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2 yr. ago

  • Didn't the war in Iraq have overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress? Bush was guilty of acting on bad intelligence, but the country as a whole was guilty of succumbing to bloodlust and misdirected vengeance. The Patriot act also had strong bipartisan support. Gay marriage was so unpopular at the time that even Obama had to feign opposition to it when he first ran in 2008. Bush was a bad president IMO, but it's hard not to be a little sympathetic when you consider the context of these decisions. The one good thing I'll say about Bush is that he never seemed self-serving, so for that reason alone I don't doubt his sincerity over the regret he seems to show for some of these things.

  • Withholding support to Israel would embolden the opposition here at home and have huge geopolitical implications abroad. I won't argue over whether or not it's the right thing to do, but I definitely wouldn't characterize it as a "win" for any US administration.

  • From a political perspective it's amazing how much of a lose-lose this situation has been for Biden and now Harris. Half the country is calling him "Genocide Joe" for supporting Israel while the other is calling him antisemitic for supposedly abandoning Israel. To be fair I think one side is arguing in bad faith and these aren't equally valid positions, but regardless not a soul in this country seems to be content with our current approach - even if it's intended as some sort of compromise.

  • Trump's cognitive deficiencies are old news, whereas the Biden we're seeing now is unrecognizable from the last campaign. Given the narrow margin Biden won by last time, that should be concerning to his supporters. You really think this is a media conspiracy?

  • To be fair I think it's too early in Pete's political career for me to say that he stands by what he says or for you to say that he doesn't. I don't think anyone can hold a candle to Bernie on ideological consistency - he would rather lose than compromise. We all admire him for that, but it makes him a better activist than politician. I say this as someone who donated to his campaign and voted for him twice.

    I agree that Pete is the polar opposite, but I don't know if it's a bad thing. Early on he said that he wanted the primaries to be a debate of ideas, and that - if nominated - he would champion the platform of the party. That could be the MO of a grifter, or it could be someone who's serious about restoring democracy. I don't blame anyone for being skeptical, but if we're dismissing him because we have concerns about his healthcare plan, I'd say we're still living in 2016.

  • I agree that we have no idea if he'd actually go through with reforming the court if given the opportunity - I'm just pointing out that Democrats have openly called for reforming the court, on the presidential debate stage, as recently as 2019. It shouldn't be viewed as a non-starter - especially when these ideas were coming from the so-called moderate wing of the party.

    On the M4A topic, it's crazy to me how its supporters have managed to ally themselves with the private healthcare lobby in opposing a competitive public option. If Medicare is more efficient than profit-driven insurance, as we all suspect, then forcing private insurance to compete with it puts us on a direct path to a single-payer system. Pete is a democratic capitalist - it shouldn't be a surprise that his version of M4A uses the system in place to get us there. If Bernie amended his bill to include a 15-year transition plan I doubt anyone would accuse him of flip-flopping.

  • Reforming the Supreme Court was basically Pete's thing during the primaries. He was talking about it years before Roe, Chevron, and absolute immunity. He suggested adding 6 more judges, 5 of which would be rotating appointments by the other 10. It's a shame Biden won't do anything about this - especially when there are other leaders in the party who would.

  • Reminder that this is a nuanced issue. Some people got fuck all to show for their student loans and need our help. Some people got exactly what they paid for. Don't be fooled into thinking we're all in the same boat, or that targeted relief is too complicated. I bring this up because so many advocates for forgiveness are scaring off potential allies with an all-or-nothing mentality, allowing people like Lindsey Graham to rally against a straw man. This should be about helping people who need help - plain and simple.

  • For thousands of years the ruling class has tolerated the rest of us because they needed us for labor and protection. We're approaching the first time in human history where this may no longer be the case. If any of us are invited to the AI utopia, I suspect it will only be to worship those who control it. I'm not sure what utility we'll have to offer beyond that. I doubt they'll keep us around just to collect UBI checks.

  • Right on. AI feels like a looming paradigm shift in our field that we can either scoff at for its flaws or start learning how to exploit for our benefit. As long as it ends up boosting productivity it's probably something we're going to have to learn to work with for job security.

    • Cloud providers have financial incentive to push microservice architectures
    • Cloud providers give corporate consultants statistics like "microservice architectures are proven to be X% more likely to succeed than monolithic architectures"
    • Cloud providers offer subscription-based tools and seminars to help companies transition to microservice architectures
    • Companies invest in these tools and seminars and mandate that all new projects adopt microservice architectures

    This is how it went down with Agile at my company 10 years ago, and some process certifications and database technologies before that. Based on what I'm hearing from upper management microservice are probably next.

  • From my perspective the corporate obsession with microservices is a natural evolution from their ongoing obsession with Agile. One of the biggest consequences of Agile adoption I've seen has been the expectation of working prototypes within the first few months of development, even for large projects. For architects this could mean honing in on solutions in weeks that we would have had months to settle on in the past. Microservices are attractive in this context because they buy us flexibility without holding up development. Once we've identified the services that we'll need, we can get scrum teams off and running on those services while working alongside them to figure out how they all fit together. Few other architectures give us that kind of flexibility.

    All this is to say that if your current silver bullet introduces a unique set of problems, you shouldn't be surprised if the solutions to those problems start to also look like silver bullets.

  • Even with cloud cover, seeing it at home was something special. I know what it's supposed to look and sound like at that hour. It wasn't the same as night - I could still see sunlight on the horizon all around me. I could sense that the wildlife was confused by it - all the birds just flew to the tops of the trees and were trying to make sense of what was happening. The bugs went quiet, and we were all whispering for no apparent reason - it just felt appropriate. The slow descent into darkness was unsettling, especially under cloud cover - it felt like we were under the gaze of a passing giant we could not see. I was surprised by how relieved I felt when the light started to return. It wasn't what I was expecting but the strangeness of it didn't disappoint, and I don't think seeing it away from home would have been quite the same.

  • I kept hearing this complaint but when I finally watched it there was only one scene where I couldn't hear the dialogue (when Neil is scoping out the airport bank vault) and it seemed very much intentional. Did you find this to be an issue throughout the entire film?

  • I've been trying to wrap my head around the unconditional support that the US has shown to Israel during this crisis. I understand why we must stand with our friends and allies. I understand that Israel has immense strategic value as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" in the Middle East. I understand our desire to support democracies in the region. I understand that they have a right to defend their people. I understand that our support is necessary to keep things from cascading further out of hand. But what I don't understand is how we can provide all this support and still have no leverage to ease the suffering of innocent Palestinians. Are we even capable of applying diplomatic pressure on Israel, or has our support become something more akin to an entitlement?