Big difference between defense of a country and starting wars. Canada and Switzerland don't start wars but they still have a military in case they ever need it to protect from an aggressor. Like Russia or the Canadian neighbor to the south who has a president making social media posts with the US flag over all of North America. Which suits the name, "Department of War".
Both Bush and Obama used the Department of “Defense” to launch regime change “operations” across the MENA. If anything, Trump is guilty of saying the quiet part out loud, AKA “Truth in Advertising.” If anything, he got this one right. We’re a militant state.
Nukes also destroy infrastructure and irradiate surrounding areas making cleanup and rescue harder. Then there's to potential for massive fires putting debris into the stratosphere, which could dim sunlight for a time and cause global temperatures to fall.
bioweapons tend to not remain contained to the area they're deployed (with notable exceptions for things like Anthrax). Some of them even last a long time on surfaces, making cleanup and rescue harder.
Very interesting book. You don't really think about how often metaphors are employed in language, and their influence on how we think. The book makes some rather strong claims regarding science and philosophy being misled by metaphorical thinking, but still a good read.
And it's relevant today given how people like to anthropomorphize LLMs, and compare biology to digital machines we make. Of course there are similarities. But the point about metaphorical thinking is we are mislead by treating metaphors as literally true.
Anyway if the stronger claims in the book are at all true, it might impact how an alien species thinks differently than us (given a lot of our metaphors are biologically based). And could present significant difficulties for decoding an alien signal.
One of the best examples of a clear issue with metaphorical thinking came from discussions about the plaque installed on Pioneer 10. Some clever people thought up the idea of using a pulsar map to define where the sun/earth were. Some other clever people noted that pointing to the location with a line that ended in an arrow was very, very deeply rooted in the history of human hunting techniques and could be very hard to understand if you have never seen or even conceived of an arrow(head).
Add a slight trailing decay and I think the basic arrow motif could be intuitive for trajectory for any observer who experienced aerodynamics?
Whether it is the evolved shape of a flying creature or an abstract depiction of a meteorite (or even a comet!), there is a kind of intuition about the sharp end and the flaring of air or fluid around it, with some sort of trailing tail from whence it came...
One can imagine many observers who could find our space probes would also have some of these experiences?
Of course, all of this assumes some kind of visual perception and cognition to even recognize the plaque as having markings made with an intent to communicate some abstract ideas...
What was so bad about the non-Windows interface other than it wasn't Windows? I didn't have problems with using Notes email or developing apps for Notes. It had incredible workflow and database replication features. Blew anything Microsoft had at the time out of the water. When I was forced to start using Outlook, didn't care for it. Still don't think it's all that great. I guess Sharepoint is decent enough now.
Sure I guess if all you cared about as an end-user was email and Windows-like UI, then I guess I understand. But you were missing a ton of other things.
Finally within the last 1-2 years, SharePoint Online in combination with the various other M365 services (and Azure) is "pretty good".
Low-code/no-code is available with SharePoint Lists (with some level of JSON customization), but mainly PowerPlatform.
But if you need to, you can develop extensions/webparts in JavaScript/TypeScript. While the ability to include arbitrary JS within Pages is mostly "gone" (except I guess for this latest CoPilot/HTML offering - although you are limited in how/what you can do with JavaScript), that means better structure - we will see how the replacement of VBA with "Office Scripts" goes.
Then you link in things like Teams, M365 Groups, Loop, "Forms", Planner, Purview and you can get quite the mix of capabilities.
Evolution selects for fit organisms that have to survive and reproduce in the world, not language models waiting on prompts. The temptation to analogize technology to biology is just top hard to resist I guess. Problem with analogies and metaphors is they are never accurate, they are only similar in some respects.
I think it is worth asking whether anthropomorphization of LLMs does anything to contribute to a better understanding of them that isn't entirely post-hoc ("of course they were going to find CVEs, solve ARC-AGI...") or if it just ends up reinforcing simplified teleological views of neuroscience, evolution or psychology etc.
Sure, there are potential risks to anthropomorphizing language. There's also potential benefits, in terms of allowing us to talk about an emerging alien intelligence.
FWIIW, I don't think I was anthropomorphizing. Stretching an analogy, yes. Optimization pressure is producing something with at least characteristics of intelligence. Obviously in a very different way than evolution produced the human brain, but the similarities are there.
> They give each other pats on the back for shitting on the most popular, versatile, compatible and adaptable programming language of all time.
I don't see why C, C++ or Java wouldn't meet some of those criteria. Everything is written in those languages. As for most adaptable, I don't see how it's possible for JS to be more adaptable than Lisp. JS isn't homioconic. It doesn't have macros.
And despite how I feel about the US and Israel's government I do have my head straight: regime change in Iran would be a 1000x better outcome than any of your suggestions. And for everyone, by the way. For Trump. For Netanyahu. For Europe. For gulf countries. For Americans. For Europeans. For Bahraini, Emirati, Qatari, Saudi AND for Iranians.
The problem is that empirically regime changes very rarely lead to stable liberal democracies. Yeah, a magical societal transformation according to exactly our standards sounds great to us. But that is not how this is going to end.
But who is there to say that liberal democracies are the desired end of goal for all states? That is the problem with liberal democracies it has very little tolerance for almost any other kind of system.
How many wars in recent history waged in the name of liberal democracies and freedom?
> But who is there to say that liberal democracies are the desired end of goal for all states ...
Everyone. That's the essence of democracy. It quite literally is what everyone wants.
> How many wars in recent history waged in the name of liberal democracies and freedom?
Zero? I guess you mean things like the Iran war, if we disregard entirely that Iran has been attacking almost literally everyone, including the US, but also including, uh, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, ... they attacked fucking Argentina (look at the map, then tell me how ridiculous that is, then check wikipedia to see they did indeed attack Argentina)
Sorry I mean "exporting the revolution", with little or not explanation as to why this particular export required killing 600000 Syrian civilians, and certainly 2 million people total.
What I just can't understand is why tankies support Iran. I mean, how can you get less communist than Iran? I mean is it the words they use and the propaganda? Idiots.
Given a choice I would rather live in democratic systems - but to say that everyone wants democratic systems tell you are not as exposed as you think you are. There are many failed democracies which resulted in highly bloated and corrupt governments, and these tend to make the situation worse. And there are many states running alternative governance system with success.
When you are saying everyone, you are basically projecting your liberal values on others and you are convinced they are superior and that is why it is dangerous.
Regarding wars - Iran, Iraq, Libya, and many other examples (coups) were initiated in the name of liberty and freedom. And notice that all those countries are rich in oil.
Regarding Iran specifically, you won't understand until you study the Shai's faith and history which I'm sure you don't have any knowledge or understanding of.
> Given a choice I would rather live in democratic systems - but to say that everyone wants democratic systems tell you are not as exposed as you think you are ...
Nope, just old. Like 40s old. I'm afraid I'm someone who thinks that either people want democracy, or just haven't been anywhere near an actual undemocratic system, haven't seen what happens.
In reality, either people are (a minimum level of) liberal (voluntarily or "because otherwise I'd get arrested"), or they live under constant violence. Those are the only choices, and the way that works for people like tankies or some religious lunatics is that they've never seen up close what violence does on even a medium scale. In other words, the way it works for them, maybe for you, is that it's a fantasy. Not fundamentally different from what I'd loved to have done with Sarah Michelle Gellar, when even back then she was probably way too old for me.
And yeah your conspiracy theories about oil. THE war about liberty and freedom was Afghanistan. You might notice: no oil.
So yeah I'm one of those really irritating old guys that tells you even you want freedom and democracy, even if you think differently. It's not the only thing you want, and of course you now think you want your little fantasy more, but that will disappear forever the first time a police officer shows you what happens when they decide to use violence against someone you know.
Liberal ideology will crush anyone and anything that stands on it's way until nothing left but total inner destructions, the west is imploding from within with their OnlyFans subscribers and decaying family and cultural values, yet they condemn anything and anyone who show different stance.
Of course there are people who are unhappy with the government, and guess what, there are people unhappy in the US too, but Canada and Mexico doesn't go and arm those people, and if they did, I would be more than certain that the US police and military will slaughter them all.
All the countries you mentioned are nothing but proxy to the US empire and their military complex, and anyone with little knowledge of geopolitics understands this.
The Iranian people will never come out to protest again in masses after how the US betrayed them.
The president said "help is on its way", live on TV, they hijacked radio and tv signals in Iran to broadcast it to as many people as possible.
The people of Iran went out and got slaughtered like cattle.
You think the mothers who lost their sons and daughters, be it us soldiers or Iranians, will just forget that their children died because of an illegal, unnecessary war that was planned by political idiots in a signal group?
Thousands of innocent souls died in this war because the US President is an idiot and a liar. The US citizens are held hostage just as much as the Iranian citizens. It’s not the people’s fault. It’s horrible leadership.
No help was sent, instead, the inability of the US army to end this war put the US into a position where the regime in Teheran will come out infinitely stronger than before the war. They indeed have "all the cards".
Khamenei is not threatening to end the Iranian civilisation and bombing drinking water facilities. It’s the aggressor, the United States of America. They are just missing the R before the US.
The best outcome for the rest of the world is not regime change in Iran. It’s regime change in Washington. Preferably non-violent.
> You think the mothers who lost their sons and daughters, be it us soldiers or Iranians, will just forget that their children died because of an illegal, unnecessary war that was planned by political idiots in a signal group?
I think mothers who saw their children get shot will blame the people shooting. Ie. their own country, the IRGC.
No, because they want to know why this happened, and if they had a chance to prevent it, and getting shot by the IRCG is just the consequence of doing what someone else expected of them.
Go out and protest and I will bring you freedom and peace and prosperity. That was the promise these kids counted on. They paid for those lies in blood.
That blood is on the president’s hands just as much as it is on the hands of the IRCG commanders giving the orders and their henchmen pulling the trigger and you can bet every family who lost someone in this war knows that.
Every Iranian I talk to says everyone knew the risks. Everyone who went protesting even pointed out that they were still killing protestors one-by-one from the "woman, life, freedom" protests and Masha Amini from before, in a much worse way. You know, beating them up daily for a few years, raping the women they're executing first, sometimes the men too. You know, what allah commands according to the ayatollahs.
Iran has been killing protestors for 50 years. Executing their communist allies from their side was almost the first thing khomeini did, and they have never stopped since. The two girls from the famous revolution photo, one was executed by the regime she was celebrating.
But everyone knew EXACTLY what the government would do about the protests.
One Iranian I know said they kill a large number of protestors "every 2 years". So even the basic premise of this thread is totally wrong. The IRGC has mass-killed protestors about 25 times before this protest. That didn't stop the protestors, just like 24 times didn't stop them.
Now they have killed protestors 26 times. That currently stops people, but it won't stop them for long either.
Was regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan worth it despite how bad their governments were? Even the party of Bush & Cheney seems to think that was a bad idea and Trump ran on no more wars in the ME.
The problem with that is that certainly for Afghanistan, you know it's easy to talk to Afghans in Europe these days.
They are angry that Afghanistan was left behind and are absolutely overwhelmingly of the opinion that regime change was worth it.
Now if you ask people in the US if it was worth the cost? That's a different story. The world order effectively depends on free access to the sea and so Afghanistan ... it was never, and will never, work economically. So was it "worth it" in dollars? No. And it won't ever be.
If you ask Europeans who insist they "contributed" to the Afghanistan invasion ... well let's just say I've seen several discussions between Afghans and Europeans about whether it was worth it. Those discussions don't work out very well. Afghans are angry not more was done, Europeans retort that a lot was done and it cost too much (the Europeans discussing never actually contributed anything to the effort, of course. Their argument boils down to that they "gave up" government spending (unemployment contributions, education, ...) for Afghanistan and got nothing back)
... and of course tankies believe islamist propaganda. On marxist.com there was literally published that "If Iran wins this war they will complete the revolution and finally we'll get true communism". I mean, read the site, it regularly has, shall we say, questionable logic. But that one, my jaw hit the floor.
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