Ubermeets

At my first developer job 25 years ago, any time we made a change in the code we had to add a comment at the end of each modified line with our initials and the date, because we had no version control.

Yeah but your eyes are right next to your brain also

There are clearly bad things that need fixing, but the badness varies from state to state and you’re probably getting a distorted picture regardless.

There have been so many images posted in this thread at this point. Which one do you even want me to look at?

In a version that doesn’t even fully make sense. With databases there is a well-defined way to sanitize your inputs so arbitrary commands can’t be run like in the xkcd comic. But with AI it’s not even clear how to avoid all of these kinds of problems, so the chiding at the end doesn’t really make sense. If anything the person should be saying “I hope you learned not to use AI for this”.

You’re saying “vote for my guy or else” and then acting like it’s my fault hostage takers are going to execute me.

I did not say who to vote for or even that you should vote. I only made the point that it’s the people’s responsibility to educate themselves on what is possible and the best course of action. (Then when you said you hated the country I asked if that includes the people.)

But also, that’s complicated by the fact that America is a blight on the world. The world would literally be better off if this shit hole declines because it can’t fuck with everyone else in the world anymore.

This is embarrassingly naive. Do you think if the US gets turned upside down — aside from the people living there who don’t deserve to suffer — do you think that the US is going to just tuck away in a corner and the world will be a better place? It would take decades and an incredible amount of suffering before you’d have a US that could not fuck with anyone anymore. If you want to see a former superpower in decline, just take a look at Russia. The more they decline, the more they lash out. The more Putin consolidates power, the more suffering that is caused by the whims of a desperate madman.

You’re deluding yourself because you desperately don’t want the options you see ahead of you to be the only options. I don’t like the options either. But there’s no magical way to have the US get better fast or go away fast.

You make whatever choice you want. But at least try to be rational about it.

It’s called living in a society, my dude

Does that hatred include all the people who are affected by the consequences of our elections?

If the person who is better for the country loses then it is all of our faults. In a democracy it’s up to the citizens to know the candidates, understand the system and what people can and can’t do, understand how the election system works, and be aware of what the stakes are.

Political campaigns attempt to hold your hand and pull you in a certain direction because it’s in their best interest to do so, but the blame for what happens in January 2025 rests with all of us.

Neither can ChatGPT

My post exactly decried a broken system. I called it a systemic problem! And in fact, it is the people who try to solve it by voting third party who are not realizing the system is broken such that doing so only hurts themselves. The only way to fix it is to figure out a way to have a new voting system. I even gave an example of an alternative one!

I think your response really underscores how we got to the situation where everything in politics is just soundbites and insults and pithy slogans. Actual reality can be wordy to talk about, but people like you can’t be bothered to read it! And then you reply with a new pithy insult like “Blue MAGA”. Take a second to think before you react!

If that dude’s outfit was animated and played noise, and the guy jumped in front of whatever I was looking at and wouldn’t go away, and sometimes he put random shit in my pockets or got me sick, then I’d hate that guy just as much as internet ads

The worst version of this I’ve ever seen is a site that enforced a password policy on the “current password” field on the “change password” interface. I had an existing password that violated their policy (either because they changed the policy or a technician created a “temporary” password for me, I forget), and I could not change it to a proper password because my current password would get rejected.

Here is the nuance that is missing:

First-past-the-post voting systems inevitably trend to two-party systems over time. We see it play out in election models and we see it play out in real life.

One reason this happens is because, in this sort of system, voting for a third party candidate that aligns more closely with your views rather than the best choice of the major party candidates statistically increases the likelihood that the candidate furthest from your views will win. A significant, sustained third party that is more to your liking than the Democratic Party would ensure easy GOP victories for as long as all three parties ran their own candidates, even if the GOP never won an actual majority of votes. (We saw Bill Clinton win both elections in the 90s with much less than 50% and no candidate getting 50% due to a major third party candidate).

Another reason is that even if societal circumstances lead to a third party doing well enough to win it all, what you would end up with is having one of the existing major parties collapse, you’d be back to two parties, and the new third party would become watered down into ultimately the same thing it replaced. We’ve also seen this in American history.

In summary, there is tremendous systemic pressure that causes the two-party system. It’s not that our politicians are tricking us and politicians in Europe under different election systems can’t or won’t do the same. If we changed our voting system to e.g. Ranked Choice, not only would third parties be possible, they would be inevitable. But if we don’t change the system, then voting third party is like forcing two strong magnets together that are trying to repel. Even if you’re able to do it briefly, it’s completely unstable and will correct itself as soon as possible.

The oversimplified version of all this is “voting third party is voting for Trump”. I can see why it’s frustrating because it’s not literally true — however, anyone who is interested in maximizing their best interests, i.e. by having the winner be someone as good as possible, is statistically increasing the chances of the worst candidate winning by voting third party over preferred major party, while our voting system remains in place.

So ultimately, a slight rephrase to “voting third party instead of Democrat helps Trump win” is true.

I definitely have tracks that belong to me, that don’t even exist on Apple Music, on my phone with an Apple Music subscription.

Re-read the thread. CAREFULLY.

Well that plus my last comment where I straight up said “I didn’t say it was the worst take”. I feel like you’ve gotten totally confused

If you want to be pedantic, I also didn’t say it was the worst take, and you didn’t actually say it was the dumbest