It's all romantic, but a bunch of devs are getting canned left and right, a slice of the population whose disposable income the economy depends on.

It's too late to be a contrarian pundit, but what's been done besides uncovering some 0-days? The correction will be brutal, worse than the Industrial Revolution. Just the recent news about Meta cuts, SalesForce, Snap, Block, the list is long.

Have you shipped anything commercially viable because of AI or are you/we just keeping up?

Has it occurred to you that there might not be a correction, and that the outcome would still be brutal, at least on par with the industrial revolution.

It's physically impossible to build out the datacenters required for the "AI is actually good and we have mass layoffs" scenario. This Anthropic investment is spurred on because they've already hit a brick wall with capacity.

$40B goes a long way, but not for datacenters where nearly every single component and service is now backordered. Even if you could build the DC, the power connection won't be there.

The current oil crisis just makes all of that even worse.

The next level of layoffs is probably still 25 years out.

And that's without accounting for the various wars (and resultant economic impacts) that are already in progress. A large part of what drove the meat grinder of WWI was (very approximately) the various actors repeatedly misjudging the overall situation and being overly enthusiastic to try out their shiny new weapons systems. If one or more superpowers decide to have a showdown the only thing that might minimize loss of life this time around is (ironically enough) the rise of autonomous weapons systems. Even in that case as we know from WWII the logical outcome is a decimated economy and manufacturing sector regardless of anything else that might happen.

I think that just means the relative civilian loss of life will increase once again.

russia is really and empire of the dumb and subjugated serfs at this point (again, history repeats), but they are far from only such place.

Dont expect more, most people are not that nice when SHTF.

Bubbles like the AI bubble are a game theoretic outcome of a revolution. Many players invest heavily to avoid losing, but as a whole the market over invests. This leads to a bubble.

But right now, the difference in developer experience between a dev on a team at a business which has corporate copilot or Claude licenses and bosses encouraging them to maximize token usage, vs a solo dev experimenting once every few months with a consumer grade chat model is vast.

Meta seemingly has a constant stream of product managers. If llm’s really augment the productivity of engineers, why isn’t meta launching lots more stuff? I mean there’s no harm in at least launching one new thing.

What are all those people doing with the so called productivity enhancements?

What I’m calling into question is how much does generating more code matter if the bottle neck is creativity/imagination for projects?

The only thing I’ve seen is a really crummy meta AI thing implemented within WhatsApp.

Only solution I can think of is to drastically cut headcount so productivity is back to prior levels, and profitability is raised. Big Tech is mostly market constrained with not much room to grow beyond the market itself growing.

As for startups, seems like AI tools have drastically reduced their time to market and accelerated their growth curves.

Hobbyist solo dev, counting tokens, hitting quotas, trying things on little projects, giving up and not seeing what the fuss is about.

vs

Corporate developer, increasingly held accountable by their boss for hitting metrics for token usage; being handed every new model as soon as it comes out; working with the tools every day on code changes that impact other developers on other teams all of whom have access to those same tools.

I might be missing a lot of self-evident assumptions here but I feel like I'm still missing so much context and have no idea what this difference is actually describing.

I'm talking more about why threads like this seem to be full of people saying 'this has completely changed how corporate development works' and other people saying 'I tried it a few times and I don't get the hype'

Just because they don't, doesn't mean they aren't able. The real flat earth theory is thinking that unwritten rules and institutions were protected from a president that insists on pulling every lever of power at once, but that's separate from the checks and balances.

In this case, Congress has completely abdicated their duties.

The challenge is all 3 branches are owned by the same group right now.

In the Kiyemba decision, the court identified a pattern of 96 violations across 75 or so cases. Detainees were held despite release orders

In family separation cases, courts have required legal representation reinstated and the government refused to comply.

In the case of NY vs Trump, courts ordered funds to be unfrozen and the administration refused to comply.

Separately, if you want to claim that the Trump Administration is acting like a king because they've refused to comply with a single court case, then of course you have to extend that same categorization to any president who has ignored or circumvented a court order. But why stop there? Why not governors or private persons? Why do some have the luxury of seemingly ignoring Congressional subpoenas?

The Trump Administration has also lost quite a number of court cases and he has failed to prosecute his political enemies. If he were a king he would be ignoring much more than just a few court orders, folks would be in jail, &c.

Legally? No. That's what OP said:

> The only thing stopping US presidents from acting like kings is precedent.

Now if we're talking reality, the realty is that new precedents were set (president acting like a king) which revealed that there are not effective legal checks on US presidents acting like kings (or else we would not have a president acting like a king).

But if your focus is on whatever he tweets and therefore he acts like a king, sure. Whatever. I mostly care about what actually happens, actual policy, actual laws and rules, not the theater around it which so many seem to want to indulge in instead of watching reality TV.

Sure they do! Take the king that the US's predecessor governments rebelled against, King George III. He was very much bound to the dictates of Parliament. From his Wikipedia article:

> Meanwhile, George had become exasperated at Grenville's attempts to reduce the King's prerogatives, and tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade William Pitt the Elder to accept the office of prime minister.[45]

Does this sound like something that would be said of an absolute monarch?

Your placing of King in quotes is bizarre. Like, you see a resemblance between the current president and an actual king, and your takeaway is to try to retcon history and claim the king was not a king?

Your argument that someone can't act like a king unless they're breaking laws is a bad argument (and ignores the fact that this one is doing both). Don't let your reality tv fool you.

If that's your criteria as to who is "not acting like a king", I’m not really sure what point you're trying to make here.

No, I don't. An actual king isn't constrained by checks and balances, or the law, for the most part. You're just adjusting the definition of king here to fit your argument.

For example, you refer to King George being stymied or frustrated by some act of Parliament. Is he a king or president? Our president today (and since the founding of America) is similarly stymied and frustrated by some act of Congress. Are the presidents kings or are the kings presidents?

It seems like people are so hung up on the Twitter reality TV sports of politics that they've forgotten what a king is.

This is demonstrably false: King George, who was an "actual king", was constrained by some checks and balances, yet he was still a king. We know that much is correct. Therefore your personal definition here must be what is incorrect. And indeed, it is. You're just adjusting the definition of king here to fit your argument.

It seems like people are so hung up on the Twitter reality TV sports of politics that they've forgotten what a king is.

> It seems like people are so hung up on the Twitter reality TV sports of politics that they've forgotten what a king is.

Yes I agree that you are doing that here. And now you've reached the point to where you're shifting definitions and cherry-picking various historic world leaders to draw inane conclusions and comparisons.

You're confusing how someone acts with which laws they are subject to, and as a result, you've been reduced to inane wordplay as your only argument.

Previously, even though a US president theoretically had the power to act like a king, they have mostly maintained a precedent of not doing so*.

Now, a new precedent has been set: A president acting like a king*.

Hope that clears things up.

* - I realize you may personally disagree with this. That's okay. I'm open to hearing arguments otherwise, but the ones you've put forth so far were unsuccessful at swaying people from the consensus stated above.

They sure spent a lot of time and effort establishing it for something they didn't need.

> Anyone can just say "well so and so is acting like a king or queen".

This does not mean that anytime someone says it, it is false. If many folks are saying a thing, there is more evidence of it being true than if "anyone" says it. The consensus here seems to be that the current USA president is acting like a king. To alter the consensus, make a successful argument to that effect.

To wit:

- "He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good."

- "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance."

- "He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures."

- "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power."

- "For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us"

- "For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States"

- "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world"

- "For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent"

- "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury"

- "For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences"

For someone in the USA, some of this might ring a historical bell.

You're right, it doesn't mean that. But it belittles the accusation. Folks sometimes refer to their children as little tyrants. Conservatives would say Obama or Biden were acting like kings issuing edicts.

If you want to argue about this because you're interested in the mudslinging, that's fine but that's a separate discussion: a discussion about reality TV, not reality in offices of the government.

> The consensus here seems to be that the current USA president is acting like a king.

Current consensus is usually wrong, doubly so in this case. He might tweet a bunch of things, yet he's still constrained by the rule of law and the Congress, and the Court.

> You're right, it doesn't mean that. But it belittles the accusation.

Does it? I don't think so. Like we should refrain from ever saying it when it is appropriate, because there will always exist at least 1 person in the world who disagrees and thus the accusation is belittled in their eyes alone? Pass.

> Conservatives would say Obama or Biden were acting like kings issuing edicts.

Sure, and they can say whatever they want! It's not like people would agree with them if they said it, unlike in this example, in which they would.

> Current consensus is usually wrong

This nonsense sounds like a slogan of somebody who is usually both wrong and against consensus.

> yet he's still constrained by the rule of law and the Congress, and the Court

Yep, totally irrelevant, as we've already covered: someone being theoretically "constrained by the rule of law and the Congress, and the Court" does not mean "cannot act like a king", as we've now seen.

As best as I remember, it has always been the case that executives make decisions that result in court cases. I've never seen it like this, though.

Who will be overruling that "someone in the cabinet", when things start going the wrong way again? There is always someone on top, and in the US it's the sitting President.

There are measures Congress could very easily take if they chose to, but modern Congresses are very much do-nothing and frankly regard the President taking unilateral actions as relieving them of accountability and the need to take action themselves on important matters.

Look at the history of every single war we’ve been involved in since WWII, no declaration of war. Korean War, Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia, Balkans, GWOT, Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Iran.

I’m not a fan of the president, but Trump only started two of those. Korea was Truman, Vietnam was LBJ, Grenada was Reagan, Panama was HW Bush, Somalia and the Balkans was Clinton, GWOT was Bush, Libya and Syria were Obama, and the last two were Trump. That’s 7 total presidents, add in Bay of Pigs and JFK for 8 and the only two presidents who didn’t start a war are Nixon, who fucked up negotiations with the NVA that may have prolonged the war to win an election, and Jimmy Carter, who tried to rescue hostages in Iran with military assets.

I think this is at least a little misleading. How many of these conflicts were started by that president/the US (as opposed to "joined")?

This archaic and formal "I do declare war upon theee" is not flexible enough for the modern world and so we have found, perhaps an unhappy middle ground where the President can indeed take military action, for a limited period of time (60 days) without congressional authorization. The President is the civilian commander of the military and regardless of whether it is a Democrat or Republican we, like in other cases, give the President the discretion to make these choices. You may not like their exercise of power, but it is legal, Constitutional, and intentional and even if it is Donald Trump (much to my displeasure) we as a society trust him and his office to use this power responsibly and for the good of the American people. Even in the case of Iran and Venezuela, frankly, I think he has used power responsibly (if less effective than it should be) and for the good of the American people. We can't have a nuclear Iran in the Middle East, nor can we or should we accept thugs like Maduro running a country into the ground and causing mass migration to the US and causing problems here and breaking our laws.

There are folks in the cabinet that can take action, or resign, &c., but as the Executive the president selects his cabinet and they serve at his pleasure, once they are confirmed by the Senate. This is true for all presidents and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

I think sometimes we forget, these are just people. We give them broad authority and they get to, by virtue of being elected, exercise that power as they see fit though ideally if or when a law is broken we deal with it through the judicial system.

Congress should tighten up the War Powers Act, including but not limited to making the Secretary of Defense personally liable for breaches. (We do this with CFOs under Sarbanes-Oxley.)

Yes it is. And it can be done quite quickly in the modern world.

Just "doing war" and calling it something else because you find the "right" way inconvenient or impractical is ridiculous, immoral, and illegal.

If the government acts on behalf of and derives its authority from the will of the people then do it according to our shared governance. If not then the people claiming autocracy or oligarchy or techno-feudalism has supplanted our democracy are probably on to something.

Tl;dr - no shit following the law is less convenient than just doing whatever you want

Is there something about the War Powers Act that's unconstitutional? If so, what specifically? I'm struggling here to understand what is being alleged to be unconstitutional.

Separately, I actually think Congress has been dysfunctional and has been outsourcing its power to the Executive and Judicial branches, but these claims about constitutional breaches seem to be, at best, wrong.

What is the answer to feed everyone during these budget constrained times? It can’t be tofu, can it? There are just too many of us.

In the meantime, the US is overrun by dear and boars, and I’ve been learning archery.

Loads of small field animals are killed when eating vegan. Loads more are killed when eating omnivore, because you have to plow even more field to also feed the factory-farmed animals.

> In the meantime, the US is overrun by dear and boars, and I’ve been learning archery.

Assuming you stick with it, I think that could be a good idea.

You are very wrong here by orders of magnitudes. The US produces about 5 billion bushes of soybeans. 1 bushel is around 60 lbs. Having made tofu myself, depending on the type of tofu you make 1 lb of dry soybeans is anywhere from 1.5 to 2 lbs of tofu(remember we are adding water to the mix so we increase weight). If 1 bushel is 60 lbs and we produce 5 billion then we have 136 million metric tons of soybeans which makes 272 million tons of tofu which is enough to feed the entire US several times over.

This doesn't even begin to touch the amount of food you can make from the byproduct of tofu, soy pulp which is itself a food in some countries.

I'm not suggesting we actually do it but to answer your question of "is tofu the answer," it could be. The vast majority of our soybean crop was sold to other countries until Trump tariffs made China switch from us to Russia. I'm not sure what the current status of our soybean production is but we have the crop production to feed the entire US.

To your first point about the small animals in the fields that are harmed by agriculture, I think that's worth having concern about overall, certainly. But many of the animals that people currently consume are fed large quantities of crops that incur that same cost. The average beef cattle is eating such things for 18 months prior to being slaughtered, breeding sows do the same for 3-5 years, and their offspring 5-6 months on average.

If there are advances in things like cultured meat that can be produced in a sort of industrial setting at a competitive price it might be possible to drastically limit both the conscious and inadvertent harm to animals.

It's much more efficient to use land to grow food crops for people to eat directly than it is to grow food for livestock and then have people eating the livestock.

It's one of the reasons that I've been pescetarian for a few decades - it's unsustainable for everyone to eat substantial amounts of meat and there's a lot of deforestation just to sate people's desire for burgers.

Silo For All Mankind Tehran Foundation (“meh-ish, but watchable”) Slow Horses Murderbot Shrinking …

But my point wasn’t that they don’t make good television because they do, it’s that their shows aren’t talked about nearly as much in the mainstream because people don’t have Apple tv. I think Ted lasso and to a lesser degree severance are really their only major popular hits. Most people I talk to haven’t seen slow horses. If it were on Netflix they would have.

And I’m just left to wonder where Apple TV would be now if Ted lasso hadn’t been a massive breakout success for the platform, which i think largely only happened because it was a decent feel good show that came out right when the entire world was miserable and cooped up inside looking for new content.

I like Tim, but I don’t think the Tim we see is the real Tim. He must be an absolute elite sniper ninja cyborg internally, which is also cool.

Further, one of the other hosts is John Siracusa, the guy who wrote in-depth 18 page reviews of MacOS X releases for ArsTechnica for many years. He got a shoutout from Apple's head of software, Craig Federighi, when I attended a live interview in 2019 during the week of their World Wide Developer's Conference (hosted by John Gruber of Daring Fireball). Siracusa must have been in the first few rows because Federighi said something like, "Oh, there's Siracusa." You could label that "fan service" because everyone in that theater knows who he's talking about and it's a form of acknowledging the crowd as a community.

So, all of this is to say that Marco is one of the small number of outsiders who could write such a letter on their blog and have upper ranks of Apple hear about it and maybe, maybe not, be curious enough to see what was said. I can't do that. I don't know if you can. But Marco can. I'm glad he took a shot. Whether it means anything, we'll never know.

And yes, the release of his redesign was premature, but I'm ok with the app as my daily podcast driver right now.

He says “whivf” instead of ”with” “teevf” instead of “teeth”, things like that, and some other idiosyncrasies that I can’t exactly remember but it was like adding to or replacing the last letter of the word with an “r”.

Is that a London thing or a person thing?