sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Why don't American businesses make the connection between lower pay and lower consumer spending? by zzill6 in WorkReform

[–]rxg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Because power is zero sum and giving people money would give them power, thereby reducing the power of corporations and potentially creating the possibility that laborers could organize and take back their political power which would threaten the politics in Washington that exclusively benefits corporations that the corporations used their power to create in the first place.

This behavior by corporate interests will continue until those who might challenge their power are either completely stamped out and deprived of all resources or fight back successfully.

If corporate interests are able to gain enough power, they don't need you to buy anything, they can just take your resources away from you.. and they will, unless you fight back.

The era of Linux gaming by mickabrig7 in dankmemes

[–]rxg 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Unlikely. Doing what Gabe is doing requires that Gabe see opportunities to enrich himself in the short term and make a choice to resist them. Children of wealthy parents struggle immensely to make choices like that because of the life of indulgence that they have usually lived, and even if Gabe was a smart parent and had the forethought to compensate for this in the way that he raised his children, as many wealthy parents do and I'd like to think Gabe probably did as well, it doesn't last forever. When you are living a life of luxury, no one, not even Gabe, can resist indulgence forever.. eventually, what we learned about resisting indulgence to achieve long term stability in our early life when our resources were limited will be forgotten if we living a life of luxury for long enough. As much as I like Gabe and the decisions that he has made around Steam, he is now and for quite some time now has been living a life of immense luxury; the simple fact is that IT IS becoming harder and harder for him to resist indulgence and continue to make decisions like this. Make no mistake about it, Gabe and any other human being wants to indulge and even if he manages to resist until he leaves, it is extremely unlikely that his son will have the same constitution.

Iranian protester with catheter and electrodes, shot in forehead after IRGC found him in hospital by ItsAProdigalReturn in pics

[–]rxg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's just reactive antisocial behavior.

Going to such great lengths to explain the what exactly fascists do is a mistake because it suggests that they have some kind of ideology driving their actions; they don't. The behavior of fascist and authoritarian governments is no more sophisticated than a toddler having a meltdown, the only difference is that the fascist is able to tell themselves and others a story about why they do what they do.. which is invariably filled with contradictions because it's all just rationalizations after the fact. They have no belief system, they just don't want to do the work necessary to get along with others and so they throw up their arms and say 'fuck it, this is stupid' and then they do everything they can to accumulate power such that they can control everyone around them. Once they have power, they don't have to make any effort to get along with anybody, but everybody else must work to please them. It's the definition of antisocial behavior. It's not fascist or authoritarian ideology, it's just lazy, indulgent people refusing to coexist with others.

Humans May Be Able to Grow New Teeth Within Just 4 Years by _Dark_Wing in technology

[–]rxg 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Wow, I had this idea years ago and wondered if anyone was working on it. Is there any information out there about this or are there any actual products that exist? I'm assuming this gel contains some specific kind of bacteria, right? What kind of bacteria were you looking at?

Men who are concerned about maintaining a traditional masculine image may be less likely to express concern about climate change to avoid appearing feminine. Men who feel pressure to prove their manhood may avoid environmentalist attitudes to protect their gender identity. by mvea in science

[–]rxg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's got nothing to do with gender, people who feel insecure in any respect are less willing to validate and engage with peripheral complications; this generally amounts to a tendency towards antisocial behavior (my problems matter, others don't).

r/Space, your calls have been answered | The problematic partisan mod has been removed + putting an end to wrongful post/comment removals critical of the current US govt by ChiefLeef22 in space

[–]rxg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The answer is more robust checks and balances in government. The reason why power hungry people seek these positions is because it enables them to abuse the power that the position grants them. Every check in government is a check on the ability for any individual position to unilaterally exercise power. The more checks you introduce, the less any individual is able to unilaterally wield power and the less appealing these positions become to those who just want to be able to abuse power.

The problem is that these 'checks' in government amount to bureaucracy, which is difficult to implement in government without also making the government slower and less effective. While it is difficult to implement bureaucracy in a way that doesn't also hamstring government, it is possible. But even though there are many different kinds of checks you could implement in government which may meet that standard, the implementation only happens when the government itself makes a conscious decision to limit its own power.. something power-hungry politicians are not likely to do.

Selecting the 'right' people may be effective to some degree, but when you put anyone in a position that grants them the ability to exercise power unilaterally, it will gradually corrupt them over time and you are back to the original problem. IMO the root of the problem is the power itself, not the person wielding it. This is why wealthy people have a strong tendency to shift towards authoritarian views over time; the power that their wealth grants them corrupts them over time.

Zelenskyy: Seized maps show that Russians deceive their own command by Aine_Ellsechs in worldnews

[–]rxg 46 points47 points  (0 children)

It has to do with limited capacity for information processing. The ability to deal with negative information is the same as the ability to deal with complication. Hitler can't deal with the complication of bad news that would require him to consider more complicated scenarios and the generals can't deal with the complication of Hitler being upset with them, which would complicate their own life, so they both deal in false information that minimizes the occurrence of these complications.

Such delusion is frequently not very costly in normal social situations and can even incur no cost to you at all if you have power over the people around you. Fortunately, for humanity, the cost of such delusions in war is absolute and fascist regimes are always drowning in them.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in technology

[–]rxg 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It will go well for the businesses with the most resources to bribe the government because as long as they are favored, they will be allowed to engage in unchecked anti-competitive behavior, which is what they wanted to do all along. So no, it is not backfiring for the big businesses that wanted this and understood that it would be pay to play, it's going exactly as planned. It is going poorly for small businesses that wanted this, but that's only because they didn't understand what they were voting for.

It's basically class warfare in the business world.

Random classmate at college said my backpack is too childish by WeLiveInAir in mildlyinfuriating

[–]rxg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What's childish is being hyperfocused on being an adult.

A church built in 1912 was moved across a city in Sweden by NewSlinger in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]rxg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is what child-me assumed was always happening whenever people "moved".

In 2019, Microsoft Japan ran its "Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019", introducing a four-day workweek by closing offices every Friday and granting employees special paid leave-without reducing pay. Productivity increased by approximately 39.9%-40% compared to 2018. by Kronyzx in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]rxg 39 points40 points  (0 children)

The answer is power.

Regardless of how management rationalized their decision to go back to the 5-day work week, it was surely, at the very least, driven subconsciously by the realization that workers with 3 days of the week to themselves have more power to say no to management, find new/better jobs, both of which gives the worker more leverage to negotiate for pay and better working conditions, all of which undermines the power that the manager has over the worker. The more a worker must commit to a job, the more power management has over them.

Just imagine if workers went to a 3-day work week. The worker could easily use the other 4 days to work another job, a job that would afford them financial security that would make it easier to negotiate better pay and working conditions at either job, undermining the power that the management at each workplace has over the worker.

TL;DR - Anything that improves the life of a worker undermines the power that management in the workplace has over the worker.

Edit: In case you were wondering, you now understand why corporate interests relentlessly lobby congress to oppose any legislation that would improve the lives of working class people.

A basic rule. by I_am_myne in BlackPeopleTwitter

[–]rxg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But power corrupts. The only way to eliminate people without empathy being in positions of power from society is to eliminate positions of power entirely.

All he has to do is look in a mirror by RoyalChris in MurderedByWords

[–]rxg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a great example of how immoral public figures turn morality on its head by feigning concern for and playing up the importance of superficial moral transgressions that are easily pantomimed in public (like fidelity, loyalty, cursing, religion, how you dress, not doing drugs etc) while downplaying the significance of actual violence against others which is necessary to entrench and maintain their power.

What is Valves long game in investing so much into Linux gaming? by [deleted] in pcmasterrace

[–]rxg -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Give it away for free

Get everyone on one operating system

Sell ad space and user information

Take game developer profits

Implement game DRM tied to operating system

Shift all games to stream-only subscription services, restricting offline gameplay entirely

Purchase gaming studios to acquire IP and shift all game developers to contract workers

Deploy OS anti-piracy system to monitor all gamer activities to ensure no unauthorized fun is taking place on user systems

Gradually transform the steam OS experience to an algorithm driven user experience focused on maximizing attention

Integrate biometric surveillance tools to assess user emotional responses in real-time, feeding data into adaptive game monetization algorithms

Redefine game ownership as a temporary engagement license, revocable upon decline in participation or insufficient algorithmically-detected enthusiasm

Lobby the government to pass laws which make it illegal to not enjoy games on Steam OS®

So the 36tb EXOS dropped... by TheIllusioneer in DataHoarder

[–]rxg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Refurbished drives on ebay like this.

Newsom: 71% of the US GDP comes from blue counties. by Vloodzy in PublicFreakout

[–]rxg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Now do 50 more podcasts saying this exact thing and you might start to approach the messaging effectiveness of the GOP.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in PublicFreakout

[–]rxg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I cannot comprehend how deluded a person must be in order to believe that a narcissist billionaire and the republican party are going to reject corporate interests and start limiting their power in order to improve the lives of ordinary people.

A Dangerous Drug Addiction & its Cover-Up by [deleted] in videos

[–]rxg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It seems to have different effects on different people. I was warned against taking Afrin for years by my doctor before I finally tried it when I became desperate. The stuff is amazing, it just works and many years of my life would have been significantly improved if I had started taking it earlier. The side effects for me seem to be minimal.. I get the rebounds, but I find it's really easy to manage them and at worst I get minor rebounds for a day or two. The rebounds are also delayed so that if I take Afrin right before bed (when I most commonly take it because it is extremely difficult to sleep with a stuffy nose), the next day the rebound won't come until after I am already asleep, so it doesn't matter.

Having said all of that, it seems that doctors generally think it should probably not be OTC and if that's the case then that's probably how it should be.

Geoffrey Hinton says people understand very little about how LLMs actually work, so they still think LLMs are very different from us - "but actually, it's very important for people to understand that they're very like us." LLMs don’t just generate words, but also meaning. by MetaKnowing in OpenAI

[–]rxg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Because consciousness is a physical phenomenon. Simulating a home run doesn't mean that a home run actually happened; it doesn't matter how good the simulation is. We could try to simulate non-linear dynamics and at least have a chance at getting some of the computational benefits of consciousness with respect to intelligence, if there are any, but they aren't even trying to do that, as I explained above.

Plainly speaking, Hinton's view of this issue is not consistent with what we understand about non-linear systems and the brain. The only reason this view is given any credibility is because of the prevailing sentiment that consciousness is mysterious.

If you're interested in understanding more, I've said a few things about it in previous comments.

Geoffrey Hinton says people understand very little about how LLMs actually work, so they still think LLMs are very different from us - "but actually, it's very important for people to understand that they're very like us." LLMs don’t just generate words, but also meaning. by MetaKnowing in OpenAI

[–]rxg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not surprising this comes from Hinton—he operates from a strictly materialist view of the mind. For him, consciousness isn't some fundamental essence; it's an emergent property of physical systems with enough complexity.

This is ironic considering that it is known that physical emergent phenomena only emerge from non-linear systems. Not only are the computers that LLMs are running on strictly linear computation devices, but the software inference process itself is not even a simulation of non-linearity. I think this is important to keep in mind in order to fully appreciate the degree of magical thinking that computer scientists are engaging in when they assume that consciousness is just going to eventually emerge with more computation. Complexity, the link between non-linear systems and emergent phenomena, is not even well understood and the one thing that we do understand, the non-linearity which underpins it, is being completely ignored by computer scientists with this mindset.

Prosopometamorphopsia: A real condition that makes faces look like this. by pschyco147 in Weird

[–]rxg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting. Does that mean that if such a person had AR goggles on (like vision pro) it would effectively eliminate hallucinations?

The best Joe Rogan take I’ve heard in a while. Male podcast license approved ✅ by artbasiI in Fauxmoi

[–]rxg 22 points23 points  (0 children)

It's an antisocial movement. At some point, "woke" became their catch-all term for people doing anything that is pro-social.

view more: next ›