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Comment Re: Nope (Score 2) 151

Not by a long shot. Unsafe is scoped. 20% of Rust packages may use unsafe, but the amount of code in unsafe sections is far far far lower. Unsafe means "I accept the risk of doing unsafe things" but because it's scoped, just because a package uses Unsafe, it's still benefiting from the memory safety of bounds checking and borrow checking 99% of the time.

That's a far far cry from "it's just the same thing as doing it in C"

Comment Re:Dumbing down (Score 2) 118

PBS is primarily (85%) privately funded. It will continue to produce shows like Masterpiece, Nova, Frontline, and Sesame Street and people in places like Boston or Philadelphia will continue to benefit from them.

What public funding does is give viewers in poorer, more rural areas access to the same information that wealthy cities enjoy. It pays for access for people who don't have it.

By opting out, Arkansas public broadcasting saves 2.5 million dollars in dues, sure. But it loses access to about $300 million dollars in privately funded programming annually.

Comment Re:Crrot and Stick (Score 3, Interesting) 131

Industrial R&D is important, but it is in a distrant third place with respect to importance to US scientific leadership after (1) Universities operating with federal grants and (2) Federal research institutions.

It's hard to convince politicians with a zero sum mentality that the kind of public research that benefits humanity also benefits US competitiveness. The mindset shows in launching a new citizenship program for anyone who pays a million bucks while at the same time discouraging foreign graduate students from attending universtiy in the US or even continuing their university careers here. On average each talented graduate student admitted to the US to attend and elite university does way more than someone who could just buy their way in.

Comment Re:Economic terrorism (Score 1) 206

Republicans equate being pro-market with being pro-big-business-agenda. The assumption is that anything that is good for big business is good for the market and therefore good for consumers.

So in the Republican framing, anti-trust, since is interferes with what big business wants to do, is *necessarily* anti-market and bad for consumers, which if you accept their axioms would have to be true, even though what big business wants to do is use its economic scale and political clout to consolidate, evade competition, and lock in consumers.

That isn't economics. It's religion. And when religious dogmas are challenge, you call the people challenging them the devil -- or in current political lingo, "terrorists". A "terrorist" in that sense doesn't have to commit any actual act of terrorism. He just has to be a heathen.

Comment Re:Old News? (Score 2, Informative) 145

Just put it in context: Today Russia struck the Pechenihy Reservoir dam in Kharkiv.
Russia launched the war because they thought it would be a quick and easy win, a step towards reestablishing a Russian empire and sphere of influence, because Putin thinks in 19th century terms. Russia is continuing the war, not because it's good for Russia. I'd argue that winning and then having to rebuild and pacify Ukraine would be a catastrophe. Russia is continuing the war because *losing* the war would be catastrophic for the *regime*. It's not that they want to win a smoldering ruin, it's that winning a smoldering ruin is more favorable to them and losing an intact country.

Comment Re:It's a Bold Strategy (Score 1) 116

They could say no. No-one is stopping them.

You're right. Also a professional baseball player *could* put their bats down and just stand at the plate, but pointing out that it's physically possible is stupid, especially if your argument supporting that "They Can Just Do That" is that baseball players *should put their bats down*.

This is why such people shouldn't be in positions of power.

Again with the should. It's dumb saying "they can do something, but they won't, but they should" because it's a moot point. Yes, they could also write a press release that is an 80 page Star Trek fanfic set in the narrative universe of Mr Rogers. Nothing is stopping them. But what is the value of pointing out something they are physically capable of when even you seem to understand why they won't? It's just a completely meaningless observation, particularly since you couch it in phrasing that suggests it's just a simple easy thing to do? You're trying to have your argument both ways - it makes you sound simple.

Comment Re:It's a Bold Strategy (Score 2) 116

This is why such people should never be in positions of power.

What you're trying to do here is deal with the world the way you think it should be, not the way it actually is. So saying, "You can just do this" if the world was the way you think is should isn't a particularly well supported assertion.

Comment improvement != perfection (Score 1) 169

"The whole point of this is because Waymo isn't supposed to make those mistakes,"

There is no whole point in such a complex issue, but I would like to tell this person that the idea is part of the argument for automated vehicles is they may make less mistakes. Perfection shouldn't be a condition for improvement.

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