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aeternum

5,650 karma · joined August 22, 2019

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aeternum··on Butterflies use optical illusions to dodge predators
There's no paper cited
aeternum··on Butterflies use optical illusions to dodge predators
Quite the assertion with zero evidence nor competing theories provided or quoted
aeternum··on An AI sovereign wealth fund isn't progressive – it's techno-imperialism
That's my point, the gov already owns a ~21% royalty on the income of every company that operates in the US via the corporate tax. And it's more than that if you consider other taxes.
aeternum··on An AI sovereign wealth fund isn't progressive – it's techno-imperialism
In the grand scheme of things, the gov claiming a perpetual 21%+ of all income of AI (all) companies is not all that different from owning a small percent of said AI companies. The financials and even incentives are basically the same.

It's somewhat entertaining to watch both sides argue about this as if it's some major difference when both are actually aligned on wanting bigger gov and more gov ownership/control of corps (one party via taxes the other wants it direct).

aeternum··on Where's the "Intelligence Explosion"?
https://washingtoncrossingadvisors.com/wp-content/uploads/20...

It has exploded, the explosion just isn't evenly distributed. And just as it was with the internet, most people and even most industries are not actually using it yet. Many that are are using it in name only.

People can star github repos and signup their employees for a new subscription quickly, real adoption takes far longer.

aeternum··on Allow Carriers on Planes
Can you link your kinematics? Modern science is much closer to the priests of old. Academics leverage their credentials to present untested predictions as science. Their ideas are considered correct because of their expertise and the institutions they belong to, not because the ideas have been thoroughly tested.

This is religion, not science.

aeternum··on California is chasing wealth that has feet
It would be interesting to run the counter-factual on the EPA. Lawsuits around pollution were already increasing significantly prior to the EPA even company vs. company.

Would the resources have been better spent on a more efficient legal system, then leverage that?

aeternum··on California is chasing wealth that has feet
For a long time I agreed with you, but seeing how the tax money is spent I cannot agree any longer. In most cases government is no longer even spending the money itself, instead it is giving the money to NGOs.

I would much rather see people keep more of their dollars and use them to 'vote' for the products and services that benefit them most, via their purchases.

aeternum··on NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead
Portugal was the first to find a direct sea route to India and had a 100 year head start with the trade route but they still got mogged by the Dutch East India Co in terms of cargo tonnage shipped.

We should aim for the long game. An insanely expensive one-time mission using disposable rockets to analyze rocks that we've already analyzed with rovers is probably not the best path.

aeternum··on NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead
I'm all for science missions but we can't have blank checks.

Either deliver it under-budget or it should get cut. NASA has become more of a jobs program than a space program. Hopefully that changes.

aeternum··on The Hierarchy of Money
For sure and that doesn't decrease the value of the protection. There seems to be this somewhat quaint idea that the crops belong to the peasant because he/she planted and grew them.

That's a very modern concept. In the natural world they belong to whatever entity is able to take them.

Life has always been about grabbing as many macronutrients as you can by whatever means possible.

aeternum··on The Hierarchy of Money
>By extracting rents and taxes, in return for protection and certain services, perhaps plowing fields.

Why use the term extract rather than trade? Protection was quite valuable. Those peasants could have tried their luck planting a field in the middle of nowhere, far from any village. There was plenty of unused land.

They didn't because the peasant and their family would not last long.

This idea that civilization is somehow oppressive rather than a great achievement just doesn't make sense. Force is the natural way of things. Alone those peasants would likely have 100% of the harvest taken by force, whether it be by wild animals, roving bandits, even locusts. It's a far better deal to have some percentage of it taken in return for having it protected.

In nature, protection is the thing that matters.

aeternum··on Fable 5.1 Solves the Cyphral Distich, a 370-year-old cipher
My observation isn't that solving a Millennium prize problem is not impressive.

It is the mechanism the LLMs use to do it. They seem to accel right now at quantity of work over quality of work. I'd be willing to wager there is a much simpler way to achieve the proof.

I've also seen this with code, LLMs do get the job done, but they tend to write 10-100x more code than humans to get the same job done. Still a massive value gain because they can write that much code extremely quickly.

aeternum··on Fable 5.1 Solves the Cyphral Distich, a 370-year-old cipher
Yes, even many of the proofs seem to be extremely long and complicated. The Navier-Stokes proof is 57 pages of very dense math and a pretty crazy amount of code: https://github.com/openai/NavierStokesAndEuler/tree/main/Nav...

Given the close relationship between compression and intelligence, I'm somewhat surprised at how poorly the cutting edge models do with being concise.

aeternum··on LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
Note that their statement could also be true if they record 99% of the time. We need to start calling companies out for meaningless weasel statements like "We don't record continuously".

The majority of the problem is also simply the ability to record. Putting a remote control listening hardware on a device that runs a plethora of 3rd party apps and with full connection to the internet means that even if LG isn't controlling that mic, someone else will be.

aeternum··on I resigned from Anthropic today
Problem is this argument can be leveraged to wipe out any living or non-living thing whos numbers pose a potential threat. Other religious groups, races, even sufficiently different cultures.

Who killed the Neanderthals? Were sapiens actually smarter or were they just less accepting of those different than them?

aeternum··on I resigned from Anthropic today
Except it just happened. Boeing was found to have massive safety issues since they were granted the right to self-certify. It made a lot of news but nothing much changed, they can still self-certify a bunch of stuff.

Runway incursions and midair collisions are another example.

Only airliners are required to have TCAS, smaller planes and helicopters don't even need radios or transponders unless in certain airspace. Midair collisions do lead to fatalities, enormous fatalities if an airliner is involved.

Runway incursions and overruns are similar. They cause lots of fatalities and injuries but only the busiest and largest airports have automated systems to warn when a runway is occupied or end of runway (overrun) arrestor systems. Most still rely on human voice to deconflict.

aeternum··on .name Termination
How would the avg person know that ..name is different and somehow more trustworthy than ..uk

Overall this seems like the right move, either they all are trusted or none.

aeternum··on Apple reveals 'shocking evidence' from ex-employee's MacBook in OpenAI suit
Sounds like Apple might soon own some Jalapeño
aeternum··on Our decision on Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX
You didn't, but now it has been covered.
aeternum··on Our decision on Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX
OpenAI's models are distilled from your HN posts
aeternum··on Radiation link in flight attendant's breast cancer, French court finds
Agreed, but one of the key reasons plants are so expensive is to ensure that power workers are exposed to much less radiation than flight attendants.

The fact that even a small amount of discharged radiation can cause damage makes everything more expensive for those companies, not just design and certification of the reactor itself but also liability insurance.

aeternum··on Radiation link in flight attendant's breast cancer, French court finds
This seems like pretty strong evidence that the Linear No-Threshold Model for radiation exposure is the correct model. Not great for the many companies attempting to revive the nuclear power industry.
aeternum··on Where did all the public bathrooms go?
IMO each city should have space dedicated for homeless camping with 24h running water and easy to clean stainless steel bathroom facilities. Do any cities do this, especially cities where weather is mild? Would homeless actually use it in favor of streets if available?

Also why didn't you use shelter facilities, were they too crowded, unsafe, or had onerous rules?

aeternum··on Airbus bows to remote working demands after series of strikes
AI should handle the calls, humans should do in-person. Trying to cure someone over the phone is foolish.
aeternum··on [dead]
The economist is no longer capable of writing unbiased articles unfortunately.
aeternum··on Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app
A cursory search of bluesky web vs. mobile (surprisingly) suggests that the web experience might actually be better and users seems to recommend it over the app.

This is rare but does suggest a possible effect where users realize this over time and switch.

aeternum··on Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees
Yes agreed, but the net result is that living in the countryside was far from romanticized agrarian life people often picture it as. Lords owning land was a very old idea, it's a bit of a leap to say that was due to mechanization.
aeternum··on Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees
This seems obviously wrong as there are many counter examples. Employees in Ford's plants for instance saw huge wage increases and an additional day off. Mining mechanization made mines far less deadly and greatly reduced the human exertion required. I'd much rather harvest corn in an air conditioned combine vs. with an ox.

Even during the early industrial revolution, notorious for poor working conditions, people overlook why there was such high demand for those shitty jobs. The reason is because people were literally starving in the countryside. A family's survival was dependent on a good harvest.

aeternum··on AI's top startups are barely publishing their research
The age of the dark forest is upon us
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