I agree with you on the web privacy legislation, but the point u/Filthmontane was making is that the CCP could have our data anyway, by buying it from Meta or Google, so at least giving it directly to China is better (in that at least Meta and Google don’t have it). I think that argument is only half-serious, but after the whole Cambridge Analytica debacle still more serious than it should be…

Imagine one of your friends says “wanna bet I can beat you at arm wrestling?”.

Scenario 1: you look at them and they look more or less your size, so you bet $10. They win, but you say “wait, I wasn’t ready, let’s repeat”. They win again and you say “my elbow slipped, let’s go again”. They win for the third time, you say “you are cheating” and refuse to pay the bet. You couldn’t blame them if they concluded that you’re full of it and didn’t want to be friends with you any longer.

Scenario 2: you see that your friend has biceps the size of your head. You laugh and say “no way man, not going to arm wrestle with you!”. You share a laugh and go get a beer.

You can think of Insurance as a morbid type of betting, where you don’t really want to win the bet, because it’s something like “hey, wanna bet that I don’t get killed in a car accident this year?” and the Insurance can decide to take the bet or not depending on what they estimate your odds of dying in a car crash. If you want to bet on “wanna bet my house does not get destroyed by a fire this year” and no insurance company wants to take that bet, that’s a pretty bad sign, because they think the odds of a fire are way too high.

I don’t know how you feel about the ethical aspect of betting at all, but I think there’s a difference between them being unwilling to take your bet and them taking your bet but then refusing to pay you if you “win”.

I don’t want to be the one defending Insurance companies because seriously fuck them.

But… Please correct me if I got it wrong, but for the California fires they are accused of refusing to sell insurance policies or asking very high prizes for them, which is a very different thing than selling the policy and then denying and delaying payments after something has happened.

An insurance company saying they won’t insure you means that the risk is visibly and insanely high. Which it clearly was. If anything this should have been a pretty loud alarm bell that has been ignored.

I agree with you. I’m not saying we should leave it to the market and I’m sorry if I didn’t express myself clearly enough.
My point was that not being an asshole and working towards a society where we treat each other like decent human beings should be a valuable goal and even if it wasn’t the profitable thing to do, we should be prepared to give up something in exchange for it. If it turns out it is ALSO the profitable thing to do, even better, because at that point even the Musks of the world will get around to it eventually, but I mean for us regular and hopefully decent human beings…

The thing is that a lot of people who advocate for it don’t seem to be willing to accept even minor inconveniences like getting off Facebook or X, let alone losing some actual potential money.

I get your point and you’re right, thanks, I used “regulated” wrong. I meant that the expectation, if the market worked as advertised, is that companies that do keep DEI policies in place would have a competitive advantage over others. Then, clearly, sucking up to whoever’s in power has a much larger effect on these companies’ profits, so the market is probably not working as advertised…

I’m really happy to hear that, thanks! I mean, not the nixing part… the “not being a complete asshole is even good for business”

“we love you Jesus, whether you want it or not. Your body my choice. Now shut up and get back on that cross”

That part I don’t know. I’m not saying it’s not true, I certainly see the reasoning for why it should be good for business. But the classic conservative counter-argument is that you shouldn’t need to regulate it, because The Mythical Free Market should ensure that companies with a more diverse workforce out-compete the others.

So I prefer to think that sometimes you do things that are right just because you think they are right and even if they cost you. And as part of that, you vote with your wallet and maybe use products that are slightly less shiny and convenient than others because the companies behind them treat people more nicely. And then the Mythical Free Market does also start taking care of things and allowing these nicer companies to survive and even out-compete the Metas of this world. (But we’re all here discussing on Lemmy, so probably I’m already preaching to the choir on this one)

Accepting diversity as part of life and not making life more miserable for people just because they don’t look like you or have your same taste, gender or religious beliefs shouldn’t be far left or far anything. It’s just the decent thing to do. It’s ironic how in the US the political side that aligns themselves more closely with radical Christian beliefs is so against that view

He wasn’t. Mark used to be a sweet kid, but he’s been radicalised by all the shit he reads on Facebook. It’s not too late, Mark, delete your social media profiles, stay away from that poisonous hellhole!

“I’m not paid enough for this crap” gets a whole new layer of meaning now

“I am so far right that compared to me Hitler was a communist” FTFY Elon

nah, Trump did that for years, but he keeps talking just fine. In fact he usually begs for more

full of racists who say he can’t be President and Emperor of the USA because he wasn’t born there? I think that’s what he means

Goldman Sachs, quote from the article:

“AI technology is exceptionally expensive, and to justify those costs, the technology must be able to solve complex problems, which it isn’t designed to do.”

Generative AI can indeed do impressive things from a technical standpoint, but not enough revenue has been generated so far to offset the enormous costs. Like for other technologies, It might just take time (remember how many billions Amazon burned before turning into a cash-generating machine? And Uber has also just started turning some profit) + a great deal of enshittification once more people and companies are dependent. Or it might just be a bubble.

As humans we’re not great at predicting these things including of course me. My personal prediction? A few companies will make money, especially the ones that start selling AI as a service at increasingly high costs, many others will fail and both AI enthusiasts and detractors will claim they were right all along.

Trump ignores a lot of things. The Country’s bigliest ignorant.

Yup, they just stopped pretending. For years they thought they had to keep up a friendly facade for us peasants, but Trump showed them that it’s no longer needed.

can you imagine how happy they will be? “How did I fall for this? I was really convinced I was homeless!”

in a world where private prisons are a thing, punitive measures mean business. Cut help for vulnerable populations, redirect funds to businesses, it’s the same reverse-Robinhood shit; steal from the poor, give to the rich, with the added twist of "convince the poor this is good for them so they will vote you into power (until we figure out how to fix this “voting” nuisance for good)

30 pieces of silver + 2000 years of inflation… Sounds about right