I made the jump to Mint Xfce when MS announced it would stop supporting Windows 7. Pretty seamless transition. I still enjoy that older minimal style reminiscent of the early 00s.
Also — what industrial plan? As far as I can tell, we just have tariffs without a complementary plan to encourage investment, build infrastructure, train workers, reduce labor costs, etc.
I respect him for standing up for his people. It’s honorable, in my opinion. It would be dishonorable (and easy) to be a mercenary, profit-seeking individual with loyalty to no one but himself.
Everyone stands up for their people. Tribalism is the most primitive form of society. Standing for principle is harder because sometimes you have to speak against your tribe.
Yes, it would be dishonorable to be mercenary, but being a tribalist is merely the default position. We’re all so at some scale.
No, not alone, I find GPT far preferable when it comes to fleshing out ideas. It is much deeper conceptually, it understands intent and can cross pollinate disparate ideas well. Gemini is a little more autistic and gets bogged down in details. The API is useful for high volume extraction jobs, though — Gemini API reliability has improved a lot and has lower failure rate than OpenAI IME.
This mirrors the military doctrine of "mission tactics" which entrusts subordinates with wide latitude in executing orders. But it requires a high degree of alignment and competence, which explains why YC focuses on founders over product or idea.
This makes sense in a dynamic environment with sensitive local conditions and "network lag" in the chain of command. But in more static or settled market environments it may be wiser (for investors) to focus elsewhere and restrict founder autonomy. We see this pretty commonly with successful founders who get "phased out" and replaced with more experienced managers.
I wonder how much this sort of "distributed decision-making" has been formalized and studied.
This was eye-opening. I used to think militaries were completely centralized and top-down, but a friend who was an officer explained this to me and pointed me to the literature. It was fascinating and educating to understand the principles behind Mission Command being successful as a method (competence, mutual trust, shared understanding, etc).
> Commanders, staffs, and subordinates ensure their decisions and actions comply with applicable U.S., international, and, in some cases, host-nation laws and regulations. Commanders at all levels ensure their Soldiers operate in accordance with the Army Ethic, the law of war, and the rules of engagement. (See FM 27-10 for a discussion of the law of war.)
It isn't very complicated from a military law perspective. The chain of command (following orders) has a lot more weight on it than a given solder's interpretation of military, constitutional, or international law.
If you believe you are being a given an order that is illegal and refuse, you are essentially putting your head on the chopping block and hoping that a superior officer (who outranks the one giving you the order) later agrees with you. Recent events have involved the commander in chief issuing the orders directly, which means the 'appealing to a higher authority' exit is closed and barred shut for a solider refusing to follow orders.
That doesn't mean a soldier isn't morally obligated to refuse an unlawful / immoral order, just that they will also have to pay a price for keeping their conscience (maybe a future president will give them a pardon?). The inverse is also true, soliders who knowingly follow certain orders (war crimes) are likely to be punished if their side loses, they are captured, or the future decides their actions were indefensible.
A punishment for ignoring a command like "execute those POWs!" has a good chance of being overruled, but may not be. However an order to invade Canada from the President, even if there will be civilian casualties, must be followed. If the President's bosses (Congress/Judiciary) disagree with that order they have recourse.
Unfortunately the general trend which continues is for Congress to delegate their war making powers to the President without review, and for the Supreme Court to give extraordinary legal leeway when it comes to the legality of Presidential actions.
The YPG, an armed anarchist military group, defeated Islamic State in North East Syria and more or less founded their own country without a traditional military command structure. Instead they had loosely coordinated teams.
There is a good book on that subject by Stephen Bungay called "The Art of Action". He explains the concept of Auftragstaktik. Great book, although a bit hard to read.
I think OODA is fundamentally different to Auftragstaktik.
Auftragstaktik describes a clear purpose / intent. Like: capture the bridge (but: we don’t care how you do it since we can’t foresee specific circumstances)
OODA describes a process of decision making.
So, Auftragstaktik answers who decides what and why.
OODA answers how decisions are made and updated over time.
If it focused on founders over product or idea you’d see some actual heterogeneity in the YC set. It has been a few months since I last skimmed the startup lists but it seemed like 95% were LLM for X companies.
"Nelsonic doctrine", for whoever wants to google this concept.
> In war the first principle is to disobey orders. Any fool can obey an order. He ought to have gone on, had he the slightest Nelsonic temperament in him.
Yes, and a big part of the reason labor costs are so high is that living costs are high. The US worker is saturated with debt, fees, payments, rents of every stripe.
The last twenty years of socialism in Venezuela already did that. Have you seen the extreme poverty there? The once nice, now crumbling infrastructure? The Venezuelan people have already had most of their assets stolen.
That's a pretty good reason for these corporations to keep their grubby hands off Venezuela. At least give the people some time to recover, before stepping in to strip mine their economy again.
And when I say 'again', you know that it was the exploitation by US companies that led to Hugo Chavez ascending to power, right?
Venezuela requires billions of dollars to rebuild its pillaged industry and infrastructure. There will be no economic recovery for the people without that. Where should that investment come from?
Venezuela is now an American colony, do you not know how colonialism works? Do you need to read a history book?
We're the ones doing the pillaging. We're going to strip them of what resources they have left, take their wealth for ourselves and leave them with nothing. We're going to make the people an underclass in their own country, serving the rich white colonizers who come in to stay at the luxury hotels and casinos Trump will be building there. Or maybe the Saudis, who knows? The world is full of rich vultures. We'll build data centers over the carcasses of their cities and shoot anyone who wants the water. We're going to rape their women and children.
And then we're going to do it to Cuba. And then maybe Mexico.
You’re describing a hypothetical future, and I’m telling you that all that bad stuff has already been done to the Venezuelan people by the Chavistas. About 90% of the population lives in poverty and 50% in extreme poverty. Maduro’s government shot about two dozen people who had the nerve to protest the last election. Violence against women and children doesn’t get much worse.
What incredible privilege you have to be worried about future labor exploitation at yet-to-be-built resort casinos.
> What incredible privilege you have to be worried about future labor exploitation at yet-to-be-built resort casinos.
This is an incredibly dishonest take on this situation. You ignore the innumerable historical precedents out there. And you call it hypothetical when they have already made it clear that economic exploitation is exactly what they plan to do. Heck! What is the story of this discussion even about? You're displaying willful and selective ignorance here.
> Maduro’s government shot about two dozen people who had the nerve to protest the last election. Violence against women and children doesn’t get much worse.
How did Maduro get into power in the first place? What is the situation in the other natutal resource-rich countries you invaded in the name of freedom? The US didn't spend all that money to invade a nation to replace its dictatorship with something better, did they?
These self-righteous self-aggrandizing justifications are just too disturbing to read. This is one of those harrowing comments that justify utterly reprehensible and psychopathic behavior.
Let's be honest here. Venezuela's people are not going to see any benefit from the investment that US is planning over there, besides some token development to show the international media. Any sort of investment is going to be for pillaging their economy and resources even further. If Trump and his cronies haven't made that clear by now, the history of US involvement in that country in the past is evidence enough. This is neocolonialism - the unholy amalgamation of colonialism and capitalist exploitation. Pretending that this is for the benefit of Venezuelans is just dishonest, to put it mildly.
Geopolitically the US has abandoned world hegemony and is consolidating in the western hemisphere.
Venezuela has massive oil reserves and its leadership has been anti-Zionist since Chavez.
It’s a juicy target close to home, been a thorn for decades, and not as prickly as Iran or Yemen.
But you’re right, it’s noteworthy they are not attempting to sell interventionism to the public anymore. 15 years ago they’d have staged a color revolution and gone with the populist uprising narrative. They seem to have dropped the narcoterrorist narrative already. The use of raw force without moral justification is a sign of decline. The Twitter right is trying to sell this as an imperial / Nietzschean triumph but few are going to buy it.
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