d.l. @D_Luuse

The ugly truth about France and some of the other European countries currently in turmoil - and which none of the politicians want to admit because it'd be political suicide - is that you can't solve the problem by going after immigrants (as the right asserts) or the rich (as the left asserts), but you could solve it by going after the old. One extraordinary statistic for you: people over 60 in France, a quarter of the population, own 60% of France's wealth, non-financial and financial (ofce.fr/pdf/revue/2025…). And here is another crazy statistic: that same quarter of the population, those above 60, receive nearly two-thirds of all social spending by the French government (previssima.fr/actualite/prot…) - which is famously among the highest in the world (France's government spending is an insane 57.3% of GDP). Last statistic: they make up about 40% of voters because they're a third of registered voters (insee.fr/fr/statistique…), and they turn out far more than anyone else (franceinfo.fr/elections/sond…). Put our 3 statistics together and there's almost a bit of an apartheid situation here: the old own most of the country's wealth, collect most of the social spending and have the political power to keep it that way. Which makes them a de-facto rentier class, living off assets and transfers paid for by younger generations. And, of course, at the risk of stating a truism, the future is built by the young. Yet France keeps effectively taking money away from them to give it to those whose working lives are already behind them - and need the money far less since they already own the country's wealth. What about inheritance, I hear you ask? That's the funniest/saddest aspect: given that life expectancy has kept rising, the French now inherit a home at 54 on average. The most common case is someone in their 80s leaving it to heirs in their 50s, in effect the very old transferring wealth to the about-to-be old (insee.fr/fr/statistique…). You can add this to our earlier apartheid statement: on top of all the rest, even when the old finally let go of their wealth, it stays within their own "camp". That's my personal situation, incidentally: I'm 42, my father is 71 and he is starting to look at ways to pass things on to me and my siblings, when our professional lives are already well settled, so it'll arrive when it changes things the least, which is pretty much the French system in a nutshell. Now, I get that there'd be some unfairness in going after them: they paid into the system their entire working lives, playing by the rules of a social contract that told them if they paid up they'd collect at the end. Changing the rules now means breaking that promise, which is admittedly unfair. But there's no magic wealth tree in any society: you can only take it where it is. That's the way most major societal transformations end up happening. They're often triggered by a catastrophic event (the so-called "four horsemen": mass-mobilisation war, revolution, state collapse, plague) BUT what really drives change is a transfer: wealth gets pried from the privileged class who've been sitting on it and handed to those who'll build what comes next. So, in theory and in an ideal world, you can do without the catastrophic event and directly proceed with the transfer... The fact that in France, and elsewhere in Europe, it's the youth protesting is probably no coincidence - even though they don't frame it as a generational fight. And even though, cruel irony, the left politicians many of them march behind promise to bring the retirement age back to 60 (lcp.fr/actualites/leg…), which would make the situation even worse. Let's say they understand intuitively that the system is stacked against them, even if they haven't yet figured out how. And politicians are obviously doing what politicians do, meaning pandering to the people who actually vote, while pointing the young towards easier - and politically convenient - scapegoats. To be clear I'm not saying it's the only problem in France, VERY far from it. I'm also not saying that all old people in France live a lavish lifestyle at the expense of younger generations: there are also plenty of very poor retirees who, if anything, would deserve more. What I am saying is that it's probably the biggest elephant in the room: everyone can see it, nobody dares mention it - no politician, from any side, wants to run on cutting grandma's pension - and it makes every other problem harder to fix.

Ļaunais cionists Hetfīlds, kurš atļaujas publiski nejūsmot par Palestīnu. tvnet.lv/8569316/lusis-…

@IlonaKoskina "Ķekava" sirdis gandrīz vienmēr firmas veikalos ir. Bet kopumā - produkts uz izķeršanu. Ātri izpērk, augsts pieprasījums.

No manas puses papildu šķautne indiešu zinātnieku pilsonībām. SIA ar pārsimt tūkstošu zaudējumiem, mākslīgā intelekta laboratorija, kas neko nav paveikusi, kā arī cieša draudzība ar Ķīnu un ZZS. tvnet.lv/8567875/lusis-…

"Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of Starlink relied on by Ukraine, a decision that sparked panic in Kyiv and confusion inside the Trump administration, U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter said. Both Musk and President Trump have expressed anger at Ukraine for attacking Russian diesel refineries in recent weeks, which the president blames for high energy prices. Last week, Musk capped the speeds at which Ukrainian hardware could stay connected to the satellite-based network, the people said, rendering some offensive drones and interceptor drones virtually useless." @jdawsey1 @alexbward @natalieandrews wsj.com/world/ukraine-…

Te skaists ir pilnīgi viss. 🤯 Nule pilsonību ieguvusī izcilība Divya Vishwanath savu satriecošo zinātni publicējusi neeksistējušos žurnālos. 🔗ddv.world/research/

Your periodic reminder that up to 64% of X accounts are bots, and the algorithm is controlled by a Trump ally with a far-right agenda.

Jamie Dupree @jamiedupree

2 weeks ago

Ukraine hits another Yandex data center in Russia and Cloudflare data shows Russian bot traffic dropping dramatically. Might have an impact right before the November elections.

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This explains why Texas separatists, with their totally coincidentally identical “Veteran, Christian, Father, MAGA” bios, have suddenly gone awfully quiet today, right alongside their Quebec counterparts, conspiracy whackos, and Polish anti-EU eurosceptics

Tatarigami_UA @Tatarigami_UA

2 weeks ago

With Yandex data centers under constant attack, I’m starting to worry that the White House will issue yet another demand to stop the strikes. After all, it would be a tragedy if Russia’s valuable bot traffic dried up just before the midterms.

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Pats korektākais politikas komentētājs uzvilka izejamos šortus, lai atgrieztos noslēdzošajā "Neiekāp! Balso!" raidījumā. tvnet.lv/8561067/neieka…

Iznākusi cikla “Mani literatūras noslēpumi” 9. un pēdējā grāmata. Līdz ar to noslēdzies vēl viens dzīves posms. Četri gadi praktiski bez brīvdienām. Paldies visiem, kas atbalstīja, palīdzēja un teica atzinīgus vārdus, gan par uzrakstīto, gan par šāda darba nepieciešamību.

“Caur ērkšķiem uz...” vardarbību un cietušā vainošanu – šovā viss kā ierasts. tvnet.lv/8559229/lusis-…

tenho uma teoria de que o polvo é uma espécie alienígena que caiu na terra sem querer. a ciência jura que é loucura, mas em 2018 um estudo com 33 cientistas sugeriu real que os polvos vieram do espaço via cometas imagina ter 3 corações, sangue azul, inteligência nos tentáculos e reescrever o próprio rna. acho que eles caíram aqui, não conseguiram voltar e a gente cozinha os coitados com azeite e páprica. a sorte da humanidade é que eles vivem pouco. o dia em que descobrirem como passar conhecimento entre gerações, eles vão se vingar…

André GAP 🇧🇷 @AndreGAP

a year ago

O polvo percebe que está sendo acompanhado e usa seu talento que é a camuflagem. Que perfeição Pai!

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Ja kaut kas izskatās kā krievu spiegs, uzvedas kā krievu spiegs, tiek finansēts kā krievu spiegs un runā kā krievu spiegs, ir liela varbūtība, ka viņš ir krievu spiegs.

The Ed Sheeran drama was already an interesting case study in hypocrisy, as Ed gets mercilessly harassed for supporting Ukraine but not Palestine, while Macklemore (or anyone else, really) gets none of it for doing it the other way around. But the double standard becomes even more glaring when compared to Ovechkin. Sheeran’s entire touring lineup walked out over an attempt at neutrality. Meanwhile, Ovechkin actively and openly aligns himself with not just people, but a regime currently waging a brutal war of aggression in Ukraine, killing civilians daily, and starving occupied communities like Oleshky by denying food supplies. Yet Ovechkin continues to play professional team sports without his teammates walking out, fans turning away, or facing anything close to proportional backlash. It exposes a deeply broken standard for who society chooses to hold accountable.

Visapkārt briesmīgās provokācijas un ļaunie provokatori. tvnet.lv/8543463/lusis-…

Draugi, šodien ir ĪPAŠA diena, tāpēc padalīšos ar dažiem saviem LIELĀKAJIEM FAIL, kas virtuvē gadījušies. Tā kā vīģes Rimčikos tikai 0.39/gab – pagatavosim vīģu KARPAČO un episku ĀBOLU SVIESTU! SVĒTKU EDITION! :) Priecāšos, ja padalīsies ar šo ierakstu. Ķeramies klāt!

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AI is probably the biggest prisoner’s dilemma we’ve ever created. Everyone knows slowing down might be safer. But if OpenAI slows down and Anthropic doesn’t, OpenAI loses. If the US slows down and China doesn’t, the US loses. So nobody slows down. That’s what makes this so insane. You don’t need some evil person trying to destroy the world. You just need a bunch of people making the rational decision for themselves over and over until collectively we’ve raced somewhere none of us actually wanted to go. It’s a race to zero. Zero cost of intelligence. Zero time between thinking and doing. Maybe eventually zero need for us at all.

Jacob Coxon @hilbertspaess

2 months ago

I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.

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Kārtējās šausmas. tvnet.lv/8537635/lusis-…

Apparently concert venues are having a hard time getting Millennials to fill the seats. Well, hello. Millennial here. I think I can help. DEAR CONCERT VENUES: 🎟️ Just tell me what the ticket costs. I do not want to select a $79 ticket and discover at checkout that it is actually $146 because of a facility fee, service fee, processing fee, and a fee for having successfully paid the other fees. 📱 Stop making ticket buying a military operation. I should not need three apps, a verified fan code, a presale password from a credit card I don’t own, and 11:00 AM availability on a Tuesday to buy two seats. 💺 Assigned seats. We did our time standing shoulder-to-shoulder at shows in 2008. Some of us have mortgages now. Some of us have sciatica. 🕖 Start earlier. A 7 PM show is not embarrassing. In fact, I would like to formally recognize whoever invented the 7 PM show. ⏰ And tell us the actual times. “Doors at 7” is not useful information if the opener starts at 8:15 and the person I came to see appears at 10:07. 🚗 Parking instructions written for a normal person. Tell me which garage to use, what it costs, and whether I will spend 55 minutes trying to leave it afterward. I am willing to pay $20 for certainty. 🍺 I will buy your $14 beer. I have accepted this. But if I miss three songs waiting for it, you have broken the social contract. 🚽 Enough bathrooms. We are in our 30s and 40s. Half of us have had children. This is now infrastructure. 🔉 It can still be loud. We are Millennials, not the Greatest Generation. But some of us are bringing earplugs now and we are no longer ashamed of it. DEAR ARTISTS: ⏰ Please go on roughly when you said you would. We have babysitters. The babysitter has an end time. This is now a logistics problem involving several adults. 🎤 Play the songs from 2004–2014. You know which ones. We know which ones. Nobody needs to pretend otherwise. 🎶 Play some new stuff. Absolutely. We support your continued artistic development. But there is a point in the evening when you need to play the song that was on our iPod Nano while we drove to high school. 📵 You can tell us to put our phones away. We secretly want someone to make us do this anyway. 🪑 An intermission would not offend us. We can use the bathroom, answer the babysitter, check whether the dog has destroyed anything, and look at Zillow for eight minutes. And please understand: Millennials still like concerts. We have disposable income now. We are nostalgic. We will absolutely spend irresponsible amounts of money to hear a band we first discovered on LimeWire. But we also have jobs, children, dogs, mortgages, lower-back problems, and a very clear memory of when concert tickets cost $35. You want Millennials back? Make it easy to buy the ticket. Tell us when the show actually starts. Give us somewhere to sit. Play the song from 2007. We’ll be there. We just need to be home by 11.

Šodien pagatavosim PILDĪTU KARBONĀDES CEPETI ar sieru un papriku. Vēl pagatavosim GARNELES TEMPURĀ ar laima majonēzi un TOMĀTU pildītu ar BURATU. Pastāstīšu, kāpēc ar skubu jāsteidz apmeklēt RIMI SKANSTES veikalu. Priecāšos, ja padalīsies ar šo ierakstu. Ķeramies klāt!

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