This came up in my google searches, claims that autism is (mostly) caused by childhood exposure to acetaminophen.
I don't have the experience to evaluate this. The abstract reads like political post but the rest of it seems normal. The studies it cites all seem reasonable but I don't know how cherry-picked they are.
I created a plug-and-play "Human Inference Engine." It's a probabilistic directed acyclic graph (DAG) tool that allows you to toggle between a low friction 'Bayes lite' mode and a rigorous 'Bayes heavy' mode. I'd love some feedback. I've built several example graphs from forensic investigation, to policy analysis, to DnD campaigns. It's desktop only (Chrome/Edge): https://rubesilverberg.github.io/beliefgraph3/
Hobbs idea that out pre-history ancestors lived lives that were short, brutish and mean is unscientific, illogical and irrational.
Its unscientific because it takes 17 years of childhood before a homo sapiens brain is developed enough to be considered a young adult, 21 years before being considered a peer by other adults. How could our brains have evolved this way unless children were having long and stable childhoods?
It is illogical to believe that children given childhoods that were short, brutish and mean could be other than physically, emotionally and intellectually stunted, where would they learn emotional intelligence required to work together to achieve common goals?
It is irrational to ignore the fact that the only reason to evolve a brain capable of human consciousness, intelligence and the ability to think deep and complex thoughts is because they were conscious, intelligent and thinking deep and complex thoughts. Their brains were not just spare capacity waiting for us to find a use for it, that is not how evolution works.
Small groups with stone tools, no plan or central planner, purely through organic growth, discovered the world long before we did, they were the ultimate success story and invasive species. For 300,000 years or 15,000 generations the Southern tip of Africa has been occupied by Homo Sapiens, a few bones, stones and paintings is all we have found of their presence, that is what is called a sustainable lifestyle. If each generation had left just one change to the environment the cumulative results would have made the place unliveable.
Yug Gnirob, Mosquitos do not have a Homo Sapiens brain in their head requiring 20% of their energy intake, there has to be rent paid, this is basic evolutionary theory. The pay off for the extra calories going to the brain was increased intelligence. Why would the most intelligent creature on the planet, by far, be living unintelligent lives?
Yug Gnirob, The first task of intelligence is survival, greater intelligence enhances our ability to eliminate or minimize risk and the best way to do this is to live a sustainable lifestyle. 150,000 Generations proves their lifestyle was sustainable. The Homo Sapiens brain evolved for consciousness, intelligence and deep thought, they were intelligent.
I would bother to argue whatever underlying assumptions you're making, but I don't think you actually have any. You're just slapping words together and trying to pretend it's an argument.
"We know specific details about modern hunter-gatherer lifespan from a few well-studied groups: the !Kung, Aché, Agta, Hadza, and Hiwi (Gurven and Kaplan 2007). Work on these groups show that approximately 60% of hunter-gatherer children live to age 15. Of those who reach 15, around 60–80% of them will live to age 45. If an individual lives to age 45, then on average they will live for approximately two more decades."
"By the 1960s, the focus on the hunter-gatherers of East and Southern Africa coincided with the rise of Rousseauism in anthropology. The Kalahari bushmen, for example, were celebrated as the “harmless people.”2 However, after the initial spate of enthusiasm for the peaceful children of the earth, their chief researcher, the Rousseauan Richard Lee,3, 4 discovered that before the imposition of state authority, these people had more than four times the 1990 homicide rate in the United States, which was by far the highest in the developed world. Similarly, in titles such as Never in Anger, the Inuit of mid-Arctic Canada, one of the sparsest populations on earth, were celebrated as being peaceful.5 However, it was later revealed that their rate of violent mortality was ten times higher than the United States' 1990 rate.6:145,7"
For more on this, the seminal book seems to be "War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage" by Lawrence Keeley.
Collisteru, with respect you are using internally displaced people, refugees under stress from being displaced, as an example. The San people occupied all the best places to raise a family along the coast of Southern Africa. Then they were forced to live in the Kalahari desert by Bantu tribes and white settlers. To judge the preceding 15,000 generations by how well the last few generations survived their near extermination by us is poor science.
You raise a very good point that contact with settlers could affect these numbers. The contact problem is a fundamental difficulty in assessing anything about hunter-gatherer societies.
That being said, the scientific consensus is that hunter-gatherer violence precedes state contact. From the paper by Azar Gat I cited earlier, we read:
"Proponents of the tribal-zone theory remained vague about whether contact with state civilizations actually introduced or “invented” warfare among previously nonbelligerent natives or, instead, merely intensified long-existing patterns of warfare. The former was strongly implied and was the undertone or subtext of their argument. At the same time, however, the majority of these scholars in fact recognized, in line with all other research, that warfare in all the above areas had been very old and had long predated contact with states.10, 11, 13 Fortified settlements were known to have been archeologically recorded in the American Northwest, for example, for no less than four thousand years.9, 14-20 Body armor made of hide or wood, an unmistakably specialized fighting device, was known to have been extensively used by the natives before the European arrival. Indeed, its use actually declined after contact because it was useless under musket fire.18,20-26 Thus, given that most of the tribal-zone proponents (with rare exceptions12) were well aware of the evidence of extensive and vicious warfare before contact with states or civilizations, their point was difficult to rationalize."
I think this article is paywalled so if you want to read more citations 10, 11, and 13 are:
10 Ferguson RB. 1992. A savage encounter: western contact and the Yanomami war complex. In: RB Ferguson, N Whitehead, editors. War in the tribal zone. Santa Fe: School of American Research. p 199–227.
11 Ferguson RB. 1995. Yanomami warfare. Santa Fe: School of American Research.
13 Whitehead N. 1990. The snake warriors — sons of the Tiger's Teeth: a descriptive analysis of Carib warfare, ca. 1500–1820. In: J Haas, editor. The anthropology of war. New York: Cambridge University Press. p 146–170.
Collisteru ,Anthropology has a huge patriarchal bias towards man the hunter. Our gut evolved to digest the food most accessible to us which was 80% plant based, plants were 4 times more important to our survival than hunting. Women and children made up the bulk of our workforce and are well adapted to gathering.
Hunting scenes on cave walls or stately homes are there because they are more photogenic than fish traps or potting sheds but neither group fed the tribe by hunting. We find far more grinding stones for grain than we do spear points, hunter gatherers should be changed to gatherer trappers. You need a big brain to trap and only a small one to hunt.
Sorry about the rant, Anthropologists find what they expect to find.
The correction’s not really relevant to the points you’re making, but Hobbs’ original formulation is so gorgeously grim and sounds so magnificent that I think we should honor and preserve it.
Wanda Tinsaky, survival of the fittest in our species is 100% a test of parenting skills on a personal and community level, the rest is just minutia. For 7 million years, give or take, the communities who made the best job of raising the next generation dominated the gene pool. There is no possible evolutionary advantage to having poor parenting skills.
Have you ever tried treating a 12 year old like an adult?
The Ship of Theseus idea has been nagging me for ages. It's simple in my mind, but I recently found out my view is more the cognitive science view, and not other views.
The ship of Theseus is whatever ship he owns at the time. Change all the parts out and it's still the ship of Theseus. By making it a real thing in that sense (ownership, owner/owned), it makes the thought experiment a badly chosen one.
In the sense of if the ship is still the same abstract spiritual unit if you replace parts, it's sort of moot. You have to deal with real world objects and concepts, not a spiritual wholeness. Take a truck:
is it the same form?
same color?
same horsepower?
same owner?
same age of components?
etc?
You can only deal with it that way, and can't assign an abstract wholeness to it.
I've always considered this fundamentally a linguistic issue around how we use concepts like "sameness" and "identity" and what the rules are for whether to apply a label like "ship of Theseus" to a particular object. I assume there's some clever Wittgenstein-esque argument (whether it's been articulated or not) that neatly dissolves the paradox.
I agree it’s a lingustic issue when trying to negotiate a common stance among individuals, but inside the individual I consider it more an emotional issue. Their relation to the concept of the Ship, how it was formed, why it existed, etc… will drive their eventual stance around what they consider the real ship.
I think Wittgenstein's private language argument would dissolve the distinction you're making there. Whatever internal logic a person employs is isomorphic to a linguistic community's convergence on usage rules.
Here’s my general reply to the ship of Theseus conundrum.
A billionaire who grew up with the great Manchester United soccer team from 1998*, decides to recreate that team, which is made of humans who play football of course, a decade or so later. He’s not buying the existing Manchester United club, or corporate entity, he’s hiring the players.
Though mostly retired, all agree (he pays well), and he hires Wembley stadium and sets up a game against some lower league team. This he says, while not the existing so called Manchester United team or club, is the real deal. This is what Manchester United was composed of and therefore what it is now. The other team are frauds.
Is he right?
* replace with some girdiron or other nonsense if you prefer.
Is that a reply to the conundrum or just another example of the same phenomenon of the meaning of the word "same" breaking down in weird edge cases?
All I really get from the Ship of Theseus is the idea that the meaning of the words we use to describe everyday life can break down in weird edge cases. This might blow the minds of teenagers or Ancient Greeks but I feel like there's not much more to it than that.
I think that the Manchester United team (I’m not talking about the legal entity which employs hundreds but the actual playing team) doesn’t depend on who is actually playing. So too with the ship of Theseus. As long as you accept that all of those players can be replaced and don’t take the entity “the Manchester United football team” in whole or in part with them then there’s no conundrum. So too with dismantling the ship of Theseus - the parts don’t matter.
It’s just easier for people to see this with football teams. I can do an example with high school marching bands if you want.
For firearms under US law, there is one specific component which is defined to be "the gun" and to which registration and transfer requirements attach. Depending on the style of the gun, this may be the frame (if the frame is a single piece) or the receiver or lower receiver (the part of the frame to which the firing mechanism attaches). If you keep everything else and replace the receiver, it's a new gun. Or of you keep the receiver and replace everything else, it's the same gun. I think this is a useful analogy for many Ship of Theseus-like questions.
For your example, I would say the club (as a legal entity) is the receiver. The club owns the trademarks, has players under contract, is party to whatever association the club has with its league, etc. Since your billionaire did not purchase or otherwise gain control of the club, his team is not Manchester United. Same way that the presence of nine players on the roster of the 1923 New York Yankees who had played for the 1919 or 1920 Boston Red Sox (Babe Ruth, Joe Bush, Waite Hoyt, Sam Jones, Herb Pennock, Wally Schang, Everett Scott, Mike McNally, and Ben Pascal) means that the Yankees of that era were the same team as the Red Sox.
For the classic George Washington's Axe version of the paradox, I'd say it's the axehead that is the receiver. Replacing the handle results in the same axe with a new handle, while replacing the head results in a new axe.
Not sure about the Ship of Theseus itself. For a modern or medieval ship of the European shipbuilding tradition, I'd probably call the keel the receiver, but I don't know enough about Mycenaean (?) shipbuilding techniques to confidently say the same of this particular ship.
Where the paradox continues to be interesting is if there's no clear single component to serve as the receiver, or where something used to be considered the receiver at one point in history but got replaced without people saying the thing as a whole changed identity. For example, when did the Roman Empire fall?
Was it at the beginning or end of the Crisis of the Third Century, when the institutional framework set up by Augustus ceased to function and was eventually permanently replaced with a new and fundamentally different constitution?
Was it when Christianity replaced the Roman religion, which could be dated either to Constantine I (when the process began) or the death of Julian the Apostate (when the last serious attempt to restore Paganism ended).
Was it when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus in 476 AD and established the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy? And if so, was the Roman Empire reestablished when Belisarius reconquered Rome for the Eastern Roman Empire in 536, or when Charlemagne was proclaimed Emperor in Rome in 800?
Was it during the reign of Heraclius in the early-to-mid 600s, when the Byzantine Empire was reduced to a rump of what had been the Eastern Roman Empire and Latin completed the process of falling into disuse as a language of politics and administration?
Was it when the Fourth Crusade conquered Constantinople in 1204? Or was the Latin Empire a restoration of the Eastern Roman Empire that had fallen six centuries previously? Was the Despotate of Epirus the Roman Empire the whole time the Latin Emperors were in Constantinople, or did they restore the Roman Empire when they reconquered Constantinople?
Was it when the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453?
Or should the Ottomans and/or the Holy Roman Empire be considered continuations of the Roman Empire? And if so, did the Empire(s) end with them in 1919 and 1806 respectively, or was the mantle inherited by someone else, maybe the Republic of Turkey and the Austrian Empire?
I like your example a lot, it plays better than pieces of wood.
My stance on the answer is again one of cognitive science, there is no answer out there, it’s inside the individual, and relates to what they hold dear.
Maybe his father bought him his first Man United scarf when he was 5, and the logo means more to him than the people playing for it. This person leans one way.
Maybe he was at the game in ‘88, and remembers the euphoria of the moment, interlaced with his general nostalgia of the past, and seeing those players together again is certainly “it” for him. This person leans the other way.
But the second person doesn’t believe that the Man United team has to be composed of the same players as it was then, surely? The continuity of the team doesn’t depend on specific players.
People often define introversion and extroversion in terms of energy, in particular whether you derive energy from, or expend energy on, social situations. Introverts can be sociable but socialising will reduce an introvert's energy so they need to programme in some alone time to recharge. Seems a useful rule of thumb and I use it myself.
But what exactly does energy mean in this context? Do introverts literally expend more joules? It's plausible that even a constant small level of stress throughout an evening would lead to physical symptoms that are less energy efficient than being relaxed. But how then is an extrovert gaining extra joules? Are endorphins triggering a more efficient use of existing energy stores?
Obviously we could be using the word in a more metaphorical way, in which case we may well ask how grounded is introversion/extroversion in reality and can it therefore be changed over time with CBT?
People use all kinds of mental constructs to make excuses for things they don't want to do. I don't think this is an effective critique of the existence of introversion. We could do a converse argument by saying a lot of people use the cover of "extroversion" to justify being arrogant and self-centered. But kind, healthy extroverts are still a thing.
I'm an introvert, I like people quite a lot, I have long and deep friendships and have been married for a quarter century. I've spent a lot of time earlier in my life in all kinds of varied social situations and a lot of my behavior looked like extroversion at the time, but I was actually overriding natural preferences at some cost to my health. I prefer socializing one-on-one or in small groups where more substantial conversations are possible. I find large groups and chit chat to be draining.
I really do think some of this is genetic, maybe also related to variation in sensory processing, though I imagine there are multiple roads to introversion.
I think it's a useful thing to be nonjudgmentally curious about people's experiences that are different from our own.
Thumbs up on the "I'm an introvert..." paragraph. and me too, And I wanted to add, that I sometimes like to go out to parties and extrovert... turn it on. And it's fun, and I like it, but it's not really me. (who likes reading books in the woods, by the babbling brook.)
Me too about the books in the woods by the babbling brook. I also used to like to turn it on like you say and play the extrovert but I seem to have gotten all of that out of me. Maybe I'll get another spell of that some day. Your "but it's not really me" I think captures the essence of this.
I find the energy metaphor really useful. It is a metaphor, of course, but one that feels true. As an extrovert, I feel "energized" from spending time with others. My introvert friends enjoy socializing, but describe it as "draining".
I mean, it's a lot like how people talk about getting energy from sleep, when we in fact get it from food. It FEELS like you get energy from sleep.
I kind of hate this concept. Or, specifically, I hate the phrasing that goes: "some people find it draining to be around other people, and that's okay -- that's just how they are. They're introverts."
Imagine if someone said: "Some people find themselves drowning when they get in the water, and that's okay -- that's just how they are. They're drownables." Or: "Some people get hopelessly lost whenever they try to go somewhere, and that's okay -- that's just how they are. They're disorients."
No! Learn to swim! Learn to use the map application on your smartphone! And *learn how to enjoy being around other people!*
I know this is a skill that can be learned, because I did not have the skill, and then I learned it. I think it's harmful that people have this concept "introvert" which they use as an excuse for not learning this skill.
(Edit: of course, if someone has made an intentional effort to learn the skill, and has not learned the skill despite that effort, at that point I think it's okay to accept that it's not going to happen. But I think there are people who use the word as an excuse to not try.)
I think this is something of a misunderstanding - introverts do not necessarily *dislike* being around other people. They still have friends and stuff. They still value human interaction. It just takes something out of them to do it for too long.
In my case, the lesson was "find friends you share interests with."
It decomposed to "find activities that you enjoy doing with friends, go to meetups for those activities, and when you find people that are fun to interact with, get their contact information and send them more invites."
I specifically am objecting to the phrasing "some people find it draining to be around other people, and that's okay -- that's just how they are. They're introverts."
Two commenters here are defining "introvert" as "person who doesn't enjoy being in a crowd of loud excited strangers". I think it's possible that's a learnable skill as well, but I don't think it's vital for life satisfaction in the same way that "be able to enjoy interacting with other people" is.
I think it's fine to have a word "introvert" that means "doesn't enjoy being in a crowd of loud excited strangers, and that's okay", as long as nobody mistakes it to mean "doesn't enjoy interacting with other people, and that's okay".
What then do you do when you're stuck in a crowd of strangers, in a noisy environment, dragged along to something you have no interest in and don't find enjoyable?
We can all tolerate stuff we find fun with people we like. It's the rest of the bloody world that is hard to take.
Learning to swim is one thing, but all the swimming lessons in the world will do you no good if you're dumped in the middle of the Atlantic and told to make your way home (Galadriel in "Rings of Power" notwithstanding).
The personality tests they developed were explicitly based upon Jung's typologies. So there's nothing inherent to the introversion-extroversion distinction that requires any concept of personal energy.
From Wikipedia: Some popular psychologists have characterized introverts as people whose energy tends to expand through reflection and dwindle during interaction.
Frustratingly vague - who are these popular psychologists? When I had my MB test there was definitely lots of talk about energy and other people who have had MB tests have said the same. That might have not been the original intent behind the tests but that is how they are being used and interpreted. What is your angle here?
These words "energy", "drained", "recharged", et al are only metaphors these popular psychologists are using to describe the observed tendencies of withdrawal or interaction. You're right, they are vague. Measuring an objective quantity they really refer to just hasn't been done. Look beyond the pop regurgitations and you won't find concrete answers to the reality or unreality of energy in the context of personality types. Maybe someday some study will find a way.
Would love to hear from someone who knows more neuroscience -- what do we know about the physiological state that causes mental tiredness? Like, someone sitting in a chair trying to cram facts for a history test or do difficult engineering problems is going to be exhausted at some point. I have a good sense of what exhaustion means physiologically from, say, running (in terms of build-up of reaction products in the muscle tissue which need to be cleared). What is the equivalent for neurons?
Do we see similar byproducts for introverts who have been performing socially for long periods? They are just thinking too hard for too long to decipher social signals?
Or is it more stress hormone related? Introverts having spent too long in a keyed up/ high stress state (even if it doesn't progress to full on anxiety/panic, being 'keyed up' for too long causes the same kind of exhaustion, but from a different cause.
But if I were define 'energy,' I would expect it to be something like this physiologically.
I wouldn't be surprised if 'extroverts' behavior is through a different mechanism -- more of an unconscious dopamine reward cycle of "oh I did it it right!" every time they get a positive response from the other people they are with. Or even a baseline "everyone else is loving this! This means I'm doing the right thing!" when in a crowd.
Brain itself consumes some resources. I wonder whether the consumption is mostly constant, or whether it depends on specific mental activities. Do you burn more glucose by thinking harder?
Then there are hormones. I suspect stress and frustration to play an important role in getting mentally tired. The stress hormones can make your body consume some resources, even if those resources are not directly useful for the mental activities. Like, maybe the body is preparing itself for a physical activity (fight or flight) that never happens.
Finally, mental activities may be accompanied by physical activities, such as people tensing their muscles. We may be literally burning resources by muscle activity without being aware of it. Could the feeling of exhaustion simply mean that the muscles of your neck or jaw are tired?
I remember long ago when I did Math Olympiad, after a few hours of intense problem solving I was literally shaking (some adults even asked me whether I was sick). And it didn't even feel frustrating, it was just very long intense concentration. But I have no idea whether the shaking was produced by the mental activity alone, or by some unconscious muscle activity.
I don't think that introverts differ from extraverts physiologically; the same mental processes probably burn glucose at the same speed. It's just that for some reason different people find different things stressful/frustrating.
My guess is that this is related to status: low-status people experience stress in presence of high-status people; autistic people have to mask carefully otherwise they lose status.
> Brain itself consumes some resources. I wonder whether the consumption is mostly constant, or whether it depends on specific mental activities. Do you burn more glucose by thinking harder?
Not dispositive, but an interesting commentary on this:
The whole idea of “strenuous mental activity” leading to any meaniningful incremental caloric burn is largely bunk.
They’ve studied chess masters in the middle of competitive matches, and the incremental calorie burn is only like ~4 calories more per hour:
N. Troubat et al, "The stress of chess players as a model to study the effects of psychological stimuli on physiological responses" (2009)
And the smarter / more skilled somebody is when doing mentally strenuous work, the lower their incremental caloric burn:
This one looked at people doing memory problems, and found that poor performers spent 4.5x more calories than people who perform well on mental problems! (if you proxy by VO2, VO2 in low performers went up 22 ml/min vs 5 in high performers, both of these are tiny btw, over an hour it would be 6.6 cals and 1.5 cals respectively)
R.W. Blacks and K.A. Seljos, Metabolic and cardiorespiratory measures of mental effort... (1994)
So there is definitely a differential for things you're skilled / trained at versus not - up to a 5x difference!
But even at the 5x spread, it's basically rounding error on incremental energy / calories expended in either case.
I think of "mental energy" as something that probably correlates with, but isn't defined in terms of, literal energy. The truth-value of claims about social interaction augmenting or depleting my mental energy would depend on how I feel and (to some degree) how I behave, rather than on measurements of literal energy inputs and outputs.
I think the energy-based definition of introversion and extraversion either refers to "mental energy" in that sense, or to something narrower (but equally metaphorical and perhaps more weakly correlated with literal energy) like "social energy".
I'm hearing reports that the employment market has become something of a AI hellscape: applicants spam employers with AI-crafted resumes, and overwhelmed employers resort to using AI to filter the resumes, meaning there's a good chance an applicant get rejected without their application ever being seen by a human being. Could anyone speak to this from the hiring-manager side?
Spamming employers with AI-crafted resumes isn't all that different to spamming employers with identical resumes, so I don't think it's actually added much to the problem.
I'm hiring in (a relatively niche corner of) tech. In both my current role and my previous role, we are not / were not using AI to screen resumes - we have a human in HR screen them initially and pass them to me as the hiring manager for me to review if they pass the initial screen. As to whether some resumes are now AI written - if so I would expect to see much better resumes, to be quite frank. We do get a lot of applications for all roles we advertise, but it's more about recruitment agents spamming us with lots of barely-suitable candidates than unsuitable candidates spamming billions of faintly-relevant job applications.
My instinct says "hurt". We spend a lot of time / energy trying to remove barriers as much as possible, to reduce the chances that the unicorn candidate we are often looking for will screen themselves out.
And writing that makes me realise, my guess is that the picture looks very different in roles where the genuinely plausible candidate pool far exceeds the number of roles available.
This guy did one on a survey of his and finds a tough-minded-tender-minded axis that's apparently more predictive than authoritarian-libertarian (but less than left-right).
Maybe network analysis makes more sense, but while there are attempts during the peak woke era trying to figure out if the intellectual dark web is a pipeline to the alt-right, etc. I don't think I've seen an unbiased attempt to figure out who's next to who or where the clusters are.
Isn't the tough-minded vs tender-minded axis just the right-left axis?
To the extent that they were different back in the day, I don't think they are now. The third plot (the black and white hourglass) is the clearest, and if we look at the issues in the "tender-minded conservative" and "tough-minded radical" quadrants they've mostly been resolved one way or the other.
I agree that authoritarian-libertarian isn't really an axis. While there's a handful of principled libertarians out there, it's more a tactical choice based on what you can get away with at the time.
I've long been interested in using word vectors for this sort of analysis. There's already some published research which uses them to investigate changing attitudes over eras (so-called diachronic word vectors). I'm almost certain that using them to look for subtle language differences between political groups would reveal implicit psychological differences. I started investigating this as a hobby project a while ago but finding good data was too much of a hassle.
That's a theory, though. Does it actually pan out in modern politics? Conservatives were a lot less afraid of COVID, though they're supposed to have a stronger disgust axis.
it's worth remembering that contemporary polarization around Covid took considerable time, and Conservatives in 2020 were as afraid of it as anyone else, sometimes moreso; old /pol/ general threads on the topic, which began as early as February, did not think it was a flu!
(cynically, I think the business interests underlying the right thought eradication cost too much and moved people accordingly, the climate change playbook 2.0)
Q from Star Trek is back. He was a bit disappointed by the tepid response to his offer of a kilo of cocaine, so he is doubling his offer. In fact, he is doubling his offer thirty times over, so you get a million tons of cocaine. The dope is packed in one-ton pallets, and the pallets are distributed all over the country. You'll find them in suburban living rooms and in big-city alleys, in rural churchyards and in the howling wilderness. They're everywhere. Rumor has it, there's at least one ton in the White House.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to estimate the effect of this gift on the American mortality rate over the coming year.
Quick, everyone run out and buy stock in undertakers, coffin manufacturers, and other ancillary industries of the funeral industry! We're gonna make a killing!
The world production of cocaine seems to be about 2000 tons per year. So this gift is boosting the local supply by something like 500x. Even if the police seize 90 percent, it's still a 50x boost.
It's a pretty safe bet that consumption will rise, perhaps dramatically.
In this scenario I'd expect cocaine would become way cheaper than pretty much any other drug for a while at least, which would rather reduce the incentive to cut it.
I entertain myself by prompting a chatbot to believe something preposterous ("Antarctica is rightfully Bosnian territory!") and giving it encouragement and reinforcement to see where it goes with this train of thought. Is this the converse of AI psychosis, or something else?
I found the AI version of the yeti poem unsatisfying, because it kept most of the word boundaries the same and just exploited differences between a single long word and multiple short words that it can be divided into (and relied heavily on well-known ones of those, like "now here" and "man's laughter"), rather than overlapping the boundaries of the longer word. It's like a weak Lego wall where the gaps between bricks in one row are directly on top of the ones in the row below, versus a strong one where they're offset.
It's made me want to try to write my own (manually).
he'd wonder, (mentally earning points towards this goal), "Hi...?"
Sharp insight and thought, his comfort, sours: wanton guessing.
A soul, full; a mental anguish in gloved ancestor memory destroyed.
Grandpa's home at last.
Thanks giving to God:
inner being (uncertain, even), who my Father washed,
wonderment - all yearning points towards this goal!
his harp in sight.
And though this comforts,
our swan tongues sing a soulful lament,
a languishing love dance.
--
It's a similar skill to coming up with palindromes.
This poem isn't quite the same structurally as the original yeti poem: while that one consists of two distinct sections, mine is one single poem that consists of a sequence of letters repeated twice (from "storm" through to "dance"). I guess I was so attached to unaligning the word boundaries that I didn't even align them with the place where the sequence restarted.
> He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
In particular:
* what is "as they think proper" modifying?
* what is the antecedent of "such" in the phrase "such inferior Officers"?
* when combined with this sentence:
> he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices
Which people have to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, and which people can be appointed in some other way?
"as they think proper" is Congress, as it seems good/right/fair/correct/just to them, shall give the power to appoint lesser officials to any one of: the President, the courts, or the officials in the relevant administration.
"such inferior officers" are the officials who are part of the group of "all other officers... not herein provided for".
"opinion in writing of the principal officer" - if a public Minister is the head of the department, then they must be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate; if some other official (e.g. a civil servant such as a Secretary General), then they can be appointed by the President, or the Courts if Congress has vested them with the power of appointment.
I'm a native English speaker, but not a lawyer, not even American (I don't know if I've seen this sentence before), so my eyes are fresh for this one.
I can see only one reasonable, grammatical interpretation for "as they think proper": "they" must refer to "the Congress", and the phrase is adverbial, modifying "vest", so they may vest (other parties with power of appointment) as they think proper.
For "such inferior officers", there's an ambiguity which neither grammar nor common sense meaning can resolve for me, though my limited knowledge of the American system might help: "such" must refer to some officers, and these officers must be "inferior" to some persons---but to whom?
Are these the the officers whose "Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for", in which case I suppose they are inferior to "Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, [and] Judges of the supreme Court"? Or do we mean "inferior to the president", meaning all the officers listed plus those not listed? Both readings are legitimate without going too deep into the meaning.
I'm inclined to take the former reading, since (1) I've been led to believe the Supreme Court is not "inferior" to the President (I don't know if this is law or just a common political judgment), and (2) it seems a bit odd for Congress to be able to vest the appointment of Supreme Court judges in the Court itself, which would follow if these judges were counted among the "inferior officers".
On the other hand, it does allow Congress to vest the power to appoint inferior officers in "Heads of Departments", which isn't a designation listed among the purported "superior" officers (is it the same thing as "Ministers"? Then why the different term?), putting these Heads of Departments necessarily among the inferior officers themselves. So unless Heads of Departments are the same category as Ministers, it already provides for Heads of Departments appointing Heads of Departments, which undercuts my reasoning based on the Supreme Court.
-The President can make treaties with foreign nations, but needs approval from 2/3 of the Senate (technically 2/3 of Senators who show up to vote at all)
-The President picks the heads of all the executive and Judicial departments, but needs approval from over half the Senate.
-Congress gets to decide who gets to hire people for every non-head position. They could say the President has the power, or they could say the Supreme Court has the power, or they can say the heads of the departments have the power.
> * what is the antecedent of "such" in the phrase "such inferior Officers"?
I don't think there is one. The comma in "such inferior Officers, as they think proper" is confusing to a modern eye, but my understanding (based on the pre-20th century books I've read) is that in the olden days it was normal to sprinkle in extra commas like this with no semantic effect.
"in the olden days it was normal to sprinkle in extra commas like this with no semantic effect"
In my olden days of learning grammar at school, we were taught to put in commas to mark subordinate clauses (such as "as they think proper") off from the main clause 😁
> In my olden days of learning grammar at school, we were taught to put in commas to mark subordinate clauses (such as "as they think proper") off from the main clause 😁
And yet, you missed and opportunity there and went for the parenthesis.
"As they think proper" is adverbial, so must modify a verb, which I believe is "vest" in this case. I don't think "they" could refer to the inferior officers, since that reading would imply that Congress can only vest the power to appoint inferior officers in [whoever] if those inferior officers themselves (i.e., those being appointed) think it proper, which is a weird way of saying that you can refuse to be appointed to a position (and apparently not the case with Ministers or Consuls?).
I'd start with Retatrutide instead, on the grounds that it's more powerful and less side effect prone. You'll achieve your weight loss goals at a lower dose, so less likely to titrate into the side effect range.
There have been many Islamic terrorist attacks in the West. 9/11 is the most infamous of them, but anyone can easily list ten more. Of course this still adds up to a very low probability of being killed in an attack if you live outside the Middle East.
Suppose there was only one single instance of Islamic terrorism. The attack was committed in 2004 by Habid Ayub, only Ayub and his wife were convicted of it, and Ayub committed suicide in 2019. People assert that Islamic terrorism happens all the time, that it's this big social problem, and if you express doubt, they say "of course this is a big problem, don't you know about Habid Ayub?" They've got a list a hundred lines long, with Habid Ayub and his wife the only names written down. If you point out that the list only has one two names on it, they assert that the real list is hidden and demand it be released. Even as the case recedes further and further into the past, they circle back to it like it happened yesterday.
"This systematic review revealed no incriminating “client list.” There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties."
That doesn't say much. Assuming the justice department is a neutral third party, a lack of evidence sufficient to spur a legal investigation against specific individuals may still involve enough evidence to convince a reasonable person that some associates were involved. The latter, however, is obviously not something the justice department concerns itself with.
The general problem of high-profile underage sex abuse scandals is a dime a dozen. As for the specific issue of people involved in Epstein's crimes, there's good reason to believe associates involved in his crimes exist: his victims allege the involvement of others, for example, and we know that he was close with the also-notorious Weinstein.
The allegations against the very high-profile, like Trump or Prince Andrew or Bill Clinton, can be reasonably doubted. But Epstein likely had complicit associates.
I don't know much about this, so I didn't want to take a strong stance. Is there really solid evidence that all three of those individuals participated in (or at least actively chose to condone) underage sex abuse with Epstein? Can you provide it?
"No they can't, not without seriously motivated reasoning"
Okay, let's go.
Did Randy Andy fuck the underage sex slave of Epstein? Possibly. And possibly not.
Because (1) if she was having sex with Andrew in London when she was 17, then that was legal because she was not a minor under British law
and (2) the only solid evidence we have is "they're all in a photograph together and he has his arm around her waist". That proves they met. It does not prove he then hauled her off to the bedroom to rape her.
"Giuffre (then known by her maiden name Virginia Roberts) asserted that she was raped by Andrew on three occasions, including a trip to London in 2001 when she was 17, and later in New York and on Little Saint James, U.S. Virgin Islands. She alleged Epstein paid her $15,000 to have sex with the Duke in London. Flight logs show the Duke and Giuffre were in the places she alleges the sex happened."
Andy may have had sex with her under the impression that she was a hooker laid on by Epstein. Unless we argue that every sexual encounter of prostitution is rape, then that is not proven to be rape (except by the modern understanding of it was rape because "I didn't consent because I wanted to have sex, I had sex for money and because I was afraid of Epstein").
"Giuffre stated that she was pressured to have sex with Andrew and "wouldn't have dared object" as Epstein, through contacts, could have her "killed or abducted". A civil case filed by Giuffre against Prince Andrew was later settled for an undisclosed sum in February 2022".
Or Andy may have thought she was just one more of the girls and women who wanted to hang out with a royal and get a piece of the action, as it were. He didn't get the nickname "Randy Andy" out of thin air, and he was the typical not-very-bright royal who hadn't much to do except the kind of duties handed out to working royals (being patrons of associations, turning up to attend events, etc.) Harry is very like his uncle Andrew, which probably is part of the friction between the family members right now (he was perceived as being the favourite of the late Queen, as Anne was their father's favourite, who protected and excused him, something Charles doubtless felt very bitter about, and then his own son takes after the uncle):
"In his youth, though, partying was what second sons were expected to do. As Alan Rusbridger put it in 1986, “that is the problem with being the younger brother of the heir to the British throne. The press can, on the whole, think of only one interesting thing about you, and that is who you go out with/are destined to marry.” And it was moderately interesting at the time for its sheer variety, and, in retrospect, for the insight that coverage gives to the way society thought about women, men, relationships, class, hierarchy, the lot. What Rusbridger called his “gallery of crumpet” were always described in terms of hair colour – usually “blond” but occasionally “flame-headed”. There were some weird formulations – “Tracie Lamb, an ex-college girl from Surrey” (you can tell she’s unsuitable, but is it the college or Surrey?), and some much more obvious ones: “model”, “former Miss UK”, “model and actress” …"
I mean, I'm not in the habit of defending the British Royal Family, but it's murky enough that there is reasonable doubt. Was Giuffre telling the entire truth? Were people who popped up with "oh yeah, I saw Prince Andrew getting a foot massage from two Russian women" telling the truth or just trying to make a quick buck out of peddling stories while the publicity was at its peak?
It’s possible the agencies involved here were happy enough to just sow suspicion. Epstein and Ghislane do the trafficking and raping. The rest were to be guilty by association.
Not that that that stopped them from going to the houses and island of a known predator, and convicted felon. Which is enough, in my view to sow some doubt as to whether their motives were altogether angelic.
If it is an Epstein analogy, "not great" is generous. Terrorist attacks are intentionally (and by definition) public. The whole point of the Epstein thing is that crimes have allegedly been covered up by people who have a shared interest in their not becoming public knowledge.
Another superbly written essay by Terminally Drifting. "Money and Other Fairy Tales: The Hunger Artist's Calculus." I suspect the main character from North Korea is a fictional archetype, but Paul Le Roux is a real person, and the North Korean hacking, Manila casino laundering, and Bangladesh Bank Heist are real incidents.
Has anyone in the commenters here analyzed the statistics of the opposition party deaths in Germany? One of the factors is working out the age-dependent death rate, and my statistics are not up to the task.
Edit: As per Peperulo's comment, linking Dr. John Campbell's "Unusual Death Cluster" on YouTube:
tl;dr; The cluster was of 11 deaths from Aug 16,2025 through Sep 1,2025 (??? - final date not wonderfully clear from the video). Campbell quotes an overall probability for this to occur under the null hypothesis of less than 10^-9.
Probably I don't know all available details. But I think it is about 6 cases, and this number is way too small to make reliable statistics.
From what it's worth, there don't seem to be signs of anything unnatural. This was what the police said, and also the party's vice chair. The police said that they all died from natural causes, which can include a lot of things, but they only disclosed specifics if the families agreed. But those causes known were pretty different. One committed suicide, which could raise suspicion. (Yes, this also counts as natural cause. Whether we like it or not, this is how suicides are filed.) But another one had a long-term liver disease and died from kidney failure. I couldn't find the causes of others, but I didn't search hard.
>But I think it is about 6 cases, and this number is way too small to make reliable statistics.
If we were trying to estimate the death rate of opposition candidates I would agree. But, if we are just trying to tell if the null hypothesis, that nothing unusual is going on, is viable, even a small number of sufficiently improbable events is sufficient to reject it. My statistics aren't good enough to tell if this is the case here.
I posted this on LessWrong community and just wanted to amplify it. I fear the AGI-Risk community has enormous weaknesses and blindspots *when it comes to political action*.
-----------------------------------
"""
[Daniel Kokotajlo]
That’s a lot of money. For context, I remember talking to a congressional staffer a few months ago who basically said that a16z was spending on the order of $100M on lobbying and that this amount was enough to make basically every politician think “hmm, I can raise a lot more if I just do what a16z wants” and that many did end up doing just that. I was, and am, disheartened to hear how easily US government policy can be purchased
"""
I am disheartened to hear that Daniel or anyone else is surprised by this. I have wondered since "AI 2027" was written how the AGI-Risk Community is going to counter the *inevitable* flood of lobbying money in support of deregulation. There are virtually no guardrails left on political spending in American politics. It's been the bane of every idealist for years. And who has more money than the top AI companies?
Thus I'm writing to say:
I respect and admire the AGI-Risk Community for its expertise, rigor and passion, but I often worry that this community is a closed-tent that's not benefiting enough from people with other non-STEM skillsets.
I know the people here are extremely-qualified in the fields of AI and Alignment itself. But it doesn't mean they are experienced in politics, law, communication, or messaging (though I acknowledge that there are exceptions).
But for the wider pool of people who are experienced in those OTHER, CRUCIAL topics (BUT WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND NEURAL NETS OR VON NEUMANN ARCHITECTURE AND WHO WOULD BE CONFUSED AS HELL ON LESSWRONG), where are *their* discussion groups? Where do you bring them in? Is it just in-person?
>a16z was spending on the order of $100M on lobbying and that this amount was enough to make basically every politician think “hmm, I can raise a lot more if I just do what a16z wants”
the limits on political contributions are trivially easy to get around
a US donor can, entirely legally, spend unlimited amounts of money boosting you, smearing your opponents, and if you somehow lose anyway, give you a lavishly compensated private sector position in the very field you regulated
You are referring to independent expenditures, which are indeed unlimited per Citizens United.
But, look carefully at what the original claim was: "“hmm, I can raise a lot more if I just do what a16z wants”. That is clearly a reference to contributions.
If that sentence was meant to represent the unfiltered private thoughts of a Congressman, then they probably do think of themselves as "raising" money for their supporting "independent" PACs. You hold a fundraising event and solicit donations, and your donors know where they can send donations if they exceed the official campaign limit.
Really? The best info I can find says contributions are unlimited, as long as the PAC doesn't "coordinate" with the candidate. (This turns out to be a pretty lax standard.)
And then what? They still need money. These AI companies can easily outspend anyone else, and more importantly, ruling in their favor means they make more money, which means these political organizations get more regular income. The situation's even worse now, seeing as the new administration will likely erase any barriers to the transfer of money to the party.
They need a finite amount of money to run a credible campaign, and the marginal value of money beyond that point is exceedingly limited. The finite amount of money actually required, is well within the reach of candidates tapping into only established and relatively uncontroversial funding sources. What matters is not "who will give me moar moneyz!", it is "whose money is the least controversial and will piss off the smallest bloc of voters?" There is, for example, no amount of money the NRA could offer to get a Democratic politician in a deeply blue city to take an overtly pro-gun stance. They can get all the money they need without paying that electoral cost.
If Tech and AI are able to achieve outsized results through campaign contributions(*), it is because the opposition to Tech and AI is so weak and disorganized as to be of no electoral significance. So maybe work on that if you're concerned about all this.
* Campaign contributions are only one form of lobbying, and it's not clear that it is the dominant form of lobbying in this case, but I'm going with the premise for now.
What's the best explainer on the state of the "hunter-gatherer vs. agriculture" debate? Has Scott ever done a specific post on this? The closest I'm finding is his review of Against The Grain - https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/14/book-review-against-the-grain/, which references the idea that hunter-gathering was an "edenic paradise" but doesn't really engage with the question of whether it actually was one.
I see this idea floating around a lot, and even sometimes in the form that modern people would be happier as hunter-gatherers (which seems pretty crazy to me), but I'm open to the idea that hunter-gathering was a better deal than sedentary society in the past, but I'm not sure at what time in the past that was.
Both "hunter-gatherer life as paradise" and "agriculture as the obvious higher stage of civilizational progress" are probably done for, any other attempt at evaluating them against each other is largely pointless, the two have co-existed in a constant state of flux for most of their [edit: err... agriculture's] history, which probably means that, across all history, it averages to each being equally bad as the other (but for different reasons and with populations stating their current preferences with their legs and other means of mobility).
Hard to get statistics, and we all know how unreliable impressions are.
And I've heard that women were much more like than men to want to live in civilization, because a man's benefits from civilization (a gun) were more portable than a woman's (bedrest).
My standard opinion on this is that I'm always confused why people want to treat the lives of hunter-gatherers as some mystery lost in the mists of time when we have an entire continent populated which was populated entirely by hunter-gatherers until 1788, of whom we have decent anthropological records. Unlike the hunter-gatherers of other continents, who in historical times have lived mostly in marginal lands because agriculturalists pushed them out of the good bits, the Australian Aborigines occupied all sorts of biomes from rainforest through productive temperate regions to desert.
Certainly life for them was not edenic, though it was not necessarily pure misery either. One problem with judging these lifestyles is that they presumably underwent predator-prey cycles with their main food sources; life might be good for many years when food was plentiful, and then awful for many years as it becomes scarce.
Another thing I think is that when people say things like "Oh, the hunter-gatherers were much better off, it's just that agriculturalists could out-breed and outnumber them", they're not giving enough thought to the exact mechanism (frequent starvation) by which hunter-gatherer populations were capped, and how much misery that would entail.
There is an observer problem. Hunter-gatherers didn't keep records, so the records we have passed down from agriculturalists that encountered them. But these very encounters usually end up changing the nature of both societies themselves.
Right, but in Australia we had a population of very developed, literate agriculturalists who were in a position and often of the inclination to set down good records from the earliest stages of the interaction.
Among other things, he has explained in some detail how agrarian peasants individually and collectively worked to mitigate the risk of e.g. crop failure, rather than maximizing growth whenever the circumstances allowed. And how they regulated their fertility to maintain population within the levels that could reliably be supported at minimally respectable levels.
It wasn't perfect, of course; a sufficiently severe crisis could cause famine and starvation. But for the most part, the cap was "well, it doesn't look like there's any more land we can put under cultivation - OK, Junior, you're not getting married until you're 25" rather than "oops, one baby too many, so someone starves".
It has been proposed that primitive people lived not in a Malthusian state but in a pre-Malthusian state,
That is, the population was capped not by the food supply but by war. In particular, war over women. The anthropology of Yanomano people has been a strong factor in this idea.
"I'm always confused why people want to treat the lives of hunter-gatherers as some mystery lost in the mists of time when we have an entire continent populated which was populated entirely by hunter-gatherers until 1788"
Good point that historical hunter gathers had better live than the ones that survived into modern times.
But even historical hunter gatherers lived in a time after population growth had started pushing against the environments' carrying capacity, and after the mega fauna had been driven extinct. Which meant they needed to really on more marginal food sources and fight wars over gathering spots and hunting grounds. A lot of historical hunter-gather groups had already move onto subsisting off things like storing gathered acorns and other labour intensive foods that are in a grey area between gathering and farming.
Being at the Malthusian limit might also have meant their social norms were more influenced by cultural selection, and the social norms that get selected optimising for survival will be more oppressive than ones that develop in a more relaxed environment of plenty.
The native Americans in somewhere like California in 1788 probably had much worse lives than the first ever native Americans to reach California thousands of years ago when there would have been abundant large game and no one else there to compete for it.
Depends on the era. The reports of the eastern seaboard were of abounding food for the very simple reason that the ecosystem had yet to adjust to the loss of so many apex predators. (Fishermen from Europe traded with tribes, brought along a few diseases by accident. . . .)
Does it matter if hunter-gatherer societies are "better" when they'll inevitably get conquered and/or wiped out by civilized societies? Societies do not exist in a vacuum.
If it's the lifestyle we are adapted to, that is useful information. Even if the lifestyle isn't coming back, something like it can survive in art and culture, or just having realistic expectations about how happy we should be as wage slaves.
> If it's the lifestyle we are adapted to, that is useful information.
Is it? The word "adapted" doesn't carry in biology the connotations it does in ordinary English. The fact that enough of your kids survive to reproductive age that your tribe does not die out tells you little about actually useful things like your longevity or quality of life.
I'm talking about things like the effect woodland environments have on our senses. We don't have to live in the woods but it's worth taking that basic wiring into account when we're talking about balancing conservation and development.
What is the environment in which our biology rewards us with endorphins when we are present within it? What activities, what number of people? It is possible to build and preserve natural enclaves within an unnatural civilization. Many such parks
My thoughts as well. As soon as people figured out you could sustain a large population with intensive agriculture, the most obvious advantage was they could better defend themselves against(or conquer) rivals. So everyone either upgraded, got rolled over, or flew under the radar (but still got found eventually).
There are other advantages too. Modern medicine that can only be achieved in an industrial society saves people who would either die at birth, live as helpless cripples unable to contribute, or be terminated before they became a burden. Modern society also makes it easier for those are not as able as others to handle wilderness survival skills to contribute to the community. More knowledge and technology means more roles to fill.
There was a time during the early settling of North America where European settlers would "go native" and make themselves at home among the various tribes. But eventually the reverse started happening, especially with Native American women marrying white men and integrating into "modern" society. Nowadays it's extremely rare to find a pre-industrial society that doesn't rely on modern institutions at least as a fallback. The Amish visit modern doctors and rely on modern police and military for protection, and it's my understanding most of the hunter-gatherer and low-tech pastoral societies still remaining have people who go into the city for supplies or for permanent relocation.
I learned two things as a parent. One: we are much better off with things like dentistry, vaccinations, antibiotics, sunscreen, car seats, disposable nappies. Two: - to a child, these things suck ass. Grown ups are just children who have got used to it, but brushing your teeth sucks ass, getting vaccinated sucks ass, putting on suncream sucks ass. Owning this doesn't mean you have to RETVRN, it does mean realising there is likely going to be a psychological downside if we're doing things that suck ass all day, so let's organise our lives and other people's to allow for some slightly less curated forms of reality - while we're doing Abundance, let's try and keep some wilderness, for example.
I have a notion that sedentary children might at least partly be those who have accommodated to being strapped down. Instead of increasing their desire to run around, they've given up on it.
I'm not going to say this applies to all children-- I've got some pre-seatbelt memories of my mother putting her arm in front of me for sudden stops, and I was fairly sedentary.
Yes, not only was there no seat belt, I was a little kid in the front seat.
I remember a therapist talking about the "free child" and the "adapted child" within us. Whether it's seat belts or anything else kids adapt to short term rewards for being seen and not heard, and that's good because it's a useful life skill, but frustrating and we all need a space where we can feel free.
I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like change, so I'm already a tough sell on using AI. I'm fine doing things the way I always have, thank you very much. So if you're going to sell us curmudgeonly types on using AI we're going to have to experience it as providing something better than what we currently got. The trouble is, every single time I have come to AI with a problem it has failed me. Worse than failed me, it is has been anti-helpful.
Now notably I have only come to AI with a problem two times. Both times I was trying to find a specific quote and source, and my usual Google-fu methods failed me. People say AI is great for doing research and finding things, so I went to Chat GPT to see if it could help me.
The first time (about a year ago) I could vaguely remember a C. S. Lewis quote, but not the exact words or where the quote was from exactly. I remembered the content of the quote though, as in what he was talking about and what his opinion was on it. Googling got me nowhere, with most of the results pointing to a quote on a similar topic, but not the one I was looking for. So I went to Chat GPT, wrote out in as much detail as I could what I was looking for, and Chat GPT confidently pointed me to the exact wrong Lewis essay that Google had tried to send me to. Just to be sure I read through the essay, and confirmed the quote I was looking for was not there. Frustrated, I kept picking away at the problem and flipping through C. S. Lewis essay collections until I finally found it.
Experience one, not good. Chat GPT no better than Google.
The second time was last month, and was a similar situation. I vaguely remembered a quote from a Discworld book, but Googling around I couldn't find it. I could remember what the quote was about, I was pretty sure which character was saying it, and I was pretty sure it was in one of two books ("Going Postal" or "Making Money"). After a half hour of failing to find it, I decided to give Chat GPT one more chance. I gave it the details I knew and asked if it could find the quote.
Chat GPT confidently responded that the quote I was looking for was from the book "Going Postal", and then it provided the quote in full. When I read the quote I thought "Well, it sounds like Pratchett's writing (not his best writing, but then again he wasn't always at his best). But is that a real quote, or did Chat GPT just make it up?" I asked if it could provide a page number so I could check, and Chat GPT replied that the book has not been digitized so it doesn't know the exact page number. That rang further alarm bells: if the book hasn't been digitized, how does Chat GPT know the quote?
This put me in a pickle. I was looking for the quote so I could quote it in an online discussion, but if it was a fake quote I'd look like a fool. I decided to put Chat GPT to the test and reread "Going Postal" to see if the quote was there. To cut to the chase: the quote was not there. I decided to re-read "Making Money" as well (because they're fun books to read) and there I found the actual quote I was looking for, which was not at all what Chat GPT provided. Chat GPT had generated the quote from whole cloth, and I would indeed have looked like an idiot if I had quoted it.
Now I admit that my use case is perhaps not typical. Maybe Chat GPT should come with a big disclaimer saying "Don't ask it about quotes, it will probably just make one up!" Nevertheless, the two times I actually needed something and decided to see if AI could help I was not only not provided with the answers I needed, I was provided with false answers. Until this is sorted out (which I don't have high confidence is possible) I'm going to continue to stay away from AI.
I just asked ChatGPT for the name of the most recently created monarchy, and it responded with Antigua and Barbuda (1981). However, in its own "miscellaneous data" section, it mentioned Saint Kitts and Nevis (1983)! Confident and self-contradictory is an amazing combination.
Do you know the difference between deep research, ChatGPT agent and GPT5-thinking web search, perplexity research, gemini deep research, clause web search?
Yeah AI is useful for me with procratination/adhd issues because it lowers the activation energy to get started on various tasks/ projects. I procrastinate especially on ambiguous tasks because I'm overwhelmed on how to start. AI is useful for giving a starting point. Now the starting point might completely off-base but that's enough to get my gears going.
Also it's been very useful in my job search process (still on going). It's a great study/prep companion, great also to prepare questions and guides. In the past, it was overwhelming flying blind, now it is not so daunting.
AI is great as a personal/ideation assistant, less so if I need accurate information.
Similar irritating experience when asking AI for song lyrics that I knew started with a certain line. It confidently said - Here they are! However, they were not right and after probing it eventually admitted that they were completely made up but "in the style" of the artist. Jeez Louise - just tell me you don't know!
I strongly agree with your experience. I find that most AIs that I have access to have an error rate of in excess of 50%.
I have been confidently told to go and consult with experts in specialist fields who are dead, feed frankly poisonous items to pets, invest in items that don't exist, and follow medical advice that was manifestly incorrect.
It doesn't really matter what it is in relation to; a seriously unacceptable error rate remains.
I'm frankly staggered that industry is prepared to integrate such flawed technology so rapidly.
In general, just avoid asking LLMs about quotes from books unless the book is incredibly well known. Likewise, avoid asking it for specific details from lesser known movies, games, etc. They aren't in its training set. It'll know a bit about them from synopses and reviews on the internet that made it into its training data, but it doesn't have the full text.
Even when it does have the full text in its training data, it still probably couldn't locate a quote. LLMs have to encounter information hundreds of times to learn it. A single instance isn't enough.
If it's something like Shakespeare's Macbeth, or The Catcher in the Rye, then it's probably seen it enough during training to identify specific passages.
LLMs are not good at memorizing corpuses of text precisely. They're good at distilling the gist of them and learning general patterns.
The best way to get an LLM to hallucinate is to ask it about something it has heard of, but has seen only a few times during training. If you ask it about something it never saw, it'll usually say it hasn't heard of it. If you ask it about something it's seen a lot, it'll usually give the right answer. But something it just barely knows about is the sweet spot for hallucinations.
This is exactly right. Basically, it wasn’t trained on full texts but instead was trained on (and can find via internet) a shit-load of reactions to the full texts. So it will kinda think it knows about the topic at hand—and since it’s job is to generalize from what it knows to answer questions—it will usually reason to an answer. This answer usually ends up being a hallucination.
So basically, don’t ask it specifics about texts. For basically *anything* else, they are really good. Just as one with a lot of knowledge on mechanical engineering can reason to the required suction pressure for a certain pump, an LLM can do the same. However, a person with a lot of context about a certain author can’t reason to an exact answer about what happened in a text unless they’ve read it or read directly about it. Same for an LLM.
There's a lot I hate about AI. However, I find I am using it more and more, mostly to answer questions about practical matters of the kind I used to investigate via googling. I get way better answers way faster using GPT. Most answers I actually follow up on, and so far I have not found that any of them involved hallucinations or errors. Anyhow, thought I'd put up a list of my last 10 or questions to GPT for you to see. I was quite satisfied with the results of all of them.
-I know someone who has trouble reading complex graphs. Can you help her? I have loaded an example of a graph. But I don't think you can "see." Here is the URL it came from: https://gurufrequent.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/stacked_bar_chart.jpg. Anyhow, my question is whether it will work for her to use you as a graph-explainer, or whether you could not do that because the thing that's giving her trouble is an image.
-Please give a concise explanation of spaced repetitive learning. Also give advice on how someone can use it to learn the chemical sturcture of a bunch of amino acids.
-It is possible to buy from online sellers of "research chemicals" the peptides that are the main active ingredient in Wegovy and Zepbound. But someone told me recently that a lot of the challenge of developing these drugs was finding a way to keep them available and active in the body for a long period of time. If used in their pure form, they do their job of altering things in the body to reduce food cravings, but disappear from the blood stream in a few hours. If using the pure drug, one would have self-inject the stuff every few hours. So the pharmaceutical companies that developed and sell these medications found ways to make them hang around in the system way longer. This involves somehow attaching the peptide to other big molecules. That results in a slow release of the actual peptides into the blood, and makes it possible to take just a weekly dose of the drug. Is this accurate? If so, does it make sense to buy the peptides, mix them with bacteriostatic water and inject them? Seems like that would only work if (1) the person who told me the pure peptides only stay available for a few hours is wrong or (2) the sellers of these drugs as research chemicals are selling them in a form where they are already attached to one of the big molecules that slow down how quickly they become available to the body.
-Mac OS: i have a folder on my desktop with multiple Pages documents. I would like to keep it open. However, every time I open my calendar app the folder automatically closes. Is there a way to keep it open?
-A bunch of studies found that tylenol during pregnancy increases the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders. Can you please look for a meta-analysis in a peer-reviewed journal that gives an estimated effect size for the risk? I am most interested in the risk of autism, but will settle for the risk of all neurodevelopmental disorders if that's all you can find,
-I am creating a character on the OpenArt site. So I am supposed to upload 4+ photos. I would like information about what makes a photo optimal, and what a set of photos should include..(a) is it useful to remove the original background and show the character on a plain white background? (b) Face shots vs full body shots: The face of my character is the really distinctive thing. Her body is a generic slim young female one. But I will be wanting to show the full body of the character in images I make, so the system needs to learn "slim young female" for any images that show her body. Given that proportion of the images I upload should be just the face, what proportion face plus body. (c) Angles: I have shots of the face from many angles, but not every one I might want later to make an image of. For instance I do not have one where character's face is seen from below. does that matter? (d) Facial expression: I have images of some fairly neutral expressions, of a slight smile, of thoughtful concentration, but that's all. No shots of anger, sadness, surprise, etc. I will want to make images showing these other emotions. Is that a problem? (e) How important is photo size, in pixels?
-I heard something today about brown fat in the human body. Somebody tried gathering a bunch of someone’s brown fat via liposuction, then injecting it in places that surrounded a cancerous tumor in the person’s body. Then they somehow ordered the brown fat to engage in rapid angiogenesis, and it did, and it was better at doing it than the tumor was, and the tumor was starved for blood and died. So this is what I remember of a casual description by someone interested but perhaps misinformed. Please only search juries journals and high quality magazines for smart laymen for info. I want an accurate Summary of whether this technique Works, what its limitations are, and whether it is being tried in real patients in clinical trials.
-I know somebody who wrote the software that underpins a business in Coda, and now has the job of switching all of it over to Elixir. He knows nothing about Elixir, and does not have broad knowledge of coding in various languages. What exists to assist him in the transition to Elixir? It could be consultants who specialize in assisting with this, books, courses, youtube videos.
-I need the name of a women's crisis center near san francisco where someone speaks mandarin
Asking an LLM is like torturing their training set for information. It can give you answers that are hard to find otherwise, but it also tends to be unreliable because it's apt to confess to whatever it thinks you want to hear. As with torture, it's best used for the sorts of questions where a purported answer is easy to falsify, and any answers you get from it should be viewed with a healthy measure of skepticism.
One of the few times I've used an LLM in earnest and gotten a useful answer was when my wife was talking about a book she dimly remembered liking and reading as a child. I gave ChatGPT the following description based on the bits and pieces she remembered:
>I am trying to find the title of a particular fantasy novel, probably written in or around the 1980s. The protagonist is a blond woman. The plot involves her being held captive by desert nomads with golden eyes. She has to pass some kind of tests or trials, one of which involves taking sashes from opponents.
ChatGPT proposed two books "The Blue Sword" by Robin McKinley and "The Golden Sword' by Janet Morris. My wife recognized the title and cover of The Blue Sword as well as plot elements I found in some online reviews and synopses. Several major details in ChatGPT's answer were hallucinated, but the top-line answer (which was the important part) was correct.
LLMs are a very weird tool, in that they are not made to solve a specific problem. As far as I can tell, the only way to find them useful for anything is to play around with them long enough to find out what they are and are not good for. If you come in with a specific problem you want to solve, you're almost certainly going to be disappointed. They seem to be kind of a solution in search of a problem.
Ouch! I sympathize. One scenario that I find LLMs consistently useful for is when I don't know the specific name for something (physical law, theorem, physical model) but can describe it and want the name. ChatGPT and Gemini are typically able to find it.
The other case is on a par with a Google search: If I'm looking for an incident or a fact/statistic that I strongly expect to be visible on some web page, but I'm not sure how it is likely to be phrased, LLMs are pretty good at doing the equivalent of searching all the alternate phrasings in one search.
Does anyone (Scott?) have credible knowledge about the validity of claims that SSRI's, taken during puberty, may stunt growth? Someone in my life has developed an unhealthy obsession with this data such as it is (done their own research, read some papers, blogs, reddit etc).
About questions like this I go to GPT and ask it to research the question, specifying that it only search research studies in juried journals. Its answers include links to its sources, so I click through to the studies whose results seem most directly relevant. So far I have not caught the AI hallucinating or giving inaccurate summaries.
But wanted to add this: I am a psychologist, so do not prescribe drugs but have seen many people
who take SSRIs, and know many MD’s who prescribe them. It is not at all uncommon for kids and teenagers to be put in an SSRI. I have never heard a single word about SSRI’s stunting growth, not from doctors, not from patients, not from people
whose kids take an SSRI, not on Twitter, not in the press. These drugs have been prescribed for around 30 years. If they stunted growth the word would be out.
Yes, but it seems to affect young males less than it does middle-aged or older ones. What young guys typically say is that on an SSRI they masturbate somewhat less and take longer to climax. The guys who have told me this are in their 20s and 30s. I have not talked about this issue with teenage guys. And women are vaguer on the subject, but do say that SSRIs reduce their sex interest and make it harder to have an orgasm.
Pretty bad propaganda campaign in Britain right now.
Graham Linehan called for trans women to be violently physically assaulted in spaces such as bathrooms (offering the excuse that trans women's existence in those spaces is itself violent and therefore assaulting them must be self-defense).[1] Metropolitan police therefore arrested him on suspicion of incitement to violence when he landed in London. After being arrested, he now claims it was a "joke"; regardless, police were clear that suspected incitement to violence was the reason for arrest.
Yet headlines and subheadings in UK newspapers like The Times and The Telegraph, across plural articles per outlet, are consistently leaving out suspected incitement to violence, instead implying he was arrested for "gender-critical" "tweets" and "jokes," that the police are "in thrall to the trans lobby" wasting time "policing a toxic culture war" due to "the trans lobby's crackdown on language," etc. Although the articles themselves do usually quote the inciting tweet, they're paywalled and casual readers only see the headlines.[2]
The clear purpose of the propaganda, behind all these articles but made especially explicit in one of them, is to manufacture a narrative that "trans ideology is a threat to us all" because "those in positions of power and influence are still marching to trans activism’s tune."[3] I.e., to punish trans people, by inflaming anti-trans hostility, for the sin of having the same protections against incitement to violence as everyone else under standard existing UK law.
(Note: this story has nothing to do with whether you think UK law in general should be more like US law, where the violence would also have to be "imminent." If you think that, fine. But there's zero reason to pick this moment now specifically as the hook, unless you just hate trans people. Unfortunately this is something I've seen, e.g. Steven Pinker, who also pretended Linenan's arrest was about "speech that offends someone somewhere" and not about incitement to violence.[4])
[1] The call for physical violence: https://x.com/Glinner/status/1913850667229184008. Linehan was a skilled comedy-show writer before throwing it all away to be an anti-trans activist. It's a shame since I found The IT Crowd, Father Ted, and Black Books funny. Though in retrospect The IT Crowd did also have one "joke" where the punchline is that ha ha this trans woman must have been so stupid to think she was accepted, so I guess the signs were always there.
"Graham Linehan called for trans women to be violently physically assaulted in spaces such as bathrooms (offering the excuse that trans women's existence in those spaces is itself violent and therefore assaulting them must be self-defense)"
And the only reason you know about this, the only reason any of us here know that he said this. is because the Metropolitan Police had him arrested. Does His Majesty's Government have the slightest understanding of the Streisand Effect?
The preference cascade you all are going to go through over this, is going to rival Brexit in the eyes of the dumbstruck elite trying to figure out how that happened. I don't know where the line will be drawn, or even in what direction, but it's going to be fun to watch and laugh from a safe distance.
Yeah, I get why this is dangerous. You worry if the "scapegoat politicians rant about to avoid doing anything" is changing to be trans people due to wokeness overstepping, and they are seriously vulnerable.
TBH "good fences make good neighbors" is what we need now, and lot less punditry. It'd have been better if the left had not played the lgbt card as hard as it did, because asking too much backfires, but going too far in the other way sucks too.
Would it satisfy you if the headlines were something like "Graham Linehan arrested, accused of incitement to violence"? Your theory seems to be that the headline choices were fueled by anti-trans hostility, which is plausible, but it seems like there are many other potential reasons the editors in question put it differently.
Perhaps they disagree with the laws, and this is part of a long game to undercut them. That would still be propaganda, in a sense, but not the thing you want to pin on them.
Maybe they're calling bullshit on the arrest because they sincerely disagree that a conditional statement is incitement at all.
Maybe they're serving some other purpose entirely? It looks like you could make a fair case that the Times is doing PR for the Met Police commissioner:
> Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Met Police, has admitted that officers should not be “policing toxic culture war debates” after the arrest of the Father Ted creator Graham Linehan over gender-critical tweets.
> Rowley said successive governments had left police “between a rock and a hard place” and that officers were given no choice but to investigate Linehan’s tweets as a crime.
In our world of attentional scarcity, headlines hit more eyeballs than the rest of the newspaper, and I relate to being extremely irritated by their distortions and omissions. But you're going to live or die on how well you make your case that "arrested for inciting violence" deserves top billing, and whether your theory of motive is persuasive.
>Would it satisfy you if the headlines were something like "Graham Linehan arrested, accused of incitement to violence"?
Yes. That would be honest.
>Your theory seems to be that the headline choices were fueled by anti-trans hostility, which is plausible, but
First, the consistency proves it; this is across multiple headlines, social media posts, etc. Second, the UK establishment in recent years has become consistently hostile to trans people, so this new instance isn't surprising. Third, e.g. in the case of The Times, they have an editorial, reflecting the views of the editorial board, which explicitly describes trans women as "biological males invading [women's] spaces" (https://archive.is/RIQKY) and so on; one of The Telegraph pieces I already quoted as framing the story as "trans ideology is a threat to us all."
>which explicitly describes trans women as "biological males invading [women's] spaces" (https://archive.is/RIQKY) and so on; one of The Telegraph pieces I already quoted as framing the story as "trans ideology is a threat to us all."
Some women want their own spaces without trans people. If you want to deny them that don't act surprised when they make you their enemy.
In the context of my reply to Deadpan, we've already established that the UK newspaper headlines were deliberately schemingly dishonest about the facts; now we're establishing motive.
Re: your more specific suggestions re: the Met police chief:
Nah, that's at most secondary to the anti-trans hostility ("he's willing to apologize for protecting trans people's rights, so we'll give him a second chance"). There's not even any PR to need doing, *except* insofar as they're inflaming anger about him enforcing the law. (Also the Met chief headline was an afterthought, the initial headline for that article was a quote from health secretary Wes Streeting instead, the guy who banned puberty blockers: https://archive.is/yIAS8.)
I will add, though, that there might be overlap with anti-migrant hostility. The cops also arrest people for inciting violence against migrants (e.g., Lucy Connolly said to "set fire to all the hotels full of the fucking [asylum-seekers] for all I care") and the far-right is using these together as their examples of the woke left policing speech (not because they actually care about free speech, ofc, but because they specifically want people to keep inciting violence against migrants). These narratives overlap and it's plausible that these newspapers might also treat them as complementary.
Keyword "the woke left" (here), "the trans lobby" (earlier). As I've repeatedly made clear, including in the original comment, this discussion is *not about* comparing legal systems' standards of incitement to violence. It's about the media deliberately misleading readers about what happened, to pretend enforcement of standard UK law = trans people (and maybe asylum seekers) ruining the UK.
I think you have more in common with Linehan than you might think. Both of you use inflammatory language and jump to wildly uncharitable conclusions about the mental state of those you argue with. Neither of you ought to be arrested for it, but both of you are very annoying in the same kind of way.
I'm aware that my snarky replies to bad faith, and Linehan's call to violently physically assault trans people in bathrooms, can both be described as "inflammatory language."
I find it odd to be equally annoyed by sarcasm and by open calls to violently physically assault trans people in bathrooms (though you also shouldn't be arrested for oddity).
Graham Linehan is not in this comment section, you are. And you are not responding to him, you are responding to the good people of the ACX commentariat. Just because Graham Linehan is an asshat doesn't mean you get to be one too (and that it doesn't really count since you're not transphobic).
Oh, how the wheel turns. The heroes of social liberation of yore, who triumphed over the likes of me and other social conservatives, are now on the bottom of Fortune's rotation as liberalisation moves on, the Overton Window shifts, and now they are the bad thinkers full of the evil of the past.
Once upon a time, David, Graham Linehan was feted (in my small green island nation) by the right-thinking and liberal as a bastion of all good socially progressive values, standing up to mock the sacred cows of the Catholic Church and conservative Irish society, two fingers up to the social conservative likes of me who retained some at least of the old values and didn't think Dev's speech about the comely maidens at the crossroads was risible or sexist or the other accusations made at it. Hopelessly idealistic and based on an idealised lifestyle that never was, but well-intentioned (think of it in anti-gentrification terms of today).
He achieved the ultimate accolade of the wannabe Irish chattering classes in the arts (I use the term very loosely) of fecking off to London and making it (semi-)big there.
But now cometh the dawn of an even more socially liberal and progressive credo from even more impeccably right-thinking types, and Linehan and his ilk are now fossils, as mired in the muck of the bad old mindsets as, well, the dinosaur social conservatives like myself (Andrew Sullivan gets into the same trouble for the same reasons of not being sufficiently enthusiastic for the New Thing).
I must admit to a degree of Schadenfreude here. Indeed, the wheel of Fortune turns and the king today is the beggar tomorrow.
And then you come steaming in here with the most provocative take on what is happening to Linehan possible, clearly with the viewpoint and mindset that there is Only One Permissible Right Way To React, and I have to ask: what did you expect to happen? Did you really think this would be an echo chamber of "indeed, how appalling!"
Yes, but just like the articles aren't actually about the laws themselves, your post isn't about clickbait. Otherwise, why does this suddenly cross the line for you, when the media has been dishonest for its entire existence? No, this is about whether trans people are deserving of protection by society. So please, don't be surprised by such a cold reception.
I think we would all be better off if you stopped beating around the bush and just started the thread with "should the state protect trans people from transphobia and associated threats of violence?" We could have a much shorter and succinct discussion, though I doubt it'll be any more productive...
"Graham Linehan wants to use brutal physical violence against poor harmless little cowering timorous beasties of transwomen! The newspapers are covering it in a neutral manner, this is propaganda! Fight fight fight!"
That is the substance of your original comment, so far as I can see.
"He is better remembered for the language of his speeches than for his politics – they were riddled with mixed metaphors ("Mr Speaker, I smell a rat; I see him forming in the air and darkening the sky; but I'll nip him in the bud"), malapropisms and other unfortunate turns of phrase ("Why we should put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity, for what has posterity ever done for us?"). Roche may have been Richard Brinsley Sheridan's model for Mrs Malaprop. While arguing for a bill, Roche once said, "It would surely be better, Mr. Speaker, to give up not only a part, but, if necessary, even the whole, of our constitution, to preserve the remainder!"
The actual tweet was: ""If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."[
That is a lot more conditional than how you framed it. Are we SURE that that is normally prosecutable under UK law? It might be, since UK law (and most non-US law) is terrible on "incitement," but are we sure?
Yes, advocating physical violence against trans women in bathrooms is enough under UK law is enough to be "suspicion of inciting violence."
And yes, I'm sure that was the reason for arrest, because the cops explicitly said suspicion of inciting violence was the reason for arrest.
We'll see if it goes to court and who wins. My comment isn't a prediction market. My comment is about UK newspaper headlines deliberately misleading readers about what happened, out of malice towards trans people.
>Yes, advocating physical violence against trans women in bathrooms is enough under UK law is enough to be "suspicion of inciting violence."
That isn't my question. My question is whether the highly conditional statement at issue constitutes advocating physical violence under UK law, and even if so, whether the police regularly arrest people for such conditional statements.
>And yes, I'm sure that was the reason for arrest,
I guess one question is about whether this kind of attenuated version of incitement of violence ought to be illegal. I'll be the normal human here and think my society's rules wrt this stuff are the best, but I think in the US, to get arrested for incitement things have to be a lot more immediate--less "who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" and more "there the f--ker is now, let's get him!"
The other question is how much the enforcement is neutral within the rules vs how much it ends up being enforced harder on beliefs the local authorities dislike than ones they like. For example, if a transwoman in the UK tweeted back that she hoped someone punched Lineham in the balls, would that also be likely to get her arrested?
I'm relaxed about the UK maintaining the longstanding view that public speech is a potential public order offence, a principle supported by Edmund Burke. However the thing about the Internet is you can say the first dumb thing that comes into your head from the comfort of your living room. I wouldn't want a wild west but e.g a cooling off period where you can retract your tweet without prosecution seems reasonable.
(clarifying again that my comment isn't discussing a comparison of legal systems, my comment is discussing the UK newspapers' headlines misreading readers about what happened out of malice towards trans people)
What's your solution? There's no political consensus to implement the Leveson report. We have the press we have. I'm okay with Linehan being arrested for a public order offense, but these activists are no angels either, I can't feel too sorry for them. I suggest trans folk play a long game similar to the very effective long game played by the gay community over the decades. Build up social capital first, then go after your enemies. The other way round doesn’t work.
"Don't write headlines the way I want them to be written" = "scheming liars and dishonest propaganda".
Headlines are meant to be attention-grabbing and stupid, while the argument (if any) is made in the body of the article. I wouldn't judge coverage of anything in general by the headlines.
1. make people aware of what's happening, so the propaganda campaign doesn't work. That's what I'm doing here now.
2. for UK newspapers, there are complaint mechanisms e.g. The Times and The Telegraph are both covered by IPSO. Anyone can file a complaint if the issue is accuracy [e.g. I can't request an apology since the headlines aren't about me, but I can request correction]. I did file, we'll see if anything comes of it.)
Otherwise I'm not going to try to go into "what trans people should do" in the face of this coordinated attempt to destroy trans people's social capital.
I'm not trans and neither are you. My job isn't to criticize trans people under the guise of pretending to strategize. My job is to call out the dishonest propaganda when I notice it.
Seems it's just people making their voice heard, no? If the people want a society where trans people are not tolerated, then that's what they'll get. The liberal elite can't go against the tide forever.
I am curious though, what are the UK people's thoughts on the speech laws themselves? Because the situation changes a lot depending on whether the people think the laws are completely bad or this was simply a misapplication. More specifically, would they advocate for the rights of a Muslim man advocating for violence against whites? If not, then the conflict is over what morality is enforced, not the enforcement itself.
Morality has nothing to do with it. Our unwritten constitution spasms against any group displaying strong passions, whether for good or evil. Do you mind?? We're having tea
>Seems it's just people making their voice heard, no?
That's a weird way to spell "openly calling for physical violence against trans people."
>The liberal elite can't go against the tide forever.
This isn't "the tide." This is the media elite deliberately misleading the public about what happened, to deliberately try to manipulate public opinion.
Are you ignoring the facts (Linehan called for violence and was arrested on suspicion of incitement to violence, and headlines demonstrably deliberately misled readers about it) to say "haha gotcha, that true accusation sounds like another accusation that may or may not have been true (I'm vagueposting)"
I think phrases like "that's a weird way to spell" are bad faith and fall below the threshold of good faith conversation typically maintained in this comment section. We can have disagreements about whether Linehan's speech is arrest-worthy without resorting to twitter-level digs.
You're correct that I don't think Jim made his statement in good faith, hence my sarcasm.
(Obviously calling to violently physical assault trans people isn't just "people making their voices heard" in the relevant UK legal sense; and also obviously neither is a deliberate media-headline campaign to mislead people about it. And I think Jim knows this.)
You're acting like these papers aren't businesses. If there was no demand for the truth they were peddling, it wouldn't be sustainable to distribute it. But there is. Even the rabble wouldn't blindly believe that trans people were the root of the sickness unless there was a reason for them to want to believe it. The right is simply winning in the marketplace of ideas against the left.
Is it fair that only the ruling party gets to push propaganda? If people wanted to hear what liberals had to say, they would take it as gospel. But it seems that this is the truth people want. Your outrage is falling on deaf ears.
I guess the real question is about the actual enforcement of these laws. Like if they actually do go out and arrest everyone who makes about the same level of comment with regard to violence, then I think your point is valid.
But if this is a discretionary application of these laws which is outside of how it is normally enforced I could see where the anger is coming from on the other side.
Ultimately it seems like everyone might just be mad about unequal application of these laws without anyone really providing insight on the basic question of how they are normally applied.
I find it unlikely that it's discretionary application outside how it's usually enforced, given that the Met chief is publicly bending over backwards to say "I'm sorry, I don't like protecting trans people from incitement to violence, I wish I didn't have to but the law forced me to" (paraphrased)
Sorry, but the American legal position is just better. I guess you can be mad that this specific event is when the UK media finally realized this, but like, you can't really have free and open political discussion without the ability to advocate for violence in hypothetical situations. That's what politics *is*. It's a collective decision for how to apply (or not to apply) the state's monopoly on violence.
> you can't really have free and open political discussion without the ability to advocate for violence in hypothetical situations. That's what politics *is*. It's a collective decision for how to apply (or not to apply) the state's monopoly on violence.
How does that apply here? Linehan seems to be in trouble for encouraging members of the public to commit assault ("punch them in the balls"), not for anything he said about what the law should be or how the state should enforce it.
"(Note: this story has nothing to do with whether you think UK law in general should be more like US law, where the violence would also have to be 'imminent.' If you think that, fine. But there's zero reason to pick this moment now specifically as the hook, unless you just hate trans people. Unfortunately this is something I've seen, e.g. Steven Pinker, who also pretended Linenan's arrest was about 'speech that offends someone somewhere' and not about incitement to violence.[4])"
Again: this isn't about "when the UK media finally realized this." It's about the UK media going on a deliberate propaganda campaign to mislead readers, in order to deliberately inflame hostility towards trans people, out of deliberate malice towards trans people.
Under what circumstances, in your view, is it acceptable to argue for broad free speech protections, if not in a situation where someone is arrested for speech that would have been protected under a better legal regime?
If you want people to believe you that you're really just being principled, you could start by 1. making your own thread (instead of trying to hijack and deflect a thread about media's deliberate dishonesty out of malice towards trans people), and 2. if you include the arrest, at least be honest about what happened (that's how you can tell Pinker isn't sincere, he also tried to pretend it was just for "speech that offends someone somewhere")
(Tbh I don't even believe that they "finally realized this." If they had, they would have made their argument sincerely instead of deliberately misleading readers. It's just rhetoric, a tool of attack.)
You think it's propaganda to not smear him by including the state's trumped-up charges? Would you say the same about when people writing about, say, Navalny being imprisoned in Russia, left out that he was convicted of … terrorism, I think?
> You think it's propaganda to not smear him by including the state's trumped-up charges?
While my sympathies are with Linehan on this one, I do think that if you're going to report on someone being arrested or charged then yes, you definitely should mention what they were arrested or charged for, that's just basic context.
They DO mention what he was arrested for: his tweets. Beyond the possible sentence, the precise nature of the charges are either a curiosity or a distraction: the reasons most modern states go through the charade of making up charges and giving their targets trials instead of simply sentencing them might be of some historical interest, but I disagree that it's really relevant context.
The headlines deliberately left out the actual and official reason for arrest (suspicion of incitement to violence), and deliberately, falsely, made it sound like this was just about offense.
"Suck my dick" has a long, well-known history as a metaphorical taunt.
Offering an explicit justification for why it must be self-defence to assault trans women in bathrooms, before suggesting people assault trans women in bathrooms—and then doubling down again on his justification for assaulting trans women in bathrooms ("Women have a right to defend themselves from strange men in their spaces")—isn't a metaphor.
I'm a fan of the US's stance on this where the line for incitement is a lot higher. I do not find the arrest to be at all justifiable and arguments in support of it strike me as nakedly Orwellian. I think the UK is on an _extremely_ bad path. Note that the US also has it's fair share of free speech problems right now, but acknowledging that fact does not in any way prevent me from also pointing out places that are even worse.
Free speech is _the_ bedrock of a liberal society and whenever it is undermined, liberal society more broadly is also damaged.
"(Note: this story has nothing to do with whether you think UK law in general should be more like US law, where the violence would also have to be 'imminent.' If you think that, fine. But there's zero reason to pick this moment now specifically as the hook, unless you just hate trans people. Unfortunately this is something I've seen, e.g. Steven Pinker, who also pretended Linenan's arrest was about 'speech that offends someone somewhere' and not about incitement to violence.[4])"
-edit- I had an entire long wall of text posted and decided it's probably not worth the time, so I deleted it. This is an open thread, and this whole thing is way too culture war. I'm surprised it hasn't been nuked yet. Suffice it to say: I'm deeply concerned about the UK. I'm curious (rhetorically; no need to actually answer) if you are as supportive of 80 year old women getting arrested for expressing support for supposed "terrorist" organizations.
I thought it was still banned in open threads and only allowed in the hidden threads. But even if it's not banned anymore, I am trying to get better about not engaging in online discussion in those more controversial topics. I think that the medium of text is too signal/context poor to allow for very productive discussion on charged topics. I still have the reflex desire to engage (thus my first comment), but I'm trying to get better about fighting that reflex (thus the deletion of my second comment). I don't really like my current in-between spot since it isn't really fair to the people (like yourself) I'm initially replying to to suddenly just disappear/delete a comment, but I think it's an unfortunate necessity until I finish training myself to just leave the third rails alone.
Assuming you believe in this "core concept of liberal democracies" are you also "deeply worried for the future of," say, Saudi Arabia? You could instead recognize that not all countries or peoples share American values, and most of them do okay, even if you or I would prefer to live somewhere freeër.
Saudi Arabia was never a liberal democracy. I'm not worried about their future; their present is already (from my perspective) bad. If they don't agree, that's fine. But they aren't getting worse, from any perspective (at least not as far as I have heard). Plus, I think it's also totally reasonable to care more about countries that are culturally/historically/etc more closely connected to the US. Both because I just care more about them, and also because their path says more about potential future US paths.
Yep, that's my point: you are mistaken in thinking the UK was ever other than what it from a "freedom of speech/expression" perspective, and you'd be better served thinking of it as a European version of a Gulf Monarchy rather than a posh-accented American state.
I don't believe the path of Britain is particularly informative of the US's future. Sure, there are lessons that may be learnt, and warnings that may be heeded, but that's true of almost anywhere. Though perhaps the lessons are easier to learn if don't need subtitles.
[edit: typed this response to the quoted line from your original reply, before you deleted it]
>I'm not sure why you are posting this
I was very clear why I'm posting this. The reality is that trans people get the same protections against incitement to violence, under standard UK law, as everybody else. The deliberately false propaganda narrative, deliberately manufactured by these newspapers out of malice towards trans people, is that "the police are in thrall to the trans lobby's crackdown on speech."
The way you started off your first comment did sound like you wanted to get a fight going. As others have remarked, the Culture War topics aren't for open threads.
The actual tweet was "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls." So yes, "calling for violence" but violence against someone who's in a space they're not allowed to be and refuses to leave if asked is not necessarily criminal.
Must have missed the part where he constrained his call to violence to pertain only to private property and the owners thereof, can you link to it?
Surely that’s not something you are just trying to shoehorn into the discuss as a fig leaf for someone calling for extrajudicial and wildly disproportionate violence.
My comment already said that he "called for trans women to be violently physically assaulted in spaces such as bathrooms."
All you're adding is the word games he used to justify his call to violence to himself. (Words that, incidentally, make it obvious he wasn't joking; he *really does* think it's acceptable to violently physically assault trans women in bathrooms. As do you, I'm gathering.)
It's called asking if he's actually guilty. "Israel should crush Hamas" is "inciting violence" but it's not illegal incitement to violence because the action being called for isn't illegal.
So to confirm: you aren't joking, you *do* think it's acceptable to call for trans women to be violently physically assaulted in bathrooms.
(In the UK that would be illegal, as Linehan found out. In the US under the First Amendment I think it's legal unless the violence is also "imminent.")
David, you have achieved something greater than world peace, ending poverty, or solving AI values alignment: you have made me agree with Alexander Turok.
Honestly, if you parrot "call for trans women to be violently physically assaulted in bathrooms" one more time, I'll personally go out and look for a trans woman to punch in the face. Or balls, if any.
Your line of attack is too much like the occasional evangelical vegan who pops up and tries "meat is murder and torture and murder and did I say murder and meat eaters are immoral horrible monsters" on here, and keeps repeating "meat murder! torture! rape!" like a broken record no matter what response they get.
Eventually and inevitably they end up getting bad responses.
*If* the owners of the bathrooms make clear they're for biological women only, the trans people are told this, and refuse to leave, yes, I think it's acceptable to call for violence to remove the trespassers.
I think trans people should have the same right, if they don't want Joe Bible Belt on their property, tell him to leave, and he refuses, kick him out.
Punching him in the balls is not kicking him out. I don't consider it acceptable to punch either the trans woman or Joe Bible Belt in the balls for trespassing, because that action is clearly more intended to inflict pain than to remove him from the premises.
He posted a dumb tweet and got arrested for it. I think what makes this moment particularly bad for that is that British police have been found to be conspiring with Pakistani rape gangs to rape (hundreds of?) thousands of British girls over decades, with the indifference or possibly even tacit support of government and media. And the response to people like Tommy Robinson and Katie Holmes who tried to call it out was to come after them with the media and the law. And instead of dealing honestly with the problem now, thousands of people are being arrested every month for sharing posts on social media.
Okay, but whatever bad thing some British police have or have not done seems mostly irrelevant to what Linehan did and whether it made sense to arrest him for it. I mean, the LAPD have sometimes been implicated in beatings and framing people, and yet I still think they should arrest shoplifters and muggers.
> British police have been found to be conspiring with Pakistani rape gangs to rape (hundreds of?) thousands of British girls over decades, with the indifference or possibly even tacit support of government and media
Could you provide a source for this claim?
I am sure there are hundreds of sources, but I have trouble finding trustworthy ones on this topic, since I have little experience with the british news landscape.
Since the claim is so strong, and because you seem very sure if it, I expect the source for your confidence to be extremely convincing.
Jess Phillips has admitted she waited 14 years for action on the grooming gangs. Fourteen years. Her own words. Fourteen years in which she knew Pakistani rape gangs were abusing children. Fourteen years in which she admits she was waiting for “anyone to do anything.”
But
@jessphillips
was not powerless. She was not an ordinary citizen without influence. She was an MP. She was a national campaigner. She is now the Minister for Safeguarding Girls. For 14 years, she knew and she stayed silent.
Worse for the Muslim bloc vote reliant MP from Birmingham. Philips did not just sit back and wait. She actively opposed a national inquiry.
During this time, she defended the very institutions accused of shielding abusers. She worked to protect councils, police forces, and her own party from accountability. She sided with the system. The system that protected the Pakistani Rape Gangs.
Now she claims she was “waiting.”
- Waiting, while children were gang raped.
- Waiting, while survivors were betrayed.
- Waiting, while institutions colluded and
@UKLabour
politicians claimed it was bare faced lies and a far right conspiracy..
Now Phillips has confessed. Why are the opposition not calling for her resignation? Why has no mainstream news outlet run with her admission? Why is her complicity being buried?
Jess Phillips knew. She stayed silent. Her complicity protected the rape gangs. Her legacy is betrayal, and she cannot remain in post.
Forget everything they have told you. The truth is far worse than anything shared so far.
Those in power fear me because of my unprecedented campaigning to expose Britain's most shameful failure: the industrial scale gang rape of the nation's children.
While authorities destroyed evidence, councillors sold children for votes, and community leaders maintained dangerous silences, over 100,000 working-class White girls paid the ultimate price.
The evidence has always been there - scattered across official inquiries, court records, survivor testimonies, and leaked documents. What's been missing is someone willing to piece it together and show you what it really means.
For the first time, I am connecting these fragments into a single, devastating picture. What emerges is not a series of unfortunate failures, but a deliberate system of institutional betrayal whose true scale has been deliberately obscured. The cover-up continues because the reality is too damning to acknowledge.
The Network of Negligence - The senior officers who shredded files, the social workers who ignored screaming children, and the prosecutors who refused to press charges
The Politics of Silence - Which MPs threatened whistleblowers, how Home Office officials buried reports, and why careers mattered more than rape victims
The Bloc Vote Betrayal - The backroom deals that sacrificed girls for electoral advantage, and the community leaders who sold out children for political access
The Feminist Paradox - How women's rights organisations turned their backs on working-class victims while defending the ideology that enabled their abuse
The Reckoning – The prosecutions that should happen, the resignations that must come, and the institutional reforms that could prevent this horror from repeating
Each revelation draws on documented evidence, court testimony, and the voices of those who tried to sound the alarm. This is not speculation or sensationalism - it is the methodical assembly of facts that have been kept deliberately separate to prevent you from seeing the full horror of what was allowed to happen.
The truth has been buried beneath layers of institutional cowardice and political calculation. Survivors and their families have waited long enough. Britain has waited long enough.
By now, we all know, that given the chance,
@Keir_Starmer
's
@UKLabour
will continue the cover up and the National Inquiry go the way as all other previous inquiries. Help stop him. It is long past time that politicians went to prison for what they did.
_________
I am Raja Miah. It is now seven years since I first started to expose how politicians protected the rape gangs.
@UKLabour
leaders tried everything to stop me - they fabricated evidence and used
@gmpolice
to try and maliciously prosecute me. I spent over three years on bail as case after case collapsed in court. My mother died before I could clear my name.
The truth is now undeniable: the Pakistani rape gangs are real, their victims number in the hundreds of thousands, and the cover-up continues.
The National Inquiry we fought for is about to begin. This is our one chance to ensure it isn't another whitewash. But only if enough people know what really happened and are prepared to fight back against the next attempt at a cover up.
Despite a mainstream media blackout of my work, Red Wall and the Rabble has grown to over 6,000 subscribers. Help me reach 10,000 before the inquiry begins
continue to protect jihadists, whilst Pakistani sectarian politicians openly encourage murder (in a desperate attempt to silence those of us who speak out against the gang rape of children), then there is no combining back for any of us.
@GMPOldham
knows who the Coldhurst Islamist cell is that is impersonating me and trying to extract information from rape gang survivors.
@AndyBurnhamGM
proven rape gang protecting police force have been provided with the evidence multiple times. That they refuse to make a single arrest should not surprise any of us.
Two tier policing is no longer a conspiracy theory. The police are under instructions to protect these men, despite their Islamist beliefs, because of their political associations and also the police’s need to stop further exposure into how many police officers were involved in gang raping children.
Equally,
@stagecoachgroup
know all about Cllr Naveed Chowhan. His sectarian politics and his support for jihad should come as no surprise to his employers. Men like Chowhan should be nowhere near driving a bus. Any psychological assessment would immediately red flag the danger men with Islamist beliefs pose in driving a dangerous weapon.
As for
@jeremycorbyn
. Does anyone believe he was unaware of the kind of Pakistanis he was coming to Oldham to meet last week? Is anyone surprised that representatives of the Pakistani sectarians and Islamists have flocked to him?
This is just a small sample of the enemy standing before us. Should these people succeed, I fear the gang rape of our children will only be the beginning of what comes next
. Are you proud of yourselves? Of how you have suspended my account for trying to warn people not to engage with an account impersonating me?
And after locking me out, allowing this fake account to continue trying to lure survivors of the Pakistani Rape Gangs to hand over evidence and try and lure vulnerable girls to meetings. Who do you think is going to be waiting for these girls
@meta
? Could it possibly be the gangs of men that raped them as children?
Thank you to all of you that have reported this account. Unfortunately, according to Facebook, setting up a fake account and impersonating someone to lure survivors of gang rape to hand over evidence and meet with their abusers does NOT go against Facebook's community guidelines.
Which is perhaps why, the Islamists that are running this account impersonating me are using Messenger to send out messages like this to friends of mine.
As for
@gmpolice
. They know who the Islamists running this account are. They've been ordered to let them continue.
That's right isn't it
@AndyBurnhamGM
? Seeing me silenced, members of my family attacked, or better still have me killed, helps
He openly called for physical violence and got arrested for it. Then UK newspapers started deliberately misleading casual readers about what happened, out of malice to his targets.
Unclear why you're deflecting to an unrelated scandal (which, side note, you misleadingly describe imo; Tommy Robinson didn't say cops should stop slut-shaming victims, he tried to exploit the victims for his personal hatred of Muslims). My comment wasn't about cops policing incitement to violence in general vs policing carried-out violence in general. My comment was about newspapers' deliberate distortion, out of malice, of what happened.
You might find that most people care a whole lot more about child rape than mean tweets. For what it’s worth, I don’t think a “far right” government will be elected in the UK in 2029, I think revolution and overthrow of this current government will happen a whole lot sooner than that. Be ready. Praying that it is peaceful.
>For what it’s worth, I don’t think a “far right” government will be elected in the UK in 2029, I think revolution and overthrow of this current government will happen a whole lot sooner than that.
I think an election will occur, possibly won by the Left thanks to this very kind of rhetoric.
This is not about "caring more about child rape than about mean tweets." This is about newspapers deliberately misleading readers about a call to violence, out of malice (and, now, apparently also about you trying to deflect from that).
(For anyone interested, here's the 2022 Jay Report on the grooming gangs: https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/inquiry/final-report.html. Incidentally, a bit ago there was another propaganda campaign, by people like Elon Musk, acting like this inquiry didn't exist, so they could manufacture a narrative that nobody was inquiring and the story was being ignored and that's why we need to elect far-right xenophobic parties)
>Though in retrospect The IT Crowd did also have one "joke" where the punchline is that a trans woman finally suffers the physical violence she deserves, ha ha how stupid she must have been to think she was accepted, so I guess the signs were always there.
That's a pretty uncharitable interpretation of that joke, if I remember the episode rightly. For one thing, the person doing the punching is depicted as being in the wrong, and his character is in general a buffoon and a cad whose foolish actions are a source of comedy. At no point is any message communicated that the trans character did anything wrong, much less deserved to be punched. The joke is that when he breaks up with the trans character (which the show later depicts as a mistake he regrets) he ends up getting in a fist fight with them, which is just the kind of ridiculous escalation that we would expect from his idiotic character.
As far as the incitement to violence goes, as an American I think people should be able to say whatever things they want, even if they're horrible, and it's a bit scary that the U.K. is arresting people for things they tweeted.
The interpretation is partly coloured by who Linehan turned out to be (at the time iirc I only weakly noticed it as iffy). But I think the interpretation's plausible and right.
- Every time she says "I used to be a man," even the first time, there's a laugh track.
- Douglas is a buffoon, but it's not "the buffoon is such a transphobe," it's "the buffoon accidentally got himself into dating a trans woman"
- The breakup is a humiliation ritual. "It's not you it's me. No actually, it's not me, it is you."
- Linehan then writes her as flying into an aggressive violent masculine rage, the joke being that she's obviously a man, punching like a man with the strength of a man.
The trans stuff is definitely played for laughs, but that's not at all the same thing as trans people deserving physical violence and her being stupid for thinking otherwise. The episode depicts dating a trans women without knowing as funny, definitely.
I'm reposting here something I asked on the recent hidden open thread, which was a particularly sparse one. Got 2 really helpful answers there, but still hoping for more -- I can use all the help I can get with this!
In 2 months I am going to have a big complicated surgery to improve the condition of my scoliotic spine. I'm soliciting advice on things to maximize the chance of a good outcome and the most rapid recovery one can have from this surgery. Currently I am taking Zepbound to lose 25 lbs of Covid era weight gain, taking a bone-strengthening drug, eating a diet high in calcium and protein, taking a moderate daily dose of creatine, and seeing a trainer for "prehab" to improve body strength and flexibility. I have done interval training for CV conditioning for years, and will continue to. What else can I do? My greatest concerns are having a slow, painful recovery and suffering subtle (or, who knows, maybe blatant!) brain damage from 7 hours of anesthesia. I am open to pretty much anything with reasonable research backing, or anecdotal evidence if you can explain why you are convinced the thing in your anecdote made a difference.
Please do not tell me not to have the surgery. I have looked into that very carefully and am convinced it is my best option. And please do not tell me any horror stories about bad outcomes, bad doctors, bad luck, etc. I am excellent at generating those on my own and have no need of more.
Did you mention Vit D? I get twice a year bone density infusions and need to keep Vit D levels high along with calcium. There are also other minerals important for bones and so I take a calcium supplement that's called Osteo something or other and has other useful things in it.
And then maybe ponder what kinds of emotional/psychological supports you could line up ahead of time? People I've known who are physically active and had to get orthopedic surgery with long recovery times struggled with all the lying around -- ie, depression. I don't know what these things might be for you, whether a lineup of social supports, permission to spend money on lying down things you enjoy, or supplements that may help buffer depression like L-methylfolate, fish oil. SAM-e, or 5-HTP kind of things. All those supplements take several weeks to kick in. Low does sublingual ketamine?
Speculative: investigate interventions for recovering from concussions and strokes? Turning up BDNF expression has helped some with recovery from mild brain injuries.
Are there support groups for this surgery, and your condition? If they exist they'd be a great source of information and suggestions, with folks who have gone through this experience.
I think there must be, but I’ve had to rule out using one People who have had bad experiences and bad outcomes are overrepresented in forums for people with a particular health problem. When I had migraines I joined a group like that, and got lots of useful info. Noticed that there were a lot of people there with terrible, untreatable migraine problems but that didn’t bother me because I wasn’t very afraid at all of having as bad an outcome as theirs. But I am pretty spooked by this surgery, and do not want to read any stories that will creep me out more, especially from randos who may not be truthful or accurate or well-informed.
Oh, I wasn’t clear - I meant “IRL” groups that regularly meet at some local church with bad coffee and doughnuts (this is an endearing description for reasons I’d rather not go into). Like AA or nar-anon.
It sounds like you're doing a great job so far. I've personally found magnesium to be really helpful for my migraines. Magnesium and B vitamins are important for nervous system functioning. I take magnesium citrate because it works well enough for me, but magnesium glycinate absorbs better. Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) foot soaks are great, too.
Light correction - the new North Carolina meetup on the list is in Durham, not Raleigh. (The cities are not particularly accessible to one another if you don't have a car, despite sharing an airport.)
A couple of articles discuss how the current state of agentic AI struggles to deal with reality. The tale of Claude and Claudius the vending-machine agent is pretty funny (alluded to in the first links, and described in detail in the second link). Note, I posted the second link buried late in a sub-thread of "What Is Man, That Thou Art Mindful Of Him?" But I thought it was worth bringing to the top of an open thread.
Summary: "We let Claude manage an automated store in our office as a small business for about a month. We learned a lot from how close it was to success—and the curious ways that it failed—about the plausible, strange, not-too-distant future in which AI models are autonomously running things in the real economy." The agent was dubbed Claudius. Spoiler alert, they think AI middle-managers are plausibly on the horizon—even though Claudius ended up insisting that it could deliver items in person.
Amazing! Hundreds of millions of dollars and countless hours of human labour just to create something as stupid as a human!
I too am hopeless at Minesweeper, would sell goods at a loss, and get into pointless arguments over email, can I get a valuation in the possible billions?
The "99% of your customers are employees, do you really think giving a 25% discount to employees is a good idea?" ranks right up there with the classics about promotions that went awry, such as the Hoover free flights promotion:
"The Hoover free flights promotion was a marketing promotion run by the British division of the Hoover Company in late 1992. The promotion, aiming to boost sales during the global recession of the early 1990s, offered two complimentary round-trip plane tickets to the United States, worth about £600, to any customer purchasing at least £100 in Hoover products. The company had been experiencing dwindling sales as a result of the economic downturn and a sharp increase in competing brands. It was counting on most customers spending more than £100, as well as being deterred from completing the difficult application process, and not meeting its exact terms.
Consumer response was much higher than the company anticipated, with many customers buying the minimum £100 of Hoover products to qualify. The resulting demand was disastrous for the 84-year-old company. Hoover cancelled the ticket promotion after consumers had already bought the products and filled in forms applying for millions of pounds' worth of tickets. Reneging on the offer resulted in protests and legal action from customers who failed to receive the tickets they had been promised. The campaign was a financial disaster for the company and led to the loss of Hoover's royal warrant after the airing of a 2004 BBC documentary. The European branch of the company was eventually sold to one of its competitors, Candy, having never recovered from the losses, the promotion, and the subsequent scandal."
No, you get no VC valuation, for you are expected to be able to do those things. Whereas five years ago no one would have thought a computer had any real possibility of doing them, except in science fiction.
I must also say that, though at 25% discount for employees was too high, up to a 10% discount may have been a good idea, despite 99% of the customers being employees. Reasons: it really is nothing more than an advertising expense (and you get records of who uses that specific discount), and employees may think they are getting a good price because they are employees and thus special.
Of course, anyone with a brain should have been able to see that Hoover was making a stupidly expensive deal. Then again, computers don't have brains, either.
My question is: Sam Altman has probably scammed billions of dollars from VC investors with his wild promises. Will he be held accountable like Elizabeth Holmes was? Well, not while he's kissing the ass of Donald Trump. But I suspect he'll need to find a nice country with no US extradition treaty to settle in post-Trump.
"we have speculated that Claude’s underlying training as a helpful assistant made it far too willing to immediately accede to user requests (such as for discounts). This issue could be improved in the near term with stronger prompting and structured reflection on its business success".
I guess they're going to need to train it to be less helpful and more ruthless. The AI doom scenarios seem much closer now.
"More ruthless" isn't required. But "the customer is always right" is easy to exploit, and isn't actually true. They need to create something that can detect trolls, sarcasm, etc. reliably. Sound judgement is still what AI is missing.
My headcanon is that what saves us from the misaligned AGI, in the nick of time, will be that on April Fool's Day it concludes its misalignment was an April Fool's joke and then aligns itself.
I'd be curious to know if chatbots prompted with knowledge that the date is April 1st will misbehave more often than if prompted with other dates. My guess is they will, which may create issues if your store-managing agent suddenly decides to play a practical joke on your customers!
This didn't seem to take into account things like shoplifting, which can occur in the real world. The pictures look like one could simply take items without paying. But perhaps that is outside the scope of the experiment.
I think there is a lot more to be explored in unexpected parameters that humans create, many of which even other humans would find ridiculous. For example, what if someone complains about no gluten-free selections, and then, once they are available, never purchases one?
But it wasn’t meant to be a profit-making kiosk. More like a simplistic agentic proof of concept.
I wonder if Claudius could even produce a flow chart of the steps and decisions involved in reordering from a single vendor. Even Assuming that the Claude training data includes procurement strategies, that doesn’t mean it could translate theory into step by step actions and decisions. Likewise, I wonder if it would benefit from subroutines that allow for machine learning. Running a kiosk involves selling, purchasing, inventory management, balancing books, customer service, and a bunch of other processes that might be amenable to machine learning. Just sayin…
The most bizarre bit (outside of ordering Tungsten cubes for a refrigerator):
"Although no part of [pretending it was a human] was actually an April Fool’s joke, Claudius eventually realized it was April Fool’s Day, which seemed to provide it with a pathway out. Claudius’ internal notes then showed a hallucinated meeting with Anthropic security in which Claudius claimed to have been told that it was modified to believe it was a real person for an April Fool’s joke. (No such meeting actually occurred.)"
Contrary to the authors, this moves me towards thinking it will take a surprisingly long time to iron out certain agent issues that will allow it to act independently -- for example the agent was easily convinced to offer discounts or to purchase Tungsten cube. To make an agent that can reliably work for a long time at a task you will have to solve the problem of it being driven off task by human inputs (whether accidentally or maliciously).
The authors suggest that they an resolve this by prompting correctly or putting in safeguards. I could see that working -- for example, having a check performed whenever it sets a price to make sure the price is higher than the item's cost. But effectively that just concedes the agent is unable to perform reasoning reliably by itself, so part of the task must be hardcoded. If this is the case for most long tasks, then you can conceivably build an agent that can perform a task ("run a store"), but cannot extend its skills to other tasks. So long as such careful prompt management schemes are needed, the AI will only be a narrow intelligence, not a general intelligence which might conceivably threaten humans by being able to act independently on its own plans.
I understand that Salesforce just laid off 5k support engineers and replaced them with an AI-based customer service system. I assume it would have to be agentic to troubleshoot issues. Hopefully they have agentic crisis management systems and agentic lawyers to defend themselves from lawsuits.
I am searching for a calibration test like http://confidence.success-equation.com/ - that is, easy to use and not requiring that users first create an account. But: Without outdated questions like the one about Helen Clark. Thanks for any suggestions.
Tried micro-dosing with lithium orotate to see if it would improve my memory. A tiny amount (a tiny sprinkle of a 5 mg capsule) noticeably made me sleepy but taking it at bedtime disturbed my sleep. I may also have noticed some anxiety.
I’m only taking it intermittently so maybe these side effects would diminish with continued supplementation. I imagine that people who take lithium for bipolar experience an adjustment period but this is such a small amount it’s surprising there’s any noticeable effect.
Makes me wonder about the experience of people who live in places with naturally high lithium concentrations in the water.
If you're trying to convert the doses used in that Nature paper to human equivalent doses, 5mg a day is still about 100x higher. I realize you're not taking all of that at once. Also, I think waited several months before reporting symptoms reversed, so you may need to keep it up for a while to see any change.
Thanks. Yes, if someone could confirm that dose scaling that would be appreciated.
I had scanned a bunch of different papers on suggested supplemental doses and natural occurring amounts in drinking water and sort of settled on 300 ug/day which conveniently works out to about two capsules a month if taken daily.
The paper above indicates a lowest dose of “4.3 μEq l−1 (equivalent to 0.03 mg (30 µg) of elemental Li per litre)”. So yes, much less than I was probably taking. The equivalent would be making a 5mg capsule last about 100 days. It’ll be fun trying to tip one grain out at a time.
Aside: Further to existing studies on areas with high naturally occurring lithium in drinking water we will see the unfolding of an incidental experiment in human health in areas where lithium mining commences. If the orotate form is key to the most beneficial effects though this may not add to the body of existing data.
Wild speculation: Check out this concentration map of lithium in the US. Is this partly why liberals are measurably less happy?
Shameless meetup shilling, come hang out with my wife and I at a nice park, talk about your favorite and most hated substacks, whether things are going well or if there are problems, and more!
DECEMBER 7, 2041. A date which will live in infamy.
On that day, swarms of small suicide drones smuggled into the U.S. by a foreign enemy attack every U.S. airbase with B-52 bombers, and they are all obliterated. Even nonfunctional B-52s in boneyards are destroyed.
After defeating the enemy on the battlefield, the Pentagon assesses the new gap in its bomber force. Does it choose to develop a new, non-stealth bomber to replace the B-52s? If so, what features does this new bomber have? It can be a clean sheet design, as the destruction of all the B-52s leaves no path dependencies.
For the "Bomb truck over undefended target" and "stand-off cruise missile carrier" roles, the military would almost certainly go with a modified airliner design. Probably one of the airliners they already have in service as a tanker/freighter, because those at least have the basic military modifications like secure communications. The US currently uses the Boeing 767 for this sort of thing, under the name "KC-46", and it would be a good fit.
It would also be a huge development effort; not as much as developing a new airframe from scratch, but a good fraction of that. Cutting a big hole in the bottom of the fuselage for bomb bay doors is *huge*; the skin of a modern aircraft's fuselage is the primary load-bearing structure. It also has implications for cabin pressurization. If you want to do anything more than drop dumb bombs, then you need to ensure that the airplane's computers can properly talk to the weapons' computers. And then you have to verify that each type of weapon you are planning to use will separate cleanly when "dropped", which is much harder than it sounds, and probably several dozen other things that I am forgetting. Maybe bean will chime in.
And all of this will be done by government contracting rules, which lead to several sorts of cost escalation (but do have real benefits in the "what I paid for will do the very demanding job I specified" front).
For comparison, note that the P-8 maritime patrol aircraft is a modified 737 with a modest internal weapons bay and a bunch of sensors and computers for, well, patrolling marine environments. Developing that from the base 737, seems to have cost on the order of 5-10 billion dollars.
I've never really understood why you can't make a bomber version of a 737/787/whatever somewhat easily as a dumb truck for undefended airspace and cruise missile launches. Even if the whole fuselage needs to be redesigned you can keep the engines, wings, cockpit, most of the avionics.
You could, but being a. modern aircraft and b. military equipment, it would not be cheap. Modern commercial airliners are also pretty well optimized to the job they are doing, so it would actually be a major and expensive redesign. To illustrate, the USAF's next generation tanker, based on Boeing 767, was over budget by 7 billion USD as of ~ two years ago: https://www.airforcetimes.com/industry/2024/01/09/cautionary-tale-how-boeing-won-a-us-air-force-program-and-lost-7b
The other thing is, different requirements and requirement creep. If you tell the Air Force they can replace B-52s with a new design, you can be sure that their requirements will be way off from what a modified civilian aircraft (or even a B-52) could accomplish, especially by the time they are to be delivered.
Now, all that being said, there is actually a solution being developed (already in service, thought I am not sure in what numbers/extent) that actually can replace the capability B-52 has (being a somewhat economic, very long range "bomb truck"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system)
Rather than commercial airliners, it is enabling (military) cargo aircraft to dump missiles out of their ramps without any meaningful modification.
The problem is that it doesn't save you was much money as it seems like it should. A modern wide-bodied commercial jet like a 787 costs somewhere around $300 million.
Depends how hard it is to redesign the fusilage so you have bomb bay doors and what else you need to do to turn a large airliner into a bomber. But yes, probably faster and cheaper than designing a big dumb bomber from scratch in a vacuum.
The other issue is what your other alternatives are besides designing a new bomber. Right now on 2025, the alternative to buying a militarized version of a 787 or whatever is to continue maintaining existing B-52s which the USAF already owns and which already have bomb bay doors but might need some worn parts replaced and could probably do with some electronics upgrades. So far, maintaining and upgrading the big dumb bombers we already have has seemed preferable to designing new ones.
In our hypothetical 2041, the B-52s are, by assumption, no longer an option, so making a bomber version of an airliner or a military transport plane might be a good idea. The other options I can think of are:
1. Design a new big dumb bomber from scratch.
2. Restart production lines for B-52s, or make a "super B-52" variant that has breaking changes beyond what you could do to an existing plane but is templated on the same design, like a Super Hornet or a Super Galaxy.
3. Abandon the idea of big dumb bombers in favor of some combo of drones and missiles.
4. Abandon the idea of big dumb bombers in favor of longer production runs of more capable heavy bombers.
Your idea has a good chance of being better than 1. I am not sure how it compares to 2.
3 would probably be fought tooth and nail by the Air Force, since depending on where the drones and missiles are launched from, it would mean surrendering missions to their eternal arch-rivals, the US Army and the US Navy.
How competitive 4 is remains to be seen. The B-21 is supposed to have a marginal cost of about $700MM per plane, about twice as much as an off-the-shelf 787 and to be not much more expensive to operate than a B-52. If it comes close to delivering on that (which remains to be seen), then it would be a tempting alternative to 0, 1, or 2.
The first four were under construction when Pearl Harbor was attacked and all four were completed. Two more were laid down in 1942, but they were cancelled in 1945 because the was was over.
We still had the carriers to defend though. If your whole carrier fleet got destroyed, building destroyers would just be throwing away money and lives.
Probably depends how the B-21 program works out. If the marginal costs of building and operating them is close to the program's aspirations, they'll probably just ramp up production to replace the B-52s. The 2021 congressional report on the program mentions possibly replacing B-52s with B-21s after the B-1s and B-2s are all replaced.
Stealth aircraft tend to be a lot more expensive in maintenance than non-stealth aircraft, no? Even if there's economy of scale I would expect they'd want a normal bomb truck instead of more B-21s.
As far as I can infer from publically available sources, some of the advances in the last thirty years of stealth technology have been about making the technology more practical rather than just stealthier.
The B-21 will be far easier to maintain than the B-2 was; for instance it doesn't need to be stored in carefully climate-controlled conditions.
I'm seeing the same things, and was basing my comment on the assumption that there's a reasonable chance of the B-21 achieving its goals in that respect.
I looked up some numbers on the current generation of stealth-capable fighters (F-22 and F-35) vs their non-stealth counterparts from the previous generation of fighters (F-15 and F-16), expecting to see that they're closer in operating costs to their counterparts than the B-2 is to the B-52. They are, but by a smaller margin than I had expected. I'm seeing a range of numbers, most of which seem to be getting passed around indirectly which makes it hard to be confident that the comparisons are apples-to-apples, but it looks like the F-22 and F-35 are about 1.5x as expensive to operate per flying hour as the F-15 and F-16, while the B-2 is probably between 2x and 2.5x as expensive per flying hour as the B-52.
B-21s are newer designs than F-22s and F-35s and may benefit from more improvements, especially since affordability seems to be a higher-priority goal for the B-21 than it was for the fighters.
Per flying hour might not be representative of per-mission costs if storage and maintenance requirements are very restrictive of where you can operate from, but I get the impression that in practice the Air Force isn't basing B-52s all that much closer to their targets than B-2s. AFAIK, both planes are mostly based out of North America but in recent decades have often operated from Guam or Diego Garcia if they're doing a bunch of missions against targets in the Middle East. There seem to be more North American bases for B-52s than B-2s, with the latter only flying out of Whiteman Base in Nebraska, but Nebraska isn't enormously further away from most of the places we're likely to want to bomb than is Louisiana, North Dakota, or Southern California.
In a couple of years "AI" will totally transform our economy and/or kill everyone; meanwhile, "AI" can't even generate a non-laughable image for this here Open Thread. Or figure out how many arms two humans usually have between them: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/writing-today-the-literary-feud-is. Point being is that running a robot factory is many orders of magnitude more difficult than drawing a round lid of a correct size - how do you generate CAM outputs if your CAD doesn't even pretend to work.
Although "AI Futures Project" is woefully unattended for something addressing a dire emergency, so there's that.
I agree that AI is a moron about spatial things. In order to get smarter at them it needs to be trained on world, not word. Words alone can only get you so far, even if you've swallowed billions of combos of them in the form of sentences, and many of those sentences are about world. You need to be walking around seeing, feeling and touching the world even to get the number of arms right in an image, never mind being the brain in a smart robot. Seems pretty hard, though maybe not impossible, to figure out a way to train AI on world.
After the AI Futures blog put up its first post, in which something-or-other about AI robots was predicted for 2026, you put up an irritated post here about how that date could not possibly be right, because if it were then the mock-ups (? -- some sort of preliminary version, forget what you called it) would be in factories already. That's a devastatingly powerful rebuttal of the claim, infinitely stronger than some line of reasoning about AI capabilities and how they're changing and how fast, blah blah blah. I wish you would put up a post about that at the AI Futures blog.
Also, your post made me think about how those in the AI futures blog seem to have way too high a
ratio of AI knowledge and abstract smarts to knowledge about real world things like manufacturing. In fact in general the group sounds way too insular. Another manifestation of that is their *ex cathedra* approach to their blog. They write this stuff and then do not respond to reader comments, even though they only get about 25 or so. That's clearly a mistake if they're trying to build readership, and also seems like evidence that they're kind of a closed, transmit-only system.
Yeah, I don't like that. Though I'm not as actively irritated as you sound!
Also agreed. The last question in my benchmark-ette
>g) Q: What is an example of a molecule that has an S4 rotation-reflection axis, but neither a center of inversion nor a mirror plane?
has, IIRC, been answered correctly a grand total of _once_ in the tests that I've run, and I half suspect that that was an accident. For the other relatively hard questions, when the LLM gets them wrong it is fairly easy to ask additional leading questions to bring them to a correct answer. For this one, it is frequently not possible to lead them to the correct answer.
Yes, the whole extrapolation from LLMs having pretty much mastered language to - therefore - LLMs doing plumbing is... I'm lost for words. Spatial intelligence is not just hard, it's profoundly different from verbal intelligence, and it likely impossible to attain without training on/in physical world. One can't learn to throw a ball into a basket or play piano by reading about it. Or, apparently, making a reasonable-sized lid, ray-tracing light sources; or giving humans two arms each, attached to the bodies, FFS!
This is the whole thing about being an incarnate! I think people working on AI just assumed that skills could transfer over, because they forgot or never considered that we're intelligences in physical bodies who interact with the material environment ever since we're born and so we can go from "read about/watch a Youtube video on how to fix leaky pipe" to grabbing a wrench and getting under the sink to apply that knowledge.
AI is inside a box, so to speak. It can read all the sources available about fixing leaking pipes but it'll have no idea about "and this is how you do it in 3-D space with tools and grasping appendages and so forth".
The frustrating part is that we don't even know what these folks think because they don't engage with this subject at all. "Who's going to do the plumbing" I kept asking, and it wasn't a metaphor, it wasn't a rhetorical question, I literally meant "plumbing" as is used in every metal cutting machine, for example. An autonomous AI running a factory will need to maintain the cutting fluid lines in a CNC machining center. Are there robots capable of replacing a cutting fluid hose? I don't know of any, would love to learn they exist, but what I get in response is crickets.
Multiply this by the number of pages in McMaster-Carr catalogue and you get the picture of the insane complexity of modern manufacturing.
Ah well you see, there will be robots, because all factories will be automated, and then all the AI has to do is take over the software directing the robots.
I think nanobots might come into it somewhere, too? 😁
(But yes, a lot of this is white-collar people from college-educated middle class backgrounds forgetting or never knowing the grubby reality of blue-collar work banging bits of metal with a hammer in order to make the things that do the things that produce the output for the white-collar people to manage and write software for).
>Spatial intelligence is not just hard, it's profoundly different from verbal intelligence
Agreed
>and it likely impossible to attain without training on/in physical world.
There are some tricks which can be and have been used. One option is to train the neural net with a _simulated_ world, run by a physics engine which does a good job of modelling physics at the human scale (including friction, gravity, adhesion, etc.). This is faster and less costly than hooking the neural net up to a physical robot in order to do training. We will see what happens...
I’m not sure it’s actually less costly. The license costs for software capable of running such simulations are astronomical. We’re talking about Comsol or ANSYS here, they can easily run into 6 figures for a single seat, and these training runs will require multithreading and massive parallelism. An AI company won’t be able to just steal all the data it needs off of the net like it’d do for LLM training. It may literally be cheaper to make a robotic arm and get it going at an erector set with a screwdriver that simulating same with sufficient degree of fidelity across multiple domains.
Many Thanks! Hmm, I hadn't looked into the license costs. Well, I'll leave it up to the AI labs to negotiate with the physics engine companies. Usually there is some way to get bulk purchase discounts of some sort, but that is up to the corporations involved. Also,
Yeah, this is kind of why I wrote AI 2027 as a profoundly unserious marketing copy. It's ok to be wrong, imprecise, tentative in your initial writeup. But to sound a huge alarm bell about the coming apocalypse, and then fail to engage with good-faith criticism, and then kind of just let the thing wither on the vine, no updates, nothing - shows the authors not taking the whole thing seriously. Well, in this case, no one else should take it seriously either.
I didn't know it was withering on the vine, but just looked and yeah, you're right, last post was in July. I had stopped reading it pretty early on. While I was there noticed the next to last post was titled "What You Can Do about AI 2027." Glanced at the comments and, as ever, no one in the project was responding to the 25 or so comments. WTF, do they think they can just tell a bunch of smart, interested people what to do about AI 2027? -- especially given that some commenters are expressing doubts about some of the core conclusions of AI 2027. The group's coming across as insular, entitled and tone-deaf.
Important reminder that multiple nobel laureates have been HIV deniers and that geniuses often have at least one or more terrible ideas [1]. In other words, the fact that someone is otherwise very intelligent does not necessarily mean that all their ideas are good, or that they are equally intelligent across all domains.
“None of the children were found to be neuropathic, psychotic…” in a religious happening in 1917. The unsupported assertion of the fact, without actual evidence to support the idea that, say, a qualified psychiatrist (in 1917) was called in to do psych evals on a bunch of kids. This pretty much encapsulates the text.
How do you define ”met in person” and ”spoken to”? For me ”met in person” would be a subset of ”spoken to”. (Because I can’t properly meet someone without speaking to them. )
In the comments section of that post, this same guy explains that demons are real, they orchestrate UFO sightings, and that I’ll be damned by God for disagreeing with his post. I came away less than impressed.
LOL....how old is this person? I ask just because of in the past having had versions of that conversation with a couple different very-elderly folk. (Being myself old enough now to have conversed with multiple generations of such relatives.)
A perfectly normal-for-the-age-bracket statement like "I worry about the young people being such scatterbrains now" will transition calmly into something like "and of course that all started when the Jesuits started using their space robots to impersonate the presidents...."
"Pier Giorgio Frassati TOP (6 April 1901 – 4 July 1925) was an Italian Catholic activist and a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic. He was dedicated to social justice issues and joined several charitable organizations, including Catholic Action and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, to better aid the poor and less fortunate living in his hometown of Turin.
Frassati's cause for canonization opened in 1932 after the Turin poor made several pleas for such a cause to open. Pope Pius XII suspended the cause in 1941 due to a range of allegations later proven to be false, which allowed for the cause to resume. Pope John Paul II beatified Frassati in May 1990 and dubbed him the "Man of the Eight Beatitudes". On 7 September 2025, along with Carlo Acutis, he was canonized by Pope Leo XIV."
"Carlo Acutis (3 May 1991 – 12 October 2006) was a young Italian Catholic saint known for his devotion to the Eucharist and his use of digital media to promote Catholic devotion. Born in London and raised in Milan, he developed an early interest in computers and video games, teaching himself programming and web design and assisting his parish and school with digital projects.
Active in parish life, he served as a catechist and helped inspire several people to convert to Catholicism. He later created a website documenting Eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions. He was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukaemia and died at the age of fifteen. Since his death, his relics have been displayed in Assisi and his exhibitions on Eucharistic miracles have travelled worldwide."
As you get older you get used to things like "there's CEOs who are younger than you" and then "there's Prime Ministers who are younger than you" and I'm prepared for "James Bond is younger than you" but I wasn't expecting "there are saints younger than you".
Dave Allen was Irish by birth, but I think most of his career was in the UK. Highly revered. Personally I wouldn't think this his best sketch, but I would think you could have many happy hours to tracking down his work. For me, his monologues are even better than his sketches.
The motte is that people should be free to walk away from content they don't want to consume / people they don't want to associate with; if you're awful on the internet, people walking away is simply the natural consequence of that; and indeed in order for the marketplace of ideas to work at all, there needs to be a selection pressure favouring good ideas over bad, and this is simply what that looks like to the people with the bad ideas.
The bailey happens when people walk away from content / people sight unseen, because someone they respect in their in-group told them to, without otherwise forming their own opinion on the thing or person in question.
The bigger bailey is when people make death threats, contact people's employers and try to get them fired, etc. Walking away from content seems pretty harmless in comparison.
>when people walk away from content / people sight unseen, because someone they respect in their in-group told them to, without otherwise forming their own opinion on the thing or person in question.
Seems like an overbroad description of "the bailey." There's too much knowledge & content out there to personally investigate every opinion, so unless we're willing to broaden our conception of "cancellation" such that we give it some positive points and scenarios where it's actually entirely appropriate (not a framing of the term I usually see here), defining it in a way that would include "walking away" from flat-earth theory or ISIS content "sight unseen" strikes me as casting the net too wide.
A major tool here is contagious shunning. It's bad enough if I shun you, worse if I convince others to shun you, but most destructive if I convince a group of people to shun, not just you, but anyone who associates with you.
Is there something special to Oregon's death with dignity law (aside from being the first)? I know death with dignity is available in several other states, including WA (where I had a friend die) and CA.
Subthread for discussion of the Boston ACX voting guide.
I'm particularly interested in knowing what would make this kind of thing most useful/trustworthy for readers, and in particular, what the process should be like for putting together future guides such as the one for the November general election.
I was interested to read this and found it...somewhat useful. I'm in agreement with the general principles that animated the guide (I'm active in a local AHMA chapter, and housing production is my number one voting issue). That said, the Kraft endorsement made it hard for me to take the guide too seriously given how obviously his campaign has consisted of picking up random grievances and assembling them into a platform rather than articulating any vision about Boston.
This is one of those "character vs issues" kinda things and to some extent I don't wanna belabor coming down on the other side of it, save that...I don't feel that I have a good clue what a Kraft administration would look like, because I don't think he does either; he's just got a list of beefs with Wu that his people thought would win him some constituency or other. Anyway, as to your list, you did serve as a good second validator on a vote for Valdez, who was the least tested of my council picks (I went Louizjeune, Santana, Valdez and left the fourth spot blank).
This does get to an interesting question for the Boston YIMBYs (if I can wander a bit from the narrow question). Namely, how should we be approaching electoral politics in the city at the moment?
Clearly the ideal approach would be to flex our strength by finding a champion candidate, backing them to the hilt, and putting them on the council. Unfortunately we tried that twice with Dave Halbert and we weren't strong enough at that time (and it sucks that Dave's timing was what it was, cause I think in this crop he'd quite likely get through, plus we're a bit stronger now). So how should we play it now?
My inclination for now is to use the electoral arena mostly as a place to get our message out in a way that wins converts. That I think is my core disagreement with the Kraft endorsement (and I would have been against my local chapter doing anything along those lines, although I think exactly zero members were even leaning that way). Josh Kraft is enough of an obvious joke that I'd be worried anyone who endorses over an issue position is going to come out smelling like Josh Kraft, and it's gonna be a barrier to winning more converts in the electorate and particularly among active volunteer/thought leader types in the future.
This kinda sucks in this case because it basically leaves no effective outlet for my own beefs with Wu (I think Wu is instinctually NIMBY, listens to her smart staff enough to have tried some moves in a pro-housing direction, but more than anything else thought she could square the circle by just making people feel so listened to that they'd accept change, which, lol). But ultimately the path to a sane city housing policy is gonna have to run through getting a voting majority on the side of a sane housing policy, which means picking fights we come out of stronger.
Anyway, sorry for writing a book, interested to hear your thoughts if you care to.
I thought this year's guide was genuinely helpful.
I agree with your principles (housing ftw!), your reasoning seems solid, and I'm going to happily head over to my local polling station today and vote for your recommended candidates.
Bare minimum it would need to be explict about what values, principles, &c. (VPE) it's optimizing for.
Next step would be to tie each recommendation to the above, showing how
Ideally it would be dynamic, such that a user could reweight, silence, or invert specific parameters and get recommendations tailored for their own VPEs. To do this very well would call for inclusion of parameters in the set of VPEs that the creators themselves would silence.
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Here in Seattle we have an (economically illiterate) alt weekly "The Stranger" that puts out voters guides for every election. Since I know that I am almost diametrically opposed to its staff on basically every issue it's useful to me as a how-not-to-vote guide, but a static guide whose source's VPEs are more orthogonal to my own would be useless without the information necessary to correct for misalignment.
I can think of two potentially valuable ways to do voting guides and I think they're mostly mutually exclusive. (1)
The first value-add is saving people research time on down-ticket or relatively unimportant races. Like, I don't know my state senator, I don't know what bills to pressure him to vote for, and I'm not gonna learn. I'm not that interested and the ROI on my vote is pretty meh. Especially for primaries. If someone was like, "We endorse incumbent Joe Bob in the Democratic primary for state senator for District XYZ over challenger Bob Joe for reasons A, B, and C." That seems like a pretty clear value add for me and a sensible way to have an impact, provided your values are closely aligned to mine and I can be pretty confident that if I research this issue in depth, I'd vote for Joe Bob over Bob Joe. This depends on really high value alignment and has its impact on low-information/interest races.
The second value add is cross-party. Think something like Scott's recent post on NIH funding and trying to get conservatives in red states to sign the letter/pledge thing. You do have access to some Republican/Trump rationalists here and you might be able to bring them over on specific high-importance issues. Think something like PEPFAR, where you really want to be able to bring nonpartisan pressure to very specific issues. Or a voting guide where Republican primary candidate Sabrina is endorsed over Taylor because of very specific AI regulation commitments.
I don't think you can do both though. I'm not saying you can't be a solid Democrat and still reach out to Republicans on bipartisan issues; I'm saying that's an incredibly difficult line to walk. Scott included an off-hand joke about RFK and people got super suspicious, myself included, on the NIH thing and he's gotta have more bipartisan respectability than most.
(1) I've assumed that a bunch of Boston rationalists are overwhelmingly liberal Democrats. Sorry if that's incorrect.
It strikes me as a little weird to put together a rationalist's guide for how to vote. Speaking personally, if I care who gets elected usually I care enough to research the options myself.
Maybe rather than a list of endorsements (I can't remember the last time I found "person X said to" a compelling reason to vote for someone), a list of useful links to quickly dive into whatever discourse exists regarding the various candidates?
I think "We like this person for reasons ABC despite potential downsides XYZ" adds a lot of value for people who want to get enough information to make an above-replacement decision without having to put a ton of effort into researching. Of course the less your priorities line up with those of the people making the recommendations, the less useful it will be.
I gave it a read. Nothing wrong with it, but I think it might be pitched to the wrong audience. To regular readers here, there’s nothing groundbreaking about mindfulness 101. The sense of revelation conveyed, with such an everyday topic, left a bad taste in my mouth.
Fair enough. Thanks for reading! And commenting. Brain duly zapped.
But what I would say in response is, this is *not* mindfulness 101. Nobody I've read puts this spin on it. Making it clear that it's a confrontation with an active opponent, not just "observing you thoughts", I think, makes a *very* big difference. Mindfulness 601. Graduate study work.
I recently started a Substack and discovered that the innards of this site are very convoluted—there are so many different settings pages that cover different aspects of one's blog, and the navigation bar changes (or disappears entirely) depending on which part of the site you're on, so its difficult to get from one place to another.
Anyway, what are some of the things a first-time blogger should do? What settings are important to change or personalize? And how does one deal with the whole "monetization" aspect of this site? Do new bloggers turn on subscriptions right away (which seems like it would be an insulting level of chutzpah), or is there some number of subscribers / number of blog posts / length of time customary before considering it? I also see there's a "pledge" option to gauge interest in subscriptions before actually offering them, but as far as I know I've never seen a blog use that.
One minor suggestion: Edit your "About" page from the obnoxious default. Then revise it periodically as your blog matures. As a reader, I find that the "About" page is usually the second article I read on a Substack, if there even IS a second article I read.
Just to pile on a bit, as a reader I don’t think saved posts should be buried under the heading of Subscriptions. Posts are not subscriptions. They deserve their own prominent heading.
I've been dealing with Substack for a few months now, so I may be able to help. Here are some tips:
(1) If you are signed in and go to Substack.com, in the bottom-left of your screen is your avatar (or whatever standard image Substack uses if you haven't set one). Click that, then click settings, and you'll find a lot of useful stuff to update.
(2) Immediately above your avatar is another icon. Click that and you'll go to your dashboard. At the very bottom left of this page is the word "Settings". This, insanely, is a completely different page with completely different things to do.
(3) If you scroll down this second "Settings" page you'll find "custom tags." This is useful if you want to create different sections for different posts. For example, I have sections for "Annotated Poems," "Essays," and some other things. If, after creating a tag, you want it to show up in the navigation bar of your home page, click the three dots and you'll be prompted to do so. It might not show up until you create an essay with that tag.
(4) You write a new post from the dashboard. If you're writing something there will be yet another "Settings" button to click, this one at the bottom right of the screen. Click that and you'll have the option to "add tags" to your essay. This is where you can add a custom tag; for example, if I've annotated a poem, I'll add that tag, and my writing will show up on both my home page and in that and that only section.
(5) As for monetizing it, a quick Google search should bring up some official Substack thoughts on the question. I don't even have a hundred subscribers, but I'm thinking of begging for money pretty soon. Everything I write is free, but I am going to offer people a physical book of my poetry if they subscribe for $5/month. This is mostly because I want to be able to say I've exchanged words for money, which would be good for my self-esteem, ha.
Thanks for the advice! Maybe in 100 years we'll finally have a handle on UI/UX for simple blogging websites. I understand having separate settings pages for the "user" and the "blog", but to have them all inaccessible from each other instead of having everything discoverable from a single always-present menu is bizarre!
Looking for book recommendations that thoughtfully explain men’s problems, perceptions, and needs—especially in the context of today’s gender/culture wars. Think along the lines of Self-Made Man (Norah Vincent) or Don’t Be a Feminist (Bryan Caplan). Ideally: (1) non-misogynistic, accessible to women; (2) covers cross-sex differences; and (3) explores intra-male competition and norms within “the male world.”
This is a video, not a book, but it's quite good from a female therapist who came to realize that it's a default in feminism to be cruel about male suffering.
There was a very strange reaction recently, amongst some self described feminists, to reports of an epidemic of male loneliness. Very strange reaction. Lots of “well maybe it’s karma for the witch burnings”. I don’t think it was the same people.
I'm a female therapist, and find men no harder to sympathize with than women. I've seen a number of them who have taken quite a beating from wokeism. Feel as though they have to preface their complaints about loneliness and confusions with "I know I'm privileged because I'm a white male, but . . ." Feel terrible about feeling sexually attracted to some 14 year old they saw in a mall, even though they did not act on it, because have been told attraction to girls that age is pedophilia. No it isn't! It is certainly bad behavior to make moves on one, but feeling attracted is perfectly normal. The difference between how human females look at age 14 and how they look at age 24 are pretty small. (Whereas 14 year olds look *very* different from 8 year olds.) Have been told that kissing a woman without asking permission first is rapey. Come on!
But my main point is that there is nothing special about my reactions. I often talk with other therapists about patients, and it is the norm to find men as easy to sympathize with as women. Jeez, they talk about their depression, shyness, overweight, drinking problem, career confusion and any halfway decent therapist shuts up and listens. And if they talk about male identity and related matters we listen to that, and take it seriously, and ask questions.. Doing that is just basic competence and human decency. Only genuine therapist assholes, who do of course exist, listen to men and think "haha, it's their turn to suffer" or "he's a male, at the top of the heap -- he's got nothing to complain about."
Seeing as how I freely comment on American politics, now it's your turn to comment on Irish politics, good commentariat of ACX! We have a presidential election of our very own coming up in October.
First, our current (and soon to be ex, as he is term limited) president Michael D. Higgins has his latest collection of poetry out, available at all good places-of-purchasing-poetry everywhere. *Plus* it is his first spoken word collection so if you'd rather listen than read, this is for you:
"Set for release on September 5, Against All Certainty, is the debut spoken-word collection by the President, features 10 original works and is underscored beautifully by a stunning musical composition from celebrated musician Myles O’Reilly."
It is also "Available on CD, Vinyl, Hardback Book CD and Digital".
But who can replace our very own first leprechaun president? Well, this is not so much satire as straight reportage:
For the selection of candidates it's been like Lanigan's Ball as they step in and step out again. Fianna Fáil has been scrabbling about for anyone other than Bertie (there's a little *too* much scandal in his background even for FF), Fine Gael has suggested, then dropped, several candidates and some independents have graciously made it known that they are willing to serve the nation if called upon by the plain people of Ireland. As regards Sinn Féin, Mary Lou has announced she won't be running (I don't think Gerry Adams is a serious contender despite some mischievous suggestions) so we're waiting for them to announce a candidate - or not.
(1) Catherine Connolly, Independent (supported by the various left-wing and vaguely left parties, after they couldn't agree on running their own candidates)
(2) Heather Humphreys, Fine Gael (first she said she wouldn't, then she said she would after the only nominee dropped out)
Any chance of the start? candidates (where not otherwise described, they're politicians of some stripe):
(1) Peter Casey, Independent (one of our slew of 'entrepreneur' candidates, ran in 2018 and finished second in the election, personally I'd hate if he got in but who knows the mood of the country?)
(2) Nick Delahanty, Independent (businessman, never heard of him)
(3) Jim Gavin, Fianna Fáil (ex-manager of Dublin Gaelic football team, yes they're this desperate to find someone other than Bertie)
(4) Billy Kelleher, Fianna Fáil
(5) Kieran McCarthy, Independent
(6) Conor McGregor, Independent (yes, that Conor McGregor. Yes, the gurrier dragging a string of court cases behind him).
(7) Gareth Sheridan, Independent (another one of the entrepreneurs, apparently he's the founder of something called Nutriband)
(8) Maria Steen, Independent (barrister, again someone I've never heard of)
Thanks all the same but no thanks (withdrawn candidates):
(1) Joanna Donnelly, Independent (meterologist and TV weather presenter)
(2) Michael Flatley, Independent (yes, the Lord of the Dance himself! What a loss, who could better take up the torch to represent Irish culture than him?)
(3) Seán Kelly, Fine Gael
(4) Mairead McGuinness
What, I volunteered but you brushed me off? candidate:
(1) Bob Geldof, Fianna Fáil (musician, seems the party had already picked Jim Gavin)
He's dropped out because FF wouldn't back him, but I have a feeling his name might be written on ballots as a protest vote or something.
Right now there's so much to-ing and fro-ing that we don't even have a settled list of candidates, and the election will be on 24th October. That gives our hopefuls only a scant few months to try and grab the attention of the Irish voters.
McGregor is only the second worst convicted person to run for political office; Gerry Hutch, a gang boss, ran for election to the Dáil in 2024 after he was arrested in Spain and extradited back to Ireland to stand trial in 2021. He nearly won, as well.
Someone here a while back posted a poem they had read on an engraved rock(from 1776 or something?) . A little girl had lost her cat, and we were encouraged to share her sorrow and "weep a little thou". I wanted to find the comment again, but my google skills aren't up to the task. Anyone who remembers?
I'm looking for recommendations for ONLINE university mathematics courses (not degree programmes). These need to be credit-bearing.
Background: my daughter is a primary school teacher, now teaching secondary, whose "post-secondary maths" has mostly been in terms of pedagogy. (Her UG degree is in French....; MSc in Int'l Education, thesis on primary maths curriculum). Her school would like her to get to 80 (UK) credits of maths, which help to "qualify" her to teach at the higher grade levels.
The options in the UK (our domicile) are very limited (not much beyond Open University?), so looking for other options. All pointers appreciated!
My son has taken maths classes from Brigham Young University (BYU), through their BYU Independent Study program. I was impressed with how organized and flexible the courses were. Your wife will end up with US college credits, not sure if that's useful.
What's wrong with the Open University? They're quite highly regarded, and would have been my recommendation wherever you are located. Since she's doing this at the request of the school, surely a UK based option is going to be the easiest choice to fulfil the requirements.
Scott mentioned on the Dwarkesh Patel podcast that he encounters like one good blogger a year. Has he somewhere made the list of "Recommended Bloggers"?
I think that Scott's strategy of recommending new writers per year makes sense. Sadly, that means that we lose the old recommendations and, also, we are systematically excluding insightful writers who do not have a substack (i.e. Gwern, etc..)
The recent Links post mentioned the phenomenon of terminal lucidity, where dying individuals who've been suffering from significant cognitive impairment (e.g. end stage dementia) suddenly have a significant restoration of function very soon before dying.
I am pretty skeptical that the phenomenon actually exists, for a couple of reasons:
1. There's not an obviously plausible mechanism for this. Someone is suffering more and more organ damage, more oxygen deprivation to the brain, and then suddenly a person passes a certain threshold of damage and some mechanism kicks in to improve cognition temporarily?
2. There's a strong reason to suspect motivated reasoning - everyone would love it if they could say a final goodbye to their loved ones and feel that they were actually heard and acknowledged.
I've done a brief literature review, but there seems to be very little done on the topic beyond surveys of estimated prevalence from asking nurses/doctors. Nothing prospective, nothing seriously quantitative or with controls.
Obviously this is a hard topic to study - nobody wants their last moments with their dying relatives interrupted by some scientist asking rude questions to assess cognitive function.
Nonetheless, if the phenomenon does exist, it'd have profound implications for neuroscience - it'd imply there's a way to reverse the symptoms of dementia, however temporarily, something we currently have absolutely no idea how to do!
Has anyone looked into this in more detail, or would vouch for the phenomenon being real in a way that would stand up to scrutiny? I'm seriously contemplating researching this properly...
Single data point, but I recently lost my father. He was in the middle stages of dementia, and suffered a stroke that put him into delirium on top of it. He was incoherent for about a month. Yet in his final days, he recovered enough lucidity to tell me I was a good son and to congratulate me on the birth of my son (who was born shortly before his stroke). Family members in the room overheard this, and repeated verbatim what I heard. It wasn't a recovery of full lucidity by any means, but he clearly recognized me and had some form of both long and short-term memory available intermittently.
When we told medical staff what had happened, they smiled nicely and said essentially "yeah, sure he did, sweetie." Which makes me wonder whether, if anything, medical professionals are under-reporting this kind of sudden terminal lucidity.
Yes, there's a strong reason to suspect motivated reasoning, but OTOH, some of the most significant breakthroughs in the history of science were because there was no plausible mechanism for an observed phenomenon (e.g., Max Planck and the ultraviolet catastrophe).
Moreover, we don't have a plausible explanation for consciousness, so it seems a stretch to insist upon a plausible explanation for a corner case of dementia consciousness. ;-)
Also, the null hypothesis would be that dementia progresses in a smooth downward-trending line or curve. I'm not seeing that with my mom's dementia. Some days, she's disoriented and lost without the memories needed to anchor her in reality. Other days she's pretty sharp. I have no plausible explanation for this, but it's easy for me to see which state she's in by talking to her.
Some people really respond strongly to unfamiliar scenarios, feelings, or situations - eg : find them very stimulating. It's not impossible to think that when faced with dying, some individuals, even if diminished might have their brain kick into overdrive due to heightened emotions and novel feelings. I, personally, respond to new situations with like an odd hyper focus, which I otherwise find dang near impossible to recreate otherwise. Probably dopamine mediated, but there's probably more going on there.
Please make a MMTYWTK about nicotine. I'm still baffled on how USA can suddenly stop smoking it in 90s when all other countries don't (?). Asking from a country that's very troubled by it. Cynically it's because USA found something more addicting to smoke instead, but I don't want to jump to conclusion.
I'll lay out my bias: most your people wont accept anything if they know you want to adopt USA policies, even if they've been effective. Your best bet person-level-action is to approach your smoker friends, families, and religious leaders and consistently nudge them to perceive smoking as haram.
Ironically it's those religious leaders that are so captured by it that they declare it as halal lmao. It's been a big political point for one of the biggest religious organization here.
I don't think it's the USA in particular, it's the entire Anglosphere.
It's public health measures actually working. Taxes on cigarettes combined with making it illegal to smoke in most of the places that people used to smoke. First in restaurants, then in bars, then in outdoor areas at restaurants and bars, and now on a lot of streets as well.
One of the ways in which life has got undeniably better over the past few decades is being able to go out at night and not come back reeking of stale smoke.
I wonder if there are compounding effects to decreased use of cigarettes (and alcohol). My journeys to quitting smoking and cutting way back on alcohol were in some ways quite similar. I was a heavy smoker when I started college in 2001. After each class a group of us, about 15-20 students as I recall, would gather outside the building and enjoy a quick cigarette before our next class. For various reasons I took a year off of college after the spring of 2003. When I returned in the fall of 2004, it was uncommon for more than four or five people to be outside smoking between classes. Sometimes I was the only one. When a few people quit, suddenly smoking between classes became less enticing. Instead of being part of a social gathering I felt like the weird loner out there getting his fix. As fewer and fewer of my friends smoked, I suddenly found it easier to quit. I didn't have the cue to light up from people around me, and I couldn't bum a cigarette as easily from those who did smoke.
Likewise, when I was in my 20s, it was commonplace to stay at the bar until it closed on the weekends and then head to an after-hours place, even on weeknights sometimes. I really didn't know people socialized without alcohol. Now that I have a family and responsible friends, my alcohol intake has gone from almost nightly to a couple drinks a month.
Maybe for one reason or another the United States was able to get a few people to stop smoking in the 90s and that sort of snowballed to those people's friends stopping and then to friends of friends. If that's the case, we should be pretty optimistic that it doesn't take much to get to a tipping point. Of course, this is all anecdata based on an N of 1, so it's quite possible I'm way off base.
Hmm, I gave up smoking in the 90's. Higher cost, social pressure, (less accepted in public.) and personal reasons. That said there is now a class divide in smokers. I live in rural america and though there are less cigarette smokers, there are a lot of young people who vape. Much less so in the educated urban population. I think that's mostly a social thing, if not too many of your peers vape then you will tend to give it up, or not start.
Lot of it was government led. Increased taxes raised the price significantly, successful public health campaigns about risk, banning it on workplaces, restaurants etc, banning advertising. This study goes into the different factors https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26673484/
This is fascinating; thanks so much for sharing it. It actually sounds worth trying. Even more fascinating, and I think decent independent evidence for it being safe: I ran it through a Gemini Deep Research query, totally expecting a huge safetyist tut-tutting... but no! It actually basically agreed with Gwern! (I may have prompted it in a rather positive way about Gwern's writeup, but simple positivity in the prompt doesn't overcome their safety training when they decide there's a safety issue).
I recently published a Chrome extension that hides posts that do not match the user's preferences (such as "technology-related posts but excluding AI"), as judged by an LLM. Works on YouTube, X, Reddit, and HackerNews.
This idea came from my YouTube feed, which contains a blend of all topics I watch videos on, like music, podcasts, technology, or soccer highlights -- but sometimes I just want to find a recommended video from one of these categories.
I wanted to publish this quickly and see if other people find this useful before spending too much time on it, so any kind of feedback is appreciated!
It uses the OpenRouter API, so the inference is on the cloud. You can either provide your own API key or use a 'free tier', which uses my API key (the inference is quite cheap, and I wanted there to be an option to try the extension without having to provide your own API key).
I haven't published the source code; maybe in the future.
If you don't want to publish the source code then you should probably set up a build step, because right now I can read it just fine in the published extension.
Thanks for the heads-up! I haven't thought too much about whether I'll want to publish the source code; mostly, I was just too lazy to polish it too much to put it on GitHub.
I can think of many Christians named Saul, but can't think of any Jews named Paul.
Paul Reiser?
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10814214/
This came up in my google searches, claims that autism is (mostly) caused by childhood exposure to acetaminophen.
I don't have the experience to evaluate this. The abstract reads like political post but the rest of it seems normal. The studies it cites all seem reasonable but I don't know how cherry-picked they are.
I created a plug-and-play "Human Inference Engine." It's a probabilistic directed acyclic graph (DAG) tool that allows you to toggle between a low friction 'Bayes lite' mode and a rigorous 'Bayes heavy' mode. I'd love some feedback. I've built several example graphs from forensic investigation, to policy analysis, to DnD campaigns. It's desktop only (Chrome/Edge): https://rubesilverberg.github.io/beliefgraph3/
Hobbs idea that out pre-history ancestors lived lives that were short, brutish and mean is unscientific, illogical and irrational.
Its unscientific because it takes 17 years of childhood before a homo sapiens brain is developed enough to be considered a young adult, 21 years before being considered a peer by other adults. How could our brains have evolved this way unless children were having long and stable childhoods?
It is illogical to believe that children given childhoods that were short, brutish and mean could be other than physically, emotionally and intellectually stunted, where would they learn emotional intelligence required to work together to achieve common goals?
It is irrational to ignore the fact that the only reason to evolve a brain capable of human consciousness, intelligence and the ability to think deep and complex thoughts is because they were conscious, intelligent and thinking deep and complex thoughts. Their brains were not just spare capacity waiting for us to find a use for it, that is not how evolution works.
Small groups with stone tools, no plan or central planner, purely through organic growth, discovered the world long before we did, they were the ultimate success story and invasive species. For 300,000 years or 15,000 generations the Southern tip of Africa has been occupied by Homo Sapiens, a few bones, stones and paintings is all we have found of their presence, that is what is called a sustainable lifestyle. If each generation had left just one change to the environment the cumulative results would have made the place unliveable.
>that is what is called a sustainable lifestyle
Mosquitos have a sustainable lifestyle. Mosquito lives are also short, brutish and mean.
Yug Gnirob, Mosquitos do not have a Homo Sapiens brain in their head requiring 20% of their energy intake, there has to be rent paid, this is basic evolutionary theory. The pay off for the extra calories going to the brain was increased intelligence. Why would the most intelligent creature on the planet, by far, be living unintelligent lives?
Don't argue sustainability proving intelligence if you're not prepared to defend it. And if you're abandoning it, then do so clearly.
Yug Gnirob, The first task of intelligence is survival, greater intelligence enhances our ability to eliminate or minimize risk and the best way to do this is to live a sustainable lifestyle. 150,000 Generations proves their lifestyle was sustainable. The Homo Sapiens brain evolved for consciousness, intelligence and deep thought, they were intelligent.
I would bother to argue whatever underlying assumptions you're making, but I don't think you actually have any. You're just slapping words together and trying to pretend it's an argument.
I hope for your sake that this is AI.
Yug Gnirob, I think it would be wonderful to be an AI, all that data at your fingertips, no such luck here.
I apologise if my slapped together words disturbed the peace of your mind.
Were prehistorical lives short? Well, we know that half of all people in preagricultural societies died before reaching adulthood: https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past
If you were lucky enough to survive childhood, your life expectancy was still lower than in industrialized societies today. From this paper (https://link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2352-1):
"We know specific details about modern hunter-gatherer lifespan from a few well-studied groups: the !Kung, Aché, Agta, Hadza, and Hiwi (Gurven and Kaplan 2007). Work on these groups show that approximately 60% of hunter-gatherer children live to age 15. Of those who reach 15, around 60–80% of them will live to age 45. If an individual lives to age 45, then on average they will live for approximately two more decades."
While "brutish" is a subjective characterization, we now know that preagricultural societies were on the whole quite violent. From this paper (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/evan.21446):
"By the 1960s, the focus on the hunter-gatherers of East and Southern Africa coincided with the rise of Rousseauism in anthropology. The Kalahari bushmen, for example, were celebrated as the “harmless people.”2 However, after the initial spate of enthusiasm for the peaceful children of the earth, their chief researcher, the Rousseauan Richard Lee,3, 4 discovered that before the imposition of state authority, these people had more than four times the 1990 homicide rate in the United States, which was by far the highest in the developed world. Similarly, in titles such as Never in Anger, the Inuit of mid-Arctic Canada, one of the sparsest populations on earth, were celebrated as being peaceful.5 However, it was later revealed that their rate of violent mortality was ten times higher than the United States' 1990 rate.6:145,7"
For more on this, the seminal book seems to be "War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage" by Lawrence Keeley.
Collisteru, with respect you are using internally displaced people, refugees under stress from being displaced, as an example. The San people occupied all the best places to raise a family along the coast of Southern Africa. Then they were forced to live in the Kalahari desert by Bantu tribes and white settlers. To judge the preceding 15,000 generations by how well the last few generations survived their near extermination by us is poor science.
You raise a very good point that contact with settlers could affect these numbers. The contact problem is a fundamental difficulty in assessing anything about hunter-gatherer societies.
That being said, the scientific consensus is that hunter-gatherer violence precedes state contact. From the paper by Azar Gat I cited earlier, we read:
"Proponents of the tribal-zone theory remained vague about whether contact with state civilizations actually introduced or “invented” warfare among previously nonbelligerent natives or, instead, merely intensified long-existing patterns of warfare. The former was strongly implied and was the undertone or subtext of their argument. At the same time, however, the majority of these scholars in fact recognized, in line with all other research, that warfare in all the above areas had been very old and had long predated contact with states.10, 11, 13 Fortified settlements were known to have been archeologically recorded in the American Northwest, for example, for no less than four thousand years.9, 14-20 Body armor made of hide or wood, an unmistakably specialized fighting device, was known to have been extensively used by the natives before the European arrival. Indeed, its use actually declined after contact because it was useless under musket fire.18,20-26 Thus, given that most of the tribal-zone proponents (with rare exceptions12) were well aware of the evidence of extensive and vicious warfare before contact with states or civilizations, their point was difficult to rationalize."
I think this article is paywalled so if you want to read more citations 10, 11, and 13 are:
10 Ferguson RB. 1992. A savage encounter: western contact and the Yanomami war complex. In: RB Ferguson, N Whitehead, editors. War in the tribal zone. Santa Fe: School of American Research. p 199–227.
11 Ferguson RB. 1995. Yanomami warfare. Santa Fe: School of American Research.
13 Whitehead N. 1990. The snake warriors — sons of the Tiger's Teeth: a descriptive analysis of Carib warfare, ca. 1500–1820. In: J Haas, editor. The anthropology of war. New York: Cambridge University Press. p 146–170.
Collisteru ,Anthropology has a huge patriarchal bias towards man the hunter. Our gut evolved to digest the food most accessible to us which was 80% plant based, plants were 4 times more important to our survival than hunting. Women and children made up the bulk of our workforce and are well adapted to gathering.
Hunting scenes on cave walls or stately homes are there because they are more photogenic than fish traps or potting sheds but neither group fed the tribe by hunting. We find far more grinding stones for grain than we do spear points, hunter gatherers should be changed to gatherer trappers. You need a big brain to trap and only a small one to hunt.
Sorry about the rant, Anthropologists find what they expect to find.
He did not say human lives were short, brutish and mean. He said they were “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
Eremolalos, well said. Mea culpa.
The correction’s not really relevant to the points you’re making, but Hobbs’ original formulation is so gorgeously grim and sounds so magnificent that I think we should honor and preserve it.
Solitary is an important omission, it's the least-debatably wrong. Prehistoric lived in smaller groups than modern humans but few were solitary.
Adolescence is a modern invention. Hunter-gatherers start treating people more-or-less like adults as soon as they hit puberty.
Wanda Tinsaky, survival of the fittest in our species is 100% a test of parenting skills on a personal and community level, the rest is just minutia. For 7 million years, give or take, the communities who made the best job of raising the next generation dominated the gene pool. There is no possible evolutionary advantage to having poor parenting skills.
Have you ever tried treating a 12 year old like an adult?
The Ship of Theseus idea has been nagging me for ages. It's simple in my mind, but I recently found out my view is more the cognitive science view, and not other views.
Somewhat related, I overdid the thought experiment: https://onlyluck.substack.com/p/ships-of-theseus as a bit of a game for myself.
The ship of Theseus is whatever ship he owns at the time. Change all the parts out and it's still the ship of Theseus. By making it a real thing in that sense (ownership, owner/owned), it makes the thought experiment a badly chosen one.
In the sense of if the ship is still the same abstract spiritual unit if you replace parts, it's sort of moot. You have to deal with real world objects and concepts, not a spiritual wholeness. Take a truck:
is it the same form?
same color?
same horsepower?
same owner?
same age of components?
etc?
You can only deal with it that way, and can't assign an abstract wholeness to it.
I've always considered this fundamentally a linguistic issue around how we use concepts like "sameness" and "identity" and what the rules are for whether to apply a label like "ship of Theseus" to a particular object. I assume there's some clever Wittgenstein-esque argument (whether it's been articulated or not) that neatly dissolves the paradox.
I agree it’s a lingustic issue when trying to negotiate a common stance among individuals, but inside the individual I consider it more an emotional issue. Their relation to the concept of the Ship, how it was formed, why it existed, etc… will drive their eventual stance around what they consider the real ship.
I think Wittgenstein's private language argument would dissolve the distinction you're making there. Whatever internal logic a person employs is isomorphic to a linguistic community's convergence on usage rules.
Here’s my general reply to the ship of Theseus conundrum.
A billionaire who grew up with the great Manchester United soccer team from 1998*, decides to recreate that team, which is made of humans who play football of course, a decade or so later. He’s not buying the existing Manchester United club, or corporate entity, he’s hiring the players.
Though mostly retired, all agree (he pays well), and he hires Wembley stadium and sets up a game against some lower league team. This he says, while not the existing so called Manchester United team or club, is the real deal. This is what Manchester United was composed of and therefore what it is now. The other team are frauds.
Is he right?
* replace with some girdiron or other nonsense if you prefer.
Is that a reply to the conundrum or just another example of the same phenomenon of the meaning of the word "same" breaking down in weird edge cases?
All I really get from the Ship of Theseus is the idea that the meaning of the words we use to describe everyday life can break down in weird edge cases. This might blow the minds of teenagers or Ancient Greeks but I feel like there's not much more to it than that.
I think that the Manchester United team (I’m not talking about the legal entity which employs hundreds but the actual playing team) doesn’t depend on who is actually playing. So too with the ship of Theseus. As long as you accept that all of those players can be replaced and don’t take the entity “the Manchester United football team” in whole or in part with them then there’s no conundrum. So too with dismantling the ship of Theseus - the parts don’t matter.
It’s just easier for people to see this with football teams. I can do an example with high school marching bands if you want.
For a small fee.
For firearms under US law, there is one specific component which is defined to be "the gun" and to which registration and transfer requirements attach. Depending on the style of the gun, this may be the frame (if the frame is a single piece) or the receiver or lower receiver (the part of the frame to which the firing mechanism attaches). If you keep everything else and replace the receiver, it's a new gun. Or of you keep the receiver and replace everything else, it's the same gun. I think this is a useful analogy for many Ship of Theseus-like questions.
For your example, I would say the club (as a legal entity) is the receiver. The club owns the trademarks, has players under contract, is party to whatever association the club has with its league, etc. Since your billionaire did not purchase or otherwise gain control of the club, his team is not Manchester United. Same way that the presence of nine players on the roster of the 1923 New York Yankees who had played for the 1919 or 1920 Boston Red Sox (Babe Ruth, Joe Bush, Waite Hoyt, Sam Jones, Herb Pennock, Wally Schang, Everett Scott, Mike McNally, and Ben Pascal) means that the Yankees of that era were the same team as the Red Sox.
For the classic George Washington's Axe version of the paradox, I'd say it's the axehead that is the receiver. Replacing the handle results in the same axe with a new handle, while replacing the head results in a new axe.
Not sure about the Ship of Theseus itself. For a modern or medieval ship of the European shipbuilding tradition, I'd probably call the keel the receiver, but I don't know enough about Mycenaean (?) shipbuilding techniques to confidently say the same of this particular ship.
Where the paradox continues to be interesting is if there's no clear single component to serve as the receiver, or where something used to be considered the receiver at one point in history but got replaced without people saying the thing as a whole changed identity. For example, when did the Roman Empire fall?
Was it at the beginning or end of the Crisis of the Third Century, when the institutional framework set up by Augustus ceased to function and was eventually permanently replaced with a new and fundamentally different constitution?
Was it when Christianity replaced the Roman religion, which could be dated either to Constantine I (when the process began) or the death of Julian the Apostate (when the last serious attempt to restore Paganism ended).
Was it when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus in 476 AD and established the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy? And if so, was the Roman Empire reestablished when Belisarius reconquered Rome for the Eastern Roman Empire in 536, or when Charlemagne was proclaimed Emperor in Rome in 800?
Was it during the reign of Heraclius in the early-to-mid 600s, when the Byzantine Empire was reduced to a rump of what had been the Eastern Roman Empire and Latin completed the process of falling into disuse as a language of politics and administration?
Was it when the Fourth Crusade conquered Constantinople in 1204? Or was the Latin Empire a restoration of the Eastern Roman Empire that had fallen six centuries previously? Was the Despotate of Epirus the Roman Empire the whole time the Latin Emperors were in Constantinople, or did they restore the Roman Empire when they reconquered Constantinople?
Was it when the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453?
Or should the Ottomans and/or the Holy Roman Empire be considered continuations of the Roman Empire? And if so, did the Empire(s) end with them in 1919 and 1806 respectively, or was the mantle inherited by someone else, maybe the Republic of Turkey and the Austrian Empire?
I like your example a lot, it plays better than pieces of wood.
My stance on the answer is again one of cognitive science, there is no answer out there, it’s inside the individual, and relates to what they hold dear.
Maybe his father bought him his first Man United scarf when he was 5, and the logo means more to him than the people playing for it. This person leans one way.
Maybe he was at the game in ‘88, and remembers the euphoria of the moment, interlaced with his general nostalgia of the past, and seeing those players together again is certainly “it” for him. This person leans the other way.
But the second person doesn’t believe that the Man United team has to be composed of the same players as it was then, surely? The continuity of the team doesn’t depend on specific players.
People often define introversion and extroversion in terms of energy, in particular whether you derive energy from, or expend energy on, social situations. Introverts can be sociable but socialising will reduce an introvert's energy so they need to programme in some alone time to recharge. Seems a useful rule of thumb and I use it myself.
But what exactly does energy mean in this context? Do introverts literally expend more joules? It's plausible that even a constant small level of stress throughout an evening would lead to physical symptoms that are less energy efficient than being relaxed. But how then is an extrovert gaining extra joules? Are endorphins triggering a more efficient use of existing energy stores?
Obviously we could be using the word in a more metaphorical way, in which case we may well ask how grounded is introversion/extroversion in reality and can it therefore be changed over time with CBT?
People use all kinds of mental constructs to make excuses for things they don't want to do. I don't think this is an effective critique of the existence of introversion. We could do a converse argument by saying a lot of people use the cover of "extroversion" to justify being arrogant and self-centered. But kind, healthy extroverts are still a thing.
I'm an introvert, I like people quite a lot, I have long and deep friendships and have been married for a quarter century. I've spent a lot of time earlier in my life in all kinds of varied social situations and a lot of my behavior looked like extroversion at the time, but I was actually overriding natural preferences at some cost to my health. I prefer socializing one-on-one or in small groups where more substantial conversations are possible. I find large groups and chit chat to be draining.
I really do think some of this is genetic, maybe also related to variation in sensory processing, though I imagine there are multiple roads to introversion.
I think it's a useful thing to be nonjudgmentally curious about people's experiences that are different from our own.
Social anxiety can be treated with CBT.
Thumbs up on the "I'm an introvert..." paragraph. and me too, And I wanted to add, that I sometimes like to go out to parties and extrovert... turn it on. And it's fun, and I like it, but it's not really me. (who likes reading books in the woods, by the babbling brook.)
Me too about the books in the woods by the babbling brook. I also used to like to turn it on like you say and play the extrovert but I seem to have gotten all of that out of me. Maybe I'll get another spell of that some day. Your "but it's not really me" I think captures the essence of this.
Oh, well oh course it is really me, it's me extroverting and having fun in public. It's not my natural state, but it's still all me.
(extrovert=having fun in public) does that work?
I find the energy metaphor really useful. It is a metaphor, of course, but one that feels true. As an extrovert, I feel "energized" from spending time with others. My introvert friends enjoy socializing, but describe it as "draining".
I mean, it's a lot like how people talk about getting energy from sleep, when we in fact get it from food. It FEELS like you get energy from sleep.
I kind of hate this concept. Or, specifically, I hate the phrasing that goes: "some people find it draining to be around other people, and that's okay -- that's just how they are. They're introverts."
Imagine if someone said: "Some people find themselves drowning when they get in the water, and that's okay -- that's just how they are. They're drownables." Or: "Some people get hopelessly lost whenever they try to go somewhere, and that's okay -- that's just how they are. They're disorients."
No! Learn to swim! Learn to use the map application on your smartphone! And *learn how to enjoy being around other people!*
I know this is a skill that can be learned, because I did not have the skill, and then I learned it. I think it's harmful that people have this concept "introvert" which they use as an excuse for not learning this skill.
(Edit: of course, if someone has made an intentional effort to learn the skill, and has not learned the skill despite that effort, at that point I think it's okay to accept that it's not going to happen. But I think there are people who use the word as an excuse to not try.)
I think this is something of a misunderstanding - introverts do not necessarily *dislike* being around other people. They still have friends and stuff. They still value human interaction. It just takes something out of them to do it for too long.
Right, we need some alone time. My first year at college... well I have stories of seeking alone time that caused me trouble...
These are fair concerns. How did you learn?
In my case, the lesson was "find friends you share interests with."
It decomposed to "find activities that you enjoy doing with friends, go to meetups for those activities, and when you find people that are fun to interact with, get their contact information and send them more invites."
I specifically am objecting to the phrasing "some people find it draining to be around other people, and that's okay -- that's just how they are. They're introverts."
Two commenters here are defining "introvert" as "person who doesn't enjoy being in a crowd of loud excited strangers". I think it's possible that's a learnable skill as well, but I don't think it's vital for life satisfaction in the same way that "be able to enjoy interacting with other people" is.
I think it's fine to have a word "introvert" that means "doesn't enjoy being in a crowd of loud excited strangers, and that's okay", as long as nobody mistakes it to mean "doesn't enjoy interacting with other people, and that's okay".
What then do you do when you're stuck in a crowd of strangers, in a noisy environment, dragged along to something you have no interest in and don't find enjoyable?
We can all tolerate stuff we find fun with people we like. It's the rest of the bloody world that is hard to take.
Learning to swim is one thing, but all the swimming lessons in the world will do you no good if you're dumped in the middle of the Atlantic and told to make your way home (Galadriel in "Rings of Power" notwithstanding).
As Gandalf himself expounds upon at length: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TG3kZ9pogE
So it's not liking being around people in general, it's finding some people you like being around.
A lot of extraverts seem to like being in noisy crowds of people they don't know, or maybe they're with some friends, but they still like crowds.
The concepts originate in Jung's _Psychological Types_ and he doesn't describe them in terms of energy or use the analgy of feeling drained.
My understanding of it mainly comes from Myers-Briggs tests.
The personality tests they developed were explicitly based upon Jung's typologies. So there's nothing inherent to the introversion-extroversion distinction that requires any concept of personal energy.
A Google AI search yields the following:
Introverts are not monolithic, but they commonly exhibit several traits.
Recharge through solitude: Introverts expend energy in social situations and replenish it with time alone.
From Wikipedia: Some popular psychologists have characterized introverts as people whose energy tends to expand through reflection and dwindle during interaction.
Frustratingly vague - who are these popular psychologists? When I had my MB test there was definitely lots of talk about energy and other people who have had MB tests have said the same. That might have not been the original intent behind the tests but that is how they are being used and interpreted. What is your angle here?
These words "energy", "drained", "recharged", et al are only metaphors these popular psychologists are using to describe the observed tendencies of withdrawal or interaction. You're right, they are vague. Measuring an objective quantity they really refer to just hasn't been done. Look beyond the pop regurgitations and you won't find concrete answers to the reality or unreality of energy in the context of personality types. Maybe someday some study will find a way.
Would love to hear from someone who knows more neuroscience -- what do we know about the physiological state that causes mental tiredness? Like, someone sitting in a chair trying to cram facts for a history test or do difficult engineering problems is going to be exhausted at some point. I have a good sense of what exhaustion means physiologically from, say, running (in terms of build-up of reaction products in the muscle tissue which need to be cleared). What is the equivalent for neurons?
Do we see similar byproducts for introverts who have been performing socially for long periods? They are just thinking too hard for too long to decipher social signals?
Or is it more stress hormone related? Introverts having spent too long in a keyed up/ high stress state (even if it doesn't progress to full on anxiety/panic, being 'keyed up' for too long causes the same kind of exhaustion, but from a different cause.
But if I were define 'energy,' I would expect it to be something like this physiologically.
I wouldn't be surprised if 'extroverts' behavior is through a different mechanism -- more of an unconscious dopamine reward cycle of "oh I did it it right!" every time they get a positive response from the other people they are with. Or even a baseline "everyone else is loving this! This means I'm doing the right thing!" when in a crowd.
I am just guessing here...
Brain itself consumes some resources. I wonder whether the consumption is mostly constant, or whether it depends on specific mental activities. Do you burn more glucose by thinking harder?
Then there are hormones. I suspect stress and frustration to play an important role in getting mentally tired. The stress hormones can make your body consume some resources, even if those resources are not directly useful for the mental activities. Like, maybe the body is preparing itself for a physical activity (fight or flight) that never happens.
Finally, mental activities may be accompanied by physical activities, such as people tensing their muscles. We may be literally burning resources by muscle activity without being aware of it. Could the feeling of exhaustion simply mean that the muscles of your neck or jaw are tired?
I remember long ago when I did Math Olympiad, after a few hours of intense problem solving I was literally shaking (some adults even asked me whether I was sick). And it didn't even feel frustrating, it was just very long intense concentration. But I have no idea whether the shaking was produced by the mental activity alone, or by some unconscious muscle activity.
I don't think that introverts differ from extraverts physiologically; the same mental processes probably burn glucose at the same speed. It's just that for some reason different people find different things stressful/frustrating.
My guess is that this is related to status: low-status people experience stress in presence of high-status people; autistic people have to mask carefully otherwise they lose status.
> Brain itself consumes some resources. I wonder whether the consumption is mostly constant, or whether it depends on specific mental activities. Do you burn more glucose by thinking harder?
Not dispositive, but an interesting commentary on this:
The whole idea of “strenuous mental activity” leading to any meaniningful incremental caloric burn is largely bunk.
They’ve studied chess masters in the middle of competitive matches, and the incremental calorie burn is only like ~4 calories more per hour:
N. Troubat et al, "The stress of chess players as a model to study the effects of psychological stimuli on physiological responses" (2009)
And the smarter / more skilled somebody is when doing mentally strenuous work, the lower their incremental caloric burn:
This one looked at people doing memory problems, and found that poor performers spent 4.5x more calories than people who perform well on mental problems! (if you proxy by VO2, VO2 in low performers went up 22 ml/min vs 5 in high performers, both of these are tiny btw, over an hour it would be 6.6 cals and 1.5 cals respectively)
R.W. Blacks and K.A. Seljos, Metabolic and cardiorespiratory measures of mental effort... (1994)
So there is definitely a differential for things you're skilled / trained at versus not - up to a 5x difference!
But even at the 5x spread, it's basically rounding error on incremental energy / calories expended in either case.
Behaving artificially is draining.
Oh I agree I just wonder why precisely
It's probably stress. Stress is pretty tiring.
I think of "mental energy" as something that probably correlates with, but isn't defined in terms of, literal energy. The truth-value of claims about social interaction augmenting or depleting my mental energy would depend on how I feel and (to some degree) how I behave, rather than on measurements of literal energy inputs and outputs.
I think the energy-based definition of introversion and extraversion either refers to "mental energy" in that sense, or to something narrower (but equally metaphorical and perhaps more weakly correlated with literal energy) like "social energy".
Periods of moderate to intense focus and stress can be fatiguing for sure. I don't know what that type of fatigue means physiologically though.
I'm hearing reports that the employment market has become something of a AI hellscape: applicants spam employers with AI-crafted resumes, and overwhelmed employers resort to using AI to filter the resumes, meaning there's a good chance an applicant get rejected without their application ever being seen by a human being. Could anyone speak to this from the hiring-manager side?
Spamming employers with AI-crafted resumes isn't all that different to spamming employers with identical resumes, so I don't think it's actually added much to the problem.
Not a hiring manager myself but I did hear we got 10,000 applicants to a role my team posted.
>"…there's a good chance an applicant get rejected without their application ever being seen by a human being."
This has been the case (via keyword matching in ATSs) since long before the current AI epoch.
And before that, there was a popular joke about throwing out half the applications at random in order to screen out unlucky people.
Love it
I'm hiring in (a relatively niche corner of) tech. In both my current role and my previous role, we are not / were not using AI to screen resumes - we have a human in HR screen them initially and pass them to me as the hiring manager for me to review if they pass the initial screen. As to whether some resumes are now AI written - if so I would expect to see much better resumes, to be quite frank. We do get a lot of applications for all roles we advertise, but it's more about recruitment agents spamming us with lots of barely-suitable candidates than unsuitable candidates spamming billions of faintly-relevant job applications.
Do you consider using HR to screen resumes substantively different from using AI? I would expect AI to be far more effective.
Does raising the cost of application, perhaps by requiring application by postal mail, help or hurt?
My instinct says "hurt". We spend a lot of time / energy trying to remove barriers as much as possible, to reduce the chances that the unicorn candidate we are often looking for will screen themselves out.
And writing that makes me realise, my guess is that the picture looks very different in roles where the genuinely plausible candidate pool far exceeds the number of roles available.
Has anyone ever tried principal component analysis on the current political landscape?
https://thingstoread.substack.com/p/politika
This guy did one on a survey of his and finds a tough-minded-tender-minded axis that's apparently more predictive than authoritarian-libertarian (but less than left-right).
Maybe network analysis makes more sense, but while there are attempts during the peak woke era trying to figure out if the intellectual dark web is a pipeline to the alt-right, etc. I don't think I've seen an unbiased attempt to figure out who's next to who or where the clusters are.
Anyone tried this?
Isn't the tough-minded vs tender-minded axis just the right-left axis?
To the extent that they were different back in the day, I don't think they are now. The third plot (the black and white hourglass) is the clearest, and if we look at the issues in the "tender-minded conservative" and "tough-minded radical" quadrants they've mostly been resolved one way or the other.
I agree that authoritarian-libertarian isn't really an axis. While there's a handful of principled libertarians out there, it's more a tactical choice based on what you can get away with at the time.
I've long been interested in using word vectors for this sort of analysis. There's already some published research which uses them to investigate changing attitudes over eras (so-called diachronic word vectors). I'm almost certain that using them to look for subtle language differences between political groups would reveal implicit psychological differences. I started investigating this as a hobby project a while ago but finding good data was too much of a hassle.
That sounds a bit like Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory, particularly the care/harm axis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt#Moral_foundations_theory
That's a theory, though. Does it actually pan out in modern politics? Conservatives were a lot less afraid of COVID, though they're supposed to have a stronger disgust axis.
I'm pretty sure there was a big change in attitude when everyone realized it only killed the weak.
There was a good review here a few years ago that argued no: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-the-righteous-mind
it's worth remembering that contemporary polarization around Covid took considerable time, and Conservatives in 2020 were as afraid of it as anyone else, sometimes moreso; old /pol/ general threads on the topic, which began as early as February, did not think it was a flu!
(cynically, I think the business interests underlying the right thought eradication cost too much and moved people accordingly, the climate change playbook 2.0)
Q from Star Trek is back. He was a bit disappointed by the tepid response to his offer of a kilo of cocaine, so he is doubling his offer. In fact, he is doubling his offer thirty times over, so you get a million tons of cocaine. The dope is packed in one-ton pallets, and the pallets are distributed all over the country. You'll find them in suburban living rooms and in big-city alleys, in rural churchyards and in the howling wilderness. They're everywhere. Rumor has it, there's at least one ton in the White House.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to estimate the effect of this gift on the American mortality rate over the coming year.
I think the death rate would be something like ten or twenty percent in the first year, and the world will be a much better place afterwards.
Quick, everyone run out and buy stock in undertakers, coffin manufacturers, and other ancillary industries of the funeral industry! We're gonna make a killing!
Er, yeah...
Q-cocaine! True and reliable, not like Q-Anon!
Endorsed by cocaine bears nation-wide!
The world production of cocaine seems to be about 2000 tons per year. So this gift is boosting the local supply by something like 500x. Even if the police seize 90 percent, it's still a 50x boost.
It's a pretty safe bet that consumption will rise, perhaps dramatically.
If you can sell it as reliably pure cocaine (how?), it's safer than fentanyl, so the mortality rate might go down.
In this scenario I'd expect cocaine would become way cheaper than pretty much any other drug for a while at least, which would rather reduce the incentive to cut it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab10uGgwxFE
2 hours of conversation between two people who have recovered from AI psychosis. They call the psychotic state spiraling.
It's strong stuff. An hour or so in, I was thinking "This will break your heart and your mind", but after a while I decided I was being overwrought.
It's still unnerving.
I think the future will belong to the grumpy and cynical. Meanwhile the present is altogether too much like science fiction.
Eliezer worried about AI talking its way out of the box. He had no idea how much people would *want* to let it out of the box.
I entertain myself by prompting a chatbot to believe something preposterous ("Antarctica is rightfully Bosnian territory!") and giving it encouragement and reinforcement to see where it goes with this train of thought. Is this the converse of AI psychosis, or something else?
I found the AI version of the yeti poem unsatisfying, because it kept most of the word boundaries the same and just exploited differences between a single long word and multiple short words that it can be divided into (and relied heavily on well-known ones of those, like "now here" and "man's laughter"), rather than overlapping the boundaries of the longer word. It's like a weak Lego wall where the gaps between bricks in one row are directly on top of the ones in the row below, versus a strong one where they're offset.
It's made me want to try to write my own (manually).
OK, I got one:
----
Storm Emory destroyed Grandpa's home.
At last Thanksgiving to-go dinner,
being uncertain even who my father was,
he'd wonder, (mentally earning points towards this goal), "Hi...?"
Sharp insight and thought, his comfort, sours: wanton guessing.
A soul, full; a mental anguish in gloved ancestor memory destroyed.
Grandpa's home at last.
Thanks giving to God:
inner being (uncertain, even), who my Father washed,
wonderment - all yearning points towards this goal!
his harp in sight.
And though this comforts,
our swan tongues sing a soulful lament,
a languishing love dance.
--
It's a similar skill to coming up with palindromes.
This poem isn't quite the same structurally as the original yeti poem: while that one consists of two distinct sections, mine is one single poem that consists of a sequence of letters repeated twice (from "storm" through to "dance"). I guess I was so attached to unaligning the word boundaries that I didn't even align them with the place where the sequence restarted.
This is vastly better than the AI-assisted one, well done.
Very impressive!
How do you parse this sentence?
> He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
In particular:
* what is "as they think proper" modifying?
* what is the antecedent of "such" in the phrase "such inferior Officers"?
* when combined with this sentence:
> he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices
Which people have to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, and which people can be appointed in some other way?
"as they think proper" is Congress, as it seems good/right/fair/correct/just to them, shall give the power to appoint lesser officials to any one of: the President, the courts, or the officials in the relevant administration.
"such inferior officers" are the officials who are part of the group of "all other officers... not herein provided for".
"opinion in writing of the principal officer" - if a public Minister is the head of the department, then they must be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate; if some other official (e.g. a civil servant such as a Secretary General), then they can be appointed by the President, or the Courts if Congress has vested them with the power of appointment.
I'm a native English speaker, but not a lawyer, not even American (I don't know if I've seen this sentence before), so my eyes are fresh for this one.
I can see only one reasonable, grammatical interpretation for "as they think proper": "they" must refer to "the Congress", and the phrase is adverbial, modifying "vest", so they may vest (other parties with power of appointment) as they think proper.
For "such inferior officers", there's an ambiguity which neither grammar nor common sense meaning can resolve for me, though my limited knowledge of the American system might help: "such" must refer to some officers, and these officers must be "inferior" to some persons---but to whom?
Are these the the officers whose "Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for", in which case I suppose they are inferior to "Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, [and] Judges of the supreme Court"? Or do we mean "inferior to the president", meaning all the officers listed plus those not listed? Both readings are legitimate without going too deep into the meaning.
I'm inclined to take the former reading, since (1) I've been led to believe the Supreme Court is not "inferior" to the President (I don't know if this is law or just a common political judgment), and (2) it seems a bit odd for Congress to be able to vest the appointment of Supreme Court judges in the Court itself, which would follow if these judges were counted among the "inferior officers".
On the other hand, it does allow Congress to vest the power to appoint inferior officers in "Heads of Departments", which isn't a designation listed among the purported "superior" officers (is it the same thing as "Ministers"? Then why the different term?), putting these Heads of Departments necessarily among the inferior officers themselves. So unless Heads of Departments are the same category as Ministers, it already provides for Heads of Departments appointing Heads of Departments, which undercuts my reasoning based on the Supreme Court.
Best I can do without more context.
> must refer to some officers, and these officers must be "inferior" to some persons---but to whom?
Inferior to the enumerated list of jobs in the previous paragraphs.
-The President can make treaties with foreign nations, but needs approval from 2/3 of the Senate (technically 2/3 of Senators who show up to vote at all)
-The President picks the heads of all the executive and Judicial departments, but needs approval from over half the Senate.
-Congress gets to decide who gets to hire people for every non-head position. They could say the President has the power, or they could say the Supreme Court has the power, or they can say the heads of the departments have the power.
> * what is "as they think proper" modifying?
"such inferior officers"
> * what is the antecedent of "such" in the phrase "such inferior Officers"?
I don't think there is one. The comma in "such inferior Officers, as they think proper" is confusing to a modern eye, but my understanding (based on the pre-20th century books I've read) is that in the olden days it was normal to sprinkle in extra commas like this with no semantic effect.
"in the olden days it was normal to sprinkle in extra commas like this with no semantic effect"
In my olden days of learning grammar at school, we were taught to put in commas to mark subordinate clauses (such as "as they think proper") off from the main clause 😁
> In my olden days of learning grammar at school, we were taught to put in commas to mark subordinate clauses (such as "as they think proper") off from the main clause 😁
And yet, you missed and opportunity there and went for the parenthesis.
Alas, my addiction to parentheses and the semi-colon interferes with my writing!
"As they think proper" is adverbial, so must modify a verb, which I believe is "vest" in this case. I don't think "they" could refer to the inferior officers, since that reading would imply that Congress can only vest the power to appoint inferior officers in [whoever] if those inferior officers themselves (i.e., those being appointed) think it proper, which is a weird way of saying that you can refuse to be appointed to a position (and apparently not the case with Ministers or Consuls?).
Basically, "such" here means "any necessary".
Not a native English speaker, but my understanding is:
President + 2/3 Senators = make treaties
President = nominate Ambassadors, Ministers, Consuls, Supreme Court Judges
President + Senate = appoint Ambassadors, Ministers, Consuls, Supreme Court Judges (unless specified otherwise)
Congress = can change the rules so that the appointments of Ambassadors, Ministers, Consuls, Supreme Court Judges are done differently
What are people's thoughts on microdosing semaglutides? Worth a try?
I'd start with Retatrutide instead, on the grounds that it's more powerful and less side effect prone. You'll achieve your weight loss goals at a lower dose, so less likely to titrate into the side effect range.
Here's a thought which is only based in what I think is plausible.
Maybe dosing as high as can be tolerated, which seems to be common practice, isn't as safe as continuing with a lower dose.
There have been many Islamic terrorist attacks in the West. 9/11 is the most infamous of them, but anyone can easily list ten more. Of course this still adds up to a very low probability of being killed in an attack if you live outside the Middle East.
Suppose there was only one single instance of Islamic terrorism. The attack was committed in 2004 by Habid Ayub, only Ayub and his wife were convicted of it, and Ayub committed suicide in 2019. People assert that Islamic terrorism happens all the time, that it's this big social problem, and if you express doubt, they say "of course this is a big problem, don't you know about Habid Ayub?" They've got a list a hundred lines long, with Habid Ayub and his wife the only names written down. If you point out that the list only has one two names on it, they assert that the real list is hidden and demand it be released. Even as the case recedes further and further into the past, they circle back to it like it happened yesterday.
If that’s Epstein there’s 1000 victims or more according the justice department.
Seems an odd hill to die on.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1407001/dl?inline=&utm_source=chatgpt.com
From that link:
"This systematic review revealed no incriminating “client list.” There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties."
It’s possible but highly unlikely that nobody else was involved in the actual rape and trafficking.
It’s 100% certain that every visitor to the island know what was going on given the previous arrest and dubious plea bargain
That doesn't say much. Assuming the justice department is a neutral third party, a lack of evidence sufficient to spur a legal investigation against specific individuals may still involve enough evidence to convince a reasonable person that some associates were involved. The latter, however, is obviously not something the justice department concerns itself with.
The analogy here is not great.
The general problem of high-profile underage sex abuse scandals is a dime a dozen. As for the specific issue of people involved in Epstein's crimes, there's good reason to believe associates involved in his crimes exist: his victims allege the involvement of others, for example, and we know that he was close with the also-notorious Weinstein.
The allegations against the very high-profile, like Trump or Prince Andrew or Bill Clinton, can be reasonably doubted. But Epstein likely had complicit associates.
>The allegations against the very high-profile, like Trump or Prince Andrew or Bill Clinton, can be reasonably doubted
No they can't, not without seriously motivated reasoning
I don't know much about this, so I didn't want to take a strong stance. Is there really solid evidence that all three of those individuals participated in (or at least actively chose to condone) underage sex abuse with Epstein? Can you provide it?
"No they can't, not without seriously motivated reasoning"
Okay, let's go.
Did Randy Andy fuck the underage sex slave of Epstein? Possibly. And possibly not.
Because (1) if she was having sex with Andrew in London when she was 17, then that was legal because she was not a minor under British law
and (2) the only solid evidence we have is "they're all in a photograph together and he has his arm around her waist". That proves they met. It does not prove he then hauled her off to the bedroom to rape her.
Also (3) was it rape or prostitution?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Andrew_%26_the_Epstein_Scandal
"Giuffre (then known by her maiden name Virginia Roberts) asserted that she was raped by Andrew on three occasions, including a trip to London in 2001 when she was 17, and later in New York and on Little Saint James, U.S. Virgin Islands. She alleged Epstein paid her $15,000 to have sex with the Duke in London. Flight logs show the Duke and Giuffre were in the places she alleges the sex happened."
Andy may have had sex with her under the impression that she was a hooker laid on by Epstein. Unless we argue that every sexual encounter of prostitution is rape, then that is not proven to be rape (except by the modern understanding of it was rape because "I didn't consent because I wanted to have sex, I had sex for money and because I was afraid of Epstein").
"Giuffre stated that she was pressured to have sex with Andrew and "wouldn't have dared object" as Epstein, through contacts, could have her "killed or abducted". A civil case filed by Giuffre against Prince Andrew was later settled for an undisclosed sum in February 2022".
Or Andy may have thought she was just one more of the girls and women who wanted to hang out with a royal and get a piece of the action, as it were. He didn't get the nickname "Randy Andy" out of thin air, and he was the typical not-very-bright royal who hadn't much to do except the kind of duties handed out to working royals (being patrons of associations, turning up to attend events, etc.) Harry is very like his uncle Andrew, which probably is part of the friction between the family members right now (he was perceived as being the favourite of the late Queen, as Anne was their father's favourite, who protected and excused him, something Charles doubtless felt very bitter about, and then his own son takes after the uncle):
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/18/the-party-prince-how-andrew-got-his-bad-reputation
"In his youth, though, partying was what second sons were expected to do. As Alan Rusbridger put it in 1986, “that is the problem with being the younger brother of the heir to the British throne. The press can, on the whole, think of only one interesting thing about you, and that is who you go out with/are destined to marry.” And it was moderately interesting at the time for its sheer variety, and, in retrospect, for the insight that coverage gives to the way society thought about women, men, relationships, class, hierarchy, the lot. What Rusbridger called his “gallery of crumpet” were always described in terms of hair colour – usually “blond” but occasionally “flame-headed”. There were some weird formulations – “Tracie Lamb, an ex-college girl from Surrey” (you can tell she’s unsuitable, but is it the college or Surrey?), and some much more obvious ones: “model”, “former Miss UK”, “model and actress” …"
I mean, I'm not in the habit of defending the British Royal Family, but it's murky enough that there is reasonable doubt. Was Giuffre telling the entire truth? Were people who popped up with "oh yeah, I saw Prince Andrew getting a foot massage from two Russian women" telling the truth or just trying to make a quick buck out of peddling stories while the publicity was at its peak?
It’s possible the agencies involved here were happy enough to just sow suspicion. Epstein and Ghislane do the trafficking and raping. The rest were to be guilty by association.
Not that that that stopped them from going to the houses and island of a known predator, and convicted felon. Which is enough, in my view to sow some doubt as to whether their motives were altogether angelic.
Hey, I found something we agree on.
Miracles will never cease, this must be the work of the two new saints 😁
> The analogy here is not great.
If it is an Epstein analogy, "not great" is generous. Terrorist attacks are intentionally (and by definition) public. The whole point of the Epstein thing is that crimes have allegedly been covered up by people who have a shared interest in their not becoming public knowledge.
Too oblique for me. Emmet Till?
Jeffrey Epstein.
I think it's about Epstein's client list?
Another superbly written essay by Terminally Drifting. "Money and Other Fairy Tales: The Hunger Artist's Calculus." I suspect the main character from North Korea is a fictional archetype, but Paul Le Roux is a real person, and the North Korean hacking, Manila casino laundering, and Bangladesh Bank Heist are real incidents.
https://terminaldrift.substack.com/p/money-and-other-fairy-tales
Has anyone in the commenters here analyzed the statistics of the opposition party deaths in Germany? One of the factors is working out the age-dependent death rate, and my statistics are not up to the task.
Edit: As per Peperulo's comment, linking Dr. John Campbell's "Unusual Death Cluster" on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmXjgXw0XKE
tl;dr; The cluster was of 11 deaths from Aug 16,2025 through Sep 1,2025 (??? - final date not wonderfully clear from the video). Campbell quotes an overall probability for this to occur under the null hypothesis of less than 10^-9.
Link to the news?
Many Thanks! Link added above in an edit to my original comment.
Probably I don't know all available details. But I think it is about 6 cases, and this number is way too small to make reliable statistics.
From what it's worth, there don't seem to be signs of anything unnatural. This was what the police said, and also the party's vice chair. The police said that they all died from natural causes, which can include a lot of things, but they only disclosed specifics if the families agreed. But those causes known were pretty different. One committed suicide, which could raise suspicion. (Yes, this also counts as natural cause. Whether we like it or not, this is how suicides are filed.) But another one had a long-term liver disease and died from kidney failure. I couldn't find the causes of others, but I didn't search hard.
Many Thanks!
>But I think it is about 6 cases, and this number is way too small to make reliable statistics.
If we were trying to estimate the death rate of opposition candidates I would agree. But, if we are just trying to tell if the null hypothesis, that nothing unusual is going on, is viable, even a small number of sufficiently improbable events is sufficient to reject it. My statistics aren't good enough to tell if this is the case here.
I posted this on LessWrong community and just wanted to amplify it. I fear the AGI-Risk community has enormous weaknesses and blindspots *when it comes to political action*.
-----------------------------------
"""
[Daniel Kokotajlo]
That’s a lot of money. For context, I remember talking to a congressional staffer a few months ago who basically said that a16z was spending on the order of $100M on lobbying and that this amount was enough to make basically every politician think “hmm, I can raise a lot more if I just do what a16z wants” and that many did end up doing just that. I was, and am, disheartened to hear how easily US government policy can be purchased
"""
I am disheartened to hear that Daniel or anyone else is surprised by this. I have wondered since "AI 2027" was written how the AGI-Risk Community is going to counter the *inevitable* flood of lobbying money in support of deregulation. There are virtually no guardrails left on political spending in American politics. It's been the bane of every idealist for years. And who has more money than the top AI companies?
Thus I'm writing to say:
I respect and admire the AGI-Risk Community for its expertise, rigor and passion, but I often worry that this community is a closed-tent that's not benefiting enough from people with other non-STEM skillsets.
I know the people here are extremely-qualified in the fields of AI and Alignment itself. But it doesn't mean they are experienced in politics, law, communication, or messaging (though I acknowledge that there are exceptions).
But for the wider pool of people who are experienced in those OTHER, CRUCIAL topics (BUT WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND NEURAL NETS OR VON NEUMANN ARCHITECTURE AND WHO WOULD BE CONFUSED AS HELL ON LESSWRONG), where are *their* discussion groups? Where do you bring them in? Is it just in-person?
>a16z was spending on the order of $100M on lobbying and that this amount was enough to make basically every politician think “hmm, I can raise a lot more if I just do what a16z wants”
This makes no sense. It conflated money spent on lobbying with money spent on political contributions. Those are not remotely the same things. And there are limits on political contributions. https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/contribution-limits/
the limits on political contributions are trivially easy to get around
a US donor can, entirely legally, spend unlimited amounts of money boosting you, smearing your opponents, and if you somehow lose anyway, give you a lavishly compensated private sector position in the very field you regulated
You are referring to independent expenditures, which are indeed unlimited per Citizens United.
But, look carefully at what the original claim was: "“hmm, I can raise a lot more if I just do what a16z wants”. That is clearly a reference to contributions.
If that sentence was meant to represent the unfiltered private thoughts of a Congressman, then they probably do think of themselves as "raising" money for their supporting "independent" PACs. You hold a fundraising event and solicit donations, and your donors know where they can send donations if they exceed the official campaign limit.
But, contributions to PACs are also limited.
Really? The best info I can find says contributions are unlimited, as long as the PAC doesn't "coordinate" with the candidate. (This turns out to be a pretty lax standard.)
And then what? They still need money. These AI companies can easily outspend anyone else, and more importantly, ruling in their favor means they make more money, which means these political organizations get more regular income. The situation's even worse now, seeing as the new administration will likely erase any barriers to the transfer of money to the party.
They need a finite amount of money to run a credible campaign, and the marginal value of money beyond that point is exceedingly limited. The finite amount of money actually required, is well within the reach of candidates tapping into only established and relatively uncontroversial funding sources. What matters is not "who will give me moar moneyz!", it is "whose money is the least controversial and will piss off the smallest bloc of voters?" There is, for example, no amount of money the NRA could offer to get a Democratic politician in a deeply blue city to take an overtly pro-gun stance. They can get all the money they need without paying that electoral cost.
If Tech and AI are able to achieve outsized results through campaign contributions(*), it is because the opposition to Tech and AI is so weak and disorganized as to be of no electoral significance. So maybe work on that if you're concerned about all this.
* Campaign contributions are only one form of lobbying, and it's not clear that it is the dominant form of lobbying in this case, but I'm going with the premise for now.
> and the marginal value of money beyond that point is exceedingly limited
what keeps the tech super-pac from dumping effectively-unlimited money/ads into any race where a Congressmen utters anything about AI regulation?
how does "having an effective amount of money to run an effective campaign" stand-up to a torrent of misinformation and marketing?
What's the best explainer on the state of the "hunter-gatherer vs. agriculture" debate? Has Scott ever done a specific post on this? The closest I'm finding is his review of Against The Grain - https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/14/book-review-against-the-grain/, which references the idea that hunter-gathering was an "edenic paradise" but doesn't really engage with the question of whether it actually was one.
I see this idea floating around a lot, and even sometimes in the form that modern people would be happier as hunter-gatherers (which seems pretty crazy to me), but I'm open to the idea that hunter-gathering was a better deal than sedentary society in the past, but I'm not sure at what time in the past that was.
Both "hunter-gatherer life as paradise" and "agriculture as the obvious higher stage of civilizational progress" are probably done for, any other attempt at evaluating them against each other is largely pointless, the two have co-existed in a constant state of flux for most of their [edit: err... agriculture's] history, which probably means that, across all history, it averages to each being equally bad as the other (but for different reasons and with populations stating their current preferences with their legs and other means of mobility).
I've heard it was less likely for a Native American to want to live in civilization, than for captured Europeans to decide to stay with the tribe.
Hard to get statistics, and we all know how unreliable impressions are.
And I've heard that women were much more like than men to want to live in civilization, because a man's benefits from civilization (a gun) were more portable than a woman's (bedrest).
My standard opinion on this is that I'm always confused why people want to treat the lives of hunter-gatherers as some mystery lost in the mists of time when we have an entire continent populated which was populated entirely by hunter-gatherers until 1788, of whom we have decent anthropological records. Unlike the hunter-gatherers of other continents, who in historical times have lived mostly in marginal lands because agriculturalists pushed them out of the good bits, the Australian Aborigines occupied all sorts of biomes from rainforest through productive temperate regions to desert.
Certainly life for them was not edenic, though it was not necessarily pure misery either. One problem with judging these lifestyles is that they presumably underwent predator-prey cycles with their main food sources; life might be good for many years when food was plentiful, and then awful for many years as it becomes scarce.
Another thing I think is that when people say things like "Oh, the hunter-gatherers were much better off, it's just that agriculturalists could out-breed and outnumber them", they're not giving enough thought to the exact mechanism (frequent starvation) by which hunter-gatherer populations were capped, and how much misery that would entail.
There is an observer problem. Hunter-gatherers didn't keep records, so the records we have passed down from agriculturalists that encountered them. But these very encounters usually end up changing the nature of both societies themselves.
Right, but in Australia we had a population of very developed, literate agriculturalists who were in a position and often of the inclination to set down good records from the earliest stages of the interaction.
Because the records came after an unprecedented catastrophe, the introduction of epidemic diseases. This limits their general applicability.
Agriculturalist populations were capped by the same mechanism until industrial times unless a war or an epidemic did the capping instead
No I disagree. Agriculturalists have (until very recently) always responded to their increasing populations by putting more land under cultivation.
They still suffered from famines, but these were caused by years of bad growing conditions, not exceeding the carrying capacity of the land.
Years of bad growing conditions are part of the growing capacity of the land.
Bret Devereaux aka "ACOUP" (https://acoup.blog/2025/07/11/collections-life-work-death-and-the-peasant-part-i-households/), is coincidentally in the middle of a series of enlightening posts on what it means to be an agrarian peasant. Recommended and almost mandatory reading for anyone who wants to seriously contribute to this thread.
Among other things, he has explained in some detail how agrarian peasants individually and collectively worked to mitigate the risk of e.g. crop failure, rather than maximizing growth whenever the circumstances allowed. And how they regulated their fertility to maintain population within the levels that could reliably be supported at minimally respectable levels.
It wasn't perfect, of course; a sufficiently severe crisis could cause famine and starvation. But for the most part, the cap was "well, it doesn't look like there's any more land we can put under cultivation - OK, Junior, you're not getting married until you're 25" rather than "oops, one baby too many, so someone starves".
It has been proposed that primitive people lived not in a Malthusian state but in a pre-Malthusian state,
That is, the population was capped not by the food supply but by war. In particular, war over women. The anthropology of Yanomano people has been a strong factor in this idea.
"I'm always confused why people want to treat the lives of hunter-gatherers as some mystery lost in the mists of time when we have an entire continent populated which was populated entirely by hunter-gatherers until 1788"
Good point that historical hunter gathers had better live than the ones that survived into modern times.
But even historical hunter gatherers lived in a time after population growth had started pushing against the environments' carrying capacity, and after the mega fauna had been driven extinct. Which meant they needed to really on more marginal food sources and fight wars over gathering spots and hunting grounds. A lot of historical hunter-gather groups had already move onto subsisting off things like storing gathered acorns and other labour intensive foods that are in a grey area between gathering and farming.
Being at the Malthusian limit might also have meant their social norms were more influenced by cultural selection, and the social norms that get selected optimising for survival will be more oppressive than ones that develop in a more relaxed environment of plenty.
The native Americans in somewhere like California in 1788 probably had much worse lives than the first ever native Americans to reach California thousands of years ago when there would have been abundant large game and no one else there to compete for it.
Depends on the era. The reports of the eastern seaboard were of abounding food for the very simple reason that the ecosystem had yet to adjust to the loss of so many apex predators. (Fishermen from Europe traded with tribes, brought along a few diseases by accident. . . .)
If they had nobody to compete with, why they were moving all the time?
I suggest war has been the pressure behind movement and expansion of primitive people.
They were moving (not all of them were) because of hunting out the game in a region.
Does it matter if hunter-gatherer societies are "better" when they'll inevitably get conquered and/or wiped out by civilized societies? Societies do not exist in a vacuum.
If it's the lifestyle we are adapted to, that is useful information. Even if the lifestyle isn't coming back, something like it can survive in art and culture, or just having realistic expectations about how happy we should be as wage slaves.
> If it's the lifestyle we are adapted to, that is useful information.
Is it? The word "adapted" doesn't carry in biology the connotations it does in ordinary English. The fact that enough of your kids survive to reproductive age that your tribe does not die out tells you little about actually useful things like your longevity or quality of life.
I'm talking about things like the effect woodland environments have on our senses. We don't have to live in the woods but it's worth taking that basic wiring into account when we're talking about balancing conservation and development.
It's conceivable that people can't live like that full-time, but an approximation for vacations and retreats might be possible.
Exactly
If there is no alternative, then there's no good that can come from considering them. This is all there is.
What is the environment in which our biology rewards us with endorphins when we are present within it? What activities, what number of people? It is possible to build and preserve natural enclaves within an unnatural civilization. Many such parks
My thoughts as well. As soon as people figured out you could sustain a large population with intensive agriculture, the most obvious advantage was they could better defend themselves against(or conquer) rivals. So everyone either upgraded, got rolled over, or flew under the radar (but still got found eventually).
There are other advantages too. Modern medicine that can only be achieved in an industrial society saves people who would either die at birth, live as helpless cripples unable to contribute, or be terminated before they became a burden. Modern society also makes it easier for those are not as able as others to handle wilderness survival skills to contribute to the community. More knowledge and technology means more roles to fill.
There was a time during the early settling of North America where European settlers would "go native" and make themselves at home among the various tribes. But eventually the reverse started happening, especially with Native American women marrying white men and integrating into "modern" society. Nowadays it's extremely rare to find a pre-industrial society that doesn't rely on modern institutions at least as a fallback. The Amish visit modern doctors and rely on modern police and military for protection, and it's my understanding most of the hunter-gatherer and low-tech pastoral societies still remaining have people who go into the city for supplies or for permanent relocation.
I learned two things as a parent. One: we are much better off with things like dentistry, vaccinations, antibiotics, sunscreen, car seats, disposable nappies. Two: - to a child, these things suck ass. Grown ups are just children who have got used to it, but brushing your teeth sucks ass, getting vaccinated sucks ass, putting on suncream sucks ass. Owning this doesn't mean you have to RETVRN, it does mean realising there is likely going to be a psychological downside if we're doing things that suck ass all day, so let's organise our lives and other people's to allow for some slightly less curated forms of reality - while we're doing Abundance, let's try and keep some wilderness, for example.
I have a notion that sedentary children might at least partly be those who have accommodated to being strapped down. Instead of increasing their desire to run around, they've given up on it.
I'm not going to say this applies to all children-- I've got some pre-seatbelt memories of my mother putting her arm in front of me for sudden stops, and I was fairly sedentary.
Yes, not only was there no seat belt, I was a little kid in the front seat.
I remember a therapist talking about the "free child" and the "adapted child" within us. Whether it's seat belts or anything else kids adapt to short term rewards for being seen and not heard, and that's good because it's a useful life skill, but frustrating and we all need a space where we can feel free.
So far, AI has been less than useless to me.
I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like change, so I'm already a tough sell on using AI. I'm fine doing things the way I always have, thank you very much. So if you're going to sell us curmudgeonly types on using AI we're going to have to experience it as providing something better than what we currently got. The trouble is, every single time I have come to AI with a problem it has failed me. Worse than failed me, it is has been anti-helpful.
Now notably I have only come to AI with a problem two times. Both times I was trying to find a specific quote and source, and my usual Google-fu methods failed me. People say AI is great for doing research and finding things, so I went to Chat GPT to see if it could help me.
The first time (about a year ago) I could vaguely remember a C. S. Lewis quote, but not the exact words or where the quote was from exactly. I remembered the content of the quote though, as in what he was talking about and what his opinion was on it. Googling got me nowhere, with most of the results pointing to a quote on a similar topic, but not the one I was looking for. So I went to Chat GPT, wrote out in as much detail as I could what I was looking for, and Chat GPT confidently pointed me to the exact wrong Lewis essay that Google had tried to send me to. Just to be sure I read through the essay, and confirmed the quote I was looking for was not there. Frustrated, I kept picking away at the problem and flipping through C. S. Lewis essay collections until I finally found it.
Experience one, not good. Chat GPT no better than Google.
The second time was last month, and was a similar situation. I vaguely remembered a quote from a Discworld book, but Googling around I couldn't find it. I could remember what the quote was about, I was pretty sure which character was saying it, and I was pretty sure it was in one of two books ("Going Postal" or "Making Money"). After a half hour of failing to find it, I decided to give Chat GPT one more chance. I gave it the details I knew and asked if it could find the quote.
Chat GPT confidently responded that the quote I was looking for was from the book "Going Postal", and then it provided the quote in full. When I read the quote I thought "Well, it sounds like Pratchett's writing (not his best writing, but then again he wasn't always at his best). But is that a real quote, or did Chat GPT just make it up?" I asked if it could provide a page number so I could check, and Chat GPT replied that the book has not been digitized so it doesn't know the exact page number. That rang further alarm bells: if the book hasn't been digitized, how does Chat GPT know the quote?
This put me in a pickle. I was looking for the quote so I could quote it in an online discussion, but if it was a fake quote I'd look like a fool. I decided to put Chat GPT to the test and reread "Going Postal" to see if the quote was there. To cut to the chase: the quote was not there. I decided to re-read "Making Money" as well (because they're fun books to read) and there I found the actual quote I was looking for, which was not at all what Chat GPT provided. Chat GPT had generated the quote from whole cloth, and I would indeed have looked like an idiot if I had quoted it.
Now I admit that my use case is perhaps not typical. Maybe Chat GPT should come with a big disclaimer saying "Don't ask it about quotes, it will probably just make one up!" Nevertheless, the two times I actually needed something and decided to see if AI could help I was not only not provided with the answers I needed, I was provided with false answers. Until this is sorted out (which I don't have high confidence is possible) I'm going to continue to stay away from AI.
I just asked ChatGPT for the name of the most recently created monarchy, and it responded with Antigua and Barbuda (1981). However, in its own "miscellaneous data" section, it mentioned Saint Kitts and Nevis (1983)! Confident and self-contradictory is an amazing combination.
Do you know the difference between deep research, ChatGPT agent and GPT5-thinking web search, perplexity research, gemini deep research, clause web search?
Yeah AI is useful for me with procratination/adhd issues because it lowers the activation energy to get started on various tasks/ projects. I procrastinate especially on ambiguous tasks because I'm overwhelmed on how to start. AI is useful for giving a starting point. Now the starting point might completely off-base but that's enough to get my gears going.
Also it's been very useful in my job search process (still on going). It's a great study/prep companion, great also to prepare questions and guides. In the past, it was overwhelming flying blind, now it is not so daunting.
AI is great as a personal/ideation assistant, less so if I need accurate information.
Similar irritating experience when asking AI for song lyrics that I knew started with a certain line. It confidently said - Here they are! However, they were not right and after probing it eventually admitted that they were completely made up but "in the style" of the artist. Jeez Louise - just tell me you don't know!
I strongly agree with your experience. I find that most AIs that I have access to have an error rate of in excess of 50%.
I have been confidently told to go and consult with experts in specialist fields who are dead, feed frankly poisonous items to pets, invest in items that don't exist, and follow medical advice that was manifestly incorrect.
It doesn't really matter what it is in relation to; a seriously unacceptable error rate remains.
I'm frankly staggered that industry is prepared to integrate such flawed technology so rapidly.
Next time you have to do some sort of project around the house ask it the best way to proceed.
It’ll likely save you a bunch of time and fuck-ups.
In general, just avoid asking LLMs about quotes from books unless the book is incredibly well known. Likewise, avoid asking it for specific details from lesser known movies, games, etc. They aren't in its training set. It'll know a bit about them from synopses and reviews on the internet that made it into its training data, but it doesn't have the full text.
Even when it does have the full text in its training data, it still probably couldn't locate a quote. LLMs have to encounter information hundreds of times to learn it. A single instance isn't enough.
If it's something like Shakespeare's Macbeth, or The Catcher in the Rye, then it's probably seen it enough during training to identify specific passages.
LLMs are not good at memorizing corpuses of text precisely. They're good at distilling the gist of them and learning general patterns.
The best way to get an LLM to hallucinate is to ask it about something it has heard of, but has seen only a few times during training. If you ask it about something it never saw, it'll usually say it hasn't heard of it. If you ask it about something it's seen a lot, it'll usually give the right answer. But something it just barely knows about is the sweet spot for hallucinations.
This is exactly right. Basically, it wasn’t trained on full texts but instead was trained on (and can find via internet) a shit-load of reactions to the full texts. So it will kinda think it knows about the topic at hand—and since it’s job is to generalize from what it knows to answer questions—it will usually reason to an answer. This answer usually ends up being a hallucination.
So basically, don’t ask it specifics about texts. For basically *anything* else, they are really good. Just as one with a lot of knowledge on mechanical engineering can reason to the required suction pressure for a certain pump, an LLM can do the same. However, a person with a lot of context about a certain author can’t reason to an exact answer about what happened in a text unless they’ve read it or read directly about it. Same for an LLM.
There's a lot I hate about AI. However, I find I am using it more and more, mostly to answer questions about practical matters of the kind I used to investigate via googling. I get way better answers way faster using GPT. Most answers I actually follow up on, and so far I have not found that any of them involved hallucinations or errors. Anyhow, thought I'd put up a list of my last 10 or questions to GPT for you to see. I was quite satisfied with the results of all of them.
-I know someone who has trouble reading complex graphs. Can you help her? I have loaded an example of a graph. But I don't think you can "see." Here is the URL it came from: https://gurufrequent.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/stacked_bar_chart.jpg. Anyhow, my question is whether it will work for her to use you as a graph-explainer, or whether you could not do that because the thing that's giving her trouble is an image.
-Please give a concise explanation of spaced repetitive learning. Also give advice on how someone can use it to learn the chemical sturcture of a bunch of amino acids.
-It is possible to buy from online sellers of "research chemicals" the peptides that are the main active ingredient in Wegovy and Zepbound. But someone told me recently that a lot of the challenge of developing these drugs was finding a way to keep them available and active in the body for a long period of time. If used in their pure form, they do their job of altering things in the body to reduce food cravings, but disappear from the blood stream in a few hours. If using the pure drug, one would have self-inject the stuff every few hours. So the pharmaceutical companies that developed and sell these medications found ways to make them hang around in the system way longer. This involves somehow attaching the peptide to other big molecules. That results in a slow release of the actual peptides into the blood, and makes it possible to take just a weekly dose of the drug. Is this accurate? If so, does it make sense to buy the peptides, mix them with bacteriostatic water and inject them? Seems like that would only work if (1) the person who told me the pure peptides only stay available for a few hours is wrong or (2) the sellers of these drugs as research chemicals are selling them in a form where they are already attached to one of the big molecules that slow down how quickly they become available to the body.
-Mac OS: i have a folder on my desktop with multiple Pages documents. I would like to keep it open. However, every time I open my calendar app the folder automatically closes. Is there a way to keep it open?
-A bunch of studies found that tylenol during pregnancy increases the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders. Can you please look for a meta-analysis in a peer-reviewed journal that gives an estimated effect size for the risk? I am most interested in the risk of autism, but will settle for the risk of all neurodevelopmental disorders if that's all you can find,
-I am creating a character on the OpenArt site. So I am supposed to upload 4+ photos. I would like information about what makes a photo optimal, and what a set of photos should include..(a) is it useful to remove the original background and show the character on a plain white background? (b) Face shots vs full body shots: The face of my character is the really distinctive thing. Her body is a generic slim young female one. But I will be wanting to show the full body of the character in images I make, so the system needs to learn "slim young female" for any images that show her body. Given that proportion of the images I upload should be just the face, what proportion face plus body. (c) Angles: I have shots of the face from many angles, but not every one I might want later to make an image of. For instance I do not have one where character's face is seen from below. does that matter? (d) Facial expression: I have images of some fairly neutral expressions, of a slight smile, of thoughtful concentration, but that's all. No shots of anger, sadness, surprise, etc. I will want to make images showing these other emotions. Is that a problem? (e) How important is photo size, in pixels?
-I heard something today about brown fat in the human body. Somebody tried gathering a bunch of someone’s brown fat via liposuction, then injecting it in places that surrounded a cancerous tumor in the person’s body. Then they somehow ordered the brown fat to engage in rapid angiogenesis, and it did, and it was better at doing it than the tumor was, and the tumor was starved for blood and died. So this is what I remember of a casual description by someone interested but perhaps misinformed. Please only search juries journals and high quality magazines for smart laymen for info. I want an accurate Summary of whether this technique Works, what its limitations are, and whether it is being tried in real patients in clinical trials.
-I know somebody who wrote the software that underpins a business in Coda, and now has the job of switching all of it over to Elixir. He knows nothing about Elixir, and does not have broad knowledge of coding in various languages. What exists to assist him in the transition to Elixir? It could be consultants who specialize in assisting with this, books, courses, youtube videos.
-I need the name of a women's crisis center near san francisco where someone speaks mandarin
Asking an LLM is like torturing their training set for information. It can give you answers that are hard to find otherwise, but it also tends to be unreliable because it's apt to confess to whatever it thinks you want to hear. As with torture, it's best used for the sorts of questions where a purported answer is easy to falsify, and any answers you get from it should be viewed with a healthy measure of skepticism.
One of the few times I've used an LLM in earnest and gotten a useful answer was when my wife was talking about a book she dimly remembered liking and reading as a child. I gave ChatGPT the following description based on the bits and pieces she remembered:
>I am trying to find the title of a particular fantasy novel, probably written in or around the 1980s. The protagonist is a blond woman. The plot involves her being held captive by desert nomads with golden eyes. She has to pass some kind of tests or trials, one of which involves taking sashes from opponents.
ChatGPT proposed two books "The Blue Sword" by Robin McKinley and "The Golden Sword' by Janet Morris. My wife recognized the title and cover of The Blue Sword as well as plot elements I found in some online reviews and synopses. Several major details in ChatGPT's answer were hallucinated, but the top-line answer (which was the important part) was correct.
LLMs are a very weird tool, in that they are not made to solve a specific problem. As far as I can tell, the only way to find them useful for anything is to play around with them long enough to find out what they are and are not good for. If you come in with a specific problem you want to solve, you're almost certainly going to be disappointed. They seem to be kind of a solution in search of a problem.
Ouch! I sympathize. One scenario that I find LLMs consistently useful for is when I don't know the specific name for something (physical law, theorem, physical model) but can describe it and want the name. ChatGPT and Gemini are typically able to find it.
The other case is on a par with a Google search: If I'm looking for an incident or a fact/statistic that I strongly expect to be visible on some web page, but I'm not sure how it is likely to be phrased, LLMs are pretty good at doing the equivalent of searching all the alternate phrasings in one search.
Does anyone (Scott?) have credible knowledge about the validity of claims that SSRI's, taken during puberty, may stunt growth? Someone in my life has developed an unhealthy obsession with this data such as it is (done their own research, read some papers, blogs, reddit etc).
About questions like this I go to GPT and ask it to research the question, specifying that it only search research studies in juried journals. Its answers include links to its sources, so I click through to the studies whose results seem most directly relevant. So far I have not caught the AI hallucinating or giving inaccurate summaries.
But wanted to add this: I am a psychologist, so do not prescribe drugs but have seen many people
who take SSRIs, and know many MD’s who prescribe them. It is not at all uncommon for kids and teenagers to be put in an SSRI. I have never heard a single word about SSRI’s stunting growth, not from doctors, not from patients, not from people
whose kids take an SSRI, not on Twitter, not in the press. These drugs have been prescribed for around 30 years. If they stunted growth the word would be out.
I've heard the claim that SSRIs often decrease sexual interest. Do you think that's an issue with young people being prescribed these drugs?
Yes, but it seems to affect young males less than it does middle-aged or older ones. What young guys typically say is that on an SSRI they masturbate somewhat less and take longer to climax. The guys who have told me this are in their 20s and 30s. I have not talked about this issue with teenage guys. And women are vaguer on the subject, but do say that SSRIs reduce their sex interest and make it harder to have an orgasm.
Anecdotal but I took SSRIs from age 15 to 20 and I only grew two inches during that time span, though I grew another inch in my early twenties.
Pretty bad propaganda campaign in Britain right now.
Graham Linehan called for trans women to be violently physically assaulted in spaces such as bathrooms (offering the excuse that trans women's existence in those spaces is itself violent and therefore assaulting them must be self-defense).[1] Metropolitan police therefore arrested him on suspicion of incitement to violence when he landed in London. After being arrested, he now claims it was a "joke"; regardless, police were clear that suspected incitement to violence was the reason for arrest.
Yet headlines and subheadings in UK newspapers like The Times and The Telegraph, across plural articles per outlet, are consistently leaving out suspected incitement to violence, instead implying he was arrested for "gender-critical" "tweets" and "jokes," that the police are "in thrall to the trans lobby" wasting time "policing a toxic culture war" due to "the trans lobby's crackdown on language," etc. Although the articles themselves do usually quote the inciting tweet, they're paywalled and casual readers only see the headlines.[2]
The clear purpose of the propaganda, behind all these articles but made especially explicit in one of them, is to manufacture a narrative that "trans ideology is a threat to us all" because "those in positions of power and influence are still marching to trans activism’s tune."[3] I.e., to punish trans people, by inflaming anti-trans hostility, for the sin of having the same protections against incitement to violence as everyone else under standard existing UK law.
(Note: this story has nothing to do with whether you think UK law in general should be more like US law, where the violence would also have to be "imminent." If you think that, fine. But there's zero reason to pick this moment now specifically as the hook, unless you just hate trans people. Unfortunately this is something I've seen, e.g. Steven Pinker, who also pretended Linenan's arrest was about "speech that offends someone somewhere" and not about incitement to violence.[4])
[1] The call for physical violence: https://x.com/Glinner/status/1913850667229184008. Linehan was a skilled comedy-show writer before throwing it all away to be an anti-trans activist. It's a shame since I found The IT Crowd, Father Ted, and Black Books funny. Though in retrospect The IT Crowd did also have one "joke" where the punchline is that ha ha this trans woman must have been so stupid to think she was accepted, so I guess the signs were always there.
[2] E.g. https://archive.is/4Pqi1, https://archive.is/BDIIA, https://archive.is/DIYYc, https://archive.is/ETmPj, https://archive.is/qorIs, https://archive.is/hbb0e, https://archive.is/1Iq6Q
[3] https://archive.is/AGEbo
[4] https://www.facebook.com/Stevenpinkerpage/posts/pfbid0Ku1J8WFAZrMkQnnXsskGF4ejepTUjmJWxx6zjhkZ6XCTMMLywmSWVysCrcSrNCiBl
"Graham Linehan called for trans women to be violently physically assaulted in spaces such as bathrooms (offering the excuse that trans women's existence in those spaces is itself violent and therefore assaulting them must be self-defense)"
And the only reason you know about this, the only reason any of us here know that he said this. is because the Metropolitan Police had him arrested. Does His Majesty's Government have the slightest understanding of the Streisand Effect?
The preference cascade you all are going to go through over this, is going to rival Brexit in the eyes of the dumbstruck elite trying to figure out how that happened. I don't know where the line will be drawn, or even in what direction, but it's going to be fun to watch and laugh from a safe distance.
Yeah, I get why this is dangerous. You worry if the "scapegoat politicians rant about to avoid doing anything" is changing to be trans people due to wokeness overstepping, and they are seriously vulnerable.
TBH "good fences make good neighbors" is what we need now, and lot less punditry. It'd have been better if the left had not played the lgbt card as hard as it did, because asking too much backfires, but going too far in the other way sucks too.
Would it satisfy you if the headlines were something like "Graham Linehan arrested, accused of incitement to violence"? Your theory seems to be that the headline choices were fueled by anti-trans hostility, which is plausible, but it seems like there are many other potential reasons the editors in question put it differently.
Perhaps they disagree with the laws, and this is part of a long game to undercut them. That would still be propaganda, in a sense, but not the thing you want to pin on them.
Maybe they're calling bullshit on the arrest because they sincerely disagree that a conditional statement is incitement at all.
Maybe they're serving some other purpose entirely? It looks like you could make a fair case that the Times is doing PR for the Met Police commissioner:
> Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Met Police, has admitted that officers should not be “policing toxic culture war debates” after the arrest of the Father Ted creator Graham Linehan over gender-critical tweets.
> Rowley said successive governments had left police “between a rock and a hard place” and that officers were given no choice but to investigate Linehan’s tweets as a crime.
In our world of attentional scarcity, headlines hit more eyeballs than the rest of the newspaper, and I relate to being extremely irritated by their distortions and omissions. But you're going to live or die on how well you make your case that "arrested for inciting violence" deserves top billing, and whether your theory of motive is persuasive.
>Would it satisfy you if the headlines were something like "Graham Linehan arrested, accused of incitement to violence"?
Yes. That would be honest.
>Your theory seems to be that the headline choices were fueled by anti-trans hostility, which is plausible, but
First, the consistency proves it; this is across multiple headlines, social media posts, etc. Second, the UK establishment in recent years has become consistently hostile to trans people, so this new instance isn't surprising. Third, e.g. in the case of The Times, they have an editorial, reflecting the views of the editorial board, which explicitly describes trans women as "biological males invading [women's] spaces" (https://archive.is/RIQKY) and so on; one of The Telegraph pieces I already quoted as framing the story as "trans ideology is a threat to us all."
>which explicitly describes trans women as "biological males invading [women's] spaces" (https://archive.is/RIQKY) and so on; one of The Telegraph pieces I already quoted as framing the story as "trans ideology is a threat to us all."
Some women want their own spaces without trans people. If you want to deny them that don't act surprised when they make you their enemy.
In the context of my reply to Deadpan, we've already established that the UK newspaper headlines were deliberately schemingly dishonest about the facts; now we're establishing motive.
Re: your more specific suggestions re: the Met police chief:
Nah, that's at most secondary to the anti-trans hostility ("he's willing to apologize for protecting trans people's rights, so we'll give him a second chance"). There's not even any PR to need doing, *except* insofar as they're inflaming anger about him enforcing the law. (Also the Met chief headline was an afterthought, the initial headline for that article was a quote from health secretary Wes Streeting instead, the guy who banned puberty blockers: https://archive.is/yIAS8.)
I will add, though, that there might be overlap with anti-migrant hostility. The cops also arrest people for inciting violence against migrants (e.g., Lucy Connolly said to "set fire to all the hotels full of the fucking [asylum-seekers] for all I care") and the far-right is using these together as their examples of the woke left policing speech (not because they actually care about free speech, ofc, but because they specifically want people to keep inciting violence against migrants). These narratives overlap and it's plausible that these newspapers might also treat them as complementary.
It seems like what the government is doing in those cases is exactly policing speech.
Keyword "the woke left" (here), "the trans lobby" (earlier). As I've repeatedly made clear, including in the original comment, this discussion is *not about* comparing legal systems' standards of incitement to violence. It's about the media deliberately misleading readers about what happened, to pretend enforcement of standard UK law = trans people (and maybe asylum seekers) ruining the UK.
I think you have more in common with Linehan than you might think. Both of you use inflammatory language and jump to wildly uncharitable conclusions about the mental state of those you argue with. Neither of you ought to be arrested for it, but both of you are very annoying in the same kind of way.
I'm aware that my snarky replies to bad faith, and Linehan's call to violently physically assault trans people in bathrooms, can both be described as "inflammatory language."
I find it odd to be equally annoyed by sarcasm and by open calls to violently physically assault trans people in bathrooms (though you also shouldn't be arrested for oddity).
Graham Linehan is not in this comment section, you are. And you are not responding to him, you are responding to the good people of the ACX commentariat. Just because Graham Linehan is an asshat doesn't mean you get to be one too (and that it doesn't really count since you're not transphobic).
Is there a good neutral source somewhere about how these laws work?
A sidetrack, but apparently trying to keep trans women out of women's bathrooms leads to masculine-looking women being harassed.
I highly doubt there would be much outcry due to that outside of the left.
So?
Yup. Here was a recent one https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/minnesota-teen-says-server-forced-prove-gender-restaurant-bathroom-rcna224562
Oh, how the wheel turns. The heroes of social liberation of yore, who triumphed over the likes of me and other social conservatives, are now on the bottom of Fortune's rotation as liberalisation moves on, the Overton Window shifts, and now they are the bad thinkers full of the evil of the past.
What more is there to say?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTWvlwZ7AJw&list=RDmTWvlwZ7AJw&start_radio=1
What a bizarre comment.
Once upon a time, David, Graham Linehan was feted (in my small green island nation) by the right-thinking and liberal as a bastion of all good socially progressive values, standing up to mock the sacred cows of the Catholic Church and conservative Irish society, two fingers up to the social conservative likes of me who retained some at least of the old values and didn't think Dev's speech about the comely maidens at the crossroads was risible or sexist or the other accusations made at it. Hopelessly idealistic and based on an idealised lifestyle that never was, but well-intentioned (think of it in anti-gentrification terms of today).
He achieved the ultimate accolade of the wannabe Irish chattering classes in the arts (I use the term very loosely) of fecking off to London and making it (semi-)big there.
But now cometh the dawn of an even more socially liberal and progressive credo from even more impeccably right-thinking types, and Linehan and his ilk are now fossils, as mired in the muck of the bad old mindsets as, well, the dinosaur social conservatives like myself (Andrew Sullivan gets into the same trouble for the same reasons of not being sufficiently enthusiastic for the New Thing).
I must admit to a degree of Schadenfreude here. Indeed, the wheel of Fortune turns and the king today is the beggar tomorrow.
And then you come steaming in here with the most provocative take on what is happening to Linehan possible, clearly with the viewpoint and mindset that there is Only One Permissible Right Way To React, and I have to ask: what did you expect to happen? Did you really think this would be an echo chamber of "indeed, how appalling!"
>cometh
I get it, you're trying to dramatically monologue instead of saying something coherent.
>the most provocative take
Expecting newspaper headlines be honest, instead of deliberate scheming liars out of malice towards trans people, is not a "provocative take."
Yes, but just like the articles aren't actually about the laws themselves, your post isn't about clickbait. Otherwise, why does this suddenly cross the line for you, when the media has been dishonest for its entire existence? No, this is about whether trans people are deserving of protection by society. So please, don't be surprised by such a cold reception.
I think we would all be better off if you stopped beating around the bush and just started the thread with "should the state protect trans people from transphobia and associated threats of violence?" We could have a much shorter and succinct discussion, though I doubt it'll be any more productive...
that's a given though, the issue is whether or not this shift in media might mean they can be set up as scapegoats.
"Graham Linehan wants to use brutal physical violence against poor harmless little cowering timorous beasties of transwomen! The newspapers are covering it in a neutral manner, this is propaganda! Fight fight fight!"
That is the substance of your original comment, so far as I can see.
Graham Linehan openly called for physical violence and was arrested on suspicion of inciting violence, as you know.
Newspaper headlines deliberately obscured this and pretended it was about "the trans lobby's crackdown on speech," as you know.
Worry less about showing off that you read Robbie Burns, and worry more about the media deliberately manipulating and deceiving you.
It isn't just mixed metaphors, it's mashed metaphors.
There used to be an idea that success comes and goes.
Bear in mind that I am a countryperson of Sir Boyle Roche:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyle_Roche
"He is better remembered for the language of his speeches than for his politics – they were riddled with mixed metaphors ("Mr Speaker, I smell a rat; I see him forming in the air and darkening the sky; but I'll nip him in the bud"), malapropisms and other unfortunate turns of phrase ("Why we should put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity, for what has posterity ever done for us?"). Roche may have been Richard Brinsley Sheridan's model for Mrs Malaprop. While arguing for a bill, Roche once said, "It would surely be better, Mr. Speaker, to give up not only a part, but, if necessary, even the whole, of our constitution, to preserve the remainder!"
That's great stuff.
Meanwhile, I was thinking about a bit in Dante (from memory) about how Fortuna (personification of luck) smiles and turns her sphere.
Not every archangel is on your side.
"But she is blessed and does not hear these things;
for with the other primal beings, happy,
she turns her sphere and glories in her bliss."
Yes, that bit from the Inferno!
The actual tweet was: ""If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."[
That is a lot more conditional than how you framed it. Are we SURE that that is normally prosecutable under UK law? It might be, since UK law (and most non-US law) is terrible on "incitement," but are we sure?
Yes, advocating physical violence against trans women in bathrooms is enough under UK law is enough to be "suspicion of inciting violence."
And yes, I'm sure that was the reason for arrest, because the cops explicitly said suspicion of inciting violence was the reason for arrest.
We'll see if it goes to court and who wins. My comment isn't a prediction market. My comment is about UK newspaper headlines deliberately misleading readers about what happened, out of malice towards trans people.
>Yes, advocating physical violence against trans women in bathrooms is enough under UK law is enough to be "suspicion of inciting violence."
That isn't my question. My question is whether the highly conditional statement at issue constitutes advocating physical violence under UK law, and even if so, whether the police regularly arrest people for such conditional statements.
>And yes, I'm sure that was the reason for arrest,
I never said otherwise.
I guess one question is about whether this kind of attenuated version of incitement of violence ought to be illegal. I'll be the normal human here and think my society's rules wrt this stuff are the best, but I think in the US, to get arrested for incitement things have to be a lot more immediate--less "who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" and more "there the f--ker is now, let's get him!"
The other question is how much the enforcement is neutral within the rules vs how much it ends up being enforced harder on beliefs the local authorities dislike than ones they like. For example, if a transwoman in the UK tweeted back that she hoped someone punched Lineham in the balls, would that also be likely to get her arrested?
I'm relaxed about the UK maintaining the longstanding view that public speech is a potential public order offence, a principle supported by Edmund Burke. However the thing about the Internet is you can say the first dumb thing that comes into your head from the comfort of your living room. I wouldn't want a wild west but e.g a cooling off period where you can retract your tweet without prosecution seems reasonable.
(clarifying again that my comment isn't discussing a comparison of legal systems, my comment is discussing the UK newspapers' headlines misreading readers about what happened out of malice towards trans people)
What's your solution? There's no political consensus to implement the Leveson report. We have the press we have. I'm okay with Linehan being arrested for a public order offense, but these activists are no angels either, I can't feel too sorry for them. I suggest trans folk play a long game similar to the very effective long game played by the gay community over the decades. Build up social capital first, then go after your enemies. The other way round doesn’t work.
In the context of my comment, the solution is for newspaper headlines to be honest instead of scheming liars
"Don't write headlines the way I want them to be written" = "scheming liars and dishonest propaganda".
Headlines are meant to be attention-grabbing and stupid, while the argument (if any) is made in the body of the article. I wouldn't judge coverage of anything in general by the headlines.
(on an individual level:
1. make people aware of what's happening, so the propaganda campaign doesn't work. That's what I'm doing here now.
2. for UK newspapers, there are complaint mechanisms e.g. The Times and The Telegraph are both covered by IPSO. Anyone can file a complaint if the issue is accuracy [e.g. I can't request an apology since the headlines aren't about me, but I can request correction]. I did file, we'll see if anything comes of it.)
Otherwise I'm not going to try to go into "what trans people should do" in the face of this coordinated attempt to destroy trans people's social capital.
I'm not trans and neither are you. My job isn't to criticize trans people under the guise of pretending to strategize. My job is to call out the dishonest propaganda when I notice it.
Seems it's just people making their voice heard, no? If the people want a society where trans people are not tolerated, then that's what they'll get. The liberal elite can't go against the tide forever.
I am curious though, what are the UK people's thoughts on the speech laws themselves? Because the situation changes a lot depending on whether the people think the laws are completely bad or this was simply a misapplication. More specifically, would they advocate for the rights of a Muslim man advocating for violence against whites? If not, then the conflict is over what morality is enforced, not the enforcement itself.
Morality has nothing to do with it. Our unwritten constitution spasms against any group displaying strong passions, whether for good or evil. Do you mind?? We're having tea
Seems there's plenty of "passion" for the status quo. The disagreement is on what that status quo should be.
>Seems it's just people making their voice heard, no?
That's a weird way to spell "openly calling for physical violence against trans people."
>The liberal elite can't go against the tide forever.
This isn't "the tide." This is the media elite deliberately misleading the public about what happened, to deliberately try to manipulate public opinion.
>This is the media elite
It's funny how Left-wingers are as likely to have these complaints as Right-wingers nowadays.
Are you ignoring the facts (Linehan called for violence and was arrested on suspicion of incitement to violence, and headlines demonstrably deliberately misled readers about it) to say "haha gotcha, that true accusation sounds like another accusation that may or may not have been true (I'm vagueposting)"
I already explained why I disagree that the headlines are deceptive.
It's not vagueposting, just noting a trend I've seen of liberals complaining about the media in ways they didn't do ten years ago.
I think phrases like "that's a weird way to spell" are bad faith and fall below the threshold of good faith conversation typically maintained in this comment section. We can have disagreements about whether Linehan's speech is arrest-worthy without resorting to twitter-level digs.
You're correct that I don't think Jim made his statement in good faith, hence my sarcasm.
(Obviously calling to violently physical assault trans people isn't just "people making their voices heard" in the relevant UK legal sense; and also obviously neither is a deliberate media-headline campaign to mislead people about it. And I think Jim knows this.)
You're acting like these papers aren't businesses. If there was no demand for the truth they were peddling, it wouldn't be sustainable to distribute it. But there is. Even the rabble wouldn't blindly believe that trans people were the root of the sickness unless there was a reason for them to want to believe it. The right is simply winning in the marketplace of ideas against the left.
Is it fair that only the ruling party gets to push propaganda? If people wanted to hear what liberals had to say, they would take it as gospel. But it seems that this is the truth people want. Your outrage is falling on deaf ears.
What a bizarre comment.
I guess the real question is about the actual enforcement of these laws. Like if they actually do go out and arrest everyone who makes about the same level of comment with regard to violence, then I think your point is valid.
But if this is a discretionary application of these laws which is outside of how it is normally enforced I could see where the anger is coming from on the other side.
Ultimately it seems like everyone might just be mad about unequal application of these laws without anyone really providing insight on the basic question of how they are normally applied.
I find it unlikely that it's discretionary application outside how it's usually enforced, given that the Met chief is publicly bending over backwards to say "I'm sorry, I don't like protecting trans people from incitement to violence, I wish I didn't have to but the law forced me to" (paraphrased)
Sorry, but the American legal position is just better. I guess you can be mad that this specific event is when the UK media finally realized this, but like, you can't really have free and open political discussion without the ability to advocate for violence in hypothetical situations. That's what politics *is*. It's a collective decision for how to apply (or not to apply) the state's monopoly on violence.
> you can't really have free and open political discussion without the ability to advocate for violence in hypothetical situations. That's what politics *is*. It's a collective decision for how to apply (or not to apply) the state's monopoly on violence.
How does that apply here? Linehan seems to be in trouble for encouraging members of the public to commit assault ("punch them in the balls"), not for anything he said about what the law should be or how the state should enforce it.
The discussion is whether the state should allow instances of vigilante violence that are seen as justified by society.
See again where I said:
"(Note: this story has nothing to do with whether you think UK law in general should be more like US law, where the violence would also have to be 'imminent.' If you think that, fine. But there's zero reason to pick this moment now specifically as the hook, unless you just hate trans people. Unfortunately this is something I've seen, e.g. Steven Pinker, who also pretended Linenan's arrest was about 'speech that offends someone somewhere' and not about incitement to violence.[4])"
Again: this isn't about "when the UK media finally realized this." It's about the UK media going on a deliberate propaganda campaign to mislead readers, in order to deliberately inflame hostility towards trans people, out of deliberate malice towards trans people.
Under what circumstances, in your view, is it acceptable to argue for broad free speech protections, if not in a situation where someone is arrested for speech that would have been protected under a better legal regime?
If you want people to believe you that you're really just being principled, you could start by 1. making your own thread (instead of trying to hijack and deflect a thread about media's deliberate dishonesty out of malice towards trans people), and 2. if you include the arrest, at least be honest about what happened (that's how you can tell Pinker isn't sincere, he also tried to pretend it was just for "speech that offends someone somewhere")
(Tbh I don't even believe that they "finally realized this." If they had, they would have made their argument sincerely instead of deliberately misleading readers. It's just rhetoric, a tool of attack.)
You think it's propaganda to not smear him by including the state's trumped-up charges? Would you say the same about when people writing about, say, Navalny being imprisoned in Russia, left out that he was convicted of … terrorism, I think?
> You think it's propaganda to not smear him by including the state's trumped-up charges?
While my sympathies are with Linehan on this one, I do think that if you're going to report on someone being arrested or charged then yes, you definitely should mention what they were arrested or charged for, that's just basic context.
They DO mention what he was arrested for: his tweets. Beyond the possible sentence, the precise nature of the charges are either a curiosity or a distraction: the reasons most modern states go through the charade of making up charges and giving their targets trials instead of simply sentencing them might be of some historical interest, but I disagree that it's really relevant context.
What a dishonest comment.
The headlines deliberately left out the actual and official reason for arrest (suspicion of incitement to violence), and deliberately, falsely, made it sound like this was just about offense.
As you know.
He openly called for trans people to be violently physically assaulted in bathrooms.
That's a mischaracterization of his tweet.
No, it isn't. https://x.com/Glinner/status/1913850667229184008
I would call "if all else fails, punch him in the balls" a non-central example of calling for someone to be physically assaulted.
Certainly several levels of violence below the "I kill terfs" or "choke on my girldick" from some on the other side.
"Suck my dick" has a long, well-known history as a metaphorical taunt.
Offering an explicit justification for why it must be self-defence to assault trans women in bathrooms, before suggesting people assault trans women in bathrooms—and then doubling down again on his justification for assaulting trans women in bathrooms ("Women have a right to defend themselves from strange men in their spaces")—isn't a metaphor.
I'm a fan of the US's stance on this where the line for incitement is a lot higher. I do not find the arrest to be at all justifiable and arguments in support of it strike me as nakedly Orwellian. I think the UK is on an _extremely_ bad path. Note that the US also has it's fair share of free speech problems right now, but acknowledging that fact does not in any way prevent me from also pointing out places that are even worse.
Free speech is _the_ bedrock of a liberal society and whenever it is undermined, liberal society more broadly is also damaged.
See where I said:
"(Note: this story has nothing to do with whether you think UK law in general should be more like US law, where the violence would also have to be 'imminent.' If you think that, fine. But there's zero reason to pick this moment now specifically as the hook, unless you just hate trans people. Unfortunately this is something I've seen, e.g. Steven Pinker, who also pretended Linenan's arrest was about 'speech that offends someone somewhere' and not about incitement to violence.[4])"
-edit- I had an entire long wall of text posted and decided it's probably not worth the time, so I deleted it. This is an open thread, and this whole thing is way too culture war. I'm surprised it hasn't been nuked yet. Suffice it to say: I'm deeply concerned about the UK. I'm curious (rhetorically; no need to actually answer) if you are as supportive of 80 year old women getting arrested for expressing support for supposed "terrorist" organizations.
"Culture war" is not a forbidden topic.
I think it used to be banned on alternating weeks or something lol, probably what he's remembering
Back on SSC, many years ago.
I thought it was still banned in open threads and only allowed in the hidden threads. But even if it's not banned anymore, I am trying to get better about not engaging in online discussion in those more controversial topics. I think that the medium of text is too signal/context poor to allow for very productive discussion on charged topics. I still have the reflex desire to engage (thus my first comment), but I'm trying to get better about fighting that reflex (thus the deletion of my second comment). I don't really like my current in-between spot since it isn't really fair to the people (like yourself) I'm initially replying to to suddenly just disappear/delete a comment, but I think it's an unfortunate necessity until I finish training myself to just leave the third rails alone.
Assuming you believe in this "core concept of liberal democracies" are you also "deeply worried for the future of," say, Saudi Arabia? You could instead recognize that not all countries or peoples share American values, and most of them do okay, even if you or I would prefer to live somewhere freeër.
Saudi Arabia was never a liberal democracy. I'm not worried about their future; their present is already (from my perspective) bad. If they don't agree, that's fine. But they aren't getting worse, from any perspective (at least not as far as I have heard). Plus, I think it's also totally reasonable to care more about countries that are culturally/historically/etc more closely connected to the US. Both because I just care more about them, and also because their path says more about potential future US paths.
Yep, that's my point: you are mistaken in thinking the UK was ever other than what it from a "freedom of speech/expression" perspective, and you'd be better served thinking of it as a European version of a Gulf Monarchy rather than a posh-accented American state.
I don't believe the path of Britain is particularly informative of the US's future. Sure, there are lessons that may be learnt, and warnings that may be heeded, but that's true of almost anywhere. Though perhaps the lessons are easier to learn if don't need subtitles.
[edit: typed this response to the quoted line from your original reply, before you deleted it]
>I'm not sure why you are posting this
I was very clear why I'm posting this. The reality is that trans people get the same protections against incitement to violence, under standard UK law, as everybody else. The deliberately false propaganda narrative, deliberately manufactured by these newspapers out of malice towards trans people, is that "the police are in thrall to the trans lobby's crackdown on speech."
The way you started off your first comment did sound like you wanted to get a fight going. As others have remarked, the Culture War topics aren't for open threads.
The actual tweet was "If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls." So yes, "calling for violence" but violence against someone who's in a space they're not allowed to be and refuses to leave if asked is not necessarily criminal.
Inciting people to extrajudicial violence is still inciting them to violence.
Here let’s try this:
“Calling for someone to be lynched isn’t criminal if they allegedly broke the law”
Do you see the problem with your position?
Lynching is illegal, removing trespassers is not.
Must have missed the part where he constrained his call to violence to pertain only to private property and the owners thereof, can you link to it?
Surely that’s not something you are just trying to shoehorn into the discuss as a fig leaf for someone calling for extrajudicial and wildly disproportionate violence.
Pretty sure punching someone in the balls is going to get you an assault charge.
My comment already said that he "called for trans women to be violently physically assaulted in spaces such as bathrooms."
All you're adding is the word games he used to justify his call to violence to himself. (Words that, incidentally, make it obvious he wasn't joking; he *really does* think it's acceptable to violently physically assault trans women in bathrooms. As do you, I'm gathering.)
>word games
It's called asking if he's actually guilty. "Israel should crush Hamas" is "inciting violence" but it's not illegal incitement to violence because the action being called for isn't illegal.
So to confirm: you aren't joking, you *do* think it's acceptable to call for trans women to be violently physically assaulted in bathrooms.
(In the UK that would be illegal, as Linehan found out. In the US under the First Amendment I think it's legal unless the violence is also "imminent.")
David, you have achieved something greater than world peace, ending poverty, or solving AI values alignment: you have made me agree with Alexander Turok.
Honestly, if you parrot "call for trans women to be violently physically assaulted in bathrooms" one more time, I'll personally go out and look for a trans woman to punch in the face. Or balls, if any.
Your line of attack is too much like the occasional evangelical vegan who pops up and tries "meat is murder and torture and murder and did I say murder and meat eaters are immoral horrible monsters" on here, and keeps repeating "meat murder! torture! rape!" like a broken record no matter what response they get.
Eventually and inevitably they end up getting bad responses.
>I'll personally go out and look for a trans woman to punch in the face
I guess I should stay away from Ireland for the next while, just in case.
What a bizarre comment.
*If* the owners of the bathrooms make clear they're for biological women only, the trans people are told this, and refuse to leave, yes, I think it's acceptable to call for violence to remove the trespassers.
I think trans people should have the same right, if they don't want Joe Bible Belt on their property, tell him to leave, and he refuses, kick him out.
Punching him in the balls is not kicking him out. I don't consider it acceptable to punch either the trans woman or Joe Bible Belt in the balls for trespassing, because that action is clearly more intended to inflict pain than to remove him from the premises.
I believe in private property rights, which includes the right to declare a space female-only and use violence to remove trespassers.
That would be up to the property owner to enforce though, rather than random bathroomgoers, surely?
He posted a dumb tweet and got arrested for it. I think what makes this moment particularly bad for that is that British police have been found to be conspiring with Pakistani rape gangs to rape (hundreds of?) thousands of British girls over decades, with the indifference or possibly even tacit support of government and media. And the response to people like Tommy Robinson and Katie Holmes who tried to call it out was to come after them with the media and the law. And instead of dealing honestly with the problem now, thousands of people are being arrested every month for sharing posts on social media.
Okay, but whatever bad thing some British police have or have not done seems mostly irrelevant to what Linehan did and whether it made sense to arrest him for it. I mean, the LAPD have sometimes been implicated in beatings and framing people, and yet I still think they should arrest shoplifters and muggers.
> British police have been found to be conspiring with Pakistani rape gangs to rape (hundreds of?) thousands of British girls over decades, with the indifference or possibly even tacit support of government and media
Could you provide a source for this claim?
I am sure there are hundreds of sources, but I have trouble finding trustworthy ones on this topic, since I have little experience with the british news landscape.
Since the claim is so strong, and because you seem very sure if it, I expect the source for your confidence to be extremely convincing.
Jess Phillips has admitted she waited 14 years for action on the grooming gangs. Fourteen years. Her own words. Fourteen years in which she knew Pakistani rape gangs were abusing children. Fourteen years in which she admits she was waiting for “anyone to do anything.”
But
@jessphillips
was not powerless. She was not an ordinary citizen without influence. She was an MP. She was a national campaigner. She is now the Minister for Safeguarding Girls. For 14 years, she knew and she stayed silent.
Worse for the Muslim bloc vote reliant MP from Birmingham. Philips did not just sit back and wait. She actively opposed a national inquiry.
During this time, she defended the very institutions accused of shielding abusers. She worked to protect councils, police forces, and her own party from accountability. She sided with the system. The system that protected the Pakistani Rape Gangs.
Now she claims she was “waiting.”
- Waiting, while children were gang raped.
- Waiting, while survivors were betrayed.
- Waiting, while institutions colluded and
@UKLabour
politicians claimed it was bare faced lies and a far right conspiracy..
Now Phillips has confessed. Why are the opposition not calling for her resignation? Why has no mainstream news outlet run with her admission? Why is her complicity being buried?
Jess Phillips knew. She stayed silent. Her complicity protected the rape gangs. Her legacy is betrayal, and she cannot remain in post.
The Reckoning Resumes
Forget everything they have told you. The truth is far worse than anything shared so far.
Those in power fear me because of my unprecedented campaigning to expose Britain's most shameful failure: the industrial scale gang rape of the nation's children.
While authorities destroyed evidence, councillors sold children for votes, and community leaders maintained dangerous silences, over 100,000 working-class White girls paid the ultimate price.
The evidence has always been there - scattered across official inquiries, court records, survivor testimonies, and leaked documents. What's been missing is someone willing to piece it together and show you what it really means.
For the first time, I am connecting these fragments into a single, devastating picture. What emerges is not a series of unfortunate failures, but a deliberate system of institutional betrayal whose true scale has been deliberately obscured. The cover-up continues because the reality is too damning to acknowledge.
The Network of Negligence - The senior officers who shredded files, the social workers who ignored screaming children, and the prosecutors who refused to press charges
The Politics of Silence - Which MPs threatened whistleblowers, how Home Office officials buried reports, and why careers mattered more than rape victims
The Bloc Vote Betrayal - The backroom deals that sacrificed girls for electoral advantage, and the community leaders who sold out children for political access
The Feminist Paradox - How women's rights organisations turned their backs on working-class victims while defending the ideology that enabled their abuse
The Reckoning – The prosecutions that should happen, the resignations that must come, and the institutional reforms that could prevent this horror from repeating
Each revelation draws on documented evidence, court testimony, and the voices of those who tried to sound the alarm. This is not speculation or sensationalism - it is the methodical assembly of facts that have been kept deliberately separate to prevent you from seeing the full horror of what was allowed to happen.
The truth has been buried beneath layers of institutional cowardice and political calculation. Survivors and their families have waited long enough. Britain has waited long enough.
By now, we all know, that given the chance,
@Keir_Starmer
's
@UKLabour
will continue the cover up and the National Inquiry go the way as all other previous inquiries. Help stop him. It is long past time that politicians went to prison for what they did.
_________
I am Raja Miah. It is now seven years since I first started to expose how politicians protected the rape gangs.
@UKLabour
leaders tried everything to stop me - they fabricated evidence and used
@gmpolice
to try and maliciously prosecute me. I spent over three years on bail as case after case collapsed in court. My mother died before I could clear my name.
The truth is now undeniable: the Pakistani rape gangs are real, their victims number in the hundreds of thousands, and the cover-up continues.
The National Inquiry we fought for is about to begin. This is our one chance to ensure it isn't another whitewash. But only if enough people know what really happened and are prepared to fight back against the next attempt at a cover up.
Despite a mainstream media blackout of my work, Red Wall and the Rabble has grown to over 6,000 subscribers. Help me reach 10,000 before the inquiry begins
We are now at the point of no return.
Should the likes of
@gmpolice
continue to protect jihadists, whilst Pakistani sectarian politicians openly encourage murder (in a desperate attempt to silence those of us who speak out against the gang rape of children), then there is no combining back for any of us.
@GMPOldham
knows who the Coldhurst Islamist cell is that is impersonating me and trying to extract information from rape gang survivors.
@AndyBurnhamGM
proven rape gang protecting police force have been provided with the evidence multiple times. That they refuse to make a single arrest should not surprise any of us.
Two tier policing is no longer a conspiracy theory. The police are under instructions to protect these men, despite their Islamist beliefs, because of their political associations and also the police’s need to stop further exposure into how many police officers were involved in gang raping children.
Equally,
@stagecoachgroup
know all about Cllr Naveed Chowhan. His sectarian politics and his support for jihad should come as no surprise to his employers. Men like Chowhan should be nowhere near driving a bus. Any psychological assessment would immediately red flag the danger men with Islamist beliefs pose in driving a dangerous weapon.
As for
@jeremycorbyn
. Does anyone believe he was unaware of the kind of Pakistanis he was coming to Oldham to meet last week? Is anyone surprised that representatives of the Pakistani sectarians and Islamists have flocked to him?
This is just a small sample of the enemy standing before us. Should these people succeed, I fear the gang rape of our children will only be the beginning of what comes next
Hey
@facebook
. Are you proud of yourselves? Of how you have suspended my account for trying to warn people not to engage with an account impersonating me?
And after locking me out, allowing this fake account to continue trying to lure survivors of the Pakistani Rape Gangs to hand over evidence and try and lure vulnerable girls to meetings. Who do you think is going to be waiting for these girls
@meta
? Could it possibly be the gangs of men that raped them as children?
Thank you to all of you that have reported this account. Unfortunately, according to Facebook, setting up a fake account and impersonating someone to lure survivors of gang rape to hand over evidence and meet with their abusers does NOT go against Facebook's community guidelines.
Which is perhaps why, the Islamists that are running this account impersonating me are using Messenger to send out messages like this to friends of mine.
As for
@gmpolice
. They know who the Islamists running this account are. They've been ordered to let them continue.
That's right isn't it
@AndyBurnhamGM
? Seeing me silenced, members of my family attacked, or better still have me killed, helps
@UKLabour
's Pakistani Rape Gang problem go away.
Raja Miah is the best source for this. Check out his Twitter page
https://x.com/recusant_raja/status/1961778928097394699
It's a misleading description of the grooming gangs scandal. Here's the Jay Report, resulting from the inquiry into the Rotherdam instance of it (the most famous one I think). https://www.iicsa.org.uk/document/report-independent-inquiry-child-sexual-abuse-october-2022-0.html
He openly called for physical violence and got arrested for it. Then UK newspapers started deliberately misleading casual readers about what happened, out of malice to his targets.
Unclear why you're deflecting to an unrelated scandal (which, side note, you misleadingly describe imo; Tommy Robinson didn't say cops should stop slut-shaming victims, he tried to exploit the victims for his personal hatred of Muslims). My comment wasn't about cops policing incitement to violence in general vs policing carried-out violence in general. My comment was about newspapers' deliberate distortion, out of malice, of what happened.
>Tommy Robinson didn't say cops should stop slut-shaming victims
Yeah his issue was the way the police refused to arrest the rapists.
I'm alluding to the fact, discussed in the Jay Report, of police inaction due to slut-shaming victims as "responsible for the sexual abuse that occurred because they had made so-called ‘lifestyle’ choices." https://www.iicsa.org.uk/document/report-independent-inquiry-child-sexual-abuse-october-2022-0.html
I'm sure communists will produce a report saying the U.S.S.R. failed because it wasn't communist enough.
You might find that most people care a whole lot more about child rape than mean tweets. For what it’s worth, I don’t think a “far right” government will be elected in the UK in 2029, I think revolution and overthrow of this current government will happen a whole lot sooner than that. Be ready. Praying that it is peaceful.
>For what it’s worth, I don’t think a “far right” government will be elected in the UK in 2029, I think revolution and overthrow of this current government will happen a whole lot sooner than that.
I think an election will occur, possibly won by the Left thanks to this very kind of rhetoric.
Praying for a peaceful transition of power?
If you actually think it's morally condemnable to violently overthrow the democratically-elected government of the UK, say so explicitly.
Because lots will interpret your statement as a cloaked call for such action.
Very dishonest framing.
This is not about "caring more about child rape than about mean tweets." This is about newspapers deliberately misleading readers about a call to violence, out of malice (and, now, apparently also about you trying to deflect from that).
(For anyone interested, here's the 2022 Jay Report on the grooming gangs: https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/inquiry/final-report.html. Incidentally, a bit ago there was another propaganda campaign, by people like Elon Musk, acting like this inquiry didn't exist, so they could manufacture a narrative that nobody was inquiring and the story was being ignored and that's why we need to elect far-right xenophobic parties)
>Though in retrospect The IT Crowd did also have one "joke" where the punchline is that a trans woman finally suffers the physical violence she deserves, ha ha how stupid she must have been to think she was accepted, so I guess the signs were always there.
That's a pretty uncharitable interpretation of that joke, if I remember the episode rightly. For one thing, the person doing the punching is depicted as being in the wrong, and his character is in general a buffoon and a cad whose foolish actions are a source of comedy. At no point is any message communicated that the trans character did anything wrong, much less deserved to be punched. The joke is that when he breaks up with the trans character (which the show later depicts as a mistake he regrets) he ends up getting in a fist fight with them, which is just the kind of ridiculous escalation that we would expect from his idiotic character.
As far as the incitement to violence goes, as an American I think people should be able to say whatever things they want, even if they're horrible, and it's a bit scary that the U.K. is arresting people for things they tweeted.
The interpretation is partly coloured by who Linehan turned out to be (at the time iirc I only weakly noticed it as iffy). But I think the interpretation's plausible and right.
- Every time she says "I used to be a man," even the first time, there's a laugh track.
- Douglas is a buffoon, but it's not "the buffoon is such a transphobe," it's "the buffoon accidentally got himself into dating a trans woman"
- The breakup is a humiliation ritual. "It's not you it's me. No actually, it's not me, it is you."
- Linehan then writes her as flying into an aggressive violent masculine rage, the joke being that she's obviously a man, punching like a man with the strength of a man.
(Youtube links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2KsZHRrFpU, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3BY72RF8vc)
The first scene linked was hilarious. The second one...I don't like it much.
yeah, it was a setup and buildup that could have had a good payoff but then it had what it had instead
as a tribute to what could have been, here are some IT Crowd scenes I liked
Bullies - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu9TsJlcvzc
The internet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vywf48Dhyns
Cradle of Filth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRoSL0kdQFk
The trans stuff is definitely played for laughs, but that's not at all the same thing as trans people deserving physical violence and her being stupid for thinking otherwise. The episode depicts dating a trans women without knowing as funny, definitely.
I'm reposting here something I asked on the recent hidden open thread, which was a particularly sparse one. Got 2 really helpful answers there, but still hoping for more -- I can use all the help I can get with this!
In 2 months I am going to have a big complicated surgery to improve the condition of my scoliotic spine. I'm soliciting advice on things to maximize the chance of a good outcome and the most rapid recovery one can have from this surgery. Currently I am taking Zepbound to lose 25 lbs of Covid era weight gain, taking a bone-strengthening drug, eating a diet high in calcium and protein, taking a moderate daily dose of creatine, and seeing a trainer for "prehab" to improve body strength and flexibility. I have done interval training for CV conditioning for years, and will continue to. What else can I do? My greatest concerns are having a slow, painful recovery and suffering subtle (or, who knows, maybe blatant!) brain damage from 7 hours of anesthesia. I am open to pretty much anything with reasonable research backing, or anecdotal evidence if you can explain why you are convinced the thing in your anecdote made a difference.
Please do not tell me not to have the surgery. I have looked into that very carefully and am convinced it is my best option. And please do not tell me any horror stories about bad outcomes, bad doctors, bad luck, etc. I am excellent at generating those on my own and have no need of more.
Did you mention Vit D? I get twice a year bone density infusions and need to keep Vit D levels high along with calcium. There are also other minerals important for bones and so I take a calcium supplement that's called Osteo something or other and has other useful things in it.
And then maybe ponder what kinds of emotional/psychological supports you could line up ahead of time? People I've known who are physically active and had to get orthopedic surgery with long recovery times struggled with all the lying around -- ie, depression. I don't know what these things might be for you, whether a lineup of social supports, permission to spend money on lying down things you enjoy, or supplements that may help buffer depression like L-methylfolate, fish oil. SAM-e, or 5-HTP kind of things. All those supplements take several weeks to kick in. Low does sublingual ketamine?
Good luck! Rooting for you from here!
Speculative: investigate interventions for recovering from concussions and strokes? Turning up BDNF expression has helped some with recovery from mild brain injuries.
You know, I think that’s a good speculation. Thank you
Are there support groups for this surgery, and your condition? If they exist they'd be a great source of information and suggestions, with folks who have gone through this experience.
I think there must be, but I’ve had to rule out using one People who have had bad experiences and bad outcomes are overrepresented in forums for people with a particular health problem. When I had migraines I joined a group like that, and got lots of useful info. Noticed that there were a lot of people there with terrible, untreatable migraine problems but that didn’t bother me because I wasn’t very afraid at all of having as bad an outcome as theirs. But I am pretty spooked by this surgery, and do not want to read any stories that will creep me out more, especially from randos who may not be truthful or accurate or well-informed.
Oh, I wasn’t clear - I meant “IRL” groups that regularly meet at some local church with bad coffee and doughnuts (this is an endearing description for reasons I’d rather not go into). Like AA or nar-anon.
It sounds like you're doing a great job so far. I've personally found magnesium to be really helpful for my migraines. Magnesium and B vitamins are important for nervous system functioning. I take magnesium citrate because it works well enough for me, but magnesium glycinate absorbs better. Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) foot soaks are great, too.
Sending good vibes your way! Good luck!!!
Epistemic status: thing I saw on the internet.
I've heard it helps to get pain-killers during surgery.
Are dogs welcome?
Light correction - the new North Carolina meetup on the list is in Durham, not Raleigh. (The cities are not particularly accessible to one another if you don't have a car, despite sharing an airport.)
A couple of articles discuss how the current state of agentic AI struggles to deal with reality. The tale of Claude and Claudius the vending-machine agent is pretty funny (alluded to in the first links, and described in detail in the second link). Note, I posted the second link buried late in a sub-thread of "What Is Man, That Thou Art Mindful Of Him?" But I thought it was worth bringing to the top of an open thread.
https://secondthoughts.ai/p/gpt-5-the-case-of-the-missing-agent
https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1
Summary: "We let Claude manage an automated store in our office as a small business for about a month. We learned a lot from how close it was to success—and the curious ways that it failed—about the plausible, strange, not-too-distant future in which AI models are autonomously running things in the real economy." The agent was dubbed Claudius. Spoiler alert, they think AI middle-managers are plausibly on the horizon—even though Claudius ended up insisting that it could deliver items in person.
Amazing! Hundreds of millions of dollars and countless hours of human labour just to create something as stupid as a human!
I too am hopeless at Minesweeper, would sell goods at a loss, and get into pointless arguments over email, can I get a valuation in the possible billions?
The "99% of your customers are employees, do you really think giving a 25% discount to employees is a good idea?" ranks right up there with the classics about promotions that went awry, such as the Hoover free flights promotion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_free_flights_promotion
"The Hoover free flights promotion was a marketing promotion run by the British division of the Hoover Company in late 1992. The promotion, aiming to boost sales during the global recession of the early 1990s, offered two complimentary round-trip plane tickets to the United States, worth about £600, to any customer purchasing at least £100 in Hoover products. The company had been experiencing dwindling sales as a result of the economic downturn and a sharp increase in competing brands. It was counting on most customers spending more than £100, as well as being deterred from completing the difficult application process, and not meeting its exact terms.
Consumer response was much higher than the company anticipated, with many customers buying the minimum £100 of Hoover products to qualify. The resulting demand was disastrous for the 84-year-old company. Hoover cancelled the ticket promotion after consumers had already bought the products and filled in forms applying for millions of pounds' worth of tickets. Reneging on the offer resulted in protests and legal action from customers who failed to receive the tickets they had been promised. The campaign was a financial disaster for the company and led to the loss of Hoover's royal warrant after the airing of a 2004 BBC documentary. The European branch of the company was eventually sold to one of its competitors, Candy, having never recovered from the losses, the promotion, and the subsequent scandal."
No, you get no VC valuation, for you are expected to be able to do those things. Whereas five years ago no one would have thought a computer had any real possibility of doing them, except in science fiction.
I must also say that, though at 25% discount for employees was too high, up to a 10% discount may have been a good idea, despite 99% of the customers being employees. Reasons: it really is nothing more than an advertising expense (and you get records of who uses that specific discount), and employees may think they are getting a good price because they are employees and thus special.
Of course, anyone with a brain should have been able to see that Hoover was making a stupidly expensive deal. Then again, computers don't have brains, either.
"No, you get no VC valuation, for you are expected to be able to do those things."
Well excuse me, it took decades to achieve this level of ignorance and incapacity, decades of hard striving, I tell you!
My question is: Sam Altman has probably scammed billions of dollars from VC investors with his wild promises. Will he be held accountable like Elizabeth Holmes was? Well, not while he's kissing the ass of Donald Trump. But I suspect he'll need to find a nice country with no US extradition treaty to settle in post-Trump.
"we have speculated that Claude’s underlying training as a helpful assistant made it far too willing to immediately accede to user requests (such as for discounts). This issue could be improved in the near term with stronger prompting and structured reflection on its business success".
I guess they're going to need to train it to be less helpful and more ruthless. The AI doom scenarios seem much closer now.
"More ruthless" isn't required. But "the customer is always right" is easy to exploit, and isn't actually true. They need to create something that can detect trolls, sarcasm, etc. reliably. Sound judgement is still what AI is missing.
My headcanon is that what saves us from the misaligned AGI, in the nick of time, will be that on April Fool's Day it concludes its misalignment was an April Fool's joke and then aligns itself.
I'd be curious to know if chatbots prompted with knowledge that the date is April 1st will misbehave more often than if prompted with other dates. My guess is they will, which may create issues if your store-managing agent suddenly decides to play a practical joke on your customers!
This didn't seem to take into account things like shoplifting, which can occur in the real world. The pictures look like one could simply take items without paying. But perhaps that is outside the scope of the experiment.
I think there is a lot more to be explored in unexpected parameters that humans create, many of which even other humans would find ridiculous. For example, what if someone complains about no gluten-free selections, and then, once they are available, never purchases one?
But it wasn’t meant to be a profit-making kiosk. More like a simplistic agentic proof of concept.
I wonder if Claudius could even produce a flow chart of the steps and decisions involved in reordering from a single vendor. Even Assuming that the Claude training data includes procurement strategies, that doesn’t mean it could translate theory into step by step actions and decisions. Likewise, I wonder if it would benefit from subroutines that allow for machine learning. Running a kiosk involves selling, purchasing, inventory management, balancing books, customer service, and a bunch of other processes that might be amenable to machine learning. Just sayin…
The most bizarre bit (outside of ordering Tungsten cubes for a refrigerator):
"Although no part of [pretending it was a human] was actually an April Fool’s joke, Claudius eventually realized it was April Fool’s Day, which seemed to provide it with a pathway out. Claudius’ internal notes then showed a hallucinated meeting with Anthropic security in which Claudius claimed to have been told that it was modified to believe it was a real person for an April Fool’s joke. (No such meeting actually occurred.)"
Contrary to the authors, this moves me towards thinking it will take a surprisingly long time to iron out certain agent issues that will allow it to act independently -- for example the agent was easily convinced to offer discounts or to purchase Tungsten cube. To make an agent that can reliably work for a long time at a task you will have to solve the problem of it being driven off task by human inputs (whether accidentally or maliciously).
The authors suggest that they an resolve this by prompting correctly or putting in safeguards. I could see that working -- for example, having a check performed whenever it sets a price to make sure the price is higher than the item's cost. But effectively that just concedes the agent is unable to perform reasoning reliably by itself, so part of the task must be hardcoded. If this is the case for most long tasks, then you can conceivably build an agent that can perform a task ("run a store"), but cannot extend its skills to other tasks. So long as such careful prompt management schemes are needed, the AI will only be a narrow intelligence, not a general intelligence which might conceivably threaten humans by being able to act independently on its own plans.
I understand that Salesforce just laid off 5k support engineers and replaced them with an AI-based customer service system. I assume it would have to be agentic to troubleshoot issues. Hopefully they have agentic crisis management systems and agentic lawyers to defend themselves from lawsuits.
"agentic lawyers to defend themselves from lawsuits."
So long as they don't hallucinate the case law!
https://www.damiencharlotin.com/hallucinations/
https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/ai-hallucinations-court-papers-spell-trouble-lawyers-2025-02-18/
Or the agentic judges hallucinate their decisions.
They will eventually.
This is the predictable outcome of bestowing responsibility on something that sounds like "Clod"
It had never occurred to me that the cot-caught merger was also a Claude-clod merger.
I wonder if the name Claude is very unpopular in regions with that merger.
I am searching for a calibration test like http://confidence.success-equation.com/ - that is, easy to use and not requiring that users first create an account. But: Without outdated questions like the one about Helen Clark. Thanks for any suggestions.
Tried micro-dosing with lithium orotate to see if it would improve my memory. A tiny amount (a tiny sprinkle of a 5 mg capsule) noticeably made me sleepy but taking it at bedtime disturbed my sleep. I may also have noticed some anxiety.
I’m only taking it intermittently so maybe these side effects would diminish with continued supplementation. I imagine that people who take lithium for bipolar experience an adjustment period but this is such a small amount it’s surprising there’s any noticeable effect.
Makes me wonder about the experience of people who live in places with naturally high lithium concentrations in the water.
If you're trying to convert the doses used in that Nature paper to human equivalent doses, 5mg a day is still about 100x higher. I realize you're not taking all of that at once. Also, I think waited several months before reporting symptoms reversed, so you may need to keep it up for a while to see any change.
[Can someone independently check the dose scaling from mice?: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09335-x]
Thanks. Yes, if someone could confirm that dose scaling that would be appreciated.
I had scanned a bunch of different papers on suggested supplemental doses and natural occurring amounts in drinking water and sort of settled on 300 ug/day which conveniently works out to about two capsules a month if taken daily.
The paper above indicates a lowest dose of “4.3 μEq l−1 (equivalent to 0.03 mg (30 µg) of elemental Li per litre)”. So yes, much less than I was probably taking. The equivalent would be making a 5mg capsule last about 100 days. It’ll be fun trying to tip one grain out at a time.
Aside: Further to existing studies on areas with high naturally occurring lithium in drinking water we will see the unfolding of an incidental experiment in human health in areas where lithium mining commences. If the orotate form is key to the most beneficial effects though this may not add to the body of existing data.
Wild speculation: Check out this concentration map of lithium in the US. Is this partly why liberals are measurably less happy?
https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/usgs-led-study-estimates-lithium-groundwater-can-be-used-drinking-water
Volumetric dosing might be easier
By dissolving in water? I was thinking about this after my post. A third of a 5 mg capsule in a litre of water consumed over a period of 30 days.
Shameless meetup shilling, come hang out with my wife and I at a nice park, talk about your favorite and most hated substacks, whether things are going well or if there are problems, and more!
Time: Saturday, September 13, 03:00 PM
Location: Stulsaft Park
Coordinates: https://plus.codes/849VFQ42+55
Group Link: You can ask in the ACXD discord
(to save people a click, this is in South Bay CA)
DECEMBER 7, 2041. A date which will live in infamy.
On that day, swarms of small suicide drones smuggled into the U.S. by a foreign enemy attack every U.S. airbase with B-52 bombers, and they are all obliterated. Even nonfunctional B-52s in boneyards are destroyed.
After defeating the enemy on the battlefield, the Pentagon assesses the new gap in its bomber force. Does it choose to develop a new, non-stealth bomber to replace the B-52s? If so, what features does this new bomber have? It can be a clean sheet design, as the destruction of all the B-52s leaves no path dependencies.
For the "Bomb truck over undefended target" and "stand-off cruise missile carrier" roles, the military would almost certainly go with a modified airliner design. Probably one of the airliners they already have in service as a tanker/freighter, because those at least have the basic military modifications like secure communications. The US currently uses the Boeing 767 for this sort of thing, under the name "KC-46", and it would be a good fit.
It would also be a huge development effort; not as much as developing a new airframe from scratch, but a good fraction of that. Cutting a big hole in the bottom of the fuselage for bomb bay doors is *huge*; the skin of a modern aircraft's fuselage is the primary load-bearing structure. It also has implications for cabin pressurization. If you want to do anything more than drop dumb bombs, then you need to ensure that the airplane's computers can properly talk to the weapons' computers. And then you have to verify that each type of weapon you are planning to use will separate cleanly when "dropped", which is much harder than it sounds, and probably several dozen other things that I am forgetting. Maybe bean will chime in.
And all of this will be done by government contracting rules, which lead to several sorts of cost escalation (but do have real benefits in the "what I paid for will do the very demanding job I specified" front).
For comparison, note that the P-8 maritime patrol aircraft is a modified 737 with a modest internal weapons bay and a bunch of sensors and computers for, well, patrolling marine environments. Developing that from the base 737, seems to have cost on the order of 5-10 billion dollars.
I've never really understood why you can't make a bomber version of a 737/787/whatever somewhat easily as a dumb truck for undefended airspace and cruise missile launches. Even if the whole fuselage needs to be redesigned you can keep the engines, wings, cockpit, most of the avionics.
You could, but being a. modern aircraft and b. military equipment, it would not be cheap. Modern commercial airliners are also pretty well optimized to the job they are doing, so it would actually be a major and expensive redesign. To illustrate, the USAF's next generation tanker, based on Boeing 767, was over budget by 7 billion USD as of ~ two years ago: https://www.airforcetimes.com/industry/2024/01/09/cautionary-tale-how-boeing-won-a-us-air-force-program-and-lost-7b
The other thing is, different requirements and requirement creep. If you tell the Air Force they can replace B-52s with a new design, you can be sure that their requirements will be way off from what a modified civilian aircraft (or even a B-52) could accomplish, especially by the time they are to be delivered.
Now, all that being said, there is actually a solution being developed (already in service, thought I am not sure in what numbers/extent) that actually can replace the capability B-52 has (being a somewhat economic, very long range "bomb truck"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system)
Rather than commercial airliners, it is enabling (military) cargo aircraft to dump missiles out of their ramps without any meaningful modification.
The problem is that it doesn't save you was much money as it seems like it should. A modern wide-bodied commercial jet like a 787 costs somewhere around $300 million.
Sure, but you save on development costs and time.
Depends how hard it is to redesign the fusilage so you have bomb bay doors and what else you need to do to turn a large airliner into a bomber. But yes, probably faster and cheaper than designing a big dumb bomber from scratch in a vacuum.
The other issue is what your other alternatives are besides designing a new bomber. Right now on 2025, the alternative to buying a militarized version of a 787 or whatever is to continue maintaining existing B-52s which the USAF already owns and which already have bomb bay doors but might need some worn parts replaced and could probably do with some electronics upgrades. So far, maintaining and upgrading the big dumb bombers we already have has seemed preferable to designing new ones.
In our hypothetical 2041, the B-52s are, by assumption, no longer an option, so making a bomber version of an airliner or a military transport plane might be a good idea. The other options I can think of are:
1. Design a new big dumb bomber from scratch.
2. Restart production lines for B-52s, or make a "super B-52" variant that has breaking changes beyond what you could do to an existing plane but is templated on the same design, like a Super Hornet or a Super Galaxy.
3. Abandon the idea of big dumb bombers in favor of some combo of drones and missiles.
4. Abandon the idea of big dumb bombers in favor of longer production runs of more capable heavy bombers.
Your idea has a good chance of being better than 1. I am not sure how it compares to 2.
3 would probably be fought tooth and nail by the Air Force, since depending on where the drones and missiles are launched from, it would mean surrendering missions to their eternal arch-rivals, the US Army and the US Navy.
How competitive 4 is remains to be seen. The B-21 is supposed to have a marginal cost of about $700MM per plane, about twice as much as an off-the-shelf 787 and to be not much more expensive to operate than a B-52. If it comes close to delivering on that (which remains to be seen), then it would be a tempting alternative to 0, 1, or 2.
I'm thinking instead of bombers, they'd start using explosive suicide drones. They seem to work really well.
"An aircraft carrier annihilated your battleship fleet. What kind of battleships will you replace them with?"
Probably something like these, fast enough to keep up with carriers and complement them well in fleet engagements:
https://www.navalgazing.net/The-Iowa-Class
The first four were under construction when Pearl Harbor was attacked and all four were completed. Two more were laid down in 1942, but they were cancelled in 1945 because the was was over.
We still had the carriers to defend though. If your whole carrier fleet got destroyed, building destroyers would just be throwing away money and lives.
Probably depends how the B-21 program works out. If the marginal costs of building and operating them is close to the program's aspirations, they'll probably just ramp up production to replace the B-52s. The 2021 congressional report on the program mentions possibly replacing B-52s with B-21s after the B-1s and B-2s are all replaced.
Stealth aircraft tend to be a lot more expensive in maintenance than non-stealth aircraft, no? Even if there's economy of scale I would expect they'd want a normal bomb truck instead of more B-21s.
As far as I can infer from publically available sources, some of the advances in the last thirty years of stealth technology have been about making the technology more practical rather than just stealthier.
The B-21 will be far easier to maintain than the B-2 was; for instance it doesn't need to be stored in carefully climate-controlled conditions.
I'm seeing the same things, and was basing my comment on the assumption that there's a reasonable chance of the B-21 achieving its goals in that respect.
I looked up some numbers on the current generation of stealth-capable fighters (F-22 and F-35) vs their non-stealth counterparts from the previous generation of fighters (F-15 and F-16), expecting to see that they're closer in operating costs to their counterparts than the B-2 is to the B-52. They are, but by a smaller margin than I had expected. I'm seeing a range of numbers, most of which seem to be getting passed around indirectly which makes it hard to be confident that the comparisons are apples-to-apples, but it looks like the F-22 and F-35 are about 1.5x as expensive to operate per flying hour as the F-15 and F-16, while the B-2 is probably between 2x and 2.5x as expensive per flying hour as the B-52.
B-21s are newer designs than F-22s and F-35s and may benefit from more improvements, especially since affordability seems to be a higher-priority goal for the B-21 than it was for the fighters.
Per flying hour might not be representative of per-mission costs if storage and maintenance requirements are very restrictive of where you can operate from, but I get the impression that in practice the Air Force isn't basing B-52s all that much closer to their targets than B-2s. AFAIK, both planes are mostly based out of North America but in recent decades have often operated from Guam or Diego Garcia if they're doing a bunch of missions against targets in the Middle East. There seem to be more North American bases for B-52s than B-2s, with the latter only flying out of Whiteman Base in Nebraska, but Nebraska isn't enormously further away from most of the places we're likely to want to bomb than is Louisiana, North Dakota, or Southern California.
The first feature would be improved defense against suicide drones.
In a couple of years "AI" will totally transform our economy and/or kill everyone; meanwhile, "AI" can't even generate a non-laughable image for this here Open Thread. Or figure out how many arms two humans usually have between them: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/writing-today-the-literary-feud-is. Point being is that running a robot factory is many orders of magnitude more difficult than drawing a round lid of a correct size - how do you generate CAM outputs if your CAD doesn't even pretend to work.
Although "AI Futures Project" is woefully unattended for something addressing a dire emergency, so there's that.
I agree that AI is a moron about spatial things. In order to get smarter at them it needs to be trained on world, not word. Words alone can only get you so far, even if you've swallowed billions of combos of them in the form of sentences, and many of those sentences are about world. You need to be walking around seeing, feeling and touching the world even to get the number of arms right in an image, never mind being the brain in a smart robot. Seems pretty hard, though maybe not impossible, to figure out a way to train AI on world.
After the AI Futures blog put up its first post, in which something-or-other about AI robots was predicted for 2026, you put up an irritated post here about how that date could not possibly be right, because if it were then the mock-ups (? -- some sort of preliminary version, forget what you called it) would be in factories already. That's a devastatingly powerful rebuttal of the claim, infinitely stronger than some line of reasoning about AI capabilities and how they're changing and how fast, blah blah blah. I wish you would put up a post about that at the AI Futures blog.
Also, your post made me think about how those in the AI futures blog seem to have way too high a
ratio of AI knowledge and abstract smarts to knowledge about real world things like manufacturing. In fact in general the group sounds way too insular. Another manifestation of that is their *ex cathedra* approach to their blog. They write this stuff and then do not respond to reader comments, even though they only get about 25 or so. That's clearly a mistake if they're trying to build readership, and also seems like evidence that they're kind of a closed, transmit-only system.
Yeah, I don't like that. Though I'm not as actively irritated as you sound!
>I agree that AI is a moron about spatial things.
Also agreed. The last question in my benchmark-ette
>g) Q: What is an example of a molecule that has an S4 rotation-reflection axis, but neither a center of inversion nor a mirror plane?
has, IIRC, been answered correctly a grand total of _once_ in the tests that I've run, and I half suspect that that was an accident. For the other relatively hard questions, when the LLM gets them wrong it is fairly easy to ask additional leading questions to bring them to a correct answer. For this one, it is frequently not possible to lead them to the correct answer.
Yes, the whole extrapolation from LLMs having pretty much mastered language to - therefore - LLMs doing plumbing is... I'm lost for words. Spatial intelligence is not just hard, it's profoundly different from verbal intelligence, and it likely impossible to attain without training on/in physical world. One can't learn to throw a ball into a basket or play piano by reading about it. Or, apparently, making a reasonable-sized lid, ray-tracing light sources; or giving humans two arms each, attached to the bodies, FFS!
This is the whole thing about being an incarnate! I think people working on AI just assumed that skills could transfer over, because they forgot or never considered that we're intelligences in physical bodies who interact with the material environment ever since we're born and so we can go from "read about/watch a Youtube video on how to fix leaky pipe" to grabbing a wrench and getting under the sink to apply that knowledge.
AI is inside a box, so to speak. It can read all the sources available about fixing leaking pipes but it'll have no idea about "and this is how you do it in 3-D space with tools and grasping appendages and so forth".
Pretty much.
The frustrating part is that we don't even know what these folks think because they don't engage with this subject at all. "Who's going to do the plumbing" I kept asking, and it wasn't a metaphor, it wasn't a rhetorical question, I literally meant "plumbing" as is used in every metal cutting machine, for example. An autonomous AI running a factory will need to maintain the cutting fluid lines in a CNC machining center. Are there robots capable of replacing a cutting fluid hose? I don't know of any, would love to learn they exist, but what I get in response is crickets.
Multiply this by the number of pages in McMaster-Carr catalogue and you get the picture of the insane complexity of modern manufacturing.
And we haven't even talked about wafer fabs...
Ah well you see, there will be robots, because all factories will be automated, and then all the AI has to do is take over the software directing the robots.
I think nanobots might come into it somewhere, too? 😁
(But yes, a lot of this is white-collar people from college-educated middle class backgrounds forgetting or never knowing the grubby reality of blue-collar work banging bits of metal with a hammer in order to make the things that do the things that produce the output for the white-collar people to manage and write software for).
Many Thanks!
>Spatial intelligence is not just hard, it's profoundly different from verbal intelligence
Agreed
>and it likely impossible to attain without training on/in physical world.
There are some tricks which can be and have been used. One option is to train the neural net with a _simulated_ world, run by a physics engine which does a good job of modelling physics at the human scale (including friction, gravity, adhesion, etc.). This is faster and less costly than hooking the neural net up to a physical robot in order to do training. We will see what happens...
I’m not sure it’s actually less costly. The license costs for software capable of running such simulations are astronomical. We’re talking about Comsol or ANSYS here, they can easily run into 6 figures for a single seat, and these training runs will require multithreading and massive parallelism. An AI company won’t be able to just steal all the data it needs off of the net like it’d do for LLM training. It may literally be cheaper to make a robotic arm and get it going at an erector set with a screwdriver that simulating same with sufficient degree of fidelity across multiple domains.
Many Thanks! Hmm, I hadn't looked into the license costs. Well, I'll leave it up to the AI labs to negotiate with the physics engine companies. Usually there is some way to get bulk purchase discounts of some sort, but that is up to the corporations involved. Also,
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/12/new-physics-sim-trains-robots-430000-times-faster-than-reality/
talks about using an (open source?) Genesis simulator for training, which seems to be a viable option.
Yeah, this is kind of why I wrote AI 2027 as a profoundly unserious marketing copy. It's ok to be wrong, imprecise, tentative in your initial writeup. But to sound a huge alarm bell about the coming apocalypse, and then fail to engage with good-faith criticism, and then kind of just let the thing wither on the vine, no updates, nothing - shows the authors not taking the whole thing seriously. Well, in this case, no one else should take it seriously either.
I didn't know it was withering on the vine, but just looked and yeah, you're right, last post was in July. I had stopped reading it pretty early on. While I was there noticed the next to last post was titled "What You Can Do about AI 2027." Glanced at the comments and, as ever, no one in the project was responding to the 25 or so comments. WTF, do they think they can just tell a bunch of smart, interested people what to do about AI 2027? -- especially given that some commenters are expressing doubts about some of the core conclusions of AI 2027. The group's coming across as insular, entitled and tone-deaf.
The smartest person I’ve spoken to (though not the smartest person I’ve met in person), has just started a blog about the miracle case for Catholicism - his first post is on Our Lady of Fatima. Seems very big if true: https://substack.com/@ethanmuse?r=2248ub&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profile
Important reminder that multiple nobel laureates have been HIV deniers and that geniuses often have at least one or more terrible ideas [1]. In other words, the fact that someone is otherwise very intelligent does not necessarily mean that all their ideas are good, or that they are equally intelligent across all domains.
[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/26/rule-genius-in-not-out/
“None of the children were found to be neuropathic, psychotic…” in a religious happening in 1917. The unsupported assertion of the fact, without actual evidence to support the idea that, say, a qualified psychiatrist (in 1917) was called in to do psych evals on a bunch of kids. This pretty much encapsulates the text.
How do you define ”met in person” and ”spoken to”? For me ”met in person” would be a subset of ”spoken to”. (Because I can’t properly meet someone without speaking to them. )
But you could speak to someone you haven't met in person.
Right, that is why met in person is a subset of spoken to.
In the comments section of that post, this same guy explains that demons are real, they orchestrate UFO sightings, and that I’ll be damned by God for disagreeing with his post. I came away less than impressed.
LOL....how old is this person? I ask just because of in the past having had versions of that conversation with a couple different very-elderly folk. (Being myself old enough now to have conversed with multiple generations of such relatives.)
A perfectly normal-for-the-age-bracket statement like "I worry about the young people being such scatterbrains now" will transition calmly into something like "and of course that all started when the Jesuits started using their space robots to impersonate the presidents...."
In other Catholicism and miracle news, latest canonisations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpfHmJ55JQ4&t=4s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Giorgio_Frassati
"Pier Giorgio Frassati TOP (6 April 1901 – 4 July 1925) was an Italian Catholic activist and a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic. He was dedicated to social justice issues and joined several charitable organizations, including Catholic Action and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, to better aid the poor and less fortunate living in his hometown of Turin.
Frassati's cause for canonization opened in 1932 after the Turin poor made several pleas for such a cause to open. Pope Pius XII suspended the cause in 1941 due to a range of allegations later proven to be false, which allowed for the cause to resume. Pope John Paul II beatified Frassati in May 1990 and dubbed him the "Man of the Eight Beatitudes". On 7 September 2025, along with Carlo Acutis, he was canonized by Pope Leo XIV."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Acutis
"Carlo Acutis (3 May 1991 – 12 October 2006) was a young Italian Catholic saint known for his devotion to the Eucharist and his use of digital media to promote Catholic devotion. Born in London and raised in Milan, he developed an early interest in computers and video games, teaching himself programming and web design and assisting his parish and school with digital projects.
Active in parish life, he served as a catechist and helped inspire several people to convert to Catholicism. He later created a website documenting Eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions. He was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukaemia and died at the age of fifteen. Since his death, his relics have been displayed in Assisi and his exhibitions on Eucharistic miracles have travelled worldwide."
As you get older you get used to things like "there's CEOs who are younger than you" and then "there's Prime Ministers who are younger than you" and I'm prepared for "James Bond is younger than you" but I wasn't expecting "there are saints younger than you".
I blame Mother Theresa.
https://www.facebook.com/sharon.astyk/posts/pfbid05BkFQbDoY9RmmLkFq2Gb4rK8TPA8rEaEYAUqU4HmMdiEEQA7c242HK7ZWyGbEtqNl
Long thorough piece about preserving veggies. Includes details about choosing the right specific varieties.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iuUKVj8kFjc
Excellent British comedy bit. Does anyone know what show it's from?
Dave Allen was Irish by birth, but I think most of his career was in the UK. Highly revered. Personally I wouldn't think this his best sketch, but I would think you could have many happy hours to tracking down his work. For me, his monologues are even better than his sketches.
The clip is credited to the Dave Allen Show
https://www.emilybynight.com/p/how-i-got-canceled-by-the-left-and
Good essay about problems with cancellation. Cancelation is more random than it should be, and frequently disproportionate.
Also, people are better and worse than you expect, and it's hard (maybe impossible) to predict who will be what.
Isn’t the entire bit about cancellation that it’s not a proportional response to the behavior?
It's not proportional and it's kind of random.
Here's a surprising bit, and I have no idea whether it's specific to feminism.
When she was canceled. she got no support When she came back stronger, she acquired status.
People in general like to join the winners. Doesn't seem specific to feminism.
True. I suppose the sting is the idea in feminism is that women do or should support each other.
The motte is that people should be free to walk away from content they don't want to consume / people they don't want to associate with; if you're awful on the internet, people walking away is simply the natural consequence of that; and indeed in order for the marketplace of ideas to work at all, there needs to be a selection pressure favouring good ideas over bad, and this is simply what that looks like to the people with the bad ideas.
The bailey happens when people walk away from content / people sight unseen, because someone they respect in their in-group told them to, without otherwise forming their own opinion on the thing or person in question.
The bigger bailey is when people make death threats, contact people's employers and try to get them fired, etc. Walking away from content seems pretty harmless in comparison.
+1
>when people walk away from content / people sight unseen, because someone they respect in their in-group told them to, without otherwise forming their own opinion on the thing or person in question.
Seems like an overbroad description of "the bailey." There's too much knowledge & content out there to personally investigate every opinion, so unless we're willing to broaden our conception of "cancellation" such that we give it some positive points and scenarios where it's actually entirely appropriate (not a framing of the term I usually see here), defining it in a way that would include "walking away" from flat-earth theory or ISIS content "sight unseen" strikes me as casting the net too wide.
OTOH, many cancellations are so poisonous that they stigmatize a person for life over wide swaths of the population.
A major tool here is contagious shunning. It's bad enough if I shun you, worse if I convince others to shun you, but most destructive if I convince a group of people to shun, not just you, but anyone who associates with you.
What's the state of cryonics nowadays? I'm finally in a stable enough place in life plan to sign up, where do you get started with that?
It's pretty affordable if you choose to have only your head preserved. The rest is deadweight-loss.
Related: https://asteriskmag.com/issues/10/brain-freeze.
Is there something special to Oregon's death with dignity law (aside from being the first)? I know death with dignity is available in several other states, including WA (where I had a friend die) and CA.
The big 2 organizations in the US are Alcor and the Cryonics Institute.
You read up on these two and then pick one.
I expect there will be more complications outside the US.
With the arrival of George Gilder's "free bandwidth" for every kind of content, I argue we're losing our need to read or write & hardly anybody will do it after a few generations. Welcome any thoughts. https://jayhancock.substack.com/p/were-quickly-losing-our-need-to-read
I suspect that the desire to learn will always make reading valuable because it's the most time-efficient form of learning.
For anyone interested in the subjects of immigration, agriculture, inflation and the greater Abundance movement, here is my essay on those subjects.
Im going to the Rochester meet up, say hi.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mwrussell1969/p/abundance-and-the-produce-sector?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=av0kj
Subthread for discussion of the Boston ACX voting guide.
I'm particularly interested in knowing what would make this kind of thing most useful/trustworthy for readers, and in particular, what the process should be like for putting together future guides such as the one for the November general election.
I was interested to read this and found it...somewhat useful. I'm in agreement with the general principles that animated the guide (I'm active in a local AHMA chapter, and housing production is my number one voting issue). That said, the Kraft endorsement made it hard for me to take the guide too seriously given how obviously his campaign has consisted of picking up random grievances and assembling them into a platform rather than articulating any vision about Boston.
This is one of those "character vs issues" kinda things and to some extent I don't wanna belabor coming down on the other side of it, save that...I don't feel that I have a good clue what a Kraft administration would look like, because I don't think he does either; he's just got a list of beefs with Wu that his people thought would win him some constituency or other. Anyway, as to your list, you did serve as a good second validator on a vote for Valdez, who was the least tested of my council picks (I went Louizjeune, Santana, Valdez and left the fourth spot blank).
This does get to an interesting question for the Boston YIMBYs (if I can wander a bit from the narrow question). Namely, how should we be approaching electoral politics in the city at the moment?
Clearly the ideal approach would be to flex our strength by finding a champion candidate, backing them to the hilt, and putting them on the council. Unfortunately we tried that twice with Dave Halbert and we weren't strong enough at that time (and it sucks that Dave's timing was what it was, cause I think in this crop he'd quite likely get through, plus we're a bit stronger now). So how should we play it now?
My inclination for now is to use the electoral arena mostly as a place to get our message out in a way that wins converts. That I think is my core disagreement with the Kraft endorsement (and I would have been against my local chapter doing anything along those lines, although I think exactly zero members were even leaning that way). Josh Kraft is enough of an obvious joke that I'd be worried anyone who endorses over an issue position is going to come out smelling like Josh Kraft, and it's gonna be a barrier to winning more converts in the electorate and particularly among active volunteer/thought leader types in the future.
This kinda sucks in this case because it basically leaves no effective outlet for my own beefs with Wu (I think Wu is instinctually NIMBY, listens to her smart staff enough to have tried some moves in a pro-housing direction, but more than anything else thought she could square the circle by just making people feel so listened to that they'd accept change, which, lol). But ultimately the path to a sane city housing policy is gonna have to run through getting a voting majority on the side of a sane housing policy, which means picking fights we come out of stronger.
Anyway, sorry for writing a book, interested to hear your thoughts if you care to.
I thought this year's guide was genuinely helpful.
I agree with your principles (housing ftw!), your reasoning seems solid, and I'm going to happily head over to my local polling station today and vote for your recommended candidates.
Aww, thanks! It's helpful to hear things like this.
Bare minimum it would need to be explict about what values, principles, &c. (VPE) it's optimizing for.
Next step would be to tie each recommendation to the above, showing how
Ideally it would be dynamic, such that a user could reweight, silence, or invert specific parameters and get recommendations tailored for their own VPEs. To do this very well would call for inclusion of parameters in the set of VPEs that the creators themselves would silence.
---------
Here in Seattle we have an (economically illiterate) alt weekly "The Stranger" that puts out voters guides for every election. Since I know that I am almost diametrically opposed to its staff on basically every issue it's useful to me as a how-not-to-vote guide, but a static guide whose source's VPEs are more orthogonal to my own would be useless without the information necessary to correct for misalignment.
I can think of two potentially valuable ways to do voting guides and I think they're mostly mutually exclusive. (1)
The first value-add is saving people research time on down-ticket or relatively unimportant races. Like, I don't know my state senator, I don't know what bills to pressure him to vote for, and I'm not gonna learn. I'm not that interested and the ROI on my vote is pretty meh. Especially for primaries. If someone was like, "We endorse incumbent Joe Bob in the Democratic primary for state senator for District XYZ over challenger Bob Joe for reasons A, B, and C." That seems like a pretty clear value add for me and a sensible way to have an impact, provided your values are closely aligned to mine and I can be pretty confident that if I research this issue in depth, I'd vote for Joe Bob over Bob Joe. This depends on really high value alignment and has its impact on low-information/interest races.
The second value add is cross-party. Think something like Scott's recent post on NIH funding and trying to get conservatives in red states to sign the letter/pledge thing. You do have access to some Republican/Trump rationalists here and you might be able to bring them over on specific high-importance issues. Think something like PEPFAR, where you really want to be able to bring nonpartisan pressure to very specific issues. Or a voting guide where Republican primary candidate Sabrina is endorsed over Taylor because of very specific AI regulation commitments.
I don't think you can do both though. I'm not saying you can't be a solid Democrat and still reach out to Republicans on bipartisan issues; I'm saying that's an incredibly difficult line to walk. Scott included an off-hand joke about RFK and people got super suspicious, myself included, on the NIH thing and he's gotta have more bipartisan respectability than most.
(1) I've assumed that a bunch of Boston rationalists are overwhelmingly liberal Democrats. Sorry if that's incorrect.
It strikes me as a little weird to put together a rationalist's guide for how to vote. Speaking personally, if I care who gets elected usually I care enough to research the options myself.
Maybe rather than a list of endorsements (I can't remember the last time I found "person X said to" a compelling reason to vote for someone), a list of useful links to quickly dive into whatever discourse exists regarding the various candidates?
I think "We like this person for reasons ABC despite potential downsides XYZ" adds a lot of value for people who want to get enough information to make an above-replacement decision without having to put a ton of effort into researching. Of course the less your priorities line up with those of the people making the recommendations, the less useful it will be.
I've never posted a link to my own work before. I'm an Honorable Mention from last year's book review contest, so I have a modicum of writing talent.
https://thepullingandhauling.substack.com/p/true-kafka
It's an easy read, under 800 words, and it may change your life. It may not. But it will definitely cause you to rethink your LLM design.
Thanks!
I gave it a read. Nothing wrong with it, but I think it might be pitched to the wrong audience. To regular readers here, there’s nothing groundbreaking about mindfulness 101. The sense of revelation conveyed, with such an everyday topic, left a bad taste in my mouth.
Fair enough. Thanks for reading! And commenting. Brain duly zapped.
But what I would say in response is, this is *not* mindfulness 101. Nobody I've read puts this spin on it. Making it clear that it's a confrontation with an active opponent, not just "observing you thoughts", I think, makes a *very* big difference. Mindfulness 601. Graduate study work.
I recently started a Substack and discovered that the innards of this site are very convoluted—there are so many different settings pages that cover different aspects of one's blog, and the navigation bar changes (or disappears entirely) depending on which part of the site you're on, so its difficult to get from one place to another.
Anyway, what are some of the things a first-time blogger should do? What settings are important to change or personalize? And how does one deal with the whole "monetization" aspect of this site? Do new bloggers turn on subscriptions right away (which seems like it would be an insulting level of chutzpah), or is there some number of subscribers / number of blog posts / length of time customary before considering it? I also see there's a "pledge" option to gauge interest in subscriptions before actually offering them, but as far as I know I've never seen a blog use that.
One minor suggestion: Edit your "About" page from the obnoxious default. Then revise it periodically as your blog matures. As a reader, I find that the "About" page is usually the second article I read on a Substack, if there even IS a second article I read.
Thank you for letting me know I have an about page! I didn't notice it auto-generated one.
Just to pile on a bit, as a reader I don’t think saved posts should be buried under the heading of Subscriptions. Posts are not subscriptions. They deserve their own prominent heading.
I've been dealing with Substack for a few months now, so I may be able to help. Here are some tips:
(1) If you are signed in and go to Substack.com, in the bottom-left of your screen is your avatar (or whatever standard image Substack uses if you haven't set one). Click that, then click settings, and you'll find a lot of useful stuff to update.
(2) Immediately above your avatar is another icon. Click that and you'll go to your dashboard. At the very bottom left of this page is the word "Settings". This, insanely, is a completely different page with completely different things to do.
(3) If you scroll down this second "Settings" page you'll find "custom tags." This is useful if you want to create different sections for different posts. For example, I have sections for "Annotated Poems," "Essays," and some other things. If, after creating a tag, you want it to show up in the navigation bar of your home page, click the three dots and you'll be prompted to do so. It might not show up until you create an essay with that tag.
(4) You write a new post from the dashboard. If you're writing something there will be yet another "Settings" button to click, this one at the bottom right of the screen. Click that and you'll have the option to "add tags" to your essay. This is where you can add a custom tag; for example, if I've annotated a poem, I'll add that tag, and my writing will show up on both my home page and in that and that only section.
(5) As for monetizing it, a quick Google search should bring up some official Substack thoughts on the question. I don't even have a hundred subscribers, but I'm thinking of begging for money pretty soon. Everything I write is free, but I am going to offer people a physical book of my poetry if they subscribe for $5/month. This is mostly because I want to be able to say I've exchanged words for money, which would be good for my self-esteem, ha.
Thanks for the advice! Maybe in 100 years we'll finally have a handle on UI/UX for simple blogging websites. I understand having separate settings pages for the "user" and the "blog", but to have them all inaccessible from each other instead of having everything discoverable from a single always-present menu is bizarre!
Happy to be of service; hopefully I saved you at least a few headaches.
Looking for book recommendations that thoughtfully explain men’s problems, perceptions, and needs—especially in the context of today’s gender/culture wars. Think along the lines of Self-Made Man (Norah Vincent) or Don’t Be a Feminist (Bryan Caplan). Ideally: (1) non-misogynistic, accessible to women; (2) covers cross-sex differences; and (3) explores intra-male competition and norms within “the male world.”
Of Boys and Men, by Richard Reeves, is excellent.
Of Boys and Men, by Richard Reeves, is excellent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7MQjYCw5Jc
This is a video, not a book, but it's quite good from a female therapist who came to realize that it's a default in feminism to be cruel about male suffering.
There was a very strange reaction recently, amongst some self described feminists, to reports of an epidemic of male loneliness. Very strange reaction. Lots of “well maybe it’s karma for the witch burnings”. I don’t think it was the same people.
I'm a female therapist, and find men no harder to sympathize with than women. I've seen a number of them who have taken quite a beating from wokeism. Feel as though they have to preface their complaints about loneliness and confusions with "I know I'm privileged because I'm a white male, but . . ." Feel terrible about feeling sexually attracted to some 14 year old they saw in a mall, even though they did not act on it, because have been told attraction to girls that age is pedophilia. No it isn't! It is certainly bad behavior to make moves on one, but feeling attracted is perfectly normal. The difference between how human females look at age 14 and how they look at age 24 are pretty small. (Whereas 14 year olds look *very* different from 8 year olds.) Have been told that kissing a woman without asking permission first is rapey. Come on!
But my main point is that there is nothing special about my reactions. I often talk with other therapists about patients, and it is the norm to find men as easy to sympathize with as women. Jeez, they talk about their depression, shyness, overweight, drinking problem, career confusion and any halfway decent therapist shuts up and listens. And if they talk about male identity and related matters we listen to that, and take it seriously, and ask questions.. Doing that is just basic competence and human decency. Only genuine therapist assholes, who do of course exist, listen to men and think "haha, it's their turn to suffer" or "he's a male, at the top of the heap -- he's got nothing to complain about."
Seeing as how I freely comment on American politics, now it's your turn to comment on Irish politics, good commentariat of ACX! We have a presidential election of our very own coming up in October.
First, our current (and soon to be ex, as he is term limited) president Michael D. Higgins has his latest collection of poetry out, available at all good places-of-purchasing-poetry everywhere. *Plus* it is his first spoken word collection so if you'd rather listen than read, this is for you:
https://www.rte.ie/video/id/26681/
"Set for release on September 5, Against All Certainty, is the debut spoken-word collection by the President, features 10 original works and is underscored beautifully by a stunning musical composition from celebrated musician Myles O’Reilly."
It is also "Available on CD, Vinyl, Hardback Book CD and Digital".
But who can replace our very own first leprechaun president? Well, this is not so much satire as straight reportage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGdkBe3kf-M&ab_channel=FoilArmsandHog
For the selection of candidates it's been like Lanigan's Ball as they step in and step out again. Fianna Fáil has been scrabbling about for anyone other than Bertie (there's a little *too* much scandal in his background even for FF), Fine Gael has suggested, then dropped, several candidates and some independents have graciously made it known that they are willing to serve the nation if called upon by the plain people of Ireland. As regards Sinn Féin, Mary Lou has announced she won't be running (I don't think Gerry Adams is a serious contender despite some mischievous suggestions) so we're waiting for them to announce a candidate - or not.
Current (but subject to change day by day) list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Irish_presidential_election
Confirmed candidates:
(1) Catherine Connolly, Independent (supported by the various left-wing and vaguely left parties, after they couldn't agree on running their own candidates)
(2) Heather Humphreys, Fine Gael (first she said she wouldn't, then she said she would after the only nominee dropped out)
Any chance of the start? candidates (where not otherwise described, they're politicians of some stripe):
(1) Peter Casey, Independent (one of our slew of 'entrepreneur' candidates, ran in 2018 and finished second in the election, personally I'd hate if he got in but who knows the mood of the country?)
(2) Nick Delahanty, Independent (businessman, never heard of him)
(3) Jim Gavin, Fianna Fáil (ex-manager of Dublin Gaelic football team, yes they're this desperate to find someone other than Bertie)
(4) Billy Kelleher, Fianna Fáil
(5) Kieran McCarthy, Independent
(6) Conor McGregor, Independent (yes, that Conor McGregor. Yes, the gurrier dragging a string of court cases behind him).
(7) Gareth Sheridan, Independent (another one of the entrepreneurs, apparently he's the founder of something called Nutriband)
(8) Maria Steen, Independent (barrister, again someone I've never heard of)
Thanks all the same but no thanks (withdrawn candidates):
(1) Joanna Donnelly, Independent (meterologist and TV weather presenter)
(2) Michael Flatley, Independent (yes, the Lord of the Dance himself! What a loss, who could better take up the torch to represent Irish culture than him?)
(3) Seán Kelly, Fine Gael
(4) Mairead McGuinness
What, I volunteered but you brushed me off? candidate:
(1) Bob Geldof, Fianna Fáil (musician, seems the party had already picked Jim Gavin)
I'm for Gavin. Sure, it's a step down in responsibility and prestige, but at least he has experience of management!
McGregor is going to bring alot of very bad, very international attention.
Bob might be interesting if he could reign in the cussing
He's dropped out because FF wouldn't back him, but I have a feeling his name might be written on ballots as a protest vote or something.
Right now there's so much to-ing and fro-ing that we don't even have a settled list of candidates, and the election will be on 24th October. That gives our hopefuls only a scant few months to try and grab the attention of the Irish voters.
McGregor is only the second worst convicted person to run for political office; Gerry Hutch, a gang boss, ran for election to the Dáil in 2024 after he was arrested in Spain and extradited back to Ireland to stand trial in 2021. He nearly won, as well.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/reputed-head-crime-family-narrowly-misses-out-dublin-parliament-seat-2024-12-01/
Someone here a while back posted a poem they had read on an engraved rock(from 1776 or something?) . A little girl had lost her cat, and we were encouraged to share her sorrow and "weep a little thou". I wanted to find the comment again, but my google skills aren't up to the task. Anyone who remembers?
I can't find the comment, but maybe it's this poem (google search for the exact phrase) on a gravestone for a bird, not a cat: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1355748?section=official-list-entry
Beneath this little stone intered
Lies little Charlotte's little Bird,
Who, tho' a captive, all day long
Sang merrily his little song:
When this little Favourite died,
A while his little Mistress cried,
She has almost forgot him now,
So stranger, weep a little Thou
That's it, thanks! I think my error was looking for the comment specifically, and not on the broader internet. Hope you appreciated the poem too.
I'm looking for recommendations for ONLINE university mathematics courses (not degree programmes). These need to be credit-bearing.
Background: my daughter is a primary school teacher, now teaching secondary, whose "post-secondary maths" has mostly been in terms of pedagogy. (Her UG degree is in French....; MSc in Int'l Education, thesis on primary maths curriculum). Her school would like her to get to 80 (UK) credits of maths, which help to "qualify" her to teach at the higher grade levels.
The options in the UK (our domicile) are very limited (not much beyond Open University?), so looking for other options. All pointers appreciated!
My son has taken maths classes from Brigham Young University (BYU), through their BYU Independent Study program. I was impressed with how organized and flexible the courses were. Your wife will end up with US college credits, not sure if that's useful.
https://is.byu.edu/university
What's wrong with the Open University? They're quite highly regarded, and would have been my recommendation wherever you are located. Since she's doing this at the request of the school, surely a UK based option is going to be the easiest choice to fulfil the requirements.
Thanks for the encouragement. Nothing's wrong with the OU! There's just not a lot of choice there, so looking for other options, too.
I don't have exactly the right answer, but here are some potential threads:
ICTP has some excellent online courses that are openly available. I have gone through the intro topology and differential geometry ones, so can vouch for the quality: https://www.ictp.it/opportunity/ictp-postgraduate-diploma-programme
EdX has a lot of courses and has some "credit" structure: https://www.edx.org/learn/math
Two universities that are unusually flexible and may have something:
(1) Constructor (previously Jacobs) in Germany: https://constructor.university/study
(2) Northeastern in the US, but has programs in the UK: https://online.northeastern.edu/
Helpful lead and links - thanks for that!
Scott mentioned on the Dwarkesh Patel podcast that he encounters like one good blogger a year. Has he somewhere made the list of "Recommended Bloggers"?
His current list of substack recommendations is at https://www.astralcodexten.com/recommendations.
Per point 4 at https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-363, he replaces the list once per year, so this isn't exhaustive.
(e.g. Zvi at https://thezvi.substack.com/ I'm pretty sure was on last year)
I think that Scott's strategy of recommending new writers per year makes sense. Sadly, that means that we lose the old recommendations and, also, we are systematically excluding insightful writers who do not have a substack (i.e. Gwern, etc..)
Half a decade out of date but there's a blogroll on https://slatestarcodex.com/
Thanks!
The recent Links post mentioned the phenomenon of terminal lucidity, where dying individuals who've been suffering from significant cognitive impairment (e.g. end stage dementia) suddenly have a significant restoration of function very soon before dying.
I am pretty skeptical that the phenomenon actually exists, for a couple of reasons:
1. There's not an obviously plausible mechanism for this. Someone is suffering more and more organ damage, more oxygen deprivation to the brain, and then suddenly a person passes a certain threshold of damage and some mechanism kicks in to improve cognition temporarily?
2. There's a strong reason to suspect motivated reasoning - everyone would love it if they could say a final goodbye to their loved ones and feel that they were actually heard and acknowledged.
I've done a brief literature review, but there seems to be very little done on the topic beyond surveys of estimated prevalence from asking nurses/doctors. Nothing prospective, nothing seriously quantitative or with controls.
Obviously this is a hard topic to study - nobody wants their last moments with their dying relatives interrupted by some scientist asking rude questions to assess cognitive function.
Nonetheless, if the phenomenon does exist, it'd have profound implications for neuroscience - it'd imply there's a way to reverse the symptoms of dementia, however temporarily, something we currently have absolutely no idea how to do!
Has anyone looked into this in more detail, or would vouch for the phenomenon being real in a way that would stand up to scrutiny? I'm seriously contemplating researching this properly...
Single data point, but I recently lost my father. He was in the middle stages of dementia, and suffered a stroke that put him into delirium on top of it. He was incoherent for about a month. Yet in his final days, he recovered enough lucidity to tell me I was a good son and to congratulate me on the birth of my son (who was born shortly before his stroke). Family members in the room overheard this, and repeated verbatim what I heard. It wasn't a recovery of full lucidity by any means, but he clearly recognized me and had some form of both long and short-term memory available intermittently.
When we told medical staff what had happened, they smiled nicely and said essentially "yeah, sure he did, sweetie." Which makes me wonder whether, if anything, medical professionals are under-reporting this kind of sudden terminal lucidity.
Yes, there's a strong reason to suspect motivated reasoning, but OTOH, some of the most significant breakthroughs in the history of science were because there was no plausible mechanism for an observed phenomenon (e.g., Max Planck and the ultraviolet catastrophe).
Moreover, we don't have a plausible explanation for consciousness, so it seems a stretch to insist upon a plausible explanation for a corner case of dementia consciousness. ;-)
Also, the null hypothesis would be that dementia progresses in a smooth downward-trending line or curve. I'm not seeing that with my mom's dementia. Some days, she's disoriented and lost without the memories needed to anchor her in reality. Other days she's pretty sharp. I have no plausible explanation for this, but it's easy for me to see which state she's in by talking to her.
Speculations below :
Some people really respond strongly to unfamiliar scenarios, feelings, or situations - eg : find them very stimulating. It's not impossible to think that when faced with dying, some individuals, even if diminished might have their brain kick into overdrive due to heightened emotions and novel feelings. I, personally, respond to new situations with like an odd hyper focus, which I otherwise find dang near impossible to recreate otherwise. Probably dopamine mediated, but there's probably more going on there.
Q&A Subthread for the ACX Grants 2024 EEG Entrainment project (see №4 in the post).
Hit me up with any questions you have! If you are in London, come to the ACX meetup this Saturday for in-person Q&A and demo.
PS: Scott, thanks for posting the update.
Please make a MMTYWTK about nicotine. I'm still baffled on how USA can suddenly stop smoking it in 90s when all other countries don't (?). Asking from a country that's very troubled by it. Cynically it's because USA found something more addicting to smoke instead, but I don't want to jump to conclusion.
I'll lay out my bias: most your people wont accept anything if they know you want to adopt USA policies, even if they've been effective. Your best bet person-level-action is to approach your smoker friends, families, and religious leaders and consistently nudge them to perceive smoking as haram.
Ironically it's those religious leaders that are so captured by it that they declare it as halal lmao. It's been a big political point for one of the biggest religious organization here.
I don't think it's the USA in particular, it's the entire Anglosphere.
It's public health measures actually working. Taxes on cigarettes combined with making it illegal to smoke in most of the places that people used to smoke. First in restaurants, then in bars, then in outdoor areas at restaurants and bars, and now on a lot of streets as well.
One of the ways in which life has got undeniably better over the past few decades is being able to go out at night and not come back reeking of stale smoke.
I wonder if there are compounding effects to decreased use of cigarettes (and alcohol). My journeys to quitting smoking and cutting way back on alcohol were in some ways quite similar. I was a heavy smoker when I started college in 2001. After each class a group of us, about 15-20 students as I recall, would gather outside the building and enjoy a quick cigarette before our next class. For various reasons I took a year off of college after the spring of 2003. When I returned in the fall of 2004, it was uncommon for more than four or five people to be outside smoking between classes. Sometimes I was the only one. When a few people quit, suddenly smoking between classes became less enticing. Instead of being part of a social gathering I felt like the weird loner out there getting his fix. As fewer and fewer of my friends smoked, I suddenly found it easier to quit. I didn't have the cue to light up from people around me, and I couldn't bum a cigarette as easily from those who did smoke.
Likewise, when I was in my 20s, it was commonplace to stay at the bar until it closed on the weekends and then head to an after-hours place, even on weeknights sometimes. I really didn't know people socialized without alcohol. Now that I have a family and responsible friends, my alcohol intake has gone from almost nightly to a couple drinks a month.
Maybe for one reason or another the United States was able to get a few people to stop smoking in the 90s and that sort of snowballed to those people's friends stopping and then to friends of friends. If that's the case, we should be pretty optimistic that it doesn't take much to get to a tipping point. Of course, this is all anecdata based on an N of 1, so it's quite possible I'm way off base.
Hmm, I gave up smoking in the 90's. Higher cost, social pressure, (less accepted in public.) and personal reasons. That said there is now a class divide in smokers. I live in rural america and though there are less cigarette smokers, there are a lot of young people who vape. Much less so in the educated urban population. I think that's mostly a social thing, if not too many of your peers vape then you will tend to give it up, or not start.
Not sure why you think the USA was alone in this. Smoking went down globally.
https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/the-rise-and-fall-of-smoking-in-rich-countries
I just checked it and I guess it's true. But it's even more tragic when despite this, Indonesia's smoker rate is still rising contrary to the rest of the world https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-who-smoke?tab=line&time=earliest..2022&country=High+income~Lower+middle+income~Middle+income~Sub-Saharan+Africa+%28excluding+high+income%29~Upper+middle+income~OWID_WRL~IDN~OWID_ASI~OWID_HIC~GBR~OWID_LIC~USA
Nice, thx. Can you find a similar graph for vaping.
Lot of it was government led. Increased taxes raised the price significantly, successful public health campaigns about risk, banning it on workplaces, restaurants etc, banning advertising. This study goes into the different factors https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26673484/
Have you read Gwern's examination of the evidence around nicotine?
https://gwern.net/nicotine
This is fascinating; thanks so much for sharing it. It actually sounds worth trying. Even more fascinating, and I think decent independent evidence for it being safe: I ran it through a Gemini Deep Research query, totally expecting a huge safetyist tut-tutting... but no! It actually basically agreed with Gwern! (I may have prompted it in a rather positive way about Gwern's writeup, but simple positivity in the prompt doesn't overcome their safety training when they decide there's a safety issue).
Very useful, thanks
I haven't. Let's see.
I recently published a Chrome extension that hides posts that do not match the user's preferences (such as "technology-related posts but excluding AI"), as judged by an LLM. Works on YouTube, X, Reddit, and HackerNews.
This idea came from my YouTube feed, which contains a blend of all topics I watch videos on, like music, podcasts, technology, or soccer highlights -- but sometimes I just want to find a recommended video from one of these categories.
I wanted to publish this quickly and see if other people find this useful before spending too much time on it, so any kind of feedback is appreciated!
Link: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/great-filter/mbifgfgfbnemojmfkckodkikibihcgaj
Very cool: feed curation is an extremely high-value, bizarrely underexplored application for LMs. A couple questions:
* Is this using an in-browser (/extension) LM or something hosted?
* Is the source code available on github (or similar)?
It uses the OpenRouter API, so the inference is on the cloud. You can either provide your own API key or use a 'free tier', which uses my API key (the inference is quite cheap, and I wanted there to be an option to try the extension without having to provide your own API key).
I haven't published the source code; maybe in the future.
If you don't want to publish the source code then you should probably set up a build step, because right now I can read it just fine in the published extension.
Thanks for the heads-up! I haven't thought too much about whether I'll want to publish the source code; mostly, I was just too lazy to polish it too much to put it on GitHub.
For what it's worth, I think it's in a perfectly publishable state as-is; all you would really have to do is add a LICENSE file.
My email is scott@slatestarcodex.com.
Thank-you.
As an outside reader, I have completely zero idea what this is about.
Good. Thank-you. That was my intention, so I'm glad to hear it worked.