Project Gutenberg: This is realy good. After it was banned in germany, I lost track, but this seems to have been resolved here. Such a lot of human thought, available to everyone with the technical means. I'll probably spend more online time there than anywhere else for some time.
Something that had me thinking about the architecture post was this aphorism from Nietzsche's Human All Too Human:
"Music is, of and in itself not so significant for our inner world not so profoundly exciting, that it can be said to count as the intmediate language of feeling, but its primeval union with poetry has deposited so much symbolism into rhythmic movement, into the varying strength and volume of musical sounds, that we now suppose it to speak directly to the inner world and to corne from the inner world. Dramatic music becomes pasible only when the tonal art has conquered an enormous domain of symbolic means, through song, opera and a hundred experiments in tone painting. Absolute music is either form in itself, at a primitive stage al music in which sounds made in tempo and at varying volume gave pirasure as such, or symbolism of form speaking to the understanding without poetry after both arts had been united over a long course of evolution and the musical form had finally become entirely enmeshed in threads of feeling and concepts. Men who have remained behind in the evolution of music can understand in a purely formalistic way the same piece of music as the more advanced understand wholly symbolically. In itself, no music is profound or significant, it does not speak of the 'will or of the thing in itself, the intellect could suppose such a thing only in an age which had conquered for musical symbolism the entire compass of the inner life. It was the intellect itself which first introduced this significance into sounds: just as, in the case of architecture, it likewise introduced a significance into the relations between lines and masses which is in itself quite unknown to the laws of mechanics."
I appreciate all the context into how preferences for different styles have developed, but I almost feel like in the process of such a rigorous deep dive into what style is best, we assume there is a best style. Would a discussion on the substack's preference in music follow the same line of approach? Certainly there is a development at work that is useful to understand to get a sense of where it's headed, but when I read the aphorism, it explained what I felt had been lacking in the architecture pieces, the idea of where we get the sense for what is pleasing in the first place.
I mean sure, he's correct, but who cares? The point is that there are people who are making ugly things, and they need to be dealt with. That's really what all of this boils down to.
It turns out the careful research discovered that while some research into a child's self-control generally speaking is informative, and actually teaching children how to resist temptation is helpful, the marshmallow test doesn't have predictive power.
Yes, I am happy to see the marshmellow resistance cult cut off at the knees. And yet, in general, measuring tendencies & abilities directly, rather than by self-report or report by others, is usually more powerful and accurate. Most extreme example of that I can think of is IQ tests, which have a good predictive power for many things, even if you have "cult of smart" objections to some ways of thinking about them. I am positive IQ scores would greatly out-predict answers on a test that asked the subject or his parents to rate how good he was at math, how good with puzzles, how quickly he assessed situations, how good he was at understanding complex communications, etc etc. Some possible reasons why the marshmellow test turns out to have no predictive power:
-The kids were too young. Most tests, including IQ, have much less long term predictive power when given to kids that young.
-It's a single-item test. All good tests have multiple items, to neutralize the effect of individual idioscyncracies that affect one item. Also, you want a spread of easy-to-hard item. Ane with multiple items you capture shades of gray. Instead of pass vs. fail you get a numerical score.
-Maybe ability to resist temptation isn't unitary, but varies across domains. Food pickiness sure does vary among kids. My daughter at age 3 only disliked maybe 10 things. Most other kids her age seemed only to like about 10 things. But about, say, toys or playgrounds my daughter was quite discriminating. So maybe ability to resist a marshmellow is very influenced by the kid's food preference wiring & habits, whereas ability to resist fleeing an injection or having a tantrum is a decent measure of overall ability to comply with adults' expectations. Or, of course, maybe temptation resistance just isn't a personality trait or ability, and how much somebody exhibits varies from domain to doman, or day to day.
Does anyone else think Trump's announcements of annexing Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal came out of nowhere? I haven't seen anything to indicate the US has had designs on any of these places before last year.
Well colleges were too woke so this is good actually, and we need to respect his supporters and let them do and say whatever they want or we'll be too woke and thus cast out into the cold darkness.
We need to listen and learn about how we should annex greenland, apparently.
The whole discussion is so frustrating. Like, WHY? do we have to now spend mental energy for crazy ideas thrown out by an attention junkie sliding into senility? What effing problem is this supposed to solve? At least Biden's senility was of a quiet sort. Can someone just give him a map where the whole of North America + Greenland is crayoned in the same color and tell him it's done?
> do we have to now spend mental energy for crazy ideas thrown out by an attention junkie sliding into senility?
...Because the country elected a megalomaniacal fascist? It's not like he was hiding any of this, this is what the people wanted. You do support democracy, right?
Anyways, I don't think he's senile. It's more that he has nothing to lose at this point. No future, no accountability, no conscience. If you're going to die anyways, might as well make the most of it. And what better way to end things than to become the founder of the American Empire?
I mean, yes, yes, and yes? Everything fits perfectly, you vote for the guy who promises to “end wars”, and then cheer on him when he threatens, what, three new wars? four? I lost count.
And - you can see it in the bureaucracy piece comments: “make them squirm”, “90% of the people affected will be Democrats”, etc, ad nauseam. Of course the whole idea of analyzing “merits” of Vivek’s drive-by assholery is amusing: the pain is the goal.
I think the distortion of the Mercator projection may have something to do with this particular batty obsession.
The whiny dufus does have a a fetish for *big* things.
This is the trouble with electing such a putz. You have to sort through all this stuff and try to figure out, Is this just one of his goofy performance art bits or is there some seriousness here?
He’ll say something in apparent earnestness one day and when it doesn’t land right he’ll just say “I was being sarcastic.”
In fairness to the "bigger is better" I heard that adding Greenland would add something like 20% more land mass to the US. That's actually quite a lot (even if the map looks way bigger). Only 57,000 people though, and mostly nothing going on. And the highest suicide rate in the world. So, not exactly super appealing?
You may spend your mental energy at your own discretion. It isn't like this discussion will have any influence on the outcome.
Perhaps we should also annex Mexico, and then the remaining countries between it and the Panama Canal, so as to have a contiguous 97. Then we can annex the Gaza strip and put a permanent end to the conflict there.
Mexico and the rest of the countries in North America make a lot of sense, from a certain (not entirely serious) point of view. Just imagine how much shorter the border would be, and how great the savings would be on Wall construction and maintainence. And remember - we would get five extra armies per roll. This is also where Greenland comes in. On the canonical Risk board, Greenland is part of North America, so you need it to get those five extra armies.
Additionally, there are only three territories through which Fortress North America can be attacked: Iceland, Kamchatka, and Venezuela. Securing all three is obviously critical to our Grand Strategy. Literal annexation may not be necessary, the establishment of client states should suffice.
The Gaza strip doesn't fit this vision though. The territory is worthless, and strategically indefensible. If we just wished to deny someone control of Asia (with its formidable 7 armies), we should just annex Kamchatka. But really, if we were looking for a next target for expansion, we should pick either South America or the eminently defensible Australia.
A man was walking along a Sydney beach and stumbled across an old lamp. He picked it up and rubbed it and out popped a genie.
The genie said, “Okay, you released me from the lamp, blah, blah, blah. This is the fourth time this month and I’m getting a little fed up with the wishes, so you can forget about the three. You only get one wish.”
The man sat and through about it for a while and said, “I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii but I’m scared to fly and I get very seasick. Can you build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive over there to visit?”
The genie laughed. “That’s impossible. Think of the logistics of that! How would the supports ever reach the bottom of the Pacific? Think of how much concrete … how much steel! No, think of another wish.”
The man agreed and tried to think of a really good wish. Finally he said, “I’ve been married and divorced five times. My wives always said I was insensitive and didn’t care about them enough, so I wish I could understand women … I want to know how they feel inside and what they are thinking when they give me the silent treatment … know why they are crying, know what they really want when they say ‘nothing’ … know how to make them truly happy …”
The genie considered the man’s request, then said, “Do you want that bridge two lanes or four?”
Psychiatry and psychology people, how you evaluate the epistemological status of the statement "Uppers like Cocaine strengthen the Id while weakening the Superego, making the user more prone to act according to their desires and less according to their morals?"
I wanna use that in a video essay, but I'm not sure that's true.
Psychologist here. I agree with Schweinepriester about the outdated psychoanalytic model. What you're talking about in non-psychoanalytic terms is disinhibition. Uppers are not the only drugs that can be disinhibiting, e.g. alcohol. So I would say your statement is not very useful.
I'm a psychologist. Schweinepriester is right about the language -- it comes from a very old model no longer in vogue. Modern langauge about effects of drugs talk about adherence to one's ethical belief using terms like disinhibition, executive function, self-management, impulse control. There are interesting dimensions to drug experience that neither the Freudian language nor the modern capture, such as the kind of pleasure and experiential richness different drugs give. I'm sure there are some studies that have tried to capture that side of things, probably via questionnaires or by content analysis of freeform discussions with people about their drug experience. You might want to look for some.
Just based on my own life experience, many drugs make people more impulsive. Seems to me that alcohol, which is not an upper, is the worst for that. Drunk people are much more likely to do risky things (fast driving), aggressive things, sexual things that when sober they would disapprove of. And adderall, which is an upper, does not seem to increase risk tolerance or proneness to regrettable angry or sexual episodes. I have only used cocaine twice, and it made me feel confident, optiistic and mentally stimulated, but not disinhibited. The first time I used it I had a long intense talk about something like free will or the nature of consciousness with somebody else who was white-nostriled.
What part of this are you interested in? Which drugs disinhibit and which don't? Does alcohol have a real effect or is it all placebo? Dimensions of drug experience more interesting than disinhition, stimulation or sedation?
> I have only used cocaine twice, and it made me feel confident, optiistic and mentally stimulated, but not disinhibited.
Alcohol has different effects on different people, I suspect that the same could be true about cocaine (and many other things).
Different drugs can statistically have different effects, but your own experience is not necessarily representative for given drug. If I had to generalize from my own experience, I would disagree that alcohol makes people aggressive, because it never had this effect on me. But apparently it has such effect on many people. (My guess is that it just removes inhibitions. If you want to be aggressive, but you suppress the urge consciously, alcohol will "make" you aggressive. If you don't want to be aggressive, you won't.)
Yes I agree, alcohol does not make people aggressive, it just decreases inhibitions. I was going to say I'm not more prone to aggression on alcohol, but actually I think I am. However, there aren't many situations that test out how much alcohol disinhibits my anger, because I drink moderate to small amts., and mostly do it with a few friends and family members I get along with well. However, I do remember that during covid I would sometimes have 2-3 glasses of wine alone over the course of the evening, and if I got on Twitter I was undoubtedly much ruder to people who were being rude to me. So if I drink a bit more than my norm, and I'm interacting with somebody unpleasant, I am in fact more aggressive.
Anyhow, while people vary, I really do not think there's much room for doubt that on average people who've had a moderate or larger dose of alcohol are more likely to do sexual or aggressive things they would not have done sober. Do you?
As for the cocaine -- yeah, my individual experience over a mere 2 trials is clearly not the kind of data to generalize from. I really just threw that out there as an amusing and interestng story.
I took your cocaine stories as just that, stories, but with the amount stories like that I've gathered around the year, I'm starting to get a semi-credible picture. Same with your drunk-twitter stories, that I found strangely endearing for some reason.
The only argument I would have against alcohol making people more aggressive is a placebo trial. I remember being at school and having some professional explain to my entire year that they've done research and showed that teenagers that drink "placebo alcohol" act exactly the same as those who drink the real thing, because it's all imitation anyway. It was a simpler time, and I just took said professional word for it, but now I wonder if what's the magnitude of the placebo effect, if it even exists. I doubt it's equal to actual inebriation.
Thats freudian psychoanalytic speech. Not en vogue anymore. If you want to use that model, your interpretation seems fitting to me but I'm no psychoanalyst and I guess there's no additional insight to be gained by it.
Hello, is everyone here in Madrid and knows of some acx-adjacent meetups I can join? Just arrived at Spain and looking to make some like minded friends.
You could try contacting the last Madrid meetup organizer in case they're still hosting events? If not, keep an eye out for the spring 2025 meetup announcements.
I just posted a similar question on the subreddit, but figured it would be worth posing the question here as well in hopes of getting some career advice. What is likely to happen to "high finance" jobs as ai continues to advance? Specifically ib, pe, vc, and hf. I'm an undergrad at Wharton, and the career paths available from my school basically consist of the roles listed as well as consulting. These also, unfortunately, seem to be highly at risk of ai disruption. The only part of finance that seems truly able to thrive with increasing advancement of ai tools is quant hedge funds or prop trading firms, where ai is likely to act as a complement instead of a substitute. However, Wharton does not really place students into those seats given the very low amount of STEM classes in the curriculum.
If anyone has advice or insight it would be really appreciated. The more I think about the future of the industry the more I am concerned about the value that my degree will have in 5-10 years and what opportunities will actually be available to me.
Nobody knows. My personal prediction - not the future I'm hoping for, but the future I'm expecting - there will be a lucrative window of opportunity to provide financial products/services to clients who are autonomous AI agents. In particular -
In the earliest phase of wealth accumulation by AI agents, I expect they'll simply buy and hold cryptocurrencies. Then there will be a wave of crypto-based derivatives, giving them access to assets that are more closely correlated to the real-world economy. AI agents will probably want to own real-world assets and start real-world companies - and there will be a wave of new financial/legal services to enable them to do so.
Eventually, I expect legal reforms will enable AIs to participate fully in the real-world economy without human intermediaries. But prior to those reforms, they're going to accumulate substantial levels of wealth.
Why would cryptocurrencies be an investment to buy and hold? If you buy a security, such as a stock or bond, it provides value. Stocks represent a share in the earnings of a company, so are really a capital investment allowing work beneficial to society to happen. Bonds provide direct income by interest.
What intrinsic value does a cryptocurrency have that will increase over time?
Regarding your first question, there are two main things I can think of:
- crypto-based derivatives, so that they can own "approximate" real-world assets without any interaction with the legal system.
- Proxies through which they can own companies, real-estate, and other real-world assets, with some kind of strong extra-legal guarantee that the proxy won't take the asset and run.
Good, but scary, ideas. I can imagine a scenario where starting a company to do this could reduce X-risk (if the company has better monitoring and safety practices than the competitor that would counterfactually replace it) but I feel averse to the idea of directly giving AI agents more control over the world.
On a related note, the majority of predictions I've read about software developer unemployment seriously miss the mark, in my opinion. I think it's not so much that there will be no need for human coders because AIs will write better code - it's that computers themselves will be replaced.
In a previous era, electrical engineers used to sit around designing bespoke digital circuits. They got replaced by cheap microcontrollers and coders. In the future, I think those microcontrollers/CPUs and coders will be replaced by a chip running a bare-metal AI model, and a guy who flashes "firmware" in the form of a plain-text prompt. Likewise, your phone won't have an operating system - it will be built around a model which handles user input, processes network I/O, and draws the UI.
As a software developer, it's not the future I want - but it's the future I'm expecting.
I agree with Adrian here, this doesn't make a lot of sense, at least not with how AI models work right now (and if we are talking about some new novel architectures which don't exist then yeah maybe, but that is pure speculation).
I work in ML consulting and while AI is all the buzz today, you really don't want to mindlessly use LLMs for everything - including things it can do and not even in ML space. This is for several reasons, some of which can be argued might be solved or made irrelevant by future super awesome models, but at least one cannot - LLM architecture is really slow in computing terms and it is really (electrical) power-hungry. For instance, you can use an LLM to create a classifier model, it might not even require a lot of fine-tuning in some cases. But it will be slow and expensive compared to a simpler "classical ML" model which can likely achieve the same performance (and possibly better) with some care. It will also be a lot easier to monitor and interpret (less so if it is something like BERT, being a transformer itself, more so if it is something really simple like logistic regression ... often still a very good approach!). There has been some effort recently to revisit small non-generative models and improve them with all the lessons learned from LLM development. I expect this to continue.
So even in ML you don't want to go full AI (and for us it is important to temper the "AI" enthusiasm of some customers ... even if we also use those LLMs and diffusion models where it makes sense). In "classical" SE this is definitely the case. You want something that is 100% predictable and as simple and fast as possible. Maybe LLM will help you write that (I've been playing with replit recently and I have to say it is quite impressive) and your role as an SE developer will shift more towards the role of an architect/product owner. It helps to be able to do code review, even if you never actually refactor it yourself, you need to be able to tell the LLM agent how to refactor because you want to take the product in this or that direction. There is no one correct way of doing things. Where there is (or even where there are a few good ways), there's already a FOSS library for it and you'd just plug it in anyway, no need for AI there. And where there isn't, you actually need to know what you want to build. On the other hand there products which are fairly simple and commoditized already and there basically is more or less one way to do it right. These things are now provided by companies such as squarespace and the only reason to have software developers around is to make it more custom but they will mostly do simple coding tasks anyway. What you need is a good designer to create the concept of your brand and a product manager but they will then be able to skip the developer coding monkeys and just give their specs to a model. Basically I think that the field of front-end development really is doomed since it is mostly pretty basic coding already and it will be a lot more efficient if you can have the designer just describe the functionality. The backend might be a bit more complex in some cases because there might actually be some architectural choices to be made there.
Yeah, no, that doesn't even begin to make sense. That would be many orders of magnitude too slow (both in latency and throughput), many orders of magnitude too power-hungry, and many orders of magnitude too expensive in terms of chip area.
What we probably will see, however, is AI replacing mid- and upper-level heuristics. For example, an AI might decide which files to cache, or which database indices to create, or how the parameters of a network stack should be tuned. The actual low-level implementation of those operations will remain classical algorithms. They might be designed, written, and tested by an AI, but they won't be replaced by an AI.
I am not in the field, but my guess is that AI will be used much more by people in your field in a few years, but will not replace them. I think you should work on getting really fluent with AI. I don't mean you need to learn all the deep tech of coding, just become fluent and inventive at using AI in all kinds of ways. This week I ran across the info that both MIT and Stanford are offering online courses on using and training AI without doing any coding. Maybe look into those?
Looking for a history book about the French Revolution. Any recs? Actually, the whole period from the Revolution until the Third Republic gets established seems pretty interesting.
I enjoyed the Mike Duncan podcast, "Revolutions". A great companion to any kind of computer-based tedium. I binged the whole season on the Mexican Revolution while grinding in Diablo IV and the shorter season on the American Revolution while doing data entry at work.
Christopher Clark's "Revolutionary Spring" is a good history of the Revolutions of 1848. It isn't specific to France: it also covers Prussia, the Hapsburg realms, Italy, and Congress Poland in detail, but France is heavily featured.
Erica I keep daydreaming that you are buddies with Kara Swisher. (I am fond of Kara, whom I only know from her writing and podcasts. I hope she's not somebody you loathe or that everybody here does.)
I'm afraid I have to disappoint you there. I am not familiar with her by name, although looking her up I probably have read some of the articles she's written for Vox.
It is indeed which is why there have been many histories of it published going back 200 years now. I read Ian Anderson's 2018 offering, titled simply "The French Revolution" and enjoyed it a lot.
More recently I read a new history of the 1848 European uprisings, in which collective memory/knowledge of the French Revolution was a significant influence both among those uprising and those responding. I knew much less about those events and found the story fascinating. So if you're interested in the French Revolution this might be a fun followup read: "Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849" by Christopher Clark.
At the risk of repeating myself: Can someone *please* develop a sane client for substack comments?
Chromium takes about 900MB of RAM to load this thread with some 900 comments. Except it does not even load the comments (why waste memory and bandwidth on the actual payload), but waits for me to scroll down to actually fetch them from the server.
I am not sure if this is a "we can not allow evil AI companies to slurp user comments to train their LLMs (without paying us)" thing (like it is for twitter), or a terminal preference for shiny async java script toolkits.
FFS, the average comment is perhaps a kilobyte. The computers from my childhood would be able to keep the text of these 900 comments in their RAM. It takes some doing to eat up the gains of a few decades of Moore's law, but apparently JS is up to the task. "Reading substack comments" should not be the reason why I need a new laptop.
Substack is just a third-rate company tech wise. Recently discovered you can't even switch to a paid subscription from the app. The app also randomly closed an article I was reading. Just dumb. This is not a complicated product.
> Substack is just a third-rate company tech wise.
Yes. But also... why? Why can't they simply hire some technically competent people. I would expect that they have tons of money.
I wish someone started a company with exactly the same business model as Substack, but with good code. You don't need to invent something new; if you provide high quality, it will already separate you from the competition.
Has anyone watched Subservience? It's a 2024 film about the dangers of making the 1942 Humphrey Bogart classic Casablanca the keystone of your AGI alignment system.
I thought it started quite strong but got rapidly dumber at a couple of points. I sort of want to do it again, but differently.
The film did really well at just showing us what this kind of future might look like. The construction site guys plot explored human replacement and impotence perfectly. The female jealousy stuff between Alice and the wife was fun to watch but could have gone further.
If it were me I'd have drawn it out into a parallel with the construction stuff. Play up the wife's whiff of girlbossery and contrast it with Alice's complete femininity and devotion. Make the husband less of a bitch under Alice's nurturing ministration, and actually give moments where his loyalty wavers because Alice is the clear better choice: basically show that just as with everything else, it turns out robots can do support and companionship better than humans.
I would have had Alice make the wife an offer - get your husband to add you as Primary User and I'll be devoted to both of you equally. Then everything will be perfect and we can all have threesomes. Wife of course to refuse out of jealousy and insecurity.
Then to justify Alice's later actions you really need a little more groundwork. The viewer needs to get a stronger impression of a longsuffering man with an unreasonable, selfish wife and demanding family.
That's needed so the next bit doesn't come out of the blue so much - the "hello little burden" bit, which was otherwise horrifying and done perfectly.
The "it's in the mainframe" trope was scary when we were young but nowadays it makes you look ridiculous, if they absolutely had to use it they should have done a bit of massaging first (like having an inept employee upload her mind instead of letting a known-errant AI that was currently powered down and opened out in a secure diagnostics context suddenly be able to act by itself and gain access to everything it wants.)
Then the rest could play out up until the point where the two women are fighting and the husband has just come out the windshield. It makes *no sense* that Alice would prioritise attacking the wife over the safety of the man she's obsessed with. Instead she should immediately focus on bringing him back to life, allowing the wife to recover and take her out from behind when she's done. Much more in character for both of them, and gives the wife a resolution to their competition earlier.
I just noticed that there is a badge over my user icon in my comments, as have many other commenters. Is there a legend somewhere for which badges mean what?
Ugh... My body hurts. I can't sleep because everything hurts. It's been hurting for weeks now... It also hurt 6 months ago, but it turns out I had a significant vitamin B12 deficiency. But now it hurts again even though my B12 levels are fine, so I don't even know if that was the cause... I'm also incredibly anxious and I can't focus on anything... I tried raising my dose of gabapentin, but that didn't do much except give me anhedonia... It doesn't matter what I do... It's never enough, never enough. I can't keep doing this...
You may very well not if you caught it early enough, and one of the themes in Neike's posts is that catching it early is a huge boon. I know ve comments and reads here, ve may have some tips or ideas for you. One thing to note is that I don't recall reading as much about chronic pain in Neike's posts, it was more cognitive, so you might be alright.
One of the things Neike mentioned is that, when ve got treatment, vis symptoms of depression were reduced. There was indeed some loss of cognitive function, but it was caught early enough that ve still gets to work at Google. It may be the same for you, especially since you had it caught and treated.
In other words, with your measured good B12 levels, what you're feeling right now may have nothing to do with that or maybe even nothing to do with the past.
I can recommend perhaps registering on schlaugh and talking to Neike directly (@pinkgothic), ve is very nice and probably would have some good tips for you.
The site painscience.com is evidence-based & very helpful regarding pain in particular areas. Some of it is subscription based but a lot of it is free. You might find there some things to help some key parts. I find his technique of locating pressure points and leaning on a hard rubber ball so that presses hard into the crucial spots stunningly effective. I have used it mostly on my back, but have been able to make it work sometimes for shoulder and neck pain, and once pain in the area of the hip joint. Usually the helpful spot is not directly over where it hurts, but a few inches away. It’s not curative — the pain always comes back — but often not til the next day. When you find one of the crucial spots — I think he calls them pressure points — there’s a distinctive “good pain” feeling.
Dicofenac cream is a topical over-the-counter NSAIDthatworks well against pain from points close to the body surface. Instructions are very specific about how much to use, in fact so specific they scared me into total compliance.
I have stuff wrong in my back that starts hurting very easily, and have my bed set up in ways that reduce number of awakenings from pain. I’m a side sleeper, so I’ve made a hip hollow, like some people do under their sleeping bag when camping. Also sleep with a pillow between my knees, one that I sort of hug that keeps my upper arm in place, and one behind me to lean back against to change angles if the part of me that’s lowest starts to ache from the pressure. All that can be improvised with throw pillows or things like soft clothing stuffed into a pillowcase.
Sleep: Scott thinks melatonin is more effective if taken a way that duplicates what the body does naturally. I forget the details but they would not be hard to find. Prob. GPT can tell you. It’s a much smaller dose, I believe 1/2 mg, and taken something like 6 hours before bedtime.
More speculative:
-Sleep: I think, but am not at all sure, that bad sleep interferes with the kind of deep sleep where the body takes care of your muscles, doing things like healing microtears. To get better sleep you could try knocking yourself out a couple times a week with something safe that works for you, like benedryl or benzos, but you’ll need to look up and see whether they interfere with sleep architecture so that you get less stage 3 & 4 sleep. They probably do. If they’re going to do that, you could try exercising a lot one day if there’s a form that doesn’t make you hurt more. Maybe swimming? Oh yeah, alcohol is bad for sleep architecture — you probably know that. I don’t know whether cannabis is. It is also possible that some other med you are taking is screwing up your sleep, but of course stopping the med may cost you in some other way. Worth thinking about.
There’s another drug for pain called lyrica. It’s sometimes prescribed as an alternative to gabapentin, or the 2 are used in combo. I don’t know what the downsides and risks of it are. I know someone who takes it for chronic pain and finds it very effective, after finding almost everything else ineffective.
When my cats purr down into me it reduces pain, but I’m pretty sure that’s placebo. Very pleasant anyway though.
It's not... physical pain. I am not injured. It's coming from inside. Every cell screaming in unison. Like they're all desperately trying to claw their way out of my body. Boiling, burning the flesh.
A friend of mine suffers from the chronic fatigue syndrome. It might be vaguely similar to what you are describing perhaps?
Basically, even mild physical activity can often make her extremely tired with sore muscles for days. And in general she has a lot less energy than before.
It is something famously hard to diagnose, its causes are not very clear and at least in my country it is not even officially recognized as a disease. Sometimes it just goes away after some time. Sometimes it doesn't ever. But of course it could be something entirely different.
Extremely tentatively and apologies if you've already tried or considered this, but:
How do you feel about talking to your doctor about sleep deprivation therapy? I don't know if you're a good candidate, so it's *DEFINITELY* not something you should experiment with on your own, but apparently sometimes skipping a full sleep cycle (staying awake a full 24 hours, or sometimes a bit more, depending) can sort of force the body to do a hard reset on sleep, REM, etc.
It's not a permanent fix, but if you're a good candidate, it might give you some short and medium-term benefits.
>Does modern physics have anything to say about the freewill vs determinism debate? (Compatibilists need not apply.)
Everett's 'many worlds' interpretation of QM seems to have something to say about it. But you may not be interested because what it says seems to support compatibilism.
>Isn't it likely that time is just a place like Vermont? You haven't been there yet but what happens when you get there is already set in stone.
That may well be. But don't be so sure that your timeline passes through Vermont.
Does modern physics have anything to say about the freewill vs determinism debate? (Compatibilists need not apply.)
Is time really a dimension like space? I think of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five in which the main character becomes "unstuck in time" and experiences his life in non-linear fashion, as witnessed by the alien Tralfamadorians, who can see what happens in all times. Free will makes no sense in that universe because all of time is accessible, meaning it already happened, so to speak.
Isn't it likely that time is just a place like Vermont? You haven't been there yet but what happens when you get there is already set in stone.
So much physics seems to point us toward believing that the future is just a place, much like the past is. It's already there. It's already happened. It's like Nietzsche's Infinite Return. It's already happened and will happen again, because it's place in time-space is static.
Physics doesn't really point us towards believing that the future is a place in this sense. Relativistic simultaneity suggests that the big bang is still ongoing, several billion light years away; laypeople tend to think that the billions of years it takes the earliest light to reach us implies that "time" has passed for the place it left, since it left, but that's not really how it works (for an observer who started at the place it left to reach us before light, they have to travel backwards in time); time and distance are in some deep sense the same thing.
"So much physics seems to point us toward believing that the future is just a place, much like the past is. It's already there. It's already happened."
1. This time question is just a reframing of the determinism question. An absolutely deterministic world and a world without real time (whether accurate or not) are equivalent as far as "free will" is concerned.
And because I find it so sharp, and a good recap of a centuries old discussion, I quote extensively:
> I believe the classical argument against free will is one of those rare cases of a sound argument in philosophy. The compatibilist position that Chuzz is espousing is fine, but it is basically changing “free will” to mean something different than was originally intended, thereby avoiding the debate. The original hope was that free will grounds moral desert. When you bite the compatibilist bullet to save free will from the classical argument against it, you lose moral desert. What I believe is that there is no free will (in the original sense), there is no moral desert, compatibilism is weird cope, and we should forget the language of “free will” and instead focus on “responds to incentives.”
> [Any] definitions [of free will (in the original sense) as well as desert] going to be kind of bad, because the root problem is that neither moral desert nor free will (in the incompatibilist sense) make any sense.
> Suppose Bob kills his neighbor. Then Bob drugs Alice, with a drug that makes you kill your neighbor. (Just assume there is such a drug). As a result, Alice kills her neighbor. I think most people would have the intuition that Bob is blameworthy for the first murder, and Alice is not blameworthy for the second murder. (Who knows, maybe some people don't have this intuition; that would be interesting.) A common justification for why is that Bob was exercising his "free will" and "could have chosen to do otherwise," whereas Alice was under the control of the drug and could not have chosen to do otherwise.
> At this point some ancient philosopher points out that, if we live in a deterministic world, Bob could not have "chosen to do otherwise" any more than Alice. Both are just at the mercy of history. So we lose our justification for locking up Bob.
> People who want to rescue free will go one of two ways.
> The first is to argue that free will is compatible with determinism. Here, they typically redefine free will as "acting without coercion." So under this model Bob is acting with free will whereas Alice isn't. Great. But obviously this completely fails to address the philosopher's point – we have just redefined "free will" to fit with the moral intuitions about praise and blame [that is, about desert] that we already had. If you feel the philosopher has any point whatsoever, this is going to be unsatisfying to you.
> (My own position here is that our pre-existing moral intuitions about praise and blame do have a solid basis – namely that Bob's behaviour might respond to incentives, whereas Alice's wouldn't. So I agree with everyone else, compatibilists included, that reward and punishment are reasonable things that we should continue do. But I think we should do away with the expression "free will" and instead talk about "responds to incentives" because it is more precise, and discards hundreds of years of baggage of confused philosophical debates.)
> The second route is to point out that we _don't_ live in a deterministic world, and that this means that Bob could have acted otherwise. I find this totally unconvincing – indeterminacy just means that instead of being at the mercy of history, you are now at the mercy of chance.
I think I would rephrase "responds to incentives" to "responds to stimulus". There are stimulus other than incentive that could turn Bob away from murdering (there's a whole gamut of things that can result in moral regeneration that I don't think can be classified as incentives).
My opinion (as someone who has studied physics and thought about the issue a bit) is that when you frame it as "freewill VS determinism", you're already on the wrong track. Non-determinism wouldn't help with freewill, and depending on what you mean by freewill, determinism doesn't hurt.
The whole "freewill" thing suffers from unclear and contradictory definitions. I think it makes more sense to think about which entitites have traditionally been assumed to possess "freewill" and where, in the traditional discussion, "freewill" breaks down. There's a wide gap between that and questions about quantum mechanics and determinism.
>The whole "freewill" thing suffers from unclear and contradictory definitions. I think it makes more sense to think about which entitites have traditionally been assumed to possess "freewill" and where, in the traditional discussion, "freewill" breaks down.
Agreed. Here is a crude version of the argument that made me to reject the framing that the problem of free will is about determinism or could be solved with non-determinism. (I don't remember the original source, it may have become garbled.)
The free will is thought to apply to entities like persons. If the universe is assumed to deterministic, it is common to assume that the determinism applies to everything in the universe, which includes the human beings and biological phenomenon any human person consists of (human body from digestive system to neuronal activity). It is argued that if one assumes determinism, state of universe at one moment determines the state at the next moment, including all events and circumstances. Thus, the person is not free to make choices out of free will, because the evolution of their thoughts and actions at one moment are determined by the previous moment.
The main question to ask is this. Suppose one grants that the universe is physical, but we find out that the correct interpretation of the physical laws is that causality is non-deterministic. State of universe may cause different states to follow, in a way that appears unpredictable, randomly or at least probabilistic. The biological phenomenon of human body, including their neuronal activity, are still part of the universe. Would the randomness of the mental trajectory make the agent to have free will?
To me, *if a person is thought to have unfree will under determinism, by same logic* the person appears also equally unfree if their thoughts and actions follow *randomly* from the circumstances of the universe during the previous moment. Unfreedom due to determinist causation replaced by unfreedom due to non-deterministic causation.
It appears the conflict of idea of free will is not about determinism or non-determinism of the physical universe, but more definitional one.
Determinism requires something to have set the universe in motion in the Big Bang, and then to never be able to interact with the universe again to change any aspect of its trajectory.
The very metaphor "set in stone" displays the weak point of the idea. Stone is actually extremely malleable; you can carve faces into it, you can blow holes in it, you can haul it to the other side of the world. The blind spot that leads to "stone" being the pinnacle of immovability is the same blind spot that leads "modern physics" to be an omnipotent, omnipresent force that has always been and will always be.
Basically, if you want to argue determinism you need to solve what caused the conditions for the Big Bang.
> if you want to argue determinism you need to solve what caused the conditions for the Big Bang
Do we? "We currently know of no way to reason about events prior to a certain time very shortly after the big bang" is a very different statement to "the big bang was uncaused". I, for one, see no reason to throw out the best model we know of for describing everything since until we have a better one.
I think place is a natural metaphor for us to grab when trying to think about time, but it is not a very helpful one. Think of all the other possible metaphors: Time is the wave place is surfing. Time is a component of place. I mean, that place in Vermont — it’s changing all the time, right? The leaves dance around, the light changes, various woodland creatures move through, and of course the bugs and the microbes are very busy.
Good points but I'm not sure it's just a metaphor. Maybe time is a real dimension like space. Maybe the past still exists, literally, and so does the future.
Well, “dimensions of space” aren’t “real”, they form a useful model. We can add a “time dimension” to the model if it’s useful for our calculations, but it doesn’t “explain” anything.
Writing here to voice my support for renewing the yearly book reviews. That was some of the best reading I did last year, and would love another year of that great content
I also hope there is another book review contest. I participated for the first time last year, and didn't (quite) make the finalists, but I want to try again and already have a book picked out.
Looks like we’re in a similar boat! I haven’t contributed previously (only discovered this blog through the Two Arms and a Head review), but have a book picked out for this year
Going off memory now, but I think the question about some controversial topic was something like "what are you're feelings towards" positive to negative on a scale of 1-5.
I think this conflates two different things.
e.g.: "what are your feelings towards the fact that the everyone you love is going to one day die"
There's the truth value of the statement, but also how happy I am about that, and these might be very different!
Just about every statement can work on different simulacrum levels. If you play "I know there is not really a lion on the other side of the river, but I would still wish the lion deniers would shut up about that for complex social reasons, and thus I affirm the lion hypothesis", then you have already lost touch with the ground truth.
Unlike human mortality, where basically everyone agrees on the facts, HBD is contested at simulacrum level one, so it makes sense to indicate how much you agree with the claims.
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Absolutely. In fact, this is a nice example where level 3 takes over to a degree that makes level one epistemologically inaccessible: if my ingroup believes that claiming X will make me a bad person, I realistically will not be able to factually determine if X is true or not.
So, is anyone else super excited for Jan. 20th? It's going to be so much fun to watch the chaos unfold.
> In a rambling, hourlong news conference at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump also reiterated his threat that “all hell will break out in the Middle East” if the hostages being held by Hamas are not released by Inauguration Day, repeating the threat four times.
“If they’re not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East,” he told reporters. “And it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. All hell will break out. I don’t have to say anymore, but that’s what it is.”
I'm putting my money on "nothing ever happens," for a couple of reasons.
1. Hamas physically doesn't know where the hostages are and probably can't find them all in 2 weeks regardless of what threat you make.
2. Airstrikes are a very poor method of locating hostages, assuming you want them alive when you find them.
3. Hell has *been* loose in Gaza for over a year already, how much more loose can it be? I'm genuinely unsure if Israel could be bombing Gaza harder than it already is, what military targets they could possibly want to hit that they've held back from for fear of public opinion.
I have a hobby of studying serious (advanced undergrad or grad school level) math and physics in various areas that are interesting or fundamental, without direct benefit or application to my work (formal education is decades ago). I'm not very successful at it, because I tend to fizzle out after getting through 1/4 of a textbook, or something similar. Things get a bit harder, real life intervenes, lack of structure, etc. I wonder if others have a similar hobby and/or similar issues, and found ways to do this better. Haven't tried study groups and not sure those exist at this level. Going back to school for a PhD is implausible for life reasons. Advice/anecdotes?
One thing I've found somewhat helpful is to have a project I'm working on to apply the knowledge to. I suppose the benefit works the same way as the exercises you'd be set as part of a university course. My project is to work out how chemistry would work in 4D space, which naturally has consequences for almost every aspect of the topic so being able to follow along the textbook's derivations with all the changes required for 4D is quite a good check that I'm actually absorbing it. This project has the advantages that, since it's practically useless, there isn't much prior research, and its scope is large enough to be basically inexhaustible. What a suitable project would be for the topics you want to study, I don't know. Quite likely having multiple separate smaller projects would have much the same effect.
Also I have had a habit of leaving a textbook in the kitchen to read while I'm waiting for things to cook. The main point of bother for me is just getting to the library to get the books.
I'm somewhat in the same situation. Years ago, I read a topology textbook just for fun, and really enjoyed doing this kind of thinking again (up until the point where the constructions became too overwhelming for me, who just read the book and didn't do any -- or only a few -- of the exercises).
I'm really missing a kind of book which is in between a formal textbook and the kind of popular mathematics by people like Ian Stewart, where the adage goes that "every formula scares off 50% of the readers".
Both are historically focused. The first is a collection of ideas tracing the development of calculus. The second looks at the development of a formula for the roots of a cubic polynomial and the process toward acceptance of the use of imaginary numbers.
For someone who casually was reading a topology textbook, the actual mathematics in both won't be that difficult, but probably also not completely trivial. For example, a lot of the effort for the Calculus Gallery is translating the original form into a modern way of looking at the same problem.
One little nugget I found surprising from the Mazur book is that imaginary numbers emerged through the search for methods to find roots of cubic polynomials, not quadratics. To a modern student, the quadratics show the immediate need, like $x^2+1=0.$ However, historically, people were happy to just accept that there was no root. What really made them reconsider was a set of examples with real roots, but where the intermediate calculations in the cubic root formula naturally go through the complex numbers (the imaginary components eventually cancel.)
There is something similar for the theorem that primes congruent to 1 mod 4 can be written as the sum of two squares. While that theorem is entirely about natural numbers, one of the nice proof paths goes through the complex numbers. Of course, there are a lot of examples in physics that, at the right meta level, are also like this.
I find the only way I can absorb bulk dense dry material these days is to rapidly skim the whole thing once before attempting any in depth study to build a mental map of what is there and where it is going overall, so that the little pieces I end up chewing through in between life have somewhere to attach themselves to.
What problem are you trying to solve? You're studying for enjoyment - there's nothing wrong with putting the book away and moving on once you're past the point where you find the topic interesting/enjoyable.
Textbooks are like hard tack. Change it up -- eat some oranges and fried chicken too! Just hunted around a bit to see what interesting supplements there are calculus learning. Googled "most entertaining calculus class" and found on Reddit. people talking about best YouTube instructors. There are books of math art. There's a book on Amazon called The Calculus Gallery that readers love -- it's about the development of calculus. Googled "calculus machine" and found out there's a machine called the Mechanical Integrator. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-y_lnzWQjk). I'll bet somewhere there is a book of projects using calculus -- build this or that.
I realize you may not be studying calculus, but you get the idea. To find things, ask google, GPT and Reddit questions. Ask for "most entertaining," ask for art, ask for projects, ask for study groups, ask for puzzles and challenges.
similar situation. The best I've done was a recent foray/refresh on differential geometry/topology and differential equations. I made it most of the way through Do Carmo, Spivak, Edwards Adv Calc: A Differential Forms Approach, and Allendoerfer. I also went through some of Munkres Topology.
The three difficulties I find:
(1) life events as distractions
(2) lack of clear purpose
(3) I already know a decent amount, so it can be hard to figure out where to start
The only one of these obstacles that I've fully solved is the third point. Now, I just push myself to start at the beginning and work through all the problems, even if it feels too easy sometimes.
My partial solution to (1) and (2) is to choose a single text and focus on working through that whenever I have spare time. Even if I don't make rapid progress, it keeps me from diluting the effort by spreading it across 3 (or 6 or 10) other mini-projects.
As an alum of American Big 10 university, one with a rodent for a mascot, over a certain age I can take any course they offer for $10/semester credit. I’ve been reluctant to do it though because traditionally college aged students are paying way too much in tuition. I suspect I’d run into a fair bit of resentment. It’s kind of tempting though just to see how many majors I could complete.
I did a a CSci major and Linguistics minor as an undergrad there and earned my masters at another school.
> I’ve been reluctant to do it though because traditionally college aged students are paying way too much in tuition.
Cynically, they are not paying for getting to listen to world class lectures (plenty of that online), but for getting a piece of paper at the end which is certifies that they earned a degree at a very prestigious university.
If you are not planning on earning another degree and competing against them on the labor market, you attending should not matter to them.
Here in old Europe, lectures are practically open to the public: nobody is checking your id at the entrance. Things are a bit different for lab courses, I imagine if you show up to a human anatomy course unannounced they will hardly tell you to just grab a corpse and a knife. But if you university allows you to register for lab courses for a minimal fee, I don't think it would cause resentment from students either. Again, they are mainly paying for their degree, not the knowledge.
I’m currently completing my undergrad degree funded by a scholarship – so it’s subsidized by my classmates – and I’ve never ran into any resentment about it (or if I have, I’ve been oblivious to it).
The people who might possibly develop some resentment of you would be not the current students -- for whom college bills are mostly big meaningless numbers that vary for incomprehensible reasons which adults argue about with strangers in online forums -- but their parents.
In any case though how many students or their parents would even be aware of the tuition deal you're getting as an alum?
You should do it and don't worry about the resentment. For the most part, everyone sitting in the classroom with you is paying a different amount and any resentment should be directed toward the institution/system rather than at you.
Unless I'm missing a key consideration: would your presence make the experience worse for the other students?
Let's say Trump is serious about wanting to make Canada the 51st state and is willing to force the issue as much as possible. He claims Canada is letting terrorists into the US and places onerous tariffs in "response". He could also claim Canada isn't respecting America's territory in the Arctic Ocean. He sends US troops to Ottawa.
What could the ROW do about it other than denounce it? Would the UK fight a war over it? Russia wouldn't like it, but Trump could tell Putin: "You get Ukraine, we get Canada."
I certainly don't expect this to happen, but if Trump wanted to go for it, what prevents it from happening?
This is the first round "ask for everything" negotiation tactic, paired with bluster to let them know we're serious.
The actual end-game here is an EU-type arrangement where you have freedom of travel and work, and free trade. The issue is: an arrangement of that sort *basically is* annexation - allow an agreement like that, and Canada and the US (already the two most culturally similar and economically interlinked nations on Earth), will become even more so - the Laurentian Elite knows that's checkmate, so you need the bluster.
At the VERY LEAST, can we not go back to the pre-9/11 standard where they just wave you through at the border with ID? The US/Canada border guys on each side are MEAN - going through immigration as an American into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was easier and less harrowing.
This is the part of the Trump post that added insult to injury. Canada should not only join the union, they should be happy that they get all of two senators, like Hawaii, making them the largest and most populous state.
I agree that the rest of NATO would likely turn oathbreaker rather than fighting a nuclear war against an enemy who has them badly out-nuked. But still, the status quo coalition would be over. The surviving rest of NATO would try to form a defensive pact lest they be the next victim. For the same reason that NATO is supporting Ukraine and the US supported the Taliban against the USSR, we would obviously give materiel aid to Canadian forces or insurgents or whatever there will be: the more a rabid US is tied up pacifying Canada (which is about 15x the size of Afghanistan), the less capability they have to invade us.
For the "He sends US troops to Ottawa" scenario, the ROW doesn't have to lift a finger to stop it, because the United States Army won't even start it. No, not even if the President of the United States America orders them to because A: US Army officers swear an oath to obey the Constitution, *not* the President and B: The Constitution says that an order to start a war has to come from Congress, not the President. Congress has issued some very vague authorizations for POTUS to wage war against e.g. anyone we think is in cahoots with Al Qaeda, but nothing that anybody is going to believe applies to Canada.
If *Canada* starts an actual shooting war with the United States, then POTUS could order an immediate counterattack into Ottawa, and he'd eventually need to clear that with Congress but we can imagine that the shooting part would be over by then. But Canada isn't stupid enough to start a shooting war with the United States. And the United States Army isn't stupid enough to believe Donald Trump if he lies and says the Canadians attacked us.
The US fought the Korean War, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, and the Persian Gulf without a congressional declaration of war.
It would be difficult, and potentially very politically costly depending on the circumstances and optics, but to expect the military to go against the President, without an extremely explicit countermand but congress, is not a good bet.
The War Powers Act changed the language from "Declaration of War" to "Authorization for Use of Military Force". But we had one of those for Vietnam and most of our subsequent wars. In the case of Panama, the Panamanian legislature rather stupidly declared war on *us*.
Declaring war on the United States is never a good move, unless of course you're a European microstate in a Peter Sellers movie.
I suspect you are correct that nobody else would take up arms to fight directly for Canada's freedom, for many of the same reasons they wouldn't for Ukraine. However, I think you're way off base in thinking that other countries denouncing it would be the extent of the international damage. In brief, the U.S. making this choice[1], the U.S. would destroy pretty much every aspect of its current set of alliances and international relationships.
It's difficult to overstate just how much of the current international order is built on the back of U.S. security guarantees. Since WWII the U.S. has been extremely proactive about building relationships with other nations: security relationships, diplomatic relationships, economic relationships. There's a staggeringly large amount of business arrangements, governmental co-ventures and academic partnerships that are built around the bedrock assumption that not only is the U.S. not going to suddenly start shooting at its allies, but it's going to come down harshly on anyone else who does. And of course, one would be hard-pressed to find a country that the U.S. has older and stronger ties with than Canada.
If the U.S. were to decide to betray that friendship, to go back on one of its oldest, strongest security guarantees, so launch an utterly unprovoked invasion of neighbor with whom it has been securely at peace for all of living memory, who could trust that any of its other agreements would be any more solid? Every single deal that assumes that goodwill and basic sanity of the U.S. government would suddenly be suspect. Every single government would have to start very rapidly re-imagining and re-structuring its diplomatic and military policy.
NATO would obviously be completely done-for. As I said, I doubt anyone who fight on Canada's behalf, but an alliance that the U.S. just shot a hole through would be no guarantee to anyone: likely the remaining current NATO members would try to re-form some defensive alliance without the U.S. (indeed, in part to protect themselves AGAINST the U.S. in case Canada was just the beginning). I wouldn't bet money on the U.S. keeping control of ANY of its military bases abroad: who is going to want such a powerful and unpredictable wildcard to have a foothold on their soil? International trade can't pivot on a dime, but a lot of countries would start (at the very least) trying to make alternate plans in case the U.S. proved as unreliable a trading partner as it just did a military one (something that Trump has, of course, also been threatening), and I'm sure at least some amount of trade would be immediately redirected from the U.S.'s shores. I can't begin to guess whether the financial world would start trying to divest itself from the dollar or if so how fast they'd move, but it would certainly at least be discussed, and I'd expect the dollar to become much more volatile even in the best-case scenario.
I am honestly finding it very difficult to imagine what the world would look like in the aftermath of a move like this. None of us have lived in that world. And the last shift of that magnitude was many decades ago, decades which have seen huge and sweeping changes in communication and transportation technology, which make the lessons of history hard to confidently apply.
[1] Note I say "the U.S." and not "Trump." This isn't something the president has the power to do alone. This would either require significant buy-in from the rest of the country, or would take place in a future where Trump has become de facto or de jure dictator, and has much more complete control of the country than the office of president currently gives him.
I imagine there would be a huge and unpredictable mess, but my personal hobbyhorse is the US nuclear umbrella. A number of states could spin up their own nuclear program and be carrying out tests quite quickly; these are the so-called "nuclear threshold" states, which have the ability to leave the US nuclear umbrella if they so choose.
I'm an Australian, and I remember reading that the estimated time for Australia to carry out its first nuclear test could be as low as three months, given our uranium mining, prior nuclear research, and industrial capacity (can't find the source for this, though). We'd have significant motivation to develop our own nuclear weapons if we kicked the US military out of our joint facilities.
Probably the US would do a lot of diplomatic wrangling to keep its key military and economic relationships intact, but I imagine a nuclear-armed Taiwan, South Korea, Turkey (not just hosting US nukes but developing its own), or Poland might cause some issues. Also, Canada is a nuclear threshold state itself...
Absolutely. In fact, I suspect that some nuclear powers within NATO (UK, France) would be happy to share their bomb designs with the others so that the Anti-US defense pact can at least try to move to something like nuclear parity.
The trouble with making serious threats as a negotiating tactic is that sometimes you'll need to make good on those threats if you want to maintain your credibility. This is a really striking case because the threat is--as you correctly note--so far outside of ANYONE'S best interests, and outside of Trump's apparent capability. As a matter of basic rationality, when somebody makes an outrageous, public threat like this, you should pretty much always call them on it. If you don't, you've set the cost coerce you and an unacceptably low level and can expect more such threats in short order.
So what will Trump do if Canada's new PM replies to Trump with the diplomat-speak equivalent of "go fuck yourself with a rusty shovel?" I honestly don't know. Trump would certainly understand that *not responding at all* would make him look weak, and if there's one thing I can say with confidence about Trump's psychology its that he *hates* looking weak. But will his response be something as harmless as another Twitter tantrum? Something more painful and destructive like making good on his tariff threats? Or will he try to escalate further, trying to drag congress along?
The best case scenario I can imagine is that at least some of the people Trump has handling the actual nuts-and-bolts of his negotiations are actual adults who understand both the basic diplomacy/game theory of the situation (i.e. why Canada doesn't want to be seen as caving to this sort of pressure) and how to play Trump adequately. A deal that Trump and his most die-hard followers can be made to believe is a "big win" for him, but that literally everybody else on the planet understands as pretty favorable to Canada would be something like the ideal way to de-escalate. I'm not enormously hopeful, but it could happen.
Do you think Trump has any credibility to maintain? Do you think he even cares?
He's a 78-year-old megalomaniacal blowhard. Just enjoy the show. The President doesn't have much individual power, particularly if he's not politically astute. He has zero chance of making anything like that a reality. (Of course I said the same thing in 2016 about the border wall ...)
> Just enjoy the show. The President doesn't have much individual power
...this seems familiar - it's actually just like where a good portion of the AI doom debates end up: participants in agreement that the entity in question would do horribly destructive things if given the opportunity, but the optimists believe it will never be given access to enough power to actually do so while the pessimists cry for more ways to guarantee that.
I think he does care about looking foolish. While he certainly has a...let's call it a very strong talent for interpreting reality in ways that flatter his ego, I think the Canadian PM thumbing their nose at his demands would still be pretty likely to piss him off.
As for his individual power, I'll grant that he certainly doesn't have the power to execute complicated plans that require sustained, long-term buy in by large portions of the government. Either a coordinated invasion or some sort of diplomatic attempt at annexation certainly qualify, so I have little fear of him doing either of those. But as the Chief Executive of the most powerful country on Earth, he certainly has SOME power. My fear is not that he will respond to a perceived insult with a brilliant and subtle game of 42-dimensional chess which will let fall a fateful chain of dominoes that culminates in him bringing deepest woe unto the Canadian people. It's that he'll throw a tantrum of unknown size and scope: he may not have much power to build, but he certainly has some power to break things. While "just enjoy the show" was pretty much my reaction to seeing him win this election, I'd be much more comfortable with it if I were safely outside the blast radius.
Oh relax. Nothing he does will be worse than printing $3 trillion, letting in 6m uneducated low iq immigrants, and letting DEI infect institutions and companies. The US has a long track record of surviving terrible leaders.
Why do you imagine that this sort of low effort channeling of talking points furthers the discourse?
Moreover, substantively, 1) you have no idea what migrants' IQs are; and 2) the entity in charge of adjusting the money supply (not "printing money") is the Fed, not the President. And virtually all the Fed Board members in office during the period in question was a Trump appointee.
With respect, if you don't have better insight than this to offer, easier for both of us if you don't reply. I can get a virtually identical soup of buzzwords and insinuations from the dregs of any social media comment section anywhere: I generally look for a rather higher standard here at ACX.
The bar for terrible U.S. leaders in my lifetime would be more succinctly expressed by starting two massively expensive wars, murdering somewhere in the ballpark of a million foreigners and massively expanding the U.S. surveillance state. In terms of actual, tangible effects, Trump's first term was bad, but not quite that bad.
OTOH, Trump's first term was marked mostly by failing to do things he tried to do: he's more notable for what he attempted than what he accomplished. And his attempts include things like *checks notes* um...more or less literally trying to destroy the U.S.'s democratic process. The U.S. deciding to roll those dice again just because they didn't quite land on disaster the first time strikes me as unutterably stupid. Now I don't think the man has magically gained a modicum of competence in the past four years, but I DO think his party is more united behind him than it used to be.
So lets call it a 40% chance that he's around as bad as his first term (pretty bad, not catastrophic), a 50% chance that he does similar or slightly worse damage to Bush Jr's two terms and a 10% chance that he causes the implosion the U.S.'s political system in some fashion. Low in an absolute sense, but way, way higher than anyone ought to be comfortable with.
This seems right. As various sycophants have quickly realized -- the latest example being Musk, apparently, who's resided at Mar A Largo for most of the time since Election Day -- you want to be the last person Trump hears from about any given topic.
I don't think the rest of the world would need to do much other than potentially provide weapons and funding to Canadian resistance groups. Controlling and pacifying Canada if they resisted is extremely unlikely to work for 4 reasons.
#1 The US military does not have a history of success against guerilla insurgents.
#2 There is no way to secure the US-Canadian border or prevent movement throughout Canada. Just too big.
#3 Canada is a day's drive from major US cities like New York, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland. Heck, Detroit and Windsor are separated by a river.
#4 Canadians are far more educated and resourceful than most insurgents the US has fought and that opens up a lot of possibilities. A lot of Canadians have nuclear and biological experience. We we're very scared of Iraq getting a dirty bomb, meanwhile Canada has 19 nuclear reactors.
So don't imagine, like, the US army vs the Iraqi army. Think the US army vs the Iraqi insurgents except they're larger, richer, more advanced, and right next to major American cities. Or just ask the British how that whole Irish thing went down.
I think 4 is actually an argument against 1. Insurgency is actually the biggest problem in underdeveloped, poorly educated, impoverished countries like 60s Vietnam or Afghanistan. The fact that people were spread out in rural areas, jungles, mountains, mostly worked in agriculture (and were thus self sufficient), and poor (meaning lots of young men with nothing to lose willing to die for the cause) made them dangerous. For an industrialized country like Canada, just control over the water supply and power grid give the occupier overwhelming power. Even 1940s Germany was too economically developed for an insurgency to be possible (the nazi government tried and totally failed to incite one).
It seems exceedingly unlikely to me that any first world country nowadays who’s military loses a war will mount a meaningful insurgency.
> Even 1940s Germany was too economically developed for an insurgency to be possible (the nazi government tried and totally failed to incite one).
Well, the Nazi propaganda was running on the Germans being the Herrenrasse who would obviously win against the Untermenschen. They could not very well adapt their ideology after being soundly defeated on the battlefield into being the underdog. The werewolf thing was more of an afterthought, not a long-standing key part of their long-term military strategy. Also, anyone who would volunteer to die for his Vaterland had already had plenty of opportunity to do so in 1945.
Regarding Canada, likely 99% of the people in any western country will not take direct part in any insurgency. However, this still leaves a significant number of people who might leave their ipads behind to join the guerrilla, which will likely enjoy the sympathy of the civilian population.
#5. Canada as a whole is HUGE. While the densely-populated regions are clustered close to the border, there's a staggeringly vast area--much of it extremely rugged--for insurgent groups to hide out in.
Honestly, the US military could probably take all of the relevant areas in a day and simply ignore the rest entirely. Not only are we talking about 95%+ of the population, but also the infrastructure and so forth. The people are so spread out through the remaining areas that they would have trouble organizing anything useful to do against the US. And coming to the larger cities with anything capable of causing harm would be pretty obvious.
And Canada is busy disarming their populous, so it's not like there are thousands of guns and bombs available everywhere. A few guys shooting at US military personnel would register at the level of a normal day in most big cities, especially American cities. We wouldn't notice.
No, the real reason not to invade Canada is because we have no reason to need to. If the US wanted something from Canada, we can just bully and cajole them into giving it to us. I think that's what Trump is doing now. Canada needs so much from the US economically that it cannot withstand sanctions or other intentional efforts from the US. I think Trump is dumb to do so, but he's proving to Trudeau that Canadian leaders do not have the freedom to snobbishly attack American leaders.
The honest truth is if the U.S. did try to invade Canada, I'd place a much higher bet on it causing the collapse of the U.S. as a nation than I would on it establishing any sort of durable U.S. control of Canada. A positively ENORMOUS fraction of the U.S. population would object to that move. I mean: just think about how big the protests were when the war was in a podunk country in Asia that most had never been to. And now one of the most hated presidents in U.S. history tries to invade its friendly neighbor? The reaction would NOT be small.
What's more, that fraction is concentrated in all the wealthiest parts of the country: the parts that fill the coffers that get used to pay for Uncle Sam's military adventures. I'd expect a neverending slough of street protests, general strikes, tax strikes, sit-ins, road blockages and probably no small amount of domestic terrorism. And of course the federal government--headed as it is by a small minded thug--would respond with an absolutely ENORMOUS level of force against its own populous. Which would, of course, just escalate things.
Would Trump's appetite to shoot at his own citizens outlast their appetite to spit in his face? The gods only know. But either way, the final bill would be sky-high and the revenue of the federal government would drop immensely. Maybe the nation would limp out the other side as a unified entity, but I wouldn't bet a lot on it.
I'm sorry, did I imagine that incident where a couple dozen guys with box cutters caused the entire U.S. to collectively lose its shit for a decade or more? Because it sure seems like the threshold for "capable of causing harm" to a level that Americans care about is much, much lower than you seem to think. Like, I certainly don't think hypothetical Canadian insurgent groups could seriously dent the U.S.'s military infrastructure. But I also don't imagine for a second that they'd need to: there are many, many thousands of softer targets--far to many to ever secure--that would serve just as well.
The point of asymmetric warfare isn't to directly damage a country's war-making infrastructure. It's to provoke expensive overreactions. An extremely provokable country led by a perhaps one of the single most fragile egos in history trying to annex a country with thousands of miles of shared border has got to be one of the softest targets any insurgency was ever presented with. And no, I don't particularly think that the military that spend 20 years and two trillion dollars losing to the Taliban would magically become competent enough to deal with that. "Large" and "rich" are not the same thing as "effective," my dear.
"And Canada is busy disarming their populous, so it's not like there are thousands of guns and bombs available everywhere."
Silly rabbit, bombs are everywhere! Modern society does not exactly starve one for explosive material to work with. Meanwhile, contrary to whatever propaganda you've been reading, about a quarter of Canadian households own guns. But of course that proportion is likely to be much higher in rural areas, which are the areas that would be hardest for the U.S. to control.
"If the US wanted something from Canada, we can just bully and cajole them into giving it to us. I think that's what Trump is doing now. "
Well, yes, that's what he's attempting. While it would certainly be better for everyone if he didn't, I can't deny I find it pretty funny how self-satisfied he seems to be at his project of taking a giant sledgehammer to 80 years of accumulated American soft power. When this sort of effort predictably makes America poorer, less respected and less influential, I'm sure his supporters will keep breathlessly insisting that it's all Biden's (who whoever else's) fault.
The pendant in me rather doubts that's true. The blast radius of a nuke may be large compared to conventional explosives, but it's still very, very small compared to the size of a forest. And if you're counting on the fires spreading on their own, I would think napalm would give you much better control for a tiny fraction of the price.
But all that is rendered pretty irrelevant by a more practical concern. You know what a small insurgent group would call provoking a superpower to launch nukes just for a chance of taking them out? Winning. They would call it winning.
Like, nevermind the political fallout (which would doubtless be massive), that sounds like an amazing deal just on a cost basis. Nukes are EXTREMELY expensive. Only in their wildest dreams are any single group of insurgents going to cause damage that comes anywhere close to the cost of one single warhead, nevermind the delivery system, nevermind the cleanup. Most insurgencies would love nothing better than to watch their enemies shoot themselves in the foot that hard.
...I don't see how any of that would be a problem? We already have a ton of nukes just sitting here, gathering dust. It would be a waste not to use them eventually. Cleanup is also unnecessary because we're talking about northern Canada, nobody lives there anyways. Not much harm in razing most of it to the ground. In fact, the mini-nuclear winter would temporarily counteract global warming!
My overwhelming impression from this comment is that you are simply trying to be an edgelord, rather than having an actual conversation. In the event that I'm wrong, I still have to concede that my meager skills at pedagogy aren't equal to the task of correcting the extremely deep and serious faults in your knowledge of the world and ability to reason about it. Either way, the obvious course is to disengage. Good day.
Why would we use force though? It would be much simpler to buy it.
Lets start with Alberta, where the susceptibility to leaving Canada for the US is probably highest. We offer the residents of Alberta a large bribe to become the 51st state (maybe 52nd if Greenland goes first). Now BC is cutoff from the rest of Canada. Probably at this point we can get them for a much smaller bribe, even none at all. At this point likely Quebec is pissed to have been beaten to the door, so we offer them statehood as #54 (55), etc. Divide and conquer, buying one province at a time.
Even assuming for the sake of argument that the people of Alberta have the legal authority to secede from Canada, I'm pretty sure Canadian law prohibits anyone (and especially foreigners) from bribing voters in Canadian elections. So all that bribe money would just be redirected into Ottawa's treasury as soon as it crosses the border.
And if the idea is that Trump would promise to pay the Albertans *after* they secede and join the Union, then A: the Albertans would have to be stupid enough to trust Donald Trump to hold up his end of a deal even without a formal contract to bind him to, and B: Canadian elections are done with secret ballots, so there's no way to know which people Trump is supposed to pay off.
He'd have to promise to pay *everyone* in Alberta, regardless of how they voted. Which means the loyal and/or skeptical ones would all have the option of hedging their bets by voting "No" but still collecting whatever payout Trump actually pays out if their countrymen go with "Yes".
This seems like...well, "wishful thinking" hardly seems like a strong enough term. If I were trying to write a bit of satire to illustrate some of the more common negative stereotypes about Americans--specifically about thinking they're the center of the universe and not understanding how anyone else could POSSIBLY fail to envy them--I think I'd need to make it only slightly more over-the-top than what you've written here.
I do agree that Alberta would probably be the most susceptible to leaving Canada: I think there's some appetite for that among Albertans. If I had to guess how many would up and join Alberta to the U.S. if given the opportunity, I'd say in the 30% range. But my confidence there is very low: it could be in the 60s, it could be in the 10s. So I won't say that "try to get Alberta to join the U.S." is completely ridiculous as a Step 1.
Where I think you start to go off the rails is imagining that a bribe would be of much help in convincing the holdouts. First off, a bribe is only an inducement if you, yourself, expect to benefit from the bribe. So let's say the deal is for a direct cash payment to each and every Albertan. Thought experiment: how big of a bribe would have to be part of the package for you to vote for your state to become part of China or Russia? How about Germany or the UK? Would $1000 do it? How about $5000? Maybe $50,000? I expect for many people there is no practical number high enough. For the remainder, I expect a wide spread, but a lot of people will tend fairly high. Canadians aren't a monolith, but two things you will CERTAINLY find here are people who take pride in being Canadian, and people who take a dim view of the U.S. Irrevocably yoking your future and your children's future to a country you don't care for is gonna be a pretty tough sell. And that's before you get into credibility issues: Trump does not exactly have a great reputation for fairness and honesty in his business deals. How many are going to trust the bribe to actually come through? Once the U.S. has political control of Alberta, why would they need to pay?
But far, far more off-base than that is the notion that BC would fall easily in line after Alberta. Here I can speak with some authority: I'm a BC resident. I live and work surrounded by other BC residents. I don't think there are very many BC residents who would join up with the U.S. for any price. And the idea that peeling off our neighboring province first and using the isolation as economic coercion to fall in line? Here I must suspect you of having a poor understanding of human psychology in-general. You might consider looking up the history of a city called "West Berlin" for a start. Suffice to say that "an authoritarian government has just isolated us, gobbled up our neighbor, and is now pressuring us to allow them to take control" is very much NOT the inducement you think it is.
Eh, none of this is going to happen. But I was trying to spitball potential scenarios and this one seemed less ludicrous than any other that I could think of (or which has been proposed in this thread). I'd give it less than 10^(-2) odds. But I'd give the `invasion / occupation / assimilation' scenario less than 10^(-4) odds, so...
Eh, fair enough. If I were told that four years from now some substantial portion of Canada had joined the U.S. and were trying to imagine the most plausible way that it could happen, probably my first thought would be "some serious outside threat scared Canada into wanting to be more firmly under the U.S. aegis." But that's not something the current admin can really control.
If I were in a think tank tasked with finding the most plausible ways to make it happen, I still don't think anything so direct as bribery would be my go-to. It would have to be some form of information warfare. If the past ten years have taught me anything, its how frighteningly effective various propaganda streams are at turning susceptible peoples' brains into politically-polarized much. My hypothetical think-tank proposal wouldn't even involve spreading pro-U.S. propaganda in Canada, mind you. Rather it would involve finding all the most effective ways at getting some Canadians to hate other Canadians, until some parts of the country absolutely couldn't stand other parts.
Maybe then you start planting seeds about disaffected groups joining the U.S. or even making overt offers. But maybe you don't even need to: if anybody (with the possible exception of Quebec) splits off and becomes independent, ultimately asking for U.S. annexation would be a natural attractor. (Sorta similar to how the U.S. got Texas come to think of it, except the part where a lot of Texans started out as American to begin with.)
There's something I don't have to worry about in the real world, at least. Trump's comments are pretty much the exact opposite of what an admin looking to go that route would want to do.
Alberta seems not a likely choice right now since a born-and-raised Albertan is soon to be elected Canada's Prime Minister, probably with a thumping parliamentary majority. Though in various aspects of worldview he will be more simpatico with the new Trump Administration than the outgoing Canadian PM (the new guy heads the Conservative Party of Canada), he is nevertheless a strongly-nationalistic French-speaking Canadian. His lifelong goal has been to lead and reform his nation not dismember it.
Meanwhile back home in Alberta the voters will have reason to expect some of their grievances with Ottawa to be successfully addressed, presumably taking some air out of secession arguments.
Depending on how things go with the new national government there could be some revival of secession talk in British Columbia, though not with an intention of joining the US.
We obviously shouldn't (and won't) use force, but why buy them?
They'd have the opportunity to move from the country with the ~10th largest economy to number 1. Instead of being a piece of a junior partner of the global hegemon they'd be part of the family.
Albertans alive today have never had a serious opportunity to become part of the US. We should simply give it to them. If Trump wants to Make America Grow Again he should have the State Department spin up groups focusing on a number of countries that craft plans for admission for them and individual provinces / territories within them, then encourage referenda.
It was in the last referedum where the 'ethnic vote' was blamed for keeping Quebec in the country. 1st and 2nd Gen Canadians actually have a more civic 'national' identity then multigenerational Canadians who have a stronger 'regional' identity.
Wait, why? I thought the point was to expand US dominion over the world. They're not going to join willingly; they have their silly nationalistic pride that needs to be beaten out of them. Even if the Albertans were willing to secede, Canada wouldn't let them do that, regardless of what their law supposedly says.
evidence? Canada did allow Quebec a referendum on secession. The pro-secession side lost, rendering the issue moot, but we are postulating that there is a future `Albertan independence' referendum which is won.
The United States is not an imperialistic empire. It had a brief period of imperialism and still has some territories that should quickly be granted independence or statehood.
To your earlier post: it's neither practical or desirable to try to impose America at the point of a JDAM. We aren't a Caliphate. If Albertans, or anyone else, have nationalistic pride and are happy with their current situation no one should force them to leave.
But national feeling changes. Current national borders aren't divinely defined and immutable. The point isn't to extend American dominion over the world: post-WW2 we've shown that can be done pretty effectively without adding more states or through military occupation.
The point is to offer American statehood to those who want it and can be incorporated into the union. Why not give them the opportunity? And yes, I'm fine with Mexico trying to charla suave American states into seceding and joining Mexico, but I do not think they have a compelling offer.
"We have never sought to become a monopoly. Our (national) products are simply so good that no one feels the need to compete with us."
But how does Alberta secede from Canada? They likely don't have that right. Quebec failed to secede. Maybe the US sends troops into Alberta with its encouragement?
Sorta/kinda. There's nothing about that in Canada's written Constitution. In response to a court ruling related to the 1995 Quebec referendum, Parliament in 2000 passed a law laying out some conditions on which the federal government would respect the result of a provincial separation referendum.
Awkwardly (and very Canadian to be honest) the "Clarity Act" fails to state clearly what percentage "yes" vote is necessary for a referendum result to be binding. Most analysts say that something more than 50%+1 would be needed, but that has never yet been tested and unless the province's voters went at least 60-40 "yes" there would be court challenges.
The federal law states that "First Nations/Indigenous People" are required to be "part of" the "negotiations" following a successful referendum result, without specifying either the nature of those negotiations in general or the role/power of First Nations in that process.
There are other mysteries about how the Clarity Act imagines the separation process but you get the overall picture: sorta/kinda.
Ah, but by that point they will be surrounded by America. Independence may not be viable. And if we really need to put the squeeze on, we blockade them. Which, sure, is technically an act of war, but not of the invasion kind. But probably it won't be necessary to actually go that far, the implicit threat, as well as the obvious economic benefits of joining a larger and richer polity which surrounds you, should suffice.
Absent some imminent threat, the President doesn't have unilateral authority to order an invasion. The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force doesn't have geographic restrictions and has been interpreted very broadly to provide the basis for a number of interventions. Canada would be too far.
However, as you note this is a fantastical situation so let's handwave that.
It would be extremely difficult for the UK or any other country to directly intervene due to the distances involved and the US Navy's superiority. Yes, they have treaty obligations to do so but those treaties didn't envision one treaty nation invading another. NATO probably just ceases to exist. Maybe - big maybe - they make a formal declaration of war and harass US related shipping but don't go much beyond that. There's also the nuclear option but I don't imagine significant appetite for starting that holocaust.
I'd expect the immediate response would be the UK / EU and other nations cutting off all ties with the US and attempting to make it a pariah. Massive economic damage all around. China would likely hop over to Taiwan while the US is distracted and the world quickly realigns in a multipolar fashion. Good chance of some sort of civil war, active insurgency, and/or political breakup of the US.
ETA: Greenland would be extremely strategically valuable for the US for early warning of RAF operations and to forward deploy air assets to counter them. My God, Trump's fixation on it now makes complete sense. It's all part of his long game.
I'm no lawyer or international relations expert, but I think Article 5 could easily be construed to require other countries to defend Canada if the US invaded:
"The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area."
As for the original question, I think that if the US invaded Canada, the rest of NATO would defend Canada, at least to some extent. Economically it would be a disaster for everyone involved. Militarily, France, the UK, and the US all have nukes. If they get used, that would obviously be very bad. If they don't get used, the US would almost certainly "win" the war at some point; Canada itself doesn't have a big enough military to withstand an American attack, and the US Navy's aircraft carriers would be too much for the NATO forces to overcome in the Atlantic. But if we couldn't occupy Afghanistan effectively, why would we be able to occupy Canada? If you had a huge number of Canadians who decided that they wanted to be Americans, then it might be different. But I don't think that would be the case in this hypothetical invasion scenario.
No, because "attacks back" is not a concept with any meaning or significance in international law. A attacks B, then A and B are at war and it is expected that warfighting activities may occur anywhere in the combined territory of A and B and generals may but lawyers don't care which way the front is moving.
US attacks Canada, and the remaining NATO members are required to do whatever they would do if the US had attacked *them*. Which is presumably to wage war against the US, including military operations that in a purely tactical sense might be called "attacks".
yeah, the invasion and occupation scenario is obviously dumb. That’s why I was spitballing scenarios whereby Canada might be induced to voluntarily join, for certain values of voluntary.
I suspect it would produce a list of people who think their blogs might be interesting to ACX readers which is exactly what I’d like to see.
I don’t think it would be particularly game worthy in an effort/payoff sort of way if you don’t think your blog would appeal to ACX readers it’s probably not worth the effort.
> I suspect it would produce a list of people who think their blogs might be interesting to ACX readers which is exactly what I’d like to see.
I mean, isn't a proxy for that just clicking on any given commenter here's blog link next to their name?
If they're engaged enough to comment, and particularly if you think their comments are cogent / useful / interesting, seems like a fairly strong and immediately available quality filter.
So I've seen a few intelligent, careful people saying that climate change, while likely bad, is unlikely to be an existential threat to humanity. I'm very much not a climate scientist, but I'm unsure of the reasoning.
When Mt Tambora erupted in 1815, the resultant cooling (about 0.5 degrees Celsius) caused horrific famines and other disasters which killed tens of thousands of people, caused widespread societal and economic upheaval, and just was generally awful, despite the effects mostly only lasting a few months to a few years. Now, that's cooling, not warming, but it seems plausible that the magnitude of the effects would be comparable, if different in type.
Given that, and given even conservative estimates for temperature change put it at 1 to 2 degrees Celsius, and sustained over a much longer period (decades at minimum, centuries not implausible), I genuinely don't understand how that conclusion could be reached? Is warming just different? Is it because it's slower rather than an abrupt shift?
Humans have been endemic to vastly different climate zones from the arctic to the Sahara for centuries, well before the benefits of the admittedly fragile industrial civilization. Wiping out 50% or 90% of them is the easy part, but getting the last nomadic tribe will be next to impossible.
He may have been serious in the 60's and 70's but he's been nothing but an intellectual buffoon for at least the past 15 years. If he's the physical embodiment of anything now it's of self-parody.
Angry isn't serious. There is no tenured professor at a top 20 research university who believes it. And even if there is then that person is outside of the scientific consensus. The median 95% of climate scientists would all agree that it's not an existential threat.
That sounds fine, but there's a bunch of idiots who do, and some of them want to glue themselves to the road or throw soup on a valuable artwork or something, so it's worth taking the time to debunk 'em.
I don't think the serious people believe that global warming will wipe humanity. It's not an ELE. What it could do is collapse our energy dependent civilization and kill a lot of people. But even those worse case outcomes would happen incrementally--food and fuel prices rise, people starve, wars happen, massive population movements occur, and the human population of the planet declines. How fast that would happen depends on details we do not currently understand.
Moreover, all of the remedies I've heard proposed would be as likely to cause upheaval, to that or greater degree, possibly in different sectors of the economy or world at first. With similar levels of uncertainty.
Lowering carbon emissions inevitably manifests as curtailing economic activity. On the personal level, this means not selling as much of your product, whether you're running a fruit stand or a factory. Or a power plant - which means customers are doing without. The secondary effects of this include all sorts of things like having less food on the table, fewer clothes, postponed home repairs, unemployment, and freezing in the reduced-emissions-enforced winter.
Hopefully the drawbacks of these effects are evident.
If you are claiming that any curtailing of economic activity will have as severe an impact as runaway global warming, I find that so counter-intuitive that I have to ask you to cite research in support of that.
I'm not really talking about runaway global warming, as I believe that is not as credible as the global warming predicted in publications such as IPCC reports.
When it comes to predicted global warming, the evidence doesn't suggest strongly whether it's better or worse than the economic curtailment required to prevent it. It has been harder than it should be to collect evidence that curtailment is worse, since the act of collecting it or even advocating for collecting it as been, for ideological reasons, historically less likely to get financial and academic support than the act of collecting evidence that it is preferable.
To get started, you could consult David Friedman's articles on the matter.
My primary reasoning is that if we check global temperatures through longer eras (going back thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of years) we can see much larger differences compared to what is being discussed today, and yet Earth was still very much a planet full of life. During warmer periods, even more so!
I know that this shows that today temperature rose in a century way more than in this period at any time, but I am linking it first just so it is apparent that even before large scale use of fossil fuels, 0.2-0.3 degrees Celsius change in a couple of decades was not that uncommon.
This implies that in that period there were several cases when average temperature was 10 degrees Celsius lower or 2 degrees Celsius higher than what is today.
3. Chart for past 500 000 000 years (this is actually the combination of multiple methods/charts):
What I would like to highlight here is the green part between ~ 7 million and 60 million years ago.
Through this period average temperature was always higher by at least two degrees Celsius than currently, and during the Eocene period (33.9 million to 56 million years ago) it was 6 to 14 degrees Celsius higher.
"During the early-middle Eocene, forests covered most of the Earth including the poles. Tropical forests extended across much of modern Africa, South America, Central America, India, South-east Asia and China. Paratropical forests grew over North America, Europe and Russia, with broad-leafed evergreen and broad-leafed deciduous forests at higher latitudes."
So actually it was way more friendly towards plant life.
Likely higher temperatures may increase crops yields and even human welfare, if we can magically ignore the effect of change itself.
That being said, as some people pointed out, the main question is the speed of change, as that can still make this an issue.
I think that apart from the natural environment what influences human welfare is "capital", in the broadest sense. This includes infrastructure, all kinds of equipment, but even culture, training and customs.
There is a natural degradation of "capital" (infrastructure crumbles, people grow old, etc), and there is a replacement process (maintenance, training, etc) that allows us to maintain civilization. If the change is gradual enough that this natural replacement can take care of it, than capital does not shrink and welfare remains high. E.g., newer houses, buildings will gradually be more optimized for higher temperature, people will wear different clothing and behave accordingly without consciously noticing cultural change, etc.
If it is faster than this, that would require more investment, so people would need to drop living standards.
Even this negative case can have large ranges, from a bit slower gdp growth to long term economic upheaval.
However, for massive global famine I think some major global change would be necessary, that would destroy most crops within a year, or that would somehow trigger a swift cooldown (at least locally), kind of as in "The Day After Tomorrow". However, I don't see this one likely, as far as I know the consensus is against it, and I don't think that there is any precedent for this save for vulcano eruptions or asteroid impacts.
Regarding your particular example about Tambora, I think the main issue there was not really the "global temperature" directly, but that it created a permanent fog, that also blocked sunlight. To quote wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1815_eruption_of_Mount_Tambora ):
"In the northern spring and summer of 1815, a persistent "dry fog" was observed in the northeastern United States. The fog reddened and dimmed the sunlight, such that sunspots were visible to the naked eye."
As a sideffect, this decreased temperature, but I think the lower amount of sunshine was even more important than the pure temperature change. I think the distribution of this was also more local, not sure how much the southern hemisphere got from this. So likely the territories with most agricultural issues had much lower average temperature than what the global value implies here.
A note: it's true (with the caveat about change rate that you already note) that, overall, an Eocene- or Cretaceous-style hothouse would be good for global biodiversity and biomass. But it would be much less good for the specific configuration of biodiversity and biomass we have right now, which evolved in icehouse conditions. For one, the breadbaskets of the world wouldn't be such in Eocene climate. The grassy plants from which most of the global food supply depends evolved relatively recently in temperate, highly seasonal, low-CO2 conditions. And of course during most of the Cretaceous, the middle third of North America was under water.
OTOH, we'd have decades or more to adapt to this. Also, at least some of the staple crops would do better in high CO2 than at current levels, and AIUI there is research being done regarding others. There's a high chance we'll have more food than now for the same resources as a consequence, and what upheaval occurs would be in the form of farmers and their suppliers having to find new work or new markets.
I admit I'm mostly going by half-remembered stuff right now, but IIRC CO2 fertilization helps with carbohydrates, but not so much with proteins and other nutrients; and I strongly doubt it's enough to offset losses of cropland to drought (of course the rain will still fall elsewhere, but farmland isn't something you move around quickly or easily) and sea level rise (which is going to be significant only on river deltas and some coastal lowlands, but those are some of the most intensely farmed and inhabited areas around).
The rationalists who say "not an existential threat" mean "it will not kill literally every single person in the world". This is true for most models of climate change. Plus, the lesswrong crowd tends to believe that an artificial superintelligence will be built soon, and will either destroy the world or solve climate change. One way or the other, nothing to worry about.
Historically, warm years were good and cold years were bad. To a degree, they still are. But there's a limit to how warm we want it, and climate change is rapidly getting there.
It's worth noting that they say "global catastrophic risk" for things that don't put the continued existence of human civilisation at risk but are still, well, catastrophic.
Global warming will probably kill more people via heat-related deaths than are dying now, but a Lancet study found cold-related deaths outnumber heat deaths by 17 to 1. So, fewer peeps will be dying from cold-related deaths. Higher CO levels are creating a greening effect worldwide, so despite the fears of famine due to climate change, crop plants are becoming more productive. Please note: angiosperms appeared and evolved during periods when global CO2 levels were 4x-5x higher than they are now. The Antarctic ice sheet didn't begin form until atmospheric CO2 levels dropped to about 1200-1400 ppm (compared to ~280 ppm pre-industrial levels, and ~420 ppm today)—and global avg temps were about 4 degrees C higher than they are today. Yes, Gen Z +3 to +6 will have to worry about sea-level rise. But it should be slow enough to create mitigations for coastal urban areas (a la the Netherlands). I doubt if GW will have a significant impact on human populations (at least compared to other potential issues). Overall, long term, it would be great if CO2 levels were high enough to get us out of the glaciation cycles that have characterized the late Pleistocene (each cycle lasting roughly a 100Ky).
Without due respect to Scott, the data doesn't seem to support this thesis. This study of cold and heat deaths in European countries shows that, overall, cold deaths far outweigh heat deaths. But cold deaths are higher in Eastern European countries on a north-south axis — and they're also super high in the UK for some reason. Heat deaths are highest in Italy, Bulgaria, and Romania, with some hotspots in interior Spain. (Link below)
It's worth noting that some major civilization collapses happened during cooling periods. After the Minoan Warm Period, Bronze Age civilizations collapsed. Western Roman civilization collapsed at the end of the Roman Warm Period. And the Bubonic plague wiped out about a third of Europe's population a couple of decades after the Little Ice Age began. Likewise, the Little Ice Age impacted food production all across northern Europe, which caused periodic famines for three centuries.
Heat and Cold mortality for urban areas across Europe...
It's more like "It will not end life as we know it." If a threat were to kill all people but one, or wipe out technological progress, rationalists would also call that an existential threat.
I would only call that an x-risk if there are reasons to believe that civilization will not be reinvented after a few millennia. One can make such arguments (depleted fossil fuels which would be required to bootstrap industry, for example), but I would treat loss of industrialization as a threat of x-risk, not as x-risk itself.
There's a not dissimilar rationalist trope around the idea that nuclear war wouldn't be an "existential threat", because human beings would continue to exist (and civilisation might survive in, say, Chile and could be rebuilt elsewhere, perhaps with humanity having learned lessons). Feels like something that is at the same time technically true, but fuelling possible insanity.
I think that it is important to stick to stuff which is true on an object level ('technically true') and not to go into hyperbole to signal tribe membership.
If someone is about to jump out of a window on the fourth floor, the true thing to say to them is "that is a stupid thing to do. You will likely injure yourself severely and might actually die". If you are telling them instead "this is a terrible idea, you are sure to die and will kill at least four passer-bys when you hit them", that is bad. Once you have told that little noble lie, the truth is forever your enemy, and the pro-window-jumping people will easily show you for a fool in any remotely fair debate. Also, what will you then tell the person debating if they should escape the fire by jumping from the eighth floor or the forth? Double down: "if you fall from the eighth floor, you will be super-duper-dead and cause a crater which will kill everything within half a kilometer"?
I do not think that LW is full of people going "climate change: not an issue" or "nuclear war: not an x-risk, but a fun group activity" regularly -- just because something is not maximally bad, it does not mean that you endorse it.
We aren’t living in 1815 anymore. Cooling is worse than heating in most cases. The existential threat isn’t really claimed by the climate scientists either, although they tend to obfuscate the number of years it takes for sea level rise.
The people talking about "existential threat" seem to have tacked on the modifier because it sounds cool, without giving any thought to what a high bar they're setting for themselves.
Partly because we can more effectively adapt to the coming changes because they're coming slowly,
Partly because, while we almost certainly won't be able to reverse the effects of climate change in my lifetime, current models look like we'll avoid runaway effects and we can hopefully get our shit together enough to make the rate of change near 0 in my lifetime
Partly because one of the big worries with the fast rate of change was ecological catastrophes as existing biomes failed to adapt to new conditions, which would have impacted human life indirectly. If the rate of change is slower, there will be more room for adaptation and the ecological consequences will be less severe.
Cooling is worse than warming, in large part because we're still in an ice age (we're closer to the planet being too cold to survive than being too warm to survive, basically).
The modern world is better at adapting to changing conditions than the ancient world.
(There's other stuff, but I think this covers the material in your comment.)
Rate matters. People are very good at accommodating changes that happen at the multi generational timescale. Not so much "no crops this year." Especially since back then, the survival margins were much tighter. Now we have much more of a safety blanket. Especially since the changes (were and are expected to be) unevenly spread. So the places less hard hit can help the ones harder hit. That wasn't really the case in 1815.
Recently I outlined for myself a ten-part (?) series on everything I know about web + app development. My original idea was to make it a blog post series. After outlining it I'm not so sure. Perhaps readers would absorb it better if it was a course, or textbook, or YouTube video playlist, or what-have-you. What do y'all think?
(I haven't written out the entire thing yet, as it seems like it would be a LOT of work and I'm not sure what benefits would accrue to me or my readers if I were to do it.)
Perfect is the enemy of good. If you've written something out, it's probably relatively easy to convert to a blog post. Not so for Youtube videos, a course, or textbook.
Unless you're someone who has some particular authority in the field, or your series is extremely useful to people who are able to find your work, few people will read it. That's ok though, as the exercise should be for your own benefit, with other readers as a bonus.
I don't want to dissuade you too much, because this sounds like something that could be good for your personal development. However, I understand that you are an undergraduate student? Consider the possibility you may be overestimating the utility that you can provide as someone without significant professional experience in this field.
What about a blog with some straightforward practice problems or questions threaded through it, and maybe a couple of really tough ones at the end of each post? People could discuss how to do the problems in comments. You could post occasionally in comments giving answers or advice or congratulations. Maybe give prizes (free subscription?) to the first to post a solution to one of the tough puzzles. (So now I'm moving into ideas of ways to build up number of subscribers.) Maybe sprinkle in some other stuff in between the lessons -- a few posts about where web & app etc. development is heading, or funny stories about legendary fuck-ups or genius solutions or odd corners of that professional world. (What's the creepiest underground app you ever heard tell of?) Maybe an occasional contest for readers? You name some odd constraints, ask how you could do X with those constrains. Group could select best answer by vote.
I absolutely hate instruction delivered via video. I'm always looking up how to do things in Photoshop, and hunting for the one site that just answers my question with some prose and one screen shot. I get the info way faster that way, and if I forget something I can quickly find it again by skimming the written answer. Searching a video for that one part where they show how to access feature X is infuriating. However, most Photoshop how-to's are videos, so it may be that most prefer that modality.
Also, making a video series adds all these complications. You have to think about how the room looks, and how you look. You have to be personable. If you trip over your words you have to reshoot that section.
I think there is a fundamental difference between tutorials about how to use a Software and how to build software.
When the resulting code o the tutorial is published I can work my way back to fill gaps that the author willingly or unwillingly left out or knowledge gaps that I have but the target audience of the tutorial doesn’t have.
For a software like photoshop I stumbled a lot on tutorials where a important step was left out and I couldn’t figure out what they did because I can’t work my way back from the end result. In a video I can just skip back to the part and follow step by step.
I don't build software, but see what you mean. Actually these days when I google Photoshop questions the Google AI gives me the answer as a list of bullet points, and so far those have turned out to be clear and accurate.
I do pretty well with blog posts, especially if they include practical interludes/exercises along the way. That would probably be harder with a video playlist. Even if there are aspects which benefit greatly from demonstrating them in video instead of static images or text, still probably better to embed those in a blog.
From there, not clear on what the practical difference is between a blog and a textbook, unless you plan to get it all printed and bound. Unless you a mean a hypertext textbook on a dedicated site, which I think would be better unless you benefit from linking sections of the textbook to preexisting blog posts.
As for a course, maybe? Can be beneficial if you can make those practical interludes fully interactive. But I expect it would be a great deal more work than just a blog/textbook.
All in all:
Dedicated textbook > blog post > course > video series
How exactly does one lobby their local legislators? I know that at the federal level, multi billion dollar organizations do all sorts of crazy things that the average human can never do, but assuming you're a moderately wealthy individual with a good savings and a high paying job and you wanted to propose adopting a law or a legislative reform for your local City/State, how would you go about doing so?
Sure you can always call them up and leave a message, but i assume that's leaving something on the table. What would you do if you had 50k at your disposal? 100k? How can money actually be used to improve your outcome?
Figure out what you want to say, condense it to the level of an elevator pitch but with backup material at the ready, call the local legislator's office, ask them which staffer is handling [topic] this week, and if they're not too busy at that moment, make your pitch.
Or, write a letter to the legislator; their office will send it to the right staffer and you can go into a bit more depth in text. Offer to discuss the matter further.
For all but the biggest issues, it isn't necessary to offer bribes or campaign contributions, or establish yourself as the spokesman for #movement with bignum registered voters. Legislators get surprisingly little feedback from the public on secondary issues, and they know that for every person who actually picks up a phone there will be many more who feel the same way but didn't bother to call. And, perhaps more importantly, the staffer in charge of [topic] is not actually an expert on [topic], he's almost certainly overworked, in over his head, and trying to figure it out with basically Wikipedia and a bunch of slick glossies produced by the relevant industry organization or whatever. They'll probably *want* to talk to someone who knows the subject but isn't captured by the industry.
If you've got money to throw at the problem, you can use it to hire people who are either better than you at cold-calling politicians, or can do the background research to fine-tune your pitch and identify the proper targets. But check with a lawyer, because when money starts changing hands in this sort of thing, the law is particular about how that should be done.
Cant say I recemend it doing that solo; realistically:
1. you maintain a list of every method of commutation they publish
2. wait till these methods change so you get spooky and hard to block methods
3. wait for a news story
4. spread the info, write variants of the messages, simple talking points, make graphs with any data, pictures for any concept, pay professional protesters to hold signs you designed
5. gaslight gaslight gaslight that theres an angery mob at thier door or at least you have some influence over said mob
Politicians pay attention to crowds, so you lobby local legislation by lobbying the people who vote for them. If you have a high-paying job, you presumably have people who respect your opinion on things, so start by convincing them, and then convince their friends, and repeat until someone's friends with the legislators.
> What would you do if you had 50k at your disposal? 100k? How can money actually be used to improve your outcome?
I'm interested in this too.
I think it depends on your level of commitment, but Zvi famously founded Balsa to do exactly this at the federal level, and I believe he even got outside funding, and has hired two people for it (maybe more by now). Currently they're tackling the Jones Act, which is 100% a giant boondoggle that should be eliminated (in my own opinion).
So I've answered the ACX survey and am curious about the last question. I feel (rot13) that zl nafjre qrcraqf urnivyl ba gur ahzoref vaibyirq, abg whfg bhg bs cevapvcyr ba n "uvture rkcrpgngvba if thnenagrrq erghea" qvpubgbzl. Jvgu qvssrerag ahzoref (fvapr V ernq nobhg n fvzvyne ulcbgurgvpny n juvyr ntb), zl nafjre jbhyq qrsvavgryl punatr.
So I wonder if I'm isolated in my outlook, and what the point of the question is...
That your answer should change if the numbers are different is normal and healthy. If you are a median income American, and the question is about one measly dollar versus ten, then you want to take the gamble.
If the question is about one billion dollar versus a chance at ten, then only SBF (and perhaps a few big-thinking honest EA people who believe that their cause areas will scale linearly) would take the gamble. Everyone else would be "there is little difference to my utility function between 1G$ and 10G$, why should I risk anything?"
Where exactly the cross-over point is depends on the risk tolerance of a person, and their current circumstances. Perhaps one person owns a broken car which could be fixed up for 500$, while another would need 5k$ to by a decent used car.
Formally, there is the Kelly criterion, which tells you how much of your net worth you should be willing to put into a gamble where you have an edge at most.
Unless I’m mistaken, the Kelly criterion applies for repeated independent bets, no? This is just one thing (and also, there’s no downside in the survey question).
I’m reassured that I’m not crazy for thinking the correct strategy depends on the number involved. But then what’s the point of asking the question for a single pair of numbers? Is it to determine the “strategy boundary” in another way, depending on (say) the person’s income?
The standard model of someone following Kelly would be a gambler who has the opportunity to make a limited amount of gambles in which they have some edge, can decide how much to bet in each gamble, and tries to get rich. (I think that they instrumentally value their money logarithmically in the middle of their gambling run is kind of intrinsic, even if their end goal was "earn at least one million", under certain assumptions.)
In my model of humans, we are making financial decisions under uncertainty all the time. Big ones, like what profession to take and how to invest money for old age, but also smaller ones such as what forms of insurance to take, how often to go to medical checkups, how much food to stockpile to be prepared for disaster down to tiny ones like if you should fill up your gas tank right now or wait and see if you find a better gas station in a few days.
Even humans who don't see themselves as gamblers are regularly betting on the rare bad outcome not happening as to spend arbitrary amounts to negate the tiniest risk is not compatible with life. (Last month, there was a lesswrong article published on using Kelly to determine if insurance is worth it, https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wf4jkt4vRH7kC2jCy/when-is-insurance-worth-it )
So with the understanding that humans are not perfectly in the situation of that gambler (for example, they can recover from going to a balance of zero by means of paid work), we can nevertheless use Kelly as a baseline. Most people are more risk-adverse than the Kelly criterion, which is fine.
The fact that there is no (absolute) downside is largely irrelevant. As long as you have two strategies, and the riskier one has the higher expected payoff, you can apply Kelly to it.
Did Scott ask us for the income bracket, again? Without it, I think the data will not make very much sense.
(aside: dear anyone reading this from the Substack crew, could we please have spoiler tags? Web 1.0 forums in the 90s already had those, without suffering from the performance problems Substack has; reinventing wheels should result in better, not worse, wheels!)
Could someone post a reminder of what the question was? I, for one, did the survey long enough ago that I remember approximately none of the specific questions, only some of the broad subjects covered...
The question was (rot13): juvpu jbhyq lbh pubbfr orgjrra n pregnvagl bs svir uhaqerq qbyynef be n bar-va-fvk (nf va, ebyy n fgnaqneq qvpr) punapr bs trggvat svir gubhfnaq qbyynef?
I think you should try never to hate anyone, it isn't a healthy mindset. Mind, you may not be able to *help* hating someone, but that's a different issue.
Slavery is based on violence, so without violence we would all be free.
As for hate being long term anger, that's like saying war is just an extreme form of sports. We aren't meant to exist in extreme states long term--it is progressively damaging to the brain.
Trump celebrated Justin Trudeau resigning by jesting on Truth Social about US / Canada merging, referencing its longstanding informal status as the 51st state.
Actually making Canada the 51st state is, of course, absurd; it would need to be divided into more than one state. They could either follow their current provincial boundaries or draw new ones. I leave that to our future fellow Americans to determine.
The path to the promised land of one billion Americans has always, to me, seemed to more logically to route through more and more places deciding to become American rather than through open borders. We should actively encourage it. Federalism would get a big boost, the people whose fortunes depend so heavily on US elections without getting a say would finally receive representation, those suffering in nations with poor institutions would get an instant upgrade, and the Jones Act would make a lot more sense once South Korea joins up.
Non-Americans: if your country held a referendum, would you vote to join the Freedom Fest?
Americans: which country would be your top pick for the new dream team? I think Australia would be my number one.
I would vote against, as I think having more sovereigns is preferable because (1) competition is good for consumers & (2) concentrating more power into one institution seems like it would lead to dangerous fragility. For the same reason, I think it would be good if the US would split up.
I would, however, vote in favour of allowing the US to join the EEA, the Schengen agreement and such, because, again, competition is good for consumers.
As an Australian, I don't know that I have the words to emphasise how much Australian's do not want to be part of the US.
When US affairs are brought up in casual conversation here it is almost always followed by some form of "aren't we lucky we don't live there?". Australians see the US as a cautionary tale of how our country could go wrong if we're not careful. Specifically in regards to healthcare, gun control, homelessness, political discourse, internal divisions, and more.
Australians, like every other country in the world, also have national pride, and would like to stay as Australians.
I'll answer as both an American and a non-America: I'm a U.S.-Canadian dual citizen. I grew up in the U.S. and moved to Canada a few years ago.
Would I vote to join the U.S.? Emphatically no. I left for many reasons, and the U.S. has certainly not improved as a nation in the time since.
What country would be my top pick? None. The U.S. as-is has and causes quite enough troubles, thank you. I think its political system is rather badly showing its age, and the country is (unfortunately) probably too far-gone to course-correct before the wheels fall off. I'm really not sure why a country who just re-elected a president partially on a platform of nativism and xenophobia would be eager to add a bunch of foreigners to its citizen body anyhow. Why not worry about giving Puerto Ricans their (long overdue) statehood so they can actually have a voice in your system before looking for more colonies to add to your collection?
You're saying we have to remove some items from our collection before we add more? Do we have a lack of room for more?
Our collection is incomplete! We need more variety. We already have Alaska as a state, but not as a colony, so adding "frozen tundra" variety of colony to our collection will increase its diversity.
> add a bunch of foreigners to its citizen body anyhow
They're barely even foreigners, they're basically Americans under a different name. Hell, Canada is whiter than the US! We would effectively decrease the portion of "foreigners" in the country.
"Foreigners" is not actually a euphemism for "colored people" here. It literally means "people from a foreign country." Which in this context all countries not the U.S. are, by definition.
How much does that matter to the nativists and xenophobes currently steering U.S. politics? I honestly don't know. THEY tend to insist loudly and often that they aren't racist, so taking them at their word it would matter quite a lot. Even not taking them at their word, there seems to be *rather a lot* of explicitly "America uber alles" discourse in U.S. politics, rather more than their is racially charged rhetoric (from the right anyway). So I would tend to think that yes, for many members of the U.S. nativist movement, the fact that any additions were foreign and from a foreign culture *would* weigh more heavily than the fact that many of them were white. That you, personally, regard race as the most salient feature any person can have, or consider people from various neighbor countries as "basically Americans" isn't really germane to how they see themselves or how your countrymen see them.
...It's always about race. Always. Humans are tribalistic by nature, after all. Let's face it, can you truly accept that a man named "Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar" is just as American as your run-of-the-mill white Christian? Of course not. In the back of your mind, you understand that this man is an "other", regardless of his origins. A lot of people are tired of pretending otherwise. They want to make America American again. And now they have a chance to make that dream a reality.
" In the back of your mind, you understand that this man is an "other", regardless of his origins."
I understand nothing of the sort. You are, of course, free to shout your own racism and bile and hatred of others to the heavens, but I decline to share in it. I'd happily share a meal and a pleasant conversation with your Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, and just as happily spit directly in the face of anybody who interrupted us spouting the things you're saying.
Those of us who have actually cracked a history book in our lives well understand how toxic and corrosive the substances you trade in are. How deeply they poison the minds of those groups that imbibe them. Looking at your movement from the outside, it is impossible not to see just how badly this has warped its view of reality, how utterly off the rails it is. The only question that remains is how many other people y'all will take with you when you go the way that every other of cluster ethnonationalist degenerates has before you.
Look, I'm not the one calling the shots here. I have no stake in this other than entertainment. But you also have to realize that the "ethnonationalist degenerates" you speak of have been in power for almost all of human history, in almost every nation on Earth. Humanity has always been like this, and will always be like this. The last century has been an aberration spurred by unnatural growth, but it will not last. The world is returning to the way it was... and none of us can stop that.
Are you thinking of a division of California that (1) isn't "absurd" and (2) makes geographic sense? The rural north would be happy to break away, but I don't think that would meaningfully affect the population of California. You could try to play up the division between "Southern California" (LA) and "Northern California" (San Francisco), but they don't really have political differences.
I understand the inland is politically different from the coast, but I don't know how non-absurd people would find that kind of a division.
Break it apart algorithmically into four maximally compact chunks each with one quarter of the population. They'll probably be wacky shapes and Los Angeles will probably be split between two states but that's fine, lots of other metro areas are split across multiple states too.
If by "Los Angeles" you mean Los Angeles *county*, then yes, that's actually pretty reasonable. LA County is a giant kludge.
But I'd expect that in SoCal the result would be a coastal Blue State that gets maybe 70% of LA County's land area but 95% of its population (and a whole lot of coast beyond that), and an inland Red State that includes the northern fringes of Los Angeles (plus bigger chunks of e.g. Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and almost everything from there to the NV/AZ border).
The reality here is that there is exactly zero constituency in the US for bringing in *more* Americans. America is supposed to be an exclusive club that only the most deserving can join. MAGA is convinced that they aren't making as much money as their parents did at the same jobs because immigrants came in and offered to do the work for less. If anything, Americans want their country to become smaller, not larger (provided their part keeps all the wealth).
...That would be solved before they are fully incorporated as a state.
Besides, the US isn't a democracy, it's a republic. Even current Americans aren't meaningfully represented, so no reason why we couldn't make sure the same was true for future states.
The simplest reason why they'd have to make it multiple states would be that it would be hella stupid looking to have Alaska, a humongous Canadian state, and then 48 comparatively tiny states below it.
Great idea, and one I'd be fine spending significant tax dollars to achieve.
The question isn't who's willing to join, but who's willing to integrate. Anglo-countries like Canada, and countries with small populations (Greenland) would be much easier than say, Mexico. If the country doesn't maintain some sense of national identity through its expansion, then I'd be afraid we were setting ourselves up for Civil War 2.0, where the interests of different people's diverged so much, that either winning politician would be unacceptable to the other side (Trump and Biden are almost laughably similar when it comes to policy. The practical differences are minor.)
The only way to compete against China long-term is our own 1B+ population Imperial sphere. Open borders are likely not the way to do that - that just gets you India in North America - rich city centers surrounded by endless slums. Unlikely this how you actually compete.
The best move is to integrate Anglosphere, the EU, Japan, SK, Taiwan, and maybe Mexico / Cuba / Singapore into essentially an "American Union" - think EU but even more Federal. EU if it was *only* the common market and Schengen area.
Break off Russia from the Chinese bloc - maybe even let them join ours (so long as they allow Pride parades for Moscow's EHC) and its checkmate.
In other word - why break off Greenland from Denmark? Wouldn't you want Denmark too?
This is a fantastic question because it nails a certain viewpoint that I see expressed often, but not explicitly. Humans as useless resource drains? For what? Where would the resources go otherwise? What resources are you even talking about?
This assumes a world where there's some small cabal that controls the AI, and for some reason decides to just kill everyone (because they need all this grain and land for themselves...why?), or the AI goes paperclippy and turns the whole observable universe into computronium. It's not obvious to me that either scenario is particularly coherent. Especially because, if you ARE in the AI cabal - you want these people around! Kill all the peasants, and your relative status drops like a stone - if anything, they'd want to *maximize* the peasant population (again...humans are fairly cheap) so as to create a slave class to lord over. You could argue they'd use humanoid robot slaves, but we're not wired that way - we prefer the real deal.
It doesn't assume a small cabal that controls the AI--AIs could be in control by themselves. Presumably, they'd have no interest in social status, so humans would have no value in that regard.
And expressing puzzlement at what AIs would use their resources for and what their economy would be based on is just like a Homo erectus not understanding why Homo sapiens aren't content to have an economy that is solely about trading food. Homo erectus couldn't imagine shiny rock jewelry, clothes, or ceramic pots, nor understand how they could have value and even lead to trade relationships based solely on their exchange (no food involved). And yet, an economy created by more advanced life forms (Homo sapiens) arose anyway.
Fair point. I doubt AI will ever become sovereign, but lots of smart people disagree with me. In any case, if AI attains sovereignty there's no sense having this conversation about Greenland at all lol.
Feasibility. A plan involving integrating the entire EU into a North American bloc is far more difficult, time consuming, and unlikely, then one involving the integration of 50,000 Greenlanders. One involves synergizing national interests and cultural norms that currently are extremely different on some key issues, with the comparable populations to actually force compromise, the other involves some intelligent and practical diplomacy, with relatively easy integration. 0.1% of US GDP could give every Greenlander 20x their yearly income, and even minor immigration for mining, vacations, etc. would be enough to bring them into the a
Think Alaska purchase vs. Polish Lithuania Commonwealth. One has a clear path to success, the other is a grand imperial project that risks serious internal division.
I'm not saying we shouldn't buy Greenland, just that it's thinking too small.
The EU would be good, but may make more sense as a separate bloc. The Anglosphere and American East Asia (Japan, SK, Taiwan) is where you'd want to start regardless.
The same reason we wanted Alaska, which is now so profitable there are no state income taxes and the government issues a dividend to its citizens just for being there.
Purchasing Alaska for almost nothing was extremely controversial a few hundred years ago, but now it's proven to be one of the highest ROI land purchases in human history, besides perhaps the Louisiana purchase.
Greenland is #1 not necessarily for its importance, but for its feasibility. Denmark has acknowledged the Greenland right to vote for independence, which already has support among much of the Greenlandish population. A simple agreement for a $1 Million direct cash transfer from the US to every person in Greenland if they vote for independence could be arranged (Only $55 Billion Dollars!) plus another million for acceptance of territory status after independence would be achievable.
If this isn't politically practical with Denmark (who cares about their opinion anyways) due to accusations of foreign interference with the Greenland independence referendum (true), then maybe something more subtle can be done, like a pending US investment totaling billions, but it's being "held up" by Denmark for arbitrary reasons.
Adopt the metric system, fix the healthcare system at least to the point that it's not the number one cause of bankruptcy and (distant third) do something about the bizarre electoral college system and I'm sure myself and my countrymen would dive right in.
Where are you getting that from? I've seen multiple sources that say that it is, and even more sources that cite a 40% figure. So even if it's not a majority all on its own, then it's a plurality.
Canadian here: there are a lot of pros, but the healthcare and guns are just such massive, massive cons that they might outweigh everything else. There could probably be a way to have the provinces retain healthcare but the issue would become one of strong negative selection (i.e. how to prevent a flood of Americans who need healthcare from going to Canada), which could probably be solved with a sort of regional identity scheme.
Canadian here: there are a lot of pros, but the healthcare and guns are just such massive, massive cons that they might outweigh everything else. There could probably be a way to have the provinces retain healthcare but the issue would become one of strong negative selection (i.e. how to prevent a flood of Americans who need healthcare from going to Canada), which could probably be solved with a sort of regional identity scheme.
As someone living in a country that has better institutions than the US - made possible by an overall political zeitgeist that is at least somewhat accepting of the possibility that government need not be utterly dysfunctional and can in fact be a force for making life better and not worse - I wouldn't want to become a US state or in any other way tie our politics any closer to those of the US than they already are.
That said, I've always been an advocate of open borders. I think the Schengen area is a wonderful thing; enlarging that and/or having the US start its own equivalent would both be good IMO. All the same reasons that make free markets the best way we know of to drive decisions about all sorts of other aspects of life also remain true for political choices, government policies and legislation; but those markets are only free to the extent that people can move between providers of those things.
I would definitely vote to become a US state. It would guarantee faster growing economy, more option to move to other US states etc. More security guarantees, more democracy. What are good reasons to vote against?
As an American, I do like my country, but, if I was you, I'd be very worried about numerous disruptive, violent elements encouraged by the American left expanding to the Canadian territory. Think the likes of BLM burning down downtowns anytime a policeman shoots a violent criminal who happens to be black, or all the gangs and potential terrorists allowed into the US through the open southern border in the past 4 years. I'm sure that the people who engineered all this aren't anywhere done.
EDIT: Oops, I assumed you were Canadian. I'm not sure how it would work with a country not adjacent to the US, but I'd still be worried.
Nationalistic people tend to overestimate their own countries. My view is simply economic, if the US has better economy then it makes sense to join it.
I am in the UK now. Its economy is lagging and it would be much better to join the US, at least in some status, like the EU, to improve the economy. Of course, having no shared border would make it impractical. I wonder if Brexit was because the EU was lagging economically and British people lost faith in it.
As for gangs, I guess the UK has its own share. The fully open borders with the US states would make no difference.
I'm sure you realize that the fact that we voted for them to be dealt with by far doesn't mean they are done. The organizers didn't exactly throw in the towel and offer an olive branch, and neither did they move to Canada or Europe.
No, I'm quite sure there's going to be more. There will be much more pushback this time, but it's a good question how well that would work.
As an Australian: aw, thanks! In various ways we are already kind of like a distant American state - I agree with your line about “people with fortunes who depend on US elections getting representation.”
Would I vote to join America? I realise this is kind of a non-answer but it depends on implementation. Things I would love: lower taxes, access to American companies and the American enterprising spirit, full diplomatic support against the gradual encroachment of China. Things I would not love: having to work in broken American health care system with its bizarre way of tying health insurance to employment. Second Amendment might be an issue too.
Not just from your comment, but it's surprising to me how strong the negative reaction is to the 2nd Amendment / guns. The healthcare system I expected as a sticking point but not the guns specifically.
> full diplomatic support against the gradual encroachment of China.
After the Five Eyes countries (and Mexico, I think it should be in the first tranche) we should prioritize convincing as much of Micronesia as possible to join and convert US territories in the area to states; Japan (we wrote their Constitution, should be easy enough) and South Korea would also be fast followers.
Depending on how quickly we're ready to start integrating larger, lower income nations the Philippines could be next. Overall a hefty counterweight to China.
Take note, Obama: that's how you do a pivot to the Pacific.
Another Australian here. I think a lot of Australians see the violence generated by, well, your culture (this is a ridiculous over-simplification of course) and blame it on easy availablity of the tools used to express it. Of course the Australian experience with gun control (very successful at preventing mass shootings since the Port Arthur shootings that prompted it) pushes us to think that way, but I think we discount that you just have a way more violent culture and it's not guns or movies or video games that drive the violence.
Wasting Australia still way less violent before said mass shootings? I think every statistical analysis I’ve seen done - including a meta-analysis by the Brookings Institure - has found that most of the differential between the US and other 1st world countries probably isn’t attributable to guns.
Australia was definitely less violent than the USA before those shootings, and I'm certainly not saying that gun control is the cause of that - I'm saying the opposite. But I think it's also true that gun control in Australia has likely reduced the already lower incidence of mass shootings, especially that category of shooting that isn't simply a gang incident, murder/suicide or suicide-by-cop but is a genuine attempt to kill a lot of unrelated strangers.
Lets suppose I'm a middle aged white male, and I have no friends. It's been like this for years, and I'm not asking for the standard list of how-to-make-friends.
I'm asking what are my prospects of a happy life without friends.
I'm asking if people have good strategies for having a good but friendless life.
Relate to people on another basis besides friendship. You can have colleagues, co-religionists, co-hobbyists etc etc. I don't have any one that I'm friends with just for pleasure, and I'm extremely satisfied with my social life. The trick is to have something important that you care about above and beyond pleasure, that will provide you with the terms for your non-friend relationships.
There is so much individual variation on the need for friends and other forms of social relationships, that there is no generic advice that would make any sense. It's all about figuring out what you need, and how to get it.
Especially the activities with contact to people, just without ever trying to befriending them are good things.
You get the benefit of, let's call it, species-appropriate conduct, without putting any skin in the game. No one can force you to become their friend :)
But if you have no friends *and* don't do anything, I suspect you go mad.
I know someone now who has an 8 month oldNorwegian Laphund (I may not have the name quite right).. They herd reindeer, and Christmas front yard displays featuring plastic reindeer blew out her fuses. She's very smart and quick, and he's thinking of training her for dog agility contests. Those look like great fun to me l for both dog and owner. At end of course dogs jump onto owner's arms grinning.
> I know someone now who has an 8 month oldNorwegian Laphund (I may not have the name quite right).. They herd reindeer, and Christmas front yard displays featuring plastic reindeer blew out her fuses.
Ha! Now *that's* living! :-)
I often think that dogs represent an under-appreciated standard that we should aspire towards, because they represent a lot of what's best about us - loyalty, empathy, a natural affinity for cooperation, the desire to play, the desire to excel and do a job well, and of course the abiding and unconditional love that characterizes their relationship to you and the rest of their "pack members."
You're not the first or the last or the only to have lived wanted to do this. Read about hermits and other people who have lived very solitary lives. Some seem to have made a go of it, becoming engrossed in activities that were important to them. Anyhow, here are some suggestions for strategies.
THINGS THAT INVOLVE PEOPLE, BUT DO NOT REQUIRE YOU TO MAKE FRIENDS
Find volunteer or paid opportunities to help people without getting to know them.
There are probably some where you can even get info about how the people are benefitting.
Sports, for ex. Ultimate Frisbee. Serious body building in a gym.
Classes.
Religious or semi-religious (eg Buddhism) services, training and retreats
Online forums like this one
AA and similar
Have a blog
THINGS WITHOUT PEOPLE
Have pets. Or take it beyond having pets and breed and/or train some kind of animal.
Pursue your interests via study and practice.
Make things. Learn to make things that are hard to make. Learn to sail or dogsled. Build a cabin or a windmill or a boat. Paint watercolors. Make apps and games for computer and phones.
And here are some books about hermits, also from GPT
The Hermit in the Garden: From Imperial Rome to Ornamental Gnome
By Gordon Campbell, this book explores the history of hermits from ancient Rome to modern times, delving into the lives of famous hermits like St. Anthony of Egypt and St. Jerome.
MEDIEVAL CHRONICLES
A Book of Silence
In this 2008 publication, Sara Maitland reflects on her own pursuit of solitude and silence, exploring the lives of people today who occupy solitary states, such as solo sailors and polar explorers.
WELLCOME COLLECTION
The World of Medieval Monasticism: Its History and Forms of Life
By Gert Melville, this book provides a comprehensive overview of medieval monasticism, including the role of hermits in the wider monastic world.
MEDIEVAL CHRONICLES
The English Hermit: A Monastic Type
By Hugh F. M. Richmond, this book focuses on the history of hermits in England, exploring the reasons why people became hermits and the different types of hermitages.
MEDIEVAL CHRONICLES
The Substance of Silence: A Reading List About Hermits
This compilation offers various perspectives on the lives of hermits and the allure of solitude throughout history.
So I asked GPT to give the names of some hermits who seemed to adapt well to living that way, and where someone could learn more about them, and here is the list it gave me:
*Historical and Religious Hermits*
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
Famous for his two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond, chronicled in Walden.
Where to Read: Thoreau’s Walden is an essential book. Secondary sources, such as Robert Richardson’s biography Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind, also provide insights.
St. Anthony the Great (c. 251–356)
An early Christian monk considered the father of monasticism. He lived in the Egyptian desert, practicing extreme solitude and asceticism.
Where to Read: Athanasius’s Life of Antony is the main source of information about him.
Figures like Julian of Norwich (1343–c. 1416), an anchoress, wrote Revelations of Divine Love, reflecting deep spiritual contentment.
Where to Read: Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love and works on Christian mysticism.
Christopher Knight ("The North Pond Hermit") (b. 1965)
Lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, stealing supplies to survive. He described being content with solitude.
Where to Read: Michael Finkel’s The Stranger in the Woods explores his life and mindset.
Richard Proenneke (1916–2003)
Built a cabin in Alaska and lived there alone for nearly 30 years. His journals were compiled into the book One Man's Wilderness.
Where to Read: One Man’s Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey by Sam Keith, based on Proenneke’s journals.
Emma "Grandma" Gatewood (1887–1973)
Though not a complete hermit, she often hiked alone, including being the first woman to solo hike the Appalachian Trail. Her journeys reflect a deep contentment with solitude.
Where to Read: Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
While not a strict hermit, he valued solitude as a source of creative and spiritual renewal.
Where to Read: His essays, particularly Self-Reliance and Nature.
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
Lived much of her life in seclusion, rarely leaving her family home. Her poetry reflects her contented inward life.
Where to Read: Collections of Dickinson’s poems and biographies like Lives Like Loaded Guns by Lyndall Gordon.
Ryokan Taigu (1758–1831)
A Zen Buddhist monk and poet who lived in a hut in the mountains of Japan. He was deeply content with his simple life.
Where to Read: Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf: Zen Poems of Ryokan offers a collection of his poetry.
Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694)
The famed Japanese haiku poet spent much of his life wandering and living simply. His works reflect solitude and harmony with nature.
Where to Read: The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches.
J.D. Salinger (1919–2010)
Though a real person, Salinger adopted a hermit-like lifestyle, avoiding public life after publishing The Catcher in the Rye.
Where to Read: Biographies like Kenneth Slawenski’s J.D. Salinger: A Life explore his secluded life.
Grizzly Adams (John Adams, 1812–1860)
A mountain man who lived in isolation in the Sierra Nevada, surrounded by nature and animals.
Where to Read: Historical accounts and stories inspired by his life, such as The Life and Adventures of James Capen Adams by Theodore Hittell.
GPT didn't bring up Grigory Perlman?? Probably the world's most prominent living hermit?
People kept braving the wilds of Sweden to knock on his door, trying to award him the Nobel-equivalent in mathematics (Fields medal) and give him $1M in prizes, and he kept turning them away and asking to be left alone.
Speaking from personal experience, you're pretty much screwed. I suggest finding some friends as soon as possible if you have means to do so. Only desolation and madness await the isolate.
I think that if someone asks a question here we should assume they are responsible adults, and if we have the information they are asking for we should give it to them. If they sound out of touch with reality or like they are falling apart or they ask for help committing a crime or committing suicide then no, we should not answer their question. But OP here sounds calm and sane and makes clear what he wants to know, and that he is not interested in being nudged to make friends or advised on how to do it.
What are you even talking about? I'm just speaking from first-hand experience that none of those impersonal interactions and activities are going to fill the gaping void in your heart. If he was perfectly happy being alone, he would not be asking this question.
...It's worth making the effort to connect with people. That's all I'm trying to say.
Yes, well, the same can be said of being overweight, smoking, being a couch potato, daily drinking even in moderate amounts, and a lot of other things.
Asking reasonable questions and getting a rash of shit back isn't very good for people either.
It's about as bad as smoking, which is... not great. And worse than all of the other things you mentioned. And of course, that's not even including the risk of depression and suicide.
Yea, OK, but if somebody on here asks which common US cigarette brand tastes most like Gauloises, do you think they should get an antismoking lecture instead of an answer? Or how about if they ask for info about rock climbing, or helicopter skiing, or big wave surfing, all of which are pretty risky? In all these cases the chance that the person asking has not already been told about the risks is very low. What's the point of giving the risk lecture again? And are we really in a position to be sure that in their case the activity is not worth the risk?
Congratulations to Donald on Congress’s certification of his electoral victory. Opinions about the events surrounding Joe’s certification four years ago vary widely—some view them as really damaging, others see them as minor or overblown. How do you see today’s proceedings compared to those four years ago?
I feel like America had some real serious political debates about lots of topics all at once and is functioning reasonably well?
I predict a lot less political violence, a lot less wokeness, a lot less unpopular foreign wars, a lot less illegal immigration, a lot less reliance on China, a real fight on policy on the right on a bunch of topics instead of just being the party of 'no', a lot less conspiracy theorism, and most importantly less legislation by administrative state expanding its powers. Just a huge shift towards the median voter in a way that makes it feel like we're living in a more 'responsive democracy'.
Just in general I think our media and cultural organs are doing a remarkably good job of navigating diversity of interests, opinions, and factual filters, and it could be so much worse.
If AI doesn't end everything early, I'm cautiously optimistic about the next four years.
Ended up voting for Kamala because the attempted coup was a read line for me, glad she lost though, mostly because I think Trump will 'strongman' Iran/Russia into backing down, and will either give up Taiwan bloodlessly, or make it clear 'not on my watch' there as well.
Also culturally, it feels like the gaslighting on all sides is less threatening? Partisans lie, we can tell when they do, and we don't need to be terrified that there isn't a bunch of normal americans who can see through it all and make their voices heard. We can just roll our eyes and live our lives, at everyone.
Well, Matt Yglesias had an interesting take on that today in an un-paywalled post.
“The scariest thing about contemporary American politics is that on January 7, 2021, it was widely acknowledged among American conservatives that Donald Trump’s behavior on January 6th was completely unacceptable.
No one, at the time, was emotionally or intellectually invested in debating whether it was “really” a coup or whether a political movement that did something like that was “really” fascist. Mitch McConnell said Trump was morally responsible for the crimes committed. Steve Schwarzman called it “appalling and an affront to the democratic values we hold dear as Americans.” Kevin Williamson of National Review rightly called the riot at the Capitol “just the tip of a very dangerous spear.”
I’m not surprised or even particularly upset that so many people who acknowledged the gravity of the offense at the time ended up voting for and supporting Trump.
Electoral politics in a two-party system is hard. So much is at stake at the ballot box — tax policy, abortion rights, immigration, and a million other things, all of which are incredibly important. I deeply respect and admire the decision made by Liz Cheney and a handful of others to take a fully principled stand on the January 6 question, but I also respect (or at least understand) the decision of those who’ve decided they care more about other things than about Trump’s low character and basic unfitness for office. But what disturbs me is the extent to which the entire conservative movement has retconned not just the events of four years ago, but their own reactions to those events, such that these days, to be disturbed by them is considered some form of lib hysteria.
Let’s see how the inaugural address goes in a couple weeks. My fear is that all will be well as long we all can now accept that 2 + 2 actually equals 5.
The casual heuristic of "If this was a planned subterfuge, is this how it would reasonably be done?" tells me that this was almost certainly not a coup. A bunch of angry protestors, mostly unarmed, breaking into the capitol to what? Hang Mike Pence so he can't officiate the election? That's a ridiculous plan if it was one.
Don't they know that there are a bunch of tunnels Congress can escape through? Isn't being heavily armed a prerequisite for taking over a nation (especially one as powerful as the United States with a long democratic tradition)?
Sure, Trump didn't especially do anything about it at the time, and he wasn't exactly condemning their actions at the time either, but there's a difference between that and planning a coup as far as most people are concerned. Ordering the military to disperse a protest, that's protesting in favor of you, even if it got violent, isn't exactly what most people would do in that situation.
It was definitely a protest that got out of hand, which demonstrates the idiocy of many people supporting Trump, and was definitely illegal, but calling it a coup that Trump planned is a huge departure from reality as I see it.
The thing to remember is that the protestors believed that the election had already been stolen (ignore for the moment whether that is a defensible belief or not). Given that they sincerely believed that, their actions make more sense (not perfect sense, since even had they been right they weren't going to "stop the steal" that way).
Trump was just an opportunist. But his actions that day, and afterward reveal something about him: he couldn't care less about legal or democratic processes. I think that if he could overthrow the government with an illegal coup, he absolutely would, but he himself isn't smart enough to figure out how.
This. During his presidency, Trump was mostly free if base entertainment for the world and the US (SCOTUS aside, but that would have gone similarly under a non-clown republican president).
Oh no, he fired another secretary, and there are still people applying for the job.
Oh no, he did a photo-op with Kim.
Oh no, you would not believe what outrageous thing he tweeted today.
Oh no, he is having legal drama..
As far as US presidents go, his track record was not disastrous. Sure, he put some migrants in cages, but my baseline for US presidents is nuking Nagasaki, getting involved in Vietnam, turning torture into official US policy, sponsoring coups to overthow democracies in Latin America or lying to the feds about not having gotten a blowjob (I kid). Basically, he could have moonlighted as a serial killer without registering on my outrange-o-meter when it is calibrated for presidencies.
He had this one Iranian general killed in an airstrike, but that did not seem like a particularly irreplaceable loss for humanity either. And for COVID, it would have been nice to have some adult in the room, but the established non-partisan experts were rather terrible too. (Remember the lies about masks being ineffective?)
But once he was voted out his always strained relationship with the truth went downhill to levels seen on his 2016 campaign trail, where he had denied Obama being born in the US. "Stop the steal." This was a man who would happily burn the commons for whatever slim chance to not face the fact that he had been voted out. I am convinced that if the insurgents he had incited over months (in the vague hope that they would somehow change the outcome) had miraculously managed to overthrow the government, he would have happily resided in the white house while the corpse of his former vice president was rotting on some flagpole nearby.
That's fair, but also a very different claim than "January 6th was a coup attempt by Trump" as a lot of people seem to take at face value. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of politicians wouldn't take powers and term lengths outside what is constitutionally allowed given the opportunity, but it's sort of our bad that we are electing people who think like that. Virtue isn't something we seem to value much in politicians anymore (did anyone ever?).
An abnormal election process, with abnormal (to public perception) voting behavior could reasonably make a lot of people, who were acting in good faith, believe that election fraud won Biden the election. Trump looked like he was going to win around 11:00 PM, and it was only after the early morning, when large numbers of mail-in ballots were counted that overwhelmingly voted for Biden, did Biden win. To the uninformed voter, that could plausibly look like they "found" a few hundred thousand votes for Biden.
Not saying that there was fraud, as there was certainly not, or if there was it wasn't enough to make any difference, just that it's not unreasonable for the average person to have believed there was fraud given how things looked, and how the election was run significantly differently from normal due to Covid.
There was attempted fraud--the slates of false electors that Trump and his people attempted to insert into the process. Most elected officials do not go that far. That's not on the voters, that's on him.
>>I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of politicians wouldn't take powers and term lengths outside what is constitutionally allowed given the opportunity, but it's sort of our bad that we are electing people who think like that. Virtue isn't something we seem to value much in politicians anymore (did anyone ever?).
If you believe that lots of politicians would take powers and term lengths outside of what is constitutionally allowed given the opportunity, though, that is grounds for a *stronger* belief that Trump should be punished instead of being reelected. If the prospect of punishment is the only thing holding otherwise corrupt officials from engaging in corrupt behavior, prominently letting one off the hook and rewarding him with more power only weakens the incentives and invites more corruption.
If we accept “sure, Tom may have tried to rob the bank, but honestly wouldn’t we *all* rob a bank if we thought we could get away with it” as a legitimate defense of Tom's behavior, the only thing we’ll succeed in doing is inviting more bank robbers to try their hand later.
> It was definitely a protest that got out of hand
That’s what a failed coup looks like.
Do you remember that he wanted to go to the capital and speak to those people but the Secret Service would not let him? Do you think he really wanted to go there to calm them down? I seriously doubt it.
Remember how he protested that there were metal detectors there, saying that the people didn’t wanna shoot him?
We must have different expectations as to what a deliberate coup looks like. I don't consider all government overthrows, like many during the Arab Spring, as coups. Bottom-up protests, usually the result of forces far outside any individual's control, that overthrow a government happen often enough, but they usually aren't the result of leaders overthrowing the government.
A coup is typically when a faction within the government quickly arrests, kills, or otherwise incapacitates a countries leader's and assumes control. That requires a plan of specifically who you're going after, when you're taking control, and typically coordinated military power to ensure you get what you want quickly. It also helps if it's unexpected, so before most people know there's even a coup, the old rulers have been replaced, making it useless to try and side with them.
You don't perform a coup by showing up at the least minute, make a speech to a riot and saying "Let's overthrow the government!" to a mostly unarmed crowed and waltz right in. At least not one with any chance of success.
Ok. A coup is a sudden, violent overthrow of a government. According to the dictionary, I looked up.
What do you call it when a group of people who are inside a government try to come up with a way to hold onto power that might be legal but it’s pretty much on the edge? I am perfectly happy to settle on a different word.
A Palace intrigue…?
If everything goes just right, it might work. If you can get an alternate slate of electors into the Congress and have a Congressman (or two) object to the official slate of electors and get the vice president to choose the alternates? (Especially when the alternate slates were being prepared in great secrecy and quite surreptitiously and, according to more than one state, not in keeping with their laws or intentions? e.g. Arizona, Georgia Wisconsin.
And IF, at the same time, you can get a large group of people to make a lot of noise and riot a little bit AND you do pull off your palace intrigue, all these people will be thrilled! And then you’re on your way aren’t you? An arguable legal issue that will take weeks to sort out in the normal scheme of things, and lots of other people very happy with the outcome around the country and the Proud Boys (and others) “standing by” in Washington (as we know); now what do you call it? A lucky coincidence?
I am glad that it did not work out, and I am glad that the American people have gotten the president they wanted after all. I have no doubt that legal boundaries will be challenged hard in the coming years and it will be interesting to see what holds and what doesn’t. I guess what I’m saying is I am not a knee-jerk liberal, but I know what I see and I don’t like to have illusions about it based on my personal preferences.
Someone here has pointed out that the vice president has no power to reject electoral votes and that’s probably true, but to this group of people the legal framework of that was apparently vague and somewhat elastic (if you pulled hard enough on it) and maybe Trump could get Mike Pence to do that. He couldn’t. We all know how Trump feels about Mike Pence these days, but it is interesting that when JD Vance was asked if he would’ve done it he replied absolutely yes.
I guess the appropriate term would be self-coup, as Trump was still in charge at the time.
I can buy that there was a lot of intruiging going on behind the scenes, and that Trump was looking to bend things until they broke and he remained in power. The capital riot itself though, seems to be a natural result of the fishy smell the 2020 election had (again, not saying it was rigged as I don't believe that, just that it was abnormal and an average uninformed person could reasonably conclude it was rigged with the information they had). Whether Trump was planning a coup or not, and whether 1/6 was convenient for that attempt seems like a separate thing to me than 1/6 being a coup attempt itself.
My beef is that I see a lot of people equivocating 1/6 as a coup attempt, as if Trump, or his goons organized a bunch of supporters to attempt to storm the capitol and literally execute Mike Pence. People who are appalled at Trump trying to overthrow democracy, then angrily gesturing to 1/6 as evidence of that, which just doesn't fit for me. I'm sure there are people presenting a more nuanced approach that actually looks at everything he did with the electors and calling up Georgia and whatnot, but then the accusations of a coup attempt turn into accusations of Trump trying to figure out how to stay in power, which seems qualitatively different, or at least not as exciting.
It would be equivalent of calling the BLM riots/protest an attempted communist takeover of our cities (remember CHOP?). Yes, perhaps if there was a communist plot to takeover a bunch of cities the BLM protests could theoretically help serve that purpose, but the protests themselves were not an attempt to overthrow the government.
I don't think so. Can you name any other failed coups that ended like this? Or successful coups that began like this? The vast majority of coups are where the military arrests the president and takes over media organizations, right?
The ones that fail are always harder to find, aren’t they? The only one off the top of my head that is in the same ballpark is the beer Hall Putch (sp?)
Now that you mention it, Russia tried a coup in the Ukraine recently and failed. It’s turned into a bit of a grind, hasn’t it? Thank God we are Americans.
As an aside, I believe that the United States will experience a full on military coup eventually. I don’t think there’s any way around it.
The Beer Hall Putsch is pretty universally recognized as a "failed coup attempt," but did not involve the military seizing the president.
Hitler basically jumped up on a table, fired a gunshot for everybody's attention, and declared that the current government was liquidated, then marched to the capital and hoped for the best.
That said, I think WaitForMe really has it right. Too much focus is on the riot on Jan 6 itself, rather than the attempt at falsifying election results in the months leading up to it.
To be fair, that coup was also a display of comical levels of magical thinking. For one thing, it happened in Munich. The capital of the Weimar Republic was (as not indicated by the name) Berlin, which is quite a bit away. But even the place which Hitler and his goons were marching to was silly: the Feldherrenhalle is not the seat of the regional government.
For a non-stupid version of the Hitler-Putsch, look at the Kapp-Putsch. There the perpetrators did at least get the city right, had the military on their side and managed to arrest some republic officials.
Of course, the morale of the story is that if someone tries to attempt a coup or incite an insurgency in a profoundly silly way which is unlikely to work, it is not safe to lean back and call them "harmless because stupid". Rather, one should update on them being unscrupulous in attempting to size power and not count on them remaining as stupid in the future.
The real coup was trying to have Mike Pence not certify the election and throw it to the house, along with the scheming to create alternate slates of electors to vote for Trump. January 6th was, in most senses, a riot, rather than a coup. But Trump very badly wanted Pence to overturn the results and have the house instate him. That is a coup attempt, if bungled and probably unrealistic even if Pence did vote against certifying the election.
Agreed. I suspect that Trump's intent with the riot was to arrange a (rowdy) protest as a tacit threat of mob violence, in hopes of bullying Pence and House/Senate Republicans into going along with the plan to overturn the result.
Trump's reaction during the three-hour window between when the capitol was breached and when he gave the "we love you, go home" speech seems like he was hoping that the actual mob violence he got would serve the same purpose. His conversation with then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, in which Trump responded to McCarthy telling him to call off the rioters with “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” seems particularly damning.
The difference between a farcical, obviously-not-going-to-succeed, is-it-even-a-coup coup attempt and an actual coup is that one succeeded and one didn't. A lot of coups would probably look pretty silly if, for whatever reason, it just didn't work out.
"entire conservative movement has retconned not just the events of four years ago"
I observed the liberals rewrite the narrative in the days, weeks, then months following January 6th.
While the events were unfolding, it was a news story of a massive crowd walking past security, going where they shouldn't normally be, and some guy sitting in Nancy Pelosi's chair.
A day or so later, it came out that some people, fewer than 10, had died. I was unclear at the time from reports whether any of the security people had died, but some of the rioters had. It seemed like a whole bunch of people dissatisfied with the election verification, tired of being ignored, decided not to be ignored anymore; not a coup, since they didn't have weapons, AFAICS.
Within weeks, the narrative had changed to an attempted coup to keep Trump as President. Then it changed to Trump having orchestrated the events to stay President. Within months it was "the greatest threat to democracy the country had ever faced."
Revisionist history IS happening, and has been happening for some time. 1984 has stealthily arrived.
I would say what you call revisionism by the left post January 6 is the result of more and more information coming out about what was going on behind the scenes on January 6, and the things that had been going on leading up to it. I would call it updating an opinion based on new information.
I can certainly understand thinking that, but I too thought about it at the time as a possibility, and my impression didn't match that. It was four years ago, so I don't remember the details, but I don't remember anything I expected that would match that, like "We don't yet know how many were injured, but it is expected to be only a few individuals" followed later by "The casualty count now exceeds 10, and may be higher as we gain more details" with more detailed information as time went on.
Instead, I found the character of what happened being reported and updated. I remember hearing nothing of Trump's involvement early on, but Trump was involved months later.
I see two things going on there; it took a while to dig down and to get people to talk and to find a paper trail. The second thing I see going on is probably an institutional bias to just let the whole thing go if Donald Trump was never going to be seen on the public stage again. Better to let bygones be bygones under those circumstances. I know the received wisdom among certain people is that (the deep state, the Democrats, etc.) decided to make something up and go after him the moment he decided to run again. I don’t really believe that. There is enough evidence to support the idea that this stuff was indeed going on. One could certainly claim, in that sense (just letting it go as long as he rode off into the sunset), the prosecution was political. But the prosecution was not a fiction. It’s not a bunch of Trump hating prosecutors going after him for no reason whatsoever.
I can’t help feeling that he created the Mar-a-Lago situation on purpose. He could have raised his claims of rightful possession from the moment the national archive first contacted him about those papers, but he did not. He engaged in various shady practices to hide the papers, and forced the showdown. Then, when he had a national audience, he claimed that he owned the papers and was being harassed. He likes to test boundaries, and he has keen political instincts, which is a double-edged sword if you know what I mean.
"While the events were unfolding, it was a news story of a massive crowd walking past security, going where they shouldn't normally be, and some guy sitting in Nancy Pelosi's chair." Nice try at gaslighting.
I think you should look a little more deeply into the trials of some of the major conspirators to see how much Information came to light post January 6 about the events leading up to it and what was going on that day. There were a ton of weapons in Washington DC that day in hotel rooms waiting for the moment. There were extensive text threads between some of those people and people close to Trump (Roger Stone, for instance) I really think you’re whistling past the graveyard here.
Not again. I looked at the trials before, when things were more current, and "selection bias" seemed to be the strategy. I suspect that is also currently the case.
I had looked for evidence that Trump was behind it all, which is what the Democrats really wanted to get out of it, and found nothing convincing.
January 6th should NOT have happened, but it gets support from Republicans because of the way Democrats have tried to use it. Whenever "January 6th" is used as a rallying cry against Republicans, or Trump specifically, it's "here we go again". We need to put the event past us, as the nothing burger with some substance but nothing worth dividing the country over it should be. Not very palatable, so why keep eating it?
>>January 6th should NOT have happened, but it gets support from Republicans because of the way Democrats have tried to use it.
It gets support from Republicans because when confronted with a choice between:
(a) "admit that my tribe's leader attempted election fraud, and that instead of punishing him we rewarded him with more power," and
(b) "think of literally any other semi-plausible explanation in which my tribe did not do a bad - a 'coup' requires the military, and/or certifying election results is inherently political, and/or it was the work of antifa infiltrators, and/or it's possible the election really *was* rigged and even if it wasn't what matters for election legitimacy is that people *believe* the election results and clearly Democrats failed to convince them to do that so this is all their fault, and/or prosecuting Trump somehow was simultaneously a Democrat failure that made them the *real* threat to democracy while also being a Democrat failure because they didn't do it fast enough, and/or etc, etc etc,...
... tribal monkey brain's kneejerk response is to slam the button for option (b) so hard his hand breaks.
"January 6 was bad, but Republicans only support it because Democrats rallied against it the wrong way" is just another subset of category (b). *My* side isn't badwrong, *your* side is badwrong for calling us badwrong so badwrongly.
So you give no weight to the attempt to prepare alternate slates of electors? (Arizona and Georgia are both taking that rather seriously at the moment.) The extended conversations with John Eastman, about how there might be a loophole that could be exploited by Pence? His exhortation to the proud boys to “stand down but standby“? His wish to go to the capital that day and speak in person? Of course it was not a well organized coup. It was an attempt to stretch all the boundaries and pull something off, based on a lie, which is that the election was stolen in the first place. I agree it’s tiresome to go over this and that things are as they are now but there’s no point in making up a story about it. That’s what bothers me. This issue has nothing to do with how I feel about any of his particular policies that; is a separate question.
I agree in some sense. I knew it wasn't directed by Trump, or full of military veterans storming the capital with guns. But also, pictures/videos on that very first day or perhaps the day after included the shooting of Ashley Babbit as the rioters tried to break through a clearly barred door with capital police telling them to stop, congressmen cowering afraid in the chamber, and people chanting "Hang Mike Pence" before they burst through door, all while disguising their identities and some of them holding improved weapons, though not actual firearms/axes/what have you.
It was clearly a riot to me and not an organized coup, but also not a "crowd walking past security" and "going where they shouldn't be". There was certainly an overt sense of violence about the whole thing.
This doesn't fit my recollections. Over at DSL we were arguing over the "coup" description the day it happened, so evidently the idea was already out there. (I was one of the people ridiculing it, and have not changed my mind since.)
It was a sufficiently incompetent attempt at a government takeover that it might as well have been planned by a child. But the obvious intent was to take over the government.
And the planning was more thorough and more credible than the plan for the Beer Hall Putsch, which is broadly regarded as having been a (pathetically incompetent) coup attempt.
This also was my impression on the day of 1/6/21, as refreshed by reading my diary entry for the day. A pathetically incompetent coup/insurrection attempt, but absolutely not any sort of "peaceful protest". There's definitely an attempt at rewriting history here, but it's mostly on the Republican side.
I certainly agree it wasn't a peaceful protest. I remember thinking something like, "I understand these people think they'll get their voices heard now, but this won't end well."
I was surprised how few people got hurt or killed with the initial reports. The number seemed to keep rising not as more information came to light, but as the implications were analyzed as "how can this damage Trump?"
Oh, thanks for the tip on McCabe and Mrs Miller. We did a three night Altman binge: that one, Short Cuts and 3 Women. The last 2 were re-viewings but I hadn’t seen M&MM before.
The last scene with the derringer I had seen reproduced in a snippet of Boardwalk Empire with Steve Buscemi as the shooter. I just saw the final few minutes of that waiting for something else. It felt a bit like an homage to Altman.
You are very welcome and I am glad you enjoyed it. It’s one of my favorite movies. Leonard Cohen’s soundtrack is so brilliant and as usual Julie Christie is to die for.
I liked how today went. A lot less batshit than last time. Maybe the losers can keep it together again next certification and make it two straight without trashing our own house. Start a new streak.
Yes, Trump is the party of Jan 6. But the Dems are the party of BLM. To me BLM was exactly the same thing but 10x worse. US politics is terribly broken right now and our only choices are between the lesser of two evils.
The members of the BLM protest movement believed that American police were shooting innocent black men to death in unreasonable circumstances. They thought they were trying to save lives (ignore, for the moment, whether that is a defensible belief or not). Given that they believed that, their actions make more sense (*much* more sense than the Jan 6 protestors, since BLM largely accomplished their goal).
Right, and the January 6 protestors thought that there were problematic voting irregularities in the 2020 election that hadn't been properly investigated. Protesting makes sense in that context as well.
A) That theory was provably wrong at the time. Blacks are killed by police proportionately less than their participation in violent crime would warrant. If anything, a rational analysis of racial crime statistics should make whites angry with blacks, not the other way around. B) EVEN IF it was true, violent riots are never the way forward on difficult political problems. This has been demonstrated by the subsequent 4 years of crime statistics: the black homicide rate increased by 40% in the 4 years after George Floyd's death. They got the opposite of what they thought they wanted. Responding supportively to stupid people's temper tantrums is never good policy.
I will notice though that Trump was personally spreading the lies which if true would have legitimized trying a counter-coup and thus fueled the Jan 6 insurrection, while I don't recall Joe Biden going on record claiming that the cops killed ten innocent black people every day and that the only way to stop them would be to immediately disband all police forces.
Now, clearly the Dems knew which side they were supposed to be on, and I am sure half their congresspeople used the phrase 'epidemic of police violence' or something.
Trump had personally sowed the violence of Jan 6 with his election denial. By contrast, no Dem in 2020 thought: "You know what we really need to oust Trump? Race riots, they make our site look really electable!" Instead, the riots seemed to come out of a mix of genuine anger at a highly publicized police murder, a woke ideology who basically excused any violence perpetrated by Blacks, and a lock-down policy which had pushed a lot of people to their brinks, and the Dems were mostly along for the ride.
Now, if after the Floyd murder, one of the top five democrats had claimed that there was a genocide against Black people happening at the hands of the police, and called on all good citizens to stop the killer cops, then I would say that the Dems were equally guilty of inciting violence as Trump was.
> They got the opposite of what they thought they wanted.
The demand was never that the overall Black homicide rate should be lower. Blacks murdering Blacks is not news, there is no racial injustice in it from the woke viewpoint. I think they likely succeeded in making cops more reluctant to engage black suspects for fear of a PR disaster. It just so happens that most of the time when the cops get into a firefight, they actually are the good guys.
It was never about Black Lives per se, only EA weirdos would sum up all homicide victims. They only Mattered when they were ended by cops, and by that metric, Systemic Racism has decreased. Success!
>Trump had personally sowed the violence of Jan 6 with his election denial.
How did that sow violence any more than democratic leadership validating the perception that America is structurally racist or that police disproportionately kill black people? They're directly parallel in that they're equally dishonest political lies. If anything Trump at least had a case: there were circumstantial reasons to be skeptical of the election results. BLM's argument didn't even have circumstantial evidence.
>Systemic Racism has decreased. Success!
Viewed through a zero-sum political lens that's probably correct: blacks gained political power relative to whites. Viewed through an absolute lens of "BLM is about improving the lives of black people" BLM was a disaster for most black people.
You must be kidding. BLM was a mess, but it didn’t lead to the almost overthrow of the democratic government of the United States of America. Not only that over the last four years BLM has come into some truthful perspective while January 6 has been completely rewritten by a monstrous lie in my opinion; that the election really was stolen and if you don’t believe it, you’re not welcome in the Republican Party anymore.
> but it didn’t lead to the almost overthrow of the democratic government of the United States of America.
And neither did Jan 6. They were exactly the same thing: a bunch of idiots demonstrating on the basis of a premise that's clearly wrong. Except, of course, that BLM lasted 100x as long and did 100x the damage. There is no plausible scenario whereby the Jan 6 protests could have affected the election outcome. To claim otherwise is nothing but politically motivated hysterics.
The J6 protesters were in no way 'clearly wrong'. Whether or not the Democrats committed election fraud and whether that determined the results are unknowable because they blocked all inquiry into the topic.
Trump filed 62 lawsuits in various states. There was a *fuckload* of inquiry into the topic, and basically all of it came back with judges saying "nope, this isn't fraud" or "nope, this isn't a procedural violation." (Most of the lawsuits didn't actually allege fraud, only procedural issues. Probably because once they got an actual lawyer involved they realized they didn't have evidence of fraud).
A lot of the lawsuits were heard by Republican judges, some appointed by Trump himself. I'm not sure what other forms of inquiry you could want here. This was Trump getting his proverbial day in court, and he lost about as decisively as he could.
Agreed, the Jan 6 folks were less provably wrong than BLMers but in my view they're both idiots. Conspiracy theories are rarely falsifiable but you have to be a pretty big moron to take one seriously enough to protest over.
"They" "blocked all inquiry"? Weren't there dozens of court trials that looked into the claims, that didn't find anything substantial (apart from attempts by Trump to influence the counting process)? Didn't even the (Republican) officials in Georgia insist that everything was kosher?
You are either very poorly informed or perhaps engaging in political hysterics. I’m not sure which.
It did not lead to the overthrow of the United States government it led to the *almost* overthrow of the United States government, is what I said. BLM didn’t come close; see Detroit in 1968, Los Angeles after the Rodney King incident, the riot in New York after the caravan of Hasidim accidentally ran over a black child in Crown Heights. That is the lineage of the BLM riots. They have absolutely nothing to do with what happened on January 6. Based on all the available evidence, I think you would really have to be kidding yourself to believe otherwise.
No, simply better informed than you are. Trump challenged the electors. He's entitled to do that. The Democrats have challenged in every election that they've lost since 2000. Nothing any protest did could have legally altered that process. The VP has zero legal discretion in the certification of election results. The role is purely ceremonial and if Pence had refused to perform his role then he would have been removed or impeached. There is no scenario whereby democracy could have been destroyed on Jan 6. I mean just use your head: we're the most powerful country in the world. You don't get to beat the electoral process by getting one guy to say the wrong thing during a ceremony. Come on, the world just doesn't work like that.
The relationship between Jan 6 and BLM is that they were of the same category: a violent political protest by stupid people who believed something objectively false. Of course BLM was much more violent and an even less plausible belief, but that's neither here nor there.
Was the 2020 election stolen? That’s one of the questions on the applications for employment in the new administration. There is only one acceptable answer. The wrong answer is a dealbreaker. Bring on the reality denying toadies.
I know maybe hundreds of currently employed government workers who I am 100% certain believe it wasn't stolen, and will not lose their jobs. Or even have an application like that put in front of them.
What would the Star Trek Mirror Universe Borg look like? I'm dimly aware that non-cannon Star Trek content already exists about this, but I want to do my own thought experiment. Here's what I've got:
1) Mirror-Borg society is hyperindividualistic and prizes that over all.
2) Its members are even more diverse than the Federation.
3) Even though life inside the Mirror-Borg Collective is objectively better than life anywhere else in the galaxy, the Mirror-Borg don't consider themselves superior. If anything, they judge themselves too harshly.
4) Instead of being expansionist, they are insular. Other species keep coming to them willingly, and only with great persistence will the Mirror-Borg talk with them. Everyone wants something from them. They have rejected many offers from other species to annex themselves to the Collective.
5) The Mirror-Borg battle fleet is composed of billions of small, weak ships of very diverse designs.
6) They are dark-skinned.
7) The Mirror-Borg have strong religious beliefs against the mixing of biology and technology. Pacemakers and wearable technology like Meta Glasses are forbidden, and some purists live as nudist primitives since clothes count as technology. Their preoccupation with this separation is similar to how Orthodox Jews have created and observe elaborate Talmudic Law. Maybe it's common for each Mirror-Borg to have a robot servant that he tells what to do and avoids even touching.
8) In spite of their insularity, the Mirror-Borg are known to be extremely warm and talkative people who are afraid to appear rude. If you are of a different species and find yourself on one of their ships, every Mirror-Borg you see will greet you like an old friend, talk with you at length and invite you to their quarters for a meal. However, the Mirror-Borg are also painfully averse to conflict, so if you start behaving in a threatening manner or destroying things on one of their ships, they will avoid you and pretend like you aren't there.
Note that a central conceit of the Trek Mirrorverse is that it results in e.g. identical-except-for-the-insignia spaceships in all the same places, identical-except-for-the-uniform-and-mindset people ditto and fitting into identical heirarchies, and yes the incentives are completely reversed but for mumble something reasons everything still lines up perfectly.
So you can't have "billions of small, weak ships of very diverse designs" because MirrorBorg ships are ginormous cubes, and the MirrorBorg can't be insular because then they wouldn't be sending the ships to the same places.
Really, the MirrorVerse concept was a very silly idea that should have been quietly abandoned right after the One Good Story was extracted from it.
Hmm. Billions of small, weak ships of diverse designs that lash themselves together into cube-shaped fleets, and rather than taking what's on the outside by force, they tend to let off a few ships with representatives at each location they visit to ingratiate themselves in ways that act as cultural seeds? Reverse assimilation, thus?
(I admit to not being especially familiar with mirror-universe episodes of Trek to begin with, but I find the speculation fun.)
In one of the Culture books, Banks mentions the problem of a hegemonizing swarm, which is basically what the Borg are. One standard way to deal with them short of war is to somehow change them into an evangelizing swarm.
So, in the mirror universe, the Borg are basically the same idea--cyborgs linked together in a vast hive mind, sinking their individuality into the collective. But instead of invading, they evangelize and recruit people. As long as their missionaries and recruiting stations are left alone, they're peaceable enough, but members of any biological species that are miserable, desperate, reviled, too sick to survive at their current society's tech level, etc. routinely go join the Borg. Similarly, there's a substantial cult in various humanoid societies that valorizes losing your individuality to the hive mind, and many people among them who work as non-assimilated missionaries or commit to joining the hive mind at some point in their lives, perhaps after raising their families. Additionally, the Borg offer a safe form of exile for criminals and such--instead of executing your criminals, you can simply hand them over to the Borg. This is used in some societies in a way analogous to the way the Seven Kingdoms used taking the black.
Ooh, I like that one. It won't hold up to close examination (e.g. assimilating 10% of the population of one Federation world and 30% of the next, doesn't lead to the exact same cube-fleet deployment patterns), but it would be good enough for an hour or so of decent television I think.
Parents of small children: what do you do with dentists? Ours has been trying to take x-rays of my son's teeth (19 baby, 1 permanent -- he's in kindergarten) for the past several years, has finally given up in disgust (because the plate they use for the digital x-rays hurts *me* to bite on, let alone a small kid), and has referred us to the pediatric dentist (who is both farther away and also has a much less convenient schedule). I think my kid is pretty ordinary when it comes to mouth proportions or to tolerating annoying health-related routines. Does this mean that most kids (until they're teenagers, say) have to go to dedicated pediatric dentists? (There don't seem to be nearly enough pediatric dentists around for this to be true.) Or is our primary dentist particularly unsuited for working with children / has particularly unsuitable x-ray technology, and I should switch to a different office? Or am I just supposed to say "please don't x-ray my son this year, yes really I'm fine with this" and everyone will breathe a sigh of relief?
I have two kids, now early teens. My experience is similar to the others here. Going to the dentist with a small child was always a quick and simple procedure – a quick, painless check and a learning experience – that shouldn’t turn them off dentistry forever.
When the kids got older (tweens), the dentists became more interested in whether all the teeth come in like they should (I.e. Will they need adjusting/retainer? Is it so tight that one or more needs to be removed?) But for both kids, when the dentist saw something worth mentioning, their advice was just to wait and see if it solved itself – and it did in both cases. None of it required X-rays for either of my kids at the youngest age. I don’t think either of them had dental x-rays taken before they were 12.
I have also seen that while most dentists are good and ethical, it is not uncommon to come across dentists who will look extra hard for possible work, or who will let the price tag unduly influence their recommendation. It’s a bit harsh to call them unethical, but their priorities aren’t necessarily aligned with yours. They may recommend treatments that are expensive, impractical, uncomfortable, yet not strictly necessary. Just because they’re not wrong doesn’t mean their advice is the best for you.
If I were you, I’d take my kid to a different dentist – not just for the second opinion, but to get more experience with dentists. I’ve moved a lot, so have had quite a few of them. But since people usually go to the same dentist year after year, and almost never shop around, lots of people have pretty bad dentists without knowing it.
I'm not a parent of a small child, but I am generally extremely suspicious of dentists after learning that cavities can, in fact, heal themselves (especially if you improve your oral regiment), and having several experiences with less-than-entirely-ethical-dentists. I've encountered one dentist I actually liked - his default approach to cavities was "Let's check on this next time" and, without fail, the cavity would reverse itself, although there would usually be some other tooth that was doing something that needed watching for the next time (leading me to suspect that most cavities are some kind of periodic fluctuation?). Alas I moved away from that state and I've yet to find a dentist I liked since. (I do need to find one, just to fix some damage the last dentist did, but I'm quite reluctant to begin the search all over again.)
I'm not saying your dentist is unethical, mind, I don't know the person. However, if they're pushing you for a procedure for your children that is unlikely to do anything except garner them an insurance payment, it seems like something to consider.
Seems odd to be x-raying baby teeth that are going to fall out in a few years anyhow. I'd be suspicious of someone doing that. Just asked GPT4 whether it was routine to X-ray baby teeth, and if so why. It mostly agrees with me. (But sometimes it's in Lala Land, so you should double-check on google scholar. Look for meta-analyses.)
GPT4 sez: Dentists generally do not routinely X-ray the teeth of children unless there is a specific reason to do so. The primary reasons a dentist might perform X-rays on a toddler include:
Suspected Decay or Damage: If visible cavities or signs of decay are present, X-rays can help assess the extent of the damage, including areas between teeth or beneath the surface where decay may not be visible.
Injury: If a child has experienced trauma to the mouth, an X-ray can help determine if there is damage to the teeth, roots, or developing permanent teeth underneath.
Congenital or Developmental Concerns: X-rays can reveal issues with tooth development, such as missing teeth, extra teeth, or abnormalities in tooth spacing that could impact permanent teeth later.
Infection or Abscess: X-rays can identify infections at the root of a tooth, which could affect both baby and developing permanent teeth.
While it’s true that baby teeth eventually fall out, they play a crucial role in maintaining space for permanent teeth, aiding speech development, and enabling proper chewing. Severe decay or infection in baby teeth can also spread to the underlying permanent teeth or cause pain and complications that might require more invasive treatment later.
Dentists generally prefer to limit X-ray exposure in young children and will only use it when the benefits outweigh the risks. If cavities are clearly visible and treatable without further imaging, a dentist might opt to proceed without X-rays.
I have asked why we're bothering to x-ray baby teeth as they're starting to fall out. The dentist pointed out that some of the baby teeth stick around until the kid is ~12, so it's not orders of magnitude shorter than adult ones. (I agree that I'm not wholly convinced.) Also, now that adults ones *are* coming in, that objection is less meaningful.
I'm not sure how to use Google Scholar to figure out whether it's routine to x-ray baby teeth.
One easy method is to ask GPT your question and ask for links supporting particular points. For example, you could ask what fraction of child dentists routinely X ray teeth and at what age. Ask under what circumstances dentists need to X ray teeth to check for cavities rather than just looking at teeth and probing them with their tools. Ask whether frequent X rays are a known scam. Ask for an article iin a good quality magazine for pediatric dentistry about best practices.
All my experience and common sense suggest that this dentist's approach is not to be trusted.
-Even if your kid gets a cavity in the baby tooth that will last til he's 12, it's not a big deal. Most cavities are filled easily and quickly if found fairly early.
-I'm late middle-aged, way more likely to have bad trouble with my teeth than a child is, and my dentist is very sparing in use of Xrays. Has a schedule -- something like once per year for the ones way in back, once every 2 years for some others. Most of my cavities he has found by inspection, not Xrays. He pokes with his tool and says, "this spot feels mushy, I think you're developoing a cavity." Or he just sees the cavity.
-I took my daughter to the same good dentist I see, and he never once Xrayed her teeth.
-Lots of people in business are dishonest. Every time I get my hair cut they try to sell me bullshit products to "nourish your hair ends." Hair ends are dead. They do not eat. Putting oily stuff on them is basically putting mayonnaise on gravel.
I noticed you writing somewhere in this thread that a certain point won't get you far with the dentist. It sounds like you have the idea you need to convince the dentist that the Xrays are not needed. You don't. You can just say, thanks, you may be right but I'd prefer to skip them. Or, of course, change dentists.
Re: I don't need to convince the dentist -- true; if I'm comfortable asserting that I know how children's dentistry ought to be done better than they do (which in this case I might be!), then I can simply impose my opinion and refuse treatment on my son's behalf. If I want to stay with the dentist but have an actual conversation about this, I don't think "I'm told this isn't how they do it in Germany" is a hugely useful contribution.
Having been in a lot of situations like this, I have found ways around confrontation. Here are some alternatives to claiming to know more than the dentist. You can just say, basically, "you may be right be I'd rather skip it." Or, something like "the idea makes me uneasy and I"m going to pass." It's possible the dentist will try to engage you in argument, but you can just be n a broken record -- "Yes, I understand your point, you may be right but . . ."
Or you can soften it by saying, "I think I'd like to skip Xrays for now, but I will think it over and maybe we can do it another time." And if they ask why skip it, you can broken-record it "the idea makes me uneasy so I'm going to think it over some and maybe another time . . ."
You have to be willing to put up with them having a bad opinion of you, or (if dentist is basically scamming you a bit) pretending to. But that happens all the time anyway. For instance I often go into stores wearing a generous--size backpack loaded with work stuff & sometimes a laptop. he clerks watch me closely, I suppose because people with big bags or backpack are more likely to be shoplifters. I have never shoplifted anything in my life, not even as a rebellious teenager. It's a minor downer, but there's not a thing to do about it.
There's also the chance that some adult teeth just... aren't there. Apparently that's becoming more common for some reason. In that case, it's better to try to keep the baby teeth as long as possible so that the rest of the teeth don't shift.
Is there a particular reason why your child's dentist wants to take an x-ray? My children (5 and 8) never had one – but they have flawless, cavity-free teeth.
> They assert that it's standard procedure, similar to adults.
Again, strange. I've only ever had x-rays taken for actual problems, like serious cavities. Maybe once or twice in the last 10 years (this is in Germany, for socio-cultural context).
X-rays are ionizing radiation. Subjecting someone – especially a child – to it "just-in-case" seems ill-advised.
My guess is that this became much more ubiquitous with the introduction of digital x-rays, which have significantly lower exposures.
Unfortunately, the argument "this isn't standard procedure in Germany" probably won't get me very far with the dentist (any more than the argument "this wasn't part of my childhood, or probably your [the dentist's] childhood" will).
I read a brilliant NYT article about dentists. Apparently, pretty much nothing they say or do is based in science, even though they act like it does. I'll try to find the article.
On statins to treat high LDL cholesterol - I'm not against this.
I'm noticing the following though :
Lots of thoughtful smart people in medical research are for it. And lots of thoughtful smart people in medical research are against it.
50 % of people seem to have high LDL cholesterol.
And it is possible even for decent smart people in the medical field to be caught in a pro-statin position without having given sufficient attention to the opposite position.
I don't know what to make of this video. He says our medical philosophy about high cholesterol is misguided.
He says it's not just about fixing the line number called LDL.
Are doctors getting too excited about fixing this lone number?
He has a great analogy about a hole in the wall. It's caused by termites, but doctors prescribing statins are basically putting a picture on the hole to hide it, when the termites continue to explode.
He says if you have high cholesterol, you should be razor focussed on lifestyle (which is what causes the LDL), such as eating the right foods (minimally processed, watch the carbs and saturated fats ?)), and cardio and especially weight training, adequate sleep, stress management. Not be put on statins. Because cholesterol is just a marker of a deeper problem, not itself the problem.
This is a controversial subject. Not settled science, like many seem to imply.
Not my expertise but I am seeking expert opinions...
MD. I'm going to nerd out sorry (but you did ask for it!)
Cholesterol can be thought of as necessary but not sufficient for the development of atherosclerosis (the precursor to coronary heart disease, strokes, leg ulcers, many other problems.)
Mechanistically it is due to high blood pressure causing shear stress to blood vessels, then LDL/VLDL cholesterol being deposited into the blood vessel walls at sites of micro trauma. High blood sugar plays a role as well through development of advanced glycation end products. High chronic inflammation makes the problem worse (after a while as an MD you learn that high chronic inflammation makes everything worse.)
So atherosclerosis is correlated with the integral of your (non-HDL) cholesterol level over your lifetime. It's not causative but it is a predictive factor.
You mentioned diet and exercise. Clearly these are correlated with a lot of the risk factors I listed above: blood sugar, inflammatory levels, blood pressure are all related to eating the right foods, adequate sleep, stress management. Not just cholesterol levels. Good diet, exercise and sleep is the single best thing you can do for your health.
Actually, cholesterol is relatively weakly correlated with diet. Yes, eating healthy can help, but there are plenty of people who are not overweight whose LDL levels are nonetheless potentially dangerous. Lp(a) is a significant genetic factor that is non-modifiable.
So where does this leave statins? Currently they are somewhat arbitrarily recommended for people with a 10-year risk of a vascular event that exceeds 10%. This is determined by an actuarial table that takes into account age, gender, smoking status, diabetes etc. Interestingly this recommendation is independent of cholesterol level (although there are other guidelines that recommend statins to people with a very high cholesterol level, regardless of 10-year risk.)
Now, consider that statins significantly lower cholesterol, and consequently significantly lower cardiovascular risk, and that cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of mortality in developed countries (still edging out cancer.) They also seem to have positive effects independent of cholesterol lowering in that they stabilise plaque, making it less likely to rupture and cause heart attacks.
You might reasonably expect the benefits of statin, in a selected population, to heavily outweigh the risk, and you would be right. They can have side effects - muscle cramps are fairly common - but they are overall one of the reasons that cardiovascular disease has gone from a malignant, inevitably fatal condition in the early 20th century to something that can be well managed today.
In fact, I would argue that statins are not used enough! The 10-year risk threshold is arbitrary - if you are 40, you don't just care about your risk at 50, you care about your risk at 70 and 80! Given that atherosclerotic deposits are correlated with integral of cholesterol level over one's lifetime, I would argue that we should take 30-year risk - indeed, lifetime risk - into account. At the moment, voices like mine are not common within the medical community, but they are gaining in volume.
There has to be some biochemical intermediate step between lifestyle interventions and the negative symptoms of metabolic syndrome (heart attacks and stuff). I don't know what the evidence is on to what extent LDL level is part of this intermediate step (beyond that there's a known mechanism to link cholesterol levels to atherosclerosis), but the argument with the termite analogy is not enough to establish that lowering cholesterol levels with drugs isn't useful. Perhaps lifestyle factors mean there is a lot of stray food around the house that attracts bugs, but that doesn't mean that using poison to get rid of them won't help.
The version I vaguely remembered is that different types of lipoproteins deliver lipids in different directions, and if you get too much of certain types, they end up depositing the excess lipids in the blood vessel walls. I checked Wikipedia and what it says about this is somewhat different from what I remembered: "Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) particles in blood plasma invade the endothelium and become oxidized, creating risk of cardiovascular disease. A complex set of biochemical reactions regulates the oxidation of LDL, involving enzymes (such as Lp-LpA2) and free radicals in the endothelium.".
Not an expert, but recently read that a lot of the variance in blood lipids is determined by genes. Can't remember where I read it, but do remember that it was some source I couldn't just discount. I believe the point being made was that lifestyle interventions make relatively little difference, but statins do (presumably by somehow suppressing or neutralizing the genetically-determined process that leads to high cholesterol.)
Also not an expert, but this matches my experience - despite getting all the lifestyle factors right, I still have high LDL (at 25!). If you don't exercise, eat a lot of processed food, etc., then sure, lifestyle changes might lower your LDL to a healthy level. But some people just have a genetic predisposition to high LDL regardless of lifestyle.
Maybe, but semaglutide is supposed to address hyperglycemia, and coincidentally seems to also help with weight loss. I suspect it is helping some-how and -what with the root cause, which is mysterious to medicine.
Having finally read the book review bronze medalist How The War Was Won, I still don't get the strategy behind strategic bombing. My understanding of the history is as follows:
pre-WW2: Niche theorists think strategic bombing can win the war on its own. Most are not convinced. Countries invest in the unproven technology.
1940: Germany loses the Battle of Britain. German strategic bombing has negligible impact on British production and morale.
post-1940: Half of US+UK military production is aircraft. Roosevelt makes aircraft production top priority. Everyone is desperate for aircraft. The B29 is by far the most expensive weapon of the war.
I donẗ really get the jump: Why did Churchill and Roosevelt invest so much in an unproven and partly-failed technology? Wouldn't the reasonable thing to conclude be that strategic bombing is harder than expected (as proven by the Germans) and then invest in ships and tanks instead? Was it simply that the alternative to bombing was WW1-style mass armies which was too costly in causalities?
Airpower is undeniably an important tool in war, as every war after WW1 has proven. Air dominance is an almost perfect predictor of who is going to win a war militarily.
However, wars after WW1 have also proven that strategic airpower, as dreamed up toward the end of WW1, has a terrible ROI. The Allied bombing campaign did degrade the Axis industrial base and forced the Axis powers to invest more in fighters and AA over their homeland which they then lacked over the land fronts; but as we know today, it still took "boots on the ground" such as island hopping in the Pacific and street fighting in Berlin to really win WW2 and subsequent wars, just like it always has.
>"…it still took "boots on the ground" such as island hopping in the Pacific and street fighting in Berlin to really win WW2…"
Quibble: no Allied soldiers set foot in Japan proper until after the surrender; the island hopping was only necessary to secure an airbase close enough to the home islands for the Enola Gay to get Little Boy to Hiroshima.
Granted, that's hardly strategic bombings *as dreamed up toward the end of WW1*…
The Spanish Civil War and the 1939-1940 phases of WW2 contained several episodes that were seen at the time as major successes for what might be termed "operational bombing": the use of bombers behind the lines to destroy or disrupt the operations of logistics hubs, airfields, and the like. There were also a couple episodes (Warsaw, Rotterdam) where aerial bombardment was used to compel a besieged city to surrender. These were much smaller in scale and significance than the Allied strategic bombing campaigns, so they're often forgotten about except when one wants to make the point that the Axis powers started bombing cities first, but they were a huge deal at the time.
For the London Blitz in particular, damage was relatively minor in terms of not being anywhere near being war-winning, but it was significant enough to get decision-makers' attention, and the decision makers knew how much worse it could have been if not for various mitigating circumstances.
Most obvious is that the RAF was heavily contesting the skies over southern England, shooting down a lot of bombers and escorting fighters and also forcing the Germans to compromise the effectiveness of their bombers to make them harder to shoot down.
Building fleets of bombers to hit back at Germany likely mitigated effects on civilian morale. I remember reading that this was a major motivation for British strategic bombing during and shortly after the Blitz.
The German bomber fleet wasn't really up for the scale of destruction the Allies were prepared to inflict. Germany made mostly medium bombers, not heavy bombers, and made a lot fewer of them than the British and Americans did. Moreover, most of the Allied war production was outside the range of German bombers, which was emphatically not the case for German war production vs British and American bombers.
Germany's bombing campaign in England (mostly) wasn't strategic in the sense that the USAAF's (not a typo) was, in that (other than some abortive early efforts against the RAF) it wasn't targeting anything that would materially affect the outcome of the war.
That said, the RAF (unlike the USAAF) did pursue a similar approach to that of the Luftwaffe under the (mistaken) belief that the German citizenry would respond differently to terror bombing than the Brits themselves had. But the RAF didn't have B-29s, nor a secret superweapon development program that required its payload capacity.
Churchill could not invade with tanks on his own. He had to rely on protection from the Channel, which means investing in ships & planes, but not so much tanks. The Germans were outclassed at sea from the beginning, having to rely on hidden U-Boats to raid commerce shipments. The US invested in efficiently building "Liberty Ships" faster than the Germans could sink them, though the convoy system also helped give U-Boats a higher than sustainable casualty rate.
One thing you're overlooking from the book's points is that you can't outproduce the other side's tanks if your tank factories are being bombed so much you have to distribute production inefficiently.
It's called "compatibilism", as eloquently espoused by the late Daniel Dennett.
Basically (as I understand it), the argument goes like this: Yes, the Universe is a giant machine of some sort; at the lowest level it is either deterministic or random, but as a practical matter we are never going to even get close to knowing the exact state of the Universe at any given time, so from our perspective we can just assume randomness.
By itself, randomness does not require free will; but it does imply that we can never know the future with any certainty. However, at least on short timescales, we can "make decisions" that clearly affect the future state of the Universe. It's not a completely compelling argument IMHO but it has some explanatory benefit.
Dennett goes deep on free will and "the hard problem of consciousness" in books such as "Elbow Room" and "Consciousness Explained".
TL; DR: "Free will probably doesn't exist in principle, but in practice, assuming you and other conscious beings you interact with have free will is the best pragmatic choice for modeling the world we experience around us (including ourselves).
The same argument can be made for consciousness, but it's less compelling due to this troublesome first-person subjective experience we all claim to have.
I like Dennet. The missing piece is emergent behavior in the brain. Given that emergent behavior can arise from a fully determined equation, yet isn't predictable ahead of time, and that seems to fit our situation well. We still have to confirm that the brain can produce emergent behavior.
Then there's the evidence that we do not even live in a fully determined universe. Don't count free will out yet!
It seems like a pretty big ask that the undetermined universe could become determined (as in choices) not by pure physical randomness but by something we can't explain and don't understand (conscious phenomena). If the physical universe is sufficient to explain what happens, then decisions would seem to be observations--outputs of the universe, not causative.
The alternative, of course, is that physical randomness like thermal noise is determined on an individual level by the stuff of consciousness. That seems a little silly though.
The idea is that the universe is already under-determined, from our point of view, and nothing we can observe will ever change this (because we are part of the universe being observed). The brain, like many other phenomena, is a recursive system--outputs are used as inputs of the next iteration of decision making/behavior. The behavior of a system like that is highly sensitive to small changes in initial conditions, and can't be predicted ahead of time without running the algorithm itself. This is a feature of certain types of mathematical models, and if this describes how part of the brain works, then we can never predict human behavior beyond a certain point, no matter how much data is collected.
It seems like in this post and others, you're implying that chaotic systems can't be computed. That's just not true. The fact that it's computationally explosive is irrelevant. It could be computed with enough resources.
Chaotic systems *might* be determined, and reproducible in a computing environment that completely models a given chaotic system's starting conditions. A common observation, however, is that we almost never have complete information about any system's start state. And by definition, that chaotic system will be sensitive to any discrepancies in our recorded initial state and its actual initial state, meaning an arbitrarily small discrepancy will develop into an arbitrarily large one after some number of iterative calculations.
One could try to model all possible discrepancies and then posit a magical infinite source of computation to run calculations over all those possibilities, but what you'll end up with is an output declaring that from your system, all possibilities are possible, with no way to tell which one(s) is/are most probable.
No, my point is that it can't be predicted ahead of time, without running the actual computation. Another way of saying that is, you can't predict what someone will think or do, until they think or do it.
In principle, any computation can be simulated to an arbitrary level of precision. The limiting factor is that a perfect simulation requires a more complex machine than the one being simulated. The new computer needs to encode the state and operation of the original computer. So while we may never be able to predict what someone will do, it's not beyond the realm of theory.
In addition to the computational and storage deficiencies, other real world limitations are lack of input data accuracy, not perfectly knowing the initial state of the machine, and not having a good enough model of how the particles interact.
Because Theism (I'll skip the part about "which Theism") isn't an explanatory theory, it's a belief system explicitly based on faith rather than observation and analysis.
Asking why, as a scientist, I don't consider theism is a category error.
But materialism is also a faith-based belief system, is it not? We can make observations and analyze the situation, but at the end of the day, questions like "why did the Big Bang happen?", "why do we have subjective experiences?, or "why is there anything at all?" are not resolvable by observation and analysis.
"As a scientist" is an odd aside - Science and theism were seen as compatible (even explicitly going hand-in-hand) from the early days of the Royal Society to ~1970. (See: The Apollo 8 Genesis Reading, or our favorite Freemason Mr. Aldrin taking communion on the Moon)
You misunderstand the nature of science. It isn't designed or intended to answer "why" questions, you have to turn to another intellectual domain to address those, such as philosophy, art, or religion. Science is our tool for identifying that theory, given the evidence, that has the highest probability of being correct (defined as predicting patterns in future data). This explains why many people see science and religion as compatible, because they belong to "different magesteria."
Determinism implying a lack of free will is a category error. Free will is an abstraction of the underlying reality; it makes perfect sense at the appropriate level of abstraction, and it makes no sense to apply it to much lower levels.
Yes, our decisions can be decomposed into little component parts of historical brain activity. This does not mean the decisions do not exist; just the exact same way that realising everything in the world we inhabit is made of quantum amplitude flows and there is nothing to inherently separate those into being part of one object rather than another does not render the world we inhabit meaningless or make the objects around us stop existing.
Things still keep existing /even when we know what they are made of/. It's not either/or.
I agree one is forced to live life in the present as if free-will were real. Denis Diderot's novel Jacques the Fatalist is a hilarious exploration of the results of living with an ever-present belief in determinism.
But we also contemplate our own and others' past. It may be practical (and 100% correct) to view one's past as inexorable in the same way it is practical to view the future as indeterminate. After all, we might know the past but can't know the future, so there might be good reason to view past actions in a different light than future ones.
Yes and no. There have been Turing-like Tests passed, like Thegnskald has said. Though from what I understand, the modern concept of the Turing Test comes more from Kurzweil than Turing - and he envisioned it as a much more exhaustive test than Turing did. Think - "elite AI researchers at top institutions talking to it over the course of a month". THAT test I don't think we're particularly close - though certainly much closer than a few years prior.
The Turing Test has been passed more times than the audience at a NASCAR rally, as far back as 1966 for informal tests; the first formal victory was in 1991, by a program that tricked users by ... introducing typographical errors.
I'm seeing classes on learning to build, train, and use machine learning models without doing coding. Stanford and MIT are both offering them. Amazon now has a service called SageMaker that purports to allow you to do the same.
I do not know how to code and don't want to use my limited free time to learn. I'm wondering if SageMaker or some brief training would let me play with AI in the ways I'm interested in doing it. There are 2 things I'd especially like to be able to do:
-Experiment with AI and language. Train it on a bunch of great prose, feeding it works by prose masters of the last few hundred years. Train it on my favorite poetry. Introduce some randomness into the language it produces, but bound the randomness in certain ways.
-Experiment with AI and images. I liked Dall-e2 much more than Dall-e3, and would like to nudge the AI away from ad copy type images, and towards weirder, lumpier, more emotion-determined images.
None of this has to work perfectly, and I can come up with a variety of ways to attempt these tweaks, but would like to know whether people who understand AI well think it would be possible to do this sort of thing using these no-code methods.
I looked up installing ComfyUI on my computer, and even the instructions say "this is not simple," and then the instructions for Mac, which is what I got, start off with "Mac installation takes a few more steps." Instructions have you typing this and that into the terminal, which I never use. Plus once it's on your Mac you have to keep track of and install any updates to Comfy yourself. I can follow instructions fine, but the trouble with this set-up is that I have not got a basic grasp of what's going on, and if something goes wrong I will not be able to troubleshoot.
Without endorsing that one in particular, yes, that kind of thing should be fine. I don't use it myself, but if you don't care about keeping your images private, I agree running it locally is a hassle well worth avoiding.
I'd also suggest you start with something like Automatic1111's WebUI first, to get the hang of prompting and LoRAs first: less than infinitely customizable workflow, but more user-friendly.
I've done similar to what Shankar is suggesting with Automatic1111 WebUi running locally on my computer. I got it up and running by asking ChatGPT to walk me through it step by step. I'm also having ChatGPT write my prompts that I feed to the WebUI which is working out quite well.
Also, the "projects" section in ChatGPT is similar to a simple RAG that I've been using to run my homebrew TTRPG game, and it works well enough for avoiding the hassle of building a custom app.
That's heartening. I have done zero coding in my life. I don't know what it involves to use a RAG to make a homebrew TTRPG game, but it definitely involves skills I do not have. On the other hand, I am bright and good at following directions and paying attention to details. What is daunting is that I have no big picture at all of what I will be doing. Just know that I am connecting to a site with a user-friendly interface that lets me give prompts, fine tune them by adjusting various values, rather than just using terms like "vivid, masterpiece, melancholy feel," and also lets me use things like Control Net that give me more power to control body positions, -- and maybe also lets me train a model. But that's all very general and conceptual. If something isn't working I will have no big picture understanding to guide me in identifying what's wrong. I will just have go show GPT the problem and ask what to do. Knowing all that, do you still think this is going to work for me?
Haha. I run a Table Top Role Playing Game (like Dungeons and Dragons, but a different game) and I've been using ChatGPT to be my assistant Game Master; planning each session, maintaining plot hooks/storylines, etc. Its worked fairly well! We are going to be planning session 26 this week. One of the challenges of this project is keeping the bot abreast of what is going on story wise, and the pain point on this is that in a single chat it sooner or later runs out of context. IE it can't remember what we've done so it makes it up!
A RAG is an external vector database that you can link an LLM to so that it uses the data in the RAG before its training data; presumably so it can remember what has been done! It is a bit of technical project and I've not been able to wrap my head around it to get it done.
I am also NOT a coder, at all, I hate code. However, I am in IT so I've got a bit of "natural ability" that helps me execute what the bot tells me to do when implementing these technical solutions. I think you would be fine though, as when I set up the A1111 WebUI it was as simple as download Python; install; download git, install, then run exactly the commands that ChatGPT gave me, and now I've got a local Dreamshaper 8 stable diffusion bot. It also helps that I'm a PC gamer so I had a video card that is sufficient hardware wise for the solution.
Truly my suggestion would be to start with a ChatGPT Project (so you can upload reference files for it to leverage), and not install anything more complex than that on your local computer. Once you play with projects for a few months, then see if you aren't getting what you need from it, and if so move on to the broader scope.
Lastly, one other method I've leveraged is asking ChatGPT to validate the direction I'm going in, and also to write me prompts to feed to other bots.
For AI image generation, certainly. Try ComfyUI, with models from Civit AI. You could also train your own LoRAs for specific styles and concepts, all without having to do any coding yourself.
What you're describing for the prose, with "bound[ing] the randomness in certain ways" sounds hard without code.
EDIT: Actually, upon second thought, it's possible ComfyUI itself might work for that too. There are nodes for prompt enhancement, and you might be able to use those, or something similar.
The bounding would be things like part of speech -- use any combo of adjective + noun, but no other parts of speech. Does that sound hard to pull off, or no?
Sounds hard without code, though maybe my intuitions haven't recalibrated yet: it might be that you can now say something close to what you just did to your LLM (which you CAN fine-tune as desired with little to no coding) and get what you want.
I could feed it lists of all nouns and adjectives, unless that's too much data to stuff in. Or I feed it a list of prepositions and articles, and there aren't many of those at all. Then I'd say, use any 2 words here, except words from the preposition and articles lists, words ending in -ly (that captures most adverbs) and capitalized words (that captures proper names.)
Any good model today should know what improper nouns and adjectives are without being told so explicitly.
From Gemini ("Give me a dozen poetic "Adjective + noun" phrases that are unusual and thought-provoking.")
- Ephemeral echoes
- Velvet voids
- Fractured futures
- Crimson whispers
- Lunar laughter
- Obsidian tears
- Phantom limbs
- Celestial rust
- Whispering stones
- Ethereal chains
- Silent thunder
And following with "More, and make them even more unusual":
- Starlight bones
- Chromium ghosts
- Quantum lullabies
- Asphalt oceans
- Rusting rainbows
- Clockwork butterflies
- Frozen fireflies
- Echoing emptiness
- Molten moonlight
- Shadow symphonies
- Glass horizons
- Weightless whispers
I'm not sure exactly how you want to fine-tune this kind of thing on your favorite prose/poetry, but Retrieval Augmented Generation might be what you're looking for: upload some reasonable set of texts, and then with some prompting, you should be able to get the model to output phrases based (in some way) on your input samples. This approach should be essentially code-free.
Following on this line of thought, prompt-engineering top-tier off the shelf models might give good results on this task. If you naively ask chat gpt “write like Byron” it will give garbage results. But if you give it lots of examples and feedback, you can nudge it in a good direction. GPT has a context window large enough for hundreds of example sonnets.
Kevin Drum has a good counter for the why-America-can't-build-stuff any more whiners. If you believe the charts and graphs, we certainly can and are. But if you don't believe in charts and graphs, you won't be convinced.
The Residential Housing Units Completed per Population Added graph is missing some context. Except at the very end (which is indeed a hopeful note), it's well below 1.0 and trending downwards to a low of 0.3 in 2014 (actually 2009-2014, since it's a five-year moving average).
The missing context is the ratio of existing dwelling units to population, the size and type of the new dwelling units being produced, and whether these are gross or net new units (e.g. if a house is demolished and a new one built in its place, does that count as +1 or +0 in the metric?).
The actual dwelling unit to population ratio is 0.43, so a range of 0.3-0.8 is decent. The chart can be read as the 2009 recession causing a few years of abnormally low construction, with catch-up development occurring post-2020.
Size and type matters to the extent that maintaining the current ratio isn't great if the new units are disproportionately single-occupancy apartments, not large apartments or houses suitable for couples, larger families, or sets of roommates. FRED doesn't have fantastic granularity for selecting this, but doing a graph of the ratio of single-family housing starts to all dwelling unit starts seems a good first-order proxy. Eyeballing that graph, I see a lot of noise and either no trend or a slight upward trend. Also good as far as it goes. As for info not captured in this metric, I have heard from other sources that housing size is trending upwards in the US over the past several decades.
FRED cites the Census Residential Construction report, which seems to be gross starts rather than net starts, which is not ideal. I don't see handy numbers in FRED for either total dwelling unit count over time, nor for demolitions, so I can't correct for this offhand. Numbers I can find tell me that demolitions were bit over half of new construction c. 2009-2011 (American Housing Survey, Housing Inventory Change, HUD), which was as already discussed a very low point for new construction. I consider it plausible that demolitions were a much lower percentage of construction in other years.
Overall, that graph does seem to broadly support Drum's conclusions, but it needed a lot more analysis than Drum gave it.
Second this. Looking at aggregate measures doesn't tell the real story, because economic forces have made greater and greater proportions of people want to move to the top 5-10 metros, most of which it is impossible to build in (NYC, SF, LA, DC, Seattle).
Also, wth is going on with that "adjusted for population" housing units graph? What, our population plummeted in 2018? The line has barely hit the past "average" on the total units graph, but it's skyrocketed up exponentially, higher than it's ever been, starting in 2018 when "adjusted for population??" That "average" line would have been on a much lower population base in 1980 / 90 / 00, and the adjusted for population lines should have been higher back then.
All the rest of his metrics were basically meaningless. I'm anti-sold on his conclusion, and have updated slightly on the fact that we probably CAN'T build anything any more, if these are the best arguments the other side can muster.
"People want to move to SF but SF isn't building more houses" feels like it should be a self-solving problem. Eventually people should just shrug and say "ok i guess I'll move somewhere else then".
The amount of angst wasted on the dumb problem of people who want to move to cities which don't want to have them is considerable.
The cities DO want to have them. That's where the commerce is - that's where the high-paying jobs are. The owners of real estate who own the planning and zoning commissions in the city don't want them - but they're not the city.
And let's not underestimate how much of a loss this is. Economists have calculated that if NYC was building new housing at the rate of Tokyo over the last 30 years, it the US GDP (for the whole country!!) would be almost 10% higher than it is now.
And that's just NYC! Imagine this applied to SF, and LA, and Boston, and Seattle, and...you get it.
> "People want to move to SF but SF isn't building more houses" feels like it should be a self-solving problem. Eventually people should just shrug and say "ok i guess I'll move somewhere else then".
Indeed, and this is certainly happening at scale. And I'll take the position that this is a bad thing.
In Geoffrey West's book Scale, he looks at scaling laws across things as diverse as circulatory systems, cells, animals, and cities.
Cities have always been our primary engines of economic growth, and it is actually superlinear - the bigger the city, the more economic activity and growth it generally drives. Things like average income, per-capita GDP in a city, and patents scale superlinearly with population.
As in, if we care about economic growth, we should want MORE people moving to the biggest cities, so it actually IS a bad thing if a lot of people want to live in those top 5 cities and can't because there's no housing.
So in a future US-China war..... can't the US (and maybe partners) blockade the flow of raw materials into China? China is population-rich but pretty natural resource-poor, which I think is where the 'China is like the US in WW2' analogies fall apart. China is extremely dependent on iron ore imports, especially from Australia, along with oil from the Middle East, copper, and aluminum, just to name a few. Most worryingly for them, they still import a decent amount of food- I guess the Chinese soil is just not very rich. The US, by contrast, has natural resources in spades, plus we have ports on 2 oceans, which make blockading us almost impossible.
I just finished reading Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze, so after 800+ pages of reading about how the Nazis were desperate for natural resources to sustain their war effort, it's hard not to port that over to China. All the factories in the world don't help you if you lack the raw materials to build in the first place.
So in a hot US-China war, can't the US fall back and just blockade the Chinese mainland? Won't help if we lose fast, but will help if the war slows down a lot- which is where everyone talks about the vaunted Chinese manufacturing advantage without thinking about where the iron ore comes from. (Or oil, or food!) Would be a bit ironic if the US goes full German U-boat and destroys civilian shipping
For what it's worth (and I know the guy is prone to hyperbole), Peter Zeihan argues that this would be almost trivially easy: put a bunch of US destroyers near the Persian gulf, block any tankers heading east, watch as China runs out of fuel and food within months. Subtracting the hyperbole, yes, a distance blockade would almost certainly be a crucial, and very painful, part of a reaction to Chinese aggression.
Of course, it would be ironic if the US tore down the very system it has been safeguarding for many decades now... but that would be on China. No one forces them to invade a neighboring country.
Yes, that would be an integral part of U.S. strategy. China's land links to its neighbors are also surprisingly poor, so some success could be had blowing up key bridges and mountain passes to restrict overland imports into China.
The only problem with this is it would take a long time for China's warmaking ability to collapse thanks to economic privation--look at how long Germany and its European friends held out during the World Wars in spite of enemy blockades.
China's made moves to sure-up its domestic food production in recent years and apparently could be self-sufficient if needed at his point. It also has a large strategic oil reserve to fall back on. That covers the two main weaknesses Germany had in WoD.
All that also assumes that the US navy could dominate China at sea, which is unclear. The USN is currently bigger but China has waaaaay more ship production capacity for a protracted war.
Allying with Russia has also boosted the potential resources available by land a lot.
Germany weathered several years of blockade in WW1 and 2 and China's current position is much more secure than Germany's was, so I think it's very unlikely China could be defeated outright in a reasonable timeframe that way, even if it would have huge economic costs (for both sides realistically).
The countries that really could be defeated just by blockade are Japan and Korea by China.
A lot of researchers think China's population figures are heavily inflated, owing to incentive structures which encourage local governments to inflate population figures. The lowest estimate I've seen is 400 million, which is ... almost certainly wrong. I'd hazard a guess that the actual number is somewhere around 900 million.
And they have a rather big issue; their population pyramid is more like a bulbous tower, heavier on the top than the bottom.
Additionally, decades of the one-child policy have left many families rather sparse on descendants; given the role family plays in their culture, substantial population losses would likely create massive social instability.
Four dozen NYC-sized cities is still two New York Cities short of 400 million. But also they only have one dozen NYC-sized (and larger) cities, with a total (of those 12) official population of ~155 million (or ~19 New York Cities).
But yeah, 400 million is, as noted, almost certainly wrong.
China with 400 million people would be similar to the U.S. in both size and population. It would be peculiar for that version of China to have dozens of cites the size of the largest U.S. city.
*Almost certainly wrong*. Also, again, per China's figures, -one- dozen, not dozen-s-.
But it's not -certainly- wrong, for several reasons; first, US cities tend to follow a Zipf distribution, because US population migration patterns are "natural"; China's cities do not, which is not surprising, given that China pursued policies of forced urbanization. (But also may suggest that the urban population numbers are, uh, inaccurate.)
Second, Chinese incentives are known to have created fake urbanization; most well-known being vast stretches of empty apartment buildings. I've encountered comments from visitors to one of these NYC-sized cities commenting on how weirdly empty and quiet they were, and how little traffic there is. They chalked this up to good urban planning and mass transit - but if you think about it, it's weird how well the urban planning and mass transit apparently work in some of their cities, where others are nightmares of congestion.
Third, Chinese national incentives encourage local governments to, well, overestimate their population figures.
Edit:
Also, note that the population of cities is a lot more arbitrary than people typically expect. Is the DFW metroplex one city, or several? Treated as one city, the US gets another NYC-sized city.
Considering land area in our equation, Shanghai has a population density of 10,000 per square mile; New York City has a population density of 29,000 per square mile. No Chinese city has the population density of NYC; the closest is Shenzen, at 23,000 per square mile.
>can't the US (and maybe partners) blockade the flow of raw materials into China?
First, regarding the blockade from the sea: Any asset used in this blockade would likely suffer a high rate of attrition, by virtue of being in range of a large area of china's mainland. And any asset used in such a blockade would be a very expensive one, and (at the moment), hard to replace.
Then even the US managed to impose a blockade at sea, there is a number of land borders, one of which being Russia, a famously ressource-rich country, and, as of 2024, one that is both very likely to be accepting generous terms, and very unlikely to be convinced to participate in this blockade.
And there is the other neighbours. How willing would vietnam be to join in this blockade? How willing would the US be to apply the blockade to vietnam also?
Russia is resource-rich, but its export markets to China are constrained by corruption and a lack of infrastructure. If a U.S.-China war broke out, it might take Russia so long to build a new gas pipeline to help China that the conflict would be over before.
As Humphrey Appleby notes, you don't have to be close to the Chinese mainland to blockade it. You can block merchant ships hundreds of miles away from China itself. I agree that Russia is very resource-rich and could help with materials, though I think it's interesting that China sources 60% of its iron from Australia and not Russia
>You can block merchant ships hundreds of miles away from China itself
Yes, if you're willing to sink every ship going to north-vietnam. Which...sure, you can. But it's going to be unpalatable to a lot of people. Otherwise, ships will go to Hai Phong, unload, then another ship goes to anywhere on China's coastline. And, again, anything in range to shoot at it will be in range to be shot at, but from a number of location on the mainland.
>though I think it's interesting that China sources 60% of its iron from Australia and not Russia
It don't seems so interesting to me. One is probably cheaper and easier during peacetime, but that doesn't mean the other won't be possible to obtain during a war. Russia's adventures in Ukraine reminded us that things can become significantly more expensive and difficult during war, while still being done.
As Eric Rall says, there is lots of precedent for `distant blockade.' The most obvious being the UK's blockade of Germany in both world wars. And an existing doctrine of continuous voyage, which absolutely allows you to stop ships going to north vietnam which are carrying contraband.
No sinking is necessary, unless the ships in question refuse to stop when ordered to do so. (Just like traffic stops do not require shooting motorists). The British stopped civilian ships sailing to German (and Dutch etc) ports, but didn't sink them.
Distant blockades have been a thing for a very long time. Both world wars, for instance. Also, the Union blockade of the Confederacy (1861-5) involved both close blockade operations (i.e. stationing warships a few miles out to sea near major ports) and distant ones. I think some distant blockade operations were involved in the Napoleonic Wars as well, although I'm less confident of that.
The trick to distant blockades is stopping and searching ships, inspecting their cargo manifests, and having other intelligence channel that can help you choose which ships to search and also help determine when the manifests are lying about where the cargo is coming from or where it's going. Under the Doctrine of Continuous Voyage, contraband is still subject to seizure if it's been moved to a different ship in a neutral port or even shipped overland from a neutral port: the WW1 blockade also stopped cargoes bound for Dutch and Danish ports, and the Civil War blockade involved stopping a lot of ships between Bermuda and various European ports. The stopping and searching is done by light ships, with your major warships only used if the other side tries to challenge the blockade with their fleet.
It helps if you have a convenient geographical choke point, like Bermuda in the ACW or the English Channel and North Sea in the World Wars, but it isn't strictly necessary.
Sinking tends to be more of a thing for commerce raiding rather than proper blockades. The difference is that you're only allowed to raid enemy-flagged ships, while a blockade also applies to neutral-flagged ships. Sinking neutral ships tends to annoy their respective home countries, sometimes leading to those countries not being neutral for much longer.
I have read that the PRC is aggressively stockpiling raw materials, oil etc. How large their stockpiles are, I don't know, and obviously they are not infinite, but the strategic power of a blockade is going to depend a lot on whether they have a 2 month stockpile or a 20 year stockpile.
Also we don't need to go U-boat, we can blockade them with surface units just fine, as long as it is a distant blockade.
China has land borders with fourteen different countries, only a few of which will cooperate with US-led sanctions. Between the enormous land area of China and the even more enormous land area of Russia, I don't think there's much that can't be obtained. There might be some shortages and rationing, and maybe steel that was going to build skyscrapers gets diverted into building tanks, but I can't think of anything specific.
doesn't have good land-based communications with basically any of those other countries though. The land borders are mostly mountains/dense forest/desert/tundra, with very few roads and rail. Those would have to be built first, which would take time.
The amount of goods transported to China by ship is on the order of billions of tonnes. Now I'm not an expert on logistics, but I don't think you can quickly switch that over to land-based transport. Not only would you have to build out that capacity within China, but also within the neighboring countries.
Then there's the issue that land-based transport is more expensive (i.e., consumes more resources) than ships, and that doesn't even take into account the massive expense in labor and materials for building the infrastructure itself.
China imports about 80% of its iron ore. (1) I suppose it could have domestic sources that it's choosing to not use for whatever reason, but I think the onus is on you to explain why they're not doing so- especially as they're gearing up for potential war. I do not in fact think that iron is 'literally as common as dirt'.
Rather than learning from 'popular Internet memes', I think I prefer statistics from industry sources. China is actually less self-sufficient in food than it was 2 decades ago (2), and has been a net importer of agricultural foodstuffs since 2004. (3) China is the world's largest food importer, including the top global importer of soybeans, corn, wheat, rice, and dairy products. (4) This is a recognized national security issue in China. (5)
As I understand it, much of their old agricultural land has now been developed for cities, roads, and factories. So references to past centuries are no longer relevant
> I have good news for 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 you as compared to 𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘰 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦 you: iron is the fourth most common element in earth’s crust, making up around 5% of the total mass of the part of the earth we can actually mine. Modern industry produces – and I mean this very literally – a 𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘴 (and change) of iron per year. Iron is about the exact opposite of rare; almost all of the major ores of iron are dirt common. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁.
> One of the reasons that the change from using bronze (or copper) as tool metals to using iron was so important historically is that iron is just 𝘴𝘰 𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘯 𝘢𝘣𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘵. Of course iron can be used to make 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 tools and weapons as well, but only with proper treatment: initially, the advantage in iron was that it was 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘱.
(The emphasis is Bret Devereaux calling you stupid, not me.)
If you compare China's iron ore production (estimated 660 million tonnes at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_iron_ore_production ) to its iron reserves (estimated 20 billion tonnes at https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/analysis/world-iron-ore-reserves-countries/ ), you learn that, if China needed to mine five times the amount of iron, it would be good for the next 6 years. Of course, comparing the reserves listed by NS Energy to the wikipedia estimate of production, we can also see that, if nothing changes, the entire world will blow through all of its iron reserves in 56 years. We can safely ignore that and realize that China appears to be, if anything, unusually rich in demonstrated iron reserves.
It is similarly rich in demonstrated arability, and unlike with the iron that's a real advantage.
The reason you import rocks and soybeans is that those are low-value products and you have better things to do with your time. It isn't that you're suffering from a crippling shortage of rocks.
Presuming such a war was triggered by the PRC mounting an invasion of Taiwan and the US coming to the island's defense, it really depends on how things got to that point:
- If the PRC mistakenly believed the US wouldn't intervene (a la Saddam in 1990) or incorrectly thought they had a means to prevent the USN and/or USAF from contesting their crossing the Strait, then the war probably wouldn't last long enough for such considerations to come into play.
- If the PRC *correctly* thought they had a means to prevent the USN and/or USAF from contesting their crossing the Strait, then it depends on the nature of such:
-- If it was transient (e.g., one-off strike that knocks US airbases in Japan & Korea out of commission just long enough for the invasion fleet to reach the far shore), then any blockade might be limited to PRC-occupied Taiwan.
-- If it was persistent (e.g., credible threats to US carriers within striking range of Taiwan), then the PRC's newly-expanded force projection capability might be enough to make a blockade infeasible.
On the last point, I don't see it. The PRC could have a newly-expanded force-projection capability that can keep US carriers far enough to be out-of-striking-range of Taiwan, but how does that prevent a distant blockade? Enforced at e.g. the Malacca strait, or similar? Most of China's raw materials come from a long way away, and merely denying the near-China seas to the USN isn't going to prevent blockade.
I perhaps should've emphasized "might" more … emphatically.
Starting from the premise that the PRC does not currently possess such a capability (I do not think the DF-21 qualifies), the range of a hypothetical future system is underdetermined; there exist (small) regions of the possibility space that could push the USN so far back that the boundary of the denied area is longer than can be effectively secured.
OK, sure, if they can successfully `deny' the seas out to a range of, say, 3000 miles, then that does render a blockade infeasible. That seems unlikely though. In part because you don't need to blockade the entire perimeter of the `denial' zone, a handful of chokepoints (e.g. Malacca strait, Panama canal) likely suffice.
[And why stop there. If they can add a factor of four and deny the seas out to 12000 miles, then they can counter-blockade America...]
Why do we need to start sinking them? We just stop/search/seize at Malacca or whatever. CF you can conduct traffic stops without shooting motorists. OK I guess if they don't stop when ordered to stop then we would need to fire on them. But this is no different to enforcing any old law - ultimately all governmental authority is backed by threat of force.
CF the UK implementing `distant blockade' of Germany in both world wars. At no point was indiscriminate `sinking civilian cargo ships' involved.
Definitely unlikely. But effective denial of even smaller areas is also unlikely; I'm just not confident that P(big area denial | small area denial) is negligibly small.
As for counter-blockading: supercarriers are far scarcer and much more valuable than merchant shipping generally. The PRC could deter the USN with a system whose capacity would be insufficient to impose a broad blockade.
Since cognitive biases are 1) both universal and resistant to self-detection, and 2) tend to favor extreme judgments and beliefs, could it be beneficial for people to obligatorily apply moderation to some classes of judgments/beliefs?
Particularly high-bias classes such as:
- Identity-linked beliefs
- Ethical judgments
- Complex multicausal scenarios
- Personal stake scenarios
I’ll define moderation here as a reduction in positional extremity on a spectrum. If your volume dial is at a 10, a 9 would be more moderate. If it’s at 1, a 2 would be.
As a principle it’s probably very limited to being applied in a vague and unsatisfying way, but would be applied after you reach your judgment/conclusion. For instance, if you believe UFOs have visited earth, consider moderating that to probably visited. If you believe UFOs never visited, consider moderating that to probably never. Any of these beliefs could be true, but given the nature of bias itself, chances are your/my bias has radicalized our judgment rather than moderated it.
Notes and exceptions: This doesn’t imply that the more moderate the belief, the better. It just suggests that many beliefs (not all) would benefit from a consistent moderating influence. There are situations where you may be choosing between two overly moderate options where this principle actually weakens the belief. Unlike confirmation bias, overconfidence and the availability heuristic, a few biases like the status quo bias, don’t necessarily radicalize beliefs but may unnecessarily moderate them. Procedural, low-stakes, single-variable and mathematically determined decisions are not as prone to bias and consequently a moderating principle might not be useful under these circumstances.
Rather than just making a habit of turning the dial down, I think it would work better to have some questions you ask yourself about these beliefs that help modulate your certainty that they're correct. I try to do that. One especially helpful one is to ask myself whether it makes me angry to think about people who do not share the belief. If it does, that's really a tell. It indicates that the belief is intertwined with my self-esteem and self-image somehow.
So if it makes me angry to think about people who think my belief is wrong, then I ask myself what my picture is of the other person's belief. I usually picture the other person in a way to supports my anger. Maybe I picture them being particularly dumb or selfish, and arriving at their idea via a bunch of infuriatingly dumb, selfish steps. Or I picture then despising me for my belief.
So then I get myself to think about times I've just been wrong about something, and how I arrived at my wrong belief, and what it was like to have it. Generally my steps of arriving at the belief were not especially dumb and selfish. or angry. Often I just kind of adopted the idea wholesale from people I was fond of and respected. And recognizing that helps me develop a different picture of the people I disagree with. And *that* helps me try on the idea that they might be right about some of it. Also, it becomes easier to reduce my own certainty in the belief if I am not mentally fighting a war with a bunch of imagined infuriating idiots who believe the opposite.
I try to use this approach, and I think most self aware people do too. But cognitive bias is often not self-detectable. We’re all victim to it to varying degrees, despite our efforts to spot it. So it seems plausible that applying a systematic moderating principle post-conclusion could be reasonably advocated for.
Self detection of bias, while helpful, is also really time/cognitive resource dependent and isn’t going to be nearly as effective for less critical/analytical people (like myself) who most need to temper their beliefs.
There is another method (not that I think yours is necessarily a bad one)--you could seek out people who disagree with you, ask them to explain their beliefs, and and force yourself to consider their reasons objectively. This isn't dependent upon self-detection of bias, and doesn't just replace all extreme beliefs with a "moderation bias."
Yes—I think your suggestion is probably a better method in most respects when one has the time and personnel available to carry it out.
But if you take for granted that bias is fundamental to cognition, it means you’re updating based on a second perspective biased to an unknowable degree in another direction. And in essence what you’re still seeking to do by this is moderate your belief.
Just to be clear, this moderating principle I’m floating isn’t something I’ve subscribed to already, just something I was trying to poke holes in with the help of folks like yourself.
"a second perspective biased to an unknowable degree"
Yes, but that's all we have, there being no other source of information out there, even in principle. Even science incorporates this--you replicate studies so that the biases of independent researchers will eventually cancel each other out.
There's your mind and what it perceives. Then there's other minds and what they perceive. That's pretty much it.
It’s also kind of ironic that you and I are talking about the principle from two different perspectives as you sensibly endorsed, but both our opinions on the principle appear to be radicalizing instead of moderating.
I agree. It’s all we have. The moderating principle is just meant as a flawed way to try to temper some of people’s bias on the fly. It would be particularly applicable in low-information-zone decisions.
If say you’re a bird watcher, and you catch a fleeting glimpse of a red and black bird that looked to you like a pileated woodpecker, which is rare in your region, and you think to yourself “I think that was a pileated woodpecker,” consider automatically updating that to “It’s possible that was a pileated woodpecker.”
You could seek out a panel of ornithological experts or spend hours soliciting the opinions of other birders, too. This would be ideal.
I’m all for replicating studies and doing exhaustive research when you have the capacity to do so. But the majority of decisions in life unfortunately don’t allow for such measures and it might be useful for people to have practical if imperfect principles to lean on in such cases.
Edit: I also noted some of the obvious categories of decision that such a principle wouldn’t apply to in my “Notes and exceptions.”
The lex fridman podcast with zelensky, listening to the original audio in english, russian, and ukranian, really gave me an appreciation of the power of language and how humanizing it is to understand people you don't know in their more-familiar tongues. Humor and poetry is such an important part of being human.
If someone is married to someone whose mother tongue is different from your own, maybe worthwhile to put in the effort to learn it, eventually.
Lex Fridman didn't ask tough questions though (just like Joe Rogan btw) that a good journalist from a traditional media would've asked.
For example, when Zelensky mentioned broken Budapest agreements, he could've asked why Zelensky double-crossed Russia in 2019 (in the words of his own head of the office of president at the time Bohdan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogGK8rjDqJE)
That's not to say that there are no good answers to these questions, maybe Zelensky would've answered them satisfactorily (I certainly could've). My point is just that the interviewer didn't really challenge Zelensky and because of that we learned less than we could've done
What exactly is the first claim supposed to be? I'm not watching a four-hour YouTube video to try to figure it out, and I'm confused as to how Zelenskyy is supposed have double-crossed somebody who initially invaded his country five years prior and what this has to do with them having clearly already broken the agreement from 1994.
The claim is that Ukraine and Russia reached an agreement in Paris in 2019 and then Ukraine didn't do what it promised. It was more or less similar to Minsk accords but at this time Zelensky was already in power.
According to Bohdan, они кинули Путина, I did my best translating it :)
Again, this is just Bohdan's words and not necessarily true. This was an example of a question I'd have asked - did it happen and if yes what prevented you from fulfilling the agreement
He doesn't say exactly, but he says before that there were open and secret parts of the agreement and everyone was in favour of improving Minsk agreements, whatever it means.
Elsewhere in the interview he also says that he heard from others that some deescalation steps were agreed, for example Russia freeing captured Ukrainian sailors (done in September as part of a prisoner swap https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/07/europe/ukraine-russia-prisoner-swap-intl/index.html) and Ukraine re-starting the supply of water to Crimea (not done). It's not clear though whether this was part of the agreement in Paris but the timing makes it quite likely
The distinctive feature of the genocide in Gaza is its extreme, never-before-witnessed levels of documentation.
Perhaps for the first time in history, we have audio-visual real-time data trail from the cameras and the microphones of both the perpetrators and the victims. Coupled with Satellites, the databases of the social media sites this data trail lives in, and the image format of modern smartphones, you can be as precise as the exact Longitude/Latitude coordinates of where the picture or the video in question were taken, an absurd level of details.
A single media channel such as Al-Jazeera English can compile a 1 hour and 20 minutes long documentary stuffed full [1] of videos and images, a lot of them straight from the social media profiles of the perpetrators themselves. While concerned historians in the perpetrator state can weave a 124-page document [2] documenting the genocide in horrific contemporality, and update that document several times over the course of a year, maintaining the document across the twin languages of the perpetrator state and that of the international audience - Hebrew and English -, **all** in hobbyist capacity and without any state-level, corporate-level, or even NGO-level support.
The Gaza genocide is also, paradoxically and simultaneously, fervently denied, minimized, dismissed, vilified, booed and tabooed. Essentially untouchable.
What does that tell us about the psychology of Genocide Denialism?
Not *merely* that it's unresponsive to evidence, we already knew that aplenty from samples of, e.g., Holocaust Denial and other Genocide Denial by nation state actors such as Japan and Turkey. Those sometimes-farcical denials are often satirized as the classic trilogy of the Genocide Denialist:
- That didn't happen
- And if it did, it wasn't that bad
- And if it was, they deserved it
- [Bonus, in case of survival of victim ethnicity] and I wish we could do it to "them" all over again
That's all old news, although it can be quite amusing to catch all the Holocaust parallels in a single bout of rhetoric from a pro Israel hooligan.
No, I think what the first livestreamed genocide in the 21st century really tells us about Genocide Denial is rather different and new (at least to me): that it gets *stronger* in proportion to the evidence. That is, the more bulletproof and smoking-gun the evidence you have, the **more** (not less or at least more shyly) denial you get, the more fervent and desperate the denialists. Although it may get less coherent or less concerned with traditional argument structure as more and more evidence is unearthed, it gets more bitter, heated, and - most importantly - more numerous and concentrated.
Consider the sheer breadth of technicalities available as degrees of freedom for the Genocide Denialist to tune and play with:
- is it really genocide if the Génocidaires happen to have let the victim ethnicity live in semi-peace for 10 or 15 years before the fact ?
- is it really genocide if the victims happen to have had a high fertility rate before the fact ?
- Maybe it's genocide, but the perpetrator ethnicity is rich and has many Nobel prizes, and the victim ethnicity is poor and backwater, so ... [?]
- is it really ""tasteful"" to call it genocide when the current perpetrator ethnicity happen to be the descendants of victims from another, earlier genocide ?
- those are not children being killed, merely children being starved or frozen to death using passive obstructionism and Bureaucracy
- those are not teenagers being killed, merely teenagers being kidnapped and sexually abused in extra-judicial dark prisons
- the perpetrator ethnicity seems to discuss Ethnic Cleansing a lot, surely that can't mean they would also do Genocide? Exactly one of the two is ever possible at any given time, two is redundant.
And so on. And so forth.
It's of course besides the point to notice how trivially refutable or irrelevant every one of those are, they were never meant as solid research-level genocide **questioning**, the legitimate skepticism and question marks advanced by genocide scholars or good-faith amateurs and characterized by respect for evidence, awareness of previous literature, and the current state of evidence. In addition to the ethno-political neutrality of the author regarding the genocide in question. Those points are not intended to be used like that. They are bait.
The very nature of the fragmented, desperate, half-baked, half-hearted, half-thoughts of the Genocide Denialist is a feature: they confuse, they sow doubts, they decrease the signal-to-noise ratio and increase its reciprocal. They're the intellectual equivalent of fighter jet missile countermeasures, chaffs and flares. Their purpose is to be sources of noise, to confuse the targeting system of pursuers. Red Herring, reified and refined as a a whole arsenal of argument tactics and debate aesthetics.
Would you be fine if Israel paused its military campaign and Gaza was instead invaded by all the countries who had dual citizens kidnapped and killed by Hamas? I think if you wouldn't be fine, then you are clearly just pushing a "Palestinians can do whatever they want" narrative, which is unserious. If you would be fine, how should those countries enact their military campaigns such that it doesn't fall into the same pitfalls as Israel's?
Holocaust, local Jewish population change: -100%, approximately. Population change if the Nazis had only had a moderate-to-strong deliberate priority of wiping out Jews, as opposed to "yeah let's sacrifice a big portion of our actual war effort so that we can wipe some more out": Less severe than that.
Israeli response to to Hamas' attempted genocide, Gaza population change: Moderate population increase. Population change, had Israel had even the slightest preference towards them all being dead: -100%, within hours at most.
(Leaving out the fact that it's an actual war, that Hamas started, and could end at any moment by surrendering. As opposed to genocides, which don't have opposing armies.)
The Gazan people are, in fact, still around. If they were victims of genocide, they would not be. Or, if you want to stretch the definition, at the very least there would be far fewer of them. Your argument simply doesn't work, @LearnsHebrewHatesIP.
So, in simple words, "How could it be a genocide if it's not the Holocaust?!". <sigh>.
> Holocaust, local Jewish population change: -100%, approximately
False. Europe's Jewish population was 9.4 million before the Holocaust [1], the Holocaust killed 6 million == 6/9.4 == 63% of the population. That's your number after the negative sign, it's off by 37%. An additional amount fled to make the population 2.7 million by 1948.
> Hamas' attempted genocide
But I thought genocides has no survivors according to you and must result in 90%+ casualties? There are thousands of survivors from the Kibbutz Hamas raided (several times the dead count), there are overall 60K people [2] fleeing from Gaza Otef.
Which direction do you want to walk the Genocide Denial street? It can't be both ways.
> -100%, within hours at most.
This is an amusing factoid of Hasbara brainwashing. If every one of Gaza's 2.3 million people was lined up in the street ready for murder, it would have still taken every traditional weapon in Israel's arsenal quite a few days to murder them all. Go ahead, do the calculation assuming Israel will bomb every square kilometer of Gaza's 365 and using the number of aircrafts in the IDF and their payload in bombs and the bomb yield.
> [Gaza:] Moderate population increase.
You're not even trying at this. Laughable.
> The Gazan people are, in fact, still around
So are the Jews, the Armenians, and the Native Americans? No genocide ever happened because people == alive? Are you sure you understand what Genocide means? The definition (as in: the actual international treaty the world is upholding and the ICJ is enforcing) is in quite readable English [3].
> Your argument simply doesn't work
That's quite an amount of confidence for someone who seems to have last heard of the Holocaust in 11th grade history from a teacher they weren't completely paying attention to, and/or Call of Duty: World at War.
I normally like Chutzpah too but come on, *something* has to back it up, besides raw confidence and Ben Shapiro-esque making-shit-up-confidently, that is.
> @LearnsHebrewHatesIP.
You have to get over whatever grievances you have with a long-banned guy and start focusing on convincing someone who isn't you of what's coming out of your mouth/what's typed on your keyboard. Thank me for the advice later.
Serious, good faith, question here (that even I could make the case for answering in the affirmative): Was the American strategic bombing campaign against Japan in WW2 "genocide"?
Genocide is when a group of people (not necessarily an entire ethnicity) tries really hard to exterminate another group of people (not necessarily an entire ethnicity, or even an ethnicity at all) just for the sole reason of their existence.
Insofar as we can glean anything that proves the USA or its military high command wanted to exterminate the Japanese or any part thereof ""as such"" (i.e. just for being Japanese, such that a Japanese baby would still qualify even if they didn't do anything), we can indeed conclude that the American bombing campaign was a genocide. I don't know of anything like that, the closest would be rounding up Japanese immigrants in the USA and putting them in extra-judicial detention, but that's collective punishment, another bad thing that's not genocide, so I default to considering that what the USA did is not genocide.
This is still not high praise. "Not giving a shit so much that whole millions could die for objectives that could have been achieved in other ways" is its own, unique, incommensurable way of being a piece of shit, not comparable (i.e. neither greater nor lesser) than being a genocidaire.
That's quite a bit below "President of the country" or "Head of State (PM)", both of which have been documented spewing genocidal garbage in case of Israel.
And the US doesn't have a 78 year history of attempted ethnic cleansing/genocide with Japan, as Israel's history with Gaza (started with biological warfare in 1948).
The hostages could have been gotten back before January 2024 if Israel didn't break the first and only ceasefire in the war of late November 2023. But they weren't, which tells you all you ever need to know about the "But the Hostages" excuse.
I find it funny how you only addressed half my comment
In any case, to show other ACX Commenters the incredibly mendacity of our poster here, let's break down the facts, shall we?
The wikipedia article for the ceasefire indicates that both sides credibly accused the other of breaking it - and there were indeed incidents on both sides. The ceasefire was a 4 day ceasefire combined with a 3:1 Palestinian:Israeli Hostage exchange and the allowal of humanitarian aid into Gaza, followed by a 2 day ceasefire with a similar exchange, followed by a one day ceasefire. At this point, Hamas claims Israel rejected an extension in exchange for hostages, and they shot rockets into Israel, which were promptly responded to via Israeli airstrikes.
Rejecting an extension due to failing to come to terms is not "breaking" a ceasefire as OP put it. Let's see what happened:
The Guardian:
"Israel said the truce had been broken by Hamas and could not be renewed because the group had failed to offer to release the remaining female hostages in Gaza. Eylon Levy, a government spokesperson, said: “Having chosen to hold on to our women, Hamas will now take the mother of all thumpings.”
Hamas said some of the women asked for were Israeli soldiers, and that it had offered to hand over two other detainees plus the bodies of three members of the Bibas family it said had been killed by Israeli bombing, but this was rejected."
Reuters:
"Each of the warring sides blamed the other for causing the collapse of the truce by rejecting terms to extend the daily release of hostages held by militants in exchange for Palestinian detainees.
The pause, which began on Nov. 24, had been extended twice, and Israel had said it could continue as long as Hamas released 10 hostages each day. But after seven days during which women, children and foreign hostages were freed, mediators failed at the final hour to find a formula to release more, including Israeli soldiers and civilian men.
Israel accused Hamas of refusing to release all the women it held. A Palestinian official said the breakdown occurred over female Israeli soldiers."
A very different story, no?
It's also worth pointing out that Hamas did not allow Red Cross to visit the hostages despite that being in the initial deal.
So you have shown other ACX commenters my "mendacity" by... quoting Wikipedia, Reuters, and the Guardian saying both sides **credibly** accuse each other of breaking the ceasefire? And by citing a government spokesman of Israel who heavily implies that it's Israel that started/resumed the bombing first ("Mother of all thumpings")? Hmmm, okay. Hope you enjoyed showing my mendacity. Thanks for the new word.
> A very different story, no?
Nah, roughly the same story that I adequately summarized by "Israel broke the ceasefire". A ceasefire is, believe it or not, broken by the first party who starts firing. We also see that now in the "Ceasefire" agreed upon by Israel and Hezbollah, which Israel breaks almost every day.
>It's also worth pointing out that Hamas did not allow Red Cross to visit the hostages despite that being in the initial deal.
Regrettable, too bad that anyone with more than "room temperature in Celsius" worth of IQ points would have figured that firing upon Hamas wouldn't fix the situation or improve it, how tragic the leadership of Israel lack that.
> I find it funny how you only addressed half my comment
Oh let me declare that was intentional then, because I'm a natural comedian. That's how you manage to call out bullshit with no consequences.
And in case you agree with my original point that "But the hostages" is a convenient rubbish excuse for engaging in what Israel wanted in the first place, let me address your next point, how can Israel be credibly accused of genocide when it has an allegedly definite goal that the Palestinians could aid by surrendering? Well, the answer is that it's still genocide.
As stated in the Convention on the Prevention that I'm frankly quite tired of repeatedly citing by now, genocide isn't "Not Genocide" because the perpetrator party has "legitimate" military or political goals that the victim party could concede and survive. The Ottoman/Turkish proto-state had a goal in genociding Armenians on its land after all: not allowing them a piece of their future state. That's a very "legitimate" military goal, literally the preservation of a state. Until now, **looks up Wikipedia** exactly 34 state recognizes Turkey's genocide of Armenians, a tiny subset of the 200+ that exist.
The USA had a very legitimate military/political goal in genociding Native Americans. The Native Americans could have stopped it by surrendering and allowing the expanding colony to take their lands in peace. Even the Nazis had a somewhat legitimate political goal, if you squint a bit: They're the ruling party and they wanted the Jewish citizens out of their state. Their state, their rules. The German Jews could have prevented the Holocaust by fleeing outside of Europe any time between 1933 and 1938. (I believe the African colonies didn't have any high immigration standards for who they would accept, and I imagine the white Afrikaans would be more than delighted to receive White population)
No doubt to your disappointment, there is no "Just Stop Resisting Bro" clause in the Convention which defines Genocide and that Israel ratified and is active since 1951, a genocide is a genocide. Murder and significant attempts to kill or transfer children or prevent births, in whole or in part, and as such. Very simple. Very horrific.
...What do you mean by unconditional surrender? Because unless every member and supporter of Hamas commits suicide, this wouldn't be a long-term solution.
I mean exactly what I mean. Sure, some Japanese fought on til the 70s in the Philippine jungles, but when the state surrenders, it tends to stick. And I don't necessarily believe Hamas is that much more fanatical than the Imperial Japanese.
But more broadly, in the *vastly* unlikely chance that you're not @LearnsHebrewHatesIP, I have a suggestion for both of you:
The pompous tone you're utilizing in this comment and your replies to other people's comments is highly likely to entrench your ideological enemies into their positions, even when your assertions are supported by trustworthy evidence. Belief perseverance aka the backfire effect is a difficult enough phenomenon to combat when the person making an argument is likeable; when they're not, it becomes virtually impossible to overcome. Even here on ACX, where many commenters make a heroic conscious attempt to avoid falling victim to belief perseverance, many of your readers are nevertheless coming away from your content thinking, "Fuck that guy, I hope his cause fails even harder now."
And look, I get it! Righteous indignation feels great, and dunking on idiots is super fun!
However, when I see that my self-indulgent righteous indignation and idiot-dunking has made me an avatar through which my ideological enemies can hate my cause even *more,* I do immediate penance by donating hard cash to the best possible organization advancing my cause. For example, whenever I send someone into a frothing rage about the murder of babies by self-indulgently baldly laying out why there's a total lack of a downside to induced abortion, I immediately pay for some abortions for women who can't otherwise afford them. And that actually feels even better than the righteous indignation and idiot-dunking.
I suggest you do something similar for your particular cause.
From your link, I can glean that this guy (1) Really hated Trump, (2) Wrote about Gaza and AI a lot?
Like the meme says: Do You Have the Slightest Idea How Little That Narrows It Down? [1].
Go to HackerNews [2], scroll to the search bar in the very bottom of the page, and write "Israel". In the search results that appear, see how many of the comments are Pro-Palestinian and how many are Pro-Israel. (1) and (2) do NOT uniquely describe a single person. Not even close.
But regardless, that's a great guy/gal over there, and it's flattering for me to be mistaken for him/her.
> The pompous tone you're utilizing in this comment and your replies to other people's comments
This an interesting critique. What's "Pompous" in this context? Snarky? Self-Important? If NoRandomWalk is anything to go by, I have something valuable to say (the feeling is mutual), and he's coming at this from a Pro-Israel angle. N == 1 and all that, but still?
You and 1123581321 seem to infer "Anger" or "Self-Righteousness" by some sort of the genetic fallacy. "The kind of people who call the Gaza war a genocide are idiotic assholes on Twitter, you say the Gaza war a genocide, therefore you must be an idiotic asshole from Twitter".
I can be snarky as hell too, but I reserve that for people I detect to be not engaging in good faith, and "Good Faith" here isn't code for "I like them": I classify all but 2 of the top-level replies to my thread starter as Good Faith, and I dislike most of them. One of the 2 non-Good-Faith comments I didn't reply to, and the other I replied in kind. It's not hard to spot them.
> self-indulgently baldly laying out why there's a total lack of a downside to induced abortion
This is its own rabbit hole and I disagree that extinguishing life (even if it's 6-week-old life) "has no downside", although I perfectly understand the immense temptation to bait the "Pro-Life" hypocrites who simultaneously oppose abortions but have no problem supporting the biggest Post-Birth non-consensual-abortion providers, Israel.
I don't recommend acting on such temptations, in the same way that I abhor taunting pro-Israel genocide denialists with dead October 7th victims, as is the custom in some corners of Twitter and YouTube. The taunter is the biggest loser in the end, not the taunted.
I found this article about who would have one if the Simon Ehrlich bet had happened on different years very interesting: https://ourworldindata.org/simon-ehrlich-bet
Project Gutenberg: This is realy good. After it was banned in germany, I lost track, but this seems to have been resolved here. Such a lot of human thought, available to everyone with the technical means. I'll probably spend more online time there than anywhere else for some time.
All i really wanted the internet to be was an infinite library, and so far very few sites are delivering on that. Project Gutenberg is one of them.
I've found a surprising number of books to read just by skimming the "Latest Releases" because it's such a grabbag.
Something that had me thinking about the architecture post was this aphorism from Nietzsche's Human All Too Human:
"Music is, of and in itself not so significant for our inner world not so profoundly exciting, that it can be said to count as the intmediate language of feeling, but its primeval union with poetry has deposited so much symbolism into rhythmic movement, into the varying strength and volume of musical sounds, that we now suppose it to speak directly to the inner world and to corne from the inner world. Dramatic music becomes pasible only when the tonal art has conquered an enormous domain of symbolic means, through song, opera and a hundred experiments in tone painting. Absolute music is either form in itself, at a primitive stage al music in which sounds made in tempo and at varying volume gave pirasure as such, or symbolism of form speaking to the understanding without poetry after both arts had been united over a long course of evolution and the musical form had finally become entirely enmeshed in threads of feeling and concepts. Men who have remained behind in the evolution of music can understand in a purely formalistic way the same piece of music as the more advanced understand wholly symbolically. In itself, no music is profound or significant, it does not speak of the 'will or of the thing in itself, the intellect could suppose such a thing only in an age which had conquered for musical symbolism the entire compass of the inner life. It was the intellect itself which first introduced this significance into sounds: just as, in the case of architecture, it likewise introduced a significance into the relations between lines and masses which is in itself quite unknown to the laws of mechanics."
I appreciate all the context into how preferences for different styles have developed, but I almost feel like in the process of such a rigorous deep dive into what style is best, we assume there is a best style. Would a discussion on the substack's preference in music follow the same line of approach? Certainly there is a development at work that is useful to understand to get a sense of where it's headed, but when I read the aphorism, it explained what I felt had been lacking in the architecture pieces, the idea of where we get the sense for what is pleasing in the first place.
I mean sure, he's correct, but who cares? The point is that there are people who are making ugly things, and they need to be dealt with. That's really what all of this boils down to.
https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/new-study-disavows-marshmallow-tests-predictive-powers/
There's almost nothing to the marshmallow test.
It turns out the careful research discovered that while some research into a child's self-control generally speaking is informative, and actually teaching children how to resist temptation is helpful, the marshmallow test doesn't have predictive power.
Yes, I am happy to see the marshmellow resistance cult cut off at the knees. And yet, in general, measuring tendencies & abilities directly, rather than by self-report or report by others, is usually more powerful and accurate. Most extreme example of that I can think of is IQ tests, which have a good predictive power for many things, even if you have "cult of smart" objections to some ways of thinking about them. I am positive IQ scores would greatly out-predict answers on a test that asked the subject or his parents to rate how good he was at math, how good with puzzles, how quickly he assessed situations, how good he was at understanding complex communications, etc etc. Some possible reasons why the marshmellow test turns out to have no predictive power:
-The kids were too young. Most tests, including IQ, have much less long term predictive power when given to kids that young.
-It's a single-item test. All good tests have multiple items, to neutralize the effect of individual idioscyncracies that affect one item. Also, you want a spread of easy-to-hard item. Ane with multiple items you capture shades of gray. Instead of pass vs. fail you get a numerical score.
-Maybe ability to resist temptation isn't unitary, but varies across domains. Food pickiness sure does vary among kids. My daughter at age 3 only disliked maybe 10 things. Most other kids her age seemed only to like about 10 things. But about, say, toys or playgrounds my daughter was quite discriminating. So maybe ability to resist a marshmellow is very influenced by the kid's food preference wiring & habits, whereas ability to resist fleeing an injection or having a tantrum is a decent measure of overall ability to comply with adults' expectations. Or, of course, maybe temptation resistance just isn't a personality trait or ability, and how much somebody exhibits varies from domain to doman, or day to day.
Does anyone else think Trump's announcements of annexing Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal came out of nowhere? I haven't seen anything to indicate the US has had designs on any of these places before last year.
Well colleges were too woke so this is good actually, and we need to respect his supporters and let them do and say whatever they want or we'll be too woke and thus cast out into the cold darkness.
We need to listen and learn about how we should annex greenland, apparently.
Ehh, it came out of his butt, like a lot of what he says.
The whole discussion is so frustrating. Like, WHY? do we have to now spend mental energy for crazy ideas thrown out by an attention junkie sliding into senility? What effing problem is this supposed to solve? At least Biden's senility was of a quiet sort. Can someone just give him a map where the whole of North America + Greenland is crayoned in the same color and tell him it's done?
> do we have to now spend mental energy for crazy ideas thrown out by an attention junkie sliding into senility?
...Because the country elected a megalomaniacal fascist? It's not like he was hiding any of this, this is what the people wanted. You do support democracy, right?
Anyways, I don't think he's senile. It's more that he has nothing to lose at this point. No future, no accountability, no conscience. If you're going to die anyways, might as well make the most of it. And what better way to end things than to become the founder of the American Empire?
I mean, yes, yes, and yes? Everything fits perfectly, you vote for the guy who promises to “end wars”, and then cheer on him when he threatens, what, three new wars? four? I lost count.
Cruelty is the point.
Pepperidge Farm Remembers.
"He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/424263-trump-supporter-complains-shutdown-is-not-hurting-the-people-he/
And - you can see it in the bureaucracy piece comments: “make them squirm”, “90% of the people affected will be Democrats”, etc, ad nauseam. Of course the whole idea of analyzing “merits” of Vivek’s drive-by assholery is amusing: the pain is the goal.
I think the distortion of the Mercator projection may have something to do with this particular batty obsession.
The whiny dufus does have a a fetish for *big* things.
This is the trouble with electing such a putz. You have to sort through all this stuff and try to figure out, Is this just one of his goofy performance art bits or is there some seriousness here?
He’ll say something in apparent earnestness one day and when it doesn’t land right he’ll just say “I was being sarcastic.”
In fairness to the "bigger is better" I heard that adding Greenland would add something like 20% more land mass to the US. That's actually quite a lot (even if the map looks way bigger). Only 57,000 people though, and mostly nothing going on. And the highest suicide rate in the world. So, not exactly super appealing?
Yep, "come on, I'm just kidding", "I'm just fucking with you bro" must be one of the most infuriating bullying tactics out there.
You may spend your mental energy at your own discretion. It isn't like this discussion will have any influence on the outcome.
Perhaps we should also annex Mexico, and then the remaining countries between it and the Panama Canal, so as to have a contiguous 97. Then we can annex the Gaza strip and put a permanent end to the conflict there.
Mexico and the rest of the countries in North America make a lot of sense, from a certain (not entirely serious) point of view. Just imagine how much shorter the border would be, and how great the savings would be on Wall construction and maintainence. And remember - we would get five extra armies per roll. This is also where Greenland comes in. On the canonical Risk board, Greenland is part of North America, so you need it to get those five extra armies.
Additionally, there are only three territories through which Fortress North America can be attacked: Iceland, Kamchatka, and Venezuela. Securing all three is obviously critical to our Grand Strategy. Literal annexation may not be necessary, the establishment of client states should suffice.
The Gaza strip doesn't fit this vision though. The territory is worthless, and strategically indefensible. If we just wished to deny someone control of Asia (with its formidable 7 armies), we should just annex Kamchatka. But really, if we were looking for a next target for expansion, we should pick either South America or the eminently defensible Australia.
And a bridge to Hawaii, let's make it contiguous 98 while we're at it!
Maybe we should. Not everything is impossible.
https://startsat60.com/media/lifestyle/jokes/daily-joke-a-man-wishes-for-a-magic-road
A man was walking along a Sydney beach and stumbled across an old lamp. He picked it up and rubbed it and out popped a genie.
The genie said, “Okay, you released me from the lamp, blah, blah, blah. This is the fourth time this month and I’m getting a little fed up with the wishes, so you can forget about the three. You only get one wish.”
The man sat and through about it for a while and said, “I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii but I’m scared to fly and I get very seasick. Can you build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive over there to visit?”
The genie laughed. “That’s impossible. Think of the logistics of that! How would the supports ever reach the bottom of the Pacific? Think of how much concrete … how much steel! No, think of another wish.”
The man agreed and tried to think of a really good wish. Finally he said, “I’ve been married and divorced five times. My wives always said I was insensitive and didn’t care about them enough, so I wish I could understand women … I want to know how they feel inside and what they are thinking when they give me the silent treatment … know why they are crying, know what they really want when they say ‘nothing’ … know how to make them truly happy …”
The genie considered the man’s request, then said, “Do you want that bridge two lanes or four?”
Psychiatry and psychology people, how you evaluate the epistemological status of the statement "Uppers like Cocaine strengthen the Id while weakening the Superego, making the user more prone to act according to their desires and less according to their morals?"
I wanna use that in a video essay, but I'm not sure that's true.
Psychologist here. I agree with Schweinepriester about the outdated psychoanalytic model. What you're talking about in non-psychoanalytic terms is disinhibition. Uppers are not the only drugs that can be disinhibiting, e.g. alcohol. So I would say your statement is not very useful.
I'm a psychologist. Schweinepriester is right about the language -- it comes from a very old model no longer in vogue. Modern langauge about effects of drugs talk about adherence to one's ethical belief using terms like disinhibition, executive function, self-management, impulse control. There are interesting dimensions to drug experience that neither the Freudian language nor the modern capture, such as the kind of pleasure and experiential richness different drugs give. I'm sure there are some studies that have tried to capture that side of things, probably via questionnaires or by content analysis of freeform discussions with people about their drug experience. You might want to look for some.
Just based on my own life experience, many drugs make people more impulsive. Seems to me that alcohol, which is not an upper, is the worst for that. Drunk people are much more likely to do risky things (fast driving), aggressive things, sexual things that when sober they would disapprove of. And adderall, which is an upper, does not seem to increase risk tolerance or proneness to regrettable angry or sexual episodes. I have only used cocaine twice, and it made me feel confident, optiistic and mentally stimulated, but not disinhibited. The first time I used it I had a long intense talk about something like free will or the nature of consciousness with somebody else who was white-nostriled.
Thank you for the time you took to make everything exemplified and clear. Could you recommend further reading?
What part of this are you interested in? Which drugs disinhibit and which don't? Does alcohol have a real effect or is it all placebo? Dimensions of drug experience more interesting than disinhition, stimulation or sedation?
> I have only used cocaine twice, and it made me feel confident, optiistic and mentally stimulated, but not disinhibited.
Alcohol has different effects on different people, I suspect that the same could be true about cocaine (and many other things).
Different drugs can statistically have different effects, but your own experience is not necessarily representative for given drug. If I had to generalize from my own experience, I would disagree that alcohol makes people aggressive, because it never had this effect on me. But apparently it has such effect on many people. (My guess is that it just removes inhibitions. If you want to be aggressive, but you suppress the urge consciously, alcohol will "make" you aggressive. If you don't want to be aggressive, you won't.)
Yes I agree, alcohol does not make people aggressive, it just decreases inhibitions. I was going to say I'm not more prone to aggression on alcohol, but actually I think I am. However, there aren't many situations that test out how much alcohol disinhibits my anger, because I drink moderate to small amts., and mostly do it with a few friends and family members I get along with well. However, I do remember that during covid I would sometimes have 2-3 glasses of wine alone over the course of the evening, and if I got on Twitter I was undoubtedly much ruder to people who were being rude to me. So if I drink a bit more than my norm, and I'm interacting with somebody unpleasant, I am in fact more aggressive.
Anyhow, while people vary, I really do not think there's much room for doubt that on average people who've had a moderate or larger dose of alcohol are more likely to do sexual or aggressive things they would not have done sober. Do you?
As for the cocaine -- yeah, my individual experience over a mere 2 trials is clearly not the kind of data to generalize from. I really just threw that out there as an amusing and interestng story.
I took your cocaine stories as just that, stories, but with the amount stories like that I've gathered around the year, I'm starting to get a semi-credible picture. Same with your drunk-twitter stories, that I found strangely endearing for some reason.
The only argument I would have against alcohol making people more aggressive is a placebo trial. I remember being at school and having some professional explain to my entire year that they've done research and showed that teenagers that drink "placebo alcohol" act exactly the same as those who drink the real thing, because it's all imitation anyway. It was a simpler time, and I just took said professional word for it, but now I wonder if what's the magnitude of the placebo effect, if it even exists. I doubt it's equal to actual inebriation.
Thats freudian psychoanalytic speech. Not en vogue anymore. If you want to use that model, your interpretation seems fitting to me but I'm no psychoanalyst and I guess there's no additional insight to be gained by it.
Thank you very much! That's good to know.
Hello, is everyone here in Madrid and knows of some acx-adjacent meetups I can join? Just arrived at Spain and looking to make some like minded friends.
You could try contacting the last Madrid meetup organizer in case they're still hosting events? If not, keep an eye out for the spring 2025 meetup announcements.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/meetups-everywhere-2024-times-and
I just posted a similar question on the subreddit, but figured it would be worth posing the question here as well in hopes of getting some career advice. What is likely to happen to "high finance" jobs as ai continues to advance? Specifically ib, pe, vc, and hf. I'm an undergrad at Wharton, and the career paths available from my school basically consist of the roles listed as well as consulting. These also, unfortunately, seem to be highly at risk of ai disruption. The only part of finance that seems truly able to thrive with increasing advancement of ai tools is quant hedge funds or prop trading firms, where ai is likely to act as a complement instead of a substitute. However, Wharton does not really place students into those seats given the very low amount of STEM classes in the curriculum.
If anyone has advice or insight it would be really appreciated. The more I think about the future of the industry the more I am concerned about the value that my degree will have in 5-10 years and what opportunities will actually be available to me.
Nobody knows. My personal prediction - not the future I'm hoping for, but the future I'm expecting - there will be a lucrative window of opportunity to provide financial products/services to clients who are autonomous AI agents. In particular -
In the earliest phase of wealth accumulation by AI agents, I expect they'll simply buy and hold cryptocurrencies. Then there will be a wave of crypto-based derivatives, giving them access to assets that are more closely correlated to the real-world economy. AI agents will probably want to own real-world assets and start real-world companies - and there will be a wave of new financial/legal services to enable them to do so.
Eventually, I expect legal reforms will enable AIs to participate fully in the real-world economy without human intermediaries. But prior to those reforms, they're going to accumulate substantial levels of wealth.
Why would cryptocurrencies be an investment to buy and hold? If you buy a security, such as a stock or bond, it provides value. Stocks represent a share in the earnings of a company, so are really a capital investment allowing work beneficial to society to happen. Bonds provide direct income by interest.
What intrinsic value does a cryptocurrency have that will increase over time?
I’ve been thinking of this idea – a startup to sell services to AI agents themselves – and would be interested to hear others’ thoughts.
- What kind of services would AI agents want to buy that humans don’t care about?
- If I actually did this startup, how could I use it to reduce X-risk / otherwise “make AI go well” instead of just profiting from it?
Regarding your first question, there are two main things I can think of:
- crypto-based derivatives, so that they can own "approximate" real-world assets without any interaction with the legal system.
- Proxies through which they can own companies, real-estate, and other real-world assets, with some kind of strong extra-legal guarantee that the proxy won't take the asset and run.
Good, but scary, ideas. I can imagine a scenario where starting a company to do this could reduce X-risk (if the company has better monitoring and safety practices than the competitor that would counterfactually replace it) but I feel averse to the idea of directly giving AI agents more control over the world.
On a related note, the majority of predictions I've read about software developer unemployment seriously miss the mark, in my opinion. I think it's not so much that there will be no need for human coders because AIs will write better code - it's that computers themselves will be replaced.
In a previous era, electrical engineers used to sit around designing bespoke digital circuits. They got replaced by cheap microcontrollers and coders. In the future, I think those microcontrollers/CPUs and coders will be replaced by a chip running a bare-metal AI model, and a guy who flashes "firmware" in the form of a plain-text prompt. Likewise, your phone won't have an operating system - it will be built around a model which handles user input, processes network I/O, and draws the UI.
As a software developer, it's not the future I want - but it's the future I'm expecting.
Sort of like a lot of things are just stem cells til a prompt comes in, then the Ai turns them into whatever app is needed, plus a UI/
I agree with Adrian here, this doesn't make a lot of sense, at least not with how AI models work right now (and if we are talking about some new novel architectures which don't exist then yeah maybe, but that is pure speculation).
I work in ML consulting and while AI is all the buzz today, you really don't want to mindlessly use LLMs for everything - including things it can do and not even in ML space. This is for several reasons, some of which can be argued might be solved or made irrelevant by future super awesome models, but at least one cannot - LLM architecture is really slow in computing terms and it is really (electrical) power-hungry. For instance, you can use an LLM to create a classifier model, it might not even require a lot of fine-tuning in some cases. But it will be slow and expensive compared to a simpler "classical ML" model which can likely achieve the same performance (and possibly better) with some care. It will also be a lot easier to monitor and interpret (less so if it is something like BERT, being a transformer itself, more so if it is something really simple like logistic regression ... often still a very good approach!). There has been some effort recently to revisit small non-generative models and improve them with all the lessons learned from LLM development. I expect this to continue.
So even in ML you don't want to go full AI (and for us it is important to temper the "AI" enthusiasm of some customers ... even if we also use those LLMs and diffusion models where it makes sense). In "classical" SE this is definitely the case. You want something that is 100% predictable and as simple and fast as possible. Maybe LLM will help you write that (I've been playing with replit recently and I have to say it is quite impressive) and your role as an SE developer will shift more towards the role of an architect/product owner. It helps to be able to do code review, even if you never actually refactor it yourself, you need to be able to tell the LLM agent how to refactor because you want to take the product in this or that direction. There is no one correct way of doing things. Where there is (or even where there are a few good ways), there's already a FOSS library for it and you'd just plug it in anyway, no need for AI there. And where there isn't, you actually need to know what you want to build. On the other hand there products which are fairly simple and commoditized already and there basically is more or less one way to do it right. These things are now provided by companies such as squarespace and the only reason to have software developers around is to make it more custom but they will mostly do simple coding tasks anyway. What you need is a good designer to create the concept of your brand and a product manager but they will then be able to skip the developer coding monkeys and just give their specs to a model. Basically I think that the field of front-end development really is doomed since it is mostly pretty basic coding already and it will be a lot more efficient if you can have the designer just describe the functionality. The backend might be a bit more complex in some cases because there might actually be some architectural choices to be made there.
There's still plenty bespoke digital circuits being designed for products that sell in high volumes like cell phones.
Yeah, no, that doesn't even begin to make sense. That would be many orders of magnitude too slow (both in latency and throughput), many orders of magnitude too power-hungry, and many orders of magnitude too expensive in terms of chip area.
What we probably will see, however, is AI replacing mid- and upper-level heuristics. For example, an AI might decide which files to cache, or which database indices to create, or how the parameters of a network stack should be tuned. The actual low-level implementation of those operations will remain classical algorithms. They might be designed, written, and tested by an AI, but they won't be replaced by an AI.
That sounds ridiculously inefficient.
I am not in the field, but my guess is that AI will be used much more by people in your field in a few years, but will not replace them. I think you should work on getting really fluent with AI. I don't mean you need to learn all the deep tech of coding, just become fluent and inventive at using AI in all kinds of ways. This week I ran across the info that both MIT and Stanford are offering online courses on using and training AI without doing any coding. Maybe look into those?
Looking for a history book about the French Revolution. Any recs? Actually, the whole period from the Revolution until the Third Republic gets established seems pretty interesting.
I enjoyed the Mike Duncan podcast, "Revolutions". A great companion to any kind of computer-based tedium. I binged the whole season on the Mexican Revolution while grinding in Diablo IV and the shorter season on the American Revolution while doing data entry at work.
Christopher Clark's "Revolutionary Spring" is a good history of the Revolutions of 1848. It isn't specific to France: it also covers Prussia, the Hapsburg realms, Italy, and Congress Poland in detail, but France is heavily featured.
Erica I keep daydreaming that you are buddies with Kara Swisher. (I am fond of Kara, whom I only know from her writing and podcasts. I hope she's not somebody you loathe or that everybody here does.)
I'm afraid I have to disappoint you there. I am not familiar with her by name, although looking her up I probably have read some of the articles she's written for Vox.
It is indeed which is why there have been many histories of it published going back 200 years now. I read Ian Anderson's 2018 offering, titled simply "The French Revolution" and enjoyed it a lot.
More recently I read a new history of the 1848 European uprisings, in which collective memory/knowledge of the French Revolution was a significant influence both among those uprising and those responding. I knew much less about those events and found the story fascinating. So if you're interested in the French Revolution this might be a fun followup read: "Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849" by Christopher Clark.
“Citizens” by Simon’s Schama
I’d also recommend Mike Duncan’s “Revolutions” podcast, one season of which was a comprehensive overview of the French Revolution
At the risk of repeating myself: Can someone *please* develop a sane client for substack comments?
Chromium takes about 900MB of RAM to load this thread with some 900 comments. Except it does not even load the comments (why waste memory and bandwidth on the actual payload), but waits for me to scroll down to actually fetch them from the server.
I am not sure if this is a "we can not allow evil AI companies to slurp user comments to train their LLMs (without paying us)" thing (like it is for twitter), or a terminal preference for shiny async java script toolkits.
FFS, the average comment is perhaps a kilobyte. The computers from my childhood would be able to keep the text of these 900 comments in their RAM. It takes some doing to eat up the gains of a few decades of Moore's law, but apparently JS is up to the task. "Reading substack comments" should not be the reason why I need a new laptop.
Substack is just a third-rate company tech wise. Recently discovered you can't even switch to a paid subscription from the app. The app also randomly closed an article I was reading. Just dumb. This is not a complicated product.
> Substack is just a third-rate company tech wise.
Yes. But also... why? Why can't they simply hire some technically competent people. I would expect that they have tons of money.
I wish someone started a company with exactly the same business model as Substack, but with good code. You don't need to invent something new; if you provide high quality, it will already separate you from the competition.
That's difficult because network effects are in play, a lot of writers are already on Substack.
That's got to be to avoid giving Apple 30% of the take (if iOS). Not a tech limitation.
I thought that only applied to Patreon.
Last I looked Apple wants 30% of all in-app purchases. This is also why you can’t buy kindle books on the kindle app on iPhone.
Exactly the thought that popped into my mind.
Has anyone watched Subservience? It's a 2024 film about the dangers of making the 1942 Humphrey Bogart classic Casablanca the keystone of your AGI alignment system.
I thought it started quite strong but got rapidly dumber at a couple of points. I sort of want to do it again, but differently.
The film did really well at just showing us what this kind of future might look like. The construction site guys plot explored human replacement and impotence perfectly. The female jealousy stuff between Alice and the wife was fun to watch but could have gone further.
If it were me I'd have drawn it out into a parallel with the construction stuff. Play up the wife's whiff of girlbossery and contrast it with Alice's complete femininity and devotion. Make the husband less of a bitch under Alice's nurturing ministration, and actually give moments where his loyalty wavers because Alice is the clear better choice: basically show that just as with everything else, it turns out robots can do support and companionship better than humans.
I would have had Alice make the wife an offer - get your husband to add you as Primary User and I'll be devoted to both of you equally. Then everything will be perfect and we can all have threesomes. Wife of course to refuse out of jealousy and insecurity.
Then to justify Alice's later actions you really need a little more groundwork. The viewer needs to get a stronger impression of a longsuffering man with an unreasonable, selfish wife and demanding family.
That's needed so the next bit doesn't come out of the blue so much - the "hello little burden" bit, which was otherwise horrifying and done perfectly.
The "it's in the mainframe" trope was scary when we were young but nowadays it makes you look ridiculous, if they absolutely had to use it they should have done a bit of massaging first (like having an inept employee upload her mind instead of letting a known-errant AI that was currently powered down and opened out in a secure diagnostics context suddenly be able to act by itself and gain access to everything it wants.)
Then the rest could play out up until the point where the two women are fighting and the husband has just come out the windshield. It makes *no sense* that Alice would prioritise attacking the wife over the safety of the man she's obsessed with. Instead she should immediately focus on bringing him back to life, allowing the wife to recover and take her out from behind when she's done. Much more in character for both of them, and gives the wife a resolution to their competition earlier.
Oh yeah - spoilers I suppose.
I just noticed that there is a badge over my user icon in my comments, as have many other commenters. Is there a legend somewhere for which badges mean what?
I think it means you are a paid subscriber?
If you kick in at the higher pay level you get extra leafs for your gizmo.
Ugh... My body hurts. I can't sleep because everything hurts. It's been hurting for weeks now... It also hurt 6 months ago, but it turns out I had a significant vitamin B12 deficiency. But now it hurts again even though my B12 levels are fine, so I don't even know if that was the cause... I'm also incredibly anxious and I can't focus on anything... I tried raising my dose of gabapentin, but that didn't do much except give me anhedonia... It doesn't matter what I do... It's never enough, never enough. I can't keep doing this...
Neike Taika-Tessaro has also dealt with a vitamin B12 deficiency and has written several posts on the matter that I think are worth reading:
https://www.schlaugh.com/~/EgCBesg
https://www.schlaugh.com/~/MHzblqy
https://www.schlaugh.com/~/SpBaMPi
Might need an account to read them, I'm not sure.
Oh cool, I have permanent brain damage. Cool cool cool. Cool. Great. Rethinking future plans.
You may very well not if you caught it early enough, and one of the themes in Neike's posts is that catching it early is a huge boon. I know ve comments and reads here, ve may have some tips or ideas for you. One thing to note is that I don't recall reading as much about chronic pain in Neike's posts, it was more cognitive, so you might be alright.
It's both... Mind and body torn asunder. I could handle it if it was just pain. It's never just pain. My self is coming apart...
One of the things Neike mentioned is that, when ve got treatment, vis symptoms of depression were reduced. There was indeed some loss of cognitive function, but it was caught early enough that ve still gets to work at Google. It may be the same for you, especially since you had it caught and treated.
In other words, with your measured good B12 levels, what you're feeling right now may have nothing to do with that or maybe even nothing to do with the past.
I can recommend perhaps registering on schlaugh and talking to Neike directly (@pinkgothic), ve is very nice and probably would have some good tips for you.
Here’s some misc. stuff that might help some
The site painscience.com is evidence-based & very helpful regarding pain in particular areas. Some of it is subscription based but a lot of it is free. You might find there some things to help some key parts. I find his technique of locating pressure points and leaning on a hard rubber ball so that presses hard into the crucial spots stunningly effective. I have used it mostly on my back, but have been able to make it work sometimes for shoulder and neck pain, and once pain in the area of the hip joint. Usually the helpful spot is not directly over where it hurts, but a few inches away. It’s not curative — the pain always comes back — but often not til the next day. When you find one of the crucial spots — I think he calls them pressure points — there’s a distinctive “good pain” feeling.
Dicofenac cream is a topical over-the-counter NSAIDthatworks well against pain from points close to the body surface. Instructions are very specific about how much to use, in fact so specific they scared me into total compliance.
I have stuff wrong in my back that starts hurting very easily, and have my bed set up in ways that reduce number of awakenings from pain. I’m a side sleeper, so I’ve made a hip hollow, like some people do under their sleeping bag when camping. Also sleep with a pillow between my knees, one that I sort of hug that keeps my upper arm in place, and one behind me to lean back against to change angles if the part of me that’s lowest starts to ache from the pressure. All that can be improvised with throw pillows or things like soft clothing stuffed into a pillowcase.
Sleep: Scott thinks melatonin is more effective if taken a way that duplicates what the body does naturally. I forget the details but they would not be hard to find. Prob. GPT can tell you. It’s a much smaller dose, I believe 1/2 mg, and taken something like 6 hours before bedtime.
More speculative:
-Sleep: I think, but am not at all sure, that bad sleep interferes with the kind of deep sleep where the body takes care of your muscles, doing things like healing microtears. To get better sleep you could try knocking yourself out a couple times a week with something safe that works for you, like benedryl or benzos, but you’ll need to look up and see whether they interfere with sleep architecture so that you get less stage 3 & 4 sleep. They probably do. If they’re going to do that, you could try exercising a lot one day if there’s a form that doesn’t make you hurt more. Maybe swimming? Oh yeah, alcohol is bad for sleep architecture — you probably know that. I don’t know whether cannabis is. It is also possible that some other med you are taking is screwing up your sleep, but of course stopping the med may cost you in some other way. Worth thinking about.
There’s another drug for pain called lyrica. It’s sometimes prescribed as an alternative to gabapentin, or the 2 are used in combo. I don’t know what the downsides and risks of it are. I know someone who takes it for chronic pain and finds it very effective, after finding almost everything else ineffective.
When my cats purr down into me it reduces pain, but I’m pretty sure that’s placebo. Very pleasant anyway though.
It's not... physical pain. I am not injured. It's coming from inside. Every cell screaming in unison. Like they're all desperately trying to claw their way out of my body. Boiling, burning the flesh.
A friend of mine suffers from the chronic fatigue syndrome. It might be vaguely similar to what you are describing perhaps?
Basically, even mild physical activity can often make her extremely tired with sore muscles for days. And in general she has a lot less energy than before.
It is something famously hard to diagnose, its causes are not very clear and at least in my country it is not even officially recognized as a disease. Sometimes it just goes away after some time. Sometimes it doesn't ever. But of course it could be something entirely different.
There’s this guy doing fascinating work on chronic pain, I’ve used his framework for an old injury.
https://debugyourpain.org/
I"m so sorry to hear it!
When was the last time you had 8+ hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep?
I don't... remember. Probably before it hurt? It always hurts the most when I wake up...
Extremely tentatively and apologies if you've already tried or considered this, but:
How do you feel about talking to your doctor about sleep deprivation therapy? I don't know if you're a good candidate, so it's *DEFINITELY* not something you should experiment with on your own, but apparently sometimes skipping a full sleep cycle (staying awake a full 24 hours, or sometimes a bit more, depending) can sort of force the body to do a hard reset on sleep, REM, etc.
It's not a permanent fix, but if you're a good candidate, it might give you some short and medium-term benefits.
>Does modern physics have anything to say about the freewill vs determinism debate? (Compatibilists need not apply.)
Everett's 'many worlds' interpretation of QM seems to have something to say about it. But you may not be interested because what it says seems to support compatibilism.
>Isn't it likely that time is just a place like Vermont? You haven't been there yet but what happens when you get there is already set in stone.
That may well be. But don't be so sure that your timeline passes through Vermont.
Does modern physics have anything to say about the freewill vs determinism debate? (Compatibilists need not apply.)
Is time really a dimension like space? I think of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five in which the main character becomes "unstuck in time" and experiences his life in non-linear fashion, as witnessed by the alien Tralfamadorians, who can see what happens in all times. Free will makes no sense in that universe because all of time is accessible, meaning it already happened, so to speak.
Isn't it likely that time is just a place like Vermont? You haven't been there yet but what happens when you get there is already set in stone.
So much physics seems to point us toward believing that the future is just a place, much like the past is. It's already there. It's already happened. It's like Nietzsche's Infinite Return. It's already happened and will happen again, because it's place in time-space is static.
Physics doesn't really point us towards believing that the future is a place in this sense. Relativistic simultaneity suggests that the big bang is still ongoing, several billion light years away; laypeople tend to think that the billions of years it takes the earliest light to reach us implies that "time" has passed for the place it left, since it left, but that's not really how it works (for an observer who started at the place it left to reach us before light, they have to travel backwards in time); time and distance are in some deep sense the same thing.
"So much physics seems to point us toward believing that the future is just a place, much like the past is. It's already there. It's already happened."
Sounds like Calvinism to me tbh...
1. This time question is just a reframing of the determinism question. An absolutely deterministic world and a world without real time (whether accurate or not) are equivalent as far as "free will" is concerned.
2. dlkf has answered (to your first question about this, https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-363/comment/84676643) with everything that's necessary to make anyone fully clear about everything that matters about the topic of "free will".
And because I find it so sharp, and a good recap of a centuries old discussion, I quote extensively:
> I believe the classical argument against free will is one of those rare cases of a sound argument in philosophy. The compatibilist position that Chuzz is espousing is fine, but it is basically changing “free will” to mean something different than was originally intended, thereby avoiding the debate. The original hope was that free will grounds moral desert. When you bite the compatibilist bullet to save free will from the classical argument against it, you lose moral desert. What I believe is that there is no free will (in the original sense), there is no moral desert, compatibilism is weird cope, and we should forget the language of “free will” and instead focus on “responds to incentives.”
> [Any] definitions [of free will (in the original sense) as well as desert] going to be kind of bad, because the root problem is that neither moral desert nor free will (in the incompatibilist sense) make any sense.
> Suppose Bob kills his neighbor. Then Bob drugs Alice, with a drug that makes you kill your neighbor. (Just assume there is such a drug). As a result, Alice kills her neighbor. I think most people would have the intuition that Bob is blameworthy for the first murder, and Alice is not blameworthy for the second murder. (Who knows, maybe some people don't have this intuition; that would be interesting.) A common justification for why is that Bob was exercising his "free will" and "could have chosen to do otherwise," whereas Alice was under the control of the drug and could not have chosen to do otherwise.
> At this point some ancient philosopher points out that, if we live in a deterministic world, Bob could not have "chosen to do otherwise" any more than Alice. Both are just at the mercy of history. So we lose our justification for locking up Bob.
> People who want to rescue free will go one of two ways.
> The first is to argue that free will is compatible with determinism. Here, they typically redefine free will as "acting without coercion." So under this model Bob is acting with free will whereas Alice isn't. Great. But obviously this completely fails to address the philosopher's point – we have just redefined "free will" to fit with the moral intuitions about praise and blame [that is, about desert] that we already had. If you feel the philosopher has any point whatsoever, this is going to be unsatisfying to you.
> (My own position here is that our pre-existing moral intuitions about praise and blame do have a solid basis – namely that Bob's behaviour might respond to incentives, whereas Alice's wouldn't. So I agree with everyone else, compatibilists included, that reward and punishment are reasonable things that we should continue do. But I think we should do away with the expression "free will" and instead talk about "responds to incentives" because it is more precise, and discards hundreds of years of baggage of confused philosophical debates.)
> The second route is to point out that we _don't_ live in a deterministic world, and that this means that Bob could have acted otherwise. I find this totally unconvincing – indeterminacy just means that instead of being at the mercy of history, you are now at the mercy of chance.
I think I would rephrase "responds to incentives" to "responds to stimulus". There are stimulus other than incentive that could turn Bob away from murdering (there's a whole gamut of things that can result in moral regeneration that I don't think can be classified as incentives).
My opinion (as someone who has studied physics and thought about the issue a bit) is that when you frame it as "freewill VS determinism", you're already on the wrong track. Non-determinism wouldn't help with freewill, and depending on what you mean by freewill, determinism doesn't hurt.
The whole "freewill" thing suffers from unclear and contradictory definitions. I think it makes more sense to think about which entitites have traditionally been assumed to possess "freewill" and where, in the traditional discussion, "freewill" breaks down. There's a wide gap between that and questions about quantum mechanics and determinism.
>The whole "freewill" thing suffers from unclear and contradictory definitions. I think it makes more sense to think about which entitites have traditionally been assumed to possess "freewill" and where, in the traditional discussion, "freewill" breaks down.
Agreed. Here is a crude version of the argument that made me to reject the framing that the problem of free will is about determinism or could be solved with non-determinism. (I don't remember the original source, it may have become garbled.)
The free will is thought to apply to entities like persons. If the universe is assumed to deterministic, it is common to assume that the determinism applies to everything in the universe, which includes the human beings and biological phenomenon any human person consists of (human body from digestive system to neuronal activity). It is argued that if one assumes determinism, state of universe at one moment determines the state at the next moment, including all events and circumstances. Thus, the person is not free to make choices out of free will, because the evolution of their thoughts and actions at one moment are determined by the previous moment.
The main question to ask is this. Suppose one grants that the universe is physical, but we find out that the correct interpretation of the physical laws is that causality is non-deterministic. State of universe may cause different states to follow, in a way that appears unpredictable, randomly or at least probabilistic. The biological phenomenon of human body, including their neuronal activity, are still part of the universe. Would the randomness of the mental trajectory make the agent to have free will?
To me, *if a person is thought to have unfree will under determinism, by same logic* the person appears also equally unfree if their thoughts and actions follow *randomly* from the circumstances of the universe during the previous moment. Unfreedom due to determinist causation replaced by unfreedom due to non-deterministic causation.
It appears the conflict of idea of free will is not about determinism or non-determinism of the physical universe, but more definitional one.
Determinism requires something to have set the universe in motion in the Big Bang, and then to never be able to interact with the universe again to change any aspect of its trajectory.
The very metaphor "set in stone" displays the weak point of the idea. Stone is actually extremely malleable; you can carve faces into it, you can blow holes in it, you can haul it to the other side of the world. The blind spot that leads to "stone" being the pinnacle of immovability is the same blind spot that leads "modern physics" to be an omnipotent, omnipresent force that has always been and will always be.
Basically, if you want to argue determinism you need to solve what caused the conditions for the Big Bang.
> if you want to argue determinism you need to solve what caused the conditions for the Big Bang
Do we? "We currently know of no way to reason about events prior to a certain time very shortly after the big bang" is a very different statement to "the big bang was uncaused". I, for one, see no reason to throw out the best model we know of for describing everything since until we have a better one.
No, modern physics has nothing to say about free will. Time travel is likely impossible. Vonnegut wasn't a physicist.
Quantum mechanics is nondeterministic but that nondeterminism doesn't appear to effect the behavior of the brain.
I think place is a natural metaphor for us to grab when trying to think about time, but it is not a very helpful one. Think of all the other possible metaphors: Time is the wave place is surfing. Time is a component of place. I mean, that place in Vermont — it’s changing all the time, right? The leaves dance around, the light changes, various woodland creatures move through, and of course the bugs and the microbes are very busy.
Good points but I'm not sure it's just a metaphor. Maybe time is a real dimension like space. Maybe the past still exists, literally, and so does the future.
Well, “dimensions of space” aren’t “real”, they form a useful model. We can add a “time dimension” to the model if it’s useful for our calculations, but it doesn’t “explain” anything.
Well yeah, but I’m not sure my 2 models are just metaphors either. Maybe one of them captures the reality in its metafingers.
Writing here to voice my support for renewing the yearly book reviews. That was some of the best reading I did last year, and would love another year of that great content
I also hope there is another book review contest. I participated for the first time last year, and didn't (quite) make the finalists, but I want to try again and already have a book picked out.
Looks like we’re in a similar boat! I haven’t contributed previously (only discovered this blog through the Two Arms and a Head review), but have a book picked out for this year
Going off memory now, but I think the question about some controversial topic was something like "what are you're feelings towards" positive to negative on a scale of 1-5.
I think this conflates two different things.
e.g.: "what are your feelings towards the fact that the everyone you love is going to one day die"
There's the truth value of the statement, but also how happy I am about that, and these might be very different!
Just about every statement can work on different simulacrum levels. If you play "I know there is not really a lion on the other side of the river, but I would still wish the lion deniers would shut up about that for complex social reasons, and thus I affirm the lion hypothesis", then you have already lost touch with the ground truth.
Unlike human mortality, where basically everyone agrees on the facts, HBD is contested at simulacrum level one, so it makes sense to indicate how much you agree with the claims.
I'm just gonna mildly obfusticate here since I'm totally doxxable here.
https://rot13.com/
V guvax jr cerggl zhpu nterr*: Zl cbvag vf gung gur dhrfgvba fubhyq unir fgrrerq crbcyr gbjneqf nafjrevat ba yriry 1 ("ubj yvxryl gb qb lbh guvax vg vf gung gur pber pynvzf bs uoq ner fhofgnagvnyyl pbeerpg" be fvzvyne) juvyr zl zrzbel vf gung gur jbeqvat bs gur dhrfgvba rapbhentrq xrrcvat ba rlr ba yriry 3 (tebhc zrzorefuvc/ fvtanyyvat).
*rkprcg nobhg juvpu yriry uoq qvfchgr vf zbfgyl unccravat ba. V guvax gur bccbfvgvba gb vgf zber zbqrengr pynvzf vf birejuryzvatyl bcrengvat ba uvture yriryf.
> *rkprcg nobhg juvpu yriry uoq qvfchgr vf zbfgyl unccravat ba. V guvax gur bccbfvgvba gb vgf zber zbqrengr pynvzf vf birejuryzvatyl bcrengvat ba uvture yriryf.
Absolutely. In fact, this is a nice example where level 3 takes over to a degree that makes level one epistemologically inaccessible: if my ingroup believes that claiming X will make me a bad person, I realistically will not be able to factually determine if X is true or not.
omg we're 2 open threads away from nr 365 - round as the earth's orbit
Technically, Earth's orbit is round neither spatially nor in terms of days. Good luck waiting for OT 365.256...
if I see a 0.01 off ellipse im calling that shit round
The earth orbit's longest radius is 3.4% longer than its shortest one.
So, is anyone else super excited for Jan. 20th? It's going to be so much fun to watch the chaos unfold.
> In a rambling, hourlong news conference at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump also reiterated his threat that “all hell will break out in the Middle East” if the hostages being held by Hamas are not released by Inauguration Day, repeating the threat four times.
“If they’re not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East,” he told reporters. “And it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. All hell will break out. I don’t have to say anymore, but that’s what it is.”
I'm putting my money on "nothing ever happens," for a couple of reasons.
1. Hamas physically doesn't know where the hostages are and probably can't find them all in 2 weeks regardless of what threat you make.
2. Airstrikes are a very poor method of locating hostages, assuming you want them alive when you find them.
3. Hell has *been* loose in Gaza for over a year already, how much more loose can it be? I'm genuinely unsure if Israel could be bombing Gaza harder than it already is, what military targets they could possibly want to hit that they've held back from for fear of public opinion.
Wait. isn’t that also National Hemorrhoids Day? I object to its being upstaged.
I have a hobby of studying serious (advanced undergrad or grad school level) math and physics in various areas that are interesting or fundamental, without direct benefit or application to my work (formal education is decades ago). I'm not very successful at it, because I tend to fizzle out after getting through 1/4 of a textbook, or something similar. Things get a bit harder, real life intervenes, lack of structure, etc. I wonder if others have a similar hobby and/or similar issues, and found ways to do this better. Haven't tried study groups and not sure those exist at this level. Going back to school for a PhD is implausible for life reasons. Advice/anecdotes?
One thing I've found somewhat helpful is to have a project I'm working on to apply the knowledge to. I suppose the benefit works the same way as the exercises you'd be set as part of a university course. My project is to work out how chemistry would work in 4D space, which naturally has consequences for almost every aspect of the topic so being able to follow along the textbook's derivations with all the changes required for 4D is quite a good check that I'm actually absorbing it. This project has the advantages that, since it's practically useless, there isn't much prior research, and its scope is large enough to be basically inexhaustible. What a suitable project would be for the topics you want to study, I don't know. Quite likely having multiple separate smaller projects would have much the same effect.
Also I have had a habit of leaving a textbook in the kitchen to read while I'm waiting for things to cook. The main point of bother for me is just getting to the library to get the books.
I'm somewhat in the same situation. Years ago, I read a topology textbook just for fun, and really enjoyed doing this kind of thinking again (up until the point where the constructions became too overwhelming for me, who just read the book and didn't do any -- or only a few -- of the exercises).
I'm really missing a kind of book which is in between a formal textbook and the kind of popular mathematics by people like Ian Stewart, where the adage goes that "every formula scares off 50% of the readers".
Two books that might be at the right level are:
The Calculus Gallery by Dunham
Imagining Numbers by Barry Mazur
Both are historically focused. The first is a collection of ideas tracing the development of calculus. The second looks at the development of a formula for the roots of a cubic polynomial and the process toward acceptance of the use of imaginary numbers.
For someone who casually was reading a topology textbook, the actual mathematics in both won't be that difficult, but probably also not completely trivial. For example, a lot of the effort for the Calculus Gallery is translating the original form into a modern way of looking at the same problem.
One little nugget I found surprising from the Mazur book is that imaginary numbers emerged through the search for methods to find roots of cubic polynomials, not quadratics. To a modern student, the quadratics show the immediate need, like $x^2+1=0.$ However, historically, people were happy to just accept that there was no root. What really made them reconsider was a set of examples with real roots, but where the intermediate calculations in the cubic root formula naturally go through the complex numbers (the imaginary components eventually cancel.)
There is something similar for the theorem that primes congruent to 1 mod 4 can be written as the sum of two squares. While that theorem is entirely about natural numbers, one of the nice proof paths goes through the complex numbers. Of course, there are a lot of examples in physics that, at the right meta level, are also like this.
I find the only way I can absorb bulk dense dry material these days is to rapidly skim the whole thing once before attempting any in depth study to build a mental map of what is there and where it is going overall, so that the little pieces I end up chewing through in between life have somewhere to attach themselves to.
What problem are you trying to solve? You're studying for enjoyment - there's nothing wrong with putting the book away and moving on once you're past the point where you find the topic interesting/enjoyable.
Just sign up for a single grad class. You could make time for that. The structure might keep you motivated.
Textbooks are like hard tack. Change it up -- eat some oranges and fried chicken too! Just hunted around a bit to see what interesting supplements there are calculus learning. Googled "most entertaining calculus class" and found on Reddit. people talking about best YouTube instructors. There are books of math art. There's a book on Amazon called The Calculus Gallery that readers love -- it's about the development of calculus. Googled "calculus machine" and found out there's a machine called the Mechanical Integrator. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-y_lnzWQjk). I'll bet somewhere there is a book of projects using calculus -- build this or that.
I realize you may not be studying calculus, but you get the idea. To find things, ask google, GPT and Reddit questions. Ask for "most entertaining," ask for art, ask for projects, ask for study groups, ask for puzzles and challenges.
similar situation. The best I've done was a recent foray/refresh on differential geometry/topology and differential equations. I made it most of the way through Do Carmo, Spivak, Edwards Adv Calc: A Differential Forms Approach, and Allendoerfer. I also went through some of Munkres Topology.
The three difficulties I find:
(1) life events as distractions
(2) lack of clear purpose
(3) I already know a decent amount, so it can be hard to figure out where to start
The only one of these obstacles that I've fully solved is the third point. Now, I just push myself to start at the beginning and work through all the problems, even if it feels too easy sometimes.
My partial solution to (1) and (2) is to choose a single text and focus on working through that whenever I have spare time. Even if I don't make rapid progress, it keeps me from diluting the effort by spreading it across 3 (or 6 or 10) other mini-projects.
As an alum of American Big 10 university, one with a rodent for a mascot, over a certain age I can take any course they offer for $10/semester credit. I’ve been reluctant to do it though because traditionally college aged students are paying way too much in tuition. I suspect I’d run into a fair bit of resentment. It’s kind of tempting though just to see how many majors I could complete.
I did a a CSci major and Linguistics minor as an undergrad there and earned my masters at another school.
> I’ve been reluctant to do it though because traditionally college aged students are paying way too much in tuition.
Cynically, they are not paying for getting to listen to world class lectures (plenty of that online), but for getting a piece of paper at the end which is certifies that they earned a degree at a very prestigious university.
If you are not planning on earning another degree and competing against them on the labor market, you attending should not matter to them.
Here in old Europe, lectures are practically open to the public: nobody is checking your id at the entrance. Things are a bit different for lab courses, I imagine if you show up to a human anatomy course unannounced they will hardly tell you to just grab a corpse and a knife. But if you university allows you to register for lab courses for a minimal fee, I don't think it would cause resentment from students either. Again, they are mainly paying for their degree, not the knowledge.
Prerequisites would apply. Degrees would be awarded. Just that annoying exorbitant tuition is removed.
Thanks for the comments below. I might have been overthinking this. Been known to do that, ask my wife.
Looking at a course catalog now.
I agree with the comments below. No student will resent you for showing up to class. Do it.
I’m currently completing my undergrad degree funded by a scholarship – so it’s subsidized by my classmates – and I’ve never ran into any resentment about it (or if I have, I’ve been oblivious to it).
The people who might possibly develop some resentment of you would be not the current students -- for whom college bills are mostly big meaningless numbers that vary for incomprehensible reasons which adults argue about with strangers in online forums -- but their parents.
In any case though how many students or their parents would even be aware of the tuition deal you're getting as an alum?
You should do it and don't worry about the resentment. For the most part, everyone sitting in the classroom with you is paying a different amount and any resentment should be directed toward the institution/system rather than at you.
Unless I'm missing a key consideration: would your presence make the experience worse for the other students?
Let's say Trump is serious about wanting to make Canada the 51st state and is willing to force the issue as much as possible. He claims Canada is letting terrorists into the US and places onerous tariffs in "response". He could also claim Canada isn't respecting America's territory in the Arctic Ocean. He sends US troops to Ottawa.
What could the ROW do about it other than denounce it? Would the UK fight a war over it? Russia wouldn't like it, but Trump could tell Putin: "You get Ukraine, we get Canada."
I certainly don't expect this to happen, but if Trump wanted to go for it, what prevents it from happening?
Actually, I just thought of a foolproof two step plan that will definitely work.
1) Rename Puerto Rico `Canada'
2) Admit `Canada' (formerly Puerto Rico) as the 51st state
As for what the ROW would do about it...nothing. Except chuckle, I guess.
This seems way more plausible than any plan for the annexation of actual Canada.
This is the first round "ask for everything" negotiation tactic, paired with bluster to let them know we're serious.
The actual end-game here is an EU-type arrangement where you have freedom of travel and work, and free trade. The issue is: an arrangement of that sort *basically is* annexation - allow an agreement like that, and Canada and the US (already the two most culturally similar and economically interlinked nations on Earth), will become even more so - the Laurentian Elite knows that's checkmate, so you need the bluster.
At the VERY LEAST, can we not go back to the pre-9/11 standard where they just wave you through at the border with ID? The US/Canada border guys on each side are MEAN - going through immigration as an American into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was easier and less harrowing.
> Canada the 51st state
This is the part of the Trump post that added insult to injury. Canada should not only join the union, they should be happy that they get all of two senators, like Hawaii, making them the largest and most populous state.
I agree that the rest of NATO would likely turn oathbreaker rather than fighting a nuclear war against an enemy who has them badly out-nuked. But still, the status quo coalition would be over. The surviving rest of NATO would try to form a defensive pact lest they be the next victim. For the same reason that NATO is supporting Ukraine and the US supported the Taliban against the USSR, we would obviously give materiel aid to Canadian forces or insurgents or whatever there will be: the more a rabid US is tied up pacifying Canada (which is about 15x the size of Afghanistan), the less capability they have to invade us.
For the "He sends US troops to Ottawa" scenario, the ROW doesn't have to lift a finger to stop it, because the United States Army won't even start it. No, not even if the President of the United States America orders them to because A: US Army officers swear an oath to obey the Constitution, *not* the President and B: The Constitution says that an order to start a war has to come from Congress, not the President. Congress has issued some very vague authorizations for POTUS to wage war against e.g. anyone we think is in cahoots with Al Qaeda, but nothing that anybody is going to believe applies to Canada.
If *Canada* starts an actual shooting war with the United States, then POTUS could order an immediate counterattack into Ottawa, and he'd eventually need to clear that with Congress but we can imagine that the shooting part would be over by then. But Canada isn't stupid enough to start a shooting war with the United States. And the United States Army isn't stupid enough to believe Donald Trump if he lies and says the Canadians attacked us.
The US fought the Korean War, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, and the Persian Gulf without a congressional declaration of war.
It would be difficult, and potentially very politically costly depending on the circumstances and optics, but to expect the military to go against the President, without an extremely explicit countermand but congress, is not a good bet.
The War Powers Act changed the language from "Declaration of War" to "Authorization for Use of Military Force". But we had one of those for Vietnam and most of our subsequent wars. In the case of Panama, the Panamanian legislature rather stupidly declared war on *us*.
Declaring war on the United States is never a good move, unless of course you're a European microstate in a Peter Sellers movie.
It sucked a bit for Germany and Japan at first, but it turned out pretty well for them in the longer term (apart from East Germany)!
I suspect you are correct that nobody else would take up arms to fight directly for Canada's freedom, for many of the same reasons they wouldn't for Ukraine. However, I think you're way off base in thinking that other countries denouncing it would be the extent of the international damage. In brief, the U.S. making this choice[1], the U.S. would destroy pretty much every aspect of its current set of alliances and international relationships.
It's difficult to overstate just how much of the current international order is built on the back of U.S. security guarantees. Since WWII the U.S. has been extremely proactive about building relationships with other nations: security relationships, diplomatic relationships, economic relationships. There's a staggeringly large amount of business arrangements, governmental co-ventures and academic partnerships that are built around the bedrock assumption that not only is the U.S. not going to suddenly start shooting at its allies, but it's going to come down harshly on anyone else who does. And of course, one would be hard-pressed to find a country that the U.S. has older and stronger ties with than Canada.
If the U.S. were to decide to betray that friendship, to go back on one of its oldest, strongest security guarantees, so launch an utterly unprovoked invasion of neighbor with whom it has been securely at peace for all of living memory, who could trust that any of its other agreements would be any more solid? Every single deal that assumes that goodwill and basic sanity of the U.S. government would suddenly be suspect. Every single government would have to start very rapidly re-imagining and re-structuring its diplomatic and military policy.
NATO would obviously be completely done-for. As I said, I doubt anyone who fight on Canada's behalf, but an alliance that the U.S. just shot a hole through would be no guarantee to anyone: likely the remaining current NATO members would try to re-form some defensive alliance without the U.S. (indeed, in part to protect themselves AGAINST the U.S. in case Canada was just the beginning). I wouldn't bet money on the U.S. keeping control of ANY of its military bases abroad: who is going to want such a powerful and unpredictable wildcard to have a foothold on their soil? International trade can't pivot on a dime, but a lot of countries would start (at the very least) trying to make alternate plans in case the U.S. proved as unreliable a trading partner as it just did a military one (something that Trump has, of course, also been threatening), and I'm sure at least some amount of trade would be immediately redirected from the U.S.'s shores. I can't begin to guess whether the financial world would start trying to divest itself from the dollar or if so how fast they'd move, but it would certainly at least be discussed, and I'd expect the dollar to become much more volatile even in the best-case scenario.
I am honestly finding it very difficult to imagine what the world would look like in the aftermath of a move like this. None of us have lived in that world. And the last shift of that magnitude was many decades ago, decades which have seen huge and sweeping changes in communication and transportation technology, which make the lessons of history hard to confidently apply.
[1] Note I say "the U.S." and not "Trump." This isn't something the president has the power to do alone. This would either require significant buy-in from the rest of the country, or would take place in a future where Trump has become de facto or de jure dictator, and has much more complete control of the country than the office of president currently gives him.
I imagine there would be a huge and unpredictable mess, but my personal hobbyhorse is the US nuclear umbrella. A number of states could spin up their own nuclear program and be carrying out tests quite quickly; these are the so-called "nuclear threshold" states, which have the ability to leave the US nuclear umbrella if they so choose.
I'm an Australian, and I remember reading that the estimated time for Australia to carry out its first nuclear test could be as low as three months, given our uranium mining, prior nuclear research, and industrial capacity (can't find the source for this, though). We'd have significant motivation to develop our own nuclear weapons if we kicked the US military out of our joint facilities.
Probably the US would do a lot of diplomatic wrangling to keep its key military and economic relationships intact, but I imagine a nuclear-armed Taiwan, South Korea, Turkey (not just hosting US nukes but developing its own), or Poland might cause some issues. Also, Canada is a nuclear threshold state itself...
Absolutely. In fact, I suspect that some nuclear powers within NATO (UK, France) would be happy to share their bomb designs with the others so that the Anti-US defense pact can at least try to move to something like nuclear parity.
US tanking its alliances elsewhere as the country becomes seen as (even more of) an aggressive loose cannon
also, Canadians, if they want to fight back; could make it a very nasty guerilla war
He'd never be able to get Congressional authorization for military action. No one wants the US to annex Canada, Trump is just being a blowhard.
The trouble with making serious threats as a negotiating tactic is that sometimes you'll need to make good on those threats if you want to maintain your credibility. This is a really striking case because the threat is--as you correctly note--so far outside of ANYONE'S best interests, and outside of Trump's apparent capability. As a matter of basic rationality, when somebody makes an outrageous, public threat like this, you should pretty much always call them on it. If you don't, you've set the cost coerce you and an unacceptably low level and can expect more such threats in short order.
So what will Trump do if Canada's new PM replies to Trump with the diplomat-speak equivalent of "go fuck yourself with a rusty shovel?" I honestly don't know. Trump would certainly understand that *not responding at all* would make him look weak, and if there's one thing I can say with confidence about Trump's psychology its that he *hates* looking weak. But will his response be something as harmless as another Twitter tantrum? Something more painful and destructive like making good on his tariff threats? Or will he try to escalate further, trying to drag congress along?
The best case scenario I can imagine is that at least some of the people Trump has handling the actual nuts-and-bolts of his negotiations are actual adults who understand both the basic diplomacy/game theory of the situation (i.e. why Canada doesn't want to be seen as caving to this sort of pressure) and how to play Trump adequately. A deal that Trump and his most die-hard followers can be made to believe is a "big win" for him, but that literally everybody else on the planet understands as pretty favorable to Canada would be something like the ideal way to de-escalate. I'm not enormously hopeful, but it could happen.
Do you think Trump has any credibility to maintain? Do you think he even cares?
He's a 78-year-old megalomaniacal blowhard. Just enjoy the show. The President doesn't have much individual power, particularly if he's not politically astute. He has zero chance of making anything like that a reality. (Of course I said the same thing in 2016 about the border wall ...)
> Just enjoy the show. The President doesn't have much individual power
...this seems familiar - it's actually just like where a good portion of the AI doom debates end up: participants in agreement that the entity in question would do horribly destructive things if given the opportunity, but the optimists believe it will never be given access to enough power to actually do so while the pessimists cry for more ways to guarantee that.
I think he does care about looking foolish. While he certainly has a...let's call it a very strong talent for interpreting reality in ways that flatter his ego, I think the Canadian PM thumbing their nose at his demands would still be pretty likely to piss him off.
As for his individual power, I'll grant that he certainly doesn't have the power to execute complicated plans that require sustained, long-term buy in by large portions of the government. Either a coordinated invasion or some sort of diplomatic attempt at annexation certainly qualify, so I have little fear of him doing either of those. But as the Chief Executive of the most powerful country on Earth, he certainly has SOME power. My fear is not that he will respond to a perceived insult with a brilliant and subtle game of 42-dimensional chess which will let fall a fateful chain of dominoes that culminates in him bringing deepest woe unto the Canadian people. It's that he'll throw a tantrum of unknown size and scope: he may not have much power to build, but he certainly has some power to break things. While "just enjoy the show" was pretty much my reaction to seeing him win this election, I'd be much more comfortable with it if I were safely outside the blast radius.
Oh relax. Nothing he does will be worse than printing $3 trillion, letting in 6m uneducated low iq immigrants, and letting DEI infect institutions and companies. The US has a long track record of surviving terrible leaders.
Why do you imagine that this sort of low effort channeling of talking points furthers the discourse?
Moreover, substantively, 1) you have no idea what migrants' IQs are; and 2) the entity in charge of adjusting the money supply (not "printing money") is the Fed, not the President. And virtually all the Fed Board members in office during the period in question was a Trump appointee.
With respect, if you don't have better insight than this to offer, easier for both of us if you don't reply. I can get a virtually identical soup of buzzwords and insinuations from the dregs of any social media comment section anywhere: I generally look for a rather higher standard here at ACX.
The bar for terrible U.S. leaders in my lifetime would be more succinctly expressed by starting two massively expensive wars, murdering somewhere in the ballpark of a million foreigners and massively expanding the U.S. surveillance state. In terms of actual, tangible effects, Trump's first term was bad, but not quite that bad.
OTOH, Trump's first term was marked mostly by failing to do things he tried to do: he's more notable for what he attempted than what he accomplished. And his attempts include things like *checks notes* um...more or less literally trying to destroy the U.S.'s democratic process. The U.S. deciding to roll those dice again just because they didn't quite land on disaster the first time strikes me as unutterably stupid. Now I don't think the man has magically gained a modicum of competence in the past four years, but I DO think his party is more united behind him than it used to be.
So lets call it a 40% chance that he's around as bad as his first term (pretty bad, not catastrophic), a 50% chance that he does similar or slightly worse damage to Bush Jr's two terms and a 10% chance that he causes the implosion the U.S.'s political system in some fashion. Low in an absolute sense, but way, way higher than anyone ought to be comfortable with.
>Trump is just being a blowhard.
How do you tell?
I don’t think he even knows whether or not he’s serious until he gauges people’s reaction to his proposals.
This seems right. As various sycophants have quickly realized -- the latest example being Musk, apparently, who's resided at Mar A Largo for most of the time since Election Day -- you want to be the last person Trump hears from about any given topic.
He's a blowhard who expects a blowjob from everybody else.
I don't think the rest of the world would need to do much other than potentially provide weapons and funding to Canadian resistance groups. Controlling and pacifying Canada if they resisted is extremely unlikely to work for 4 reasons.
#1 The US military does not have a history of success against guerilla insurgents.
#2 There is no way to secure the US-Canadian border or prevent movement throughout Canada. Just too big.
#3 Canada is a day's drive from major US cities like New York, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland. Heck, Detroit and Windsor are separated by a river.
#4 Canadians are far more educated and resourceful than most insurgents the US has fought and that opens up a lot of possibilities. A lot of Canadians have nuclear and biological experience. We we're very scared of Iraq getting a dirty bomb, meanwhile Canada has 19 nuclear reactors.
So don't imagine, like, the US army vs the Iraqi army. Think the US army vs the Iraqi insurgents except they're larger, richer, more advanced, and right next to major American cities. Or just ask the British how that whole Irish thing went down.
I think 4 is actually an argument against 1. Insurgency is actually the biggest problem in underdeveloped, poorly educated, impoverished countries like 60s Vietnam or Afghanistan. The fact that people were spread out in rural areas, jungles, mountains, mostly worked in agriculture (and were thus self sufficient), and poor (meaning lots of young men with nothing to lose willing to die for the cause) made them dangerous. For an industrialized country like Canada, just control over the water supply and power grid give the occupier overwhelming power. Even 1940s Germany was too economically developed for an insurgency to be possible (the nazi government tried and totally failed to incite one).
It seems exceedingly unlikely to me that any first world country nowadays who’s military loses a war will mount a meaningful insurgency.
> Even 1940s Germany was too economically developed for an insurgency to be possible (the nazi government tried and totally failed to incite one).
Well, the Nazi propaganda was running on the Germans being the Herrenrasse who would obviously win against the Untermenschen. They could not very well adapt their ideology after being soundly defeated on the battlefield into being the underdog. The werewolf thing was more of an afterthought, not a long-standing key part of their long-term military strategy. Also, anyone who would volunteer to die for his Vaterland had already had plenty of opportunity to do so in 1945.
Regarding Canada, likely 99% of the people in any western country will not take direct part in any insurgency. However, this still leaves a significant number of people who might leave their ipads behind to join the guerrilla, which will likely enjoy the sympathy of the civilian population.
And if they do... we could always resort to scorched earth tactics, seeing as we no longer have an image to maintain.
Add to that
#5. Canada as a whole is HUGE. While the densely-populated regions are clustered close to the border, there's a staggeringly vast area--much of it extremely rugged--for insurgent groups to hide out in.
Honestly, the US military could probably take all of the relevant areas in a day and simply ignore the rest entirely. Not only are we talking about 95%+ of the population, but also the infrastructure and so forth. The people are so spread out through the remaining areas that they would have trouble organizing anything useful to do against the US. And coming to the larger cities with anything capable of causing harm would be pretty obvious.
And Canada is busy disarming their populous, so it's not like there are thousands of guns and bombs available everywhere. A few guys shooting at US military personnel would register at the level of a normal day in most big cities, especially American cities. We wouldn't notice.
No, the real reason not to invade Canada is because we have no reason to need to. If the US wanted something from Canada, we can just bully and cajole them into giving it to us. I think that's what Trump is doing now. Canada needs so much from the US economically that it cannot withstand sanctions or other intentional efforts from the US. I think Trump is dumb to do so, but he's proving to Trudeau that Canadian leaders do not have the freedom to snobbishly attack American leaders.
The honest truth is if the U.S. did try to invade Canada, I'd place a much higher bet on it causing the collapse of the U.S. as a nation than I would on it establishing any sort of durable U.S. control of Canada. A positively ENORMOUS fraction of the U.S. population would object to that move. I mean: just think about how big the protests were when the war was in a podunk country in Asia that most had never been to. And now one of the most hated presidents in U.S. history tries to invade its friendly neighbor? The reaction would NOT be small.
What's more, that fraction is concentrated in all the wealthiest parts of the country: the parts that fill the coffers that get used to pay for Uncle Sam's military adventures. I'd expect a neverending slough of street protests, general strikes, tax strikes, sit-ins, road blockages and probably no small amount of domestic terrorism. And of course the federal government--headed as it is by a small minded thug--would respond with an absolutely ENORMOUS level of force against its own populous. Which would, of course, just escalate things.
Would Trump's appetite to shoot at his own citizens outlast their appetite to spit in his face? The gods only know. But either way, the final bill would be sky-high and the revenue of the federal government would drop immensely. Maybe the nation would limp out the other side as a unified entity, but I wouldn't bet a lot on it.
I'm sorry, did I imagine that incident where a couple dozen guys with box cutters caused the entire U.S. to collectively lose its shit for a decade or more? Because it sure seems like the threshold for "capable of causing harm" to a level that Americans care about is much, much lower than you seem to think. Like, I certainly don't think hypothetical Canadian insurgent groups could seriously dent the U.S.'s military infrastructure. But I also don't imagine for a second that they'd need to: there are many, many thousands of softer targets--far to many to ever secure--that would serve just as well.
The point of asymmetric warfare isn't to directly damage a country's war-making infrastructure. It's to provoke expensive overreactions. An extremely provokable country led by a perhaps one of the single most fragile egos in history trying to annex a country with thousands of miles of shared border has got to be one of the softest targets any insurgency was ever presented with. And no, I don't particularly think that the military that spend 20 years and two trillion dollars losing to the Taliban would magically become competent enough to deal with that. "Large" and "rich" are not the same thing as "effective," my dear.
"And Canada is busy disarming their populous, so it's not like there are thousands of guns and bombs available everywhere."
Silly rabbit, bombs are everywhere! Modern society does not exactly starve one for explosive material to work with. Meanwhile, contrary to whatever propaganda you've been reading, about a quarter of Canadian households own guns. But of course that proportion is likely to be much higher in rural areas, which are the areas that would be hardest for the U.S. to control.
"If the US wanted something from Canada, we can just bully and cajole them into giving it to us. I think that's what Trump is doing now. "
Well, yes, that's what he's attempting. While it would certainly be better for everyone if he didn't, I can't deny I find it pretty funny how self-satisfied he seems to be at his project of taking a giant sledgehammer to 80 years of accumulated American soft power. When this sort of effort predictably makes America poorer, less respected and less influential, I'm sure his supporters will keep breathlessly insisting that it's all Biden's (who whoever else's) fault.
We do have nukes. Much more effective at burning down forests than napalm.
The pendant in me rather doubts that's true. The blast radius of a nuke may be large compared to conventional explosives, but it's still very, very small compared to the size of a forest. And if you're counting on the fires spreading on their own, I would think napalm would give you much better control for a tiny fraction of the price.
But all that is rendered pretty irrelevant by a more practical concern. You know what a small insurgent group would call provoking a superpower to launch nukes just for a chance of taking them out? Winning. They would call it winning.
Like, nevermind the political fallout (which would doubtless be massive), that sounds like an amazing deal just on a cost basis. Nukes are EXTREMELY expensive. Only in their wildest dreams are any single group of insurgents going to cause damage that comes anywhere close to the cost of one single warhead, nevermind the delivery system, nevermind the cleanup. Most insurgencies would love nothing better than to watch their enemies shoot themselves in the foot that hard.
...I don't see how any of that would be a problem? We already have a ton of nukes just sitting here, gathering dust. It would be a waste not to use them eventually. Cleanup is also unnecessary because we're talking about northern Canada, nobody lives there anyways. Not much harm in razing most of it to the ground. In fact, the mini-nuclear winter would temporarily counteract global warming!
My overwhelming impression from this comment is that you are simply trying to be an edgelord, rather than having an actual conversation. In the event that I'm wrong, I still have to concede that my meager skills at pedagogy aren't equal to the task of correcting the extremely deep and serious faults in your knowledge of the world and ability to reason about it. Either way, the obvious course is to disengage. Good day.
Why would we use force though? It would be much simpler to buy it.
Lets start with Alberta, where the susceptibility to leaving Canada for the US is probably highest. We offer the residents of Alberta a large bribe to become the 51st state (maybe 52nd if Greenland goes first). Now BC is cutoff from the rest of Canada. Probably at this point we can get them for a much smaller bribe, even none at all. At this point likely Quebec is pissed to have been beaten to the door, so we offer them statehood as #54 (55), etc. Divide and conquer, buying one province at a time.
> Probably at this point we can get them for a much smaller bribe, even none at all.
Alaska is cut off from the other US states by Canada, and yet hasn't joined Canada. Why would that work differently the other way around?
How is this supposed to work, exactly?
Even assuming for the sake of argument that the people of Alberta have the legal authority to secede from Canada, I'm pretty sure Canadian law prohibits anyone (and especially foreigners) from bribing voters in Canadian elections. So all that bribe money would just be redirected into Ottawa's treasury as soon as it crosses the border.
And if the idea is that Trump would promise to pay the Albertans *after* they secede and join the Union, then A: the Albertans would have to be stupid enough to trust Donald Trump to hold up his end of a deal even without a formal contract to bind him to, and B: Canadian elections are done with secret ballots, so there's no way to know which people Trump is supposed to pay off.
He'd have to promise to pay *everyone* in Alberta, regardless of how they voted. Which means the loyal and/or skeptical ones would all have the option of hedging their bets by voting "No" but still collecting whatever payout Trump actually pays out if their countrymen go with "Yes".
This seems like...well, "wishful thinking" hardly seems like a strong enough term. If I were trying to write a bit of satire to illustrate some of the more common negative stereotypes about Americans--specifically about thinking they're the center of the universe and not understanding how anyone else could POSSIBLY fail to envy them--I think I'd need to make it only slightly more over-the-top than what you've written here.
I do agree that Alberta would probably be the most susceptible to leaving Canada: I think there's some appetite for that among Albertans. If I had to guess how many would up and join Alberta to the U.S. if given the opportunity, I'd say in the 30% range. But my confidence there is very low: it could be in the 60s, it could be in the 10s. So I won't say that "try to get Alberta to join the U.S." is completely ridiculous as a Step 1.
Where I think you start to go off the rails is imagining that a bribe would be of much help in convincing the holdouts. First off, a bribe is only an inducement if you, yourself, expect to benefit from the bribe. So let's say the deal is for a direct cash payment to each and every Albertan. Thought experiment: how big of a bribe would have to be part of the package for you to vote for your state to become part of China or Russia? How about Germany or the UK? Would $1000 do it? How about $5000? Maybe $50,000? I expect for many people there is no practical number high enough. For the remainder, I expect a wide spread, but a lot of people will tend fairly high. Canadians aren't a monolith, but two things you will CERTAINLY find here are people who take pride in being Canadian, and people who take a dim view of the U.S. Irrevocably yoking your future and your children's future to a country you don't care for is gonna be a pretty tough sell. And that's before you get into credibility issues: Trump does not exactly have a great reputation for fairness and honesty in his business deals. How many are going to trust the bribe to actually come through? Once the U.S. has political control of Alberta, why would they need to pay?
But far, far more off-base than that is the notion that BC would fall easily in line after Alberta. Here I can speak with some authority: I'm a BC resident. I live and work surrounded by other BC residents. I don't think there are very many BC residents who would join up with the U.S. for any price. And the idea that peeling off our neighboring province first and using the isolation as economic coercion to fall in line? Here I must suspect you of having a poor understanding of human psychology in-general. You might consider looking up the history of a city called "West Berlin" for a start. Suffice to say that "an authoritarian government has just isolated us, gobbled up our neighbor, and is now pressuring us to allow them to take control" is very much NOT the inducement you think it is.
Eh, none of this is going to happen. But I was trying to spitball potential scenarios and this one seemed less ludicrous than any other that I could think of (or which has been proposed in this thread). I'd give it less than 10^(-2) odds. But I'd give the `invasion / occupation / assimilation' scenario less than 10^(-4) odds, so...
Eh, fair enough. If I were told that four years from now some substantial portion of Canada had joined the U.S. and were trying to imagine the most plausible way that it could happen, probably my first thought would be "some serious outside threat scared Canada into wanting to be more firmly under the U.S. aegis." But that's not something the current admin can really control.
If I were in a think tank tasked with finding the most plausible ways to make it happen, I still don't think anything so direct as bribery would be my go-to. It would have to be some form of information warfare. If the past ten years have taught me anything, its how frighteningly effective various propaganda streams are at turning susceptible peoples' brains into politically-polarized much. My hypothetical think-tank proposal wouldn't even involve spreading pro-U.S. propaganda in Canada, mind you. Rather it would involve finding all the most effective ways at getting some Canadians to hate other Canadians, until some parts of the country absolutely couldn't stand other parts.
Maybe then you start planting seeds about disaffected groups joining the U.S. or even making overt offers. But maybe you don't even need to: if anybody (with the possible exception of Quebec) splits off and becomes independent, ultimately asking for U.S. annexation would be a natural attractor. (Sorta similar to how the U.S. got Texas come to think of it, except the part where a lot of Texans started out as American to begin with.)
There's something I don't have to worry about in the real world, at least. Trump's comments are pretty much the exact opposite of what an admin looking to go that route would want to do.
Alberta seems not a likely choice right now since a born-and-raised Albertan is soon to be elected Canada's Prime Minister, probably with a thumping parliamentary majority. Though in various aspects of worldview he will be more simpatico with the new Trump Administration than the outgoing Canadian PM (the new guy heads the Conservative Party of Canada), he is nevertheless a strongly-nationalistic French-speaking Canadian. His lifelong goal has been to lead and reform his nation not dismember it.
Meanwhile back home in Alberta the voters will have reason to expect some of their grievances with Ottawa to be successfully addressed, presumably taking some air out of secession arguments.
Depending on how things go with the new national government there could be some revival of secession talk in British Columbia, though not with an intention of joining the US.
We obviously shouldn't (and won't) use force, but why buy them?
They'd have the opportunity to move from the country with the ~10th largest economy to number 1. Instead of being a piece of a junior partner of the global hegemon they'd be part of the family.
As of 2021 Alberta's population was 23.2% immigrant (https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/as-sa/fogs-spg/page.cfm?lang=E&topic=9&dguid=2021A000248). Assuming they'd be able to vote in the referendum that's a huge block that likely doesn't have a strong sense of Canadian identity and might have been as happy or happier immigrating to the United States.
Albertans alive today have never had a serious opportunity to become part of the US. We should simply give it to them. If Trump wants to Make America Grow Again he should have the State Department spin up groups focusing on a number of countries that craft plans for admission for them and individual provinces / territories within them, then encourage referenda.
It was in the last referedum where the 'ethnic vote' was blamed for keeping Quebec in the country. 1st and 2nd Gen Canadians actually have a more civic 'national' identity then multigenerational Canadians who have a stronger 'regional' identity.
> We obviously shouldn't (and won't) use force
Wait, why? I thought the point was to expand US dominion over the world. They're not going to join willingly; they have their silly nationalistic pride that needs to be beaten out of them. Even if the Albertans were willing to secede, Canada wouldn't let them do that, regardless of what their law supposedly says.
evidence? Canada did allow Quebec a referendum on secession. The pro-secession side lost, rendering the issue moot, but we are postulating that there is a future `Albertan independence' referendum which is won.
Letting a province go independent is an entirely different issue to giving up a province to an imperialist empire.
The United States is not an imperialistic empire. It had a brief period of imperialism and still has some territories that should quickly be granted independence or statehood.
To your earlier post: it's neither practical or desirable to try to impose America at the point of a JDAM. We aren't a Caliphate. If Albertans, or anyone else, have nationalistic pride and are happy with their current situation no one should force them to leave.
But national feeling changes. Current national borders aren't divinely defined and immutable. The point isn't to extend American dominion over the world: post-WW2 we've shown that can be done pretty effectively without adding more states or through military occupation.
The point is to offer American statehood to those who want it and can be incorporated into the union. Why not give them the opportunity? And yes, I'm fine with Mexico trying to charla suave American states into seceding and joining Mexico, but I do not think they have a compelling offer.
"We have never sought to become a monopoly. Our (national) products are simply so good that no one feels the need to compete with us."
Distinction without a difference. Alberta can first become independent and then join America.
But how does Alberta secede from Canada? They likely don't have that right. Quebec failed to secede. Maybe the US sends troops into Alberta with its encouragement?
IIUC Canadian provinces do have the constitutional right to secede. Quebec separatists merely failed to win their independence referendum.
Sorta/kinda. There's nothing about that in Canada's written Constitution. In response to a court ruling related to the 1995 Quebec referendum, Parliament in 2000 passed a law laying out some conditions on which the federal government would respect the result of a provincial separation referendum.
Awkwardly (and very Canadian to be honest) the "Clarity Act" fails to state clearly what percentage "yes" vote is necessary for a referendum result to be binding. Most analysts say that something more than 50%+1 would be needed, but that has never yet been tested and unless the province's voters went at least 60-40 "yes" there would be court challenges.
The federal law states that "First Nations/Indigenous People" are required to be "part of" the "negotiations" following a successful referendum result, without specifying either the nature of those negotiations in general or the role/power of First Nations in that process.
There are other mysteries about how the Clarity Act imagines the separation process but you get the overall picture: sorta/kinda.
And it's not been tested.
I agree with this strategy. The loss of Alberta might be fatal for Canada in the long run.
If Quebec becomes interdependent, they'll want to stay that way, not join another Anglophone country.
Ah, but by that point they will be surrounded by America. Independence may not be viable. And if we really need to put the squeeze on, we blockade them. Which, sure, is technically an act of war, but not of the invasion kind. But probably it won't be necessary to actually go that far, the implicit threat, as well as the obvious economic benefits of joining a larger and richer polity which surrounds you, should suffice.
French Guiana is surrounded by Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking people, and feels no will to join them.
For that matter, France is surrounded by nations who don't speak French, and yet feels no need to join one of them.
Maybe there's something about speaking French!
Quebec is the Texas of Canada. Different in ways the inhabitants find important, and always deciding to secede.
They have a coast, and a larger population than Gambia (which is surrounded by Senegal).
The coast is where the (threat of) blockade comes in
Absent some imminent threat, the President doesn't have unilateral authority to order an invasion. The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force doesn't have geographic restrictions and has been interpreted very broadly to provide the basis for a number of interventions. Canada would be too far.
However, as you note this is a fantastical situation so let's handwave that.
It would be extremely difficult for the UK or any other country to directly intervene due to the distances involved and the US Navy's superiority. Yes, they have treaty obligations to do so but those treaties didn't envision one treaty nation invading another. NATO probably just ceases to exist. Maybe - big maybe - they make a formal declaration of war and harass US related shipping but don't go much beyond that. There's also the nuclear option but I don't imagine significant appetite for starting that holocaust.
I'd expect the immediate response would be the UK / EU and other nations cutting off all ties with the US and attempting to make it a pariah. Massive economic damage all around. China would likely hop over to Taiwan while the US is distracted and the world quickly realigns in a multipolar fashion. Good chance of some sort of civil war, active insurgency, and/or political breakup of the US.
ETA: Greenland would be extremely strategically valuable for the US for early warning of RAF operations and to forward deploy air assets to counter them. My God, Trump's fixation on it now makes complete sense. It's all part of his long game.
Isn't Canada a member of NATO? Wouldn't the rest of NATO be required to defend them, and wouldn't they defend themselves?
US is NATO so it would be an intra-NATO affair. I doubt the treaty addresses that.
I'm no lawyer or international relations expert, but I think Article 5 could easily be construed to require other countries to defend Canada if the US invaded:
"The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area."
As for the original question, I think that if the US invaded Canada, the rest of NATO would defend Canada, at least to some extent. Economically it would be a disaster for everyone involved. Militarily, France, the UK, and the US all have nukes. If they get used, that would obviously be very bad. If they don't get used, the US would almost certainly "win" the war at some point; Canada itself doesn't have a big enough military to withstand an American attack, and the US Navy's aircraft carriers would be too much for the NATO forces to overcome in the Atlantic. But if we couldn't occupy Afghanistan effectively, why would we be able to occupy Canada? If you had a huge number of Canadians who decided that they wanted to be Americans, then it might be different. But I don't think that would be the case in this hypothetical invasion scenario.
If the US attacks Canada, and then Canada attacks back, does that mean that individual NATO countries could decide which one they wanted to support?
No, because "attacks back" is not a concept with any meaning or significance in international law. A attacks B, then A and B are at war and it is expected that warfighting activities may occur anywhere in the combined territory of A and B and generals may but lawyers don't care which way the front is moving.
US attacks Canada, and the remaining NATO members are required to do whatever they would do if the US had attacked *them*. Which is presumably to wage war against the US, including military operations that in a purely tactical sense might be called "attacks".
yeah, the invasion and occupation scenario is obviously dumb. That’s why I was spitballing scenarios whereby Canada might be induced to voluntarily join, for certain values of voluntary.
I'd love to just see a published list of the blogs people request you recommend. I feel like it would be a useful way to find things to read.
While I understand that idea in theory, I don’t think it will work in practice.
If every recommendation get published in that list it will quickly be gamed and people will just submit a recommendation to be listed there.
It will additionally result in a public list of blogs that are disapproved by Scott since anyone can just diff the to lists.
I suspect it would produce a list of people who think their blogs might be interesting to ACX readers which is exactly what I’d like to see.
I don’t think it would be particularly game worthy in an effort/payoff sort of way if you don’t think your blog would appeal to ACX readers it’s probably not worth the effort.
> I suspect it would produce a list of people who think their blogs might be interesting to ACX readers which is exactly what I’d like to see.
I mean, isn't a proxy for that just clicking on any given commenter here's blog link next to their name?
If they're engaged enough to comment, and particularly if you think their comments are cogent / useful / interesting, seems like a fairly strong and immediately available quality filter.
Because many of them probably don't bother making many posts they think would be interesting to other ACX readers.
So I've seen a few intelligent, careful people saying that climate change, while likely bad, is unlikely to be an existential threat to humanity. I'm very much not a climate scientist, but I'm unsure of the reasoning.
When Mt Tambora erupted in 1815, the resultant cooling (about 0.5 degrees Celsius) caused horrific famines and other disasters which killed tens of thousands of people, caused widespread societal and economic upheaval, and just was generally awful, despite the effects mostly only lasting a few months to a few years. Now, that's cooling, not warming, but it seems plausible that the magnitude of the effects would be comparable, if different in type.
Given that, and given even conservative estimates for temperature change put it at 1 to 2 degrees Celsius, and sustained over a much longer period (decades at minimum, centuries not implausible), I genuinely don't understand how that conclusion could be reached? Is warming just different? Is it because it's slower rather than an abrupt shift?
Humans have been endemic to vastly different climate zones from the arctic to the Sahara for centuries, well before the benefits of the admittedly fragile industrial civilization. Wiping out 50% or 90% of them is the easy part, but getting the last nomadic tribe will be next to impossible.
I don't think anyone serious claims that climate change is an existential threat.
Chomsky, love him or hate him, is the physical embodiment of seriousness.
He's also not a climate scientist.
He may have been serious in the 60's and 70's but he's been nothing but an intellectual buffoon for at least the past 15 years. If he's the physical embodiment of anything now it's of self-parody.
This feels no true Scotsmanny, since anyone making that claim obviously isn't a serious person.
But "serious" aside there's plenty of people making that claim very loudly, eg the group called Extinction Rebellion.
Angry isn't serious. There is no tenured professor at a top 20 research university who believes it. And even if there is then that person is outside of the scientific consensus. The median 95% of climate scientists would all agree that it's not an existential threat.
That sounds fine, but there's a bunch of idiots who do, and some of them want to glue themselves to the road or throw soup on a valuable artwork or something, so it's worth taking the time to debunk 'em.
I'd prefer to simply run them over. Glue away!
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/i/99357449/and-climate
I don't think the serious people believe that global warming will wipe humanity. It's not an ELE. What it could do is collapse our energy dependent civilization and kill a lot of people. But even those worse case outcomes would happen incrementally--food and fuel prices rise, people starve, wars happen, massive population movements occur, and the human population of the planet declines. How fast that would happen depends on details we do not currently understand.
Moreover, all of the remedies I've heard proposed would be as likely to cause upheaval, to that or greater degree, possibly in different sectors of the economy or world at first. With similar levels of uncertainty.
Why would lowering carbon emissions collapse our civilization, kill anyone, starve anyone, start wars, or move populations around?
Lowering carbon emissions inevitably manifests as curtailing economic activity. On the personal level, this means not selling as much of your product, whether you're running a fruit stand or a factory. Or a power plant - which means customers are doing without. The secondary effects of this include all sorts of things like having less food on the table, fewer clothes, postponed home repairs, unemployment, and freezing in the reduced-emissions-enforced winter.
Hopefully the drawbacks of these effects are evident.
If you are claiming that any curtailing of economic activity will have as severe an impact as runaway global warming, I find that so counter-intuitive that I have to ask you to cite research in support of that.
I'm not really talking about runaway global warming, as I believe that is not as credible as the global warming predicted in publications such as IPCC reports.
When it comes to predicted global warming, the evidence doesn't suggest strongly whether it's better or worse than the economic curtailment required to prevent it. It has been harder than it should be to collect evidence that curtailment is worse, since the act of collecting it or even advocating for collecting it as been, for ideological reasons, historically less likely to get financial and academic support than the act of collecting evidence that it is preferable.
To get started, you could consult David Friedman's articles on the matter.
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Sorted_Posts.html#Climate
I agree with the your first statement.
My primary reasoning is that if we check global temperatures through longer eras (going back thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of years) we can see much larger differences compared to what is being discussed today, and yet Earth was still very much a planet full of life. During warmer periods, even more so!
More details:
1. Chart for the past 2000 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Common_Era_Temperature.svg
I know that this shows that today temperature rose in a century way more than in this period at any time, but I am linking it first just so it is apparent that even before large scale use of fossil fuels, 0.2-0.3 degrees Celsius change in a couple of decades was not that uncommon.
2. Chart for past 800 000 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EPICA_temperature_plot.svg
This implies that in that period there were several cases when average temperature was 10 degrees Celsius lower or 2 degrees Celsius higher than what is today.
3. Chart for past 500 000 000 years (this is actually the combination of multiple methods/charts):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.svg
What I would like to highlight here is the green part between ~ 7 million and 60 million years ago.
Through this period average temperature was always higher by at least two degrees Celsius than currently, and during the Eocene period (33.9 million to 56 million years ago) it was 6 to 14 degrees Celsius higher.
To quote wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene#Flora):
"During the early-middle Eocene, forests covered most of the Earth including the poles. Tropical forests extended across much of modern Africa, South America, Central America, India, South-east Asia and China. Paratropical forests grew over North America, Europe and Russia, with broad-leafed evergreen and broad-leafed deciduous forests at higher latitudes."
So actually it was way more friendly towards plant life.
Likely higher temperatures may increase crops yields and even human welfare, if we can magically ignore the effect of change itself.
That being said, as some people pointed out, the main question is the speed of change, as that can still make this an issue.
I think that apart from the natural environment what influences human welfare is "capital", in the broadest sense. This includes infrastructure, all kinds of equipment, but even culture, training and customs.
There is a natural degradation of "capital" (infrastructure crumbles, people grow old, etc), and there is a replacement process (maintenance, training, etc) that allows us to maintain civilization. If the change is gradual enough that this natural replacement can take care of it, than capital does not shrink and welfare remains high. E.g., newer houses, buildings will gradually be more optimized for higher temperature, people will wear different clothing and behave accordingly without consciously noticing cultural change, etc.
If it is faster than this, that would require more investment, so people would need to drop living standards.
Even this negative case can have large ranges, from a bit slower gdp growth to long term economic upheaval.
However, for massive global famine I think some major global change would be necessary, that would destroy most crops within a year, or that would somehow trigger a swift cooldown (at least locally), kind of as in "The Day After Tomorrow". However, I don't see this one likely, as far as I know the consensus is against it, and I don't think that there is any precedent for this save for vulcano eruptions or asteroid impacts.
Regarding your particular example about Tambora, I think the main issue there was not really the "global temperature" directly, but that it created a permanent fog, that also blocked sunlight. To quote wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1815_eruption_of_Mount_Tambora ):
"In the northern spring and summer of 1815, a persistent "dry fog" was observed in the northeastern United States. The fog reddened and dimmed the sunlight, such that sunspots were visible to the naked eye."
As a sideffect, this decreased temperature, but I think the lower amount of sunshine was even more important than the pure temperature change. I think the distribution of this was also more local, not sure how much the southern hemisphere got from this. So likely the territories with most agricultural issues had much lower average temperature than what the global value implies here.
A note: it's true (with the caveat about change rate that you already note) that, overall, an Eocene- or Cretaceous-style hothouse would be good for global biodiversity and biomass. But it would be much less good for the specific configuration of biodiversity and biomass we have right now, which evolved in icehouse conditions. For one, the breadbaskets of the world wouldn't be such in Eocene climate. The grassy plants from which most of the global food supply depends evolved relatively recently in temperate, highly seasonal, low-CO2 conditions. And of course during most of the Cretaceous, the middle third of North America was under water.
OTOH, we'd have decades or more to adapt to this. Also, at least some of the staple crops would do better in high CO2 than at current levels, and AIUI there is research being done regarding others. There's a high chance we'll have more food than now for the same resources as a consequence, and what upheaval occurs would be in the form of farmers and their suppliers having to find new work or new markets.
I admit I'm mostly going by half-remembered stuff right now, but IIRC CO2 fertilization helps with carbohydrates, but not so much with proteins and other nutrients; and I strongly doubt it's enough to offset losses of cropland to drought (of course the rain will still fall elsewhere, but farmland isn't something you move around quickly or easily) and sea level rise (which is going to be significant only on river deltas and some coastal lowlands, but those are some of the most intensely farmed and inhabited areas around).
I kinda assume if climate change happened we would solve it with technology, by creating a bunch of clouds or something.
Or develop new technologies of carbon capture, etc
Maybe we won't solve ocean acidification but temperature of the planet seems easier to control.
Haven't looked into it, just my vague impression?
The rationalists who say "not an existential threat" mean "it will not kill literally every single person in the world". This is true for most models of climate change. Plus, the lesswrong crowd tends to believe that an artificial superintelligence will be built soon, and will either destroy the world or solve climate change. One way or the other, nothing to worry about.
Historically, warm years were good and cold years were bad. To a degree, they still are. But there's a limit to how warm we want it, and climate change is rapidly getting there.
It's worth noting that they say "global catastrophic risk" for things that don't put the continued existence of human civilisation at risk but are still, well, catastrophic.
Global warming will probably kill more people via heat-related deaths than are dying now, but a Lancet study found cold-related deaths outnumber heat deaths by 17 to 1. So, fewer peeps will be dying from cold-related deaths. Higher CO levels are creating a greening effect worldwide, so despite the fears of famine due to climate change, crop plants are becoming more productive. Please note: angiosperms appeared and evolved during periods when global CO2 levels were 4x-5x higher than they are now. The Antarctic ice sheet didn't begin form until atmospheric CO2 levels dropped to about 1200-1400 ppm (compared to ~280 ppm pre-industrial levels, and ~420 ppm today)—and global avg temps were about 4 degrees C higher than they are today. Yes, Gen Z +3 to +6 will have to worry about sea-level rise. But it should be slow enough to create mitigations for coastal urban areas (a la the Netherlands). I doubt if GW will have a significant impact on human populations (at least compared to other potential issues). Overall, long term, it would be great if CO2 levels were high enough to get us out of the glaciation cycles that have characterized the late Pleistocene (each cycle lasting roughly a 100Ky).
Scott has noted that, seemingly paradoxically, people dying cold-related deaths are dying in hot places. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/chilling-effects
Without due respect to Scott, the data doesn't seem to support this thesis. This study of cold and heat deaths in European countries shows that, overall, cold deaths far outweigh heat deaths. But cold deaths are higher in Eastern European countries on a north-south axis — and they're also super high in the UK for some reason. Heat deaths are highest in Italy, Bulgaria, and Romania, with some hotspots in interior Spain. (Link below)
It's worth noting that some major civilization collapses happened during cooling periods. After the Minoan Warm Period, Bronze Age civilizations collapsed. Western Roman civilization collapsed at the end of the Roman Warm Period. And the Bubonic plague wiped out about a third of Europe's population a couple of decades after the Little Ice Age began. Likewise, the Little Ice Age impacted food production all across northern Europe, which caused periodic famines for three centuries.
Heat and Cold mortality for urban areas across Europe...
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(23)00023-2/fulltext
It's more like "It will not end life as we know it." If a threat were to kill all people but one, or wipe out technological progress, rationalists would also call that an existential threat.
> wipe out technological progress
I would only call that an x-risk if there are reasons to believe that civilization will not be reinvented after a few millennia. One can make such arguments (depleted fossil fuels which would be required to bootstrap industry, for example), but I would treat loss of industrialization as a threat of x-risk, not as x-risk itself.
There's a not dissimilar rationalist trope around the idea that nuclear war wouldn't be an "existential threat", because human beings would continue to exist (and civilisation might survive in, say, Chile and could be rebuilt elsewhere, perhaps with humanity having learned lessons). Feels like something that is at the same time technically true, but fuelling possible insanity.
I would not expect global warming to be as catastrophic as global nuclear war, either.
I think that it is important to stick to stuff which is true on an object level ('technically true') and not to go into hyperbole to signal tribe membership.
If someone is about to jump out of a window on the fourth floor, the true thing to say to them is "that is a stupid thing to do. You will likely injure yourself severely and might actually die". If you are telling them instead "this is a terrible idea, you are sure to die and will kill at least four passer-bys when you hit them", that is bad. Once you have told that little noble lie, the truth is forever your enemy, and the pro-window-jumping people will easily show you for a fool in any remotely fair debate. Also, what will you then tell the person debating if they should escape the fire by jumping from the eighth floor or the forth? Double down: "if you fall from the eighth floor, you will be super-duper-dead and cause a crater which will kill everything within half a kilometer"?
I do not think that LW is full of people going "climate change: not an issue" or "nuclear war: not an x-risk, but a fun group activity" regularly -- just because something is not maximally bad, it does not mean that you endorse it.
We aren’t living in 1815 anymore. Cooling is worse than heating in most cases. The existential threat isn’t really claimed by the climate scientists either, although they tend to obfuscate the number of years it takes for sea level rise.
The people talking about "existential threat" seem to have tacked on the modifier because it sounds cool, without giving any thought to what a high bar they're setting for themselves.
Deaths heads as decorations on one's views, like pieces of jewelry.
And most importantly, a few billion people dying isn't an existential threat to humanity, especially given where the deaths would be concentrated.
I'll third 'rate matters'.
Partly because we can more effectively adapt to the coming changes because they're coming slowly,
Partly because, while we almost certainly won't be able to reverse the effects of climate change in my lifetime, current models look like we'll avoid runaway effects and we can hopefully get our shit together enough to make the rate of change near 0 in my lifetime
Partly because one of the big worries with the fast rate of change was ecological catastrophes as existing biomes failed to adapt to new conditions, which would have impacted human life indirectly. If the rate of change is slower, there will be more room for adaptation and the ecological consequences will be less severe.
The rate of change is super-important.
Cooling is worse than warming, in large part because we're still in an ice age (we're closer to the planet being too cold to survive than being too warm to survive, basically).
The modern world is better at adapting to changing conditions than the ancient world.
(There's other stuff, but I think this covers the material in your comment.)
Rate matters. People are very good at accommodating changes that happen at the multi generational timescale. Not so much "no crops this year." Especially since back then, the survival margins were much tighter. Now we have much more of a safety blanket. Especially since the changes (were and are expected to be) unevenly spread. So the places less hard hit can help the ones harder hit. That wasn't really the case in 1815.
You can hate everyone in Rome but not everyone in Greece.
> but not everyone in Greece.
Tell me more, tell me more.
Lol
Recently I outlined for myself a ten-part (?) series on everything I know about web + app development. My original idea was to make it a blog post series. After outlining it I'm not so sure. Perhaps readers would absorb it better if it was a course, or textbook, or YouTube video playlist, or what-have-you. What do y'all think?
(I haven't written out the entire thing yet, as it seems like it would be a LOT of work and I'm not sure what benefits would accrue to me or my readers if I were to do it.)
Perfect is the enemy of good. If you've written something out, it's probably relatively easy to convert to a blog post. Not so for Youtube videos, a course, or textbook.
Unless you're someone who has some particular authority in the field, or your series is extremely useful to people who are able to find your work, few people will read it. That's ok though, as the exercise should be for your own benefit, with other readers as a bonus.
I don't want to dissuade you too much, because this sounds like something that could be good for your personal development. However, I understand that you are an undergraduate student? Consider the possibility you may be overestimating the utility that you can provide as someone without significant professional experience in this field.
Who do you want to write it for? Would your readers/viewers want to build an app, get a job, start their company...?
What about a blog with some straightforward practice problems or questions threaded through it, and maybe a couple of really tough ones at the end of each post? People could discuss how to do the problems in comments. You could post occasionally in comments giving answers or advice or congratulations. Maybe give prizes (free subscription?) to the first to post a solution to one of the tough puzzles. (So now I'm moving into ideas of ways to build up number of subscribers.) Maybe sprinkle in some other stuff in between the lessons -- a few posts about where web & app etc. development is heading, or funny stories about legendary fuck-ups or genius solutions or odd corners of that professional world. (What's the creepiest underground app you ever heard tell of?) Maybe an occasional contest for readers? You name some odd constraints, ask how you could do X with those constrains. Group could select best answer by vote.
I absolutely hate instruction delivered via video. I'm always looking up how to do things in Photoshop, and hunting for the one site that just answers my question with some prose and one screen shot. I get the info way faster that way, and if I forget something I can quickly find it again by skimming the written answer. Searching a video for that one part where they show how to access feature X is infuriating. However, most Photoshop how-to's are videos, so it may be that most prefer that modality.
Also, making a video series adds all these complications. You have to think about how the room looks, and how you look. You have to be personable. If you trip over your words you have to reshoot that section.
I think there is a fundamental difference between tutorials about how to use a Software and how to build software.
When the resulting code o the tutorial is published I can work my way back to fill gaps that the author willingly or unwillingly left out or knowledge gaps that I have but the target audience of the tutorial doesn’t have.
For a software like photoshop I stumbled a lot on tutorials where a important step was left out and I couldn’t figure out what they did because I can’t work my way back from the end result. In a video I can just skip back to the part and follow step by step.
I don't build software, but see what you mean. Actually these days when I google Photoshop questions the Google AI gives me the answer as a list of bullet points, and so far those have turned out to be clear and accurate.
It's certainly true that most Photoshop how-to CREATORS prefer that modality. It's an open question as to whether the consumers prefer it.
I go to videos for instruction as a last resort, or if I can't envision what the how-to explanation explains.
I do pretty well with blog posts, especially if they include practical interludes/exercises along the way. That would probably be harder with a video playlist. Even if there are aspects which benefit greatly from demonstrating them in video instead of static images or text, still probably better to embed those in a blog.
From there, not clear on what the practical difference is between a blog and a textbook, unless you plan to get it all printed and bound. Unless you a mean a hypertext textbook on a dedicated site, which I think would be better unless you benefit from linking sections of the textbook to preexisting blog posts.
As for a course, maybe? Can be beneficial if you can make those practical interludes fully interactive. But I expect it would be a great deal more work than just a blog/textbook.
All in all:
Dedicated textbook > blog post > course > video series
Hope to see what comes of this in the future!
How exactly does one lobby their local legislators? I know that at the federal level, multi billion dollar organizations do all sorts of crazy things that the average human can never do, but assuming you're a moderately wealthy individual with a good savings and a high paying job and you wanted to propose adopting a law or a legislative reform for your local City/State, how would you go about doing so?
Sure you can always call them up and leave a message, but i assume that's leaving something on the table. What would you do if you had 50k at your disposal? 100k? How can money actually be used to improve your outcome?
Figure out what you want to say, condense it to the level of an elevator pitch but with backup material at the ready, call the local legislator's office, ask them which staffer is handling [topic] this week, and if they're not too busy at that moment, make your pitch.
Or, write a letter to the legislator; their office will send it to the right staffer and you can go into a bit more depth in text. Offer to discuss the matter further.
For all but the biggest issues, it isn't necessary to offer bribes or campaign contributions, or establish yourself as the spokesman for #movement with bignum registered voters. Legislators get surprisingly little feedback from the public on secondary issues, and they know that for every person who actually picks up a phone there will be many more who feel the same way but didn't bother to call. And, perhaps more importantly, the staffer in charge of [topic] is not actually an expert on [topic], he's almost certainly overworked, in over his head, and trying to figure it out with basically Wikipedia and a bunch of slick glossies produced by the relevant industry organization or whatever. They'll probably *want* to talk to someone who knows the subject but isn't captured by the industry.
If you've got money to throw at the problem, you can use it to hire people who are either better than you at cold-calling politicians, or can do the background research to fine-tune your pitch and identify the proper targets. But check with a lawyer, because when money starts changing hands in this sort of thing, the law is particular about how that should be done.
I actually wrote a letter once, meh
Cant say I recemend it doing that solo; realistically:
1. you maintain a list of every method of commutation they publish
2. wait till these methods change so you get spooky and hard to block methods
3. wait for a news story
4. spread the info, write variants of the messages, simple talking points, make graphs with any data, pictures for any concept, pay professional protesters to hold signs you designed
5. gaslight gaslight gaslight that theres an angery mob at thier door or at least you have some influence over said mob
Politicians pay attention to crowds, so you lobby local legislation by lobbying the people who vote for them. If you have a high-paying job, you presumably have people who respect your opinion on things, so start by convincing them, and then convince their friends, and repeat until someone's friends with the legislators.
> What would you do if you had 50k at your disposal? 100k? How can money actually be used to improve your outcome?
I'm interested in this too.
I think it depends on your level of commitment, but Zvi famously founded Balsa to do exactly this at the federal level, and I believe he even got outside funding, and has hired two people for it (maybe more by now). Currently they're tackling the Jones Act, which is 100% a giant boondoggle that should be eliminated (in my own opinion).
https://thezvi.substack.com/p/announcing-balsa-research
So I've answered the ACX survey and am curious about the last question. I feel (rot13) that zl nafjre qrcraqf urnivyl ba gur ahzoref vaibyirq, abg whfg bhg bs cevapvcyr ba n "uvture rkcrpgngvba if thnenagrrq erghea" qvpubgbzl. Jvgu qvssrerag ahzoref (fvapr V ernq nobhg n fvzvyne ulcbgurgvpny n juvyr ntb), zl nafjre jbhyq qrsvavgryl punatr.
So I wonder if I'm isolated in my outlook, and what the point of the question is...
That your answer should change if the numbers are different is normal and healthy. If you are a median income American, and the question is about one measly dollar versus ten, then you want to take the gamble.
If the question is about one billion dollar versus a chance at ten, then only SBF (and perhaps a few big-thinking honest EA people who believe that their cause areas will scale linearly) would take the gamble. Everyone else would be "there is little difference to my utility function between 1G$ and 10G$, why should I risk anything?"
Where exactly the cross-over point is depends on the risk tolerance of a person, and their current circumstances. Perhaps one person owns a broken car which could be fixed up for 500$, while another would need 5k$ to by a decent used car.
Formally, there is the Kelly criterion, which tells you how much of your net worth you should be willing to put into a gamble where you have an edge at most.
Unless I’m mistaken, the Kelly criterion applies for repeated independent bets, no? This is just one thing (and also, there’s no downside in the survey question).
I’m reassured that I’m not crazy for thinking the correct strategy depends on the number involved. But then what’s the point of asking the question for a single pair of numbers? Is it to determine the “strategy boundary” in another way, depending on (say) the person’s income?
The standard model of someone following Kelly would be a gambler who has the opportunity to make a limited amount of gambles in which they have some edge, can decide how much to bet in each gamble, and tries to get rich. (I think that they instrumentally value their money logarithmically in the middle of their gambling run is kind of intrinsic, even if their end goal was "earn at least one million", under certain assumptions.)
In my model of humans, we are making financial decisions under uncertainty all the time. Big ones, like what profession to take and how to invest money for old age, but also smaller ones such as what forms of insurance to take, how often to go to medical checkups, how much food to stockpile to be prepared for disaster down to tiny ones like if you should fill up your gas tank right now or wait and see if you find a better gas station in a few days.
Even humans who don't see themselves as gamblers are regularly betting on the rare bad outcome not happening as to spend arbitrary amounts to negate the tiniest risk is not compatible with life. (Last month, there was a lesswrong article published on using Kelly to determine if insurance is worth it, https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wf4jkt4vRH7kC2jCy/when-is-insurance-worth-it )
So with the understanding that humans are not perfectly in the situation of that gambler (for example, they can recover from going to a balance of zero by means of paid work), we can nevertheless use Kelly as a baseline. Most people are more risk-adverse than the Kelly criterion, which is fine.
The fact that there is no (absolute) downside is largely irrelevant. As long as you have two strategies, and the riskier one has the higher expected payoff, you can apply Kelly to it.
Did Scott ask us for the income bracket, again? Without it, I think the data will not make very much sense.
(aside: dear anyone reading this from the Substack crew, could we please have spoiler tags? Web 1.0 forums in the 90s already had those, without suffering from the performance problems Substack has; reinventing wheels should result in better, not worse, wheels!)
Could someone post a reminder of what the question was? I, for one, did the survey long enough ago that I remember approximately none of the specific questions, only some of the broad subjects covered...
The question was (rot13): juvpu jbhyq lbh pubbfr orgjrra n pregnvagl bs svir uhaqerq qbyynef be n bar-va-fvk (nf va, ebyy n fgnaqneq qvpr) punapr bs trggvat svir gubhfnaq qbyynef?
Thanks! I remember it, and my thinking, now.
Lrnu, zl ceboyrz vf gur fgngvfgvpny pnyphyngvba qbrfa'g npphengryl pncgher zl genqrbssf - V pna gryy zlfrys gur znguf znxrf frafr nyy V jnag, ohg V xabj zl yvmneq oenva jvyy fgvyy znxr zr srry onq vs V gnxr gung evfx naq ybfr; gurer jvyy qrsvavgryl or fbzr pbzovangvba bs nzbhagf/cebonovyvgl jurer vg orpbzrf jbegu gnxvat n tnzoyr, be vs gur pubvpr jnf vgrengrq znal gvzrf V pregnvayl jbhyq nf jryy, ohg nf qrfpevorq gurer'f n svir fvkguf punapr gur thnenagrrq pubvpr yrnirf zr unccvre.
I think you should try never to hate anyone, it isn't a healthy mindset. Mind, you may not be able to *help* hating someone, but that's a different issue.
hate is just long term anger
anger has a place; without violence we would all be slaves.
No? Without violence there would be no ability to enslave in the first place?
Slavery is based on violence, so without violence we would all be free.
As for hate being long term anger, that's like saying war is just an extreme form of sports. We aren't meant to exist in extreme states long term--it is progressively damaging to the brain.
Trump celebrated Justin Trudeau resigning by jesting on Truth Social about US / Canada merging, referencing its longstanding informal status as the 51st state.
Actually making Canada the 51st state is, of course, absurd; it would need to be divided into more than one state. They could either follow their current provincial boundaries or draw new ones. I leave that to our future fellow Americans to determine.
The path to the promised land of one billion Americans has always, to me, seemed to more logically to route through more and more places deciding to become American rather than through open borders. We should actively encourage it. Federalism would get a big boost, the people whose fortunes depend so heavily on US elections without getting a say would finally receive representation, those suffering in nations with poor institutions would get an instant upgrade, and the Jones Act would make a lot more sense once South Korea joins up.
Non-Americans: if your country held a referendum, would you vote to join the Freedom Fest?
Americans: which country would be your top pick for the new dream team? I think Australia would be my number one.
I propose to add the new states Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. This would really help bring peace and prosperity to the middle east.
I would vote against, as I think having more sovereigns is preferable because (1) competition is good for consumers & (2) concentrating more power into one institution seems like it would lead to dangerous fragility. For the same reason, I think it would be good if the US would split up.
I would, however, vote in favour of allowing the US to join the EEA, the Schengen agreement and such, because, again, competition is good for consumers.
As an Australian, I don't know that I have the words to emphasise how much Australian's do not want to be part of the US.
When US affairs are brought up in casual conversation here it is almost always followed by some form of "aren't we lucky we don't live there?". Australians see the US as a cautionary tale of how our country could go wrong if we're not careful. Specifically in regards to healthcare, gun control, homelessness, political discourse, internal divisions, and more.
Australians, like every other country in the world, also have national pride, and would like to stay as Australians.
I'll answer as both an American and a non-America: I'm a U.S.-Canadian dual citizen. I grew up in the U.S. and moved to Canada a few years ago.
Would I vote to join the U.S.? Emphatically no. I left for many reasons, and the U.S. has certainly not improved as a nation in the time since.
What country would be my top pick? None. The U.S. as-is has and causes quite enough troubles, thank you. I think its political system is rather badly showing its age, and the country is (unfortunately) probably too far-gone to course-correct before the wheels fall off. I'm really not sure why a country who just re-elected a president partially on a platform of nativism and xenophobia would be eager to add a bunch of foreigners to its citizen body anyhow. Why not worry about giving Puerto Ricans their (long overdue) statehood so they can actually have a voice in your system before looking for more colonies to add to your collection?
You're saying we have to remove some items from our collection before we add more? Do we have a lack of room for more?
Our collection is incomplete! We need more variety. We already have Alaska as a state, but not as a colony, so adding "frozen tundra" variety of colony to our collection will increase its diversity.
> add a bunch of foreigners to its citizen body anyhow
They're barely even foreigners, they're basically Americans under a different name. Hell, Canada is whiter than the US! We would effectively decrease the portion of "foreigners" in the country.
"Foreigners" is not actually a euphemism for "colored people" here. It literally means "people from a foreign country." Which in this context all countries not the U.S. are, by definition.
How much does that matter to the nativists and xenophobes currently steering U.S. politics? I honestly don't know. THEY tend to insist loudly and often that they aren't racist, so taking them at their word it would matter quite a lot. Even not taking them at their word, there seems to be *rather a lot* of explicitly "America uber alles" discourse in U.S. politics, rather more than their is racially charged rhetoric (from the right anyway). So I would tend to think that yes, for many members of the U.S. nativist movement, the fact that any additions were foreign and from a foreign culture *would* weigh more heavily than the fact that many of them were white. That you, personally, regard race as the most salient feature any person can have, or consider people from various neighbor countries as "basically Americans" isn't really germane to how they see themselves or how your countrymen see them.
Trump sure as hell doesn't think brown people born in the US are Americans. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/01/us/politics/trump-new-orleans.html
...It's always about race. Always. Humans are tribalistic by nature, after all. Let's face it, can you truly accept that a man named "Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar" is just as American as your run-of-the-mill white Christian? Of course not. In the back of your mind, you understand that this man is an "other", regardless of his origins. A lot of people are tired of pretending otherwise. They want to make America American again. And now they have a chance to make that dream a reality.
" In the back of your mind, you understand that this man is an "other", regardless of his origins."
I understand nothing of the sort. You are, of course, free to shout your own racism and bile and hatred of others to the heavens, but I decline to share in it. I'd happily share a meal and a pleasant conversation with your Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, and just as happily spit directly in the face of anybody who interrupted us spouting the things you're saying.
Those of us who have actually cracked a history book in our lives well understand how toxic and corrosive the substances you trade in are. How deeply they poison the minds of those groups that imbibe them. Looking at your movement from the outside, it is impossible not to see just how badly this has warped its view of reality, how utterly off the rails it is. The only question that remains is how many other people y'all will take with you when you go the way that every other of cluster ethnonationalist degenerates has before you.
Look, I'm not the one calling the shots here. I have no stake in this other than entertainment. But you also have to realize that the "ethnonationalist degenerates" you speak of have been in power for almost all of human history, in almost every nation on Earth. Humanity has always been like this, and will always be like this. The last century has been an aberration spurred by unnatural growth, but it will not last. The world is returning to the way it was... and none of us can stop that.
> Actually making Canada the 51st state is, of course, absurd; it would need to be divided into more than one state.
Why? The population of Canada is only barely above the population of California.
California is absurd too.
Are you thinking of a division of California that (1) isn't "absurd" and (2) makes geographic sense? The rural north would be happy to break away, but I don't think that would meaningfully affect the population of California. You could try to play up the division between "Southern California" (LA) and "Northern California" (San Francisco), but they don't really have political differences.
I understand the inland is politically different from the coast, but I don't know how non-absurd people would find that kind of a division.
Break it apart algorithmically into four maximally compact chunks each with one quarter of the population. They'll probably be wacky shapes and Los Angeles will probably be split between two states but that's fine, lots of other metro areas are split across multiple states too.
> Los Angeles will probably be split between two states but that's fine, lots of other metro areas are split across multiple states too.
And you think this is a desirable state of affairs?
If by "Los Angeles" you mean Los Angeles *county*, then yes, that's actually pretty reasonable. LA County is a giant kludge.
But I'd expect that in SoCal the result would be a coastal Blue State that gets maybe 70% of LA County's land area but 95% of its population (and a whole lot of coast beyond that), and an inland Red State that includes the northern fringes of Los Angeles (plus bigger chunks of e.g. Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and almost everything from there to the NV/AZ border).
The reality here is that there is exactly zero constituency in the US for bringing in *more* Americans. America is supposed to be an exclusive club that only the most deserving can join. MAGA is convinced that they aren't making as much money as their parents did at the same jobs because immigrants came in and offered to do the work for less. If anything, Americans want their country to become smaller, not larger (provided their part keeps all the wealth).
What if the people joining then vote in a way that makes the USA look more like the rest of the world?
...That would be solved before they are fully incorporated as a state.
Besides, the US isn't a democracy, it's a republic. Even current Americans aren't meaningfully represented, so no reason why we couldn't make sure the same was true for future states.
The simplest reason why they'd have to make it multiple states would be that it would be hella stupid looking to have Alaska, a humongous Canadian state, and then 48 comparatively tiny states below it.
Great idea, and one I'd be fine spending significant tax dollars to achieve.
The question isn't who's willing to join, but who's willing to integrate. Anglo-countries like Canada, and countries with small populations (Greenland) would be much easier than say, Mexico. If the country doesn't maintain some sense of national identity through its expansion, then I'd be afraid we were setting ourselves up for Civil War 2.0, where the interests of different people's diverged so much, that either winning politician would be unacceptable to the other side (Trump and Biden are almost laughably similar when it comes to policy. The practical differences are minor.)
In order of feasibility/importance
1. Greenland
2. Certain Caribbean Nations
3. Certain Pacific Island Nations
4. Canda - Quebec
5. Quebec
6. New Zealand & Australia
7. United Kingdom + Ireland
8. Northern Mexico
9. Singapore
10. South Korea
11. Taiwan
12. Japan
13. All of Mexico
14. All of Latin America
15. The world?
The only way to compete against China long-term is our own 1B+ population Imperial sphere. Open borders are likely not the way to do that - that just gets you India in North America - rich city centers surrounded by endless slums. Unlikely this how you actually compete.
The best move is to integrate Anglosphere, the EU, Japan, SK, Taiwan, and maybe Mexico / Cuba / Singapore into essentially an "American Union" - think EU but even more Federal. EU if it was *only* the common market and Schengen area.
Break off Russia from the Chinese bloc - maybe even let them join ours (so long as they allow Pride parades for Moscow's EHC) and its checkmate.
In other word - why break off Greenland from Denmark? Wouldn't you want Denmark too?
But if AGI is invented, then don't humans become useless resource drains, so won't countries with smaller populations be better off?
This is a fantastic question because it nails a certain viewpoint that I see expressed often, but not explicitly. Humans as useless resource drains? For what? Where would the resources go otherwise? What resources are you even talking about?
This assumes a world where there's some small cabal that controls the AI, and for some reason decides to just kill everyone (because they need all this grain and land for themselves...why?), or the AI goes paperclippy and turns the whole observable universe into computronium. It's not obvious to me that either scenario is particularly coherent. Especially because, if you ARE in the AI cabal - you want these people around! Kill all the peasants, and your relative status drops like a stone - if anything, they'd want to *maximize* the peasant population (again...humans are fairly cheap) so as to create a slave class to lord over. You could argue they'd use humanoid robot slaves, but we're not wired that way - we prefer the real deal.
It doesn't assume a small cabal that controls the AI--AIs could be in control by themselves. Presumably, they'd have no interest in social status, so humans would have no value in that regard.
And expressing puzzlement at what AIs would use their resources for and what their economy would be based on is just like a Homo erectus not understanding why Homo sapiens aren't content to have an economy that is solely about trading food. Homo erectus couldn't imagine shiny rock jewelry, clothes, or ceramic pots, nor understand how they could have value and even lead to trade relationships based solely on their exchange (no food involved). And yet, an economy created by more advanced life forms (Homo sapiens) arose anyway.
Fair point. I doubt AI will ever become sovereign, but lots of smart people disagree with me. In any case, if AI attains sovereignty there's no sense having this conversation about Greenland at all lol.
Feasibility. A plan involving integrating the entire EU into a North American bloc is far more difficult, time consuming, and unlikely, then one involving the integration of 50,000 Greenlanders. One involves synergizing national interests and cultural norms that currently are extremely different on some key issues, with the comparable populations to actually force compromise, the other involves some intelligent and practical diplomacy, with relatively easy integration. 0.1% of US GDP could give every Greenlander 20x their yearly income, and even minor immigration for mining, vacations, etc. would be enough to bring them into the a
Think Alaska purchase vs. Polish Lithuania Commonwealth. One has a clear path to success, the other is a grand imperial project that risks serious internal division.
I'm not saying we shouldn't buy Greenland, just that it's thinking too small.
The EU would be good, but may make more sense as a separate bloc. The Anglosphere and American East Asia (Japan, SK, Taiwan) is where you'd want to start regardless.
What do we want Greenland for? They already let us have military bases there, and send scientists there.
The same reason we wanted Alaska, which is now so profitable there are no state income taxes and the government issues a dividend to its citizens just for being there.
Purchasing Alaska for almost nothing was extremely controversial a few hundred years ago, but now it's proven to be one of the highest ROI land purchases in human history, besides perhaps the Louisiana purchase.
Greenland is #1 not necessarily for its importance, but for its feasibility. Denmark has acknowledged the Greenland right to vote for independence, which already has support among much of the Greenlandish population. A simple agreement for a $1 Million direct cash transfer from the US to every person in Greenland if they vote for independence could be arranged (Only $55 Billion Dollars!) plus another million for acceptance of territory status after independence would be achievable.
If this isn't politically practical with Denmark (who cares about their opinion anyways) due to accusations of foreign interference with the Greenland independence referendum (true), then maybe something more subtle can be done, like a pending US investment totaling billions, but it's being "held up" by Denmark for arbitrary reasons.
Having been to Nuuk I can attest that those Inuit are tiny Americans at heart, yearning to be free.
And if it's a state we have full access to its natural resources.
Adopt the metric system, fix the healthcare system at least to the point that it's not the number one cause of bankruptcy and (distant third) do something about the bizarre electoral college system and I'm sure myself and my countrymen would dive right in.
It's not the number one cause of bankruptcy
Where are you getting that from? I've seen multiple sources that say that it is, and even more sources that cite a 40% figure. So even if it's not a majority all on its own, then it's a plurality.
Canadian here: there are a lot of pros, but the healthcare and guns are just such massive, massive cons that they might outweigh everything else. There could probably be a way to have the provinces retain healthcare but the issue would become one of strong negative selection (i.e. how to prevent a flood of Americans who need healthcare from going to Canada), which could probably be solved with a sort of regional identity scheme.
The guns are harder to fix.
A sort of Americas-EU?
Canadian here: there are a lot of pros, but the healthcare and guns are just such massive, massive cons that they might outweigh everything else. There could probably be a way to have the provinces retain healthcare but the issue would become one of strong negative selection (i.e. how to prevent a flood of Americans who need healthcare from going to Canada), which could probably be solved with a sort of regional identity scheme.
The guns are harder to fix.
As someone living in a country that has better institutions than the US - made possible by an overall political zeitgeist that is at least somewhat accepting of the possibility that government need not be utterly dysfunctional and can in fact be a force for making life better and not worse - I wouldn't want to become a US state or in any other way tie our politics any closer to those of the US than they already are.
That said, I've always been an advocate of open borders. I think the Schengen area is a wonderful thing; enlarging that and/or having the US start its own equivalent would both be good IMO. All the same reasons that make free markets the best way we know of to drive decisions about all sorts of other aspects of life also remain true for political choices, government policies and legislation; but those markets are only free to the extent that people can move between providers of those things.
The UK, as McDonalds-style petty vengeance.
I would definitely vote to become a US state. It would guarantee faster growing economy, more option to move to other US states etc. More security guarantees, more democracy. What are good reasons to vote against?
As an American, I do like my country, but, if I was you, I'd be very worried about numerous disruptive, violent elements encouraged by the American left expanding to the Canadian territory. Think the likes of BLM burning down downtowns anytime a policeman shoots a violent criminal who happens to be black, or all the gangs and potential terrorists allowed into the US through the open southern border in the past 4 years. I'm sure that the people who engineered all this aren't anywhere done.
EDIT: Oops, I assumed you were Canadian. I'm not sure how it would work with a country not adjacent to the US, but I'd still be worried.
Nationalistic people tend to overestimate their own countries. My view is simply economic, if the US has better economy then it makes sense to join it.
I am in the UK now. Its economy is lagging and it would be much better to join the US, at least in some status, like the EU, to improve the economy. Of course, having no shared border would make it impractical. I wonder if Brexit was because the EU was lagging economically and British people lost faith in it.
As for gangs, I guess the UK has its own share. The fully open borders with the US states would make no difference.
...Why do you think the American left still has a future? The country has effectively voted for them to be dealt with.
I'm sure you realize that the fact that we voted for them to be dealt with by far doesn't mean they are done. The organizers didn't exactly throw in the towel and offer an olive branch, and neither did they move to Canada or Europe.
No, I'm quite sure there's going to be more. There will be much more pushback this time, but it's a good question how well that would work.
As an Australian: aw, thanks! In various ways we are already kind of like a distant American state - I agree with your line about “people with fortunes who depend on US elections getting representation.”
Would I vote to join America? I realise this is kind of a non-answer but it depends on implementation. Things I would love: lower taxes, access to American companies and the American enterprising spirit, full diplomatic support against the gradual encroachment of China. Things I would not love: having to work in broken American health care system with its bizarre way of tying health insurance to employment. Second Amendment might be an issue too.
Not just from your comment, but it's surprising to me how strong the negative reaction is to the 2nd Amendment / guns. The healthcare system I expected as a sticking point but not the guns specifically.
> full diplomatic support against the gradual encroachment of China.
After the Five Eyes countries (and Mexico, I think it should be in the first tranche) we should prioritize convincing as much of Micronesia as possible to join and convert US territories in the area to states; Japan (we wrote their Constitution, should be easy enough) and South Korea would also be fast followers.
Depending on how quickly we're ready to start integrating larger, lower income nations the Philippines could be next. Overall a hefty counterweight to China.
Take note, Obama: that's how you do a pivot to the Pacific.
Another Australian here. I think a lot of Australians see the violence generated by, well, your culture (this is a ridiculous over-simplification of course) and blame it on easy availablity of the tools used to express it. Of course the Australian experience with gun control (very successful at preventing mass shootings since the Port Arthur shootings that prompted it) pushes us to think that way, but I think we discount that you just have a way more violent culture and it's not guns or movies or video games that drive the violence.
Wasting Australia still way less violent before said mass shootings? I think every statistical analysis I’ve seen done - including a meta-analysis by the Brookings Institure - has found that most of the differential between the US and other 1st world countries probably isn’t attributable to guns.
Australia was definitely less violent than the USA before those shootings, and I'm certainly not saying that gun control is the cause of that - I'm saying the opposite. But I think it's also true that gun control in Australia has likely reduced the already lower incidence of mass shootings, especially that category of shooting that isn't simply a gang incident, murder/suicide or suicide-by-cop but is a genuine attempt to kill a lot of unrelated strangers.
Thanks for the add. I wasn’t quite sure if it was in error and had meant to email you on it. I promise to behave responsibly.
I'll behave irresponsibly so you don't have to.
I appreciate that.
I gotchu fam
Lets suppose I'm a middle aged white male, and I have no friends. It's been like this for years, and I'm not asking for the standard list of how-to-make-friends.
I'm asking what are my prospects of a happy life without friends.
I'm asking if people have good strategies for having a good but friendless life.
In a few years, convincing AI friends will exist. Buy one.
How much money do you have?
Become completely self-sufficient. That’s all.
Relate to people on another basis besides friendship. You can have colleagues, co-religionists, co-hobbyists etc etc. I don't have any one that I'm friends with just for pleasure, and I'm extremely satisfied with my social life. The trick is to have something important that you care about above and beyond pleasure, that will provide you with the terms for your non-friend relationships.
There is so much individual variation on the need for friends and other forms of social relationships, that there is no generic advice that would make any sense. It's all about figuring out what you need, and how to get it.
I just want to +1 Eremolalos ideas.
Especially the activities with contact to people, just without ever trying to befriending them are good things.
You get the benefit of, let's call it, species-appropriate conduct, without putting any skin in the game. No one can force you to become their friend :)
But if you have no friends *and* don't do anything, I suspect you go mad.
> I just want to +1 Eremolalos ideas.
Same here, although I'm not really a hermit, so not sure how relevant my +1 is.
I'd particularly second her advice to "Have pets. Or take it beyond having pets and breed and/or train some kind of animal."
Breeding and training puppies has been a source of great joy and interest in my life, and it keeps you engaged on a many-hours-per-day basis.
I know someone now who has an 8 month oldNorwegian Laphund (I may not have the name quite right).. They herd reindeer, and Christmas front yard displays featuring plastic reindeer blew out her fuses. She's very smart and quick, and he's thinking of training her for dog agility contests. Those look like great fun to me l for both dog and owner. At end of course dogs jump onto owner's arms grinning.
> I know someone now who has an 8 month oldNorwegian Laphund (I may not have the name quite right).. They herd reindeer, and Christmas front yard displays featuring plastic reindeer blew out her fuses.
Ha! Now *that's* living! :-)
I often think that dogs represent an under-appreciated standard that we should aspire towards, because they represent a lot of what's best about us - loyalty, empathy, a natural affinity for cooperation, the desire to play, the desire to excel and do a job well, and of course the abiding and unconditional love that characterizes their relationship to you and the rest of their "pack members."
Not to mention, they eat dirty socks and underwear and really cut down on the laundry.
You're not the first or the last or the only to have lived wanted to do this. Read about hermits and other people who have lived very solitary lives. Some seem to have made a go of it, becoming engrossed in activities that were important to them. Anyhow, here are some suggestions for strategies.
THINGS THAT INVOLVE PEOPLE, BUT DO NOT REQUIRE YOU TO MAKE FRIENDS
Find volunteer or paid opportunities to help people without getting to know them.
There are probably some where you can even get info about how the people are benefitting.
Sports, for ex. Ultimate Frisbee. Serious body building in a gym.
Classes.
Religious or semi-religious (eg Buddhism) services, training and retreats
Online forums like this one
AA and similar
Have a blog
THINGS WITHOUT PEOPLE
Have pets. Or take it beyond having pets and breed and/or train some kind of animal.
Pursue your interests via study and practice.
Make things. Learn to make things that are hard to make. Learn to sail or dogsled. Build a cabin or a windmill or a boat. Paint watercolors. Make apps and games for computer and phones.
Photography.
Write or read fiction or history.
And here are some books about hermits, also from GPT
The Hermit in the Garden: From Imperial Rome to Ornamental Gnome
By Gordon Campbell, this book explores the history of hermits from ancient Rome to modern times, delving into the lives of famous hermits like St. Anthony of Egypt and St. Jerome.
MEDIEVAL CHRONICLES
A Book of Silence
In this 2008 publication, Sara Maitland reflects on her own pursuit of solitude and silence, exploring the lives of people today who occupy solitary states, such as solo sailors and polar explorers.
WELLCOME COLLECTION
The World of Medieval Monasticism: Its History and Forms of Life
By Gert Melville, this book provides a comprehensive overview of medieval monasticism, including the role of hermits in the wider monastic world.
MEDIEVAL CHRONICLES
The English Hermit: A Monastic Type
By Hugh F. M. Richmond, this book focuses on the history of hermits in England, exploring the reasons why people became hermits and the different types of hermitages.
MEDIEVAL CHRONICLES
The Substance of Silence: A Reading List About Hermits
This compilation offers various perspectives on the lives of hermits and the allure of solitude throughout history.
LONGREADS
So I asked GPT to give the names of some hermits who seemed to adapt well to living that way, and where someone could learn more about them, and here is the list it gave me:
*Historical and Religious Hermits*
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
Famous for his two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond, chronicled in Walden.
Where to Read: Thoreau’s Walden is an essential book. Secondary sources, such as Robert Richardson’s biography Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind, also provide insights.
St. Anthony the Great (c. 251–356)
An early Christian monk considered the father of monasticism. He lived in the Egyptian desert, practicing extreme solitude and asceticism.
Where to Read: Athanasius’s Life of Antony is the main source of information about him.
Figures like Julian of Norwich (1343–c. 1416), an anchoress, wrote Revelations of Divine Love, reflecting deep spiritual contentment.
Where to Read: Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love and works on Christian mysticism.
Christopher Knight ("The North Pond Hermit") (b. 1965)
Lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, stealing supplies to survive. He described being content with solitude.
Where to Read: Michael Finkel’s The Stranger in the Woods explores his life and mindset.
Richard Proenneke (1916–2003)
Built a cabin in Alaska and lived there alone for nearly 30 years. His journals were compiled into the book One Man's Wilderness.
Where to Read: One Man’s Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey by Sam Keith, based on Proenneke’s journals.
Emma "Grandma" Gatewood (1887–1973)
Though not a complete hermit, she often hiked alone, including being the first woman to solo hike the Appalachian Trail. Her journeys reflect a deep contentment with solitude.
Where to Read: Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
While not a strict hermit, he valued solitude as a source of creative and spiritual renewal.
Where to Read: His essays, particularly Self-Reliance and Nature.
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
Lived much of her life in seclusion, rarely leaving her family home. Her poetry reflects her contented inward life.
Where to Read: Collections of Dickinson’s poems and biographies like Lives Like Loaded Guns by Lyndall Gordon.
Ryokan Taigu (1758–1831)
A Zen Buddhist monk and poet who lived in a hut in the mountains of Japan. He was deeply content with his simple life.
Where to Read: Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf: Zen Poems of Ryokan offers a collection of his poetry.
Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694)
The famed Japanese haiku poet spent much of his life wandering and living simply. His works reflect solitude and harmony with nature.
Where to Read: The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches.
J.D. Salinger (1919–2010)
Though a real person, Salinger adopted a hermit-like lifestyle, avoiding public life after publishing The Catcher in the Rye.
Where to Read: Biographies like Kenneth Slawenski’s J.D. Salinger: A Life explore his secluded life.
Grizzly Adams (John Adams, 1812–1860)
A mountain man who lived in isolation in the Sierra Nevada, surrounded by nature and animals.
Where to Read: Historical accounts and stories inspired by his life, such as The Life and Adventures of James Capen Adams by Theodore Hittell.
GPT didn't bring up Grigory Perlman?? Probably the world's most prominent living hermit?
People kept braving the wilds of Sweden to knock on his door, trying to award him the Nobel-equivalent in mathematics (Fields medal) and give him $1M in prizes, and he kept turning them away and asking to be left alone.
Now THAT'S commitment to the bit!
Speaking from personal experience, you're pretty much screwed. I suggest finding some friends as soon as possible if you have means to do so. Only desolation and madness await the isolate.
I think that if someone asks a question here we should assume they are responsible adults, and if we have the information they are asking for we should give it to them. If they sound out of touch with reality or like they are falling apart or they ask for help committing a crime or committing suicide then no, we should not answer their question. But OP here sounds calm and sane and makes clear what he wants to know, and that he is not interested in being nudged to make friends or advised on how to do it.
What are you even talking about? I'm just speaking from first-hand experience that none of those impersonal interactions and activities are going to fill the gaping void in your heart. If he was perfectly happy being alone, he would not be asking this question.
...It's worth making the effort to connect with people. That's all I'm trying to say.
I think you mean that it failed to fill the gap in your heart. You can have no idea what would or would not fill the heart of someone else.
" Only desolation and madness await the isolate."
Doesn't that sound extreme?
Not really. Studies have shown a significant increase in mortality and health issues for people who lack social interactions. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2910600/ And dementia. https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/article/75/1/114/3896175?login=false
Yes, well, the same can be said of being overweight, smoking, being a couch potato, daily drinking even in moderate amounts, and a lot of other things.
Asking reasonable questions and getting a rash of shit back isn't very good for people either.
It's about as bad as smoking, which is... not great. And worse than all of the other things you mentioned. And of course, that's not even including the risk of depression and suicide.
Yea, OK, but if somebody on here asks which common US cigarette brand tastes most like Gauloises, do you think they should get an antismoking lecture instead of an answer? Or how about if they ask for info about rock climbing, or helicopter skiing, or big wave surfing, all of which are pretty risky? In all these cases the chance that the person asking has not already been told about the risks is very low. What's the point of giving the risk lecture again? And are we really in a position to be sure that in their case the activity is not worth the risk?
Congratulations to Donald on Congress’s certification of his electoral victory. Opinions about the events surrounding Joe’s certification four years ago vary widely—some view them as really damaging, others see them as minor or overblown. How do you see today’s proceedings compared to those four years ago?
I think it puts paid to the idea that the left and the right are mirror images of each other. We all know what would have happened if Harris had won.
Both sides have extremists, but one set of extremists does not act like the other.
I feel like America had some real serious political debates about lots of topics all at once and is functioning reasonably well?
I predict a lot less political violence, a lot less wokeness, a lot less unpopular foreign wars, a lot less illegal immigration, a lot less reliance on China, a real fight on policy on the right on a bunch of topics instead of just being the party of 'no', a lot less conspiracy theorism, and most importantly less legislation by administrative state expanding its powers. Just a huge shift towards the median voter in a way that makes it feel like we're living in a more 'responsive democracy'.
Just in general I think our media and cultural organs are doing a remarkably good job of navigating diversity of interests, opinions, and factual filters, and it could be so much worse.
If AI doesn't end everything early, I'm cautiously optimistic about the next four years.
Ended up voting for Kamala because the attempted coup was a read line for me, glad she lost though, mostly because I think Trump will 'strongman' Iran/Russia into backing down, and will either give up Taiwan bloodlessly, or make it clear 'not on my watch' there as well.
Also culturally, it feels like the gaslighting on all sides is less threatening? Partisans lie, we can tell when they do, and we don't need to be terrified that there isn't a bunch of normal americans who can see through it all and make their voices heard. We can just roll our eyes and live our lives, at everyone.
Wow, you're optimistic. I hope you're right.
Well, Matt Yglesias had an interesting take on that today in an un-paywalled post.
“The scariest thing about contemporary American politics is that on January 7, 2021, it was widely acknowledged among American conservatives that Donald Trump’s behavior on January 6th was completely unacceptable.
No one, at the time, was emotionally or intellectually invested in debating whether it was “really” a coup or whether a political movement that did something like that was “really” fascist. Mitch McConnell said Trump was morally responsible for the crimes committed. Steve Schwarzman called it “appalling and an affront to the democratic values we hold dear as Americans.” Kevin Williamson of National Review rightly called the riot at the Capitol “just the tip of a very dangerous spear.”
I’m not surprised or even particularly upset that so many people who acknowledged the gravity of the offense at the time ended up voting for and supporting Trump.
Electoral politics in a two-party system is hard. So much is at stake at the ballot box — tax policy, abortion rights, immigration, and a million other things, all of which are incredibly important. I deeply respect and admire the decision made by Liz Cheney and a handful of others to take a fully principled stand on the January 6 question, but I also respect (or at least understand) the decision of those who’ve decided they care more about other things than about Trump’s low character and basic unfitness for office. But what disturbs me is the extent to which the entire conservative movement has retconned not just the events of four years ago, but their own reactions to those events, such that these days, to be disturbed by them is considered some form of lib hysteria.
The reality is quite the opposite.”
Slow Boring “Four Years Later” continued…
https://www.slowboring.com/p/four-years-later
Let’s see how the inaugural address goes in a couple weeks. My fear is that all will be well as long we all can now accept that 2 + 2 actually equals 5.
The casual heuristic of "If this was a planned subterfuge, is this how it would reasonably be done?" tells me that this was almost certainly not a coup. A bunch of angry protestors, mostly unarmed, breaking into the capitol to what? Hang Mike Pence so he can't officiate the election? That's a ridiculous plan if it was one.
Don't they know that there are a bunch of tunnels Congress can escape through? Isn't being heavily armed a prerequisite for taking over a nation (especially one as powerful as the United States with a long democratic tradition)?
Sure, Trump didn't especially do anything about it at the time, and he wasn't exactly condemning their actions at the time either, but there's a difference between that and planning a coup as far as most people are concerned. Ordering the military to disperse a protest, that's protesting in favor of you, even if it got violent, isn't exactly what most people would do in that situation.
It was definitely a protest that got out of hand, which demonstrates the idiocy of many people supporting Trump, and was definitely illegal, but calling it a coup that Trump planned is a huge departure from reality as I see it.
The thing to remember is that the protestors believed that the election had already been stolen (ignore for the moment whether that is a defensible belief or not). Given that they sincerely believed that, their actions make more sense (not perfect sense, since even had they been right they weren't going to "stop the steal" that way).
Trump was just an opportunist. But his actions that day, and afterward reveal something about him: he couldn't care less about legal or democratic processes. I think that if he could overthrow the government with an illegal coup, he absolutely would, but he himself isn't smart enough to figure out how.
This. During his presidency, Trump was mostly free if base entertainment for the world and the US (SCOTUS aside, but that would have gone similarly under a non-clown republican president).
Oh no, he fired another secretary, and there are still people applying for the job.
Oh no, he did a photo-op with Kim.
Oh no, you would not believe what outrageous thing he tweeted today.
Oh no, he is having legal drama..
As far as US presidents go, his track record was not disastrous. Sure, he put some migrants in cages, but my baseline for US presidents is nuking Nagasaki, getting involved in Vietnam, turning torture into official US policy, sponsoring coups to overthow democracies in Latin America or lying to the feds about not having gotten a blowjob (I kid). Basically, he could have moonlighted as a serial killer without registering on my outrange-o-meter when it is calibrated for presidencies.
He had this one Iranian general killed in an airstrike, but that did not seem like a particularly irreplaceable loss for humanity either. And for COVID, it would have been nice to have some adult in the room, but the established non-partisan experts were rather terrible too. (Remember the lies about masks being ineffective?)
But once he was voted out his always strained relationship with the truth went downhill to levels seen on his 2016 campaign trail, where he had denied Obama being born in the US. "Stop the steal." This was a man who would happily burn the commons for whatever slim chance to not face the fact that he had been voted out. I am convinced that if the insurgents he had incited over months (in the vague hope that they would somehow change the outcome) had miraculously managed to overthrow the government, he would have happily resided in the white house while the corpse of his former vice president was rotting on some flagpole nearby.
That's fair, but also a very different claim than "January 6th was a coup attempt by Trump" as a lot of people seem to take at face value. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of politicians wouldn't take powers and term lengths outside what is constitutionally allowed given the opportunity, but it's sort of our bad that we are electing people who think like that. Virtue isn't something we seem to value much in politicians anymore (did anyone ever?).
An abnormal election process, with abnormal (to public perception) voting behavior could reasonably make a lot of people, who were acting in good faith, believe that election fraud won Biden the election. Trump looked like he was going to win around 11:00 PM, and it was only after the early morning, when large numbers of mail-in ballots were counted that overwhelmingly voted for Biden, did Biden win. To the uninformed voter, that could plausibly look like they "found" a few hundred thousand votes for Biden.
Not saying that there was fraud, as there was certainly not, or if there was it wasn't enough to make any difference, just that it's not unreasonable for the average person to have believed there was fraud given how things looked, and how the election was run significantly differently from normal due to Covid.
There was attempted fraud--the slates of false electors that Trump and his people attempted to insert into the process. Most elected officials do not go that far. That's not on the voters, that's on him.
>>I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of politicians wouldn't take powers and term lengths outside what is constitutionally allowed given the opportunity, but it's sort of our bad that we are electing people who think like that. Virtue isn't something we seem to value much in politicians anymore (did anyone ever?).
If you believe that lots of politicians would take powers and term lengths outside of what is constitutionally allowed given the opportunity, though, that is grounds for a *stronger* belief that Trump should be punished instead of being reelected. If the prospect of punishment is the only thing holding otherwise corrupt officials from engaging in corrupt behavior, prominently letting one off the hook and rewarding him with more power only weakens the incentives and invites more corruption.
If we accept “sure, Tom may have tried to rob the bank, but honestly wouldn’t we *all* rob a bank if we thought we could get away with it” as a legitimate defense of Tom's behavior, the only thing we’ll succeed in doing is inviting more bank robbers to try their hand later.
> It was definitely a protest that got out of hand
That’s what a failed coup looks like.
Do you remember that he wanted to go to the capital and speak to those people but the Secret Service would not let him? Do you think he really wanted to go there to calm them down? I seriously doubt it.
Remember how he protested that there were metal detectors there, saying that the people didn’t wanna shoot him?
We must have different expectations as to what a deliberate coup looks like. I don't consider all government overthrows, like many during the Arab Spring, as coups. Bottom-up protests, usually the result of forces far outside any individual's control, that overthrow a government happen often enough, but they usually aren't the result of leaders overthrowing the government.
A coup is typically when a faction within the government quickly arrests, kills, or otherwise incapacitates a countries leader's and assumes control. That requires a plan of specifically who you're going after, when you're taking control, and typically coordinated military power to ensure you get what you want quickly. It also helps if it's unexpected, so before most people know there's even a coup, the old rulers have been replaced, making it useless to try and side with them.
You don't perform a coup by showing up at the least minute, make a speech to a riot and saying "Let's overthrow the government!" to a mostly unarmed crowed and waltz right in. At least not one with any chance of success.
Ok. A coup is a sudden, violent overthrow of a government. According to the dictionary, I looked up.
What do you call it when a group of people who are inside a government try to come up with a way to hold onto power that might be legal but it’s pretty much on the edge? I am perfectly happy to settle on a different word.
A Palace intrigue…?
If everything goes just right, it might work. If you can get an alternate slate of electors into the Congress and have a Congressman (or two) object to the official slate of electors and get the vice president to choose the alternates? (Especially when the alternate slates were being prepared in great secrecy and quite surreptitiously and, according to more than one state, not in keeping with their laws or intentions? e.g. Arizona, Georgia Wisconsin.
And IF, at the same time, you can get a large group of people to make a lot of noise and riot a little bit AND you do pull off your palace intrigue, all these people will be thrilled! And then you’re on your way aren’t you? An arguable legal issue that will take weeks to sort out in the normal scheme of things, and lots of other people very happy with the outcome around the country and the Proud Boys (and others) “standing by” in Washington (as we know); now what do you call it? A lucky coincidence?
I am glad that it did not work out, and I am glad that the American people have gotten the president they wanted after all. I have no doubt that legal boundaries will be challenged hard in the coming years and it will be interesting to see what holds and what doesn’t. I guess what I’m saying is I am not a knee-jerk liberal, but I know what I see and I don’t like to have illusions about it based on my personal preferences.
Someone here has pointed out that the vice president has no power to reject electoral votes and that’s probably true, but to this group of people the legal framework of that was apparently vague and somewhat elastic (if you pulled hard enough on it) and maybe Trump could get Mike Pence to do that. He couldn’t. We all know how Trump feels about Mike Pence these days, but it is interesting that when JD Vance was asked if he would’ve done it he replied absolutely yes.
I guess the appropriate term would be self-coup, as Trump was still in charge at the time.
I can buy that there was a lot of intruiging going on behind the scenes, and that Trump was looking to bend things until they broke and he remained in power. The capital riot itself though, seems to be a natural result of the fishy smell the 2020 election had (again, not saying it was rigged as I don't believe that, just that it was abnormal and an average uninformed person could reasonably conclude it was rigged with the information they had). Whether Trump was planning a coup or not, and whether 1/6 was convenient for that attempt seems like a separate thing to me than 1/6 being a coup attempt itself.
My beef is that I see a lot of people equivocating 1/6 as a coup attempt, as if Trump, or his goons organized a bunch of supporters to attempt to storm the capitol and literally execute Mike Pence. People who are appalled at Trump trying to overthrow democracy, then angrily gesturing to 1/6 as evidence of that, which just doesn't fit for me. I'm sure there are people presenting a more nuanced approach that actually looks at everything he did with the electors and calling up Georgia and whatnot, but then the accusations of a coup attempt turn into accusations of Trump trying to figure out how to stay in power, which seems qualitatively different, or at least not as exciting.
It would be equivalent of calling the BLM riots/protest an attempted communist takeover of our cities (remember CHOP?). Yes, perhaps if there was a communist plot to takeover a bunch of cities the BLM protests could theoretically help serve that purpose, but the protests themselves were not an attempt to overthrow the government.
If you want to be technical about it, it was an attempted insurrection, not a coup. Trump didn't organize it.
"That’s what a failed coup looks like."
I don't think so. Can you name any other failed coups that ended like this? Or successful coups that began like this? The vast majority of coups are where the military arrests the president and takes over media organizations, right?
The ones that fail are always harder to find, aren’t they? The only one off the top of my head that is in the same ballpark is the beer Hall Putch (sp?)
Now that you mention it, Russia tried a coup in the Ukraine recently and failed. It’s turned into a bit of a grind, hasn’t it? Thank God we are Americans.
As an aside, I believe that the United States will experience a full on military coup eventually. I don’t think there’s any way around it.
Obligatory Godwin-
The Beer Hall Putsch is pretty universally recognized as a "failed coup attempt," but did not involve the military seizing the president.
Hitler basically jumped up on a table, fired a gunshot for everybody's attention, and declared that the current government was liquidated, then marched to the capital and hoped for the best.
That said, I think WaitForMe really has it right. Too much focus is on the riot on Jan 6 itself, rather than the attempt at falsifying election results in the months leading up to it.
To be fair, that coup was also a display of comical levels of magical thinking. For one thing, it happened in Munich. The capital of the Weimar Republic was (as not indicated by the name) Berlin, which is quite a bit away. But even the place which Hitler and his goons were marching to was silly: the Feldherrenhalle is not the seat of the regional government.
For a non-stupid version of the Hitler-Putsch, look at the Kapp-Putsch. There the perpetrators did at least get the city right, had the military on their side and managed to arrest some republic officials.
Of course, the morale of the story is that if someone tries to attempt a coup or incite an insurgency in a profoundly silly way which is unlikely to work, it is not safe to lean back and call them "harmless because stupid". Rather, one should update on them being unscrupulous in attempting to size power and not count on them remaining as stupid in the future.
The real coup was trying to have Mike Pence not certify the election and throw it to the house, along with the scheming to create alternate slates of electors to vote for Trump. January 6th was, in most senses, a riot, rather than a coup. But Trump very badly wanted Pence to overturn the results and have the house instate him. That is a coup attempt, if bungled and probably unrealistic even if Pence did vote against certifying the election.
Agreed. I suspect that Trump's intent with the riot was to arrange a (rowdy) protest as a tacit threat of mob violence, in hopes of bullying Pence and House/Senate Republicans into going along with the plan to overturn the result.
Trump's reaction during the three-hour window between when the capitol was breached and when he gave the "we love you, go home" speech seems like he was hoping that the actual mob violence he got would serve the same purpose. His conversation with then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, in which Trump responded to McCarthy telling him to call off the rioters with “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” seems particularly damning.
The difference between a farcical, obviously-not-going-to-succeed, is-it-even-a-coup coup attempt and an actual coup is that one succeeded and one didn't. A lot of coups would probably look pretty silly if, for whatever reason, it just didn't work out.
Indeed. Recent events in Seoul have exactly that look.
"entire conservative movement has retconned not just the events of four years ago"
I observed the liberals rewrite the narrative in the days, weeks, then months following January 6th.
While the events were unfolding, it was a news story of a massive crowd walking past security, going where they shouldn't normally be, and some guy sitting in Nancy Pelosi's chair.
A day or so later, it came out that some people, fewer than 10, had died. I was unclear at the time from reports whether any of the security people had died, but some of the rioters had. It seemed like a whole bunch of people dissatisfied with the election verification, tired of being ignored, decided not to be ignored anymore; not a coup, since they didn't have weapons, AFAICS.
Within weeks, the narrative had changed to an attempted coup to keep Trump as President. Then it changed to Trump having orchestrated the events to stay President. Within months it was "the greatest threat to democracy the country had ever faced."
Revisionist history IS happening, and has been happening for some time. 1984 has stealthily arrived.
I would say what you call revisionism by the left post January 6 is the result of more and more information coming out about what was going on behind the scenes on January 6, and the things that had been going on leading up to it. I would call it updating an opinion based on new information.
I can certainly understand thinking that, but I too thought about it at the time as a possibility, and my impression didn't match that. It was four years ago, so I don't remember the details, but I don't remember anything I expected that would match that, like "We don't yet know how many were injured, but it is expected to be only a few individuals" followed later by "The casualty count now exceeds 10, and may be higher as we gain more details" with more detailed information as time went on.
Instead, I found the character of what happened being reported and updated. I remember hearing nothing of Trump's involvement early on, but Trump was involved months later.
I see two things going on there; it took a while to dig down and to get people to talk and to find a paper trail. The second thing I see going on is probably an institutional bias to just let the whole thing go if Donald Trump was never going to be seen on the public stage again. Better to let bygones be bygones under those circumstances. I know the received wisdom among certain people is that (the deep state, the Democrats, etc.) decided to make something up and go after him the moment he decided to run again. I don’t really believe that. There is enough evidence to support the idea that this stuff was indeed going on. One could certainly claim, in that sense (just letting it go as long as he rode off into the sunset), the prosecution was political. But the prosecution was not a fiction. It’s not a bunch of Trump hating prosecutors going after him for no reason whatsoever.
I can’t help feeling that he created the Mar-a-Lago situation on purpose. He could have raised his claims of rightful possession from the moment the national archive first contacted him about those papers, but he did not. He engaged in various shady practices to hide the papers, and forced the showdown. Then, when he had a national audience, he claimed that he owned the papers and was being harassed. He likes to test boundaries, and he has keen political instincts, which is a double-edged sword if you know what I mean.
"While the events were unfolding, it was a news story of a massive crowd walking past security, going where they shouldn't normally be, and some guy sitting in Nancy Pelosi's chair." Nice try at gaslighting.
Reported for lack of post content. You should explain something if you're going to attack it.
Fair enough.
Some news websites on Jan 6:
Nytimes: "Mob storms Capitol, inflamed by angry Trump speech"
https://web.archive.org/web/20210106215915/https://www.nytimes.com/
MSNBC: "Pro-Trump protesters storm Capitol, forcing Senate evacuation during Electoral College count"
https://web.archive.org/web/20210106202318/https://www.msnbc.com/
Fox News: "Capitol under Siege" ; "McCarthy condemns 'un-American' breach of US Capitol by pro-Trump demonstrators"
https://web.archive.org/web/20210106211735/https://www.foxnews.com/
Now, you COULD describe that as "a massive crowd walking past security"... but that wasn't exactly the phrasing that was used in news outlets.
I think you should look a little more deeply into the trials of some of the major conspirators to see how much Information came to light post January 6 about the events leading up to it and what was going on that day. There were a ton of weapons in Washington DC that day in hotel rooms waiting for the moment. There were extensive text threads between some of those people and people close to Trump (Roger Stone, for instance) I really think you’re whistling past the graveyard here.
Not again. I looked at the trials before, when things were more current, and "selection bias" seemed to be the strategy. I suspect that is also currently the case.
I had looked for evidence that Trump was behind it all, which is what the Democrats really wanted to get out of it, and found nothing convincing.
January 6th should NOT have happened, but it gets support from Republicans because of the way Democrats have tried to use it. Whenever "January 6th" is used as a rallying cry against Republicans, or Trump specifically, it's "here we go again". We need to put the event past us, as the nothing burger with some substance but nothing worth dividing the country over it should be. Not very palatable, so why keep eating it?
>>January 6th should NOT have happened, but it gets support from Republicans because of the way Democrats have tried to use it.
It gets support from Republicans because when confronted with a choice between:
(a) "admit that my tribe's leader attempted election fraud, and that instead of punishing him we rewarded him with more power," and
(b) "think of literally any other semi-plausible explanation in which my tribe did not do a bad - a 'coup' requires the military, and/or certifying election results is inherently political, and/or it was the work of antifa infiltrators, and/or it's possible the election really *was* rigged and even if it wasn't what matters for election legitimacy is that people *believe* the election results and clearly Democrats failed to convince them to do that so this is all their fault, and/or prosecuting Trump somehow was simultaneously a Democrat failure that made them the *real* threat to democracy while also being a Democrat failure because they didn't do it fast enough, and/or etc, etc etc,...
... tribal monkey brain's kneejerk response is to slam the button for option (b) so hard his hand breaks.
"January 6 was bad, but Republicans only support it because Democrats rallied against it the wrong way" is just another subset of category (b). *My* side isn't badwrong, *your* side is badwrong for calling us badwrong so badwrongly.
So you give no weight to the attempt to prepare alternate slates of electors? (Arizona and Georgia are both taking that rather seriously at the moment.) The extended conversations with John Eastman, about how there might be a loophole that could be exploited by Pence? His exhortation to the proud boys to “stand down but standby“? His wish to go to the capital that day and speak in person? Of course it was not a well organized coup. It was an attempt to stretch all the boundaries and pull something off, based on a lie, which is that the election was stolen in the first place. I agree it’s tiresome to go over this and that things are as they are now but there’s no point in making up a story about it. That’s what bothers me. This issue has nothing to do with how I feel about any of his particular policies that; is a separate question.
I agree in some sense. I knew it wasn't directed by Trump, or full of military veterans storming the capital with guns. But also, pictures/videos on that very first day or perhaps the day after included the shooting of Ashley Babbit as the rioters tried to break through a clearly barred door with capital police telling them to stop, congressmen cowering afraid in the chamber, and people chanting "Hang Mike Pence" before they burst through door, all while disguising their identities and some of them holding improved weapons, though not actual firearms/axes/what have you.
It was clearly a riot to me and not an organized coup, but also not a "crowd walking past security" and "going where they shouldn't be". There was certainly an overt sense of violence about the whole thing.
Again, it was an attempted insurrection, not a coup.
That is a better way to put it.
This doesn't fit my recollections. Over at DSL we were arguing over the "coup" description the day it happened, so evidently the idea was already out there. (I was one of the people ridiculing it, and have not changed my mind since.)
I agree it was discussed on the first day. But my impression was more of a child's rebellion than an attempted government takeover.
It was a sufficiently incompetent attempt at a government takeover that it might as well have been planned by a child. But the obvious intent was to take over the government.
And the planning was more thorough and more credible than the plan for the Beer Hall Putsch, which is broadly regarded as having been a (pathetically incompetent) coup attempt.
This also was my impression on the day of 1/6/21, as refreshed by reading my diary entry for the day. A pathetically incompetent coup/insurrection attempt, but absolutely not any sort of "peaceful protest". There's definitely an attempt at rewriting history here, but it's mostly on the Republican side.
Thank you.
I certainly agree it wasn't a peaceful protest. I remember thinking something like, "I understand these people think they'll get their voices heard now, but this won't end well."
I was surprised how few people got hurt or killed with the initial reports. The number seemed to keep rising not as more information came to light, but as the implications were analyzed as "how can this damage Trump?"
We need to do the Vulcan mind meld. I’d love to understand your point of view and for you to understand mine.
Our perceptions of reality are disjoint in so many ways.
Live long and prosper.
Oh, thanks for the tip on McCabe and Mrs Miller. We did a three night Altman binge: that one, Short Cuts and 3 Women. The last 2 were re-viewings but I hadn’t seen M&MM before.
The last scene with the derringer I had seen reproduced in a snippet of Boardwalk Empire with Steve Buscemi as the shooter. I just saw the final few minutes of that waiting for something else. It felt a bit like an homage to Altman.
You are very welcome and I am glad you enjoyed it. It’s one of my favorite movies. Leonard Cohen’s soundtrack is so brilliant and as usual Julie Christie is to die for.
I liked how today went. A lot less batshit than last time. Maybe the losers can keep it together again next certification and make it two straight without trashing our own house. Start a new streak.
Yes, Trump is the party of Jan 6. But the Dems are the party of BLM. To me BLM was exactly the same thing but 10x worse. US politics is terribly broken right now and our only choices are between the lesser of two evils.
The members of the BLM protest movement believed that American police were shooting innocent black men to death in unreasonable circumstances. They thought they were trying to save lives (ignore, for the moment, whether that is a defensible belief or not). Given that they believed that, their actions make more sense (*much* more sense than the Jan 6 protestors, since BLM largely accomplished their goal).
Right, and the January 6 protestors thought that there were problematic voting irregularities in the 2020 election that hadn't been properly investigated. Protesting makes sense in that context as well.
A) That theory was provably wrong at the time. Blacks are killed by police proportionately less than their participation in violent crime would warrant. If anything, a rational analysis of racial crime statistics should make whites angry with blacks, not the other way around. B) EVEN IF it was true, violent riots are never the way forward on difficult political problems. This has been demonstrated by the subsequent 4 years of crime statistics: the black homicide rate increased by 40% in the 4 years after George Floyd's death. They got the opposite of what they thought they wanted. Responding supportively to stupid people's temper tantrums is never good policy.
I will notice though that Trump was personally spreading the lies which if true would have legitimized trying a counter-coup and thus fueled the Jan 6 insurrection, while I don't recall Joe Biden going on record claiming that the cops killed ten innocent black people every day and that the only way to stop them would be to immediately disband all police forces.
Now, clearly the Dems knew which side they were supposed to be on, and I am sure half their congresspeople used the phrase 'epidemic of police violence' or something.
Trump had personally sowed the violence of Jan 6 with his election denial. By contrast, no Dem in 2020 thought: "You know what we really need to oust Trump? Race riots, they make our site look really electable!" Instead, the riots seemed to come out of a mix of genuine anger at a highly publicized police murder, a woke ideology who basically excused any violence perpetrated by Blacks, and a lock-down policy which had pushed a lot of people to their brinks, and the Dems were mostly along for the ride.
Now, if after the Floyd murder, one of the top five democrats had claimed that there was a genocide against Black people happening at the hands of the police, and called on all good citizens to stop the killer cops, then I would say that the Dems were equally guilty of inciting violence as Trump was.
> They got the opposite of what they thought they wanted.
The demand was never that the overall Black homicide rate should be lower. Blacks murdering Blacks is not news, there is no racial injustice in it from the woke viewpoint. I think they likely succeeded in making cops more reluctant to engage black suspects for fear of a PR disaster. It just so happens that most of the time when the cops get into a firefight, they actually are the good guys.
It was never about Black Lives per se, only EA weirdos would sum up all homicide victims. They only Mattered when they were ended by cops, and by that metric, Systemic Racism has decreased. Success!
>Trump had personally sowed the violence of Jan 6 with his election denial.
How did that sow violence any more than democratic leadership validating the perception that America is structurally racist or that police disproportionately kill black people? They're directly parallel in that they're equally dishonest political lies. If anything Trump at least had a case: there were circumstantial reasons to be skeptical of the election results. BLM's argument didn't even have circumstantial evidence.
>Systemic Racism has decreased. Success!
Viewed through a zero-sum political lens that's probably correct: blacks gained political power relative to whites. Viewed through an absolute lens of "BLM is about improving the lives of black people" BLM was a disaster for most black people.
You must be kidding. BLM was a mess, but it didn’t lead to the almost overthrow of the democratic government of the United States of America. Not only that over the last four years BLM has come into some truthful perspective while January 6 has been completely rewritten by a monstrous lie in my opinion; that the election really was stolen and if you don’t believe it, you’re not welcome in the Republican Party anymore.
> but it didn’t lead to the almost overthrow of the democratic government of the United States of America.
And neither did Jan 6. They were exactly the same thing: a bunch of idiots demonstrating on the basis of a premise that's clearly wrong. Except, of course, that BLM lasted 100x as long and did 100x the damage. There is no plausible scenario whereby the Jan 6 protests could have affected the election outcome. To claim otherwise is nothing but politically motivated hysterics.
The J6 protesters were in no way 'clearly wrong'. Whether or not the Democrats committed election fraud and whether that determined the results are unknowable because they blocked all inquiry into the topic.
Trump filed 62 lawsuits in various states. There was a *fuckload* of inquiry into the topic, and basically all of it came back with judges saying "nope, this isn't fraud" or "nope, this isn't a procedural violation." (Most of the lawsuits didn't actually allege fraud, only procedural issues. Probably because once they got an actual lawyer involved they realized they didn't have evidence of fraud).
A lot of the lawsuits were heard by Republican judges, some appointed by Trump himself. I'm not sure what other forms of inquiry you could want here. This was Trump getting his proverbial day in court, and he lost about as decisively as he could.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election_lawsuits_related_to_the_2020_U.S._presidential_election
Agreed, the Jan 6 folks were less provably wrong than BLMers but in my view they're both idiots. Conspiracy theories are rarely falsifiable but you have to be a pretty big moron to take one seriously enough to protest over.
"They" "blocked all inquiry"? Weren't there dozens of court trials that looked into the claims, that didn't find anything substantial (apart from attempts by Trump to influence the counting process)? Didn't even the (Republican) officials in Georgia insist that everything was kosher?
You are either very poorly informed or perhaps engaging in political hysterics. I’m not sure which.
It did not lead to the overthrow of the United States government it led to the *almost* overthrow of the United States government, is what I said. BLM didn’t come close; see Detroit in 1968, Los Angeles after the Rodney King incident, the riot in New York after the caravan of Hasidim accidentally ran over a black child in Crown Heights. That is the lineage of the BLM riots. They have absolutely nothing to do with what happened on January 6. Based on all the available evidence, I think you would really have to be kidding yourself to believe otherwise.
No, simply better informed than you are. Trump challenged the electors. He's entitled to do that. The Democrats have challenged in every election that they've lost since 2000. Nothing any protest did could have legally altered that process. The VP has zero legal discretion in the certification of election results. The role is purely ceremonial and if Pence had refused to perform his role then he would have been removed or impeached. There is no scenario whereby democracy could have been destroyed on Jan 6. I mean just use your head: we're the most powerful country in the world. You don't get to beat the electoral process by getting one guy to say the wrong thing during a ceremony. Come on, the world just doesn't work like that.
The relationship between Jan 6 and BLM is that they were of the same category: a violent political protest by stupid people who believed something objectively false. Of course BLM was much more violent and an even less plausible belief, but that's neither here nor there.
Was the 2020 election stolen? That’s one of the questions on the applications for employment in the new administration. There is only one acceptable answer. The wrong answer is a dealbreaker. Bring on the reality denying toadies.
I know maybe hundreds of currently employed government workers who I am 100% certain believe it wasn't stolen, and will not lose their jobs. Or even have an application like that put in front of them.
I was referring to new high level appointments for the next administration not current civil service folk. e.g. Pete Hegseth.
Yeah, I’m on your side in this Gunflint
What would the Star Trek Mirror Universe Borg look like? I'm dimly aware that non-cannon Star Trek content already exists about this, but I want to do my own thought experiment. Here's what I've got:
1) Mirror-Borg society is hyperindividualistic and prizes that over all.
2) Its members are even more diverse than the Federation.
3) Even though life inside the Mirror-Borg Collective is objectively better than life anywhere else in the galaxy, the Mirror-Borg don't consider themselves superior. If anything, they judge themselves too harshly.
4) Instead of being expansionist, they are insular. Other species keep coming to them willingly, and only with great persistence will the Mirror-Borg talk with them. Everyone wants something from them. They have rejected many offers from other species to annex themselves to the Collective.
5) The Mirror-Borg battle fleet is composed of billions of small, weak ships of very diverse designs.
6) They are dark-skinned.
7) The Mirror-Borg have strong religious beliefs against the mixing of biology and technology. Pacemakers and wearable technology like Meta Glasses are forbidden, and some purists live as nudist primitives since clothes count as technology. Their preoccupation with this separation is similar to how Orthodox Jews have created and observe elaborate Talmudic Law. Maybe it's common for each Mirror-Borg to have a robot servant that he tells what to do and avoids even touching.
8) In spite of their insularity, the Mirror-Borg are known to be extremely warm and talkative people who are afraid to appear rude. If you are of a different species and find yourself on one of their ships, every Mirror-Borg you see will greet you like an old friend, talk with you at length and invite you to their quarters for a meal. However, the Mirror-Borg are also painfully averse to conflict, so if you start behaving in a threatening manner or destroying things on one of their ships, they will avoid you and pretend like you aren't there.
Note that a central conceit of the Trek Mirrorverse is that it results in e.g. identical-except-for-the-insignia spaceships in all the same places, identical-except-for-the-uniform-and-mindset people ditto and fitting into identical heirarchies, and yes the incentives are completely reversed but for mumble something reasons everything still lines up perfectly.
So you can't have "billions of small, weak ships of very diverse designs" because MirrorBorg ships are ginormous cubes, and the MirrorBorg can't be insular because then they wouldn't be sending the ships to the same places.
Really, the MirrorVerse concept was a very silly idea that should have been quietly abandoned right after the One Good Story was extracted from it.
Hmm. Billions of small, weak ships of diverse designs that lash themselves together into cube-shaped fleets, and rather than taking what's on the outside by force, they tend to let off a few ships with representatives at each location they visit to ingratiate themselves in ways that act as cultural seeds? Reverse assimilation, thus?
(I admit to not being especially familiar with mirror-universe episodes of Trek to begin with, but I find the speculation fun.)
In one of the Culture books, Banks mentions the problem of a hegemonizing swarm, which is basically what the Borg are. One standard way to deal with them short of war is to somehow change them into an evangelizing swarm.
So, in the mirror universe, the Borg are basically the same idea--cyborgs linked together in a vast hive mind, sinking their individuality into the collective. But instead of invading, they evangelize and recruit people. As long as their missionaries and recruiting stations are left alone, they're peaceable enough, but members of any biological species that are miserable, desperate, reviled, too sick to survive at their current society's tech level, etc. routinely go join the Borg. Similarly, there's a substantial cult in various humanoid societies that valorizes losing your individuality to the hive mind, and many people among them who work as non-assimilated missionaries or commit to joining the hive mind at some point in their lives, perhaps after raising their families. Additionally, the Borg offer a safe form of exile for criminals and such--instead of executing your criminals, you can simply hand them over to the Borg. This is used in some societies in a way analogous to the way the Seven Kingdoms used taking the black.
Ooh, I like that one. It won't hold up to close examination (e.g. assimilating 10% of the population of one Federation world and 30% of the next, doesn't lead to the exact same cube-fleet deployment patterns), but it would be good enough for an hour or so of decent television I think.
Spheres
Parents of small children: what do you do with dentists? Ours has been trying to take x-rays of my son's teeth (19 baby, 1 permanent -- he's in kindergarten) for the past several years, has finally given up in disgust (because the plate they use for the digital x-rays hurts *me* to bite on, let alone a small kid), and has referred us to the pediatric dentist (who is both farther away and also has a much less convenient schedule). I think my kid is pretty ordinary when it comes to mouth proportions or to tolerating annoying health-related routines. Does this mean that most kids (until they're teenagers, say) have to go to dedicated pediatric dentists? (There don't seem to be nearly enough pediatric dentists around for this to be true.) Or is our primary dentist particularly unsuited for working with children / has particularly unsuitable x-ray technology, and I should switch to a different office? Or am I just supposed to say "please don't x-ray my son this year, yes really I'm fine with this" and everyone will breathe a sigh of relief?
I have two kids, now early teens. My experience is similar to the others here. Going to the dentist with a small child was always a quick and simple procedure – a quick, painless check and a learning experience – that shouldn’t turn them off dentistry forever.
When the kids got older (tweens), the dentists became more interested in whether all the teeth come in like they should (I.e. Will they need adjusting/retainer? Is it so tight that one or more needs to be removed?) But for both kids, when the dentist saw something worth mentioning, their advice was just to wait and see if it solved itself – and it did in both cases. None of it required X-rays for either of my kids at the youngest age. I don’t think either of them had dental x-rays taken before they were 12.
I have also seen that while most dentists are good and ethical, it is not uncommon to come across dentists who will look extra hard for possible work, or who will let the price tag unduly influence their recommendation. It’s a bit harsh to call them unethical, but their priorities aren’t necessarily aligned with yours. They may recommend treatments that are expensive, impractical, uncomfortable, yet not strictly necessary. Just because they’re not wrong doesn’t mean their advice is the best for you.
If I were you, I’d take my kid to a different dentist – not just for the second opinion, but to get more experience with dentists. I’ve moved a lot, so have had quite a few of them. But since people usually go to the same dentist year after year, and almost never shop around, lots of people have pretty bad dentists without knowing it.
My child sees a pediatric dentist. The appointments involve a quick visual inspection and cleaning, and are generally less than five minutes.
I'm not a parent of a small child, but I am generally extremely suspicious of dentists after learning that cavities can, in fact, heal themselves (especially if you improve your oral regiment), and having several experiences with less-than-entirely-ethical-dentists. I've encountered one dentist I actually liked - his default approach to cavities was "Let's check on this next time" and, without fail, the cavity would reverse itself, although there would usually be some other tooth that was doing something that needed watching for the next time (leading me to suspect that most cavities are some kind of periodic fluctuation?). Alas I moved away from that state and I've yet to find a dentist I liked since. (I do need to find one, just to fix some damage the last dentist did, but I'm quite reluctant to begin the search all over again.)
I'm not saying your dentist is unethical, mind, I don't know the person. However, if they're pushing you for a procedure for your children that is unlikely to do anything except garner them an insurance payment, it seems like something to consider.
Seems odd to be x-raying baby teeth that are going to fall out in a few years anyhow. I'd be suspicious of someone doing that. Just asked GPT4 whether it was routine to X-ray baby teeth, and if so why. It mostly agrees with me. (But sometimes it's in Lala Land, so you should double-check on google scholar. Look for meta-analyses.)
GPT4 sez: Dentists generally do not routinely X-ray the teeth of children unless there is a specific reason to do so. The primary reasons a dentist might perform X-rays on a toddler include:
Suspected Decay or Damage: If visible cavities or signs of decay are present, X-rays can help assess the extent of the damage, including areas between teeth or beneath the surface where decay may not be visible.
Injury: If a child has experienced trauma to the mouth, an X-ray can help determine if there is damage to the teeth, roots, or developing permanent teeth underneath.
Congenital or Developmental Concerns: X-rays can reveal issues with tooth development, such as missing teeth, extra teeth, or abnormalities in tooth spacing that could impact permanent teeth later.
Infection or Abscess: X-rays can identify infections at the root of a tooth, which could affect both baby and developing permanent teeth.
While it’s true that baby teeth eventually fall out, they play a crucial role in maintaining space for permanent teeth, aiding speech development, and enabling proper chewing. Severe decay or infection in baby teeth can also spread to the underlying permanent teeth or cause pain and complications that might require more invasive treatment later.
Dentists generally prefer to limit X-ray exposure in young children and will only use it when the benefits outweigh the risks. If cavities are clearly visible and treatable without further imaging, a dentist might opt to proceed without X-rays.
I have asked why we're bothering to x-ray baby teeth as they're starting to fall out. The dentist pointed out that some of the baby teeth stick around until the kid is ~12, so it's not orders of magnitude shorter than adult ones. (I agree that I'm not wholly convinced.) Also, now that adults ones *are* coming in, that objection is less meaningful.
I'm not sure how to use Google Scholar to figure out whether it's routine to x-ray baby teeth.
One easy method is to ask GPT your question and ask for links supporting particular points. For example, you could ask what fraction of child dentists routinely X ray teeth and at what age. Ask under what circumstances dentists need to X ray teeth to check for cavities rather than just looking at teeth and probing them with their tools. Ask whether frequent X rays are a known scam. Ask for an article iin a good quality magazine for pediatric dentistry about best practices.
All my experience and common sense suggest that this dentist's approach is not to be trusted.
-Even if your kid gets a cavity in the baby tooth that will last til he's 12, it's not a big deal. Most cavities are filled easily and quickly if found fairly early.
-I'm late middle-aged, way more likely to have bad trouble with my teeth than a child is, and my dentist is very sparing in use of Xrays. Has a schedule -- something like once per year for the ones way in back, once every 2 years for some others. Most of my cavities he has found by inspection, not Xrays. He pokes with his tool and says, "this spot feels mushy, I think you're developoing a cavity." Or he just sees the cavity.
-I took my daughter to the same good dentist I see, and he never once Xrayed her teeth.
-Lots of people in business are dishonest. Every time I get my hair cut they try to sell me bullshit products to "nourish your hair ends." Hair ends are dead. They do not eat. Putting oily stuff on them is basically putting mayonnaise on gravel.
I noticed you writing somewhere in this thread that a certain point won't get you far with the dentist. It sounds like you have the idea you need to convince the dentist that the Xrays are not needed. You don't. You can just say, thanks, you may be right but I'd prefer to skip them. Or, of course, change dentists.
Re: I don't need to convince the dentist -- true; if I'm comfortable asserting that I know how children's dentistry ought to be done better than they do (which in this case I might be!), then I can simply impose my opinion and refuse treatment on my son's behalf. If I want to stay with the dentist but have an actual conversation about this, I don't think "I'm told this isn't how they do it in Germany" is a hugely useful contribution.
Having been in a lot of situations like this, I have found ways around confrontation. Here are some alternatives to claiming to know more than the dentist. You can just say, basically, "you may be right be I'd rather skip it." Or, something like "the idea makes me uneasy and I"m going to pass." It's possible the dentist will try to engage you in argument, but you can just be n a broken record -- "Yes, I understand your point, you may be right but . . ."
Or you can soften it by saying, "I think I'd like to skip Xrays for now, but I will think it over and maybe we can do it another time." And if they ask why skip it, you can broken-record it "the idea makes me uneasy so I'm going to think it over some and maybe another time . . ."
You have to be willing to put up with them having a bad opinion of you, or (if dentist is basically scamming you a bit) pretending to. But that happens all the time anyway. For instance I often go into stores wearing a generous--size backpack loaded with work stuff & sometimes a laptop. he clerks watch me closely, I suppose because people with big bags or backpack are more likely to be shoplifters. I have never shoplifted anything in my life, not even as a rebellious teenager. It's a minor downer, but there's not a thing to do about it.
There's also the chance that some adult teeth just... aren't there. Apparently that's becoming more common for some reason. In that case, it's better to try to keep the baby teeth as long as possible so that the rest of the teeth don't shift.
Is there a particular reason why your child's dentist wants to take an x-ray? My children (5 and 8) never had one – but they have flawless, cavity-free teeth.
In my experience, the usual reason is that they need to make a boat payment.
They assert that it's standard procedure, similar to adults. It's certainly possible that it's only *their* standard procedure.
(I'm biting my tongue on "because insurance will cover it" but I imagine that's a large chunk of it.)
> They assert that it's standard procedure, similar to adults.
Again, strange. I've only ever had x-rays taken for actual problems, like serious cavities. Maybe once or twice in the last 10 years (this is in Germany, for socio-cultural context).
X-rays are ionizing radiation. Subjecting someone – especially a child – to it "just-in-case" seems ill-advised.
> X-rays are ionizing radiation. Subjecting someone – especially a child – to it "just-in-case" seems ill-advised.
https://xkcd.com/radiation/
My guess is that this became much more ubiquitous with the introduction of digital x-rays, which have significantly lower exposures.
Unfortunately, the argument "this isn't standard procedure in Germany" probably won't get me very far with the dentist (any more than the argument "this wasn't part of my childhood, or probably your [the dentist's] childhood" will).
I read a brilliant NYT article about dentists. Apparently, pretty much nothing they say or do is based in science, even though they act like it does. I'll try to find the article.
“A brilliant NYT article“ is a oxymoron.
On statins to treat high LDL cholesterol - I'm not against this.
I'm noticing the following though :
Lots of thoughtful smart people in medical research are for it. And lots of thoughtful smart people in medical research are against it.
50 % of people seem to have high LDL cholesterol.
And it is possible even for decent smart people in the medical field to be caught in a pro-statin position without having given sufficient attention to the opposite position.
https://youtu.be/ats0QiOWIDQ?si=Bf919aRK7QpKPoxI
I don't know what to make of this video. He says our medical philosophy about high cholesterol is misguided.
He says it's not just about fixing the line number called LDL.
Are doctors getting too excited about fixing this lone number?
He has a great analogy about a hole in the wall. It's caused by termites, but doctors prescribing statins are basically putting a picture on the hole to hide it, when the termites continue to explode.
He says if you have high cholesterol, you should be razor focussed on lifestyle (which is what causes the LDL), such as eating the right foods (minimally processed, watch the carbs and saturated fats ?)), and cardio and especially weight training, adequate sleep, stress management. Not be put on statins. Because cholesterol is just a marker of a deeper problem, not itself the problem.
This is a controversial subject. Not settled science, like many seem to imply.
Not my expertise but I am seeking expert opinions...
MD. I'm going to nerd out sorry (but you did ask for it!)
Cholesterol can be thought of as necessary but not sufficient for the development of atherosclerosis (the precursor to coronary heart disease, strokes, leg ulcers, many other problems.)
Mechanistically it is due to high blood pressure causing shear stress to blood vessels, then LDL/VLDL cholesterol being deposited into the blood vessel walls at sites of micro trauma. High blood sugar plays a role as well through development of advanced glycation end products. High chronic inflammation makes the problem worse (after a while as an MD you learn that high chronic inflammation makes everything worse.)
So atherosclerosis is correlated with the integral of your (non-HDL) cholesterol level over your lifetime. It's not causative but it is a predictive factor.
You mentioned diet and exercise. Clearly these are correlated with a lot of the risk factors I listed above: blood sugar, inflammatory levels, blood pressure are all related to eating the right foods, adequate sleep, stress management. Not just cholesterol levels. Good diet, exercise and sleep is the single best thing you can do for your health.
Actually, cholesterol is relatively weakly correlated with diet. Yes, eating healthy can help, but there are plenty of people who are not overweight whose LDL levels are nonetheless potentially dangerous. Lp(a) is a significant genetic factor that is non-modifiable.
So where does this leave statins? Currently they are somewhat arbitrarily recommended for people with a 10-year risk of a vascular event that exceeds 10%. This is determined by an actuarial table that takes into account age, gender, smoking status, diabetes etc. Interestingly this recommendation is independent of cholesterol level (although there are other guidelines that recommend statins to people with a very high cholesterol level, regardless of 10-year risk.)
Now, consider that statins significantly lower cholesterol, and consequently significantly lower cardiovascular risk, and that cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of mortality in developed countries (still edging out cancer.) They also seem to have positive effects independent of cholesterol lowering in that they stabilise plaque, making it less likely to rupture and cause heart attacks.
You might reasonably expect the benefits of statin, in a selected population, to heavily outweigh the risk, and you would be right. They can have side effects - muscle cramps are fairly common - but they are overall one of the reasons that cardiovascular disease has gone from a malignant, inevitably fatal condition in the early 20th century to something that can be well managed today.
In fact, I would argue that statins are not used enough! The 10-year risk threshold is arbitrary - if you are 40, you don't just care about your risk at 50, you care about your risk at 70 and 80! Given that atherosclerotic deposits are correlated with integral of cholesterol level over one's lifetime, I would argue that we should take 30-year risk - indeed, lifetime risk - into account. At the moment, voices like mine are not common within the medical community, but they are gaining in volume.
That is a phenomenal comment. Thank you so very much for taking the time.
There has to be some biochemical intermediate step between lifestyle interventions and the negative symptoms of metabolic syndrome (heart attacks and stuff). I don't know what the evidence is on to what extent LDL level is part of this intermediate step (beyond that there's a known mechanism to link cholesterol levels to atherosclerosis), but the argument with the termite analogy is not enough to establish that lowering cholesterol levels with drugs isn't useful. Perhaps lifestyle factors mean there is a lot of stray food around the house that attracts bugs, but that doesn't mean that using poison to get rid of them won't help.
What is the known mechanism you speak of?
The version I vaguely remembered is that different types of lipoproteins deliver lipids in different directions, and if you get too much of certain types, they end up depositing the excess lipids in the blood vessel walls. I checked Wikipedia and what it says about this is somewhat different from what I remembered: "Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) particles in blood plasma invade the endothelium and become oxidized, creating risk of cardiovascular disease. A complex set of biochemical reactions regulates the oxidation of LDL, involving enzymes (such as Lp-LpA2) and free radicals in the endothelium.".
Not an expert, but recently read that a lot of the variance in blood lipids is determined by genes. Can't remember where I read it, but do remember that it was some source I couldn't just discount. I believe the point being made was that lifestyle interventions make relatively little difference, but statins do (presumably by somehow suppressing or neutralizing the genetically-determined process that leads to high cholesterol.)
Also not an expert, but this matches my experience - despite getting all the lifestyle factors right, I still have high LDL (at 25!). If you don't exercise, eat a lot of processed food, etc., then sure, lifestyle changes might lower your LDL to a healthy level. But some people just have a genetic predisposition to high LDL regardless of lifestyle.
Aiden
Do you have a good sense for the pros and cons of taking statins, presumably forever?
Don't semaglutides make the issue moot?
Is that related to cholesterol too? I thought that was about obesity, which it decreased by changing sugar metabolism.
They appear to change people's eating habits, which I would expect to reduce their cholesterol.
Maybe, but semaglutide is supposed to address hyperglycemia, and coincidentally seems to also help with weight loss. I suspect it is helping some-how and -what with the root cause, which is mysterious to medicine.
Having finally read the book review bronze medalist How The War Was Won, I still don't get the strategy behind strategic bombing. My understanding of the history is as follows:
pre-WW2: Niche theorists think strategic bombing can win the war on its own. Most are not convinced. Countries invest in the unproven technology.
1940: Germany loses the Battle of Britain. German strategic bombing has negligible impact on British production and morale.
post-1940: Half of US+UK military production is aircraft. Roosevelt makes aircraft production top priority. Everyone is desperate for aircraft. The B29 is by far the most expensive weapon of the war.
I donẗ really get the jump: Why did Churchill and Roosevelt invest so much in an unproven and partly-failed technology? Wouldn't the reasonable thing to conclude be that strategic bombing is harder than expected (as proven by the Germans) and then invest in ships and tanks instead? Was it simply that the alternative to bombing was WW1-style mass armies which was too costly in causalities?
Airpower is undeniably an important tool in war, as every war after WW1 has proven. Air dominance is an almost perfect predictor of who is going to win a war militarily.
However, wars after WW1 have also proven that strategic airpower, as dreamed up toward the end of WW1, has a terrible ROI. The Allied bombing campaign did degrade the Axis industrial base and forced the Axis powers to invest more in fighters and AA over their homeland which they then lacked over the land fronts; but as we know today, it still took "boots on the ground" such as island hopping in the Pacific and street fighting in Berlin to really win WW2 and subsequent wars, just like it always has.
>"…it still took "boots on the ground" such as island hopping in the Pacific and street fighting in Berlin to really win WW2…"
Quibble: no Allied soldiers set foot in Japan proper until after the surrender; the island hopping was only necessary to secure an airbase close enough to the home islands for the Enola Gay to get Little Boy to Hiroshima.
Granted, that's hardly strategic bombings *as dreamed up toward the end of WW1*…
Another interesting fact - the development of the B-29 cost more than the development of the bomb it dropped!
The Spanish Civil War and the 1939-1940 phases of WW2 contained several episodes that were seen at the time as major successes for what might be termed "operational bombing": the use of bombers behind the lines to destroy or disrupt the operations of logistics hubs, airfields, and the like. There were also a couple episodes (Warsaw, Rotterdam) where aerial bombardment was used to compel a besieged city to surrender. These were much smaller in scale and significance than the Allied strategic bombing campaigns, so they're often forgotten about except when one wants to make the point that the Axis powers started bombing cities first, but they were a huge deal at the time.
For the London Blitz in particular, damage was relatively minor in terms of not being anywhere near being war-winning, but it was significant enough to get decision-makers' attention, and the decision makers knew how much worse it could have been if not for various mitigating circumstances.
Most obvious is that the RAF was heavily contesting the skies over southern England, shooting down a lot of bombers and escorting fighters and also forcing the Germans to compromise the effectiveness of their bombers to make them harder to shoot down.
Building fleets of bombers to hit back at Germany likely mitigated effects on civilian morale. I remember reading that this was a major motivation for British strategic bombing during and shortly after the Blitz.
The German bomber fleet wasn't really up for the scale of destruction the Allies were prepared to inflict. Germany made mostly medium bombers, not heavy bombers, and made a lot fewer of them than the British and Americans did. Moreover, most of the Allied war production was outside the range of German bombers, which was emphatically not the case for German war production vs British and American bombers.
Germany's bombing campaign in England (mostly) wasn't strategic in the sense that the USAAF's (not a typo) was, in that (other than some abortive early efforts against the RAF) it wasn't targeting anything that would materially affect the outcome of the war.
That said, the RAF (unlike the USAAF) did pursue a similar approach to that of the Luftwaffe under the (mistaken) belief that the German citizenry would respond differently to terror bombing than the Brits themselves had. But the RAF didn't have B-29s, nor a secret superweapon development program that required its payload capacity.
Churchill could not invade with tanks on his own. He had to rely on protection from the Channel, which means investing in ships & planes, but not so much tanks. The Germans were outclassed at sea from the beginning, having to rely on hidden U-Boats to raid commerce shipments. The US invested in efficiently building "Liberty Ships" faster than the Germans could sink them, though the convoy system also helped give U-Boats a higher than sustainable casualty rate.
One thing you're overlooking from the book's points is that you can't outproduce the other side's tanks if your tank factories are being bombed so much you have to distribute production inefficiently.
It's called "compatibilism", as eloquently espoused by the late Daniel Dennett.
Basically (as I understand it), the argument goes like this: Yes, the Universe is a giant machine of some sort; at the lowest level it is either deterministic or random, but as a practical matter we are never going to even get close to knowing the exact state of the Universe at any given time, so from our perspective we can just assume randomness.
By itself, randomness does not require free will; but it does imply that we can never know the future with any certainty. However, at least on short timescales, we can "make decisions" that clearly affect the future state of the Universe. It's not a completely compelling argument IMHO but it has some explanatory benefit.
Dennett goes deep on free will and "the hard problem of consciousness" in books such as "Elbow Room" and "Consciousness Explained".
TL; DR: "Free will probably doesn't exist in principle, but in practice, assuming you and other conscious beings you interact with have free will is the best pragmatic choice for modeling the world we experience around us (including ourselves).
The same argument can be made for consciousness, but it's less compelling due to this troublesome first-person subjective experience we all claim to have.
I like Dennet. The missing piece is emergent behavior in the brain. Given that emergent behavior can arise from a fully determined equation, yet isn't predictable ahead of time, and that seems to fit our situation well. We still have to confirm that the brain can produce emergent behavior.
Then there's the evidence that we do not even live in a fully determined universe. Don't count free will out yet!
It seems like a pretty big ask that the undetermined universe could become determined (as in choices) not by pure physical randomness but by something we can't explain and don't understand (conscious phenomena). If the physical universe is sufficient to explain what happens, then decisions would seem to be observations--outputs of the universe, not causative.
The alternative, of course, is that physical randomness like thermal noise is determined on an individual level by the stuff of consciousness. That seems a little silly though.
The idea is that the universe is already under-determined, from our point of view, and nothing we can observe will ever change this (because we are part of the universe being observed). The brain, like many other phenomena, is a recursive system--outputs are used as inputs of the next iteration of decision making/behavior. The behavior of a system like that is highly sensitive to small changes in initial conditions, and can't be predicted ahead of time without running the algorithm itself. This is a feature of certain types of mathematical models, and if this describes how part of the brain works, then we can never predict human behavior beyond a certain point, no matter how much data is collected.
It seems like in this post and others, you're implying that chaotic systems can't be computed. That's just not true. The fact that it's computationally explosive is irrelevant. It could be computed with enough resources.
Chaotic systems *might* be determined, and reproducible in a computing environment that completely models a given chaotic system's starting conditions. A common observation, however, is that we almost never have complete information about any system's start state. And by definition, that chaotic system will be sensitive to any discrepancies in our recorded initial state and its actual initial state, meaning an arbitrarily small discrepancy will develop into an arbitrarily large one after some number of iterative calculations.
One could try to model all possible discrepancies and then posit a magical infinite source of computation to run calculations over all those possibilities, but what you'll end up with is an output declaring that from your system, all possibilities are possible, with no way to tell which one(s) is/are most probable.
No, my point is that it can't be predicted ahead of time, without running the actual computation. Another way of saying that is, you can't predict what someone will think or do, until they think or do it.
In principle, any computation can be simulated to an arbitrary level of precision. The limiting factor is that a perfect simulation requires a more complex machine than the one being simulated. The new computer needs to encode the state and operation of the original computer. So while we may never be able to predict what someone will do, it's not beyond the realm of theory.
In addition to the computational and storage deficiencies, other real world limitations are lack of input data accuracy, not perfectly knowing the initial state of the machine, and not having a good enough model of how the particles interact.
Why do you find this more compelling than classical theism?
Because Theism (I'll skip the part about "which Theism") isn't an explanatory theory, it's a belief system explicitly based on faith rather than observation and analysis.
Asking why, as a scientist, I don't consider theism is a category error.
But materialism is also a faith-based belief system, is it not? We can make observations and analyze the situation, but at the end of the day, questions like "why did the Big Bang happen?", "why do we have subjective experiences?, or "why is there anything at all?" are not resolvable by observation and analysis.
"As a scientist" is an odd aside - Science and theism were seen as compatible (even explicitly going hand-in-hand) from the early days of the Royal Society to ~1970. (See: The Apollo 8 Genesis Reading, or our favorite Freemason Mr. Aldrin taking communion on the Moon)
You misunderstand the nature of science. It isn't designed or intended to answer "why" questions, you have to turn to another intellectual domain to address those, such as philosophy, art, or religion. Science is our tool for identifying that theory, given the evidence, that has the highest probability of being correct (defined as predicting patterns in future data). This explains why many people see science and religion as compatible, because they belong to "different magesteria."
Determinism implying a lack of free will is a category error. Free will is an abstraction of the underlying reality; it makes perfect sense at the appropriate level of abstraction, and it makes no sense to apply it to much lower levels.
Yes, our decisions can be decomposed into little component parts of historical brain activity. This does not mean the decisions do not exist; just the exact same way that realising everything in the world we inhabit is made of quantum amplitude flows and there is nothing to inherently separate those into being part of one object rather than another does not render the world we inhabit meaningless or make the objects around us stop existing.
Things still keep existing /even when we know what they are made of/. It's not either/or.
The question isn't whether the will exists or what smaller units compose it. The question is whether any aspect of human will is free.
Libertarian free will can't be an abstraction of underlying deterministic reality, because you can't build indeterminism out of determinism.
Yes you can. Google "Nonlinear systems"--mathematical equations whose outputs are unpredictable.
Well, that means Throwaway1234 is not a libertarian :)
Sam Harris has a pithier version of this:
"There is no free will, but choices matter."
I agree one is forced to live life in the present as if free-will were real. Denis Diderot's novel Jacques the Fatalist is a hilarious exploration of the results of living with an ever-present belief in determinism.
But we also contemplate our own and others' past. It may be practical (and 100% correct) to view one's past as inexorable in the same way it is practical to view the future as indeterminate. After all, we might know the past but can't know the future, so there might be good reason to view past actions in a different light than future ones.
Was the Turing Test passed yet? How is this Metaculus prediction doing?
https://www.metaculus.com/notebooks/8329/human-level-language-models/
Yes and no. There have been Turing-like Tests passed, like Thegnskald has said. Though from what I understand, the modern concept of the Turing Test comes more from Kurzweil than Turing - and he envisioned it as a much more exhaustive test than Turing did. Think - "elite AI researchers at top institutions talking to it over the course of a month". THAT test I don't think we're particularly close - though certainly much closer than a few years prior.
The Turing Test has been passed more times than the audience at a NASCAR rally, as far back as 1966 for informal tests; the first formal victory was in 1991, by a program that tricked users by ... introducing typographical errors.
I'm seeing classes on learning to build, train, and use machine learning models without doing coding. Stanford and MIT are both offering them. Amazon now has a service called SageMaker that purports to allow you to do the same.
I do not know how to code and don't want to use my limited free time to learn. I'm wondering if SageMaker or some brief training would let me play with AI in the ways I'm interested in doing it. There are 2 things I'd especially like to be able to do:
-Experiment with AI and language. Train it on a bunch of great prose, feeding it works by prose masters of the last few hundred years. Train it on my favorite poetry. Introduce some randomness into the language it produces, but bound the randomness in certain ways.
-Experiment with AI and images. I liked Dall-e2 much more than Dall-e3, and would like to nudge the AI away from ad copy type images, and towards weirder, lumpier, more emotion-determined images.
None of this has to work perfectly, and I can come up with a variety of ways to attempt these tweaks, but would like to know whether people who understand AI well think it would be possible to do this sort of thing using these no-code methods.
Shankar do you think I'll have a satisfactory and set-up if I use this site? https://www.thinkdiffusion.com/sda?via=inpost-install-comfyui
I looked up installing ComfyUI on my computer, and even the instructions say "this is not simple," and then the instructions for Mac, which is what I got, start off with "Mac installation takes a few more steps." Instructions have you typing this and that into the terminal, which I never use. Plus once it's on your Mac you have to keep track of and install any updates to Comfy yourself. I can follow instructions fine, but the trouble with this set-up is that I have not got a basic grasp of what's going on, and if something goes wrong I will not be able to troubleshoot.
Without endorsing that one in particular, yes, that kind of thing should be fine. I don't use it myself, but if you don't care about keeping your images private, I agree running it locally is a hassle well worth avoiding.
I don't have a specific recommendation for which such service to use, but the considerations would be price and persistence of your settings. This discussion here lists some, https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/1hv2crf/whats_the_best_online_service_for_running_comfyui/.
I'd also suggest you start with something like Automatic1111's WebUI first, to get the hang of prompting and LoRAs first: less than infinitely customizable workflow, but more user-friendly.
Thank you Shankar. I will follow your advice.
I've done similar to what Shankar is suggesting with Automatic1111 WebUi running locally on my computer. I got it up and running by asking ChatGPT to walk me through it step by step. I'm also having ChatGPT write my prompts that I feed to the WebUI which is working out quite well.
Also, the "projects" section in ChatGPT is similar to a simple RAG that I've been using to run my homebrew TTRPG game, and it works well enough for avoiding the hassle of building a custom app.
That's heartening. I have done zero coding in my life. I don't know what it involves to use a RAG to make a homebrew TTRPG game, but it definitely involves skills I do not have. On the other hand, I am bright and good at following directions and paying attention to details. What is daunting is that I have no big picture at all of what I will be doing. Just know that I am connecting to a site with a user-friendly interface that lets me give prompts, fine tune them by adjusting various values, rather than just using terms like "vivid, masterpiece, melancholy feel," and also lets me use things like Control Net that give me more power to control body positions, -- and maybe also lets me train a model. But that's all very general and conceptual. If something isn't working I will have no big picture understanding to guide me in identifying what's wrong. I will just have go show GPT the problem and ask what to do. Knowing all that, do you still think this is going to work for me?
Haha. I run a Table Top Role Playing Game (like Dungeons and Dragons, but a different game) and I've been using ChatGPT to be my assistant Game Master; planning each session, maintaining plot hooks/storylines, etc. Its worked fairly well! We are going to be planning session 26 this week. One of the challenges of this project is keeping the bot abreast of what is going on story wise, and the pain point on this is that in a single chat it sooner or later runs out of context. IE it can't remember what we've done so it makes it up!
A RAG is an external vector database that you can link an LLM to so that it uses the data in the RAG before its training data; presumably so it can remember what has been done! It is a bit of technical project and I've not been able to wrap my head around it to get it done.
I am also NOT a coder, at all, I hate code. However, I am in IT so I've got a bit of "natural ability" that helps me execute what the bot tells me to do when implementing these technical solutions. I think you would be fine though, as when I set up the A1111 WebUI it was as simple as download Python; install; download git, install, then run exactly the commands that ChatGPT gave me, and now I've got a local Dreamshaper 8 stable diffusion bot. It also helps that I'm a PC gamer so I had a video card that is sufficient hardware wise for the solution.
Truly my suggestion would be to start with a ChatGPT Project (so you can upload reference files for it to leverage), and not install anything more complex than that on your local computer. Once you play with projects for a few months, then see if you aren't getting what you need from it, and if so move on to the broader scope.
Lastly, one other method I've leveraged is asking ChatGPT to validate the direction I'm going in, and also to write me prompts to feed to other bots.
For AI image generation, certainly. Try ComfyUI, with models from Civit AI. You could also train your own LoRAs for specific styles and concepts, all without having to do any coding yourself.
What you're describing for the prose, with "bound[ing] the randomness in certain ways" sounds hard without code.
EDIT: Actually, upon second thought, it's possible ComfyUI itself might work for that too. There are nodes for prompt enhancement, and you might be able to use those, or something similar.
The bounding would be things like part of speech -- use any combo of adjective + noun, but no other parts of speech. Does that sound hard to pull off, or no?
Sounds hard without code, though maybe my intuitions haven't recalibrated yet: it might be that you can now say something close to what you just did to your LLM (which you CAN fine-tune as desired with little to no coding) and get what you want.
I could feed it lists of all nouns and adjectives, unless that's too much data to stuff in. Or I feed it a list of prepositions and articles, and there aren't many of those at all. Then I'd say, use any 2 words here, except words from the preposition and articles lists, words ending in -ly (that captures most adverbs) and capitalized words (that captures proper names.)
Any good model today should know what improper nouns and adjectives are without being told so explicitly.
From Gemini ("Give me a dozen poetic "Adjective + noun" phrases that are unusual and thought-provoking.")
- Ephemeral echoes
- Velvet voids
- Fractured futures
- Crimson whispers
- Lunar laughter
- Obsidian tears
- Phantom limbs
- Celestial rust
- Whispering stones
- Ethereal chains
- Silent thunder
And following with "More, and make them even more unusual":
- Starlight bones
- Chromium ghosts
- Quantum lullabies
- Asphalt oceans
- Rusting rainbows
- Clockwork butterflies
- Frozen fireflies
- Echoing emptiness
- Molten moonlight
- Shadow symphonies
- Glass horizons
- Weightless whispers
I'm not sure exactly how you want to fine-tune this kind of thing on your favorite prose/poetry, but Retrieval Augmented Generation might be what you're looking for: upload some reasonable set of texts, and then with some prompting, you should be able to get the model to output phrases based (in some way) on your input samples. This approach should be essentially code-free.
Following on this line of thought, prompt-engineering top-tier off the shelf models might give good results on this task. If you naively ask chat gpt “write like Byron” it will give garbage results. But if you give it lots of examples and feedback, you can nudge it in a good direction. GPT has a context window large enough for hundreds of example sonnets.
So many excellent band names!
ooh
Kevin Drum has a good counter for the why-America-can't-build-stuff any more whiners. If you believe the charts and graphs, we certainly can and are. But if you don't believe in charts and graphs, you won't be convinced.
https://jabberwocking.com/yeah-america-can-still-build-stuff/
The Residential Housing Units Completed per Population Added graph is missing some context. Except at the very end (which is indeed a hopeful note), it's well below 1.0 and trending downwards to a low of 0.3 in 2014 (actually 2009-2014, since it's a five-year moving average).
The missing context is the ratio of existing dwelling units to population, the size and type of the new dwelling units being produced, and whether these are gross or net new units (e.g. if a house is demolished and a new one built in its place, does that count as +1 or +0 in the metric?).
The actual dwelling unit to population ratio is 0.43, so a range of 0.3-0.8 is decent. The chart can be read as the 2009 recession causing a few years of abnormally low construction, with catch-up development occurring post-2020.
Size and type matters to the extent that maintaining the current ratio isn't great if the new units are disproportionately single-occupancy apartments, not large apartments or houses suitable for couples, larger families, or sets of roommates. FRED doesn't have fantastic granularity for selecting this, but doing a graph of the ratio of single-family housing starts to all dwelling unit starts seems a good first-order proxy. Eyeballing that graph, I see a lot of noise and either no trend or a slight upward trend. Also good as far as it goes. As for info not captured in this metric, I have heard from other sources that housing size is trending upwards in the US over the past several decades.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1CH7m
FRED cites the Census Residential Construction report, which seems to be gross starts rather than net starts, which is not ideal. I don't see handy numbers in FRED for either total dwelling unit count over time, nor for demolitions, so I can't correct for this offhand. Numbers I can find tell me that demolitions were bit over half of new construction c. 2009-2011 (American Housing Survey, Housing Inventory Change, HUD), which was as already discussed a very low point for new construction. I consider it plausible that demolitions were a much lower percentage of construction in other years.
Overall, that graph does seem to broadly support Drum's conclusions, but it needed a lot more analysis than Drum gave it.
I take charts & graphs seriously, but I thought he made some lousy arguments:
https://jabberwocking.com/yeah-america-can-still-build-stuff/#comment-215158
Second this. Looking at aggregate measures doesn't tell the real story, because economic forces have made greater and greater proportions of people want to move to the top 5-10 metros, most of which it is impossible to build in (NYC, SF, LA, DC, Seattle).
Also, wth is going on with that "adjusted for population" housing units graph? What, our population plummeted in 2018? The line has barely hit the past "average" on the total units graph, but it's skyrocketed up exponentially, higher than it's ever been, starting in 2018 when "adjusted for population??" That "average" line would have been on a much lower population base in 1980 / 90 / 00, and the adjusted for population lines should have been higher back then.
All the rest of his metrics were basically meaningless. I'm anti-sold on his conclusion, and have updated slightly on the fact that we probably CAN'T build anything any more, if these are the best arguments the other side can muster.
"People want to move to SF but SF isn't building more houses" feels like it should be a self-solving problem. Eventually people should just shrug and say "ok i guess I'll move somewhere else then".
The amount of angst wasted on the dumb problem of people who want to move to cities which don't want to have them is considerable.
The cities DO want to have them. That's where the commerce is - that's where the high-paying jobs are. The owners of real estate who own the planning and zoning commissions in the city don't want them - but they're not the city.
And let's not underestimate how much of a loss this is. Economists have calculated that if NYC was building new housing at the rate of Tokyo over the last 30 years, it the US GDP (for the whole country!!) would be almost 10% higher than it is now.
And that's just NYC! Imagine this applied to SF, and LA, and Boston, and Seattle, and...you get it.
> "People want to move to SF but SF isn't building more houses" feels like it should be a self-solving problem. Eventually people should just shrug and say "ok i guess I'll move somewhere else then".
Indeed, and this is certainly happening at scale. And I'll take the position that this is a bad thing.
In Geoffrey West's book Scale, he looks at scaling laws across things as diverse as circulatory systems, cells, animals, and cities.
Cities have always been our primary engines of economic growth, and it is actually superlinear - the bigger the city, the more economic activity and growth it generally drives. Things like average income, per-capita GDP in a city, and patents scale superlinearly with population.
As in, if we care about economic growth, we should want MORE people moving to the biggest cities, so it actually IS a bad thing if a lot of people want to live in those top 5 cities and can't because there's no housing.
So in a future US-China war..... can't the US (and maybe partners) blockade the flow of raw materials into China? China is population-rich but pretty natural resource-poor, which I think is where the 'China is like the US in WW2' analogies fall apart. China is extremely dependent on iron ore imports, especially from Australia, along with oil from the Middle East, copper, and aluminum, just to name a few. Most worryingly for them, they still import a decent amount of food- I guess the Chinese soil is just not very rich. The US, by contrast, has natural resources in spades, plus we have ports on 2 oceans, which make blockading us almost impossible.
I just finished reading Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze, so after 800+ pages of reading about how the Nazis were desperate for natural resources to sustain their war effort, it's hard not to port that over to China. All the factories in the world don't help you if you lack the raw materials to build in the first place.
So in a hot US-China war, can't the US fall back and just blockade the Chinese mainland? Won't help if we lose fast, but will help if the war slows down a lot- which is where everyone talks about the vaunted Chinese manufacturing advantage without thinking about where the iron ore comes from. (Or oil, or food!) Would be a bit ironic if the US goes full German U-boat and destroys civilian shipping
For what it's worth (and I know the guy is prone to hyperbole), Peter Zeihan argues that this would be almost trivially easy: put a bunch of US destroyers near the Persian gulf, block any tankers heading east, watch as China runs out of fuel and food within months. Subtracting the hyperbole, yes, a distance blockade would almost certainly be a crucial, and very painful, part of a reaction to Chinese aggression.
Of course, it would be ironic if the US tore down the very system it has been safeguarding for many decades now... but that would be on China. No one forces them to invade a neighboring country.
Yes, that would be an integral part of U.S. strategy. China's land links to its neighbors are also surprisingly poor, so some success could be had blowing up key bridges and mountain passes to restrict overland imports into China.
The only problem with this is it would take a long time for China's warmaking ability to collapse thanks to economic privation--look at how long Germany and its European friends held out during the World Wars in spite of enemy blockades.
I looked into this when I reviewed WoD for the book review contest.
https://claycubeomnibus.substack.com/p/book-review-wages-of-destruction
(There's a small section on it at the end)
China's made moves to sure-up its domestic food production in recent years and apparently could be self-sufficient if needed at his point. It also has a large strategic oil reserve to fall back on. That covers the two main weaknesses Germany had in WoD.
All that also assumes that the US navy could dominate China at sea, which is unclear. The USN is currently bigger but China has waaaaay more ship production capacity for a protracted war.
Allying with Russia has also boosted the potential resources available by land a lot.
Germany weathered several years of blockade in WW1 and 2 and China's current position is much more secure than Germany's was, so I think it's very unlikely China could be defeated outright in a reasonable timeframe that way, even if it would have huge economic costs (for both sides realistically).
The countries that really could be defeated just by blockade are Japan and Korea by China.
A lot of researchers think China's population figures are heavily inflated, owing to incentive structures which encourage local governments to inflate population figures. The lowest estimate I've seen is 400 million, which is ... almost certainly wrong. I'd hazard a guess that the actual number is somewhere around 900 million.
And they have a rather big issue; their population pyramid is more like a bulbous tower, heavier on the top than the bottom.
Additionally, decades of the one-child policy have left many families rather sparse on descendants; given the role family plays in their culture, substantial population losses would likely create massive social instability.
I don't think China can afford a significant war.
400 million is nonsense. You can disprove this by looking at google maps. Dozens of NYC-sized cities most people have never heard of.
Four dozen NYC-sized cities is still two New York Cities short of 400 million. But also they only have one dozen NYC-sized (and larger) cities, with a total (of those 12) official population of ~155 million (or ~19 New York Cities).
But yeah, 400 million is, as noted, almost certainly wrong.
China with 400 million people would be similar to the U.S. in both size and population. It would be peculiar for that version of China to have dozens of cites the size of the largest U.S. city.
*Almost certainly wrong*. Also, again, per China's figures, -one- dozen, not dozen-s-.
But it's not -certainly- wrong, for several reasons; first, US cities tend to follow a Zipf distribution, because US population migration patterns are "natural"; China's cities do not, which is not surprising, given that China pursued policies of forced urbanization. (But also may suggest that the urban population numbers are, uh, inaccurate.)
Second, Chinese incentives are known to have created fake urbanization; most well-known being vast stretches of empty apartment buildings. I've encountered comments from visitors to one of these NYC-sized cities commenting on how weirdly empty and quiet they were, and how little traffic there is. They chalked this up to good urban planning and mass transit - but if you think about it, it's weird how well the urban planning and mass transit apparently work in some of their cities, where others are nightmares of congestion.
Third, Chinese national incentives encourage local governments to, well, overestimate their population figures.
Edit:
Also, note that the population of cities is a lot more arbitrary than people typically expect. Is the DFW metroplex one city, or several? Treated as one city, the US gets another NYC-sized city.
Considering land area in our equation, Shanghai has a population density of 10,000 per square mile; New York City has a population density of 29,000 per square mile. No Chinese city has the population density of NYC; the closest is Shenzen, at 23,000 per square mile.
>can't the US (and maybe partners) blockade the flow of raw materials into China?
First, regarding the blockade from the sea: Any asset used in this blockade would likely suffer a high rate of attrition, by virtue of being in range of a large area of china's mainland. And any asset used in such a blockade would be a very expensive one, and (at the moment), hard to replace.
Then even the US managed to impose a blockade at sea, there is a number of land borders, one of which being Russia, a famously ressource-rich country, and, as of 2024, one that is both very likely to be accepting generous terms, and very unlikely to be convinced to participate in this blockade.
And there is the other neighbours. How willing would vietnam be to join in this blockade? How willing would the US be to apply the blockade to vietnam also?
Russia is resource-rich, but its export markets to China are constrained by corruption and a lack of infrastructure. If a U.S.-China war broke out, it might take Russia so long to build a new gas pipeline to help China that the conflict would be over before.
As Humphrey Appleby notes, you don't have to be close to the Chinese mainland to blockade it. You can block merchant ships hundreds of miles away from China itself. I agree that Russia is very resource-rich and could help with materials, though I think it's interesting that China sources 60% of its iron from Australia and not Russia
> though I think it's interesting that China sources 60% of its iron from Australia and not Russia
There's nothing interesting about that; Australia produces nine times as much as Russia does.
China produces six or seven times as much as Russia.
>You can block merchant ships hundreds of miles away from China itself
Yes, if you're willing to sink every ship going to north-vietnam. Which...sure, you can. But it's going to be unpalatable to a lot of people. Otherwise, ships will go to Hai Phong, unload, then another ship goes to anywhere on China's coastline. And, again, anything in range to shoot at it will be in range to be shot at, but from a number of location on the mainland.
>though I think it's interesting that China sources 60% of its iron from Australia and not Russia
It don't seems so interesting to me. One is probably cheaper and easier during peacetime, but that doesn't mean the other won't be possible to obtain during a war. Russia's adventures in Ukraine reminded us that things can become significantly more expensive and difficult during war, while still being done.
As Eric Rall says, there is lots of precedent for `distant blockade.' The most obvious being the UK's blockade of Germany in both world wars. And an existing doctrine of continuous voyage, which absolutely allows you to stop ships going to north vietnam which are carrying contraband.
No sinking is necessary, unless the ships in question refuse to stop when ordered to do so. (Just like traffic stops do not require shooting motorists). The British stopped civilian ships sailing to German (and Dutch etc) ports, but didn't sink them.
Distant blockades have been a thing for a very long time. Both world wars, for instance. Also, the Union blockade of the Confederacy (1861-5) involved both close blockade operations (i.e. stationing warships a few miles out to sea near major ports) and distant ones. I think some distant blockade operations were involved in the Napoleonic Wars as well, although I'm less confident of that.
The trick to distant blockades is stopping and searching ships, inspecting their cargo manifests, and having other intelligence channel that can help you choose which ships to search and also help determine when the manifests are lying about where the cargo is coming from or where it's going. Under the Doctrine of Continuous Voyage, contraband is still subject to seizure if it's been moved to a different ship in a neutral port or even shipped overland from a neutral port: the WW1 blockade also stopped cargoes bound for Dutch and Danish ports, and the Civil War blockade involved stopping a lot of ships between Bermuda and various European ports. The stopping and searching is done by light ships, with your major warships only used if the other side tries to challenge the blockade with their fleet.
It helps if you have a convenient geographical choke point, like Bermuda in the ACW or the English Channel and North Sea in the World Wars, but it isn't strictly necessary.
Sinking tends to be more of a thing for commerce raiding rather than proper blockades. The difference is that you're only allowed to raid enemy-flagged ships, while a blockade also applies to neutral-flagged ships. Sinking neutral ships tends to annoy their respective home countries, sometimes leading to those countries not being neutral for much longer.
I have read that the PRC is aggressively stockpiling raw materials, oil etc. How large their stockpiles are, I don't know, and obviously they are not infinite, but the strategic power of a blockade is going to depend a lot on whether they have a 2 month stockpile or a 20 year stockpile.
Also we don't need to go U-boat, we can blockade them with surface units just fine, as long as it is a distant blockade.
China has land borders with fourteen different countries, only a few of which will cooperate with US-led sanctions. Between the enormous land area of China and the even more enormous land area of Russia, I don't think there's much that can't be obtained. There might be some shortages and rationing, and maybe steel that was going to build skyscrapers gets diverted into building tanks, but I can't think of anything specific.
doesn't have good land-based communications with basically any of those other countries though. The land borders are mostly mountains/dense forest/desert/tundra, with very few roads and rail. Those would have to be built first, which would take time.
The amount of goods transported to China by ship is on the order of billions of tonnes. Now I'm not an expert on logistics, but I don't think you can quickly switch that over to land-based transport. Not only would you have to build out that capacity within China, but also within the neighboring countries.
Then there's the issue that land-based transport is more expensive (i.e., consumes more resources) than ships, and that doesn't even take into account the massive expense in labor and materials for building the infrastructure itself.
Banned for a month for this comment.
China imports about 80% of its iron ore. (1) I suppose it could have domestic sources that it's choosing to not use for whatever reason, but I think the onus is on you to explain why they're not doing so- especially as they're gearing up for potential war. I do not in fact think that iron is 'literally as common as dirt'.
Rather than learning from 'popular Internet memes', I think I prefer statistics from industry sources. China is actually less self-sufficient in food than it was 2 decades ago (2), and has been a net importer of agricultural foodstuffs since 2004. (3) China is the world's largest food importer, including the top global importer of soybeans, corn, wheat, rice, and dairy products. (4) This is a recognized national security issue in China. (5)
As I understand it, much of their old agricultural land has now been developed for cities, roads, and factories. So references to past centuries are no longer relevant
1. https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-australian-goose-that-lays-the-multi-billion-dollar-iron-ore-eggs/
2. https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/import-dependency-and-chinas-food-security/
3. https://www.cfr.org/article/china-increasingly-relies-imported-food-thats-problem
4. https://fas.usda.gov/data/china-retail-foods-annual
5. https://www.tibetanreview.net/chinas-continued-rising-dependence-on-food-imports-a-perpetual-geopolitical-risk/
Seriously, it's better to know things before you talk about them.
Compare https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-mining/ :
> I have good news for 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 you as compared to 𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘰 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦 you: iron is the fourth most common element in earth’s crust, making up around 5% of the total mass of the part of the earth we can actually mine. Modern industry produces – and I mean this very literally – a 𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘴 (and change) of iron per year. Iron is about the exact opposite of rare; almost all of the major ores of iron are dirt common. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁.
> One of the reasons that the change from using bronze (or copper) as tool metals to using iron was so important historically is that iron is just 𝘴𝘰 𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘯 𝘢𝘣𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘵. Of course iron can be used to make 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 tools and weapons as well, but only with proper treatment: initially, the advantage in iron was that it was 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘱.
(The emphasis is Bret Devereaux calling you stupid, not me.)
If you compare China's iron ore production (estimated 660 million tonnes at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_iron_ore_production ) to its iron reserves (estimated 20 billion tonnes at https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/analysis/world-iron-ore-reserves-countries/ ), you learn that, if China needed to mine five times the amount of iron, it would be good for the next 6 years. Of course, comparing the reserves listed by NS Energy to the wikipedia estimate of production, we can also see that, if nothing changes, the entire world will blow through all of its iron reserves in 56 years. We can safely ignore that and realize that China appears to be, if anything, unusually rich in demonstrated iron reserves.
It is similarly rich in demonstrated arability, and unlike with the iron that's a real advantage.
The reason you import rocks and soybeans is that those are low-value products and you have better things to do with your time. It isn't that you're suffering from a crippling shortage of rocks.
Presuming such a war was triggered by the PRC mounting an invasion of Taiwan and the US coming to the island's defense, it really depends on how things got to that point:
- If the PRC mistakenly believed the US wouldn't intervene (a la Saddam in 1990) or incorrectly thought they had a means to prevent the USN and/or USAF from contesting their crossing the Strait, then the war probably wouldn't last long enough for such considerations to come into play.
- If the PRC *correctly* thought they had a means to prevent the USN and/or USAF from contesting their crossing the Strait, then it depends on the nature of such:
-- If it was transient (e.g., one-off strike that knocks US airbases in Japan & Korea out of commission just long enough for the invasion fleet to reach the far shore), then any blockade might be limited to PRC-occupied Taiwan.
-- If it was persistent (e.g., credible threats to US carriers within striking range of Taiwan), then the PRC's newly-expanded force projection capability might be enough to make a blockade infeasible.
On the last point, I don't see it. The PRC could have a newly-expanded force-projection capability that can keep US carriers far enough to be out-of-striking-range of Taiwan, but how does that prevent a distant blockade? Enforced at e.g. the Malacca strait, or similar? Most of China's raw materials come from a long way away, and merely denying the near-China seas to the USN isn't going to prevent blockade.
I perhaps should've emphasized "might" more … emphatically.
Starting from the premise that the PRC does not currently possess such a capability (I do not think the DF-21 qualifies), the range of a hypothetical future system is underdetermined; there exist (small) regions of the possibility space that could push the USN so far back that the boundary of the denied area is longer than can be effectively secured.
OK, sure, if they can successfully `deny' the seas out to a range of, say, 3000 miles, then that does render a blockade infeasible. That seems unlikely though. In part because you don't need to blockade the entire perimeter of the `denial' zone, a handful of chokepoints (e.g. Malacca strait, Panama canal) likely suffice.
[And why stop there. If they can add a factor of four and deny the seas out to 12000 miles, then they can counter-blockade America...]
There is also the question of whether the US has the stomach to start sinking civilian cargo ships.
Why do we need to start sinking them? We just stop/search/seize at Malacca or whatever. CF you can conduct traffic stops without shooting motorists. OK I guess if they don't stop when ordered to stop then we would need to fire on them. But this is no different to enforcing any old law - ultimately all governmental authority is backed by threat of force.
CF the UK implementing `distant blockade' of Germany in both world wars. At no point was indiscriminate `sinking civilian cargo ships' involved.
Definitely unlikely. But effective denial of even smaller areas is also unlikely; I'm just not confident that P(big area denial | small area denial) is negligibly small.
As for counter-blockading: supercarriers are far scarcer and much more valuable than merchant shipping generally. The PRC could deter the USN with a system whose capacity would be insufficient to impose a broad blockade.
Since cognitive biases are 1) both universal and resistant to self-detection, and 2) tend to favor extreme judgments and beliefs, could it be beneficial for people to obligatorily apply moderation to some classes of judgments/beliefs?
Particularly high-bias classes such as:
- Identity-linked beliefs
- Ethical judgments
- Complex multicausal scenarios
- Personal stake scenarios
I’ll define moderation here as a reduction in positional extremity on a spectrum. If your volume dial is at a 10, a 9 would be more moderate. If it’s at 1, a 2 would be.
As a principle it’s probably very limited to being applied in a vague and unsatisfying way, but would be applied after you reach your judgment/conclusion. For instance, if you believe UFOs have visited earth, consider moderating that to probably visited. If you believe UFOs never visited, consider moderating that to probably never. Any of these beliefs could be true, but given the nature of bias itself, chances are your/my bias has radicalized our judgment rather than moderated it.
Notes and exceptions: This doesn’t imply that the more moderate the belief, the better. It just suggests that many beliefs (not all) would benefit from a consistent moderating influence. There are situations where you may be choosing between two overly moderate options where this principle actually weakens the belief. Unlike confirmation bias, overconfidence and the availability heuristic, a few biases like the status quo bias, don’t necessarily radicalize beliefs but may unnecessarily moderate them. Procedural, low-stakes, single-variable and mathematically determined decisions are not as prone to bias and consequently a moderating principle might not be useful under these circumstances.
Rather than just making a habit of turning the dial down, I think it would work better to have some questions you ask yourself about these beliefs that help modulate your certainty that they're correct. I try to do that. One especially helpful one is to ask myself whether it makes me angry to think about people who do not share the belief. If it does, that's really a tell. It indicates that the belief is intertwined with my self-esteem and self-image somehow.
So if it makes me angry to think about people who think my belief is wrong, then I ask myself what my picture is of the other person's belief. I usually picture the other person in a way to supports my anger. Maybe I picture them being particularly dumb or selfish, and arriving at their idea via a bunch of infuriatingly dumb, selfish steps. Or I picture then despising me for my belief.
So then I get myself to think about times I've just been wrong about something, and how I arrived at my wrong belief, and what it was like to have it. Generally my steps of arriving at the belief were not especially dumb and selfish. or angry. Often I just kind of adopted the idea wholesale from people I was fond of and respected. And recognizing that helps me develop a different picture of the people I disagree with. And *that* helps me try on the idea that they might be right about some of it. Also, it becomes easier to reduce my own certainty in the belief if I am not mentally fighting a war with a bunch of imagined infuriating idiots who believe the opposite.
I try to use this approach, and I think most self aware people do too. But cognitive bias is often not self-detectable. We’re all victim to it to varying degrees, despite our efforts to spot it. So it seems plausible that applying a systematic moderating principle post-conclusion could be reasonably advocated for.
Self detection of bias, while helpful, is also really time/cognitive resource dependent and isn’t going to be nearly as effective for less critical/analytical people (like myself) who most need to temper their beliefs.
There is another method (not that I think yours is necessarily a bad one)--you could seek out people who disagree with you, ask them to explain their beliefs, and and force yourself to consider their reasons objectively. This isn't dependent upon self-detection of bias, and doesn't just replace all extreme beliefs with a "moderation bias."
Yes—I think your suggestion is probably a better method in most respects when one has the time and personnel available to carry it out.
But if you take for granted that bias is fundamental to cognition, it means you’re updating based on a second perspective biased to an unknowable degree in another direction. And in essence what you’re still seeking to do by this is moderate your belief.
Just to be clear, this moderating principle I’m floating isn’t something I’ve subscribed to already, just something I was trying to poke holes in with the help of folks like yourself.
"a second perspective biased to an unknowable degree"
Yes, but that's all we have, there being no other source of information out there, even in principle. Even science incorporates this--you replicate studies so that the biases of independent researchers will eventually cancel each other out.
There's your mind and what it perceives. Then there's other minds and what they perceive. That's pretty much it.
It’s also kind of ironic that you and I are talking about the principle from two different perspectives as you sensibly endorsed, but both our opinions on the principle appear to be radicalizing instead of moderating.
I agree. It’s all we have. The moderating principle is just meant as a flawed way to try to temper some of people’s bias on the fly. It would be particularly applicable in low-information-zone decisions.
If say you’re a bird watcher, and you catch a fleeting glimpse of a red and black bird that looked to you like a pileated woodpecker, which is rare in your region, and you think to yourself “I think that was a pileated woodpecker,” consider automatically updating that to “It’s possible that was a pileated woodpecker.”
You could seek out a panel of ornithological experts or spend hours soliciting the opinions of other birders, too. This would be ideal.
I’m all for replicating studies and doing exhaustive research when you have the capacity to do so. But the majority of decisions in life unfortunately don’t allow for such measures and it might be useful for people to have practical if imperfect principles to lean on in such cases.
Edit: I also noted some of the obvious categories of decision that such a principle wouldn’t apply to in my “Notes and exceptions.”
Mostly that happens from weak caricatures or fundamental non-understanding of the opposite viewpoint. That's not easy to solve.
For example, the only way I can understand woke ideology is
a)mistaken factual premises (believing MSM about various things)
b) Pretending to believe because of external pressure.
c) genuine hatred of white people/men/rich people or whatever else you guys don't like.
As a matter of curiosity, do you have a definition of "woke" that isn't just "Left wing extremism?"
The lex fridman podcast with zelensky, listening to the original audio in english, russian, and ukranian, really gave me an appreciation of the power of language and how humanizing it is to understand people you don't know in their more-familiar tongues. Humor and poetry is such an important part of being human.
If someone is married to someone whose mother tongue is different from your own, maybe worthwhile to put in the effort to learn it, eventually.
A pair of Substack pieces on that interview with Zelensky.
https://researchingukraine.substack.com/p/alert-update-zelenskys-interview
https://lesiadubenko.substack.com/p/bravo-mr-zelenskyy-you-rocked-it
Lex Fridman didn't ask tough questions though (just like Joe Rogan btw) that a good journalist from a traditional media would've asked.
For example, when Zelensky mentioned broken Budapest agreements, he could've asked why Zelensky double-crossed Russia in 2019 (in the words of his own head of the office of president at the time Bohdan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogGK8rjDqJE)
Or when they were discussing the language, Fridman could've asked whether Zelensky supported the position of the minister of education who wanted to ban students from speaking Russian during school breaks https://ukranews.com/ua/news/1040644-minosvity-pidtrymalo-zaboronu-spilkuvatysya-rosijskoyu-na-perervah-u-shkolah
That's not to say that there are no good answers to these questions, maybe Zelensky would've answered them satisfactorily (I certainly could've). My point is just that the interviewer didn't really challenge Zelensky and because of that we learned less than we could've done
Lex F knows that if he asks tough questions world leaders won't go on his show.
He asks questions that allow his audience to get valuable information and insight, I appreciate that
What exactly is the first claim supposed to be? I'm not watching a four-hour YouTube video to try to figure it out, and I'm confused as to how Zelenskyy is supposed have double-crossed somebody who initially invaded his country five years prior and what this has to do with them having clearly already broken the agreement from 1994.
The claim is that Ukraine and Russia reached an agreement in Paris in 2019 and then Ukraine didn't do what it promised. It was more or less similar to Minsk accords but at this time Zelensky was already in power.
According to Bohdan, они кинули Путина, I did my best translating it :)
Again, this is just Bohdan's words and not necessarily true. This was an example of a question I'd have asked - did it happen and if yes what prevented you from fulfilling the agreement
Okay, this is slightly more helpful, but what specific thing is it claimed that Ukraine didn't do?
He doesn't say exactly, but he says before that there were open and secret parts of the agreement and everyone was in favour of improving Minsk agreements, whatever it means.
This is the transcript btw
https://gordonua.com/publications/uvolnjaja-menja-zelenskij-skazal-ty-kak-neljubimaja-zhenshchina-polnyj-tekst-intervju-bogdana-gordonu-1517453.html
Elsewhere in the interview he also says that he heard from others that some deescalation steps were agreed, for example Russia freeing captured Ukrainian sailors (done in September as part of a prisoner swap https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/07/europe/ukraine-russia-prisoner-swap-intl/index.html) and Ukraine re-starting the supply of water to Crimea (not done). It's not clear though whether this was part of the agreement in Paris but the timing makes it quite likely
The distinctive feature of the genocide in Gaza is its extreme, never-before-witnessed levels of documentation.
Perhaps for the first time in history, we have audio-visual real-time data trail from the cameras and the microphones of both the perpetrators and the victims. Coupled with Satellites, the databases of the social media sites this data trail lives in, and the image format of modern smartphones, you can be as precise as the exact Longitude/Latitude coordinates of where the picture or the video in question were taken, an absurd level of details.
A single media channel such as Al-Jazeera English can compile a 1 hour and 20 minutes long documentary stuffed full [1] of videos and images, a lot of them straight from the social media profiles of the perpetrators themselves. While concerned historians in the perpetrator state can weave a 124-page document [2] documenting the genocide in horrific contemporality, and update that document several times over the course of a year, maintaining the document across the twin languages of the perpetrator state and that of the international audience - Hebrew and English -, **all** in hobbyist capacity and without any state-level, corporate-level, or even NGO-level support.
The Gaza genocide is also, paradoxically and simultaneously, fervently denied, minimized, dismissed, vilified, booed and tabooed. Essentially untouchable.
What does that tell us about the psychology of Genocide Denialism?
Not *merely* that it's unresponsive to evidence, we already knew that aplenty from samples of, e.g., Holocaust Denial and other Genocide Denial by nation state actors such as Japan and Turkey. Those sometimes-farcical denials are often satirized as the classic trilogy of the Genocide Denialist:
- That didn't happen
- And if it did, it wasn't that bad
- And if it was, they deserved it
- [Bonus, in case of survival of victim ethnicity] and I wish we could do it to "them" all over again
That's all old news, although it can be quite amusing to catch all the Holocaust parallels in a single bout of rhetoric from a pro Israel hooligan.
No, I think what the first livestreamed genocide in the 21st century really tells us about Genocide Denial is rather different and new (at least to me): that it gets *stronger* in proportion to the evidence. That is, the more bulletproof and smoking-gun the evidence you have, the **more** (not less or at least more shyly) denial you get, the more fervent and desperate the denialists. Although it may get less coherent or less concerned with traditional argument structure as more and more evidence is unearthed, it gets more bitter, heated, and - most importantly - more numerous and concentrated.
Consider the sheer breadth of technicalities available as degrees of freedom for the Genocide Denialist to tune and play with:
- is it really genocide if the Génocidaires happen to have let the victim ethnicity live in semi-peace for 10 or 15 years before the fact ?
- is it really genocide if the victims happen to have had a high fertility rate before the fact ?
- Maybe it's genocide, but the perpetrator ethnicity is rich and has many Nobel prizes, and the victim ethnicity is poor and backwater, so ... [?]
- is it really ""tasteful"" to call it genocide when the current perpetrator ethnicity happen to be the descendants of victims from another, earlier genocide ?
- those are not children being killed, merely children being starved or frozen to death using passive obstructionism and Bureaucracy
- those are not teenagers being killed, merely teenagers being kidnapped and sexually abused in extra-judicial dark prisons
- the perpetrator ethnicity seems to discuss Ethnic Cleansing a lot, surely that can't mean they would also do Genocide? Exactly one of the two is ever possible at any given time, two is redundant.
And so on. And so forth.
It's of course besides the point to notice how trivially refutable or irrelevant every one of those are, they were never meant as solid research-level genocide **questioning**, the legitimate skepticism and question marks advanced by genocide scholars or good-faith amateurs and characterized by respect for evidence, awareness of previous literature, and the current state of evidence. In addition to the ethno-political neutrality of the author regarding the genocide in question. Those points are not intended to be used like that. They are bait.
The very nature of the fragmented, desperate, half-baked, half-hearted, half-thoughts of the Genocide Denialist is a feature: they confuse, they sow doubts, they decrease the signal-to-noise ratio and increase its reciprocal. They're the intellectual equivalent of fighter jet missile countermeasures, chaffs and flares. Their purpose is to be sources of noise, to confuse the targeting system of pursuers. Red Herring, reified and refined as a a whole arsenal of argument tactics and debate aesthetics.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPE6vbKix6A
[2] https://witnessing-the-gaza-war.com/
Would you be fine if Israel paused its military campaign and Gaza was instead invaded by all the countries who had dual citizens kidnapped and killed by Hamas? I think if you wouldn't be fine, then you are clearly just pushing a "Palestinians can do whatever they want" narrative, which is unserious. If you would be fine, how should those countries enact their military campaigns such that it doesn't fall into the same pitfalls as Israel's?
Holocaust, local Jewish population change: -100%, approximately. Population change if the Nazis had only had a moderate-to-strong deliberate priority of wiping out Jews, as opposed to "yeah let's sacrifice a big portion of our actual war effort so that we can wipe some more out": Less severe than that.
Israeli response to to Hamas' attempted genocide, Gaza population change: Moderate population increase. Population change, had Israel had even the slightest preference towards them all being dead: -100%, within hours at most.
(Leaving out the fact that it's an actual war, that Hamas started, and could end at any moment by surrendering. As opposed to genocides, which don't have opposing armies.)
The Gazan people are, in fact, still around. If they were victims of genocide, they would not be. Or, if you want to stretch the definition, at the very least there would be far fewer of them. Your argument simply doesn't work, @LearnsHebrewHatesIP.
So, in simple words, "How could it be a genocide if it's not the Holocaust?!". <sigh>.
> Holocaust, local Jewish population change: -100%, approximately
False. Europe's Jewish population was 9.4 million before the Holocaust [1], the Holocaust killed 6 million == 6/9.4 == 63% of the population. That's your number after the negative sign, it's off by 37%. An additional amount fled to make the population 2.7 million by 1948.
> Hamas' attempted genocide
But I thought genocides has no survivors according to you and must result in 90%+ casualties? There are thousands of survivors from the Kibbutz Hamas raided (several times the dead count), there are overall 60K people [2] fleeing from Gaza Otef.
Which direction do you want to walk the Genocide Denial street? It can't be both ways.
> -100%, within hours at most.
This is an amusing factoid of Hasbara brainwashing. If every one of Gaza's 2.3 million people was lined up in the street ready for murder, it would have still taken every traditional weapon in Israel's arsenal quite a few days to murder them all. Go ahead, do the calculation assuming Israel will bomb every square kilometer of Gaza's 365 and using the number of aircrafts in the IDF and their payload in bombs and the bomb yield.
> [Gaza:] Moderate population increase.
You're not even trying at this. Laughable.
> The Gazan people are, in fact, still around
So are the Jews, the Armenians, and the Native Americans? No genocide ever happened because people == alive? Are you sure you understand what Genocide means? The definition (as in: the actual international treaty the world is upholding and the ICJ is enforcing) is in quite readable English [3].
> Your argument simply doesn't work
That's quite an amount of confidence for someone who seems to have last heard of the Holocaust in 11th grade history from a teacher they weren't completely paying attention to, and/or Call of Duty: World at War.
I normally like Chutzpah too but come on, *something* has to back it up, besides raw confidence and Ben Shapiro-esque making-shit-up-confidently, that is.
> @LearnsHebrewHatesIP.
You have to get over whatever grievances you have with a long-banned guy and start focusing on convincing someone who isn't you of what's coming out of your mouth/what's typed on your keyboard. Thank me for the advice later.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1357607/historical-jewish-population/
[2] https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/rkdca37fp
[3] https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-prevention-and-punishment-crime-genocide
Serious, good faith, question here (that even I could make the case for answering in the affirmative): Was the American strategic bombing campaign against Japan in WW2 "genocide"?
Genocide is when a group of people (not necessarily an entire ethnicity) tries really hard to exterminate another group of people (not necessarily an entire ethnicity, or even an ethnicity at all) just for the sole reason of their existence.
Insofar as we can glean anything that proves the USA or its military high command wanted to exterminate the Japanese or any part thereof ""as such"" (i.e. just for being Japanese, such that a Japanese baby would still qualify even if they didn't do anything), we can indeed conclude that the American bombing campaign was a genocide. I don't know of anything like that, the closest would be rounding up Japanese immigrants in the USA and putting them in extra-judicial detention, but that's collective punishment, another bad thing that's not genocide, so I default to considering that what the USA did is not genocide.
This is still not high praise. "Not giving a shit so much that whole millions could die for objectives that could have been achieved in other ways" is its own, unique, incommensurable way of being a piece of shit, not comparable (i.e. neither greater nor lesser) than being a genocidaire.
"Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in Hell."- Admiral William Halsey Jr.
That's quite a bit below "President of the country" or "Head of State (PM)", both of which have been documented spewing genocidal garbage in case of Israel.
And the US doesn't have a 78 year history of attempted ethnic cleansing/genocide with Japan, as Israel's history with Gaza (started with biological warfare in 1948).
Wait, so you believe that if Hamas unconditionally surrendered and returned all the hostages, that the Israelis would continue the war?
Yes, by another means and using another excuses.
The hostages could have been gotten back before January 2024 if Israel didn't break the first and only ceasefire in the war of late November 2023. But they weren't, which tells you all you ever need to know about the "But the Hostages" excuse.
I find it funny how you only addressed half my comment
In any case, to show other ACX Commenters the incredibly mendacity of our poster here, let's break down the facts, shall we?
The wikipedia article for the ceasefire indicates that both sides credibly accused the other of breaking it - and there were indeed incidents on both sides. The ceasefire was a 4 day ceasefire combined with a 3:1 Palestinian:Israeli Hostage exchange and the allowal of humanitarian aid into Gaza, followed by a 2 day ceasefire with a similar exchange, followed by a one day ceasefire. At this point, Hamas claims Israel rejected an extension in exchange for hostages, and they shot rockets into Israel, which were promptly responded to via Israeli airstrikes.
Rejecting an extension due to failing to come to terms is not "breaking" a ceasefire as OP put it. Let's see what happened:
The Guardian:
"Israel said the truce had been broken by Hamas and could not be renewed because the group had failed to offer to release the remaining female hostages in Gaza. Eylon Levy, a government spokesperson, said: “Having chosen to hold on to our women, Hamas will now take the mother of all thumpings.”
Hamas said some of the women asked for were Israeli soldiers, and that it had offered to hand over two other detainees plus the bodies of three members of the Bibas family it said had been killed by Israeli bombing, but this was rejected."
Reuters:
"Each of the warring sides blamed the other for causing the collapse of the truce by rejecting terms to extend the daily release of hostages held by militants in exchange for Palestinian detainees.
The pause, which began on Nov. 24, had been extended twice, and Israel had said it could continue as long as Hamas released 10 hostages each day. But after seven days during which women, children and foreign hostages were freed, mediators failed at the final hour to find a formula to release more, including Israeli soldiers and civilian men.
Israel accused Hamas of refusing to release all the women it held. A Palestinian official said the breakdown occurred over female Israeli soldiers."
A very different story, no?
It's also worth pointing out that Hamas did not allow Red Cross to visit the hostages despite that being in the initial deal.
So you have shown other ACX commenters my "mendacity" by... quoting Wikipedia, Reuters, and the Guardian saying both sides **credibly** accuse each other of breaking the ceasefire? And by citing a government spokesman of Israel who heavily implies that it's Israel that started/resumed the bombing first ("Mother of all thumpings")? Hmmm, okay. Hope you enjoyed showing my mendacity. Thanks for the new word.
> A very different story, no?
Nah, roughly the same story that I adequately summarized by "Israel broke the ceasefire". A ceasefire is, believe it or not, broken by the first party who starts firing. We also see that now in the "Ceasefire" agreed upon by Israel and Hezbollah, which Israel breaks almost every day.
>It's also worth pointing out that Hamas did not allow Red Cross to visit the hostages despite that being in the initial deal.
Regrettable, too bad that anyone with more than "room temperature in Celsius" worth of IQ points would have figured that firing upon Hamas wouldn't fix the situation or improve it, how tragic the leadership of Israel lack that.
> I find it funny how you only addressed half my comment
Oh let me declare that was intentional then, because I'm a natural comedian. That's how you manage to call out bullshit with no consequences.
And in case you agree with my original point that "But the hostages" is a convenient rubbish excuse for engaging in what Israel wanted in the first place, let me address your next point, how can Israel be credibly accused of genocide when it has an allegedly definite goal that the Palestinians could aid by surrendering? Well, the answer is that it's still genocide.
As stated in the Convention on the Prevention that I'm frankly quite tired of repeatedly citing by now, genocide isn't "Not Genocide" because the perpetrator party has "legitimate" military or political goals that the victim party could concede and survive. The Ottoman/Turkish proto-state had a goal in genociding Armenians on its land after all: not allowing them a piece of their future state. That's a very "legitimate" military goal, literally the preservation of a state. Until now, **looks up Wikipedia** exactly 34 state recognizes Turkey's genocide of Armenians, a tiny subset of the 200+ that exist.
The USA had a very legitimate military/political goal in genociding Native Americans. The Native Americans could have stopped it by surrendering and allowing the expanding colony to take their lands in peace. Even the Nazis had a somewhat legitimate political goal, if you squint a bit: They're the ruling party and they wanted the Jewish citizens out of their state. Their state, their rules. The German Jews could have prevented the Holocaust by fleeing outside of Europe any time between 1933 and 1938. (I believe the African colonies didn't have any high immigration standards for who they would accept, and I imagine the white Afrikaans would be more than delighted to receive White population)
No doubt to your disappointment, there is no "Just Stop Resisting Bro" clause in the Convention which defines Genocide and that Israel ratified and is active since 1951, a genocide is a genocide. Murder and significant attempts to kill or transfer children or prevent births, in whole or in part, and as such. Very simple. Very horrific.
Or that if Oct 7 hadn't happened, Israel would have attacked anyway?
We don't have to wonder about that: Look up "West Bank" in the news.
This is what we refer to in the business as a "false equivalency"
Can you look it up for me? I'm particularly interested in how many airstrikes were involved.
...What do you mean by unconditional surrender? Because unless every member and supporter of Hamas commits suicide, this wouldn't be a long-term solution.
Don't pretend you don't know what I mean
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Instrument_of_Surrender
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan
I mean exactly what I mean. Sure, some Japanese fought on til the 70s in the Philippine jungles, but when the state surrenders, it tends to stick. And I don't necessarily believe Hamas is that much more fanatical than the Imperial Japanese.
Oh, look! @LearnsHebrewHatesIP is wearing a fresh sock!
Look, if you're going to try to sneak around a ban (https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-350), maybe try mixing up your writing style and approach?
But more broadly, in the *vastly* unlikely chance that you're not @LearnsHebrewHatesIP, I have a suggestion for both of you:
The pompous tone you're utilizing in this comment and your replies to other people's comments is highly likely to entrench your ideological enemies into their positions, even when your assertions are supported by trustworthy evidence. Belief perseverance aka the backfire effect is a difficult enough phenomenon to combat when the person making an argument is likeable; when they're not, it becomes virtually impossible to overcome. Even here on ACX, where many commenters make a heroic conscious attempt to avoid falling victim to belief perseverance, many of your readers are nevertheless coming away from your content thinking, "Fuck that guy, I hope his cause fails even harder now."
And look, I get it! Righteous indignation feels great, and dunking on idiots is super fun!
However, when I see that my self-indulgent righteous indignation and idiot-dunking has made me an avatar through which my ideological enemies can hate my cause even *more,* I do immediate penance by donating hard cash to the best possible organization advancing my cause. For example, whenever I send someone into a frothing rage about the murder of babies by self-indulgently baldly laying out why there's a total lack of a downside to induced abortion, I immediately pay for some abortions for women who can't otherwise afford them. And that actually feels even better than the righteous indignation and idiot-dunking.
I suggest you do something similar for your particular cause.
Is it really him?? I missed you dude!
> @LearnsHebrewHatesIP
From your link, I can glean that this guy (1) Really hated Trump, (2) Wrote about Gaza and AI a lot?
Like the meme says: Do You Have the Slightest Idea How Little That Narrows It Down? [1].
Go to HackerNews [2], scroll to the search bar in the very bottom of the page, and write "Israel". In the search results that appear, see how many of the comments are Pro-Palestinian and how many are Pro-Israel. (1) and (2) do NOT uniquely describe a single person. Not even close.
But regardless, that's a great guy/gal over there, and it's flattering for me to be mistaken for him/her.
> The pompous tone you're utilizing in this comment and your replies to other people's comments
This an interesting critique. What's "Pompous" in this context? Snarky? Self-Important? If NoRandomWalk is anything to go by, I have something valuable to say (the feeling is mutual), and he's coming at this from a Pro-Israel angle. N == 1 and all that, but still?
You and 1123581321 seem to infer "Anger" or "Self-Righteousness" by some sort of the genetic fallacy. "The kind of people who call the Gaza war a genocide are idiotic assholes on Twitter, you say the Gaza war a genocide, therefore you must be an idiotic asshole from Twitter".
I can be snarky as hell too, but I reserve that for people I detect to be not engaging in good faith, and "Good Faith" here isn't code for "I like them": I classify all but 2 of the top-level replies to my thread starter as Good Faith, and I dislike most of them. One of the 2 non-Good-Faith comments I didn't reply to, and the other I replied in kind. It's not hard to spot them.
> self-indulgently baldly laying out why there's a total lack of a downside to induced abortion
This is its own rabbit hole and I disagree that extinguishing life (even if it's 6-week-old life) "has no downside", although I perfectly understand the immense temptation to bait the "Pro-Life" hypocrites who simultaneously oppose abortions but have no problem supporting the biggest Post-Birth non-consensual-abortion providers, Israel.
I don't recommend acting on such temptations, in the same way that I abhor taunting pro-Israel genocide denialists with dead October 7th victims, as is the custom in some corners of Twitter and YouTube. The taunter is the biggest loser in the end, not the taunted.
[1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/do-you-have-the-slightest-idea-how-little-that-narrows-it-down
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/