DirtyWaterHotDog
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User ID: 625
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
I see them as the Chinese equivalent to Mistral. They came out of no where, but they definitely weren't upstarts. Post that, they had sufficient resources that it couldn't be called a 'rag tag group of nobodies'. For a while, the media portrayed mistral as a bunch of nobodies fighting against the giants. That characterization was just as incorrect.
Same for Deepseek. None of this takes away from their achievement. They are all cracked, no doubt.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
The 1:1 replacement would be a 2025 Toyota Prius. The new Prius (prime) is a good looking car and will run for ages.
I recommend buying a used EV. The prices are stupid low. I don't know why the market is so negative towards them. But, a used Model 3 is the best deal on the market right now.
Personally, I'm biased towards the Mazda 3 Turbo hatch. Perfect balance of power, handling, premium, longevity and price.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
Ayy no worries. I'm so used to people on TheMotte being skeptical, that the bar for aggressiveness is usually high.
The rate at which they're producing papers has me convinced that DeepSeek is operating at a much much larger scale than than the west realizes. (not taking anything away from them ofc. Deepmind is much larger, and seems to barely be keeping up with Deepseek)
Just today they released a sparse attention paper that makes some pretty bonkers claims - https://x.com/deepseek_ai/status/1891745487071609327
What gives them away is the especially mature way in which they write papers. There is maturity that only comes from writing a lot of them. These are the best ML PhDs China has. Not some trading geniuses who picked up LLMs on the side.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
This is such a thoughtful comment. Leaving a reminder to myself to come back and reply to it when I get the time. Thanks ! I should've waited for your top-post. So much more nuance.
At the highest level, your reaction to it reminds me of how I felt watching RRR. The cultural reaction is so visceral, that it can be hard to articulate. But, you know it when you see it.
You've convinced me to watch it, at the very least.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
Deep Seek had its mainstream moment last month. But, it has been on the radar since early 2024 and the release of Deep Seek coder. While China has been competitive in the LLM space, their major players are massive organizations like Alibaba, Huawei or BAAI. Deep Seek was special because it reflects a cultural appetite for ambitious risk taking paired with technical excellence, all within a small upstart. It's a combination that has been missing from non-US startups, and for a long time was credited for China's inability to execute moonshots.
That aside, you're right. It is more that people are suddenly noticing what were well-funded efforts that were a long time coming. The outcomes themselves weren't sudden at all.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
Are Xianxia and Wuxia the same ? Peerless Dad is a wuxia novel and the manwha adaptation is great. It's Korean.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
It implies - a discipline that the west was thought to dominate, but PRC China created a premier alternative out of nowhere.
Black Myth Wukong & Xiaomi SU7 are other examples.
The 'deepseek' moment is twitter sheeps trying to find a contrived analogy. But it gets the point across.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
Is NeZha 2 any good ?
NeZha2 is China's first big blockbuster. It's being heralded as a 'Deepseek moment' for Chinese cinema and I'm confused.
I saw NeZha 1 with my Chinese roommates and I didn't like it. The animation was expensive, but had a stock footage-ness to all of it. The jokes were Minions-esque slapstick and the core story was straight out a children's book. The movie felt miles behind nuanced works like InsideOut or Up. Ghibli is on a whole another planet. Minions is probably the analogy I would go for. Note - I saw it in Mandarin with subtitles, with a PRC Chinese person explaining any nuance I might've lost.
Now, the Minions movies made a ton of money and the west's block busters have been especially bad post-covid. I get it, it's kettle calling the pot black. Normies have terrible taste, so I'm going to avoid equating commercial success with quality. My comment is from the perspective of taste.
And I am a China optimist. My best friends are PRC Chinese and they're smart. I don't doubt that Chinese companies can compete in global entertainment or automobile markets. But why is everything that comes out of PRC China so tasteless ? There is clear absence of nuance, craft and love in every industrialized piece of crap that comes out of there. Deepseek is special because it feels inspired. DJI & Nothing also have a spark within them. But elsewhere it feels competently executed but empty. Nezha is no different. Great execution, no soul.
Is this hype organic ? Am I just a hater ?
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
The right to know if maintenance is being deferred on the building?
Yes, they have monthly society meetings for communicating these things. It is similar to an HOA, but with significantly less power. I grew up in an apartment, and we never faced sudden costs. All one-time spend was delayed until the collective 'savings account' had enough in it. The monthly maintenance bills stayed constant. (adjusted annually) Also, because the housing society consists of your peers, they're generally receptive to late payments in a way that banks simply are not.
The right to remain in the building if the building has e.g. been condemned due to deferred maintenance outside your control?
If a family stops paying maintenance (electricity, water, building upkeep, heating are often pooled through common systems), then the building will cut off electricity and water to the apartment. But, that's about it. You can continue living in Squalor if you so wish.
The right to replace appliances / flooring / roof / etc ?
Yep. Your house is your house. The building's rooftop and the outsides are upgraded with collective investment and decision making. But once you're indoors, it's all you.
The right to decide on which ISP will service your unit?
Yep. The ISP have already put in the cables. But, we always had a choice among 2-3 different providers. I was quite surprised to find out that people in the US often do not have choice of ISPs.
The right to have accurate forecasts of the cost of rent in the future?
Doesn't apply to ownership. Maximum rent increase/yr is generally capped by the city govt. So, buildings don't play much role here.
The right to have a friend stay the night at my place? The right to store my bike inside my place?
Yes, it's your house. Why would the building need to know or care ? Similar things were very common back home.
landlords
Hope we're talking about the same thing. There are no landlords here. There is usually a housing collective or housing society. It's like being a joint shareholder. All decisions are made by committee.
On the contrary: random one-off bills are common, at least in the US.
Sounds like a USA problem. Not sure what would cause this. It's very rare for large apartments to need sudden spending. Any scheduled upgrades/revamps are planned 3-ish years in advance. Monthly maintenance rates are accordingly increased, but the pain is distributed over years. So when the time comes, the money is already there.
Condo association decides that the parkade really needs redoing now instead of next year on schedule, majority of condo owners agree
Yes, this happens. But, I've never heard of it being a sudden bill. Always distributed over many years. Also, major expenses in our colony requires a super majority (66%+).
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
Here is the kind of apartments I would like in cities. https://youtube.com/shorts/Lqqtb1hE8L0
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
You're correct. The kind of place you describe is a hellish sardine can. Building vertical with no considerations is a recipe for disaster. Unfortunately, post 1970s white flight, many American cities have become hostile to things families care about.
I mentioned in another post that I frequent French and Swiss cities. Even in Paris proper there is an abundance of parks, rentable gardens, playgrounds and just generally - open space. Go away from the touristy parts, and Paris gets fairly quiet, car free and residential. The Swiss cities have all of this but 1 level better.
Car death numbers are so high in sprawling America, that at some point suburbs are creating the problems they claim to solve. Parisians dont have to worry about cars, because it's impossible for maniacs to drive 50 mph in residential zones. Similarly, violence and child safety is organically taken care of when there are a dozen observers around at any given moment.
I would let my kid qander by themselves in an American inner city with 4 lane arterials in every direction. But, thats the outcome of the destruction of American cities....not a property of city by itself.
To me, America has less than 10 cities. Everywhere else is a downtown mall and business area surrounded with endless suburbs.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
Fair, I'll state my claim more clearly.
Jobs force people to agglomerate around cities. Sprawl forces low density, which then forces low supply (high prices) or longer commutes.
Space, time & disposable income affect fertility. Leaving cities comes with a high cost on time and disposable income. Building larger apartments is the answer. IE. large towers, densely packed within the city, but not within the building itself. We don't want to have a canned tuna situation.)
Here are some attainable upper-middle class apartment complexes that I have personally visited. Hongkong, NYC, Zurich, India, Paris, Geneva and Boston. (generally, ignore the ugliness of some of them. They were built during a tasteless modernist era. But they're quite pleasant once you're there)
Examples above. It allows people to be near their work, school and amenities Taller apartments allows for larger apartments on the same footprint/number of families. Staying in the city means disposable income isn't at risk.
We can do both. Sprawl horizontally and vertically. But both groups always find each other on opposite sides of arguments. I've conceded that this phenomena is inevitable. Therefore, I find myself opposing your proposal of horizontal sprawl in favor of my desire for vertical sprawl.
Yeah. Around the world people buy apartments and own them. I personally know friends in Mumbai, Delhi, Geneva, Singapore*, Zurich & Paris who own apartments. The apartments are as liquid as any other type of housing. Because the apartment complexes have large shared facilities, it promotes a natural sense of belonging and community. Makes it great for families.
Here are some attainable upper-middle class apartment complexes that I have personally visited. Hongkong, NYC, Zurich, India, Paris, Geneva and Boston. (generally, ignore the ugliness of some of them. They were built during a tasteless modernist era. But they're quite pleasant once you're there)
These are all fairly dense family oriented complexes. Here, people do not own cars or have a single hatchback for out-of-town trips. You'll notice how the density doesn't mean compromising on green space. Instead, consolidating people into vertical spaces means that the remaining flat land can be used for green space, community gardens and playgrounds. Also, the condos are distant from arterial roads, so quiet and safety, that's associated with suburbs, aren't compromised. The gated nature of many pseudo-public spaces facilities as communal sense of child supervision. You can leave your kids alone, but they're never alone or vulnerable.
Admittedly, I didn't grow up in the US. I grew up in a less fancy version of my above examples, back in India. I don't have the same visceral dislike for apartments like some Americans. I know that American apartments are usually sad motel-esque setups, premium millionaire homes or yuppie share homes. Not a lot of normal 30-40 something families in cities.
That being said, suburbs don't seem all that great either. From my experience living in American suburbs, every house I around me was cookie cutter. Yards were empty. Kids were always supervised. No one walked. I frequently visit French and Swiss cities. Here, people live in apartments, but I see a lot more kids outdoors. Parks are well used. From my anecdotal experiences, European city life is superior to American suburban life in every way.
stability was not within their control
How is that different from an HOA or interest payments on a loan ? Maintenance costs are constant. Once enough has been collected, condo associations spend from their budget. Random one-off bills are unheard of.
Remember that something like 1-in-4 American households live paycheque-to-paycheck. If you're in that position, unexpectedly having to move can financially ruin you.
Wouldn't missing your loan payments put you at the same risk ?
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
injustice
Why does justice suddenly begin factoring in? Is it just that Utah and Idaho residents have 10x of a NYers political power in the Senate ? Don't even get me started on DC.
But assholes in Pennsylvania and New York and Virginia, whose states are entirely private, should not be choking out Nevada and Utah and Idaho
I hear the similarly-framed arguments in NY, NJ & Massachusetts about the North East subsidizing the lives of Middle America. Either ways, I don't federal control of land has anything to do with low demand for moving to Vegas or Reno
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
Development is pro-natal
Is it ? I believe the causation is reversed. People who want kids move to suburbs because American inner-cities are the shame of the 1st world. Mormons moved because they wanted more kids, but more land won't magically create more mormons. Fertility rate is a super-national phenomenon. Intra-national fertility shows low variance (eg: Europe) and at times clashes with the more space = more fertility assumption (eg: France)
83% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas. So, at most, people would move to suburbs or exurbs. Suburbs and exurbs are already quite sparse and privately owned. People are tied to their job and profession. They move to cities for work. As long as jobs exist in cities, people aren't leaving urban areas.
Density increases prices
Blatantly false. High demand and low supply increases prices.. Density increases supply, and therefore decreases prices. It's just that the densest places have such a high demand, that no amount of density can limit housing price increase. Places like Austin and Auckland have seen slower housing price growth because of permissive zoning (densification). On the other hand, Bay Area suburb prices keep shooting up because it's already full with single family homes, and rezoning isn't permitted.
If we want people having 3, 4, 5 kids
Name one 1st world nation with a fertility rate above 2.5. The decline in fertility is relentless & global. I appreciate every genuine attempt towards increasing fertility. But, there is no evidence that more space leads to people having more kids.
Israel may count, but zoom in on any Israeli exurb/suburb and it's vastly denser than most American cities. Clearly density was not the issue. I want to offer a counter-solution for the same problem. Densify aggressively instead.
Jobs are in cities. People won't move and they can't move. But, you can make it easier for them to own property near where they work. If space is the issue, then going from 2 -> 4 bed apartments should solve those issues.
Development is good for the economy
Is it ? First the multi-year infrastructure spending sink & then the annual drain on low-density infrastructure. All for a bunch of people who were unemployable enough to move to the middle of nowhere ? How is it any different than social science fake-jobs in the govt. It creates temporary jobs, with negative long term value.
The US needs to aggressively build out family-sized apartments within its existing cities. SJ, SF & LA should be the first targets. Boston, DC & Miami should be next. Austin & Phoenix (Tempe) area already in the middle of a build out, so non-coastal America is covered. In the north, I think Canada (Vancouver & Toronto) will cannibalize growth potential from Seattle & Chicago....so imma leave the north out of this.
DirtyWaterHotDog
3mo ago
Partially agree. Judith is making a horseshoe point without realizing it.
2025 Trump is a far-right anti-institutionalist identarian. Sanders and the Squad would be popular analogues on the left. On both sides, these people express glee at the suffering of others (fuck karens, fuck billionaires, fuck immigrants, fuck trans people etc). They're contrasted by painfully indecisive centralists. 'Decision by Committee' is a slur in business, but also the explicit goal of centrist govts.
The reason her point hits home for the ring-wing, is because right wing centrists lost all power. Post-Jan 6, there was a rout, and the likes of Mitt Romney have been purged. On the democratic side, Bernie was successfully sidelined by Biden and 'The Squad' has been dismantled. The left's centrists are strong, so the sadism of their identarian wing is suppressed.
To be clear, I am a follower of Trump, and part of my evidence for the thesis advanced here comes from introspection on my own psychology. It feels good to define yourself and your own as Inside, and others as Outside, and to apportion to each what is rightly due.
We all have a sadistic side to us. Like epigenetics, we choose to indulge in sadism when our zeitgeist promotes it. Have you only started indulging your sadism post-Trump ? Or has it always been indulged internally, with an external facade to fit into a zeitgeist that promoted restraint ? Even as adults, I know many smart people, who turn into total jackasses when they're around that one dude (we all know one such dude). Those same people have confessed to feeling terrible afterwards, when I talked to them 1:1. Not pretend confessed, I mean 'bawling their eyes out' confessed. You can't always blame unintentional cult members for the sins of a hypnotic leader.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the extreme left's failure has to do with ex-communist nations still being shit-holes. Communism has caused suffering more recently than Nazism. There are people alive who remember how horrible it was. The WW2 veterans are all dead, and the Axis powers are all successful nations now. Italy, Germany, Japan....all great places to live. History is cyclical because only visceral experiences can shape a man. Once those with scar tissue drop dead, no amount of WW2 movies can communicate those horrors to new youth. They must make the same mistakes again.
DirtyWaterHotDog
3mo ago
Surely you mean "asymmetrically"?
Yep, corrected.
the number of eligible groups you could apply this to changes.
Agreed.
DirtyWaterHotDog
3mo ago
(I'm taking liberalism to mean to mean pragmatic pro-institution free market globalists. Macron would be the closest example of ones still in power)
quitting of center left moderates like TracingWoodgrains and Yassine Meskhout
More like their substacks took off, and it doesn't make sense for them to do it for free anymore. If anything, it is a clear sign that they're ascendent. Once politically homeless, they now have an audience of anti-woke centrists listening to them.
failure of liberalism
For decades, Liberals were dominant on both the left and the right. With the fall of the Soviet union, the extreme left was left nursing it wounds. On the right, 9/11 response & economic recovery required large institutional efforts, so anti-institutional groups had no uptake.
AOC and Trump use symbiotic antagonism to shore up support within their ranks. Both would rather see the other win than an centrist. They have embraced horseshoe theory. Liberals are yet to get there. Left liberals still treat right liberals with greater disdain than extreme progressives, and vice versa. Liberals need to work across the aisle to get centrists bill through, while collectively keeping extremists at bay. At the national level, it seems impossible. They have terrible optics too. The centrist left has geriatric Biden/Clinton or DEI hires like Kamala. The centrist right is geriatrics and nepo babies. That's a losing proposition if I've ever seen one.
But there are signs of change among the youth and local govts. Major blue cities have swung to the center. The clearest example is Ann Davidson switching from Dem -> Rep and winning Seattle's district attorney seat. Eric Adams ran on a centrist platform for NYC mayor, and has managed to stay in power despite many legitimate scandals. At the national level, Pete Buttigieg seems to have more friends at Fox News that within the Democratic big tent.
Political trends are cyclic. I think populism is peaking in North America. But I expect Western Europe to get worse before it gets better (for liberals).
Germany, France, South Korea and Canada
It's immigration. Liberalism assumes a certain non-zero-sum-ness to the world. Once low-skill immigrants worsen the QOL of your liberal utopia, liberalism's loses its core appeal. Problematic immigrants come illegally or as opportunistic refugees. If liberalism shows a capacity for strong border enforcement & minimal refugees, then it has a chance. South Korea is it's own mess and has been for a while. Won't equate its turmoil with western ideological trends.
Japan, China
Guess how many illegal immigrants and refugees come to these countries.
On immigration
I don't think employment based immigration is an issue. (Note, I am on H1b, so take my opinion with that caveat). Australia for instance, maintains steady immigration, but has a higher ratio of skilled immigrants vs the others. It hasn't swung populist just yet. For decades before, Canada & the UK sustained a high rate of skills based immigration and it did not doom liberal-centrists. Even after the total shitshow at Canada/UK, their retaliatory leaders of choice still feel like Liberals (Starmer, Pierre).
Is liberalism dying?
Yes
Will liberalism die ?
No.
Guerilla warfare is a defensive strategy against symmetrically asymmetrically matched opponents. Once the tide starts turning the guerillas have no reason to play by this defensive strategy. At that point they move above ground, take over institutions, and the final phase of the battle will resemble one of a traditional war or a coup.
Is the entire blog written by deep seek ? I'm surprised at how often it uses rat-sphere phrases.
Schelling fences , meta-derisking , empirical weight
'Schelling fences' phrase was coined by Scott right ? Did you coax it to sound like a less-wronger ?
When 90% of Europe’s population died during the Black Death
bit exaggerated no ?
Reshaping labor markets: Top graduates now see AGI research as higher-status than finance or civil service.
Chatgpt doesn't like making controversial statements. It's refreshing to see a less lobotomized model delve into murky areas like reconfiguring society.
Liang’s meta-derisking – making exploration legible, replicable, and prestigious
I like this framing. It's incisive. Would be an impressive way to frame the conclusion for any person, let alone an AI. The prestige part is most important.
It demands ecosystems that reward speculative genius as reliably as rice farmers once rewarded meticulousness. The question isn’t whether Chinese minds can innovate, but whether China’s institutional lattice will let a thousand DeepSeeks bloom
yeah......it's right. Derivative, but correct.
or if this lone swallow merely heralds a cultural spring that never comes.
Hah. LLMs can't resist a good metaphor.
DirtyWaterHotDog
3mo ago
Everyone was a writer, a musician, an artist
Its damning, because any serious creative will move to LA / NYC. The ones left in SF are the untalented and fickle kind.
DirtyWaterHotDog
3mo ago
Iron Dome for America
America already has an Iron Dome, it's called the Atlantic & Pacific oceans. Any nation that has the resources to drop a missile on the American mainland is already budgeting for nuclear war. At that point, we're looking at a bad actor who wants the apocalyptic scenario. No Iron Dome is going to stop a player that powerful, motivated and off-their-rocker.
The paranoia is reminiscent of cold war era nuclear arms race. There is reason we stopped proliferating.
kinetic fires and possibly lasers in space
It aligns Elon's and Lock-heed Martin's joint interests. With a double whammy that powerful, I bet it goes through.
DirtyWaterHotDog
3mo ago
Egg frying is about temperature. A stainless steel pan would work just fine. I use carbon steel (woks), and it works great. You only need a non-stick for french omelettes.
DirtyWaterHotDog
3mo ago
Ah you're right. The rest of it is heat sinks and fans. You could fit a whole super-computing cluster on a shipping container.
Comes back to 'Bureaucracy Isn't Measured In Bureaucrats'. The overhead is a result of the regulations. The removal of overhead doesn't remove regulations.
What funding do woke movements need ? They're staffed by privileged upper class volunteers who're signed up in unemployable non-STEM programs. Wokeism works precisely because it needs no funding.
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