by liberal japonicus I’m not planning on travelling anytime soon, but when I went to grad school, I chose to study Thai rather than Vietnamese because I thought that travelling to Thailand would not be as awkward as travelling to Vietnam. This was a big mistake in a number of ways. One was because I … Read more
Putting the world’s money where their mouth is
by liberal japonicus From this. Forget sleepmaxxing and cold plunging: smoking is the new lifestyle flex among AI researchers. At least, that’s according to Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar, who said some AI researchers are taking up smoking to signal their belief that AI will eventually cure cancer. [snip] The logic, he said, is: “I believe … Read more
Juxtapositions
by liberal japonicus Perhaps some strange juxtapositions, but I just came across this substack piece, entitled Bad Aikido is Bad for Business right after I listened to this NYTimes interview with Min Jin Lee, author of Pachiko. There was a zoom meeting discussing this that I unfortunatley missed (though it seemed like an open event, … Read more
Open thread
by liberal japonicus You know what to do.
Words fail
by liberal japonicus Pentagon says execution of Fort Hood shooter will be livestreamed.
Another explanation
by liberal japonicus I’m interested in the whole possible terrorism attack against the RAF base at Fairford, and the US bug-out (it seems to be something of a specialty for the US). Here’s the Guardian and the details, as I understand them, there were 5 men in three vans who were stopped near the base, … Read more
First and Last men
by liberal japonicus I’ve never had much time for Francis Fukuyama, I felt like his thesis about the End of History was warmed over Hegel, and I never really registered him as a Japanese-American, so this Ones and Tooze podcast was quite interesting to me. Tooze discusses how Fukuyama’s personal history influenced his intellectual development … Read more
Open Thread
This in today from Brian Beutler:The New RadicalsDemocrats need to be the uncompromising ones now.Brian BeutlerSep 30 Over the past year and a half I’ve warned promiscuously about the dangers of “funding Donald Trump’s government.” I’ve taken to referring to bipartisan spending bills, which have passed with Democrats casting decisive votes, as “enabling” legislation. This … Read more
Continuing with the aquatic theme
by liberal japonicus We’ve got some folks who have some knowledge of water issues, so this Texas Monthly piece, entitled War for the Rio Grande, (via LGM) may be of interest. Why do I think this will all hit the fan as Texas turns blue? The piece talks about “Day Zero”, which is when a … Read more
Huanging everyone out to dry
by liberal japonicus Another day, another post about AI and another thing with Ezra Klein. Huang is on a tour, I see him talking with all sorts of people, hitting on the same points, which is there is nothing to worry about and nothing to see here. Huang is a pretty interesting character, his lifestory … Read more