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bertil

5,070 karma · joined September 25, 2009

http://www.quora.com/bertil-hatt
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bertil··on I put all 8,642 Spanish laws in Git – every reform is a commit
You might need to turn laws into formal proofs, and the existence of judges makes me think that’s not as likely as you would like. A commenting system would though—trained on countries’s precedents, jurisprudence and traditions might.
bertil··on Spanish legislation as a Git repo
This is a key project, and I’m sure many countries have enough developers who might try and get it done, but a project that can do it for most legal systems (assuming the sources are on-line) would help a lot more people access legal resources.
bertil··on We do not think Anthropic should be designated as a supply chain risk
I would love to explain to Sam Altman that Elon Musk is a bad person and using his platform isn’t a sensible decision, but I feel like he remembers more evidence of that than I ever will be able to imagine.
bertil··on We do not think Anthropic should be designated as a supply chain risk
How many people who reacted that way then are still at OpenAI? It seems that they have lost key people in several waves.

How many people have joined since? I don’t think the people who lobbied for that are all still there, and I’m not sure a majority of people now at OpenAI were there when it happened.

bertil··on Our Agreement with the Department of War
Can their solution recommend to shoot at combatants lost at sea?

This is key because it's the textbook example of a war crime. It's also something that the current administration has bragged doing dozens of times.

More succinctly: who decides what is legal here? OpenAI, the Secretary of Defense, or a judge?

bertil··on Uncovering insiders and alpha on Polymarket with AI
I'm very tempted to agree that those markets are not providing a positive force, given the focus on questions for which a small group of people know the answer ahead of time. They are not sharing that information because it is not in their interest, and insiders likely won’t have a great time for long.

However, there is large value for some people in knowing when a country will be invaded: if you live there, you know when to leave; if you are an airline, when to stop scheduling flights there, or, if a lot of people are in the first group, up until when to schedule many more flights to get them out. But I’m positive the invading army would prefer some kid in a basement didn’t make one Lieutenant General on the committee obscenely rich overnight.

I wished the focused on markets where many people are part of the decision, like elections. There, the wisdom of the crowds would add some value.

bertil··on Archaeologists find possible first direct evidence of Hannibal's war elephants
I’m very tempted to agree with you: people who draw from description draw unicorns after being told about rhinoceroses. We have a lot of medieval monks’ drawings of elephants by description and theirs look like tapir with a trumpet stuck in their nose. This is not a photo, of course but it mainly highlights the head, like any one would if they didn’t measured proportions carefully.
bertil··on Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica
> a full-scale vehicle simulator

The UK is such a situation, and this vehicle would have failed a driving test there.

bertil··on Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica
The best reaction from Waymo would have been to start to lobby against letting those monster-trucks park on streets near schools. They are killing so many children, I'm flabbergasted they are still allowed outside of worksites.
bertil··on Worlds largest electric ship launched by Tasmanian boatbuilder
I’m curious if it would have made sense to build it as a hydrofoil. There are a couple of electric boat companies that use that to reduce drag, wake and improve comfort on-board. The software to keep things level is non-trivial, but I don’t know if it adds a lot of complexity to the build.
bertil··on I Am Mark Zuckerberg
I think you are massively overestimating the legal follow-through of an administration with opening hours so tight and irational they would be scadalous at a lingerie show.
bertil··on I Am Mark Zuckerberg
A friend of mine has a relatively common first name and last name, and she regularly gets mail that is clearly not meant for her. She started a Facebook group for homonyms to help her route mail, and it now have a hundred members and have helped people get important documents.

At some point, they even organized an impersonation because someone needed to retrieve an official document and couldn’t be there in person. Another member nearby offered to go and get it. “Won’t you need my ID for that? — Oh, I have one with just the right name…”

bertil··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
You think there’s a material difference between Mein Kampf and the guys speeches? That’s where you are going to draw the line?
bertil··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
It’s kind of hilarious how he called Orwell to deny something as blatant as Trump’s racism and immediately copied some absurd talking points from the darkest echo chambers of the internet. Denying that Trump is fascist because The United States, dealing with a Civil War, used wreaths as a symbol of unity is a particularly sophomoric attempt at turning bad puns into arguments. You have to live in particularly deep dungeons to think that’s not laughable.
bertil··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
From Wikipedia: > In 1973, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Trump Management, Donald Trump and his father Fred, for discrimination against African Americans in their renting practices.[3][31]

> Testers from the New York City Human Rights Division had found that prospective black renters at Trump buildings were told there were no apartments available, while prospective White renters were offered apartments at the same buildings.[32] During the investigation, four of Trump's agents admitted to using a "C" (for "colored") or "9" code to label Black applicants and stated that they were told their company "discouraged rental to blacks" or that they were "not allowed to rent to black tenants," and that prospective Black renters should be sent to the central office while White renters could have their applications accepted on site. Three doormen testified to being told to discourage prospective Black renters by lying about the rental prices or claiming no vacancies were available.[33][34] A settlement was reached in 1975 where Trump agreed to familiarize himself with the Fair Housing Act, take out ads stating that Black renters were welcome, give a list of vacancies to the Urban League on a weekly basis, and allow the Urban League to present qualified candidates for 20% of vacancies in properties that were less than 10% non-White.[32][35]

> Elyse Goldweber, the Justice Department lawyer tasked with taking Trump's deposition, has stated that during a coffee break Trump said to her directly, "You know, you don't want to live with them either."[36]

> The Trump Organization was sued again in 1978 for violating terms of the 1975 settlement by continuing to refuse to rent to black tenants; Trump and his lawyer Roy Cohn denied the charges.[37][38][39] In 1983 the Metropolitan Action Institute noted that two Trump Village properties were still over 95% White.[40]

In what world your argument is anything but clutching at straws?! Get a grip, he openly hates Black and Latino people and has never been shy about it. The fact he came to an out-of-court agreement, and immediately had to come back… It’s so beautiful that your richly referenced note forgot that point.

> Like, anyone, who calls for unity is surely fascist.

No, but people who threatens to napalm-bomb a major city in their own country because the mayor isn’t in their party; people who threaten to court-martial any soldier who express an opinion critical of an influencer outside of the chain of command; people who call law enforcement officers to throw political opponents in a jail without due process… Those might be fascist. And that’s just this week.

Obama and Harris were not selling access to enrich themselves with the loincloth of crypto, for example. That’s a little different than century-old symbol about Unity between States…

Yes, billions of people noticed in horror the entire Republican Party in congress applauding a Nazi salute, twice, and yes, a handful of people used the same word to describe it. Do you really think lessons on grammar is the point to make here?! Because for someone who talks so much about how much you don’t like that Hilter guy, you seem to raise no qualms in your very detailed note with having with so many people in your party applauding that gesture. If you worried about people not thinking for themselves, I’d start there.

bertil··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
You would struggle to find a single example for any of those. Find two inflammatory quotes for each.

There hasn’t been a day in the last decade that Trump wasn’t making the news for a new insanely inflammatory remark—including in the last 48 hours. To help you remember when that was: that’s when he called for War on an American city, using the visual language of Apocalypse Now, a movie about war crimes. That was in the same breath as his new “Secretary of War” detailing that war would be violent, pro-active and excessive. This is true for almost everyone in his cabinet: daily dehumanizing remarks, threats, calls to attack.

One vs. many thousands: There are three to four orders of magnitude of difference in how inflammatory each side is.

You want to prove me wrong? Give me one date, a single date in the last ten years and if I can’t find Trump publicly insulting to someone that day, I’ll concede.

The only examples of call to violence you can find are people quoting Trump and his enablers, or mocking their style. Those horrible things you read? Those insanely callous dismissal of Charlie Kirk, victim of gun violence? Those are quotes of Charlie Kirk, reacting to mass shootings.

You are wagging your finger and scream "Here’s a monster!" but what you are looking at is a mirror.

bertil··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
What have I ever written that would imply I’m pro gun violence?

This comment is completely unacceptable and I demand that you delete it.

bertil··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
You are the one using him as a reference. Neither of you care to understand what the other person is saying and grow from others’ experience; you only care to pretend to debate with people who already agree with you, and find witty quips if not.

Otherwise, you would have stopped your reply at the first line. That could have been a great question if you cared enough to read to the answer before dismissing it.

bertil··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
I reacted to the context of that video. You ignoring that and telling me that I didn’t do it is a nice illustrations of the problem I have with pretend debate.
bertil··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
Constructive conversation would be you asking why we didn’t think this was, learning from our perspective. It’s when you use questions marks for something else than snark.

You don’t seem to know what that looks like, so you telling me WITH BIG SHOUTY LETTERS that ABSOLUTELY it is… That feels a bit self-defeating to stay polite.

bertil··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
So you don’t like debating?
bertil··on “No Tax on Tips” Includes Digital Creators, Too
Most of the world, really.

Japanese people are offended, so don’t do it there. People in other places tend to be flattered, so you can, occasionally. But the idea that you should pay your employees a living wage has been a well established principle since the 19th century.

bertil··on “No Tax on Tips” Includes Digital Creators, Too
> a pandering move to the mostly financially-illiterate populace

I immediately assumed it was a clear overture to people who are very financially literate and who were expecting within minutes an email from their tax lawyer to explain how payment for their activity happen to quality for a very loose definition of tips. At least the part that wasn’t already tax-free thanks to international montages, blind trusts and creative reporting.

bertil··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
> Watch the video and you will undoubtedly understand OP's point

"I am right therefore I win" is all the proof I need that you have watched a lot of Charlie Kirk edits.

bertil··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
The whole thing is aggressively imbalanced: he’s sat, protected by guards, on a stage over the other person; the people asking questions are standing, their back to a large vocal crowd that may of may not be armed.

He’s cherry-picking one interaction, has all the editing controls, and even with all that, he literally interrupted the guy less than a minute in.

This is exactly what I meant: the appearance of a debate, with a heavy anvil on the scale.

Actually, not “may or may not.”

bertil··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
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bertil··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
> we would not be better off without such extremist language poisoning people's minds

I genuinely can’t tell if you realize that this is a description of the victim, and your comment could easily be construed as a justification for what happened, or if you condemn the action so heartily you missed that.

Which leads to my point: there are discourses around this that completely miss each other. That’s a huge problem because so many people will loudly express strongly held emotions and two people will read completely opposite view points. US public discourse is at a point where language, without copying context, is failing.

Saying “both sides miss each other” isn’t true either: I’m convinced one side is perfectly capable of quoting leaders of the other, even if they find it absurd, but the reciprocal isn’t true. Many people can’t today say what was the point of one of the largest presidential campaign. They’ll mention points that were never raised by any surrogate or leaders. But they can’t tell that because the relationship is complete severed.

I don’t think there’s a balanced argument around violence, either: one side has leaders who vocally and daily argue for illegal acts violence, demand widespread gun possession vs. another where some commentators occasionally mention that violent revolution is an option, but leaders are always respectful. The vast majority of people who commit gun violence support one particular political movement, even the violence against the leaders of that same movement. If that’s not obvious to you, I can assure you that you are out off from a large part of the political discourse about the US, not just around you, but internationally.

bertil··on Formatting code should be unnecessary
That’s essentially what black has done with Python, though.
bertil··on Python has had async for 10 years – why isn't it more popular?
This rings incredibly true, with one major exception: Google Translate can’t handle Finnish to a point that’s both confusing and hilarious. If the output explains how asyncio works, I’m guessing the original discussion was about opening portal for demons, or waiting in line to board the ferry to Estonia.
bertil··on Vijaye Raji to become CTO of Applications with acquisition of Statsig
Curious to hear about how they feel about many key StatSig people walking away, and Vijaye going to lead a different product. OpenAI bought it for internal use. They plan to put the public-facing product into more of a maintenance mode.
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