RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
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User ID: 317
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2mo ago
Proxy war with Russia in Europe is on a whole other level to tariffs.
You receive:
risk of nuclear war
Russo-Chinese alliance consolidation
Many trillions in realized economic damage to Europe, destabilizing the political consensus there, heightened global inflation
Massive drain on munitions and capabilities
Small number of US special forces dying in combat as 'volunteers' or 'technical support'
Unknown future blowback, almost certainly negative
Many, many dead Ukrainians
A crippling blow to the Rules Based International Order due to...
Near-certain defeat in the stated goals of the war (Ukrainian territorial integrity, 2014 borders)
You gain:
Many dead Russians
All Sullivan had to do was declare that no, Ukraine wouldn't be joining NATO, or at least make some kind of basic diplomatic effort to prevent a Russian invasion.
Christianity isn't so much about 'things being true' but getting into a mindset where 'it doesn't matter if it's true or not, I believe it'. Christian theology is a complete mess because they go in with the answer in mind and then come up with justifications. They just make up all kinds of nonsense about 'free will' requiring everyone to suffer because of a snake and an apple. Or there being a great plan that requires Christians to suffer and get wrecked by huge natural disasters beyond their ability to handle. Omnipotence and benevolence does not require there to be random earthquakes and tsunamis that destroy you, it's pure cope to think that there's a plan behind it all or that 'this is the best of all possible worlds'. Theologians have spent thousands if not millions of man-years justifying this stuff but still hard-lose to the Epicurean argument because there is no satisfactory answer.
OK, you can be perfectly happy as a Christian ignoring these abstract issues and have a decent life which is better than can be said for many modern ideologies. Thousands of years have been spent turning the silliness into metaphors and capitalizing on the strengths, rationalizing and streamlining the religion.
But all that is ironically enough built on a foundation of sand. Once people realize that the astronomy and history is all wrong, the philosophy is silly, the predictions are wrong, the blankslatism and universal equality of iron-age institution-building isn't so relevant given modern technologies and culture... they also move on from the good elements of Christianity, the prohibition on incest and the well-functioning family structures. The solution is not to return to Christianity but to move on and do the hard work of getting ideology that actually fits with reality. This is extremely difficult and dangerous work but necessary nonetheless.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
9mo ago
If something requires you to wear a helmet while you do it, then it's hardly safe.
Exercise is nice to have but unnecessary. Obesity is a dietary problem, not an exercise problem.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2mo ago
You know better than anyone that the President of the United States is the most powerful person in the world. At the same time, it seems like you are expanding the power of the presidency. Why do you think you need more power?
The US President is not very powerful, all things considered. Random judges can impose blocks on his domestic policies. He needs the approval of legislators to make permanent changes and the US legislative branch seems to be very slow and inefficient.
What has Trump got the power to achieve? He can bomb countries but struggles to achieve desired political results. Bombing Yemen hasn't stopped them. He makes motions towards annexing Greenland and Canada but can't actually get it off the ground. He can't end the war in Ukraine. He can pump and dump stocks with tariffs but can't fundamentally rearrange global trade in the US's favour, American manufacturing has actually been declining since tariffs began.
He can, over many years, create a few hundred kilometres of border wall that's easily diverted around by future administrations. He can cut taxes and run up debt. He can accelerate COVID vaccine development but can't take credit for it, can barely even convince his supporters to take it. He can beat ISIS, with the help of Russia, EU, Iran, Iraq, Syrian govt, Kurds and co.
The US presidency's main powers are the ability to flail around in highly energetic ways. Xi seems significantly more powerful, he has the ability to create and control, enforce his vision in his own country at minimum. Xi wants less real estate and more manufacturing, it happens. Xi wants a stronger PLA and PLAN, it happens. His fleet isn't shrinking. Xi wants subversive NGOs shut down, they're shut down. Xi wants autarchic economics, domestic food and energy production, it's happening. Xi wants Taiwan but hasn't achieved it.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
10mo ago
Ukraine seems to be more and more desperate for peace. They seem to have given up on making gains in the primary theatre in the east and gone after Kursk instead, looking to use it as a bargaining tool for the short-term.
However it takes two to tango and the Russians have repeatedly indicated they're not interesting in negotiating until the goals of the SMO are achieved. Presumably this means annexing all of their claimed provinces, demilitarizing the country and installing some kind of new government in Ukraine for the 'denazification' angle. I expect this to happen. When a great power is fully committed to defeating a middle power, there's not going to be a ceasefire, they'll win. Everyone agrees the Russians have more POWs than Ukraine, presumably they must have inflicted more casualties. They do have more firepower and more manpower.
Possibly there's some kind of contingency where NATO troops enter should the Ukrainian army disintegrate, as Macron has threatened. At that point, everything is up in the air. Then this war would truly become like Korea, where we have two great powers at war.
Quite right. The Arab Oil Shock was a direct result of US military aid to Israel. Massive economic damage there. Osama Bin Laden's Islamic extremism was to a significant extent motivated by treatment of Palestinians as he correctly realized that expensive US military aid to Israel was being used against them (and Lebanon + others).
And then there was the Iraq War which is still explained as a kind of mysterious anomaly. Israel was pushing for it the whole time, Sharon and so on. They provided false intelligence about WMDs. There were all kinds of generals and knowledgeable figures who said things like 'Oh of course we know that the US isn't threatened if Iraq acquires nuclear weapons but Israel certainly is'.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
28d ago
See this is a problem with markets. Markets just aim for profits, that's what they're for and all they do. If you want anything more than profits (increasingly often highly short-termist profits), you need a non-market solution. We want deep, long-term investment and expansion of housing stock. That's good for the economy in the longterm, enables population growth, mobility, agglomeration effects. But you can't get there by just naively relying on markets to do their thing, that's how you get rentierism and ridiculously high property prices.
Naive state interventions aren't great either, regulation is much of the problem. Imagine a big state-owned corporation with the economies of scale and long-term planning to build housing en masse, build whole new cities. No stakeholder engagement, no endless procedural crap, no quotas for pregnant women or criminals, no building substandard housing and then shutting down the company when the cracks show to rinse and repeat later. No expensive consultants who charge by the hour running rings around bureaucrats who have no idea what they're doing, do everything in-house.
State-owned corporations are unfairly maligned by mainstream economics, they do plenty of excellent work. Nobody in the private sector, nobody on the planet can challenge China State Shipbuilding Corporation. Housing is simple, easy to build just like commercial shipping. Build in a factory, assemble on site. It's a perfect sector for a huge state-backed capital investment. Plus government has natural abilities regarding land, it's a match made in heaven. All that's needed is rigour and discipline.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
How hard is it to keep up military readiness even on a religious holiday? This does not happen to proper armies, they don't lower their guard in predictable annual patterns.
The Israelis have been fighting this war in frankly amateurish ways. They keep clustering up in ways that would get them massacred on a real battlefield in Ukraine - fortunately for them their opponents don't have much in the way of artillery or heavy equipment. Israeli urban combat performance has been pretty poor, they've failed to take and hold ground. They go on these glorified chevauchees into Gaza and Hamas just sweeps back in once they leave. There doesn't seem to be any real plan for victory, only (impressive) tactical ploys like the pager trick.
If the US weren't constantly bailing them out with weapons shipments, diplomatic and air cover they would be in a very unpleasant position.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
19d ago
Walking is better in most circumstances:
Much cheaper.
Also provides exercise. You can run if you want more.
Lets you think and go on autopilot, making up for lost speed.
Syncs with other forms of transport well, no restrictions on taking a non-existent bike with you.
Safer.
Can easily head into a shop without having to tie up a bike.
Can easily navigate stairs and get more direct routes.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
19d ago
Just walk? You can also use a bus, which is complicated if you're bringing a bike.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
19d ago
There are of course many bigger problems than electric bikes or cyclists in the world or even in New York (crazy homeless for instance). Nevertheless, cycling shouldn't be needed in a rich country. Rich countries should have well-functioning public transport in urban centres which is apparently missing in America.
If you want to go somewhere, drive or use public transport. This is fast and you can use the travel time to read or whatever if you're not driving.
If you want to wander around, or exercise, walk. You can mull things over in your head without needing to be in a high state of alertness.
In between is not a good place to be as people point out downthread. It causes accidents due to there being no good infrastructure for it. And there's no good infrastructure for it because it fundamentally doesn't make any sense, there's no need for this medium speed, low-safety, exhausting means of transport.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1mo ago
Estonia tried to detain vessel from Russia's shadow fleeet, did not succeed
Why is it that these very small and weak countries in the Baltic are so eager to go all in on 'we hate Russia' and make incidents? Estonia does not have any combat aircraft whatsoever. Their military is roughly equivalent to the Oklahomah national guard, who do actually have some aircraft. This is not really a good position to be trying to seize Russian ships. Seizing other people's ships is cringeworthy behaviour whether it's the Houthis, Estonia or America but Estonia's by far the weakest player.
'Scream hysterically and wave a tiny stick' doesn't seem like a great strategy, I suppose that it's popular domestically.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2mo ago
Yes I agree, much of US GDP is nonsense, it's like an inverted pyramid with the manufacturing base too small and services too large. There are of course real services like R&D but there are also more or less fake services, HR training sessions and legal compliance, managing tax... There's real education and fake education, those schools in America where nobody can perform to grade level, useless or negative-value degrees...
Just because money is changing hands, it doesn't follow that it's a good thing. Fentanyl raises the GDP after all. Metrics of production should be prioritized over financial flows.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
4mo ago
It's not so much termination as identifying and outmanoeuvring opponents. Their optimal narrative is 'Help evil billionaire Musk is making us cut critical services like kidney machines', not 'Help, evil billionaire Musk is making us explain what we got done last week'. He's forcing them to play his game.
If I were running fake employees, I'd arrange for them to log in on the clock. But it'd be a little harder for them to achieve things and send email. The smarter cheats will create some fake responses quickly but I expect he'll catch out some of the stupider/slower ones who can't access their faked emails or make other errors trying covering it up. He's fishing for anecdotes and political power with this tactic.
Also, you can scan text over multiple context lengths.
Of course retaining independence is valuable but if you're giving up significant amounts of territory where much of the population lived, then it has to be considered a defeat. Finland was probably wise to fight and lose. But they still lost. That should be the expected outcome.
There is a possibility of an unarmed man inflicting significant harm on a big, strong attacker.
But this is not a general rule, it's a special exception.
Many, many, many Ukrainians would be alive if this principle was fully understood by leading figures in their government. Russia is not a totalitarian communist regime. It's not significantly more corrupt than Ukraine.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
6mo ago
There can be specific exceptions to a broad trend. In any event, Vietnamese Americans are favourable to Vietnam:
https://www.pewresearch.org/2023/07/19/vietnamese-americans-views-of-vietnam-and-other-places/
They like the country so much that whatever dislike they may have for the government is overwhelmed, that's a reflection of what I'm getting at.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
6mo ago
I'm not convinced that people even need to put down the fork. I can eat as much as I want and exercise very little but remain thin. Mostly I don't eat ultra-processed food, I just eat whole food.
Formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial use, made by a series of industrial processes, many requiring sophisticated equipment and technology (hence ‘ultra-processed’). Processes used to make ultra-processed foods include the fractioning of whole foods into substances, chemical modifications of these substances, assembly of unmodified and modified food substances using industrial techniques such as extrusion, moulding and pre-frying; use of additives at various stages of manufacture whose functions include making the final product palatable or hyper-palatable; and sophisticated packaging, usually with plastic and other synthetic materials. Ingredients include sugar, oils or fats, or salt, generally in combination, and substances that are sources of energy and nutrients that are of no or rare culinary use such as high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated or interesterified oils, and protein isolates; classes of additives whose function is to make the final product palatable or more appealing such as flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, and sweeteners, thickeners, and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling, and glazing agents; and additives that prolong product duration, protect original properties or prevent proliferation of microorganisms.
Doesn't sound very appetizing! But it obviously is, ultra-processed food is 60% of US calorie consumption: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ultra-processed-foods-calories-american-diet/
It seems very reasonable that eating things full of strange chemicals causes unusual health problems. Circus freaks from 1900 have nothing on the physiques you can see waddling around these days, they wouldn't even make it onto my 600 pound life. And the US is exporting this all around the world.
There aren't significant problems with race in Australia such that urban centres are very unsafe. But property here is even more expensive than in much of America, compared to income.
Productivity in the construction industry has been falling in Australia. It's been falling in America too. Regulations are partly to blame but the whole thing needs a reboot. There's an entire genre on tiktok showcasing the poor quality of new-build American houses, all this wonky or leaky, shoddy construction work. There are problems with price, quality and quantity.
Housing is the sort of industry where it makes sense for big companies to do it, not tiny little shrimps. Learning-by-doing is clearly needed and not happening. There has to be close coordination with government anyway to build out the infrastructure needed, dams, water, power... It should be managed by the state but in a capable, effective fashion. I realise that last sentence sounds retardedly naive but it is possible in principle.
When in doubt, copy Singapore. It's run with heavy state involvement there, 80% of the housing stock is public housing, they have construction productivity that actually goes up and housing is actually affordable. Per Claude:
Singapore HDB flats rated as most affordable housing in major Asian cities, better than Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing
Singapore's affordability ratio is 4.5-4.7 for public housing vs 13.7 for private property
Key Success Factors
Government Control: Single agency (HDB) controls entire process from land acquisition to completion
Standardization: Standardized methods and designs enable prefabrication and economies of scale
Technology Investment: Continuous R&D and early adoption of automation/robotics
Integrated Approach: Total approach covering planning, design, land assembly, and construction as seamless whole
Economies of Scale: Mass production approach with consistent demand
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
Israelis were literally protesting for rapists in their military to be freed. There was a televised scene from the Israeli cabinet where somebody asked 'how is it appropriate that we are shoving metal rods up the anus of prisoners' and this other guy shouts 'they're Hamas, we can do anything we like to them'.
Members of their cabinet are practically shouting 'I love war crimes' and enjoy a significant following amidst the public but a good chunk of the media is persisting with the whole 'most moral army' routine, it's laughable.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago
Frankly if a country gets sneak-attacked twice on the same religious holiday within living memory they have to give up the mantle of super high-IQ warrior nation. You would've thought that after Yom Kippur the Israelis would've learnt something but apparently not!
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
9hr ago
First, will it change the outcome? So you ban the big free-to-view US sites. Does this mean that teens will go back to jerking off to pictures of women in swimsuits, as god intended?
They'll hopefully move onto the boorus or hentai or whatever, where at least no real people suffer. It's not exactly educational content but it doesn't weirdly push incest and it's harder to confuse with reality. As far as I'm concerned, killing pornhub would be an unalloyed good. It's not like there's any prosocial value like Fedex or whoever else.
Furthermore, I've read a fair few stories about their business practices that really do resemble the mustache-twirling villain. The verification system they have from producers doesn't seem very effective. From the NYT:
Indeed, one private memo acknowledged that videos with apparent child sexual abuse had been viewed 684 million times before being removed.
Even though it's not possible to crack down on internet pornography, it is at least possible to wipe out the biggest and most obnoxious offenders and rake in a bit of cash too. You're confusing my 'loot and burn' gunboat action with nation-building.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3mo ago
I think by 2027. Executives in Anthropic, OpenAI seem to give that as their date.
Defining AGI is tricky. I think the key element is take-off. AI right now is best at coding. You use code to make AI. Recursive self-improvement is the name of the game, AGI will be when you have bots performing the tasks that AI researchers do now in collating data and training models (not in the partial sense like how synthetic data is used today but in a holistic sense where the main intellectual work would be done by AIs). And AGI will be ephemeral because superintelligence will happen immediately afterwards and things will get very crazy very quickly, the world power structure will change fundamentally. Nobody will be asking 'what does this mean for unemployment' because that will be the least of our concerns. We will know AGI when we see it.
Little things like mapping the relations between objects in space don't disprove intelligence. If you presented Pokemon like a text adventure game, Claude would have no problem winning. The intelligence is there, that's what they're working on. Advanced vision isn't there, people don't particularly need AIs to play Pokemon, they're needed for writing code.
And yes I am heavily, heavily invested in AI companies, so I have some skin in the game.
Suppose I oppose a Coalition of the Willing style invasion of Venezuela on the basis that it would turn into a massive mess, that resources are needed elsewhere, that the various tools available are ineffective for achieving objectives.
That doesn't make me pro-Maduro or pro-Venezuela. Both are bad. It's a very poorly run country exporting all kinds of problems. However, the right tools to fix the problem don't exist and using the wrong tools will make the situation worse. Have sanctions on Venezuela made anything better? No. There's good reason to think they've made things worse, driving up oil prices.
Likewise with Russia. We have tools like sanctions and military action. They don't work or require sacrifices that are not justified by the gains on offer. We shouldn't use them. What have we gotten? Economic problems in Europe, a wrecked and diminishing Ukraine, a lot of angry Russians. All of this was procured at considerable expense. Finland and Sweden were already in the Western camp, so having them in NATO is not terribly helpful.
Since everyone loves their WW2 metaphors with this conflict and 1938 can hardly be avoided in these discussions, let's think about the Stresa Front. The Allied Powers of WW1, Britain, France and Italy were working together. All were agreed that Hitler's Germany was a little too dangerous, they shouldn't be allowed to annex Austria and pursue dangerous revanchist tendencies. Then Italy decided to invade Ethiopia. Britain and France decided that they couldn't stand for this and imposed sanctions on Italy. This did nothing to help the Ethiopians who were ground down and annexed. Italy left the Stresa Front. Mussolini joined up with Hitler, giving him the greenlight to annex Austria and make lots more problems for the Allies.
If we're not willing to fight (and we're not because of Russia's H-bombs) then why go out of our way to cause problems for them? Do we want them to help China as much as possible in a future conflict? Do we want them to shovel heaps of weapons into any future invasions we launch? Do we want them to coup random African countries? The policies we've been pursuing are very unhelpful.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11mo ago
These things are opaque and unclear. The politicians seem to be lining up behind Biden even as the media revolts. There are surely power groups who want a vacant presidency so they can advance their agenda without any limits or controls.
What about a special electoral operation to keep Trump from the presidency? A hell of a lot of people have been entering the US in recent years, why not practice a little ballot harvesting, organize some reliable deputies to enfranchise the right people and help them vote? Bring in some mail-in ballots! Or just practice legitimate vote-buying by running down the US strategic petrol reserves to lower prices. Trump also did this kind of thing with his 'massive deficits to pump up the economy' approach and a platinum plan to buy black votes. Trump was only running 4% deficits in a growing economy, Biden's pushed it up to 6%. It's a race to the bottom.
I'm not saying I believe anything for certain here, just that there aren't any clear no-brainers. This isn't technology or business, this is politics.
Who cares what Hanania thinks about human excellence? He has (generously) 1/1000th of Elon's following, maybe 1/100,000 of his wealth. Is Hanania running a viable AGI program? Is Hanania building huge rockets? Are Hanania's opinions relevant in world affairs, does he control key communications infrastructure used by armies? Is he doing anything of importance whatsoever? No. If anything he shot himself in the foot switching from 'I'm a smart tech-right policy guy' to 'let me sneer at all the right-wing retards who are now running the country and are in a position to implement policies'. He's the contrarian rat that jumps on board the sinking ship. What a fool!
Elon may indeed have lost some of his faculties, idk, I've never met the man. I doubt Hanania has either. Armchair psychoanalysis of extremely unusual people is basically just glorified name-calling.
Whatever Elon has lost, if anything, he still makes the rest of the world look like drooling retards. What did I get done in the last 3 years, since 2022? I certainly didn't start an AI company that's outperforming Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft. I didn't build the biggest datacentre on the planet at record speed.
It's perfectly reasonable for us to disagree with Elon's choices or think he should do something else. I disagree with Elon about many things, including his whole concept of what a state is for. But if people want to go around calling him dumb or saying that his brain 'broke', then we'd better have some serious achievements to prove that we know what 'smart' or 'successful' is! Certainly something better than 'I wrote a book rehashing Mearsheimer (nobody cares about it) and blew up my political career' like Hanania.
Why should anyone care what Hanania thinks about politics considering how bad he is at it? He was pivoting away from Trump while Elon pivoted towards Trump... I think it's clear who has better political skills and like everything else between them, it's an orders of magnitude difference.
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