Radim (u/Radim) - Readit News

Radim commented on The Singularity will occur on a Tuesday campedersen.com/singulari... · Posted by u/ecto

lbreakjai · a month ago

It's actually quite easy. Whoever isn't in the bunker is the outgroup. You only needed to tell people apart when you needed some meatware to man the factories and work the fields.

Militaries can side with the crowd, or more likely decide to keep the power for themselves.

Radim · a month ago

Yeah ruling juntas do need to "man the fields & factories" (1st order meatware), in order to produce and maintain those drones. Or nukes, or whatever "deciding factor beyond numbers" put them in power.

But they also need 2nd order meatware to support that 1st order: teachers, doctors, merchants… You need scientists to advance your technology against other militaries… You need leaders (3rd order) to keep the first two populations quiet and productive since that turns out to be more cost-effective than fear control through extermination…

Hell you need a certain level of genetic diversity so your own kids don't come out weird.

Give evolution a little more credit. The required number of humans for the in-group to be self-sustainable is definitely not billions, plus it's been shrinking with automation. But we are where we are for a reason – lots of alternative arrangements have been tried over millenia and found wanting.

"Keep my bunker + my drone factory and some farmers, kill the rest" leaves rulers with terrible quality of life (bad) and the next-door-junta taking over pretty quickly (also bad). It is a self-defeating, poor long-term strategy.

Automation tips the power balance further: fewer humans needed, more local autonomy. Which is, I suspect, why the ruling class are so terribly excited about AI, more so than some market valuations. Fewer pesky humans across all levels. Genetic diversity of bloodline remains the primary concern (unless you manage to live forever, which happens to be another evergreen of power ghouls).

Radim commented on Death by AI davebarry.substack.com/p/... · Posted by u/ano-ther

jedimastert · 8 months ago

I just saw recently a band called Dutch Interior had Meta AI hallucinate just straight up slander about how their band is linked to White supremacists and far right extremists

https://youtube.com/shorts/eT96FbU_a9E?si=johS04spdVBYqyg3

Radim · 8 months ago

Reminds me of an "actual Dutch" AI scandal:

https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-scandal-serves-as-a-wa...

> In 2019 it was revealed that the Dutch tax authorities had used a self-learning algorithm to create risk profiles in an effort to spot child care benefits fraud.

This was a pre-LLM AI, but expected "hilarity" ensues: broken families, foster homes, bankruptcies, suicides.

> In addition to the penalty announced April 12, the Dutch data protection agency also fined the Dutch tax administration €2.75 million in December 2021.

The government fining itself is always such a boss move. Heads I win, tails you lose.

Radim commented on Are LLMs able to notice the “gorilla in the data”? chiraaggohel.com/posts/ll... · Posted by u/finding_theta

ElectroBuffoon · a year ago

>> ...because humans had become too dependent on them for thinking.

> ... but no. The causes of the Butlerian Jihad are forgotten (or, at least, never mentioned) in any of Frank Herbert's novels; all that's remembered is the outcome.

Per Wikipedia or Goodreads, God Emperor of Dune has "The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines...Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments. Naturally, the machines were destroyed."

Vague but pointing to dependence on machines as well as some humans being responsible for that situation.

Radim · a year ago

A slight elaboration from the same book, although still frustratingly vague:

"The machines themselves condition the users to employ each other the way they employ machines."

- God Emperor of Dune

Radim commented on Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs axios.com/2025/01/10/meta... · Posted by u/bsilvereagle

PaulDavisThe1st · a year ago

Which more severe or intense or extensive or impactful historical inequalities are you thinking of?

Radim · a year ago

The one that gave us the very word "slave"?

To GP's point, skin colour did not seem to be the salient factor there.

Radim commented on Can AI do maths yet? Thoughts from a mathematician xenaproject.wordpress.com... · Posted by u/mathgenius

deepsun · a year ago

By the way, don't trust Nobel laureates or even winners. E.g. Linus Pauling was talking absolute garbage, harmful and evil, after winning the Nobel.

Radim · a year ago

> don't trust Nobel laureates or even winners

Nobel laureate and winner are the same thing.

> Linus Pauling was talking absolute garbage, harmful and evil, after winning the Nobel.

Can you be more specific, what garbage? And which Nobel prize do you mean – Pauling got two, one for chemistry and one for peace.

Radim commented on $8k Suzuki from India received a 5-star crash test rating jalopnik.com/this-8-000-s... · Posted by u/rntn

WeaselNo7 · a year ago

The Dacia Sandero unfortunately gets a 2 star Euro NCAP rating (which is typical for Dacia cars). Not something I personally would feel safe putting my family into!

Radim · a year ago

> Not something I personally would feel safe putting my family into!

From https://www.topgear.com/long-term-car-reviews/dacia/jogger/r...

> The Jogger returned the equivalent of a four-star rating for adult occupant crash protection, and three stars for child occupants. Plenty respectable scores. The Jogger lost marks, however, for its lack of active safety equipment: it doesn’t offer lane-keep assist, pedestrian detection, or seatbelt warnings for the rearmost row. [0]

> The overall NCAP rating is dictated by the lowest score in any individual category, hence that headline one-star result for the Jogger.

Many people actively disable gimmicks like "lane-keep assist", so YMMV on such damning "1 star Euro NCAP rating".

Radim commented on Europe's Banks Launch Wero Payments to Dislodge Visa, Mastercard bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/helsinkiandrew

MaBu · a year ago

It was never free or instant. It only works from 9-15 on workdays and not on weekends. Also if there are holidays in eu also doesn't work for domestic transfers. Easter is fun whe it stops for 4 days even though country has only 3 state holidays during those times. Costs from 25-40 cents per domestic transaction or 7-17 euro per over border one. Depending on the bank.

It takes around an hour or some days over border for transfer to go through.

Maybe you think of sepa instant which is supported by some banks. Very new. Mostly used for people to people transfers. Some shops are starting to support it. It is actually instantaneous anc works weekends. It seems to be mostly free.

Radim · a year ago

In addition, SEPA was never free. So OP is also wrong there.

The regulation only stipulates "equality of charges", that the bank's fees for a payment into another SEPA country/bank must be the same as into the same bank or within the same country [0]. I.e. no payment fee discrimination across SEPA: if my Czech bank X charges me Y for a local EUR payment into X, it must also charge me Y for the same EUR payment into Italy, for example.

Would any bank actually charge their customers Y>0 like that? Yes they would. For example the Bank of Cyprus (in Cyprus, which is in both EU & SEPA) will charge you 6 EUR for a SEPA payment of 1200 EUR if the sender is a physical person, and 10 EUR if legal person [1]. And 4 EUR for smaller EUR amounts. Far from "free".

[0] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2009/924/oj

[1] https://www.bankofcyprus.com/globalassets/cyprus/org_methods... [PDF]

Radim commented on Portugal brings back tax breaks for foreigners in bid to woo digital nomads fortune.com/europe/2024/0... · Posted by u/WWWMMMWWW

jahnu · 2 years ago

I only objected to the fixation on taxation levels and assumption that a particular rate is morally bad as if they capture much about anything. If I wasn’t clear enough I hope I am now.

Radim · 2 years ago

> If I wasn’t clear enough I hope I am now.

I'm afraid "much about anything." is still too vague to tell :)

No need to bring out the "immoral" card – yes, there definitely exist gvt policies (incl. tax) that tip a critical number of that country's skilled workers over into emigration. We're not talking Depardieu or "laptop tourists", we're talking local construction workers FFS.

Observing the tug-of-war HN votes on my post, some people must have taken that footnote as a cue for their ideological warfare du jour. Poor-vs-rich! Pitchforks now!

- "Fixation on taxation levels"… from my "whether [tax is] 20% or 48% cannot be the answer"? How?

- "loves to see low income taxes fore them as an universal band aid for the entire economy"… from my "Clearly Portugal's problems are much deeper than that, going back to 1974 […] Portugal's bureaucracy is legendary"? How?

With all due respect I think the fixation is yours. I have lived in Austria (my sister still lives there) and I have lived in Portugal. There are a lot of issues under the surface in both. Different histories, different trajectories. No need to attack strawmen.

If you have specific insights on the situation in Portugal (beyond Rinzler89's "just create jobs and spend existing taxes more wisely" :eyeroll:), I'd love to hear them. This is a topic close to my heart, I still love Portugal.

Radim commented on Portugal brings back tax breaks for foreigners in bid to woo digital nomads fortune.com/europe/2024/0... · Posted by u/WWWMMMWWW

jahnu · 2 years ago

> That's no way to treat your productive population.

Seeing a single number and coming to that conclusion is very reductive, imo. What I believe matters is if the population feels like they are getting value for money. Income tax is higher than that here in Austria but we are broadly satisfied with what is done with that tax. Very much so in Vienna. Income tax is lower than that in Ireland, where I originally come from, and people are broadly unhappy with how tax is spent and don’t trust the government to tax more to implement the services they say they want.

Radim · 2 years ago

> Seeing a single number and coming to that conclusion is very reductive, imo.

That's not what the parent post was about, at all. Or did you only read its footnote?

Whether the Portuguese population "feels like they are getting value" is best observed in how they vote. Both during elections (Chega), and most directly and loudly, in how they vote with their feet. Opinions of Irishmen in Vienna notwithstanding.

Radim commented on Portugal brings back tax breaks for foreigners in bid to woo digital nomads fortune.com/europe/2024/0... · Posted by u/WWWMMMWWW

Rinzler89 · 2 years ago

>Highly skilled immigrants are especially good for the economy and for the tax base, which pays for social services.

Except they're getting tax breaks, it's in the title of the article. The only winners from this will be landlords and property owners.

This bullshit trickle down from well-off tourists with laptops we keep getting parroted is a scam, that doesn't benefit the average joe there who now has to deal with even more expensive housing.

Why do you think all countries whose economies profit the most from tourists and "digital nomads" (most of Southern Europe), also have the highest wealth inequality, crappiest wages and most unaffordable housing for the locals causing all their youth to emigrate? Where are all those benefits for them you keep talking about? Their economies should be booming by now, and yet they aren't.

If you wanna improve your economy you want to attract companies and investors who fund companies and create well paying jobs in the country for the locals, not techbros who can outspend the locals, as that's just economic colonialism that only benefits the asset owning class. Turning your country into a coworking space for remote workers to party, won't fix your economy or benefit the average locals.

Radim · 2 years ago

Whether foreigners are income-taxed at 20% or 48% cannot be the answer¹. Clearly Portugal's problems are much deeper than that, going back to 1974 and beyond.

To name one, Portugal's bureaucracy is legendary. The Portuguese are not called "Honorary East Europeans" for nothing.

The red tape creates a complex system of inefficiency and corruption. It's like a cauldron – you (the government) plug one obvious hole, only to find the pressure found another, "unexpectedly".

And yes, young people run away in droves from Portugal, leaving entire industries back home chronically understaffed. Construction & health being two prominent examples that need foreigners to keep the lights on. This shortage of labour drives commercial prices up higher still, contributing to the death spiral.

¹ Leaving aside that both numbers are high to begin with; 48% ridiculously so (for anyone above €82k/year). That's no way to treat your productive population. And that's just income; there's additional health and social taxes, some masquarading as "insurance" or "employer contribution". Would you blame the young for leaving?