I don't really feel like permissions is the hard bit here. The hard bit is that for an agent to do any kind of useful work it needs access to a lot of stuff. Further, the stuff it needs access to probably has vulnerabilities the agent can do. We have not exactly designed our environments for a use case like this. I've gone through the sandboxing exercise for an agent and by the time I had given it enough permissions to do anything useful my sandbox looked like swiss cheese.
I keep seeing the same contradiction: people consider certain activities like "write code that me or my customers run" or "read my email", to be table stakes abilities for an agent. At the same time, they expect some kind of sandbox that prevents even a malicious agent from doing damage. You already gave it the most broad and powerful possible capabilities at the beginning though, there's not even a barn left to close the door on.
There are really just two ways to avoid the inflationary spiral. You can either increase income (i.e. grow gdp) or you can decrease spending (i.e. cut entitlements).
This is as close as it can be to clearly explain. The problem is that most of our politicians are not explaining it and instead ignoring it. As an individual the only thing you can do is vote for candidates who are willing to have that hard conversation with the public. Unfortunately it looks like that would require voting for a third party candidate and a vanishingly small minority of the electorate is willing to do that. So given all of that context I'm not really sure that the term "Catastrophically indebted" is wrong.
That sucks and I'm sure it feels hopeless. But there are ways forward you can investigate. Look for a local community you can plug into. Ease into them and after some time you will be able to make the kind of connections you need.
My personal preference is a local church but there are other options out there. Club's around a shared interest you have. Community center events in your area. It's won't be quick and it won't be easy but you can reverse this.
The value of a feature or a bugfix is not calculated from the effort required but from the need or desire for said feature or bugfix. So whether or not the barrier to entry has been lowered by llm's is irrelevant. What matters as to it's value is the result.
The important part is the quality of the code, how well-considered its design is, how well it gels with existing code, how readable it is to other humans, how well documented it is, how well its author understands it (and thus, can make surgical changes if needed), and how well it was tested.
A PR that implements a sought out feature or bug fix can be practically worthless if it doesn’t check some percentage of those boxes. The line differs per project naturally, but almost nobody wants a PR that is missing all of them.
That might be true of the raw, unknowable "true" value of the thing, but that's not the same as what people are willing to pay for a thing.
When one evaluates a purchase, implicit in that evaluation is the option to do the work one's self. If the price you are offering a thing is more than the cost of doing it myself, then I will not buy from you.
LLM coding proponents keep saying that it reduces the cost of development to near-zero. We keep hearing about all the "things we wouldn't have done before because it was just too expensive to get people to do it."
If this is true, any day now, the customers and clients and consumers are going to catch wise and start doing it for themselves. I mean, it's been almost a year since LLMs supposedly "10x'd" everyone's productivity. I'm still waiting to see where all this singularity is, so I doubt it actually is true. But it doesn't mean you're going to achieve ungodly margins on your software sales, especially when we're talking about open source software. Value absolutely does have a component that is the cost of the inputs.
This is impossible until a critical mass of voters across every state starts putting competence and integrity ahead of their pet issue and populism. If you actually want to start making headway in this direction you have to stop voting for candidates in either of the main parties. The parties are probably not salvageable. Find a third party candidate with these qualities and vote for them and convince as many people as you can to vote for them.
If we can't do that then we are just stuck as a body politic.
Realistically, the option that will actually work for you is to fight within Democrat primaries. The absolute best case is you get a Mamdani. (Note this means accepting a bit of populism, because ultimately it's a popularity contest). Third parties are going nowhere due to the coordination problem.
(NB: this is meaningfully different in the UK which has really multi-party elections despite Westminster elections being FPTP)
Choose the worst Democratic politician currently in office and please explain what they’ve done or said that is in any way comparable to what the Republican Party is doing.
This is completely missing the point. Structurally I don't believe either party is set up to allow truly quality candidates to succeed. They optimize for all the wrong things in their candidates. Candidates who are quality that get through tend to be exceptions. Picking the worst of either side is just furthering the "We can't vote for good candidates because they might lose to whoever we believe is the worst candidate on the other side" narrative. The only way out is to stop buying into that narrative in a large enough number.
I think that’s some pretty thin gruel. The Democratic Party is hardly perfect. But that’s true of every political party on the planet. There are some grifters, some incompetent, and some corrupt Democrats. But by and large, Democratic politicians do seem to genuinely try to do their jobs. They seem to be at least somewhat receptive, as well. And crucially, they hold their own to account. Get caught with gold bars in your suitcase? Bye. Have women with credible accusations of sexual misconduct against you? Sayonara. There also are many very competent democratic politicians doing solid jobs across the country: Senator Van Hollen, Senator Ossoff, AOC, James McGovern, Baltimore’s mayor Brandon Scott, etc. I see no reason to pretend they’re unworkable. And to suggest “eh, both sides suck” has always felt incredibly lazy and nihilistic to me.
Care about third party options? There are current Democrats advocating for ranked choice voting. The RNC rejects ranked choice. And there are many GOP states that have outright banned ranked choice voting. There’s a party that’s clearly better for your interests.
You're missing the point. The harris administration wouldn't have had even 1% of the damage we are seeing. No 50% tariffs on Canada. No Iran war. No family members get bank charters and $600 million DoD contracts. I could go on and on. Biden was never remotely close to what his worst critics predicted nor was Obama. This admin has been far worse than even the most hyperbolic criticism predicted. American leadership and place in the world is permanently weaker now. It won't ever be the same and we will be poorer over the next few generations more isolated and sink into a position of parity if we are lucky.
The Biden administration left an economy that was the envy of the world. Leadership that was trusted and a series of impressive bipartisan legislation from the CHIPs act to the infrastructure bill that set us on a good trajectory for the coming changes. Obama did the same, if we had continued the emphasis on building a solar industry our AI build out would be better positioned now we are behind China by a massive degree.
But hunter Biden sold a few painting? And democrats take corporate contributions so it's all equally bad? That doesn't match the data, results or predictions people make before administrations take over.
Three Republicans started three wars in the middle east and caused three spikes in oil prices.
Three democrats started 0 wars and over saw reduced deficits, landmark legislation like Obamacare, build back better, CHIPs, etc. And would have had even more accomplished if the Trans pacific partnership trade area had been continued the Iran nuclear agreement remained in effect, the solar investments been expanded the EVV subsidies expanded.
If we want to be fair, it depends on the characterization and its intended implications. The right has called every Democrat since FDR a "socialist" specifically to put the fear of tanks in the streets and death camps into people regardless of their actual policies. They called Obama a socialist. They called Hillary Clinton a socialist.
So even if Mamdani calls himself a socialist it's important to ask what he means by that versus what people calling him a socialist what you to think.
This line of thought bugs me. We use labels for a reason. Socialism has a well accepted definition and has for decades. We haven't modified it's meaning. I think it's fine to take someone at their word if they use a label. It's not on me to interrogate whether they mean something else when they use the label. It's on them to use the label correctly if they want to communicate. Especially if they are a politician where the entire job is to communicate and persuade.
Forgive me for bluntness, but this is naive. What you think you are doing is holding firm to objective reality. What you are actually doing is willingly putting blinders on yourself about how humans use language.
You’ve adopted a certain definition of socialism and decided it’s the correct one. Which is fine, everyone does that with vocabulary. But you are not acknowledging to yourself that it was in fact an act of adoption to do so. Thus you are denying yourself the mental framework for evaluating how and why others might try to use competing definitions.
Metaphorically, words are buckets and different people put different things into the bucket. Sometimes it’s just silly like “is a hot dog a sandwich.” Other times there are more serious implications like the fundamental difference between “I have a theory” (about how a lamp got broken) vs “I have a theory” (a mathematical framework for predicting the relationship between genotypes and phenotypes).
And sometimes it is used to create shibboleths, whereby looking in people’s buckets communicates how open they are to persuasion of one type or another.
So it’s always a power move, and useful, to think “what exactly do they mean by that?” What do people gain and lose by adopting different definitions and words? Understanding that this happens continuously in all use of language helps one do a better job of relating labels to observable objective reality.
To come back to “socialism,” you might think Mamdani is doing himself a disservice by misusing (from your perspective) that term, thereby turning you off. But he just easily won a huge election! That’s objective reality: he got what he wanted, he succeeded. This might be a moment to consider other uses of that term, and the degree to which they may be outcompeting your adopted definition.
At no point in this thread have I made a value judgement about Socialism. He got elected claiming to be a socialist which is fine. My point is that getting upset when someone says he's a socialist when he actually claims to be one is silly. It worked for him and he communicated to his electorate what he needed to. New York elected a socialist because they wanted one. They don't get to say "don't label him a socialist" after the fact.
> They don't get to say "don't label him a socialist" after the fact.
This is not an accurate quote, what was said was “even if Mamdani calls himself a socialist it's important to ask what he means by that,” and that is what you objected to.
Right, the argument is "He is a socialist so when he gets power he will do X which I dislike". But now he is in power so the argument is moot. Instead, you have to list actions by him you dislike.
There is no "well accepted definition" for any political term, least of all any political term from the left, each which has been co-opted by the right to the point that most are simply pejoratives and slurs in common parlance. Just look at "woke" for an example. No one using it anymore uses it in good faith, certainly not on the left.
What we have with "socialism" is the entire spectrum of what socialists themselves believe (and can't often agree upon) and what their opponents insist upon. A European style social democrat and an anarcho-syndicalist have radically different goals, but both would be considered "socialist" by most people. As would - just to point out the absurdity of it - Joe Biden, to half the country.
It is absolutely on you, and all of us, to think beyond "labels," otherwise you just make yourself susceptible to propaganda and misinformation, or at least incapable of fighting it.
Yeah, no. I am neither left or right these days and I see just as many attempts to coopt terms to have a different meaning from each side. My solve is to refuse to participate. If you want to communicate to me then you are going to have use the accepted definition not the definition you want me to believe instead. If you say you are a socialist then I will believe you. If you say you are a christian nationalist then I will believe you. I'm not interested in what your enemies want me to believe the term means. I'm only interested in the fact that you used it and it has real definition.
Any other road leads to madness and an absence of shared meaning. I will hold you to the standard of your own language and actions. Use the words correctly or be misunderstood. That's on you not me.
>If you want to communicate to me then you are going to have use the accepted definition not the definition you want me to believe instead.
And by "accepted definition" you mean "definition accepted by you."
There are few personality traits I find as insufferable as language prescriptivism, it always seems to hide a rigid and doctrinaire worldview. I won't waste your time or mine further. Good night.
Yeah, I was surprised to see a downvote for that. Isn’t that like his position? I don’t believe in socialism. He seems like a nice guy. These aren’t incompatible.
He identifies as a socialist, sure, but his implemented policies (what GGP was calling socialist) are mostly standard-issue municipal management.
Is it socialism to hire temporary labor for snow removal? To fix potholes? My boring municipality in the middle of a red state does that and nobody calls it socialist.
I can address your arguments point-by-point, but think about this. I clearly demonstrated that it's NOT the "just build more" issue. There are more housing units per household than ever in the US (and in the Netherlands).
So there's clearly something else going on.
And what makes you think that just building even more housing without understanding the underlying reasons can solve the issue of the soaring costs?
I feel like relying so much on supply is a farce if the supply is always able to be bought up by people who are already rich and able to continue owning everything by outcompeting working people. Building more has started to mean little to me if we (as in arbitrary municipalities or governing bodies) don't treat it as a special market in which people can't just buy as many as they want
OK so the "at least one" is a Binface campaign promise, used as a joke here. I'm going to leave it up to you to figure out if the Netherlands builds more than 1 additional housing unit every year.
Introspection is the act of looking inward to examine your own thoughts, feelings, and motives. It is a personal process of self-reflection that helps you understand why you act and feel the way you do.
Pretty much everyone can benefit with some time for introspection. This is considerably easier to do if you have silence and boredom. Music, podcasts, television all hinder the practice of introspection. It takes practice though and that means being okay with silence and constantly keeping your mind on the task of examining your thoughts and feelings.
I think the poster was perhaps expressing that it doesn't look like enough people are comfortable with this process and seem to do anything they can to avoid it.
> Music, podcasts, television all hinder the practice of introspection.
For you. It hinders the process for you. Some people think better when not in complete silence.
Anyone that tries to speak broadly and paint everyone with the same brush when talking about neurological phenomena is clearly completely out of touch with the subject. The mind is a wonderfully complex and wholly unique thing. What works for one might not work for another.
This is a pretty well studied and researched area. It is in the research almost universally accepted that silence or white-noise is the most conducive environmental soundscape for introspective thought across all groups.
Can a person who spent their entire life in a low sensory environment have a lot of worthwhile introspection? I think even the low sensory cave children have a form of council.
People go to therapy, group therapy, read, etc in order to have thoughts of others that seem rather important to introspective thought to me. I don't think all audio media and forms of listening would fit, but I don't think all wouldn't fit as those important inputs.
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