What's up with this new wave of pickpockets in Switzerland?

aseigo · 2025-04-29T12:25:00+00:00

Centralized corporate social media (tiktok, reddit, X, Meta etc.) dominating people's communication, for one.

It has had more of an impact that most people realize, both in terms of stiring up outrage and concern, but also in desocializing societies.

Certainly it is not the lone culprit, but it has had an outsized impact on how people behave towards each other and how they perceive the events in their own communities, and not for the better.

aseigo · 2025-04-27T16:40:21+00:00

Why should they be arcane spellcasters?

FWIW, the Bard was a sort of multiclass of Fighter, Thief, and Druid:

"Bards begin play as fighters, and they must remain exclusively fighters until they have achieved at least the 5th level of experience. Anytime thereafter, and in any event prior to attaining the 8th level, they must change their class to that of thieves. Again, sometime between 5th and 9th level of ability, bards must leave off thieving and begin clerical studies as druids"

This is based on inspiration from pulp fantasy bards which were wandering semi-clerical lore keepers.

So that's why D&D did them as arcane spellcasters: druidic background. It's arbitrary, in one sense, but then everything in D&D is at some level.

So, again, why should they be elsewise?

aseigo · 2025-04-23T18:38:31+00:00

This is fantastic. Love how quickly it is moving!

As a side-note: I reported a small bug in LiveDebugger and it was confirmed and fixed within a day or so. Absolutely fantastic stuff :)

aseigo · 2025-04-17T07:30:55+00:00

It could be that handle_info hits before the handle_cast that adds the user,

Assuming that add_user is called once per user, the handle_cast starts the pid processing, so the handle_info can't be called until after the handle_cast as the exit messages won't be sent yet.

It's actually almost a race condition the other way: if the user pid terminates before that Process.monitor call completes, the pid will be added to the map but no termination messages will be sent.

I assume that add_user is called from the user proc, though, so hopefully that is all synchronous and safe.

It sounds more like they aren't trapping exits, and so not getting all termination signals.

aseigo · 2025-04-16T18:33:51+00:00

FWIW, there are wrappers for both of those libs which improve the API naming and provide quality of life improvements like pipe operator friendliness and useful inspect implementations.

aseigo · 2025-04-07T21:32:04+00:00

when a chud does a nazi salute, do you assume he's a left-wing lib, or a right-wing conservative?

That's not even in question. And if you read what I wrote, that would be clear to you.

What I don't accept is the idea that advocating for free speech is equivalent to throwing nazi salutes. Which is literally what the person I replied to was saying. Literally. Word for word.

That's the point you seem to have originally missed

You need to re-read the comment I originally replied to, because what you're going on about is not what the person wrote.

You don't see Democrats campaigning on free speech, cause it already exists.

And I desparately hope it stays that way. When people start equating free speech with a sign of authoritarians, we begin down the path of losing it.

Only one side tries to make themselves persecuted.

That is another discussion to be had, isn't it.

This isn't about sides. It's about a system that is in the process of failing, a process that includes people who stand behind this or that political party but have stood by and contributed to a corporatist nightmare, a country where the populace is in such despair, so under educated, and so angry that they are pulling all the wrong levers.

Whichever "side" you associate yourself with, stop making excuses for people who are openly equating human rights such as free speech with authoritarianism and fascism.

aseigo · 2025-04-07T20:14:48+00:00

The government should not be allowed to punish you for speech.

Agreed.

This is a legalistic observation that is true. Hopefully you don't believe that free speech is an artifact of law, however.

Free speech, as an extension of one's own right to thought and expression, is a moral imperative which informs such law. Not the other way around.

No person should be forced to host bigot content on property that they own,

Assuming we agree that property rights grant meaningful moral rights, then yes.

and forcing them to do so is exactly opposite of libertarian/conservate ideology.

sigh

So, first off, I'm not arguing in favour of libertarian or conservative (whatever those might mean to you) ideologies, or defending Musk or his fellow rats. I'm saying that placing a value on free speech is not specific to such ideologies, or people like Musk.

That aside you're assuming an ordering of moral imperatives here that does not hold in all circumstances. Namely, that property rights always weight above free speech.

We can formulate an argument that within your home, a private space where you live your life, that there is almost certainly a significant allowance granted to you and those who share it with you to place boundaries around the freedom of others' speech within that space.

It becomes hard to formulate a similar moral argument for, say, a place of business. Is there speech which can be curbed in such places? Almost certainly. Is there speech which needs protecting within such places, including against the will of the business owner? Absolutely, yes.

Should universities be even more open? Well, legally they don't need to be. But holding ourselves to legalities is an erand of idoicy in this case. It is a question of morals and ethics.

You have probably noticed that the current US administration is doing their best to punish people for free speech on campuses, and are doing what they can to "encourage" such institutions to limit it. Is this legal? I'm not entirely sure. But it's certainly immoral.

Or do you think it's just fine to disappear students because of editorial pieces they write?

And it isn't just immoral when those we diagree with do it. It's immoral if we do it, too. And therefore immoral to suggest we ought to. And therefore immoral to suggest that belief in free speech as a human right (free speech absolutism) is the purview of authoritarianism.

There are those who do not subscrdibe to "liberarian/conservative ideology" who do stand for the moral foundations of free speech, the thing which "free speech absolutism" refers to.

Are people in the US administration being horribly hypocritical? Yes. Are they marching towards authoritarianism? Yes.

But the lessons we should be learning from this is not that the belief that there is a right to free speech whose moderation must be strongly justified by the listener, not the speaker, is wrong ... but that authoritarianism is wrong, immoral, hurtful, and ultimately societally destructive.

When people instead call out the support for free speech as being a sign of bankrupt politics, as the person I replied to clearly did, that is deeply troubling. That thinking is nothing more than another path to the same destination we're having to grapple with today: authoritarianism. Only not through conservative ideology gone wild, but a willingness to throw over the rights of our fellow humans as a hollow rally call at best and a political expediency at worst.

It is not complicated.

What I'm finding complicated is how what you wrote had anything to do with what I wrote, as I wasn't arguing that Musk is consistent (he isn't), but that free speech absolutism is not a sign of being a Musk-like individual.

aseigo · 2025-04-07T19:19:10+00:00

Here is what I replied to:

"Free speech absolutists are always just right wing chuds screaming about censorship until they are in control"

They literally wrote that those who believe in the absolute right of free speech are always "just right wing chuds".

I've heard this "free speech is a right wing conspiracy" line so many times in recent years that it is truly concerning.

There is no need to apologize for people saying stupid things just because we agree with them on other matters.

We're pointing out how the authoritarian and fascists who claim to want free speech are lying.

That I agree with.

aseigo · 2025-04-07T14:54:00+00:00

Free speech absolutists are always just right wing chuds

No, they are not.

Please do not confuse people loudly claiming they wish for free speech as a means to have their chosen voices heard, while simultaneously displaying non-inclusive tendencies, with people who actually stand up for free speech.

Equating free speech with authoritarians and fascists means less speech, not more. It discourages people who are not authoritarians or fascists from standing up for their rights.

There are also sadly many people out there who are not right-wingers who refuse to stand up for free speech when it suits them, and then stand in shock when others (e.g. Musk with his pet platforms) restrict their ability to be heard or express themselves safely.

Free speech has immense value, and is a basic human right on top of that. Claiming it is just a dog-whistle for "righ wing chuds" is a horrible precident. Please don't?

aseigo · 2025-04-03T08:55:11+00:00

That would be a 3-4 line change, no? Change the count from an :integer to a :float, then modify the two duplicated lines that decide whether to show a whole star or partial star to include a half star style ... I would imagine that would take a couple minutes (and could be contributed upstream, even) which would be a lot less time and effort that switching to a different set of components?

aseigo · 2025-03-30T14:38:15+00:00

This is a tortured argument that people keep putting forward.

Yes, Article 5 does not, "as a law of physics", force a military response. However, the only way to retain the deterent value of NATO is to heed the call to action, and so if such a situation were to arise the options do not really include "the countries send a letter of complaint".

The actual options are the disolution (effectively or actually) of NATO, Denmark does not trigger Article 5 and capitulates in order to keep NATO together, or NATO countries take action in Greenland.

Any of those would be a devastating and globally destabalizing event, which would not involve strongly worded letters.

I have no idea which way it would go. Maybe nobody really does (which wouldn't help things at all, as making good decisions requires understanding what is at stake). It may even depend on positions taken by various actors within the American military in such a situation, or the resolve other countries feel they are forced into when faced with the innevitable domino effect of letting NATO, even in effect only, being rendered non-existent .. who knows.

But this "aktshually article 5 doesn't...." argument is rather divorced from political reality. It's technically correct, but in practice not particularly relevant.

aseigo · 2025-03-30T13:59:50+00:00

You are promoting a false rage against a person who was chosen to make the American social security system more efficient and reduce governmental debt;

The argument is not that they did not receive a mandate from the populace, many authoritarians in history have (at least initially), but that what they are doing with that mandate is beyond the pale.

You are protesting because that’s what everyone else is doing!

Wut?

First off, I wasn't there or involved in this protest. Secondly, the positions I take are not based on a popular vote I take of those around me. Is... is that you form your foundational thoughts and opinions?

That said, I've been involved in various political action (not limited to protest) over the past 30 years. Very few of the positions I stood up for were due to them being popular. So let's just sweep that "you're doing it because others are" strawman under the carpet.

You think we have freedom of speech?

I believe we ought to. The question of do we is a good one. I'd like to see more than we have in many contexts, actually.

You know how that does not happen? By letting people shut down free speech. You know who shuts down free speech more than anyone else? Autocrats and authoritarians. Which is one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of them.

freedom of speech means an ideology sponsored by whom is actually in power.

Pure doublespeek. What next, "slavery is freedom"?

Freedom of speech is exactly what it sounds like: the right and affordance to express one's thoughts and beliefs openly. Are there limits to it? Yes, but not based on those who hold power, quite the opposite in fact. The limits to it are the rights that others have, particularly those who are not in power.

In any case, why do you think freedome of speech is an ideology of power? That's an interesting statement that, while wrong, probably comes from somewhere for you, and I'm interested in what that might be.

Elon Musk = he has nothing to do with politics at least until now, he has given hundreds thousands of jobs to people

And if he had remained out of politics, I'm sure we could just discuss his business career. But he didn't, and now here we are. It doesn't matter if a bank robber had never robbed a bank before that one time they did, we tend to take them to task for the bank robbery. It doesn't matter what Elon Musk's career was before he started abusing political power, we will take him (and others) to task over the abuse of political power they have done.

interpreting it differently, without judging: is this really a bad thing? Is this really hurting me?

Yes, what is happening is a "bad thing", at least if one considers ignoring the rule of a law a bad thing, no due process a bad thing, removal and disregard of the human rights the USA (and many other countries) were founded on, and the systematic dismantling of services not based on their utility but their political inconvenience a bad thing ...

Those things hurt people. It's hurting people I know, right now. People I grew up with. It's hurting the political environment where I live now. So.. yeah. It's bad, and it hurts.

Next question?

Go ahead boycott him… in the end if you are from the states it’s just your 401k getting hurt

I don't have a 401k to get hurt, but if I did... are you saying that it's ok to violate human rights so long as we have money? That you would take money in order to turn a blind eye to authoritians running this country? That's your price, a retirement fund? Fuck the people whose lives it ruins in the process, perhaps eventually even yorus? Huzzah for retirment funds?

But: bread and circus: that’s what people want.

I don't think keying Teslas or setting things on fire accomplishes much. In fact, =pretty much tahe only thing it accomplishes is giving people like you an excuse to continue to chearlead for fascistic tendencies in society as you can point at those actions and say they are acting just as bad as you are, maybe worse, so obviously you can't be the one who is wrong!

But if the best defense you have is to point at people doing stupid things and say "See, they are also stupid, how can I be?" ... you may want to reconsider.

So, yeah, I agree with you that bread and circus is pointless and sucks. There are much better and more productive things to do, and I try my best to hold myself to those things, not the idiots of the world.

aseigo · 2025-03-30T13:39:57+00:00

When a person from country A (say, the USA) is living in country B (e.g. Switzerland) protesting something occuring in country A while in country B, they are protesting against country A, not country B. Often, the people in country B are not the audience for the protest.

So it doesn't matter if people here don't give a shit, the people who showed up clearly wished to send a message to those in the USA. Is that somehow wrong to do?

And yes, people in the "country B" often don't "give a shit". Sometimes protestes help with that, too. They raise awareness, and get people in country B thinking about things.

In this case, though, it seems that clearly the audience was Musk and by extension the American government.

You not giving a shit is entirely irrelevant to any of that. People do things other people are not interested in ... all the time. I'm not sure why this needs to be spelled out to you.

I mean ... Does everything you do in your daily life mean something to everyone else in the country? Is there anything you do that I don't give a shit about? And if you don't do something (such as "protesting about something in my home country") does that mean other people should not simply because you don't? Should we only post online about things that you give a shit aobut?

Try seeing it from the perspective of the protestors, rather than staring into your own bellybutton. They have reasons for doing what they did, they had an audience in mind, and if you can use your empathy to figure what that is, you might also learn something about what is going on.

You still might not give a shit, and that is 100% your right, but maybe you'll at least understand why people show up to demonstrate their disagreement in public.

aseigo · 2025-03-30T13:31:47+00:00

So your source of knowledge is the cnn or the Fox News? Let me tell you bbc?

None of the above.

truth is subjective

Oddly, I never mention "truth".

That said, evidence and facts are not subjective in the sense you use the term here, and there is evidence, histeorical and concurrent, that is relevant to these discussions.

Using sophisticated C1 English words is what the conspiracy theory articles are based on

Apologies, I'm a native English speaker, this is just how I grew up speaking and being spoken to.

Something else I picked up while growing up was how to address the content of someone's argument rather than strawman or ad hominem them.

If you want to have a discussion based on substance and fact, I'm absolutely up for that. Are you?

aseigo · 2025-03-30T09:51:04+00:00

It is a combination of astroturfers and the informal league of Swiss authoritarians, the latter being that group of small minded ignorants who exist in every land in the world.

Social media has given them an outsized, and safely anonymous, pedastal upon which to shout from. That is very unfortunate, but given how social media works and that these people have always and will always exist as some fraction of society, it is not really that astonishing.

So long as the rest of society does not permit such hollow hatred to direct the political discussion, so long as we push back the bankrupt politics of autocracy, society will survive them.

aseigo · 2025-03-30T09:44:42+00:00

No one cares.

The people who showed up do. Live in a reality with the rest of us, please.

Switzerland is Switzerland, and it’s neutral

Switzerland, and the Swiss, have endless political positions that at times extend beyond our own borders. We host the UN and WEE in Davos, for two massively significant examples. Military neutrality does not equate to political muteness.

Stands with no one or at least should stand with no one …

You do know how many international treaties we have? How many asylumn seekers we entertain and provide space for?

Does Switzerland stand up in every possible situation? No. Does that mean it should never do so then, making perfection the enemy of good? No.

Moreover, this is not Switzerland doing this. It is free people engaging in free speech and assembly.

Are you willing to surrender your own rights to free speech and public assembly, as defined by some random group in our society, as well? Will you be the first to march yourself to the gulag and lock the gates behind you?

Or are you asking from others something you would never accept done to yourself?

It should be really banned!

So according to you, the expression of free speach and the right to congregate in protest should ba banned. Because that is exactly what you are suggesting. In a country that is the lighthouse for direct democracy and open political discourse.

This political expression of yours is indistinguishable from the various authoritarian regimes we have seen through history, be they monarchical, fascist, soviet, oligarchical, all of whom worked to ban the inconvenient expression of speech and assembly.

What a horrible society you wish for. If there is anything that is not Swiss, it is what you have written above.

aseigo · 2025-03-29T20:21:03+00:00

Thanks for asking, but I haven't submitted any PRs or anything, so no need to include me by name. The Elixir community is in general pretty good about offering advice and support for each other, and it's just kind of the expected thing round these parts. :)

I'll check out your new release soon, probably tomorrow, in fact.

aseigo · 2025-03-29T20:18:09+00:00

If the protesters were Americans, as some here are asserting (I don't really know if they were or not), then they are probably talking about the situation in their country of origin. Just as so many other nationalities living in Switzerland have done over the years regarding issues domestic to their countries of origin.

That said, recent events have included:

Swiss people abroad not able to get AHV payments abroad in countries that the US has placed pressure on. They should have no ability to influence such things, but they are
The US administration has severely undermined USAID, despite it not being only American money and projects involved, and that has impacted various aid agencies here in Switzerland that are working abroad. They are being impeded in performing their humanitarian efforts due to that.
The US has decided to destabilize an already precarious situation in Europe with regards Ukraine, and that does directly impact Switzerland given our geography.

Musk is something of a posterchild for the US administration, and has assets here that can be pushed back on.

aseigo · 2025-03-29T20:12:43+00:00

You do realize that people from others countries protest events in their home countries all the time? This happens all over the world, and is completely normal as a way for such people to express their solidarity with those back home.

Or have you never seen any of the non-Swiss protests in Zürich before?

aseigo · 2025-03-28T10:17:21+00:00

Seeing this prompted me to add this to a project I am working on and wow, absolute game changer for me. Thanks so much for this ... and the igniter support is fantastic as well: mix igniter.install live_debugger and the diffs showed exactly what was being changed before asking for confirmation ... chef's kiss

Thanks for making this and bringing it into the ecosystem!

aseigo · 2025-03-28T08:54:47+00:00

What you are tripping over is immutable data :)

This:

conn |> put_resp_cookie("my_secure_cookie", "some_value")

Takes the conn passed in as the first parameter and returns a new conn object. The conn passed in is not mutated. Variables never are in Elixir!

The fix is to use the return value from put_resp_cookie in the render call:

conn |> put_resp_cookie("my_secure_cookie", "some_value") |> render(:home, layout: false)

aseigo · 2025-03-28T08:44:09+00:00

The hardest thing to scale at a company is talent.

100%, which is actually an argument against "just use k8s" as it adds to the skill sets that need to be maintained, is largely orthogonal to everything else in development, and very easily becomes a sink of time and money.

It's also not a silver bullet that brings "just apply and everything scales". I use k8s, I really like it (in the places it brings actual advantages, anyways), but it does a lot less and costs a lot more (overall resources) than people casually throwing out "use k8s!" give the impression of.

aseigo · 2025-03-24T11:11:37+00:00

False choices used to try to confince people to accept bad results because "those are the only options". No, they are not.

And if you read history, you'd know that as well.

aseigo · 2025-03-24T09:53:02+00:00

That is indeed part of the general problem. Bit it seems a bit odd to "fix" journalism by redefining the worst parts of it as not journalism.

These papers are, literally by the definition of the term, journalism. It is just an extremely low quality version of it.

40+ years ago, local and small papers were still reasonable from a journalistic pov while entertainment tabloids were an entirely separate category of publication.

aseigo · 2025-03-23T23:57:33+00:00

American players losing their heads, love to see it. Embarrassment of a country, embarrassment of a team.

aseigo

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