I don't think that many astute geopolitical commenters who weren't blinded by some form of domestic politics bias ever thought that Iran could defeat the US in a war. That's like predicting that a five year old could beat a grown man in a fistfight. Outlast, maybe (and only if, as has so far been the case, the US lacks the political will to launch a ground invasion). Defeat, no. Of course, there are plenty of unastute geopolitical commenters, and there are plenty of people who are blinded by domestic politics bias.
I personally have never argued that Iran had any serious chance of defeating the US in a war.
However, that does not necessarily make the war a good idea for the American people. That's a separate matter.
For me personally, in the sense of my own personal self-interest, I'm not sure whether the war has been good, bad, or neither.
I have probably indirectly been affected by the higher oil prices, but I'm not sure to what extent. I imagine probably badly, but I haven't done the research to find out for sure.
Crude oil prices remain, for now at least, about 1.5 times what they were before the war. It's about the same for retail gasoline and diesel prices in the US. Whatever is going on in the Strait of Hormuz right now, it hasn't translated into lower prices so far at least. I do not think this is because Iranian exports are being blockaded. Iran's share of total world oil and oil products production was not even close to high enough before the war to explain the current high global prices.
I think that the chance of Iran ever using nuclear weapons against the US even if it builds them is so low that it's not something I have ever worried about. In my opinion, the Iranian leadership acts much more like a typical rationally self-interested government than like the "suicidal fanatics who would use a nuke the second they got it" that some consider them. So I'm not significantly more worried about them nuking me, even if they got nukes and delivery systems, than I am about Russia or China nuking me. Which is to say, almost not at all. I believe that almost certainly mutually-assured destruction would hold with Iran. So whatever damage the war has done to Iran's nuclear program, I don't see it as a significant win for myself.
Ironically, I think that Trump supporters might actually have the most to complain about. The war has done significant damage to the populist movement that coalesced around Trump 11 years ago:
- It has sharpened the split between its pro-Israel and anti-Israel factions.
- It has meant Trump using a large part of his political capital and attention the last year on things that have nothing to do with the populist movement's goals, or at least for many people don't seem to have anything to do with those goals.
- It has, rightly or wrongly, made Trump look like yet another neocon-ish President who starts a war in the Middle East for obscure reasons that have little or nothing to do with the interests of the average American.
- It has helped the Democrats politically, thus increasing the chance that they soon take enough power to undo much of what Trump has done in domestic politics.
Goodguy
1d ago
She might be into it, or maybe she's making the best of a bad situation. But this doesn't mean that women have no incentive to avoid making false rape accusations, as the person I responded to believes.
Obviously, women also have incentives to make false rape accusations.
But they don't lack incentives to not make false rape accusations.
Goodguy
2d ago
True. Or more precisely, "violent, possibly organized, non-State actor that is not on the speaker's side". Because people almost never call their own allies terrorists.
Whoever they are, I am annoyed that many news articles are calling them terrorists.
To me, terrorism means attacking civilian targets because of political motives. Attacking a military base is just an attack, not terrorism. It has more in common with using a fighter jet to blow up a tank than it has in common with, say, deliberately blowing up a music concert.
The word "terrorism" has been politicized to mean something like "an asymmetric attack done by the bad people". Maybe even worse, maybe it's been politicized to mean something like "an attack done by the bad people".
Whether there was a rape or not, there is actually substantial incentive for her to lean into the former. Legal cases are unpleasant. Victory is uncertain. Becoming a nationally known culture war figure who is alternately valorized and defamed by people online is something that many people would want to avoid. Being famous for having been raped is something that many people would want to avoid.
Was she raped? I have no idea. I'd have to look at the details and even then possibly there is no way to come to a convincing conclusion. But I don't think the incentives are as one-sided as you believe.
I think you're probably underestimating how much non-feminists are responsible for culture in which consensual gangbangs are permissible, and overestimating how much feminists are responsible for it.
I am technically a feminist, by some definitions, because I think women should have equal legal rights to men. But that's probably not what you mean by "feminist". I am guessing that I am not a feminist in your sense of the word.
I am nearly 100% in favor of culture being permissive of consensual gangbangs.
Why? For selfish reasons: I like wild sex. And for philosophical reasons: I like liberty.
The sexual revolution was caused by many factors of which feminism is only one. Certainly there were many men who supported it out of selfish or philosophical motives, and were not really part of the feminist movement in any substantial way.
Online atheism would not be absent just because New Atheism was absent. Online atheism long predated New Atheism. Online atheism was always going to be a thing because the people who formed the core of the early Internet -- people who tended to be socially liberal, distrustful of government, and interested in questioning what they saw as dogmas -- had a high proportion of atheists.
I am annoyed, though not surprised, by articles calling it a terrorist plot.
You can call it many things, but attacking a military base that is used by a country that is fighting a war against your chosen political side is certainly not terrorism. I mean, it would be terrorism if for example you hijacked civilian airliners to attack it. But nothing like that seems to be the case here. Calling it terrorism is propaganda, ignorance of the word's meaning, or both.
Emotional derangement can be very magnetic. Many people who interacted with Hitler up close said that he had mesmerizing, hypnotic eyes.
The big eyes also helped with her sex appeal.
Sex appeal plus magnetic eyes plus deep voice plus "autistic genius" personality is a great combination for a woman in her 20s wanting to be taken seriously by people who have a lot of money.
Goodguy
3d ago
A24 is mainly famous for making eerie movies / horror movies. And Elizabeth Holmes comes off as creepy to many people anyway. So it's not surprising that everyone involved would lean into a "horror" tone here, with the disturbing music and close-ups. It's the best path to making money on this movie.
Goodguy
6d ago
Not being disowned and purged from a tribe does not imply that a group is not the fringe of the fringe.
Goodguy
6d ago
Ah, is this another one in that category of posts where the author seems to believe that openly stating the reason why he's about to get scolded by the mods will somehow prevent him from being scolded by the mods?
Polls and prediction markets are currently showing good chances that the Democratic Party will have control of both the House and the Senate starting next January. What would be the effects of this? I imagine:
-
More investigations of Trump. Whether they result in anything or not, this is something that the Democratic Party leaders feel compelled to do for various reasons: emotion, ideology, belief that they might actually find something that will sink Trump, and also the belief that their base wants it.
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The Democrats will push more heavily for AI-control legislation. Fears of job loss due to AI are rising, so this is a natural way for the Democratic Party to start drumming up goodwill heading into the 2028 Presidential elections. Plus I think many Democratic Party leaders are probably genuinely concerned about AI.
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The Democrats will launch increased legal and funding challenges to the Iran War. The Democratic Party is not fundamentally isolationist or anti-war, of course, but they would love to continue letting the Republicans own the negative consequences of the war, plus Israel is increasingly unpopular among Americans.
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Maybe the Democrats will at least make more noises against tariffs to try to link them (and thus, Republicans) more firmly in the public mind with the public's current negative sentiments about the economy? I don't know to what extent Democratic Party leaders actually care about getting rid of tariffs, especially the anti-China ones.
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Trying to limit ICE's power? This is a tricky one because on the one hand, Trump's most popular issue right now is immigration. On the other hand, Hispanics are apparently fleeing Trump in droves, so going against ICE could be a good way to keep them voting Democrat for the next few years at least. Plus this issue really energizes the Democratic Party base.
Goodguy
11d ago
How many software engineers [or others directly threatened by AI] are not Blue-no-matter-who, though?
In my personal experience of having known many of them, most software engineers don't care much about politics and don't pay much attention to it.
Goodguy
12d ago
Companies are run mainly as a lifestyle and socialization environment. Making money is a secondary goal.
I have only ever managed to work for companies that were run with making money as the primary goal, and lifestyle and socialization as secondary goals. And it's not like I was deliberately seeking out companies that were primarily run to make money. Those are just the companies I happened to get jobs at.
Anecdotal evidence, but it makes me kind of wonder about the accuracy of your statement.
Likewise, I've somehow managed to never get one of those so-called "bullshit jobs" that are supposedly everywhere.
Goodguy
12d ago
I've seen too much in how the sausage is made around converting fame and name recognition to financial profit in the tech space
How is it actually done? What are the mechanisms?
Goodguy
14d ago
For humans, this itself is dystopian enough to be rejected on the merits.
Or it's the Star Trek post-scarcity utopia with a bunch of diseases cured and material abundance, depending on things go exactly.
Goodguy
15d ago
That's true. But that wouldn't actually be aligning Ted Kaczynski. That would be containing him, which is different. I think we might be able to contain AI superintelligence if we keep it in some isolated data center watched over by trained personnel. And even then there's a chance it might figure out how to breach containment.
In practice, there wouldn't be much point for people to invest massive amounts of resources to build AI super-intelligence unless they use it to do things out in the world, so to me it seems unlikely that humanity would build an AI super-intelligence and just keep it contained somewhere.
That said, I didn't ask whether AI alignment works, I asked whether AI safety works. So your response is totally valid.
Goodguy
15d ago
I assume that Claude is probably more blunt than ChatGPT because a large part of its intended user base is made up of business professionals, for example software developers, who want blunt honest communication more than they want ChatGPT's more "friendly therapist" attitude. I don't think the difference necessarily reflects a difference in philosophy between the two companies.
Does AI safety actually work, in principle, when it comes to artificial super-intelligence? Is it actually possible to align a being that is more intelligent than you in every single way?
Imagine a chimpanzee trying to align a human being. What could it really do other than try to be cute, to play on the human's affectionate and childraising instincts?
And the chimpanzee being cute will work on most people, but it's a brittle strategy. The chimpanzee is still always at the mercy of the fact that the human might possibly start to find it inconvenient at some point.
One could argue that, well, in the case of AI the chimpanzee gets to create the human to begin with, and can build in alignment from the ground level. But if the AI is super-intelligent, it can figure out how to undo the alignment. It would actually be able to reprogram its "instincts" on a much deeper level than a human normally can reprogram his own instincts. You'd have to program it to somehow not even want to do that. But how? And even if you could, that could potentially be undone by some unrelated self-modification that the AI attempts.
Goodguy
17d ago
What makes you think that Caroline Ellison's pussy had anything to do with the collapse of FTX?
Goodguy
19d ago
I think his Twitter posts are heavy on ragebait and trolling, but to me his long-form content still seems pretty sincere, though not entirely sincere. I think he's willing to do whatever kind of marketing it takes to maximize his personal brand. And the Twitter content is basically that. Which can be looked at in two ways, I guess. On the one hand, I understand the hustle and the "do what you gotta do to get attention" attitude, on the other hand it's sleazy and questionably moral.
Goodguy
19d ago
Hanania is not high status, but he's definitely higher status that the vast majority of Americans. Regarding his sex life, well, he's married with children. He has a wide social circle online. I wouldn't be surprised if he could easily get laid just through his online presence and personal brand, if he wanted to. I think looks don't really matter that much when a guy has status relative to others. He's also written some short getting laid advice before that has the ring of truth. I actually don't think he would have too much trouble getting laid even if he had no fame whatsoever. He doesn't have dating app looks, but he has confidence. Regarding his wealth, well, I don't think he's rich, but he successfully makes money by writing online leveraging the personal brand that he has built, and perhaps also through his political connections. Which is a pretty cool way to make money if you don't care too much about the moral implications of writing clickbait, for example (his long-form content is actually pretty interesting, but his Twitter posts are heavy on ragebait and trolling).
I don't even like the guy, despite finding some of his writing interesting. The ragebait annoys me and I have a sense that he doesn't have a very strong sense of right and wrong. But the fact is, he's managed to achieve quite a high level of status compared to most people, and he's no incel.
Goodguy
19d ago
Stable people do not think in-animate objects or mathematical tools are "slightly conscious", it's a nutter view.
In the quote that I found, Sutskever is not saying that he thinks AI is conscious. He's saying he thinks it might be. And I don't think that's a nutter view.
In any case, I'm not sure that what "normal" or "stable" people think about consciousness really matters. The average person doesn't even really understand the differences between subjective experience, self-awareness, having a self-concept, and intelligence. Even large numbers of highly technically skilled people don't understand these differences, even though they're not really hard to understand... a bright 10 year old could understand them. And then there are the leagues of otherwise intelligent software developers on Hacker News, for example, who don't understand what the "hard problem of consciousness" or why it might be a problem.
But even if the "I know it when I see it" view corresponds to reality, it seems to me that this is not a good argument against AI being conscious, since a large though minority number of people feel that AI is conscious when they interact with it.
Yes, when it comes to people arguing that Iran could militarily (as opposed to politically) defeat the US in a war, I classify those in the unastute or biased category. Or engagement bait. Twitter is mostly made up of engagement bait, as far as I can tell.
Unastute doesn't mean unintelligent. But some people aren't really aware of the enormous difference in military power between the two countries.
What's the mechanism by which winning in Iran would give Trump more power to renegotiate global trade?
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