sfblah

6 ms·

1.
by sfblah 11d ago
IQ is not randomly distributed in heterogeneous populations. Do a little research, and you'll see what I mean.
2.
by sfblah 11d ago
I guarantee you that you do NOT know someone who tested B2 using an actual proctored Goethe Institute test, after only using DuoLingo. > Why would I changed? Exactly.
3.
by sfblah 13d ago
To be fair, Mensa is a Venn diagram between IQ and being a douche.
4.
by sfblah 14d ago
Look at GDP growth (it's not great). Where are the sales coming from? The modal revenue boost to Mag-7 companies since Covid has been a profitless tech firm wasting venture money whose source was debt enabled by low interest rates.
5.
by sfblah 15d ago
I disagree. The massive divergence between US household income and European household income since 2009 tracks almost perfectly Fed interest-rate policy and government deficit spending. The federal government has spent the time since 2009 l
6.
by sfblah 15d ago
I'll let you in on something. The "inexplicable" success is Fed interest-rate policy plus deficit spending.
7.
by sfblah 15d ago
I speak 4 foreign languages, at (fully tested through exams like the DALF, DELE, Goethe Institute) levels of C2, C1, C1 and B2. Take an actual test proving your knowledge and get back to me. I've spent a lot of time with Duolingo learn
8.
by sfblah 15d ago
Agreed, but look at it the other way. Do you really think we'll never again have a recession? Some people genuinely believe that.
9.
by sfblah 15d ago
Not completely. It just means you can have an AI do the useless busywork instead of a human. Something can be economically useful but still have proponents in a firm.
10.
by sfblah 15d ago
In my experience, people who make fun of AI's ability to eliminate white-collar work are exactly the same people who are white-knuckling it, hoping they can make another $300k next year to buy that Rivian. People who don't need a
11.
by sfblah 15d ago
Yes. I was specifically referring to Zitron's circular-financing complaints. I can't defend his separate claims that AI just isn't that useful. If he were involved in the tech industry, he'd know how preposterous those c
12.
by sfblah 15d ago
I agree that the specific amounts invested in AI aren't enough to cause a calamity directly. The problem is you have the vise of a stock-market decline on one side (something basically everyone thinks is impossible), and AI-induced une
13.
by sfblah 15d ago
I think it's fair to call his specific predictions "early." I'm saying his timelines are too short. Like almost all bearish market commentators, he doesn't understand the scope of the government stimulus. This is a
14.
by sfblah 15d ago
How well I remember people pointing to the scoreboard in early 2008...
15.
by sfblah 15d ago
I don't know about Chegg, but the fundamental problem with Duolingo is their product does nothing to teach people a foreign language. The nasty reality of that product is if you go through their entire learning tree in a language, you
16.
by sfblah 15d ago
I don't think Zitron is wrong, exactly. He's just early. There are a lot of analysts who have faced the same criticism over the past 10-15 years. IMO the issue is that they fail to understand the staggering size and scope of the g
17.
by sfblah 21d ago
Isn't it super easy for the community to just replace HuggingFace? Isn't it pretty much just a repo/index for open-weight models? Why is it even worth anything?
18.
by sfblah 22d ago
Humans will never be "multiplanetary" without something like warp drive.
19.
by sfblah 1mo ago
ChatGPT estimates Tesla has received $33B in government money directly and indirectly. My guess is it’s much more, since there are intangible benefits such as free marketing. For SpaceX the estimate is $35B+. The reason no one else has lowe
20.
by sfblah 1mo ago
It doesn't require "lying," per se. It just requires hiding the truth, kind of like what Musk has done for dozens of his other ventures. You do know that SpaceX owns Twitter now, for example? You do know that he tricked his i
21.
by sfblah 1mo ago
Here's an OK article on the topic: https://archive.is/eKCJu Starlink is almost certainly playing games with capex and depreciation to appear profitable when it is not. They're also using political patronage to get
22.
by sfblah 1mo ago
To me, the bigger issue with SpaceX is that there's no real argument for how space exploration will benefit humanity in any tangible way. Humans cannot live sustainably on Mars or the moon -- that's just a straight-up lie. Satelli
23.
by sfblah 1mo ago
The Fed can still declare some kind of financial emergency and increase the money printing again. My guess is this is likely, given the sway that tech CEOs have over the White House, and the reality of overseas competition.
24.
by sfblah 1mo ago
Fine. Not smuggling then “advocating”. It doesn’t actually matter, since it hurts the overall force of his point. Like, if he’s detected this trend why not learn from it himself?
25.
by sfblah 1mo ago
You could do what I did and set up a zero net export system and just not tell the utility.
26.
by sfblah 1mo ago
There are a bunch of "emperor's new clothes" companies in the economy today. Palantir certainly seems like one of them.
27.
by sfblah 2mo ago
What do they even really mean by "safety"? I mean, I can have an Anthropic model do something incredibly unsafe if, for example, I put it in charge of a hydroelectric dam and don't explain properly how the controls work. On s
28.
by sfblah 2mo ago
I think it's fair to classify the advantages as "modest" not "huge." Yes, it's cool that sailboats in the middle of the Pacific can get Internet, but the vast majority of Internet users are still connected via
29.
by sfblah 3mo ago
Unfortunately most people won't do that, either from ignorance or fear of missing out. Sometime in the next few years the chickens are going to come home to roost on the infinibubble, and I'm not really sure if the US financial sy
30.
by sfblah 3mo ago
Yes.

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