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BurdensomeCount

Thou Shalt Read BC's Writings!

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joined 2022 September 05 16:37:04 UTC

The neighborhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines and "The Kensington Horror," or "The Stabbing Woman," or "The Woman in Black." During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a "bloofer lady." It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morning. It is generally supposed in the neighborhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a "bloofer lady" had asked him to come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served. This is the more natural as the favorite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the"bloofer lady" is supremely funny. Some of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the "bloofer lady" should be the popular role at these al fresco performances.


				
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BurdensomeCount


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Thou Shalt Read BC's Writings!

				
				
				

				

					6 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 16:37:04 UTC
				


				
					

					
The neighborhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines and "The Kensington Horror," or "The Stabbing Woman," or "The Woman in Black." During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a "bloofer lady." It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morning. It is generally supposed in the neighborhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a "bloofer lady" had asked him to come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served. This is the more natural as the favorite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the"bloofer lady" is supremely funny. Some of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the "bloofer lady" should be the popular role at these al fresco performances.



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Who knows, perhaps after I retire a few years down the line. Large and juicy bonuses push that timeline up, so please pray for me to get an especially big one this round, Inshallah!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, for basically the reasons you mentioned there's a strong and very misguided (IMO) strand of people who basically Arab-worship. Something like Arabs are great and amazing because they were the ones who were sent God's last messenger and the word.


If anything I think this gets it the wrong way around. I think that rather the reason that out of all the peoples of Humanity Arabs were the ones sent the prophet was because they were the most degraded and in severe need of divine guidance and correction (e.g. in pre Islamic arabia when a man died his eldest son automatically got to take all the man's wives except his mother for himself, in addition to many other things that will make you go wtf when you hear about them the first time).


However this is a conversation Islamic society is not yet ready to have, so alas...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And you yourself have posted repeatedly about how you consider yourself a higher class of being than the peasants ( but still Muslim!) who fetch and carry for you at home.




Hey, converting means you don't get treated like a dhimmi anymore or as "not a real Muslim" or anything like that. The Arabs have this bad habit (they've had it for over 1200 years, the fall of the Ummayads was in big parts becuase the Arab Muslims kept treating the convert Muslims worse and it lead to serious resentment) but it's a speicifc Arab flaw, not anything to do with Islam or Muslims more genreally.


It doesn't mean that everyone is equal within the class of all Muslims. Yes, we are all equal before God, but that's because the differences between us are negligible in comparison to how Great God is (sort of like floating point precision smoothing), and not about how we're all equal as humans otherwise.




And of course, if there is one group that treats Arabs more brutally than the Israelis, it's other Arabs.




Again, a very specific Arab flaw. I'm not even a particularly big fan of Arabs personally, the Eastern ones lucked out with oil and now seem to think they rule the place, while in reality they aren't any different to Algerians or Tunisians or Libyans, some more humility from them would be very welcome.


But hey, if you're curious, your nearest mosque is probably not too far away (and only going to get closer as time goes by). There's no pressure either way.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I suppose in math, they already surpass Tao himself.




Apropos of nothing, on this very thread a few months ago people (@Soteriologian )  were pooh-poohing the capabilities of AI:


https://www.themotte.org/post/3771/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/448459?context=8#context




Soteriologian   Unstammering Papageno  4mo ago 

I like the Harvard analogy because this is surely the intent with Terence Tao. There's a high chance sooner or later Terence Tao will prove something cool "using" ChatGPT, and if he does, it would be really awesome if we could make it sound like the secret ingredient in the ChatGPT-Terence Tao alliance was ChatGPT, when obviously the actual secret ingredient is Terence Tao.




Not so obvious now, is it?


Oh, how the tables turn...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's the Green-Tao theorem, which was probably the number theory finding of the decade when it came out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green%E2%80%93Tao_theorem


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the imagery of the burning Limoges town hall




This pisses me off to no end. Time to bring back the reverse Guillotine. These "people" are replacable, the architecture and history isn't.




Yes there are suburbs far away from the chaos, but those exist in every country and true bourgeois professionals consider them crass anyway.




Never was a fan of this snobbery. Especially now with WFH become more normalised.




In the coming years and decades - and this is in part what Submission is about - many more of the remaining native populations will choose to assimilate themselves to this stronger, more forceful, more self-assured and ultimately more vital culture.




Indeed. For anybody reading this, you are welcome to join and you will be treated like a full brother or sister no different from any other brother or sister. Genuinely recommend it. However you should make sure that it's what you want to do because it's a serious and very big life decision.




Raspail-posting




Even the name Raspail sounds like some sort of portmanteu of Rasputin and Pale/Wail etc. etc. Conjures to mind images of some self professed clairvoyant mystic crying about whites being removed from positions of power in the future, which tbh, is basically what The Camp of the Saints is about, so chalk one up for whatever this variant of nominative determinism is...


				

				

						

							

								
    
									
									
									
									
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Nitrogen asphyxiation is the correct way to execute someone, followed by lethal injection. We can even make the injection something like fentanyl (not like it's hard to source or anything) to minimise pain and suffering. No different to the people who die by drug overdose.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


git push sudoku




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Unironically Ubuntu desktop is very good these days and very user friendly. More user friendly than Windows actually, which today makes me want to tear my hair out with the ads it forces onto you and how it won't respect your registry choices as well as three dozen other serious problems.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'm sure the mathematicians left out in the cold by the big data revolution of ML will rejoice that there was indeed a mathematical approach to LLMs over the pesky engineering approaches that were developed by the peons from MIT.




Damn this reminds me of the ML class I took back in my maths degree. We spent the whole term proving theorems about perceptrons rather than being taught any sort of ML that was being used in the world.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I can also report that I'm having some of the most fun and being more productive than I've ever been.




Same here.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the 'hard' sciences are on life support after decades of sneering at biologists




LMFAO yes absolutely. Even within physics the areas being dismantled are theoretical physics while the experimental physicists are carrying on doing their jobs just as well or even better before AI, because to them it's literally a complementary assistant that boosts them rather than replacing them. And even within theoretical physics the areas getting blasted the most are the most "rigorous" ones like QFT and GR while the ones that are still sort of saved from the worst of the shelling so far are things like lattice field theory etc. where people randomly go around doing approximations because otherwise nothing works...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In my very scholarly and medical opinion, I think you're suffering from Human to AI writing transmorigification. I thought your post was also at the very least highly AI modified but it may well be that AI has addled your brain so much that now you just naturally write that way.


A curious specimen indeed.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, this whole "permanent underclass" thing is a load of baloney. You aren't being saved from the permanent underclass if your net worth today is $10m or even $25m vs $1m or $10k. If that very specific scenario plays out, having a moderate amount of assets doesn't insulate you, instead it makes you juicy food worth concentrating on for the real big multi billion dollar players.


I'm decently well off and I've come to the (very sensible, I think) conclusion that in the unlikely event of rich oligarch AI dystopia, my lot lies with the ordinary man rather than the centimillionaire+ class.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Fun results:






Hilbert's tenth problem over (\mathbb{Q}) is undecidable 

The quasi-Riemann hypothesis 

The rational Hodge conjecture holds for every CM abelian variety 

Integer multiplication can be done in sub-log-linear time. Oh, there's also a sub-log linear DFT.




What can I say: Man Proposes, AI Disposes...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hoo boy. The question is, is the novel worthy of the award regardless of whether or not it's AI written standing on its own merits? If so then I suggest it gets the award and for next year the committee can update it's rules to forbid AI submissions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If AI was able to write prescriptions for me, I would choose Astra over 95% of doctors.




Make that 99% of doctors and I'd agree. Smash the cartels!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Is there anything stopping humans from continuing to explore Navier-Stokes and related problems, even now that we have an oracle that can just tell us the final answer? Of course not. But we're irrational beings, and we're likely just not going to put the same kind of effort into it without the reward waiting at the end.




Sure yes I agree. But the fault for this lies with humans, not with AI.  Humans should be blaming themselves for this and resolving to do better.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


A lot of weird shit is about to happen, and I’d like to discuss it with you, not (just) with Claude.




Totally agreed. I'm becoming more and more convinced with what I'm seeing on a daily basis (not like I have any particularly strong links to the AI companies, so this isn't secret insider info or anything, just what I'm observing on the margins of the AI transformation, which has already made huge impacts in quant finance) that what makes us special is not our intelligence, but our humanity with all its flaws.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Looks like we're getting another big load of solutions soon from OpenAI, this time at least with more consideration for human mathematicians https://openai.com/index/advisory-group-on-mathematics-and-ai/ :




On August 28, we began training a new internal model. In addition to resolving the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize problem⁠, this model has now resolved more than 100 long-standing open problems across most areas of mathematics. The pace of its progress⁠ in mathematics has surprised the mathematicians within OpenAI. This has led to internal discussions on the best way to inform the community of the rapid progress to prepare and adapt the field.




Exciting times, as they say. Their new group:




The group will operate independently from OpenAI. The group will have the freedom to offer advice we have not requested, comment on OpenAI’s impact on mathematics, and make its advice public. Its value depends on its members being able to exercise their own judgement and challenge ours. Its members will not be paid by OpenAI, and the group can change its membership as it sees fit. Importantly, the group will not be responsible for advising us on how to pace our internal progress on mathematics.






Working with this group is a first step. There are difficult questions ahead about how AI can support mathematical understanding and how the benefits of these capabilities can reach the wider community. We want mathematicians to be at the center of shaping the answers.






Initial Members of the Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence⁠, hosted at the Institute for Advanced Study:






François Charles (ENS-PSL)






Camillo De Lellis (IAS, GSSI)






Timothy Gowers (Collège de France, Cambridge)






Martin Hairer (EPFL, Imperial College London)






Nikhil Srivastava (Berkeley, Simons Institue)






Ulrike Tillmann (Oxford, INI)






Ravi Vakil (Stanford)






Edward Witten (IAS)






Melanie Matchett Wood (Harvard)




As an ex-mathematician who now works in a field with no time for sentimentality (if it works, we use it, if it doesn't, we throw it out) I'm quite happy to see AI push the boundaries of the field. My mathematician friends are understandably more reserved about things, but apart from those who literally wanted to just be an academic they're all at least somewhat interested. Equally though another part of me is quite pissed off that we now have a gaggle of commissaries who decide on when and how the top labs will be doling out crumbs of mathematical insight to the general public. This kind of crap, if anything, is what leads to the creation of the "permanent underclass", to use a phrase that is currently a la mode with the AI types. What next, a committee for AI and law? A committee for AI and medicine? A committee for AI and finance (I shudder)???


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
We've had proof of blowup in forced compressible 3D navier stokes even before we got it for the incompressible version. And yes, this is a theoretical result about partial differential equations with minimal relevance to the real world.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
At this point the AI doubters should be eating a double serving of Crow. And the best thing about it all is how this is the worst AI will ever be.


In other news, OpenAI released GPT Image 2.5 today as well, representing yet another significant advance in AI generated images. I'd feel bad for the human artists etc., except the've been dead for over a year at this point and we might as well have their eventual replacement AI be as good as possible.


				

				

						

							

								
    
									
									
									
									
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Collatz so called proof was specifically developed to exploit a known bug in the Lean kernel. This proof was an attempt to actually solve the problem. It's like the difference between a virus appearing in the wild that wipes out the human race vs one that was specifically developed in the lab to wipe out the human race. Just because someone might prove the latter is theoretically possible that shouldn't make us paranoid and start worrying about natural viruses turning up that can wipe out the human race.


I'd be very very surprised if this proof there's a finite time blowup turned out to contain a bug.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
China isn't ahead at this moment in time, but yes, they will be if western labs stop R&D for 12 months.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 31, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And this is why I like what China is doing so much. If western labs stop R&D then if not within 6 months, most definitely within 12 months nobody will be using your models anymore becuase they've all shifted over to the subsidised development Chinese models. Plus, China is now ahead in the AI race.