domain:forecasting.substack.com
jeroboam
2m ago
I saw a video on Twitter where a Ukrainian or Russian guy emptied his clip at some tiny drone and then finally eliminated it by hitting it with his rifle.
In the not-so-distant future, the drones will be much smaller, much more intelligent, and much cheaper. Imagine trying to defend yourself against 10 bullet-size drones flying towards your face with a small but lethal explosive charge at the tip.
In any future war, China wins because they will be able to make 10x as many drones as the U.S. coalition. The western coalition might counter by setting up self-replicating drone factories, which would be a fun development.
Obviously assassination becomes trivial in this environment as well.
In other news, Microsoft is starting Three Mile Island nuclear plant to obtain energy for its AI systems...
grognard
Intel Pentium III 450 / Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra / Corsair 128MB PC133 / ABIT BH6
57m ago
What do you think of Masters of Orion 3?
What do you think of FreeOrion, that has been version 0.4.x or 0.5 for the last two decades?
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
1hr ago
Right, I’m in favor of developing and utilizing remote-controlled arrest robots in the short term to see how well that goes; I agree that it would significantly reduce a number of risks and make the arrest process far more efficient and effective. If that goes well enough, we might not even need to progress to autonomous robocops! My general point is that policing right now is severely hampered by the fallibility and vulnerability of flesh-and-blood beat cops, and that a move toward more automation and robotics in policing strikes me as a highly promising development.
ulyssessword
1hr ago
I thought you were going somewhere else until the last paragraph. The tools of violence that the police have access to aren't actually very good at their jobs: Guns cause deadly wounds and may unintentionally hit bystanders, Tasers are much less reliable, and hand-to-hand fights (possibly with batons) inherently involve risk to the officers.
A remote-controlled (not autonomous) bot has the potential to be safer and more targeted than a gun, more incapacitating than a taser, and less risky than getting personally involved. If the police had an effective bot (that doesn't exist in 2024) in the subway, they could've simply arrested him after he started brandishing the knife. No muss, no fuss, and only the only risk is some equipment damage if he gets a good stab in.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1hr ago
Why do they need to walk?
The air is the natural domain of the robot, as we see in Ukraine. The Russians and Ukrainians have been toying with ground combat robots but they're throwing industrial quantities of aerial drones at eachother. Some explode, some drop bombs, some are wire-guided to bypass electronic warfare, some have jet-engines for long endurance and long range. They have amazing camera zoom, they can pick out targets day and night.
Flying kamikaze drones are very hard to deal with. You can dodge one dropped grenade or club one away with your rifle. But three? Five? You're going to die. These things are cheap. Onboard AI guidance and swarming will make them even more dangerous.
It's only a matter of time before machines take over high-end airpower too. Humans are expensive to train, need all kinds of life support and suffer under g-forces. We were not made to careen around in the upper atmosphere at 9G or above, that's not where our skills lie. We're ground creatures, I bet that walking around and close quarters will be the last domains that fall to AI.
WhiningCoil
1hr ago
So I've been playing a lot of Master of Orion. I simply adored Master of Orion 2, and the pages of Computer Gaming World considered it the apex of 4X games until Galactic Civilizations 2 came out in 2004, where they begrudgingly admitted GalCiv2 was at least as good as Master of Orion 2, maybe.
Going back to the first one, I'm struck by it's simplicity. No more building individual improvements on planets, it's all more abstract with sliders for different production. Tech makes these cheaper, more efficient, etc. Combat is just the one two punch of fleet battle, and then sending in the shock troops. And that's just as easy as hitting the "TRANS" button to send population, the same way you'd shuffle it between your own colonies. No need to build specialized troop transports or anything. I kind of love it. It has a simple, but good enough, system of setting rally points for ships you build. And if you ever get tired of slowly conquering planets and then getting them up to speed and productive, you can just glass them from orbit instead. Easy peasy, no special tech required. You get nuclear bombs from the start, and it seems like all sorts of different weapon tech can bombard planets.
I find the end game to be a breeze, unlike almost any other 4X game I've played that devolve into micro management hell. I remember encountering people who always sword Master of Orion 1 was better than 2, and I think I can see why. In a world where 4X has grown into grand strategy, MoO1 is downright casual, and it's fucking fantastic for it.
lagrangian
2hr ago
Yeah, that's rough, and it's not like there's a store you can try it out at . I've had I want to say eight keyboards at about that price point purchased by employers...
remzem
2hr ago
I can get behind the use of cultural marxism in a sort of genealogical sense. It seems clear that early critical theorists saw themselves as marxist and were familiar with marxist theory, but as an actual descriptor of modern ideology it's always felt weak to me.
Basically, so it goes, cultural marxism is marxist oppressor / oppressed framework but applied to identity. Except really what is unique about Marx isn't the oppressor / oppressed framework, people have been writing about hierarchy and exodus from oppressors since ancient times. What made Marx unique was that he took the oppressor oppressed framework and interpreted it through a lens of economic materialism. All conflict no longer has to do with your identity or specific role in society it's all about economic output and who controls the means of production. As a descriptor the term doesn't seem to help much since modern political discourse seems less marx and more just a return to more typical conflicts. Different identity groups fighting and forming alliances to further their interests.
When it comes to how the term seems to actually be used in the real world it seems like early critical theorists happened to identify with marxism as it was the well known revolutionary theory that predated them so they were familiar with his arguments and inevitably drew from them. Paleocons seem to have latched on to the word at some point because it fits with their outdated views on the world being some sort of battle between capitalism and communism. Meanwhile most normal people just don't really care about the term since these days both capitalism and communism have shown their flaws and the distinction doesn't really offer them much utility.
The big divider these days seems less about private and public and more about centralization and decentralization. Both Capitalism and communism have centralizing features, communism explicitly and capitalism through things like natural monopolies, economies of scale and prohibitive start up costs, so people aren't too enthusiastic about the prospects of either and just tune cultural marxist talk out.
TIRM
2hr ago
Security clearance depends on a low blackmail attack surface
That's the excuse yes. But open proud people are also denied. So there's an unrelated aspect of disapproving schoolmarm-ism that doesn't contribute to their goal even according to their justifications, but they like being this way so they do it.
TequilaMockingbird
2hr ago
I don't know if its my post you're thinking of but i did just post about this very topic
TequilaMockingbird
2hr ago
I'm about 99% certain this robot is just a very expensive and fancy remote-controlled car. I don't think this incident has any bearing at all on AI, since no AI was involved.
You would be correct. As much as we talk up "autonomous systems" the overwhelming majority of systems are not "autonomous" at all, they're "remotely piloted". Anything resembling true autonomy is still deep in the realm of DARPA grants and strictly enforced NDAs.
OliveTapenade
2hr ago
Oh, I'll happily grant that the term 'cultural Marxism' has referents. When someone like Joy Pullmann says 'the cultural Marxists', I know who she means and what they believe.
I don't think it's quite the same as the Mormon case, because Mormons do claim to be Christians. I don't think Mormons are Christians, but if I say that where a Mormon can hear me, I know they will disagree. So I and a Mormon will have a debate about whether 'Christianity' is the right word to use for what Mormons believe.
By contrast, most of the people identified as cultural Marxists don't claim to be cultural Marxists. In fact, they mostly decry the term and claim that it's a conspiracy theory. Some claim to be (generic) Marxists, but most do not. We might still have a debate about whether 'cultural Marxist' is an appropriate word for what they believe, but the direction of that debate will be different.
If those debates happened, I'd insist on the Mormon/Christian distinction because as a Christian I feel I have an interest in policing the boundaries of orthodoxy - essentially I want to clarify that Mormons aren't affiliated with me and I lend no support to their beliefs, which I consider wrong. I would not, I think, insist on 'cultural Marxist' as a label because it's not a label that achieves any of my goals re: the discussion of social justice or wokist politics. In fact I think it muddies the waters by confusing wokist beliefs with Marxist beliefs, and another term would be more clear.
They would probably then also disagree with being called 'wokists' or 'SJers' or whatever other term I came up with, but we have to use some label, so, well, that Freddie post. You know how this goes.
campfire
2hr ago
Posted a few weeks ago about trying to figure out Crusader Kings III. Some 50 hours later, I'm pretty entertained. My first "real" campaign was as the de Bessas in Northeast France, became King after a few generations but got too bogged down by factions and decided to give another character a try. Played as a duke (doux) in the Byzantine Empire, conquered a few Kingdoms (Despots), but massively underestimated how big the de jure Byzantine empire was. Then tried out a count in Skane, a duchy in Denmark, in 867. Realized tribal plays very differently, depends a lot on prestige which is hard to come by. Starting as a count, it can take a while to build up an army that can raid effectively depending on how well your leige does setting up alliances for himself. Remains to be seen how this plays out, but might just start as a Duke in Scandinavia instead.
Fun game, but I'm still shocked how many people have 2000+ hours in it. The core gameplay loop seems like it could get repetitive very fast. Make babies, marry them off for alliances (thanks @orthoxerox for the tip), fabricate claim on county, invade, make higher and higher tier titles, rinse, repeat. Is the appeal to the diehard fans just how many various ways there are to larp? Far more than any of the Civilization games at least.
I have dabbled in the total conversion mods. A Game of Thrones is almost too bespoke to believe, has ever a game complimented a novel series so perfectly? With the Tours and Tournaments DLC you can even host your own Red Wedding. Now there's a bookmark that triggers a civil war after Viserys I dies (the Dance of the Dragons). After The End is very original, set in a post-apocalyptic New World in 2666 where people practice religions vaguely associated with their geographic regions. Nevadans worship UFOs, the people of Svalbard pray to their seed vault, rust belt Americans worship the 19th century industrialists. That said, these mostly seem to just give you different ways to larp. The core gameplay loop is the same.
I've heard CK2 is better but I've tried it and just find the graphics and UI hideous and outdated.
I can still see myself getting 100+ hours of enjoyment out of CK3 though so feel free to recommend specific starts, mods encouraged.
SauntSolaire
2hr ago
UHK with a keychron Q0 numpad on the side
OliveTapenade
2hr ago
I think this is largely correct, yes. We're dealing with a problem of shifting labels - some small number of people have used the term 'cultural Marxism' to self-identify, but almost none do today, the term 'cultural Marxism' today is used extremely broadly to identify ideas or movements with nothing or almost nothing in common with classical Marxism, and ultimately I think it's become a term that obfuscates rather than illuminates. The term 'cultural Marxism' does not reveal anything useful about the people it is applied to.
I don't think I quite agree with the debate about Mormonism and Christianity, because that usually is couched in specific claims about what 'Christianity' means, and what's required for something to be meaningfully 'Christian'. The facts about Mormonism aren't particularly in dispute - Mormons sincerely claim to be followers of Jesus, but they are outside what all historical Christian creeds would have regarded as the bounds of orthodoxy. The issue at hand is simply whether or not one accepts those historical creeds as authoritative.
TequilaMockingbird
2hr ago
It is of absolutely no comfort to me that we went thousands of years trying to set woods on fire before we figured out how to roast cities.
Im not suggesting that it should be. I am mearly pointing out that the difference is one of degree not of kind. A man killed by a rock to the head is just as dead as a man killed by a bullet to the head.
cjet79
2hr ago
Wedding was otherwise good, and bride seemed happy, so no real complaints. Just selfishly wish the music was better for my dance floor moves.
OliveTapenade
2hr ago
Realistically, I think it's just because to conservatives of a certain generation, 'Marxism' is the scariest and most evil word available, so calling everything they don't like Marxist is just a habit. It's equivalent to the way people on the left call everything 'fascism'.
Marxism definitely exists, just as fascism exists, but once the word comes to mean 'the polar opposite of everything I believe, i.e. everything good and right', the temptation to deploy it to describe everything under the sun quickly becomes irresistible.
TIRM
2hr ago
Split keyboard. I think holding my hands close together like on a regular keyboard was hurting my upper back.
The Germans were the ones who opened Pandora's Box by bombing civilian infrastructure in the opening phase of their invasion of Poland. Meanwhile the RAF did not start intentionally targeting civilians until the Luftwaffe made night bombing and the targeting of population center official policy in the latter half of the Battle of Britain.
In short, your claim that the British were the ones to "escalate" the conflict is false.
Churchill sucks. He was a warmonger who was terrible at war and failed at everything he tried to do.
I would consider the fact that Churchill's side won pretty much every every war he was involved in to be evidence to the contrary.
He was still responsible for pushing the RAF to terrorize the German civilian populous in the hopes that the Germans would retaliate in a way that would pull America into the war.
This is a very dumb objection for you to be making here. Either Churchill was a brilliant mastermind who played the German high command (and everyone else in the world) like a fiddle or he was a "warmonger who was terrible at war and failed at everything he tried to do". Pick one.
In either case it doesn't adress the issue that the US didn't move against Germany directly until after the Germans had declared war on the US and started shooting at American ships.
Finally "the Madagascar plan" wasn't even proposed until the summer of 1940. Not only were Britain and Germany already at war by that point but Madagascar wasn't even Germany's to give. Forget Churchill, what reason would anyone in the British leadership have to agree to that plan at that time?
Maybe if the Germans had used one of thier own colonies, or an ally's colony, or tried to cut a deal with the global hegemon instead of declaring war on them things would've played out differently but we don't live in that timeline.
This is a great Harry Potter themed parody of Empire State of Mind. Cadence is perfect, every line rhymes and is a reference to the series. Think my favorite is "Two girls ask about my scar, told 'em I was born with it/ Took 'em to my dorm for a Triwizard Tournament" or "Decked out cauldron, they wonder how I paid for it/ Drive-by on Gringotts leave a goblin on the pavement".
Magusoflight
3hr ago
I just pray the cartels don’t get their hands on this tech
The narrative being circulated is that the NYPD “killed a man over a $2.90 subway ticket.”
This can be translated as "this is why America will never look like northern Europe in terms of transit"
Can you understand why I might look toward the decisiveness, the cold competence of a robot cop who’s not afraid of libelous press coverage or administrative leave or criminal charges by an anti-cop DA, and think, “Hell yeah, let’s get some more of that.”
We're getting a head start. This - and not some Brian Herbert Terminator bullshit - is why the Butlerian Jihad happened:
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."
It would be nice to have a technological solution to social problems. But all this does is centralize power in the hands of people who made things like Google Gemini a mess. You think they can't see ahead to the "imported" racial bias? They called it way ahead of time, and took steps.
For all you know, your cold robot is going to be given an androgynous body shape, will only answer to Xir and, in a twisted inversion of I, Robot, have a built in random factor to save a marginalized body every so often instead of doing the "rational" thing, for equity. It only makes sense. Getting stabbed in the subway is awful. But what about the violence done against black bodies and other justice-impacted folx? It's not an easy equation.
I love how this war is just the US and China testing their new drone tech against proxy meat puppets.
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