kescusay

And how large is the disenfranchised bloc at this point?

Not large enough to make a difference, if by "disenfranchised" you mean "doesn't vote for either major party."

Here's the thing: In order for a third-party candidate to make any difference at all beyond acting as a spoiler, that candidate needs to WIN. Not just have a good showing. Not just have a great showing where they come in just barely behind. In a FPTP system, there's only the winner... and everyone else.

Until we have a third-party candidate who can actually win, a vote for a third party is not quite the same as voting for the candidate you're most ideologically opposed to, but it's not very different, either.

And don't get me wrong, I fucking hate that that's the situation we're in. But it is. I wish I could argue against the mathematics of it, but they're unavoidable.

(queue up the two-party-system reply guys here)

I mean, that is the root of the problem. That and FPTP elections. It's just a mathematical reality that those combined guarantee third parties cause a spoiler effect.

Say you've got three parties. One wants to snuggle puppies, one wants to snuggle kittens, and the last wants to use both for target practice. If 66.6% divide their votes between the puppy and kitten snugglers, and 33.4% vote for target practice, the target practice party wins in our current system. That's just the mathematical reality.

We don't have to like it. Hell, we definitely shouldn't, and should push for ranked choice voting and similar changes. But it's a mistake to just ignore that that's the system we're currently stuck in.

Autocomplete on steroids, but suffering dementia.

It's almost understandable until you realize it's not just change for themselves they fear, it's change for anyone else. Somehow, in their twisted minds, an increase in rights and humane treatment for others hurts them.

Huh. So they needed to launch an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine to protect themselves from the United States? Make that make sense. Good luck.

Mods, can we please ban RT as a source?

Yep. My TV has not and never will be on the Internet in any way. I picked it for its screen quality, and the fact that it also has "smart" components never even entered into the decision. Because those smart components will literally never do anything.

I don't think that comparison is apt. Unlike with music, there are objectively inefficient and badly-executed ways for a program to function, and if you're only "vibing," you're not going to know the difference between such code and clean, efficient code.

Case in point: Typescript. Typescript is a language built on top of JavaScript with the intent of bringing strong and static type-checking sanity to it. Using Copilot, it's possible to create a Typescript application without actually knowing the language. However, what you'll end up with will almost certainly be full of the any type, which turns off type-checking and negates the benefits of using Typescript in the first place. Your code will be much harder to maintain and fix bugs in. And you won't know that, because you're not a Typescript developer, you're a Copilot "developer."

I'm not trying to downplay the benefits of using Copilot. Like I said, it's something I use myself, and it's a really helpful tool in the developer toolbox. But it's not the only tool in the toolbox for anyone but "vibe coders."

I'm of two minds on this.

On the one hand, I find tools like Copilot integrated into VS Code to be useful for taking some of the drudgery out of coding. Case in point: If I need to create a new schema for an ORM, having Copilot generate it according to my specifications is speedy and helpful. It will be more complete and thorough than the first draft I'd come up with on my own.

On the other, the actual code produced by Copilot is always rife with errors and bloat, it's never DRY, and if you're not already a competent developer and try to "vibe" your way to usablility, what you'll end up with will frankly suck, even if you get it into a state where it technically "works."

Leaning into the microwave analogy, it's the difference between being a chef who happens to have a microwave as one of their kitchen tools, and being a "chef" who only knows how to follow microwave instructions on prepackaged meals. "Vibe coders" aren't coders at all and have no real grasp of what they're creating or why it's not as good as what real coders build, even if both make use of the same tools.

What that really means is they'll be vetted for any indications of disliking Trump.