bitwize @bitwize_

Uh… SpaceX rushed to get Starlink available in Ukraine within a couple days of the war starting and donated thousands of Starlink terminals. It also gave free access to Ukraine for the first 15-16 months of the war. Without this, Ukraine would have definitely fallen to Russia due to having no communication channels. SpaceX had no obligation to do this at all. I think a little bit of gratitude is warranted.

100% this. youtu.be/OEPL9AgnFSA?si…

I mean, Ukraine is using Starlink because that was their only option. Elon offered to let them use it for free. That said it’s a civilian network. The rules were clear when they signed up to use it and were just as clear when they broke the rules. They don’t HAVE to use Starlink. They could use pigeons instead while they … checks notes … develop a space program that will let them launch … checks notes … 11,000+ satellites into orbit. No one’s stopping them.

Really dumb take. Particularly when there’s a direct option to compare. When you buy a car you pay sales tax. That’s rolled into the loan for the car. Now, imagine that tax was changed based on the value of the car and once you finished paying off the loan, you kept paying the tax just for owning the car. Imagine you have a car that became popular and stopped being made. It’s your favorite car. You have years of memories in it. Because it’s popular, it’s maintained it’s value over time well. You worked hard for 6 years and paid the car off with $500/mo payments. Now you’re paying $200-250/mo in tax every month for a car you paid off in full. On top of that you still have to pay for maintenance, gas, etc. Then people tell you that you should just sell it and use public transit if you can’t afford to the taxes on the car you’ve fully paid off. It’s unfucking American. Our country was founded over less egregious bullshit than the modern day tax situation.

@RefinedPopulist Basically, people over 10 years old thought they were shit (they were). People under 10 didn’t know any better and now have nostalgia for them. They’re objectively awful though. Not as bad as the sequels, but still really bad.

Actual adults vote for Republicans. That statement may anger you, but I’ll say it again; those with a level of discernment beyond that of a child vote for Republicans. I don’t do a massive amount of politics on here, or truthfully, in real life. I have no love for politicians, they are merely a necessary evil. Why the statement? Actual adults understand a few things… The current Democratic Party refuses to accept the science of biology, stymy the flow of illegal aliens, identity voters through ID, recognize your Right to firearms (as outlined in the 2nd Amendment), and reject the ideas of Karl Marx as incongruent with the Constitution. They play games on the State level to block those who seek to reveal corruption and fraud. They literally named a law after Nick Shirley to prevent others like him from revealing massive scams in their State like he did in Minnesota. These are not the actions of rational adults, but rather emotional, power-hungry children who seek to upend our Nation as long as they personally benefit. I am under no delusion that Republicans will deliver everything I want. They have been tepid at best the past two years. I’m also no Trump sycophantic. Many of his positions would have been considered middle-ground in the 1990’s Democratic Party. He and the Party he leads have managed to deliver a few victories in areas that matter. The southern border is the most secure that it’s been in my lifetime. The NFA is currently starving for oxygen. Some common sense has been applied to preventing men from parading as women to crush their athletic dreams and act as government endorsed voyeurs in bathrooms. Trump is bombastic and publicly treats the Office of the Presidency as a celebrity position. Behind the scenes, it’s clearly different. I highly approve of some of the moves he’s made and shake my head in frustration at others. Trump is not on the ballot this election. Who is? Local representatives and managers, many House Representatives and some Senators; for some of you Mayor or County Sheriff. These are the people whose decisions will truly impact your life regardless of what the man who is not up for reelection does. Rational adults vote for the representation that doesn’t promise to steal what you have, give it to noncitizens, take away your right to self-defense, upend our founding documents, and allow the replacement of equal justice with Sharia law. The current Democratic Party endorses ideas that indoctrinate your children into ideas that prevent you from ever having grandchildren. They support that which will literally end your family line; they gain power and you lose your legacy. At this point in time, that rational option is by and large the Republican Party. Will Republicans likely fail to live up to all of their campaign promises? Beyond a doubt. A mature adult knows that and yet understands the opposite choice is guaranteed destruction. Naïve children make choices on emotions, “the feels”, promises of free stuff and believing that politicians won’t disappoint them. Rational adults stoically weigh the options based on projected course and values. The Iran war will not immediately end no matter which way you vote. Gas prices also don’t turn on a dime. No matter who you choose, inflation will not immediately disappear and Congress will spend money. I have my gripes, as do you. They are valid. National suicide is not the answer. Until the Democrats produce another JFK like option, eschew their current values and platform, you must do your job as a rational adult and block them at the voting booth and in the public square. Anything less is puerile.

@nayibbukele This is the thing a lot of people seem to fail to understand. Elon isn’t full of shit. He’s just bad at guessing timelines. If he says something is gonna happen it almost certainly will. Probably not on the timeline he said but yeah.

@BlackHC Mathematicians are currently in the “yes, it compiles but it’s slop” phase. Give it 6 months. 😂

This is a completely backwards take. AI is now letting individuals and small teams compete competitively with huge corporations with thousands of engineers. It’s going to enable people who have the creative mind to come up with amazing products the capability of producing them without needing entrenched connections, training, certifications, or (in many cases) large pools of cash to do it.

I find it crazy that when an American goes to another country *to visit* they take great pains to make sure they comply with that country’s immigration laws. Get visas, pay fees, carry identification, etc. if they don’t get the visa, they bitch about it *but don’t go*. I know someone trying to move to Canada because “orange man bad”. Spending literally two years to get the paperwork in order to do it. Then these exact same people turn around and say people coming to our country should be able to just show and *live here*, work, drive, own property and even vote in some cases — indefinitely. The double-standard is striking.

@TomHoefling That’s exactly how you take anyone out of context.

@PatrickHeizer @grok how many times has fixing Social Security been attempted over the last 40 years? Detail high profile attempts and guesstimate number of attempts that never made it to bills.

The tax you’re paying into Social Security and Medicare is meant to be for YOU when you retire. That’s not how it works right now because the system is broken, but yeah. As an aside, I would have less of an issue paying a general tax on services like schools if I didn’t know the money was being wasted. I got a solid education at a private school where the tuition was $5-7k per year. Public schools routinely get double or even triple that and have some of the worst results imaginable. They also waste much of that money on extravagant facilities.

You think the money I pay in property taxes goes toward an educated populace? How cute. Probably 2/3 of it goes toward ostentatious facilities and sports fields/stadiums. What goes into education has largely resulted in the dumbest, least educated students we’ve ever had. Home schooling and private schooling are the only places good education is happening now. And guess what. They don’t get property tax money. If the court system needs money and property taxes from commercial and investment properties along with sales tax doesn’t fund it enough, then add an additional public services tax that hits everyone equally. Another aside though is that government notoriously misspends money. Forcing governments to be more frugal would usually be good.

No, we wouldn’t. Because they’d just waste the money. You think the US government doesn’t have enough money? They have more than enough money to cover all essentials. They just piss it away on all sorts of things they shouldn’t be (including massive amounts of fraud and corruption).

Right. If I invite someone into my house to temporarily and then later determine it’s time for them to leave…I show them the door. If they don’t leave, then the cops get called and they’re forcibly removed. Why? Because I rescinded my invitation. The US government gave some people temporary (TEMPORARY) protected status. It is now rescinding that status so they have to leave. So…a status that was always meant to be temporary was rescinded and now they’re being sent home. What’s the problem here?

Actually all of that money would have been wasted by the government, every senior in America would still have problems, and Tesla, SpaceX (Starlink), and the Boring Company would all be out of business/shells of their former selves now. We’d also be beholden to Russia to access space. But feel free to live in the delusion you’re having where somehow the government doesn’t just waste all of the money it gets and Elon’s wealth isn’t directly tied to the value/performance of his companies.

I’ve been using FSD for 97% of all driving I’ve done the last 4 months (roughly 5000 miles). I would use it on day 1. It’s already basically doing that already. I only override for parking and the odd navigation issue that wouldn’t ultimately matter (e.g., save 1 minute due to optimized turnaround use vs left turn, etc).

All AI conversations aside, that’s just a dumb statement that could be applied to any technology advancement. Using a camera is just you choosing to have a machine replace portrait artists. Using a drive through car wash is just you replacing dozens of people who would hand wash it. Using a dishwasher is just replacing people who would otherwise wash dishes. Using video editing software is replacing dozens of people who manually edited physical film strips. Using digital special effects replaced entire teams of people who made practical effects and painted backdrops. Old jobs will always be replaced by new technologies and methods that are more practical or cheaper. It has always worked that way. It always will.