Dimos wrote on 2026-09-28, 21:53:

You are using the Titan Xp with Windows Xp?

Was, couldnt get it working properly to be fair...
Running an EVGA GTX 960 and put the Titan to work on an LLM machine, which it isnt very good at either...
Couldnt get the WiFi card to work either but I just pulled that and went the old fashioned route.

What is wrong with the quotation on this board now?
This site has been nothing but problems for days now.

ElectroSoldier wrote on Yesterday, 14:54:

This site has been nothing but problems for days now.

403 Forbidden - please fix this bug

The Solutor wrote on Yesterday, 14:57:

ElectroSoldier wrote on Yesterday, 14:54:

This site has been nothing but problems for days now.

403 Forbidden - please fix this bug

Yeah I know I cant browse the site without dev tools panel open.

gaffa2002 wrote on Yesterday, 00:56:

Is that so? Depending on where you live, companies resort to literal slavery and child labor to make their products.
Plus why would they need goons if they can control you in far more efficient ways anyway (change laws, control the police, supplies, technology)?
Thats a complex discussion… in pure economics the definition of “free” is just that nobody points a gun to your head or creates a law that forces you to buy something, but real life is far more complicated than that… is it really a free choice if you need a product to survive and there is only one person offering it? What choice do I truly have?

Yeah and that's not a free market then.

"Free market" is mostly a theoretical idea that rarely exists in practice. It has existed in a few times and places in recent history.

It's also not the be all end all. There should be moral restrictions placed on companies. Most people simply disagree about which moral code should be followed there.

I'm just saying in order to actually be considered a "free market", there has to be total absence of coercion for all parties.

Also you mentioned companies having control over laws, the police, etc. - that's why rule of law is so important to a functioning society. You have to have a way to enforce things such as "companies cannot force you to buy a product", and that way is the courts. Etc.

Of course every system is prone to corruption, because mankind is corrupt. All you can do is try to build in as many safeguards against it as you can. Checks and balances. Another way to fight corruption is to ensure that your nation produces and rewards high quality, moral people who are then funneled up to positions of power. That's very difficult to achieve though.

keenmaster486 wrote on Yesterday, 16:53:

Yeah and that's not a free market then. […]
Show full quote

Yeah and that's not a free market then.

"Free market" is mostly a theoretical idea that rarely exists in practice. It has existed in a few times and places in recent history.

It's also not the be all end all. There should be moral restrictions placed on companies. Most people simply disagree about which moral code should be followed there.

I'm just saying in order to actually be considered a "free market", there has to be total absence of coercion for all parties.

Also you mentioned companies having control over laws, the police, etc. - that's why rule of law is so important to a functioning society. You have to have a way to enforce things such as "companies cannot force you to buy a product", and that way is the courts. Etc.

Of course every system is prone to corruption, because mankind is corrupt. All you can do is try to build in as many safeguards against it as you can. Checks and balances. Another way to fight corruption is to ensure that your nation produces and rewards high quality, moral people who are then funneled up to positions of power. That's very difficult to achieve though.

The current status is way worse than the usual corruption (intended as bribery of few or a lot of politicians).

Here the big corps are keeping the US economy afloat, and be sure that no politician (no matter how honest or dishonest he is) will harm seriously any of such corporations.
After all Americans think about themself first as Americans, then as Democrats, Republicans, Catholics, Protestant, whatever. The number of flags waived for no sane reason, everytime, everywhere, is just a small indication of that.

In short I believe there is no way out of the current situation. Unless something of really big happens, like a war, a 1929 style crisis or whatever else.

keenmaster486 wrote on Yesterday, 16:53:

Yeah and that's not a free market then. […]
Show full quote

gaffa2002 wrote on Yesterday, 00:56:

Is that so? Depending on where you live, companies resort to literal slavery and child labor to make their products.
Plus why would they need goons if they can control you in far more efficient ways anyway (change laws, control the police, supplies, technology)?
Thats a complex discussion… in pure economics the definition of “free” is just that nobody points a gun to your head or creates a law that forces you to buy something, but real life is far more complicated than that… is it really a free choice if you need a product to survive and there is only one person offering it? What choice do I truly have?

Yeah and that's not a free market then.

"Free market" is mostly a theoretical idea that rarely exists in practice. It has existed in a few times and places in recent history.

It's also not the be all end all. There should be moral restrictions placed on companies. Most people simply disagree about which moral code should be followed there.

I'm just saying in order to actually be considered a "free market", there has to be total absence of coercion for all parties.

Also you mentioned companies having control over laws, the police, etc. - that's why rule of law is so important to a functioning society. You have to have a way to enforce things such as "companies cannot force you to buy a product", and that way is the courts. Etc.

Of course every system is prone to corruption, because mankind is corrupt. All you can do is try to build in as many safeguards against it as you can. Checks and balances. Another way to fight corruption is to ensure that your nation produces and rewards high quality, moral people who are then funneled up to positions of power. That's very difficult to achieve though.

I think I got what you mean now... you are talking about the literal (theoretical) definition of a free market. So to be clear, I am not blaming the current situation to us BEING in a free market (because it's honestly contradictory and impossible to achieve). My problem is with the IDEA of a free market being used as justification to not have more severe legislation against companies.

gaffa2002 wrote on Yesterday, 18:04:

I think I got what you mean now... you are talking about the literal (theoretical) definition of a free market. So to be clear, I am not blaming the current situation to us BEING in a free market (because it's honestly contradictory and impossible to achieve). My problem is with the IDEA of a free market being used as justification to not have more severe legislation against companies.

Keep in mind those companies also crave regulation when they get large enough, because they have teams of lawyers to deal with it while smaller companies (their competitors) can't handle it and sell out to the big guys.

And then that regulation ends up being of an unproductive and irrelevant nature, simply gumming up the wheels for no good reason other than politicians think they're doing something good and the big companies can pretend they're being oh so morally upright.

Instead we could just have basic normal restrictions like "don't dump sewage in the river" but it ends up being a nightmare bureaucratic disaster that no one can navigate except for Amazon.

I would usually object to political talk but this seems to fall into the realms of fantasy much like fantasy football teams...

Instead of building the pc from the best parts its like build the last crap system from what you have?

The idea that the only way to change it is with a crash or war or other such disaster points more to an exhaustion of ideas rather than a solution though.
It's all well and good talking about throwing the baby or with the bath water but you must keep the baby and get rid of the bath water.
Knowledge of what to do
Skillset of how to do it
Enact those in the real world
It's called competence.

ElectroSoldier wrote on Today, 12:01:

The idea that the only way to change it is with a crash or war or other such disaster points more to an exhaustion of ideas rather than a solution though.

Well we are talking of changing the entire world, this is needed to change something, not just voting someone else at the next election, in a single nation

Those fresh ideas you're looking for must be REALLY powerful to really change something globally.

Perhaps what we are facing today is just the confirm that (sadly) what Carl Marx predicted was absolutely correct, and when it did formulate his analysis of the "evolution" of capitalism his ideas were pretty fresh.

The Solutor wrote on Today, 12:10:

Well we are talking of changing the entire world, this is needed to change something, not just voting someone else at the next e […]
Show full quote

ElectroSoldier wrote on Today, 12:01:

The idea that the only way to change it is with a crash or war or other such disaster points more to an exhaustion of ideas rather than a solution though.

Well we are talking of changing the entire world, this is needed to change something, not just voting someone else at the next election, in a single nation

Those fresh ideas you're looking for must be REALLY powerful to really change something globally.

Perhaps what we are facing today is just the confirm that (sadly) what Carl Marx predicted was absolutely correct, and when it did formulate his analysis of the "evolution" of capitalism his ideas were pretty fresh.

I've read his books.
He was wrong in two key areas.

Bloody revolution and excess labour being stolen.
Without those two his ideas are a bit limp.

ElectroSoldier wrote on Today, 14:52:

Without those two his ideas are a bit limp.

I didn't talk about his solutions (which are matter for a different place/discussion) and which were vastly misunderstood/distorted across the decades.

I limited my observation to his analysis that looked perfect a century ago, and looks even more perfect today.

Then if someone has better ideas I'm all ears.

Generally speaking, we *could* have vastly improved access to a wide assortment of things, if naked profiteering was prevented.

A prominent example is medicine. In which a 1000% markup over manufacturing, shipping, warehousing, *AND* amortized research and development, 'is not uncommon'.

See for example, insulin.
https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/the-pr … h-kasia-lipska/

The cost for R&D on bovine insulin was paid back, with interest, decades ago. There is no justification for the 1000 to 10,000% markup, other than 'we control the supply, and this is what you will pay.'

Another is food. In which the USA throws away mountains of the stuff because it contains blemishes. (Nevermind that you wont see any blemishes on things *made into sauces*, or otherwise processed.)

https://time.com/4404312/americans-farm-food- … auty-standards/

Prices for canned foods could be significantly lower than they are now.

effective regulation could help resolve both problems. 'Free marketeers' get rashes and hives at the notion, and argue voiciferously against them.

As for Marx, and why I assert his ideation is unfeasible:

His premise starts from the idea that it is possible to immediately jump from a poorly educated population with little familiarity with automation, automation processes, or in how the energy-economics of largescale production and distribution of products differs from small scale.

It is not. Artisinal, small scale production is a fundamentally different animal from largescale mass manufacture.

It is not possible to just hand people skills.

People who have such skills, want to be compensated for the time and energy needed to attain them. Even in our capitalist system, this is a fundamental problem. Wages do not, have not, and likely will continue to not, have parity with schooling costs required to produce the requisite labor pool. This is fundamentally why 'college debt' is the societal burden it is. I am mostly pointing out here, that the cost to resolve this is not insignificant. You dont get there 'through revolution.'

Additionally, since this disparity in knowledge, and thus ability, is *so large*, and *has such a large impact*, the maxim afforded does not work, as a functional system. (There are too many with needs, and not enough with means)

Which then comes to the last leg, where he proposes a system that is uniformly classless, and where everyone has full and equal access to all resources, and none have greater access.

Due to the prior mentiomed problem, there develops a foundational need by the resulting civic order to compel those who can provide, to do so, without any real compensation.

This in turn, *creates* a favored 'enforcement class', which is directly at odds with the foundational premise.

For marx's communism to work, you need magically ideal humans.

Magically ideal humans *do not exist*.

The point if that even taking the capitalism as a good. It should be based on real results of the companies not about the mood of the markets and artificially inflated gains.

I mean say Ford, needs money to project a new car, you trust them and buy some shares, providing them part of the capital they need.

Then ford produces that car, it sells well, and you the shareholder have the value of your shares increased accordingly.

Perfect, it works!!!

Well it somewhat worked.

The flaw in that mechanism is that you can sell your shares in any moment, you can earn and loose money in minutes, depending factors that nothing have to do with the car.

The moment when help to run a company become, a gambling game, capitalism as it is today has failed, at least has failed for 98% of the population.

To get back with the feet on the ground, the whole thing should be regulated, with a minimum time you need to keep your shares, or at least with a taxation that is inversely proportional to the length of the timeframe while you had the shares in your portfolio.

Something that will be good for the vast majority of the population, but (obviously) not for that bunch of "usual suspects" we know very well.

Something that somewhat existed until that "genius" called Ronald Reagan started demolishing most of the controls, deregulating everything.

The truth is that today no one thinks to the Bolshevic Revolution, but no one think to a bit of reform like the above, as well
A US president that would attempt to reverse what Reagan did, will be assassinated in matter of two days.

That's the point, we are inside a snowball going downhill and no one will stop it.

As I think was obvious, I am a strong proponent of precise, intelligent regulation.

Sometimes such regulation seems inscruitable, because it deals with niche interactions of systems requiring niche knowledge--and the whole 'cost to educate' comes to bear again.

This produces an uneliminatable need to be able to trust leadership with such matters.

However, 'ideal humans do not exist.'

I am of the opinion, that any system that seeks to do the most we can, with what we have, requires honest and proper accounting of *how UNideal* humans actually are, then work backward from there.

wierd_w wrote on Today, 16:49:

However, 'ideal humans do not exist.'

Ideal humans no, humans with ideals yes, they exist, they are less than in the past (and diminishing), but even in the past they were a minority.

Ideals need to be consistent with reality.

Real harm results when they do not.

This is a thing I have thought about a great deal. It's a very bitter pill to swallow, that mankind *has severe, intractible deficits* that must be integrated into the societal calculus. People really want to think humans are the apex of everything.

They do so at their great peril.

wierd_w wrote on Today, 16:49:

As I think was obvious, I am a strong proponent of precise, intelligent regulation. […]
Show full quote

As I think was obvious, I am a strong proponent of precise, intelligent regulation.

Sometimes such regulation seems inscruitable, because it deals with niche interactions of systems requiring niche knowledge--and the whole 'cost to educate' comes to bear again.

This produces an uneliminatable need to be able to trust leadership with such matters.

However, 'ideal humans do not exist.'

I am of the opinion, that any system that seeks to do the most we can, with what we have, requires honest and proper accounting of *how UNideal* humans actually are, then work backward from there.

I agree that we humans aren't perfect, but a lot of what we do was trained and learned from our own society values. We spent many years brainwashed by capitalist ideas saying that wealth is the ultimate virtue and that people who aren't wealthy are just lazy. And before capitalism, people were dealing with other issues like famine or religious dogmas (punished by law), scarcity of all kinds. So excluding psychopaths, people in general do not seem to enjoy being corrupt or taking advantage of others, what people want are the rewards that come from those actions.
My understanding from Karl Marx is that capitalism will eventually colapse because of it's contradictions (seems to be true so far), then there will be a messy period, and then at some point there will be a communist society (no idea how long until that would happen, though). Not because people will be ideal, but because society will improve now that we don't have to deal with scarcity, a given person being ideal or not should be irrelevant.
Even if that's pure BS and never happens, I don't see a problem in aiming for that, even if it is a never ending quest, it's much better than accepting that "we suck" and stop trying.

wierd_w wrote on Today, 17:17:

This is a thing I have thought about a great deal. It's a very bitter pill to swallow, that mankind *has severe, intractible deficits* that must be integrated into the societal calculus. People really want to think humans are the apex of everything.

Sure, but that was also the excuse to keep the status quo., which in turn is part of the problem.

The Solutor wrote on Today, 15:05:

I didn't talk about his solutions (which are matter for a different place/discussion) and which were vastly misunderstood/distor […]
Show full quote

ElectroSoldier wrote on Today, 14:52:

Without those two his ideas are a bit limp.

I didn't talk about his solutions (which are matter for a different place/discussion) and which were vastly misunderstood/distorted across the decades.

I limited my observation to his analysis that looked perfect a century ago, and looks even more perfect today.

Then if someone has better ideas I'm all ears.

And this is where I leave the conversation.
Its not a political forum and I dont want it to be.