So you basically want cable-tv back?

I don't see it happening. Music isnt like TV, most people don't watch stuff more than once, or if they do its years a part, when they decide "you know I might like to see Deep Space Nine again"

Nothing being tied to a specific night of the week, or time of day has pretty much killed the water-cooler social aspect to TV, and that has nothing to do with the UIs of the streaming services.

The reality is there is just to much TV to watch. Few shows are really 'good enough' to justify actually setting up another subscription to view. I am a little sad to miss out on Strange New Worlds, but I am not pickup Paramount+ just for that, nor am I going to try to do it for a month and binge it. It just isn't worth the trouble. There is plenty to watch on Prime and Disney I already get with other bundles. If ever I hit a few weeks span of not finding any of their first-party content being pushed interesting, they have massive back catalogs of great old titles.

"Must See TV" was social phenomenon and streaming and to a lesser degree effortless DVRs before broke it. We are never going back to 'did you see the Star Trek last night' or 'you caught Seinfeld Thursday right?'

In past times there was a symbiotic relationship. Presumably you put things on the web so that they might be seen. Whatever resources search crawlers consumed, you got visibility in exchange. Even with stuff like Google books, if really invested a lot in the content letting google run ads while people read a chapter of your book, still ultimately translated into some book sales or profile raising citations etc.

The AI model stuff breaks a lot of this. Even if the agent does cite/link you as part of its RAG/MCP process for most users the synthesized response is all they are after so they are not encouraged to visit your site at all. Oddly model collapse and hulicinations might help here, if people become convinced they have to check the agents work all the time because it is so unreliable. Never mind that makes the agent useless in the first place. That has never stopped software people from piling more layers on before.

Nah we just aggressively tease and ostracize everyone wearing glasses. "Shut up four eyes", "Get lost poindexter", "love the glasses, anything covers some of face is win"... and so on.

It will be while before affordable AR contact lenses products exist. That should buy us a decade at least.

Wrong I said the pentagon should do security, the NSA is part of the DOD.

yes the NSA should do its job, but you are entirely correct it has failed to do that in a lot of ways. That does not somehow make it some other agencies job.

NIST has a long history of setting cyber security standards, we don't need a whole department to say 'if you are interfacing the feds, you need to follow NIST guidelines'

That takes one EO or one simple act of congress. CISA

Once again wrong, the defense department is responsible for defense. That is why it exists. I did not say it should be running those networks but it should absolutely be defending them. The military already reports to the top civilian, having them not be responsible for other federal networks has fuck all to do with preservation of freedom.

Now shut the hell up, it is you who does not understand the basic fundamental reasons why have the institutions we do. Go take a basic civics class you clown!

Right and homework is still plenty useful.

Some of the best classes I had the instructors assigned work, it did not count toward your grade. You could turn it in or not. If you did they'd score it and give you feedback.

Home work should not be part of the assessment function of teaching. It should be 'here is a curated set of exercise that I the instructor think will help cement the concepts I was trying to impart to you the student, and in reviewing your solutions provide me the diagnostic information to assist you further as required.'

That way there is no incentive to cheat, or even to just 'blaze thru it'. If you don't think you need the practice you can just skip it. No need to waste the professor or some TA's time slogging thru your AI generated whatever just to go thru the motion. The students that want practice have intelligently chosen activities to practice at, and a path way to get expert feedback.

LOL teachers, at least is public schools do pretty well.

They only thing that makes the 'under paid' vs the actual hours on the job and effort required is they are forced to be over qualified. Stop demanding k-12 teachers get graduate degrees and it would not be an issue.

By educate you mean aggressively label anything contrary to DNC planks disinformation and censor anyone asking quest.

CISA should be shuttered entirely. They fucked up, they left the mission of securing infrastructure behind and tried to go all thought police. Had they stayed focused on trying to get infrastructure operators to ensure they really have MFA everywhere instead of trying to devoice anyone that said Myocarditis, they would not be on the current administration's shit list.

Frankly, they are redundant anyway. This is a defense matter, the pentagon should deal with securing/defending government networks, including civilian ones. We already have NIST to prescribe security standards commercial operators should be adhering to.

Just DOGE the whole thing! AND Blackball Krebs!

1) ever increasing stratification
2) unconstrained deficit growth the western world over
3) increasingly brittle supply chains
4) economic demands for cheap labor, over coming any sense of cultural preservation or upkeep of national identity
5) loss of political autonomy and by extension real democracy

In short just about everything that could be systemically wrong with the global economy currently is, unless you believe we should embrace the One World Government, and toss our traditional values of things like religious freedom and individual liberty onto the ash heap of history.

Different environments and different covers have different needs.

Broad cultural phenomenon like "Star Wars" is something I would expect to work well in a lot of contexts. Lots of people lots of places spend a lot of time reading and chatting about Star Wars and adjacent topics. Plus it is a rich enough stew of things that will seem innocuous but could be use as signals. Ie star a new thread arguing Han shot first should not be seen as cannon, on an even number hour means - cease fire talks are serious, odd number hour means you think the internal conversation reflects it won't be abided, etc.

Now would it be a good choice for Kremlin implant, I don't know. As popular as Star Wars is known to be in Russia, that is a person who might be expected be toeing some party line by making somewhat of a show of eschewing Western cultural products, for example. Some FSB/SVR type get to thinking you know most of these guys a good little toadies, does this one just not care about his career and love Star Wars enough to risk getting tossed out a Window, or is he on the Star Wars forum for other more sinister reasons...

These all sound like good arguments for what 145% tariffs were a good idea, and that is more like the rate they should have stuck with!

On the other hand if AI can write a novel and deliver it as a radio play for you to listen to while you cut your grass and prepare you garden, is worth paying people to have any role in that production?

Assuming the AI's output is actually good/enjoyable?

This is true. The other thing a lot of people need to get thru the last 35 years of economic orthodoxy is that actually "stuff" is the future of economic success.

Things that AI can generate, be books, software, whatever, will approach zero value, while stuff AI can't generate, everything from farm products thur injection molded crap all the way to machines using the most advanced metallurgy or ICs using fanciest photolithography process will still have value.

The future of wealth is in building of actual things, be that with people or capital like robots. The age of the 'information worker' is drawing to close..

^^ This is exactly why we should ditch NATO and the UN and see how you Eurotrash really get on without your American betters, let the whole world see!

And that makes you anti-freedom. Maybe you're happy but someone who does not fit the mold ends up very unhappy.

that is the trade off.

Seen Youtube lately? I just watched a video on how to make nitroglycerin. Stuff like this has been available for over a decade.

Back in the days that home solar systems still mostly used lead-acid batteries - which in some cases of degradation could be repaired, at least partially, if you had some good strong and reasonably pure sulfuric acid - I viewed a YouTube video on how to make it. (From epsom salts by electrolysis using a flowerpot and some carbon rods from old large dry cells).

For months afterward YouTube "suggested" I'd be interested in videos from a bunch of Islamic religious leaders . (This while people were wondering how Islamic Terrorists were using the Internet to recruit among high-school out-group nerds.)

Software - AI and otherwise - often creates unintended consequences. B-)