There is nothing more tech-bro libertarian than taking free public data, wrapping it in a slick package, and selling it.

I used to think that TV weather people were obsolete, but now I’m nostalgic for the public service that survived in the old capitalistic ad based broadcast TV era.

Preservation is an invasive and destructive process. Recreating the experience of watching ‘The Daily Show’ in the 90s or early '00s is already impossible. Language and culture mildew and rot just like leather and wood.

EDIT: People don’t seem to understand what I’m talking about. Even the people who are responding in good faith seem confused. That’s on me. So I thought I’d try to clarify with an example.

Take the Mona Lisa. Perhaps one of the most preserved objects in history. It’s so well preserved that it’s impossible to see. Sure, you can look at it, but you won’t see it. Taking a picture of the painting is encouraged, but you can’t get a look at it in your camera roll either.

If you saw the actual painting hanging on a friend’s wall, your first thought would probably not be “what a masterpiece”, but “why didn’t they remove the default print that came with the frame”? If you go to Paris, you can wait in line to have the “Mona Lisa experience” but the painting you saw wasn’t hanging on the wall, what you’ll see is the Mona Lisa you brought with you.

(yes, I stole this example from ‘were in hell’ youtube channel)

The real punch line is that in a cafe run by programmers, esoteric rules are in full force, but tables 0 and 1 are no where near each other.

I hear you can get a pretty good offer from CrowdStrike these days.

Think of LLMs like a stupid office worker. You wouldn’t rely on them to make critical decisions, but they’re valuable for tedious stuff.

For example, my calendar changed the way to enter new events breaking my workflow. Now I just type out a skeletal schedule and have LLM convert that into a .csv that I import.

I’m thinking of Ripping my CD collection again. I’m researching a way to use a LLM to tidy up the metadata.

I had a folder full of random stuff I’ve saved for years. Had a LLM organize and categorize it for me. I had to tweak the prompt enough that this was a medium difficulty task, but still way easier than doing it manually.

Been using WM pickup service since the start of the pandemic. I’ve a browser that flushes cookies, so I have to sign in every time I order. They demand 2FA, but I discovered if I had $20 or $30 of groceries in my cart before I signed in, all of a sudden a password was enough.

Also the quality has gone down steadily the whole time I’ve used them. Dented cans, old eggs and wilted produce. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t buy anything fresh from them unless I can’t get it elsewhere.

One of the things not addressed in this interview is how the ideology of libertarianism is central to the transition from markets to fiefdoms. All the big tech bros are huge libertarians and that’s not an accident.

And I do think this is a new phenomena unlike classic capitalism. Marx thought that a post-scarcity society would mean more leisure, he didn’t anticipate that that leisure was just another source of value to exploit. Think of reddit selling it’s “content” to an AI company. That content wasn’t produced by coerced labor paid unfairly, it was produced by voluntary labor paid nothing.

What we need to talk about are the built-in ziplock style closers on plastic bags that are everywhere now. Even makers of premium foods can’t seem to get this right. I can only think of one product where the closer is an improvement on having nothing.

Boar’s Head Deli meat. I guess the guys who sell spam for the price of a good steak can spare the expense.

The anti-union videos are pure propaganda and should be illegal.

Though, some training videos are good actually. Two examples:

German forklift safety video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cr7F-oLU84

Wendy’s “hot drinks”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXUuogWge5Q

There are no “true” libertarians. There are more libertarian denominations than their are people who identify as libertarian. And all denominations are orthodox. A group of libertarians is called an impasse.

It’s not an accident that people who identify that way are incapable of getting along: the individual is the weakest political unit. Add in the fact that libertarians will eschew government benefits for themselves just to spite those lower on the ladder, and I can’t think of a better friend to the ruling class. What can we say about people who’d rather live in a fiefdom than a democracy? That they all imagine themselves as lords I guess.

(I’m told people in Europe identify as libertarians and oppose government power to hurt people. I’m talking about US libertarians who oppose government power to help)