American Democracy started from a place of very strict voter requirements (white, male, adult, landowner) and is trending towards fewer voter requirements.
The registration process is mostly a legacy system to ensure only qualified individuals vote, left over from a time when the bar was much higher.
> Every game should be targeting the switch 2 and steam deck in terms of power.
I think PS5 is a perfectly reasonable spec to be targeting, which was the higher end of mid range about 5 years ago, and still significantly out performs Switch 2 (which significantly out performs steam deck). I’m sure the GTA sales will demonstrate that the install base at this spec is wide enough for broad commercial success.
I don’t really want game experiences to be locked at a PS5 forever. That console is actually somewhat old now. There are phones that have more graphical power than a PS5. A MacBook Air has a more powerful GPU than a PS5.
I grew up with gaming systems that got rapidly better and while it can be argued that we are at a diminishing returns plateau of gaming horsepower, I don’t think the solution is to never get hardware upgrades ever again, even in the current RAM-constrained environment.
GTA VI is coming out with FPS maximum of 30FPS on the PS5 including PS5 Pro. That’s a subpar experience that is limited by hardware.
I didn’t mean to imply that we should target ps5 as an exclusive platform, but ps5 is a good hardware spec to target, as there are several platforms that can match it and it has a wide install base.
Yeah, and I see what you mean there. I think even when the PS6 comes out, game developers largely won’t be taking advantage of its capabilities just like how today they don’t really leverage the capabilities of an RTX 5090.
We saw with much of the PS5’s lifespan that many of its cross-platform games came out on PS4 and original Switch with minimal compromise.
Not enough of the install base owns those higher end solutions, so for the most part someone with a better performing rig is getting better FPS, higher resolution, and not much else. Even gaining additional draw distance is rare these days, and higher resolution textures are basically impossible to see.
If the console is going to survive rather than decline as a whole I think that Microsoft and Sony will need to get more serious about innovation rather than just making a samey spec bump at a high price that doesn’t motivate their users to upgrade. Nintendo already proved that basic and rather mild level of innovation can excite the market (original Switch).
Actual gameplay capabilities haven't been limited by hardware for a long time now. You can implement any mechanics you want on modern hardware, the only thing limited is graphics, resolution and framerate.
It's relatively easy to allow powerful hardware to just run the game at 4k 120fps highest settings while weaker hardware runs exactly the same game at lower graphic settings.
GPT would charge more if they could. Both companies need way way more revenue. GPT simply made a calculation that they can earn more money by charging less than their competitors.
They're cutting prices because they want to cannabalize the market for people using models like deepseek via API as well as people paying for anthropic subs.
When they cut prices on luna the first time around they took (literally) millions of users from anthropic.
Any business would charge more if they could. Jevon's paradox would mean that they can make more money by charging less because demand is going to keep growing.
Ya, are LLM's not a great example of Jevon's paradox? I don't think Jevon's needs all else being equal. The paradox being that we should be able to use things less because they are more efficient, when instead they get used more.
Surely, a large part of the increase of the demand in LLMs is in their intelligence, but to hit the demand models needed to be made more efficient, and labs found that more efficient models, still demanded more usage.
If you input 300 bits into an LLM, and it outputs an additional 700bits of new information, I’d still rather you tell me those 1000bits than read ann llm’s output of 1000bits.
The primary reason is that human language is becoming a proof of work, that speaking out loud or writing directly indicates that the idea is important enough for a human to express. This is more costly than llm output, which is often just botspam.
No way. I think most people realize “they are offering me $5M because they know they’ll make a good profit on this business. That means it’s worth more.”
I think that's true to an extent. And, especially successful people, often would rather be their own boss for less money than to be a corporate cog. Having the freedom to make ethical judgements yourself and build local community is a real luxury. We are, mostly, just social animals that want to build our status by helping each other out in the end.
Two things, I think, might make the decision for them, in spite of that:
- The money is actually more than their business could be projected to make alone. This is because the PE firm isn't just buying the single practice but every practice in the area to kill competition. Get that captive market and you can charge more.
- The personal ownership freedom can be already lost on these independent people if they feel they are already tied down too much. I know this is especially the case in small medical offices where insurance and regulation can over-rule them. Feeling like you don't have control in this way can cause a lot of depression (tangent but look up how we condition mice in order to test treatments of antidepressants on them). At that point, the monied exit starts looking like a better option.
it is worth more, but you have to do 100% of the work to get 25% more upside.
Or take $5m and get no more upside and 70% less work. The "work" here is dealing with regulations, insurance companies, administration, payments, and accounting, not actually looking after dogs
the PE model is often to provide a competent regtech/administration core and then plug heaps of regulated businesses into it and centralise all the admin
imagine opening a vet in SF in 1950 in a cheap shoplot and people just paid you with hard cash or cheques in person, you wrote receipts with a biro, and filed taxes once or twice a year on a few sheets of paper... compared to now
Indeed. But remember a PE firm has economies of scale because they own many vet practices. They can negotiate better rates with suppliers than you can, and better payment terms. Maybe they even own some of those suppliers. They can divide their advertising costs by all the practices they own, whereas you can't.
Even if you were willing to be as ruthless as a PE firm, raising your prices and sacking half your staff, and even if you were somehow an expert in financial engineering and business optimization, you still won't make the business as profitable as they can.
* Most small brick & motor businesses do not turn a profit in their first 2 years. So you’ll need a significant amount of runway, in a business where raising capital isn’t guaranteed.
* There’s probably more cost in medical supply, equipment, and certification than you’d expect. There’s standards for security of the medications.
* Most veterinary clinics have staff. That’s payroll expenses.
* Any new business will need marketing. You’ll probably want a large sign/billboard, a decent website, and social media.
* Just leasing office space and furnishing it is surprisingly expensive.
I had the same reaction. It also seems easy to pull apart. What about disabled people who are unable to work?
I think something more like "investment income should be taxed at a higher rate than income earned through labor," accomplishes similar goals but is more intuitive and less problematic.
This is a false dichotomy. Laborers could just as easily invest in job-creating endeavors as passive income earners. All taxes cause economic drag, not _just_ business and investment income taxes. The economy includes every participant, and laborers are not an externality.
I'm sorry, I don't follow. Yes, people who are labourers could also somehow creating funding pools that are big enough to start companies, but so what? That doesn't negate the fact that they will be disincentivised to do so by a tax on investment income.
Not as dystopian as the ability to get wealthier without working and pay no taxes (and even IF you sell to realize gains, your tax liability is still lower than someone who made money through labour)
Your definition of "wealthier" is stupid, though, because it relies on a measure that doesn't actually apply to the person in question. A share's price is just "the last sale price of the same type of share", and that is multiplied by the person's shareholding to get their "wealth". However they don't have any more money by this happening - it's just a huge assumption that the share price would stay the same across all their shares if they sold right now.
The time we actually know what money they would make, making it concrete for tax, is when they sell. And we already do this.
There's multiple advantages to making money from equities that people who make money from ordinary income simply do not have, favourable tax rates, the ability to choose when and how much to realize, the ability to loss harvest, compound interest, everything around how we tax these 2 forms of income is set up to beget inequality.
> everything around how we tax these 2 forms of income is set up to beget inequality
No it's not. Most people don't pay capital gains because things like houses don't have capital gains applied. I.e. the rules are set up so that most people avoid capital gains tax when they gain capital. Everyone pays income tax with the same rules, and some people pay capital gains tax as well if their risks pay off. We tax the profits and let investors absorb the losses.
The focus towards the north (Greenland/Canada) is one potential successful post-climate-change strategy.
Control over the opened trade routes and natural resources as the northern oceans thaw will be a highly contested global issue, the type of issue that can lead to war.
Of course, this is a more charitable interpretation of long term plans than might be warranted.
Read your original comment and disagreed, but you have changed my mind. Trump is tackling climate change response more than any other president, he's just doing it in the most psychotic way possible. Threatening sovereign nations, antagonizing Asia, etc.
I agree that Canada and the EU should've been more responsible for their own defense. Hope going forward they are and cut out the USA as much as possible.
The registration process is mostly a legacy system to ensure only qualified individuals vote, left over from a time when the bar was much higher.
reply