Yep 100% agree.

Both “free trade” and big stupid blanket tariffs are extremist positions and it’s America so they’re the only positions discussed.

I think there’s room for reasonable tariff policy, but unfortunately the US is a nuance-free land full of extremists so Trump’s terrible implementation will make tariffs radioactive for another generation if there’s a large public backlash.

It doesn’t need to be absolutely free trade with slavers or tariff man hell. We could raise the standard of living by allowing free trade but imposing tariffs – or even outright bans on imports – from places legalizing slave labor and other close to slave labor conditions. But obviously none of that fits into Trump’s dumbass worldview.

If you have Hulu or sail the seven seas, check out “The Dropout” which is a mini-series about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes.

Nintendo shop regularly runs deals similar to Steam. Usually at around the same times of year. Same with PlayStation. I run games on all three platforms. You have to be kind of a sucker these days to buy a game at full price when it’s first released. But none of what I said makes $80 games reasonably priced.

Why would someone run a business exporting goods into a country if they couldn’t charge more than the cost of duties, labor, and materials for the goods?

And since we haven’t moved the needle on the minimum wage in decades, people will be making those low-added value products at starvation wages.

That’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read.

When I used those things, I absolutely understood why a CEO would want those to be the future. It’s everything they’re looking for: a strident, confident yes man machine who will produce without consternation any kind of spin (unethical or not) to any kind of gibberish content requested.

The economic angle was – I thought – to make shit like this break through to “conservatives”. Since that doesn’t seem to work and they care about their own bullshit goals no matter the impacts and suffering they cause (economic or other) I too think we should just fucking stop it.

The obsession with conversational interfaces likely stems from two places: sci-fi and CEOs (and other executive, businessy types) who are used to ordering people around.