exoverito

Needless to say, most humans are unoriginal parrots too, one need only look at the prevalence of memetic desire. Few are capable of artistic genius like Picasso.

One technical definition of empathy is understanding what someone else is feeling. In war you must empathize with your enemy in order to understand their perspective and predict what they will do next. This cognitive empathy is basically theory of mind, which has been demonstrated in GPT4.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-01882-z

If we do not assume biological substrate is special, then it's possible that AIs will one day have qualia and be able to fully empathize and experience the feelings of another.

It could be possible that new AI architectures with continuously updating weights, memory modules, evolving value functions, and self-reflection, could one day produce truly original perspectives. It's still unknown if they will truly feel anything, but it's also technically unknowable if anyone else really experiences qualia, as described in the thought experiment of p-zombies.

Disturbingly authoritarian impulses for a dubious prescription.

The climate goes through natural cycles, we are actually coming out of a global temperature low after the ice age. Cold eras are actually far more dangerous throughout human history, for example the Little Ice Age during the Dark Ages which caused widespread crop failures and famine in Europe. Warm eras are correlated with the golden ages of civilizations, such as the Roman Warm Period. Zooming out over geological time, the Earth is currently near an all time low in terms of surface temperatures.

Cryptocurrency functions as a decentralized means of exchange outside of the control of centralized powers. Governments have been feverishly debasing their fiat currencies, which has fueled inflation, pricing many young people out of owning a home. It would seem you would rather trap people in an inflationary monetary paradigm, justifying it with secular eschatology. Millenarian Marxists have similarly latched onto climate change as their justification for abolishing private property, policies of degrowth, and other anti-human initiatives.

Energy per capita is tightly correlated with living standards. We saw broad wealth increases up until about 1970, after which energy per capita flat lined, and income inequality started worsening. Europe has implemented many of the polices you want, and has achieved nothing besides deindustrialization and irrelevancy.

China's CO2 emissions are increasing dramatically, and they continue to build more coal and natural gas plants. The USA and Europe reduced their emissions mostly by offshoring manufacturing to China.

It seems you're deeply confused about how the world works.

It seems the selected examples in your tendentious anaphora are entirely about justifying censorship and centralization. Strikes me as ironic, since the hacker ethos has been stridently libertarian, information wants to be free and all that. Now I hear more people like yourself, practically begging for restrictions and top down control. Reminds me of the covid hysteria over 'misinformation' around the lab leak theory and gain of function research. Many reasonable criticisms were censored by the big tech platforms. For example, lockdowns were immensely destructive and have never been recommended policy in response to epidemics, school closures caused significant harm to children who were at no real risk of the virus, Fauci admitted 6 feet of social distancing was arbitrary and not based on any science, and policies requiring cloth masks were not found to have any significant effect in preventing transmission, etc..

Over dependence on renewables and battery storage can be a strategic vulnerability, for example an extended stretch of cloudy and windless days. Freak weather events like hail can wipe out entire solar installations, cold snaps can disable wind turbines, batteries underperform significantly in extreme cold. And if we electrify everything, such as mandating electric stoves and heat pumps, then such an event would be a double whammy, since electricity demand spikes even more and most people won't have natural gas as a separate energy source. The Texas winter storm in 2021 is a cautionary example of what could happen.

Moreover, there's a distinct possibility of future weaponized weather modification, such as an enemy power releasing aerosols to reduce solar production, or saboteurs starting forest fires.

Nuclear waste is already an effectively solved problem. Breeder reactors can recycle waste, since roughly 98% of the energy remains in the depleted fuel from light water reactors. This also reduces the volume of waste by a factor of 20X. Long term storage sites already exist for the remainder, e.g. Yucca Mountain.

Living up to your username I see. If you still don't know what it means, or are pretending you don't, that's a major red flag. If you're asking honestly, try reading Soumission by Houellebecq.

Arguably the real regime did not change, since the deep state was already in control. Eisenhower had warned of the Military Industrial Complex in his farewell address just a couple years earlier. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had unanimously approved Operation Northwoods, a false flag attack to justify war with Cuba, which JFK had rejected. JFK also fired Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, after the botched Bay of Pigs operation and planned to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds." Unsurprisingly, JFK was assassinated shortly afterwards by a Manchurian candidate, Jack Ruby inexplicably killed Oswald, and then Ruby went insane in prison, probably due to MK ULTRA type operations. In sick twist of irony, Allen Dulles served on the Warren Commission, the blatant conflict of interest was lost on many.

I could go on. To put it lightly, consensus reality is manufactured to a significant degree. Even those who imagine themselves to be rebels, like woke leftists, are in large part the product of COINTELPRO type operations. If establishment media like Colbert and the NY Times are pushing the position of 'The Resistance' then you can be quite certain it's controlled opposition. Same applies to types like Charlie Kirk or the Daily Wire.

We've already had a coup in 1963, but Americans are such a thoroughly propagandized people that they don't even know it happened.

It'd be nice if we could remove congress members for blatant corruption too, e.g. Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell. Or prevent further Weekend at Bernie's politicians like Diane Feinstein and Joe Biden.

The Roman Empire engaged in genocide and slavery against many of their adversaries, yet Rome is still viewed as the peak of ancient civilization. The USSR imprisoned millions and caused the deaths of tens of millions more, yet leftists try focusing on the free healthcare and education. The United States engaged in ethnic cleansing of the native Americans, yet given enough time, such crimes have faded in saliency. Manifest Destiny was actually the inspiration for Hitler's ideas of lebensraum, invasion of Russia, and genocide of the Slavs. If Hitler had won he probably would have been considered more akin to Caesar or Napoleon. History is written by the victors and all that.

It's overwhelmingly due to monetary policy which has inflated assets and depreciated real wages for decades.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

Restrictive zoning laws preventing construction in coastal cities is also a major factor. The cities which see the greatest declines in rents have the greatest increases in supply.

https://www.nmhc.org/contentassets/f9a5ef47d06143e6b8355cfad...

CO2 levels were triple current levels at 1500 ppm about 50 million years ago. This was during the Cenozoic era when mammals first rose to dominance. Clearly the Earth was livable then.

https://attheu.utah.edu/science-technology/geoscientists-map...

Modern temperatures are actually near an all time low for the past 485 million years.

https://www.climate.gov/media/16817

Consider the possibility that you are mistaken, and the victim of propaganda.

Human ethnic groups are measurably different in genetic terms, as based on single nucleotide polymorphisms and allelic frequency. There are multiple PCA plots of the 1000 Genomes dataset which show clear cluster separation based on ancestry:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Example-Ancestry-PCA-plo...

We know ethnic groups vary in terms of height, hair color, eye color, melanin, bone density, sprinting ability, lactose tolerance, propensity to diseases like sickle cell anemia, Tay-Sachs, stomach cancer, alcoholism risk, etc. Certain medications need to be dosed differently for different ethnic groups due to the frequency of certain gene variants, e.g. Carbamazepine, Warfarin, Allopurinol.

The fixation index (Fst) quantifies the level of genetic variation between groups, a value of 0 means no differentiation, and 1 is maximal. A 2012 study based on SNPs found that Finns and Swedes have a Fst value of 0.0050-0.0110, Chinese and Europeans at 0.110, and Japanese and Yoruba at 0.190.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2675054/

A 1994 study based on 120 alleles found the two most distant groups were Mbuti pygmies and Papua New Guineans at a Fst of 0.4573.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Full_Fst_Average.png

In genome wide association studies, polygenic score have been developed to find thousands of gene variants linked to phenotypes like spatial and verbal intelligence, memory, and processing speed. The distribution of these gene variants is not uniform across ethnic groups.

Given that we know there are genetic differences between groups, and observable variation, it stands to reason that there could be a genetic component for variation in intelligence between groups. It would be dogmatic to a priori claim there is absolutely no genetic component, and pretty obviously motivated out of the fear that inequality is much more intractable than commonly believed.

Continuum fallacy. Might as well claim that there's no such thing as blue or violet, since there's a gradient between them.

Also you can establish homogeneity using genetic analysis such as the fixation index. Unsurprisingly, Swedes and Finns are extremely closely related.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixation_index#Autosomal_genet...

There are many possible metrics to measure heterogeneity, such as linguistic and religious diversity, variations in value systems, etc.

Hard to argue that trans people are critical to America being a great power. High skill immigration is generally beneficial, but mass illegal migration is far more dubious, as seen in Europe. The OECD just reported that high immigration has actually been negative for Canada, which has had anemic economic growth for the past 10 years.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/high-immigration-is-worseni...

I don't think tax cuts for the rich are very wise given the budget deficit, but continuously increasing government spending, taxes and regulation is not wise either. U.S. government spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest it's ever been, even more than during WW2. Over regulation is a major problem, as seen with CAHSR, and even figures on the left are starting to realize it, e.g. Ezra Klein.

I was curious too, and it seems feasible. Assuming at least 2 other roommates, you can find a 3 bed for less than 3600/mo. Here's a small 4 bd/1.5 ba for 3350/mo, so about 1120/mo.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/216-E-93rd-St-2L-Brooklyn...

Obviously not the most ideal circumstances, but it can be done.

The irony is you are using words, how droll. Very boring take.

By blue pilled I mean mainstream basic bitch beliefs. The type of shit that indoctrinated slaves believe. That may be harsh language to you, but it is what it is. If you're human, I have sympathy for your plight.

You are welcome for the archive link. I already knew what XKCD comic you were going to post before I opened it. The irony is that you don't know the basics of hacking and news, yet want to pontificate on the highest levels of reality. That is evidence of a skill issue, which permeates everything about your life, and resultingly, all your beliefs and writings.

Bro you're on Hacker News and you don't know how to get past a NY Times paywall. Embarrassing, though unsurprising given your blue-pilled beliefs.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250505081209/https://www.nytim...

Likewise friend, I extend the same reciprocity and hope you're being rewarded for your internet posts.

Interesting that you don't engage with the words at all, and lazily use insults. I'm actually somewhat curious what kind of person you really are, since you've accrued quite a few internet points here on HN. I hope you're independently wealthy by now, otherwise god help you.

It's childish to still not see the Democrats are corrupt corporatists, and that we need real third parties and candidates strong enough to resist the myriad of dirty tactics thrown at them. Say what you will about Trump, but he's about the only person who has the strength and resources to take on an entrenched deep state and corrupt intelligence agencies. They tried to impeach him with a fake Russian collusion hoax, throw him in prison on trumped up non-criminal felonies, and oh yeah multiple assassination attempts which were memory holed a couple weeks later.

The Iron Law of Wokeism is projection of the same crimes they commit upon others. We already have massive evidence the Democrats are corrupt and authoritarian, colluding with media, persecuting and assassinating whistleblowers (Assange, Snowden, Seth Rich). They engage in grotesque amounts of graft and inefficiency, as seen with California's High Speed Rail project, Biden's rural broadband and EV charging stations, which have delivered nothing. The Democrats don't even respect their voters choices in primaries, as evident by super delegates, Hillary conspiring against Bernie Sanders, the forced abdication of the obviously senile Biden, appointment of the obviously inept puppet that was Kamala Harris, etc. etc.

I hope real civil libertarians become in fashion. The self-described anti-fascists are basically communists who would create an authoritarian nightmare state, per usual. Funnily enough, the Berlin Wall was officially the the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart, and Putin is engaging in a "special police action" against Ukraine in order to "de-nazify" the regime.

Read the Twitter files. The government was actively involved in censorship. Zuckerberg has also stated the FBI was demanding certain posts be removed / demoted, users shadow banned, etc. The CIA also infiltrates and subverts many organizations and platforms. Wouldn't be surprised if they operate here, they've definitely been manipulating Reddit for at least the past decade.

Everyone likes to use fascist to smear their political opponents, yet I'm not seeing a lot of evidence that the "anti-fascists" are any different. They support mass censorship, state propaganda, political violence, forever war, discrimination, debanking, lawfare, lockdowns, and ironically even infringement of bodily autonomy through unconstitutional vaccine mandates.

The original argument put forth by capitalists was that unionized workers were effectively engaging in economic sabotage by striking and blockading factories.

That said the Pinkertons were basically mercenaries akin to organized crime, so probably viewed things in terms of might makes right.

They just hide different politically inconvenient and well-documented facts, for example natural human variation between races. Most progressives still subscribe to a Rousseauian blank slatist perspective which has been falsified a thousand which ways.

If you go by Trump's actions in his first term he was a pretty standard Republican, and mostly just cut taxes, with a lot of wild rhetoric which is part of his deal making shtick. In real terms I don't see Trump as uniquely authoritarian, probably less so than Biden, Obama and Bush. He seems to support free speech far more, which is the foundation for all other freedoms. He makes his money from the leisure industry, so his interests are aligned with Americans doing well and having disposable income. And he supports decentralization, so liberal states can adopt liberal policies, and so forth.

It seems people forget about the insane infringements of civil rights through the Patriot Act, NDAA, mass surveillance, lockdowns, firing people over vaccine mandates, etc. A poll showed about half of Democrats supported putting Americans into camps if they didn't take the vaccine, and a third supported seizing custody of their children. Democrats supported mass censorship and state control over media, which is far more authoritarian and fascist than anything the Republicans were doing.

That's because the Democrats are corrupt and have no platform beyond managed decline. We just had sickly king Theoden in office with a coven of Grima Wormtongues controlling the executive. Kamala Harris is an empty suit devoid of original thought, and quite obviously only selected for her identity. When asked how she would be any different, she said Biden was an old white man and she was not. She couldn't speak even in the most favorable venues like Oprah, and refused to go on Joe Rogan's podcast because she would have obviously imploded and humiliated herself.

It's stunning how far the Democrats have fallen. They've been completely co-opted by the PMC class and simply use identity politics to distract from their utter inability to deliver on anything. One need only look at the sad state of California, its massively delayed and over-budget high speed rail to nowhere, homelessness and decay, over-regulation inhibiting everything including the beloved green energy projects, etc. Texas literally has more green energy and cheaper electricity than California because they let people build, which can even be seen in their falling rents. Progressives can't allow that because it might 'change the character of a neighborhood', which is ironically one of the most conservative and anti-progress positions you could take.

True, much of that is because old people are the only ones still watching legacy media like cable news, which have repeatedly torched their credibility. Young people tend to get their news from podcasts and social media, which tends to not be as blatantly controlled.

Unfortunately you could level the same type of name calling towards Democrats. It's now public record they colluded with all the major media outlets, coerced big tech to censor and debank opponents, imprisoned whistleblowers, violated bodily autonomy with unconstitutional mandates, weaponized the courts to conduct lawfare, and now issued an unprecedented number of pre-emptive pardons for unspecified crimes committed by Fauci, Hunter Biden, et al.

I remember when the Democrats were the anti-war party, but Biden was escalating the Ukraine war in the final days of his presidency, and celebrated Dick Cheney's endorsement of Kamala Harris. Crazy how things have changed so much. The left unanimously viewed Bush and Cheney as obviously psychopathic war criminals, and now almost all the Neocons have jumped over to the Democrats. The left used to be extremely skeptical of globalization as evident by the Seattle WTO Protests, mass immigration as evident by Bernie Sanders' comments on its effect on workers' wages, and Big Pharma's perverse incentives to keep people sick and regularly consuming drugs. Yet the media has utterly psyop'd the progressives... it's kinda disturbing.