Handled ; badly.

Our friend the Cascadian Hebrew finally took to writing seriouslyⁱ, which is always a good thing. Lost among the lengthy aspic of nonsense with sprinkles of nonsequiturs and inanities there's at least one gem, which we shall now frame :

Nevermind that the only reason you built "apps" of the scale you did on your first dabblings is because all of the hard stuff was handled for you. Granted, you'll have a better notion of how badly those libraries handled it and with opinions and assholes in hand you'll set out to begin another cycle of [...]

Building for fragility is a very simple, and a very specific thing : this.

Has a clever guy come up with a wayⁱⁱ to handle the hard stuff aka risk which "allows" you to boldlystupidly go new places ? You're fucked, and the whole field of actuarial science will collapse because of it. Did someone figure out how to "resolve"ⁱⁱⁱ the problem of institutional investors not being allowed to buy risky debt ? You're fucked, and banking will end as a result.^iv

The only reason you go about like a bum, without real estate to your name is because "other people" have "handled" the hard part for you. And this makes you vulnerable -- but you prefer to think "the rent situation" is inexplicable.

The only reason you think it acceptable to own no shoes^v is because "other people" have handled the hard part for you. What happens one day when you have to walk ? No, I don't mean two blocks, I mean a hundred and twenty blocks. Yes, it can be done - my girls do it routinely, and on platforms, and on bad sidewalks. The mere thought exposes to you just how vulnerable you are.

Whenever "someone else" "solves" the hard problems "for you", two things happen and they're both horrible. The first thing that happens is that you import their solution, and thereby become vulnerable : they will continue to provide the solution for as long as it makes (economic, or otherwise) sense for them to continue to provide the solution ; whereas you will depend on their solution for as long as it makes sense for you to continue to depend on their solution.^vi

The second thing that happens is that you will go do other things^vii -- things you wouldn't have done if you had a correct image of the actual necessities for your continued life. It's not just that you depend on fragility ; it's that you then misallocate the resources at your disposal to other demands, exactly like the old woman brushing her hair while the house burns down. She perceives that even as she slowly fries, the inferno is nevertheless not actually her problem, being handled by others. Instead her coiffure is a much better use of her resources.

Thus the deeply mistaken notion that "MIT is", somehow as a matter of ontology rather than phenomenology, "the premier science and technology institution in the world" encourages US younguns to sit around on their ass discussing whether their classmates have a right of refusal in amorous congress and how extensive it should be. Why should they bother with actually learning or actually doing ? MIT already is the premiere science and technology bla bla, why should they do anything anymore ? They already are!^viii

Which is why you go around looking like idiots and sticking out like sore thumbs in any countries that aren't "The World" aka "America" which is to say the US : because you perceive that the US military has already solved a hard problem for you (which -- it hasn't, but for as long as you're willing to make any sacrifices to continue with that pretense you're more than welcome to it) ; and that some sort of "intelligence agency" has already solved another hard problem for you (which -- it hasn't, lel) ; and that some sort of other governmental agency masquerading as "private banks" already solved another hard problem for you (which -- it hasn't, you can't give the dollar away these days) and so following. Then you get used, be it for target practice, be it as livestock in trade, be it to power the chumpatronic devices of the locals.

The road to Ritter von Flondor's grave is paved with third party solutions to all the hard problems. Which is fine as long as joining Georg is all you just wanted to anyway.

Do you ?

PS. No, we haven't even discussed just how bad those solutions actually are. All the foregoing discusses the matter in principle, irrespective of the quality of the solutions, and therefore applies in principle, no matter how good the solutions. But then you have to also consider that the incentive for solving a problem is very different from the incentive for providing a solution : the first is directed at the actual problem ; the second is directed at the solution buyer. How many times have you bought solutions that specialized in looking like the solution, rather than solving the problem ?

1. There's a specific point when the hymen finally breaks and the girl goes from coyly wallflowering to competing with the other sluts for the middle of the room and all that sweet sweet cock & male gaze to be found there. In the case of writing and writers this same exact moment is directly observable by the adults because the author moves past producing defensible generalities their inner mother wouldn't protest to actually stating their mind, personally and in places nonsensically -- let all take umbrage who will. This is perhaps counterintuitively but nevertheless a step forward in their writing, because once the individual gives up on defending their imaginary "fortress" of sweet self delusions, actual competence, ability and skill can sneak in -- always on the painful basis of tissue rupture, popped balloons and disabused dreams.

   Nobody (sane) said that maturation is going to be pleasant. The only statement is that maturation is unavoidable, not good, desirable, or even meaningful to the infantile mind ; otherwise defloration is supposed to hurt, specifically because the protective skins are in the way of actual realisation. [↩]

2. Call it Gaussian Copula, why not. [↩]
3. See the discussion of CDOs. [↩]
4. "Oh MP, but it didn't end, it was uploaded into a simulation and it still lives there just as good as it used to."
   Word. [↩]
5. No, birkencrocs aren't shoes. [↩]
6. These aren't the same thing.

   The impedance mismatch is glaring. If it's not glaring to your eye you have a serious case of willing suspension of disbelief. The problem is that your life is not a story, but your life, and WSD is a very poor heuristic for survival.

   If you're not familiar with the story of the giant and the chair then get familiar. The very fact of your dependency is providing perverse incentives to the giant. What, you think the US turned into representing a moral depravity that knows no bounds, having no place in civilised society and deserving of unadorned condemnation for its Barbaric acts because it wanted to ? It didn't want to anymore than you wish to turn into sausage -- but once "the whole world" decided to outsource security work to it, then it practically had to. Because if you can you must, and because some things can never be safely outsourced, and those some things aren't just charity. [↩]

7. The reason idiot teenagers spend their time clicking through lolpics instead of educating themselves is exactly this naive perception that the hard part of education was already handled for them by someone else. [↩]
8. This, of course, requires them to pretend that $evil-gypsy breaking off their arms and beating them black and bloody with their broken off arms never happened and doesn't exist. Which pretense has a cost, and it is a most burdensome cost indeed : it makes communication outright impossible. [↩]