I mean, to some extent, you're not wrong, but if a Democrat were in office right now, we wouldn't be actively fighting the rising tide of solar power.
At present, the bare economics of it, without any subsidies, put solar as the most cost-effective new power capacity to add.
Last year—2025, the first year of Trump's second term—something like 90% of all new generating capacity in the US was solar. Even with his active antipathy toward it.
There no longer needs to be a massive movement willing to pay more for energy just to get it decarbonized. All we need is for the fossil fuel industry and the people in its pay to get out of the way.
> At present, the bare economics of it, without any subsidies, put solar as the most cost-effective new power capacity to add.
Not just more cost-effective for new power.
The operating expenses for a given coal plant are greater than the buildout cost for the equivalent solar+battery plant.
It no longer makes financial sense for coal plants to continue existing in almost all cases. This isn't some environmentalism thing, it's strictly hard math. Fossil energy is no longer viable without taxpayers keeping it on life support.
They don't have a "macOS Lite", and if these were running anything less than full macOS, you can be sure Apple would be positioning them as a new product (or part of the iPad line) rather than as a Mac.
And maybe, just maybe, that fact, once it becomes clear, will make at least a few of the people who assume that Apple desperately wants to lock down macOS realise that that's bullshit and always has been...
When I was in college the exam nanny software required Windows, and not in a VM. (I had a Windows desktop at home, so I just remoted into that to take exams.) This was a few years ago but much less than 15.
Also most "professional" CAD software is Windows-only, which is going to affect a big chunk of engineering majors.
First of all, your timeline is off: A Game of Thrones was published in 1996, and the Game of Thrones series premiered in 2011.
Second of all, even if you were correct, that would only apply to the first book, not the subsequent ones, which were spread out across 1999-2011 (indeed, A Dance with Dragons came out the same year as the TV series premiered).
So perhaps you'd like to pick a different copyright maximalist strawman?
Even if the timeline in the question is off, do you agree with the premise? If Stephen King puts out a novel in 2026, when should I be able to sell photocopies of the novel without paying royalties. 2027?
It’s not being stolen because he would have published it knowing the copyright laws. Also even with copyright laws as they are, selling unlicensed copies isn’t theft. It’s illegal but no stealing is involved.
I'd argue that the question is pretty much what should constitute "stealing" and what doesn't. You're certainly entitled to the opinion that it is, but that's a bit circular in terms of justifying a length of copyright. Not everyone will agree with you on whether it would make sense to consider it "stealing" after a certain length of time.
Looking past that specific word choice, there's an implication here that only the author would have an unbiased opinion on it. I'd argue that they're just as likely to have a bias that would cause them to argue for a policy that is unnecessarily onerous because by the same logic, they're not the ones who would be missing or on anything from it.
You've completely misunderstood the social contract inherent in copyright. There's no theft in adaptation. Copyright is an intentional trade-off by society to incentivise the creation of new works for society's benefit by giving authors a temporary monopoly. Perpetual copyright would obviously maximize the incentives for authors, but harm society by precluding the creation of new works based on the original. Instead, society chooses a limited period where authors can get most of the benefit while trying to keep the period short enough that works remain relevant.
I think it would be very reasonable for copyright to return to its original terms: 14 years, with an optional renewal for another 14.
The vast majority of works make the vast majority of their money during that time frame. Indeed, for some works (like software), it's still probably much too long!
Citing a few wildly extreme outliers as evidence that we should stick with anything remotely resembling the current scheme a) is either disingenuous or betrays a deep misunderstanding of statistics, and b) can only work based on an appeal to emotion derived from growing up under the current scheme and seeing a creator's work as indelibly theirs forever, rather than something that should, once they have been allowed to make a living from it for a reasonable time, become the collective property of all humanity.
Exactly what part of my statement was dog whistling? Can you stop throwing around this serious accusation of antisemitism without any attempt to substantiate your claim?
Making a big deal out of Israelis—especially wealthy ones—having dual citizenship is a classic antisemitic tactic, used to sow the idea that they aren't "real Americans" or their primary loyalty is to another country.
Also: yes, Citizens United is a big problem. But phrasing your comment as if the primary problem with it is "Israeli-American dual citizens" pouring millions of dollars into politics is perpetuating the antisemitic ideas that a) all or most Jews are wealthy, and b) Jews are controlling our country/the world.
Whether or not you meant it as antisemitic, it played directly and very clearly into multiple antisemitic tropes that are frequently used to try to smear and harm Jewish people.
I brought up Israeli-American donors because that’s what is relevant in the context of the story we’re discussing. We are talking about a war many right wing Israelis wanted for decades. If it were a general discussion about Citizens United and I focused on lobbying from only this group, perhaps your argument would have carried water.
Anyway, here’s Trump himself detailing the extraordinary access to White House this lobbying bought Adelsons:
That will definitely be a problem, but I suspect and hope that there will be governing AI models that can be "prompted" with clear and concise instructions that will be demonstrably free of bias towards any group, either by a direct reading or by evaluation with trusted 3rd party models.
If the public does not trust the fairness of the AI prompt, that will hopefully lead to revolution and replacement of the prompt with something more principled, similar to how rigged elections (sometimes) trigger revolutions.
> I do wonder what happens when everyone is using agents for this, though.
Unless one is very cavalier with one's definition of "everyone", this is not going to happen.
There will always be a very significant cohort of people who are emphatically uninterested in replacing their own judgement and composition skills with an Averages Machine.
Supreme Court decisions are not a deterministic process like you get with code. Justices twist and contradict precedents to suit their ideological goals all the time; these days they don't even try to hide it much. The Citizens United decision wasn't something that had to happen, it was a deliberate choice by conservatives.
I've seen a lot of very rich people* say it's amazing, it's changing my life, it's going to change your lives (it's going to take away all your jobs so we don't have to pay you anymore), we're about to hit the singularity and start a new golden age with it.
I've seen some apparently-smart people say they're using it for all kinds of things and it's doing great for them.
I've seen roughly the same number of apparently-smart people say they've tried it, they've given it a really good shot, but it doesn't work well for them, and in fact, when they tried, it made them less productive.
When I've personally tried it (almost exclusively on local generation), I've found it entertaining, but not reliable enough to use for more than that. And I do not trust any of the hosted models not to take everything I feed them and monetize it, including by selling it to organizations like ICE which I find utterly reprehensible.
So while I'm not bigstrat2003, about me, at least, you're wrong: I am paying attention, and I'm being intellectually honest. I'm also evaluating it for more than just "does this make me more money in the short term?"
* Who just so happen to be heavily invested in AI companies...
At present, the bare economics of it, without any subsidies, put solar as the most cost-effective new power capacity to add.
Last year—2025, the first year of Trump's second term—something like 90% of all new generating capacity in the US was solar. Even with his active antipathy toward it.
There no longer needs to be a massive movement willing to pay more for energy just to get it decarbonized. All we need is for the fossil fuel industry and the people in its pay to get out of the way.
reply