The original author points to the consolidation of military suppliers as a major issue, but the truth is that the economies of the western world have been massively dependent on this sort of consolidation and outsourcing for a large portion of the "growth" that they have achieved for a generation.

It would be convenient to think that the real question is "how do we climb back out of this hole?" but I feel the more pressing question is actually, "when and why will we start trying?"

The profit motive simply does not drive society in this direction.

The crises are catastrophic and perhaps even existential, but they are not profitable. You have to be a really lucky market timer to bet on crisis and win.

Avoiding crisis over the longer term is simply not investable.

"Fair" is not a relevant or useful conception in this context.

Clearly if the opponent had wanted to defeat this vehicle and take this ground, they could have.

That said, it seems likely that this vehicle substantially increased the expected cost of taking this ground, and it did so at very little cost/risk to the defenders.

This sort of device dramatically changes the equation of conflict. It seems this article does a pretty good (though unverified) job of making that case.

I also find that firefox crashes much more than chrome based browsers, but it is likely that chrome's superior stability is better handing of the other 90% of crashes.

If 50% of chrome crashes were due to bit flips, and bit flips effect the two browsers at basically the same rate, that would indicate that chrome experiences 1/5th the total crashes of firefox... even though the bit flip crashes happen at the same rate on both browsers.

It would have been better news for firefox if the number of crashes due to faulty hardware were actually much higher! These numbers indicate the vast majority of firefox crashes are actually from buggy software : (

"The abuse of entrusted power for private gain"

Jaywalking is breaking the law, but it is not corruption.

Civil disobedience is also typically breaking the law, but is not corruption.

It is important to recognize that just because a system is codified in law does not mean that it is not corrupt.

There is a large opportunity to simplify and rationalize the regulations. This would dramatically reduce the cost of both bureaucracy and compliance. In addition to massively reduced cost, it would enable people in CA to do more cool stuff faster!

But simplification, rationalization, and acceleration is not in the interest of the bureaucracy or the incumbents... so we are very unlikely to see change until there is an existential crisis.

Even if the bureaucracy didn't exist and everyone voluntarily followed the regulations, you could not run a globally cost competitive business without some sort of subsidy when competing with places where rampant pollution is allowed.

It's a real problem without an obvious long term solution that I am aware of.

Doesn't the Turing Test determine only if a machine can fool people into thinking it is intelligent?

If fooling people is the defining characteristic of AI, am I a fool to think that AI can produce work of concrete (non-foolish) value?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47057219

Points: 2

# Comments: 2

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47009327

Points: 378

# Comments: 277

Taking satins is proven to reduce heart disease rates, but there are lots of other drugs that lower LDL... many with much more efficacy than satins.

These non-satin drugs do not reduce heart disease rates significantly.

There something else going on here. High LDL is correlated with the development of heart disease, but it does not cause heart disease. Satins do reduce the risk of heart disease and they do reduce LDL, but their positive effect on heart disease rates is not caused by reduced LDL.

I bake bread. I have spent a good deal of time optimizing the recipe for deliciousness but also for time efficiency. Proving in a warm oven is a great tip. Also baking two loaves at a time!

All this nit picking about writing style is disappointing. I like that this person got their ideas out there. They are good ideas. Legible and easy to parse == good enough. I don't care about the writing style any more than that and you shouldn't either. It is a waste of everyone's time... yours especially.

It's very nice to hear about someone else who is interested in doing hard things/real things. Seems like there ought to be a meet up or a get together opportunity for people working on stuff like that. Perhaps a get-together where everyone gives a 2-5 minute talk about something they are working on then we all hang out for another hour or two. Seems like alcohol might help get the wheels spinning?

I fully appreciate the need for a catchy headline with a hook (it got me!) but I wonder if these ideas would be more powerful/useful if expressed in positive language rather than doom speak? I guess doom speak is the fashion these days and we all have to conform to the dominant paradigm... at least a little around the edges.

Generally... Bravo. Nice piece. Nice ideas.

To little, to late? Maybe.

Surely very little, surprisingly late.

There are so many great reasons to distrust "The Science"... perhaps the greatest is that without powerful and persistent skepticism, science simply isn't science. Questioning and skepticism is profoundly fundamental to the scientific process. "Trust the science" or worse yet "Believe the science" are statements that are about as destructive to the foundation of science as one can get.

The whole point of science was that everyone has access to the true nature of the universe which we can discover through theorizing and experimentation. Empirical experience is the great equalizer that puts the Arch Duke of Where-and-What or the Highest of High Priests the on the same footing as, say, Joseph Preistly or Benjamin Franklyn. Questioning and skepticism must be accepted from all quarters. To say that only the most select, distinguished and credentialed can be admitted to the discussion smacks of priesthood and aristocracy.

The argument that we need to re-persuade the people to trust in science is missing the point by such a wide margin as to be a symptom of the problem.

It is more or less the same as fretting that people aren't going to church so much any more.

The science should not be trusted. The science should be tested. Those who say "Trust the science" have completely lost the thread.

Greenhouse gas solution? no.

Ammonia will (and does) leak into the environment where it becomes a part of the natural nitrogen cycle. The end result of the natural nitrogen cycle is N2O (aka laughing gas) which is a greenhouse gas 250-350x more powerful than CO2.

Running the world on ammonia, even if logistically possible, will likely accelerate climate change, not slow it.

If the cost of a chicken egg was $10,000 it would likely not be worth the trouble. At $0.15 or $0.60, though, chicken eggs provide an excellent value and are nice to have around!

The real question here is why intervene to keep a species from extinction? The answer is that genetic diversity is massive valuable. The trouble is that the value assessment is very hard to calculate concretely and that value is also very hard to extract in the form of direct profits.

Let’s take the banana as an example.

The global banana market had sales of about $140B in 2023… clearly people value bananas. Today 99% of global trade in bananas is in a single variety, the “Cavendish” banana. But it was not always so. Until the 1950’s the world’s dominant banana was the “Gros Michel”. Over the course of the 1950’s the Gros Michel went commercially extinct as a result of “Panama Disease”. Researchers scoured the world to find a banana not susceptible to Panama Disease that could replace the Gros Michel in commerce. What they found is the Cavendish.

Today, a new strain of Panama Disease has evolved to target the Cavendish. Extinction of Cavendish is proceeding more slowly than that of the Gros Michel, but it seems more or less inevitable at this point.

The fact that we are likely to see 2 varieties of banana go commercially extinct within a single century, is kind of nuts. It seems that the half-life of a commercial banana variety is less that 50 years. The only reason we still have commercial bananas today is because of the rather deep genetic diversity in bananas the earth continued to possess in the 1950’s. That genetic diversity is significantly diminished today.

If we value the banana market as a perpetual annuity with the 2023 growth rate of 7% and a discount rate of 3%, the net present value of the banana market to the citizens of the world is approximately $3.5 Trillion.

How much is it rational to spend preserving this perpetual annuity? Anyway you slice it, the answer is very big… and very much bigger than is currently being spent to preserve the genetic diversity of the banana today.

What was the value of the American Chestnut tree? Hard to say, but it is clear that the loss was massive. I've read estimates that the American Chestnut provided (as fodder) something like 10% of the energy for the pre-extinction American transportation system as well as a substantial winter food source for all kinds of livestock, game and people. Just as transportation energy the yearly value of the American Chestnut would have been about 2% of US GDP.

A good craftsman would not choose a joint that would see such high stresses.

Additionally if the glue is chosen and applied properly, the wood that the glue adheres to should fail long before the glue.

That said, glue is not as simple as it may seem. There are many different types and proper surface prep and application makes a huge difference to ultimate strength.

For example, many people will mix 2 part epoxy until it "looks mixed" which for a clear epoxy happens pretty quickly. In truth, the resulting bond strength is far more closely related to the amount of mechanical energy that has been transferred into the mixture than the visual uniformity.

Lots of ways to go wrong with glue... but a good craftsman should be well aware of these.

With the exception of the joints labeled "...with key" these joints are all very remote from the types of joints used in traditional Japaneses temples which do not use glue.

These are mostly western style joints, which are also very beautiful and useful, but generally expected to be assembled with glue.

Great resource!