Writers like Voltaire or Thomas Paine, who weren't writing to get another grant, but to examine ideas (and possibly to sell books or persuade others). The public square at the time would allow long form discussion and debate, and rewarded them for their works.
By contrast, today the academic public square is about impressing some layman into giving you a government grant, or getting published by writing simple things in a highly complicated way; and twitter is the public square for non-academics, and it's about getting the most engagement out of 240 characters.
Despite having the most powerful information system known to human history in the Internet and now LLM AIs, people aren't trained to think in terms of big and rigorous ideas presented in a way most people can understand. Therefore, people focus on short pithy posts online, and like in Plato's allegory of the cave they get quite upset at you if you try to see the real world rather than just the shadows cast on the cave wall. How many people get pissed off when they see my effortposting? How many people who pretend to care about smart conversation have muted me for the sin of not just giving them the red vs. blue view they wanted to see?
Now, that doesn't mean there's no value in academic writing, just as it doesn't mean there's no value in twitter pithiness. But when you have two extremes that are essentially unproductive, you have intellectual stagnation, and many people would agree we've seen intellectual stagnation for at least a decade. A lot of very smart people are saying mostly the same things they did 10 years ago, because there's only so many smart things you can say in 240 characters, and there's only so many times you can speak into the academic void and not even hear the echo of your own voice.
tl;dr: ur a homo :P
By contrast, today the academic public square is about impressing some layman into giving you a government grant, or getting published by writing simple things in a highly complicated way; and twitter is the public square for non-academics, and it's about getting the most engagement out of 240 characters.
Despite having the most powerful information system known to human history in the Internet and now LLM AIs, people aren't trained to think in terms of big and rigorous ideas presented in a way most people can understand. Therefore, people focus on short pithy posts online, and like in Plato's allegory of the cave they get quite upset at you if you try to see the real world rather than just the shadows cast on the cave wall. How many people get pissed off when they see my effortposting? How many people who pretend to care about smart conversation have muted me for the sin of not just giving them the red vs. blue view they wanted to see?
Now, that doesn't mean there's no value in academic writing, just as it doesn't mean there's no value in twitter pithiness. But when you have two extremes that are essentially unproductive, you have intellectual stagnation, and many people would agree we've seen intellectual stagnation for at least a decade. A lot of very smart people are saying mostly the same things they did 10 years ago, because there's only so many smart things you can say in 240 characters, and there's only so many times you can speak into the academic void and not even hear the echo of your own voice.
tl;dr: ur a homo :P
Why should you feel ashamed of someone else's actions -- especially if they're actions you disagree with and have no meaningful capacity to change?
What is anyone gonna do? Go full uncle ted? A few people tried that, it didn't improve anything.
People can go "but muh democracy", but in its current form, democracy is a sham intended to increase buy-in (which works -- democratic societies can have much higher taxation before revolution occurs, and we're some of the highest taxed people in history). Of course, that isn't to say that every politician is exactly the same and literally nothing ever changes, but in general, people were disgusted by red so they voted blue, then they were disgusted by blue so they voted red again, and we're all still less free (in terms of what government enforces) than 40 years ago.
In my view, the only long game has nothing to do with the state -- voting red or blue doesn't change the fundamentals in the long term, because the forces that choose who you even get to choose between are so disconnected from reality. The only solutions are local -- trying to become a strong individual, being a good family member, being a good parent, being a good neighbor, being a good parent, to create a culture that overwhelms the state and the market.
"Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one."
In the end, empires fall, urban monoculture fails, and what's left? The people who are strong enough to live without it.
What is anyone gonna do? Go full uncle ted? A few people tried that, it didn't improve anything.
People can go "but muh democracy", but in its current form, democracy is a sham intended to increase buy-in (which works -- democratic societies can have much higher taxation before revolution occurs, and we're some of the highest taxed people in history). Of course, that isn't to say that every politician is exactly the same and literally nothing ever changes, but in general, people were disgusted by red so they voted blue, then they were disgusted by blue so they voted red again, and we're all still less free (in terms of what government enforces) than 40 years ago.
In my view, the only long game has nothing to do with the state -- voting red or blue doesn't change the fundamentals in the long term, because the forces that choose who you even get to choose between are so disconnected from reality. The only solutions are local -- trying to become a strong individual, being a good family member, being a good parent, being a good neighbor, being a good parent, to create a culture that overwhelms the state and the market.
"Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one."
In the end, empires fall, urban monoculture fails, and what's left? The people who are strong enough to live without it.
That's what I said. Not necessarily because we died, but because our ancestors were the ones who were afraid and didn't die.
Some of our primal fears are based entirely on something like that. Not necessarily because we died, but because our ancestors were the ones who were afraid of something and didn't die.
I love how the talking heads are like "oh no, regular people are going to be so hurt by this!"
But let's be honest: How many people use federal services on a daily basis?
But let's be honest: How many people use federal services on a daily basis?
Imagine the poor fed who has to read my posts. "Aw fuck not another novella about post-metamodern superpositional epistemological framework, nobody cares neeeeeerd!"
Mark Carney, the new head of the liberal party, besides being former head of the bank of Canada and the bank of England, is also a former hedge fund manager. So the far left pick is literally just a hedge fund manager/banker. Lol.
It should be the easiest guy in the world for the NDP to run against, except they're headed by the masarati Marxist Jagmeet Singh, so they have to debate who has the bigger supercar collection.
I'm sure the left is excited to vote for someone who stands up for their anti-capitalist values -- a hedge fund manager.
It should be the easiest guy in the world for the NDP to run against, except they're headed by the masarati Marxist Jagmeet Singh, so they have to debate who has the bigger supercar collection.
I'm sure the left is excited to vote for someone who stands up for their anti-capitalist values -- a hedge fund manager.
It's like when Obama admitted to smoking pot and also inhaling. "That was the point."
"I sure am glad the engineer who was on track to flunk out of the program but got an A because 'death to the jews, death to Israel' designed this car!"
Saw a post claiming that Musk has no cards and ought to make concessions to Ukraine whom is allegedly ddosing Twitter.
I know it's a joke, but arguably Musk has a lot more cards than Ukraine does -- which kind of proves the point.
"Oh no! 'putin' 'hacked' starlink and got all the GPS coordinates for each one, permanently disabled each one, and got to see the unencrypted traffic for the past week! It sure is a shame our engineers were busy dealing with that ddos attack on Twitter, we were just caught off guard!"
I'm sure that if Elon was made governor of Zakarpattia for life he could definitely 'hack' 'putin' and make sure the terminals started working again and the GPS coordinates got lost!
Ukraine needs Musk, but Musk doesn't need Ukraine. Even if Twitter was wiped off the map, all Musk would lose is his (admittedly sizable) investment and be on the hook for some debt. If Ukraine was wiped off the map, however, they stand to lose a lot more.
If Ukraine were indeed trying to poke that bear, it would be a chevette playing a game of chicken with a 100 ton rock truck.
I know it's a joke, but arguably Musk has a lot more cards than Ukraine does -- which kind of proves the point.
"Oh no! 'putin' 'hacked' starlink and got all the GPS coordinates for each one, permanently disabled each one, and got to see the unencrypted traffic for the past week! It sure is a shame our engineers were busy dealing with that ddos attack on Twitter, we were just caught off guard!"
I'm sure that if Elon was made governor of Zakarpattia for life he could definitely 'hack' 'putin' and make sure the terminals started working again and the GPS coordinates got lost!
Ukraine needs Musk, but Musk doesn't need Ukraine. Even if Twitter was wiped off the map, all Musk would lose is his (admittedly sizable) investment and be on the hook for some debt. If Ukraine was wiped off the map, however, they stand to lose a lot more.
If Ukraine were indeed trying to poke that bear, it would be a chevette playing a game of chicken with a 100 ton rock truck.
That looks expensive. Can we just replace it with Jack Ives matter plaza? I thing Jack Ives would appreciate it and it'd cost only a fraction as much.
I find it a useful tool, but people have already started to point out that dull, soulless, lifeless writing comes out of it. Newer versions of the LLMs don't improve on this, it just gives them a more comprehensive data set.
Ultimately, one of the core problems with AI in general is it's epistemologically conservative. It doesn't know anything it wasn't told, and then what it does is mutate and remix that data into something that has the appearance of something new but is essentially just what has come before. As we rely more on it as a tool, it's a limitation we need to keep in mind because people on the cutting edge of thought or research may find their AIs telling them that what hasn't been discovered or created doesn't exist just because it hasn't yet.
Ultimately, one of the core problems with AI in general is it's epistemologically conservative. It doesn't know anything it wasn't told, and then what it does is mutate and remix that data into something that has the appearance of something new but is essentially just what has come before. As we rely more on it as a tool, it's a limitation we need to keep in mind because people on the cutting edge of thought or research may find their AIs telling them that what hasn't been discovered or created doesn't exist just because it hasn't yet.
Sadly, we are.
All it takes is a little anti-american fake nationalism and all sins are forgiven. Especially with the boomers.
That being said, I still think this is like the fake polling bump Kamala got. Prior to Trudeau announcing his resignation, the Liberals were in #3, and we were on track for #2 to be a regional party that only exists in one province. It's still entirely possible we see a massive victory for the conservatives, and Poilievre is still on track to a majority in the latest polls regardless, the only question at the moment is how big it'll be and who'll be in #2.
There's also Canadian precedent for this. Kim Campbell was a conservative who became prime minister in a situation like this, and the polls said the conservatives could win, and the result was 15 years of Liberal dominance (and that wasn't so bad back then, it was a different party than it is today)
All it takes is a little anti-american fake nationalism and all sins are forgiven. Especially with the boomers.
That being said, I still think this is like the fake polling bump Kamala got. Prior to Trudeau announcing his resignation, the Liberals were in #3, and we were on track for #2 to be a regional party that only exists in one province. It's still entirely possible we see a massive victory for the conservatives, and Poilievre is still on track to a majority in the latest polls regardless, the only question at the moment is how big it'll be and who'll be in #2.
There's also Canadian precedent for this. Kim Campbell was a conservative who became prime minister in a situation like this, and the polls said the conservatives could win, and the result was 15 years of Liberal dominance (and that wasn't so bad back then, it was a different party than it is today)
Seeing that, it might be time to start readying my dry powder.... but it doesn't feel ready yet.
It actually pisses me off seeing a bunch of people who were like "#cancelcanadaday" pretending they're patriotic. STFU you don't give a shit about any given country, you're a bunch of postnationalists.
It's like -- Sit down, shut up, and eat your postnational gruel. This is the gruel you cooked, eat every drop.
It's like -- Sit down, shut up, and eat your postnational gruel. This is the gruel you cooked, eat every drop.
Honestly, forcing payment of already completed work seems reasonable, though there's a good question of what the hell is being done with 2 billion dollars.
So Jagmeet Singh says we shouldn't have "tax cuts for the rich" for companies that are affected by tariffs.
Tariffs though, they're a tax exclusively on the rich -- almost nobody other than companies directly imports stuff from other countries, we buy stuff in stores.
So the obvious counter is "Yeah, but the companies paying tariffs just pass the cost on to the customer"
Yeah, they do that with taxes, don't they? Hmm.
Tariffs though, they're a tax exclusively on the rich -- almost nobody other than companies directly imports stuff from other countries, we buy stuff in stores.
So the obvious counter is "Yeah, but the companies paying tariffs just pass the cost on to the customer"
Yeah, they do that with taxes, don't they? Hmm.