pja

joined 2 years ago
[–] pja@awful.systems 7 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

If Trump makes his own memecoin part of the national currency reserves it will genuinely be the grift that never stops giving.

Honestly, I think this is more likely than him forcing the Treasury to allocate $billions to current BTC holders. Trump doesn’t hold any BTC (or only trivial amounts) as far as we know, so there’s absolutely no personal upside for him in this scenario. Letting other people walk away with $billions whilst Trump gets nothing doesn’t seem very Trump, does it?

I suppose they could up with a scheme where a portion of the $$ from BTC sales to the Treasury get used to buy TrumpCoin or whatever. But that requires him to trust BitCoin bros. Is that plausible?

[–] pja@awful.systems 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Why are these people obsessed with a measurement of people that has the worst statistical validity known to mankind? IIRC Taleb ripped IQ-obsessives to shit a couple of years ago with an extended rant / published paper on the various flaws, but even from a non-stats nerd perspective the idea that you can infer the “IQ” of an entire country from the studies that these people quote is absurd. We’re talking “I measured the IQ of a bunch of kids in an orphanage in 1968, so obviously I can infer from this the value of the entire nation” levels of absurd here. Even taking their words at face value (lol) the entire endeavour is ludicrous.

The whole thing just seems completely pointless: what’s the end goal here? Being able to line people up like trading cards achieves what exactly?

(Which leads inevitably to the depressing reality that the “why” is obvious, but unspoken of course: They just don’t want to come out and say it.)

[–] pja@awful.systems 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The only concretely good thing in here is that the government is going to use it as a cudgel to impose upgrading the UK electrical grid over the objections of pathetic nimbys who value their views of rolling green fields to things like, oo, people managing to heat their homes in winter without going into debt.

If it also means the government putting the boot into local authorities to force them to permit local economic development I’ll take that too.

[–] pja@awful.systems 11 points 4 months ago

I already wasn’t going to read this screed, but now I’m definitely not going to read it. Sheesh.

 

Looks like it might actually have happened.

[–] pja@awful.systems 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The power level curse where your characters get too powerful for there to be meaningful stakes?

[–] pja@awful.systems 18 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

who tf is this?

They’re a self-described gay, furry ex-mormon who seem to have latched onto the rat & rat-adjacent communities (like EA) in the hope of finding a substitute for the certainty they used to find in religion. Last I heard they work for the Blocked&Reported podcast, i.e. Jesse Singal et al., alongside their job in the US military. (edit: their Twitter claims they’re a law clerk? I guess they moved on.)

On the surface they seem well meaning but naïve, the company they keep (perhaps) being a reflection of that.

[–] pja@awful.systems 19 points 6 months ago (1 children)

For the rat & rat-adjacent soi-disant “communities” David is like the bogeyman. You see his name used in places like SSC to stand in for the otherwise nameless woke menace that’s coming for their precious bodily fluids.

[–] pja@awful.systems 22 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (13 children)

I regret to inform you that Trace is hate-reading awful.systems too & has posted this comment on their Twitter.

You’d think these people would have learned by now that there’s no upside in them spending their precious time on this earth obsessing over why a group of people don’t like them, but nevertheless here they are: drawn like moths to the flame.

[–] pja@awful.systems 12 points 6 months ago

Prolix insanity is kind of a Rationalist / Rat-adjacent calling card.

[–] pja@awful.systems 13 points 6 months ago

This is going to be a banger, I can feel it.

[–] pja@awful.systems 8 points 6 months ago

Definitely not one of the most heavily armed states in the USA.

 

Taleb dunking on IQ “research” at length. Technically a seriouspost I guess.

 

It will not surprise you at all to find that they protest just a tad too much.

See also: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZjXtjRQaD2b4PAser/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning

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