The US can share blame, but why should it bear the whole blame, esp since a large chunk of the American population doesn't want this war, whereas it appears that Israeli society largely does back it?
Far right parties are gaining ground everywhere from France to Germany to Italy to Japan. But go ahead tell me that humanist universalism is actually what’s on the upswing.
I have seen a lot of your posts on here about political topics, and they are always disingenuous, misleading, and geared towards providing a thin veneer of reasonability over any form of morality.
> If Congress doesn’t want AI-powered killing machines, they’re the ones who have the right to make that call.
You have it backwards, and you know it. If Congress wants to invoke natsec concerns to force companies to sell to the federal government, then they have to explicitly say so, and any such legislation and exercise of execute power pursuant thereto would be heavily litigated.
> The government can make you go over to southeast Asia and kill people personally. It’s totally incompatible with that to say companies should be allowed to veto the use of their technologies in war.
Yes, it's legal to have drafts, but that's not relevant, and also includes certain exceptions for conscientious objectors. It doesn't matter if its paradoxical or ironic that an individual could be pressed into military service whereas a private company doesn't have to sell stuff to the federal government.
> geared towards providing a thin veneer of reasonability over any form of morality
Arguing “morality” is usually pointless. There’s no need for discussion among people who agree on what’s moral. But where they don’t agree, invoking morality won’t get anyone anywhere.
It’s more productive to instead explain how certain policies follow from moral principles that we may not agree on, but we can at least acknowledge are broadly held in society.
> You have it backwards, and you know it. If Congress wants to invoke natsec concerns to force companies to sell to the federal government, then they have to explicitly say so
Congress did that back in 1950, with the Defense Production Act.
For me the books have depth that the TV series doesn't – and can't – have: some of the plots are dumbed down a bit to give more visual impact, and of course you don't get the same depth of characterisation, or the insights into Lamb's and the others' pasts because much of it comes out in interior monologue, and it's much harder for the shows to, erm, show.
And you miss one of the glories of Herron's writing: as a stylist is on a par with Terry Prachett for cramming wisdom into short witty phrases. He is very good at memorable phrases skewering contemporary life, and particularly politicians. The shows bring some of this out, but there's only so much that you can do in dialogue.
Take this passage from the first book:
> Peter Judd. PJ to his friends, and everyone else. Fluffy-haired and youthful at forty-eight, and with a vocabulary peppered with archaic expostulations – Balderdash! Tommy-rot!! Oh my giddy aunt!!! – Peter Judd had long established himself as the unthreatening face of the old-school right, popular enough with the Great British Public, which thought him an amiable idiot, to make a second living outside Parliament as a rent-a-quote-media-whore-cum-quiz-show-panel-favourite, and to get away with minor peccadilloes like dicking his kids’ nanny, robbing the taxman blind, and giving his party leader conniptions with off-script flourishes. (‘Damn fine city,’ he’d remarked on a trip to Paris. ‘Probably worth defending next time.’) Not everyone who’d worked with him thought him a total buffoon, and some who’d witnessed him lose his temper suspected him of political savvy, but by and large PJ seemed happy with the image he’d either fostered or been born with: a loose cannon with a floppy haircut and a bicycle.
Herron, Mick. Slow Horses: The bestselling thrillers that inspired the hit Apple TV+ show Slow Horses (Slough House Thriller 1) (p. 187). (Function). Kindle Edition.
That is a brilliant piece of characterisation, and if you know anything about British politics, you know exactly who he's describing, and how accurate a character assassination this is. The TV show's Peter Judd goes out of its way to make the character a lot more generic – their Judd is merely 'typical cynical nasty venal politician' and it loses a bit of force accordingly.
Or take the set piece descriptions which start every book: they recreate the seedy world of Slough House in a way that the shows can only hint at.
Not to say the shows aren't very good – they are one of the best things on TV – but the books are even better.
Yeah, I mean he has a lot of really strong flaws that almost seem purposefully to put one off (which could be his whole angle, who knows), but between his drinking, terrible health, horrid treatment of his team (who, yes I know, he actually does care for), you're often not on his side, but more eager to see how what he's put in place will unfold.
it does when the goal is not reading per se but consuming books that are available in audio format as well as printed. and increasingly with better TTS tools any text can be converted into audio.
I read hours most every day for decades but audiobooks never worked for me. After ten minutes, I notice my mind has drifted elsewhere and I didn’t listen to anything that was said. Funny how it takes me lots of effort to concentrate on listening but seemingly no effort to read (or watch movies). I hope my eyesight stays with me for a long time.
that happens to me if i have lots on my mind or if the story is not very engaging. the reading style can also be factor (sleepy voice :-)
i believe part of the issue is that our eyes are our primary source of input. we can control what we see by the direction where we look, or we can close our eyes. we can not control hearing in the same way, and therefore we instead learn to focus or not focus on specific sounds. but that happens much more subconsciously than how we control our eyes, therefore it can happen even if we don't intent to. (ok, when you are deep in thought you can also gaze into nothingness without closing your eyes, but that's less common)
If you're a parent of a recent college grad who is on Hacker News, haven't you been in tech for some time? I would expect your perspective to include experience seeing at least a couple cycles of economic ups and downs.
> It’s Christmas and we aren’t celebrating. No decorations. No pretending things are okay. I’m completely shattered as a parent, mostly because I don’t have answers. I told her for years that merit would protect her. It didn’t.
This is pretty bonkers on multiple levels. IDK what your family's overall situation is, but based on what we can infer, your family is not in economic jeopardy. If I'm mistaken, then I apologize, but it seems you are just one of the many, many families with an unemployed recent college grad, and if you're positing on HN, I assume you and your wife are doing at least adequately.
I don't understand how you, as a grown man, could be under the illusion that "merit would protect her" or that somehow graduating from a good school guarantees someone anything, or how you could lack the perspective that this is temporary and less important than health, family, etc.
Nobody is above broader, universal developments and forces, whether economic vicissitudes or worse (war, societal collapse, etc.) Your arrogance in thinking that "merit" could protect an individual from these things is justly punished.
I also went to a top school, and there is also something to be said about your daughter's lack of resilience and naiveté here, but she's a ~22 year old girl, so that's acceptable. From you, this is not, IMO.
Your entire view of the world was mistaken and brittle, and reveals a stunning lack of value placed on things other than career and such, but the good news is that it's much better than you seem to be stuck thinking right now. Economies get good again, and your daughter is in a better position than many because she at least had one job and has a good CV.
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