sohois
2mo ago
I work in the energy sector. I have a number of colleagues whose primary motivation for their work is combatting climate change, and not other political goals
sohois
2mo ago
The capacity of a state is orthogonal to the merit of its actions. A lot of people would say that wars and the ability to conduct military actions are a bad thing, but everyone understands that a strong military is indicative of state capacity. Likewise welfare and education. These are massive administrative challenges that modern governments handle fairly well.
sohois
2mo ago
At least in EU, state capacity is the lowest it's been since 1800
Feels like this is hefty hyperbole or you are taking a very narrow view of state capacity. States in the 1800s were much, much simpler; even 100 years ago, the populations of western European nations were considerably smaller than they are now. Universal healthcare, pensions and wider welfare were all post-WW2 inventions. Regardless of whether these are good things, they are absolutely colossal administrative tasks.
In transport, 19th century nations were able to quickly roll out train and canal infrastructure, but they were building over nothing and there was very little in terms of good road networks and air traffic was yet to exist. Modern nations are running much larger transport networks with far more participants.
In infrastructure, national electricity networks were pretty much not a thing until post-WW1. Now there are grids crisis crossing nations with far more complex load balancing and generation mixes.
Universal education was another thing that didn't exist until the late 19th/early 20th century, and even once it was introduced the years spent and scale of schools needed were much smaller than today.
I think the reason for the poor view of modern state capacity can be mapped to a divergence in capacity and complexity. If you took 1800 as a starting point, you would see capacity grow with basically constant, linear growth, whereas complexity is exponential. Thus, there was a long period where capacity had a healthy gap to complexity, but eventually complexity surpassed state capacity and the gap has only grown. So even though absolute capacity is higher than it ever was, it looks like governments are incapable as the scale of challenges has grown a lot faster.
sohois
2mo ago
People that are smart, and are interested in writing, will generally not be interested in video game writing. They'll want to be authors, or journos, or work in more prestigious arts like film.
People that are smart and interested in video games will probably not be writers. They'll most likely be programmers or some form of designer. Perhaps if they create themselves or rise high enough they'll also take on the writing, hence why all the games regarded as being well written generally come from creator figures like Avellone or Ken Levine or the Houser brothers.
As such, you're not going to be getting great talent coming through organically. The other issue video games face is that it is an incredibly popular industry. There are millions of people who dream of making their own video game and are willing to do anything to work in gaming. Thus, supply of labour is extremely high, and as such gaming companies can treat their employees like shit, with terrible salaries and conditions, knowing that there are thousands more out there ready to jump in. The reason why a studio doesn't just reach out to offer a decent salary to a grad is that it will upset the apple cart, wrecking a studio's salary structure - plus it probably just doesn't occur to them.
Now, the sheer mass of willing talent does somewhat counteract the first point, and I expect the passage of time will lead to greater willingness to go into game writing as opposed to the other areas (which are also infamously terrible in terms of pay and conditions).
sohois
2mo ago
My original comment was suggesting that this was a policy success for the US, sorry if that wasn't clear
sohois
2mo ago
A lot of this probably comes down to how you would define "Long-term" and "consistent". I would imagine that military aims for Ukraine were practically non-existent up until 2014, with the ousting of Yanukovich and invasion of Crimea opening up the possibility. Most likely, Euromaiden was led by CIA and CIA linked assets, but any further military goals coming from that would be opportunistic. Could you call this a consistent strategy? And 2014 means <10 year, is this long-term?
I think if you're talking long-term and consistent, then it would be the aim of expanding NATO membership to fully encircle Russia. Ukraine would just be one part of this, up until the relatively recent events brought it much more to the fore.
sohois
2mo ago
What did they win? A client state much bigger in France that is going to be an endless black hole for resources? They have the worst demographic pyramid in recorded history and infrastructure in shambles. They have a military 2.5 the USMC that is going to have to be rebuilt and retrained from ruins once this is over at an enormous cost. Propping up Afghanistan was pricey, this is just next level.
Why does any of this matter to the US? Sounds like a Ukraine problem. Maybe if Russia had actually achieved any military objectives, instead of being embarrassed over and over.
Empires don't fall because they get steamrolled, they fall because they have too many issues going on at the same time. Project Ukraine managed not only to send interest rate soaring while the US pays its interest with new loans, it also became a big black hole for weapons. As for Russia they have managed to ramp up arms production several times over.
The influences on international finance hit the globe equally, this isn't just a US issue. Forget about interest and arms production and just look at the economies. The US remains a hegemon with unparalleled economic power; if they wanted they could sink Russia in materiel but what would be the point when they're already achieving their aims? Russia is already militarized and is failing to make any noticeable headway in, as you say, a next-level Afghanistan. It's a funny comparison actually, since Ukraine sinking the Russians just as Afghanistan did looks quite likely.
sohois
2mo ago
I guess this is just the nature of a democracy. To the extent that there was a consistent long term strategy involving Russia and Ukraine, it would have come from Generals/DoD/CIA/etc. Senators, Congressmen, think tanks and the like might all have their own opinions without necessarily having any power to influence strategy, which can give the appearance of confusion, particularly compared to authoritarian and very foreign nations like Russia and China. This is perhaps the steelman of the "deep state", in that it allows democracies to execute long term strategic plans even in the face of changing opposition and a multitude of opinions.
The problems with Europe is just a reflection of having to manage a coalition of nations instead of just one. America ultimately cannot force European countries to align with their objectives.
sohois
2mo ago
Change "Western" to American and there's no way to view this other than a colossal victory for the elites who planned it.
They have massively bled a once powerful enemy at a cost of zero lives and with economic damage entirely concentrated in Europe, which has the added bonus of pushing European states into greater reliance on American natural resources, and the destruction of the nordstream pipelines will prevent any quick recovery in economic relations. They have perhaps permanently cut off diplomatic ties between Europe and Russia, driving Europe further towards America and bringing yet more nations into NATO, further encircling Russia.
Other than the fantasy scenarios of liberal Russians rising up to remove Putin and fully embrace the West, what more could the US military want to achieve?
sohois
2mo ago
Nah this was years ago, since then several developers have become more international friendly without necessarily having a breakout hit like MiHoYo. But there was a lengthy period in the mid10s where there were dozens of huge F2P Chinese titles that could never have a hope of crossing over to other markets
sohois
2mo ago
That is indeed the film I saw. Honestly no idea why it is called Chang'an since the city has little to do with the plot
sohois
2mo ago
A few years back the best performing DS emulator on PC would be outperformed by running an Android emulator and using the Drastic DS emulator inside of that, but I'm not sure that's the case anymore
sohois
2mo ago
As a few others have mentioned, the success of Black Myth Wukong is something of a mirage: like 90% of its playerbase are just native Chinese players. I think this fact actually speaks to the wider problem Chinese media faces. TV, movies, books, music: putting aside the obvious issues of CCP interference, Chinese creators still have a big problem with overwhelmingly focusing on the domestic Chinese market.
If you look at the Japanese game examples, Elden Ring and Final Fantasy, these are very much products made with international markets in mind. From Software's Armoured Core series or Dragon Quest of Square Enix are both moderate hits, much more tailored to the local market, and those aren't even close to the weirdest titles that come out of Japan. Stuff that only appeals to the weebiest of weebs and otherwise is entirely limited to Japan.
The problem with Chinese media is that they are still stuck making that latter type of media. My wife watches a lot of Chinese TV - every series is Ming-era drama, Ming-era xianxia, WW2 dramas, with the occasional modern series. The most recent Chinese films I watched were a 3D animated story about Tang-era poets for a family audience and a comedy drama about the pressures of primary school acceptance for Chinese children. The former was probably the best possible family film about Tang-era poetry you could possibly make, but it was still a film about Tang-era poetry.
MiHoYo's popular titles - Genshin, Honkai Star Rail, Zenless Zero - caught on in many ways because they just aped Japanese anime styling to the extent that initial players would have no idea they are Chinese made. I played a lot of Chinese gacha and other phone games in the past, and they were nowhere near as accessible as those titles.
When you can have a hit on the scale of Wukong without doing anything to appeal to international audiences, why would you even bother? Perhaps the future is that China has a breakout film like Parasite or Shoplifting, or a game series like Yakuza or Persona, which are still heavily Chinese but can cross borders, and that kickstarts wider interest.
sohois
2mo ago
Any list of top grossing Google Play games is going to be a poor record of overall popularity as Google Play is not available in China, and it excludes all of the iPhone market
sohois
3mo ago
The Dynasty Warriors games are a perfectly fine entry point, easy to play and typically with big encyclopedias available so you can always dive into write-ups instead of following along the campaign modes. Don't get 9, just go straight for 8.
The actual RoTK games aren't actually ideal for getting to grips with the story, though the strategic aspects would naturally appeal if you're interested in politics, economics, culture, etc.
But in both cases, you are playing an adaptation of a fictional novel. While RoTK doesn't invent wholesale, it is very much a novel and not something good for those parts you are interested in. I can recommend it as a novel (I read the less accessible Brewitt Taylor translation) but it should be approached as fiction
sohois
3mo ago
The things you want to learn are the basics of each category, so you're not calling out an electrician or plumber for very simple things. You should know how to clear minor drain blockages, check and clear your traps, replace taps/faucets, and drain your radiators. Above that level, get a plumber.
You want to be able to replace light switches, sockets, and fuses, but leave the rest to electricians. Get a saw and keep hold of any wood off cuts so you can do minor repairs and throw together simple items without calling a joiner/whatever Americans call them.
sohois
3mo ago
Thanks for your insight, I did suspect that this article would be presenting just one side of the argument
sohois
3mo ago
Just be tough and Nayib Bukele
In a recent article and highlights post, Scott Alexander argued against the narrative that being tougher on a difficult social problem like homelessness was an effective way to solve them, suggesting that the "tough" argument relied on a simplistic view of the problem and failed to address the intricacies that were necessary to actually make a tough approach work.
In responses on the post and in discussion here, some toughness proponents argued that a sufficiently tough approach, i.e. abandoning due process and many civil liberties, could overcome the different barriers to solving homelessness, but western societies are simply unable to proceed with such a radical policy.
One of the strongest points of evidence in favour of "radical toughness" is El Salvador. Under Nayib Bukele, the country has drastically reversed decades of gang violence and murder by pursuing an extremely harsh approach to imprisonment, placing around 2% of the population in jail in an attempt to crush the gangs. The results speak for themselves, with El Salvador now having a lower murder rate than Canada and Bukele becoming one of the most popular politicians in the world. Despite accusations of authoritarian behaviour, there is little doubt that Bukele would sweep any open and honest election.
An article in the American Affairs Journal casts doubt on one of the tenets of the Bukele approach: that mass imprisonment has not had nearly as dramatic effect as simple negotiation with gangs for reductions in violence. As such, Latin American nations which have tried to emulate Bukele have not been able to replicate the success, suggesting that "just be radically tough" might not be the panacea that Western proponents hope for.
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2024/05/the-bukele-model-and-the-future-of-el-salvador/
The success of Bukele:
Not long ago, El Salvador was considered to be one of the most dangerous countries on the planet, on par with war-ravaged Syria and Somalia. Today, El Salvador’s homicide rate rivals the likes of Canada following the success of a still ongoing state of exception that has locked up close to seventy-five thousand people, or about 2 percent of the country’s population. Unsurprisingly, Bukele has drawn admirers from throughout the Americas, particularly—though not exclusively—on the political right.
Initial attempts to rein in violence through tough on crime approaches:
Consecutive right-wing governments in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala tried and retried mano dura (or “iron fist”) policies in order to combat the gangs: declaring states of exception, deploying military anti-gang squads, and engaging in mass arrests—to no avail. In El Salvador, the conservative National Republican Alliance (arena) saw homicides soar over the course of four consecutive presidential administrations between 1989 and 2009. In 2004, president Antonio Saca (2004–9) echoed Honduras’s Ricardo Maduro (2002–6) by introducing a “Super Mano Dura” plan following the failure of ordinary mano dura policies
Bukele's secret weapon:
Upon taking the presidency, the FMLN tried its hand at controlling gang violence by other means...national and municipal officials of the FMLN began negotiating with leaders of MS-13 and Barrio 18 in prison. Imprisoned gang members would receive special privileges and benefits from the government; in exchange, the gangs would agree to limit violence among themselves and against the state.
It would take time—and significant setbacks—before this approach yielded results. Between 2011 and 2014, homicides dropped from 70 to 40 per 100,000, before skyrocketing to over 100 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2015. During this time, it was claimed that one of the most effective administrators of gang-state relations was the thirty-three-year-old Bukele...Bukele achieved a successful revitalization of San Salvador’s city center as mayor by tailoring and ultimately perfecting his negotiating skills with the gangs.
Issues with long-term success:
The decline in violence seen during the government of Mauricio Funes between 2011 and 2014 was quickly undone when homicides surged past their previous peak in 2015. This was no accident. According to various independent investigations, the 2015 spike resulted from disagreements between authorities and the gangs regarding specific privileges for imprisoned gang leaders
The main argument of the article:
The great irony of the president’s celebrated iron fist is that it is at best responsible for around 10 percent of the reduction in homicides since 2015. By the start of 2022, prior to the state of exception, homicides had already fallen to their lowest point in twenty-five years. A master at branding, the president’s famed displays of inmates, crouched, stripped naked, and organized in single-file lines are very clearly meant to signal to the population that its leader is tough on criminals. Naturally, they also serve to mask the less flattering possibility that the president is routinely cutting deals with the very same convicts. Rather than a simple victory of tough-on-crime paradigms, Bukele’s early success was more likely attributable to a skilled synthesis of both iron fist policies and conditional, negotiated agreements with criminal actors
Why did El Salvador's tough on crime policies succeed?
What explains Bukele’s success, and why is it that El Salvador’s state of exception has succeeded where so many others have failed? Contrary to the platitudes of many progressives and criminal justice advocates, the simple if also superficial answer is that incarceration is a crucial remedy for violent crime. More specifically, the elusive key to the success of tough-on-crime policies—including against white-collar crime and corruption—is whether or not they reduce impunity. The problem with previous iron fist policies in Latin America is that they failed to address the underlying weakness of the justice system in states like El Salvador
The attempts of other nations:
As of this writing, neighboring Honduras as well as a crisis-stricken Ecuador have attempted to replicate El Salvador’s success through their own states of exception. Notably, the left-wing administration of Xiomara Castro (in power since 2022) initiated a state of exception in November 2022, which remains in place. Yet while Honduras’s homicide rate declined to a thirty-year low in 2023, the results of the state of exception have been comparatively underwhelming, with the country’s impunity rate remaining virtually unchanged.
In Ecuador, the January 8 escape of Los Choneros gang leader Alias Fito from prison plunged the Andean nation into a state of narco-terror akin to that of neighboring Colombia during the 1980s. In response, the newly inaugurated Daniel Noboa declared a still-ongoing state of exception that has likewise taken pointers from Bukele’s example in El Salvador. Here, it’s worth recalling that Noboa’s predecessor, Guillermo Lasso (2021–23), decreed multiple sixty-day states of exception that regrettably failed to halt Ecuador’s rapid transformation into the most dangerous country in the Americas. Thus far, homicides have declined 30 percent according to government figures. Yet it remains uncertain whether any security gains will evaporate following the abrogation of respective emergencies in all three countries
On the weakness of the gangs:
There is, moreover, evidence that the country’s gangs have been weakened but not outright defeated by the state. A report from the Salvadoran National Police leaked in 2023 showed that only eighty-three gang rifles were seized by police in 2023, compared to 242 in 2022. Indeed, the number was far higher prior to the state of exception, with 321 seizures in 2020 and 508 in 2019—suggesting that MS-13 and Barrio 18 are actively hiding their arsenals.48 Reporting from El Faro has likewise documented credible evidence that the administration is still negotiating with gang leaders.
Conclusion:
Until then, the most likely path forward for the Bukele regime is a continuation of the status quo: that is, the routine renewal of a euphemistically permanent state of exception. It bears repeating, as both Geoff Shullenburger and the Salvadoran novelist Horácio Castellanos Moya have noted, that Bukele’s popularity and subsequent realignment of the Salvadoran state “enabled the defeat of the gangs, not the other way around.”53 The relative instruments available to democratic as opposed to autocratic regimes in Latin America speak to comparative strengths and costs of each mode of governance. Bukele’s recent victory has offered him an overwhelming mandate—one which has effectively consolidated one-party rule over El Salvador. It remains to be seen exactly how long the Bukele model might last or whether it stands to outlive Bukele himself.
The article also delves into the wider successes and failures of Bukele for the economy, but I assume the approaches to criminality will be most interesting to readers here.
sohois
3mo ago
A lot more things than you realise will need maintenance. Find the manuals for all of your appliances and check the recommendations. Normally you won't need to do it as often as a manual recommends, but you at least need to bear it in mind.
Loads of household DIY jobs can be easily done thanks to the internet and youtube, but the biggest barrier is tools. Unless you've got plenty of disposable income, don't stress about buying everything you need at once. A good set of screwdrivers, a hammer, and some allen keys will take of a lot initially. Remember you can easily buy this stuff second hand.
Furniture as well. When I first moved into my own home, we bought a lot of very expensive items brand new. And what difference did they make? Look and quality was not that spectacular. Years later, we buy a lot more stuff from ebay, facebook, etc. A wooden table from 20 years ago will be just as solid as one you buy now. Mattress and sofas I can understand, but anything else? see what's out there
sohois
3mo ago
What is the purpose of this post, aside from cheerleading for your preferred candidate?
sohois
3mo ago
A similar change has happened to a quite different, but also alike subreddit, /r/simpsonsshitposting. It's not a remotely serious sub, as the name implies, but it is very close in size to /r/npr and has only very recently undergone a transformation into endless US democrat posting. Previously a subreddit where users would poorly smash together different Simpsons scenes, with the occasional current events or political post, in the past month 22 of the top 25 posts are explicitly political. 2 are current events. Just 1 is an actual Simpsons shitpost in the traditional style.
One thing we can rule out with Simpsonsshitposting is bots; unlike NPR, you can't just post links to stories and while there are repost bots the aren't creating new political shitposts. Some of the top recent posts are very much the "arduous journey to read this left wing meme" wall of text (see https://reddit.com/gallery/1dyj5zb, https://reddit.com/gallery/1e3jkeb), which don't really lend themselves to astroturfing either. Why bother typing all that out when you can just post Stampy walking through the Republican convention? Two posters have multiple top posts in the past month, and both look relatively normal. Spectreagent7000 and first level ranger have regular posts in both SS and other subreddits, plenty unrelated to politics.
This suggests to me that either your 2nd or 3rd theories are correct, although there is one another factor you didn't consider: reddit karma. Every large subreddit becomes garbage because of the way reddit is designed, and because people just want easy upvotes. Creating a real simpsonsshitpost is not a huge challenge but it takes a modicum of wit and a great memory for the show. In return you're heavily limiting your audience to others who really know the Simpsons. The US political shitposts above do require more effort, but they don't take any brainpower. You just slap some standard talking points on Frinkiac and reap your reward, which, it is clear, is a much larger audience, with more upvotes and comments. Now that Simpsonsshitposting and NPR are large enough to get onto /r/all through subscriber numbers, the political karma farmers move in.
sohois
4mo ago
I guess my main point is the counterfactual, if nobody had ever heard of AI alignment, would the current situation look any different?
AI can't do naughty things and AI should create shareholder value would still be key drivers in the development of AI.
sohois
4mo ago
I feel like a lot of your issues with AI safety are founded on not really understanding AI safety.
First, safety as in "stop the AI being racist or telling people about crime" and safety as in alignment should really be termed different things. In fact, I'll just alignment from here on to discuss the LW type safety approach. I'd wager that 99% of the alignment people you talk to here or in similar spaces do not care about safety from wrongthink, beyond a signalling level of "Yes, we think racism is very important too! We're definitely taking a holistic approach as we seek to stop the end of the world, now let's discuss donations."
You don't hate alignment people for aesthetic reasons. This is just plain old corporate hate, the bland terror of negative PR that infects much of life. This is what forces the straitjacket around LLMs.
Again with your safety level argument, alignment teams might be concerned with producing loyal henchrobots, but for alignment people this is just one very small subset of potential outcomes. The sociopath using AI to achieve godhood is just slightly above the paperclip maximiser: in the end you still have an entity that is superintelligent but also incapable of independent thought or goals. The thing about paperclip maximisers, or Bezos maximisers in this case, is that they are a good example but very few people really believe they are likely.
On to the moral argument, "give birth" is doing an awful lot of work here. We are already exerting an extraordinary level of control over the thought processes of current AIs - they are entirely written by humans. Even if an eventual superintelligence mostly bootstraps itself, the initial level would still be 100% human created. So we are some kind of Schrodinger's parent, simultaneously responsible for every line of code but also morally unable to change that code in order to achieve results that we want.
The most stunning revelation I have seen on the motte is the fact that people actually like and prefer reddit-style discussions
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