I see a lot of people put so much stock in a future of local models, but I am not convinced we’re on track for a world where most people are running local models. Especially when you have companies like Microsoft explicitly trying to make a world people don’t even own their software/hardware anymore and do everything on the cloud.
This back and forth is the entire issue if you ask me. Whoever you ask in the administration on any given day is going to say the tariffs exist for different reasons. It’s on purpose though - it’s so whoever is arguing for the admin can curate the answer.
Don’t like the cost? It’s a negotiation tactic. Want manufacturing back? That’s what it’s doing actually, it’s definitely a longterm play to bring it back. Worried about the debt? The tariffs are going to be a huge, permanent revenue generator that gets back at countries that “cheated” us. It can't be all these as multiple elements contradict each other.
I’ll take my Fox News slot now please and thank you.
$500 is 5x what it cost less than a year ago, just for context. It turns a $1600 computer build into a $2000 one. That’s a huge difference.
Edit: I don’t get your math. If we’re using a very generous definition of “top end,” even neglecting Nvidia and going AMD - which some would argue makes it not top end - you’re talking conservatively: $600 for a GPU, $500 for 32gb of ram, and $500 for a CPU. $1600 before PSU, case, SSD, fan(s), mobo…there’s no world in which you’re coming in under $2k. The SSD and board will put you over immediately.
You’re talking 3/2025 prices, not 3/2026. A compromise, mid-range computer is $1500 to build now.
Look at my comment above and see what i said about my build. I was unwilling to pay that for a moderate build that can sustain my computer use. Utilize bundles that can save you $ on RAM or chipset, CPU to skip some of the costs.
You aren't specific in your comment. Where are these bundles? What do you do with all the parts you don't need/end up swapping out? How much are you actually saving?
That was not my point entirely; my point that citing prices from 2000s and comparing with modern ones |(with indexing about 2x times), regardless of underling reason is either a demonstration of lazyness or innumeracy, or even worse - an attempt to manipulate.
It’s not laziness, innumeracy, or manipulation when it can be taken at face value that the cost increase vastly outstrips anything that could be attributed to inflation. You don’t even need to look it up to know that.
> when it can be taken at face value that the cost increase vastly outstrips anything that could be attributed to inflation
But that was not my point _whatsoever_. What I said is - every time you bring the explicit numbers (like in GP "$500 for 32GB is about $15/GB which is a high we haven't seen since the mid-2000s") you _absolutely_ have to adjust for inflation to have a meaningful conversation. This is it.
Would you though? As somebody else pointed out it could be a good public works/job creation program. You could probably put 4-5 people to work cleaning up a year for less than 1 cop. I’m kind of making up numbers here but I feel like that can’t be too far off what with salary, pension, equipment, etc.
A few hundred people dedicated to taking care of litter would likely make a difference anywhere. You can get that for far less than $6 billion. You could pay 1000 people $1000/day to do it and you’d be at $365mill.
China does it well. You can't get unemployment benefit, but if you can turn up for work sober every day and are prepared to do menial work, you are guaranteed a job.
Chinese cities are clean and tidy, not because people don't litter - they litter much worse than Americans or Europeans, from what I've seen - but because someone is paid to clean up the litter.
This works best when you pair it with promoting personal responsibility, otherwise you have to be careful it doesn't lead to the mindset of "I can throw this on the ground because it's somebody else's job to pick it up."
People already throw things on the ground because it’s somebody else’s job to pick it up. It’s a culture issue broader than simply “personal responsibility.” People in the US don’t like to be inconvenienced or we tend to shriek about personal freedoms.
In the US you likely need wildly punitive measures - not just small fines - to deal with the issue. Also would fall along party aligns with minutes and become a partisan issue immediately.
Yes well-executed public awareness programs can shift culture over several years (this campaign is over 40 years old wow!) but we also need to clean up what's there now and what will continue to accrue until that shift occurs.
I would be more than happy to see my city or state tax dollars put towards a cleanup initiative. We have a particularly fragile ecosystem
Even just seeing people cleaning up is enough to begin to change perceptions, because it turns it from an impersonal action to a personal one - "I'm throwing this wrapper on the ground" vs "I'm throwing this wrapper on the ground for old Joe to pick up."
We can all be the change we want to see, even if it's just a minor effort.
Around here major cleanups are done by some of the local "community groups" but they also have a department of parks that does some additional to named trails.
My question to you is: how are you assessing the costs? Do you know how many crimes have been stopped as a result of these cams? Do you know the extent to which our privacy is being lost and our data is being used against us or others?
I take into account publicly available information (news articles), factor in personal anecdotes, and reason about human nature and incentives. I know the extent of reported abuses, and I do my best to extrapolate. It's not perfect, but such is life.
To be clear, even if we all agreed on the data, I still would not expect everyone to take the same position. There are subjective differences in values.
Flock has put out a report claiming 10% crime in the US is solved using their technology. There are of course counter argument, that claim this is not valid.
reply