domain:betonit.substack.com
orthoxerox
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17m ago
You have to become a pretentious literary type, then.
2rafa
38m ago
It’s not necessarily smart to do that even if you have evidence of internal plots, because the same usual external plots / random crazies also still exist and people outside the secret service have much less experience identifying or defending against them.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
43m ago
I think maybe a good smell test would be: am I discussing the culture war, or waging it? No one is ever not guilty of breaking this from time to time but the ratio of “waging” posts to “discussing” posts is outta whack
JarJarJedi
45m ago
The link above works for me... I think it's the same site?
Well-connected Jews have attempted to blackmail Jewish billionaires before. Rabbi Balkany tried to blackmail Steve Cohen into funding yeshivas.
Er, the only blackmail case I see from this link and a cursory google involving both Balkany and Steve Cohen is this, which doesn't involve blackmailing Cohen into supporting Israel more generally, or even specific yeshivot in Israel. Balkany apparently tried to shake down Cohen for donations to Balkany's own girl's school, which Balkany previously admitted to have been misappropriating money from. Doesn't seem to be at all useful as a counterexample to /u/2rafa's assessment.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
50m ago
The fact this doesn’t strongly happen is more to with how social conservatism in the US picked up an emphasis on the nuclear family, which sort of intrinsically shuts out grandparents in a way other conservatives don’t.
Thanks for being lenient.
I checked a couple more of his hard science articles, and they have a similar level of rigor. Solar Flares confuses cause and effect with mere association, and has a couple other oddities:
According to NASA, solar flares are defined as intense bursts of radiation that occur as a result of the magnetic energy found in sunspots. Solar flares can also happen when particles like electrons and protons unexpectedly accelerate.
The electrons and protons accelerate because of the magnetic field. That causes a release of radiation, which is the solar flare.
No matter what the composition, solar flares release large amounts of solar, gamma, and electromagnetic radiation into space. They can last anywhere from several minutes to several hours.
Very strange phrasing. Rephrasing it, it is: electromagnetic or particle radiation from the sun, electromagnetic radiation below 10 picometers, and electromagnetic radiation in general.
They can last anywhere from several minutes to several hours.
What do solar flares look like?
Despite the fact that some of them can last for a rather long time, solar flares generally happen too quickly to be seen by the naked eye.
It's not the speed that's the problem ("several minutes to several hours", from the previous paragraph, or minimum four minutes due to the measurement criteria here), but the brightness in the visible spectrum. This might actually be a hallucination, and could've come from the mismatch between human and astronomical time (where a million years can be "fast" and ten minutes can be described as "a flash").
Those circumstances emit X-rays and magnetic fields that travel across the cosmos, bombarding the Earth with geomagnetic storms that can interrupt long-range communication and the like.
The field itself isn't reaching the Earth (any more than normal, at least), but charged particles are, and they can affect us.
Solar flares do ramp up into something called a solar maximum every 11-year solar cycle, but even at their maximum strength, no recorded flares have ever been large enough to reach the planet.
A bit of a nitpick, but the solar flares are the light. All(?) recorded solar flares have reached the Earth, because that's how we recorded them. Solar prominences and flare sprays have never been large enough to reach Earth.
According to NASA, CMEs are similar to solar flares in that they are bursts of solar material that result in the release of particles and radiation.
CMEs and solar flares are somewhat like thunder and lightning. They happen at the same time from the same event, but they are distinct phenomena.
This was a good challenge, and kudos for putting your money where your mouth is. I saw the generation attempt upthread, but I'm still wondering if o3, Opus 4, or another model could outperform him, if given a good bit of scaffolding. The bar is higher than I thought.
OliveTapenade
1hr ago
Wait, doesn't everyone know that Who Wants To Live Forever was written specifically for Highlander? It and Princes of the Universe are movie themes.
It's like hearing that somebody thought that Flash was written independently of Flash Gordon - of course it wasn't! Queen just scored some films, for commercial reasons! The songs became popular because Queen were/are damn good musicians, and sometimes that's enough. Good art doesn't need a sob story.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1hr ago
I guess I have to agree. How could I not, when just a few weeks back I correctly called out our friendly neighborhood Count for using it? The normies have a point there, few people who aren't journalists or pretentious literary types use them by default.
(I wonder if I could get away with large disclaimers left, right and center saying that these are artisanal em-dashes, produced only by my hands with the assistance of Markov chains at most)
FtSoA
1hr ago
If it is Ghislaine, she was really committed to the bit by making constant small Bri'ish Engrish grammatical errors.
GBRK
1hr ago
For me to believe the hypothesis that "intra-racial IQ differences are primarily mediated by genetic differences" I would need to see the following data:
- genes causative of IQ differences (this data exists. It's fuzzier than I want, but I'm willing to accept it.)
- iq-modifying gene frequency by race (this data doesn't.)
Without both those data points, all you can do is try and prove "intra-racial IQ differences look like this" and "IQ differences are primarily mediated by genetic differences" separately. But while that's necessary, it's not sufficient-- to prove the full hypothesis. At least, not without larger effect sizes and better mathematical techniques. Especially because even if you prove that, say, the IQ differences between whites and amerindians and asians is due to genes, that's dramatically insufficient to prove that the IQ differences between those groups and subsaharan africans are due to genes. Nutrition, parasite load, education infrastructure, epigenetics. Look upon my works ye mighty, and despair.
The vast timespan that selection effects have had to act are exactly why I'm so suspicious of modern data. Every human born in the last two hundred years lives a live completely unlike the lives we lived in the last five thousand. And the majority of humans born in the last five thousand years have lived lives completely unlike the lives lived in the last five hundred thousand. And yet, any attempt to argue for the impact of selection pressures on intelligence must explain all three of those periods simultaneously. It has to be true across every subpopulation, and every chronopopulation. It has to explain the differences between the dutch and italians, and the italians and the romans, as well as it explains the differences between the hausa and yoruba.
And also...
Look, I have a bit of a pet theory. A literal pet theory. Because: we know that wolves are smarter than dogs. They do better on problem solving tasks, and of course they're superior at surviving in the wild. But a dog will sit when you tell it to sit, and fetch when you tell it to fetch. And the vast majority of tests we put canids up to aren't "surviving in the wild," they're "doing what we tell you to." So if racial IQ differences are provably genetic... even then, I'll be a little suspicious about the true allocation of racial intelligence. It's worth remembering that while IQ tests try to be as unbiased as they can along as many metrics as possible... they can unbias themselves along the axis of being a test. And tests favor trainability. I'm not going to say that obviously dumb people are just actually "street smart", but I do wonder if IQ tests at the population level are really just measuring which cultural-genetic backgrounds can sit still the longest while wagging their tails. This theory is unfalsifiable, of course, so I won't ask you to falsify it... but it would be fascinating to see what would happen if we rounded up people at random, gave them IQ tests, dropped them off somewhere remote, and then watched to see how long they survived.
TowardsPanna
1hr ago
I wouldn't use em. It's the main thing in the normie pattern recognizer for calling out AI texts now.
FtSoA
1hr ago
The Malaysian man never cared about Malaysia, just US politics. Odd.
Ahahahaha, are you not on Twitter at all? There's a notorious guy with this exact gig, and tons of non-Americans are obsessed with our politics.
But he was pretty interested in global politics, not just American. /r/worldnews was his jam.
https://x.com/stillgray?lang=en
But at the end of the day you're approaching this backwards. Coincidences happen all the time. There's no substantial evidence it's her, and even if it were her, it doesn't even matter, right?
The Malaysia placename does check out btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukit_Larut
Donald Trump didn't even enter politics that much until 2015-2016. He was mostly just a rich celebrity business mogul. And if you know anything about elites, even the literal politicians, they tend to get along surprisingly well anyway. Maybe the writer has no concept of being friends with people of different political beliefs, but it's a common thing.
I don't think you understand the argument here. If this were Ghislaine, what is she doing here saying derogatory stuff about Trump, her friend? About COVID? To what end? Also the posting went on until 2020, so I really do not understand what point you think you're making about Trump's political timeline.
This is exactly the sort of nonsense I'm talking about! If they're perfectly willing to say "Oh my god the account is still active, just look at this private message" then why are they so unwilling to just make a real post?
The cited PM says the guy thinks this is all pretty funny. I would too, were I him. Or her.
"Large numbers of people" but can only name a single group, the Worldnews moderation team who is directly incentivized to lie, is making suspicious and contradictory claims already
Uh, you're asserting "can only name" but that's not actually true just because the author didn't provide an exhaustive list.
I trust the market: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/7082/ghislaine-maxwell-confirmed-reddit-accout/
Man just skimming https://old.reddit.com/user/maxwellhill/comments/ shows it's very unlikely to be an elite socialite woman doing psyops on the internet. It definitely reads as someone who speaks pretty good Bri'ish Engrish as a 2nd language too, with slight verb, definite/indefinite article, and plural errors.
Examples:
Given the coronavirus situation in UK a couple of weeks ago, shouldn't the heir to the British throne canceled all those engagements? He is 71 years old.
Trump is a vindictive SOB and it’s scary to think that this unhinged US President is sitting on a pile of nuclear arsenals with the key code to unleash hell on earth.
Trump's behaviours such as this no longer tolerated by some European head of states.
WTF?! - how did a pedophile get a job in a children's detention centre in the first place? As this is one of several cases brought to light in recent weeks. So what's being done to prevent such incidents from recurring?
What do you think of the President Xi’s indefinite rule following the removal of presidential term limit? Is a good thing for China?
How would this change China’s foreign polices overal and in particular with the US now that Xi can focus on long term issues over a 10-20 years ahead. Knowing this how do you think Trump will manuever himself in order to cope Xi’s rising influence on the world stage?
So was Ghislaine trying extremely hard to consistently mimic the British English usage of a nonnative speaker spewing out median Reddit libtard views? Why?
I'm sorry if you read the comments from this account and think it's actually Ghislaine Maxwell instead of some Asian dude you have an incurable case of brain weasels. There's nothing but coincidences, tons of counterevidence, and it wouldn't even matter if true.
I put in the eggs article from that guy, the first one I saw, and it gave me '57% GPT': https://www.greenmatters.com/p/eat-boiled-eggs-every-day
Your standards are too high for the AI scores. There are countless people getting hauled in for AI-written essays by the detectors even though they're innocent. Plus I had it adopt a more human tone to get around the GPT detectors.
Here's Claude's explanation for the mix:
Why this mixture makes sense for basil:
Basil needs nutrients (compost provides this) Basil hates waterlogged roots (perlite prevents this) Regular potting soil alone might not drain fast enough for basil's preferences
From the Utah source, broadly matching up with this:
Basil loves warm weather, lots of sun and plenty of moisture. It prefers nutrient-rich and well-drained soils. Before planting, amend the soil with compost and fertilizer and plant after the last frost.
Basil needs lots of light. So if you wanted to grow it indoors and it wasn't getting enough light (this has been known to happen indoors), you would presumably want to supplement it. Your video is a dude talking about underground lighting where it's JUST artificial lights whereas Kimi and Claude naturally assumes the basil is getting at least some sunlight since basil isn't something you need to hide!
Of course that's a bit over the top. It's just basil, the most boring part of a salad. But if you want to do it, may as well go all the way. That's probably part of the '8-inch rule' too. Claude wants to go all the way, cut no corners on safety and best practices. If it needs space, give it space. You're nitpicking excessively.
I don't think either of us know a damn thing about basil independent of sources of varying veracity and relevance, which is a mistake of letting the AI just do it's own thing. I should've had it write a wiki article about 40K lore or something, then I could confidently assess whether it fits.
Gaashk
1hr ago
This was the philosophy of the church I grew up in as well.
It was full of conscientious middle class families, and the working class ones were the sort who owned a small landscaping company or something.
Even among people sort of average in conscientiousness but a bit odd, it didn't completely work. The talent my father brought to the chili cookout was... reading T S Elliot poems in a corner. He had previously worked in a restaurant, as the person in charge of soups. So I'm not sure why we didn't bring any chili, now that I think of it. Maybe he doesn't like chili. I did enjoy the TS Elliot more than the chili, but we were the only ones.
We are the sort of mildly chaotic people who need a monthly Clean the House Day, where everyone stays home and cleans the house, otherwise it will just become increasingly filthy forever.
hydroacetylene's community sounds even less conscientious than my family. Some people will decide drinking beer and playing video games are their vocation unless firmly directed otherwise. Even the ones who think it's their vocation to keep taking college classes as long as the government will keep lending them money, with no plans for using the knowledge productively, sometimes need to be told that it's a bad idea.
Clementine
1hr ago
Have to take a break from the motte. Since I had a previous post discussing some anxiety about being here, am posting to make it clear it's nothing to do with anyone here, the discussion was fine and respectful (although I ended up regretting defending Turok lol). I also hope to eventually be back, joining was me dipping my toes but turns out I'm not quite ready for it, might be ready for it someday though. Just wasn't managing to do it with the proper balance for myself.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1hr ago
I said at the time and look to have been validated, that people have this idea of the USSS as a super competent organization. But at the end of the day they are still an organization, and are thus not immune to the common failure modes of organizations. As I understand the facts that we have, the communication failures (separate radio networks for the main detail and local support), the “good enough” problem (they had someone in the building, just not covering the roof), and “someone else’s problem” (bad or incomplete assignments during the planning phase) are absolutely classic organizational problems that crop up just as easily and pervasively in the USSS as they do in a large for-profit corporation. If anything, there’s less will to shake things up like a CEO might.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
1hr ago
Reciprocal relationships are not the same as obligation relationships, much as they are not synonymous with transactional relationships.
It seems like a lot of your argument hinges on this distinction. Can you elaborate? Because I confess that I can't see the difference you're trying to point to.
FtSoA
2hr ago
Frankly I hold Mossad in too high of regard to believe any of this shit on incompetence grounds.
The Israelis are less risk-averse than their US counterparts as a general rule, but they aren't bumbling fools orchestrating haphazard sex-based coercion like this.
Also, to correct the record on Acosta claiming Epstein was told to go easy because Epstein "belongs to intelligence":
The OPR report also looked into allegations that have surfaced in press reports over the years that Epstein may have gotten special treatment because he was some sort of “asset” to U.S. intelligence agencies.
“Acosta stated to OPR that ‘the answer is no,’” the report said.
Rich Jewish guy hanging out with rich Jewish guys, some of whom have ties with the Israeli government, is not exactly enough evidence to show anything. Is anything about Epstein's alleged ties to the "arms world" actually proven?
If any of this was true one would think Ari Ben-Menashe would be dead already for spilling state secrets.
alsfhwe
2hr ago
Likewise, the 2015 song Renegades was originally written for a commercial advertising the Jeep Renegade. After I learned that, every time I heard the song on the radio, I felt I was listening to a glorified advertisement.
In fairness, I believe artists "pour their soul" into their art, to some extent, even when it's made with strict guidelines for a paycheck. Even non-art professional software, as evidenced by Easter eggs and the occasional feature that is unreasonably clever and well-implemented for no apparent reason. Ideas that come from "goofing around" aren't much different from those that come from insight, both arise from spontaneous thought. The opposite side of "people create a retroactive narrative to explain their actions", is that people's actions are influenced by their past experiences and suppressed desires, sometimes in ways they don't consciously realize.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2hr ago
Just today I took note of this article in n case people are still on the conspiracy train: WaPo: The lingering mystery of the Trump shooting: Why did this young man do it?
After Trump took office again in January, his new picks to lead the FBI — Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino — asked to be briefed on the investigative steps that had been taken before they arrived, they said in a televised interview. They personally visited the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, to view the evidence, including laboratory and ballistics evidence, and examined Crooks’s rifle.
Bongino, who in August had complained on his podcast that he didn’t entirely trust the FBI’s claim that Crooks had no political ideology, had a professional reason to be obsessive as he poked and prodded his briefers with questions.
He had served as a Secret Service agent for 12 years, including on threat investigations and on the protective details for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Bongino had a deep knowledge of the Secret Service’s landmark Exceptional Case Study Project, which documented striking similarities among people who had tried to kill presidents and prominent political figures.
In studying and interviewing 83 people known to have attempted or plotted such an assassination from 1949 to 1996, the research found they were overwhelmingly White males who were relatively well educated. They were also deeply isolated, often friendless and suffering from a mental health disorder. Often, after a personal crisis or break, they began to fixate on assassinating a high-profile figure as a route to fame or affirmation.
After reviewing the evidence, Bongino firmly agreed with the conclusion of his FBI predecessors. Crooks was just “a lost soul” akin to the many would-be assassins interviewed for the Exceptional Case Study Project, he told colleagues. There was “no there there” to the conspiracy theories about an inside job or Iran.
In a Fox News interview on May 18, Maria Bartiromo asked Patel and Bongino why the public had almost no information about what led to the shooting in Butler as well as an apparent attempted assassination of Trump on a golf course in Florida. Bongino stressed that there was no “big explosive” evidence tying Crooks to an international conspiracy or any larger plot.
“I’m not going to tell people what they want to hear. I’m going to tell you the truth. And whether you like it or not is up to you,” Bongino told Bartiromo. “The there you are looking for is not there. … It’s not there. If it was there, we would have told you.”
Basically you have a total expert, Trump supporter, and skeptic get full access and found nothing. Can’t ask for much more than that. Shockingly, the article claims that a lot of people were working on it:
It consumed FBI agents and analysts from half of the bureau’s field offices, nearly every headquarters division and some international offices.
FtSoA
2hr ago
Oh sure, it's definitely not something that could be totally ruled out.
The 180 is hilarious to witness after all that build up.
I don't, using children as sexual blackmail to squeeze the balls of the west is exactly what I expect them to do. The mfs even managed to get English royalty by the balls. And the media tried its hardest to keep Prince Andrew's involvement out of the news cycle.
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