I don’t like it

I have to give credit where it’s due, I actually like this change. Likes used to be private, and then they became public and subject to the toxic performativity of social media

It’s anti-tech propaganda. The same is happening with crypto. Certain groups don’t like it, so they try to convince the public that it is bad for the environment so it will be banned

This isn’t a good situation, but I also don’t like the idea that people should be banned from using energy how they want to. One could also make the case that video games or vibrators are not “valuable” uses of energy, but if the user paid for it, they should be allowed to use it.

Instead of moralizing we should enact a tax on carbon (like we have in Canada) equal to the amount of money it would take to remove that carbon. AI and crypto (& xboxes, vibrators, etc) would still exist, but only at levels where they are profitable in this environment.

Removed by mod

Gold standard isn’t an odd choice, it was used for many thousands of years. It’s just odd today because no countries still use it.

And while a Bitcoin standard sounds crazy, if you lived in Argentina, you’d probably rather keep your savings in Bitcoin (despite all its problems) than in the peso.

Since taking office Dec. 10, Milei devalued the peso 54% and eliminated price controls on hundreds of everyday consumer products, reversing the policies imposed by former Economy Minister Sergio Massa, who ran against him for president. The libertarian leader also halted runaway money-printing that had flared up during the presidential campaign.

It seems like this guy is making the right decisions here. Seems like he’s ripping off the bandaid for a problem that previous administrations had created. We’ll see if he can right the ship.

I think his rationale is to take away monetary control from future administrations, which I think is a laudable goal. Argentina should be the richest country in South America, but its people keep getting robbed by the printing press. I wonder if going to a gold standard (or if they feel like rolling the dice, a Bitcoin standard) would be a better option.

(Cue the anti-crypto arguments because I mentioned Bitcoin)

Yup! EVs and renewables are broadly good things. Just wanted to give some added perspective :)

Just wanted to add some perspective. There’s a narrative lately that China is a champion of the green movement, which is absurd

It’s worth noting that this is not being done for environmental reasons (more half of all coal pollution comes from China), but for strategic reasons as China has limited access to oil near it’s borders.

This is less about malicious people and more about tragedy of the commons. Most people don’t want to see the environment destroyed, but are acting under their own incentives. If I cut down a tree it seems to makes a negligible different to the forest and my family gets to be warm that night. But if a million of us do it the forest is gone.

Multiply that by several generations and increasing power due to technology and we’re here now, still under the same incentives

This is the opinion of most macro economists today, but it’s not universally accepted. Macro-economics is not nearly as scientific as micro-economics, and some people will say that its models are just about who can tell the most convincing story (or the story that’s the most convenient for those in power)

There are some people who point out that things like electronics have been undergoing rapid deflation for decades and this has not caused people to stop purchasing them. The economy is a chaotic system and anyone who claims to be able to predict it’s outcomes is selling something

I don’t think it’s naive to think that there is an existential risk from AI. Yes, LLMs are not sentient and I don’t think ChatGPT is Skynet, but it seems pretty obvious to me that if we could create an entity that is generally intelligent, has goals, and is orders of magnitude smarter than humans that is cannot be controlled. And that poses a risk if its interests come into conflict with ours

Global mega-corps are already a kind of AI. They’re generally intelligent actors that find creative solutions to problems and work to advance their own interests, often at the expense of humanity, despite attempts to reign them in. A true AGI might be like a super-powered corporation, that can have it’s big decision meetings every second instead of once a week

However, I am also concerned with global regulation of this stuff because if state actors are the only ones allowed to have AI, that could get dystopian very quickly as well so… 🤷‍♂️

I may give it a try. For people who have spent much time in the crypto space, I wouldn’t find this a large barrier to entry. But I’ve gotten used to interacting with smart contracts on the web. I can see how anyone who isn’t in that space would be intimidated

They can reclaim the cost if they leave the server. Spammers/trolls cannot, so will lose $10 each time they create an account

It’s just an idea

My first thought is to rank items by totalVotes / score. This would prioritize posts that get lots of votes in both directions.

Example:

def getControversialScore(upvotes, downvotes):
  return (upvotes + downvotes) / abs(upvotes - downvotes)

getControversialScore(50, 10) # 1.5
getControversialScore(4, 5) # 9
getControversialScore(6, 30) # 1.44
getControversialScore(30, 28) # 29