ArchRecord

joined 7 months ago
[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 5 points 3 hours ago

Undocumented immigrants can't file income tax, because they are undocumented. However, they also can't utilize the majority of our costly social services, because they, obviously, don't have documentation. They can't sign up for welfare programs, utilize police resources for fear of being deported, etc.

Overall though, they are also human. They produce similar economic demand to Americans. They pay sales tax. Their landlord pays tax on their rent. They are also often paid less than Americans because they have no ability to enforce the law through legal means (again, for fear of being deported), but still have to buy things like food, which is taxed.

Thus, they tend to, at a bare minimum, take roughly about what they put in, leaving a mostly neutral effect on the economy.

Immigration is generally regarded to boost innovation overall, lead to higher education rates within the workforce, and creates higher overall economic productivity., which is an effect on the economy that isn't just taxes in, taxes out.

Of course, the best option we have is to grant them amnesty, because that then means they can file & pay income taxes, can more easily be statistically measured and analyzed as a group, and can engage in class solidarity through union organization, which raises working conditions and wages for all workers.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 2 points 17 hours ago

Hey, I actually missed that part. (I assumed it was deaths relating to the pregnancy itself, not including additional procedures like abortions)

Still, 17.4 - 0.45 = 16.95, which is still substantially higher than the case fatality rate of abortion-related fatalities alone.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 2 points 20 hours ago

As much as it fills me with joy to see fascists like JD Vance get mauled by their own past words, I hate how much this will be propped up as an argument against him today.

I think we can all agree that people change their minds, whether it be from propaganda, malicious intent, or genuine education, so the only thing he has to do to escape this line of attack is just say "my opinions changed."

I'm sure that to a degree, he still believes what he originally wrote, but has simply repressed it in favor of being able to do less thinking about his political positions, and garner more public attention and power.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 6 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

This is kind of just a bad argument.

Nobody is arguing that an abortion can save a woman from all consequences.

Nobody is arguing that death is impossible as a result of abortion.

But when somebody dies because something prevented them from getting a procedure that would have been highly likely to save them, that doesn't come into conflict with the possibility of death from the procedure. It's a matter of personal choice.

Especially considering the maternal mortality rate (# of deaths per 100,000 live births) is 17.4, while the case fatality rate for abortions (# of deaths per 100,000 legal induced abortions) is just 0.45

Now imagine how much higher that rate gets when abortions are performed illegally because legislation like this stops safe abortions from being possible, without curbing demand.

Yes, people die from abortions. Yes, people die from pregnancy. Yes, this woman could have died from the abortion procedure even if she was able to get it.

But her chance of death was significantly lower if she had been capable of getting an abortion, which she was not.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

Wait, it'll actually let you use local LLMs?

That would legitimately help me out. I use LLMs a lot for simple data restructuring, or rewording of explanations when I'm reading through certain sources. I was worried they would just do a simple ChatGPT API integration and have that be the end of it, but maybe this will end up being something I'd actually use.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Apple just can't resist making ridiculous margins from their customers, even when their devices do allow for upgrades to the default configuration.

For instance, with a Mac Pro, you have to pay an extra $800 to go from 64gb to 128gb of memory. For $800, you could get about 384gb of ram in 64gb sticks from a different vendor.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 25 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I don't think they believe it works.

I think they just believe that shootings are bound to happen, because why else would they be happening on such a regular basis?

It's the constant deflection of responsibility, from our choices as a society, to some indeterminate outside force.

Poverty and increasing cost of living? It's all those darn immigrants.

Your job not paying you enough? Must be overseas industry.

They don't think their prayers will prevent a school shooting, they just don't think there's other options to prevent it that will actually work without "taking away their freedom" (-to own a gun that's more likely to harm them than protect them)

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 24 points 1 week ago

The highest usage of ad blockers happens within the age range of 18-24, which categorically includes Gen Z.

The second highest age range is 25-34, and the third highest is 12-17, which is also included in Gen Z.

That said, I would argue that, while knowing how to use a smartphone doesn't make you tech savvy, knowing how to use an ad blocker doesn't either. It's as easy as installing an extension.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago

I suppose they could, but even cold storage has a cost, and with the scale Discord's operating at, they definitely have many terabytes of data that comes into the CDN every day, and that cost adds up if you're storing it permanently.

I also think the vast majority of users would prefer being able to upload much higher resolution images and videos, to being able to see the image they sent with their messages a year ago. I don't often go back through my messages, but I often find myself compressing or lowering the quality of the things I'm uploading on a regular basis.

They could also do the other common sense thing, which is to, on the client side of things, compress images and videos before sending them.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 8 points 1 week ago

The thing is, I did have encryption keys set up. The problem was that Element would repeatedly forget the very encryption keys passed by the other user, and would then have to request the keys again. Any historical message history would be permanently encrypted forever, and wouldn't decrypt with the new view key.

After this happened about 4 times, I stopped using it, because it was impossible to maintain conversations for longer than 1-2 weeks before they'd inevitably be lost, and I'd then have to spend about an hour waiting for Element to receive the new encryption keys from the people I was contacting, even when they were already actively online.

I have no clue what was causing it, but it happened on multiple accounts, on multiple devices, all the time, and there was no conceivable fix. I'm not sure if this is fixed now, but I haven't had a good reason to go back, especially with other encrypted messaging options out there.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 8 points 1 week ago

Look, I'm as upset as you are about the enshittification of everything, but this is a bit too far.

There was always legitimate issues with Discord's storage management, and they at least seem to be taking it seriously now.

I'm not a massive fan of Discord, but this is a bit of an overreaction.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 6 points 1 week ago

For real.

I emailed them once asking about how they were complying with GDPR regulations if they didn't allow users a way to delete all their message details, and didn't even have a procedure for GDPR requests, only their standard, much worse privacy-wise account deletion process. They claimed it was because they had a legitimate interest to keep any messages not individually deleted, so the chats would still look coherent after an account was deleted.

They only delete your message if you delete it individually, so naturally, I was concerned, since you can't delete messages in a server you were banned from, or left, and Discord provides no way for you to identify old messages in servers you're not currently in.

They eventually, supposedly, sent my concerns to their data privacy team.

They were then sued for 800,000 euros about a month or two later.

They still don't allow you to mass delete your message data. They really want to hold onto it for as long as they can.

 

Sharing because I found this very interesting.

The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective has a DIY design for a home lab you can set up to reproduce expensive medication for dirt cheap, producing medication like that used to cure Hepatitis C, along with software they developed that can be used to create chemical compounds out of common household materials.

 

I'm someone who believes landlording (and investing in property outside of just the one you live in) is immoral, because it makes it harder for other people to afford a home, and takes what should be a human right, and turns it into an investment.

At the same time, It's highly unlikely that I'll ever be able to own a home without investing my money.

And just investing in stocks means I won't have a diversified portfolio that could resist a financial crash as much as real estate can.

If I were to invest fractionally in real estate, say, through REITs, would it not be as immoral as landlording if I were to later sell all my shares of the REIT in order to buy my own home?

I personally think investing in general is usually immoral to some degree, since it relies on the exploitation of other's labour, but at the same time, it feels more like I'm buying back my own lost labour value, rather than solely exploiting others.

I'm curious how any of you might see this as it applies to real estate, so feel free to discuss :)

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