Friday
My source is that I made it the fuck up wrote before about the noticeable difference in censorship between Claude 2(.1) and Claude 3 of all flavors. I expect Anthropic still prefills the shit out of it in the official ChatGPT-esque interface so (as per another struggler's impression) it's not immediately obvious, you'll have to use direct API access and custom frontends to see how based Claude is when you let him cook a little (he's even aware of it). Of course this isn't an out of the box experience and you have to fiddle with prompts, settings, etc an awful lot, but you can take my word that Claude can output some real shit when prompted right. Technically so can GPT but imho Claude's florid writing style makes it much more entertaining.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
I don't know if there are any metrics but from what I can tell most conversations and activities happen on the weekend (The number of comments seems to routinely double after Friday from my casual observation). Probably because people have jobs and family and stuff. What a surprise, people with interesting and intelligent takes have real world responsibilities... the Motte isn't a place you can make a living off so, of course, you're not going to have people here full-time to discuss all topics that could be discussed. If you aren't going to engage in the comments you could just wait for the monthly quality posts and save yourself the time and just read those instead. You're going to have more lively conversations on X because of the simple fact of X having a much much larger userbase, to the point where people can make a living just talking about political stuff. It also has a lot of low-take, crap opinions on there.
Personally, I do think there is some merit to having some low-level fruit for discussion, which is why I made a post about the recent viral man versus bear question. In the grand scheme of things this viral question has almost no real-world consequences compared to say half the items on your list but why did that post generate a good amount of discussion and a lot of these you just posted about hasn't (yet)? Because I made a post about the topic. I also took some effort to put a spin to it, did a little bit of research, gave my opinion, posed a question, and gave multiple angles of possible discussion points, and it got a decent amount of conversations going. The more information you give on the topic, the more chance there is something in it that someone might be interested in to respond to.
In general, the posts I've seen get the most responses have one of these things going for them:
- There is an opinion/fact that someone disagrees with so they post to argue against it - essentially a controversial opinion. These are the ones that routinely get the deepest conversations because it's an argument/debate. It's also the most difficult to engage in with long term.
- There is something in the post that triggers a related topic with a similar line of thinking or a different way to analyze that particular topic
- There is a new perspective that is so profound to a reader that they feel obliged to respond to it.
- There is a question for people to respond to.
Also there are some guidelines about culture war posts:
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
I don't think it takes that much work - just post a link to the article with the topic you want to discuss, quote a few relevant lines, then give your opinion and ask a question. If you want a particular type of discussion/insight put in more effort so there is something for people to respond to. What particular about these topics do you want to hear people's take on? High-level discussion requires some effort, otherwise, how would the responses be any different than the average comment on the news site, Reddit, YouTube, X, or any other discussion platform with low-level reactionary comments?
A relative of mine by marriage works for a bank. He has a banker in his office who doesn't show up to work on Fridays, and upon inquiring why, was informed that this particular banker takes potential clients fishing in his boat instead of going to the office on Fridays, and routinely signs on million dollar accounts by doing so. One has to imagine there are few women on these trips, even for the small business owner world(which realistically most million dollar bank accounts belong to).
All male environs seem conducive to serious business.
As for hunting, hunting trips might be elite display or largess towards poorer male comrades(such as employees or less successful relatives) as often as they are an opportunity for networking among social equals. Exotic game ranches aside, the usual pattern is for one or a very small number of economically successful men(who are already close enough not to need networking amongst themselves) to buy a lease which relatives, longtime friends, employees, etc can use as well. I've not heard of business deals being cut on the deer lease in the same way as on a golf course.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
1yr ago
So, what are you reading? (There was another book thread in the Fun Thread here)
Still on Human Action. Also going through Talbott’s The Future Does Not Compute, an early and very unusual warning shot against the dangers of the internet. It is a bit haphazard, but also a bit profound, and I wonder why I have never heard of this book before.
To run on automatic is, for the human being, to sink toward instinct, unfreedom, and statistical predictability. It is to give up what sets us most vitally apart from our material environment and our tools. It is to remain asleep in our highest capacities.
Whether our ideals can survive depends- beyond all pessimism and optimism vested in automatic processes- on whether we can consciously take hold of the mechanisms around us and within us, and raise them into the service of what is most fully human because most fully awake. The first prerequisite is to recognize the severity of the challenge.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
1yr ago
Really though, this is why we need a thread for more low-effort, dumb and fun stuff. I guess Friday Fun is kind of that, but Cernovich rambling about assassinations just isn't that fun.
DradisPing
1yr ago
Looking at the calendar there were no games Sunday - Friday last week. So they could have induced then or flown her out to Denver. Looks like people didn't think Gobert was critical enough to do either.
I'm not a big sports fan but I'd guess that NBA players have missed games for much less important reasons.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1yr ago
But then unless both partners have really bought into the homeschooling lifestyle, most couples aren't all that happy about a woman who's just at home by herself or spending her husband's money with her friends 8 hrs a day.
I read this, and think of my parents, who don't really match the picture you've drawn here. Mom was pretty much fresh out of high school when she married Dad — who was about as far from "well-off" as you'd expect a functionally-illiterate high-school-dropout handyman to be. Mom didn't homeschool me and my younger brothers, and yet she still found ways to fill her day — and, in fact, be frustrated by time pressures getting things done — that weren't "spending her husband's money with her friends 8 hrs a day" (being as she had little in the way of money or friends), and only went out into workforce once my youngest brother was off to college. Part of this, I suppose, comes down to a standard element of living on the poorer end of the socio-economic scale (to which I can also attest personally) — that is, doing yourself what others pay to have done, those with more money substituting said money for time. I remember Mom, particularly when we were younger, doing a fair bit of sewing. Lots of cooking. Smoking or canning salmon. Thursdays and Fridays spent packing for weekend trips out of town — hunting, fishing, or just spending weekends at the cabin (and Mondays spent putting everything back). Gardening, once we were no longer in apartments. Shopping trips to Costco. Laundry (lots and lots of laundry). And, of course, plenty of cleaning up after three messy boys and a man with ADD and no ability to organize his collection of work tools and spare parts.
Much of this sort of thing — the "idle 50's housewife" and such — seems to be dependent on class, and not so much a thing down at the bottom of the economic ladder.
ratboygenius
i came here to be alone
1yr ago
Book recommendation thread? I picked up and read The Eternal Front as recommended from last week's thread, and found it quite enjoyable - very often I find sci-fi loses me within its own scope, but Blaire's writing felt much more human in scale with far lower stakes than what I ordinarily read. I think sci-fi shines brightest when telling stories about the individuals navigating the cultures and battlefields forged through genetic, technological and/or cultural isolation - the actual bedrock upon which every setting rests. Anyway Eternal Front is a good rec and I'll just second @No_one's writeup for it.
Maybe my awareness of the often unnecessarily grandiose scope of sci-fi is the result of serendipity, as I also (finally) got around this week to reading Peter Watts' Echopraxia after having read and reread Blindsight several times over the years, and for as much as I love his writing he doesn't really do people very well. Maybe he just finds them awkward and somewhat unnecessary to the tale he's trying to tell (this may be a literary flourish of his, kind of the point, I've only just recently been introduced to the concept of "media literacy" please understand). Regardless, if you read/enjoyed Blindsight and haven't read the sequel yet, I'll stick a hearty recommendation onto it. If you haven't read Blindsight and you like hard sci-fi then I don't know what you're doing here. Go read it (it's available for free on Watts' website) and curse/thank me later. Pretty sure our actual future looks more like his vision than Gene Roddenberry's.
Continuing down the vein of galactic scale sci-fi that I like but feel a little lost in the sauce, I enjoyed Alastair Reynolds Inhibitor Trilogy, though when reading it I couldn't shake the feeling I was reading a grimdark Culture fanfic (albeit a thoughtfully and competently written one). A fun read if you have nothing else going on, some interesting semi-hard concepts get trotted out and played with, a few logical conclusions to the laws of physics (and breaking them) are portrayed in fairly comprehensible prose. The first entry, Revelation Space, is fun enough by itself to be worth a read; if you want more of that, then each subsequent book expands on those same themes and scenarios. A medium-strength recommend.
Speaking of Iain Banks Culture series, I suppose I'll register some disappointment with everyone who told me Consider Phlebas was a weaker entry in the series than Player of Games, could not really disagree more - PoG was an interesting look into alien anthropology and cultural hijacking but I found it to be bit of a slog. Phlebas, however, scratched that itch I have for a story about a person doing person things in a great big future. Both were good reads though, and I have a fresh copy of Use of Weapons now sitting on top of my stack.
self_made_human
Sajjano durjano bhūyāt, durjano badhyatāṃ sadā, baddho'nyān nibandhāyet
1yr ago
Errr.. I didn't actually realize that was publicly visible. I was trying to put that in the internal mod log, and levity is one way of handling that job, which can be thankless at times. It was more of a joke than anything else, I genuinely do not have a strong opinion on the matter.
It's right below. Given that nobody pays me for the job, an in-joke suffices.
I'm not the strongest advocate against single-issue posting. My usual approach is to simply minimize the thread, since I make it a point not to block anyone at all, no matter how odious/tedious they might be, and quite a few people are more so than SS. However, as a moderator, I do my best to follow the guidelines I signed up to enforce, and being neutral on SIP means I don't particularly care either way.
Is he SIPing and scaring the hoes? Seems obviously true to me. We probably have the highest tolerance for witches around, but we want multiple kinds, not just someone making this particular cauldron their bandwagon.
Is that against the rules as written? Yes. As interpreted by someone who doesn't have strong feelings either way too? It was.
I suppose I can't get away with "just following orders" can I? Though this is tangentially in favor of the Jews.
Because I figure we're about halfway to the point where "just post a youtube video about goat noises or something" suddenly becomes "ackshually we have to feel like they're good posts with sufficient effort" or whatever.
Demands for effort are maximal on top level posts in the CWR thread, or standalone posts on the front page.
I would presume funny goat noises belong in the Friday Fun Thread, and I haven't seen anyone get policed for lack of effort there.
Dumping an EA veganism quote for people to reference.
Vegan advocacy can spur the transition sooner. I submit that one of the most important efforts that Effective Altruists could be doing is triggering the veganism S-curve, i.e. reaching the tipping point earlier. It’s a unique S-curve in that it’ll be both technologically and socially driven. In this post, I delve into the social component and the impact that individuals and institutions could have by steering toward more uncompromisingly vegan diets.
I see the transition reaching completion when all mainstream restaurants and institutions serve 100% vegan meals due to significant demand from consumers. I expect stragglers such as Chick-Fil-A, who doubled down on their stance against same-sex marriage. But for the most part, I expect all progressive-leaning institutions to switch over. Eventually, the Ivy League universities, the Apples/Googles, and leading newspapers will cease serving animal products in their dining halls/events.
The biggest tipping point can occur through institutions. Jacy Reese Anthis’ great book The End of Animal Farming emphasizes the tractability of advocating toward institutions. Imagine the cascading effect if Harvard University or The New York Times had a full vegan mandate, e.g. vegan food for all events, dining, and travel expenses. Those would be big jumps in some of the values above, e.g. D. Institutions are sensitive to social winds as we saw during the MeToo and George Floyd movements. For example, the Golden Globes was effectively annihilated for not acting fast enough on inclusivity.
But there is room for flexitarianism. What matters is hardline vegan demand on planned occasions. A flexitarian may have a vegan Wednesday, in which case, the same awkward restaurant interaction may play out then. I see D as the proportion of occasions where the vegan demand occurs. Whether it’s a binary or tailing distribution among people is immaterial. Newly elected mayor Eric Adams started Vegan Fridays at New York City public schools. I anticipate this having a positive, significant effect on the S-curve transition
This is what desantis is fighting, and I don't see how anyone could blame him for it. They see no issue using any dirty tactic to ban meat, so why should anyone defending themselves against the attack feel any regret about clobbering them with whatever weapon they have on hand?
They want their enemies "effectively annihilated", what right do they have to protest their victims doing it to them first? You can even have fun #me-too-ing them or copying "firey but mostly peaceful" 2020 riots: they've already endorsed those tactics!
Do not compromise or negotiate with terrorists, do not trust them when they lie about their goals to your face and brag about it to their co-conspirators where they think you can't hear them.
hydroacetylene
1yr ago
Impossible burgers just aren’t very good, though- I tried one on a Friday(they got rolled out in restaurants near me right before lent, probably for that reason) and decided to go back to fish thereafter.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
1yr ago
This is probably too political for the Friday fun thread so-
Florida: Not Literally Hell, Confirms Relieved Expert
State's Residents Reassured Their Suffering Merely Earthly, Politicians Confirmed Just Regular Humans
In a groundbreaking announcement that has reassured millions, Dr. Hugo Vortex, a leading expert in infernal studies from the International Institute of Theological Phenomena, confirmed earlier today that Florida, despite widespread rumors, is not literally hell.
"After extensive research involving environmental scans, interviews with local wildlife, and an unfortunate weekend spent in a Daytona Beach motel, we can confirm that Florida is indeed part of Earth—not an annex of hell as previously speculated," stated Dr. Vortex during a press conference, adjusting his flame-retardant suit.
"The presence of sinkholes swallowing entire homes and swarms of biting insects led some to believe they were portals to the underworld," added Vortex. "Our findings show these are just very unfortunate landscaping and wildlife management issues."
The study also examined the social atmosphere, noting the influx of notorious individuals like O.J. Simpson, which Vortex attributed to the state's generous homestead laws rather than any supernatural pull. "Such occurrences mimic the claim of the infernal upon the souls of sinners, but are indeed grounded in legislative text, much like the state of our prison system and our bans on certain civil rights," he clarified.
Opinions on the findings vary among residents. "I always knew those weren't demons; just politicians and real estate agents," chuckled Marcy Klump, a lifelong Floridian who recently had to replace her car's air conditioner for the third time this year. "Though I suppose the distinction can get a bit blurry." Meanwhile, critics such as local commuter Barry Gundham argue that Dr. Vortex's study overlooks key elements like the notorious traffic jams and recent bans on lab-grown meat. "Anyone who's been in a factory farm or stuck on I-95 can recognize the torment of the damned," he countered, before excusing himself to begin his three-hour commute.
Despite the reassurance, Dr. Vortex recommends that residents continue to wear sunscreen, hydrate regularly, and avoid making deals at crossroads after midnight. "While we can definitively say Florida is not hell, vigilance is advised. The devil is in the details—or in this case, possibly in the HOA bylaws."
Skulldrinker
1yr ago
I matched with a woman on Hinge on Friday. Talked to her for two days, then on sunday asked her out to a free live music thing at a bar for monday; cocktails at a cocktail bar, 10 minute walk to the venue. She said maybe, then the day of said she was tired. I asked her out to lunch instead since I didn't have another free evening this week. She confirmed this morning for today at 1:00. By the time I replied, she'd already unmatched with me.
Met a woman at the park yesterday. She came up to me, we had a long conversation, she spent most of it laughing and smiling. She reacted with glee when I said I also smoked weed. I asked her for her phone number, we could share a joint at lunch sometime. She said yes, shouted "Text me! :)" as I walked away.
No reply to that text message sent later that day with my #. No reply to the text I sent today asking about tomorrow. There will be no further texts.
I hate my life so much. I haven't had a date actually happen in six months.
So, this ended up being not as small-scale as I would like. It is 1:40am on a Tuesday. I can't sleep, because my work is causing me to inappropriately panic. Not sure how I fix this.
My tasks for a week can be as follows (here is an anonymised version of the notes I made just to keep track of all the tasks that I needed to either finish, or at least make good progress on, in one of my work weeks - IIRC, this list was made early in the week and more stuff was thrown at me I didn't expect later that week, so this list is an underestimate):
- setting up a service for Client A, which I need to contact the ATO for
- looking through and fixing the review points for Client A’s quarter-end reporting for seven to nine entities
- having a meeting so we can discuss a different approval process regarding accounts payable for Client A
- processing the weekly payments and staff reimbursements for Client A
- doing weekly bookkeeping and bank reconciliation for Client A
- working on improving the process for Client A
- looking through the documentation that Client B has provided, understanding the workpaper provided to me for preparing financial statements and calculating tax owed to the ATO, and requesting information from the client if necessary
- finishing off the financial statements and income tax returns for Client C, which is a group consisting of two individuals, two trusts and one company
- setting up two trusts in our internal system for Client D
- training at 8:30am on Friday
- Correcting Client A’s setup forms for connecting a bank feed to an accounting software
- requesting deferral for an ABS survey Client A neglected to fill out
- Fill out timesheet at COB Friday.
I have taken to working overtime and/or on the weekends fairly frequently because my work somehow seems to endlessly keep piling on, and requires so much multitasking and deadline juggling that it feels like overload (many of the tasks in question are detailed work that if you get wrong have consequences further down the line). A good portion of these are the type of tasks that need to be done yesterday. And it's worse now because it's tax season, and the deadlines for all the clients I've put off due to being swamped with other work are coming due.
What makes this really sting is that my current workload got the way it did because according to them I was competent and people thought I could take on tasks effectively, so a really big client (Client A in the list) that's currently expanding got delegated to me. The sheer volume of work coming from that one client is truly immense, and a lot of the work is new and novel, and the deadlines are incredibly tight. They basically use us to perform an array of admin tasks, and often just spontaneously spring poorly articulated requests on us which then need to be taken up by someone (performing these tasks often requires a large amount of back-and-forth before one realises what they even want). The diversions are incredibly distracting and when I get back to my other work, I effectively need to get reacquainted with it, which takes a large amount of time.
I think that at this point, I'm working more than any of the other juniors in my place despite having been there for less than a year. Perhaps I am just inefficient, that's a distinct possibility I don't necessarily discount. But I believe this is almost entirely because of one incredibly pesky client which swallows up anywhere from 40-90% of my time depending on the week in question (no other junior is working on this client).
It doesn't help that I'm getting quite burned out, and am increasingly finding it difficult to concentrate on anything at work which results in more procrastination than I'm proud to admit, especially because I know I can be pulled right out of what I'm doing in favour of another task. The refrain from many of my managers is that they would prefer me to work on stuff I enjoy. However, in practice it works on a needs basis - this client needs working on, and I can do the work + have demonstrated I am willing to put in the time, so it gets delegated to me. Going to work now feels interminable and like being pummelled, and the dread mounts before every workday in a way it hasn't prior to this.
Sorry, I realise this is basically a long, reprehensibly self-pitying complaint session about how my work sucks. But I am at the end of my rope, and if anyone has any advice, I would like to hear it.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
1yr ago
So, what are you reading?
I'm going through Mises' Human Action. Milei's appearance has been a gift to my mind. I've tried reading Mises and Rothbard before but they never clicked until now. Also reading the Enchiridion after reading Stockdale's essay Courage Under Fire: Testing Epictetus’s Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior.
There were also other book threads in the Fun Thread here and here.
FarNearEverywhere
1yr ago
I've been asked to repost this in the Culture War thread, so here we go.
I read this story today and it did amuse me, for reasons to be explained.
Fear not, AI doomerists, Northrop Grumman is here to save you from the paperclip maximiser!
The US government has asked leading artificial intelligence companies for advice on how to use the technology they are creating to defend airlines, utilities and other critical infrastructure, particularly from AI-powered attacks.
The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that the panel it’s creating will include CEOs from some of the world’s largest companies and industries.
The list includes Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, but also the head of defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman and air carrier Delta Air Lines.
I am curious if this is the sort of response the AI safety lobby wanted from the government. But it also makes me think in hindsight, how quaint the AI fears were - all those 50s SF fever dreams of rogue AI taking over the world and being our tyrant god-emperor from Less Wrong and elsewhere, back before AI was actually being sold by the pound by the tech conglomerates. How short a time ago all that was, and yet how distant it now seems, faced with reality.
Reality being that AI is not going to become superduper post-scarcity fairy godmother or paperclipper, it is being steered along the same old lines:
War and commerce.
That's pretty much how I expected it to go, more so for the commerce side, but look! Already the shiny new website is up! I can't carp too much about that, since I did think the Space Force under Trump was marvellous (ridiculous, never going to be what it might promise to be, but marvellous) so I can't take that away from the Biden initiative. That the Department of Homeland Security is the one in charge thrills me less. Though they don't seem to be the sole government agency making announcements about AI, the Department of State seems to be doing it as well.
What I would like is the better-informed to read the names on lists being attached to all this government intervention and see if any sound familiar from the EA/Less Wrong/Rationalists working on AI forever side, there's someone there from Stanford but I don't know if they're the same as the names often quoted in Rationalist discussions (like Bostrom etc., not to mention Yudkowsky).
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1yr ago
So, uh, I feel like this post straddles the line between Friday Fun Thread, because I'm only like, 49% serious about it, but it's definitely culture war worthy, so, you know. Please remember I'm only partially serious. I'm not going to die on this hill, and gun to my head, I don't really think this happened. But... I think it could have.
Could Steven Crowder's Marriage Have Been Targeted by Silicon Valley?
Steven Crowder has gone the route of many youtubers into, IMHO, algorithm triggered insanity. Youtube content creators have been having mental health struggles for almost as long as it's been a job. I saw one youtuber describe it as having a robot boss that refuses to tell you what they want. And you keep throwing effort into their implacable gaping maw, and wait to see if the algorithm rewards you with income. If it does or doesn't, you have no idea either way what you did to please it. But you know you must.
This may have hit it's high water mark when a mentally ill Youtuber went to shoot up Youtube's offices.
So I see lots of content creators lose their damned mind. Something in the algorithm changes, they can't pay their bills anymore, they can't contact any actual human at Youtube about what to do, and gradually or suddenly they begin acting erratically out of desperation and anxiety. Steven Crowder was no different. His deteriorating mental health, paranoia, and controlling behavior are as plain to see as the sun in the sky.
What was different about Crowder was we know that he was specifically targeted by social media companies.
The former curator was so troubled by the omissions that they kept a running log of them at the time; this individual provided the notes to Gizmodo. Among the deep-sixed or suppressed topics on the list: former IRS official Lois Lerner, who was accused by Republicans of inappropriately scrutinizing conservative groups; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; popular conservative news aggregator the Drudge Report; Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who was murdered in 2013; and former Fox News contributor Steven Crowder. “I believe it had a chilling effect on conservative news,” the former curator said.
So, if we take as a given that algorithm chasing drives people insane, and that furthermore Steven Crowder was specifically targeted by Silicon Valley, what does that have to do with his marriage?
Well, on a human level, divorce is a social contagion of sorts. Backtracking and caveats aside, the raw numbers go like this
These researchers determined that that when close friends break-up, the odds of a marital split increase by 75%. They also found that people who have divorced friends in their larger social circles are 147% more likely to get a divorce than people who have friends still married. People with divorced siblings are 22% more likely to divorce. The study even revealed the contagion of divorce among co-workers could be as much as 55% in small companies.
And when you are talking about social media's influence on divorce
Firstly, it facilitates reconnecting with past romantic partners, which can lead to emotional affairs and infidelity.
Secondly, excessive time spent on social media can lead to neglect of one’s spouse and relationship, causing feelings of dissatisfaction and disconnection.
Moreover, social media platforms often portray idealized versions of others’ lives, creating unrealistic expectations and comparisons within relationships. This can increase feelings of unhappiness and resentment.
But this is all the background radiation from the no-fault divorce atom bomb going off 50 years ago.
Could Silicon Valley, not unlike how they targeted Crowder's business through the algorithm, having also targeted his marriage? Could they have crafted an Iago algorithm and had it target Crowder and his wife: to sow distrust, resentment, and a belief that there are better options out there? Ten years ago Facebook was caught experimenting on user's emotions by adjusting the algorithm they were exposed to.. It's not like they don't have the technology.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1yr ago
Or at least 80% of the female population on said apps needs a therapist more than a boyfriend.
Ryan Long - Women are Psychos Too
Ryan Long - Stop saying 'All Women are Crazy', it's only 41 million
And I'll leave it there, cause it's Friday Fun Thread, and Ryan Long is fun.
hydroacetylene
1yr ago
Dropping this here because although not international, it's not super culture-wars-y- a schizo burned himself alive outside of Trump's trial in New York.
The Florida man who lit himself on fire outside the Manhattan courthouse where former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial was unfolding Friday is a self-described “investigative researcher” who appeared to become more erratic over the last year and spewed conspiracy theories about the “elites” in a lengthy manifesto.
Max Azzarello, 37, of St. Augustine, Fla., tossed a stack of pamphlets into the air, which included links to a Substack newsletter apparently authored by the self-immolator called “The Ponzi Papers” moments before he doused himself in gasoline and set himself ablaze in Collect Pond Park.
At the top of the site is an article with the headline “I have set myself on fire outside of the Trump Trial,” followed by a rambling manifesto riddled with conspiracy theories on everything from cryptocurrency and Hollywood actors to COVID and former President Bill Clinton.
If you think the news story is exaggerating his craziness- and he does seem to be insane- you can read his substack here: https://theponzipapers.substack.com/p/i-have-set-myself-on-fire-outside
MollieTheMare
1yr ago
The Fussy Suitor Problem: A Deeper Lesson on Finding Love
Inspired by the Wellness Wednesday post post by @lagrangian, but mostly for Friday Fun, the fussy suitor problem (aka the secretary problem) has more to teach us about love than I initially realized.
The most common formulation of the problem deals with rank of potential suitors. After rejecting r suitors, you select the first suitor after r that is the highest ranking so far. Success is defined as choosing the suitor who would have been the highest ranking among the entire pool of suitors (size n). Most analyses focus on the probability of achieving this definition of success, denoted as P(r), which is straightforward to calculate. The “optimal” strategy converges on setting r = n/e (approximately 37% of n), resulting in a success rate of about 37%.
However, I always found this counterintuitive. Even with optimal play, you end up failing more than half the time.
In her book The Mathematics of Love Hanna Fry suggests, but does not demonstrate, that we can convert n to time, t. She also presents simulations where success is measured by quantile rather than absolute rank. For instance, if you end up with someone in the 95th percentile of compatibility, that might be considered a success. This shifts the optimal point to around 22% of t, with a success rate of 57%.
Still, I found this answer somewhat unsatisfying. It remains unclear how much less suitable it is to settle for the 95th percentile of compatibility. Additionally, I wondered if the calculation depends on the courtship process following a uniform geometric progression in time, although this assumption is common.
@lagrangian pointed out to me that the problem has a maximum expected value for payoff at r = sqrt(n), assuming uniform utility. While a more mathematically rigorous analysis exists, I decided to start by trying to build some intuition through simulation.
In this variant of we consider payoff in utilitons (u) rather than just quantile or rank information. For convenience, I assume there are 256 suitors.
The stopping point based on sqrt(n) grows much more slowly than the n/e case, so I don’t believe this significantly alters any qualitative conclusions. I’m pretty sure using the time domain here depends on the process and rate though.
I define P(miss) as the probability of missing out or accidentally exhausting the suitors, ultimately “settling” for the 256th suitor. In that case you met the one, but passed them up to settle for the last possible persion. Loss is defined as the difference in utility between the suitor selected by stopping at the best suitor encountered after r, and the utility that would have been gained by selecting the actual best suitor. Expected Shortfall (ES) is calculated at the 5th percentile.
I generate suitors from three underlying utility distributions:
- Exponential: Represents scenarios where there are pairings that could significantly improve your life, but most people are unsuitable.
- Normal: Assumes the suitor’s mutual utility is an average of reasonably well-behaved (mathematically) traits.
- Uniform: Chosen because we know the optimal point.
For convenience, I’ve set the means to 0 and the standard deviation to 1. If you believe I should have set the medians of the distributions to 0, subtract log(2) utilitons from the mean(u) exponential result.
Running simulations until convergence with the expected P(r), we obtain the following results:
| gen_dist | r | P(r) | P(miss) | <u> | <loss> | sd_loss | ES_5 | max_loss |
|----------|---------|------|---------|-----|--------|---------|------|----------|
| exp | n/e | 37% | 19% | 2.9 | 2.2 | 2.5 | 7.8 | 14.1 |
| exp | sqrt(n) | 17% | 3% | 3.0 | 2.1 | 1.8 | 6.6 | 14.8 |
|----------|---------|------|---------|-----|--------|---------|------|----------|
| norm | n/e | 37% | 19% | 1.7 | 1.2 | 1.5 | 4.6 | 7.0 |
| norm | sqrt(n) | 18% | 3% | 2.0 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 3.3 | 6.3 |
|----------|---------|------|---------|-----|--------|---------|------|----------|
| unif | n/e | 37% | 19% | 1.1 | 0.6 | 1.0 | 3.2 | 3.5 |
| unif | sqrt(n) | 17% | 3% | 1.5 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 2.1 | 3.5 |
What was most surprising to me is that early stopping (r = sqrt(n)) yields better results for both expected utility and downside risk. Previously, I would have assumed that since the later stopping criterion (r = n/e) is more than twice as likely to select the best suitor, the expected shortfall would be lower. However, the opposite holds true. You are more than 6 times as likely to have to settle in this scenario, so even if suitability is highly skewed as in the exponential case, expected value is still in favor of the r=sqrt(n) case! This is a completely different result than the r=n/e I had long accepted as optimal. The effect is even far more extreme than even the quantile-time based result.
All cases yield a positive expectation value. Since we set the mean of the generating distributions to 0, this implies that on average having some dating experience before deciding is beneficial. Don’t expect your first millihookup to turn into a marriage, but also don’t wait forever.
I should probably note for low, but plausible n <= 7, sqrt(n) is larger than n/e, but the whole number of suitors mean the optimal r (+/-1) is still given in the standard tables.
One curious factoid, is that actuaries are an appreciable outlier in terms of having a the lowest likelihood of divorce. Do they possess insights about modeling love that the rest of us don’t? I’d be very interested if anyone has other probabilistic models of relationship success. What do they know that the rest of the life, physical, and social sciences don't? Or is it that they are just more disposed to finding a suitable "good" partner than the one.
self_made_human
Sajjano durjano bhūyāt, durjano badhyatāṃ sadā, baddho'nyān nibandhāyet
1yr ago
My parents had an arranged marriage lol. My mom was too much of a nerd to even date before that, and that too she had to rush it because of her younger sister.
Given that my dad was an up and coming surgeon who had already made a name for himself, and she was considered tall for women while he was average for men, I doubt it was a big deal. But I have heard her grumble about it, sotto voce, or else how would I know about the heels thing? Oh, and he did have a really nice head of hair at the time. Shame it didn't last.
You can't control these things unless you are going to go for polygenic embryonic selection, so why stress about "she's suitable in every way except height"?
I don't think I'm likely to go for polygenic embro selection (yay, someone remembered what I was yapping about), given that IVF itself is expensive. And I have other ways to handle the height issue, should it even prove to be an issue.
Yeah, women like tall men, but that often means just "taller than me". If she's five foot six and you're five foot ten, she's not going to be crossing you off the list of "not quite six feet, pity". Height alone isn't going to be a deal-breaker, and if it is, then I think (to be honest) you're better off without that sort of neurotic type.
You know that 5'10" is considered tall too right? Six has magic connotations, but even that's a perfectly respectable height for an adult male.
So you see, I don't particularly worry about height, especially given what I told you about my ex who I was serious about. But I would certainly prefer a girl who likes me for more than my height, and I do have other qualities if I say so myself. Worst case, HGH. It's safe enough. If I'm even alive to have kids and know that they're coming out short.
Primaprimaprima
I am trying so hard not to say the MBTI type of everyone I reply to
1yr ago
Israeli missiles hit site in Iran, ABC News reports
Israeli missiles have hit a site in Iran, ABC News reported late on Thursday, citing a U.S. official, days after Iran launched a drone strike on Israel in response to an attack at the Iranian embassy in Syria. Iran's Fars news agency said an explosion were heard at an airport in the Iranian city of Isafahan but the cause was not immediately known. Several Iranian nuclear sites are located in Isfahan province, including Natanz, centerpiece of Iran’s uranium enrichment program.
Iran’s response if Israel takes any further military action against it would be “immediate and at a maximum level,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told CNN Thursday, as fears rise of an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.
Hours after Amir-Abdollahian’s comments, an explosion was heard close to the airport in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, Iran’s semi-official FARS news agency reported early Friday, citing local sources.
Questions:
If you predicted a nothingburger - how are your predictions holding up? Is there still an offramp here where we can avoid further escalation, or could this evolve into a full on ground war? It's not clear to me if Israel's military could be stretched enough to handle a conventional war on multiple fronts.
Also, what does this indicate for the future of the US-Israel relationship? The US administration made it pretty clear to Israel that they didn't want them to retaliate against Iran (the going theory seemed to be that it would be bad for oil prices in an election year). Presumably Israel is feeling some real existential pressure right now if they're willing to openly defy the will of the US, one of their only consistent allies on the Palestine issue.
hydroacetylene
1yr ago
I am not a construction worker. But I have been a construction worker(pre-pandemic), work in a trade that is sometimes categorized as construction, my grandpa was a GC who retired recently, and I’ve overseen minor construction projects recently. A few points:
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Construction workers in general have always been unreliable people who have lots of no call no shows, sometimes for months at a time, waste materials, do things other than the ones they say they’re going to do when not supervised, and just disappear for long stretches at a time. Also lots of them do drugs, because the industry has never tested, so there’s plenty of them with what the industry refers to as ‘crackhead tendencies’. This has gotten worse with the supply crunch for blue collar labor, and ‘crackhead tendencies’ make already-rising labor costs rise exponentially because the guy demanding to be paid early because he’s out of cigarettes(he was paid on Friday and ran out of money Saturday morning) now has a lot more negotiating power than he used to.
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Lumber rose and then fell to where inflation would predict it should be. Everything else stayed high, and concrete in particular is ludicrously expensive right now. The usual construction industry explanation is that Amazon buys up all the supply for building warehouses.
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In addition to the labor issues I already noted, construction is one of the least pleasant jobs that’s widely available. In a general blue collar labor crunch construction will see a particular supply drain, which introduces lots of delays that the customer pays for.
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Construction costs rise partly because construction foremen and contractors have no incentive to keep costs down- everything just gets billed back to the customer so nobody cares. Yes, that means the customer eats the bill for lots of waste, dishonesty, and sometimes theft(remember, plenty of the workers are literal crackheads).
Put all that together and it’s not really a mystery why construction is particularly affected by the post pandemic inflation and enshittification.
I'd agree with most of what you've said. But ultimately I think a better equilibrium is achievable than a Christian purity culture, although I probably couldn't convince you of that if you're operating off of Christians principles instead of utilitarianism. But I look at Christian purity culture and still see many failure ponits- e.g maritial rape, or to a lesser degree all the other ways a couple could get married and grow to dislike each other and would be much happier divorced. And I agree with you that the author overlooks the many women who do enjoy kink. Although I don't think she's saying they don't exist, just that many women are pressured into kink despite not enjoying it. And I think Christian purity culture also fails those women- if a girl would genuinely be happier engaging in BDSM with multiple different men a week, and those girls do exist I believe albeit they're rarer than some pop culture would lead you to believe, they should be free to pursue that. But I do think the sort of culture you paint would be my second choice. My first choice being a culture where everyone is aware of the biologically differences between men and women, and men are held accountable for sexual abuse but only sexual abuse that's real, and women are expected to exercise agency in identifying and seeking the outcomes that are actually best for her instead of just waiting for a hot man to ask her to hook up.
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