Eric Crook

@mysteriouskat History is full of societies that had very different opinions about what is ethical or not... Vikings thought that murdering members of another's household over a perceived insult was the morally correct response. And like, you would be shunned and shamed if you did not.

It’s interesting to see how many people will defend a truly rotten person—or politician—if they believe that person will do the things that they believe are ultimately good, advancing some outcome they care about. The cost is turning a blind eye to someone’s character because the greater good is being achieved. It’s a selective blindness. Whether Trump or Platner, we see this kind of reasoning all the time. “We'll lose our country.We have to stop communism.We have to end the wars.We have to take the country back from the rich.” When the stakes are framed as existential, almost anything begins to seem forgivable. What does an alleged sexual assault matter? Or some Totenkopf tattoo? A bit of familial corruption? If the cause is righteous enough… At the same time, politicians aren’t saints. Politics usually involves choosing between imperfect people—the lesser evil. Moral purity tests aren’t very practical. But where do we draw the line? At what point does overlooking someone's character stop being pragmatism and start becoming moral surrender? Should unethical behavior be ignored as long as it’s achieving a desired aim? What does it signal to others, including future leaders, when it does? What incentive does it create? What happens when each side believes the other's corruption is uniquely evil while its own is justified? There’s a price. Are principles meaningful if they don’t involve a compromise? Would you ignore the same red flag in your opponent? History is full of examples where societies accepted increasingly unethical leaders because they promised security, prosperity, or national greatness. But if principles are conditional on achieving the “right” outcome and that their cause unique justifies it, where does it stop? What kind of society does it produce?

@olivertraldi This is the correct read on Germans and Austrians.

People underrate the fact that Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud were all German or Austrian. If I made myself wait for the Walk sign to cross a street even with no cars around for miles I would probably end up debunking "morality" too

@axel_pond @perceptions420 Seems expected no?

@perceptions420 it is disturbing to realize how many of the leading geniuses in computer science and mathematics were just autistic.

Listening to Wolfram on computation is funny because, of course, an autistic man believes that the world runs on computation and rules.

@Noahpinion They are proposing that someone put together a proposal and then some other people like, adopt it.

What action are they proposing? I can't find the specifics.

@skumWgmi I agree. Property taxes should not go up on unrealized gains. Many houses don't trigger tax changes unless they change hands (thus realizing gains). Varies depends on where you live...

You can't tax rich people on unrealized gains from stocks because "it's not real money until it's sold." So explain to me why my property taxes keep going up based on the unrealized value of my house? I didn't sell it, didn't cash out and didn't even make a profit. But somehow I'm paying taxes on paper gains every single year. Interesting how "unrealized gains" only become a problem when wealthy folks are involved.

@MarketPalmer_ I'm going to be upset if we don't have household robots.

Be honest: Do you think everyone will eventually own a robot to help them around their house? Or is that a fairytale being sold to us?

@kelvinbuildss disagree. (obviously depends what you are trying to do, but for most things, the LLM is fine by itself)

hot take: vibe coding only works well if you already know how to code. Do you agree?

@plainionist GPUs.

Serious question: If junior developers skip the struggle because AI does the work, where will the next generation of seniors come from? 🤔

@LizzyStarrrdust No. We watched those shows because that's just what was on. Now they can pick from any thousands of shows whenever they like.

Do kids still watch the TV shows from the previous generation like I watched Bewitched and I Dream of Genie on Nick at night?

@ben_sage What? 1. the product works on the internet 2. we have logs? 3. what? Do you like, prove you did work by posting screenshots to someone? 4. git You are replying to something that maybe would have context. Maybe this is a joke...

Frontend has UI screenshots. Backend has… what exactly? How do backend devs show real proof of their work?

@TheStarwald Advertising and distribution are king, there are tons of games. Free-to-play economics are just more efficient and more profitable than traditional upfront pricing. So it can support higher cost per install. Which crowds out other pricing models in user acquisition.

I grew up when there were no microtransactions in games, and they made money just fine.

@ThePrimeagen @antoniosarosi I mean, stack traces... Also their threading model? You mean when Java first came out? Also, runs on windows AND linux what?! (you could just recompile.... mmhmm, sure, all my dependencies will like that just fine.... not....) Also the networking code was easy....

@antoniosarosi No one ever looked at Java and thought this is better than C

Before C, someone writing assembly would say "hand-writing" assembly is fun. Before Java someone would say manually allocating memory in C is fun. Just accept that coding has been abstracted and it will not come back, the minimum building block now is architecture components.

@bigseb31213 LOL, oh, they're gonna take everyone's jobs...

In hindsight it was so absurd that the AI companies bragged about how everyone was going to lose their job because of their product It created a very understandable public backlash, and led to widespread adoption of conspiracy theories about data centers

@retiremeplease OMG, shitty silver metal + shitty brown metal = AWESOME SHINY METAL. I'm gonna buy so much olive oil with this!

There were probably humans alive with Einstein-level natural intelligence before we even invented the wheel and I really want to know what the fuck their lives were like

@housecor Yes.

If you were running your own software dev shop, would you hire dedicated QA?

@brian_tunink @Polymarket Linkedin's purpose is not it's feed.

@Polymarket It’s pretty terrible. I despise the platform because so many professionals in my industry use it, but it’s literally nothing but south East Asian posters spamming 100% AI garbage and videos of products or statements that should never be made.

NEW: Study reveals LinkedIn is the most AI-saturated major social platform, with over 40% of long-form posts flagged as fully AI-generated “slop.”

@Polymarket What are they using to identify posts as "ai slop"?

@JohnWakefieId I mean, it's still hella fun to go to though right? Like, the demand for a college experience will still exist... So like, they will have to change themselves?

The university system as we know it is literally going to collapse lmao

@educator4ever36 Every teacher needs a way to remove disruptive students from their class. Every school needs to have a productive place for them to go.

Every public school classroom grades Pre-K through 3rd grade should have a full time instructional aide. The amount of money saved by addressing student obstacles early would more than make up for the outlay of expense.

@RockChartrand Dude, the first olympics were when poor people bought into the idea they could be heroes too. It did exactly that, a chance at glory, a path.

Billionaires are not evidence that capitalism failed. Poverty is. The question isn't whether some people become extremely rich, but whether ordinary people become better off. Compared to history, even the poor today have access to things that were once luxuries. The existence of billionaires doesn't prove capitalism failed any more than the existence of Olympic athletes proves exercise failed because not everyone becomes one.