Mind sharing your setup? I also have dual 3090s, but getting nowhere close to 300k context limits with 4 bit quantized models at that size (using vllm).
I use bubblewrap to sandbox the agent to my projects folder, where the ai gets free read/write reign. Non-synthetic env cars are symlinked into my projects folder from outside that folder.
The most credible theory in my eyes as to why they needed to invade Iraq, was that Saddam intended to boycott the US dollar, and rather sell Iraq's oil in Euros.
There's a de facto global tacit agreement to sell oil in US dollars - on pain of unilateral sanctions by the US or military intervention by the US military. All countries who deviate from this agreement are in fact deemed enemies of the US. This includes, Iran, Venezuela, Russia and China, and (formely) Iraq and Libya. When they don't, that means that the US can't simply print dollars as they please and force other countries (who purchases that oil) to purchase US debt as well. Pricing oil in currencies other than the worlds reserve currency (the US dollar) affects the dollar value greatly. The US printed about 10 trillion dollars in two years. The rest of the oil-dependent world pays the price.
I'm sure your experience is valid, but you haven't established that most of what is produced in China is very bad. That's an exaggeration. The very fact that your company manufacture in China means at the very least that the quality of the goods produced there is sufficiently high for your purposes. That you also see bad quality while bottom-scraping the market is not surprising. This very obvious deduction generalises as well, due to the enormous number of western companies that manufacture in China. Their standards are certainly being met, because otherwise they could not outsource their manufacturing to China.
> Chinese construction standards are de-facto low
Compare major cities in China with major cities in the west. Compare road infrastructure (esp. highway infrastructure) and train infrastructure in densely populated areas. Their highway network is an impressive feat. China is surpassing the west, and has already surpassed the west in infrastructure standards in many areas, e.g. by pioneering high-speed railways.
The US is currently making an attempt to improve the dire infrastructure situation, but we'll see how that turns out considering the intrinsic inefficiencies of state / federal infrastructure planning in the US. IMO it's almost surely to be hijacked by capital and the money will thus to a large extent be funnelled away to corrupt and undeserving profiteers.
> but almost a 0% chance that we will see GDP/capita
GDP is not an accurate measure of general economic development in the modern world. The high GDP of the US does not correlate with its failing infrastructure, its inefficient medical and educational system, high amount of poverty, drug addiction and crime etc. The financialisation and de-industrialisation of the US economy decoupled the material standards of the people from the profits of the rich, and thus GDP is largely a fictitious number. So much of GDP is tied up in meaningless activity, like the production of overpriced weaponry, increasing bureaucratization and the prevalence of so-called "bullshit jobs", and in a corrupt and immoral finance / property sector which also poses a direct threat to global economic stability (cf. the financial crisis of 2008). Let's compare living standards, not GDP. China is rapidly surpassing the US in this area. While they still have rural areas which are underdeveloped, they have made major strides this decade and recently eradicated extreme poverty. Their next step is to eradicate poverty altogether.
> Is it also political propaganda to show a patch of the Japanese flag?
In combination with Taiwan, of course it is. Why don't you think it is? The history here is that Japan had criminally occupied Taiwan for half a century, and once WW2 was over, the US has supported Taiwans independence from China ever since. Due to Japan's large scale genocide campaign in China, and the fact that they barely even apologised half a century after the war (with full US support), the Japan / Taiwan issue is naturally highly political and controversial in China. There's so much past wrongdoings, so pretending to be on a moral pedestal here is ridiculously ignorant. Even these days the US is threatening war with China over Taiwan, as they have been historically all along.
> Xi-era Chinese nationalism is so fragile and easily bruised
Easily bruised only in the eyes of people completely ignorant of history, or who holds false or extremely biased historical views.
In Saudia Arabia the people are basically on universal basic income. In Norway on the other hand, the oil profits are all invested into the pension fund, which is very sparingly used for any other purpose.
They apparently don't like foreigners pushing political propaganda into the games they play.
Tbh, I think the fact that the Pentagon are basically brainwashing kids through games like Call of Duty deserves more attention. Some modern AAA games are highly political and filled to the brim with western imperialistic propaganda.
Why would I reverse statements that are made on the basis of facts and research, of leaks and serious news reporting? Wikileaks is a thing for example, look it up. Not sure why you choose to refuse doing research into the topic and ignore evidence-based reporting to the contrary of your opinion that is presented to you, which you've been insulated against by a world of US & UK corporate media. You got to admit that you choose to live in that world, which is probably comfortable to you.
That's an odd, but unfortunately not uncommon, way of forming convictions. What are you unconvinced about? You openly admit that instead of uncomfortable information triggering your curiosity, it strengthens your already made up convictions to the contrary.
There's plenty of research, and leaks have uncovered much of the extent of US war crimes. The proportion of civilian casualties in Afghanistan (and Iraq) are immense, bordering 80%. This is because of the extremely low bar for claiming someone are enemy combatants.
A "suspected" car bomb (not a car bomb at all), triggered the US to kill 10 innocent civilians. They claimed they targeted ISIS, and that no civilians were known to have died. This is the rule rather than an exception, which leaks and whistleblowers have extensively shown.
China will probably become much better than Norway, New Zealand and Switzerland once they increase their GDP. They have made major strides already despite their relatively low GDP per capita.
The US is the only country committing genocide. They have killed over a hundred innocent civilians in Afghanistan just the past few weeks. Over the past decodes they've killed around a million innocent civilians in the name of the hyper-aggressive and hypocritical "war on terror". Indirectly, they're responsible for several millions criminal murders during the same timespan, and they've not once been put to trial. They're not only failing their citizens, they're a genocidal, terrorist state.
But China is better than the US in all of those things. They don't wage war, they have better health care (no massive drug monopoly charging obscene prices for cheap insulin), higher life expectancy, way fewer people in jail per capita, less of a drug problem (no opoid epidemic), less obesity, not nearly as much violence, practically no school shootings (as opposed to weekly shootings), etc.. this iist is LONG.
Who's the main currency manipulator? The US, and its many, many trillions of dollars in debt which other countries are forced to purchase in order to participate in the global market. As long as the dollar remains the world reserve currency, i.e. as long as the US monetary hegemony lasts, the US will remain the leading currency manipulator. They've shamefully printed about 10 trillion dollars the past couple of years.
This is how American propaganda works, not only to support the Afghanistan war, but to support US imperialist foreign policy in general. It's extremely manipulative, but also effective at controlling the narrative, in a 1984-esque fashion. It has lead to the result that the "official narrative" as portrayed by mainstream media and (complicit) politicians stands in stark contrast with the general public perception on the matter. It's basically taboo to be critical of the widespread use of propaganda to support imperialist policy, and you're generally deemed a conspiratorial lunatic if you point at CIA's role in all this in a manner which is critical both of them and the state which support them.
Where are all the journalists scouring wikileaks for real news? For real content, investigating the dark underbelly of foreign policy and war, etc.? Why are we only served with manufactured consent (i.e. bullshit) from BBC, CNN, etc.? When it comes to war, they eagerly repeat the manufactured lies about our "enemies", be it Saddam's WMD's, Assad's chemical missile attacks, Gaddafi's genocide - all exposed through wikileaks to be lies manufactured by "intelligence" agencies, in conflict with facts and evidence at hand at the time - which then serves to justify intervention on "humanitarian" grounds, but which is merely pretext for imperialist aggression. It's taboo, most of all for journalists, to take an interest in this. They are barred from mainstream media outlets, shunned even. Some are even killed (cf. the investigators of the Panama Papers). You will receive no financial support if you do, and you will be judged a foreign state actor if you're freelancing for non-western media outlets (e.g. RT).
Afghanistan and the USSR were on good terms, and had signed a treaty which included military assistance. The USSR was called upon to assist Afghanistan to contain uprisings. However, only after the Soviet-friendly leader of Afghanistan was assassinated by his own party members, did they intervene.