ThenElection
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User ID: 622
ThenElection
8hr ago
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read
ThenElection
9hr ago
I am also very curious what $300B of voluntary private contributions look like. Is this a case where the USA will pressure local governments to demand that private industry contribute to the fund, under threat of negative government treatment if certain benchmarks aren't met? I.e. a convoluted tax that will ultimately be passed on to some split of global consumers and investors?
ThenElection
9hr ago
Iran would have been willing to pinky swear not to pursue nuclear weapons if we pre-emptively offered them half a trillion dollars, lifted sanctions, and Hezbollah legitimacy in January, though.
ThenElection
14hr ago
In a more recent thread above, someone wonders if contemporary Brits are the most cucked generation in history. They're certainly in the running, but the kind of perverse cognitive dissonance in the minds of the people who think this is a great deal for the US (relative to the pre-war status quo) might steal the chair from them.
But, sure, we should all agree this is the greatest win in the history of winning. Let's declare victory and move on.
ThenElection
15hr ago
Iran was willing to pinky promise never to build nuclear weapons and play nicely with Obama, too. And Obama got that without paying Iran $300B.
"No toll on the strait (maybe!)" also is a weird flex.
ThenElection
1d ago
Yeah, I would love to be able to make a speculative bet on space services. Unfortunately it's heavily polluted with an implausible AI speculation (which I'm generally fine with, but if I'm going to be gambling on AI, SpaceX is not the bet I'm going to make). When it drops, I'll reconsider.
ThenElection
1d ago
Take it up with SpaceX's S-1.
We believe we have identified the largest actionable total addressable market (“TAM”) in human history. We estimate that our quantifiable TAM is $28.5 trillion, consisting of $370 billion in Space from space-enabled solutions; $1.6 trillion in Connectivity across $870 billion in Starlink Broadband and $740 billion in Starlink Mobile as well as additional opportunities in enterprise and government; $26.5 trillion in AI across $2.4 trillion in AI infrastructure, $760 billion in consumer subscriptions, $600 billion in digital advertising, and $22.7 trillion in enterprise applications.
ThenElection
1d ago
Either no amount of intelligence is capable of coming up with such a plan (perhaps training humans to have sufficient disgust reaction is the solution to AI alignment?)
I think it's this. But I don't think disgust reactions will save us: although they will limit the rate of diffusion, capitalism will select for companies that don't have the same kind of institutional disgust reaction and are willing to do what it takes for profit/success.
ThenElection
1d ago
I'd be curious to know more about if the air defenses were representative of current Chinese air defenses, or more like old tech surplus being sold off Temu.
ThenElection
2d ago
Anthropic already has a London office. Beyond that, Dario has a deep rootedness in San Francisco: he grew up here, went to Lowell, and returned as soon as he could after his studies. The choice to locate in San Francisco is rooted in a genuine love of place, not purely business reasons.
ThenElection
2d ago
There is an argument for OpenAI being a safer steward for AI than Anthropic, based purely on Sam having exponentially stronger survival instincts than Dario.
ThenElection
2d ago
Something something Mistral, something something one BILLION dollar ten year investment.
ThenElection
2d ago
For AI, I think the threat depends on one's model of future progress. Iterative refining and engineering: China is all you need. Significant paradigm shift: the US has the edge, at least until knowledge of the paradigm shift diffuses.
Though even for the latter, people underestimate China's research chops. And a significant component of our edge is that the most skilled Chinese researchers would prefer to work and live here and not in China.
To add some descriptive flavor: the vast majority of China's involuntary organ donations were of mundane criminals--rapists, murderers--along with the very occasional particularly obnoxious dissidents. It's also decreased a lot in the past decade. And, most forced political dissident organ donations aren't of rival factions in the CCP (actual potential rivals of political power), but what's fairly described as FG lunatics. Actual political rivals suffer more mundane consequences when they lose: being sidelined, fewer economic opportunities for their children. Maybe a prison term if they made a wild miscalculation.
Although bad in many ways, it's less different than the US system than many Americans like to admit.
ThenElection
2d ago
"they are more long term" here referred to the demographic problems predictably developing into a problem only on the scale of decades, not to any inherent civilizational differences in discount rates. The idea that Chinese government inherently is better at long term planning is a useful domestic myth/international propaganda.
ThenElection
2d ago
Latter. Tech savants and trans people are both disproportionately neurodivergent.
ThenElection
2d ago
I do not believe that China is any kind of perfectly rational, efficient society. And it creates fewer true geniuses (paradigm breaking) than Western systems. But, it is plausible that AGI isn't something that comes from a radical shift in paradigm but some combination of massive aggregated data and incremental engineering. If so, China is in a very strong position.
ThenElection
2d ago
The time to catch up is time for their own demographic and economic issues to implode
China does face severe demographic issues, moreso than the US. But they are more long-term. If we make it to 2040 without a conflict, I'll feel very happy and secure. But technology and China's economy progress much faster than demographic trends; within the next ten years, there will be a peak in China's relative strength vs the USA, and that's when they will act.
gets to be an involuntary organ donor
China turns its undesirables into something useful; the USA lets its undesirables run amok degrading everyone else's quality of life. Human rights etc aside, it's not at all clear the USA's approach is superior for the health of the nation and progress of civilization.
ThenElection
2d ago
Anthropic obviously believes that MAGA will not retain total control of the government for long, and that it is therefore not in their best interests to do a lot of ring-kissing.
They are wrong: MAGA will control the relevant parts of government at least until January 2029. People may differ on AI timelines, but the Anthropic people I know all have shorter timelines than that. This is not a long term iterated game.
ThenElection
2d ago
One of my hot takes that is very obviously true (to me, at least) and angers everyone is that trans women are superior programmers (and pentesters) to cis men, cis women, and trans men.
ThenElection
2d ago
That doesn't answer why only Anthropic is considered dangerous
I, personally, am not disputing that the Trump administration is not applying objective standards here. My point is that Anthropic wants an institutional ecosystem where powerful governments select which models are safe to release to the public (a system I agree with!); you can't just push for that and then throw a hissy fit when actually existing governments do it wrong, secure in the belief that the Righteous are somehow destined to fix things.
given the likely short timeline
That is everything, here. And I don't think Dario is making rational, utility maximizing calculations here: I think he has his set of values and is then applying them blindly thinking that because they are good, their blind application must be utility maximizing. That is not sufficient for the situation I (and from what I can tell, he) believe is at hand.
ThenElection
2d ago
one strong strike for her expertise
ThenElection
2d ago
Even granting that the long arc of history bends toward whiteness, part of that involves countries like the USA recognizing and responding to foreign threats.
Also, have you met Canada?
Her Twitter is somewhat trans-coded, with the mask, pronouns, and hair, which is worth at least one strong strike for her expertise, and kind of cancels out the attention seeking lawsuit, which would then be par for course if she's trans. (Though, as far I can tell, she's not actually trans.)
Generally, she's well-regarded. tptacek, years ago, has referenced her as credible on HN; she's not a no-name who has been elevated from obscurity for political purposes.
It's an interesting question: what should Ayatollah Motteizan do?
Some things are obvious: lean more into the most successful military strategies, reevaluate the ineffective ones.
I'd personally just go full globohomo: money under the American aegis is nice. Get a luxurious villa on the Caspian, drink nice Shiraz every evening watching the sunset. But clearly they have deeper/different values from that, so that's a nonstarter.
Five years from now, the strait shutdown strategy will be weakened; regional competitors and global consumers will be developing alternative routes, and you can't rely on them as much to pressure Israel and the US to chill out. It would be nice to have something beyond that threat.
Maybe I'd want to pull in China: give them whatever ports they want, to create some kind of security guarantee. But if I'm China, it seems like an undesired entanglement; I want to be less, not more, invested in Middle Eastern oil politics. Probably not a viable option.
What about nukes? Definitely would be very nice to have a couple dozen. But it's not like Iran was holding back before in its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and it's not even clear that they could effectively deliver them to Tel Aviv if they had them. I just don't see a real path to go from where Iran is and has been to the point where they have a nuclear deterrent.
What probably would be best, given Ayatollah values, would be to take the opportunity to shore up the economy and regime support. Avoid shaking up regional politics, while domestically ruling as you want.
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