domain:mattlakeman.org
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
14hr ago
I don't think this is likely. There's definitely agitating for it, but having those sorts of riots depends on the authorities tolerating them, and if it happens Trump is going to invoke the Insurrection Act and send in the National Guard before the relevant Federal judge even wakes up.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
14hr ago
I think it was just an atavistic reaction, partly to the simple idea of it being the height of wrongness for the God-Emperor to not get what he wants at all times and partly to the "brown foid from a shithole country? Must be a woke commie!" kneejerk assumption.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
14hr ago
You can't have a wrong opinion, that's not how it works. You can only be wrong about facts like 'X is richer than Y', not opinions like 'I don't like X'.
Sorry, once you're using value judgements like "backwards" and supporting them with said opinions, you've already given up that position.
Going on a boat did not create a new people.
It's selection. Certainly the European urge to bureaucratize exists in the US. But it's a lot weaker here because those who came here tended to have less urge to bureaucratize than those who remained in Europe.
roystgnr
15hr ago
I'm not a frequent enough LLM user to say how much of this was solid improvement vs luck, but my experience with free ChatGPT 5 (or any current free model, for that matter) versus paid GPT-5-Thinking was night vs day. In response to a somewhat obscure topology question, the free models all quickly spat out a false example (I'm guessing it was in the dataset as a true example for a different but similar-sounding question), and in the free tier the only difference between the better models and the worse models was that, when I pointed out the error in the example, the better models acknowledged it and gave me a different (but still false) example instead, while the worse models tried to gaslight me. GPT-5-Thinking took minutes to come back with an answer, but when it did the answer was actually correct, and accompanied by a link to a PDF of a paper from the 1980s that proved the answer on like page 6 out of 20.
I followed up with a harder question, and GPT-5-Thinking did something even more surprising to me: after a few minutes, it admitted it didn't know. It offered several suggestions for followup steps to try to figure out the answer, but it didn't hallucinate anything, didn't try to gaslight me about anything, didn't at all waste my time the way I'm used to my time being wasted when an LLM is wrong.
I've gotten used to using LLMs when their output is something that I can't answer quickly myself (else I'd answer it myself) but can verify quickly myself (else I can't trust their answer), but they seem to be on the cusp of being much more powerful than that. In an eschatological sense, maybe there's still some major architectural improvement that's necessary for AGI but still eluding us. But in an economic sense, the hassle I've always had with LLMs is their somewhat low signal-to-noise ratio, and yet there's already so much signal there that all they really have to do to have a winning product is get rid of most of the noise.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
15hr ago
Intertia: But mostly, I think the best steelman is that changing the system would have unpredictable effects on the economy. Between two thirds and three quarters of Americans get a tax refund. The average refund (I couldn't find the median where I looked) is around $3,000. This is essentially a forced savings program by the IRS, in which Americans are forced to save a small amount from each paycheck and then given the money back in a lump sum later. This might have systemically important functions at this point which lead to significant switching costs nationally
I am going to reply to this post but I wonder if you people have some misapprehension what it is like in countries with pre-filled forms.
In countries where the tax authority pre-fills your forms, they still have tax refunds if employer withheld too much (and back taxes, if your income changed in other direction). You still get a document that shows how much money the state collected from you and what is your confirmed final tax. You usually get clear instructions when and how you can get credits/deductibles and what to change in your form to claim then.
Only difference that there is no need to pay for a 3rd party software do the latter part.
FtttG
15hr ago
I can definitely envision nationwide anti-ICE protests in the same ballpark as 2020 BLM next year.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
15hr ago
If you want to accept just what Bezos provides you, that's fine, but they're not full-sized grocery stores.
daguerrean
15hr ago
Mass riots over some ICE injustice. In the leadup to George Floyd you could tell the media was agitating for it with Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, it took them about six months of sustained efforts to get the temperature high enough. The media has certainly been trying with ICE, but until somebody gets shot on camera I don’t think they’ll get much traction. They may pivot back to blacks if ICE isn’t working though
sodiummuffin
15hr ago
The "blood boys thing" was just him investing in longevity research companies looking into the thing where mice given blood transfusions from younger mice are seemingly rejuvenated. That got media outlets that hated him running sensationalist titles about him being a vampire and the TV show Silicon Valley taking inspiration from them. I think investing in medical research is good and not an indication of being a serial killer, especially longevity research which seems badly neglected.
Incidentally last I heard there was some research on the subject indicating it also works with saline + 5% albumin instead of young blood, but that's from 2020 and I don't know what the current state of the research is. A quick search finds this 2025 study claiming it's about "diluting age-elevated proteins as the way to re-calibrate systemic proteome to its younger state" but I don't know if that's the mainstream view. I don't know whether any of this is close to applications in humans.
I may have exaggerated slightly. Prior to Covid, the gay marriage referendum was the thing everyone in Ireland was talking about for the first half of 2015 and several months prior. The campaign to legalise abortion via constitutional amendment was likewise a really big deal for several years prior to its successful legalisation in 2018, occupying discussions almost as much as Brexit and Orange Man Bad (Irish people would put "Repeal the 8th" in their Instagram or Tinder bios, and plain black sweaters with the word "REPEAL" emblazoned on them in all caps sold in their tens of thousands). One sometimes gets the impression that progressive politicians and activists in Ireland were victims of their own success: after both gay marriage and abortion were legalised with massive public mandates, they found themselves at a bit of a loss for what to do next, hence their eagerness to lend their support for foreign causes like Ukraine and Gaza. Nebulously-defined "trans rights", nor farcical efforts to portray Black Lives Matter as a movement which has the slightest relevance to Irish politics, don't scratch quite the same itch. The campaign to amend the Irish constitution to remove any reference to "marriage" or "mothers" was a resounding failure, being rejected even by many who consider themselves progressive. Likewise the so-called "hate speech bill", which was never put to a public vote but which was so controversial that it was shelved.
Other than those two, in the linked post, I listed some domestic Irish issues which were the Current Thing in Ireland — but, as a rule, only for the duration of a single news cycle. For a few weeks in January 2022, everyone was talking about the murder of Ashling Murphy, then promptly forgot about it as soon as her killer was arrested, and immediately started talking obsessively about Ukraine for the next twenty months.
Looking back over the past two years, I sincerely cannot think of any domestic Irish event or issue which captured the public's imagination (or had nearly as much staying power) as much as the conflict in Gaza has. There have been literally hundreds of protests against Israel across the country; both our prime minister and President have weighed in on the conflict several times, as has virtually every recently-minted Irish celebrity (and some less recently minted); our government are considering passing a bill which would make it a criminal offense to do business with certain Israeli firms and so on and so forth. The only domestic issues which even came close to this level of omnipresence were a) the ongoing debate about immigration, and by extension the anti-immigration riots in Dublin in November 2023; and b) the civil rape trial against Conor McGregor, which everyone was talking about from the tail end of last year and early this year.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
15hr ago
“I will flee like a rat to the suburbs and abandon the civilization my forefathers built because getting rid of homeless psychos and dealing with violent crime seems like too much work”
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My forefathers never lived in those cities. Mostly they lived in rural areas and small towns. Well, some lived in Jersey City for a time, but you'd have a hard time finding its golden age to point to; it was a dump when they lived there too.
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Even if I had a solution to homeless psychos and violent crime, I do not have the power to implement it. I am neither omniscient (to come up with the solution) nor omnipotent and neither is not a valid source of shame.
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There are a lot of people with power who support the homeless psychos and violent criminals.
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Number 2 is true of "the American right" in general. "Red Tribe" / "Blue Tribe" derives from the old rural/urban split. And the left, largely through it's association with minority groups, has pretty much pushed the republicans out of positions of power in the major cities. Every once in a while New York City will elect an authoritarian Republican to sweep away some of the excesses, but they always return to form (and the city council and all other structures remain solidly Democratic). Other cities don't even do that.
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Even if none of this was true and the cities didn't have crime and bums, they still have far too many people in far too little area. There will always be conflicts over the limited resources, and they will always be settled by the politically powerful in favor of their clients. So maybe instead of Ramón and Dante's gangs monopolizing the parks by pure menace and police indifference, it ends up being Ralph and Buffy and their friends who somehow manage to get a city permit for its exclusive use every weekend and all the holidays.
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Rats, who thrive on the discards of human society, are known to prefer urban areas to suburbs.
Botond173
15hr ago
Reindustrialization would inevitably entail giving well-paying jobs to universally reviled toxic smelly dudebros. We need to keep that in mind.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
15hr ago
"have you asked AI" is the 2025 equivalent of "let me Google that for you"
Yes, but also if you're asking questions the computer can easily answer, maybe you should be doing this first?
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
15hr ago
Because the thing it's replacing, Google search, also doesn't have this feature and has been SEO-sloppified since like ~2020?
How many of your searches do you basically have to include "Reddit" on in order to get a half decent response? Basically any search involving recipes or product recommendations is pure SEO-slop article garbage at this point.
The amount of times I opened a website just to realize it was literally a copy/paste of the previous search result I had just been reading is obscene
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
15hr ago
Patiently waiting for Scott's next prediction project, "teleportation with complimentary blowjobs 2027"
Pretty excited, should we start a Metaculus prediction market?
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
15hr ago
I never ask AI anything factual at this point without enabling "search" and checking the source for whatever load-bearing point of evidence I'm looking for
It's not as fast as "type question, read answer" but it's still faster than the best alternative, Google and read 2-4 sources of potentially slop / not your exact question
fujiters
15hr ago
I've found that prioritizing sleep above all other things helps to keep my stress in check. In school, I would sleep immediately after class to ensure I got enough and I'd fit homework and studying in the hours that remained between waking and having to be in class.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
16hr ago
my options are to live with it or get a new job
Unless the two of you have an excellent relationship built on truth telling and open feedback, yes
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
16hr ago
Are you serious that there have been no domestic Irish issues that were the Current Thing in Ireland at any point in the last decade? (I agree Brexit and COVID had pretty large domestic impacts, such that being the Current Thing in Ireland is reasonable).
Domestic issues that have been the Current Thing in the UK over that time period include Brexit (obviously), COVID (obviously), ongoing uncovering of cold case paedo scandals, Partygate, Trussonomics, and small boat immigration.
fujiters
16hr ago
When I read it around age 17 (circa 2002), I found it really invigorating. I got a kick out of the detailed detours (especially the footnotes) and it struck me as novel and true. I reread it 2-3 years ago and it was a bit of a slog (though I still finished it--I just wasn't excited each time I picked it up). Sometimes you have to be in the right place in life for a book to speak to you, and sometimes you've already seen the tricks that make a book notable that the charm wears off.
I no longer feel compelled to continue reading books that don't hold my interest though. Give it 100 pages. It should be clear at that point if it currently resonates with you.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
16hr ago
Yes - I was surprised that the line on MAGA Twitter was "Trump woz robbed" and not to congratulate Machado and make hay out of her anti-leftist status (which she was very much up for), possibly along with a call for Trump to be nominated next year for the Gaza ceasefire. (If it holds, he may have actually earned a Nobel Peace Prize. If it doesn't, given the history, he has definitely earned a Nobel Peace Prize).
Trump himself went for the pro-Machado approach, so I don't know why the number of Trump sycophants posting "Trump woz robbed" were doing it. Obvious candidate theories include King Canute's courtiers tier more-royalist-than-the-King competitive uber-sycophancy, back-channel co-ordination to give Trump himself plausible deniability that he was having a bitchfest by proxy about not winning it, and failure of the administration to co-ordinate with its supporters on MAGA Twitter.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
16hr ago
Verapamil is a calcium channel blocker, and a good option. I don't recall off the top of my head whether it's superior to something like metoprolol, but it is very reasonable to prescribe.
They did, in Japanese lol. Broadly they said, "Look, just don't worry about it. Do whatever exercise you like - it won't help but it won't make things worse. In practice go on living your life the same as ever." Which is... nice and all, and better than the alternative, but somehow less reassuring than 'eat salad, never let your heart get above 160, and we want you to wear a 24h ECG once a year' or whatever. I try not to think about it too much, or else I will turn into a hypochondriac
I'm sorry, I had to laugh. This is a good reminder that patients are not made alike, some of us need gentle reassurance, others desire bright lines in the sand. In all honesty, I think telling someone not to let their HR cross 160 either won't work or will be counterproductive. The anxiety of watching it maybe go to 140 might easily cause it to spike.
Something like an Apple Watch with ECG tracking might be good just for the peace of mind. I told my dad to get one, and even offered to pay. Unfortunately, despite getting a heart disease so rare it was until recently thought to only happen to the Japanese (coincidence?), he's proof that doctors make bad patients.
If you want to DM me the exact diagnosis, I can probably give you better advice, but I am still a psychiatry resident and I am blissfully forgetting everything about cardiology other than measuring QTc elongation on a trace.
It seems to be genetic (at least one of my elderly relatives used to have it I think) and to die down as you get older.
If they lived to be elderly, don't you think that's a good sign?
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
16hr ago
That is unfortunate. I shared your feedback, and it acknowledges it as an important omission and also provided additional configuration options it missed the first go around:
https://chatgpt.com/share/68ecf793-909c-800b-b56f-cedc5c798eaf
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
16hr ago
I'm in the suburbs and I can get my groceries delivered also, though the charge is $15. Density doesn't make delivery viable; it reduces the area in which delivery is viable. When I can order shit from China for $11 (even after everything Trump has done) you know you don't need a dense city to do delivery. Though I admit it wouldn't be viable to do perishables that way.
My buddy (who has periodically contemplated trying out for the 19th SFG and could probably hack it) put me on to this. It's entertaining, but if I had to take a drink every time the author delivers what is supposed to be harsh criticism of Delta or ST6 that actually makes them sound absolutely fucking rad, I would have passed out in a state of advanced intoxication a quarter of the way through.
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