I’ve been thinking the exact same thing actually. I’d love to just have a single device I carry around that I could dock to add more juice and use like a desktop at home.

Incidentally, this would eliminate the need for most cloud hosting services too. If you don’t need to constantly sync data, then you don’t need online services for any of your media. You just need sync when you collaborate with other people. This would afford way more privacy.

That’s basically what Sanders was trying to do with the Green New Deal. And apparently, even these minimal and necessary reforms needed to save the system were deemed to be too much by the oligarchs.

Not gonna happen under the dictatorship of capital.

Also kind of true, most people use phones or tablets nowadays. You only really need a laptop if you are creating content. If you’re simply consuming it, then you just need a screen.

I bet that overall percentage of people who actually connect this with AI or even really care is tiny. Aside from gamers, majority of people don’t really build their own rigs, or upgrade computers constantly.

Behold the greatest advance in Liberal Theory since Harry Potter.

O7

obligatory quote from This Soviet World by Anna Louise Strong

I’m not really sure what critical areas China needs to catch up in at this point. The chips they produce are already good enough for any practical applications. It’s also worth keeping in mind that improving software is much easier than hardware. Western software stacks are incredibly bloated. For example, Huawei starting fresh with their HarmonyOS can make a much leander stack by cutting all the cruft and backwards compatibility out.

I also don’t see China being decades behind in chips. They can already make 7nm, they’re prototyping EUV machines, it’s not going to be long at this point. On top of that, China is investing into research of alternative substrates like graphene, spintronics, etc. Any one of these could make silicon look like vacuum tubes overnight if they can scale them up to mass production. There’s no new fundamental physics that need to be discovered here, we know these these things work in a lab. It’s just a matter of scaling up production. And that’s precisely where state driven development comes in.

Can you explain what this tide of reversal you’re talking about with BRI? Last I looked, the investment is record high https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3340442/china-signs-record-us213-billion-new-belt-and-road-deals-2025-report

The Epstein files are the biggest scandal the western system has faced to date in my opinion. This is bigger than stuff like Watergate because it spans multiple administrations in the US, as well as other western regimes. It’s a total indictment of the idea that there’s any sort of a democracy in the west. It’s now plain for everyone to see that the west is ruled by diabolical monsters who are accountable to no one. And this comes at a time of a rapid decline in the living standards which makes people angry and politically engaged. Things that might’ve been ignored before cannot be ignored any longer.

Finally, it seems to me that the west is headed for a massive financial crash. While people keep playing games with the numbers, it’s pretty clear that all the tangible metrics like job numbers and cost of living are doing very poorly. The only question in my mind is what the catalyst will be. It could be the coming war with Iran which might drive oil prices through the roof.

There might actually be a direct relationship there as well. Taiwan being the chokepoint for western chip production puts them in a perfect position to insert backdoors into all western tech. There’s a reason the US was freaking out over Huawei tech spreading in the west. The problem with it isn’t that there’s some Chinese malware in it, but rather that western agencies can’t use it for spying.

I guess they failed the qualification round of outrunning the TCC. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-military-recruitment.html

Zulip pretty easy to self host. I ran a server for a group of friends a little while back, and it worked great. The UI takes a bit of getting used to, but it is great once you do because everything is a thread by default. And that makes it really easy to catch up on things.

I mean it’s all a matter of jurisdiction. Open source platforms like Stoat can be run outside the reach of western regimes.

Not that I’ve seen.

not much, just slightly different UX

I honestly kinda prefer older civ games because they were simpler and more focused. For me, Civ3 might really be the peak of the series.

I’ve seen a few similar projects before, but can’t recall what they were off top of my head.

indeed

it looks nearly identical to a cube I had at one of my jobs as well, I think even the phone is the same

It’s the openly becoming part, before there was an attempt to pretend the US was some sort of a democracy. Now, the mask is completely off.