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self_made_human

Kai su, teknon?

16 followers   follows 0 users  
joined 2022 September 05 05:31:00 UTC

I'm a transhumanist doctor. In a better world, I wouldn't need to add that as a qualifier to plain old "doctor". It would be taken as granted for someone in the profession of saving lives.

At any rate, I intend to live forever or die trying. See you at Heat Death!

Friends:

I tried stuffing my friends into this textbox and it really didn't work out.


				
User ID: 454


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
self_made_human


								

								

								
								
									
								
								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Kai su, teknon?

				
				
				

				

					16 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 05:31:00 UTC
				


				
					

					
I'm a transhumanist doctor. In a better world, I wouldn't need to add that as a qualifier to plain old "doctor". It would be taken as granted for someone in the profession of saving lives.


At any rate, I intend to live forever or die trying. See you at Heat Death!



				

				
					
Friends:

					
I tried stuffing my friends into this textbox and it really didn't work out.


				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 454


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Of possible interest:


/images/17437656867908418.webp


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm no expert, but my understanding of the consensus opinion of most economists is that tariffs are net negative, and negative sum for both partners in trade. There are other relevant concerns, such as geopolitical leverage, but I've yet to be swayed from my belief that these tariffs are fundamentally stupid and not imposed in a reasonable fashion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for April 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Compatibility with a pc, while not non-existent, can be a headache at times. I prefer the Xbox layout too!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for April 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thank you, that's excellent advice.




Does require regularly unplugging it to get the most out of it.




Why is that the case?




Your monitor and GPU will very likely support HDMI, knowing nothing other than the stats you provide, but double-check both support and compatibility -- a lot of highest-framerate options work best over DisplayPort. Adapters are cheap (though I'd recommend splurging around ~15 USD), but they suck to have to wait a weak for, and with tiny number of exceptions these adapters are unidirection.




Since I ended up opting for a TV instead of a monitor (a 4K OLED VRR TV is cheaper than a smaller QHD OLED monitor), HDMI 2.1 is the only option. I've confirmed compatibility.




There's some specialty things (eg, if you get water cooling, a cheap pump shutoff humidity sensor can save you a lot of frustration; if you do a lot of console- or simulator-like gaming there are some recs I can give for gamepads or throttles; VR headsets can change a lot of interests), but I'll assume that if you had those constraints you'd have mentioned them (and water cooling is pretty marginal today).




This PC is watercooled. I didn't want that, but since it was the cheapest model with a Ryzen 9800X3D and an RTX 5080, my frugality won out. Is that humidity sensor easy to install?


I am somewhat interested in a controller, I prefer the Xbox layout over a PS4/5 one. I'm familiar with VR, I owned a Quest 2, but didn't bring it over from India. There's not much room to properly use it, unfortunately.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for April 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm quite confident that it does have spares, but I haven't unboxed it yet (I need to move it over), and the manufacturer is rather coy about the specific brand of B650 motherboard in use. I'd expect, given the price I paid for it, there should be a few handy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for April 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have an unfortunate habit of downloading games that are maybe 50 gigs in size and then adding on several hundred gigs of mods. I think I was well past 300 gb for Arma 3, and even poor old Rimworld, which is sub 1 gb by itself, bloated to 17+.


I can see a good deal for 4tb M.2 NVME drives with decent reviews, so I'm inclined to future proof. I'm not the target audience for a RAID setup, anything critical is likely a small file and backed up to the cloud.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for April 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Quick request for a spot check:


I've had the build for a new pc in my apartment trickling in. So far, I've ordered/received/have:


    

  1. The pc.
    2. 

  2. An OLED TV that is VRR and will serve as the monitor.
    3. 

  3. An HDMI 2.1 cable.
    4. 

  4. A cheap but cheerful mechanical keyboard.
    5. 

  5. Surge protector and power strip.
    6. 

  6. Bluetooth dongle.
    7. 

  7. Mousepad
    8. 



The audio quality of my phone is good enough that I'd be happy to use it as a mic, and as a webcam. I have Bluetooth earphones and a mouse that I like. I think the PC came with power cables, but I haven't unboxed it yet. Wired internet is not an option, so I have to settle for wifi running off a 5g uncapped service. Should be fine, if not ideal.


?buy:


    

  1. More internal or external storage, SSDs only. The 1 TB internal drive won't hold up to my needs.
    2. 



Am I missing anything? Any QOL improvements?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I intend to, but I'm unfortunately quite lazy. When I do, I'll park it and forget it till a rainy day.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The base training data isn't the same for all the models. We know that there's likely enormous overlap, because of low hanging fruit like the Common Crawl. Yet the different companies fight tooth and nail to either semi-legally scrape more data, or strike deals with entities like Reddit or Bloomberg for access to theirs.


And even then, they have different post-training and fine tuning. There might be overlap between different companies because they at least partially outsource to data-annotators in places like Nigeria, India or Vietnam. Even so, anyone who has used all of these models can tell you that them giving the same answer is unusual, for most non-trivial questions where there isn't a canonical solution.




how to implement tarrifs effectively




Note that the prompt asked about how to implement tariffs easily. Not effectively. This was the maximally easy, non-rigorous solution.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My sheer laziness has saved me. I was asking about financial advice a month back, which largely confirmed my urge to buy the S&P 500 or Vanguard.


Then the previous market crash happened, and I resolved to buy the dip, but ended up procrastinating.


Still am, but look at me, saved from (theoretical) losses by Never Doing Anything.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Oh dear. I very much didn't mean to imply that the US government isn't big enough, my gut feeling is that it's quite the opposite. At least that's what I feel is directionally correct, even if I don't think I'm qualified to offer an authoritative opinion on how large the ideal government is, and what it does.


If I had to answer:


    

  1. The military. Espionage. Law enforcement of the kinds of crimes that span state borders or are too large and important to be left to them.
    2. 

  2. Economic policy.
    3. 

  3. Ensuring the stability of political structure and tasks like organizing elections.
    4. 

  4. R&D
    5. 

  5. Coordinating infrastructure projects that are too large for individual states.
    6. 



Number 4 captures things like NASA, DARPA, the NIH and the like. Government expenditure has outsized returns here. Some expenses, like the size of the military, depend greatly on what other nations are up to. Even the IRS is, I'm told, extremely cost effective and makes about $10 back from additional revenue for every dollar spent on their budget.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As someone who is an occasional enjoyer of rdrama.net, I get plenty of satisfaction from the opportunity to munch popcorn. Unfortunately, that satisfaction is grossly outweighed by the sheer economic fallout that this will cause if not amended, and the still terrible impact on market stability that such arbitrary and inane policies produce.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's possible that his orientation towards reality has broken down through some combination of his mental health worsening, stress, drug abuse and just arising from the fact that politics is often a mind-killer. But as you correctly say, if you wear a mask often enough, it might turn out to stick.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm on board with the idea of a department dedicated to ensuring governmental efficiency. I'm a minarchist, with the caveat that I think there's an optimal size and scope for governments (and little evidence that we're already there).


Even the politically motivated firings, I understand, if not condone. Trump's first term was plagued with malicious compliance, obstruction and outright and blatant ignoring of orders.


The execution? All kinds of programs that most people think are laudable are catching strays. The administration doesn't seem to be particularly on the ball when it comes to rolling back the most obviously negative changes. And the savings figures they tout are frankly speaking, worthless.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The bit about the implied tariffs including "currency manipulation" and "trade barriers" reeks of making up numbers to me, and. back-calculation from the figures below:


https://x.com/orthonormalist/status/1907545265818751037




It's trade deficit divided by their exports.






EU: exports 531.6, imports 333.4, deficit 198.2. 198.2/531.6 is 37, close to 39.






Israel: exports 22.2, imports 14.8, deficit 7.4. 7.4/22.2 is 33.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm confident that my future kids won't go to college (there'd be no point). Perhaps some degree of standard schooling might still be either legally or pragmatically necessary, but there's no need for a college fund. I've always been an autodidact, and with LLM assistance (and the wider internet for procedural skills), it's quite possible to teach yourself most of the things formal education can.


I particularly pity people entering or immediately graduating college right now. I've previously discussed at length my beliefs that a qualified doctor in training like myself still has a very limited shelf life. If I had to put numbers on things. I think that by the time I become a full consultant (which takes ages in the UK), there's 50:50 odds of an outright hiring freeze or layoffs.


Someone entering med school right now? Good luck paying off those loans. I don't envy them at all.


The very young are luckier. It's their parents who need to agnoize over their fates. Maybe by the time they're older, we're more clear on the trajectory of the future, and whether humans need not apply to jobs or colleges.


The most general and sane advice I can give to anyone reading this is to try and make more money, and then save and invest it. It'll probably do your kids more good than anything else you can do.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Or he might just be bipolar and worsening, with hypomania transitioning into full-blown mania. The evidence I've seen for that claim seems quite robust, man's hardly sleeping and Xeeting all day, when he isn't making other questionable life choices. Not that recent sycophancy or political mind-killing aren't factors, but he's going off the deep end.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Musk, at least prior to DOGE, erred on the side of being overly optimistic and discounting risk, rather than a clear lack of rigour. You can't run moonshot companies like as is literally the case for SpaceX, or Tesla, if you don't make sure you've done your best to account for all relevant factors.


Unfortunately, the move fast and break things approach is a bit harder to endorse when it comes to federal governance, not that I'm an expert.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I agree, the one thing that businesses and financial system hate is inconsistency and fickle behavior. How exactly are the supposed to plan out new projects in places like Mexico or Vietnam, if tariffs can change on a dime? Even in a domestic context, the price of raw materials or other imports would be anyone's guess.


Look at my economists, dawg, we're NGMI. Well, it probably won't be that bad, but none of this is good.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Trump tariffs McDonald's:


BBC article for a more detailed overview.


Highlights or lowlights include:


    

  1. 32% tariffs on Taiwan, though I'm told that they thankfully exclude semiconductors.
    2. 

  2. 46% on Vietnam and 49% on Cambodia, so gg to companies encouraged to diversify outside of China.
    3. 

  3. 10% tariffs (the absolute floor, or Trump's idea of a sweetheart deal) on such interesting nations as Tuvalu (with that sweet sweet  .tv license) and the Heard and McDonald islands, which are uninhabited.
    4. 

  4. Some quite seriously speculating that the entire policy was AI generated. https://x.com/krishnanrohit/status/1907587352157106292  :
    5. 





This might be the first large-scale application of AI technology to geopolitics.. 4o, o3 high, Gemini 2.5 pro, Claude 3.7, Grok all give the same answer to the question on how to impose tariffs easily.




    

  1. Others note the resemblance to the common ReLU function in ML, but the gist of it is a hamfisted approach that is setting tariffs off the equation trade deficits/imports, despite denial by the administration (or at least the Deputy White House Press Secretary), who presented an equation that literally says that but prettied up.
    2. 



I'm not an economist, but I don't think it's a good idea to throw out tariffs with such clear absence of rigor. The only saving grace is that Trump is fickle, so if enough people yell at him from his in-group, he might pivot in a week. If not, bloody hell.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
https://blog.google/products/gemini/how-we-built-gemini-robotics/


This would be a strong contender, alongside Boston Dynamics and their Chinese counterparts. The capabilities demonstrated here are staggering, they just need to get a little faster and cheaper.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
https://x.com/mbalunovic/status/1907436704790651166


Gemini 2.5 Pro was released on the same day as the benchmarks, so data contamination seems rather unlikely. You'd expect contamination on all the questions, and not just two.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks for the ping. As I've always said, getting models to do any better than chance is the biggest hurdle, once they're measurably better than that, further climbs up the charts are nigh-inevitable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Depending on how old she is, she might be comfortable with withdrawal rate that's greater than the normal 4% that's usually thought of as the "safe withdrawal rate". As others have said, a managed fund is almost always a bad call.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yup. I forgot the AMA is analogous to the BMA, and that you guys don't have a central regulator like we do in the form of the GMC.