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smt88

22,263 karmajoined 12 years ago
[email protected]

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smt88
·2 days ago·discuss
I agree. There’s no chance Grok is better than Claude Code for this. And Claude is never so badly misaligned that it gives up and switches stacks.
smt88
·3 days ago·discuss
I don’t know what person reads The Economist to learn about trans topics (whatever you mean by that)
smt88
·9 days ago·discuss
Can’t think of a worse time to go into beef production anyway
smt88
·10 days ago·discuss
Why is this an exciting time for aviation? Or more specifically, why should I (a person who never spends more than $2,000 on air travel) be excited?
smt88
·10 days ago·discuss
I had no agency in being born and raised here. Are you saying that by staying in this country, I’m now responsible for stealing land 200 years ago? And my responsibility for stealing this land means I can’t be upset about supersonic jets?
smt88
·10 days ago·discuss
My parents immigrated to the US in the 80s. They didn't steal anyone's land. Can I complain about rich people wasting fuel, polluting the air, and creating peace-shattering sounds?

And about the stolen land, what should we do about it? Never complain about anything? Have no laws?

Give all of your stolen land back, make all the reparations you owe people, and then go back to lecturing people online.
smt88
·10 days ago·discuss
> no one should have anything other than labor as their main income until they retire

No one should start a business and pay salaries to their employees instead of themselves?

What if I see that a biotech startup is working on mRNA cancer vaccines, and I want to invest in that? And then it pays off and I make money off of it?
smt88
·10 days ago·discuss
> you need to talk to more people outside of your bubble

My bubble of... not-ultra-wealthy people? Are you saying I need to talk to more ultra-wealthy people? This makes no sense.
smt88
·10 days ago·discuss
This report is only about wages, so even if the ultra-wealthy reported their real sources of income, they wouldn’t shut up as “labor” the way this defines it.
smt88
·10 days ago·discuss
It’s not. There are plenty of non-wealthy people who make money from things other than their labor.

Small-time landlords are an example, as would be anyone who owns a small business and draws cash from profits rather than taking a salary.
smt88
·11 days ago·discuss
Economies of scale are a fact of nature and aren’t going to be subverted in the future by even the most advanced local models
smt88
·12 days ago·discuss
This isn’t true in my experience. AI will recommend new things, but it will caution you that it doesn’t have a big ecosystem.

If you prompt thoroughly (listing your priorities, values, and your own taste), then you’ll get better recommendations that don’t just regress to the mean.
smt88
·12 days ago·discuss
If you think LLMs can be audited, you don’t know literally the first thing about them.

Gerontocrats can’t be audited, but they can be fined and jailed. Neural networks have no fear consequences.
smt88
·13 days ago·discuss
So you want a black box controlled by billionaires to replace democracy?
smt88
·13 days ago·discuss
I wonder if power actually corrupts, or if it’s really that attaining power requires pretending to be a good person, and the mask can fall off after the power is attained.
smt88
·13 days ago·discuss
FDR is a very interesting case study. He had the country in the palm of his hand and could have cemented his (or his party’s) power permanently, but instead he left the republic intact.
smt88
·15 days ago·discuss
This is a myth perpetuated by flat-earthers. Flagging because it’s absolutely untrue.
smt88
·17 days ago·discuss
Assuming this is a sincere question from someone who doesn’t know US history:

States in the US were modeled after sovereign nations, perhaps even more loosely connected than the EU is today. They didn’t even share a currency.

Eventually the federal government became more important and powerful, and there are many federal laws now, but states are fundamentally still their own thing with the rights to do certain things that are more like a sovereign nation than a province.
smt88
·17 days ago·discuss
For a long time, you couldn’t buy “strike anywhere” matches because they could be used in producing meth.
smt88
·17 days ago·discuss
Maybe this is true if you’re only considering white people. Brown people can spend a lot of time outdoors and still be deficient, especially if their ancestry is from much a much sunnier region or lifestyle than the one they’re currently living in.