campfireSmores
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User ID: 539
campfireSmores
2yr ago
Even Osama's kids watched Detective Conan and Batman cartoons, let's not forget.
campfireSmores
2yr ago
I'd rather protect people by preventing them from investing than preventing people by silencing them. dath ilan (yudkowsky's fictional alternate earth) has a licensing scheme where you need to pass a test before you can invest.
campfireSmores
2yr ago
His/her wife is Russian, and it seems like she was leading the operation. She even had to overcome some hesitancies from the officer, apparently.
Truly a sinister people, those Russians! (jk)
campfireSmores
2yr ago
I'm skeptical that the real IQ of Arabs is 80. Arabs where? Arabs in Israel? Also... Sephardic jews have an IQ of 92? I'm skeptical of that as well.
campfireSmores
2yr ago
Most podcasts are not 100% gold. It's a weekly unscripted thing, bad jokes slip in. Shane Gillis has said the joke wasn't one of his good ones, offensiveness aside.
I'm not saying you have to like the podcast, just keep that in mind.
campfireSmores
2yr ago
Well ultimately one's reaction to OP's story rests partially on how much you take his description at face value.
campfireSmores
2yr ago
Possible solution: Say "I'm pretty sure X will happen. Let's say 80% sure." Sounds very unassuming that way.
campfireSmores
2yr ago
I also think the people who valorize prison rape are doing a bad thing.
campfireSmores
2yr ago
There's currently a Request for Comment on the talk page for the Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People regarding this issue.
A model of 3D printed rifle called the FGC-9 (which stands for F*** Gun Control) is being used by rebels fighting against the authoritarian genocidal military junta in Myanmar which regained power after a military coup deposed the democratically elected leader in 2021. If that's not enough, the government of Myanmar is not at all shy about killing civilians, from what I've heard.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/guns-are-being-3d-printed-myanmar-199401
https://observers.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20220114-3d-printed-weapons-myanmar-rebels
Apparently they've got 3D printers set up in guerilla jungle hideouts. The creator of the FGC-9 was a young German-Kurdish man named Jstark who died recently, possibly of a heart condition.
My thoughts: It's sad that some progressive organizations might be reluctant to bring positive attention to the rebels or the tools they use because it arguably hurts their cause or something.
If I was a guy like Jstark or Cody Wilson, and I was concerned about PR, I might say something truthful but strategic like "the most important thing to me is getting these files somewhere where they can't be taken down and where they can be accessed by anyone, because that's the only way for me to help rebels like these. I care about the downsides of making these guns available, but I've calculated things and it is greatly overshadowed by the upside." Or something. I didn't phrase that well.
Edit: A cleaner way to say it: "the moral benefit of 3D-printed guns to citizens living under brutal authoritarian dictatorships in places like Myanmar is so great that the harm caused to the rest of the world would need to be truly massive in order to outweigh it, and I do not believe it is so massive, if it is indeed a net harm to the wellbeing of other countries."
campfireSmores
2yr ago
I should point out that these sort of restrictions often end up killing people by causing inaction, as well as saving lives by causing inaction.
campfireSmores
2yr ago
Elon didn't walk back his twitter purchase out of bipolarity, he did it because his net worth crashed when the tech stocks did. No mental illness required as an explanation.
In my opinion.
campfireSmores
2yr ago
Bezos's 2016 letter to shareholders:
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/2016-letter-to-shareholders (read the whole thing, it's interesting)
On the subject of "Escalate and Disagree"
"This isn’t one way. If you’re the boss, you should do this too. I disagree and commit all the time. We recently greenlit a particular Amazon Studios original. I told the team my view: debatable whether it would be interesting enough, complicated to produce, the business terms aren’t that good, and we have lots of other opportunities. They had a completely different opinion and wanted to go ahead. I wrote back right away with “I disagree and commit and hope it becomes the most watched thing we’ve ever made.” Consider how much slower this decision cycle would have been if the team had actually had to convince me rather than simply get my commitment.
Note what this example is not: it’s not me thinking to myself “well, these guys are wrong and missing the point, but this isn’t worth me chasing.” It’s a genuine disagreement of opinion, a candid expression of my view, a chance for the team to weigh my view, and a quick, sincere commitment to go their way. And given that this team has already brought home 11 Emmys, 6 Golden Globes, and 3 Oscars, I’m just glad they let me in the room at all!"
I like to imagine that Bezos understood the difficulties inherent in this project. Or at least some of them. Maybe I'll write a Bezos fanfic one day.
Also: whether or not to make a LotR TV show sounds like a decision for a prediction market to make. "Conditional on us making a LotR TV show, will it be a success?"
Additional discussion topic: what IP-driven tv show should Amazon have made instead?
I bought Alan Moore's new book of short stories and so far I'm not that into it. It's rare for me to not like anything Moorish. But I bought another book Sharing a House with the Never-Ending Man by Steven Alpert and I like it a lot. Alpert is the highest ranking non-Japanese guy at Studio Ghibli and he's got lots of interesting stories about Japanese business culture and stuff. Did you know that most non-Japanese men speak Japanese like a woman? According to the book it's because most Japanese language teachers are women.
Also, here's the rationalist steam group, if you're interested:
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/astralcodexten
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