TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
No bio...
User ID: 616
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
3mo ago
Increased drug use is one suspected reason, but I think it might just be brain rot from being on right wing twitter too much. It should be noted that left wing social media contagion has similarly destroyed rationale thinking in the last ten years.
I think another, more charitable argument would be that the media environment is saturated with so many lies and false reporting, slanted journalism, etc etc that it's easy to discount things you don't like and focus on things that seem correct.
The journalistic / expert class brought this upon themselves, as far as I'm aware. Elon doesn't have time to do the enormous amount of checking that is required in this environment to verify every claim. Perhaps he could hire someone, which would probably be a good idea, but doesn't seem like how he operates.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
5mo ago
Neuralink has caused a bit of a storm on X, taking off after claiming that three humans have what they call "Telepathy":
Today, there are three people with Telepathy: Noland, Alex, and Brad.
All three individuals are unable to move their arms and legs—Noland and Alex due to spinal cord injury (SCI) and Brad due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). They each volunteered to participate in Neuralink’s PRIME Study,* a clinical trial to demonstrate that the Link is safe and useful in the daily lives of people living with paralysis.
Combined, the PRIME Study participants have now had their Links implanted for over 670 days and used Telepathy for over 4,900 hours. These hours encompass use during scheduled research sessions with the Neuralink team and independent use for everyday activities. Independent use indicates how helpful the Link is for real-world applications and our progress towards our mission of restoring autonomy. Last month, participants used the Link independently for an average of 6.5 hours per day
Assuming this is all true and the kinks will be worked out relatively soon, this is... big news. Almost terrifyingly big news.
AI tends to suck in most of the oxygen around tech discourse, but I'd say, especially if LLMs continue to plateau, Neuralink could be as big or even bigger. Many AI maximalists argue, after all, that the only way humanity will be able to compete and keep up in a post-AGI world will be to join with machines and basically become cyborgs through technology like Neuralink.
Now I have to say, from a personal aesthetic and moral standpoint, I am close to revolted by this device. It's interesting and seems quite useful for paraplegics and the like, but the idea of a normal person "upgrading" their brain via this technology disturbs me greatly.
There are a number of major concerns I have, to summarize:
- The security/trust issue of allowing a company to have direct access to your brain
- Privacy issues with other people, hacking your Link and being able to see all of your thoughts, etc
- "Normal" people without Neuralinks being outcompeted by those willing to trade their humanity for technical competence
- LLMs and other AI systems being able to directly hijack human agents, and work through them
- Emotional and moral centers in the human brain being cut off and overridden completely by left-brained, "logical" thinking
Does this ring alarm bells for anyone else? I'd imagine @self_made_human and others on here are rubbing their hands together with glee, and I have to say I'd be similar a few years back. But at the moment I am, shall we say... concerned with these developments.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
6mo ago
Stealing a comment in a subthread from @Samizdata that I liked a lot:
I posted this in the Weekly Culture War Roundup, but I think I got filtered out as a new user. I’ve deleted and reposted, so apologies if you’re seeing this twice!
There’s a recurring juxtaposition of views on /r/parenting that I find interesting. For context, the parenting subreddit, like most of Reddit’s forums, skews left-wing. There are periodic posts where parents try to determine what to do after their child engages in some kind of undesirable behavior. The typical suspects are drugs and alcohol, with most of the posts looking similar to this one.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/1fc70nm/appropriate_stance_on_alcoholdrugs/
This parent is worried about their 17-year-old daughter, who admitted to turning off her Life360 before going to a house party and having several drinks. Most commenters recommend clemency, with the top comment saying:
“Honestly, I think you are going to have to let go a little bit or she might go crazy after she gets out yalls house. All of her behavior was appropriate for a 17 year old. I was doing these things at 17. Almost all of my high school and the high school down the road were doing these things. And worse…. The way you go forwards is going to determine whether you are in her adult life.”
There’s a significant attitude of “Teens are going to engage in risky behaviors no matter what, your punishments and restrictions will have zero deterrent effect, and the best course of action is some kind of harm reduction.”
In contrast, there are periodic posts with parents hand-wringing about their son “being radicalized” by YouTube. This is a fairly typical example:
https://old.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/1dqk7fs/son_caught_the_andrew_tate_bug/
Some of comments just suggest alternative influencers to watch, but many are out for blood, one saying:
“If I caught my kid looking at extremist material it would be a two prong 'congrats you just lost ALL media privileges' and a 'instant therapy or else'.”
If it’s not clear, I think both of these approaches are wrong-headed. Andrew Tate, while execrable, is reasonably widespread and popular among teenage boys. I don’t think treating him as an irresistible gateway drug to the alt-right is useful or true; most of the teens that watch him manage to do so without falling down some rabbit hole of extremism.
In contrast, I think even moderate drinking or drug use is fairly risky for developing brains, and I think the laissez-faire attitude towards it is dangerous.
When I search my own heart, I come to the exact opposite conclusion of the /r/parenting hivemind, both in practical and moral terms. Even if I banned my kids from watching or listening to a particular influencer, and set up bulletproof content blockers on every device in our house, it seems pretty futile; they’re around other teens with smartphones 30-40 hours a week while they’re at school. Surely there will be plenty of opportunities to watch whatever they want on a friend’s phone?
In contrast, I honestly think reasonable restrictions on a teen, like curfews, are more likely to curtail behaviors like drinking and drug use. I know that some teens can get around these restrictions, but these are the kind of obstacles that legitimately stymied me when I was a semi-wayward teen. Maybe I wasn’t a sufficiently motivated delinquent, I don’t know.
But the bottom line is: Isn’t it kind of convenient that my moral inclinations and my opinions of the practical difficulties of implementing a ban line up so well for different activities?
It’s easy to practice gentle, permissive parenting with a nonchalant “Teens will only rebel harder against strict rules” attitude when your child isn’t actually doing something you have strong feelings against.
So, my question for the forum would be: how do you balance letting your child(ren) make their own mistakes and take the consequences in a controlled environment, even when you disagree with their choices? When do you step in?
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
10mo ago
What are the conservatives even conserving anymore? We don't really have a way of life to conserve that actually has principles and promotes belief in God. Churches have been hollowed out, the lifestyle of most 'conservatives' in America is nothing but rural poor people indulging in thoughtless moment to moment hedonism.
Conservatism as a project has clearly failed, as far as I'm concerned. The right needs to move away from this idea of conserving a past which is gone, and move towards building virtues and morals in culture that don't exist anymore.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
4mo ago
I highly doubt the Republican party wants to actually lock up Congressmen, seems like this would be a huge waste of political capital. Well perhaps they want to, but they know it would be a foolish move strategically.
This seems like a bit of a paranoid fantasy from my perspective. If anything the Republicans have been far less willing to use lawfare against their opponents than the last Democratic president.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
5mo ago
's also a geographic transience: many people are here for school or temporary work, and are not inclined to work towards any kind of more permenant community.
The geographic transience is the hardest, that I have personally dealt with. Almost all of my close friends I've known for over a decade have moved away. Many of them want to come back because they're lonely, but constraints of work / family / finances make it difficult.
It's a very stupid and annoying cultural situation that everyone moves all the time. Sigh.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
3mo ago
Yeah this is definitely a culture war issue. I just feel like being excessively harsh on illegal immigration is punching down
They broke the law. You can't just have people flagrantly ignoring laws, especially ones as big as illegal entry into a country. It devolves trust in the entire system massively.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
4mo ago
After January 6, the Democrats focused their self-image around the idea of “procedure” and “doing things the right way”. This calcified to such an extent that anyone in a position of leadership is now incapable of forming and executing plans which do not conform with the collective PMC understanding of what is allowed or “proper”.
I think this is part of it, but I also think there is just a lack of physical courage among most people on the left (and people on the right, to be fair.)
I am genuinely not trying to caricature or strawman the left, but they do tend to attract a more effeminate, intellectual type of person as of late. Note that this CERTAINLY isn't true of the left historically, but seems to be the tendency today. Young men are at historic lows for the Democratic party, the group who tends to have the most physical aggression and willingness to go occupy a building or storm a castle. Combine this with the fact that physical courage seems to be dropping across the board, and you have people who simply aren't willing to put themselves at risk or take bold physical action in this way.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
5mo ago
People choose to take on too much frivolous debt and destroy their lives. Is the whole lending project dead? Should the media no longer write op-eds about payday loans with a 400% ARP? The average person no longer seems to be convinced that this is just a cultural problem which will go away.
Uhhh this is unironically also a big societal issue. Lots of people have been agitating to nationalize the credit card industry for this exact reason.
That Pavlovich bird does not a summer make. There are global differences in median male and female traits, but I see no reason to treat them differently under the laws of a free society
Ok but the issue is that we do treat men and women differently under the laws of our society...
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
6mo ago
Agreed. That was my first thought as well.
Psychotherapy is just… criminal at this point, imo. They have so much power and authority in society yet clearly do not have any idea what they’re doing.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
11mo ago
Are you serious? Biden got kicked out by his party after the debate. Debates definitely matter.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
3mo ago
Yeah I agree in this instance it's pretty egregiously dumb.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
4mo ago
Right so scientists and scientific progress at at best acceptable collateral damage
Scientists and scientific progress shouldn't have played politics so hard. At this point it is nigh-impossible to sort the wheat from the chaff given the insane ideological bent of the universities, and the fact that they are leveraging their large amount of cultural and fiscal capital against one side of the political aisle.
"But scientists vote XX% democrat! They have to be the evil woke!"---well it shouldn't be that surprising that scientists overwhelmingly vote against the party of creationism and appointing anti-vaxxers as HHS secretary even if they might have had serious concerns with woke overreach. If you don't believe me, you can listen to Richard Hanania.
This is a straw man of the right that currently exists. Fundamentalist Christianity has been gutted in the U.S. and definitely does not hold much power in the current right wing administration. Do you think Musk is a Creationist?
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
5mo ago
The very simple answer to this is that we grandfather all current citizens in. I think you're blowing this way out of proportion.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
8mo ago
SpaceX just caught the booster of the Starship rocket, launching a new age of man made space exploration.
Despite this getting relatively little news in the mainstream media, I am convinced this development marks the beginning of an entire paradigm of space. The cost of kg to orbit should now go down about an order of magnitude within the next decade or two.
This win has massive implications for the culture war, especially given that Elon Musk has recently flipped sides to support the right. Degrowth and environmental arguments will not be able to hold against the sheer awesomeness and vibrancy of space travel, I believe.
We'll have to see if the FAA or other government agencies move to block Elon from continuing this work. If Kamala gets elected, I worry her administration will attack him and his companies even more aggressively. This successful launch, more than anything else in this election cycle, is making me consider vote for Trump.
What are your thoughts? Do you agree with my assessment?
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
4mo ago
Great piece. I especially liked this section:
Mary Harrington recently observed that the Trumpian revolution seems as much archetypal as political, noting that the generally “exultant male response to recent work by Elon Musk and his ‘warband’ of young tech-bros” in dismantling the entrenched bureaucracy is a reflection of what can be “understood archetypally as [their] doing battle against a vast, miasmic foe whose aim is the destruction of masculine heroism as such.” This masculine-inflected spirit of thumotic vitalism was suppressed throughout the Long Twentieth Century, but now it’s back. And it wasn’t, she notes, “as though a proceduralist, managerial civilization affords no scope for horrors of its own.” Thus now “we’re watching in real time as figures such as the hero, the king, the warrior, and the pirate; or indeed various types of antihero, all make their return to the public sphere.”
I very much agree that most of the energy Trump and his supporters thrive on is archetypal, or "vibes" as is it less formally called. Generally just the idea that there is a band of courageous heroes fighting stagnation that makes it seem as if nothing is possible, that heroism is dead, and that everything in our lives is managed. I am very much a part of this energetic movement even if I am sometimes a bit concerned at where it will end up.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
4mo ago
So a few days ago, Trump signed an order to reign in the administrative branch back to the presidency. I wasn't even aware of it until I saw a ton of my liberal friends sharing it and acting like it was the end of the world, a takeover. So far reading it, seems fairly normal. The President is asserting his power over his own executive branch. Here is the link, and some key points from it:
The Order notes that Article II of the U.S. Constitution vests all executive power in the President, meaning that all executive branch officials and employees are subject to his supervision. Therefore, because all executive power is vested in the President, all agencies must: (1) submit draft regulations for White House review—with no carve-out for so-called independent agencies, except for the monetary policy functions of the Federal Reserve; and (2) consult with the White House on their priorities and strategic plans, and the White House will set their performance standards. The Office of Management and Budget will adjust so-called independent agencies’ apportionments to ensure tax dollars are spent wisely. The President and the Attorney General (subject to the President’s supervision and control) will interpret the law for the executive branch, instead of having separate agencies adopt conflicting interpretations.
Again, it's a change from how things are done, but seems fair to me. I suppose a lot depends on what exactly "independent agencies" are, and if that means they can straight up challenge the President when it comes to policy decisions. If these agencies are technically under the executive branch, I don't see how that could be constitutional.
The rest of this link seems mostly fluff, but in the first section here they call out specific agencies:
REINING IN INDEPENDENT AGENCIES: So-called independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have exercised enormous power over the American people without Presidential oversight.
These agencies issue rules and regulations that cost billions of dollars and implicate some of the most controversial policy matters, and they do so without the review of the democratically elected President. They also spend American tax dollars and set priorities without consulting the President, while setting their own performance standards. Now they will no longer impose rules on the American people without oversight or accountability.
I know the SEC in general has been pretty harsh towards crypto and right leaning companies, not so clear on what the FTC and FCC have done to earn the ire of the President.
Overall, I'm very curious to see how this shakes out. Anyone with a better understanding of law than me here that can shed light on what an independent agency actually is?
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
9mo ago
Awful stuff, the devastation is insane. And as others have said, there hasn't been any major flooding in these areas since 1791, apparently.
I am normally all for government incompetence and infrastructure failures being pointed out, but honestly this just seems like an act of God. I don't blame anyone in Asheville or the surrounding areas for not being prepared.
But I do blame the federal government for not doing more - where are the jets and helicopters going out there? Where is the televised response and shipping in of starlink and other supplies? I know there's been a FEMA bill signed to give funding but c'mon, this should be an easy publicity win for the left. I have 0 clue why they aren't making more of a big deal out of this.
If anyone does have videos or responses from the White House pls link, because I'd love to see it.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
4mo ago
Yeah I think this is why OpenAI is cozying up so much to the defense establishment, and pushing for regulation. They know that regulating competitors out of existence is their best bet.
Hopefully that doesn't happen but... we'll see!
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
4mo ago
I agree with this sentiment. I broadly align with the right wing but don't like the turn this place has taken since the move off of Reddit. I think we would all be much better served by actually looking more for heat than light, and having less right wing applause lights.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
4mo ago
That said, I still want someone to aggressively comb over the payments, instead of hand waving away that everything is totally normal and nothing at all to be concerned about what so ever. Check the names on accounts, send people to do in person interviews if need be. I'm sure the FBI could be put to more productive use than having 40% of their agents conducting no-knock paramilitary raids on grandmas who got waved through the capital by confused police.
I agree with this sentiment. I'll add as well that even if the gross amount of money saved isn't that huge, it sends an incredibly important signal to the rest of the government - if you commit fraud and/or waste money, we will find it, and you will be punished.
The chilling effects from this alone I'd imagine would save a ton of money. Plus it improves public sentiment towards the government, encourages people who just want to grift to stay away, etc etc. It's not just about saving money right off the bat, it's the entire mindset of the people who would go in and do something like these cost cutting measures.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
4mo ago
If he manages to roll out a biometric national ID card to digitize access to government benefits before the end of Trump's term I'll start a petition to make his position of the man behind the curtain permanent.
Hmmm I personally would hate this, why are you so for it?
And yes I agree, I appreciate that a politician who got elected on downsizing the system is ACTUALLY doing that for a change. It's incredibly refreshing.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
5mo ago
More on topic, this will on net make Trump less popular. Like I said, federal money is sacred to a great share of the American workforce, and messing with it is considered way outside the scope of party platforms. They depend on it, so it must be necessary.
This is one of the biggest problems with the modern government, IMO. It effectively takes a huge share of people out of participation in the market, leading to horrible incentives.
To build on this, I want to just quote Kelsey Piper's tweet discussing jobs programs versus domestic manufacturing https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1907980342272852436:
"well, we need to bring manufacturing back" this isn't how to do that. "well, how would you do that, then?"
First, think about what you are hoping to accomplish. Is this a jobs program? Is the point to have high-paying factory jobs for the non-college men who used to work in those jobs, independent of whether the output of those factory jobs is cost-competitive or quality-competitive with foreign-made goods? You can run a jobs program, if you want - America is absurdly rich, we can really do absolutely anything at all that we choose to make a priority - but you can't serve two masters here. If the point is a jobs program don't expect high quality goods or goods that are competitive on the export market, because that requires embracing automation and new mechanical processes and the people working these jobs have no incentive to go full speed ahead on that, and since you've chosen to give them a captive market you don't have a good way to push them on quality or on price.
To my mind, if we're going to do a jobs program it's silly to make it a factory jobs program. Factory jobs kind of sucked. My own quixotic dream of a jobs program is to put our national muscle behind fixing our perilously broken education system. Kids benefit a lot from one on one tutoring; hire a million Americans to offer one on one tutoring to every student between the ages of 5 and 9 to fix our horrifying collapse in general reading ability. Boys learn better if some of their teachers are men, so make sure half of your hires are men. There, jobs program, and the work isn't 'undercutting Vietnam in the garment industry', it's raising the next generation. If you don't like my personal idea, fine, but I think if you list the pros and cons of five different jobs programs you thought of in ten minutes apiece 'take back the textile industry from Vietnam' isn't going to be the most appealing of any of them.
What if your aim isn't a jobs program? What if it's defense? That's also fine, but keep in mind you still can't serve two masters; if this is about defense then we are going to laser-focus on defense production, and we're not treating this as a jobs program at all. Go to every manufacturer of munitions, planes and cars in the country. Ask them for all their suppliers. Acquire those companies, or partner with them, or hire a bunch of their leadership, and pay them to start up a plant in the US. Instead of scaring our allies with bizarre threats to add them to our territory, which has made many of them back away from commitments to the American defense industry, build those ties very strongly and start asking them for purchase agreements. Find really good CEOs who grew a complex logistical business in a related industry rapidly - yes, Elon Musk absolutely qualifies here, frustrated as I am with him - ask them to take responsibility for a supply chain and 10x production in the next two years, and give them the resources they need to do it. Send Ukraine an obscene amount of materiel, enough to actually win the war instead of just be stalemated in it. Make advance commitments to buy the munitions to do that, to support those companies in growing capacity.
What if your goal is neither jobs nor defense, but fostering the growth of an industry in the US that could stand on its own two feet once it existed but will never get started? Here's where tariffs actually make sense, but they should be relentlessly narrow, specific and targeted. What do you want to sell? Who in America is trying to build it? What inputs do they buy from abroad? Make it a priority of our trade policy to get them those inputs cheaply. Most of what you're doing is, once again, buying bits of the supply chain and hiring people who know how to do it, plus subsidizing them, but tariffs will be part of the picture. The CHIPS act was this done well. Every single tariff and every single subsidy should have an incredibly specific objective in mind, and if it isn't working to achieve that objective should be adjusted.
What if your goal is to negotiate a free trade agreement? Well, we've successfully negotiated lots of free trade agreements, it's not exactly a totally unknown art form. Have smart, competent, skilled negotiators with knowledge of the other side's constraints, resources, political concerns, and where we have leverage. Have bilateral negotiations; emerge with a deal; have Congress ratify it. Trying to do many-to-one negotiations doesn't work because it is so visible that a country's behavior to date has nothing to do with the tariffs that were imposed, because the way the tariffs were imposed puts many other countries' leadership in a position where doing what we want would be deeply unpopular at home, and because no one involved knew anything about the countries they were throwing tariffs at.
Again, we can do any of these things. We are not a country on the brink of becoming a failed state; we can execute on ambitious, ludicrous, serious things, and we absolutely should. We just have to figure out what we want and then line up the levers to get it done. I've always found something beautiful about the capacity of healthy societies to change gears on a dime, to set down their knitting and go do a shift at the munitions factory, to build cities in the dust overnight. We can reshore
Endquote (I'm too lazy to do the block quoting for all that.)
I actually disagree with her - I think we have proven relatively definitively that jobs programs in the United States currently do not work. Not because jobs programs are a bad idea in a vacuum, but because the government and the way we as citizens interact with the government has become so corrupted, that major government programs are doomed to fail horribly in my opinion.
Then again, perhaps a blatant jobs program would be better than the corrupt crap we have going on today?
Also, I don't think that manufacturing in the U.S. would lead to low quality. Yes we would have automation, but we would also need people to staff the plants. And the fact is, young men just tend to enjoy and be more drawn to working with their hands than working on computers all day. For the most part, at least.
Her take reads to me as a very well thought out, but stereotypically feminine and coastal elite view of the problem.
More options
Context Copy link