I've sent a lengthy email to Atomic Rockets strongly suggesting that cloaking devices are back on the menu. No reply yet and I know I've said this a few dozen times before but I really think we got 'em this time!

That's because it's not a strong conclusion. It's a "better than the alternatives" hypothesis. Repeating my tldr above "they don't know it's alphabetic".

> doesn't bring any EVIDENCE .. some morphological characteristics of the inscriptions

I'd say the "morphological characteristics of the inscriptions" count as evidence and I'll just recap everything linked that I think counts as evidence: the graphemes include several repetitions even with only 12 signs in total; they don't resemble cuneiform at all; they have a weak resemblances to some Egyptian glyphs but weak and Egypt didn't have these clay cigars; they have a weak resemblance to some Indus glyphs and (later) Byblos glyphs but again weak; they don't appear to be numbers, potmarks, etc.; but what they do strikingly resemble is later alphabetic signs, to the point where the author, one of the foremost experts on Semitic epigraphy, really wanted the dating to be wrong.

Now the blog post doesn't go into much detail on these items but Schwartz's 20+ page 2021 paper (I had no trouble getting a free, legal copy) does (not always a lot more detail but also covers more possible alternatives). But, like the blog post says, the case Schwartz 2021 makes is still extremely cautious and he basically concludes that we just have to hope we can find more examples to confirm what kind of system they are from, and to increase the chance of deciphering them.

A decent summary is the blog post below from another researcher who briefly was part of the same dig and a former student of Schwartz (so not entirely independent):

http://www.rollstonepigraphy.com/?p=921

It is worth noting that in the past Schwartz has been reluctant to affirm that the four inscribed clay cylinders from Tomb 4 of Umm el-Marra are alphabetic (Schwartz 2010). Thus, he certainly did not rush to this conclusion. Moreover, his most recent article about these is also very cautious (Schwartz 2021), as he moves through various possibilities (as discussed above). But it is clear that he is now willing to state that this is the most reasonable position (i.e., it is Early Alphabetic). And I concur. That is, the most reasonable conclusion is that the Umm el-Marra clay cylinders are inscribed with signs that are most readily understood as Early Alphabetic letters (graphemes). Moreover, since the Early Alphabetic alphabet was used to write Semitic, it is logical to conclude that this is the language of the Umm el-Marra inscriptions (the fact that they were found in Syria would also augment this conclusion, of course).

The full blog post is worth reading and summarizes the case for various non-alphabetic possibilities.

It also had some huge holes in who and what it covered, and it's not hard to imagine any of the OD&D classes (cleric, magic-user, fighting-man) in those gaps. The largest of these gaps by far was The Church, but we also have universities (which developed under protection of the church), guilds (which developed in places under protection of the universities), and the rising merchant class (who could form guilds to reinforce their power). There were also mercenaries, hermits and various other free people.

One of the great things about HN is you get all kinds of experts from every field imaginable.

> is not prosecutable

Yikes.

Mostly because they don't need or want their own house and/or they spend their money on other stuff.

> Can an average McDonalds worker in their 20-ies just go and buy a home easily

The median McDonalds worker in Japan is 17 and lives with their parents. And maybe 3/4 of the ones who aren't teens are freeters.

If you don't make a lot of money you can certainly buy something but it won't be the nicest or in the best location.

> without applying for a lifetime-long mortgage?

Many people buy with cash, many get nicer homes with 35-year mortgages at super low interest rates.

I'm personally not as bothered by the number of devices as much as all the forced redundancy. Like the core devices could have 3 desktop quality processors, 13 microphones, 3 selfie cameras, 2 rear cameras, 2-3 cellular modems, etc.

I'd love a design where the phone is my chip, 5g radio and storage. The camera can be worn as a bodycam (for lifestreaming or personal safety) but also docks to the phone. The phone speakers and mics are a 2nd set of airpods you can cycle in to keep them charged (both sets can be docked at once). The tablet is just a bigger screen with extra battery/storage and the phone docks to that. The watch screen is weaker and monochrome so the battery life is better and it keeps the health functions.

Occam’s Razor suggests we should strongly believe he didn’t cheat OTB.

The bigger issue is that known cheaters create a cloud of suspicion that puts their opponents at a huge disadvantage. Magnus has spoken about this before - if you think someone might be cheating you can’t concentrate on chess.

This suspicion can be allayed with extra security but that extra security was only deployed after Magnus left.

This is an actually interesting development but there’s zero discussion of it and 50 comments that want to split hairs about whether conclusions reached by simulations count as evidence or not.

Every edition has many issues but imho 1e is pretty terrible by modern standards.

The whole movement came out of monetary crank-ism, those people were always there.

Let me know when there’s a mainstream non-scam MiltonCoin or KeynesCoin that isn’t deflationary and automatically models semi-optimal central bank policy.

Eyewitness accounts aren’t bones but they are still evidence.

2. Slow by who’s definition? It seems like they were doing lots of useful things in a pretty harsh environment. Cleverness for cavemen was measured in surviving and outcompeting other smart humans, hominids and predators. Language and culture got more and more complex and yeah they developed a long list of physical technology.

3. Intelligence isn’t sufficient to produce a lot of technology. For example, domesticating wild grains may require you to be sedentary which itself has other requirements and is something you don’t get when your survival depends on following herds of megafauna around. More than the tech tree often you need some sort of pressure like running out of new places to live and/or running out of the megafauna you’ve always chased.