Whether Jordan is correct or not (and I do get crank-vibes from him) is not really interesting from a meta-perspective. The interesting thing is that EAs can deploy astroturfers and they’re met with pitchforks and torches from the get-go. Everyone hates AI and datacenters, and Rationalist Explanations and Facts are not gonna change that in a hurry.
Andy Masley (the dude with the slobstick) has been around before. He’s the main source for the meme that datacenter water use is fine, actually
Previously on lobste.rs:
https://lobste.rs/domains/andymasley.substack.com
also big on HN:
https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=andymasley.substack.com
I don’t deny Putin is a Russian nationalist, I just meant that he could have more profitably reached his goals with a lighter touch. Invading in 2022 hardened Ukraine’s opposition, highlighted the behavior of Russian troops in occupied Ukraine, and destroyed a lot of hardware and people.
Before 2022, Putin could project Russian power as this weird chimera of Russia as a promised land of white patriarchy, coupled with invincible military threat. The invasion revealed Russia as both military incompetent and brutal, making resisting Russia militarily the rational choice, and simultanously sidelining Russia’s supporters. If you stand with Putin, you also stand with the people who destroyed Bucha.
Putin is lucky that Needy Amin’s stupid attack on Iran pushed his invasion of Ukraine down to the 2nd most idiotic military adventure so far in the 21st century.
Look, before that, he had a decent hand. Russia was a 2nd or 3rd rate power, but no-one knew it, because the shiny armed forces were just seen on parades. He was getting a decent chunk of cash from fossil fuels, Russia was a good place to do shady business in , and he and his freidns could stash all that money in UK and US banks and send their kids to university there. Every alt-right party could count on some rubles getting sent to them.
So he wasn’t Peter the Great, but he wasn’t some boyar losing battles with the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth either.
In 6 or 12 months, Zelensky would be brought down by a combination of corruption and or shitty economy, and some Russia-friendly oligarch would use Russian disinfo to get elected and tie Ukraine even closer to Russia. But he just couldn’t stand that somewhere there were Ukraine kids getting an education in Ukrainian and where the Holodomor was part of the curriculum.
This is part 2 in a serious of posts by Habryka. The first has this tagline:
Epistemic status: All of the western canon must eventually be re-invented in a LessWrong post. So today we are re-inventing federalism.
(the 3rd is entitled, I kid you not, Vladimir Putin’s CEV is probably not that bad)
All 3 are almost impenetrably jargon-y.
That would also imply that Tallinn is collecting tax deductions for giving to a charity whose greatest single expense is repaying money he lent them.
This is both so evil and so genius I am surprised it’s not a very common tax-planning layup for other very rich people.
Been a long time since I read Anathem, and I’m kinda surprised Stephenson hasn’t been outed as an out-and-out Nazi. I mean it’s good if he’s not, just that he seems the type.
Although I found the terrorist character in REAMDE weirdly well written.
Just doing the Basilisk’s bidding…
Remember when Scott A was so mad his name was in the NYT he wilded out and got half of HN to cancel their subs? Those were good times, when I wasn’t jumpscared by his pasty face on random websites.
Rats: our ideals are universal and rooted in pure reason, discoverable through intense study and thought
Also rats: only males have the brains to understand this.
EA as a whole are apologetics for eugenicist billionaires, so them not giving a shit about what eugenicist billionaires don’t care about is just goal-fitting behavior.
Come now, we all want to be the Rat’s Enemy #1, and are secretly mad you got the top spot.
Computer-Numerical Control controlled Consensual-Non-Consensual sex, for max brain damage
Russian empire…
Wasn’t the Anschluss greeted with rapture by many Austrians? Ofc they thought they’d be runnign the show there afterwards…
pretty sure they’re thinking of a Reich of some sort…
INTology
Ngo has been playing footsie with race science since as long as I have been skimming LW.
The irony is that in any “normal” space (i.e. not Stormfront) he would have been booted out toot sweet for being a racist. On LW, he’s tolerated, even celebrated, but apparently not enough for his liking. It’s not enough that he can spew race science unopposed by any meaningful reaction, everyone else has to take his position.
Edit
the piece he authored 6 months ago and references here is a doozy too
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The overwhelming majority of successful civilizations throughout history have been nation-states, at least to some degree, which should be addressed in some capacity by any argument claiming that it’s a suboptimal way to organize a society.
uh… the Roman Empire was a nation-state? Holy Roman Empire? (ok not as good an example) Ottoman Empire? Basically all of India pre-Brits?
A huge part of the French Revolution was the codification of France as “The Nation” of French people, not as the weird personifciation of the king. But somehow I suspect that bringing up the French Republic won’t be hugely popular in this crowd.
“[a] cult leader who has nothing to show for except for his eugenicist self and writing a Harry Potter fan fiction”
I mean, that could be anyone.
I’m no fan of Myers-Briggs but at least that has some cultural cachet outside of extreme nerd circles. Or is MtG “mainstream”? Like, I’d say Star Wars fandom i mainstream in that they have been wildly succesful media franchises, and I’m kinda boggled the deckbuilder games like Slay The Spire have such huge player bases, but MtG seems to be its own little world.