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Cake day: August 14th, 2023

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  • People are scared that if you acknowledge the fact that Biden is concerning as a presidential candidate in any way, people will be less likely to vote for him; the sad state of the matter is that Biden is the only candidate who has a chance to beat Trump at this late of a stage in the game. The reasoning that we need to avoid criticizing him as a result of that is bullshit though, since if you’re closing your eyes and voting for your default color, then such discussion won’t affect to your vote, and if you’re actually paying attention to the state of our upcoming election, then you’ll already be well aware that being against Trump forces you to vote Biden, so your vote is locked in, regardless of how depressing it is. Nobody’s still hemming and hawing at this point, and even if some are, some random meme on Lemmy isn’t going to be the thing that finally gets them to make up their mind.

    There’s no reason we can’t acknowledge the fact that, while being better than Donald Trump should win Biden the presidential election, it’s not an accomplishment, and in a vacuum he’s a terrible candidate. In fact, we specifically need to point out that we knew this scenario was coming for the past 4 years, and have organized no major uprisings, or even major educational movements to try to get people to force out a different Democratic candidate in the primaries; we’ve sat on our asses ever since the last election, and there’s no reason to think we won’t do the same going into the next election unless we start forcing a change in the DNC right now.

    These “both sides” discussions aren’t about whether or not to choose to vote for Biden, they’re about getting people to notice the fact that we vote for the “lesser evil” every 4 years, saying that the time to make a change is after we’re solidified our candidate’s victory, but then once we’ve done that we do nothing until we’re in the same “lesser evil” situation again 4 years later. If we want to ever have a situation where we’re voting for a president we’d actually like, we need to start planning out how to force that to happen now, because even 4 whole years isn’t a very long time frame to for us to push such a large change.

    I can understand some people are scared that Trump is going to win because too many people chose to vote 3rd party, or choose not to vote, but everyone who’s paying attention enough to be swayed by political discussion is already aware that we specifically need to vote for Biden in order for Trump to lose, so at this point the fanatical drive to quash any criticism of him as a presidential candidate seems nearly tailor-made to sow even more apathy among the voting population, making them feel not only forced into voting for Biden, but forced into liking it as well. In the end I think the efforts to prevent discussion about how neither candidate is an objectively good candidate is going to ultimately cause fewer people to vote at all, since they’ll feel as though they can’t even air out their grievances with the candidate they’d already begrudgingly chosen to vote for.






  • Signtist@lemm.eetoMildly Infuriating@lemmy.worldForm over function, eh?
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    3 months ago

    I’m not saying to get overly bright lights. I have no idea why you keep talking about overly bright lights. When I’m not driving for work, I drive a '94 corolla with stock headlights. But even with those, I can see dark obstacles that are way ahead of me on the road. I’ve encountered deer, turtles, pedestrians, and all sorts of random stuff that fell off of people’s cars. There’s so much on the road that needs to be illuminated, even if all the other cars have working lights. The fact that you can so nonchalantly bring up a scenario in which you can’t even see another car, much less all the other stuff that might show up on the roads, makes me highly concerned for the state of your vehicle. That scenario is so insanely rare and dangerous that I can’t understand how you can just throw it out there like it’s no big deal.

    It’s NOT NORMAL to be unable to see a car on the road that’s close enough to you where you need to see where their blinker are. Please, if you drive in that scenario often enough to bring it up like it’s a realistic thing that someone could reasonably encounter more than once in a lifetime, bring your car to a mechanic before you cause a huge accident.


  • Signtist@lemm.eetoMildly Infuriating@lemmy.worldForm over function, eh?
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    3 months ago

    You’re absolutely right that circumstances aren’t always perfect… Which is exactly why you need a vehicle that can maximize safety in all situations. A union jack blinker is dumb, but if you’re EVER in a situation where you can’t tell what side of a car a blinker is going off on, you’re in a situation where you need to pull off to the side of the road, turn off your car, and call for someone to pick you up.

    I’ve driven for tens of thousands of hours in my lifetime so far, and I’ve never even been close to a situation like what you’ve described. Even in a snow squall or dense fog I’ve always been able to see where other nearby cars on the road are, and where their blinkers are. Not being able to do so goes well beyond “not ideal;” that’s well past the line of too dangerous. And the fact that THAT is how extreme your scenario has to get before the union jack becomes a considerable issue shows how much more concerning your scenario is than that one.



  • Signtist@lemm.eetoMildly Infuriating@lemmy.worldForm over function, eh?
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    3 months ago

    Dude, if your headlights aren’t enough to illuminate what’s in front of you, then it’s not that an upgrade would be too much, it’s that an upgrade would get you to the bare minimum… You literally NEED to be able to see what else is on the road with you at ALL TIMES. You’re complaining about the risk that a vaguely arrow-shaped blinker causes in the specific case where you literally can’t see the car it’s attached to. There’s a much bigger risk there, and while it’s not your fault, it’s definitely something your vehicle needs to have the tools to deal with.

    There have been times where I was driving near someone who forgot to turn their headlights on at night. But that’s the thing - I knew they were there; I could see their car with the light from my headlights, and even in that dangerously-low vision, I could easy tell which side of their car a blinker came on from. Yes, I got off the road and waited a bit to make sure they weren’t near me anymore, but even in the time that I had to drive with them, I had the tools to resolve the situation safely for me.


  • Signtist@lemm.eetoMildly Infuriating@lemmy.worldForm over function, eh?
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    3 months ago

    If you’re driving in the dark with someone whose entire taillight system is out to the point where you can’t immediately tell if his blinker is on the left or the right, you need to hit the brakes and put as much distance between you and them as you can… Then get better headlights, because even in that situation you should still be able to see them pretty well just with your own lights.


  • Signtist@lemm.eetoMildly Infuriating@lemmy.worldForm over function, eh?
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    3 months ago

    Yeah, I could see it being an issue for some less-common type of indicator, but everyone who drives knows what a blinker looks like. Nobody would mistake it for anything other than the right hand turn signal.

    Hell, I wouldn’t even notice the shape of the light; all you need to notice while driving is the presence of a flashing light on the right side of the vehicle - if you’re looking intently enough to notice the shape of the light, you’re not paying enough attention to everything else on the road.




  • Ah, I see. It’s true that these issues cast a negative light on AI, but I doubt most people will even hear about most of them, or even really understand them if they do. Even when talking about brand security, there’s little incentive for these companies to actually address the issues - the AI train is already full-steam ahead.

    I work with construction plans in my job, and just a few weeks ago I had to talk the CEO of the company I work for out of spending thousands on a program that “adds AI to blueprints.” It literally just added a chatgpt interface to a pdf viewer. The chat wasn’t even able to actually interact with the PDF in any way. He was enthralled by the “demo” that a rep had shown him at an expo, that I’m sure was set up to make it look way more useful than it really was. After that whole fiasco, I lost faith that the people in charge of whether or not AI programs are adopted will actually do their due diligence to ensure they’re actually helpful.

    Having a good brand image only matters if people are willing to look.


  • I highly doubt that OpenAI or any other AI developer would see any real repercussions, even if they had a security hole that someone managed to exploit to cause harm. Companies exist to make money, and OpenAI is no exception; if it’s more profitable to release a dangerous product than a safe one, and they won’t get in trouble for it, they’ll likely have no issues with releasing their product with security holes.

    Unfortunately, the question can’t be “should we be charging them for this?” Nobody is going to force them to pay, and they have no reason to do it on their own. Barring an entire cultural revolution, the question instead must be “should we do it anyway to prevent this from being used in harmful ways?” And the answer is yes. Our society is designed to maximize profits, usually for people who already have money, so if you’re working within the confines of that society, you need to factor that into your reasoning.

    Companies have long since decided that ethics is nothing more than a burden getting in the way of their profits, and you’ll have a hard time going against the will of the companies in a capitalist country.



  • Signtist@lemm.eetoMemes@lemmy.mlThe Extra Mile
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    4 months ago

    It’s one good thing to have on a resume, sure, but another is the skillset itself. For example, I work with a highly specialized software, so I frequently get messaged with interview offers on LinkedIn because I show up every time employers search for that specific software.


  • Signtist@lemm.eetoMemes@lemmy.mlThe Extra Mile
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    4 months ago

    That’s a fair point. You’re correct that my point is that the equation should be balanced, but you’re understating the reality with the statement “unfortunately it usually isn’t.”

    I put in 4 hours of work last week, though my employer thinks I put in 40. In those 4 hours of work I started and finished a project for the company that will earn over $100k in gross profit. It ended up being almost exactly 1.5x my yearly salary. Just by putting in the absolute minimum effort I’m already earning my company more in a week than they pay me in a year. And I don’t even work for a large company. I’d imagine corporate giants have an even greater divide.

    I’m not responsible for worrying about whether I benefit the company; most companies have gotten so good at maximizing profits while minimizing costs that even the most layabout worker earns them significantly more money than they cost to employ. My only thought is about how I can do as little as possible while still ensuring management continues to think I’m being productive.


  • Signtist@lemm.eetoMemes@lemmy.mlThe Extra Mile
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    4 months ago

    I turned down the promotion they offered me. It was significantly more work, required me to come back to the office, and only offered a 10% pay raise. It doesn’t matter where your “standing” in the company is - if you’re indispensable, you can fight for good pay even outside of managerial roles.


  • Signtist@lemm.eetoMemes@lemmy.mlThe Extra Mile
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    4 months ago

    I get paid way more than my coworkers, and even my supervisor, because when I got hired I immediately made a bunch of random tools in google sheets that only I know how to maintain, and spread them around until everyone was using them. Before long, I was essential to my department, and praised for going “above and beyond” even though I was mostly just dicking around making the tools rather than doing my actual job.

    I have 0 coding experience, so the tools are absolutely horrendous behind the scenes, but that just means that they break pretty often, and people are reminded that only I know how to fix them. So, when I went looking around on LinkedIn for other offers after a few years, I eventually got one that was paying way more since it was in a major metro area, and I took it back to my manager to negotiate a 50% raise and a full-remote designation that virtually nobody else in my office is given.

    You don’t get ahead by working hard, and you don’t get ahead by working smart to benefit the company, you get ahead by working smart to benefit yourself. Think about it this way - if you’re at the store to buy bananas, and you see that they’re selling bananas for $0.05 ea, you’ll likely think “Wow, that’s a great deal!” and buy a bunch of those bananas at the $0.05 price. You’re not going to pay them the price you think would be fair for a banana, you’re going to take advantage of the price you’re allowed to pay so that you can save money. Your employer sees you - working for less than you’re worth - as a $0.05 banana. You’re nothing more than a cheap commodity they were lucky to snag on sale.