vannevar

16 ms·

241.
by vannevar 1y ago
The Demo Day pitch: "This is a $60 trillion dollar market---all we need is one ten-thousandth of 1% of the market!"
242.
by vannevar 2y ago
My thought exactly. I would bet good money on it. The administration that's making a big show of "cutting spending" is also raising the budget deficit by trillions.
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by vannevar 2y ago
>Asimov’s future was pretty dark. He didn’t come out and say it, but it was implied that we had a lot of big entities ruling everything. >As I recall, many of his early stories involved "U.S. Robot & Mechanical Men" whic
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by vannevar 2y ago
I don't think Asimov envisioned a world where AI would be controlled by a clique of ultra-wealthy oligarchs.
245.
by vannevar 2y ago
I would argue that Lenat was at least directionally correct in understanding that sheer volume of data (in Cyc's case, rules and facts) was the key in eventually achieving useful intelligence. I have to confess that I once criticized t
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by vannevar 2y ago
Worth noting that the deficit bottomed out around 2006, then improved throughout the Obama administration before leveling out. It declined again post-pandemic. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/U
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by vannevar 2y ago
This is not so much a model economy as it is a model market. But still interesting to see the dynamics that emerge from even an algorithmically simple model when you have multiple agents interacting over time. For even a simple economy, I t
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by vannevar 2y ago
I think the disconnect is that people who produce serious, researched and referenced work tend to believe that most work is like that. It is not. The majority of content created by humans is not referenced, it's not deeply researched,
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by vannevar 2y ago
Neuromancer is the new Duke Nukem Forever.
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by vannevar 2y ago
It's not about the individual homes, it's about the aggregate holdings. If people with large asset portfolios (and corresponding large incomes) stop buying homes because they have an incremental carrying cost to them due to taxes,
251.
by vannevar 2y ago
>What's best for society is if everyone who's wealth is tied up in property takes a hit to their wealth so that housing becomes affordable and loses it's status as primary wealth store, but that would be devastating in the
252.
by vannevar 2y ago
>Because that is what the housing market does. Allocates valuable assets to those who pay the most. Nowhere on the tin does it also say that it promotes social mobility or equality. Maybe it should, but it certainly won't as long as
253.
by vannevar 2y ago
Probably better to say "expected to" rather than "supposed to". The problem is that income growth is not evenly distributed across the income curve, but instead increases up the curve. So the net effect is that fewer and
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by vannevar 2y ago
I cancelled my Prime subscription, will ditch my Echo.
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by vannevar 2y ago
Most Americans understand and oppose Trump's surrender deal. Unfortunately a significant number of them weren't paying much attention this past November and were conned into voting for the present predicament.
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by vannevar 2y ago
Unless the EU can substantially step up its military aid, that's the outcome they're going to get. There is one card that Zelensky and Europe could play, and that's European peacekeepers guaranteeing security. But that's
257.
by vannevar 2y ago
You're right that it's theater, in the sense that the deal is already struck. But Zelensky's anger is real, because Trump's deal is---and always has been, since before the Russian invasion---the surrender of Ukraine to V
258.
by vannevar 2y ago
"Do your own research," the losing argument's last resort.
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by vannevar 2y ago
>We know there is rampant fraud in the government, we know there is highly questionable spending, but we don't talk about it because nobody wants to upset a member of congress. People talk about it all the time. And one man's &
260.
by vannevar 2y ago
But we're seeing in real time that it can be run like a piggybank.
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by vannevar 2y ago
The Bolt is far and away the best value EV on the used market, it's crazy that you can get a thermally managed battery and 250 miles of range for under $15k.
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by vannevar 2y ago
Yes, saying "the voters were right" is not really justified by the evidence presented. According to the article, economic reality isn't reflected in the government numbers and has not been for many years. But since the gap wa
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by vannevar 2y ago
My point was that if you knew nothing about racism or wokism, you'd conclude from the article that wokism was a huge problem and racism a relatively minor one. Which may or may not be PG's actual opinion, but that's the clear
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by vannevar 2y ago
So wokism has nothing to do with racism? Don't be ridiculous. You are ducking an issue.
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by vannevar 2y ago
How is this exchange imaginary? It's right above, five comments up: >> Do you think the social stigma attached to the n-word, and the consequential reduction in its public use, helped contribute to equal rights? >Not particula
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by vannevar 2y ago
>The actual real world impact of wokism is that the left-leaning part of the elite is distracted into performative games outdoing one another in verbal righteousness... Is that really the only real-world impact? Is there no value in exam
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by vannevar 2y ago
He spends 4500+ words talking about how bad wokism is (mostly complaining about how some people are complaining about language), and all of maybe 100 words acknowledging racism, and even then uses some of those to say it isn't as bad a
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by vannevar 2y ago
>Ethnic and racial slurs are harmful. Agreed. >Adding social stigma to specific words just causes the people who would use them to use different terms if they care about the stigma, and the change does very little to contribute to equ
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by vannevar 2y ago
>> Do you think the social stigma attached to the n-word, and the consequential reduction in its public use, helped contribute to equal rights? >Not particularly >> What about slurs against gays, or Jews? >Not particularly
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by vannevar 2y ago
>Language policing costs a lot, but its invisible since its the cost of everyone updating themselves and spending time rethinking what to say. How often do you think the average person actually has to change their language? It seems like

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