Cancer is too broad of a term.
Some cancers like Hodgkin's lymphoma or testicular cancer respond extremely well to treatment.
Some cancers are caused by cell damage from viruses such as HPV and can be prevented by vaccines.
I get the pessimism because "curing cancer" can essentially be interpreted as "curing aging" but progress is being made.
If Yugoslavia had survived it'd have the relevance of maybe a combined Bulgaria and Romania today.
Slovenia and Croatia were the most developed parts of it and would be burdened by fiscal transfers to undeveloped regions of Bosnia Macedonia and Kosovo. I'd argue Croats and Slovenians enjoy a higher quality of living with a government that can focus on the needs of its own citizens.
You don't need political relevance or even resources to develop a great country. Look at Denmark as an example.
I think you're underestimating the significance of Yugoslavia in its heyday (~1960-1980).
It was a major political power not just in the region, but globally. Tito led and co-founded the Non-Aligned Movement, and effectively maintained sovereignty during the peak of the Cold War. It had a unique liberal flavor of socialism, where people enjoyed high standards of living, intellectual and cultural freedoms, freedom of movement (the Yugoslav passport was accepted globally), housing as a social right, decent wages, universal healthcare, etc. People were generally very happy. This is a big reason why "Yugonostalgia" still persists today.
Yes, the regime could be considered a dictatorship, with a strong police presence, and there are documented human rights violations, but it was far from an oppressive country.
Slovenia and Croatia were indeed wealthier than other regions, but the fiscal burden you mention is part of the socialist system that ensures a respectable standard of living for everyone. This doesn't work if there's a large wealth disparity between regions.
Yugoslavia was an interesting country with a unique political and social model which was not perfect, but IMO had less faults than the systems we have today. I think it's shortsighted to say that it would have the relevance of Bulgaria and Romania today.
> Yes, the regime could be considered a dictatorship, with a strong police presence, and there are documented human rights violations, but it was far from an oppressive countr
I can bet a half case of Guinness what if you describe that to a modern American sans the mention of the country most whould confirm what this is what happening now.
Prevented from visiting? Paris is one of the most visited cities in the world, and the Parisians are pragmatic people. If you're kind and respectful they'll give you that in return.
I can only say the most basic phrases in French and have experienced zero problems.
I’d argue this can’t be trusted either considering the AI labs already established they’re willing to break laws (copyright) if the ultimate legal consequence is just a small fine or settlement.
The labour struggle for rights we see as basic today (40h work weeks, free weekends) was bloody and deadly.
And this was without surveillance tech and automated police drones or w/e else Palantir is working on right now. If we're going by historical precedent this transition won't be pretty, even if you're hoping for a nice optimistic end result.
I'm not so sure having a beefy 401k and maybe a couple of rental properties will be enough to insulate some of the more comfortable HN posters from all the potential chaos.
I am pretty sure we are running towards a big 1929 style system correction. I may be wrong, but that people doesn't even try to contemplate this possibility seems bonkers too me. And in that case, those 401k are not going to be worth much, viz. the price of butter, and neither you can count on rental properties as a income source when everywhere became Flint, OH.
It's a general anxiety of where the industry is headed. Things like marketing, personal branding, experimenting are increasing in relevance while things like detailed meticulous engineering are falling to the wayside.
At least when it comes to these tales of super fast rise to wealth and prominence. Meticulous engineering still matters when you want to deliver scale, but is it rewarded as much?
My feel is that the attention economy is leaking into software. Maybe the classic bimodal distribution of software careers will become increasingly more like the distribution in social-media things like streaming, youtube, onlyfans etc.
European leaders fundamentally have no issue with Americans dominating tech and were happy to have their entire digital infrastructures rely on US companies. If the Trump admin could give them some sort of nod behind the scenes that all of this is just a big show and they're not actually going to break NATO or invade or w/e insane shit they're saying I guarantee you a sizeable amount would just say hey no worries then let's keep the status quo going.
But that's not what's happening. It's a clear and obvious security risk to their sovereignty. If the government can't guarantee that to its citizens then what even is its purpose? The Trump admin has already tried to use American tech dominance as leverage.
Ask yourself this question, what if there was a foreign tech competitor that managed to scale up to be basically a better cheaper AWS. Would the US government ever allow it to encroach its market to the point that AWS or Azure did in Europe? Look at what happened to tiktok if you want to see what approach they'd likely take.
So how exactly would you envision an objective and neutral provider in a world of geopolitical competition?
In a country where every single facet of life is being increasingly politicised, you think this wouldn't cause a fuss?
Oddly enough if any government could just push and shove this through it might be Trump. I bet 20 years later you'd have a sizeable constituency who could be convinced that the change from imperial to foreign units was the beginning of the fall and decline and that everything could be fixed if you went back.
Some are saying "finally, AI does all the busywork and we focus on the business domain"
But what if the business is soulless? As in what if the business you're working on is just milking value out of people through negative patterns which... is ... well a lot of tech businesses these days. Maybe the busywork enabled engineers to be distracted from the actual impact of their work which makes people demotivated.
I get the pessimism because "curing cancer" can essentially be interpreted as "curing aging" but progress is being made.
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