I remember another story about 30-something outsider coming to large city with a radical message that upper-class Jews should stop accumulating wealth because it makes lower classes dispossessed.
So that could go both ways.
Readit NewsIsn’t self-esteem a function of testosterone?
chewz commented on Brexit reduced UK GDP by 6-8%, investments by 12-18% [pdf] nber.org/system/files/wor... · Posted by u/jnord
These are the dying days of neoliberalism where only a fasicst police state is capable of propping it up.
The core problem here, and pretty much everywhere else, is rising inequality. We have seen a truly massive wealth transfer from the poor to the rich (either directly or via the government) and we're rapidly reaching the point where the poor simply won't have anything left.
Post-GFC austerity measures have been an abject failure. Successfully blaming those failures on immigration (as what became the Reform movement did) directly led to Brexit because neoliberalism in the UK is uniparty. So here we are where Nigel Farrage is odds on favorite to be the next Prime Minister of the UK (barring whatever leadership coups take place in Labor in until the next election, at least 1 of which is expected).
So the problems of neoliberalism are blamed on migrants. There is no counter-narrative to that. So we see a rise in isolationism and nationalism. And nothing improves. Well done, the system works.
What I find particularly fascinating is that many who push this agenda fetishize the 1950s (particularly in the US), which is funny because there was vastly less inequality and the marginal tax rate (in the US) was 91%.
Switzerland and Norway have better navigated being on the edge of the EU but not in it. But Norway has vast oil reserves (and, to their credit, is using them for a sovereign wealth fund instead of minting a handful of billionaires). Switzerland was the banking center but is really losing that title. Britain was once the heart of a vast empire and it too is a financial hub and a center for international money laundering (ie real estate) but, much like Switzerland, it doesn't really produce anything anymore.
Surely replacing neoliberalism with social democratic sharia sectarian state will bring prosperity to all. There are so many examples of succesful, prospering countries that have choosen this path in the East. Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Indonesia...
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Just keep in mind that since 22 Poland have hundreed thousands of Ukraine refugees - mostly lineky women. Just check on Tinder.
I have listened recently to other argument on Hidden Forces podcast.
Washing machines made Great Recession particularly brutal. Washing other people's laundry used to be popular way to supplement home budget when the man of the house lost his job. In 1930 better off people already had washing machines so one way of falling back on doing other people laundry have been eliminated.
Soon some people may find out that some bullshit jobs do not exist anymore.
chewz commented on Now open for building: Introducing Gemini CLI extensions blog.google/technology/de... · Posted by u/meetpateltech
My recent experience of Gemini CLI in comparison to Claude code is very negative. For a complex task of trying to migrate some code base from CPU-only to GPU computations Claude was really helpful, and allowed me to conduct a range of experiments and converge towards sensible architecture. In the same time I simply was not able to get anything useful out of Gemini. Some code was written, but it was not tested, was failing or timing out and after repeated prodding Gemini got into loops or internal errors.
Watching Gemini CLI repo daily is great insight into how Google works. Tons of commits, three release channels, great ambitions and very little to show. These guys are running in all directions and getting nowhere.
chewz commented on Gold Prices Top $4k for First Time wsj.com/finance/commoditi... · Posted by u/thm
Whenever the ruling class is threatened, the first thing they do is force their own people to give up their gold.
- In 217 BC, to survive the Second Punic War after Cannae, Rome passed the Lex Oppia requiring citizens to surrender gold and jewelry to the state treasury.
- In 1307, to survive debts from the Flemish War, Philip IV of France arrested the Knights Templar and seized their treasury, disrupting credit networks used by merchants and pilgrims.
- In 1536, to survive the Great Matter (his divorce) and break with Rome, Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in order to melt down their gold and silver chalices, crosses, and shrines.
- In 1666, to survive the Second Anglo-Dutch War costs, Charles II "borrowed" gold deposits from London goldsmiths through the Stop of the Exchequer and never returned them.
- In 1797, to survive the French Revolutionary Wars, Pitt the Younger demanded "voluntary" Loyalty Loan gold contributions from British citizens, backed by threat of forced requisition.
- In 1917, to survive WWI and the October Revolution, Lenin's Decree on Gold confiscated all gold coins, bullion, and objects from "non-working classes."
- In 1933, to survive the Great Depression banking crisis, FDR signed Executive Order 6102 requiring all Americans to give up their gold.
- In 1934, to survive monetary reform, the Gold Reserve Act let the US Treasury profit $2.8 billion by revaluing confiscated gold from $20.67 to $35/oz (basically stealing 41% of the value)
- In 1959, to survive the US trade embargo, Castro's Revolutionary Government Law 851 seized all private gold holdings in Cuba, including jewelry and coins.
- In 1966, to survive foreign exchange crisis, India's Gold Control Act under Indira Gandhi banned private gold ownership above tiny amounts, forcing surrender to the state.
It's a wonder of our modern age that this classic form of expropriation is now happening through voluntary means: high paper prices drawing physical gold from millions of small holders into the vaults of institutions, without any guns, goons, or executive orders required.
You have ommited many other occurences I know of - in Roman Republic, Venice Republic etc. Most of these republics were oligarchic in nature and charged richest citizen substantial extra tax when in need or in danger. Roof tax in Rome is one example.
Upper classes paying for unusual/emergency expenses of the state. Unthinkable now.
chewz commented on Zed's Pricing Has Changed: LLM Usage Is Now Token-Based zed.dev/blog/pricing-chan... · Posted by u/meetpateltech
I'm personally looking forward to this change because I currently pay $20/month just to get edit prediction. I use Claude Code in my terminal for everything else. I do wish I could just pay for edit prediction at an even lower price, but I can understand why that's not an option.
I'm curious if they have plans to improve edit prediction though. It's honestly kind of garbage compared to Cursor, and I don't think I'm being hyperbolic by calling it garbage. Most of the time it's suggestions aren't helpful, but the 10-20% of the time it is helpful is worth the cost of the subscription for me.
I have never used Zed predictions but $20 for 500 prompts is quite a good deal. I use it mostly with Opus for some hard cases.
Gemini models are actually pretty capable but Gemini CLI tooling makes them dumb and useless. Google is simply months behind Anthropic and OpenAI in this space!