As I get older, I read this entirely differently (as an appeal to empathy) than I did when I was younger (as an appeal to stolidity).
In other words, you should be pained for your neighbor when his slave breaks his cup. Maybe his grandmother left him that cup, and he's developed many fond memories around which he drank a soothing beverage in that heirloom. That empathy how we connect with people, build meaning, and make life richer.
My initial reaction was to disagree, but the man did allegedly take in an abandoned infant. And a woman to care for it[1]. And, our readings[2] of that quote (acceptance vs altruism) aren't in any way incompatible.
[1] You absolutely don't want to be a single woman in 1st century AD.
From just the quote above, I understand more as something intermediate : don't be pained when your cup is broken, like if it it was the cup of some else but be pained when someone else wife or child die, like if it was your
There will always be enemies and corrupt people. We need to establish a system of government and culture that doesn't so easily give over the reigns of the nation to these bad actors. If we don't actively do this we will long for the good old days when the corrupt leaders just wanted to steal money for themselves and hurt trans people.
for what is Maduro an enemy of the US. He wasn't willing to sign over the oil reserves to US oil companies. wanting to keep what is theirs away from rapacious foreign invaders would make most of the planet an enemy of the US.
I doubt Vance is capable of getting the support from Congress and the maga voters that Trump has. Once Trump is gone, the Republican party is going to have a hard time putting itself back together.
Meanwhile, the individual upthread suggesting they’d support a foreign power invading the US and capturing Trump is the ridiculous, childish, and deeply unserious brand of self-loathing that we are voraciously (and necessarily, if our country is to survive) opposed to.
You, personally, might, but I think it's going to be a clusterfuck. You can't stick a different person in a cult of personality and expect it to act the same.
I respect Buffett greatly on a professional level, and think it's the height of arrogance to believe any one of us personally has the moral right to decide which level of lawful activity becomes turpitudinous greed.
THAT SAID...
My uncle (he's 98) had a passing acquaintance with Buffett during their overlap at Penn, and in the one econ class they shared, he remarked having heard Buffett say in almost salivating eagerness as he rubbed his hands that if only there could be another Great Depression, he would make a killing. The dude has value investing in his DNA beyond anything else, I truly believe. But he's argued for changing complex and unfair taxation, and always been a good citizen as far as I can tell. I think if all of Wall Street were like him, the world would be a much better place.
People with a lot less economic knowledge than Buffet still understand that another Depression could easily render them jobless and unable to pay a mortgage on a cheaper house. Wishing for a housing market downturn is not the same as a widescale GDP pullback.
With $150 billion dollars he could have done a lot more than "argue for" changing taxation. If he had spent that money actively fighting for a better system, maybe that'd be worth something. To sit back on your billions and say "aw shucks, this really shouldn't be possible" is not much of an effort.
Edit: Some people seem to be misunderstanding me. I'm saying if he thought taxation was unequal or thought wealth inequality was a problem, he could have used his wealth specifically to fight against billionaires like himself, not just give money towards generic charitable causes.
It seems buffet has taken “the giving pledge” along with Bill Gates and others. “More than 99% of my wealth will go to philanthropy during my lifetime or at death.” - https://www.givingpledge.org/pledger/warren-buffett/
I was responding to a comment that defended Buffet by saying he "argued for changing complex and unfair taxation". I'm saying if you have billions that could be spent on taking tangible action to change such taxation, simply "arguing for" changing it is not very impressive.
> if you have billions that could be spent on taking tangible action to change such taxation
Do you have evidence he didn’t try? He’s been a prolific (albeit measured) donor to candidates who have pushed for this [1].
From what I can tell, Buffett enjoyed making money. He outsourced his philanthropy to Bill & Melinda Gates. Their focus has tended to be global poverty.
Those numbers are a pittance relative to his wealth. He could have established a foundation and given it hundreds of millions of dollars specifically to push for a more equitable taxation system. He did not do that.
He turned 95 years old on August 30. He was 75 when he began giving away his fortune, announcing plans in June 2006 to give away the bulk of his wealth to five foundations, primarily the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He changed his will in 2024, designating 99.5% of his remaining fortune after his death to a charitable trust overseen by his three children and also announcing in June 2024 that donations to the Gates Foundation would cease upon his death.
Just think, if that charitable trust is structured correctly, it could be used to pay a modest believable "administration" salary to many many generations of offspring all while paying out some token pittances to make the whole thing seem genuine.
That article seems to accurately describe the charitable activities of Peter Buffett and his NoVo Foundation, but it's worth pointing out that Howard G. and Susan Buffett have charitable foundations of their own that seem to have a more conventional philanthropic approach, one that may perhaps be more amenable to a clearer focus on getting the right outcomes. It seems unwarranted to assume that the description in the article applies to the Buffett children's activities as a whole.
I think you're referring to Scrooge McDuck cash vaults. I'm not aware of any that exist.
Banks do not store their deposits in a cash vault. They loan it out (except for a reserve percentage), and charge interest on the loan. That's how they make money. That's why they offer free checking - so they can loan your money out and charge interest. They will even pay you to deposit your money, so they can loan it out and make money on it.
Wealthy people know how to make money, which means putting the money to productive use creating goods and services that people want. If that money is confiscated from them, there's that much less money creating goods and services people want.
> After working with agent-LLMs for some years now, I can confirm that they are completely useless for real programming.
> They never helped me solve complex problems with low-level libraries. They can not find nontrivial bugs. They don't get the logic of interwoven layers of abstractions.
This was how I felt until about 18 months ago.
Can you give a single, precise example where modern day LLMs fail as woefully as you describe?
As someone with asthma, let me tell you that they _do_ need to get into better shape to breathe better. Part of that is a medically proven practice called pulmonary rehabilitation, but also, regular cardiovascular exercise at different intensities and direct training of the abdominal muscles has a marked improvement both on pulmonary function (to a limit, but even more important as you age) and oxygen utilization from the reduced pulmonary function. Finally, both acid and laryngeal reflux are silent contributors to asthma by introducing acid and pepin into the airways, and weight loss can improve the symptoms of those.
Thank you for sharing this and elaborating on what I've seen firsthand. Another thing we've noticed is that an increase in VO 2 Max, which does take quite a bit of time to change, makes a major difference.
Altitude is another factor, due to dry and colder air and lower oxygen -- a double whammy for asthma.
People also are often unaware that the symptoms of asthma which cause the most concern (dyspnea, tightness, etc.) are less hypoxia and more hypercapnia. Hypoxia in normal people does not feel like breathlessness: it's lightheadedness, low energy, turning blue, etc. Asthma is almost definitionally airway hyper-responsiveness (and relevant structural changes): any fitness intervention that can help improve CO2 expulsion will probably greatly help an asthmatic seek relief. This is also why in acute attacks, pursed lip exhalations can really help.
Question for people who have trouble losing fat (this was never my problem): have you ever tried instead of dieting to just force yourself to eat more fruits, vegetables, and protein daily while also allowing yourself free range in the remaining appetite room to have whatever? The human mind/brain/whatever doesn't do well with deprivation of a high dopamine reward, but what would happen if you started to shift your tastes by insisting that it get used to a more healthful diet as a precursor to getting what it wants?
I ask this because when I was younger, I also had tastebuds warped by hyper-palatable foods, but after incrementally getting my diet to such a clean and optimized place, I literally feel bad even while chewing and tasting something like a donut, heavily salted and oiled potato chips, or candy. It's probably like how I would have felt if I literally mixed a tablespoon of oil and sugar or salt together and swallowed it.
Is it that hard to shift the system toward better habits by incremental introduction of better ones, and crowding out the bad? Exercise helps here, because once you begin to enjoy fitness, you get a stronger feedback loop with the bad food creating bad outcomes.
I feel like they should try the potato diet. I recommend it, not because I believe it is effective (it wasn't for me), but because it is very good at removing the pleasure from eating. When you are eating to survive, you will come to understand how what being sated is. From there, I found I could lose weight because I had broken the habit of eating for any other reason than to fuel myself. Although, admittedly, I enjoyed losing weight this way better than the potato diet.
With some people, I think they have just lost what being sated feels like.
I remember seeing browser extensions that would preload links to show thumbnails. I was thinking about zip bombing crawlers then realized the users of such extensions might receive zip bombs as well.
I mean I have noticed that some crawlers / html analysis tools don't handle this scenario, but it seems like such a low bar not sure why it is worthwhile doing it.
Do you have any idea how much Chinese economic leverage has caused Hollywood to censor against CCCP criticism?
As for Iran, we have a literal embargo, so it's not quite the same.
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