> "one persons terrorist is another persons freedom fighter"
yes, but only to weak-minded cultural relativists.
I don't mind stating a definition explicitly. If you would consider killing nonviolent civilians, merely to send a message to others or to prove yourself to your "god," you're a terrorist.
Note: The only real complexity in the definition is that during war, embedding military equipment among civilians happens sometimes, and when it does, it's the ones choosing to do that, war criminals by definition, who bear the responsibility for those innocent deaths when those locations then become legitimate military targets.
I'll omit giving examples to avoid triggering those who like to "bothsides" some of the more well-known terrorist groups lately.
> Fighting a much more numerous enemy may seem stupid, but if you really believe your ideology, any odds of success are better than none.
Embracing and believing this destructive ideology itself in the first place, when you could devote your life to so many better[1] things, is the sign of stupidity I mean.
Believing that God wants you to murder other people (heck, even babies) over things such as who's worshiping Him correctly... stupid.
1. Better for... you name it: Your quality of life, welfare of other human beings, economically, spiritually, environmentally.
I'm the farthest thing from an Apple fanboi you can find, but Apple's not so unethical as to make all this (OpenAI trade secret) stuff up. The OpenAI settlement they'll no doubt get from this won't amount to 30 days of their App Store rent-seeking that they were propping up with those lies.
If they can't prove any of this stuff they wouldn't file the suit. No matter what you or I think of Apple, the chances that this went down at least as criminally as they allege, are very high.
For real. If Apple can prove half of this complaint, OpenAI need to be jumping straight to "how can we settle this immediately." Can you imagine how much fun Apple lawyers would have taking this to a jury trial? Especially considering overall Apple knows that the public overall vaguely likes Apple and distrusts "AI" companies for, hmmm... (alleged) IP theft.
I'm also wondering about all these involved ex-Apple people who decided to pivot to crime, it seems like OpenAI has to fire all of them, no? Because how do you just keep them, knowing that they're all basically tainted, and that Apple will be coming back to sue you again for anything that seems "inspired" by Apple products or tech.
What a massive cock-up for whoever (Tan?) is at the top of this conspiracy, to think this was worth the risk, and to have not known that the chances of getting caught going this far outside the legal boundaries were less than 100%.
It's not about education itself necessarily, but I'd bet any amount of money that most terrorists' IQ is below the overall human average. The average terrorist is not that innovative or creative so the most mundane GPT "insight" will likely be a smarter course of action than whatever their first idea would have been.
> am skeptical of any claim that they are providing some material embargoed knowledge that isn’t available elsewhere, in a way that either improves efficiency or effectiveness of their activities,
This will sound like a hot take, but consider that terrorists are for the most part, stupid idiots. All the information they need is in books and old patents and what-not, but they absolutely will not have as much success in synthesizing that into effective plans and well-made weapons without having a helpful and patient AI agent to guide them, as they will with that assist.
If the terrorists were very smart, they'd realize that their religion is stupid, that their leaders were mostly corrupt (or themselves stupid), and they'd also probably find something more productive to do with their time.
And obviously yes there are exceptions, since we can all think of infamous terrorist plots which succeeded due to clearly some sophisticated planning and hard work.
Hey now, let's not get carried away, these jackass restaurant owners want to make it clear, the "Living Wage" guilt trip is the tip part, and the fees THEY put on are to pay for "benefits like healthcare" and you're not allowed to consider it part of the tip.
Nevermind that California doesn't even have a lower "tipped" min wage like some states do, so by supporting tipping, we're just saying that servers simply "deserve" more money for some reason than people who stock shelves or pick orders at Amazon or Walmart.
I wonder if the bit about 'junk fees' will include undisclosed hotel fees. I just stayed there last week in a no-frills "hotel" which doesn't include daily room cleaning, has no staff at night, and has no amenities whatsoever, and they charged me a surprise-at-check-in $35 a night resort fee. This fee was not described in the booking.
Agree. I would be utterly shocked if this exact same scam didn't play out for every ambulance call in San Francisco (And according to this article, it's actually completely normal that the "networks" are nonexistent, so multiply that by every city and town!)
What percentage of patients are likely to be taking ANY action that leads to insurance paying? Either spending (as someone else shared) 5 phone calls trying to convince them, or knowing what regulator to file a complaint with - those are the only options. All other options involve someone else eating that cost. I bet less than 10% get them to pay, so the fine should start at $10,000 - and escalate if they show no improvement.
Not surprising. They clearly care(d) a LOT about the regulators asking questions. I was actually shocked that this mechanism was surprisingly effective at reining in abuses from insurers.
It could have been Cigna -- I've cycled between probably every possible insurer during my career. Dirtbags, the lot of them.
- The "why $1000" part is the subject of the article (I assume COVID-era inflation has brought that up to about $1700 similar to everything else)
> why is a government-run ambulance service making this the patient's problem
Whether government or private, they just want their money, and the insurance companies shrewdly avoid conversations where they might have to actually pay money. Plus, the ambulance guys probably have barely any documentation they could submit to prove that it was a "real" emergency, without which the $1000 would be the correct bill for me.
Insurance company's "genius" here is just remaining quiet and saying nothing, guaranteeing the average person will either get sent to collections by the ambulance, cut a deal with the ambulance, sell their plasma and subsist on ramen to afford it, or charge it on a credit card. And none of those involve the insurance sociopaths at all.
The article really proves that a "network" doesn't even make sense for this particular service. The insane part to me is that the insurance companies are allowed to pretend it does, and that they even have any "network" and impose the in/out of network distinction at all.
It's like if your Internet service came with "unlimited data" but when you read the fine print everything is pay-per-MB besides one single unpopular website.
Some of your estimates on this seem fine, but not this:
liability, both for the vehicle and for the medical treatment; that's about $12k per year.
Insurance on my SUV is close to $3,000 a year, but with the understanding I drive it about 12k miles, and I'm not allowed to speed or run red lights whereas they're guaranteed to be speeding, and driving it around all day and maybe all night. And the ambulance is worth 5x as much as my car is. So I'd be shocked if the combo of their auto insurance + insurance against being sued for rescuing someone wrong is that cheap.
They had the duty to pay and they try to trick every one of their customers into not realizing that, so that's why I'm only mad at them.
I acknowledge that the CA law is forcing them to, in the mechanism the article covers, causing them to subsidize other people's care, and this is happening in many areas of healthcare too.
Though those costs are surely accounted for when they set their premiums, which for 2025 amounted to just over $32,000 for my family.
Good analysis. I agree that China could consider targeting the US mainland, but in every scenario other than "crazed madman" I think they'll know that kind of thing inevitably ends up with symmetrical (or worse for them) destruction. It would be easy to get public support for massive retaliation if Americans see proof that China has no qualms about blowing up their home, workplace, etc. The fringe will say "Nuke China - it worked in 1945!" and the mainstream will say "Blow up every power plant and dam we can."
When the dust settles, China's killed a bunch of Americans, America has killed even more Chinese, and we're in the same place we were before. I don't think China's that dumb, and they're not that evil, either.
TSMC is absolutely critical for 'frontier' silicon but:
1. In a China/Taiwan conflict, China's not getting TSMC output either
- Bear in mind that I doubt China would ever want to destroy TSMC though, so I'm talking about a naval blockade rather than artillery destroying the fabs.
2. Although SOTA chips are off the table, we could get older process node stuff. We could still build say, 2015-era chips. We had great missiles in 2015.
I would bet Japan, Korea, Taiwan all produce some of the needed things in an emergency scenario (obv Taiwan may be under artillery attack, but then again, does China want a destroyed Taiwan or do they want to own it, with its priceless industries intact, as a crown jewel? They may avoid such destruction).
But honestly, I don't think China wants Taiwan "reunification" quite as much as they want to have their economy be prosperous and, just as importantly, not to have millions of people die on both sides. If massively provoked, e.g. Taiwan declares independence and joins NATO, sure. But I expect non-war outcomes somewhat more than I expect war.
I recognize this is a big bet on the ethics of perhaps a small group of important CPC decision makers, but I do bet on that. Xi Jinping is no Hitler, no Stalin.
yes, but only to weak-minded cultural relativists.
I don't mind stating a definition explicitly. If you would consider killing nonviolent civilians, merely to send a message to others or to prove yourself to your "god," you're a terrorist.
Note: The only real complexity in the definition is that during war, embedding military equipment among civilians happens sometimes, and when it does, it's the ones choosing to do that, war criminals by definition, who bear the responsibility for those innocent deaths when those locations then become legitimate military targets.
I'll omit giving examples to avoid triggering those who like to "bothsides" some of the more well-known terrorist groups lately.