This isn’t what they want to happen. They know it will happen, but this isn’t the goal or objective.

Amazon is a big boy company, if they want to cut staff, they’ll cut staff. The problem with cutting staff this way, is that they don’t get to decide who they’re cutting. They don’t want to cut talented employees at random, they want to pick the low performers and let them go. This is kind of the opposite of that.

The higher skilled the employee is, the more likely they are to have been hired remote, and to feel they can find another job also. That means they’re effectively shooting themselves in the foot and getting rid of some of their talented employees for the benefit of bringing people into the office.

There has been a swing in the business opinion that work from home isn’t as efficient. This is basically the higher-ups falling in line with that opinion.

Technology has moved from nitch nerdy thing to general public usage and as it did so it became usable without knowing what’s going on. Gen Z doesn’t know shit about technology, they just know how to use it.

When I was a kid, if you wanted to get a computer working you had to screw with the RAM settings or build the computer yourself from components. If you didn’t know how to do this you talked with someone who did. I’ve forced my kids to learn at least some of this, but the idea that they’re more tech savvy is ridiculous. They’re users of tech, but it’s become too complicated (and more user friendly), so they don’t know what’s happening behind their screen.

As an engineering manager, I’ve already received AI cover letters. Don’t do that. They suck. They get “round filed” faster than no cover letter at all. It’s insulting.

(Realistically if I couldn’t tell the difference then it would be fine, but right now it’s so fucking obvious.)

I would rather pay an ad-block company a monthly subscription than give it to YouTube in blackmail. This will just be another salvo in a never ending war.

Yeah, guilty as charged and I don’t even mind.

I buy the games on sale if I play them then good for me, if I don’t then I supported developers. I see no problem here.

You understand me correctly and correctly predicted my response. Your last paragraph is the interesting part however.

Imagine you have an AI. It’s a fully functional self aware AI. Let’s call this software “Bob”. From one instance to the next, this software is just memory and processing inside a computer. It is aware of it’s place in the universe to the same extent we are. Let’s say you pause the CPU. Did you just kill the AI? Of course not. Now lets say you make a perfect copy of the AI on two separate computers in two separate locations. The AI asks me “which one is the ‘real’ me?” My answer is their both the “real you,” but one moment they start processing independently, they’re now two different individuals that deviate from the moment of the copy.

Now lets say you change a stick of memory in the original AI, is that the same entity? If you unplug the memory cards and fly them to another location and plug them back in, is that the same entity? If you FTP the entity from California to Germany and install it on another machine, is that the same entity? It’s all the same answer as making a copy.

We humans are only the sum of the software in our heads. There is no real us, only the code executing line by line in our biological processor. That’s why there is no “real you” in this discussion, only software, and the person on the other side of the transporter is just as much the real you as the copy that’s destroyed. You are just a self-aware program.

I disagree with you, but I don’t know that I can explain it anymore clearly than I already have. There is no metaphysical “you” that exists outside of the software running in your head. You would experience perfect continuity if your body was dismantled and reconstructed. There is no real “you” except the software program that is running on your meat CPU.

Like I said, this is a hard thing to wrap your head around.

I dunno even if there is no you in a metaphysical sense the deconstruction method still ends your personal subjective experience of being you which sucks. Sure the next you might be just as much you as the first one but you don’t get to be around to enjoy that.

But it doesn’t and that’s the point. You are not the collection of atoms that make up your body, YOU are the software program that is running on your brain-computer. The software program can be transferred (or copied) and you are still you. There is no “you” outside of that software.

The real problem with all of this is that people can’t get away from the idea of a soul. Something intangible unmeasurable that is really “us” riding around in a meat-robot. It’s hard for people (me included) to realize that the meat packaging is all that we are. If you destroy My body and recreate it, nothing will have been lost. The continuity within the meat computer in my head is all that I am. There is no “me” outside of that… And that’s a really hard concept to accept and internalize.

But the reality is managers want to pick who gets laid off. It’s not that they want to just cut heads and reduce costs… upper management. may want that… but the actual managers want to keep their best and brightest. They know who the people are who get shit done, and they want to keep those people. Rto tends to have the opposite effect.

The reality is it is often the best employees, the most experienced employees, and some very high level employees who have the most confidence and are most willing to say " screw you, I know I can find a job somewhere else" And give the middle finger to the employer who’s trying to do an RTO plan.

Don’t be fooled by the headlines. Real businesses want to control who they let go. They want to have all the power in the relationship. They want to cut their lower performers and keep their superstars. RTO is about the worst head cutting program you could dream up.

This is the home of Tesla. There are a million EVs here.

I’m in the SF bay area.

The off-hours rate for my electricity is $0.04 cheaper than the prime hours rate. It’s laughable. $0.51 vs $0.47. Why bother even thinking about it at that pathetic difference? It’s certainly not going to change the math much.

It’s shockingly high. I live in the SF bay area and I’m a bit pissed off at how bad we’re getting screwed.

We have a Volvo XC90. Much bigger (and probably heavier) than your Bolt. It gets ~26MPG on the gas only mode. It has an 18.8kWh battery and can go ~30 miles on a charge. So again, bigger, heavier, and less efficient. At $0.50 per kWh, it takes ~$9 for 30 miles, and ~$5.5 in gas to go 26 miles.

That’s all great, but the real thing that will stop it is economics. We have a PHEV and I calculated it out and we pay $8 per gallon equivalent compared to $5.50 for regular gas. That’s a pretty big difference. Right now we ignore the EV part of the vehicle. (Live in California and I pay $0.50/kwh.)

We’re planning on getting solar shortly and that may make it feasible, but until then, it’s not.

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I’ll take a 5 sec delay over ads any fucking day of the week.

I completely agree.

Look that’s nice and all, but it’s not going away and it’s only going to get worse. The age of fake AI porn is only beginning. Full-on porn videos where you can take a couple of photos of someone and the AI will build a model of the person and insert them into the porn video is coming. Whether this is done for laughs, from embarrassment, or because it’s sexy doesn’t matter.

This genie is not going back in the bottle. This is only the tip of the iceberg. We are moving towards an age where you will be able to have virtual sex with anyone you want as long as you have a picture or video of them. VR sex and a porn game that can map someone into a character isn’t that far away. It really doesn’t harm anyone if we quit being such prudes.