not having to talk to the driver and picking my own music are my fav parts. the novelty wears off quick and it becomes normal

Bloodlust on a control of ogres? anyone? anyone? this was nearly unstoppable.

Pleasure and happiness aren't the same thing, but most people chase pleasure while calling it happiness. Pleasure is the quick hit—good food, sex, scrolling your phone—it feels great but fades fast. Happiness is something else entirely, and what it means changes drastically depending on how smart you are. Less intelligent people tend to equate happiness with basic pleasures and getting their needs met. Average intelligence ties it to status, money, keeping up with others. But higher intelligence complicates everything: some people find meaning in ideas, creativity, or purpose; others overthink themselves into misery, seeing through all the goals that used to motivate them. Intelligence gives you better tools to understand happiness but can also strip away the simple certainties that make it easier to actually feel happy. You gain clarity but lose the blissful ignorance that makes chasing straightforward goals satisfying.

Pleasure is happiness. If you could afford it you can have great food, unlimited sex, free time to pursue passions and interests and most importantly endless, unrestricted power over people all the time. The above, combined with no stressors will pretty much guarantee life long happiness.

The only caveats are drugs (generally destructive) and clinical depression caused by hormonal imbalances.

Pleasure is immediate, whereas happiness (or joy) reflects something more long-lasting and is often ineffable.

You can get used to pleasure because you can predict it and control it. Joy and wisdom are not gained so easily, and it's that challenge that creates meaning.

I’m positing that a lifetime of non destructive pleasure is indistinguishable from happiness.

If you had a brain scan of pleasure and a brain scan of happiness, do you think they'd be identical?

I think you understand that unbridled pleasure eventually leads to jadedness, because you excluded drugs. The other forms of pure pleasure do the same thing but over a longer timescale. Yes, you'd have a truly amazing time at first. Why do a lot of rich people turn to drugs or gambling?

I don’t think it’s easy to get jaded about unrestricted power over people. I think that’s what the human condition is all about.

It may not be easy but it's bound to happen if the results are predictable.

Added to that, it's normal for an absolute monarch to be paranoid.

viewing it as an assistant is the way to go. it's there to help you - like an overpowered autocomplete - but not there to think for you.

I hear AI data centers are consuming more power than the entire country of Argentina /s

But I don't hear anyone worried about the massive power consumption without a clear indication if this is a net positive for our society.

Roughly 5% of energy in the US is dedicated towards AI datacenters. The current usage will double to 70–90 TWh/year by 2026-2027. For software heavy tech businesses it makes sense to host your own AI data center so that you could train it on your codebase and have developers build faster. Not sure if this benefits humanity that much..

Will it? Google originally started trying to sell search servers you'd install on site. And on prem (even on your cloud) is not a model any of the big boys will want to follow.

We're yet to see if it's going to be a winner takes all market or whether there will end up a Linux equivalent pop up that destroys all the investment from the big players because programmers are too tight to pay for software.

> if this is a net positive for our society

Maybe that's something that can only be determined looking back. There are so many unknown unknowns.

that was a joke regarding bitcoin not Argentina. also: congrats for jumping to the worst possible interpretation

it's almost like they don't want tourists.

Or they want to have one more chip to play with when negotiating trade deals.

Like a child banging their head on the wall because you won't let them use their iPad. At some point people start calling your bluffs.

T A C O

It is for visa, which can't be waived. ESTA is a visa waiver, therefor would not apply.

Then why host the World Cup?

And the Olympics in 2028

FIFA is looking at moving our matches to Canada. I don't think this administration was that interested in hosting a global event.

Agreed under a previous administration. Besides, oligarchs like football, that's why it was hosted in Qatar previously.

... from "certain" countries.

Many "desirable" countries have visa-waiver programs where I would assume they would be unaffected.

Not just from certain countries but they only want certain people from certain countries.

I thought the position of HN was that tourism is bad.

hah. i'm sorry but this is extremely naive. projects don't succeed of fail solely on the technical chops of the engineers. it's a whole "ecosystem" that has to work and most projects I've seen failing are due to politics/bikeshedding at upper management level.

Your experience is different from mine. I have worked at big tech companies and have seen too many projects fail due to lack of technical chops. Do they fail for other reasons too? Sure, such as not finding product-market fit, but at some companies they start with guaranteed product-market fit because they are copying a competitor!

there is more in coffee than caffeine? maybe another substance?

financially better? source?

I like living indoors and eating slightly more than I hate my job.