I have learnt that very few in tech hold themselves to a complex moral standard. Most seem to have an attitude like "well company X is offering money, why not take it?" Some seem to genuinely believe large money = large societal value no matter what the job is. Quite blasé and pretty sad.
God most of the "discussion" around housing is such copium by obviously-biased people trying to convince everyone that we shouldn't have access to high quality housing. Yes, in the year 2026, despite all of humanity's achievements, it's of course IMPOSSIBLE to configure any type of society such that housing is decent and fair for all. IMPOSSIBLE, did you hear? Nope, it just won't work. Whatever your reason, you're wrong, society is perfect already and we cannot improve.
And the reasons people try to give... Just hilarious to evaluate from a high level. Oh, no we can't have good housing because supply and demand has determined what we have is optimal. Oh actually even if you did adjust supply and demand, it wouldn't fix the issue anyway, so don't try anything. Ah no you can't have more houses because then how will people commute?! Unsolvable! There aren't enough houses in a reasonable distance from urban centres? God well how about you just build a house in the outback where the supermarket is 200km away then! No we can't have more houses because then it will attract <demographic I don't like>. But think of the children - how will they survive without a 10 acre backyard to play in??
It's so disgustingly painfully obvious to any reasonable person that we have no reason to have a housing crisis other than certain people collecting those fat stacks of cash, sweet cash.
You say this like it is such a obvious problem to solve, and from a naive point of view, maybe so.
But each of the reasons why things the way they are isn't just stupidity. It's backed by people's preferences for living. EVERYONE is extremely opinionated on housing because it affects us the most (air/food/water/shelter...) . We all have something to say about where we live or have lived and the pros/cons.
Unfortunately, housing is not merely treated as a cost issue for most people. Where we live is a social and even spiritual experience. We're not bugs that mindlessly perform our economic duty and then return to our hole. We're human beings who like space, freedom, and the ability to control our surroundings.
Some people like those things but it's a matter of perspective. The American point of view of sprawling suburbs and automobiles is just one perspective on freedom. To many, it is not freedom. Having to drive a car is not freedom. Having to commute huge distances is not freedom. Having to live in isolated homes is not freedom. Etc.
There's no right or wrong answer, and I take issue with the notion that however our culture is setup now is the correct way. Clearly, it's not, because many (most?) people are unhappy.
This thing is amazing. The kind of nasty extreme optics I love to see. Good stuff! The final images are pretty gorgeous. I'd love to shoot on this thing
The thing is, Lightroom is simply very good at what it does. There are infinite photo editing apps out there and many of them don't fit my workflow.
I want: RAW input, light/tone controls, colour grading, detail controls, lens corrections, basic masking, nondestructive adjustments, library management, and a tone curve that doesn't look like dog shit.
I do NOT want: complex layered editing, paintbrushes, preset styling junk, complex geometric transformations, a million menus, video editing, etc.
The more features you add, the more you detract from the core workflow. And all these other editors have watered down their core workflow too much for me, sadly. Lightroom might be corporate junk but at least it does the basics well and mostly gets out of my way.
Capture One is a new name for though, I might give that a try. It looks pretty promising.
The webpage seems to advertise itself as a Lightroom replacement sort of software?
Which if it is, it better be damn good at it. Adobe may generally suck and Lightroom has many rough edges, but it has streamlined its workflow very well.
This is why I (photographer) haven't switched from Lightroom to an alternative. It's because all the alternatives are targetting different workflows or have a pretty half-assed RAW workflow. We don't need a photo workflow tacked on to something else, we need a proper good workflow made from scratch.
I recently saw a lecture by neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky [1] which discussed the complexities of human violence. We both condone and don't condone violence all the time, depending on social context. And furthers, our ways of expressing violence are varied (even down to tiny things like the silent treatment). We (along with other animals) have always used aggression to enforce social order and obtain social benefit.
Perhaps something to think about in a scenario like this. Personally I think it's interesting that some people are so quick to condone aggressive attacks on powerful people, yet have no comment on those powerful people committing lower levels of violence against the masses. It's all social context.
> Perhaps something to think about in a scenario like this. Personally I think it's interesting that some people are so quick to condone aggressive attacks on powerful people, yet have no comment on those powerful people committing lower levels of violence against the masses. It's all social context.
Can I just say that out of all of this discourse happening, this might be the most insightful yet succint position to explain my stance on all of this especially the "its all social context." line.
I feel like many of us here might share an answer publicly but I have always believed that if I am in the shoes of someone else, I might act the way they do so in a sense I understand the human part of it. A human did the violence and why. I understand that. Now we can call this violence inhuman, sure, but this action is still done by human and for many reasons. And I also understand why people condemn these actions, we wish to live in a clean and structural world and then we see the messiness of the world.
I just feel like just condemning an action would do nothing unless we change the ground conditions but that isn't in the hands of even many of us Hackernews users and this is basically a class aspect to it.
I personally feel like there are some similarities to this incident to the Trolley problem actually. Vsauce did a video about it worth watching[0]
I believe that unique community of HN consist mostly of individuals that weren't able to fully understand those elements of human nature as elementary (and sometimes high-school) schoolers. I stand as one example of such person, it took me about 30 years before I understood that I lacked such innate understanding at school.
How is a person from a nation that the US President has threatened to annex or invade supposed to feel about seeing domestic violence in the United States? From their perspective a divided United States is less of a personal threat to them.
All this talk about how 'we can't have this in a democracy!' forgets that many of us don't live in that particular democracy, and that particular democracy is threatening other democracies.
What should my response be if a North Korean General is executed? Or if a Russian oligarch 'falls out a window'? Or a corrupt Mexican politician is beheaded by a rival cartel?
These American oligarchs aren't my countrymen, They don't have my best interests in mind, they fund the people who threaten my country, and now they provide the American military with technology that it can use to attack my country.
Their lobbying and campaign contributes have resulted in a Mad King waging an unwinnable war that has severely damaged the global economy and has made my life demonstrably worse. I have never done anything to these people and yet they callously did this to all of us for personal profit well beyond what any human being could never need in a thousand life times.
At the end of the day the less cohesive the American tribe is the better off my tribe is. I wish our incentives were aligned but they just aren't and I am not in any way responsible for that.
reply