning, almost all of that energy can be recouped during sleep (though not all). I wouldn't want to take it daily for a long period of time though, otherwise you'll build up an 'energy deficit' that could lead to a crash.
P.S. I know people who have essentially destroyed their lives by becoming addicted to amphetamine or meth. It's a dangerous drug.
As someone who basically requires dextroamphetamine to function, I’ve always found the notion of becoming addicted to it crazy, nonetheless. If I don’t set alarms to take it, I will forget, for days at a time until I suddenly realize why I haven’t gotten much done and my memory has been bad this week.
I wonder if there is something about the dopamine issues of the ADHD brain that prevents an addiction to substances that aid it.
> Working with base-10 numbers is so much easier than trying to think in base-60, base-12, and base-24.
In some ways, sure. If you're doing precise mathematical things. Otherwise, if you're doing simple mental math, base-12, -24, and -60 have some advantages.
60 can be evenly divided into 1/2 (halves) or 30 min, 1/3 (thirds) or 20 min, /4 or 15 min, /5 or 12 min, /6 or 10 min, and by 12, 15, 20, 30, and 60.
24 can be divided by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and so on for 12. I always assumed this was the reason for the "imperial" unit measures and for time and length. Dividing things into thirds is a common use-case and it's nice to be able to do that evenly.
Maybe he wanted to start drawing a salary in order to resume working on Processing again, and the board said no. (That isn’t my first guess about what’s happening, based on the highly polarizing content on the foundation’s website but the thought did cross my mind.)
