domain:astralcodexten.substack.com
Hadad
18hr ago
Everyone involved in an ongoing conflict is usually pretty justified in pursuing the conflict to its conclusion, yes. Especially between states. If a grudge is big enough to motivate a war, it's big enough to motivate winning that war.
So I went into the Casino with the commitment to "only" risk $400 at most. That was my whole budget.
I sat down at the Blackjack Table with a $15 minimum bet size. I hit what the gambling community calls a "Hot Streak" and within like 10 minutes I'm up by $500. I pocket $400 worth of chips, Now I'm playing with house money.
After a bit longer, suddenly I'm up like $1500. I'm placing bets worth $500+ per hand. i.e. I'm betting more than the whole budget I had set out on single hands of blackjack. Its feels pretty awesome.
"Why don't you just cash in your chips and take the money?"
Well I wasn't there to make money, i was there to have fun. And its FUN to risk a whole day's salary on the turn of a card, its FUN to have the other players going hype over your success, its FUN to tip the dealer like $10/$20 at a time, its FUN to imagine somehow hitting it huge and walking out with $50k, it is FUN to have drinks delivered to you as you 'lock in' to try to keep the streak going. It is even fun to LOSE a big amount, when you still have a whole stack of chips to burn.
After, I dunno (literally, you lose track of all time), 30-45 minutes total, I force myself to take a break to 'cool off.' About then I notice my pulse racing and hands shaking. Not aggressively, just the little tremor. I've got about $600, plus the chips I stashed earlier. I stash another $400. Now my day is profitable regardless.
I wander for about an hour, then come back to the same table. It feels right. No rational reason for it, but why change? I put down my $200 in chips. And lose it all in, no joke, about 5 minutes.
Just like that.
So I leave with about $800 and one hell of a dopamine rush.
And for weeks I kept thinking back to that rush, and my brain keeps saying "holy cow remember how awesome that hot streak felt? I bet you could hit that again if you went back." My rational brain is able to quell that. "The house wins this is precisely how they get you," but neurochemicals are a helluva drug.
I could see myself doing something like that every week. Go in with $400-500, make it last as long as possible. Some days I'd lose it quick, some days I'd lose it slow, some days I'd double or triple it, and I'd be having tons of fun but it would basically be an addiction at that point, and I'm not sure I could keep myself limited to a small budget once I was hooked.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
18hr ago
A much better set of citations is Colossians 3:8:
But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth.
And Ephesians 4:29:
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
18hr ago
Per Politico, Zohran Mamdani set to topple Andrew Cuomo in NYC mayoral race, at least the Democratic primary. Live results here if that changes. The general election is in November -- Cuomo left the door open as he conceded tonight already to run as an independent; current mayor Eric Adams already is intending to run as an independent. This is nothing short of a massive political earthquake. Here's what I see as the most important questions raised:
Did ranked choice (and associated strategy) make a major difference?
We don't know yet quite how much. In percents, Mamdani leads 43.5 - 36.4 with 91% reporting as of writing, this means on Tuesday ranked-choice results will be released as he didn't clear 50% alone, since Brad Lander who cross-endorsed Mamdani has 11.4, Adrienne Adams who did not for anyone has 4.1. But it seems a foregone conclusion he will win. I'm not certain how detailed a ranked-choice result we get. Do we get full ranked choice results/anonymized data, or do we only see the final result, or do we get stage by stage? The voter-facing guide is here which I might have to peruse. I think the RCV flavor here is IRV (fewest first-place votes eliminated progressively between virtual "rounds" until one has a majority)
In terms of counterfactuals, I believe the previous Democratic primary system was 40%+ wins, under 40% led to a runoff between top two, so Mamdani would have won that anyways. But the general election is, near as I can tell, not ranked choice, it is instead simply plurality, no runoff. This creates some interesting dynamics. Of course, it's also possible the pre-voting dynamics and candidate strategies of this race were affected.
My thoughts? It seems Cuomo was ganged up on, and I think ranked choice accelerated this. It will be very interesting to see how this did or did not pay off for Lander specifically -- was he close-ish to a situation where people hate Cuomo most, but are still uncomfortable enough with Mamdani to hand Lander a surprise victory from behind? Statistically this seems unlikely in this particular case, but it could still happen, and how close he comes could offer some interesting insights about how popular a strategy like this might be in the future.
Will Democratic support and the primary victory make a difference in the general election?
The literal million-dollar question. Cuomo might very well run again as an independent -- otherwise his career is kind of extra-finished, no? I suppose he could always try and run for Congress later, but this is a black eye no matter how you spin it. Eric Adams, the former Democratic candidate, has also had his share of scandals, so potentially there is some similarity with Cuomo on that level. But he does have an incumbency advantage, and has expected some kind of fight for a while. Republicans might back him more, however, depending on how much they dislike Mamdani. It's hard to say. Also, Mamdani would have the Democratic party machinery and resources behind him. How much will they pitch in? That's an open question for sure. It will certainly help to some extent, for legitimacy if nothing else.
Will these results generalize nationally? And if so, what part of the results?
First of all, you must see this as an absolute W for grassroots. Cuomo is a political super-insider, despite being a major bully who is widely disliked. Yet many former enemies have backed him anyways, especially more "moderate" ones. Interesting article link. Bloomberg for example backed him. He formed a super PAC "Fix the City" and it spent a ton of time on negative attacks against Mamdani, especially on his pro-Palestinian comments framing them as anti-Israel. There's that angle of course. I'd rather not get into it personally, but I'm sure there will be some observations about if the Israel-Palestinian issue was big or not, whether it was fair, etc.
Then there's the socialism angle. Do Democrats want more extreme left candidates? Are socialists ready for the big time? Was this Cuomo's unique weaknesses? Was is just crazy turnout among young people? Did AOC and friends help a lot? All things we will be thinking about for a number of months to come. Personally, I see this as Mamdani doing much, much better among kitchen-table issues for the median voter. All about affordability. Of course, the merit of his attempt is a separate question. He's pro rent control (economically sketchy but not unheard of), wants to create public supermarkets (horrible idea all around, supermarket margins are very small), taxing the rich (will they flee or not?), and is obviously young and not super experienced.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
18hr ago
· Edited 18hr ago
Hm, I’m wondering if this is highly regional, or maybe generational. The Christians I know take offense at swear words and would be likely to describe them as minor sins. In my household, you got a stern talking to if you said “shit.”
I have also never met anyone who has said a racial slur of any kind unironically in my presence. I think I’m from the region and social class that is least likely to use profanity.
ulyssessword
18hr ago
crushedoranges
18hr ago
I am constantly reminded day after day that although the right has a very good understanding of what the left wants and thinks, the opposite is not true.
Suppose I told you that Democrats want to make abortions of unrestricted term legal on the federal level. Then, you would say, that is not true: that only certain extreme activists would say so, that they are a minority within a minority: that democrats in general absolutely do not celebrate abortions or attempt to sacralize it as some sort of female right of passage.
But yet, knowing this, you apply the broad brush to Republicans without the nuances or the understanding. All of the logic and reason of the previous paragraph falls out of the back of your head, and you say: "Republicans want to ban abortion federally."
Be honest with yourself. Are you being generous with your political enemies, or are you close-minded and prejudiced?
(After writing this out, I realize you could be referring 'they' as evangelicals, but the basic observation still is the same. Which ones?)
BreakerofHorsesandMen
18hr ago
Agreed, Virginia probably will get redder as a bunch of deep blue government workers find greener pastures in other states (although that has knock-on effects depending on where these people wind up.)
But, where are you getting your thoughts on Minnesota? As great as it would be to have the land of our most “Uff da” saying people rejoin the Red fold, this seems like the reversed version of Blue Texas always being just around the corner.
faceh
18hr ago
If they can't get bans at the state level when they have control of the governments, it'd be a real tough sell to make it happen Federally.
They can of course push for it, but winning the fight to remove the Constitutional 'right' to abortion was the gift that also made it so the issue doesn't need to be fought at the Federal level.
DirtyWaterHotDog
18hr ago
Starting a greenfield project to build a stable software environment for ai coding. I can't think freely when operating within legacy codebases. So starting from scratch to build my ideal ai-native scaffolding.
I'm starting with a tool to auto-redact pdfs. Simple, useful, well constrained. Would appreciate suggestions on software paradigms that have worked well for ai development.
Stack:
- Python FastAPI backend + Streamlit Frontend + Sqlachemy ORM over rel-db
- uv for packaging + environment
- firebase for cloud provider + github actions for ci/cd
- prefect (or something similar) for orchestration
- Openai codex + github copilot as my LLM coding friends
- Dockerized deployments
Some ideas:
- Monolithic codebase to make it easy for agents to operate on it
- Minimize implicit everything (state, side effects)
- Maximize explicit everything (types for everything, explicit validators)
I have a basic demo ready. Codex is already raising PRs. The redacted bounding boxes are off. And the LLM redaction logic is wonky. But, so far I am impressed at the LLM's ability to build a greenfield project by itself.
I'm a serviceable software engineer. Cracked engineers of the motte, what are some software systems paradigms that you think I should play with ? I would especially like to know paradigms that make it easier for agents to understand, write & verify auto-generated code.
anti_dan
18hr ago
I wouldn't be above 10% predicting any of those things, all of them combined I'd be under 5%.
Democrats just resoundingly demonstrated they have an incredibly high floor. Harris-Walz got 75million votes. On those non-existent (probably negative) coat tails they were just -4 in the senate with a very tough map given the Montana and WV retirements, while actually receiving more total votes for their candidates, and actually gained 2 house seats. They also managed to hold steady in governorships, even with the crazy North Carolina guy somehow holding on in a reddish state.
They don't need popular policies or politicians. Those are outdated. They have vote-harvesting operations, which is what matters.
OliveTapenade
18hr ago
I can think of examples, I suppose, where mood is a relevant piece of evidence for judging a person's sincerity.
Suppose I'm favour of stronger welfare policies and more generous handouts for people in poverty, and I'm arguing with a person who believes that, however well-intentioned, public handouts like this are bad. They disincentivise people working to better themselves, they involve the government in what ought to be private charity, and so on. The state providing free welfare for the poor is ultimately detrimental both to the poor and the state. I suggest that their position is heartless, and they protest, "Not at all! My heart goes out to the poor as well. I really care about their plight. We just disagree about the best way to help them."
Suppose I then discover this person cheering as people get kicked off the dole and laughing. I would probably conclude that they're insincere and that their real motives are not empathy. Even if they sincerely think the dole is bad, mockery of desperate people is a cruel thing to do, and unlikely to coexist with genuine empathy. Alternatively, suppose I instead discover that this person volunteers at the soup kitchen run by their church. I would probably conclude that they are sincere, they really do empathise with and want to help the poor, and that they realy do believe there's an important moral distinction between public and private interventions.
I'm sure you can think of lots of examples like that. The key there is that the person presents as having certain motives, but behaves consistently or inconsistently with that motive.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
18hr ago
The institutions of science are held by the other side, so you're not going to see that. The base knows this and thus doesn't require that.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
18hr ago
Arguably, the manly dignity and self-reliance aspects were a side effect of feudal Europe, or at least an older, aristocratic way of thinking. The Founding Fathers were never interested in mass democracy. Excluding Paine, who was also ostracized in his own time, the closest you really get is Jefferson’s idea of every American man becoming a sort of natural aristocrat by being both yeoman farmers (landed gentry), and brave warriors (citizen militia).
The idea that a nation can even encourage manly dignity and self-reliance, while also validating and giving equal weight to the opinions of lowest common denominator dreck, seems revealed as not well founded in reality. Fulk Nerra, for example, had more of those laudable qualities than probably any American since Andy Jackson. And even Old Hickory probably lacked the cojones to burn Rachel at the stake for cucking him.
TIRM
18hr ago
You are listing 90s and 2000s culture war topics. It just needs some "preserving marriage" talk.
In 2025 no one is getting a struggle session for DND.
hydroacetylene
19hr ago
The obvious front runners are Vance, Rubio, Abbott, and Youngkin.
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Vance is a ‘based Christian’ catholic convert
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Rubio is a Hispanic cradle Catholic
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Abbott runs ads on having become a Catholic to bond with his wife’s family. While she prefers to go to Latin mass governor Abbott definitely doesn’t. He has a good relationship with the Texas Catholic bishops(not the most based bishops around- the most based archbishops in the USA are, ironically, those of Portland, San Francisco, and Denver, in addition to military services and the ordinariate for former Anglicans).
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Youngkin is a country club conservative picked, in part, specifically to be non offensive. The chances of muscular Christianity are low.
I’m counting one example of based muscular Christianity out of four.
hydroacetylene
19hr ago
Look at Pew data on religious identity instead of anecdotes.
Which has largely shown the decline bottoming out in recent years?
hydroacetylene
19hr ago
Sure, but there’s plenty of states getting redder at the same time. Off the top of my head, it’s not implausible to add Rhode Island as a New England state in reach for the GOP in a good year, and Minnesota is a when not an if. If republicans really do work their way to single party dominance I’d expect Virginia to get much redder quickly, too. And if current trends continue in the Hispanic population NM is likely to be competitive for republicans again soon.
hydroacetylene
19hr ago
The chance of that is pretty low- not least because mainstream Christianity has gotten much better at appealing to young men, but also the religious right is just used to being a junior coalition partner.
sockpuppet2
19hr ago
Not really. Massachusetts v. EPA's what everyone points to requiring courts give 'special solicitude' to state challenges of federal policy, but that's literally only been used for that one case at SCOTUS, with every following case leaving states high and dry.
I'll have to read that article - thanks.
hydroacetylene
19hr ago
The democrats do have a very unpopular wedge issue their party could easily fracture over- trannies. There’s a faction die hard opposed to any semblance of moderation that makes life hell for any democrats who say things like, you know what, schools shouldn’t keep this from parents.
sockpuppet2
19hr ago
by nature people love rightful royal power
What makes you think this? What proportion of people?
He has the head of the longshoreman’s union and the head of NATO writing effusive love letters that wouldn’t be out of place addressed to a Chinese emperor.
Do you think they think Trump has the Mandate of Heaven?
sockpuppet2
19hr ago
The Oct. 7 attack is going to be the tripwire that enables Israel to finally solve the Gaza Question with ethnic cleansing.
Has it? Was Israel unable to, before? Are 18+ months later, is Gaza being ethnically cleansed?
Israel is going to conduct a "brutal campaign against Gaza" which they "know Iran has to respond to."
In doing so, their retaliation against Gaza will knowingly provoke a retaliation from Iranian-backed militias against Israel.
How is this different than the pre-October 7 Iran-backed terror attacks?
This will give Israel an excuse to widen the conflict and "to do what they always wanted to do, which is bomb Iran's nuclear program".
Was the stated motivation state-sponsored terrorism, or progress towards nuclear weapons?
This will initiate war between Iran and Israel, and Israel will draw the United States into the war with Iran- Israel brings in the United States to "put Iran in check."
Bombing initiating war isn't much of a prediction, so let's focus on the US - was the US drawn-in by Israel or self-motivated and seizing an opportunity?
This will culminate in an end to the regime in Syria and an end to the regime in Iran.
When did the bombing occur, and when did the regime in Syria end?
This is the big play Israel is making.
Are we going back to the theory that Israel deliberately let the October 7 attack happen, to use it as justification for war in Gaza?
I can't really speak to "manly dignity", since I'm not really sure what that means, but self-reliance was never an aristocratic value. It is an eminently middle-class one. One of the notional justifications for aristocratic arrangements was that it enabled the aristocrat to pursue higher callings without having to be bothered about the sordid necessities of life.
Yeoman farmers are pointedly not landed gentry: they might have farmhands, but they work their own land. In a sense, they are agrarian petit-bourgeoisie. The gentry by contrast, manage estates (or, more likely, have it managed for them) of tenant farmers (or slaves, in the pre-ACW US). The idea of doing their own farming would've been seen as distasteful.
I note this not to be pedantic, but to point out that there is a massive, yawning gulf between a nation of yeomen and shopkeepers on the one hand, and an aristocratic one on the other. The former is one that at least permits the idea of universal dignity; the latter is one that sees dignity as a zero sum affair.
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