effable

The core idea of ASI arriving before AGI seems to be true: we have already seen that through Chess Programs, LLMs etc.

However what caught my eye and that to me does reflect the lens through which the author sees the world, unless I am completely misunderstanding their point:

"Most of the world's important problems have never been modelled at the precision AI requires to act on them. Pollution, traffic, healthcare, taxation, public infrastructure, water distribution."

Pollution, traffic, healthcare and public infrastructure however are not really problems that require "clever" solutions - rather they are problems of political will, regulating industry and moving to cleaner energy sources. For example, we have known about human caused climate change for decades and carbon emissions are just hitting their peak now.

But are you arguing that when people believe things that are demonstrably false, like using bleach as a Covid remedy, not because there is any evidence behind them but only because they were uttered by someone they trust wholeheartedly, and this person does not have any hint of medical training, that nobody should say they are stupid, but only quietly believe it in their minds?

If not that, then what were you trying to say?

According to the article, such patents seem to come with a lot of restrictions and the patent apparently applies to traits of the patented plant:

When a company is granted a utility patent on a type of seed, it doesn’t just own the seed. It also owns its traits (color, texture, disease resistance, the way it was grown), future generations of that seed and all of the rights to research.

So, if a plant breeder like Morton develops his own variety of lettuce and the lettuce matches any of the traits of a patented variety – whether it be color, the curliness of the leaf or a trait that makes it conducive to a particular climate – the breeder is technically in violation of patent law and risks getting sued by the patent owner.

So according to the article, the patent system actually does place heavy restrictions on research in this area.

If somebody walks past a shop and does not buy the wares on offer because they are offended by the horrible decor, I assume, under this definition, this will be called coercion in that that they 'coercing' the owner to change the decor?

That seems like a horrible suggestion: That might work for one person but an entire country? That people who have lived their lives for generations in Ukraine simply uproot their entire lives, give whatever wealth they've built up and move to a different country where they speak a foreign language, have different cultures and customs, where they need to integrate and learn the language to have a chance at any semblance of a life. Sorry that sounds like a horrible idea.

So the argument is that since this criticism came from presumably a socialist, which we have no evidence for, we should not consider the criticism on its own merit?

Apart from violating privacy, instilling a culture of fear thereby impacting people's right to free speech and free organization, which is a cornerstone of democracy, making people fearful of saying anything against the government or the police even in private conversation, nothing whatsoever.

Yes, I have definitely experienced this too. I also sometimes get results from websites that seem to be reskins of github (usually issues and pull requests).

While I am by no means an expert user, and I have a lot to learn on how to properly use inkscape, I used it for creating some figures for my thesis and it really came in handy. Congratulations on the release!

This may be a little off topic but your comment piqued my interest: I am currently learning JavaScript and I was wondering if you would like to recommend any of the books you read.

I don't want to be nitpicky but I am sorry I have to be: Is that feeling not better expressed by "misanthrope"?

"The problem is there's evidence should you choose to see it, constitutional unlawfulness & just cause on an unprecedented scale"

Maybe you would want to provide examples of these then?

"The way to kill the fraud narrative is by debating those raising the charge"

I am actually not quite sure that debating the issue will kill the narrative but that's just my opinion.

"actually hearing the cases in court instead of tossing them on procedural grounds"

Frankly I have no comments here. What real evidence of fraud is there?

"Trumps moral compass seems far better than the shifty and obstructionist Georgia Secretary of State"

I never commented on the Georgia Secretary of State's conduct and frankly, that's not under review. If the President had just asked for the review of votes, that would be fine. Instead, we received the exact number of votes that he needed, statements to the tunes of: 'Fellas, what are we gonna do here? I only need 11,000 votes' and to do 'the review with people who want to find solutions but not with those who do not want solutions' or something to that effect. Claiming that someone stuffed ballot boxes does not constitute evidence.

Furthermore, this does not change my comments about the pardons either but that's not really the point under discussion.

I think the point about wars is fair.

However, there's no evidence that the election was crooked - the courts think so too. In addition, the President's moral compass seems to be pointing towards strong arming election officials to provide him the exact number of votes (11,780) that he needs to overturn Georgia, pardoning his former friends and allies and convicted war criminals. And this is just within the last couple of weeks.

I agree. That's an important point and I suppose that begins with the government focusing on enacting legislation to actually solve problems that would make people's lives better - healthcare, educational debt, financial assistance during the pandemic and so on - rather than say shutting down the government to try to erect a barrier.