Go a few levels of logic deep and all you’ve got left is noise.

Which you often don’t need. Mechanical computers for aircraft operation, or hydraulic computers for modeling something nuclear, things like that.

But there’s nothing “century-old” about all this. They might have non-deterministic steps for some calculation where determinism is not needed (like if you need to ray-trace a sphere, you’ll do fine with a bit different dithering each time) and without it better performance is achievable.

The idea seems to make sense, just - it will never be revolutionary.

That’s all true, but there have been a few things similarly widespread and harmful, which weren’t solved until their turn came. Like lead in everything (not that nobody knew lead is poisonous or that things containing lead end up in the air and in the water and so on), or like child labor in factories, or like slavery (slavery was considered barbaric and gradually outlawed in Europe in the Middle Ages, then it made a comeback during the triangle trade, and for all its time of relevance people argued about its social effect, and that of racial segregation, still it lasted long enough).

This is a problem. It will eventually be seen as a threat. But it’s not that much different from radio.

Meeting up in a pub is a good enough idea no matter which pub it is, apparently, if the Internet shuts down.

That is as it was originally designed. Nobody promised freedom to people starting to use a system the development of which was paid for with military budget. It’s resilient enough. It’s not intended to protect people like us willing to not be controlled by bigger services.

(Warning - yes, I know they won’t understand fully anything of the following, but they will understand some and will remember it’s not magic.)

First, show them how to make a paper animation (quickly changing pictures, lots of paper and two pencils are enough, don’t even need two pencils, but eh).

Second, show them how to make a paper computer (look it up, there are even ready books for children ; that is a bit more complex, you’ll need to cut some for registers and the “windows” to indicate current values and you’ll do the operations manually, and you’ll need more turning pencils).

Third, find some book about microprocessor design - I’m serious, you just have to show them in it the pictures about what is a decoder and what is a datapath and ALU, and what are interrupts, and what are registers (program counter and two-three other ones, suppose), and explain how this relates to the paper computer. Not much more.

Then you tell them that a computer is just many microprocessors running their programs, some run small simple programs to control dedicated devices, and some run big long complex programs. After that you show them some of the devices - like hard drive, RAM, video, audio, network card, thingies on the board. And tell that they work with other devices, like keyboards and displays connected electrically. And tell that this looks like a city.

For 6 years old this is not so good (but just like people normally do with airplanes and trains, you still should try, just this shouldn’t be your only try by far), but when I was 8-9 years old and wanted to learn, someone explaining step 3 to me would have helped.

Step 1 my dad had done, step 2 I think he did too, and it was in some book for preschool education I read, I didn’t know it was sky cool back then. Step 3 is more of an encouragement when you can’t quite mentally make the leap, from small elements which you know can be combined into complex things, to complex things themselves.

This is not an advice to teach a toddler computer design. Just like people don’t teach toddlers railway design or civilian engineering or automotive or airplane design. They still tell them various things of how those work, and build models, so they don’t have ideas from medieval bestiaries about these being magical monsters.

Yes, that’s the point. Their glass ball and Tarot layout say you’re guilty, so now you have to prove your innocence. And to prove your innocence you have to collect all the data on yourself.

BTW, this is far more subtle than it seems, collecting and giving to someone all the info on yourself all the time is nonsense, but collecting it and having just in case for such situations might seem normal for many honest people. Except in fact these are the same, you don’t have tools to collect it all without giving it to someone predictable. So this whole big tech and surveillance con abuses good faith participation in the society. And encourages everyone becoming a cheater.

The police and other such people know that these are bullshit machines, but use them to cheat with impunity. Sometimes to charge a clearly innocent person, because they have an excuse - the computer did it. And the rest of us are incentivized to cheat to get better ratings for loans and worse ratings for scammers, and better danger rating so that police wouldn’t just use as a scapegoat to close a case like this, instead choosing someone less dangerous.

Wait till witchcraft becomes a crime again. Nobody would believe in it, of course, but it’d be an easy win for everyone except the convict.

I don’t care if Soviet caricatures (“Neznaika on the Moon” specifically) were wrong back then, they are correct now. I mean, yeah, they are correct everywhere now, but still.

Oh, they should, but similarly to “AI” as a tool, with the whole responsibility for the tool being on the person using it.

Similar to screwdrivers, pencils and guns.

That’s intentional. Someone just makes shit up, using a magic machine, so that their responsibility were in doubt for other similar irresponsible people with ability to fuck up others’ lives.

There should be a responsible policeman for every such decision, going to jail for at least as much time as she would were she convicted, when the decision is wrong.

Wow. In ex-USSR past convictions are a problem, but when you were cleared of charges - that really is wild. I mean, OK, the rate of convictions is not exactly normal in ex-USSR too.

I mean by this comparison that people here usually think we have it worse with the conviction record.

Why can’t they see the outcome?

So you’re a billionaire and one is not different from the other for you, gotcha.

There are far more seconds in your life than hundreds of millions dollars.

11.4 bln is 100 mln away from 11.5 bln. I’m not sure “so close” is correct here.

It’s typical, a bit how Russian politicians and members of their families often touch criminal folklore (the higher kind related to student culture, not the lower kind about homosexual ranks) with their mouths, despite being dirty by default for any carrier of that. They also love to similarly spoil patriotism.

In this case a bunch of stinking orcs is showing that they are the elves you’re gonna get. Get used to it. They’re in control.

This was never about security. That’s just the excuse.

Every technical decision is an excuse to fulfill a social desire.

There was a time when I was 14 and happy and saw such things in everything around me, and all the fiction I was reading often touched that trait of the surrounding reality. Those books are not considered something for intellectuals or artists, and I have nothing to discuss with such people - that is, strictly speaking not true, but I never know why some things I know and mention are interesting or not, and why some my opinions meet hearty agreement and some are politely ignored. And I never find continuations for those agreements and interests. But I feel as if that planted something deep in my head that has endured all the degradation.

So. You should also look at things where it seems that technical decisions were made for technical reasons.

The desktop paradigms, the platform paradigms, the OS paradigms, the ergonomics, - of course. But also aesthetics and visibility, how separate or mixed with the offscreen reality everything is. Also why the Internet is built as it is, why multi-user operating systems and Java really exist, what really is Unix and what really is Windows. About software design and why what embedded developers make when allowed is considered bad design, while what web developers make is considered rather good design, yet the former is usually more stable, secure and maintainable than the latter.

Not just software, but why is our consumer hardware is what it is, what do we need such complex systems for.

Not just computers, but construction design - the world now is very different from the world where that brutalist idea of making apartment buildings having a terrace as a “street” to which you have another exit from your apartment was bad due to all the crime. And also there are plenty of covered passages and malls with the same idea, except the framework building is always privately owned, having a different juridical status than a street or a bridge. While Soviet-style microdistricts, and things similar to them, are similarly bad due to crime, yet honestly the “right and good” modern European urbanism moves in that direction.

All the choices around us are made by humans, driven by social stimuli - that’s the meaning of the word “social”, all the stimuli are there, and economics and technology act more like framework of the possible for the social.

Just treat whatever “advice” these things “give” as given by the person who made the decision to host them.

Should be simple.

Instead they are already being treated as some magic, not a tool inseparable from the owner, or as a living thing. It’s idiotic.

OK, I really love I2P, just wish sometimes there would be ways to use it with latency and throughput approaching clearnet. I like that it’s a platform solving the P2P and discovery problems for everyone in the same way and providing interfaces for that, but the privacy and security orientation means that it’s mostly used for privacy and security (even pedo filesharing doesn’t seem to be too many people).

Ye-es, but wouldn’t that be kinda slow?

There’s an element of vibe contrarianism in any pronounced political ideology. Meaning that libertarians often hate what they perceive as anti-libertarian, communists often hate what they perceive as anti-communist, and so on.

In that regard yes, there are plenty of libertarians who just want to kill anything with leftist vibes with fire.

But the world of ideas is far richer than the existing conventions and established ideologies, and every person has their own trajectory in that.

Selling TVs and monitors is an established business with common interest, while optimizing people’s setups isn’t.

It’s a bit like opposite to building a house, a cubic meter or two of cut wood doesn’t cost very much, even combined with other necessary materials, but to get usable end result people still hire someone other than workers to do the physical labor parts.

There are those “computer help” people running around helping grannies clean Windows from viruses (I mean those who are not scammers), they probably need to incorporate. Except then such corporate entities will likely be sued without end by companies willing to sell new shit. Balance of power.

Well, suppose it’s some stew on low fire, with some meat, lots of cabbage and potatoes, some beans … Takes time to do right.

Yes, except I meant leaving and turning it off.