Louis Ingenthron @LouisIngenthron@social.cleverlibre.org

@matunos @carnage4life In the sense that it requires experience to manipulate a complex third party algorithm to achieve the desired results, I'd agree.

@freemo Totally agree with all of that, but usually those shifts you're talking about come as the result of war or revolution. And most (all?) such shifts in our country's history were basically just reformations of the previous two powers.

I agree that it won't necessarily be the *same* two powers vying for control, but FPPT does significantly incentivize a field being reduced to two options through coalition building.

But most importantly, a third party would need some kind of serious momentum (usually kicked off by major events) to take the lead, and I just don't see it happening this year.

@freemo On that note, I'm personally a big fan of the grassroots work being done by Nicholas Sarwark with the LPI. Hopefully that will lead to a future with a more viable libertarian party.

@freemo @WhiteCatTamer @lauren Ideally, you'd be able to grab multiple smaller ropes and pull yourself out that way (ranked-choice voting), but the fact of the matter is that we live in a one-rope-choice country and only one rope is strong enough to get you out of the quicksand at this time...

@freemo Yeah, but the party leadership is actively hostile to any reasonable candidates and is driving them away at every level.

@freemo @WhiteCatTamer @lauren In our first-past-the-post system, though, any rope other than the main two won't have enough tensile strength to support your weight. You can grab them if you want, but then you still sink in quicksand *and* look foolish doing so.

@freemo @lauren I'd argue Libertarian Party is full (extremely evil) too since the far-right Mises Caucus takeover.

@freemo @WhiteCatTamer @lauren If democrats are represented by a rope covered in poison, then Republicans are a rope that's actively on fire and third parties are rope made out of single-ply toilet paper.

Yeah, I think I'll take the poison one; that seems like the easiest problem to fix after I get out of the quicksand.

@mentallyalex No, today is the day Taylor Swift throws beads at dudes and asks them to take their tops off.

@RickiTarr Assuming the mind aged normally, I can't imagine why anyone would ever say a number higher than 25.

@garyackerman Yeah, but more of us will remember the debunk.

@carnage4life I agree it's not programming, but it is still a discrete skill set requiring knowledge and experience.

@ThinkingSapien Pretty sure it's an HVAC diagram, what with the references to pressure, heat, condensers, and filters.

@freeagent They need machine learning algo trainers.

@carnage4life I haven't used their service, but based on the basic description I just read, yeah, this makes sense as a necessary pivot so they don't get left behind.

OTOH, replacing almost a quarter of their workforce is a pretty drastic method to accomplish such a goal.

@ahltorp 🙄 Which was why a law was passed in the EU forcing them to have a popup to inform the user before gaining their consent.

And what did most users do? They started blocking the popup meant to inform them.