> People who are unwilling to figure out the risks just should not use smartphones and the internet.

That train has left the station decades ago. The internet has become an essential part of modern societies. People can't not use the internet (or smartphones), at least if they don't live in the woods.

Have you read my comment in full?

Kind of reminds me of "nucleation sites" in physics.

I think one factor that's missing from the explanation is the extensive media and political coverage that solar panels got: There are probably very few people by now that don't know what a roof solar panel is or who don't have an opinion on them.

So my guess is that most of those neighbors who "suddenly" decided to also get a panel, were already interested or at least curious about getting one. (In the sense of "I should totally be getting one some time, but I have no time/now idea how to start/other things are more important/etc")

Maybe the early adopter was then what changed peoples' stance from a vague idea to a concrete plan.

I remember two Gamescom visits.

First one was I think during the releae of the first Oculus, when still hardly anyone got to actually try out VR headsets. An absolutely HUGE area in one of the main halls, the queue going once around the entire area, many hours of waiting time, etc.

Second visit was two years later, in the "indies, hobbyists and everything else hall" - staffers of some Chinese gaming startup were stopping random passersbys and essentially pleading for them to try their VR game - the headset of course being technically superior than the Oculus during the first visit...

I wasn't following the project very closely and so might have missed something - but could someone explain what happened there and where all those billions went?

The idea of an immersive, persistent, multi-user virtual reality is not exactly a new one and we've had several mature implementations over the years - VRChat, Second Life, in some sense most MMOs, etc.

Compared to that, all the impressions of the "Metaverse" that made some larger rounds in the press looked more like the prototype of a WiiFit knockoff. And that for 85B? Did they do some significant research/development in other problem areas that are less visible than the graphics? Or what was going on there?

> LLMs can build an idea into a prototype in a weekend

Just to nitpick, because I think the difference is relevant: "Idea to prototype in a weekend" was possible for a spirited coder already before LLMs.

Now it's "Idea to prototype in a few minutes".

Feels to me like this is good old "if a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure".

I.e. happiness is a good measure to identify other things in your life: If something makes you unhappy, address it, if something makes you happy, follow it. (Very simplified)

But if you make "maximizing happiness" the direct target without any context, you get drugs.

Yes. Another pattern you can observe throughout the years of the conflict, right now again in Lebanon: When Israel rejects an offer, they get a better offer. When everyone else in the region rejects an offer, they get a worse one.

Also, the conflict around "the area from the river to the sea" in it's entirety is something like 140 years old, with western countries having played a driving role since the very beginning. The Sudan conflict on its own has no such history. (The colonial history of Africa is a different story)

Generally, I think it's reasonable to pay more attention to conflicts where the own side is in the wrong. I don't need to demonstrate or raise awareness if my government is already acting like I'd want it to.

> It just doesn't fit into one person's head anymore.

True, but I think it doesn't have to, at least not everything at the same time.

You can still usually understand the ins and outs of a specific component/service/module/etc with some time - e.g. if you have to develop or maintain that component.

Alternatively, you can also try to understand certain data or action paths throughout all components of the system - that's what OP did with the layout bug: They were trying to understand how Android's relayouting logic worked, so they managed to get a mostly complete picture of all the pieces that are involved in that specific functionality. But they probably didn't bother to learn the rest of Android's UI renderer or other unrelated components with the same thoroughness.

I think this kind of "selective understanding" where make conscious decisions which parts you want to understand and which you treat like a semi-predictable black box works well in practice.