epiccoleman

I found Dan Carlin's "Logical Insanity" episode of Hardcore History to be a really interesting look into the logic of dropping the two nukes. Probably long behind the paywall at this point, but it basically makes the case that, as an event in WWII specifically, the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki made some amount of sense. I don't mean that it made moral sense by modern standards - but just in the context of WWII where civilian targeted bombings (like Dresden) had become a standard fixture of the war, bombing civilian centers wouldn't have seemed as far-fetched as it does today.

Again, not claiming it was right, or good in the long run - just that Carlin points out the context around the decision makes it seem less insane than it would by today's standards (hence "Logical Insanity").

Sure, I think my various hedges that say "so far" acknowledge this. I still think 80 years is a success story given the usual patterns of humanity.

I can't claim to know anything about the RAND corporation. Maybe they don't deserve to be included in this next sentence, maybe they do.

but there is something at least a little interesting about the notion that people working in the nuclear space they thought they might be saving the world - because in some sense, they... did?

I've always felt like the fact that no nukes have ever been dropped (in war) after 1945 was a pretty huge success story for the human race. We invented this insanely powerful weapon and, despite the typical pattern of humanity, we managed to solve one of our biggest "coordination problems" effectively enough to not use another one for 80 years (and counting).

I don't know that I'd extend this analogy to the AI labs, I'm not necessarily implying that they're all right about "saving the world," I just think it's worth noting that there was a contingent of people out there trying to save the world from a real threat and who seem to have - at least for now - succeeded.

This comment nerd-sniped me and I still have not figured out what the english words in question might be.

On short horror titles: iron lung was just a great little gaming snack

It is pretty funny that the premise of the article is "silly rationalist bloggers, with their long arguments, links to studies, evidence, debate" and then the "alternative" to that being presented is "here's a link to 4 tweets"

Yeah, it was, 15 years ago when I was in school.

And yet: I have not written assembly since school except for one Advent of Code challenge, and I expect it would take me quite a while to pick up a productive level of facility with it.

I have GL-iNet Flint (MT6000) - absolutely delightful piece of hardware. I really love it. Having the flexibility of OpenWRT is a serious boon.

I've had a vague memory of this piece for years and have always wanted to dig it back up, but never quite managed the right combination of search terms. Thanks for linking it!

(after reading it I am slightly disappointed - the piece is still great but my memory of it was longer!)

Man I love Books of Blood. Hugely formative in my tastes in horror as one of the first things I had access when (as a teen) I started branching out from Stephen King. So many good stories in there.

we've totally earned this, so i'm not offended by what you've said. but i'll just step in here to say i fucking hate this stuff.

you could easily argue that there are plenty of things our government has done that matter much more in the grand scheme of things, but the rampant twitter / x meme posts and absolute horseshit like this "arcade" site disgust me. it's not funny or cute, it's despicable.