domain:city-journal.org
wingdingspringking
1hr ago
Long term I agree. The problem is, there is a high correlation right now between prices in the crypto space. A sudden plunge anywhere could cause a plunge everywhere. In theory BTC could bounce right back as the others collapse, but that isn't a forgone conclusion. It could just as easily take a major hit.
faceh
1hr ago
The gap between us and interstellar capable aliens is like gap between us and insects, and we usually do not go on long trips just to stomp on bugs.
Uh, point in of fact, I ABSOLUTELY go out of my way to kill ant colonies that pop up in my lawn, and I do so using more 'sophisticated' methods than stomping them.
And if I were worried about the ants teching up enough to pose a danger to me and my dog, I'd be even more vigilant about it.
Is there any rational motive for alien invasion? Usual science fiction tropes: "they want our water/women/fresh meat" are ludicrous, but there is a possibility.
I'm thinking a relativistic kill missile is more likely. But on the offchance want to preserve the planet mostly intact, they just have to set us back to the bronze age or so.
I've been watching Isaac Arthur videos for like 10 years now, so I have seen a lot of 'imaginable' if not plausible scenarios for how Alien invasions could play out.
Primaprimaprima
I am trying so hard not to say the MBTI type of everyone I reply to
1hr ago
Since space optimism is rather common in the Ratsphere, I suppose it falls to me to articulate the opposing view, and to elaborate a little bit on why I find space (or at least, the prospect of space colonization) to be rather boring.
The human mind is currently the most interesting object in the known universe. All of the human minds are already here, on earth. We don't need to go out into space to find them.
Space of course has a lot of, well, space, in which humans can propagate and live their lives. But space colonization won't fundamentally change human nature. Humans on Mars will still love, laugh, cry, and die. They'll just be doing those things... in space. Thinking that that changes the fundamental calculus would be like saying that a painting becomes more interesting when you magnify it 100x and put it on a billboard. It's still the exact same painting. Just bigger.
There is certainly something to be said for the drama of scientific discovery, and the challenges of surviving in a harsh environment. But this is still just one potential drama among many, only one potential object of study among many.
I of course recognize the utilitarian value of space colonization in terms of hedging against extinction risks on earth. But this strikes me as essentially an administrative detail. Not unlike paying your taxes, or moving into a new apartment because your landlord is kicking you out of your current one. More like something to be managed, rather than an object of fascination in its own right. There seems to be something importantly different going on in the psychology of the dedicated space optimists: they are attracted to expansion as such, effervescence, projection, power for power's sake, and most importantly, size.
Literally EVERYTHING ELSE in the universe is out there in space. Whatever you really care about or want, there's more of it out there.
Well, no, there's not much out there right now. Admittedly phenomena like neutron stars are extremely interesting, exotic planet compositions can make planets interesting in their own right even in the absence of life, etc. I am extremely grateful that we have scientists who are dedicated to expanding our knowledge of these phenomena. But in the last analysis, I still don't find these phenomena to be as interesting as other people.
Of course, if we were to discover that there are other conscious intelligent beings in the universe, then everything would change. Suddenly, we may not be the most interesting things in the universe anymore. We would have to make every possible effort to study them, with great haste. But you already said that you think we're probably alone. So it's unclear what you expect to find out there; besides, as already stated, the satisfaction of the utilitarian aim of preserving and multiplying what we already have.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Earth still produces plenty of geniuses, and indeed plenty of not-genius tier but highly capable engineers, technicians, etc.
benmmurphy
1hr ago
Aliens have been following LLM progress and are involved in their own Butlerian Jihad.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1hr ago
Based on a current understanding of physics, the only reason to launch an invasion would be to acquire the population as human capital for empire building
Somehow I doubt our "elite human capital" is that elite. I'd cross that one off.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1hr ago
I just picked up the first Craig Alanson book, Columbus Day. It’s so painfully self-published. Minimal cover, no logos, I’m not even sure it had a copyright page. And there is a distinct lack of editing. This made more sense when I read the author’s note in the back, in which he expressed shock and delight at the reception for what he described as “talking beer can” novels.
He also wrote about the Amazon self-publishing process. I think it’s pretty neat that was even possible. What would have been a total vanity project in 1970 has shifted more and more towards viability. Not for everyone, but as a way to clear these underserved markets.
But prestige can’t be democratized like publishing. It’s much closer to zero-sum. Every award that goes to a webnovel is one that doesn’t go to an ingroup novel. I don’t just mean that in a CW sense; conventional awards are entwined with conventional publishing, so they’re incentivized to hype up the latter.
Point is, I think the practicality of self-publishing is directly opposed to success in the awards and conventional publishers. It’s a threat.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
It seems worth noting that maga tells Fuentes to take a hike when they notice him at all; the democrats do not react this way to socialists.
Throwaway05
1hr ago
I really appreciated your write up the other week, found it convincing, and reference the contents in arguments with conspiracy minded individuals.
One comment I got was "fine, if Acosta didn't say that why does he refuse to comment under oath."
Any chance you have something I can toss out in response to that?
FistfullOfCrows
1hr ago
I've had talks with some dev friends and they said they did everything in their power to get out of the Skype division once enough indians got into management and middle management positions, those managers would get nothing but indians under them, there was talk of utter retardation and constant slacking, they'll say sure yes, we'll get that done, then turn around and do nothing about it despite what they've been saying and nodding along for the last 5 minutes.
iprayiam3
1hr ago
The shorts would be against whatever companies you think are wasting large sums of money paying people to do nothing
All mid-large companies do this, there's none to short, as it's built in.
as presumably they're very liable to be disrupted by companies with more competitive cost structures
No because it's not a solved problem, it's a scaling and coordination problem. You can't easily pick out which jobs are fake. and which parts of which jobs. It's baked into the growth curve.Smaller companies generally are scrappier, and often cheaper as a result, which is how they compete. As they grow, they become less able to run a tight ship.
Rosencrantz2
1hr ago
It does work but I think to do proper proofreading on an important document, you're going to need to supervise it, feed it your house style etc, and then check all its suggestions, or have someone competent who understands the subject matter do the same. Then you'll probably need to feed all the changes manually into InDesign (an LLM might be integrated into Adobe suite to be fair, I haven't used it lately).
By the time you've done that, maybe you'll have saved some time but I don't see it as that big a deal.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
Usual science fiction tropes: "they want our water/women/fresh meat" are ludicrous, but there is a possibility
The obvious answer is wanting human capital. Population is the most valuable resource on earth and it’s probably the most valuable resource in space too.
Thoroughlygruntled
2hr ago
I think this may be a bit fatalistic. Most people are averse to conflict and being perceieved as rude, at least when you're phsyically occupying the same space. I've found that simply speaking confidently and (most importantly) not defensively is usually enough to remind everyone that they are, in fact, in mixed company and need to behave like it. A lot of people in these places have literally never spoken to someone who disagrees with them before, and being confronted with a friendly, personable avatar of "the enemy" tends to break their brains and immediately turn you into "one of the good ones" to avoid the cognitive dissonance. The trick is to not get angry and cause them to entrench themselves in defense. You want them to be the asshole who makes things awkward and political, not you.
Obviously this doesn't have a 100% success rate. There are a lot of truly intolerant people out there, but they're the minority. Most people just want to hang out and participate in their hobbies. Standing up to the loudest bullies with a smile on your face is usually enough to force the whole group to moderate its tone.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
Based on a current understanding of physics, the only reason to launch an invasion would be to acquire the population as human capital for empire building- terraforming is at least an understood problem and the dark forest theory is more easily resolved by WMD’s than boots on the ground invasion.
Therefore any potential invaders can be negotiated with, and it’s not worth worrying about.
whatihear
2hr ago
The three body problems idea that aliens would want to destroy other intelligent civilization because of the potential for explosive technological growth on galactic timescales seems to make a lot of sense as a motive for someone to release death probes targeting less developed species to their immediate neighborhood.
PreformancePertension
2hr ago
Another thing that happened in the .com era was the telecom bubble - massive build-outs of broadband and other internet transmission lines across the country that would turn a profit any day now as the internet took off. The internet did not take off on pace and a number of companies lost their shirts, but the infrastructure was already there and turned out to be highly profitable a decade later. I suppose I'm not sure I understand AI enough to know how much continuing investment the models might need in the future, but you can see a world in which one or more major AI companies go bust, and that frees up their models now that the cost of capital is sunk into bankruptcy, and they go on to be widely used.
Not permamently. From currently-not-privated account bio:
⏰️ 8am 10pm
(unclear what timezone)
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
2hr ago
look at the apocalypse that was Microsoft's Skype.
I don't know any of the details on what went down with management. Can you share? I, of course, did see how a once "category leading" product turned into an unusable hunk of garbage.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2hr ago
The response must reflect specifically the detailed characteristics of the threat. It is inappropriate to imagine alien technologies based on our own experience on Earth, which spans only a century of scientific research after quantum mechanics and general relativity were discovered.
Statements like this always seem so weird to me. Do humans have a complete understanding of physics? No. Do we have a pretty good approximation for macro phenomena? Absolutely. Often for the kinds of physics described for UAP phenomena the things that would have to be wrong are not, like, the nuances of quantum field theory. It is shit like "conservation of energy was wrong." When people want to talk about alien technology they should be required to specify which presently accepted theories in physics they think are wrong.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2hr ago
Bureaupunk movie about the dead-end government agency assigned to watch the island. When containment inevitably breaks down, our crew of misfits and scapegoats has to escape the dinosaurs stalking their conference rooms and supply closets.
Eetan
2hr ago
IF these interstellar objects are sent by other intelligent civilizations then they're probably intended to kill us.
The gap between us and interstellar capable aliens is like gap between us and insects, and we usually do not go on long trips just to stomp on bugs.
Is there any rational motive for alien invasion? Usual science fiction tropes: "they want our water/women/fresh meat" are ludicrous, but there is a possibility.
Terrestrial planets are big chunks of iron, nickel and other metals, conveniently gathered near stars. If you want to build space megastructures, dismantling these planets is the most economic way to get material.
Yes, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Earth is bulldozed in order to build hyperspace bypass is the most accurate depiction of alien invasion.
About non economic motives, motive understandable to us would be pure scientific curiosity ... and religion.
In science fiction, common trope is scientific, rational and logical aliens laughing at Earthling primitive superstitions.
(less known Christian science fiction countertrope is scientific, rational and logical aliens who find out that Christianity is true, become Christian and laugh at atheists.)
Aliens coming to preach their religion (whether peacefully or at blaster point) is something, AFAIK, not done in science fiction (except as slapstick comedy).
"Have you embraced Great Green !Z'hqw':$*>#q?x as your lord and savior?"
ThenElection
2hr ago
Usually, the buyer has to eat the difference. The seller gets to collect the money.
On the individual level, if you're the director who wanted to put a feather in his cap about how he's a forward-thinker pushing the company forward, you end up with egg on your face. So, before it happens, you mandate that all employees have to use AI. Then, once that goal of token consumption is hit, you declare victory and get a sweet bonus before jumping ship to another company to help modernize their processes by integrating AI based on your success in the first company.
Or Von Neumann probes that were launched from so far away that there was no intelligent life on the planet at the time they were originally launched.
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