scarabic @ scarabic @lemmy.world

Posts

9

Comments

2,766

Joined

2 yr. ago

I think your actions are meaningful and I’ll explain why. It’s not like these 36 companies are just over there producing all this pollution while we sit here helplessly weeping. The fossil fuels they produce and sell go on to become the household products and fuel used and depended on by all of us. Thousands of corporations use them, not just 36. Maybe we can break up Aramco and close it down, but we can’t currently do without DuPont and Proctor and Gamble.

So until consumer are independent of the products these fossil fuels make, the companies themselves are a false villain. Therefore, your actions to become independent are EXACTLY what’s needed, and are in fact the ONLY thing that will actually help.

The bullshit comments here about shooting 36 CEOs are not going to change anything. You are.

I think this headline makes it sound overly simple. Just shutter those 36 companies and we save the world, right? Well, the fossil fuels they vend go on to become the fuel and household products made and sold by thousands of other companies and those are relied upon by all of us all day every day. There’s no single-point fix here. We can’t depend on these monsters AND point the finger at them. A great deal needs to change before we can live without them.

Fight Canada, help Russia. How in the hell are Republicans just watching this happen? Cowards and frauds, all of them.

It’s crystal clear to me that Tesla played an important role at a key time, and pivoted the industry. The technology to do so had been there for a while but they lacked the will and they needed an innovator to scare them into action. Tesla did that. However, that role is now complete. I am flabbergasted that anyone still values this stock. Even setting aside this recent downturn in sales due to their brand going necrotic, they were already overmatched by the flood of competition coming their way. If major manufacturers don’t eat Tesla’s lunch, Chinese upstarts will. They can’t survive. They won’t survive. Even their supposed software advantage on self-driving has turned out to be a fraud, and the Simpertruck is a high profile failure. I’m glad that the stock hasn’t died yet though, because the rest of the world is still completing the transition to EVs, and the death of Tesla might put a chill on that. But in a few years, yeah, Tesla will blow away on the wind like so much dust.

You are 100% correct. They knowingly doubled down on him. They can all ride his coattails straight to hell.

With all the constant anti-American sentiment on here day after day I’d like to count every single time I return here in the “American humility” column, thank you very much. Signed, one of the “good ones.”

A bigger screen is better for text consumption, too. Perhaps especially for that. If you don’t know why, just wait ;D

Seriously as a person getting on in years I always bump up the font size. And if you do this on a mini phone, you run out of usable space immediately.

I wish there were small phone options, too, but I can see why big is the default.

I’d like to see more options out there. But there are reasons it could be difficult. I’ve been a software dev for 25 years and we’ve had take our software from local installs to web services, then mobile web services or responsive interfaces for all screen sizes. Then mobile APPs came along… and we do have to decide which devices and screen sizes we’re going to support. It’s hard to justify spending 20% more time so that you can support 2% more people. And for my app anyway that’s how many tablet users we have. 2%. So we’ve never done tablets, period. If we had to support some phones that were 3x the size of others, that would be kinda hard too, and we’ll always choose to spend the bulk of our time where the bulk of our users are.

Just a real answer. Supporting different screen sizes isn’t free.

Nothing does. The point is that America’s great “wealth” is not shared by most regular folks, the majority of whom are struggling to get by - albeit yes, with fucking sanitation.

Personally I think we still have way too much to lose for that to come from the US. And we could lose half of what we have and still have more to lose than anyone. WW3 is much more likely to come from Russia, who have already lost everything they have and mostly look around the world and see what they have to gain.

Isn’t that what the EU is? What are the military aspects of being in the Union? I’ve only ever heard about the economic aspects.

US losing influence isn't a bad thing. It's only bad for US citizens

The US has ordered the world for 70ish years, for better and worse. When that dominance topples, everyone will be rolling the dice on wherever comes next. China is poised to gain from that. Name your favorite Western European nation and it’s much more of a toss-up. China’s neighbors are more likely to come out as China’s vassals. Thinking only the US have benefitted from the US led world order post WW2 is hilariously naive. You talk a good game, ready to rush into a future without it, but you are leading with the chin.

“Step up” are the exact words Europe needs to take to heart right now. Fuck the US. We’re the worst of everything everyone says about us and we don’t deserve a moment’s sympathy. I mean it’s been literally decades since the last time we pulled Europe’s security out of the fire for them. So show us what you can do without leaning on us.

Yep you’re right about all that. It’s a tough situation because it not only requires both employers and employees to behave correctly, it also requires all companies to be doing so at once. If one company makes big investments in skills and gives steady raises annually, but another company offers a little more salary right now, guess where employees are going to go. It may not even be in their long term interests to do so but we sometimes think short term too.

It’s going to be tough for any company to offer all the long term stability things and the short term higher salary. TBH this is what you get at the top tech companies right now and everyone hates them for being exploitative monopolies. But that’s also how they stand head and shoulders above others in order to be able to do this stuff. 🤷‍♂️

BTW when I say they offer long term stability I guess there are no guarantees with that, but they do offer equity vesting that makes staying with them long term much more rewarding. Right now I’m totally locked into the golden handcuffs and even through my short term prospects at work suck really badly and I hate my day to day, I’d basically be cutting my income by half if I left to get a job on the open market. That ain’t a long term employment contract or pension but it is compelling.

Yeah really… because cultural divides and prejudice are a uniquely American thing! /s

Frankly both.

It’s incredible to hear them bleating about Israel being wiped off the map while they are doing EXACTLY that to Gaza. I swear… Israel has become the very thing they thought they were created to resist.

This often happens. People do the thing they are afraid will be done to them. They convince themselves that others will do it if they don’t, that it’s just the unfortunate rules of the game. And the next thing you know they have transformed from defender to aggressor. And so it continues.

Our mouths really want to flow vowel->>consonant->> vowel->>consonant->> and various languages all have their ways of helping that happen.

I read a mini rant from someone here recently about how software shops all fired their elder mentor employees because they didn’t close enough tickets, and spent all their time growing others’ skills. Similar theme.

But there is one problem here. When people possess a rare skill, they often don’t want to pass it on to anyone else. Keeping the skill rare is how you keep it valuable. And young employees who acquire a skill somewhere will immediately put it on the open market to maximize their pay. So employers are reluctant to invest big in their training.

Is it the right thing for the world to have apprenticeships? Sure. Is it the right thing for employers to invest in them? Yes, but they don’t because they are short sighted but also because they know that skills are portable and employees have no loyalty. Is it the right thing for veterans with a certain skill to pass it on? Dubious, unless they have some guarantee that the apprentice will support them somehow in exchange.

Basically everyone acts in their self interest against the interests of the whole. And it’s not just employers doing so. It’s us too.

Again, you’re twisting the words.

He said “we’re still waiting” and you’ve twisted that into “any day now.” As if still waiting for something to materialize is the same thing as being certain it will.

Hype always precedes reality. That’s the nature of hype. If someone says hype is nice but we’re still waiting to see it become reality that is not blind faith in the hype. The complete opposite. It’s restraint.

Anyway. People get some kind of emotional catharsis from hating AI and shitting on CEOs so I think a fair reading of this is just going to go out the window at any opportunity. I won’t spend any more energy trying to contain that.