object-a

I am talking about at the founding. Their mission has obviously shifted from then.

I mean, I’m even more skeptical that Palantir or its customers were concerned about killing former members or supporters of the Soviet Union prior to 2009. The focus was probably the War on Terror and related crimes.

Alex Karp was calling himself a self-described socialist as recently as 2018.

I'm a little skeptical that Palantir pre-2009 (when Joe was there) focused on communists at all

Thank you for answering the question

For anyone who has tried cars from both automakers, how does BYD compare to Tesla on similar trim vehicles?

Paramount announced early that the current offer wasn’t their best and final, so why would WB accept? They already know that Paramount is willing to make a higher offer

> The Axiom of Choice, for example, has reached consensus because of its usefulness, not necessarily because of any epistemological standards.

Usefulness in proofs _is_ an epistemological standard. Axioms are evaluated based on how they impact mathematical proofs and their compatibility with other axioms, and mathematical disagreements with the Axiom of Choice also follow similar epistemological standards and procedures. We take Banach-Tarski seriously because it meets the standards.

If you wanted to make an argument that "The Axiom of Choice is nonsense" and be taken seriously, you would be expected to show how it is incompatible with other axioms, or how it generates a paradox. You wouldn't be arrested or silenced if you went around denouncing the axiom of choice without following these standards, but you would (rightfully) not be taken seriously.

Similarly, the article isn't saying CK should have been silenced or had his speech stifled, but it is objecting to the notion that what he did was real debate or real intellectual discourse. I don't think that argument equates to stifling speech.

This is basically what I'm saying -- you need consensus on the standards of evidence and the procedures for accepting evidence. Not just "argue whatever with no standards and see what sticks". The axioms are not chosen just on pure consensus without their own epistemological standards and evaluations.

It's fair to critique arguments or debate formats that do not establish those standards, or which throw out agreed upon standards with no basis, as not really participating in a marketplace of ideas.

If we define truth as "Whatever a majority happens to agree with" and the marketplace of ideas as a contest to create truth by building a majority consensus, then you're correct.

If we define truth as something real, and something that we determine based on evidence and correspondence with reality, then you absolutely need some shared epistemological standards for what constitutes evidence and correspondence. I'm not sure if you need peer review for everything, but building expertise in those epistemological standards and approaches _is_ a requirement for well functioning marketplace of ideas, especially if our goal is to develop and understand the truth.

This is distinct from free speech -- I wouldn't want to impose restrictions on one's ability to speak, but that's not the same as saying all speech is equally valid in the pursuit of truth.

Proposal: we can suspend all air and water pollution regulations, provided we pass the following:

All owners and major investors of factories, refineries, and data centers must live within 1 mile of their dirtiest site.

> But what about the 99% of people who commute into or around NYC every day, many of whom live outside Manhattan? Most of these people can’t afford to live in Manhattan even if they wanted to

Do 99% of the people who commute to NYC do so in cars? I'd be surprised if even close to half the working class commuters into/through the congestion zone do so with a personal car vs transit.

> If you’re truly passionate about protecting the environment, focus on actions that make a real impact.

This is an experiment that if scaled up could have a real impact, and it's much simpler and directly effective for an American to do than "protesting a coal mine in China".

You can make sub-optimal combinations, but D&D is a team game. If you build a Barbarian that can't deal damage, or a Wizard who's spells never land, you're letting the rest of your team down.

> The rules should not prohibit from making such selections.

The new rules give you _more_ freedom to choose a suboptimal build. You can even play a Gnome with low intelligence under the new rules, something that was impossible before.

An experienced DM can of course let their players create whatever character they want, but a less experienced DM might be concerned about balance/fairness/implications of bending the rules. By creating an alternative, flexible rule for ability scores, a table can feel confident that the characters they build are still balanced.

> The changes WoTC made are bad, and make everything less fun and more generic. Their intentions were good, but what they've done really isn't helpful or good at all.

As you said above, the DM and table can agree to whatever constraints they want for the game, including using the old ability scores.

One thing I like about the new rules: they let users create their own unique species/class combinations, without feeling like the game's rules are limiting you.

For example, a Barbarian gnome or Half-orc wizard can be fun choices from a role playing perspective, but suboptimal in combat or gameplay. Removing species-specific ability score increases lets players create non-standard combinations without weakening the party.

Even if everyone does, you'll need enough cars to meet peak demand (which is a lot, especially with a 2 seater model).

Where do those cars go to charge outside peak demand?

Given what a boon mass, legalized sports gambling has been for society, what could go wrong?

Comic Sans (non-derogatory) for engineers

Interesting, what's an example of a compatible competitor with equal or higher quality for significantly less?

It's funny because Facebook's news feed in the last couple years is unusable, filled with AI slop and clickbait. Twitter similarly requires aggressive use of block + mute to eliminate scams, clickbait, and other content I'm not interested in.

I don't know if this is due to their changes in moderation policy, or if AI has overwhelmed them, but I vastly preferred the old news feeds

It's probably easier to be a Riverian if you believe there is a safe Village behind you. Playing Poker and taking a high EV/ high variance bet is really fun if you are doing it with disposable income, but not as fun if those bets leave you broke.

It's also a lot easier to be a Riverian you're doing it with other people's money, as is the case on Wall Street. Or if you can lower your personal `p(doom)` by escaping to a private luxury bunker.

Bring Me Anything but Jokes

**

Would rather read 1000 Letterbox jokes than this long screed.

I think there's a Valuation vs Expenses error here. Your interpretation compares market cap, which is a valuation, to the $700B per year that Sam is saying he'd need to spend.

Over 700B is 3% of US GDP. It is also 2.5x Apples OpEx, 5x MSFT's OpEx, and 28x NVIDIA's OpEx. It's a pretty sizable number even if you spread it out.

The United States is not Argentina. Argentina, unlike the United States, has to finance most of it's debt from external parties in foreign denominated currency.

Argentina has a vibrant economy, but it's export revenues are almost entirely from agricultural products. Since ag prices are volatile, it's harder for Argentina to acquire the foreign currency it needs to pay debts.

> Inflation is a mass psychology phenomenon

Inflation is a supply and demand phenomenon. If inflation is caused by constraints/shocks to supply, then increasing production capacity is a better long term solution than raising interest rates.

> we have these insane “valuations

This is a completely different problem than goods inflation. Stock market valuations can spike at times when inflation is well under control, and may even crash if inflation is too high. There was a long period where we had near-0 interest rates, high valuations, and little-to-no inflation after the 2008 crash

It seems empty -- I guess he can work on generative AI and Robotics at another company (probably better he does so). But can he actually stop or obstruct FSD at Tesla?

If I was an investor in Tesla, I think I'd want him to start a separate company for those other tasks and then invest separately.

IANAL but aren't the key terms there "selectively banning" and "publicly available"?

NYT articles are largely behind a paywall for everyone. That means they are not publicly available, and a competitor who was blocked from accessing or reproducing that content without a license would not be "selectively banned"

Sourcing, quoting, and linking is covered in the NYTimes content policy under fair use. See: https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014891408-Obta...

I think what wouldn't be covered is reproducing substantial portions of an article, especially if it's done without attribution. Tier 2 publications that fully reprint NYT or AP/Reuters articles are usually doing this via a paid News Service or Content License. See: https://nytlicensing.com/content/new-york-times-news-service...

I don't find this worth the amount of ink spilled about it. From the article:

> The allegations against Dr. Gay do not entail promoting actual substantial ideas as her own, but rather lifting phrases for sections of dutiful literature review and explicating basic premises without using quotation marks, or changing the wording only slightly, and, at times, not even citing the relevant authors shortly before or after these sections. This qualifies less as stealing argumentation than as messy. Much has been made of the fact that even her acknowledgments section in her dissertation has phraseology transparently cribbed from those of others. Sloppy, again — but still, this is not about her actual ideas.

Even with coal, power plants are much much more efficient than ICEs at converting fuel to energy:

https://www.motortrend.com/news/evs-more-efficient-than-inte...

Another way of putting it -- To drive 50,000 miles, a Ford F150 or similar has to consume ~8,500 kgs of gasoline:

> 50,000 miles / 20 mpg * (3.4 kg/gal)

The Cybertruck Battery weighs ~1,400 kgs, and probably lasts at least 100K miles even with poor charging practices

So you would have to compare 1,400kgs of Lithium with at least 17,000 kgs of gasoline over the lifetime of the vehicle.

If you want to be totally fair, you could include your car's share of the weight of fuels used in the electric grid. However, even charging from a fairly dirty grid is more efficient than an ICE, so this wouldn't change things much.

Is there any confirmation or sources for the claims in this article? Or is this just speculation? I haven't seen any confirmation that all of OpenAI's core team has joined MSFT, or that they are getting $10M packages