No conversation about UBI is complete without also discussing the source of the funds and how other government programs might be effected.

I think UBI sounds great on the surface but I worry that it could alter our basic survival incentives which may have unintended consequences for the group of people who aren’t needing UBI.

Should UBI replace existing food and housing programs? Should UBI replace other things that are designed to mold the economy such as subsidized public transportation or small business loan guarantees? What about income tax incentives designed to encourage saving and growing money carefully versus consumption (capital gains versus income tax, tax-deferred retirement savings accounts).

I suspect there’s a fairly significant carry-on effect from shifting resources away from these types of programs to a UBI program. But what I’m not clear on is how that might impact other behaviors from well resourced people who may start to play the game, so to speak, by a new set of rules.

For example, do we see inflation around inelastic needs such as rent prices and grocery bills? If we did, UBI is not much more than a grocery store/landlord stimulus program. It’s hard to imagine that we wouldn’t see this unless controls are placed on those businesses which in turn, removes incentives to own and grow businesses.

It seems like a UBI program would promote an economy based on consumption and not on savings and investment. Why save your money if you’ll get topped up again next month, and every month for the rest of your life? By investment I’m not talking about Wall Street, I’m talking about finishing college degrees, investing in new ideas, chasing startup ideas, those people who stay up late at night working on inventions that they think could bring them rewards.

Perhaps the most fundamental question to be answered is this:

To what degree do we, as the human race, find benefit in helping the less capable of our species survive. Potentially at a cost - not to the strongest and most capable - but instead placed mostly on the shoulders of the slightly-more-capable.

That’s pretty much how it’s going in that industry too

After shovels were invented, we decided to dig more holes.

After hammers were invented, we needed to drive more nails.

Now that vibe coding has been invented, we are going to write more software.

No shit

Me too. RIP rif.

I love seeing projects like this.

I’m sure this first batch they are shipping will fill a certain niche demand and surely sell out. But after that I’m not so sure what the plan is or how it’s going to work out. Teaching? Retro afficianodos?a revival of commodore basic as a business operating system?

We’ve just come so far with emulators and cheaper, more capable, modern hardware that fits today’s computing world and the future. Learning how we solved computing 30-40 years ago is totally cool and relevant to a specific group but it’s not huge.

It would be awesome to learn that the team has plans to modernize and build on what’s there.

I was born at the tail end of Gen X but we were definitely getting up to some crazy stuff.

It was a normal afternoon to take our bikes off the highest jumps we could build in the middle of the road, constructed from the neighborhood wood pile. When a car came speeding through we’d yell out “car” and quickly move our stuff to the side. We used skateboards on vertical ramps built from whatever, and roller skates on shoddy pavement. Our playgrounds were made of reflective metal hotter than lava attached to towers that seemed to reach 20 ft above the ground.

We built dangerous tree houses with rusty scrap in the ravine behind the neighborhood, next to place where the neighborhood’s older kids were surely taking all the drugs and hiding from their D.A.R.E. officers.

I used to load my sisters in the back of a red radio flyer wagon and we’d all ride down the neighborhood’s steepest hill, occasionally tipping at high speed and then sliding the rest of the way down likely removing several layers of skin and rolls of gauze from my mom’s medical kit in the process.

In primary school, I don’t think there was ever a moment without at least one kid on crutches or with a limb in a cast.

While it did harden us up, and provided some amazing memories, just about everyone I know who was a kid at that time knows of some kid who died while digging a tunnel, or got hit by a car, or spent half of his early teenage years in a cast, or who always seemed to have a finger splint.

Somehow through all of this we moved from thinking this is normal childhood stuff to blaming anyone and everyone by way of lawsuits.

There was nothing “safe” about that time. The debate seems to hinge on whether a dangerous childhood results in better adapted adults, perhaps by culling a few unlucky kids who hadn’t learned their own limits, and who know how to be creative in the absence of almost any artificial or algorithmic stimuli.

Should have been Jeemail. Lost opportunity…

A lot of FOSS projects are freemium based which seems viable for larger more complex projects.

In these projects it’s common to see the developer get paid for adding features on top of the core version, for a SaaS version, for custom development, or for offering support.

Other projects with a lot of community interest - and a good “community manager” style organizer can attract contributors in the form of pulls, bug testing and reports, and widespread use which generates valuable marketing. These projects only exist because of the labor of love from the whole community.

The problems of the group of people whom we call “homeless”… has it ever really been a lack of homes?

There are homeless shelters with empty beds at night. Some people who probably really need them refuse to go there and instead sleep outside because they don’t want to be sober.

It’s amusing to think that if we just assign one empty home to each homeless guy - thus eliminating homelessness - all would be right. In the world. But I don’t think it works that way.

I agree with your points. AI is a tool just like hammers and word processors. It shows a lot of promise because people can solve problems in ways that other tools cannot.

Efficiencies come later, and hating on the tool because it’s immature just means you’re probably further out on the technology adoption curve or have different use cases.

Here’s an example of the split screen not running at full width on Black Ops 3

https://youtu.be/FcNHlqup4tM

And here’s how it used to look on Black Ops 1: https://youtu.be/lnF2W-e7e8Q

I’m not so sure about the latest versions, if they made local split screen better.

Black Ops 3 has the Kino der Toten map split screen but it doesn’t run full width. I’m pretty sure the same map on Black Ops 1 did run full width.

My favorite moments with these games were always playing locally, and having that keeps the game playable for as long as you own it and a working console.

A full width split screen zombies mode, and a full lobby of people who want to play Kino Der Toten are pretty much the only thing that would interest me in another COD BLOPS title.

I just can’t imagine who these titles are for now. I appreciate they’re trying to make the graphics and sound amazing, but these online experiences, as imagined by the developers, have taken away more than they’ve given.

The last modern warfare title I bought was MW2, that bizarro named one. I opened it a few weeks ago and the whole game has become a loader to other COD games and its multiplayer lobbies are empty. So stupid and I wish I could get a refund.

I used Waymo half a dozen times or so when traveling to San Francisco this year.

The experience was actually quite good. The cars arrive within a minute or two, they’re clean and high-end (for what amounts to a taxi), and you can set up the atmosphere according to your mood. The driving was smooth and uneventful.

Unless they raise the prices significantly, I would continue to choose Waymo over human drivers.

This is something travel agent websites do too.

If you’re logged out, they’ll show you a price that’s really attractive. But if you log in with an account that’s got some history, they’ll suddenly say that price is no longer available now you need to pay the higher price.

Agoda.com I’m looking at you

No, it’s an educated take. Anything else is probably not an environment you want to live in unless you find yourself inside the privilege party.

Humans will always have vast differences in opinion, that’s the whole point of the USA.

This is a wild thread. Kamala understands decorum and professionalism.

Politics without is just a fuckin’ schoolyard fistfight, and we’ve had too much of that.

Democracy is about being able to have differences in opinion but still be neighbors.

I’m not against ads in principle. The advertisers are paying the bill for stuff I consume. Great.

For that effort, they get a chance at my wallet. And to be honest, making me aware of a business or product is indeed a way to get me interested in what they sell. I do prefer the ads to be relevant instead of always useless.

That being said, it’s currently preferable to use a blocker and let the people who don’t know how to use blockers subsidize my ad-free ways.

Exactly. There’s no demand when the price increases so much.

Yes we can. That side of the business is growing.

I think a lot of other e-commerce businesses have also shifted away from the US market as well. So US buyers have fewer choices now.

I’ve searched quite a lot and cannot find factories in the US for the kind of goods we sell. I’m sure we could pay somebody considerably more who would do it but then we would have no customers.