RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
No bio...
User ID: 317
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
The Great Realignment in US politics marches on: https://x.com/IrishPatri0t/status/1834317557329023315
On one hand, the Cheney/Bush-Kamala rapprochement continues. But on the other hand, Trump and Biden seem to be moving closer and closer together? Real - Biden taking a Trump hat with him up onto Air Force One, putting on a Trump Hat in a meeting in Pennsylvania to applause. Fake - the AI stuff.
More seriously: https://x.com/RogerJStoneJr/status/1834560572131602788
https://x.com/captivedreamer7/status/1834091502395388385
However, Biden does have an opportunity to make the most significant endorsement of his political career...
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
In 1979, Wiesenthal told The Washington Post: "I have sought with Jewish leaders not to talk about 6 million Jewish dead [in the Holocaust], but rather about 11 million civilians dead, including 6 million Jews." In a 2017 interview, Yehuda Bauer said that he had told Wiesenthal not to use this figure. "I said to him, 'Simon, you are telling a lie,' ... [Wiesenthal replied] 'Sometimes you need to do that to get the results for things you think are essential.'" According to Bauer and other historians, Wiesenthal chose the figure of 5 million non-Jewish victims because it was just lower than the six million Jews who were murdered, but high enough to attract sympathy from non-Jews. The figure of eleven million Nazi victims became popular and was referred to by President Jimmy Carter in the executive order establishing the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.[138]
Didn't the Nazis kill plenty of Poles, Roma and Slavs, or are we now defining Holocaust to only include dead Jews? Seems like a lot of word games are being played here.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
One tech company ploughed moderate amounts of money into the metaverse (about $20 billion total?), all of them are pumping insane amounts of money into AI.
There's a qualitatively different atmosphere between AI and the metaverse, you don't see the US restricting VR tech exports like they are AI tech. AI is just better, LLMs are used in so many places (writing, images, music, code, translation...) whereas the metaverse only exists in VR.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
That's the mini version. There's mini, preview and then o1 proper.
OpenAI is not very good at distinguishing its models.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
The US tech titans are collectively ploughing at least $100 billion into AI capital spending per annum. They are absolutely determined to reach the top of this tree, no matter the cost.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
It's a coder's model I think, not a gooner's model. And I think we're only going to get the monkey models at this point. The Soviets had export versions of their tanks made with shit steel and without the good optics. They didn't want their full abilities to be exposed. Plus the export versions were cheaper, suitable for mass production.
OpenAI has the compute to train really big models, they don't have the compute to make them available to the hoi-polloi. There are already pretty prohibitive rate-limits on the new o1. And they don't want to expensively let other companies inference out and replicate their models, which may be why they're concealing the true chain of thought.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
Agreed, I much prefer a disinterested clockmaker that implicitly says "as for your comfort, that will depend upon your efforts" than an all-loving deity who lets a devoutly Catholic Lisbon be razed by an earthquake on All Saints Day.
There is no good reason the arc of history (and physics itself) needs to involve such enormous amounts of suffering. An omnipotent being could structure the universe like a slice-of-life anime where the worst that could happen is that you look foolish in front of your friends.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
I don't want civilization to collapse because I'm enjoying sanitation, electricity, digital technology, relative safety, fresh food from around the world via refrigerated supply lines.
I don't enjoy hard manual labour in fields, reading books by candle-light, starving as agriculture disintegrates (does anyone know how to do things with horses today) or getting massacred by gangs of looters.
And nor does anyone else. There are plenty of coercive things that the modern state can do, China has a history of interfering with reproduction.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
I can believe that 30 (and many more) of the 20,000 are hard workers. But does that justify the movement of tens of thousands?
If you get 2x number of good low-wage workers, 10x number of welfare users + x number of bad low-wage workers (the ones who crash the truck into someone because they're bad drivers, or cause industrial accidents) + 2x number of petty thieves and drug dealers... Is that a good deal? It's a good deal for the business owner who has his workers - maybe he can distinguish between good and bad workers, maybe he knows what he's doing and isn't just racking up legible gains and ignoring tail risks. But it's probably not good for the community or the region.
I just made those numbers up, who can say what the ratios are. We can observe that Haiti is not a very well-run country. There is no reason to think that the numbers will be good.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
A more precise study conducted by the local University of the West Indies - Jamaica's population is more accurately 76.3% African descent or Black, 15.1% Afro-European ( or locally called the Brown Man or Browning Class) , 3.4% East Indian and Afro-East Indian, 3.2% Caucasian, 1.2% Chinese and 0.8% Other.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Jamaica
Haiti is 95% black, 5% mixed.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Haiti/Climate#ref54461
That seems like a fairly substantial difference, they still have the mixed whereas in Haiti they're mostly gone.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
Maybe we should distinguish between state capacity and realized results?
The US has the power to find and remove drug dealers from circulation if it wanted to. If drug addicts can find dealers, so can police. There are open-air drug markets in several US cities, it's not hard to find them. When Xi went to San Francisco they cleaned everything up for him.
The US chooses not to maintain safety in its cities, it chooses not to arrest drug dealers at scale. But when Jan 6th happened, then they actually were serious about jailing the rioters/protesters. They found ways to imprison people who weren't even there and keep them in prison, they stopped messing around.
I think state capacity in the West has declined but not nearly as much as the willingness to use said capacity. There's definitely massive malaise and grifting but there's also a lot of deliberate apathy, that's the anarcho-tyranny part. I think this is dangerous because there are a lot of fairly relaxed policymakers and leaders who know that they're not running things efficiently. They might well think 'if there's a major crisis, we'll rev up the engine to full power and show the world what we can do'. But the engine is rusty and the oil should've been changed ages ago. The state machinery isn't used to high-performance operations anymore, the engine might jam or explode if they try. There'll be a huge performance gap between expectations and reality. It reminds me of how Britain and the United States were thought to be the best prepared for a pandemic at the start of COVID, then everyone ran around like a headless chicken for 6-9 months.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
There were no major war debts, no foreign invasions. What European country can say that? Liberia inherited a successful constitution from the USA and continual foreign aid.
In its 1930 report, the league admonished the Liberian government for "systematically and for years fostering and encouraging a policy of gross intimidation and suppression" by "[suppressing] the native, prevent him from realizing his powers and limitations and prevent him from asserting himself in any way whatever, for the benefit of the dominant and colonizing race, although originally the same African stock as themselves."
They made the decision to suppress the natives all by themselves. They made the decision to fall into foreign debts all by themselves. They were blessed with natural resources: rubber, iron and diamonds. They squandered one of the most fortunate geopolitical/geoeconomic positions in world history.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11mo ago
when Japan could conceivably become anti-American at some point in the near future (I am no expert on geopolitics in any way so feel free to tell me this is ridiculous and an anti-US Japan would be completely suicidal- though from what I understand Japan has shown suicidal tendencies in the past.)
Strange things have happened in world history but I'd bet against this. Japan is fixated upon China, not America. China threatens their lines of communication to the rest of Eurasia, China hates them for a bunch of reasons and the feeling is mutual. It makes sense to work with the US to counter China, that's what they've been doing. I think they would much rather have some dumb GI's rape the occasional Okinawan rather than give China the opportunity to dish out their revenge fantasies for Nanjing.
Japan is old, they have insufficient agriculture, resources and energy to fight wars with great powers, let alone the US. Despite large rice subsidies and import tariffs they're at about 40-50% on domestic calories. There's a very strong pacifistic element in their society that's slowly being eroded by the China threat. They're reliant on a lot of US military technology. Maybe China trounces the US so severely they decide to change camps and cut a deal for better treatment but that's very, very unlikely. At that point, we have much bigger problems to worry about.
Let's compare Haiti to West African countries.
Haiti: GDP per capita PPP: $3185, HDI: 0.552
Liberia: GDP per capita PPP: $1789, HDI: 0.487
Ivory Coast: $6960, 0.534
Togo: $2767, 0.547
Ghana: $6905, 0.602
Nigeria: $6340, 0.548
Burkina Faso: $2682, 0.438
Haiti is a standard-issue West African country in a different hemisphere. Jamaica is in a totally different place: 12K GDP per capita and HDI at 0.7. Dominican Republic: 27K, 0.766 (which seems rather high but they do have gold, tourism and agriculture). Jamaica and the Dominican Republic are less African demographically, there are plenty of mixed and whites, especially in Dominican Republic.
The most important thing seems to be demography, not history. What external problems did Liberia have? The US protected them the whole time but they're worse off than Haiti today. The Liberians were very good at producing their own problems, they didn't need any external threats.
Lots of countries have had external problems and institutional problems. But they don't fall to Haiti levels and stay there. Ukraine has suffered a lot in history, they're at $15K and 0.734 today, during a major war! Vietnam is at a similar level of prosperity and they've done plenty of fighting, plenty of communism. China had about a century where they were constantly pummelled by the world's great powers, by eachother and then by an unusually damaging brand of communism. They blew everything up in a series of revolutions and civil wars, fought half the UN in Korea and skirmished with most of their neighbours: GDP 25K, 0.788.
I did a little research and it looks like Haiti might have Venezuela-tier oil and gas wealth. I don't fully believe it myself, nobody seems to have properly explored it because why would you, Haiti is a shithole. All kinds of crazy stuff happens there, zombies, cannibal gangs. The problem is with the people.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11mo ago
If Claude is to be believed, you need special high melting point silica bricks (and many other things besides) just to use the Bessemer process. Even going back to the Elizabethan period makes things hard to catch up quickly. The economies of scale weren't there, you didn't have the right precision tools and pumping technology.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11mo ago
It sucks a lot worse for an untalented individual to live in Brazil than in the US, that's true. But it is very much not a third world country with third world problems.
They've got more murders there than in the entire rich world + China, Russia, Indonesia and North Africa: https://old.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fp1vrd7wr6dy81.jpg
Mostly these are low-lives killing eachother. But I don't want to live in a country full of murders. Even the US murder rate is too high. We should be aiming for perfection, not a bare-minimum. What about Japan or pre-2010s Sweden or Iceland?
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11mo ago
if the Nazis had at least made vaguely credible motions in the direction of a future Free Russian state rather than making their exterminationist intent obvious
Large numbers of Soviet citizens, mostly Ukrainians, served in the German army as Hiwis. More fought in the SS. The official plan was to move the Russian people off the good land in Western Russia and resettle it with Germans, that necessitated a Free Russian State albeit with much less territory.
Assuming Germany won the war, they'd inevitably find that there just weren't enough Germans to populate the enormous swathes of land they conquered, even including their optimistic reclassifications of the Danes, Dutch and so on as German. This would probably necessitate moderation. The Allies moderated their post-war plans (to render a diminished Germany a deindustrialized wasteland), it's reasonable to assume that a post-war Germany would also moderate.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11mo ago
Whatever the successor to 8chan is?
Also, please cut down your sentences. They're way too long and hard to read! I count nine commas and 4 bracket clauses in just one sentence, that's way too much.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11mo ago
Community has already disintegrated. Atomization has already happened.
I agree that replacing natural families with clones is a long shot. This would never happen in a functioning civilization. We are not a functioning civilization and thus we shall have to trade off wants for needs. I don't think the state should have such great powers. Nevertheless, all these things are wants, survival is a need.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11mo ago
Industrial scale artificial births are the surest path to success, IMO. Orphans turn out alright, all things considered. Many of the problems with orphans are probably biologically rooted, their genes are probably closer to drug fiends than fantasy heroes. If you picked out good genes and ran a functional education system I think you'd get good results.
Even Mongolian TFR is declining from its peak of 3. I saw someone just today say that it had fallen 10% in the latest statistics.
https://x.com/Aaronal16/status/1830956670345978198
Alternately, maybe a cultural fix where parents get affirmative action in university and the workforce would stem the bleeding?
All of this will probably come too late to matter, since no major leaders are aggressive enough to make tough decisions. No country has stuck with a 'pick out good genes and run a functional education system' strategy for more than a few years even with regular people, let alone clones. South Korea is still mucking about with lame financial incentives.
I'd like to imagine that they are all secretly AGI-pilled. Realistically, it's probably eternal boomer syndrome: anything that takes more than 15 years to have serious effect will come after I'm retired. They can't blame me, it will be someone else's problem then!
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11mo ago
But for the U.S., there's an alternate world where the Suez Canal is still run by the Brits, with Israeli troops and settlements on the eastern side. Surely that's a world where the Jews have a lot more power than the current one - so why did we intervene? Why didn't the Jews win on that one?
The US was at that time more concerned with its reputation amongst the Arabs, who were numerous and possessed large amounts of oil. That's standard strategic logic, plus there was an element of reflexive anti-European imperialism.
The Israel Lobby and jewish presence in government was not so strongly developed in the 1950s as it would later become. Aid really started flooding in under Kissinger. Even if the man said some anti-semitic things from time to time, he was still Jewish and it is not unreasonable to think that he would be sympathetic to his co-ethnics.
Consider the later agreement where the US would station military equipment in Israel for them to use (ostensibly it's for US forces that might arrive but the Israelis ended up using it in Lebanon), signed by Ariel Sharon and US Secretary of Defence Weinberger with a little assistance from AIPAC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Cooperation_Agreement
From first principles, wouldn't you assume that if the US cabinet and White House was full of names like Chang, Zhang, Yuan and Dongfeng, the US would lean more pro-China than makes strategic sense? Certain items would never make it onto agendas, some policies would be carried out enthusiastically and others would be given up at the first sign of trouble. People could find reasons why military aid to China was a good thing - stabilizing the region, countering Russia, Vietnam and so on. They could find reasons why China causing problems for the US was acceptable, they have certain legitimate interests and mistakes happen. They could create framing where China is a traditional ally of America, we fought together in WW2 against those awful Japanese, it's a vital trading partner, predestined to be a superpower...
Alternately, if the US cabinet was full of Muhammeds and Husseins, I expect Israel would encounter lots of problems. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are amongst the least pro-Israel politicians in America.
People have natural sympathies for those of the same race and creed.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11mo ago
E/acc version: https://x.com/yasser_elsaid_/status/1827755425443328139
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11mo ago
The 2008 law merely codifies longstanding US policy. Said policy helped drive Israel's Arab neighbours towards the Soviet Union (who would sell them military equipment).
The sum-total of all U.S. aid to Israel since its founding 75 years ago is about 0.5% of the 2023 US budget spend.
Your own link says that $330 Billion went to Israel. The budget for 2023 was $6 trillion, so the real answer is 5% of the 2023 budget. $330 billion is a lot of money. More was sent to Egypt, Jordan and so on with the purpose of improving Israel's position. Still more was lost as a result of the Arab Oil Embargo, stemming from Arabs angry with US aid to Israel.
There is no reason to give foreign countries grants to buy equipment. The US could have bought equipment itself, or chose allies who actually fight alongside the US in its wars like Britain or Australia. Israel does not fight alongside the US. They are also known for selling US military technology on to China.
for paying regimes on top of major trade and international supply routes
Funnily enough the rivers of gold only opened up when Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel, in 1978. And Jordan has no supply routes worth caring about, only proximity to Israel.
This would work if there were 7 million Israelis and maybe 4 million Arabs. But there are about 450 million in the Arab world. Many of them do not particularly like Israel. The 7 million Israelis are not even internally united.
How many people do you have the ability to kill before the flow of Western weapons and support runs out?
Elon I believe responded to this (the fines) by calling the government fascist: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1834215798858207667
https://www.reuters.com/technology/australia-threatens-fines-social-media-giants-enabling-misinformation-2024-09-12/
The bill hasn't yet passed but I can hardly disagree with Elon. The Australian govt seems dead-set on banning and censoring more and more. The E-safety commissioner wanted to globally censor videos of the stabbing on twitter because Australians could use a VPN to get around the national-level restrictions. After Elon told them to get stuffed they backed down but it sparked a cavalcade of politicians looking to sound tough by promising more banning and restrictions. All we seem to do is ban things - development, mines, pipelines.
And especially the internet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia
There's an amusing scene where a senator goes around describing Eromanga Sensei. The man's calling was clearly to be a dodgy real estate developer, just look at the physiognomy. Why does anyone have to listen to him on what manga should or should not be legal: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bDmbo5dxgQg
Anyway, computing is inherently multi-purpose. Terrorists, paedophiles and drug dealers can use open-source software that nobody is in control of. Encrypted text messaging is not that hard! What is the government going to do then, backdoor every CPU? They'll have to get in line behind the US and China.
Likewise, it's unworkable to ban children from porn sites. Are they going to make everyone give their ID to every damn booru and sketchy Russian site? We have a massive surfeit of bureaucrats with too much time and money on their hands. Nobody ever wants to leave things alone, they have to work hard making a mess out of uncomfortable, sometimes unpleasant realities:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jul/02/social-media-porn-site-ban-australia-trial-age-assurance
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