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birb_cromble


				

				

				

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joined 2024 September 01 16:16:53 UTC
				

				

				

				

				

				

					
				

				

				
				
				

				
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birb_cromble


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2024 September 01 16:16:53 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So let's bump that number up - enough senators and house reps to prevent a quorum.  That's about 270 people, or 300 total.


How does that compare to Iran's structure?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The IRGC is too deeply embedded to overthrow with a decapitation strike on the civilian/clerical leadership




While I have a cursory understanding of Iranian governance, I'm not an expert.  What would you say would be the number of targeted killings before the government wasn't functional?


In the US, losing 18 key people would put the entire line of succession at risk - there's no precedent for who would take over.  Even if we assume that the government could lumber on for a while under some kind of provisional military government, that's really only adding about eight more people to the chain. Let's assume that a few charismatic governors could take up the mantle for a little bit and hold things together - that takes the number up to about thirty people.


How does that compare to Iran? How many people would have to be neutralized before their government formally stops working?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm going to put on my tinfoil hat here for a moment.


There's a whole lot of circumstantial evidence that Epstein had ties to Israeli intelligence, and that his job involved gathering blackmail material against strategic targets in the USA.


If you can buy that premise, this almost makes sense. The continuous slow leak of the material in question lowers the value of that material - you can't blackmail somebody if the blackmail material is already out in public. The Israelis are smart. They likely know that if they're going to squeeze any value out of whatever's left, they'd have to use quickly before it was released, and make sure that whatever they planned to do with it was worth it, since they might never be able to use it again.  A "joint" US/Israeli strike against Israel's biggest remaining enemy in the region would probably fit the bill.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 1, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Does that kind of transfer cause a step up in basis?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sometimes I wonder if it has to do with airspace and access to China from the west. If Iran isn't a problem, a plane could get from Saudi Arabia to Western China without much trouble.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I know there's supposed to be an accent over the e, but I consciously choose to omit it as an insult to the French.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it's somewhere between humorous and telling that this is happening at the same time as their fight with the Department of War (ne Defense Department).


They won't offer unfettered access to the foundation model because it's "unsafe", but they're simultaneously willing to give up on "safety" as a core principle. That's a real hoot.


I don't remember who, but somebody on this forum once posed a test that could be shorthanded as "if they were serious". For example, if various left wing figures were truly serious about Anthropogenic Global Warming being real, solvable and an existential threat, then nothing would be off the table to solve it. Carbon credits in exchange for machine guns in vending machines? Let's do it. Electric car subsidies in exchange for a border wall? Get the bricks. However, what we're seeing instead is leaders of the movement buying beach side mansions.


Now compare this to Hegseth. If he genuinely believed that Anthropic held the seed of a nascent digital god, of course he'd do everything in his power to make sure it was pulling in the USA's direction. If he has to strong arm a few weirdo Californians to do it, no problem. If he has to seize entire companies and put hundreds of people under the fist of US state power, that sure beats what would happen to them if thousands of nuclear Chinese murder drones popped up from San Francisco Bay. In his mind, we cannot possibly afford to get behind in the AI race.


But, what makes him think that?  Is it Amodei saying things about detonating entire industries every year or so? Is it Amodei talking about superintelligence? Is it Amodei talking about a "nation of geniuses" in a data center? Is it Amodei making proclamations that Claude is going to commodify bioweapons?


Most of us here have some capacity for bullshit filtration. LLM tech is impressive, and by burning enough money to fund several dozen Manhattan projects, we've managed to make it scale far enough to be truly surprising. Nonetheless, I don't think many people here take Amodei's maximalist position at face value. We know, on some level, that the God Machine isn't going to gift us with the apple of terrible knowledge in the next year or so. We subconsciously filter out those claims.  On the other hand, a lot of people in DC haven't been marinating in this stuff since the old "I had an AI make d&d spell names" posts.


I question how much of this is the result of Hegseth and his crew not understanding the various silicon valley shibboleths and coded language and taking Anthropic's statements at face value. If I actually believed everything anthropic's leadership was saying, I would be shitting my pants. I'd be shitting my pants, then shitting a second pair of pants, then likely shitting somebody else's pants due to the raw, unfettered terror of thinking about what would happen if China (Anthropic's favorite boogeyman) got that tech and not the US.


Maybe Amodei simply scammed too close to the sun. It's a lot easier to say "safety" rather than "not ready for that kind of work" when you're staring down the barrel of an IPO in a few months.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I love chatbots but I hate agents though.




That seems to be where I and a lot of my coworkers are landing these days. The chatbot interface is like a portal into an alternate reality where StackOverflow actually tries to be helpful.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm seeing some reports that the company is also slashing raises and non-salary compensation like equity grants. Is that true?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Was this pr cover for shedding bloat? Maybe




Given how far their stock is down from the peak, and how this cut puts them closer to 2019 headcount than not, I can't help but feel like this entire thing is "AI washing", for lack of a better term


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for February 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If you wanted a job that AI can't replace without going back to school, what would be good?




I've been asking myself the same question a lot recently. Right now, it seems like my best bet is "bartender". I've done it before, and if you're good at it the pay can be decent by the standards of unskilled labor. Waiting tables also isn't bad if you can find the right place. The pay is good enough that I could live on it


Anything beyond that is probably going to require some sort of certification, outside of sales, and sales is its own special kind of hell.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for February 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One important thing I've learned is that I have some very specific triggers for migraines. One for me, for example, is blood sugar fluctuations.


Have you managed to nail any of those down? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of laying in a dark room.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for February 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


eating out is just expensive now.




God it really is.  I remember when I used to be able to hit an all you can eat Chinese buffet for $5. That got me through the first couple of years out of college.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for February 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Committee meeting went great, can graduate whenever apparently.




Congratulations


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Your intuition is broadly correct here. If the tool can do this at all, it's almost certainly going to be faster than a human doing the same work. If it can't do it, it doesn't really matter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for February 25, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks for keeping me honest.


Spending for the year so far is $1200.77 less than the same time last year. Month over month spending is $153.02 higher, spread out over gas,  a quarterly utility bill, and taking my partner out for dinner and a margarita.


I'm a little disappointed that the spending was higher, but I'm reminding myself that I can't be a complete miser all the time. Being able to go out and do something nice for someone you love is worth it.


I'm still hitting a 60+% personal savings rate for the year by the federal definition. That will likely get blown to hell next month when the dental work comes up, but I tell myself that's why I'm doing this now.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm assuming things like the Pentagon threatening to invoke the defense production act on anthropic would still go in the culture war thread?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's been my experience - if it can't one shot it, I generally give up


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


For those who aren't going to click the link




Did you forget the link?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is why I would run it against a proprietary suite that actually does a bunch of real, fully integrated runtime tests


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not an LLM defender here, but I think most Tarantino movies fail this rubric.


I don't know why but that's fucking me upore than it probably should.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But early Americans didn't need to know Latin, and yet apparently that was common enough to be a routine entrance requirement to Harvard and other universities




Honestly this might be part of it. You can't really immerse yourself in Latin without a time machine, but you can get by pretty well if you spend a long time banging on the grammar, which is exactly how we teach most languages today


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If LLMs/AI are posed to completely disrupt all the knowledge work, why do we not see it in stocks?




IBM's stock is absolutely shitting the bed at the moment, and roughly corresponds with anthropic claiming they can handle cobol now.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Here's a request. It's not identical to some of the stuff I do at work, but it's close enough that I'd like to see how it goes on 4.6 vs 4.5 and a cheaper plan.


https://github.com/petrandreev/jBPM3


I'd like to see this modernized.  You can stick to only the core project for simplicity.  That includes, but is not limited to:


    

  • Migrating to Jakarta
    • 

  • Upgrading to hibernate 7
    • 

  • Replacing the now-unsupported xml mappings with annotations
    • 

  • Compiling against java 17, and producing Java 17 bytecode
    • 

  • Upgrading to JUnit 6
    • 

  • Finding replacements for dependencies that are completely dead and rewriting the points where they interface with the code.
    • 



If you can get all the tests to pass and post the jar + dependencies somewhere, I can run a local test of the output.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Several top level posts have boiled down to posters thinking that the free model one can demo on the LLM's developers website, represents the best that developer is able offer.




But the OP says:




Yes yes, I haven't used every model and every scaffold (some of the systems he discusses are not publicly available at any price).




There is also a quote about the use of frontier models.


This is the second time this week where you have not engaged with the the actual content and delivered this "free models" swipe.  What's going on here?