Yes, I was.

Disconnecting religion from law & institutions was a brutal process that took centuries here in Europe, and it is very disconcerting to see organized religion exerting an increasing influence in society. In the US it is less “freedom from religion” (like we have here) and more “freedom of religion” (please pick one).

You’re right!

I’ll happily condemn any ideology (not just religious ones) that teaches people it is okay to force underage girls into marriage and murder them when they try to escape.

Did you have one in mind?

Makes sense. European capital markets have been operating at significant competitive disadvantage for decades now and many companies have been taken over by foreign ownership.

We have the same kinds of issues here in Sweden with Volvo Cars being Chinese since a few years back means that they’re being phased out of any sensitive applications.

It gets worse when you combine super LED brights with matrix headlights that are marketed to “allow the high beams to remain on even with oncoming traffic”.

Luckily I drive a piece of last-millenium machinery.

May the japanese engineers that designed it with reliability in mind be praised.

The autobahn already achieves this on a daily basis for personal vehicles. It should absolutely be doable to build dedicated busses along highways that can reach this speed assuming separated lanes.

A key benefit here is that existing highway infrastructure can be repurposed rather than needing to buy (expensive) land and building a rail system from scratch (takes time).

This is an outside the box solution that might be self-justifying: providing faster (better) service than cars and potentially offloading enough passengers to reduce more than 1 lane of traffic. Many ways to get more public transit usage in the US are probably better than the status quo.

Would proper rail be better? Absolutely.

This is terribly inefficient in comparison, but maybe could be cheaper, faster and easier to implement. Worth having a few guys look into it at least.

Ok, got it.

First pants, then shoes, then underwear, then socks.

Interesting, but the article also feels llm-generated.

100%, I’m terrible at remembering peoples names so I force myself to say it a few times after meeting someone new, really helps it stick.

Semla with rose jam filling

Certainly an interesting article and it would certainly be a good thing if OAI was forced back into being a non-profit actor (though not for Musks sake).

At the heart of the case is his accusation that OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman betrayed the company’s original nonprofit mission.

This seems accurate.

…and the proposed consequences:

Along with seeking to force OpenAI back to a nonprofit structure and oust Altman and Brockman, Musk has sought as much as $134 billion in damages – which he has pledged to redirect to the OpenAI nonprofit.

I could get behind so long as those 134Bn never enter Musks hands.

By my math that’d be between 80 & 150km depending on the fuel economy (assuming going there & back again).

Doesn’t really compare to the cost of employee time for traveling the same distance though.

One could argue that if euthanasia is legal, then there would be situations of: “Hey, granny is kinda taking too much resouces… maybe we should just pull the life support?” or “Okay my child has cancer and takes up too much of my money, and all this money would be wasted if the treatment fails, I’m gonna talk to the doctor and end this parasite once and for all”

Which is exactly why I’m in favour of euthanasia for humans on a moral level (people should be able to decide their own fate) but against it on a societal level (it will likely result in people getting pressured into “choosing” death.)

The harm of the people who are unable to choose death (a.k.a commit suicide) on their own suffering is a lesser evil compared to people who want to live being pressured into dying (in my view).

Within Swedish politics there is essentially complete agreement that the union model of labour negotiation should remain. Companies like Tesla are certainly an issue, but comparatively easier to deal with. The larger threat to the union model actually comes from undeclared labour which is a huge, systemic problem.

It ends up being significantly cheaper for the employer (no taxes, benefits, regulation) and can (in the short term) be beneficial for the employee (higher wage, still cashing in unemployment benefits etc.) even if it is disruptive for the collective long term.

In some businesses such as salons for hair dressers or mani-pedi, as many as 40% of labour is undeclared. Restaurants, construction and transportation are also high up.

Oh for sure, there are lots of companies pushing the gig-economy self employment model.

Strictly speaking, gig workers aren’t employed, but rather a contractor who is self-employed. This means that a lot of labour legislation doesn’t really apply (which would include minimum wages).

It is in the pipeline of legislation however, and I know that some unions have started targeting gig employers with collective bargaining. Foodora for instance is covered by collective agreement since 2021.

ironically the majority of those are government employees and police

It’s not ironic in the slightest. It’s for government employees that the conflict of interest between what’s best for the government (often low costs of labour) and employees (generous benefits and wages) becomes impossible to ignore.

Similar incentive structures do exist on a national economic level. For instance lower wages often provide a more competitive industrial basis internationally, even if that is not neccessarily beneficial for the individual employee.

Not much that I know of aside from a bunch of extra bureaucracy. Unions already perform polls on wages amongst members, and that information is generally available to the union members. Furthermore, there’s often even information available about wages within an employer organization if it is large.

The main problem I see with legislated minimum wages is that it becomes a legitimate target for employers in a “take it or leave it” fashion.

Partly, but there is more to collective bargaining than that.

a) Indexed inflation levels tend to be underreported (exactly due to things like this)

b) it does not allow for over-time adjustment of real wage levels. As productivity increases, the real wage usually goes up. During periods of economic crisis you often see the largest wage increases in absolute terms, but a decrease in the real wage due to inflation. These negotiations are the toughest.