This post is about a man's struggle with a deadly cancer.
I cant understand how you could possibly think this question is not "tone deaf" unless you are genuinely autistic - not using it as an insult, genuinely curious - since such a question would be simply beyond the pale in polite society, given the context.
Sure, but this isn't really an AMA thread [despite the offer to "answer any questions"]. This is about Sid's journey with (extremely advanced) cancer. Airing grievances about Gitlab is just out of place here, you gotta read the room.
Paying different amounts for different regions is not being an asshole. Virtually every company on the planet does regional CoL adjustments.
And get a grip - you are free to bring value to the world in your way if you're not happy to be an employee. Attacking others that have done nothing to harm you is entirely uncalled for, especially on a discussion about their own cancer. Please act like an adult.
Because of all the hype and bullshit we excessively get from 3 years now, and from all « AI companies ». I do not trust any « AI company » today, especially not when they are close of a big deal with their IPO.
Cool for them I guess, but big tech does not mean quality today (Meta, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Netflix… all those companies are doing s** today).
I continue to debug the code of my colleagues who use Claude everyday however. It is exhausting, but it saves the life of my low tech company today.
I guess I'm not seeing the "hype and bullshit." Here is the Opus 4.6 press release. Which claims specifically read as "hype and bullshit" to you? https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-6
Nobody claimed Europe was worse than China, only that if you wouldn't visit China for this reason then you shouldn't visit Europe (or the US) for the same reason.
Speaking of being disingenuous, when you say "Police can search phones to counteract human traffickers", did you think critically about that at all before writing it? Given one of the stated justifications is "preventing terrorism", and the UK has been illegally arresting Palestine Action supporters as terrorists for over a year, this seems a little naive at least.
> Nobody claimed Europe was worse than China, only that if you wouldn't visit China for this reason then you shouldn't visit Europe (or the US) for the same reason.
That would be nonsensical. If you have anti-Xi propaganda on your phone (which could be the reasons you mention), you have nothing to fear in Europe or in the US and a lot to fear in China.
The US is actually worse than both China and Europe because it's 18th century amendments protect human traffickers. Although they do what they can to not have to adhere to those, especially in border control.
> What about Palestine Action...
I'll limit myself to the LARP about "oppressive Europe invigilating your phone".
Indeed anti-Xi posts are unsafe in China, and safe in UK. Equally, anti-UK posts are safe in China and not so in the UK... (eg https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118565/documents/...). The naïveté in the claim that these are significantly different reminded me of an old joke from the USSR:
American: In America, we have freedom of speech.
USSRian: What's that?
American: I can stand in front of the White House and yell "Reagan is a moron!" and nothing will happen to me.
USSRian: Well, we have that in USSR too.
American: Really?
USSRian: Yes, of course! I go stand in the center of the Red Square and yell "Reagan is a moron" and nothing will happen to me.
You're saying anti-uk posts, you're linking some heavily editorialized article from a highly ideological media outlet about an arrest "allegedly over criticising anti-trans activists". So not anti-UK posts.
The arrest doesn't seem to have lead to any conviction. So not years of jail and reeducation camps like you get in China for dissent.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. You put this things together and you claim they're the same. They're not even close. This makes you seem funny, unserious.
I did that. There are no arrests for criticizing on the first page of Google.
Judging by your previous reactions, you're going to say that your Google is different, and link some news story about an arrest that isn't for criticizing and instead for supporting terrorism.
Hate to break to you that not every arrest is the same. Some include beating, and lead to jail time. Some include questioning and they lead to the arrested walking free within the day.
So you're hyperfocusing on the UK's online posting, which has nothing to do with the original subject of phone passwords, and doesn't even happen in other European countries, because UK has more proactive monitoring of online spaces by police.
And this is your proof that Europe is a tyrranical dictatorship.
You're trying to convince a flat-earther with logic or physics. Western democracies are evil. Worse than China and worse than North Korea. The answer is Marxism.
EDIT: This reminds me of a Russian person I used to work with. He truly believed that elections in all western democracies were fake and rigged. That is you go and vote but the vote is predetermined. This was a long time ago but I think it was some story told in Russia about the west (basically how the west is not really free) that stuck as an unshakeable belief when he left Russia and moved to the west. This was about 40 years ago give or take. People can hold weird beliefs and conspiracy theories (like people that believe the earth is flat) and those beliefs can not be assailed with logic or facts.
The reality is(?) that western democracies with all their flaws are better than authoritarian regimes but a person can not grasp the entirety of reality. One can always find examples where people are treated unjustly or unfairly in western democracies and ofcourse one can find examples of people being "ok" in authoritarian regimes. The key is to apply the scientific method to the question vs. relying on anecdotes but the human mind is not really wired for that.
Increasingly, people in the US get convinced that Europe is pretty much like China (they usually focus on the policing of online spaces in the UK as proof of that).
There was apparently a recent push in their media to introduce and reinforce this narrative. Can’t see what good would that do, except the current leadership wanting to worsen relations with everyone.
Nobody cares about your phone in China, if you are tourist, you are less likely have your phone searched than when visiting US. Nobody is going to ask you for your social media profiles when visiting China, unlike when visiting US. So who is here the free country?
I've spent this summer 3 weeks in China, used 2 VPNs, both of them worked fine (1 cost less than dollar, the other 4-5 dollars), so did my wife, mother and her husband, guess how many times someone cared about checking our phone.
The biggest issue was when we travelled into Beijing province where there are mo strict border checks and police found out we didn't register our accommodation (at wife's family), the scary horrible policemen then locked us for weeks and deport us from country... No, seriously, that would more likely happen in US than in China, in China they just told us to register after the weekend at local police station and let us continue into province to check Great wall, policemen in police station could not care less and be more laid back about it.
Maybe visit some other countries to have actual experiences instead spreading everywhere your feelings about other countries based on some propaganda.
It's not the tourists, it's the local dissidents that have something to fear. Or maybe try going there as a tourist, and putting up anti-party posters.
How about the US? What I'm going to write smells of "whataboutism", but it's tragic how more and more of the world is becoming police states. Going to the USA, they want your social media accounts. Regardless of that, the border thugs can probably demand you unlock your devices or they'll detain you for weeks on end, without any repercussions, because that sort of lawlessness is government policy now.
> In the US, not disclosing a password is explicitly protected (5th amndmnt),
That's great but of exactly zero help if you're trying to travel to the US and CBP (or ICE) are staring you down. Even if they don't gulag you, they can always just reject entry for any non-citizen (and these days even some citizens it seems.)
Any country can reject non-citizen entry, for any reason or no reason at all. In fact, part of a definition of a country is ability to practice control over its territory and who is and is not there. This necessarily includes border controls, which any country can decide to make as onerous as they please. No non-citizen of a country has any right to be present in it, except as permitted by its government, so any country if free to make it as hard as they wish to enter for non-citizens. This may not be a good idea, but control over a territory is literally part of the definition.
> Any country can reject non-citizen entry, for any reason or no reason at all. […] This necessarily includes border controls, which any country can decide to make as onerous as they please.
Or, a country could set rules that specify what they will and won't do as part of their entry controls. Just because it's a kind of an "absolute" power doesn't mean you can't still self-impose rules. The benefit being attracting more leisure and business travellers.
They have? What was the relevant case? It was my understanding that some lower courts have ruled one way, others the opposite. There are also many nuances in particular cases (e.g., the police wanting a broad search of a device for something that may or may not be there versus them knowing for a fact a device has certain information they want).
Federal agents couldn't possibly have been aware that executing people on the streets is a violation of those people's rights, so they are covered by QI.
At least 225 judges have ruled in more than 700 cases that the administration's mandatory immigration detention policy likely violates the right to due process[1] The Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause generally requires those having federal funds cut off to receive notice and an opportunity for a hearing, which was not provided in many of DOGE's spending freezes[2]
Big if true. Any alleged "step change" over 4.6 is worth paying attention to.
Also, Hegseth did a big fucky wucky if true - since they went scorched earth with Anthropic, this could mean denying the US frontier model capabilities.
It would be pretty amusing if Anthropic emerges as the clear winner (for some period of time) and other governments can use them but the US government cannot.
Current admin is certainly too prideful to walk something like this back. After all, admitting mistakes is unmasculine, and we have very manly men in charge of war round these parts!
This is exactly the outcome you would expect authoritarians to generate. Not interested in facts, more interested in subservience. The good news is that surrounding yourself with incompetence is how authoritarian regimes fall. The bad news is, well, the country where this is playing out.
Anthropic is probably the only AI company that is trying to stop absolutely hemorrhaging money and reach profitability and financial sustainability.
They aren't far off - they burn a tiny fraction of the cash of OAI and achieve similar ARR despite this - but as they tighten the belt it's inevitable that companies like OAI come in and offer more subsidized (unsustainable) inference to get people to switch. They will inevitably do the same "rug pull".
The winner will be the last man standing. The company which is able to continue subsidizing tokens after all others have been forced to throttle and raise prices. Soak up the market share, wait for your rivals’ investors to get cold feet, then raise prices the morning after the last one folds. (It’s Google it’s always been Google)
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