throwaway77770

That assumes that AI needs to be like life, though.

Consider computers: there's no selection pressure for an ordinary computer to be self-reproducing, or to shock you when you reach for the off button, because it's just a tool. An AI could also be just a tool that you fire up, get its answer, and then shut down.

It's true that if some mutation were to create an AI with a survival instinct, and that AI were to get loose, then it would "win" (unless people used tool-AIs to defeat it). But that's not quite the same as saying that AIs would, by default, converge to having a drive for self preservation.

Linux - Debian 12 to be precise.

For some reason, the embedded videos seem to break in Firefox Private Browsing (128esr). This had me stumped for a while until I tried it in a normal not-private window and it worked.

I would put it like this: consistent small gains programming is about gluing components together. There are plenty of non-incremental (big impact or flop) programs that couldn't have been made by just gluing components together. E.g. BitTorrent, AlphaZero, and seL4.

Wouldn't the stock market chart for Russia have a rather sudden stop around 1917?

> Outside transparency is not a benefit. Most people I've talked to about crypto don't see the opacity as a detriment. They do not trust the government or tax policy.

I think his point is: Bitcoin explicitly takes a libertarian position to taxation by making it hard to tax. While most crypto adopters may be libertarian, the majority of people are not and so the libertarian position will deter adoption.

Relative privation is still a fallacy, though, isn't it?

The other side of that coin is, obviously, coiners who deduce that anyone opposing Bitcoin must be angry about being poor.

It's possible to dislike Bitcoin for its waste of its energy, centralization one step removed or economic policy without being "the guy who bought at the top".

I don't think Bob's standards are preferable. Or, in the likeness of Yegge's Execution in the Kingdom of Nouns, I present:

void get_coffee() { /* ... */ }

void move_away_from_obstacles(auto what_to_move_away) { /* .... */ }

void place(auto object_to_place, auto to_be_placed_on) { move_away_from_obstacles(where_to_place); put_object_on(to_place, to_be_placed_on); }

void sit() { place(butt, seat); }

void prepare_mind() { get_coffee(); sit(); }

void get_opinion(int on_whom) { /* .... */ if (on_whom == UNCLE_BOB) { return create_opinion("too many short functions"); } }

void get_opinion_of_uncle_bob() { prepare_mind(); opinion my_opinion = get_opinion(UNCLE_BOB); return my_opinion; }

The grain of the web is so that it's much easier to write something broken than something that works.

That's true of all development, granted, but doubly so the web, so yep... the web is broken.

> But it's not the governments job to legalize theft and pick the winners and losers, it's the governments job to fix the underlying issues.

So in other words, don't try to paper over the flaws of capitalism by instantiating a welfare state from taxes; instead abolish capitalism directly?

Probably not what you meant, but it could be read that way.