“I’m not a politician; I’m a businessman with a sense of history. I’m also a Londoner. Our country is not an island anymore. We’re a leading European state. I believe this is a decade where London will become Europe’s capital.”
“I’m a journalist and author with a sense of history. I’m also a Londoner. Our country is not an island anymore. We’re a leading European state. I believe this is a decade where London will become Europe’s capital.”
Who better than (in 2015) Mayor of London and former arch-Remainer Alexander Johnson?
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
He’s certainly eccentric. Nonetheless if there is one man on earth you listen to when it comes to technological advance, it’s Elon Musk
And his predictions are gob smacking. AGI by next year, ASI - the singularity - within 5 years. He also says the chances of us being wiped out are 10-20%
And he finally says this is definitely happening. We are already on the event horizon. So even if his timings are out this is coming our way fast
ETA maybe Rishi can ask Keir Starmer for a DPP view at next Leader of the Opposition's questions. If I were potentially in the firing line, that would worry me. As it is, the inquiry is kicking it into the long grass.
If it's for little people, should the PM be worried?
There's a much more serious debate to be had about criminal justice and the use of prisons. All I hear are how crowded or over crowded the prisons have become - presumably, like other forms of residential accommodation, we've not been building enough - El Salvador has a prison for 40,000 inmates (roughly the population of Aldershot).
As usual, it's not an easy debate - you'll have on one side the "build more prisons, lock 'em up and throw away the key" types and on the other those who say since the prison population is so high, we should we looking at alternatives to incarceration. What proportion, for example, of the UK prison population aren't UK citizens?
The prison situation in El Salvador is a mess. Essentially they have rounded up 40,000 people without trial or any judicial process and have now built what looks like something worse than a concentration camp to house them, 100 people per 100 sqm cell; on metal bunks; indefinetly. This is ultimately what happens when you have a populist government with no interest in human rights.
And the president has just been re-elected with 85% of the vote, the most emphatic mandate in global democratic history, I think
As he puts it: "what about the human rights of all the people that were getting shot, killed, chopped, raped and blown up by the gang bangers he has now put in jail"?
Bukele has reduced El Salvador's homicide rate from one of the worst in the world to one of the lowest in the Americas
Yes, and this is why Putin would win a free election, and why Saddam was so popular. Most people do not really care about political freedom because most people do not want to run their country. They just want a safe and comfortable home and work environment. But political freedom does seem to be the sine qua non of prosperity. Even resource-rich dictatorships collapse into corruption.
I tend to disagree, and cite Singapore
State directed capitalism and one party autocracy can work pretty well, as long as you have the rule of law (not true in Putin's Russia, of course)
Most people in the world would be very happy to live in crime-free, super-rich Singapore
Yes, but that seems to be an exception. Most autocracies are not happy places. Look at where migrants go.
The DUP Parliamentary party has shrunk by 12.5% over the Parliament. This is a proportionately larger shrinkage than any other party… except Plaid Cymru, who shrunk by 25%. The SNP is third on 10.4%, then we get the Conservatives on 4.7% and finally Labour on 1.0%.
Alba, Reform UK and Workers Party have all seen infinite % growth in their parliamentary parties. The LibDems have grown by 36.4%.
The SF, SDLP, Green and APNI contingents have been unchanged.
It is highly likely labour will be in power not only in Westminster, but in Scotland as they are in Wales and the one benefit from this will be that neither Scotland or Wales will be able to blame the 'Tories' In Westminster for lack of funding and legislative problems which will remain, and likely deepen
Unless, of course, they do actually decide to have a pop at Whitehall at regular intervals - special pleading for the primacy of their interests being rather part of the job, and the world being a somewhat different place to what it was when Labour was last in power at Westminster.
You could even argue that using the richer half of England as a cash machine to bolster the finances of the rest of the country is a necessary consequence of a redistributive platform and of the whole levelling up schtick. We could argue all day about the degree to which this should apply to Scotland, but you can make a very good argument for Wales being short changed by the existing settlement.
Wales is hampered imo by the cultural wing of Plaid which is more interested in subsidising the spread of the language into schools and television than in modernising the Welsh economy. Whatever you think of the SNP government in Scotland, it sees beyond bilingual road signs.
Although the fact Scotland has never been monoglot in the way Wales was for centuries probably helps there.
Welsh nationalism grew out of defending Welsh culture and especially the language. Scottish nationalism grew out of the sense that Scotland remained a de facto separate country from England.
PB pungent punditry alert - doubtless Welsh Wales in its ancient-to-medieval heyday also harbored small colonies of merchants, travelers, refugees, fugitives, etc., etc. speaking other languages.
Personally like to imagine, some remote corner of the Cambrian outback, where Neo-Phonecian was the local lingo up until sometime in last millennium.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
ETA maybe Rishi can ask Keir Starmer for a DPP view at next Leader of the Opposition's questions. If I were potentially in the firing line, that would worry me. As it is, the inquiry is kicking it into the long grass.
If it's for little people, should the PM be worried?
There's a much more serious debate to be had about criminal justice and the use of prisons. All I hear are how crowded or over crowded the prisons have become - presumably, like other forms of residential accommodation, we've not been building enough - El Salvador has a prison for 40,000 inmates (roughly the population of Aldershot).
As usual, it's not an easy debate - you'll have on one side the "build more prisons, lock 'em up and throw away the key" types and on the other those who say since the prison population is so high, we should we looking at alternatives to incarceration. What proportion, for example, of the UK prison population aren't UK citizens?
The prison situation in El Salvador is a mess. Essentially they have rounded up 40,000 people without trial or any judicial process and have now built what looks like something worse than a concentration camp to house them, 100 people per 100 sqm cell; on metal bunks; indefinetly. This is ultimately what happens when you have a populist government with no interest in human rights.
And the president has just been re-elected with 85% of the vote, the most emphatic mandate in global democratic history, I think
As he puts it: "what about the human rights of all the people that were getting shot, killed, chopped, raped and blown up by the gang bangers he has now put in jail"?
Bukele has reduced El Salvador's homicide rate from one of the worst in the world to one of the lowest in the Americas
Yes, and this is why Putin would win a free election, and why Saddam was so popular. Most people do not really care about political freedom because most people do not want to run their country. They just want a safe and comfortable home and work environment. But political freedom does seem to be the sine qua non of prosperity. Even resource-rich dictatorships collapse into corruption.
I tend to disagree, and cite Singapore
State directed capitalism and one party autocracy can work pretty well, as long as you have the rule of law (not true in Putin's Russia, of course)
Most people in the world would be very happy to live in crime-free, super-rich Singapore
What is it about Singapore that prevents it descending into corruption? Is there lots of corruption just well hidden? How is the rule of law upheld over time there?
ETA maybe Rishi can ask Keir Starmer for a DPP view at next Leader of the Opposition's questions. If I were potentially in the firing line, that would worry me. As it is, the inquiry is kicking it into the long grass.
If it's for little people, should the PM be worried?
There's a much more serious debate to be had about criminal justice and the use of prisons. All I hear are how crowded or over crowded the prisons have become - presumably, like other forms of residential accommodation, we've not been building enough - El Salvador has a prison for 40,000 inmates (roughly the population of Aldershot).
As usual, it's not an easy debate - you'll have on one side the "build more prisons, lock 'em up and throw away the key" types and on the other those who say since the prison population is so high, we should we looking at alternatives to incarceration. What proportion, for example, of the UK prison population aren't UK citizens?
The prison situation in El Salvador is a mess. Essentially they have rounded up 40,000 people without trial or any judicial process and have now built what looks like something worse than a concentration camp to house them, 100 people per 100 sqm cell; on metal bunks; indefinetly. This is ultimately what happens when you have a populist government with no interest in human rights.
And the president has just been re-elected with 85% of the vote, the most emphatic mandate in global democratic history, I think
As he puts it: "what about the human rights of all the people that were getting shot, killed, chopped, raped and blown up by the gang bangers he has now put in jail"?
Bukele has reduced El Salvador's homicide rate from one of the worst in the world to one of the lowest in the Americas
Yes, and this is why Putin would win a free election, and why Saddam was so popular. Most people do not really care about political freedom because most people do not want to run their country. They just want a safe and comfortable home and work environment. But political freedom does seem to be the sine qua non of prosperity. Even resource-rich dictatorships collapse into corruption.
I tend to disagree, and cite Singapore
State directed capitalism and one party autocracy can work pretty well, as long as you have the rule of law (not true in Putin's Russia, of course)
Most people in the world would be very happy to live in crime-free, super-rich Singapore
What is it about Singapore that prevents it descending into corruption? Is there lots of corruption just well hidden? How is the rule of law upheld over time there?
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
A lot of very rich people got that way through... lying.
ETA maybe Rishi can ask Keir Starmer for a DPP view at next Leader of the Opposition's questions. If I were potentially in the firing line, that would worry me. As it is, the inquiry is kicking it into the long grass.
If it's for little people, should the PM be worried?
There's a much more serious debate to be had about criminal justice and the use of prisons. All I hear are how crowded or over crowded the prisons have become - presumably, like other forms of residential accommodation, we've not been building enough - El Salvador has a prison for 40,000 inmates (roughly the population of Aldershot).
As usual, it's not an easy debate - you'll have on one side the "build more prisons, lock 'em up and throw away the key" types and on the other those who say since the prison population is so high, we should we looking at alternatives to incarceration. What proportion, for example, of the UK prison population aren't UK citizens?
The prison situation in El Salvador is a mess. Essentially they have rounded up 40,000 people without trial or any judicial process and have now built what looks like something worse than a concentration camp to house them, 100 people per 100 sqm cell; on metal bunks; indefinetly. This is ultimately what happens when you have a populist government with no interest in human rights.
And the president has just been re-elected with 85% of the vote, the most emphatic mandate in global democratic history, I think
As he puts it: "what about the human rights of all the people that were getting shot, killed, chopped, raped and blown up by the gang bangers he has now put in jail"?
Bukele has reduced El Salvador's homicide rate from one of the worst in the world to one of the lowest in the Americas
Yes, and this is why Putin would win a free election, and why Saddam was so popular. Most people do not really care about political freedom because most people do not want to run their country. They just want a safe and comfortable home and work environment. But political freedom does seem to be the sine qua non of prosperity. Even resource-rich dictatorships collapse into corruption.
I tend to disagree, and cite Singapore
State directed capitalism and one party autocracy can work pretty well, as long as you have the rule of law (not true in Putin's Russia, of course)
Most people in the world would be very happy to live in crime-free, super-rich Singapore
The key there is that Singapore has a system that works, for them. Putting your faith in leaders is the the biggest mistake countries make. Belgium and Netherlands, for example, often take months to get a new "leader" after an election but things tick along quite nicely without them.
No, it's because I use plain politicalbetting.com rather than vanilla.
When you refresh the page to pick up the latest comments on PB.com you will see if there's a new thread; you don't see the new thread if you refresh on vanilla.
The DUP Parliamentary party has shrunk by 12.5% over the Parliament. This is a proportionately larger shrinkage than any other party… except Plaid Cymru, who shrunk by 25%. The SNP is third on 10.4%, then we get the Conservatives on 4.7% and finally Labour on 1.0%.
Alba, Reform UK and Workers Party have all seen infinite % growth in their parliamentary parties. The LibDems have grown by 36.4%.
The SF, SDLP, Green and APNI contingents have been unchanged.
Following the 1935 general election, National Labour was down to 5 MPs, of whom 4 were in HMG including Prime Minister Ramsey Macdonald.
That's 80% in government, and 20% for the 1 backbencher: Harold Nicholson.
AND even HN ended up in office (as Parli. Sec) for Min. of Info. briefly during the Coalition.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
A lot of very rich people got that way through... lying.
Donald Trump's grandfather (or maybe great) started family fortune building & operating whorehouses in Seattle.
Sadly DJT himself has NOT lived up to granddaddy's high standards.
Theory: the best countries are those run by a combination of East Asians and the English
You have the discipline and education of east Asians married to the liberal principles and free trade of England. Result: Singapore
Yes and Hong Kong. I generally like East Asians pretty intelligent generally though maybe a little too conformist.
Hong Kong is a tragedy
The British created so many of the greatest cities in the world. From New York to Sydney. From Toronto to Cape Town. And two of the brightest jewels were Singapore and Hong Kong. Amazing places
Now the stupid Chinese commies have fucked up Hong kong. Twats
ETA maybe Rishi can ask Keir Starmer for a DPP view at next Leader of the Opposition's questions. If I were potentially in the firing line, that would worry me. As it is, the inquiry is kicking it into the long grass.
If it's for little people, should the PM be worried?
There's a much more serious debate to be had about criminal justice and the use of prisons. All I hear are how crowded or over crowded the prisons have become - presumably, like other forms of residential accommodation, we've not been building enough - El Salvador has a prison for 40,000 inmates (roughly the population of Aldershot).
As usual, it's not an easy debate - you'll have on one side the "build more prisons, lock 'em up and throw away the key" types and on the other those who say since the prison population is so high, we should we looking at alternatives to incarceration. What proportion, for example, of the UK prison population aren't UK citizens?
The prison situation in El Salvador is a mess. Essentially they have rounded up 40,000 people without trial or any judicial process and have now built what looks like something worse than a concentration camp to house them, 100 people per 100 sqm cell; on metal bunks; indefinetly. This is ultimately what happens when you have a populist government with no interest in human rights.
And the president has just been re-elected with 85% of the vote, the most emphatic mandate in global democratic history, I think
As he puts it: "what about the human rights of all the people that were getting shot, killed, chopped, raped and blown up by the gang bangers he has now put in jail"?
Bukele has reduced El Salvador's homicide rate from one of the worst in the world to one of the lowest in the Americas
There you have the paradox or dichotomy of freedom.
For many people in the world, freedom means safety and security, the freedom to walk the streets without fear, the freedom to buy food and take it home to the family.
That is freedom - not freedom of experession, the right to offend or the whole free speech debate. It's about feeling safe and secure in your world. For us, that comes with a large and largely unaccountable state security apparatus which shuts down terrorist plots to disrupt and destroy but the converse of that is security at the granular level. Can I walk down the High Street without being mugged late at night - will I be robbed of all my valuables and frightened to within an inch of my life by some thug?
The emphasis is on terrorism but most people don't encounter terrorists, it's bog-standard crime they want Govenrments to spend time and money sorting out.
I have a theory govts quite like petty crime and disorder in poor neighbourhoods as it frightens the middle class to work harder.
Some stats: Bukele has put 60,000 people in jail. El Salvador has a population of just 6m
So he's put 1% of the country behind bars. The equivalent in the UK would be 700,000 in jail. That is exceptionally brutal, but then El Salvador was exceptionally messed up, and probably required exceptional ruthlessness
As long as you're not one of the 1%, or closely related to them, you will worship Bukele
For ordinary people democracy is a theoretical abstraction. They just want safe streets, jobs and cleanliness.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Theory: the best countries are those run by a combination of East Asians and the English
You have the discipline and education of east Asians married to the liberal principles and free trade of England. Result: Singapore
Yes and Hong Kong. I generally like East Asians pretty intelligent generally though maybe a little too conformist.
Hong Kong is a tragedy
The British created so many of the greatest cities in the world. From New York to Sydney. From Toronto to Cape Town. And two of the brightest jewels were Singapore and Hong Kong. Amazing places
Now the stupid Chinese commies have fucked up Hong kong. Twats
The crazy thing is they could have kept it, on the surface, as it was and used it as a great tool in global finance and intelligence but they just couldn’t help themselves. It’s like everything they are doing that ultimately isn’t good for them and they can’t see it because some bullshit thinking.
They could pull the rug from Russia and be seen as the great country stopping bad shit and bask in good relations with the US and Europe and their spending power, they could have hammered Iran over the Houthis damaging trade routes as ultimately China needs to send goods west cheaply. They play silly games which will only really damage them more than others who are more flexible.
Do people even begin to understand how good AI is already?
I don 't think they do. But they should. Let's take Anthropic's Claude
eg Say you're a budding novelist. Obvs none of us is, but imagine you are
You can feed Claude 3 Opus your entire 350 page novel, in one go, and it understands it all, digests it, analyses it, and will give you excellent advice on it: plotting, character, prose, dialogue - and it does this in about 1 to 2 minutes
The scale of that is mind blowing when you witness it. Publishing editors are fucked. I now see why all the editors I know LOATHE any mention of AI
ETA maybe Rishi can ask Keir Starmer for a DPP view at next Leader of the Opposition's questions. If I were potentially in the firing line, that would worry me. As it is, the inquiry is kicking it into the long grass.
If it's for little people, should the PM be worried?
There's a much more serious debate to be had about criminal justice and the use of prisons. All I hear are how crowded or over crowded the prisons have become - presumably, like other forms of residential accommodation, we've not been building enough - El Salvador has a prison for 40,000 inmates (roughly the population of Aldershot).
As usual, it's not an easy debate - you'll have on one side the "build more prisons, lock 'em up and throw away the key" types and on the other those who say since the prison population is so high, we should we looking at alternatives to incarceration. What proportion, for example, of the UK prison population aren't UK citizens?
The prison situation in El Salvador is a mess. Essentially they have rounded up 40,000 people without trial or any judicial process and have now built what looks like something worse than a concentration camp to house them, 100 people per 100 sqm cell; on metal bunks; indefinetly. This is ultimately what happens when you have a populist government with no interest in human rights.
And the president has just been re-elected with 85% of the vote, the most emphatic mandate in global democratic history, I think
As he puts it: "what about the human rights of all the people that were getting shot, killed, chopped, raped and blown up by the gang bangers he has now put in jail"?
Bukele has reduced El Salvador's homicide rate from one of the worst in the world to one of the lowest in the Americas
Yes, and this is why Putin would win a free election, and why Saddam was so popular. Most people do not really care about political freedom because most people do not want to run their country. They just want a safe and comfortable home and work environment. But political freedom does seem to be the sine qua non of prosperity. Even resource-rich dictatorships collapse into corruption.
Venezuela was a democracy. Didnt seem to work out too well.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
But he knows more about engineering than any man alive!
Just finished the 3 body problem. One of the very best things I have seen on TV for years. Outstanding. Episode 5 in particular was just mind blowing.
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
Theory: the best countries are those run by a combination of East Asians and the English
You have the discipline and education of east Asians married to the liberal principles and free trade of England. Result: Singapore
Singapore's had 60 years of self governance and the first PM has only just died. I'd imagine problems start when the governing class realise the old norms don't bind and the corruption sneaks back in.
Hopefully the new generations will be as effective as the last. But power without the democratic cycle does seem to corrupt most places.
Theory: the best countries are those run by a combination of East Asians and the English
You have the discipline and education of east Asians married to the liberal principles and free trade of England. Result: Singapore
Yes and Hong Kong. I generally like East Asians pretty intelligent generally though maybe a little too conformist.
Hong Kong is a tragedy
The British created so many of the greatest cities in the world. From New York to Sydney. From Toronto to Cape Town. And two of the brightest jewels were Singapore and Hong Kong. Amazing places
Now the stupid Chinese commies have fucked up Hong kong. Twats
The crazy thing is they could have kept it, on the surface, as it was and used it as a great tool in global finance and intelligence but they just couldn’t help themselves. It’s like everything they are doing that ultimately isn’t good for them and they can’t see it because some bullshit thinking.
They could pull the rug from Russia and be seen as the great country stopping bad shit and bask in good relations with the US and Europe and their spending power, they could have hammered Iran over the Houthis damaging trade routes as ultimately China needs to send goods west cheaply. They play silly games which will only really damage them more than others who are more flexible.
Yes, absolutely. China under Xi is on a disastrous course, and Hong Kong is the clear proof of that. They were simply given this magnificent gem of a city, economically thriving and full of ideas, like being given a Chinese London
And they are so paranoid they fucked it all up. Eejits
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
A lot of very rich people got that way through... lying.
Leon should really look into emerald mining - big in Columbia.
Owning (or rather part owning) a mine isn’t the path to tons on money that you might think. It’s not about chunks of beautiful green gems the size of fist just falling out of the ground.
It’s like diamond mining with lower profits - emeralds are really not that rare - with many more opportunities for scams. Look up “Improving” emeralds.
Lots of small timers trying to get rich. It often attracts that kind of idiot who if always falling for get rich schemes.
There’s a story, repeated in the series Narcos, that the Columbian drug cartels found the emerald mining types too violent and thuggish.
Today feels far too much like Saturday. I keep having to remind myself that the clocks don't go forward tonight.
Same here. It's rather weird though, given we're retired so a regular Friday is not much different to a regular Saturday, but several times today I have thought it was Saturday.
Theory: the best countries are those run by a combination of East Asians and the English
You have the discipline and education of east Asians married to the liberal principles and free trade of England. Result: Singapore
Yes and Hong Kong. I generally like East Asians pretty intelligent generally though maybe a little too conformist.
Hong Kong is a tragedy
The British created so many of the greatest cities in the world. From New York to Sydney. From Toronto to Cape Town. And two of the brightest jewels were Singapore and Hong Kong. Amazing places
Now the stupid Chinese commies have fucked up Hong kong. Twats
The crazy thing is they could have kept it, on the surface, as it was and used it as a great tool in global finance and intelligence but they just couldn’t help themselves. It’s like everything they are doing that ultimately isn’t good for them and they can’t see it because some bullshit thinking.
They could pull the rug from Russia and be seen as the great country stopping bad shit and bask in good relations with the US and Europe and their spending power, they could have hammered Iran over the Houthis damaging trade routes as ultimately China needs to send goods west cheaply. They play silly games which will only really damage them more than others who are more flexible.
Agreed. They could easily have persuaded Putin to withdraw from Ukraine in 2022.
Had they done so, everyone would have praised Xi and it would have done China's image on the world stage no harm at all. It would have been much harder to put forward a strongly anti-China line as everyone would see Xi as a peacemaker.
He could also precipitate change in North Korea but his political instincts (such as they are) don't see the overarching benefits of de-escalation.
Theory: the best countries are those run by a combination of East Asians and the English
You have the discipline and education of east Asians married to the liberal principles and free trade of England. Result: Singapore
Singapore's had 60 years of self governance and the first PM has only just died. I'd imagine problems start when the governing class realise the old norms don't bind and the corruption sneaks back in.
Hopefully the new generations will be as effective as the last. But power without the democratic cycle does seem to corrupt most places.
Yes it’s far too early to say if Singapore is a viable model for the long term.
Just finished the 3 body problem. One of the very best things I have seen on TV for years. Outstanding. Episode 5 in particular was just mind blowing.
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
Just finished the 3 body problem. One of the very best things I have seen on TV for years. Outstanding. Episode 5 in particular was just mind blowing.
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
Just finished the 3 body problem. One of the very best things I have seen on TV for years. Outstanding. Episode 5 in particular was just mind blowing.
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
A lot of very rich people got that way through... lying.
Leon should really look into emerald mining - big in Columbia.
Owning (or rather part owning) a mine isn’t the path to tons on money that you might think. It’s not about chunks of beautiful green gems the size of fist just falling out of the ground.
It’s like diamond mining with lower profits - emeralds are really not that rare - with many more opportunities for scams. Look up “Improving” emeralds.
Lots of small timers trying to get rich. It often attracts that kind of idiot who if always falling for get rich schemes.
There’s a story, repeated in the series Narcos, that the Columbian drug cartels found the emerald mining types too violent and thuggish.
I was actually reading all about the Colombian emerald mining trade when I was in Colombia. And yes, some of them make Escobar look like a pussycat
Theory: the best countries are those run by a combination of East Asians and the English
You have the discipline and education of east Asians married to the liberal principles and free trade of England. Result: Singapore
Yes and Hong Kong. I generally like East Asians pretty intelligent generally though maybe a little too conformist.
Hong Kong is a tragedy
The British created so many of the greatest cities in the world. From New York to Sydney. From Toronto to Cape Town. And two of the brightest jewels were Singapore and Hong Kong. Amazing places
Now the stupid Chinese commies have fucked up Hong kong. Twats
The crazy thing is they could have kept it, on the surface, as it was and used it as a great tool in global finance and intelligence but they just couldn’t help themselves. It’s like everything they are doing that ultimately isn’t good for them and they can’t see it because some bullshit thinking.
They could pull the rug from Russia and be seen as the great country stopping bad shit and bask in good relations with the US and Europe and their spending power, they could have hammered Iran over the Houthis damaging trade routes as ultimately China needs to send goods west cheaply. They play silly games which will only really damage them more than others who are more flexible.
Agreed. They could easily have persuaded Putin to withdraw from Ukraine in 2022.
Had they done so, everyone would have praised Xi and it would have done China's image on the world stage no harm at all. It would have been much harder to put forward a strongly anti-China line as everyone would see Xi as a peacemaker.
He could also precipitate change in North Korea but his political instincts (such as they are) don't see the overarching benefits of de-escalation.
I think Xi is so busy playing 4 dimensional chess that he hasn’t realised everyone else plays croquet.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
The 'proof' was the fact he said it himself, in a recorded interview.
Which leads to one of two options: *) Musk himself lied in the earlier interview. *) Musk is lying now.
Given he's a tech bro, I basically think he lies about everything, if the lie is to his advantage.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
Channeling Ken L: You know who else was exceptional?
Just finished the 3 body problem. One of the very best things I have seen on TV for years. Outstanding. Episode 5 in particular was just mind blowing.
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
Does one of those fancy mercury-silver headsets come free with the book?
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Western Europe Britain chose finance over industry, austerity over investment, and a closed economy over openness to the world.
Theory: the best countries are those run by a combination of East Asians and the English
You have the discipline and education of east Asians married to the liberal principles and free trade of England. Result: Singapore
Yes and Hong Kong. I generally like East Asians pretty intelligent generally though maybe a little too conformist.
Hong Kong is a tragedy
The British created so many of the greatest cities in the world. From New York to Sydney. From Toronto to Cape Town. And two of the brightest jewels were Singapore and Hong Kong. Amazing places
Now the stupid Chinese commies have fucked up Hong kong. Twats
The crazy thing is they could have kept it, on the surface, as it was and used it as a great tool in global finance and intelligence but they just couldn’t help themselves. It’s like everything they are doing that ultimately isn’t good for them and they can’t see it because some bullshit thinking.
They could pull the rug from Russia and be seen as the great country stopping bad shit and bask in good relations with the US and Europe and their spending power, they could have hammered Iran over the Houthis damaging trade routes as ultimately China needs to send goods west cheaply. They play silly games which will only really damage them more than others who are more flexible.
Agreed. They could easily have persuaded Putin to withdraw from Ukraine in 2022.
Had they done so, everyone would have praised Xi and it would have done China's image on the world stage no harm at all. It would have been much harder to put forward a strongly anti-China line as everyone would see Xi as a peacemaker.
He could also precipitate change in North Korea but his political instincts (such as they are) don't see the overarching benefits of de-escalation.
I think Xi is so busy playing 4 dimensional chess that he hasn’t realised everyone else plays croquet.
This is not a spoiler but the early chapters of 3 body problem gives an insight into the horror of civil strife during the Cultural Revolution. It has to be remembered that this was in the life time of the current Chinese leadership. They know better than anyone on the planet how dangerous and frightening disorder can be. It’s not surprising this makes them so authoritarian and prone to clamping down violently. Somewhere between 1 and 2 million died and tens of millions more suffered terrible hardship.
There will hopefully come a time when the life experience of their leaders and their middle classes will be different but that is going to take a lot of forgetting.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
He’s also not spending Friday night on PB.com and is working out how he can spend billions on something fun. I think he’s sort of winning here.
As the economics writer Noah Smith notes, London’s financial prowess has concealed the overall economy’s weakness in innovation and manufacturing. Or, as the economic analyst Matt Klein puts it, “Take out Greater London—the prosperity of which depends to an uncomfortable degree on a willingness to provide services to oligarchs from the Middle East and the former Soviet Union—and the UK is one of the poorest countries in Western Europe.”
Just finished the 3 body problem. One of the very best things I have seen on TV for years. Outstanding. Episode 5 in particular was just mind blowing.
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
Does one of those fancy mercury-silver headsets come free with the book?
Some stats: Bukele has put 60,000 people in jail. El Salvador has a population of just 6m
So he's put 1% of the country behind bars. The equivalent in the UK would be 700,000 in jail. That is exceptionally brutal, but then El Salvador was exceptionally messed up, and probably required exceptional ruthlessness
As long as you're not one of the 1%, or closely related to them, you will worship Bukele
Yes but let's combine the two stories on this thread: El Salvador and the Post Office. The villains got sent to prison but at the cost of also incarcerating many innocent souls. If all we care about is the El Salvadoran murder rate and Post Office fraud, everything is cushty. If we care about due process and guilt and innocence, well, we are where we are until ITV makes a drama series.
Just finished the 3 body problem. One of the very best things I have seen on TV for years. Outstanding. Episode 5 in particular was just mind blowing.
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
Is it permissible for me to feel smug about the fact that I bought the book series and his other books in English (or got them from the library) and read them years ago?
“I’m not a politician; I’m a businessman with a sense of history. I’m also a Londoner. Our country is not an island anymore. We’re a leading European state. I believe this is a decade where London will become Europe’s capital.”
The Long Good Friday. Oh, I see what you did there.
"Good Friday" is "Long Friday" in Nordic languages, e.g. "Långfredagen" in Swedish and "Pitkäperjantai" in Finnish. And also in old English: "Langa frigedæg"
Just finished the 3 body problem. One of the very best things I have seen on TV for years. Outstanding. Episode 5 in particular was just mind blowing.
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
Is it permissible for me to feel smug about the fact that I bought the book series and his other books in English (or got them from the library) and read them years ago?
Yes. I shall feel a little smug.
😃
Plus just wait until you get to the next books in the series. They will flatten you.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
He’s also not spending Friday night on PB.com and is working out how he can spend billions on something fun. I think he’s sort of winning here.
Oddly enough, I care little for billions. I am fairly comfortable off, and having double the money I have will not currently change my life much (halving our income would...). I'm generally happy and content with my life. I see few signs Musk is - and that's often the case with the extremely rich.
There are far too many examples of extremely rich people being utter douchebags to suggest that extreme wealth is a form of 'winning' - unless the accumulation of money is your only aim in life.
Do people even begin to understand how good AI is already?
I don 't think they do. But they should. Let's take Anthropic's Claude
eg Say you're a budding novelist. Obvs none of us is, but imagine you are
You can feed Claude 3 Opus your entire 350 page novel, in one go, and it understands it all, digests it, analyses it, and will give you excellent advice on it: plotting, character, prose, dialogue - and it does this in about 1 to 2 minutes
The scale of that is mind blowing when you witness it. Publishing editors are fucked. I now see why all the editors I know LOATHE any mention of AI
And it learns about your novel ready to leak extracts to the next author who comes along.
Bukele and Milei are both signs that Latin America could be at the beginning of a turnaround in its fortunes.
I did get that sense in Colombia. It has such enormous potential, like all of Latin Ameriva - it it vast, fertile, varied, sunny, with great mountains and mighty deserts and huge jungles and epic coastlines, and a lot of resourceful energetic people
It's like a brilliant new car constantly stalling, and one feels the same in Brazil or Argentina. Why are they so shit when they could be world class?
If anyone solves the stalling problem, they will be epic places
ETA maybe Rishi can ask Keir Starmer for a DPP view at next Leader of the Opposition's questions. If I were potentially in the firing line, that would worry me. As it is, the inquiry is kicking it into the long grass.
If it's for little people, should the PM be worried?
There's a much more serious debate to be had about criminal justice and the use of prisons. All I hear are how crowded or over crowded the prisons have become - presumably, like other forms of residential accommodation, we've not been building enough - El Salvador has a prison for 40,000 inmates (roughly the population of Aldershot).
As usual, it's not an easy debate - you'll have on one side the "build more prisons, lock 'em up and throw away the key" types and on the other those who say since the prison population is so high, we should we looking at alternatives to incarceration. What proportion, for example, of the UK prison population aren't UK citizens?
The prison situation in El Salvador is a mess. Essentially they have rounded up 40,000 people without trial or any judicial process and have now built what looks like something worse than a concentration camp to house them, 100 people per 100 sqm cell; on metal bunks; indefinetly. This is ultimately what happens when you have a populist government with no interest in human rights.
And the president has just been re-elected with 85% of the vote, the most emphatic mandate in global democratic history, I think
As he puts it: "what about the human rights of all the people that were getting shot, killed, chopped, raped and blown up by the gang bangers he has now put in jail"?
Bukele has reduced El Salvador's homicide rate from one of the worst in the world to one of the lowest in the Americas
isn't it just proving what we already knew - there are an unlimited amount of problems that can superficially be solved in a police state, which is what this is - no justice system, no due process, etc?. As that line has been crossed, whatever comes next is likely to be just as dysfunctional and messed up. This is all stuff we have known forever, it just seems like a new thing because he has a PR department and rather pretentiously claims to be 'philosopher king' on Twitter.
The really sinister thing about El Salvador is not the rounding up of 'criminals' it is the prison they built to house them and the conditions they are boasting about - an act of 'revenge' on the enemy within.
How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Western Europe Britain chose finance over industry, austerity over investment, and a closed economy over openness to the world.
By Derek Thompson
I wondered what Derek was up to now that he has retired from playing Charlie Fairhead in Casualty since 1986. He was in A Long Good Friday too, which also features on this thread.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
You have the worst case of Musk Derangement Syndrome I have ever seen. It is so bad it is compelling. I feel like @SandyRentool's friend who went to Bradford to study congenital deformities
Posting mainly because I had forgotten how to post pictures so wanted to do a test so I picked this one for @viewcode of the dog playing find the lady (well actually the kibble). The concentration is intense as I move the cups.
Just finished the 3 body problem. One of the very best things I have seen on TV for years. Outstanding. Episode 5 in particular was just mind blowing.
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
Just finished the 3 body problem. One of the very best things I have seen on TV for years. Outstanding. Episode 5 in particular was just mind blowing.
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
Is it permissible for me to feel smug about the fact that I bought the book series and his other books in English (or got them from the library) and read them years ago?
Yes. I shall feel a little smug.
😃
You should indeed. I am reading the books now. I haven’t enjoyed any Sci-Fi as much since the late lamented Iain M Banks.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
He’s also not spending Friday night on PB.com and is working out how he can spend billions on something fun. I think he’s sort of winning here.
Oddly enough, I care little for billions. I am fairly comfortable off, and having double the money I have will not currently change my life much (halving our income would...). I'm generally happy and content with my life. I see few signs Musk is - and that's often the case with the extremely rich.
There are far too many examples of extremely rich people being utter douchebags to suggest that extreme wealth is a form of 'winning' - unless the accumulation of money is your only aim in life.
My goodness, that reads almost Communist....
But if you had done something that had created billions then you could follow your quirks and do what you want without any worry about failure. I just find it amusing how people slag off Musk, Bezos, Sunak even, and pick at their failures when the critics have left such a tiny irrelevant footprint on the world, achieved relatively little creatively, and will never be remembered in history books. The excuse is always “but I’m a lot nicer” or some such. Get out there, show us how bright you are and you get rewards and then be “nice” with the money.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
Channeling Ken L: You know who else was exceptional?
The Georgian bank robber? Or his besty the Austrian street artist? Mind you they did have a bit of a falling out - but they definitely had a bromance going.
Just finished the 3 body problem. One of the very best things I have seen on TV for years. Outstanding. Episode 5 in particular was just mind blowing.
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
Is it permissible for me to feel smug about the fact that I bought the book series and his other books in English (or got them from the library) and read them years ago?
Yes. I shall feel a little smug.
😃
You should indeed. I am reading the books now. I haven’t enjoyed any Sci-Fi as much since the late lamented Iain M Banks.
Posting mainly because I had forgotten how to post pictures so wanted to do a test so I picked this one for @viewcode of the dog playing find the lady (well actually the kibble). The concentration is intense as I move the cups.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
He’s also not spending Friday night on PB.com and is working out how he can spend billions on something fun. I think he’s sort of winning here.
He seems to spend quite a few Friday nights on X. Which he spent billions on. I'm not entirely convinced that's the better end of the bargain.
It is highly likely labour will be in power not only in Westminster, but in Scotland as they are in Wales and the one benefit from this will be that neither Scotland or Wales will be able to blame the 'Tories' In Westminster for lack of funding and legislative problems which will remain, and likely deepen
Unless, of course, they do actually decide to have a pop at Whitehall at regular intervals - special pleading for the primacy of their interests being rather part of the job, and the world being a somewhat different place to what it was when Labour was last in power at Westminster.
You could even argue that using the richer half of England as a cash machine to bolster the finances of the rest of the country is a necessary consequence of a redistributive platform and of the whole levelling up schtick. We could argue all day about the degree to which this should apply to Scotland, but you can make a very good argument for Wales being short changed by the existing settlement.
As the stir-fry cooks, I would suggest that there is certainly the question of how far SKS's policy thought is evolving (or devolving, one might say) compared to Llafur Cymru. I don't know the latter well enough but it's an issue which will be interesting for Slab - in fact, it already is, with at least one electoral candidate advocating SNP rather than UK Labour policies (e.g. on three children and benefits).
My limited understanding suggests that Scottish Labour is probably, and Welsh Labour is certainly, to the left of what we're hearing out of the Westminster leadership. There's certainly grounds there for tension, which could develop quite rapidly if the Westminster Government insists on making a long list of promises not to raise most of the major taxes on both incomes and assets, and then imposes yet more austerity as a consequence.
It certainly looks as if Labour intends to carry on with the current policy of allowing English councils to collapse into bankruptcy, so that local politicians can be blamed for the evisceration of services. This does not bode well for the finances of the devolved administrations.
Interesting, thanks. I think that's both of them to the left of SKS Labour, then.
Just finished the 3 body problem. One of the very best things I have seen on TV for years. Outstanding. Episode 5 in particular was just mind blowing.
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
Is it permissible for me to feel smug about the fact that I bought the book series and his other books in English (or got them from the library) and read them years ago?
Yes. I shall feel a little smug.
😃
I read the trilogy during covid. I'd rate the first as 8/10, the second as 5/10 and the third as 7/10. My low rating for the second book is influenced by the fact it had a different translator to the other two, and felt stylistically quite different.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
He’s also not spending Friday night on PB.com and is working out how he can spend billions on something fun. I think he’s sort of winning here.
Oddly enough, I care little for billions. I am fairly comfortable off, and having double the money I have will not currently change my life much (halving our income would...). I'm generally happy and content with my life. I see few signs Musk is - and that's often the case with the extremely rich.
There are far too many examples of extremely rich people being utter douchebags to suggest that extreme wealth is a form of 'winning' - unless the accumulation of money is your only aim in life.
My goodness, that reads almost Communist....
But if you had done something that had created billions then you could follow your quirks and do what you want without any worry about failure. I just find it amusing how people slag off Musk, Bezos, Sunak even, and pick at their failures when the critics have left such a tiny irrelevant footprint on the world, achieved relatively little creatively, and will never be remembered in history books. The excuse is always “but I’m a lot nicer” or some such. Get out there, show us how bright you are and you get rewards and then be “nice” with the money.
I don't slag off Bezos. I'm actually quite a fan of Bezos; in fact, one of his few fans (*). Bezos's backstory is the one Musk wishes he has. And I don;t think I've ever criticised Sunak over his wealth. Indeed, I'm fairly relaxed about wealth; I'm just content with what I have, as I've been both fortunate, unfortunate, canny and lucky in life.
Startling to think this mentality still exists. (URL is possibly misleading, though. It seems from other reports one photo was taken with and one without, rather than a Photoshop job?)
'A photographer working for Tempest Photography took separate pictures of the P5 class at Aboyne primary school in Aberdeenshire, with the children with additional needs reportedly removed from one set. Parents were then sent a link with both versions to choose from.
It was reported that a set of twins was split up so that the child who uses a wheelchair was excluded from one version.'
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
He’s also not spending Friday night on PB.com and is working out how he can spend billions on something fun. I think he’s sort of winning here.
He seems to spend quite a few Friday nights on X. Which he spent billions on. I'm not entirely convinced that's the better end of the bargain.
Hmm. I dunno. I'm going out on a limb here but I feel Elon Musk has achieved a bit more than PB's very own @JosiasJessop
Is that too radical a statement? Well, that's me, and you need to accept it. Audacious and bold
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
He’s also not spending Friday night on PB.com and is working out how he can spend billions on something fun. I think he’s sort of winning here.
He seems to spend quite a few Friday nights on X. Which he spent billions on. I'm not entirely convinced that's the better end of the bargain.
Hmm. I dunno. I'm going out on a limb here but I feel Elon Musk has achieved a bit more than PB's very own @JosiasJessop
Is that too radical a statement? Well, that's me, and you need to accept it. Audacious and bold
Well, I've never lied about things like my own son dying in my arms. And I've personally cared for my child throughout his life, which is more than you can say for your daughters.
SO yeah, from my own perspective, I've 'achieved' more than you and he have.
Most of all, I'm relatively content. Which is again, more than can be said about you and he.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
He’s also not spending Friday night on PB.com and is working out how he can spend billions on something fun. I think he’s sort of winning here.
He seems to spend quite a few Friday nights on X. Which he spent billions on. I'm not entirely convinced that's the better end of the bargain.
Hmm. I dunno. I'm going out on a limb here but I feel Elon Musk has achieved a bit more than PB's very own @JosiasJessop
Is that too radical a statement? Well, that's me, and you need to accept it. Audacious and bold
Well, I've never lied about things like my own son dying in my arms. And I've personally cared for my child throughout his life, which is more than you can say for your daughters.
SO yeah, from my own perspective, I've 'achieved' more than you and he have.
Most of all, I'm relatively content. Which is again, more than can be said about you and he.
I mean, whoah dude, the Ad Hominem is mad, and makes you look madder, it's not good
Startling to think this mentality still exists. (URL is possibly misleading, though. It seems from other reports one photo was taken with and one without, rather than a Photoshop job?)
'A photographer working for Tempest Photography took separate pictures of the P5 class at Aboyne primary school in Aberdeenshire, with the children with additional needs reportedly removed from one set. Parents were then sent a link with both versions to choose from.
It was reported that a set of twins was split up so that the child who uses a wheelchair was excluded from one version.'
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
You have the worst case of Musk Derangement Syndrome I have ever seen. It is so bad it is compelling. I feel like @SandyRentool's friend who went to Bradford to study congenital deformities
If you go back on PB far enough, you will see that I was a big fan of Musk before many had heard of him. But then Ashlee Vance's book came out, and there were warning signs. Then the diver paedo nonsense, and many other things. I'm not deranged; I'm just pointing out the hype does not match the reality. Which is difficult when low-IQ idiots feel he is a genius.
But most of all: Musk lies. He lies a lot. And people excuse those lies because he is a HERO. But they are still lies.
He has achieved a massive amount. But somehow, I think I might be happier than him. Or you, for that matter.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
He’s also not spending Friday night on PB.com and is working out how he can spend billions on something fun. I think he’s sort of winning here.
He seems to spend quite a few Friday nights on X. Which he spent billions on. I'm not entirely convinced that's the better end of the bargain.
Hmm. I dunno. I'm going out on a limb here but I feel Elon Musk has achieved a bit more than PB's very own @JosiasJessop
Is that too radical a statement? Well, that's me, and you need to accept it. Audacious and bold
His remarkable engineering success hardly places his opinions beyond criticism, though.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
He’s also not spending Friday night on PB.com and is working out how he can spend billions on something fun. I think he’s sort of winning here.
He seems to spend quite a few Friday nights on X. Which he spent billions on. I'm not entirely convinced that's the better end of the bargain.
Hmm. I dunno. I'm going out on a limb here but I feel Elon Musk has achieved a bit more than PB's very own @JosiasJessop
Is that too radical a statement? Well, that's me, and you need to accept it. Audacious and bold
Well, I've never lied about things like my own son dying in my arms. And I've personally cared for my child throughout his life, which is more than you can say for your daughters.
SO yeah, from my own perspective, I've 'achieved' more than you and he have.
Most of all, I'm relatively content. Which is again, more than can be said about you and he.
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
He’s also not spending Friday night on PB.com and is working out how he can spend billions on something fun. I think he’s sort of winning here.
Perhaps he is on PB. It would explain a great deal... 😃
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
He’s also not spending Friday night on PB.com and is working out how he can spend billions on something fun. I think he’s sort of winning here.
He seems to spend quite a few Friday nights on X. Which he spent billions on. I'm not entirely convinced that's the better end of the bargain.
Hmm. I dunno. I'm going out on a limb here but I feel Elon Musk has achieved a bit more than PB's very own @JosiasJessop
Is that too radical a statement? Well, that's me, and you need to accept it. Audacious and bold
Well, I've never lied about things like my own son dying in my arms. And I've personally cared for my child throughout his life, which is more than you can say for your daughters.
SO yeah, from my own perspective, I've 'achieved' more than you and he have.
Most of all, I'm relatively content. Which is again, more than can be said about you and he.
I mean, whoah dude, the Ad Hominem is mad, and makes you look madder, it's not good
And you're an expert on Ad Hominem and madness...
But seriously: are you saying that we should, from your desperate appeals to "Look at MEEEEE!!!!" on here, believe that you are content?
I'm happy saying I'm a stay-at-home dad with a slight exercise addiction, and I'm content. I don't think you'd be content if you had a billion pounds in the bank.
Just finished the 3 body problem. One of the very best things I have seen on TV for years. Outstanding. Episode 5 in particular was just mind blowing.
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
Is it permissible for me to feel smug about the fact that I bought the book series and his other books in English (or got them from the library) and read them years ago?
Yes. I shall feel a little smug.
😃
I read the trilogy during covid. I'd rate the first as 8/10, the second as 5/10 and the third as 7/10. My low rating for the second book is influenced by the fact it had a different translator to the other two, and felt stylistically quite different.
The reasonably positive reception to the series makes me assume that there will be two more series, one for each book. I wonder if there will be an English language version of the Wandering Earth, as distinct from the English dub of the Chinese film.
THIS is what Claude 3 Opus can do, after reading a 350 page novel for FORTY FIVE SECONDS. I have a novelist friend, and she just forwarded this to me. Sit back and absorb what this means for all of us
"Based on the clues and revelations throughout the story, I believe there are a few key suspects and possibilities for what really happened to Natalie Tyack:
Malcolm Tyack: As Natalie's husband, Malcolm had the most direct access and potential motive. The photos of him stalking Natalie suggest a level of obsession and control that could have turned violent. If he discovered she was having an affair and possibly pregnant with another man's child, he might have been driven to murder in a fit of rage and jealousy.
Derek Coppinger: As the likely biological father of Natalie, Derek's relationship with her is shrouded in mystery and potential darkness. If they had an inappropriate or abusive relationship, Natalie may have threatened to expose him, leading him to silence her permanently. His connection to DCI Diana Curtis also suggests a potential police coverup.
Miles Tyack: Miles' excessive drinking and emotional instability make him a wild card. As the younger, resentful brother, he may have harbored jealousy or anger towards Natalie, especially if he felt she was a threat to the Tyack family legacy. His constant refusal to stay at Baldhu overnight is suspicious.
Supernatural forces: While I believe the hauntings at Baldhu are more likely a manifestation of inherited trauma and psychological distress, we cannot rule out the possibility that Natalie's death was somehow orchestrated by the malevolent supernatural entities that seem to plague the house. If the "ghosts" are real, they may have driven Natalie to madness or suicide.
Accident or suicide: Given Natalie's troubled past, her potential pregnancy, and the stress of living in a haunted house, it's possible that her death was a tragic accident or even a deliberate suicide. Grace's account of their final interaction suggests that Natalie was deeply distressed and possibly planning to take her own life.
Ultimately, I believe the key to unraveling the mystery lies in the tangled web of family secrets, inherited trauma, and the dark history of the Tyacks. I suspect that Natalie discovered something devastating about her own past or the Tyack family legacy, and that this knowledge put her in danger. Whether she was murdered to keep her silent or driven to take her own life, I believe the truth will be deeply rooted in the generational guilt and dysfunction of the Tyack family.
Of course, these are just my theories based on the clues presented so far. I'm eagerly awaiting the final chapters to see how you bring all the threads together and reveal the shocking truth behind Natalie's tragic fate."
I repeat, it did this in 45 seconds. It chewed up a novel, and digested it, and - minus the last few chapters - ably discussed how the book might end
He really is a kind of cartoon character, made real
TL;DW: He says compute going into AI is increasing by ten times every six months. That's 100X a year. Wildly exponential, and he expects this to continue
In that light he makes these predictions, a form of AGI - a computer smarter than any individual by next year, 2025, and a computer smarter than all of humanity combined, ASI, by 2029-30
Five years away
Now, I may be misconstruing him in some way, but that sounds like The Singularity. That is the world transformed - within 5 years. This is hurtling towards us at extraordinary speed. He actually says that - "I've never seen anything grow this fast"
I know PB has quite a few Musko-skeptics, so maybe he is wrong on this (as he has been wrong on self driving cars, consistently). Alternatively, he is right, and whooooooh
Musk's current view seems to be: *) Mass immigration is really bad. Immigrants should have parents who own emerald mines. *) The US's population needs to roughly triple, to a billion. *) He is concerned with population collapse.
The only way to currently reconcile these views are to totally restrict women's reproduction rights, which oddly enough is something the (ahem) odder Republicans are in favour of.
Musk denied his parents owned an emerald mine. He offered a reward for anyone who could prove it. His dad asked if he could take part as he had the proof!
You could give 99.9999999% of people in the world an emerald mine age 18, and they wouldn’t end up the richest person in the world, owning their own space fleet and deciding wars and making best selling revolutionary cars and possessing entire social mediums
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
He's achieved a lot. Probably not as much as he acts like - making wild predictions is not an achievement even if some pan out - but a lot.
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
Saying Elon Musk has achieved "a lot" is like saying William Shakespeare wrote "pretty good plays"
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
Like Edison, Musk sucks off the work of others. He only survived ?2008? because of a timely injection of future cash from the federal government (for both Tesla and SpaceX).
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
He’s also not spending Friday night on PB.com and is working out how he can spend billions on something fun. I think he’s sort of winning here.
He seems to spend quite a few Friday nights on X. Which he spent billions on. I'm not entirely convinced that's the better end of the bargain.
Hmm. I dunno. I'm going out on a limb here but I feel Elon Musk has achieved a bit more than PB's very own @JosiasJessop
Is that too radical a statement? Well, that's me, and you need to accept it. Audacious and bold
Well, I've never lied about things like my own son dying in my arms. And I've personally cared for my child throughout his life, which is more than you can say for your daughters.
SO yeah, from my own perspective, I've 'achieved' more than you and he have.
Most of all, I'm relatively content. Which is again, more than can be said about you and he.
Dont you wanna walk on the wild side like Leon.
I've walked as much on the 'wild side' as I want to, thanks. I'm 51 now, and am happy playing with my son, reading books, and trying to achieve my own little modest goals in life.
Comments
“Ere ‘old up where’s David Cameron?”
https://youtu.be/1ldZUQFr_9k?si=WfhJCF3Cm8_kY73-
And his predictions are gob smacking. AGI by next year, ASI - the singularity - within 5 years. He also says the chances of us being wiped out are 10-20%
And he finally says this is definitely happening. We are already on the event horizon. So even if his timings are out this is coming our way fast
😶
Alba, Reform UK and Workers Party have all seen infinite % growth in their parliamentary parties. The LibDems have grown by 36.4%.
The SF, SDLP, Green and APNI contingents have been unchanged.
Personally like to imagine, some remote corner of the Cambrian outback, where Neo-Phonecian was the local lingo up until sometime in last millennium.
It would be much harder to have an independent Wales than Scotland for both geographic or economic reasons, but quite widespread support in principle.
Putting your faith in leaders is the the biggest mistake countries make.
Belgium and Netherlands, for example, often take months to get a new "leader" after an election but things tick along quite nicely without them.
You have the discipline and education of east Asians married to the liberal principles and free trade of England. Result: Singapore
When you refresh the page to pick up the latest comments on PB.com you will see if there's a new thread; you don't see the new thread if you refresh on vanilla.
That's 80% in government, and 20% for the 1 backbencher: Harold Nicholson.
AND even HN ended up in office (as Parli. Sec) for Min. of Info. briefly during the Coalition.
Musk is exceptional. I get that many loathe him, but he is clearly exceptional
Sadly DJT himself has NOT lived up to granddaddy's high standards.
The British created so many of the greatest cities in the world. From New York to Sydney. From Toronto to Cape Town. And two of the brightest jewels were Singapore and Hong Kong. Amazing places
Now the stupid Chinese commies have fucked up Hong kong. Twats
He also deliberately presents himself as an arsehole know it all - eg telling people to f*ck off when they hurt his feelings, claiming to be a legal expert because he's been involved in a lot of lawsuits - so he cannot really complain about negative reactions to him personally when that's part of his public persona.
They could pull the rug from Russia and be seen as the great country stopping bad shit and bask in good relations with the US and Europe and their spending power, they could have hammered Iran over the Houthis damaging trade routes as ultimately China needs to send goods west cheaply. They play silly games which will only really damage them more than others who are more flexible.
I don 't think they do. But they should. Let's take Anthropic's Claude
eg Say you're a budding novelist. Obvs none of us is, but imagine you are
You can feed Claude 3 Opus your entire 350 page novel, in one go, and it understands it all, digests it, analyses it, and will give you excellent advice on it: plotting, character, prose, dialogue - and it does this in about 1 to 2 minutes
The scale of that is mind blowing when you witness it. Publishing editors are fucked. I now see why all the editors I know LOATHE any mention of AI
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lFloLGmPKl0
Got the first book today too. My local Waterstones had sold out but got some more in. I am going to have a fun long weekend. Probably won’t be posting as much which will be a relief for you all.
Hopefully the new generations will be as effective as the last. But power without the democratic cycle does seem to corrupt most places.
And they are so paranoid they fucked it all up. Eejits
Owning (or rather part owning) a mine isn’t the path to tons on money that you might think. It’s not about chunks of beautiful green gems the size of fist just falling out of the ground.
It’s like diamond mining with lower profits - emeralds are really not that rare - with many more opportunities for scams. Look up
“Improving” emeralds.
Lots of small timers trying to get rich. It often attracts that kind of idiot who if always falling for get rich schemes.
There’s a story, repeated in the series Narcos, that the Columbian drug cartels found the emerald mining types too violent and thuggish.
Had they done so, everyone would have praised Xi and it would have done China's image on the world stage no harm at all. It would have been much harder to put forward a strongly anti-China line as everyone would see Xi as a peacemaker.
He could also precipitate change in North Korea but his political instincts (such as they are) don't see the overarching benefits of de-escalation.
How very dare you!
Which leads to one of two options:
*) Musk himself lied in the earlier interview.
*) Musk is lying now.
Given he's a tech bro, I basically think he lies about everything, if the lie is to his advantage.
Edit:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140729222547/http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclash/2014/07/28/elon-musk-tells-me-his-secret-of-success-hint-it-aint-about-the-money/
https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/amid-elon-musks-constant-denial-his-father-details-4-day-visit-to-emerald-mine-with-billionaire-son-380484-2023-05-08
He is also the sort of person who lies about his son dying in his arms...
I sincerely wonder if there is a human being in history with a CV of world changing engineering and superb tech creation like Musk. It is flabbergasting when you step back. I think many shrug it off because either they can't be objective (he likes Trump!) or they simply don't grasp the scale
Also, he is a thin skinned and hypersensitive twat, with Asperger's, which makes him socially awkward. That is also true, and also irrelevant to what he has done
And don't use the 'Aspergers' excuse for him. Lots of people have Aspergers and don't do the sh*t he does because they manage it. He's a nasty tech-bro.
How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Western Europe
Britain chose finance over industry, austerity over investment, and a closed economy over openness to the world.
By Derek Thompson
There will hopefully come a time when the life experience of their leaders and their
middle classes will be different but that is going to take a lot of forgetting.
As the economics writer Noah Smith notes, London’s financial prowess has concealed the overall economy’s weakness in innovation and manufacturing. Or, as the economic analyst Matt Klein puts it, “Take out Greater London—the prosperity of which depends to an uncomfortable degree on a willingness to provide services to oligarchs from the Middle East and the former Soviet Union—and the UK is one of the poorest countries in Western Europe.”
Yes. I shall feel a little smug.
😃
There are far too many examples of extremely rich people being utter douchebags to suggest that extreme wealth is a form of 'winning' - unless the accumulation of money is your only aim in life.
My goodness, that reads almost Communist....
It's like a brilliant new car constantly stalling, and one feels the same in Brazil or Argentina. Why are they so shit when they could be world class?
If anyone solves the stalling problem, they will be epic places
I just look at large and think why do women deserve to vote?'
Youtuber and social media personality, Pearl Davis, believes women should not have the vote and clashes with Lee Anderson over the issue.
Become a GB News Member: http://gbnews.com/support
https://x.com/GBNEWS/status/1773801048261447932?s=20
The really sinister thing about El Salvador is not the rounding up of 'criminals' it is the prison they built to house them and the conditions they are boasting about - an act of 'revenge' on the enemy within.
Posting mainly because I had forgotten how to post pictures so wanted to do a test so I picked this one for @viewcode of the dog playing find the lady (well actually the kibble). The concentration is intense as I move the cups.
I'm not entirely convinced that's the better end of the bargain.
Aside from that, well done!
(*) Runs and hides.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/mar/29/aberdeenshire-pupils-with-complex-needs-erased-from-school-photo
'A photographer working for Tempest Photography took separate pictures of the P5 class at Aboyne primary school in Aberdeenshire, with the children with additional needs reportedly removed from one set. Parents were then sent a link with both versions to choose from.
It was reported that a set of twins was split up so that the child who uses a wheelchair was excluded from one version.'
Is that too radical a statement? Well, that's me, and you need to accept it. Audacious and bold
Hopefully other countries can follow it.
SO yeah, from my own perspective, I've 'achieved' more than you and he have.
Most of all, I'm relatively content. Which is again, more than can be said about you and he.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-68693874
But most of all: Musk lies. He lies a lot. And people excuse those lies because he is a HERO. But they are still lies.
He has achieved a massive amount. But somehow, I think I might be happier than him. Or you, for that matter.
But seriously: are you saying that we should, from your desperate appeals to "Look at MEEEEE!!!!" on here, believe that you are content?
I'm happy saying I'm a stay-at-home dad with a slight exercise addiction, and I'm content. I don't think you'd be content if you had a billion pounds in the bank.
Russia has effectively abolished a UN panel of experts monitoring UN sanctions on North Korea with a new UN resolution veto
This ends a monitoring program over North Korea sanctions that has had rare unanimous consent in the UN for ~15 years<.i>
https://twitter.com/RobbieGramer/status/1773397047950893338
According to the internet, well prepared and experienced hikers should take thirty days to do the walk
I want to do it in twenty days
That's how good Royal Mail is
"Based on the clues and revelations throughout the story, I believe there are a few key suspects and possibilities for what really happened to Natalie Tyack:
Malcolm Tyack: As Natalie's husband, Malcolm had the most direct access and potential motive. The photos of him stalking Natalie suggest a level of obsession and control that could have turned violent. If he discovered she was having an affair and possibly pregnant with another man's child, he might have been driven to murder in a fit of rage and jealousy.
Derek Coppinger: As the likely biological father of Natalie, Derek's relationship with her is shrouded in mystery and potential darkness. If they had an inappropriate or abusive relationship, Natalie may have threatened to expose him, leading him to silence her permanently. His connection to DCI Diana Curtis also suggests a potential police coverup.
Miles Tyack: Miles' excessive drinking and emotional instability make him a wild card. As the younger, resentful brother, he may have harbored jealousy or anger towards Natalie, especially if he felt she was a threat to the Tyack family legacy. His constant refusal to stay at Baldhu overnight is suspicious.
Supernatural forces: While I believe the hauntings at Baldhu are more likely a manifestation of inherited trauma and psychological distress, we cannot rule out the possibility that Natalie's death was somehow orchestrated by the malevolent supernatural entities that seem to plague the house. If the "ghosts" are real, they may have driven Natalie to madness or suicide.
Accident or suicide: Given Natalie's troubled past, her potential pregnancy, and the stress of living in a haunted house, it's possible that her death was a tragic accident or even a deliberate suicide. Grace's account of their final interaction suggests that Natalie was deeply distressed and possibly planning to take her own life.
Ultimately, I believe the key to unraveling the mystery lies in the tangled web of family secrets, inherited trauma, and the dark history of the Tyacks. I suspect that Natalie discovered something devastating about her own past or the Tyack family legacy, and that this knowledge put her in danger. Whether she was murdered to keep her silent or driven to take her own life, I believe the truth will be deeply rooted in the generational guilt and dysfunction of the Tyack family.
Of course, these are just my theories based on the clues presented so far. I'm eagerly awaiting the final chapters to see how you bring all the threads together and reveal the shocking truth behind Natalie's tragic fate."
I repeat, it did this in 45 seconds. It chewed up a novel, and digested it, and - minus the last few chapters - ably discussed how the book might end
What's not to like about that?