fnix

He runs an analytics company and was specifically touting how his models showed a quick Russian victory, even weeks into the invasion, which was more than just the usual Besserwisserism among western europeans towards eastern Europe. If the whole shtick is that the mainstream is lame but my patented crystal ball actually tells the future from first principles and you then tank even harder than the mainstream, you not only embarrass yourself but reveal your own preferences as well.

And the mainstream predictions in the West of Ukrainian resistance weren't as negative as what he advanced, which is precisely why many refused to believe the Kremlin would actually step on this rake of a war. That he wholeheartedly defended a quick Russian victory made him seem steeped more in the Kremlin's narratives than the West's, even as all imperial powers tend to be hubristic.

I remember him tweeting in February 2022 where immediately after the invasion he confidently predicted that Russia would gobble up all of Ukraine in a matter of weeks. Unlike all those legacy academics with their degrees he really see into the future of governance, you see.

Time to resurrect this thread with some campy German eurodance!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E6MulYo5U4

This gave me more value than the last decade of tech-industry output combined. 😄 Silicon Valley could never make Mrs. Robota!

It's striking how inimical to life itself the first statement is on its own. The people most obsessed with living for an eternity seem to be having the worst time of it. Yes, the Musks & Thiels are ungodly rich, but do they ever seem even basically well-adjusted? Inordinate wealth seems to come with commensurate insecurity.

Pentagon says US military to be an 'AI-first' fighting force

Trouble with your 3-day special military operation in Iran? Lost an Afghanistan? As Vietnam demonstrated, all you need to do is throw more computers at the problem!

Not really a sneer, just wondering what to make of it, if it doesn’t belong here please remove.

The Financial Times goes with a study which ostensibly demonstrates that ca. half a million of potential coding jobs were directly eliminated by AI, not any other factors or general industry slowdown. The idea is it’s mainly junior positions which aren’t tightly “bundled” with other domains or just years of programming experience & intuition which are harder for AI to replace. So is AI really fully replacing juniors in the hundreds of thousands, or is there more going on?

The whole political convention feels like a sporting or entertainment event. The endless personalistic glazing, rock music... is this really how every party does politics in North America? Trump really comes off as much less of a deviation in this context.

It’s the autopilot mode/nihilism that gets at one, but having a self-image as morally superior isn’t entirely honest either I think. No one can be perfect, even typing these words runs on energy partially generated by burning fossils that will lead to early deaths somewhere. These webs of interdependent existence & suffering are inescapable save for maybe a buddha. But at least have the awareness to acknowledge your own role and work to minimize your harm. Not even caring or coming up with fairytales about billions of future digital beings in sublime bliss are both just ways of turning away from looking at the tragedy of life. Maybe I’m getting overly existential, but it’s late here.

Good read, thanks.

Incredibly insecure, that’s why they’re all turning fascist.

Rutger Bregman admits that he’s not sure what AGI actually is beyond vague utopian visions, but trivial questions aside, he’s sure it will revolutionize the world in 10 years.

For those who haven’t heard of him, he’s a Dutch historian who achieved some fame for his book arguing for UBI and reduced work weeks, as well as his critique of rich people avoiding taxes and a segment on Tucker Carlson’s show where he openly challenged his politics. He has since seemingly turned 180 degrees and become a billionaire-backed effective altruist.