(which of course would need to account for the cost to the end user of constant rug-pulling, enshitification, github struggling to maintain one 9 of availability, privacy invasion, rampant mental health issues and political division from profit-based social media, etc)
It was forced by the interviewer for a clickbait flair. The headline ought to be "NYT would like to remind you that life is a meaningless farce":
Interviewer: There’s a holistic observation I want to make about our conversation. You talked about how the best times in your life were when your kids were little. Those times are over. You said the art form you love the most, sketch comedy, is a young man’s game. That’s over for you. Life? It’s a farce.
For real. The headline ought to be "NYT would like to remind you that life is a meaningless farce":
Interviewer: There’s a holistic observation I want to make about our conversation. You talked about how the best times in your life were when your kids were little. Those times are over. You said the art form you love the most, sketch comedy, is a young man’s game. That’s over for you. Life? It’s a farce.
It's very inaccurate/loaded as a political post, but the choice of colors makes the intent fairly obvious.
Politically speaking, in the US where everything is rigged by corporate media and a uniparty of capital interests with red/blue facades (where blue manufactures consent for red every step of the way), the only winning move is to not play.
Interestingly there are variants of the question where "no one pushes any button" should also be a "winning condition". The original problem states "if less than 50% of people press the blue button only people who push red survive" which rules this out, but it could be changed to "if greater than 50% of people choose red, then only red pushers survive" (allowing for people to opt to be a non-pusher). Or it could be "if greater than 50% of people choose red, then only blue pushers die" (with the non-pushers also being spared).
I think the latter is more interesting since now there's a moral consequence to voting vs abstaining.
Or you could lean into the political framing. I bet if the vote were retaken with question phrased as "if greater than 50% of people choose red, then people who pressed blue die", you might end up with some switchers who vote purely out of spite. Or maybe that framing makes it feel like voting red has a more significant moral consequence (actively condemning people to death) that the original question doesn't, so it results in more people pressing blue.
You could even add in a penalty if you press a button but are a non-majority, but then that's just the prisoners dilemma.
Yes, the selfish-minded would end up with more selfish-minded people, and they'd be confused why their "low trust society" became even more low trust overnight.
Confusingly, though, as you are of course a nice person, if you vote red you'd demonstrate that some red voters are nice, and then the choice is less severe. Then voting red is like "I embrace humanity, warts and all", while voting blue is like "I cannot tolerate sharing the planet with anyone even slightly impure".
"Empathy" isn't a binary in this context. You can exercise empathy and aid your community by making sure everyone you know votes red. That's the kind of cooperation that humans have evolved with. What you're talking about is undifferentiated, universal empathy, where someone would be willing to risk the lives of those close to them for a greater chance to help those who are outside their immediate reach to persuade.
I suspect if you played this game, lots of tight-knit, high-cooperation groups would undertake coordinated campaigns to ensure the survival of their members by ensuring everyone votes red.
Well that's exactly how empathy plays out in real life. It's not an abstract feeling. People often put their lives at stake for others, which is something game theorists can't really appreciate.
> It wouldn't be the first time tech gossip rags would take something Mozilla did out of proportion to make outrage videos about that become a hit on Reddit.
Sounds like the issue here is paid social media platforms, where everybody is looking for ways to differentiate their slop from the rest. It would be weird to expect a different outcome.
> I feel like it's people who just like the google integration in Chrome and want an excuse to run it, even though they feel like they should use Firefox because it's more compatible with their world view
What world view is this? Considering that Mozilla is a puppet Google basically owns if you look at where the funding comes from.
Point #2 ought to be good reason for us to move past our archaic consumption-based economies into something where less consumption isn't considered a "problem."
The assumption that a company must grow forever is a trap, IMO. If you aren't beholden to produce returns for investors, there's nothing wrong with hitting a goal and then calling it a day.
We mistake equilibrium for failure. If you're earning a good living and operating sustainably, there's no reason to continue to extract more and more wealth. We really need to decouple the idea of success away from a requirement of endless YoY growth.
Not every business or product needs to go on for ever. I think there's still plenty of value in a finite project. Ship your product, hit your financial goals, then retire or move on.
That's a good start, but even that path has problems if orgs follow it as prescribed and do "too well" at it.
Let's say your appliance is so well built that it lasts for generations: Great for the consumer, great for the environment, but not so great for the business that is no longer sustainable under a traditional economy.
Why should we settle for this gaping built-in flaw of traditional economics when better ones could replace them?
(which of course would need to account for the cost to the end user of constant rug-pulling, enshitification, github struggling to maintain one 9 of availability, privacy invasion, rampant mental health issues and political division from profit-based social media, etc)
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