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Posts
15
Comments
570
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • Depends on what he does. Since I'm in the least likely demographic to be targeted (hmm, unless they start going through political groups I've been a member of), probably the same as I'm doing now. If it looks like there will be a civil war, I'd probably try to leave the country, but I guess that'd be too late, and I think a civil war is unlikely. I don't think many people would be willing to give their lives for... the Democratic party? I think the U.S. will become more like Russia (fake elections in red states [ensuring the Republican party the presidency and congress forever], more brutal police oppression, erosion of rights, opposition leaders falling out of windows, and encouragement of vigilante "justice" against whoever the "enemy" is at the time). I think protests and riots would be the most people would do, and they'd likely be met with increasingly deadly force.

    Since covid, I make sure I keep a few months of non-perishables and water on hand in case of temporary supply chain disruptions, and I have plenty of wood to heat or cook with if needed. If there is a severe economic downturn (which is likely to happen in the unstable environment Trump would provide), and I couldn't find another well-paying job, I'd probably lose my home for not being able to pay my mortgage though.

  • I personally like high dynamic range. Most receivers, and I'm guessing most smart TVs, have some form of dynamic range compression if you don't. Bad quality, "realistic" voice recordings are a different issue. Having a center channel speaker also helps a lot.

  • Capitalism provides incentives to externalize as many costs as possible (such as pollution), and incentivizes and cannot even function without growth (which leads to more resource usage and pollution). Just because the forms of government/society under Stalin and Mao were also bad for people, doesn't mean capitalism is not also bad for people.

  • Hmm, I guess your right. I guess what I was vaguely thinking of was that we don't have as much (conscious) control over ourselves as people seem to believe. E.g. we often react to things before we consciousnessly perceive them, if we ever do perceive them. Was probably thinking about expirements I've heard of involving Benjamin Libet's work, and my own experiences of questioning why I've made some decisions, where at the time I made the decision, I rationalized the reason for doing so in one way, but in retrospect, the reason for making such decisions were probably different than what I was consciously aware of at the time. I think a lot of consciousness is just post-hoc rationalization, while the subconscious does a lot of the work. I guess this still means that consciousness is not an illusion, but that there are different "levels" of consciousness, and the highest level is mostly retrospective. I guess this all isn't really relevant to AI though, lol.

  • I think the human brain works kind of the opposite of that. Babies are born with a shitload of neural connections, then the connections decrease over a person's lifetime. ANNs typically do something similar to that while training (many connection weights will be pushed toward zero, having little or no effect).

    But yeah, these LLMs are typically trained once, and frozen during use. "Online learning" is a type of training that continually learns, but current online methods typically lead to worse models (ANNs "forget" old things they've "learned" when learning new things).

  • Idk. Business leadership typically does take actions its employees don't like if it helps the owners/shareholders. I often hear politicians/policymakers argue for things that will "hurt" (austerity, increasing unemployment to lower inflation, phasing out social security, war, opposing UBI, opposing universal healthcare, etc). I guess not all of those are extremely unpopular, but that's mostly because people have been convinced they're needed. The right, in particular, seems focused on things like sacrifice and punishment.

  • Young people will typically just vote how their parents tell them to. They typically just repeat what their parents say without critically thinking about things. They typically haven't fully developed the mental capacity for things like empathy. They haven't experienced what it's like to work or struggle to survive.

  • AIXI is a (good, in my opinion) short mathematical definition of intelligence. Intelligence != consciousness or anything like that though.

    Also, how do you know we aren't faking consciousness? I sometimes wonder if things like "free will" and consciousness are just illusions and tricks our brains play on us.

  • What exactly does he mean by being Moses and America's "red sea moment?" Are the liberals, FBI, and the people prosecuting Trump the Egyptians? So, Johnson has been chosen to lead Republicans to safety, and kill the liberals, FBI, and prosecutors?

  • I wonder if something else is in the drink is causing these complications (maybe chemical reactions increase bioavailibility or the rate of caffeine absorption), or if the caffeine "settles" or something. You don't really hear about Starbuck's causing many deaths.

  • rule

    Jump
  • I think most of those design patterns originated from C++ (Gang of Four). Java was designed to be a simpler, opinionated C++, and inherited many of the nuances of OOP-style C++. I actually kinda like Java. I think its restrictiveness is nice for large projects, so everyone uses the same programming paradigm and style (no mixing of template, procedural, and OOP programming). Code execution is relatively quick (compared to things like the Python interpreter). Don't need to write header files or manually manage memory. Has fairly advanced features built in for multi-threading, concurrency, remote objects, etc.

    I haven't programmed in Java in many years, but I've been programming in C# lately, and it just seems like Microsoft's version of Java.

  • Meh, fair enough. I drive a Leaf, but have an old F250 that I use at least a couple times a month. I'm either hauling firewood, mulch, compost, rock, lumber, flooring, siding, appliances, large tools, junk, etc (I live in an old house that needs a lot of work, heat solely with wood, and make furniture and garden as a hobby). Not sure I would want to tow much with my little Leaf. I guess could rent a pickup a couple times a month, but that would be pretty inconvenient.

  • I think eggs have pretty much all the nutrients you need. They are high in cholesterol though. Same thing with milk. They are the sole nutrition for animals for a period of time, so they have everything needed in it (at least everything the animal needs).

  • A lot of those countries are just tax havens where companies like to "headquarter" their businesses and where rich people hide their money. Some have a low official population, and rely on exploiting foreign workers for much of the labor done (non-citizens don't count towards "capita").

  • Farmer's markets are very expensive in my area. Like, almost double the price of my local grocery stores. I sometimes wonder if people just buy their goods from the grocery store and sell them at the market.

  • I once met some hippie-like people who fed themselves exclusively by dumpster diving. Not sure where they got their stuff, but they had a lot of high-end foods (cheese wheels, expensive meats, not-so-fresh produce, etc). They lived in busses, vans, RVs and stuff like that. They didn't have jobs; not sure how they got money for things like clothes; odd-jobs I guess.

    Less extreme "hacks": Goodwill, or Ross/Marshalls if you're feeling fancy. Ebay/Craigslist/Offer-up (need to be careful about getting ripped-off, and Ebay isn't as cheap as it used to be). Buy, cook, and eat mostly cheap staples (rice, beans, pasta, etc). If eating meat, you can use it sparingly by cooking recipes that comprise mostly of cheap staples. Budget Bytes has decent recipes. Unfortunately, most people's biggest expense is housing, and there aren't many "hacks" for that. Maybe, get a work-from-home job and move to Wyoming or something

  • When the cybertrunk was first announced I kinda liked it. I'm utilitarian and don't care what I drive looks like. The explanation I heard for the looks was because it was supposed to be really cheap to manufacture. So, a cheap ass EV pickup sounded pretty cool to me. Unfortunately, it's not going to be cheap :(