Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 06/10/2026also, the idea that no sales are lost with pirated works is simply asinine. The real question is whether those lost sales are a meaningful chunk. artists are allowed to want zero lost sales, their concerns aren't arbitrary with the margins they have. 000
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 06/10/2026like we can get us righteous as we want about copyright but nobody in this conversation actually cares about the legal mechanisms of copyright. they care about the fact that somebody is getting a book for free or not. The use of the copyright mechanism is basically arbitrary. 100
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 06/10/2026we aren't really talking about copyright, we're talking about the ability to download copies of a book without paying for them. copyright is simply the weapon being used to defend against this. The actual problem is digital theft, we just don't have laws that keep up with technology. 100
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 06/10/2026this is too far it's perfectly compatible to say that it's a lost sale and that the poor should not be locked out of culture because of the inability to pay. the way to reconcile those is to treat artists better not to deny their reasonable concerns. until we have a better way being need to get paid 100
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 06/10/2026in a more fair world we would pay artists a government stipend and the library of Congress would have all works of culture, fiction and non-fiction, available for download from a centralized database for free. we don't live in that world and we aren't close so we have to inch our way there 021
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Access to culture shouldn't be predicated on whether you can pay, but in the same way you should want the people who produce culture to be able to make a living. Pirate when you can't pay and pay when you don't need to Pirate, simple as. it only gets sticky with nonfiction I think. 121
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 05/10/2026i promise you they do, they have fully dehumanized these people. 0160
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 05/10/2026i think this is dramatically underrating code, and i say this as someone who is sympathetic to your position even if i dont like how copyright is being wielded as a weapon in this particular fight. 130
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 04/10/2026so you're saying we should annex alberta for the oil 000
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 03/10/2026when i see this stuff i think of the ministry for the future and its pretty obvious conversation about what we leave behind and what we as a collective owe our descendants. 040
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 01/10/2026if I remember correctly, take polls pretty well when you also state that government take is replacing insurance company take. now those aren't going to be one to one and this entire poll seems to be a glonzo Safari but you have to hunt where the gonzos are, not where you want them to be 010
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026I also think Nick Offerman in devs is very interesting given the current political landscape. would be giving too much away to go into it further but just a good villain that turns out to be a standard type of guy now 001
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026I like Dr. Kern and the humans generally in children of time. a very empathetic version of evil that borders on understandable, which to me is far more common than the black and white variety. overall an amazing book with a very well developed moral quandary at its Center 100
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 27/09/2026when you make the arguments all people hear is ai good because data centers mean ai now i am ambivalent honestly, hunt where the ducks are. glonzo is dead either way, it doesn't matter what gun we use 000
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 27/09/2026bingo, its just this all the way down. this is an ai backlash wearing data center backlash clothing 070
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 27/09/2026this is actually a good example though, many people really really hate ai and are looking for evocative reasons as justification. to them it is at best useless at worst evil, any resources spent in that case are wasted 150
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 27/09/2026people hate ai and water offers an evocative and hard to argue against point. if you say that the water aspect isnt a big deal you look like a psycho to someone who already believes it or who has heard it and is squishy 140
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026I support nuclear power but that's not why they're expensive 000
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026i am loving it. hard to beat awakening for me but this is a close second. if it had more serious romance option its an easy first place 000
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026my pet solutions, like a public job posting agency and incredibly generous UI, are just as unlikely in the current climate. i am not throwing rocks at the process of policy discovery here, just this one in isolation 011
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026i totally agree that digital job markets have completely deranged the job market. If this were part of an overall package of job market reforms, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I also think that at a political level, this needs to be part of a larger project. 110
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026i get that; i don't fault your intentions or even the overall impact. Again, I am just concerned about this policy in isolation and the outliers that would be anywhere from incredibly inconvenienced to absolutely crushed by this 000
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026sure, i am concerned about outliers in a bunch of directions because of the importance of getting a job 210
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026i understand that, i didnt comment or agree with that particular comment. I addressed "limited impact" in another response 000
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026if this was paired with UI reform, whcih you already put forward, or if it was paired with other requirements on the side of the employer like a requirement for prompt response within a given timeframe or a crackdown on bogus job postings, I could begin to get on board but by itself this seems bad 020
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026of positions necessary to actually secure an entry-level job in their field. out of college i probably submitted 200ish apps over 3 months before i got my job. per the OP that $1000 of disposable income over 3 months which seems absurd to me to simply have the right to be able to earn income. 210
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026i can agree that that is bad and worthy of a policy solution, even a punitive one, while still thinking that there will be people left behind here. a college grad making $15/hr as a barista renting in a major metro right out of college doesnt have the resources necessary to apply to the large amount 110
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026you mentioned that the vast vast majority of people will be able to afford this and thats probably true. jobs are a bedrock basic need, nothing below 100% is acceptable. any rule to this effect should be worded in such a way that *literally no one* will be excluded; jobs are that critical 120
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Wouldn't needing a job to live make the demand inelastic in a similar way that everyone needs food, water and shelter? People won't stop applying to jobs until they get one, no matter the cost, if they dont have one. Will this affect finding a new job while employed? Sure, but that's not enough 230
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 21/09/2026and mandatory public education refers to the mandatory education of children supported by the state not mandatory public schooling over private or homeschooling although, yes, we should also have that but one step at a time 000
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 21/09/2026yes 100% this should be implemented with 2 more years of mandatory public education via community colleges instead of making kids who have proven competency in the basics pay to take two years of gen eds. 120
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 21/09/2026honestly cable but cheaper, with no box and a fully on demand setup is fine. 120
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 21/09/2026a little recency bias, but these all definitely changed how I played games in their own way 010
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 19/09/2026but if they work differently than they do and download themselves to my mac book air, checkmate etc. 000
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026i also liked making of modern china and gods chinese son. 130
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Wait does she really think you can't be addicted to, let's say, video games or pornography? what's the line for media? 010
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 14/09/2026holy shit yes, you bring this up around people who like Warhammer and they look at you like you're a fucking alien. like yes, I want my story to progress and have stakes 040
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 06/09/2026i think it matters what else they are saying at the same time but i am always down for a popular front 010
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 05/09/2026you cant wonk your way out of a problem that is not policy driven. people hate that ai is a thing, you cant please them by making better DC if the DC still are used for AI 030
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 05/09/2026people hate ai, the data center backlash is an ai backlash that has attached itself to other, legitimate or not, explanations 070
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 31/08/2026i can see this, i am also worried about this being a UN, EU, or American project, for the same reasons i stated below. the more i think about it the more it works becuase i imagine air travel clumps around the lower lats anyway to save travel time and distance 010
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 31/08/2026flights will be over the equatorial global south could spiral into a very nasty and not totally unjustified narrative that we are polluting the south to save the north from the perils of the climate crisis that the north created. that will have some ugly bipartisan valence. 020
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 31/08/2026we are already gonna have knock on effects and some unknown unknowns that will hurt political will to continue but if we compromise on altitude, even where we can reasonably do so, those effects will be in addition to the now pretty substantial SO2 pollution effects. paired with the fact that most 110
Benson Flinn @bensonflinn.bsky.social · 31/08/2026yeah, there are ways we can tweak it to make it work better and we do have evidence, like low-sulphur shipping, that even in the extremely low atmosphere we can get some desirable effects. my worry is that if we dont go full stratospheric injection from the start we arent gonna keep doing it. 110