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> Some of the fastest and most famous guitarists had shockingly bad technique.

The universe didn't offer a manual on how to play guitar, so how are you determining that their technique was bad? Given what you say about them, maybe they actually had the perfect technique?


The universe didn’t offer a manual, but mankind has largely arrived at some orthodoxy for the most efficient and ergonomic ways to fret, bend, pluck, tap, strum, etc. In many cases, these are objectively better techniques to use once mastered, but they’re not the only way.

> Effort is what is being replaced here

Not really. The effort required to produce the same result has declined, but it has been on the decline for many decades already. That is nothing new. Of course, in the real world, nobody wants the same result over and over, so expectations will always expand to consume all of your available effort.

If there is some future where your effort has been replaced, it won't be AI that we're talking about.


> but every time I push I discover they have no clue how networks work

Obviously. Anyone who does understand how networks work aren't going to spend any time talking about it. People don't talk about things they are certain about. They talk about what they don't know much about to feel out what they're missing. You will never find a discussion where pushing back reveals that you found the world's utmost expert. The world's utmost expert is bored with the subject and has moved on to talking about the things he has gaps in.


Racism is a social bias that isn't "hardwired". It does not trigger the "fight or flight" response like was described in the earlier tale. Anxiety, of course, describes a "fight or flight" system that is malfunctioning. It is the most likely explanation because that is what was originally described. Mind you, the story could have been misrepresented. We do have to put our faith into what was written.

Another comment suggested that Altman was once beat up by a black man. If true, it is possible Sam has developed a conditioned response that associates black men with danger and his reaction stemmed from that. However, that isn't the same thing as racism and to try and categorize it as such would be quite disingenuous.


> I don't know why manual work has been so denigrated over the last century.

As a farmer, it is funny to see how people react to you based on the current profitability winds. When farming is a money maker, everyone acts envious and treats you like a king. When times are tough, they think you're a slack-jawed yokel.

I expect in that lies the answer to your question: We denigrate anything that isn't, as a rule, making a lot of money. Manual jobs generally haven't made much money in the last century, and humorously the exceptions, like professional athlete, get exempted from being considered manual work.


> When farming is a money maker, everyone acts envious and treats you like a king.

While I'm not a farmer, from my experience they still call you a yokel when it's profitable.


Well, yeah, they'd call me a yokel. They'd also call me that when I'm at my tech job. But not the farmers they see getting rich and wish they were.

> And maybe "looking good" just amounts to exposing some public API to do various things.

Maybe, but you still need humans to make that call. The software is still built for humans no matter how much indirection you add.

There is a conceivable day where that is no longer true, but when you have reached that point it is no longer AI.


> Go unwillingness to add even the most simple enum kind of type.

Go has enums, under the iota keyword. But I imagine you are really thinking of sum types. Technically Go has those too, but must always have a nil case, which violates what one really wants out of sum types in practice.

Trouble is that nobody has figured out how to implement sum types without a nil/zero case. That is why you haven't seen a more well-rounded construct for the feature yet. This is not an unwillingness from the Go team, it is more of a lack of expertise. Granted, it is an unwillingness from those like yourself who do have the expertise. What stops you from contributing?

> It just takes away so, so many bugs you would normally see in production code.

What bugs do you imagine are making it to production? Each pattern matched case has a behaviour that needs to be tested anyway, so if you missed a case your tests are going to blow up. The construct is useful enough that you don't need to oversell it on imagined hypotheticals.


You are free to use whatever word you want. Even "bloopydoopy", if you so wish. But "compiles" is best.

> I can't think of any other case pre-smartphone, where I'd be denied the ability to buy a product simply because I didn't want to have to buy another totally unrelated product as a condition.

Then you must not have been around pre-smartphone? Those of us who were will remember having to buy either banknotes or checks. Later, some would accept a certain type of card that you could buy. If you weren't willing to buy any of those things there was little chance of a deal taking place. Showing up with your goat to offer in exchange would get you laughed out of the room, even though there was an even earlier time where bringing a goat would have been considered quite reasonable. Realistically, the most desperate vendors will still accept your goat as payment if that is what's on the table, but, as I am sure you can imagine, it isn't worth the effort for those who have the luxury of choice. Where technology makes a seller's life simpler, they will demand it. Why wouldn't they?


None of this is comparable lock-in. You could buy checks from hundreds of different vendors and none had any lock-in on you. You could use a different vendor each time if you wanted. By certain type of card I assume credit cards, which can also be had from thousands of different banks.

Also, credit cards are free to get and checks cost a few pennies.

Not remotely comparable to being forced to buy a phone to get to a game.


Every bank and credit union I've banked with provides free checks, a free debit card, and no fees for ATM cash withdrawals.

If my bank gave me a free smartphone, I might be OK with using it for commerce. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know if I have a strong opinion on that one.


Plenty of people can't get credit cards.

Plenty of people can't even get bank accounts.

It's absolutely comparable lock-in.


While acknowledging the frustration of someone who can't (always support cash, the ultimate zero-lock-in solution!), it is disingenious to call them comparable.

Bank accounts and credit cards can be had for free, and if you can't get one from one place there are literally thousands of other places to try.

(Also I'm not sure how one can't get some bank account? I grew up very poor and still had a bank account in my teens. Credit cards, indeed, can be much more difficult. But these days pre-paid cards exist which is a way in.)

In contrast, there are only two choices for phone platforms and neither is cheap and both require a recurring nontrivial monthly expense. So no, not at all comparable.


Back accounts require social security numbers or equivalents often. I've lived abroad and had an impossible time opening a bank account.

Credit cards require things like proof of income, a certain credit score, etc.

A cheap Android and a cheap MVNO plan costs almost nothing, the equivalent of about 3 hours of minimum wage per month.


> You could buy checks from hundreds of different vendors

Likewise, last time I was at the mall there were dozens of smartphone vendors in that one place alone.

> Also, credit cards are free to get and checks cost a few pennies.

There are plenty of zero-down smartphones available too. Nothing is free, of course.

> Not remotely comparable to being forced to buy a phone to get to a game.

Nobody was talking about comparisons, but if you really find it necessary to take us off-topic, Ferrari has long required you to first buy lower-end Ferraris if you want to buy higher-end Ferraris. That predates smartphones as well. Rolex, Hermès, etc. have all done similar things. Needing to buy things in order to buy other things is nothing usual in the world of luxury items.


It is not required to watch a game. At least not unless you are not using it as some kind of vision aid — although even then there are likely reasonable alternatives.

It is required to satisfy the desires of a vendor wanting to sell something. They make a smartphone a part of satisfying their desires because it makes their life a whole lot simpler. Same reason they won't give you season tickets in exchange for 12,000 bushels of wheat. They could, but why would they? If you don't want to play ball, so to speak, they are happy to sell their product to someone else who will.


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