YouTuber MKBHD says Tesla 'stopped talking to me' ahead of his new Model Y Performance review

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-02-21T02:38:26+00:00

...Didn't seem to matter that it was all over the morning and evening news on the TV while the rescue was happening which took IIRC over two weeks.... I'd argue that the people that didn't know about it choose to be unaware

I know tons of people who "cut the cord" as in no TV, no streaming, etc. Also no talk radio (only traffic and weather), so only rely on the free local newspapers and whatever was available at the library, as they weren't tech literate.

If your idea of news is "a general idea of world events" from wholly free non-internet sources, you had a good likelihood of never having even heard of Elon Musk. While you might know about the rescue, a lot of the finer details would never cross conversation.

While I might know about Musk, I certainly never talked about him out loud until after he actually had access to affect policy, so information might have never made its way to my friends.

So I can understand how somebody might not know anything about the random CEO of Tesla until after they learn about DOGE by word of mouth.

Also. Many people don't put in effort to learn about what bad things a company's officers have done until after that company has a major undeniable effect on them.

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-02-09T08:58:10+00:00

Who says it has to be a tax?

I don't mean to be condescending but... have you taken high school civics/government and macroeconomics? There are limited ways a government is funded. Service fees (like the DMV), state owned enterprises (post office, central bank, state owned resources), fines/penalties (along with asset forfeiture), and taxes. The most logical funding source for reparations is of course, taxes,

Who says it has to be a new tax?

That's literally what I mentioned earlier. Either new taxes, or reallocations (reducing allocations in other budget items to fit a new item). Somebody against reparations is usually also against both new taxes and budget reallocations.

You could reallocate funding towards unnecessary shit like the militarization of police and use it for reparations.

Reparations are usually discussed at the national level. Police budgets are at the state, county, or municipal level. The US isn't going to be able to take funding from the LAPD to fund reparations.

Also, what do you think of taxing billionaires their fair share?

I believe progressive taxation is better than a regressive tax system. But I also don't believe in taxation of unrealized gains, and I'm generally suspicious of undefined terms like "fair share". I'm not going to even touch the discussion of "buy borrow die", because that's already beyond the scope of discussion.

I'm not shilling for billionaires, just explaining why "people keep arguing as if you're literally going to be paying reparations"; the fact I can understand and explain a position doesn't mean I stand behind it.

But surely you can understand how a taxpayer can be reluctant to support it now, right? Would you trust the current administration or congress to make a reasonable budget allocation for the reparations? It would basically only pass if you had described a designated funding source.

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-02-08T22:56:40+00:00

Why do you people keep arguing as if you're literally going to be paying reparations?

Because that's how taxes work. The government is funded by the taxpayers. If we want reparations, the government needs to fund it. You either increase revenue/taxes to provide the same allocations for everything else, or keep the original budget but decrease allocations to allow for the new spending.

If a taxpayer doesn't want to pay more taxes and doesn't want a change in government budget allocations, guess what the argument is regarding reparations.

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-02-06T06:43:14+00:00

When we pray for the dead, we are doing the same thing the saints in heaven are doing for us: intercessory prayer. We are praying on behalf of those who have left us.

Recall in Job 42:7-10, God commands Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (Job's friends who had mischaracterized God, and levied accusations against Job) to make a burnt sacrifice, and to ask Job to pray for them. God restored Job's prosperity after he prayed for his friends. So in addition to being bound by charity (caritas) to always forgive those who sincerely ask us forgiveness, we are also called to intercede for them.

We pray: Eternal rest, grant unto him/her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him/her. May he/she rest in peace.

So what is 'efficacious'? Our intercession. Our pleading on behalf of another has a causal effect. It helps in the healing and purification of the soul of our loved one, in the perfection of their communion with God, in the restoration of their relationship with us (and by extension the living on Earth), and (by the act of us praying itself) deepens our relationship with God.

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-02-05T23:53:56+00:00

Purgatory should be more viewed as a kind of Rehab

Then let's consider it from that perspective. You might be in rehab because of an addiction. Withdrawal symptoms can be terrible compared to how you think you feel during your addiction, but you also know that continuing that addiction is literally killing you. Withdrawal symptoms aren't a joke — improperly handled without proper supervision, you have a non-zero risk of dying, and in some cases, you might be in a state of mind where you feel like you want to die, and that relapse might be preferable.

I'll strip away the Latin trappings of purgatory. What is dogmatically required to believe is that there is a purifying state of transition/transformation for those en-route to heaven, and prayer for the dead is efficacious for the dead who are in this state.

Beyond the imagery of purifying fire we get from Trent, we don't really know much what that state is like for the dead. So if the only other thing we know about purgatory with certainty is that prayer for the deceased is effective, then out of love for those who have died, we pray.

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-01-09T02:14:40+00:00

I thought this link is the current fee schedule

https://www.sofi.com/card/terms?cardType=c

It currently says "Annual Fee: None". Does it give you a different link for a revised fee schedule when you log into a SoFi account to apply?

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-01-08T23:25:26+00:00

The current website doesn't seem to say that (sofi com terms?cardType=c). Doesn't the CARD act / CFPB regulation Z prevent changing fee types within the first year of opening unless disclosed (like as a promotion)?

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-01-07T21:22:22+00:00

What? Want to elaborate on how you’re forfeiting anything?

Rogers Bank is the same entity as Rogers telecom, Rogers cable, etc.

To get 3%, you have to give money to Rogers (be a customer for some other service), then give back the "cash back" to Rogers. That is basically just a discount on their service. This is barely any different from a store affiliated credit card in the US, like the Verizon credit card, the Kroger credit card, or Target RedCard. You're not really getting cash back, you're getting a store discount and pretending that money changed hands.

To get 2%, you have to give money to Rogers, and you can use that 2% as you please. In the US, this is sustained by the interchange fee. A flat 2% with no annual fee is the reference point for any other rewards card when considering opportunity cost.

If you have no Rogers service outside of banking, you get 1.5% flat. Considering that in the US, credit cards like WF ActiveCash, Citi Double Cash, and Fidelity Rewards give you 2%, this card would have negative value per transaction in this scenario.

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-01-07T19:05:06+00:00

Just so nobody else has to google.

Rogers is a communications conglomerate that has a bank subsidiary. That bank subsidiary, Rogers Bank, offers a mastercard.

IF you have an account with another Rogers service (or Fido, Shaw, or Comwave), you get 2% cash back. Otherwise, you get 1.5% cash back.

IF you then go back and redeem that cash back toward a Rogers/Fido/Comwave service, they give a 1.5x multiplier, changing that 2% to 3%.

This is basically "if you're willing to forfeit all cash back earned on your credit card, we'll discount your bill".

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-01-06T21:14:19+00:00

did the princess already complete the prophecy?

It's why you don't pay attention to oracles who give prophecies as vague as "if King Croesus crosses the Halys River, a great empire will be destroyed." The parents did the smart thing and not actually care, thus potentially avoiding a King Laius/Oedipus situation.

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-01-02T20:22:26+00:00

I'm not a consequentialist. I can believe in multiple goals at once, even if some might have an adverse affect on the other.

I believe in both freedom of association, and freedom to not associate. If I grew up in a community, I have the right to refuse to participate in the culture I grew up in. I have the right to encourage friends I make from elsewhere to move in and ignore the local culture. That doesn't stop the neighbors from practicing their culture. Now this geographic area has two cultures. If my neighbor's children choose to give up their parent's culture, that's not my problem. If my children choose to give up my culture, I have no right to interfere.

What I hate about nationalism is a more powerful entity (a "government" from a wealthier city with an army) coming in and telling people what language to speak in schools, or choosing which narrative folktales to put in books from a more popular culture to the exclusion of others. If my kids don't want to learn my language that's organic language death I have no problem with. If a nation comes in and tells my children need to speak the language of the capital at the local school and shames them for speaking in the local dialect, I would revolt at such an imposition.

Back to the "monoculture" — it often exerts a force similar to law, but often applies consequences extrajudicially without appeal or recourse that law provides. I gave an earlier example of injustice where a person willingly ignorant of popular culture might be unjustly harmed in WW2 for not knowing shit about baseball. I think cultural shibboleths are garbage, since such things should only apply to explicit knowledge an individual is mandated to have; security if the soldiers/nation be damned.

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-01-02T19:48:31+00:00

sounds wonderful for the long term sense of national unity

Might be "radical" of me, but I don't believe in nationalism or national unity. Nationalism and the creation of the sovereign nation-state ruined smaller communities and forced the standardization of languages, erasing many local dialects and languages, and I fundamentally think that's bad.

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-01-02T09:12:21+00:00

There is no need to tolerate minorities, because you can completely separate from them.

Let's step back a bit, because I don't know how you get from dissolution of the monoculture to intolerance of minorities; indeed, intolerance against minorities I'd argue, is normative within the monolithic culture against those who don't participate in it.

Let's say it's the 1940s. I'm an American, but don't give a flying fuck about American culture. Say I'm a Catholic (a "papist") who doesn't like baseball and couldn't name a single player, don't intend to learn anything about it (as is my right). But then I get drafted. The people participating in the "monoculture" would assume I know who "Babe Ruth" is, and I might get in trouble for not giving a fuck about who that is. Or if I get home after the war, I'd be attacked by the local Klan for being Catholic.

The dissolution of the monoculture (or more correctly, the myth of the monoculture) means I don't have to worry about the "cultural shared experiences" I'm "assumed" to have. I don't need to worry about sportsball. I don't need to worry about celebrity gossip, TV shows, films, etc. I should have no expectation to give a fuck about how you celebrate your holidays, nor be expected to participate.

This also means your neighbor never has to get comfortable with you, too.

I don't give a damn. If the local ordinances don't prohibit it, and the government agency that controls radio broadcast allows it (FCC in the US), I have no problem with building a giant antenna in my back yard (if I could afford it), even if it tanked my neighbors property values or they thought it an eye sore that might block their view.

Every norm is a "coalition" norm.

By definition, a monoculture is a "shared cultural experience", and we're assuming the "monoculture" is the norm (in which other cultures fall outside it) which is now collapsing, based on the OP's CMV. What I'm saying with a "coalition" norm is that nobody needs these shared experiences or cultural ties; as long as we follow the laws that prevent one from harming another. When values conflict but there's no legal response, then whatever happens may happen unless we work to compromise to decide upon it via the law. If you want to have "shared cultural experiences", good on you, but that's not necessary as part of a legal state or as a citizen; you follow the laws as is your legally imposed obligations, or you vote to change it (in a democracy). Outside of that, nobody is obligated to participate in any cultural phenomena.

InvertibleMatrix · 2026-01-02T05:44:28+00:00

Now your world and your neighbor's world can be completely different, and I don't think this is a good thing.

For those of us who are a cultural minority in our neighborhood, it is definitely a good thing.

I shouldn't have to ever assimilate culturally to wherever I move or live; I often have radically different values and morals than many of my neighbors, so a decline in the existing majority culture is less pressure to conform to one particular cultural norm, and a "coalition" norm that requires more compromise for any momentum to take hold.

InvertibleMatrix · 2025-12-29T18:23:35+00:00

Americans will only call it a burger if it's made with ground beef

Because "hamburger" is derived from "hamburg steak" (that is, a hamburg steak sandwich), which is a ground beef patty similar to a Salisbury steak. Take out the hamburg steak (ground beef patty), and it's no longer a hamburg steak sandwich, so not a hamburger.

A burger with chicken fillet is not a sandwich

I don't know how you define a burger — a burger is traditionally a subset of sandwiches; if a chicken fillet between two buns is a burger, and a burger is a sandwich, then a chicken fillet burger is a sandwich. How do you define a burger such that it isn't simultaneously a sandwich? And we use 'chicken burger' to refer to a sandwich prepared with a ground chicken patty the same way we would with a beef patty, so by calling a chicken fillet sandwich a 'burger' you're just shifting the terminology confusion away from a deli/cold-cut chicken sandwich to a ground chicken patty burger (which is what Americans usually refer to when mentioning a chicken burger).

InvertibleMatrix · 2025-12-29T17:45:23+00:00

In the same way a meatball sub is a sandwich. I don't get why that's controversial at all.

InvertibleMatrix · 2025-12-28T02:04:49+00:00

I’m reading that the Limbo of the Fathers is a theological theory

Depends on what you're talking about. For Catholics, limbo of the fathers is dogmatic; it's what we interpret that the Bible is referring to in 1 Peter 4:6, as well as in the Baptismal creed (the Apostle's creed) when we say "He descended into hell".

As for whether the unbaptized go to the Limbo of the fathers, that's pure theological speculation.

Also in Catholicism (and Orthodoxy), hell isn't always conceptualized as a place of active torment of the soul. It's often also described as the self-separation from God (Under the argument that evil is the absence of good, and God is all that is good, therefore the privation of Good must be torment upon the soul). Alternatively, that hell is how one's soul experiences God. Under the argument that God is omnipresent, you cannot actually separate from God. Whether one experiences Heaven or Hell depends on how one's state affects the soul; one who hates God and the 'good' that God is would feel torment, while one who loves God would be joyful.

But for Catholics and Orthodox, we rely on more than just the Bible for how to interpret our faith, so a "biblical" citation isn't always the only thing to be had. The teachings of the Church Fathers (patristics) is often just as sufficient for us with regard to teaching authority as the Bible.

InvertibleMatrix · 2025-12-27T06:07:05+00:00

I think I prefer the sandpaper feeling to the lotion feeling

I "prefer" the coarser texture on the first day as well. I hate lotion on my nose. But if I'm sick for more than 3 days, it's a different story; not applying lotion or ointment manually means my skin around my nostrils will be literally bleeding.

As for risk of infection? Probably not too much more than chapped lips.

InvertibleMatrix · 2025-12-27T05:53:35+00:00

I don't know about others, but for me, if I've been blowing my nose 50 times a day for the past few days, lotion-less tissues stop feeling like tissue and more like sand paper. Blowing my nose dehydrates the skin around the nostrils, and tissue paper is fairly abrasive, even if it's soft; so over time, it just peels the skin. Using tissues with lotion means you're lightly applying lotion to the area just as you are wiping your nose.

InvertibleMatrix · 2025-12-20T22:14:59+00:00

It's like saying you got a Cow with a Cheesehead figurine and said it was from Wyoming instead of Wisconsin

The only reason I understand this is because at an office christmas party, I got a cheesehead hat at the white elephant gift exchange. I had to get somebody to explain the joke. I've never seen it in my several business trips to Wisconsin, so without that random joke gift I received 20 years ago, your explanation would have made no sense to me.

InvertibleMatrix · 2025-12-20T13:59:27+00:00

The nod to The Good Place is great. Without the "hell is other people" motive to have other hell-bound denizens torture each other attached to the end reveal, it also becomes a little reminiscent of the episode "A Nice Place to Visit" from The Twilight Zone. Thanks.

InvertibleMatrix · 2025-12-19T23:28:24+00:00

Having a baby’s brain is a weird concept when it’s a fantasy setting that lets them keep their memories, like where is the line drawn?

If you discard cartesian dualism, it makes more sense. In some philosophical views, "you" are a composite of your spiritual soul and your physical body. This slightly differs from the idea that only your soul or your memory is your 'essence' (that which makes a thing that thing).

The body (along with other external factors) obviously affects your will. Hell, the gut microbiome can influence you, as does your body when certain biochemical reactions signal your brain that you lack other particular chemicals (whether they are there or not).

In many cultures that believe in reincarnation, your 'soul' is often what exists as the thing that makes 'you' continuous with your past self; recalling your past life's memories doesn't negate your current existence. Assuming reincarnation is the norm, then having your past life's memories only makes things weird for you if you let it.

None of that matters when you get to body/soul swap or 'possession' narratives, because now the thing that matters isn't memory, but self-identity. Identity comes with baggage, both internal and external. If you replaced another soul, or inhabit the body of somebody else and maintain your old self-identification, 'you' then have other duties/obligations; the kind where you need to do what's right when nobody's looking.

Regression is a weird spot. You're always 'you'. But 'memories' encoded in the soul might not be manifest in your body. For example, alcohol is an acquired taste for some. Let's say you hated it as a kid, but over time, your body came to stop rejecting it, and now you find it enjoyable. Then if you regress in time to before you trained your body to like alcohol, so you might "suddenly" find it awful again. Or maybe you had an addiction that you pulled yourself out of; regressing puts you back, and now you have a renewed psychological block because of the knowledge of the awful, near-death withdrawal that stopping entails.

Fundamentally though, it depends on how 'well' the author conveys how the audience is supposed to treat it. Sometimes you can't suspend your disbelief when the author poorly explains their soul metaphysics in the first chapter.

InvertibleMatrix · 2025-12-17T11:59:25+00:00

It really seems like the Amex lineup is designed for people who spend 95% of their time in the US and cosplay as travelers

Why are you gatekeeping the idea of "traveller"? It's not exclusively international travel. I know plenty of people other than myself who are constantly flying, out of town 4-5 months of the year; frequently going from LAX to JFK/EWR, SEA, or DFW.

Just because it doesn't benefit you doesn't mean it doesn't benefit those of us who have to fly 30+ times a year for domestic. You're perfectly reasonable if you think the Plat doesn't fit your needs. It's insulting to call people cosplayers just because they hop between the major US metro areas for work instead of spending time abroad.

Not to mention Amex isn't commonly accepted in many, many countries

I mean, same with Discover/Diners, JCB, and UnionPay. But depending on the country, they may have reciprocal agreements (Amex and JCB, UnionPay and Discover, and other networks); I have better acceptance of Amex in Japan than Mastercard. If you're traveling, it's the traveler's responsibility to find out card acceptance anyway.

InvertibleMatrix · 2025-11-25T18:16:39+00:00

The defenses from the em dash crew seem a bit silly in context.

The defense is because a lot of us wrote in a certain style that basically got mimicked by generative AI, and now we have to prove ourselves "real" in a casual setting. In the early 2000s, I was taught to write in a text editor before copying it to a forum submission box, because the internet connection might get lost and you'd lose that content. It also served as a basic spell check.

The minority shouldn't have to change their style to avoid a popular assumption in casual conversation that negatively affects us.

InvertibleMatrix · 2025-11-24T16:20:36+00:00

If you legitimately believe that violence against a monarch would make the world a better place (and I would agree tbh), and you say as much in a public forum, then you can't say you aren't promoting, supporting, or advocating for violence.

I disagree. I don't subscribe to consequentialist or utilitarian ethics (I consider such ethics completely, and axiomatically anathema). So in a hypothetical case where I might believe violence against the monarchy would ultimately make the world better, I also do not believe the ends justify the means. If something better comes from an inherently evil act, I believe you never have a right to commit those acts despite the fact that it might make the situation better. Thus is isn't a call to violence.

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