digging

> The positions in this war are not equal.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Israel is one of the most powerful nations on Earth, Hezbollah is not even close. I don't think genocide is an appropriate response to the hatred of a much, much weaker enemy.

> It seems clear enough to me that Israel’s goal is to prevent Hezbollah from continuing to launch rockets at Israeli towns in the north. Killing is a means to that end. One may disagree with that choice of means, but I don’t see how you can claim that “Israel’s goals entirely revolve around killing people.”

Well, let me start with the necessary disclaimer: First, I'm not an expert on geopolitics or Israel or the ME. That's probably obvious. It could be that my coarse understanding is just completely wrong, but I think it's a broadly correct picture which is lacking lots of detail.

I also don't know much about the conflict with Hezbollah specifically, but what I see from Israel tells me that the prevention of rocket smay not be their top goal. I also believe that even if it is, killing is a means that I disagree with!

The rhetoric I hear about Hamas (not Hezbollah, so it may be different there, but I suspect it's not substantially so) from the Netanyahu administration is about murder. Protecting Israelis is a means to an end; the end goal is to kill every single member of Hamas (and, reading between the lines, the expulsion of all Palestinians). It's widely reported that many Israelis openly feel Netanyahu is not making meaningful efforts to recover hostages, and I've also understood that significant lapses in Israeli security were what made the Oct 7 attack last year possible. Meanwhile, some of the things Netanyahu says about Hamas and Palestine sounds genocidal, frankly.

Again, could be wrong about all that. Every word on the subject is biased in one way or another. Additionally, I know very little of the situation with Hezbollah, so I'm extrapolating: The prioritization of murder over safety that I see in the war with Hamas demonstrates to me that Israel is not making choices in the utmost interest of safety, generally, if the murder of its enemies is on the table.

Of course, I'll also reiterate that even if all of the above is wrong, their means are unacceptable to me: I don't believe one of the most powerful nations on the planet needs to murder its impoverished neighbors to keep itself safe. It's much easier than diplomatic and nonlethal approaches, yes; but I don't think it's necessary.

This isn't just a small advancement, though. It's a simple tool, which isn't restricted to medical specialists, with a huge impact.

If a study found that letting cats roam hospital hallways reduced unexpected deaths by 26%, I think that would be reported, too.

I think the problem many people have is that Israel's goals entirely revolve around killing people.

That is: If your goal is to murder someone, and you accidentally kill an innocent bystander in committing that murder, the number of civilians killed is infinitely too high. The number of acceptable total deaths is 0.

I understand this is idealistic. But it's the judgement many will choose to make. For the record, no I don't only think it's bad when Israel murders people.

> To be honest forcing your employees into the office looks really desperate.

To some of us, but not everyone. It may look less desperate than layoffs. It can be postured as happening for any number of strong-handed reasons and be called an act of powerful leadership, even if it's just desperate and stupid. Besides, other huge companies have done it already.

There's actually a staggering amount of thought and detail in the logistics of Middle Earth, but you have to dig into a wide variety of sources to access it. These details informed his story but didn't make it into the plot of LOTR, for obvious reasons. "In Deep Geek" is one youtube channel I enjoy for learning about things like Aragorn's tax policy or the economics of the Shire, if you have a an interest but lack the time/obsession to piece it together yourself.

> It's getting harder to tell real programs from fictional programs

...Is this a real concern of yours? I've never experienced such ambiguity

All good points.

> The calculator didn’t eliminate math majors. Excel and accounting software didn’t eliminate accountants and CPAs. These are all just tools.

This just feels extremely shortsighted. LLMs are just tools right now, but the goal of the entire industry is to make something more than a tool, an autonomous digital agent. There's no equivalent concept in other technology like calculators. It will happen or it will not, but we'll keep getting closer every month until we achieve it or hit a technical wall. And you simply cannot know for sure such a wall exists.

That exact pattern is always true of technological advance. Even for a pretty broad definition of technology. I'm not sure if it's perfectly described by the name "induced demand" but it's basically the same thing.

Doesn't strike me as the kind of principle OpenAI is willing to slow themselves down for, to be honest.

> They would be illegal if private companies made them.

Yes, that's kind of the main difference between government functions and private companies. Are you saying the very idea of zoning strikes you as a problem? Or are you trying to call out the bad implementations which strangle urban prosperity in the US?

> Suggesting USN with superior EW can just... waltze through PRC blockade

But TFA explicitly says that's not what it's suggesting...?

> Electronic warfare is their go to choice in this scenario. What follows is not some fantasy I've invented; China has written about this exact response extensively.

I'd like to see a little more substance if you're directly refuting this statement from TFA and calling it stupid. You may be right, but TFA demonstrates research on this exact topic and your comment does not.

I got about halfway before completely losing the thread as I had no idea what was being said, unfortunately.

Is "visitor" pattern ever defined in this article?

Is there anything in this article explaining the assertion "Design Patterns Are Temporary, Language Features Are Forever"? I couldn't penetrate the specific example being discussed.

Not sure what is even meant by "taste" here; what I see over and over is that convenience wins, where winning is defined as widespread use.

> A number of good alternatives exist, there's no monoculture

That doesn't sound true to me at all, except maybe in some very small niches. I've used Bitbucket at exactly one job; I've found Codeberg, but no project I've used was actually hosted there; and literally everything else I see or use is on Github.

> I'd rather use 20% more land

This could actually be a pretty massive issue in theory on its own, though. We really need to be covering/converting parking spaces and reusing existing land waste.

> It seems pretty irresponsible for AI boosters to say it’ll happen within 5 years then.

Agreed. Do they?

You're right, that was overstated. I should have just said addressed. But my word choice doesn't make the gp comment any more valid.

What kinds of bees though? Could they be driving out native bees that prefer native flowers? Just saying, it's complicated

> However here's the thing. Among native plant advocates there's this kind of schizo thing. On one hand we're supposed to plant natives because they're better adapted for our environment. On the other hand we're supposed to root out the invasives because they're out-competing the natives and pushing them out. Huh? Which is it? Adapted for this place, or too weak to thrive in this place?

Have you actually ever heard someone make the first argument? I haven't, because it would indeed be a very stupid argument. Natives are preferred because other species are adapted to having them around. Lose a particular tree, and you might lose habitat for many others - birds, insects, fungi... this can be a cascading effect and contribute to ecosystem collapse.

Did you stop reading my comment there? I debunked this already.

I mean, no, that's not what it means. It might be what we get, but not because "safety" is defined insanely, only because safety is extremely difficult and might be impossible.

Interesting attributes to mention...

The urgency was faked and less true of the Manhattan Project than it is of AGI safety. There was no nuclear weapons race; once it became clear that Germany had no chance of building atomic bombs, several scientists left the MP in protest, saying it was unnecessary and dangerous. However, the race to develop AGI is very real, and we also have no way of knowing how close anyone is to reaching it.

Likewise, the target dates were pretty meaningless. There was no race, and the atomic bombs weren't necessary to end the war with Japan either. (It can't be said with certainty one way or the other, but there's pretty strong evidence that their existence was not the decisive factor in surrender.)

Public ownership and accountability are also pretty odd things to say! Congress didn't even know about the Manhattan Project. Even Truman didn't know for a long time. Sure, it was run by employees of the government and funded by the government, but it was a secret project with far less public input than any US-based private AI companies today.

Assuming incineration has lower externalities than landfills[1], you're... expressing surprise that a cheaper, suboptimal technique is ever used?

[1] I don't know if that's true.

Not to be mean, but I think every assertion in your comment is wrong.

Blue and Green are English words which sometimes describe primary or secondary colors additive colors. Cyan is (an English word that describes) a primary subtractive color.

Colors are not English words. They're physical reactions inside our eye-brain systems, affected by varying wavelengths of light. (Actually that's not the most accurate description of color either, but it's a more useful model.)

I know you're making a joke about classification, but crabs have 10 legs, not 6.

A detailed blog post formatted entirely as footnotes! Not my preferred style, but I appreciate the impact of the "real" content being provided as "mere" context.

> Dunno why Americans put up with it.

Have you seen the guns that enforce it?