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Joined 25 days ago
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Cake day: March 20th, 2025

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  • Here’s a reminder that the Allied forces had multiple opportunities to assassinate Hitler, but chose not to do so… Because he was a laughably bad military tactician, who was surrounded by yes-men. He would repeatedly make bad military decisions, and everyone around him was too afraid to tell him it was a bad idea. The Allies were worried that if they assassinated Hitler, a competent military leader would take his place.

    Sun Tsu’s Art of War has a line that goes something like “Never interrupt the enemy when they’re making a mistake” and it feels germane. I wouldn’t be surprised if historians are writing about how Europe had several opportunities to assassinate Musk/Trump but chose not to because they didn’t want anyone competent in charge.


  • I would rather not do it and hope nobody else does it.

    While this is certainly something to dream about, I live in the Bible Belt. If I hadn’t taken it, there would have been a hundred others lining up to do it.

    “Oh, if I don’t use my electrical engineering skills to bomb children for a MIC company then someone else will do it, nah bitch I’ll work in a different field”

    It’s a bit of a stretch to equate it with making bombs. And if you have the flexibility to work in a different field, then you’re already speaking from a position of privilege. Not everyone has that luxury. Some people have niche skills or have small tight-knit job fields, where burning a bridge with one company could cascade to other companies as word spreads.

    Edit: although I do have to say you have to consider all aspects. If you’re only making content that changes gender to sex and you gotta feed yourself, then it’s a big jump from killing people for a war company for fun.

    There are absolutely arguments for why we should require engineers to take engineering ethics classes. Hell, even city zoning departments can be abused by racists. But it all eventually boils down to a cost/benefit analysis for the person considering the job; Ethics studies may cause an engineer to weigh the moral “cost” more heavily on certain topics. But it’s still essentially just a mental calculation when deciding whether or not to take the job.

    At what point do the benefits of the job begin to outweigh the moral costs? When you’re going to go hungry if you turned down the work and burned bridges? When your family is going to go hungry? Sure, the high horse may be attractive when it’s just you… But nobody wants to see their child go hungry because they refused work. Eventually, people will compromise on their morals in order to put food on the table. And effecting change is a lot easier to do when you have a good job and can afford to donate (either your time or money) to causes you believe in. Homeless people aren’t exactly known for their political weight.


  • So I used to do a lot of freelance, and encountered similar situations a few times.

    The most blatant example that comes to mind was a charity run. I had the client reach out for AV gear and crew for a charity run. They needed some projectors and a small stage (and all of the AV gear+crew to go with the stage) for a charity event; They were going to be at a college campus, with joggers making laps on a 1/2 mile loop. For every lap, sponsors would donate to charity.

    The projectors and stage were to give the MC a place to be, and to keep the audience entertained while the joggers ran. They’d have a band playing, and cap the event off with a movie screening. Sounds fun. I quoted the job like any other gig. The perceptive reader may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned what kind of charity they were raising funds for. That’s because I didn’t think to ask ahead of time. I got there, and discovered it was a pro-life fundraiser. Fucking yikes.

    But I still did the job. I needed the money, and didn’t want to burn future bridges with other companies that were involved. I simply made a mental note to ask more questions the next time a charity event came across my desk. But the big takeaway is that even if I didn’t do it, someone else inevitably would have. The event still would have happened, and the charity money still would have been raised. At least with me doing it, I was able to avoid adding another enthusiastic voice (whoever would have taken my spot) to the echo chamber. Even if I had climbed up on stage to interrupt the event, it wouldn’t have changed any minds. Afterwards, I donated what I could afford to Planned Parenthood and moved on.






  • The issue with baby formula is that it’s pretty strictly regulated by the FDA, and getting approval is a lengthy (and extremely expensive) process. So there are only a few companies that hold a functional near-monopoly on the production, because they’re the only ones who had the resources to go through the process.

    And to be clear, I’m not advocating for looser regulation on formula. Safety regulations are writ in blood. But local formula production would essentially require massive subsidies and fast-tracking to offset the costs and testing associated with starting production.





  • After a certain point, I’d imagine that there are diminishing effects. The difference between 100ug and 200ug is huge, but the difference between 1100ug and 1200ug isn’t anywhere near as big. After a certain point, it all just becomes a trip. But the size of the trip is entirely up to your mindset and individual brain chemistry; I know people who have found or lost religion on 300ug, and others who said 1500 was just a nice smooth trip.

    To be clear, it would be a mind-bogglingly large trip. But I doubt it would have any more of an effect than a much smaller (but still very large) dose.