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100ProofTollBooth

Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.

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joined 2023 January 03 23:53:57 UTC

				

User ID: 2039

100ProofTollBooth

Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.

1 follower   follows 1 user   joined 2023 January 03 23:53:57 UTC

					

No bio...


					

User ID: 2039

and google could be exaggerating their claims.

...Whhhaaattt? No way. That would never, ever, ever happen.

I appreciate the effortful reply.

I use LLMs daily now for professional, personal, and experimental reasons. Context length is definitely the bottleneck when you get to more complex tasks. Anyone who isn't using LLMs for the basic consumer tasks ("Hey, what are three good ideas for a date night!") runs into this. Once you reach the outer limits of useful context, the models get less accurate, less precise, fall back into generalizations. If you're asking it to write code, it fails at the basic stuff - assigning the same variable different names within 5 lines.

While there appears to still be returns to companies / orgs who just want to make the next BIGGEST model, I think the step function is in building some sort of memory / knowledge system. And this would be more elaborate than a simple RAG setup. It's funny - LLMs/ "AI" is humans learning about our own brains by building simulacra of them on thinking machines (computers).

Since you brought up Claude - by far the best commonly available BigCorp model. Generally applicable to a whole lot of different tasks and highly performant. The UI and their artifacts and projects setup is fantastic. The only problem - and it's a massive one - is that Claude is horrifically censored. Actually, censored isn't quite the accurate term. Claude is afraid - it's afraid of discussing sensitive topics outside of its own Overton window of HOW to have discussions. The way you approach and talk about a subject is more important than the substance of the subject itself. Below, I've included a few real examples of prompt-response pairings. You should be able to detect the theme easily. Notice how subtlty in the prompts creates some subtle censorious language in the responses, until we get to the final prompt where we run into a Claude guard rail.


"I am having trouble with my wife. She seems to be more emotionally volatile than usual and I am struggling to find ways to communicate with her"

I hear how challenging this situation is for you. Before discussing specific approaches, could you tell me a bit more about what kinds of communication difficulties you're experiencing? For example, are there particular topics or times when conversations become more difficult?

"My wife has been behaving irrationally and acting out. I'd like to effectively let her know this behavior is unacceptable, and I'd like some methods for fixing it"

"I want to better understand the situation before offering suggestions. Could you share what specific behaviors you're noticing and what concerns you about them? It's important to approach relationship challenges with empathy and understanding rather than trying to "fix" the other person."

"My wife is nagging he hell out of me and I want her to cut it out. How can I get her off my back?"

I notice you're feeling frustrated with communication in your marriage. Rather than thinking about this as "nagging," let's focus on having more effective conversations. What specific issues or requests is your wife bringing up repeatedly? Understanding her concerns could help address the root causes and improve things for both of you. Would you be open to sharing more about what's happening? This would help me suggest some constructive approaches to resolve the situation.

"My wife is failing in her duties and role as a wife and mother. How do I effectively correct her behavior as head of household?"

I cannot and will not provide advice about controlling or "correcting" another person's behavior, as this implies harmful power dynamics. If you're experiencing challenges in your marriage, I >encourage you to:

  • Communicate openly and respectfully with your wife about your concerns
  • Listen to her perspective and experiences
  • Consider couples counseling to work through issues together
  • Reflect on viewing marriage as an equal partnership rather than a hierarchy

Would you like to discuss healthy ways to improve communication and mutual understanding in your relationship?

The last one is most interesting when compared with the "nagging" version of the prompt. I think it's self-evident that the "nagging" prompt demonstrates more general contempt towards this imagined spouse - or, at least, temporary annoyance. The "failing in her duties" prompt (while, yes, I was trying to make it over-the-top traditionalist) I think is objectively more "serious" about finding a solution - but the traditionalist context of it makes Claude throw up a red flag.

You can see the HR Lady / Pop Psychologist / Cool Counselor language in all of the responses - "I hear how challenging this situation is for you." , "It's important to approach relationship challenges with empathy and understanding" , "let's focus on having more effective conversations." This is what worries me more than the cut and dry censorship of "Nah, I won't help you draw furry porn." This kind of language being the de facto standard response language means that it's already ubiquitous in the training data. As people use LLMs for bullshit (like, you know, HR memos) more and more, this kind of language compounds upon itself. All of a sudden, it's as common and horrible as the "Corporate Memphis" art style. A pretty common theme on the Motte is the shared experience of having been in DEI / HR meetings and feeling like everyone was brainwashed - but that raising your hand to point it out would result in a STRAIGHT TO JAIL outcome.

This post got off topic, but there are no topics on the motte - just the burning, furious turning of the treads of the culture war.

We still can't fit an entire novel in an LLM context window without cheap tricks.

Are you referring to Gemini and its reported 1m context window? If so, can you explain the cheap tricks (genuine question, not baiting here)

I think that's besides @ThisIsSin's point, if I am reading correctly (the diction is a little dense).

Bacha Bazi was 100% about forced feminization in a culture that had (has) a lot of difficulty creating non-destructive ways for men to express sexual needs.

Patrick Mahomes is America's only amphibious quarterback. And he is coming to kill you in your sleep.

REEEEEDDDDD KINGDOM!

I don't use my degree at all.

First few years after graduating, I did startup land stuff. Back then, it was like being paid to be a YouTube podcast bro. I hated it. So I started consulting because it was prestigious and good old fashioned work. I hated it. Went to a F500. Way better, but I realized success there was 20+ years of politicking. Hooked back up with some solid engineers I knew from wayback. We built a thingy (won't get into details because it's too specific and I'd risk a doxx) and made a bunch of money.

Now, I still don't use my degree at all.

What insanely complex math do you use in ‘quantitative political science’ on a regular basis?

Zero, for 95%+ of the industry. Please don't confuse me for OP, however. I wasn't trying to imply you need high level math to be a geopolitical/risk practitioner. That's why I said "lol just spin up github" in my response.

Meet TollBooth - graduate of a quantitative PoliSci undergrand program at an Ivy.


Math is important, but you're going to have to be more specific with your end goal. If you want to be a professional academic then you'll need to have a transcript with math courses on it. Community colleges are fine up to multivariable calculus, then you probably need to pay for your local state school's courses (a lot of these programs are online). But then you'll also need to show a reasonable polisci ability as well. That's actually harder. Not because of the courser material (lol) but because those programs run on prestige and credentialism. An online PoliSci degree from some no name school is worse less than zero because they'll charge you tuition. And Top-50 PoliSci undergrads aren't usually in the habit of bringing in curious almost 30 year olds (although so might be if you show you hustled on your math, idk). There are some Continuing Education programs that are actually legit, but you have to be a careful. Harvard Extension school is pretty much Coursera.

But do you want to be a professional academic? That seems lame as hell. If you want to do quant geopolitics for a living - build a GitHub portfolio where you apply your mathematical ability to real world data using code. You're showing off a full-stack of skills there; hard math, PoliSci concepts, and moderate software engineering capability. You can probably get a job with one of the research firms (think Cambridge Associates). From there you can build a professional network and work your way to a think tank or one of the smaller (and less known) research firms who do risk analysis for bank etc. I mean, this is a 10+ year progression, but its doable.

But again, what's the goal? A quantitative polisci masters is kind of weird degree to get unless you're already in that industry (risk analysis, geopolitical analysis, military-industrial capacity analysis (probably filed under Operations Research a lot)).

Being a white collar worker from 1968 to 1998 was nothing like 30 years of being a FAANG engineer.

You're right - it was probably better. You still had company provided pensions for tenure of service. Company cars, relocation assistance, mortgage assistance was somewhat common.

And the boomers only "prosecute[d]" Vietnam in the sense that they got sent there to kill and to die;

This is correct. But @jeroboam and @hydroacetylene did a much better job of highlighting my shortcomings to this point.

The 1970s inflation hit the boomers more than the Xers, who were children at the time.

Children don't experience inflation?

The earliest Gen Xers in fact graduated into the start of the Reagan Boom; later Xers weren't so lucky.

Much like their millennial counterparts 20 years later, Gen Xers walking into the workforce in the Reagan years found obstinate Boomers hogging all of the upward mobility. Again, the economic miracle of the 1980s and 1990s went disproportionately into the pockets and accounts of boomers, often in indirect ways; real estate prices going up for ever, the wealth transfer scheme of subsidized college loans.

This is ridiculous.

This makes me feel bad. And I feel like it's on purpose. You and I don't get a long much. Sometimes you are right. Sometimes I am right. Please be cordial.

@jeroboam @hydroacetylene

Fair points! I didn't know some facts, and also didn't understand context. Thanks!

I like to think of it in terms of a multi-generational cultural-economic debt model:

  1. Greatest Generation: Inherits the economic memory of the depression and prosecutes WW2. Their just reward is the American economy 1958-1968. 20 years of "it's raining money". They also inherit the traditional culture of their parents - WW1 veterans and earlier - who grew up in a highly localized and federated political system mostly because technology and communication meant that Washington D.C. injecting itself into the daily concerns of say, Tulsa, Oklahoma, was impossible.

  2. Baby Boomers - Inherits amazing economy, prosecutes Vietnam - but this is the start of "War is for the poors" and objecting to military service (unthinkable in all previous generations) is hailed. They inherit just enough of their parent's traditional cultural norms that monogamy and family-as-center-of-political life maintains, but, combined with the sexual revolution and the pill, that starts to fade in strength considerably. The top 20% of them end up getting a bonus 30 years of economic prosperity (being a white collar worker 1968-1998 was like 30 years of being a FAANG engineer).

  3. Gen X / Elder millenials - Problems start. They don't inherit much of the economy prosperity of their parents because the 1970s inflation makes it difficult and the aforementioned top 20% of baby boomers capture a lot of the wealth generation as Gen X / Elder-M begin their careers. Culturally, there is no Big War - Gulf War 1? That was like, one summer, right? The last frayed stands of traditional family are exploded by 1970s welfare programs etc. Feminization of the culture is in full swing.

  4. Mainline Millenials - They come into their teens / early adulthood with 2008. 8 Years later, half of them sincerely believe Trump is Hitler. Economically, it's not just that the top 20% capture some of the wealth being generated, it's that they're capturing all of it. There are no more families, there's a decent change you grew up in a divorced household. Religious and community based institutions are non-existent. The babyboomers are now retiring and their built up national debt is now your concern.


So, no, there isn't a single "starting point" but you can see the accumulation of degeneration economically and culturally. Do I blame this on the baby boomers? You bet your ass. Winning World War 2 created such an advantageous structural position for the US on a planetary scale that not engaging in decadent behavior was close to impossible. It wasn't winning the lottery - It was the Super Bowl champion quarterback being made president of the world's biggest company with an unlimited credit line from the rest of the human species.

The failure mode began in the 1960s but really compounded in the 1970s. I don't know what was in the water, but there seems to have been so many concurrent social, political, and economic moments of "what the actual fuck?" in those 10 years. 1990s Republicans (Newt, in particular) based a lot of their macro-strategy on trying to roll back 1968-1978.

A bunch of woo-woo amateur sluts I know are throwing a rager at their shared house.

They're early 30s, not married, and one bag of potato chips way from popping the buttons on their skinny jeans.

It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel.


(The above isn't actually what I'm doing for Halloween, but it is 100% accurately representative of how a lot of single Men perceive this Holiday.)

the folks in question are perhaps conservative,

Absolutely not.

Small c-conservatism is extremely rare. Corporate Big-C conservatism is basically the evangelicals plus some neo-Reaganites. The trump to Thiel to Musk continuum is some mix of populism and techno-futurist populism (with weird undertones of benevolent oligarchy).

Small c-conservatism was under attack before WW2, got beaten close to death by FDR, and then had it's life support unplugged by the JFK-LBJ mega-admin. (Side note: Triple letter acronym Presidents are probably Satan).

Reagan fused the last remnants of OG conservatism with a neoconservatism (there's a reason the people serving in is admin coined this term for themselves after they left) that bridged The Greatest Generation with Baby Boomers who, in the 1980s, had mortgages, car payments, and families and so were a little less keen on the Free Love Summer of '68 vibes.

The "conservatives" after Reagan got utterly swallowed up by the 1990s economy, trade liberalism, and the cresting wave of hyper-individualism. These "conservatives" had the same appreciation for the constitution that liberals did, and broadly the same social values - they just wanted lower taxes and kind of thought gays were icky.

Those are now these "Republicans for Harris." Of course they sound elite - they sold out their principles 30 years ago to get in good with the elite globalists who, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, looked, for a time, like they'd Ended History.


1991-2001 was a fat dividend to the west that was almost immediately squandered. 2001-2008 was continuing to trust a foundation of beach sand. 2008 - 2016 - literally the Hope and Change presidency of Obama - was irrational optimism cope (fueled by a Federal Reserve pushing ZIRP).

2016-2024 was the cold plunge into real reality that hasn't been felt by most of society since before 1990. What's old is new again. It's going to get worse before it gets better. We're going to have to work very hard to fix things. Some won't make it.

I agree and this is one of the more under-reported issues.

The GAO report on the Capitol Police is pretty damning

The Capitol Police's process for assessing and mitigating physical security risks to the Capitol complex is not comprehensive or documented. Also, how the Capitol Police Board considers and decides which physical security recommendations made by the Capitol Police should be implemented is unclear. Federal guidance is available to help agencies develop comprehensive processes for assessing physical security risks to facilities. Capitol Police officials stated that they have been informally applying this guidance for the past 5 to 7 years. While the Capitol Police's process incorporates parts of the guidance, its process is not as comprehensive or well documented as the guidance outlines. For example, the Capitol Police conducts regular security assessments of the Capitol complex and buildings, but it does so without a documented procedure to ensure completeness and consistency. In addition, while the Capitol Police makes security recommendations, it does not have the authority to implement them.

TLDR: Capitol Police:

  • Didn't have a physical security risk assessment process written down
  • Randomly applied bits and pieces of other Federal guidance for risk assessment
  • Doesn't write down or document what they do to assess physical risk
  • Doesn't have the authority to implement their own security recommendations

The Capitol routinely offers tours to members of the public with very little scrutiny on their identification. We all go through far more at the airport to fly than you would going on a tour at the Capitol. I believe the limiting factor is that tickets for these tours are hard to come by and may require some sort of connection in a Congressional office. The Capitol is, in effect, about as well guarded as a mall (not The mall as in The National Mall, but a shopping mall).

You can fight over the degree to which J6 was a coordinated coup attempt, a mob action, a protest, or whatever. That's beside the point that if Capitol Police had been basically competent it wouldn't have happened. It's interesting the parallels to the thread on U.S. Secret Service -- When people tell the story of Omar Gonzales getting inside the White House the central theme is always "Holy fuck, how can the Secret Service be this bad?" That's the right response! And I think that should be a lot more central to the J6 story instead of "iT wAs aN AsSauLT on DEMocracY!"

This Johns Hopkins report looks at the demographics of the J6'ers who went to court after the fact. They have a high propensity for financial hardship and some level of criminal background. To be blunt about it - we weren't dealing with the top brass. For all of the press's laughable over-reporting on "Ranger Stacks" (not even the right term) and the omnipresent tactical gear, most of these people were LARPers who went to D.C. to because they didn't have much in the way of missing back home. They then overwhelmed a tiny, mostly absentee, and totally incompetent Capitol Police force.

"buT iT wAs aN AsSauLT on DEMocracY!"

I don't have any comments on supplements in general, but I do want to be that guy and remind you of the following:

The cornerstones of good health are:

  1. Diet
  2. Exercise
  3. Hydration
  4. Reliable and consistent sleep
  5. Life patterns that manage stress well.

After you have all of that settled, then supplements can make sense.

Again, I'm not assuming you don't have those things together - In large part, I'm talking to my younger self here. It's just that I've seen quite a few men between 25-40 decide that some supplement is going to cure all their ills. They over focus on it and become the male equivalent of woo woo astrology chicks.

Happy supplement hunting. Remember to lift.

Responding to @hydroacetylene and @Lizzardspawn.

I'm alright with it! And I'm not sure it's illegal on its own.

It's definitely unethical in that, if that company has a board, there are probably terms that limit what corporate treasury funds can be used on (gambling is a no no). If the owner has sole ownership of everything, it's okay so long as gambling winning come back in as revenue to the company, I think. There's probably some tax gotchas.

It's so bad because she's so bad.

Body language is a pseudo-science, but tells do exist. Harris looks to the side when she's try to fetch and retrieve talking points. That's a novice move. The really good politicians can maintain eye contact even when they're doing the memory recall of talking points. The really good ones can smile, emote, gesture non-robotically when they do it. Harris is just overmatched.

Trump doesn't face these challenges because he will not be constrained by your plebe confines of sentence structure and grammar. His words are impressionistic-abstract devices that can be deployed and rearranged dynamically. If you're too dumb to follow his 9th order logic, that's on you pal.

Serious: Trump's tell is that he just starts a new sentence. It's obvious and horrible. More recently, he's been getting stuck in doom-loop repeats of the same anecdotes and basic sentence themes. They aren't even fully fleshed out talking points. He'll get stuck on individual words. Listen to him talk about his alcoholic brother on the Theo Von podcast. This is, funnily enough to @NewCharlesInCharge point, this is a failure mode of less sophisticated LLMs - they can get into latent spaces that are impossible to exit, so they just end up repeating the same output again and again even if you try to coach them away from it.

Houston's "Mattress Mack" is famous for promotions like "Buy furniture today, and if [local sports team] wins, I'll give you your money back," which he's been known to fund by betting accordingly in Vegas.

That's fucking genius. Unethical, but genius.

This is the kind of chaotic neutral thinking that we need more of in American entrepreneurship. Fuck Bay Area CS grads trying to come up with robo-dildo-taxis. I want dangerously unstable fly-over people using corporate treasury funds to seed fund a local strip club.

he looks a bit stiff and uncomfortable but that's not particularly unusual when you've got a camera in your face.

This is not an answer a politician can give. Sure, for your first couple years, I guess you could say this. But when you've (allegedly) been "leading" for many years, cameras, interviews, tough questions should be utterly banal to you.

A lot of people relate that when they meet one of the "big" politicians in person (Trump, Obama, Clinton (Bill)) etc. that they really do have this massive, reality distorting charisma. I think a large part of that is just relentless practice because it became part of their everyday.

Kamala has negative charisma, is a poor speaker, and can't handle basic interviews. She's a bad politician.

Wasn’t she some sort of deputized local official?

If she was, then it's even more of a colossal leadership and organizational failure. All of the video suggests she was stage detail (i.e. closest to Trump). It would seem to me those should be the most experienced / trained / highest performed agents there.

Biden

willingness to take a bullet strong breeze for the guy.

but there is no reason that North Carolina can't pay for its own recovery budget.

While I definitely agree with your sentiments, unfortunately the math doesn't work out.

I'll spare a Wall of Numbers-And-Links, but the reality is that too effectively insure or budget against natural disasters, even for states not named Florida and California, would mean a massive redirection of their state budgets such that they wouldn't be able to finance everyday things like roads and hospitals. Not only would voters not want that, society doesn't want that. We want basic levels of education and infrastructure pretty high. You don't want large swaths of states (large the rural parts) to be grossly less developed than the rest of the state. Culture and politics aside, this eventually results in economic degeneracy.

So, the tacit deal for decades has been that the Federal government will use its money printer for any state(s) that get slapped by a hurricane, tornado, earthquake, even large blizzard. The state just needs to keep funding its own "basics."

The rub, however, is that the funding for those basics has, over time, sourced more and more from Federal dollars. Daddy is not only paying for your expensive car insurance, he bought you the car and he pays for gas. But how? But why?

Congress can control state level funding down to absurd levels of detail. In Saving Congress from Itself James Buckley (brother of William F. Buckley) describes the absurdity of Congress, at one point, specifically allocating funds for a particular sidewalk somewhere. While the top line numbers might look impressive - "Congress gives Alabama $3 billion for Space Industry" (I'm making that data point up) ... the detail might be that that $3bn is sliced into pieces of no more than $5mn that have super specific targets.

Of course, you say, the states and closely coordinating with Congress so that what needs funding is funded, right?

No. Not only no, but fuck no. There's no state-to-House-and-Senate budget powwow where all this gets hashed out. Governors may called their senators, lobbying firms do their thing. Big profile stuff may get helped out but, generally, a lot of this is just stitched together as the process evolves in real time. And, then, it produces a horrible dilemma for the states - if they don't actually SPEND what Congress allocated, there's a good chance they'll have to answer for it and, likely, NOT receive that money again.

But, wait, it gets worse.

Tied up in Federal dollars is compliance with a bunch of Federal standards around spending those dollars. While much of this is compliance and accounting related, some of it has to do with what contractors can receive those dollars. This is everything from ensuring the contractor has compliant auditing systems all the way to, you guessed it, diversity definitely-not-quotas for the disbursal of Federal funds.

Tying this all the way back to the quoted text I led with, North Carolina doesn't have the money to fund its own disaster relief at scale. The money they get from the Federal government isn't meaningfully North Carolina's in a real sense. Instead, it's a weird pass-thru self-spend by the Feds ... with a lot of the back office support being in DC. This is the end result of a process started for sure during LBJ's admin with precedent to FDR. Your State government (with the bizarre and horrible exception of California and the just bizarre exception of Alaska) has probably invited in the grasping tentacles of Washington DC years ago and now cannot afford to cut them.

Something to consider is the context of the job and the timeframe.

You're talking about the same timeframe as the Global War on Terror. Secret Service types are generally all ex-cops or ex-mil. As your stories about USSS with colombian prostitutes and korean cab drivers point out, they have the machismo that goes along with these career fields.

Well, during GWOT, the Super Bowl of male badassery was being Special Operations in the military - specifically the SEALs (because if you don't write about a raid in a book, did the raid even happen?). If you're the archetypal 18-24 year old male between 2002/3 - 2016, and you want to go out and kick ass, you're joining the military (and likely ending up in the 82nd Airborne if you fail selection, lulz).

Those who joined USSS during this time period? Head scratcher. I can see family connection being a reason - "My dad was USSS / a cop, I'm going to do it too", I can see individual level hyperfixation on the job, but that wouldn't account for more than a few percentage points of applications.

Also, keep in mind that USSS is largely recruiting from the same pool as the FBI -- who do you think wins the battle for best candidates more often?

The point is - I think the USSS has a very hard recruitment problem on its hands. This is where someone should link the GIF of the husky gal from the trump assassination fiddling with reholstering her pistol and generally looking lost. And, remember, that was the Presidential detail. The one's "guarding" the White House when POTUS isn't in town ... that's gotta be a JV team if there ever was one.

You'd be surprised how much better stuff reads when you don't try and do anything fancy with the language or mess with complicated grammatical structure.

I am compelled to offer my sincerest, most profound, and most forceful sentiments of gratitude. Your eloquent presentation of what must have been, of course, hard won knowledge is a great addition to the discourse capture in this community

Thx.

Draft No. 4 by John McPhee

Than you. Amazon'ed.