domain:streamable.com
WhiningCoil
2d ago
Only thing that would have made it better is if the execution came at the end of several intractable arguments where the victim was repeatedly accused of being too hard headed.
Also I kind of want to see the whopper of a cromag skull this guy was sporting.
NewCharlesInCharge
2d ago
He gets a lot of credit for having been a political prisoner.
They will have the choice of how much to care for them. Also, cuts doesn't mean abolishment. Balancing the budget for SS and Medicare means less care, not no care, especially if combined with a mild tax increase, which seems it could be sold through everyone having to do "their part".
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
So who is really the odd one out here? The people who have managed to propagandize nigh every western institutional and intellectual space to deliver their message, or the people who periodically pop their heads out of the ocean of left wing propaganda to pissedly proclaim that you can't propagandize everything... Before diving back in.
I'm partial to "propaganda works", but clearly it has it's limits. Why else are they freaking out over Joe Rogan? If they conquered all spaces so thoroughly, shouldn't he be no threat to them?
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν
2d ago
Ok can you recommend some good anime for me? With a good dub ideally.
WhiningCoil
2d ago
I'm still slowly making my way through The Essential Ellison: A 35 Year Retrospective. I know there was an update 50 year version, but I'm not sure I care.
It's a lot. I've read my share of Harlan before. But getting through 200 pages of Harlan is significantly different from 1000 pages. Harlan is such a committed misanthrope, it really starts to wear on you after enough of it back to back. And of course, in this collection especially, there is an emphasis on how much these stories relate to Harlan the author. Little tidbits about Harlan are included by the editor in short prefaces to each section that lay bare how autobiographical many of the stories are. Many of his characters have had 4 divorces just like Harlan. Many of them are short, or did a brief stint in the army, or ran away from home, or had their father die young, or have spent time in jail, or are also authors.
Funnily enough, few of his self inserts copy his famously cantankerous nature. They are just obviously correct about most situations. I guess every author has his blind spot.
He really doesn't disguise his self inserts that much, but they also never meet good ends. They serve more for self flagellation than wish fulfillment.
All in all, past the first 300 pages I find it to be a challenging read, an exercise in spiritual endurance. But I'm past the 600 page mark and the end is in sight so I'm trying to commit to reading it more. I have other books I'd like to get through that I anticipate being brisker reads.
hanikrummihundursvin
2d ago
That's the fault line in all of this. The outgroup is stupid cattle that needs to be herded.
I see a lot of the more liberal centrist aligned people huffing and scolding the 'left' over their inability to understand why Joe Rogan exists in the first place. How dumb the 'left' is for not recognizing that it's their own suffocating need to propagandize everything for the correct cause that creates the space Joe Rogan can occupy. But there's a small blind spot there as well.
To an extent the viewpoint that everything needs to be propaganda for the cause, and that everyone who isn't a true believe is just stupid cattle that needs to be herded and 'educated', has proven more correct than not. It's hard to find an intellectual hobby that has not been colonized or is in the process of being colonized by 'left' influence. Books, movies, TV, video and board games. For the past two decades practically every major hub and media outlet for these things has been taken over. And the stupid cattle still earnestly engage with it.
So who is really the odd one out here? The people who have managed to propagandize nigh every western institutional and intellectual space to deliver their message, or the people who periodically pop their heads out of the ocean of left wing propaganda to pissedly proclaim that you can't propagandize everything... Before diving back in.
Rov_Scam
2d ago
I think the problem is less centering one's life around politics as it is centering one's life around politics but not going beyond vague, slacktivist methods like calling people out on social media or even attending protests. Actual politicians and people who work for political or community organizations for a living don't seem to have this problem. If she were concerned about the "little people" who Trump was supposedly leaving behind, it might have done her better to do legal work for people who couldn't afford her services, or get involved with a charitable organization, or even picked up litter along the side of the road. It's not like there aren't a lot of people out there looking for volunteers. But I don't think that was ever on the table because I think her political centerdness was downstream of mental health problems, not the other way around.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν
2d ago
Hah that's fair. It is intense for sure.
Shrike
2d ago
A lot of Americans who aren't part of those groups will be taking care of those groups if Social Security and Medicare are cut.
Tanista
2d ago
Elon isn't an idiot.
He does however have a history of aiming high and then working it out if he doesn't meet his deadlines.
He gets somewhat of a pass from people (going by Tesla's share price) because it's assumed he'll eventually get to whatever he shot for but this obviously doesn't work in a time-limited, government position like DOGE.
Who are they even pillaging it for? Dems are more PMC now so they are hardly all low income
Which explains Biden's abortive attempt at college debt forgiveness.
thejdizzler
2d ago
I just finished my 102nd book in Spanish yesterday! I've been learning spanish for about 5 years now, and reading has been a great way to improve in the language (the other things I do these days are watch Netflix/YouTube and take lessons once a week with a tutor on iTalki). Full list of books here, but some favorites below:
Olvidado Rey Gudú by Ana Maria Matute. Mix of Game of Thrones and a fairytale, nothing like it in English. The central premise is that the main character has been cursed (or blessed) with being unable to love. There also is no English translation, so you have to be able to read Spanish/Italian/German to be able to enjoy it. Longer review here
Crónica de una muerte anunciada by GGM. This is a who-dunnit but rather than a search for the murderer it's a search for the reason that the whole town allowed the murder to happen. This one has a pretty unreliable narrator, and has been increasingly fun on re-reads as I try and piece together the real motivations of the various characters.
Los cuerpos del Verano by Martin Felipe Castagnet. This is a short science fiction novella about a world without death where bodies are recycled. Probably one of the more depressing (but realistic) takes on trans-humanism I've seen in science fiction. My longer review here.
Castilla en llamas by Calvo Rúa Alberto. Non-fiction about the rise of the house of Trastamara (whose most famous monarchs are Isabella and Ferdinand). Probably one of the best arguments against monarchy ever: every time the King of Castille dies there's a civil war for succession in this period. The book did a good job of storytelling rather than just name dropping facts and people.
Translations of Joe Abercrombie: I love the first law trilogy, and these are some of the best fantasy translations I've come across.
And herein lies the big reason as to why the pro-choice side has to fight using misleading arguments; they have actually very good, defensible arguments, but they're technical, philosophical and feel bad to say. Like pointing out there's no easy answer as to when consciousness or life begins. It feels like you're telling pregnant women their fetus isn't a real human. At that point you might as well tell pet owners their pets don't love them, they just want food.
It feels much better when you frame it as defending some highly sympathetic but non-central cases like rape victims than as denying a maybe-baby's humanity.
Same with the "it's my body", " I can chose whether to have a medical operation"/arguments, technically correct and mix it with the previous argument and it's convincing to people with ethics brain. Doesn't code as nice and empathic.
Not my opponents actually, I'm not on any side in this. But pro-choice is pretty much tautologically against the compromise I gave, because the "choice" in the name of their movement is the mother's, not a police officer's, a doctor's or an ethics panel's choice.
They might take a compromise on timing, but not on reasons, because those are no one's business than the mother's.
pigeonburger
2d ago
Oh, okay, I musunderstood you
WhateverHappenedToNorman
2d ago
Half a decade, tops.
yofuckreddit
2d ago
The polling shows unequivocally that as a group we want lower taxes and almost limitless welfare.
The only practical way out is for our politicians to collude and work as one bloc to do what we need. Good luck
quiet_NaN
2d ago
I specifically meant it did little to create the impression that Musk was advancing the capabilities of humanity, as with SpaceX or Tesla. Instead he spent a decade fighting in the trenches of the culture war. Even if he had fought on my side of the culture war, unbanning my allies or banning and name-calling my opponents, I would have seen that as less useful than what he did previously.
Mildly interesting autopsy report related in a court opinion:
The trial court set forth the relevant facts and procedural history of this case as follows:
Ian Hood, M.D., an expert in the field of forensic pathology, performed an autopsy on [the victim, Joshua Smith, Appellant’s good friend.] The victim presented as a 25-year-old male, 5′11″, and 230 pounds. The doctor determined that the victim died as a result of gunshot wounds to the head and neck. The most obvious injury was a gunshot wound to the neck, and the doctor opined that there would have been a lot of blood loss from this injury. Dr. Hood also testified that there was an unusual gunshot wound to the back of the victim’s head. There was soot and gunpowder on the hoodie that the victim had been wearing, indicating that the gun was only a few inches away when it was fired. Dr. Hood opined that this execution shot to the back of someone’s head would normally cause a victim to drop and die, but in this case the victim had an unusually thick skull, so that the bullet actually bounced off his skull and came back out. Putting this physical evidence together, Dr. Hood believed that the bullet to the victim’s head was probably the first wound, and then the victim was shot in the neck and ran 200 feet, pumping blood out of his severed arteries, until he went down where he was found.
The murder weapon was a Ruger revolver of a caliber not specified in the opinion. So feel free to assume it was .22 caliber and make jokes accordingly.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2d ago
Another week, another humiliation for Britain.
https://thecritic.co.uk/exclusive-osborne-to-give-elgin-marbles-to-greece/
The Critic understands that George Osborne, Chairman of the British Museum, has agreed to give the Elgin Marbles to Greece.
The move is unlikely to be blocked by the Government since the Prime Minister has expressed several times his commitment “not to stand in the way” of a deal between the Greek government and the British Museum.
In order to give the Marbles to Athens permanently, the government would need to amend the British Museum Act 1963 which prevents the deaccession of items. But it is thought that Osborne’s plan to give them away on loan would side-step this requirement.
Since the Greek government claims legal ownership of the sculptures, it is extremely unlikely that they would ever return to Britain.
Spain has to be salivating at this point, not to mention Argentina. There's oil in the Falklands.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2d ago
they will come up with ways to automate away research or engineering tasks
This is already happening. Papers have been published on it! This is partly why the AI safety people start to sound so deranged, because people are confusing reality with science fiction, not the other way around.
Research and engineering is being automated, piece by piece. R1 can write helpful attention kernels: https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/automating-gpu-kernel-generation-with-deepseek-r1-and-inference-time-scaling/
Also consider this paper:
Many promising-looking ideas in AI research fail to deliver, but their validation takes substantial human labor and compute. Predicting an idea's chance of success is thus crucial for accelerating empirical AI research, a skill that even expert researchers can only acquire through substantial experience. We build the first benchmark for this task and compare LMs with human experts. Concretely, given two research ideas (e.g., two jailbreaking methods), we aim to predict which will perform better on a set of benchmarks. We scrape ideas and experimental results from conference papers, yielding 1,585 human-verified idea pairs published after our base model's cut-off date for testing, and 6,000 pairs for training. We then develop a system that combines a fine-tuned GPT-4.1 with a paper retrieval agent, and we recruit 25 human experts to compare with. In the NLP domain, our system beats human experts by a large margin (64.4% v.s. 48.9%). On the full test set, our system achieves 77% accuracy, while off-the-shelf frontier LMs like o3 perform no better than random guessing, even with the same retrieval augmentation. We verify that our system does not exploit superficial features like idea complexity through extensive human-written and LM-designed robustness tests. Finally, we evaluate our system on unpublished novel ideas, including ideas generated by an AI ideation agent. Our system achieves 63.6% accuracy, demonstrating its potential as a reward model for improving idea generation models. Altogether, our results outline a promising new direction for LMs to accelerate empirical AI research.
Are there caveats on this? Yes. But are AIs running AI research hilarious? No. Nothing about this is funny or deserving of casual dismissal.
I'm not sure about this. Sam Harris' account of his bet with Elon indicated that he's way higher on his own supply than I thought.
And it also showed how that happens:
Thing is, this seems to have happened in private (at first). So it wasn't purely a matter of grandstanding for his proles.
Whatever his problems, Harris will at least tell you what he thinks. You start behaving like this with Twitter "friends" and you end up surrounded by Ian Miles Cheong types sucking your nuts and then all of the epistemic brakes are gone.
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