I am impaled by the edge of the couch.

We are most free when we appreciate the beauty of our surroundings, being ever mindful and present.

Yes. I’m from the USA and in my late twenties. I learned how to drive on an old Jeep Wrangler on a farm.

Yes, I believe in the Christian God.

There’s a place called kokomo!

Do you have these online somewhere?

j2me looks relatively more modern? What protocols were the old-school Nokia games like Snake written in?

Like… this kind of stuff?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9MiGCQf1bY

I decided not to confess to a coworker because I had learned that lesson the hard way at a previous job. I figured it would be better to not mix work and dating. Unfortunately as time went on I grew infatuated with this coworker and it took a combination of meditation, medication, and real intense personal work to realize that my infatuation was really just my mind’s way of trying to distract me from my own anxiety and depression. So I focused on that and ended up getting a better job and meeting someone who was such a significantly better match for me.

Good bot!

Yes, there are many successful open source algorithms, so there is no reason to believe a content recommending algorithm that is open-source could not be successful. If you’re using Lemmy and you sort by “hot”, you are already using one…

This would be a significant change to the intellectual property laws that govern most western countries currently. Not all algorithms are electronic in nature. For instance, manufacturers, stock trading firms, and banks may all use algorithms that are proprietary to perform manual or mechanical processes. Requiring these to be open sourced to the public would likely result in many trade secrets being leaked. There would also be a question of rather a recipe constitutes an algorithm as it really is just a set of processes at the end of the day. If so, Coca-Cola and a bunch of other countries are screwed.

Apart from the less obvious cases, there is also every software company in the world to consider. If they were forced to make their code public, we would see a lot of effects, some good and some not. To begin with, anyone would be able to compile and spin up any software at any time, making paid software a much less profitable business. Microsoft’s only customers in the software world would be the less tech savvy among us, and even then, they would be severely undercut by other companies as well as the neighborhood kid down the street who could volunteer to compile the OS code on your behalf for significantly less money. Specific INSTANCES of software, including the databases and information inside, as well as physical infrastructure would not be put at risk by this change, so the giants like Microsoft and Amazon would still be poised to win. However; they would have a lot more competition and would need to pivot away from software licensing as a business model all together.

Much more interesting to consider is the financial impact that such a change would have on society. I suspect the stocks for the major tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon would plummet. Apple in particular, who highly values secrecy and proprietary software, and who is not in the cloud computing business just yet, would be impacted more than anyone, as their closed down ecosystem would become a lot more open. If the law was passed in a particularly large market like the US or the EU, Apple and other tech companies would almost definitely sue that government, but the case would take years to resolve and would go to the highest level of the courts before being resolved. Open sourced code is technically still protected by copyright laws according to the terms of the open source license, so you would definitely see a lot of IP lawyers going after businesses for the slightest violation of those terms. You would also see a ton of trademark cases in response to people blatantly ripping off the Microsoft logo. The end result would probably be that their brand would get some limited protection from becoming all together irrelevant, but they would still be unable to stop individuals who are fully compliant with the open source license from downloading and compiling code themselves, severely cutting into Microsoft’s profits.

Likely, these big software companies would then realize that they must move from a product based model to a service based model when it comes to software. I don’t care if you can see the code for Netflix’s sorting algorithms – that doesn’t necessarily mean you have access to their video content. Products like Microsoft Word would become valueless while Microsoft Teams would potentially skyrocket in value. Data and files in general would become highly prized by these tech giants as they would allow for content to be fed by their programs that distinguishes their instance of a service from the one you are running on your local machine.

However; this would ultimately not be enough to starve off the sudden loss of revenue from such a change. Consider less flashy examples like insurance companies and banks that have business rules hidden in their algorithms. If someone found out the “rules” to get an insurance claim approved by automated systems, they would surely take advantage of it. You would see a massive amount of insurance fraud, financial fraud, and just general chaos as the rules that have powered these institutions for the last 40 years or so suddenly became irrelevant. We would quite likely see a total collapse of the stock market, and at such a scale that governments would not be able to fix the problem. Of course, if the government passing this law gave companies more time to respond… Five years… A decade… Many of the problems could be mitigated, as could the impact. You might see a recession instead of a depression after implementation.

As far as what would happen afterwards? Open source would do what open source is supposed to do. It would point out the flaws in software, allow for creativity to bloom, and ultimately make the digital world a brighter, safer, more creative space. Innovation would bloom. Security algorithms would improve. People would be able to make more informed choices about where they do business. These learnings would come at a high cost for companies slow to respond to public comments on their Git repos. You would expect to hear about a lot more high-profile exploits and data leaks in the news. It might even cause an even deepening financial crisis similar to the one explored on “Mr. Robot” if, say, a major credit card processing company’s data was intercepted, or if financial loans for some of the world’s biggest financers were erased. However; new models would take the place of the old ones. The economy would eventually recover, and be rebuilt from the ashes on much more stable ground.

Or maybe Elliot would regret his decision and undo it. I don’t know. (spoilers ahead for those of you who still haven’t seen Mr. Robot)

Your argument would be very convenient for socialists or communists looking for an explanation that blames war on the rich. Unfortunately I do believe it is a gross oversimplification that is neither useful nor particularly true.

While it is true that the military industrial complex has gotten out of control in many western countries since World War II, the argument that private industry is the true beneficiary and intentional instigator of war can be readily disproved. Rather, this assumption made by many on the left is born from a partial realization of the truth that war is about resources, but the argument quickly loses the plot thereafter. War is indeed about resources, both physical and psychological in nature, or put more succinctly, war is about security. Each state actor responds and reacts as necessary in order to ensure their legitimate security needs are met.

This view was famously espoused by political scientist Kenneth Waltz when he built upon the theories of classic realists such as Machiavelli. Whereas Classic Realism suggests that war is about power, Waltz takes it one step further with Structural Realism and gives us an academic framework to understand the balance of power and the motivation behind state actors. Waltz suggests that these power shifts are the result of states reacting to perceived threats in order to ensure security. For instance, in the Structural Realist view, one could say that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an attempt to gain security in response to a perceived NATO threat. Using this theory, we could similarly suggest that the US invasion of Afghanistan was a move to obtain greater security in a region that threatened the US hegemony (though the argument starts to break down here when we distinguish between the Taliban and Al Qaeda as neo-realism does not explain the action of non-state actors).

While it would be fair to say that in many western countries, the military industrial complex has acquired a massive amount of power and control over the government, it can hardly be said that war exists only for the benefit of war profiteers who help with nation building. The most obvious proof of this is the fact that war long pre-dates crony capitalism, nation building, and the military industrial complex as a whole. Furthermore, while lobbyists do hold an incredible amount of power, they are certainly not the rulers and final decision-makers of our country. Foreign policy is set by a number of diverse lawmakers and civil servants across the political landscape, but the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, which was opposed by the Military Industrial Complex, as well as the US intervention in Somalia which was wholly a humanitarian mission, are proof that they do not make the final decisions.

Our democracy certainly has many problems. Money pollutes our campaigns, and lobbyists hold far too much power. Trump’s five year lobbying ban for former US officials was a good start until he repealed it. We need more measures that limit lobbyists, and limit the ability of ANY politician or political party from totally derailing our country by putting us into unnecessary wars. We need more checks and balances in our system that prevent career politicians from fucking the rest of us over. And dammit, we definitely need to elect some better people than these jokers we’ve been electing lately. However; war is far more complex than you suggest.

That’s awesome!

In the US many students celebrate graduating high school by going on a “senior trip” with their classmates. My friends and I took a week long trip on a cruise liner through the Caribbean.

Okay

Thanks! I knew it looked familiar.

Bush should be in jail for Iraq.

Regarding Afghanistan, we should have focused exclusively on counter-insurgency and let the Loya Jirga do its thing without US interference.

Fair enough! Laissez le bon temps rouler.

I broke up with my first girlfriend years ago because “there was no spark”. In truth I went on my senior cruise, reconnected with a childhood friend I hadn’t seen in years, developed a massive crush on her, and though I did not intend to pursue anything romantically with her as she was already dating someone else, I realized that I had never been attracted to my gf in the first place. I regret that I broke her heart and wish I would have had this realization to begin with, but that’s youth. I wanted more for my life, and I got it. She did too, and much faster. She ended up meeting her soulmate within a year of us breaking up and they have a beautiful daughter together.