if the gvt worked - they would've done something about that illegal monopoly

but you already know

that monopoly is costing the country & holding it back in terms of 1. intellectual capacity (all the smart kids going into ads) 2. monetary 3. industrialization as you outlined 4. energy 5. lack of synergies

> In 2017 I predicted that most programmers would lose their employer <-> employee bargaining power in the next 15-25 years.

even if written in retrospect - this would've been interesting to see. since likely some of the reasons wouldn't include A.I

it seems us is fighting yesterday's war

wars / empires etc are built on mastering an energy source

the Brits on Coal

the US rose on Oil

China is rising on renewables

my worry is can renewables be quickly brought online to power industry / power hungry Data Centers etc at a reasonable cost

China did most of its rising on fossil fuels. I think they are fairly pragmatic as to what to use.

But now their ascendance will be largely built on renewables which, due to our ineptitude here in the west, we've handed them the ball.

Good luck to them, because someone has to.

Everyone's rising on renewables. Renewable energy is just a victim of a heavily polarizing political atmosphere.

> my worry is can renewables be quickly brought online to power industry / power hungry Data Centers etc at a reasonable cost

I mean, clearly the answer is yes. The problem is political, not economic.

Could you spell out the “clearly yes” part of this? I’d love it to be true but even more than that I’d like to have an answer to the climate sceptics.

We're commenting on an article that discusses how quickly and cheaply large scale renewables can be brought online.

keep ya head up & high. thinking slow and straight is key at this time.

expand ya thinking - your options are not exclusionary i.e XOR but AND and don't define yourself in terms of your current state.

hell the friends you envy - if a nuke fell tomorrow - would they still have jobs ? if they're laid off would they still have jobs ?

go out there create IP / something outlasting - i.e a company or product

and frankly no one cares if you went to MIT or some no state school - you can either wait and be left behind

or determine your own destiny - choice is yours.

F-150 Lightning is better vehicle than Cybertruck - however Ford is a political company (not like Musk) as in the fortunes of Ford lie to an extent with politicians, unions etc

so hopefully ford can turn the F-150 into an Extended Range Electrical Vehicle

The Musk suite of companies all exist at least partly to promote Musk's politics and policies.

however mysql is easier to deal with - I say this as Postgres guy

mysql less maintenance + more performant

this!! 100%.

pass around ID's

from Scott you learn to separate the idea from the person.

biggest impact was probably talent stacking + affirmations

I say this as a black person

if A.I maximalist gospel was true - we would see a company raising $10M Series A | Seed (these days)

spend 60% on A.I, 30% on Humans and 10% on operations but I can bet you my sole penny that's not happening - so we know someone is tryna sell us a polished turd as a diamond

At no point in history has humanity ever cut back on spending after some constraint got alleviated. Exact opposite, we always ramp spending up to chase new possibilities.

If A.I maximalism gospel was true we would see companies raising absurd seed and A rounds in record numbers. Which is exactly what we’re seeing

to me the impressive thing is Coca Cola was formulated in the 1800s and yet even with modern equipment - most people fail to replicate it.

the original chemist who made Coca Cola was a genius

You're assuming that the company uses the same formula as then. That would be really awesome.

The original formula contained coca leaves (the raw material for cocaine) and extract from kola seeds (that's where the name comes from).

Beverages containing cocaine were very common until the beginning of the century (search for "Vin Mariani"). Even today you can buy coca leaves in the supermarkets of some Latin American countries (Bolivia, Peru, etc).

An huge corporation using the raw material of cocaine to produce the most popular soda in the world would be the funniest story of our times.

> An huge corporation using the raw material of cocaine to produce the most popular soda in the world would be the funniest story of our times.

Coca Cola does still use coca leaves for its flavor:

"In a telephone interview from Coca-Cola's Atlanta headquarters, Randy Donaldson, a company spokesman, said, ''Ingredients from the coca leaf are used, but there is no cocaine in it and it is all tightly overseen by regulatory authorities.''"

...

"Bales of coca destined for Stepan and, ultimately, for Coca-Cola are shipped to the Maywood plant through ports in New York and New Jersey, Mr. O'Brien said. Each shipment carries its own import permit, also issued by the D.E.A."

* https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/01/business/how-coca-cola-ob...

Inventing and replicating face different challenges though.