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Comment What happens next? (Score 1) 73

What Happens When an 'Infinite-Money Machine' Unravels ...
Michael Saylor's software company Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy

(a) Declare bankruptcy.
(b) Use money to buy - I mean, lobby for - I mean get pardon. (Will work for 3 more years)
(c) Successively rename company: "MacroStrategy", "MegaStrategy", ... "MAGAStrategy".
(d) Goto "a".

Comment Re:Environmental issues are exaggerated (Score 1) 111

Scale matters. And how serious an issue does depend on percentage, not just absolute levels. Moreover, percentage is especially important when one is considering issues of prioritization, where I explicitly compared it to golf. So far, you've doubled down on insulting people rather than making any argument involving sources. It might also occur to you that you are apparently assuming that everyone you disagree must have some dishonest agenda. But if you bothered to actually read my comment with a minimum of good faith understanding, you would not that the comment explicitly notes specific problems from AI data centers, which should suggest to you that the agenda you apparently want to impose on the comment is not accurate. Now, it would be appreciated if you could actually attempt to respond with something resembling reasoning and sources and less insults. But I do appreciate from our prior interactions that is apparently difficult for you to do, so have a good day.

Comment Re:Is there even a veneer of plausibility here? (Score 5, Insightful) 92

So, in order to protect against possible military applications(known for their cost-sensitivity...); we are making the sale legal as long as El Presidente gets his cut? That's in character, sure; but what's the paper-thin excuse for that being a cogent policy idea?

Cogent sailed a while ago. Here's a quote from Trump announces $12 billion bailout plan for farmers hit by trade war with China (12m:16s) :

And this money would not be possible without tariffs. The tariffs are taken in, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars and we're giving some up to the farmers ...

Noting that's technically true, but nonsensical: Farmers need a bailout because of tariff / trade war that Trump started and he says bailout wouldn't be possible without the tariffs -- which are paid by U.S. companies and consumers. Once again, solving, or at least mitigating, a problem he started and proud of it. For example, China was buying tons of soybeans from the U.S. before he imposed tariffs, now they're buying them from Brazil.

Comment Re:Environmentalists demand we only subsistence fa (Score 5, Insightful) 111

There appear to be two interrelated issues with your sources. (Although thank you for giving sources, which was much more than the person you were replying to did.) First, there's a substantial issue with how representative these environmentalists are from the general movement. The ability to point to specific people doesn't really say much about the movement as a whole (although I will grant there's a decent fraction of the environmental movement which really does seem stuck in a 1970s sort of "degrowth" or "antigrowth" attitude). But you seem to also confuse sources saying "Hey, this is creating a serious problem" and not wanting to have that thing at all. The Science.org article for example is about the actual fact that steel production really does contribute seriously to climate change, but then much of the article is about the effort to make steel manufacturing more environmentally friendly. So the article is not about getting rid of steel manufacturing but about making it work better. Others in your list are not about getting rid of things, but moderation. To use the very last example, large scale car use really is creating a lot of problems. But one can recognize that and favor more moderation in terms of car use without getting rid of cars as a whole.

Comment Environmental issues are exaggerated (Score 3, Insightful) 111

The environmental issues are exaggerated. It is true that electricity prices are going up, https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/average-electricity-cost-increase-per-year but this is barely a blip above the current (very high) inflation rates https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator/consumer-price-index-1913-. The complaints about water usage are also not highly reasonable. The vast majority of water used for data centers get reused. Current data center water usage is about a 10th of the water usage for golf courses by the most extreme plausible estimates, and US golf courses account for a bit over 1% of all water usage, so being concerned about data centers here when a more useful thing would be to not have golf courses in the middle of Arizona would be a far more reasonable concern. https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/articles/2025/03/water-conservation-playbook-released-golf-industry.html. There are legitimate grid concerns; AI data centers don't just use a lot of power, but they use it in hard to predict ways, which makes load balancing the grid very difficult. So there are legitimate concerns.

But it seems like much of the left has adopted an anything involving LLM AIs is bad attitude in the US. This seems connected to the fact that the US attitude towards LLM AIs is more negative than pretty much almost every other country https://today.yougov.com/international/articles/53654-english-speaking-western-countries-more-negative-about-ai-than-western-europeans. But rather than having a serious discussion about the positives and negatives of this technology (and there are a lot in both columns), there's this tendency to just pick any possible negative and throw it on the wall. This is also particularly unfortunate right now in the US because there's major problems with the Trump administration rolling back all sorts of environmental regulations, including not just those for CO2 but for many other pollutants, and the administration is now actively stopping almost any new US wind and solar on a large scale. While there's been some legal pushback against some of that (see for example, this victory just today https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/climate/trump-offshore-wind-federal-judge.html ) this would be a far better use of these groups time and resources than going after a specific industry.

Comment Re:Let me get the popcorn... (Score 1) 62

...and watch the deep pockets of Netflix duke it out against the politically-favored Paramount+Ellisons.

Well... maybe less favored now. Donald Trump Lashes Out At Paramount Owners In Rant About Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Appearance On ‘60 Minutes’

Donald Trump said that the Ellison-owned Paramount is “no better than the old ownership” as he lashed out at the company over a 60 Minutes interview with new nemesis Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

[Lengthy Trump Truth Social rant in article]

Remember, everything is a quid-pro-quo with Trump, like this: Trump slams ‘lack of loyalty’ after pardoned [Texas] Democrat says he won’t change party. Trump literally expected this guy to switch from Democrat to Republican if he pardoned him -- which sounds like a bribe, that Trump (now) would be immune from prosecution thanks to SCOTUS.

Comment Re:It's intentional mispricing. (Score 2) 105

Do you think they care about $600k?

To some extent, probably, and I'm guessing they'll find a way to pass it along to their customers, after writing the fine off on their taxes. Rich people and corporations care about every penny. For example: Elon Musk calls for abolition of European Union after X fined $140 million -- which is literally pocket change for him.

Comment Re:Now do USPS (Score 5, Informative) 63

Now do USPS.

Paper mail is a waste of time except when it isn't, and for those times pay for FexEx!

Noting that UPS and FedEx don't have to deliver to every address, USPS does.

Also, the Postal Service is in The Constitution, Postal Clause.

Also, some myths debunked: Let’s Get to The Truth: Myths and Facts about Postal Privatization

Comment Re:Old News? (Score 2, Informative) 144

Just put it in context: Today Russia struck the Pechenihy Reservoir dam in Kharkiv.
Russia launched the war because they thought it would be a quick and easy win, a step towards reestablishing a Russian empire and sphere of influence, because Putin thinks in 19th century terms. Russia is continuing the war, not because it's good for Russia. I'd argue that winning and then having to rebuild and pacify Ukraine would be a catastrophe. Russia is continuing the war because *losing* the war would be catastrophic for the *regime*. It's not that they want to win a smoldering ruin, it's that winning a smoldering ruin is more favorable to them and losing an intact country.

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