That’s not a the worst idea in premise, but the logistics of that is a concern for me.

Who decides who is allowed to be a formal interest group with a vote in the body? Is anyone allowed to form any group that has equal voting power? That is a terrible idea for so many reasons I can think of. Is it chosen by the legislature or executive? That gives it a ton of room for corruption, favoritism, etc. Are they restricted to one group per area of interest? If not then you could have proposals passed by the sheet number of co-interested individual interest groups alone. If not, then who decides what is a distinct enough interest to allow a new group?

That being said, the entire system being an above board process, publically accessible and answerable, would already be a dramatic improvement over the current lobbying practices, so… no matter how bad a mess, it likely would never be worse.

The lobbyist is the consultative role. Their job is to consult. The only money that needs thrown around to lobby is the salary of the lobbyist. Now because we have a corrupt system that does not suffiently enforce the law, plenty of lobbyists throw around money to gain favors and deals with government officials, and that obviously should neither be the expectation or even allowable. But that doesn’t made a paid role as a person who job is to advocate for some cause inherently a problem, so long as they do so ethically and, ideally, for a worthy cause.

If my wife started trying to make sure my dick could breath and my balls werent sticking to my thigh… 🤨 stop.

I’m not an anarchist. And we don’t live in an anarchy. And we will never see a true long term anarchist society of any real scale in our lifetime. That is fine if you are talking about some idealistic utopian goal. But I’m talking about the world we live in now.

And they didnt say that they shouldn’t be necessary or viable because there is no central goverment authority to advocate to. They said they shouldn’t be allowed. Those are two different stances (and not very anarchist to talk of disallowing advocacy roles).

I don’t disagree with any of that. But if you’re framing the homelessness problem as a veteran homelessness problem then the applied solutions will likely leave non-veterans that still need help without. All homelessness is a problem. That is not the same as “all lives matter” because homelessness isn’t primarily a problem that veterans face. They’re estimated to make up 5 percent of the homeless population.

The government does have a particular responsibility to vets, and should be fixing that. But they have a responsibility to non-vets too. And the things that cause homelessness for veterans causes it for everyone else too. We can and should be helping veterans by addressing the root causes that effect everyone. But any solution that only results in helping vets (like supplying only veterans housing) when they could be helping everyone is unacceptable, particularly as plenty of people would consider the job done so long as the homeless that remain aren’t vets.

I think the government owes more to veterans. I do not think they inherently deserve more as a moral imperative of the universe.

Lobbyists are not necessarily a problem. Lobbyists for corporate interests are usually a problem. But there are lobbyists for non-profits, unions, and advocacy groups, too. Their job is to be a face to face to those with political power and government authority to advocate for some interest. Those interests are can be a net good for everyone. They can bring awareness to issues, new perspectives on issues, and provide a voice for those who may otherwise be ignored or lost in the noise. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. When bribery gets involved, or behind the scene deals, or when lobbyists get to write the laws to financially benefit their employers at others’ expense, that is the problem we often see with lobbyists.

Update: y’all hate some nuance, huh.

I don’t agree with the “especially veterans” part of the no one should be homeless. Veteran status, in itself, does not make one more worthy of a basic necessity of life. What I will agree with is that the government has a responsibility to make sure everyone is house especially veterans. The government owes them more than others for serving them. The universe does not.

I just keep stamping it. I think I’ve punched a whole through.

Too much reading. Have your seen those menus?!

I did. It was a quick read. You said unlike janitors, twitch streamers are known for often being narcissists… But please tell me what other nugget of wisdom I missed.

So you are using “twitch streamer” as shorthand for “narcissist” then? So stack on a weird prejudice and stereotyping to your elitism. And everything else I said still stands. Even if we granted your prejudice, “since when did narcissism in politics ever effect anyone, right? Who gives a shit about narcissists?” … 🤨

Like I don’t have any particular interest, love or hate for Piker. I haven’t ever watched more than a few clips of him. But he does matter, both as a person and a political influencer. And your question is bullshit elitism. Saying “Why does anyone give a shit about [blank]?” and then filling that blank with any type of person you find frivolous, not for the content of their character or their opinions voiced, but for something like their chosen job or hobby, is fucking dumb. Particularly in relation to a politically active person in what is ostensibly a democracy. Everyone matters in a democracy. That is the actual point.

You may as well have said, “Why does anyone give a shit about a janitor?” Well if that janitor has a lot of political influence, good or bad, you should give a shit. What the fuck does it matter if he is a janitor, a twitch streamer, or any other role? If they are talking and people are listening and it is effecting people’s political insights and mindset and vote, it doesn’t matter what they do for work or how they got their audience. It matters that others are listening. And it also matters that he is the object of political ire from his ideological opponents. No matter how dumb any of it is, these things have real tangible effects on our world. You don’t have to pay him any mind or grant his opinions any credence or like him or hate him or feel anything at all about him to acknowledge that he objectively does matter to the political sphere.

A decade ago, people where dismissive of Trump because he was (and is) a fucking caricature of a wealthy womanizing narcissist with a big mouth. “Who gives a shit about some rich real-estate playboy?”, one might have asked. But his big mouth runs and millions of voters eat up every word. Do you think Trump’s bullshit matters now?

The problem with throwing in so hard with AI tools and using it to replace human labor is that when you inevitably decide that human labor is the cheaper option in the long term, it takes a lot of time and effort to find, and train and rebuild knowledge and specific skill. In the meantime, you are still relying on AI to fill the gaps. They were able to drop people fast and hard. They won’t be able to do the same with AI becuase people require more time to source and acclimate.

That means that, over the short term at least, these AI companies have a lot of industry by the balls. If they want to increase prices, even if that is the straw that breaks the camels back and gets them to start turning back to human labor, they are still going to pay those higher prices until they can.

That is not a recipe for a healthy long term business strategy for the AI companies. That will almost certianly lose them revenue in the long run, even with higher pricing. But if your investors are getting desperate for any return at all on their investment, a good solid pump and dump strategy makes that happen. They bail out before the other foot drops, collect their ill-gotten winnings, and walk away richer while the new shareholders eat shit when the price tanks.

The AI companies know this is a bubble just like everyone else. But bubbles are profitable to a select few if they do it right and that is all they ultimately care about. When the bubble pops, we’ll still have AI companies, but the market will settle somewhere far more reasonable and the tools will be expensive and niche and useful for special cases only. No AI company is trying to get to that point, it’s the just inevitable outcome. What they are trying to do is maximize their big payout, all else be damned.

Their revenue in the first half of the year was 16.3 billion. That is a big increase over the 1.2 billion over the same period last year, but assuming that continues, then their annual revenue is only 32.6 billion. That is revenue. Not profit. They actually still operate at a loss, 693 million in the same period this year. That is a major improvement over the 2.1 billion dollar operating loss from the same period the year before. The trend line is going up. But the fact of the matter is that they are still very much operating in the red and their current investors are not getting and payoff for their investment until they are profitable.

They cannot generate a profit without either cutting on hardware and infrastructure investment, making their models more compute efficient/limiting the use of less efficient models, or increasing token prices. They will definitely not do either of the first two things, so prices are going to spike as soon as they go public so they can attract more investors. That is my prediction. The current investors will also sell out their shares immediately and dump the stock price screwing over all of the early adopters. Mark my words.

Are they? Have they ever been less than maximum sketch?

The difference is 1 part genetics, 1 part skin care routines, 1 part sun protection habits, 7 parts a lifetime with or without smoking and being surrounded by people smoking at nearly all times.