The reason democracy works is not because a majority vote FOR a certain policy or not, but because a majority can remove shit leaders without a bloody revolution.
Democracy is a corrective system, not a prescriptive one.
Correct. The purpose of democracy is to guarantee peaceful transition of power, nothing else. Because historically this has been found to be the most critical issue killing nations.
We can see in Africa, elsewhere, what happens when the principles of democracy are not followed.
> Because historically this has been found to be the most critical issue killing nations.
This sounds tautological, like "stable states are stable". There are many stable states that don't have term limits on their head of state, and there are many unstable states with 4-6 year presidential terms.
Democracy-as-in-term-limits is a relatively meaningless historical indicator. When political stability is threatened, term limits are swiftly discarded. When the military junta is stabilized, it may introduce term limits to justify its reign (while actively filtering viable candidates).
Well, that certainly hasn't happened in my lifetime. Are you sure democracy is actually working at all? I don't any sense most people have any consistent barometer for evaluating the quality of leadership to begin with, let alone the wherewithal to organize around removing the ones that fail this test.
Objectively, he was the most effective US president we’ve had in decades.
Trump’s campaign promises were all of the form “X is so bad it will destroy the country and I will fix X”!
Replace X with some problem that Biden had already fixed (factory investment, crime rate reduction, getting inflation under control after the previous president printed money for 4 yeara, etc, etc).
Local first could be the file format that allows us to use devices without cloud services. Back to file first, vendors of software apps, pay for software once (or one year of updates or whatever).
I would still prefer to have my stuff synced between devices. Files are OK for data that doesn't change much (your music/photo/book library) - Syncthing works great there.
CRDTs allow for conflict-free edits where raw files start falling short (calendars, TODOs, etc). I'd love to see something like Syncthing for CRDTs, so that local-first can take the next logical step forward and go cloud-free.
The other day I was riffing on ideas on what if Browsers had a third Storage called `roamingStorage`. Keep it the simple, stupid key/value store interface of localStorage and sessionStorage, but allow it to roam between your devices (like classic Windows %RoamingAppData% on a network/domain configured for it). It doesn't even "need" a full sync engine like CRDTs at the browser level, if it did something as simple and dumb as basic MVCC "last write wins, but you can pull previous versions" you can easily build CRDT library support on top of it.
The hardest trick to that would be securing it, in particular how you define an application boundary so that the same application has the same roamingStorage but bad actor applications can't spoof your app and exfiltrate data from it. My riffing hasn't found an easy/simple/dumb solution for that (if you want offline apps you maybe can't just rely on website URL as localStorage mostly does today, and that's maybe before you get into confusion about multiple users in the same browser instance using the app), but I assume it's a solvable problem if there was interest in it at the browser level.
Look up CloudKit[1], many of these questions have been answered for Apple-native apps, but perhaps it's not obvious how to translate that to the web-world, or how to keep the object storage decentralised (but self-hosted shouldn't be a problem).
I'm also firmly in the native app camp. And again, Apple did this right. The web interface to iCloud works great from both Firefox and Chromium, even on OpenBSD, even with E2EE enabled (you have to authorise the session from an Apple device you own, but that's actually a great way to protect it and I don't mind the extra step).
It's probably harder to answer those questions if you can't build the solution around a device with a secure element. But there's a lot of food for thought here.
Then you are answering the wrong question. I want a "web native" answer and proposed a simple modification of existing Web APIs. As a mixed iOS/Windows/Linux user, I have selfish reasons to want a cross-device solution that works at the Firefox standardized level. Even outside of the selfish reason, the kinds of "apps" I've been building that could use simple device-to-device sync have just as many or sometimes more Android users than Apple device users. I've also seen some interesting mixes there too among my users (Android phone, iPadOS device, Windows device; all Chrome browser ecosystem though).
> It's probably harder to answer those questions if you can't build the solution around a device with a secure element.
Raw Passkey support rates are really high. Even Windows 10 devices stuck on Windows 10 because no TPM 2.0 still often have reasonably secure TPM 1.0 hardware.
Piggybacking on Passkey roaming standards may be a possibility here, though mixed ecosystem users will need ways to "merge" Passkey-based roaming for the same reasons they need ways to register multiple Passkeys to an app. (I need at least two keys, sometimes three, for my collection of devices today/cross-ecosystem needs, again selfishly at least.)
> Then you are answering the wrong question. I want a "web native" answer and proposed a simple modification of existing Web APIs.
I don't see why this mechanism shouldn't be available both on the web and in native apps. The libraries would just implement the same protocol spec, use equivalent APIs. Just like with WebRTC, RSS, iCal, etc. And again, ideally with P2P capability.
> [...] that works at the Firefox standardized level.
What about a W3C standard? Chrome hijacked the process by implementing whatever-the-hell they like and forcing it upon Firefox & Safari through sheer market share. It would be good to reinforce the idea that vendor-specific "standards" are a no-no.
It also just doesn't work the other way: Firefox tried the same thing with DNT, nobody respected it.
> Piggybacking on Passkey roaming standards may be a possibility here [...]
WebAuthn sounds good, that kinda covers the TPM/SEP requirement. Native apps already normalised using webviews for auth. I wonder if there's a reasonable way to cover headless devices as well, but self-hosted/P2P apps like Syncthing also usually have a web UI.
> [...] again selfishly at least.
No problem with being "selfish". Every solution should start with answering a need.
Thank you! You are correct that relying solely on bank integrations carries some risk. We are committed to developing our own Engine (https://midday.ai/updates/engine) to be more flexible. This approach will also potentially allow us to add card functionality later on, enabling us to manage the entire process ourselves
It's amazing to hear Steve talk about this. The fact that Xerox Parc had something like a proto internet hooked up to a proto computer in the 70s is still mind blowing.
In “the capacity to effect the determination of resolve“ isn’t the “determination of resolve” the same as will power?
My attempt is to reframe as willpower as having mental capacity to take information into account, or to lack the capacity and default to path of least resistance logic.
In all three we are assuming there’s an actor making a choice. But I think we can stay at that level of abstraction for this discussion.
“Determination of resolve” is will, and the “capacity for effect” is power (if it isn’t effective it isn’t powerful.)
Will is affected by many things, information one among them (information is the removal of uncertainty. If it does not remove uncertainty it is not information.)
The problem with the phantom of “choice” is many fold. Among which this persistent discussion of whether influences unseen or otherwise give the illusion of will or power.
That will may be influenced or fooled or influenced is a separate consideration (arguably will is a skill which may be developed and enhanced.)
That each individual has a feedback chamber which allows the interruption and override of determination in realtime is the glorious grail of will every individual being “should” covet.
Current theories about willpower has a bunch of conflicting evidence. What if willpower is actually not about will at all, but about how the mind handles information?
The title is misleading. The article does not reject existence of willpower, just discusses a different theories about it.
Addictive substances show that in some cases chemicals can affect willpower.
It could still can be explained that the brain processes the pleasure gained from heroin as more important than the possibility of early death. However, different drugs have different addiction-forming potential which could indicate at least partial chemical influence.
“Misleading” is accurate I guess. I guess I’m trying to reframe “willpower” into just being a side effect caused by information processing. Not a system in itself.
That does not oppose experiments with chemicals etc. Just offer a different explanation for how they work.
I don't understand how people end up banning things like this.
Yes, people are using them, mainly parking them, poorly. But that's always true with new things. Norms have not been established yet. But it's getting better fast.
Bicycles are still a huge problem in many cities but seen as morally good. The fact that people are using scooters so much is clearly an indicator of usefulness.
I don't think this is a problem. It just takes longer. Seeing bans like this always makes me sad.
Democracy is a corrective system, not a prescriptive one.