nucleative

I was just talking to a Chinese friend who works for a company that sells various goods on amazon.

He told me they budget to buy between 50 and 100 fake reviews for every single product they launch.

He said that without the fake reviews, the products will never start to sell on their own.

Whether to blame Amazon or blame the sellers, I'm not sure. But Amazon writes the rules of the game.

Thailand. Private pay.

Take a ride share car to the private hospital.

Greeted by concierge when I walk in. She asks why I'm here and then directs me to another desk on another floor.

Entering the next room feels a bit like a hotel lobby. There are big sofas and comfortable lighting. It feels cozy even though it's a large space. There's a Starbucks. Another concierge approaches me. I explain why I'm here and I'm sat down and handed an iPad where I can fill in some medical background. They have my record from a previous visit so it's quick. I confirm that I will pay with a credit card instead of using any insurance.

In about 10 minutes I'm brought to a room where a nurse catches my weight and blood pressure. Then I'm brought to the patient exam room.

A few minutes later the doctor comes in and performs his examination. He makes his diagnosis types some notes into his computer. He asks me to come back for a follow-up in one week and pick up my prescription on the way out.

Leaving the exam room, another nurse catches me to hand me the diagnosis paperwork and points me to the pharmacy.

I walk to the pharmacy and hand them my paperwork. They collect my payment for the whole visit and ask me to wait until my name is called to pick up the prescription.

About 10 minutes later the prescription is ready and I'm out the door with a small bag of drugs and about $125 out of my wallet.

The service is comprehensive and everything is available in one building. For this country it's a bit expensive but you feel like you're very well taken care of and it's instant.

If the sentiment in this thread is representative of the population, it seems like theaters no longer have a value proposition. Home theaters are good enough, we have streaming, and we have budget limitations.

In response to the title, he better be driving the competitors vehicles often to understand what they are doing well.

I think this is a classic case of a company being unable to disrupt itself.

Ford makes internal combustion engines. Ford makes F-150s. Undoubtedly every executive, marketing guy, R&D engineer, and factory worker is focused on how many F-150s are being produced and sold. Anybody who shows up to a meeting suggesting they don't sell more F150 is booted out the door (metaphorically).

They probably also thought there's no way a Chinese mobile phone / tea kettle / Wi-Fi router manufacturer could ever kick their ass with a car. Yet here we are.

Ahhhh yes, both the cause and solution to most of life's problems

I'm on board with this way of thinking too. Your opener is poignant - you mean you tried everything already and absolutely nothing works? Well I guess there's no point in this conversation then, is there. Unless you're in need of a complaining session, in which case I can handle that for about 5 minutes until we move to a new topic.

Yeah it matters a lot how the conversation is set up.

Is it "you and I versus the facts"?

Or "you vs me"?

Competent people can disagree and also identify where the facts are missing and the assumptions begin that lead to this. It doesn't have to be a fight if they look at the data as something to discover together.

UBI is probably a good idea but it's coming too slowly for anyone to rely on. Even if UBI is fully implemented, I suspect it will be life sustaining but not a life fulfilling. So humanity still needs to find purpose.

It's hard to imagine a scenario where someone cannot be trained to do something new. Isn't that a core feature of humans?

Next, how shall we define value? I argue that humans can always create some kind of value that machines cannot, even if only because a human is involved.

We still value actual art over AI generated art. We value uniqueness and rarity. We value the faults that are inherent from things that are natural and organic.

Tons of the jobs people did a hundred years ago in developed countries are now gone or have been streamlined down to require fewer people. Yet there are more people on earth now than there ever have been before and arguably worldwide hunger is at its lowest point. So somehow we have figured out how to survive despite vast amounts of automation already. It seems unlikely that our new "AI" tools are going to somehow dramatically disrupt this balance.

I think Gary Ridgway, the green river killer from the Seattle area, famouslygot out of questioning because he seemed honest and unintelligent. The cops didn't think it could possibly be him.

Fuuuuuuuuuuck. Whatever was that guy's problem, it seems unlikely that sniping firefighters would solve any of it.

Social media platforms tend to argue against these rules for profit motivations. So I can see why lemmy wouldn't be on their side.

But these kinds of laws can also restrict usage of social media in strange ways. Do you want to post politically in opposition to the ruling party? Hate speech. Do you want to post about your minority's opposition? Hate speech. You want to post about how the police came and kidnapped your grandma and murdered your dog? Hate speech.

It's really hard to implement this type of content law without throwing away good parts.

I love that MSNBC also included a bunch of other JD Vance meme pics in their video too that you should be careful not to share.