domain:amphobian.info
faul_sname
Fuck around once, find out once. Do it again, now it's science.
6hr ago
Huh, nice.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
6hr ago
Yeah agreed. I think the hatred against fake email jobs is somewhat warranted for a small amount of positions, but it's nowhere near the majority.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
6hr ago
changed which side of the road they drive on, adopted the metric system, or switched the alphabet used to write their official language, so clearly such reforms are possible
Examples of big, dramatic changes. It is obvious to people that they need to adjust, so they will. You could do a same thing with US currency, reinvent all new coin and bill designs and issue them.
In comparison, it is not a surprise why introducing a singular new denomination won't catch on if it is not immediately needed and people can keep using the coins and banknotes they are used to.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
6hr ago
I personally suspect he seems himself as more of a Leto II character, from Dune.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
6hr ago
This seems to be a very bad misreading of Thiel from my perspective, it seems obvious you just don't like him, or don't understand the religious themes he's pointing at, or both. I should say that I don't necessarily love Thiel, I disagree with him on many things, but I'm familiar with his overall line of argumentation.
Theil's whole shtick is that he's using the narrative and mythopoetic archetype of the antichrist as a sort of lens to understand the dangers of the modern world. I actually think he's quite right that the sort of eschatological reasoning and arguments that many technologists make around AI map quite well onto Christian apocalypse narratives, and combining these two lenses can open up a greater understanding of how these narratives of the end of the world can hijack our thinking.
The overall argument he makes is that while WW3 would indeed be horrible, the destruction may lead to a renewal down the road whereas the antichrist would lead to a permanent stagnation and total surveillance state, which could perpetuate unfathomably long amounts of time or perhaps eternally. In his view the latter is a far worse outcome, and I tend to agree.
As for the Dr. Strangelove piece, it's obvious he's just referencing Dr. Strangelove as a sort of archetype of the crazy scientist as well. This is an incredibly minor nitpick.
With regards to 'ending all technology,' Thiel has argued at length along with others that the stagnation hypothesis is real, in that technology has already been massively stagnating by a number of metrics including total factor production, and that if we stymie technology anymore it will basically end technological society as we know it. Or, at the very least stop progress.
I think overall the problem here, and with the Guardian article in general, is that you aren't very familiar with Thiel's overall thought and so do not understand the points he is making in their broader context. Perhaps part of why he tried to ban recording of his talks...
Skeletor
7hr ago
The solution in that case is carpooling. You can get an additional three or four Mad Max cannibals to the grocery store if you just allow them to hang from the sides of your dump-truck-with-a-flamethrower.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
7hr ago
THIS IS GREAT WOAH!!!! Ty sir.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
7hr ago
I think we should build housing on the roofs of megamarkets like Walmart and Costco.
There was a news story about this back in 2023.
The nation’s first mixed-use development to feature 800 apartments above a Costco Wholesale store is in the works in south Los Angeles.
The community will include 184 apartments, or 23% of the total units, dedicated to low-income households. There will be a mix of offerings at 30%, 50%, and 80% of the area median income (AMI) levels, with the exact unit allocation still be to be finalized. Plans call for the remaining 616 units to be non-subsidized affordable and workforce housing, serving households around the 120% to 150% AMI levels.
The project is being developed by Thrive Living, a national real estate firm that acquires underutilized properties in urban markets with significant housing affordability gaps. The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles is a partner in the project.
Like Thrive’s other projects, the development is privately financed without the use of government subsidies such as low-income housing tax credits, according to officials.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held for the 5035 Coliseum development last September. Construction is expected to take up to two-and-a-half years as the team transforms an old commercial site into a new retail and housing community.
However, Google Maps does not indicate that construction has progressed very far.
Jiro
7hr ago
Including that comparison without making it explicit isn't a reasonable thing to do
Communication doesn't work that way. Unless something legal is involved, being too literal is a bad thing and ignores what is actually being communicated.
Skeletor
7hr ago
All I'm saying is, if you want me out of my hobbit hole you better bring a flamethrower.
faul_sname
Fuck around once, find out once. Do it again, now it's science.
7hr ago
Living a block from (the entrance of) a Walmart is actually an amazing thing for QOL if you can manage it. I walked to Walmart a lot when I was living right next to one.
I think we should build housing on the roofs of megamarkets like walmart and costco.
I had a culture war thread idea which would be along the lines of "we all live in a honor culture." In the first part of The Leviathan, Hobbes spells out how honor works and it occured to me that in contrast to how "honor culture" is used as a kind of derisive term towards various outgroup-type targets, viewing even the enlightened classes through the lens of honor culture feels like it could be a fairly profitable essay topic. I'm curious if anyone here has thoughts or reading suggestions on that.
LazyLongposter
8hr ago
Lights back up
That's just LA.
That is decidedly not all LA was. As I mentioned in my reply to remzem's comment, the LA I grew up in was not overcrowded as a whole. It was population dense, but not overcrowded except for the most touristy/central spots (Hollywood, downtown).
The question of whether the up-zoning improved quality of life can be answered right now, because it's been going on for over a decade: It decidedly has not. The LA I visit occasionally is unrecognizable in the most in-your-face, uncomfortable way. The streets cannot support it, and barring a radical shift in the entire city council's (and let's be frank, populace's) attitudes toward law enforcement, no amount of transit overhaul will fix the problem.
I will probably get drunk and annoyed enough to write a top-level post about this because watching LA go from a quiet post-90s crime wave city with a ton of culture and places worth visiting to a homelessness, crime, and overpopulation-ridden nightmare has been a huge lesson inspiring my disenchantment with the idea that people on the whole will work to better things.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
8hr ago
I grew up in the Los Angeles area during the best time to grow up there (I might make a top level post about this some time) and it is essentially unrecognizable.
Please do, I would love to read that!
Goodguy
8hr ago
If Thiel is worried about a one-world state, I find it rather strange that he has worked closely with the US national security / intelligence apparatus, which out of all currently existing political entities is probably the one that is most likely to bring about a one-world state and indeed is constantly working to extend Washington DC's domination to every corner of a planet. Not that I think that the US national security / intelligence apparatus has any serious chance of bringing about a one-world state, but it's more likely to do it than any other political entity I can think of. Does Thiel think that he can get on this giant tiger's back and steer its direction?
As for science and atheism being incompatible, it really depends on what Thiel means by atheism. Science is certainly not incompatible with rejection of organized religions like Christianity and Islam. But one could make an argument that, because of the hard problem of consciousness, science is incompatible with dogmatic materialism/physicalism.
I wish I could see a full transcript, it's hard to come to any conclusions without one.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
8hr ago
The one I can't get over is Sam Altman going "Yeah, this is probably going to destroy the world, but in the meantime there's going to be some great companies!"
Bro, this is Captain Planet villain rhetoric.
The shopping centers nearby are so crowded that they no longer even bother going to them and generally avoid businesses near the freeway,
Ah the classic "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded". For the particular family member, perhaps their individual utility has decreased but for the surrounding area the overall utility created has likely increased by a significant amount.
Maybe some people use it to commute, but the local area is still negatively effected. Whatever small shopping centers they might build into these higher density housing can't compete with all the amenities offered by the preexisting suburban sprawl. So you basically just end up plopping a bunch more people in an area with roads and parking lots not equipped for it.
The quality might lower for the people who there before, whose main claim to the general area around them was 1. They got there first 2. They used the force of government to take away the property rights of all their neighbors so they don't maximize the value of the land they own, but it opens up a lot for people who want to be there and were previously locked out because of artificial big government restrictions.
Also, the rent on these places wasn't any lower and rent has continued to rise precipitously in the area.
If you build a dam to block flooding, the size of the dam (supply or something) and the amount of rainfall (demand of something) both matter, and a small dam with high rainfall can still flood. But even a small dam will still stem the tide a little bit.
Rent is also a signal of how much people are willing to trade to live somewhere, so if it's a place people are desiring to live at more either by quality increases or less supply of alternatives then rent going up still is expected to begin with. "X is seen as lesser value than before" and "People are willing to spend more on X than before" aren't impossible to coexist, but they are a negative correlation that requires an even worse fall from alternative selections.
DirtyWaterHotDog
8hr ago
If they execute on the plans, LA will be in the midst of America's biggest transit boom. I would wait a few years to find out if the up-zoning led to a loss in quality of life. Often, new infrastructure feels like a net negative until the whole plan gets executed. Many of China's once-ghost cities and trains-to-nowhere are a good example.
the shopping centers nearby are so crowded
Isn't that good for local business ?
Lights back up
That's just LA.
Also, the rent on these places wasn't any lower and rent has continued to rise precipitously in the area.
Wouldn't it have risen even faster if the apartments had not been built ?
DirtyWaterHotDog
8hr ago
I saw the Mr Hyde version about a year ago, where it was just a nonstop, Tourette’s, yelling swear words, almost incomprehensible what was going on.
I'm surprised that Thiel claims to have just found this out. It was practically an open secret that bill gates was an excitable genius with a short temper.
But he is not talking about Microsoft, but about the stuff which Gates does with his ill-gotten money
From all anecdotes that I hear, he became a lot less 'nonstop' post-microsoft. He was an angry/passionate dude in the 90s and early 2000s. Calmed down after.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
8hr ago
If Peter Thiel is doing theology, I hope he does one on homosexuality?
I can't believe I used to like Thiel. Thinly insinuating that you yourself are the antichrist here to cleanse the world and bring about literal heaven hell on earth isn't going to win you any friends at all, or at least it shouldn't in a sane world, which who knows about anymore...
This really looks like the old movie trope about how the evil genius spends a lot of time explaining in detail exactly how evil and clever he is which then turns out to be his undoing as he's too caught up with his own evilness and cleverness to notice the foil making its entrance. You'd expect the quasi evil geniuses of our world would have learned to keep their maw shut but again, who knows with this world...
Part of me wonders if this is the result of the European origin of TPTB in cycling lead them to particularly want to forget the period when an American came in and dominated the sport.
I think this is not a small part of it. After the LeMond-Fignon battle there hasn't been a French winner of the TDF. And oh boy, if you get one of the home fans drunk on the side of the road and ask them the right questions, 100% there's quite a few that are salty about it. It probably has hurt local sponsorship as well which isn't great give it's quite burdensome for the local towns to host. The dependence of cycling on Lance followed by his fall, was probably bad for the sport in net. Not unlike the Tiger Woods effect, but golf has arguably recovered better. I have no doubt Lance ruled peloton with an iron fist, but I also doubt anyone at Tour level was riding clean in that era. Ignoring the ethical question for a second though, to me his greatest tactical error was not having a plan to bow out gracefully. Lance had enough clout to tie up the UCI and quiet LeMond, but he left a void when he left the first time. There's no way the Tour organizers were going to let Floyd Landis of all guys continue the American domination of the sport. The crazy thing is Lance probably could have gotten away with it if he had just staid retired, and like did anything else. I doubt anyone would have cared about the B-samples if he had just chosen to slowly fade from public view. The UCI busting Landis and then Landis immediately outing him should have been his warning not to come back.
I do think it's strange people accept The Court of Arbitration for Sport/UCI/ASO committee decisions for who "won" a given race. Like the race is "won" when you crush your enemies and see them driven before you. Take for example in the 2001 tour. The experience of following the tour was that on the road Lance Armstrong won the day he gave Jan Ullrich "The Look" on Alpe-d'Huez and Jan couldn't follow. Sipping champagne rolling into Pairs or hoisting the trophy on the Champs-Élysées were just formalities after that point.
olympic weightlifting
I know the problems associated with it, but I still think they should have brought back the clean and press when they redid the weight-classes in weightlifting. In its modern form the lifters are very explosive and athletic looking, but there's not really an event in the Olympics that has a pure test of static strength. I for one am willing to sacrifice the 20 km walk from the program if it means we can have the clean and press.
As far as general principles on records go, I treat it like my head cannon when I don't like what they've done with a show I like. I just ignore the "official" cannon. It's not like they can forcibly reprogram my mind (yet) and it's not like I'm going to all Custer's Last Stand to argue with someone about it. I just nod politely if someone wants to talk about the official cannon, then promptly go back to ignoring it exits.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
9hr ago
This is irrelevant; both the worker's and the CEO's quality of life once fired is beyond the control of the company.
A two-minute walk will very literally not get you across the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart Supercenter, but that's not quite a physical limitation. Let's take a closer look.
A two-minute walk is about 160 meters (at 3 mph), which means there is 80240 m^2 within a two-minute walk of any specific point. Given a population density of 100k/square mile (0.039/m^2) (fourth highest in the world), that would mean 3100 people in range of the store.
Locally, each Wal-Mart serves 100k people. You can play around with the numbers a bit by counting Wal-Mart or Costco or etc, and also reduce their required population, and also increase the density above 100k/mi^2 and also this, and also that, but it gets really hard to make up a >30-fold difference by playing around the edges like that.
A 10-minute walk would be approximately possible, but not two.
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