rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
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User ID: 1473
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
5mo ago
Dictators have limited tenures. If you covertly support them via foreign aid (as opposed to direct bribery), then you have plausible deniability which enables you to continue working with whoever deposes them.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
7mo ago
I heard rumors that Omicron looked like it was developed through serial passage in lab mice, but do you have any details?
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
2yr ago
On the other hand, how many of the current crop of AI researchers were directly motivated by Eliezer, and how many followed independent paths? As computational power and GPUs improved (be it for gaming, for servers, or for bitcoin), gradient descent becoming practical was an inevitability. Once gradient descent became practical, researchers start pivoting to it, and the only barrier (that we know of now) is the availability of datasets and hardware. The snowball was doomed to start rolling with Hinton's publication of back-propagation in 1986.
5 minutes is true for my experience of urban Europe and Asia. In both one can drive further to a big box store and do weekly shopping, but walkable grocery stores are near major walking commute routes and sell quantities of food that the single person can carry back to their home.
I usually buy fresh groceries daily 5 min from my house (but 10 seconds off my route) on my commute home and nonperishables 1.5 hours away by bus once a month.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
2yr ago
Five years ago (pre-LLM) the Chinese were already been working on AI for automating court judgement on the theory that it would be more efficient and fair. Lawyers and law are one of the major areas in which next-generation LLMs have the potential to be very profitable.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
2yr ago
I actually agree with you that the cause of "excess deaths" is always worth looking into. In the context of the discussion about potentially long-term vaccine-associated mortality rates, however, it sounded like you were establishing a bailey: "There are a lot of excess deaths which have not been investigated, therefore vaccine effects are likely." My apologies if that was not your intent.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
13d ago
SIS
Sorry, but what is SIS? Neither a search for "SIS homelessness" nor "SIS NYC" turned up anything related.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
2mo ago
The judge can order El Salavdor to comply. If El Salvador fails to comply, start seizing Salvadoran assets in the United States. Seizure of foreign nations' assets in the United States has been done before.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
3mo ago
One of my coworkers is a PhD in computer science with dyslexia. When he reads academic papers he puts them on a screen using a plugin which colors every word a different color. His output is pretty good, so it must work for him. But he also is in the top 5% of extroversion for software engineers, presumably making up for some of that tough paper reading with social connections.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
5mo ago
estimated 1 million illegal aliens who are violent felons
That number can't be right. CBP says about 20,000 per year:
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics/criminal-noncitizen-statistics
Which would be about 2 months of Trump deportations at current rates.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
2yr ago
Please expand on those real and serious reasons. If Russian aggression is to be limited to Ukraine, why attempt to stir unrest in Moldova? (Why leave Moldova out of your bet?) Why do senior Russian officials admit an intention to "denazify and demilitarize" Poland? Was it because Ukraine was leaning towards joining Nato? If so, the same calculus must surely apply to Finland, too: "Finland’s accession to Nato would have serious military and political repercussions.".
I won't take your bet, but that's only because the Russian armed forces have broken themselves against the Ukranians and are rapidly losing the strength necessary to pursue a campaign in the Baltics. I propose the following alternative conditional bet: If Russia takes Kyiv in the next three months, then Russia will invade another of its neighbors before 2033.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
2yr ago
Yup. This is the way things are done in the rest of the world. If there is "affordable housing" it takes the form of little tiny apartments (like ... 6 square meters) which anyone can afford because they are minimalist. (Americans might call these tenements, and they are illegal.) Developers outside of the US seem to prevent claims of gentrification by grandfathering old tenants/owners into the new, larger units built on the same land.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
2yr ago
No. In the specific incident that comes to mind we had an new student try to take credit for the results of a 3rd year PhD candidate after fixing/running the nearly-successful experiment while the older student was at a conference. Thankfully the PI saw through it. I'm sure it goes the other way too, though.
It's amusing how his reasoning is similar to @pointsandcorsi's (although much more careful and conservative, especially with forecasts) and thus passes for academic content, yet pointsandcorsi's output merits a permaban on an obscure forum.
Huh? @pointsandcorsi was banned for a comment in a thread about James Webb, and it was a week-long ban, not a permaban (as evidenced by their most recent top-level post which started this thread):
https://www.themotte.org/post/240/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/44716?context=8#context
Is there some other event that @pointsandcorsi discussed that I missed?
Oh, I see. They were banned for this post.
But code is just math, math is just code, and protein folding is just the intersection of the two!
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
2yr ago
The most convincing argument for trans conversion therapies comes from outcomes. Trans activists will tell you that to not provide gender-affirming care to minors is encouraging kids to kill themselves.
So I looked at the literature. There has never been a randomly controlled study on gender-affirming care as currently practiced (according to trans activists, it would be unethical?!), and for the studies that remain, it seems like outcomes (suicide rates) are comparably improved for adults who undergo surgery and who undergo supportive social transition.
But hey, if you want to end your germ line, that's up to you.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
3mo ago
Needs several large defense conglomerates to be broken up. In the 1980s there were hundreds of defense contractors. Now there are a handful.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
1yr ago
That's a good question, but I don't know anything about Japan.
Also, I somewhat dispute that the gender war has "turned hot" in Korea. I think this "gender war" mostly journos trying to make a big issue about gender, for the reasons outlined in the second half of my grandparent comment. Surveys in 2021 showed that in every demographic surveyed, "inequality between men and women" was considered less of a problem in 2021 than in 2016. Also, if you are not terminally online you won't notice any gender war. (But Korean society does tend to be terminally online, so most people are aware of some feminist/anti-feminist drama. )
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
2yr ago
As a single point of data, a far-left millennial friend of mine (who probably thinks I'm a stealth conservative based on the conversations we used to have about feminism) blew up when I said I had started a diet and begun to lose weight: "Dieting doesn't work," "I've noticed you have some toxic ideas about weight," "I've heard you making insensitive comments before," etc. They then recommended I read a Health At Any Size activist's autobiography to engage with these ideas because she's "very eloquent."
The book was mostly personal and second-hand experiences of trauma due to people pointing out morbid obesity and its negative externalities. There was a whole chapter about doctors and the medical establishment being shaming and misguided. I scanned the bibliography for any academic papers (now on my reading list), but most of the references were to articles from the likes of Huffpost. Then I gave up on the book.
As regards the issue of obesity, I do think the problem is systemic: the US population has lost its ability to cook proper healthy food at home, has lost the last remnants of a culture which despised "gluttony," and has been brainwashed by Big Ag to think that eating more and more is normal, and that it's all genetic. Meanwhile Big Ag has hired flavor scientists to engineer hyperstimulus into food, hires lobbyists to keep politicians from addressing the problem in any meaningful way, and pays useful activist idiots to write books about Health At Any Size.
However, as an individual, I don't have many options other than to tune out the propaganda, establish my own system, and live my life of moderation. If that makes me "toxic" and "insensitive," ... fuck it. I'm not sacrificing my pursuit of excellence for some moral fashion.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
5mo ago
Well, you still haven't actually read the EO.
DOGE is established as a renaming of the US digital service to US DOGE service, with a temporary suborganization called US DOGE Service Temporary Organization with teams of Special Government Employees.
And USDS's new mandate is a Software Modernization Initiative, not technically a budget directive, so the mission of USDS has not changed.
Finally, the president does have authority to share classified info with anyone at any time. The President and only the President is the ultimate classificarion authority (because classification is justified under constitutional provisions for foreign policy, I guess).
Whether this EO gives Elon the right to dismantle USAID is probably subject to controversy, but on the points you are pushing the Trump Admin has already thought of and dismissed your objections.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
5mo ago
I think it is likely that foreign aid is spent to buy influence with foreign countries. Sure, it doesn't sound like a good use of American money to treat HIV in Niger, but if it helps the government of Niger drive a tougher bargain when negotiating with China, or even better gets them to sell the US crude oil, then it might be a smart investment, totally irrespective of its moral utility.
Actually, there is probably a pretty good correlation between womens' education and low birthrate. Low birthrate minimizes future humanitarian needs, so stuff that seems quite "progressive" might be a very good investment long term. The devil is of course in the details.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
6mo ago
Korean pay scales reward seniority, not technical skills. All engineer starting pay is 1/3 to 1/5 the equivalent US starting salary, except Samsung which is 1/2.
But the US is an outlier in programmer salaries and in minimum cost of living. So someone can live comfortably on 40k USD in Seoul. Compare the US where cheap 100 to 200 sqft rentals don't exist anywhere.
Someday I need to post my student budget. I was able to save up 10k USD over three years while making less than 10k USD annually, paying tuition and living in central Seoul.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
7mo ago
There's a lot of detail that hasn't percolated into the Western press yet, but I've been watching the videos, and they are wild. Here's a rough timeline:
- 10:23 President announces martial law. Some percentage of civilians immediately head to the National Assembly, many of them coming out of bars.
- 10:?? Police cordon off the National Assembly, barricade the compound's gates.
- 11:00 Martial law command (military) announces that political activities are banned, public assemblies are banned, broadcasts are to be subject to censorship, people may be arrested without cause.
- Also, doctors are ordered to return to work within 48 hours (they walked off last year). I'm happy this is now within the Overton Window.
- Some number of civilians and most Assemblymen jump the National Assembly fence.
- 11:02 The opposition leader livestreams himself making the jump.
- 12:?? Special forces land helecopters on the football pitch of the National Assemby.
- Opposition newscasters and personalities flee their homes and offices. Video of special forces assembling on the street in front of the homes of opposition newscasters and personalities.
- 12:15? Special forces (armed only with simunition) in shoving matches with drunk civilians over the entrance to the National Assembly. Some actual servicemen appear apologetic, but orders are orders.
- 12:30? Special forces lose the shoving match with civilians, break a window to get in.
- 12:40? Special forces repelled by Assemblypeople with fire extinguishers and makeshift barricades. Military didn't look very motivated.
- 12:45? National Assembly convenes.
- 12:45 A friend gets a text from their employer not to come into work tomorrow.
- 01:01 190 votes (unanimous) for a formal request to disband martial law. 18 members of the President's party crossed the aisle.
- 01:10 Military starts to withdraw. Protestors start chanting "arrest Yoon".
Korea was so close to losing its democracy. If the fence were a few meters taller, if the soldiers had arrived 30 minutes earlier, if they had been given live ammo, or if they had followed orders with intent instead of half-assing the arrests they were told to perform, the Assembly would not have been able to reach quorum.
Going forward, President Yoon is fucked. 200 votes are required for impeachment, and it looks like the requisite 8 representatives from the President's party are already pledged. The Constitutional Court needs to try the case, and with three empty seats they do not have enough members to do so, but no doubt the National Assembly will now nominate the one more justice to have a 2/3 majority for the impeachment trial.
There's a lot of wondering how Yoon got elected, but his opponent in the last election (the Opposition Leader who livestreamed jumping the fence) had ties to organized crime and several of his opponents died under mysterious circumstances. The opposition leader has since been found guilty of a number of crimes, but enjoys immunity as a member of parliament.
Finally, it is interesting to contrast this attempted coup to Jan 6th. It tells us what Jan 6th would have looked like if Trump had been actually malicious and motivated to perform a coup: military would have been storming Congress, not directionless protestors. The President would have been in a bunker, not holding a rally. Congress would have been barricading the hallways to maintain their quorum, not retreating to saferooms and giving up the chamber. The military would have been arresting opposition leaders and shutting down broadcasts, rather than totally absent from the Capitol area.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
7mo ago
They might, but that ignores the collective benefits of vaccines. Imagine that our smallpox vaccine from above kills one in ten. Surely, compared to four in ten deaths from smallpox, we collectively are vastly better off with one in ten deaths and immunity to smallpox, or zero deaths if we can beat smallpox and phase out the vaccine. But now the vaccine company has liability for post vaccine deaths, and so a single dose of the vaccine is going to cost... $1M just to cover the liability. No patient/government is going to pay $1M to save a 4/10 of a life when there are cheaper QALYs to save elsewhere, so we will never beat smallpox and we will see 40% fatality rates in perpetuity.
The fair mathematical solution might be to limit the vaccine manufacturer's liability to the collective damages or to damages external to the vaccine (i.e. negligence). So if you have a vaccine which saves lives (or QALYs) on net, you have no liability, but you'd better be sure your vaccine saves lives.
... And thus am I outed as a non-Tolkie.
But that hit home. The RoK makes Gondor out to be comparable to imperial China in its constructions, and so Numenor was presumably vaster and richer than Rome. For an island nation presumably richer than Rome and presumably with magic to only be able to swing together five ships... yeah, that would break the immersion.
Thank you for the explanation.
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