myrmidon

55 ms·

901.
by myrmidon 2y ago
Dresden did not get fire bombed because the allies did not know where the factories were. Air raids against population centers were very much intentional, targeted and optimized (by relying on fire as a damage multiplier).
902.
by myrmidon 2y ago
There is another data point: That OpenAI removed limitations against "military and warfare" use. This is both concerning and quite unsurprising to me...
903.
by myrmidon 2y ago
I honestly believe that the single thing that allowed the levelling of the Gaza strip is October 7th. This is an easy "excuse" for an outside observer, because the scales are just not obvious enough; On one hand, you have a desper
904.
by myrmidon 2y ago
This is a dangerous argument though, because it equates "improved target aquisition" with "less blanket bombing". This does not necessarily hold, because less "probabilistic" target aquisition capabilities migh
905.
by myrmidon 2y ago
This is a very interesting standpoint. I personally believe that having lots of parties founded on concise, coherent principles would be very nice from a voter point of view (to express preferences), but those would be completely unable to
906.
by myrmidon 2y ago
Those do NOT occur regularly in the US at the same time (because the humidity peaks in the morning, but the temperature in the afternoon). Maybe in a few decades though. 35°C at 100% humidity is about the human survivability limit (at 6h ex
907.
by myrmidon 2y ago
Lethality of electricity is multi-dimensional, trying to reduce it to a single quantity does not really work (exposure time and electrical frequency are very important).
908.
by myrmidon 2y ago
Calling Poland an American puppet state is a stretch (basically incorrect). While the US can exert a lot of influence, Poland (and others) are not puppet states-- there is no direct US control over government/elections, no dependence
909.
by myrmidon 2y ago
I think the comment on #5 (Menendez brothers) completely misinterprets the metrics. Wiki pageviews are often NOT a good proxy for "cultural significance" and this is very obvious here: There is a very different baseline propabilit
910.
by myrmidon 2y ago
Thats not an entirely fair comparison because GDP/capita is different, and the base assumption would be that millionaires/capita increases with GDP. That assumption appears to hold in general (Luxembourg and Switzerland have highe
911.
by myrmidon 2y ago
What exactly is your point? You are basically saying that despite pre-2022 Russian/European gas trade revenue initial Russian military performance was poor, but since Russian combat readiness improves now (with sanctions in place), the
912.
by myrmidon 2y ago
1) You can not protect users from being influenced by the media they consume-- that is basically the very nature of the thing. 2) This is not about protecting users of the app, this is about preventing a foreign state from having direct i
913.
by myrmidon 2y ago
I'm unsure about the justification angle for strategic bombing in general. I honestly believe there is not enough honest consensus globally (or even within the US/EU) to declare this off-limits-- given the choice between strategic
914.
by myrmidon 2y ago
> Evolution selects for efficiency. I think this is a poor argument here. From an evolutionary point of view, our brains are optimized to: - Provide fine-motor control to craft weapons and tools (enhancing adaptibility and enabling us to
915.
by myrmidon 2y ago
Vietnam is a slightly misleading comparison here I think, because big parts are jungle (counting the whole area downplays the severity of bombing significantly). If you compare heavily bombed WW2 targets, you see similar/higher bomb lo
916.
by myrmidon 2y ago
Thats an even bigger area than I imagined... Another big problem is that we'd have to grow those forests again after 20 years, because mature trees stop being a CO2 sink. The numbers/ratios should be even worse for Europe where th
917.
by myrmidon 2y ago
This is interesting to know, but easy to overstate IMO. Back of the envelope number is 10 kg of CO2 absorbed per maturing tree and year (for ~20 years). This means you would need to plant almost 1000 trees for each person (assuming roughly
918.
by myrmidon 2y ago
> This misses that evolution has been pre-training the human cognitive architecture - brain, limbic system, sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, coevolved viral and bacterial ecosystems - for millions of years. Yes. But that
919.
by myrmidon 2y ago
I think it's important to remember that we know neural networks can be trained to a very useful state from scratch for 24 GJ: This is 25 W for 30 years (or 7000 kWh, or a good half ton of diesel fuel), which is what a human brain con
920.
by myrmidon 2y ago
Probably because this almost begs for accusations of shill-ing, worthless altercations via comments and generally degraded discussion. I had heard about the book before, but just found out that they printed 3 millions of them (which is a lo
921.
by myrmidon 2y ago
> Reasonable people are objecting to copyright law violation, for the simple reason that it disincentivizes further knowledge creation. Do you honestly believe that our current copyright framework is mainly aligned at maximizing incentiv
922.
by myrmidon 2y ago
I can see the appeal of simple, science-sceptical traditionalism. But it does not pass the smell test. There is a plethora of substances and practices that are quite harmful, but have been used for millenia. This is because your suggested
923.
by myrmidon 2y ago
Very interesting article. It also illustrates how dangerous unit conversions are especially combined with thousands separators: 20000km (GNSS satellite altitude) is NOT 12.4 miles. Does anyone know if it would be feasible nowadays to just u
924.
by myrmidon 2y ago
I neither own nor really like cars, but I think a ban within the next 50 years is super unlikely, and anyone that disagrees is delusional :P Just consider vintage cars: These are vastly more dangerous for both occupants and pedestrians&#x2F
925.
by myrmidon 2y ago
I'm not disputing that insurance for full-auto cars is likely to be cheaper in the future, but I don't believe that manual driving insurance will ever get "cripplingly" expensive-- it might even go down compared to now
926.
by myrmidon 2y ago
> assuming the same rate of accidents, but most accidents with a self driving car are the manual driver's fault This is a very shaky assumption in my view; more realistic would be (to me): 1) Overall accident rate reduction even for
927.
by myrmidon 2y ago
Regarding drivers that are drunk or otherwise driving illegally-- why would you want to exclude them from such a study, if you can not exclude them from real traffic? If our current system of checks and incentives is not able to keep them o
928.
by myrmidon 2y ago
Why would insurance need to get more expensive for manual drivers as self-driving adoption increases? Ideally, insurance cost for self-driving cars would just be lower than insurance costs now (proportional to risk), and even insurance cost
929.
by myrmidon 2y ago
The poisoning of Navalny is well documented. Involvement of the FSB as well. Just read the wiki article for a quick summary, or e.g. the bellingcat reports for details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexei_
930.
by myrmidon 2y ago
Maybe interstellar colonization is just never gonna be worth it? We could already colonize Antarctica, or the sea-- those are easier to reach, supply and colonize than other planets, but we are not trying. Most of our past exploration/

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