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Cake day: July 15th, 2024

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  • I have an answer different from the others.

    US economy depends on the US intellectual property system, a few US monopolist companies and the US dollar, and the financial system.

    Especially the intellectual property system. However different laws can be in various countries, in fact everybody tries to follow US law.

    It means that a lot of things produces elsewhere mean royalties to US companies, and a lot of things can’t be produced without permission, control of markets, planned development of microelectronics and tech in particular, yadda-yadda.

    So - if, in some hypothetical situation, that IP system is undone, with some countries having similar laws, some more like USSR’s “public domain by default with some fixed payment to patent holders”, and all the intermediate variants, then you’ll just have a second depression. Because a huge part of the economy will shrink.

    US foreign debt is a meme subject, but honestly, if USD stops being the world’s most reliable currency, you’ll also probably have a default.

    US actual industrial production (what doesn’t shrink as easily) is not so impressive when looking at its size. A lot about US level of life doesn’t really match the efficiency of the economy. Say, if you look at Germany, life there is very different. In some ways better, maybe, but many things normal in the US are not achievable there.

    My point is - the American IP laws were spread around by pressure. Not just that, but sometimes the monopoly roles of American companies. Part of that pressure is the military guarantor role.

    If that stops being relevant, a lot of things which were a given for your economy for many years will stop existing. And for a few other economies too. It might not look as bad as the USSR’s collapse, but it will probably look as ruined and unpredictable as the 1960s world.




  • But that is their dream for the future. Purely automatically managing the populace as some sort of a farm.

    It’s an arms race. Like at any other point in history. Between those who think personal dignity and freedom and equality are a mistake of history or a device to keep the herd patient, and that they deserve to rule, and those who don’t.

    The good part is that this has already been tried. A fast system with deadlocks is not that different from a slow system with deadlocks. And a big redundant system deterministically degrading in itself is not that different from a smaller less redundant system deterministically degrading in itself. No USSR and no Nazi Germany anymore on the map.

    The parts about lying and false pretense of law and democracy are new, but not too much - rulers of Frederic the Great’s time had false pretenses of knightly behavior and following imperial mechanisms. One can even compare 30 years war to our two world wars in the sense of creating a new world order, which was considered impossible to change due to endless horrors following that, but eventually become a farce.







  • In appearances he seems to be real. Culturally quite typical for those jerks who are Russia’s elite now, except their older generation holding power kinda hides that.

    Durov is the intermediate generation, gross, but trying to pretend. I don’t know if he was born to such a family (KGB/FSB/nomenclature relatives, getting a good education as a mathematician would check out then) or accepted into their, eh, society seems too strong a word.

    It’s like a network of thieves recognizing each other by their particular kind of behavior. There’s too many of them to firmly know they are talking to one of their own, so that behavior and approach to life is all it takes to be perceived as one of them.

    (I know you won’t believe me, but they think that signature behavior is aristocratic or whatever, talking in Esopean language, dropping hints, not looking you in the eyes, cold faces, being silent and not talking a lot, fish eyes ; there are people with actual noble ancestry in Russia, they do have sort of a common approach to right behavior, and that’s basically the opposite of this - talking to the other person directly, if making hints, then making it obvious that it’s a metaphor, not trying to show contempt or threat in their face, being clear and honest, at least in appearances.)

    Their part of my generation is just shit from the ass. Cunning and more evil, but no class or wisdom at all. I mean, there’s a saying “order beats class”, but they can have order only in ideal conditions too. Using bigger expense to imitate an achievement by smaller expense, which wouldn’t be a compliment to their abilities even if it were real. What’s worst is they don’t even understand it.

    Though this is where I must share one thing I’ve learned from them - you can imitate a level much higher than yours. You may have no taste, but read and imitate the taste of people who you want to deceive, and succeed. You may not know some domain area, but deceive those who do. Not have deeper understanding of some important mechanism, but imitate a person who does to those who do.

    A thought similar to LLM bots in some sense. So - they are dangerous.


  • It’s not free, but it’s the good part nonetheless - nuclear energy and thus increase in people trained to operate and build nuclear reactors.

    Nuclear energy is, planning-wise, very high quality, you have a lot of control in scaling the output.

    That allows, together with lots of accumulators of various kinds (pumping water up and such), to actually make renewables with uncontrollable output useful.

    Making the average cost of energy better than just that of nuclear.

    So, when Microsoft dies, those reactors and people will be of value.


  • AI slop poisoning is value too. The more everything is poisoned by it, the less useful things trained on new data are. The poison spreads in many ways, it’s not something that can be removed.

    It’s important for prevention of totalitarianism driven by such technologies in the future.

    So I honestly hope it kills the bullshit web and we’ll be back to small communities based on personal ties, where the person making the rules is the webmaster you know, not an anonymous moderator or a bot. That’s killing two birds with one stone, no downsides whatsoever.




  • This is wrong. Psychopaths feel themselves just fine in the society and usually don’t become school shooters.

    Shooting up bullies is a very crude solution, one that a psychopath usually doesn’t need.

    In any case most of school shootings I’ve read about were connected to bullying, and bully lives don’t matter. Don’t bully, don’t get killed.

    A psychopath usually plans their murders, so they’ll do just fine with a heavy sharp object or a reactive not intended for food getting into food. A psychopath will also be on the convenient side of any socially approved action.

    I’ve recently fully realized that I’ve met a high quality psychopath once.