@huey_m@piefed.social

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• reform will likely have to wait until after this round of fascism has run its course

  Quite right. Honestly, even if we could do it now, might be best to wait until after considering who may be in charge during said reforms…

  on Yeah use AI.. luddite in c/programmer_humor@programming.dev · 15 Sep 2026

• Absolutely agreed, though the problem goes beyond just funding… a lot of countries still have a very small c conservative, traditionalist, Prussian-style education system that focuses on things like rote memorization, date and event-based history education rather than critical historical analysis, etc. These existed before the great defunding and are also an albatross around the neck of education that needs to be reformed away.

  Education really just needs a ground-up restructuring and rethinking, and boy is it going to be hard to make people shake up some of their preconceived notions on education.

  But yeah, none of that means anything without funding and is counter to some political goals, very true.

  on Yeah use AI.. luddite in c/programmer_humor@programming.dev · 15 Sep 2026

• It wouldn’t be hard to change things for essay-types to still get to shine. We’ve been moving away from actual home work anyway, for good reason imo (brief aside, I also think homework sends the wrong message for healthy separation between work and life in the working world). Give in class time for handwriting essays, either completed in one session or over the course of some days. In class books or e-readers for research.

  If we’re being honest here, we all kind of acknowledged already that education has been in dire need of reform for a long time now, we were talking about the need for radical education reform over a decade ago… I think AI is highlighting these problems and making them worse more than they are really a root cause.

  on Yeah use AI.. luddite in c/programmer_humor@programming.dev · 15 Sep 2026

• After the country-wide quarantine was lifted here in France, I hoped for a moment that we would capitalize on the remote-work experience to push as much employment as possible out of the cities and suburbs and into rural communities, but that never materialized.

  I go back and forth on this. On the one hand, I personally prefer more rural living, even though that’s not an option for me at the moment. There’s also something to be said for localized food sources from less monoculture farms.

  On the other hand, cities are extremely efficient in delivering services; in a properly designed city, personal transit isn’t really needed at all, and each service can just serve many more people.

  The currently-employed “more efficient” farming methods are also only possible by continuing to centralize more and more land under single owners

  This I don’t necessarily agree with, at least not in a capitalistic sense. Fewer entities , maybe, but if these are run as worker cooperatives, I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing.

  Granted, this is a problem under the current system where fewer entities ain’t going to be cooperatives more often than not, but this is a wider problem.

  heavy use of fertilizers and mono-culture

  This is true, but I can’t see how we go back without a population crash. We just can’t sustain the current population without modern farming practices, I don’t think. I think birth rates are finally slowing down, and I’m actually somewhat optimistic we’re, despite some predictions, kind of reaching a natural carrying capacity; but even at our current levels, we’d need a huge shift in society that would push many, many more back to sustenance farming if we had no fertilizers or otherwise modern farming, which I’m not sure is a good thing overall from a human well-being perspective. The current situation is obviously rife with problems as well, I agree with what you’re pointing out.

  It’s certainly a tough nut to crack at any rate.

  on The battle to save the dying heart of rural France: the village bistro in c/europe@feddit.org · 14 Sep 2026

• That’s definitely a part of it. When everyone was crapping all over tariffs in general after the Trump tariff debacle, I was arguing from the left that while Trump’s trade war tariffs obviously sucked, the idea of tariffs on countries with lower labor conditions in order to make domestic workers with better pay and labor protections competitive is actually sound. If you don’t provide any penalty for undercutting labor rights and practices you’ll just get outcompeted in a market economy. And it also disincentivizes export countries from undercutting their labor, hopefully improving labor rights there.

  Not only do we have undercutting of labor, but there’s also the exporting of industries with lots of negative externalities; we crow about reducing mining, or drilling, or lumber production, but we just buy those things from other countries anyway. A lot of those industries tend to be rural by nature as well.

  That said, that kind of “race to the bottom” with labor conditions has hit urbanites pretty hard, too; lots of cities that were founded on heavy industry like car or steel production, manufacturing in general… unfettered globalization has hit all lower and middle classes hard.

  I think though with rural communities, a big part of it is we’ve just become so efficient and reduced labor needs so much, especially in industries like farming, that small communities which are much more vulnerable to big population shifts in the first place, just die out. When you go from needing dozens of farmhands per farm, more during harvest, to only a few and a combine… small communities just can’t absorb that kind of population shift the way a city that’s more diversified can.

  So for some of these villages, I just don’t think there’s any coming back even if we did have strong labor laws and some protectionism for that domestic labor (which we absolutely should). You’d have to purposefully go back to less efficient farming methods, which has some pretty big implications for a population size that’s since far outgrown that kind of output. Those villages just aren’t coming back in nearly any conceivable circumstance, I think, and there should probably be incentives to move people out of them and let them die out.

  Frankly, for those small communities that don’t have any prospects for growth, I think some thought should be put into actually helping them along in closing down, moving residents out to more living communities, and rewilding the land they once sat on.

  on The battle to save the dying heart of rural France: the village bistro in c/europe@feddit.org · 13 Sep 2026

• Please tell us more about US and Trump-era politics, I’m sure the subscribers to /c/europe can’t wait to hear more about your country.

  He’s drawing a comparison because disaffected rural voters being a major source of the right wing populist shift we’ve seen in Europe as well is a pretty international problem. We’d be stupid not to look at what’s happening in the US and learn some lessons before it’s too late.

  Pretty much the exact same story played out here in Hungary; declining rural voters experiencing draining coffers and access to services, no political will to do anything about it, and promises to fix it were a big part of what kept Orbán in power so long. And he was a huge thorn in the side of the EU for years.

  We can close our ears and pretend we’re above these things driving politics in the US if we want… meanwhile AfD has had a historic win. I’d say it’s probably in our interest to see how Trump politics took over America to avoid the same fate in Europe considering there are an awful lot of similarities to the conditions that birthed it in an awful lot of European countries.

  are you trolling or do you really think that forced relocation of people from rural areas to cities is a serious solution to suggest?

  So what’s your solution? Many European countries have tried very generous incentives to pull people back to the declining villages, Hungary would give huge loans at zero interest that could be discharged entirely, Italy has tried their own incentive programs, nothing is working. If the solution were simple we’d have done it already.

  I don’t think forcibly moving people is right, obviously, but trying to reverse the incentives to get people out of villages where it’s impossible to practically provide services rather than continue the failed attempt to repopulate them doesn’t seem crazy to me.

  on The battle to save the dying heart of rural France: the village bistro in c/europe@feddit.org · 13 Sep 2026

• Hey Bezos, it’s a-me!

  on Lawsuit: Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks and refused to give them permission to sit or use a chair and later fired them after a pregnancy-related hospitalization in c/technology@lemmy.world · 10 Sep 2026

• Doesn’t the widespread outrage kind of speak against this, though?

  Here in Hungary, it was a scandal regarding the cover up of sexual abuses of young children under state protection that sparked the overthrow of Orbán, and was the only thing that managed to crack that nut finally. It’s hard to overstate how much it galvanized people, even his own supporters, against him.

  I don’t know, I understand that it’s demoralizing and I can even buy the argument it’s more normalized than it should be, but the very existence of outrage against figures like Epstein (which seem to me to be extremely widespread, though maybe I’m missing something being out of the country for some years at this point) or this Hungarian scandal lead me to think the vast, vast majority of people do not find it remotely normal or acceptable. I don’t think tarring all of society with the brush that it’s been normalized is accurate. Or I’m misunderstanding what you mean by normalized.

  on “This is the AI men actually use”: Meta ads pushed apps nudifying real teens in c/technology@lemmy.world · 9 Sep 2026

• Either we believe in giving people the chance to become functioning citizens of society again or we don’t. I’d argue the “don’t” doesn’t seem to work out too well for the Americans. Europe, meanwhile taking the former attitude, has far better recidivism rates.

  on Calls in the UK to ban sex offenders from buying smart glasses in c/technology@lemmy.world · 7 Sep 2026

• There’s really no guarantee anywhere of safety

  Frankly, there’s no guarantee anyone will allow you in in the first place. A lot of these people really, really overestimate the strength of the American passport and think this translates to some immigration advantage, but in most cases it doesn’t. You still need a, usually very specific and skilled job that’s hard to find people for, marriage, or close family that’s already there. A few countries extend that out to grandparents, but that seems uncommon.

  Immigrating anywhere is really, really hard just from a legal perspective, nevermind the cultural and/or linguistic isolation that wears on you over time. There’s a reason a lot of people don’t do it and of those that do, many go back before too long.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 6 Sep 2026

• It’s already pretty integrated in a lot of white collar work.

  Honestly? For some tasks it really does seem useful. My wife is in middle management of a tech company in a non tech role. She doesn’t really have much programming experience aside from HTML. She is encouraged to use AI for generating small SQL scripts and such in situations the company would never have, and never did, give dev time for. And certainly they aren’t going to train every middle manager in SQL. They were just manually completed tasks before that took everyone more time as employees had to manually send over certain data every day.

  Which, agree with that use or not, that AI use is already pretty integrated into the corporate world on such a basic workflow level, not flashy stuff like creating an app or something, tells me it’s really unlikely it’s going to go away. I think the hype will die down and we’ll see less of the flashy use being pushed by upper management, but that kind of unsexy use by the rank and file? Can’t see why that will go away.

  on No AI until high school: NYC mayor Mamdani imposes 1 year ban on AI for schools through 8th grade in c/technology@lemmy.world · 3 Sep 2026

• I’m open to this possibility, but a 1 year moratorium while more research on this potential - and how to appropriately execute any use of it if it shows promise - is prudent imo.

  on No AI until high school: NYC mayor Mamdani imposes 1 year ban on AI for schools through 8th grade in c/technology@lemmy.world · 3 Sep 2026

• I would first like to have some solid evidence that these are caused by the confederal structure of the EU,

  I mean, they are self evident, no? A balkanized investment market exists because there’s no single structure to manage one large one. There’s no single EU military. No?

  So far that seems to me like pure conjecture and also a huge gamble that could destroy the EU in the process.

  I can’t be arsed to give any other than logical arguments such as the above. That’s why I said I’m happy to leave this as an ‘agree to disagree’ moment, because that’s really hard to prove one way or the other, and I consider this casual conversation not debate. So I’m happy to just say we have different perspectives here and call it a day. I’ve cited a few examples, as have you, I don’t think either position is stupid or poorly thought out, I just disagree with your conclusion.

  But that is exactly what a confederacy isn’t. And the concrete example is that people in other states voted for Trump and thus directly interefered with the affairs of a state that didn’t.

  Isn’t this just libertarianism?

  That isn’t at all comparable to a state internal problem.

  You’ll have to explain to me how. Whether you “zoom in” or “zoom out” the principle is the same, as far as I can tell.

  on Germans pitch EU plan to circumvent national vetoes | Euractiv in c/europe@feddit.org · 3 Sep 2026

• The US was at most very briefly a confederacy, and the US civil war had little to do with that despite one side calling itself such.

  I was referring to the articles of confederation, not the Confederacy, and how short lived it was was my point.

  The EU is an obvious successful modern example

  The EU as a governing body and not just a trade group really isn’t that old yet.

  and if you want historical examples, then the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nations lasted a millenium and despite sometimes nominally having an emporer it was practically a confederation.

  The needs of a modern global economy are completely different, though.

  That said, I’m happy to just say we agree to disagree on whether this is broadly true or not.

  I would like a response to my specific points though about trouble the EU is running into and how up fix those problems if not more federal power to the EU? How do you stop EU companies from jumping ship to the US for their large single investment market without a competing consolidated European one? How do we mount our own effective defense force without a central power to manage it?

  And besides, ask some person living in a Democrat majority US state how they feel about the current Trump administration of their federal government interfering with their life and sending a militarized police occupation force into their cities?

  This can still happen (and historically, as the birthplace of fascismhas, has happened) in European nations within said nations, though. That’s nothing inherent to any political system.

  The breakdown of the US political landscape seemingly doesn’t have a lot to do with their version of federalism; most of Europe has far more explicitly central national governments and this hasn’t happened (lately). That kind of abuse of power can happen under literally any system from fascist to socialist.

  on Germans pitch EU plan to circumvent national vetoes | Euractiv in c/europe@feddit.org · 2 Sep 2026

• First two that come to mind as the most problematic and needing reform are the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the United States nearly collapsing with the confederation is an obvious example. Can you think of any in the modern era that have succeeded long term?

  in an misguided attempt to force unity where there isn’t any anylonger

  Put another way: they were already falling apart. Them falling apart wasn’t the fault of centralising. It was the fault of the loose union giving the governing body too little power to govern effectively. I’ve given some examples of this in the EU with both the military and balkanized access to capital directly leading to us losing lucrative companies we created to the US. It’s like a brain drain but for wealth generating businesses. Military problems are obvious to all with Russia now and the tough spot we’ve found ourselves in outsourcing our defense to the US for decades… what is the solution to these problems if not stronger federal power for the EU? Because they aren’t going away.

  I’d suggest the federalism of the US isn’t what we or most people despise about the US. The two aren’t related.

  on Germans pitch EU plan to circumvent national vetoes | Euractiv in c/europe@feddit.org · 2 Sep 2026

• You are making the mistake to believe the EU can only compete by becoming what it despises.

  shrug I don’t see a path away from it; separate, the individual nations aren’t big enough to be relevant. China isn’t going to be supplanted for the manufacturing hub nor the US as the financial hub without more cohesion, and so Europe will continue to lose relevancy in terms of ability to influence world geopolitics.

  We’ve seen time and time again promising European countries jump ship for the US when it’s time to go public… the money is here in Europe but broken into fractured markets with just as fractured rules and regulations. Why would a company looking for investment bother when they can just go to the US and get one big pile of it?

  This isn’t even addressing even more practical problems like military.

  Confederacies just don’t last very long historically. They either break or become more centralised eventually.

  on Germans pitch EU plan to circumvent national vetoes | Euractiv in c/europe@feddit.org · 1 Sep 2026

• If 48% of the people are having their authority to rule superceded by the 52% then how can you say it’s rule by the people? It’s rule only by the majority.

  Wouldn’t a more elegant solution be more thought put into what kind of votes need a supermajority or some specific % over 50 to need a successful vote? Surely at some point, for it to be a democracy, you do need the majority rule to win the day, right++? I’d argue one or two nations vetoing a thing agreed upon by everyone else is more explicitly anti democratic than those nations needing to abide by a vote they handily lost.

  I think the EU is at the limits of what a loose confederation can do, we’ve seen historically these arrangements just can’t really function long term on a large scale. And the argument here is that for Europe to stay relevant in a world where the US and China, not to mention Russia, exists if not as outright adversaries then stiff competitors, there needs to be a better ability to coordinate this like military and money. Especially the latter, I’d argue… how many European start ups immediately abandon ship for the US as soon as they go public because there’s a pile of investment money there rather than the fractured markets of Europe? That problem is never going away on its own, even with the US playing target practice with its feet (slight digression there, but I think it’s one of the most obvious examples of why the EU needs reform towards stronger federal power).

  At a certain point, if you want a large functioning democratic body with any power, you need to submit to the decisions of that power whether you agree with the decision or not. That’s not just colloquial versus not, that’s the very essence of democracy imo. If you can just opt out of decisions you don’t like, that’s not really democratic rule, that’s just a forum for discussion.

  ++(Obviously, this implicitly needs rights and protections to prevent one group from outright repressing another, but still, a veto seems like a really, really inelegant solution to avoiding tyranny of the majority situations.)

  on Germans pitch EU plan to circumvent national vetoes | Euractiv in c/europe@feddit.org · 1 Sep 2026

• I’ve heard the argument that if you aren’t pirating via torrent but simply downloading a file (no seeding), there really aren’t any damages that can be claimed aside from the price of the thing you’ve pirated, hence completely not worth any action. The danger is if you’re uploading stuff you can be on the hook based on the number of downloads of that file.

  No idea if that’s true, though it sounds reasonable. Thankfully, I’m in a country that could not give less of a shit about piracy… one of the few upsides here lol.

  on PlayStation Wants To Prove In Court That You Don't Own Your Digital Games in c/technology@lemmy.world · 31 Aug 2026

• In fairness, that could be said of some of the know-it-all summaries as well. 😅

  on New Twitter launches, says Musk's X gave up the name in c/technology@lemmy.world · 27 Aug 2026

• Your grandad’s AI summary, if you will.

  on New Twitter launches, says Musk's X gave up the name in c/technology@lemmy.world · 27 Aug 2026

• “Believe it or not, straight to jail”.

  on Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months, up to 10x the lowest ever tracked prices — 128GB of DDR5 now $3,399 in c/technology@lemmy.world · 19 Aug 2026

• Jesus Christ, it shouldn’t be squeezing through such a small gap in bollards on a fucking road.

  …

  Still not an excuse, it should have seen it

  Everything about this was still very bad obviously

  ???

  on Tesla Robotaxi Mows Down Bollards & Keeps Driving, After “Impeccable” Record Touted on Stock Call in c/technology@lemmy.world · 18 Aug 2026

• In fairness, I feel that sometimes.

  on Tesla Robotaxi Mows Down Bollards & Keeps Driving, After “Impeccable” Record Touted on Stock Call in c/technology@lemmy.world · 18 Aug 2026

• The claim “increased safety” is rather ironic in light of the post you’re commenting on.

  Not really?

  Are we really so blinded by (understandable) Tesla hate that we’re reducing ourselves to anecdotes to counter data and studies, the thing we’ve been complaining about from conservatives for decades now?

  on Tesla Robotaxi Mows Down Bollards & Keeps Driving, After “Impeccable” Record Touted on Stock Call in c/technology@lemmy.world · 18 Aug 2026

• Zen, though I think that’s basically Firefox under the hood.

  on Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin in c/technology@lemmy.world · 15 Aug 2026