domain:anarchonomicon.substack.com
pbmonster
5m ago
Is it just that cargo ships don't have much of a keel, so they only benefit from the component of the wind that's parallel to their course?
Can't imagine that's the case. The combination of tens of feet of draft and more than 10:1 aspect ratio of the hull should make significant lateral slip almost impossible. Even if sideward movement would be a problem, a relatively small, retractable foil at the front of the vessel should be able to compensate for that (in combination with the rudder).
I suspect bunker fuel is just to cheap. A kite system is purely additive (you need everything on board you've always needed, and then there's the new kite). So you save a couple of thousand dollars per day on fuel - if you're not becalmed, large parts of the Atlantic and Pacific are notoriously calm - but now need to train crew, maintain a new system, pay off the additional capex and deal with additional risk. The amortization period is probably to long for such a conservative industry.
Botond173
16m ago
There is, in fact, a rather mundane legislative reason for the phenomenon you’re describing, included at the beginning of the Wikipedia article you linked to:
Before it the prosecution for theft of state or cooperative property was formal and didn't exceed 2–5 years of prison or community work, which wasn't a barrier for mass thefts of foodstuff and property, especially in kolkhozes.
The Russian version of the same article goes into more detail on this:
Researcher of the criminal world of Russia and the USSR, Soviet dissident Valery Chalidze noted that even in tsarist times, Russians were characterized by “disregard for the right of ownership of the treasury,” and this tradition “remained significant in Soviet times. This tradition became unusually widespread… also due to the fact that now almost everything around is the property of the treasury or state property”.
After collectivization, a large mass of public property was formed in the villages, which the peasants perceived as alienated and did not consider it necessary to look after it. Petty thefts in the collective farms became a mass phenomenon, while industrialization required food resources. However, the punishment for theft of public property was so insignificant that it did not stop anyone.
A similarly mundane and succinct reasoning was actually provided by Stalin himself in private correspondence, quoted in the same article:
Capitalism could not have smashed feudalism, it would not have developed and grown stronger, if it had not declared the principle of private property the basis of capitalist society, if it had not made private property sacred property, the violation of the interests of which is most severely punished and for the protection of which it created its own state. Socialism will not be able to finish off and bury the capitalist elements and the individual-grabbing habits, skills, traditions (which serve as the basis for theft), shaking the foundations of the new society, if it does not declare public property (cooperative, collective farm, state) sacred and inviolable.
Who knows, maybe if the so-called Law of Spikelets had been enforced with as much longevity, relentlessness and rigor as the Bloody Code in Britain, the peoples of the USSR would have gradually come to respect the concept of public property. Then again, I’m not a sociologist by profession. It should be noted for the sake of context that, according to the same article, a rough total of 182,000 people were sentenced according to this law in a span of 7 years in a country of almost 170 million, which was a scarce contribution to the spectacle of mass imprisonment, total terror, hellscape and whatnot, to the extent that it existed in reality (and nor in the realm of sensationalist literature and yellow journalism).
With respect to the criminalization of being late for work, that is explained by the even more mundane fact that Russian peasants usually had zero concept of measuring time in hours and minutes; I imagine they’d have gradually acquired this trait in the span of decades after being turned into factory workers even without such harsh penalties, as it probably happened in Britain (although I imagine the difference in harshness was only limited in that respect); however, industrialization in the USSR was to be completed in a much more swift manner. This phenomenon is actually described in a rather succinct fashion in the novel Darkness at Noon.
I find it rather curious that you but ‘the data’ in quotes when in fact yes, it’s factual truth that to the extent that any examination of the Gulag’s history discusses this subject (which I imagine is a touchy one for many), it mentions that the majority of inmates were not political prisoners but common criminals. See here and here, for example.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
20m ago
I am willing to entertain claims that official statistics are distorted, but nevertheless someone should make the point: real GDP per capita has more than doubled since 1980s and typewriters.
Distorted doesn't begin to describe it. It's not like someone made an oopsie when refording data in their excel spreadsheet.
Citing these statistics is makes no sense until we establish we're even using the same definitions. If the bureaucratic sector expands to match the gains brought by technology, that's still "P" for the GDP god, and does little to argue against someone who says they're not seeing much productivity gains over their lifetime.
There is currently a big push by Nick Fuentes against a rising JD Vance on the accusation that the MAGA movement has been compromised and appropriated by Israeli influence.
Fuentes pushed voting for Kamala (on some kind of nebulous basis that she was anti-Israel) and the Groypers are now spamming pictures of Gavin Newsom’s blonde family compared to Vance’s “brown” family (and pictures of both men as teenagers) and declaring their intention to vote for Newsom in 2027. Amusingly, libleft Ezra Klein / Destiny fan types post the same comparisons regularly too, albeit without the overt racial angle. You might also mention the Loomer - MTG court harem bitchfight, which while vaguely related to Israel is more longstanding than that and primarily revolves around two aging whores insulting each other on social media while claiming they alone represent the true will of the leader, who should immediately stop listening to the other woman.
The whole thing has taken on an increasingly ridiculous energy, like when Vance’s supporters responded to the Newsom groypers by saying that Newsom’s wife was was actually Jewish (as far as I know she isn’t). The Groypers, in turn, said that no, because Newsom’s wife was allegedly raped by Harvey Weinstein she surely actually disliked Jews more than most, and was therefore likely basedTM.
If 2rafa were right, I think the feds would to a damn good job proving it to the entire world.
Why? This seems like a pretty random comparison. Your theory for Epstein is that his operation was an Israeli intelligence plot to gain kompromat. What does that have to do with an Israeli official getting arrested in a sex sting (with 7 other people, who have a mix of Anglo, Hispanic and South Asian names) unless you’re suggesting that the sting was also an Israeli intelligence plot (in which case why was he arrested and his arrest publicly announced)? The Israeli government obviously used diplomatic pressure for his release since a senior intelligence official under serious felony charge is highly vulnerable to interrogation, not only by the US but by anyone else who can get to him in jail or on bail. They may have traded something, they may not, but Shaun King certainly doesn’t know.
Dean
Flairless
29m ago
And the flip side of that is that the piece of paper does not drive a man/woman to choose their own ethnic group for favoritism. Which is to say, many people keep old passports out of convenience or utility, not ethnic identitarianism.
TowardsPanna
35m ago
You're pretty much stating the obvious. Again.
People capitulating at the bottom is not unique to BTC. That comes down to poor planning and poor emotion management, regardless of the asset. But yes, like I already agreed with, BTC will take a quick and serious beating in the next crisis (before rebounding) because it'll be one of the first things people liquidate.
2rafa
47m ago
If some French cyber chief were in America on a non-diplomatic visa yes I think he would be in jail.
What if the head of the French DGSE was on a recreational / personal visit to the US on a non-diplomatic visa? I have no doubt he would quickly be allowed to return to France under significant diplomatic pressure. Why? Because the leverage of going to US jail as a foreign sex predator is enough to get almost anyone to say anything, and he would know a lot of things, and everybody knows it.
It's obviously deeper than that and completely unlike the relationship of the US to any other ally.
How is this different (in fact it’s far smaller scale) than senior Saudi royals and those affiliated with the bin Ladens being allowed to leave the US immediately after 9/11 while US airspace was closed to all commercial air traffic and almost all private traffic? You will say they weren’t charged with a crime, but given the circumstances involved that is a largely circular argument.
2rafa
53m ago
I’m not predicting a permanent or final collapse, although it’s a tail risk. But I think a lot of people will rush for the exits if only because a lot of their other assets will have plummeted in value, they may have lost a job or other additional income and need to liquidate, and if you’re one of those people you may end up selling at the trough.
muzzle-cleaned-porg-42
55m ago
Some how tech has the ability to radically change how people work and provide people with amazing tools without boosting productivity much. We went from type writers to Word to cloud services that allow us to share documents instantly across continents. We really haven't seen a matching boom in productivity. The amount of office workers wasn't slashed with the propagation of Email, excel, google search or CRM-systems.
I am willing to entertain claims that official statistics are distorted, but nevertheless someone should make the point: real GDP per capita has more than doubled since 1980s and typewriters. I never understood properly Total Factor Productivity, but it had respectable growth from 1980s to 00s.
The amount of office workers wasn't slashed with the propagation of Email, excel, google search or CRM-systems
I am too lazy to look-up the statistics, but qualitatively the office work functions has dramatically changed. There used to be significant pool of people whose job function was answering phone, typing documents on paper, managing the paper documents, managing someone's calendar and it was needed for the business to function. Secretaries and mail room jobs have practically disappeared.
I am amenable to argument that most of these efficiencies have been wasted (they enable more work to be done, but not all of the new work is productive).
odd_primes
1hr ago
Did you do any searches or view any articles about HIV or gay issues while writing that comment? That's more likely to be the cause.
Corvos
1hr ago
you can run Qwen3-30B-A3B at ridiculous speeds on medium-end gaming rig
How are you doing that? Qwen3-30B-A3B-Q5_K_M.gguf is 21.7Gb, are you running it at 1it/s slowly swapping off the SSD or is your idea of a medium-end gaming rig a 3/4/5090?
I mostly gave up on local models because they hit such an obvious intelligence barrier compared to the big ones, but would love to give this a shot if you explain what you're doing. I have 16Gb VRAM.
MathWizard
Good things are good
1hr ago
Maybe this is just the consequentialist in me, but it seems like love for humanity and the enabling of their salvation has to be the overriding one. Suppose that you literally had to pick one:
1: God will get glory equal to saving all of humanity, but you will not be gloried, and humanity will not actually be saved and they'll all go to hell
2: God will not get glory (at least, not any extra from your decision), but you will get glory from God as if you had saved humanity, but humanity will not actually be saved and they'll all go to hell
3: God will not get any additional glory, and you will not get any personal glory or credit, but humanity will be saved (or at least, have the ability to repent and be saved if they so choose)
Setting aside the inherent contradictions (because it would be unjust for God not to glory you or himself for saving humanity) for the sake of the thought experiment, it seems to me that the actually most good action would be 3: save the people. And this is in line with everything else Jesus preached. You do good works, even at the cost of your own material well-being, and then this automatically glories God and yourself automatically as secondary effects. But you have to actually do good.
Now, in reality all of these are inextricably linked: God only gives commands iff they are good iff they benefit people iff they glorify Himself iff they glorify the person who does them. I think that on a fundamental level there isn't even a meaningful distinction between "doing good" and "glorifying God", otherwise God would have said different things until they became the same thing. So I strongly suspect that Jesus had all of them as equally strong motivations because they're all the same thing if you have true understanding (which he did). But in-so-far as you consider them to be distinct, I think the saving of humanity was the primary motivation (but this might just be my perspective as a selfish human who loves being saved more than I love glorifying God)
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1hr ago
How about proofreading a long document? You can get LLMs to go through page by page and check for errors like sate instead of state, pubic instead of public, dependent vs dependant...
That has to be most boring and obvious application. There are heaps more.
Or how about making making cartoons? These aren't too bad: https://x.com/emollick/status/1920700991298572682
self_made_human
Sajjano durjano bhūyāt, durjano badhyatāṃ sadā, baddho'nyān nibandhāyet
1hr ago
Interesting, especially the variability in response. What I'd give to have an OAI non-reasoning model that was as high quality and fast as Sonnet 4.
The correct comparison here would be a non-diplomatic foreign government official from a friendly country. A good comparison here is actually the Harry Dunn case in the UK. An American government official without diplomatic immunity killed a motorcyclist while driving on the wrong side of the road. She was released with the expectation that she would show up to court. It turned into a big diplomatic mess because the US government smuggled her out of the country on a military plane and tried to retroactively claim diplomatic immunity under a highly questionable legal interpretation.
The expectation especially among friendly countries is that foreign government officials who are charged with a crime will respect the laws of their host country and show up for court. This is especially true among first-world democracies with trustworthy legal systems.
MedicalStory2
2hr ago
Would this have even been a crime in Israel? Quick Googling shows that the age of consent in Israel is 16, but I didn't find any information about the age of the person Alexandrovich was contacting.
I ask because I don't think it's too uncommon for any allied country to exert pressure on behalf of a citizen or even for local officials to allow flight from jurisdiction when the sex crime in the US isn't a crime in the home country. I can't find anything to confirm the pattern, but I do remember a local case a couple decades ago in Colorado involving a Swiss citizen.
FistfullOfCrows
2hr ago
(I did use AI to write that script!)
Self licking ice cream cone, electric boogaloo. ( the previous one was DEI commitments/forced personal pronouns in e-mail signatures.)
FistfullOfCrows
2hr ago
I dunno if I'll get dinged for this but this is exactly what a low trust society looks like, they are importing their slacker ethic from their own society and clashing with the anglo-saxon way of doing things. There are exceptions, but on the average anything touched or god forbid managed by them turns to shit real fast. For a good example of what happens when the middle managment gets infiltarted look at the apocalypse that was Microsoft's Skype.
FistfullOfCrows
2hr ago
(the US doesn't officially recognize dual citizenship, but I assume Israel still considers her a citizen unless she formally renounced it, but unless you prove she still has an Israeli passport you're just speculating)
That's like the worst kind of rules lawyering. One's personal convictions don't evaporate just because the US doesn't recognize dual-citizenship. It's not the piece of paper that drives a man/woman to choose their own ethinc group for favoritism.
Personal anecdote, we had an order from the higher ups that we must use LLMs, and that they will be tracking how often we use them.
In Europe the push for AI is absolutely bonkers. On top of stories like yours, I've seen academics shill like they were sales reps for their field to adopt it, the public sector incentivizing it's workers to dip their toe in the water and start using them, etc. There was an entire infrastructure of workshop providers ready to go within weeks of when GPT-3 was announced, and it was aimed at some of the most calcified sectors of society.
The mundane theory I have is that this is (another one of) Europe's ill-conceived attempt(s) at overtaking the US in terms of innovation. The conspiracy theory is that they really really want to automate surveillance ASAP. Quite possibly it's both, but either way someone high up had a bright idea, and they'll be damned if they don't see it through.
FistfullOfCrows
3hr ago
I can definitely see some marvel story telling tier potential shenanigans for the KCU, awww she privated her account.
SnapDragon
3hr ago
I'm in software too, and my productivity is boosted hugely by ChatGPT. However, there are caveats - I'm an experienced developer using an unfamiliar language (Rust), and my interactions consist of describing my problem, reading the code it generates, and then picking and choosing some of the ideas in the final code I write myself. My experience and judgement is not obsolete yet! If you just treat it as a personalized Stack Overflow, it's amazing.
On the other hand, in my personal time, I do use it to rapidly write one-off scripts for things like math problems and puzzles. If you don't need maintainable code, and the stakes aren't too high, it can be an extremely powerful tool that is much faster than any human. You can see the now-ruined Advent of Code leaderboards for evidence of that.
SnapDragon
3hr ago
I don't find the statement so ridiculous, unfortunately. As @ThomasdelVasto and I posted before, the corporate market may be in an irrational but metastable state. Far too much of white-collar work is just "adult daycare", and society has been built around the idea that this is how you keep people occupied. It's possible that, at some point, the whole edifice will collapse. But hey, I don't have a bird's-eye view and I could be wrong. Let's hope so!
Diplomatic immunity is the legal fact, but there's also a layer of diplomatic discretion underneath it. Sometimes you sweep things under the rug to keep your friends happy. If anything it's more effective as a gesture because you didn't have to do it. "Sure thing Benny old chum, I'll take care of this as a personal favor to you."
'Guy with connections gets off with slap on the wrist' is a story as old as law itself. It happens all the time and needs no special explanation.
Can I ask where did you get such ideas from? The GULAG was founded in addition to prisons in order to fulfill a purely economic function.
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