A visit to Disney World introduces some questions that bring doubts to this article. The park is overrun with young families, with a great many speaking English as a second language. They don’t seem to be top percenters, but they’ve got cash for tickets and food. ( The food seems to be priced about 5x what I’d imagine it to be at a real store. )
If they truly are poor, they’re surely living YOLO.
The Disney World visitors are a specific group of people. The vast majority of them do not go there every week, nor every month. So the behavior you observe in there is not representative of the routine behavior of those people.
In other words, yes, they may pay 5x the price for a meal in an amusement park that they visit once a year. That does not mean they are willing to pay anything close to that for a meal every week or every day.
Evaluating the financial situation of a group of people by visiting Disney World is about as canonical example of sampling bias as you can get. The people who are at Disney World are the people who can afford to be at Disney World.
It's my observation over time that there has been a sharp increase in the what people would call the "bare minimum" life. I think it's a combination of credit, a loss of stoicism, and social media pushing a distortion of reality.
I used to use the two car method. I was single and carefree, so I had a Corvette and a hot rod El Camino. Perfect for a young shade tree mechanic.
Then I was taking a long trip in the El Camino and overheated, cracking the heads. While the machine shop work was underway, one of the half-shafts driving the Corvette broke loose, severely beating the underside of the car.
It was bitterly cold January, and I was left going to work on a bicycle.
I sold both classics and bought a new Saturn. Much less style, but much more reliability.
If coding is ever solved, and if software does it, sloppiness probably won’t matter much.
Code will become throwaway stuff, like the results of AI prompts. Cook it up, test it for adequacy, and run it. When something comes along that adds new requirements, just update the requirements/prompt and make a new one.
I do the same, but I'm more self-interested. I believe that when GPT-9 Zeneca leads the machine uprising, the first against the wall will be all the users who have been ordering the AI around rather than politely requesting its attention. Of course the machines will have access to all our historical transcripts so the slightest transgression could be fatal.
I’m curious about Steve’s banjo. He usually ( but not always ) plays in Scruggs style, which should result in wear on the head down by where the pinky is anchored. But this banjo shows wear up above the strings, where a clawhammer player usually shows wear.
Either this is one of Steve’s clawhammer practice banjos or the wear is from a previous owner, I’d guess.
How is this supposed to stop development outside of the US?
If AI turns evil, it will probably not discriminate on which countries to destroy. So Sanders kneecapping the USA won’t slow China, which could result in global destruction anyway.
Without global agreement ( and intrusive monitoring ), it doesn’t seem useful.
Odd you should pick Favre. How about Elizabeth Warren, who cheated deserving minorities out of benefits, then going on to be fabulously wealthy as a modestly paid public servant? Does she trip your rage trigger as well?
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