restricting the power of the rich comes with downsides

Say, if I don’t believe there’s a good reason for a person’s wealth to reach Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk levels, if I say that’s not healthy for society, that we ought to implement heavier progressive tax and that people like him must pay it properly, can you explain what the downside would be?

To some degree, I agree, including the tendency for infighting among leftists. It’s why I’ve never liked this meme or its variations much. On the other hand, I’ve recently seen only one side actually mobilize to attack government buildings and harm people inside, and it wasn’t the left.

Anecdotally, this week at work, I heard a self-identified rightist argue for banning gay marriage. Others sitting around their table agreed. I’ve also had the privilege of hearing we should get rid of social programs, and too many jokes about killing people they don’t like. Last time I talked to a tankie and they defended oppressive policies saying the ends justify the means, folks around us made fun of them and moved on.

I think one of these groups might not be a real issue. At the very minimum, they’re definitely not as dangerous as the other one, right now. So, is the meme a bit silly? Sure. Does that matter? I don’t feel like it does.

Please don’t reply re: proper tankie political classification. It’s beside the point, I’m using them because it seems to be what most imagine when they think “far left.”

Poe’s law has bested me. I’m just gonna hope it’s all a joke and leave, now.

This might sound controversial to you, but I don’t want the rich being able to oppress people.

(Historically, that went horribly. It’s still going horribly, in fact.)

I think you’re being disingenuously generous with your interpretation of far right policies.

If you want to see far right evils, all you need is to look at the news. The comment you replied to contains a straightforward example. Could you tell us which evils the far left is committing right now?

I think you might’ve accidentally added sarcasm tags to your admission.

As a small protest against problems with the AI industry, I don’t read posts with them. It costs little to not contribute to the issues at hand, and being unwilling to drop the slop doesn’t endear the authors to me.

Of all the aesthetics one could go for, I’m not sure that I’d pick Twitter-AI themed IED, myself.

I don’t think this thread is helping.

In fairness, these projects have different objectives. Ladybird aims to be a full browser, Servo doesn’t.

Ladybird is a brand-new browser & web engine …

Servo is a web browser rendering engine …

There is Verso, which aims to build a browser on Servo, but it’s still very young (though, I suppose that applies to LB as well). Ideally, I’d like to see all these projects grow into complete solutions. I think that’d be healthier for the internet. It’s just really difficult to support Ladybird with Andreas as he’s acting right now.

I think there was a similar idea in the USA with the COPIED Act, but I haven’t heard about it since.

This to me more sounds like I have made up my mind to not like this guy or his product and nothing will change this.

That’s a really unfair reading of the situation. People aren’t obligated to listen to us and change their minds. As long as they’re willing, sure, do your best, but no means no. Vlad seemingly doesn’t understand no. That’s not good, and added to their previous insights, I can understand why the author wouldn’t want to enter a call with a such a person.

most of the issues being discussed are nit pickings at details and fights on being right or wrong on things that really don’t matter

It might help if you elaborate, but right now I can’t agree. For example, Vlad’s views on privacy and biases are kind of wild (no suicide hotlines numbers because they’re biased but also put LLMs everywhere) and that matters if you’re going to use his product to search information online (and possibly his e-mail service as well).

Disappointing and unsurprising. He and Bryan are very similar, complaining that “social justice warriors” are “ruining open source” whenever they see pushback against shitty actions, then getting right back to doing way worse.

I don’t see how your comment responds in any way to the criticism presented.

this comes up every time Kagi gets mentioned anywhere.

Because it’s relevant. Should I never share it because you’ve already seen it? What about those who haven’t? I haven’t seen Kagi properly address these issues. So I asked about newer developments I might’ve missed. No one volunteered any yet.

Someone is personally hurt by the CEO and is now in a crusade to spread bad karma about them.

The author clearly explains how they arrived at their stance, and it wasn’t just “hurt feelings.” I’m not claiming this was what you intended, but it feels like you’re trying to dramatize the criticism and downplay the issues rather than address them.

I also don’t see the crusade thing. They wrote down their thoughts, then others found and shared them. They’re not the ones posting in ycombinator, or here. It’s people like me, unaffiliated with them. We just think more people should know.

You finished saying you liked Kagi and think it’s good. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t see how it helps here, either. I used Kagi for a short while and liked having more control over results, but… the issues remain. It’s beside the point.

An article about Kagi’s leadership, uncontroversially titled “Why I lost faith in Kagi.” If anyone has updates to add here, good or bad, I’d appreciate it.

Between the absolute blase attitude towards privacy, the 100% dedication to AI being the future of search, and the completely misguided use of the company’s limited funds, I honestly can’t see Kagi as something I could ever recommend to people.

…and I’m surprised this quote doesn’t mention the CEO, considering what the blog post has to say about him.

I wonder how true that is. Maybe they were considered left in their time, but something we see differently today, then. I really should hit the books on this one.

It’s a bit of a tangent(!), but Parrish gave a talk I think is relevant here. In Programming is Forgetting (transcript, watching optional), she analyzes a book about hackers from the eighties and dissects the ethics of hacker culture—a very loose definition, mind you.

This is all beside the point, because while interesting throughout what I’d really like to point to is the section on the rewiring of the PDP-1. Agree or disagree with any other, that part made me rethink how I saw older generations of programmers. I consider the dignity of all people an important tenet of my leftist values today, and women then were second-class, even in computing. Even when excelling.

So I feel like things have actually improved overall, but it’s difficult to say how much. That really is a shame, it ought to be a lot clearer.

Whenever I post such things, I get a small wave of displeased people. Rarely get thanks, though. Even if it takes a bit of effort, and I inevitably find yet more stuff. That’s ok, praise obviously isn’t the point.

But it demoralized me a little, how there’s always downplaying. It’s never enough. I can say Brendan Eich is homophobic, ideally you shouldn’t support him, and someone will tell me he invented javascript, and that makes it ok (my entire point is thus null, I am overreacting).

Your thanks encourage me to uselessly annoy and present no arguments a bit longer. Thank you.

Downvoted for stating a relevant, verifiable fact. Incredible.

we’ve created the Ladybird Browser Initiative , a US 501©(3)

The inaugural board of directors:

• Andreas Kling (President)

I’m a bit hesitant to comment further because this thread is already quite long, but assuming it’s a genuine question I can send a DM and we can talk there, if you want?

On certain topics, complete indifference also bothers me. I’ve seen this called a “purity test,” and I don’t get it.

Why shouldn’t I be bothered when someone “doesn’t have a side” on taking away people’s rights? I very much prefer that they care, at least enough to not support aggressors with careless neutrality.

They don’t mind folks being erased or even killed, but I’m the radical for not being ok with that?