Evinceo

You must understand, Sam, that the utility in deterring future Sams from doing what you did is massive. Astronomical even, if you think of how many companies could embezzle money in a solar system full of virtual beings. So I have no choice but to lock you up; your temporary suffering in the present is so small as to be irrelevant.

Sort of an aside, but let's soap box about why the Lab Leak theory is a thing:

What I don't get about lableak enthusiasts is why they insist that it's not just a lab leak, but also a lab leak of an other than natural virus. Hell, if you wanted to try and fit the facts but still explain the spooky coincidence, envision a just-so scenario where someone caught (proto) covid while collecting samples in a cave, went back to work at the lab, infected everyone while buying groceries at the market.

Nobody makes up a story like that! It's always a credibility-straining cover-up paired with claims about an engineered virus that don't fit the facts. That makes me think they don't care about the facts at all, and instead just really want to be able to blame something-anything-besides their own countrys' ineffectual responses to the virus for the death and mayhem.

Lab leak is a slight of hand, but don't be fooled; how patient zero happened isn't relevant for the purposes of evaluating how a certain very popular right wing someone managed to fall down flat the one time he was actually called upon to act as a leader.

<Captioned image of Miyazaki: Computer was a mistake -- Alan Turing>

Has he done anything but blog, microblog and lispturbate since he sold his E Commerce site?

Techbro was originally used to describe the type of men who made it difficult for women in tech, then somewhere along the line the general public realized the same dudes were also making it difficult for lots if people in lots of places.

If tech folks never actually acted like frat bros, the bro appellation never would have happened. I've worked in offices with Kegs cor crissakes.

Least annoying A/B test.

This guy's idea of thermodynamics is basically... he thinks that speed running universal heat death is... the highest calling of life?

Kinda the slowest and least exciting way to annihilate the universe, but it seems to exist mostly to justify irresponsible energy use.

Be careful, one us might escape the confines your imagination.

Isn't he paying for Twitter now? He has the blue check. He could actually save money by not posting.

Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising Larry Ellison.

I genuinely wonder if years of training one's self to be "rational" makes you forget how fundamental stories are to the human experience. Journalists write stories about real life, for good or ill. If something happens in real life but isn't a story, it doesn't get printed. "Random lady plagiarized her thesis" is not a story, but "lady related to major plagiarism story also plagiarized her thesis" is a story.

His observation that EA suddenly got piled on is missing a more subtile point: lots of the coverage of EA was probably an extension of the tech beat and thus benefitted from the access journalism and rosey-glasses'd that was rampant in the early aughts before a more critical eye was cast in the last few years. Tech Won't Save Us does a good job explaining the phenomenon (ctrl+f "access" in the transcript) in part of its Musk series.

Scott is to Journalists as other Scott is to Women.