gspetr

"They lost a large chunk of land"

I've asked Gemini. Interestingly, they were offered over 2x as much territory in exchange for 1.5% of their land. Curiously, Wikipedia doesn't mention that in the Winter War article.

They lost 10-11% after WW2. Which deal was better?

"every male still needs to spend one year of their life"

Not 1 year. Gemini says it's 6-12 months, and several European countries not bordering the big bad fit that criteria.

Who exactly is after Austria, which has conscription, but has been neutral since basically the entire cold war?

Or the famously neutral Switzerland?

"No, it hasn’t."

Top Export Partners (2019)

The total value of Finnish goods exports in 2019 was approximately $72.84 billion.

1. Germany: $10.44 billion (14.33% share)

2. Sweden: $7.47 billion (10.26% share)

3. United States: $5.20 billion (7.14% share)

4. Netherlands: $4.34 billion (5.95% share)

5. Russia: $4.02 billion (5.51% share)

6. China: $3.84 billion (5.28% share)

Top Import Partners (2019)

1. Germany: $11.42 billion (15.49% share)

2. Russia: $10.01 billion (13.57% share)

3. Sweden: $8.16 billion (11.06% share)

4. China: $5.49 billion (7.45% share)

5. Netherlands: $3.29 billion (4.46% share)

6. United States: $2.48 billion (3.37% share)

Nominal GDP per Capita in 2019 (2019 US dollars):

United States: $65,281

Finland: $48,629

Germany: $46,793

Yep, didn't work out well at all.

> genetic diversity?

Partially, yes. I know a scientist in one of Denver's clinics specializing in reproductive health.

They do not allow more than 25 descendants per man per country, and do not allow more than 100 globally. Yes, they do export the material to many countries, including developed ones, such as the UK.

The law about inheriting frozen material from a deceased partner is also widely outdated in many jurisdictions around the globe. In many countries even the legal wife cannot inherit it without active consent, which cannot be given posthumously for obvious reasons.

Worked out pretty well for Finland, has it not?

You should delete the spoilers. O'Hare's personal history is important, but the part of the comment about his chronological appearances in the show is not.

B5 in a fantasy setting wouldn't make much sense, the key issue is the namesake.

What would be the equivalent of B5 in a fantasy? A floating sky island? A neutral world in a multiverse? Both have been done, but I've never heard of one actually being the centerpiece and the namesake of a series. There's also the issue of "porting" B4 into such a setting.

Having a series of "prototype" worlds or prototype floating islands would likely make the series overly contrived.

Any estiimates on how much it cost you? In terms of total real world time, money, and time spent by the agents.

Today's kids would never see it past the layer of AI. To them AI is the top level abstraction and that's it.

The end of an era, but ultimately it's not that surprising.

In its own FAQs[0], the CIA previously noted that many third-party companies that once provided free data now require expensive subscriptions or restrict use via licensing. These likely made it increasingly difficult to maintain the Factbook’s rigorous standards for comprehensive global data.

Ensuring the accuracy of thousands of data points for 258 international entities required a "monstrous workload" of vetting and reviewing by highly trained officers. Given the "do more with less" mandate, this is the result.

[0]https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/about/faqs/

This ending seems fitting for the world where artificially manufacturing consent is rampant.

As Nietzsche once said: "There are no facts, only interpretations"

This is the prime example of Law 1 of Robert Greene's "The 48 Laws of Power": "Never Outshine the Master."

The core principle is to always make those above you - your bosses, mentors, or superiors feel comfortably superior.

If you display your talents too aggressively, you risk triggering their deep-seated insecurities, which can lead them to sabotage your career or remove you from your position.

Galileo Galilei handled this really well. When he discovered the moons of Jupiter he strategically named them after the ruling Medici family.

By making the discovery about their greatness rather than his own intellect, he secured their lifelong patronage.

However, if your superior is a "fading star" or is clearly about to fall, you do not need to be merciful. In these cases, it may be strategic to outshine them to hasten their downfall and position yourself as the natural successor.

> Where's Malaysia?

I can tell you where it's not.

https://www.isis.org.my/2024/07/04/pew-study-finds-more-mala...

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/malaysia-russia-vladimi...

"Pew study finds more Malaysians, Singaporeans view Russia favourably; backing of Palestine, Putin’s macho image seen as key factors

Of the respondents in the 35 countries surveyed, Malaysians had the most positive view on Russia."

It's not anywhere close to any place that supports your beliefs.

EDIT: https://fulcrum.sg/malaysias-royal-rendezvous-in-russia-reas...

"From 6 to 10 August [2025], Ibrahim, the Malaysian King (Yang di-Pertuan Agong), visited Russia at the invitation of President Vladimir Putin. This marked the first visit of a Malaysian head of state to Russia since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1967."

"The world"? I don't think I've ever heard the definition of the world defined as narrowly as "80% of Europe and the US with its military allies" before.

> or are on a Malaysian or Azerbaijani airliner

You're right, a democratic country would never do anything like that.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/13...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_flight_655

Isn't the problem that of finding out a consistency heuristic? For example, test that the resulting state is consistent with your test suite.

If it is a directory that gets deleted, then you can diff it with a previous state. If you don't control the state and don't know the surface area that you should observe, then yes, you're inviting trouble if agents run amok.

> it does not hurt women

Why make assertions that even a cursory search can disprove?

https://bettingladies.com/articles/super-bowl-2024

Nope, that ship has already sailed as well. An AI-powered service to do handwritten spam: https://handwrytten.com

Public...? Oh, you mean the ones meant to be left holding the bag.

When there's real money to be made investing in YC is off limits to the public: https://jaredheyman.medium.com/on-the-176-annual-return-of-a...

>anyone can invest in software in the public market and through institutional investments like mutual funds, ETFs, ect.

"Public" being the keyword. There is some irony in being on HN, a YC site, yet a random HN user cannot invest in a YC company: https://jaredheyman.medium.com/on-the-176-annual-return-of-a...

These weren't "concessions", they were very eager: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/01/ukraine-nuclear-...

This Slate article debunked it with declassified documents: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/01/ukraine-nuclear-...

Just ask GPT, the awareness of being observed significantly impacts behavior even in rather primitive animals:

Research has demonstrated these behavioral changes in various species, including:

    Primates: Monkeys and apes often alter their social interactions and grooming behaviors when they know they are being observed by humans or other primates.
    Birds: Studies have shown that birds may change their foraging behavior when they detect human presence, often becoming more cautious.
    Fish: Some fish species exhibit changes in swimming patterns and social behavior when they sense they are being watched.

These behavioral adaptations are thought to be evolutionary responses that help animals avoid predation and enhance their survival in the wild.

Very nice. I believe this is the 1st time in history that lips have been augmented.

Not a fan of that analogy.

There is no expectation (from a reasonable observer's POV) of a podcast host to be an expert at a very broad range of topics from science to business to art.

But there is one from LLMs, even just from the fact that AI companies diligently post various benchmarks including trivia on those topics.

<From this we should conclude, obviously,

I know of a software billionaire[0] who opened a pizzeria and failed. He said so himself.

Should we conclude, obviously, that any break even pizzeria owner is a better businessman than tech billionaires?

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxAwUb86MUE

I'd say if you have a marketing problem do whatever the heck you can to get Rory Sutherland to take a look at your product, the man is a force of nature when it comes to unconventional marketing and from him I've learned the crucial distinction between relational and transactional capitalism.

And if you ever make it to the (multi)unicorn status because of him, don't forget yours truly. :)

An early Terminator prototype is pretty much useless unless you can field an army of them all at once and use them as shock troops.

As an infiltrator, it's worthless because it's not fooling anyone with its bizarre uncanny valley gait, and as an assassin either a drone swarm or human snipers are more efficient.

While sturdier than a human, if drones can take out tanks they'll be able to take out Terminators as well.

A billion dollar company isn't invincible, you can still be zeroed out by an unfavorable market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_Communications

In 2025 dollars their peak would have been $59.5B. To wit, this is roughly what Doordash is worth today, and that's a top-5 YC company. It died 9 months later.

>Yeah you can

Really? Can you name one developed country besides Israel that has succeeded?

>Social programs don't mean shit if nobody can afford to buy urban real estate in the big cities where the jobs are

The Government Pension Fund Global (Statens pensjonsfond utland), also known as the Oil Fund (Oljefondet), was established in 1990 to invest the surplus revenues of the Norwegian petroleum sector. As of June 2025, it had over US$1.9 trillion in assets.

Price of a 3 bedroom house in Oslo: $1.5M

$1.9T / $1.5M = 1.266M houses

Population of Norway is 5.6M

Do you have a better argument than housing affordability?

>that you can also solve via better polices and incentives if you want to

Nobody can. And it's not like they don't want to. Neither the very traditional and religious Arabic countries like Saudi Arabia (2.14, barely above replacement, and trending down), nor a country like Norway, which can afford the best social program in the world. All have fertility troubles. Urban lifestyle just does fertility in.

Exactly. As a regular at a non-hardcore gym, I had never appreciated it until I saw the gym sell 12mo membership for the price of 4x 1mo, and then I tried to remember how many people sticked around for a meaningful period. Very few men. No women.

The nearest gym is truly the best gym for 90% of people, as everyone seems to look for excuses not to go. So just go, people there will not bite you or shame you.

>20 years without visible problems.

Even with the most charitable steelman interpretation of "visible problems", 2 out of 3 things you've listed have strong evidence for being responsible for weight gain, and even smoking has some weaker evidence supporting it.