el_jay

7 ms·

1.
by el_jay 1mo ago
Once I overcame the addiction tech, engineered over billions of brilliant-person-hours, atop research into human behavioural prediction and conditioning that’d make the KGB blush? It’s the hundreds of people on my Facey that I have no other
2.
by el_jay 2mo ago
To save other readers a web search: in a *Keynesian beauty contest, you pick the winners based on who you think others will find most beautiful.
3.
by el_jay 4mo ago
> These are all fine questions, and they don't become any easier to answer if you replace "computers" with "brains" and "bits" with "neurons". What is even being argued here - neuroscience is
4.
by el_jay 4mo ago
Let’s say I stand up and step away from my PC, which miraculously runs a local Opus 4.8. Once I’m away from the PC, for an arbitrary time, nothing and no one calls or otherwise acts on the instance - not myself, not agents, not updates, not
5.
by el_jay 4mo ago
Who really cares about the lives of lim n —> 4k wagies? There is an opportunity to maximise shareowner returns here - failing to seize it would be little more than economic treason, a dereliction of our duty to be good capitalists. If th
6.
by el_jay 5mo ago
On top of all the extremely valid points about the ad-driven cognitive friction inherent to modern device usage: print books can’t get yoinked off my shelf because a rich person with political connections wants that.
7.
by el_jay 5mo ago
This article and discussion appear to have been manually delisted from the News rankings. Evidently, even HN could only keep up the pretense that tech development is amoral and apolitical for so long.
8.
by el_jay 9mo ago
“Never”? Not once in the Story of Us has any dispute between large groups of humans been resolved by anything other than a superior application of brute force? Strong claim, but I’ll run with it. And you appear to believe this is a pretext
9.
by el_jay 9mo ago
Indeed, why bother having states of law at all? Jungle law works well enough in reality.
10.
by el_jay 9mo ago
My understanding is that deep-sea nodules produce oxygen by a process similar to electrolysis, where they generate currents that split seawater into hydrogen and oxygen. The proportion of global abiotic and global total oxygen production th
11.
by el_jay 10mo ago
ML and physics share a belief in the power of their universal abstractions - all is dynamics in spaces at scales, all is models and data. The belief is justified because the abstractions work for a big array of problems, to a number of deci
12.
by el_jay 10mo ago
Suggest tagline: “Eminent thought leader of world’s best-funded protoindustry hails great leap back to the design stage.”
13.
by el_jay 11mo ago
Expectations do not spring sui generis into hearts and minds. I don’t know about you, but AFAICT approximately sane and rational folks (ha! Ha!) at least try to derive their expectations from reality. When most people’s reality is substanti
14.
by el_jay 1y ago
While there is certainly an argument to be made that many contemporary “Western” Pseudo-Christian Superempire nations face a crisis of short-termism, there are also ancient bits of “Western” infrastructure like the Roman aqueducts still in
15.
by el_jay 1y ago
As overt corporatism goes, you can do a lot worse than simultaneously embed tech execs in the military command chain, and military commanders in the tech industry.
16.
by el_jay 2y ago
A health insurance CEO was shot dead in the streets. It’s only one pitchfork but it’s still a pitchfork.
17.
by el_jay 2y ago
And only weeks before a US election.
18.
by el_jay 2y ago
Why no mention of a simple wealth tax? The Swiss take 1% of each citizens’ wealth, including unrealised gains on capital market holdings, every year. Paired with a policy of zero cap gains taxes on individuals - unless cap gains are that in
19.
by el_jay 2y ago
Am I to understand that it’s legal and okay for LLM providers to profit massively from training commercial models on copyrighted works, without the rights holders’ permission - but illegal, and unacceptable, for private individuals to acces
20.
by el_jay 2y ago
Have spent too little time with Haskell, and am fairly indifferent to pure maths beyond forcible conversion to applied maths against pure mathematicians’ will - but I have an enduring love for jazz. It is freedom incarnate, and the most per
21.
by el_jay 4y ago
………………………………………………………………………………… Location: Bali Indonesia currently; footprints in VIC & QLD Australia, Switzerland, U.K., Italy Remote: preferred; hybrid okay Willing to relocate: yes Technologies: C#, Python, SQL flavours, GCP + BigQue
22.
by el_jay 4y ago
“Plutonium:” was added soon after my original comment :P
23.
by el_jay 4y ago
Fair warning to any folks who went in expecting a read about dimethylmercury: the article is about plutonium.
24.
by el_jay 4y ago
Two kinds of debate: one where the expected outcome is a refinement of ideas, another where the expected outcome is an agreement on future behaviours (“alignment”). If you approach someone who only converses to negotiate alignment, they are
25.
by el_jay 4y ago
Simple example: Alice: “I need you to do X.” Bob: “OK, I’ll do X.” Not much negotiating, but Bob has aligned to Alice’s request. More subtle: Carla: “Do you think we should do X or Y?” Danny: “I’m leaning X but Y might have the following be
26.
by el_jay 4y ago
Reminds me of Joscha Bach’s definition of a nerd, from his Lex Friedman podcast episode: <paraphrase> “The definition of a nerd is someone who thinks conversation is for peer reviewing ideas.” “What do non-nerds think conversation is
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I Volunteer as Tribute(techcrunch.com)
4 points by el_jay 4y ago|0 comments
28.
by el_jay 4y ago
Interesting, thank you. One remark: > Modernization is hard, time consuming and very expensive. These regulations are a good driver for all that, but it takes time. Having been in some of these boardrooms there is not typically a cartel
29.
by el_jay 4y ago
To do the work of fulfilling our most fundamental evolutionary urge, and perpetuate the future of humanity is a “lifestyle choice” isomorphic to “choosing to be an artist” or “collecting fancy cars”? You may feel that having kids is an opti
30.
by el_jay 4y ago
I suppose if we followed OP’s logic to its conclusion, we’d find that when it comes to parenthood: you must be this net worthy to ride.

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