Just accept that you can be laid off and manage your life and finances accordingly.
I know people who got laid off recently, with like 6 months severance. They're planning vacations, getting around to the projects around the house they've been putting off and maybe casually posting on Linkedin to see if anyone in their network has good opportunities. Even after their severance runs out, years of tech salary should make it trivial to build up a decent cushion of savings.
Getting laid off is only a big deal if you've mismanaged your finances. 15 years of FAANG is enough to retire. 15 years of regular tech is enough to save years of living expenses.
Unfortunately for many people, high salaries lead to ever bigger expenses. The hedonic treadmill is very addictive. The levels of savings you suggest might be rare.
Sure email became terribly centralized to the point of self-hosting being near impossible. Primarily because it's super old. But you can still use Protonmail or Fastmail. And email is less important as a communication platform than it ever was . Nowadays it feels like mostly an ID-verification system.
If things become bad enough - people will just use something else.
The problem is we've all seen this pattern before.
Push the disabled by default, opt-in only version. Face only small backlash because it's opt-in. Then in a later update, switch it to on by default but with an easy opt-out. Then make the opt-out harder or disable other functionality unless users opt-in.
This general pattern happens for all sorts of privacy-invading data collection, advertisements, etc. Companies release a good product, then the enshittification slowly happens over multiple updates, each of which is only a small enough step to not cause too much outrage, until the end product is completely user-hostile.
Amazon Prime and any other service that went from "free with ads" and "paid ad-free" to adding a "paid with ads" and "pay even more to remove the ads you used to have removed".
This includes Windows as a whole. It's almost incredible how many different settings you have to dig into to get most of them out.
There is much about China that I don't understand, but I'm curious about the ownership in the "ghost cities".
Given the ability of the CCP to significantly control major industries and movement of people, is it not possible that someone might buy an apartment in a "ghost city" while living in a rural area or renting in another city, expecting that people and jobs would flow to the city once it was completed?
Basically I don't really understand all the details, nuance and different corporate and governmental players involved in the "ghost city" phenomenon, but I'd almost expect that the government could make a "ghost city" into a "real city" in no time, by shutting down factories in one city and opening them there, or by changing internal migration restrictions.
>Given the ability of the CCP to significantly control major industries and movement of people, is it not possible that someone might buy an apartment in a "ghost city" while living in a rural area or renting in another city, expecting that people and jobs would flow to the city once it was completed?
>Many developments initially criticized as ghost cities did materialize into economically vibrant areas when given enough time to develop, such as Pudong, Zhujiang New Town, Zhengdong New Area, Tianducheng and malls such as the Golden Resources Mall and South China Mall.[15] While many developments failed to live up to initial lofty promises, most of them eventually became occupied when given enough time.[6][16]
>Reporting in 2018, Shepard noted that "Today, China’s so-called ghost cities that were so prevalently showcased in 2013 and 2014 are no longer global intrigues. They have filled up to the point of being functioning, normal cities".[17]
>Writing in 2023, academic and former UK diplomat Kerry Brown described the idea of Chinese ghost cities as a bandwagon popular in the 2010s which was shown to be a myth.[18]: 151-152
Kangbashi is never filling up like they planned, simply because coal is no longer booming like it once was. You can only do so much when the trend you were hoping for doesn’t pan out. It’s a district designed for a few million holding up at 50k or so.
Tianjin will always have a few ghost districts and skyscrapers. They eventually fill up after a decade or two or are razed for something else. It was like that when I first visited China in 1999 as well.
The Chinese government isn’t as powerful as you think it is, nor as centralized. All of these ghost cities (more like ghost districts) are local government driven, so the central government doesn’t care much to fill them. The local governments can push state activity there, like as happened in Ordos (city) and kangbashi (ghost district of city), but they can’t really control the rest of the economic activity needed to make it a thriving place. In Ordos’s case, the downfall of coal is going to depress the city no matter what, the central government won’t bother to save them.
Few real people buy homes knowing with certainty they would remain empty.
People speculated on new development, future growth, and induced demand. For some reason, people online like to make them martyrs or idiots. lots of schadenfreude.
The reality is a lot more mundane. They were just a risky investment bubble that popped.
| If you want to fight against non consensual AI porn, you need someone to be the face of it
Isn't this just an emotionally charged way of suggesting people fight against artistic freedom, freedom of speech, etc?
I have literally zero concern about someone making AI porn that looks like me (or my spouse, family, celebrities, politicians, etc). People have already had photoshop and before that imaginations. It's maybe a little weird, icky or uncomfortable to think about, but that's a small price to pay for living in a free liberal democracy.
I'm far more concerned that this will give powerful people another tool to crack down on journalists, artists, activists, documentary filmmakers, etc. Or even just any independent creative who attempts to publish work outside of one of the major copyright cartel corporations.
Whenever anyone says "I have literally zero concern about someone doing X about me" they should probably take a moment to check their privilege and consider first why someone else could be concerned about that. Maybe try a search.
: Kristen Zaleski, Director of Forensic Mental Health at USC’s Keck Human Rights Clinic, recently told the Washington Post that she’s been working with a schoolteacher who lost her job after parents and administrators learned about deepfake porn using her likeness.
: One recent study reports that 96 percent of deepfake victims are sexualized, and nearly all them are women, though males (especially politicians) and even children have also been abused in this way. The same research finds that many victims are harassed or extorted based on this artificially generated imagery.
Are you male, by chance, and not a celeb or politician? Then you're not the target of fake porn, so are unlikely to have been exposed to the unexpected consequences of such.
: What’s more chilling is that anyone can use deepfake porn technology to humiliate and degrade a woman sexually without her consent. The problem is becoming so widespread that a woman is not even safe going to the gym anymore without being at risk of having her photo taken without her consent and placed in a deepfake video.
Can you step outside of your own point of view enough to imagine what such a scenario could do to a person who fears being made an object of lust or ridicule? If you can't, then just click the link and read down a little bit, because the article explicitly mentions the possible psychological harms.
Can you step outside of your own point of view to realize this is all kinda silly?
When you walk down the street, people might look at you and imagine you in ways you don't like. They might whisper about you to their friends. They might write a story where you're the villain or the fool. They might draw an unflattering picture of you. You might experience anxiety or fear or other "psychological harms" worrying about any of these things happening.
I have compassion and sympathy for the fears, anxieties and discomforts people might experience from worrying about how other people imagine them, or use their likeness in works of fiction. But that sympathy doesn't mean I want the government to police people's thoughts, stories or art.
I did step outside of my own point of view to consider others' points of view, and post a reply to you highlighting those others' points of view. Like you, deepfake porn is not an issue that impacts me, therefore I'm privileging those it does impact when discussing whether or not it should be clamped down on.
Do you not realize that the actions in your second paragraph turn into already illegal harassment if done sufficiently?
Mass distributing, or targeted distribution, are their own things. It's not people's "thoughts", or even their stories or art when not involving others, or when kept sandboxxed in appropriate limited forums, or depending on the "speech" when properly labeled as fictitious (though some speech is wrong regardless of its labeling).
Just realized you're commenting about the teacher. From the WP article:
: “The parents at the school didn’t understand how that could be possible,” Zaleski said. “They insisted they didn’t want their kids taught by her anymore.”
There's not much you can do if your clients insist on no longer working with you.
It's also only a matter of time, if it hasn't been done yet, that a teacher and student will be targeted with deepfake porn that looks real. Even if it is eventually discovered to be fake, you're still dealing with a massively disruptive experience with mandatory leave during the investigation.
> “The parents at the school didn’t understand how that could be possible,” Zaleski said.
I guess -a- root cause here is the general public’s ignorance of the capability of computer software. Not sure how to fix that besides giving it time. As soon as it’s widely accepted that computers can generate believable fake video, you’d expect deepfakes to be disregarded, but then again we’ve been saying “don’t believe what you see on the Internet” for how long and people still believe what they read on the Internet.
So you're saying that the law should force people to stay in a business relationship? Like let's say this wasn't a teacher employed by a school district, but an independent tutor directly employed by parents. The law should force those parents to continue hiring the tutor? What if the parents have an independent plausible (or real) reason to cease doing business with the tutor?
> So you're saying that the law should force people to stay in a business relationship?
If the school receives public funding? Absolutely.
How many of the parents whining about the teacher actually had students in her class? Normally, in cases like this, you'll have something like one parent with a student in the class and a bunch of the Fox News pearl-clutcher brigade who don't even have children in the school.
> Like let's say this wasn't a teacher employed by a school district, but an independent tutor directly employed by parents.
That's a tougher problem. I still don't like it, but there's probably not a lot that can be done in that case. However, the mob mentality is also a bit dampened since the interactions are both individual and unforced.
> So you're saying that the law should force people to stay in a business relationship?
If by “force” you mean “impose a legal duty that, when violated, incurs a liability from the violator to those harmed by the violation”, sure, and nondiscrimination law already does that, and has for a long time: the discussion here is about the scope of that mandate.
Regardless of the scope there will always be cases that aren't covered by it without draconian legal compulsions.
It's much easier and more legitimate to force the original defamer to make the defamed party as whole as possible. And otherwise try to prevent such defamation. Or at least it was before anonymous internet publication.
Curious how different our experiences of "culture" can be.
I'm an American in my 40s. I've never seen "glorification of scams" in any mainstream culture and can't really think of any subculture where that would be the case... maybe used car sales, crypto or drug dealers or something?
I've also never seen any sort of "hyper-masculization" shown in a positive light in mainstream culture. I've always been pressured by society to present as less masculine and it's common to see masculinity referred to as as "toxic" and equated with negative traits or externalities. In fact, it's an entirely one-sided debate at this point. Suggesting any positive aspect of masculinity is considered sexist, misogynistic and unacceptable among the people who's opinions carry power in society. Negative aspects of masculinity are of course strongly encouraged, reinforced and amplified.
> I'm an American in my 40s. I've never seen "glorification of scams" in any mainstream culture
Some very popular movies that come to mind (Some of these may not be intended to be glorifying scams, but to many unsophisticated viewers, they absolutely are):
- The Social Network
- The Wolf of Wall Street
- Uncut Gems
- The Godfather
- Scarface
- Ocean's Eleven (and Twelve and Thirteen)
- Emily the Criminal
- I Care a Lot
- Nine Queens
- Punch-Drunk Love
> I've also never seen any sort of "hyper-masculization" shown in a positive light in mainstream culture
More movies!
- The Godfather (again)
- Pulp Fiction
- Fight Club
- American History X
- Gangster Squad
- Django Unchained
- Expendables
- Every Fast and Furious movie
- (Nearly?) Every Arnold Schwarzenegger movie
> it's common to see masculinity referred to as as "toxic" and equated with negative traits or externalities
I think this is (usually?) a misunderstanding. People refer to toxic masculinity, a set of problematic behaviors some men exhibit as part of attempting to appear "manly" that includes traits such as: homophobia, glorifying unhealthy habits (e.g., drinking like a man, don't cry like a woman, mental health issues depicted as "weakness", etc.) They're not referring to masculinity, itself, as being toxic.
> People refer to toxic masculinity, a set of problematic behaviors some men exhibit as part of attempting to appear "manly" that includes traits such as: homophobia, glorifying unhealthy habits (e.g., drinking like a man, don't cry like a woman, mental health issues depicted as "weakness", etc.) They're not referring to masculinity, itself, as being toxic.
Yes, toxic masculinity ≠ masculinity. Broadly speaking, toxic masculinity has to do with behaviors that are deleterious to the one behaving that way, others, or both. Nobody is going to claim for example that a man’s efforts to be a warm, supportive father who strives to be his family’s rock (a pretty traditional male archetype) are toxic.
"People are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work" from https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed
So if someone is retired, a student, a full-time parent, etc then they don't count as "unemployed" despite not working a paid job. If someone lost their job and wants a new one, and at least once every 4 weeks they check a job website or whatever, they'd still be counted.
One could obviously exit the limbo by just ending up lower status.
Imagine an actor or director who's very successful and high status. Then their subsequent work is less well received. They might have a period of "status limbo" while their cultural relevance and status are unclear. If they end up teaching improv in Chicago, they've arguably exited the limbo at a lower status than a star of Hollywood or Broadway.
Young people could also be in "status limbo" by for instance completing a prestigious degree but not yet securing a corresponding job. A 22 year old taking a year after graduating to study for the MCAT is in status limbo. If they score well and get accepted into a top med school - high status. If they don't get into med school, they're an unemployed 23 year old with a minimally useful BA.
There's some evidence that the absence of parasites might be a contributing factor to autoimmune diseases, asthma and inflammatory disorders. See: https://www.verywellhealth.com/helminth-therapy-5225248 for an example.