stinkbeetle (u/stinkbeetle)

stinkbeetle commented on The AI boom is causing shortages everywhere else washingtonpost.com/techno... · Posted by u/1vuio0pswjnm7

bee_rider · a day ago

It might provide cover to lay off more than 5% of us (the LLM can create a work-like text product that, as far as upper management can tell, is indistinguishable from the real thing!), then we will have to go find jobs swinging hammers to build houses. Well, somebody’s got to do it.

stinkbeetle · 17 hours ago

The idea that companies need "cover" to perform layoffs (particularly in the US) doesn't make sense to me. Tech companies, all companies lay people off regularly. (To a first order approximation) if a worker is a net positive to a company then the company will want to keep them, and if they are not then the company will want to get rid of them. AI or no AI.

stinkbeetle commented on Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair attheu.utah.edu/health-me... · Posted by u/geox

hammock · 2 days ago

> Almost every environmental regulation has come after it was already shown that there was some harm that needed to be mitigated.

>> The unscientific regulation, and in some countries bans or practical stoppages and embargoes on approvals and research, of nuclear power

Parent comment language isn’t entirely clear, but depending how you interpret it, it can be said that far more harm has been shown, in reality, from nuclear power than from climate change.

stinkbeetle · 2 days ago

> Parent comment language isn’t entirely clear, but depending how you interpret it, it can be said that far more harm has been shown, in reality, from nuclear power than from climate change.

But it can not be said that far more harm has been shown, in reality, from nuclear power than from burning coal for electricity. It's actually the opposite.

stinkbeetle commented on Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair attheu.utah.edu/health-me... · Posted by u/geox

breakyerself · 5 days ago

Almost every environmental regulation has come after it was already shown that there was some harm that needed to be mitigated.

The worst environmental crisis in human history is going largely unchecked. I find it hard to take seriously any argument that environmental regulation has gone too far as opposed to not nearly far enough.

If there's a specific regulation that can be shown to be doing more harm than good I'm cool with revisiting anything, but the common sense wisdom around environmental regulation has been corrupted by corporate public relations campaigns.

stinkbeetle · 2 days ago

The unscientific regulation, and in some countries bans or practical stoppages and embargoes on approvals and research, of nuclear power under the guise of saving the environment has been probably the most environmentally destructive initiative ever to come about, and the largest self-imposed contributor to "the worst environmental crisis in human history". The coal industry loves it though.

Needless to say, I disagree with your assessment. Every [action by governments and bureaucrats] is motivated by the desire for personal gain or to perpetuate the power of the state or both.

Environmental regulation, workers rights, drilling for oil in Alaska, making up stories about WMDs to invade Iraq, domestic spying are all fruit of the same tree. Don't let them fool you, the good of these things is never the primary goal, and in many cases does not even exist. And "environmental regulation" is a big culprit.

stinkbeetle commented on We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler anthropic.com/engineering... · Posted by u/modeless

m4ck_ · 3 days ago

Didn't you hear? We're heading towards a workless utopia where everything will be free (according to people who are actively working to eliminate things like food assistance for less fortunate mothers and children.)

stinkbeetle · 2 days ago

Who are some of those people?

stinkbeetle commented on CIA to Sunset the World Factbook abc.net.au/news/2026-02-0... · Posted by u/kshahkshah

kleiba · 3 days ago

Obviously, facts do not play a big role in the current government's world view.

stinkbeetle · 3 days ago

Truly dark times when we can't even trust the CIA anymore.

stinkbeetle commented on Nearly 40% of Stanford undergraduates claim they're disabled. I'm one of them thetimes.com/us/news-toda... · Posted by u/mudil

stinkbeetle · 4 days ago

> One of the most prestigious universities in the US offers perks to those who say they have ADHD, night terrors, even gluten intolerance. You’d be stupid not to game the system

Used to be that was called fraud and it was considered wise not to do it. I guess all that is in the past these days.

stinkbeetle commented on China Moon Mission: Aiming for 2030 lunar landing spectrum.ieee.org/china-m... · Posted by u/rbanffy

hdivider · 5 days ago

This space race is different for one core reason: China is more stable than the Soviet Union was in the 1960s.

If we beat the Chinese somehow, I don't think they'll just dismantle their space program and focus on Earth. They'll keep going, and they have the economic base to expand their program.

I think we're seeing the beginning of a new kind of space race. It's likely to be much longer term and grander in scale over time, as we compete for the best spots on the Moon and the first human landing on Mars in the decades to come.

stinkbeetle · 5 days ago

> If we beat the Chinese somehow, I don't think they'll just dismantle their space program and focus on Earth.

The Soviet Union won the "space race" of course (or perhaps Germany did if you define it as suborbital space flight), it just lost the "man on the moon race". In any case, after losing the man on the moon race, the Soviet Union did not just dismantle their space program and focus on Earth. They continued to invest a great deal in their civil, scientific, and military space capabilities after 1969.

Will the Chinese Communist Party similarly collapse in the 2050s? Perhaps not, but they will be going through significant demographic decline from the 2030s; they are increasingly in conflict with the west and with their territorial neighbors; they may become involved in significant military conflicts (e.g., over Taiwan); their current leader has consolidated power and succession could be spicy. So who knows? It's not inconceivable. China would surely continue and continue a space program as Russia has.

stinkbeetle commented on Spain to ban social media access for under-16s, PM Sanchez says reuters.com/world/spain-h... · Posted by u/xavaki

m000 · 5 days ago

Why now? Because in the past 2-3 years it has been made abundantly clear that:

(a) Social media operators choose to do nothing at all against coordinated influencing operations, unless the influencing goes against the interests of very specific countries and groups.

(b) US government most likely has unfettered access to social media data. As if this isn't bad enough, they will probably give them out to Palantir for "data integration" and under uncertain terms.

stinkbeetle · 5 days ago

Those things were pretty clear well before 2-3 years.

Social media is seen as a driver for people having opinions deemed a threat to the status quo. Western governments have been fighting a long battle to use these tools to control domestic influence and at times have probably thought they were winning, but recently things seem to be turn a bit.

"Think of the children" is obviously the oldest and most pathetic trick in their playbook. We know it's a bald faced lie because data and studies on social media harms on children has been coming out for well over a decade by now, and not a finger was lifted for years. So we know that is not the reason, and we know they are lying about the reason. Therefore we know the real reason is seen as unpopular with the electorate. And curbing foreign (including US government) influence and access to data is not unpopular anywhere.

stinkbeetle commented on Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign theregister.com/2026/01/3... · Posted by u/breve

antinomicus · 8 days ago

This is a legitimate movement in my eyes. I don’t participate, but I see it as valid. This is reminiscent of the Luddite movement - a badly misunderstood movement of folks who were trying to secure labor rights guarantees in the face of automation and new tools threatening to kill large swaths of the workforce.

stinkbeetle · 8 days ago

What exactly do you mean by "legitimate" and "valid"?

Are movements valid if they have aims that you agree with, or are economic self-interest motivated, and invalid otherwise?

stinkbeetle commented on Tesla ending Models S and X production cnbc.com/2026/01/28/tesla... · Posted by u/keyboardJones

sgjohnson · 10 days ago

Tesla will become a case study on how to completely waste the first-mover advantage.

For many people, the very term EV itself is still ubiquitous to Tesla.

And somehow Tesla is still worth more than every other non-Chinese automaker combined. $1.5T.

GM? $80B. Stellantis? $40B. Toyota? $280B. Mercedes-Benz? $60B. BMW? $55B. Volkswagen Group? Also $55B.

I’m sure I’ve missed plenty of others, but I could miss some 18 $50B automakers, and Tesla would still be worth more than all of them combined.

If Tesla was valued fairly, it would probably be at the tune of $5B. But I’ll never bet against it, because the markets can remain irrational for longer than I can remain solvent. And for some unbeknownst to me reason, the markets value Tesla as a hot tech company, not a 3rd rate automaker, which is what it actually is.

And to add insult to injury, even GM Super Cruise is widely renowned as better and safer than Tesla’s current “FSD”.

stinkbeetle · 10 days ago

> Tesla will become a case study on how to completely waste the first-mover advantage.

I doubt that because Tesla was not a first mover, established automotive companies were.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_R%27nessa#Nissan_Altra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ranger_EV

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_EV_Plus

Etc.

The innovation/imitation/commoditization cycle is not really new or limited to Tesla, it applies to everything from robot vacuum cleaners to CPUs. Whether Tesla survives or not probably depends a lot more on boring things like economic and trade policies of large countries.

The much more interesting thing to study would be how ice auto manufacturers not only completely wasted their first mover advantages, but also their long established brand value, supply chains and distribution and sales networks when it came to EVs.

It was not many years ago, industry "experts" were still going on about how Tesla could never hope to build cars at scale, that their "build quality" would sink them, etc. Whereas many people have rightly identified this commoditization and threats from Chinese manufacturers as being one of the biggest risks to Tesla from the beginning. Surely it's more interesting to study the things that were not obvious or well predicted?