Friend-shoring Enthusiast
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Joined April 2013
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In regards to this situation, here's the 10 commandments I use to remain sane:
1. Understand Secular trends
2. Don't fight the nature of the beast
3. Money is about security & freedom
4. Protect your health at all costs
5. Life is a meme and there isn't a fairness barometer
Leaked staff survey results from Goldman Sachs (cannot vouch for veracity but are being shared online). drive.google.com/file/d/1jye…
Beyond bleak.
My controversial view is that Brexit was the singular smartest and most prescient decision made democratically by a European nation since the 2010s.
It failed miserably because the UK politicians utterly betrayed every want of its people, not because the act itself was wrong.
By 2016s, all of the worst excesses of ultra-liberalism were fully showcasing themselves in the EU, open borders, climate hysteria, an increasingly anti-business regulatory environment. The desire to seperate yourself from these policies forced upon you by radicals in Brussels was the objectively correct one, especially now having seen what transpired in Europe since.
Yet British politicians went the complete opposite direction and squandered a once in a lifetime opportunity.
People wanted less migration -> Migration dramatically increased, especially from the third world
People wanted less regulation -> Bureaucracy also dramatically increased, much worse than the EU itself
My view is that Brexit was a somewhat costly mistake (and I opposed it at the time as well) but I am unsettled when I speak to "elites" in Britain who are totally fixated on it as the source of our problems, and reversing/undoing it as the solution.
I've had more than one experience over the past few weeks that has given me the impression that many people who run the country or influence those who do believe that Brexit is the silver bullet. I think that's totally wrong – the country's inability to build housing, infrastructure, or cheap energy supply, along with the country's now very high levels of tax and govt spending, are much bigger problems for growth.
If anything, AI may mean being outside the EU ends up being quite a good thing, despite the costs so far. Avoiding the EU's AI and data regulations is valuable, and these will probably only get worse. And Britain now has a greater possibility of getting inside the American "tent" and get preferential access to frontier models that most countries cannot get, if that ends up being important.
Concave retweeted
The French protests are indicative of a broader trend of the West becoming increasingly difficult to govern. Decades of low productivity growth, poor demographics, and unsustainable promises to retirees have been papered over by deficit-funded fiscal policy.
But what can't last, won't. And with bond markets rebelling, there isn't a clear way for politicians to meet voters' rising expectations within tighter fiscal constraints.
Politicians get elected by making promises that fiscal reality prevents them from fulfilling. When those promises disappoint, voters swing to the next party offering new pledges. Eventually, people tire of the whole system, and take their frustration to the streets, demanding what government no longer has the ability to give them.
Pursuing a scholars of Theology that you've invented new sentient beings is as close as one can get to the Biblical definition of Blasphemy and the portrayal of the Anti-Christ
Really unbelievable the Anthropic team sought both Rabbis and Priests to accept this view
France has a very large permanent underclass group of people, but because they never leave the country, their nation isn't associated with them.
You think of the French by their high performers. Compare that to Romania's case, the gypsies, who are famously migratory thus they have much more of a say in how the country is perceived.
I wonder if or when this will also occur for the Western European nations who engaged in mass third world migration. Will the idea of the average Belgian or Frenchman still be of the civilized native?
Found this old photo of a Nokia 6300 certificate.
What a time that was in 2007. Europe was making top of the line phones which were manufacturer between Finland, Germany, and Hungary.
For comparison there was an identical project done in Romania. Railway on top, 2 lanes on the bottom with the whole structure needing an extension & renovation.
''Pasaj Jiul'' in Timisoara took 1 year and 6 months, cost 5 Million Euros. It also extended it to 5 lanes.
But of course if you follow the ''official data'' the UK is a low corruption country whereas Romania is a hopeless land. As @MacroJason says, bearish ''rule of law'' countries
Praising video games as a way to learn skills is analogous to saying you can learn to have sex through porn.
Maybe on the margin it's true, you do technically learn managing resources, people, maybe how to keep your cool. But it's better to keep these as entertainment only
this is a pretty common take on ct especially, like I'm one of those people, I guess, who learned stuff from computer games, but as much as "I want to believe", ultimately it's cope
No, the kid who did raids in WoW or grinded eve online or Runescape or whatever else is not a great default hire because of his "skills". The key component you are missing is him being interested/passionate in whatever it is you want him to work on, cause if he is not, he is just going to half ass his job and come home to play WoW...
Same for chess grandmasters who frequently make mediocre quant hires. Intelligence is just not directly transferrable and genuine interest (or even better passion) beats inteligence/gaming acquired "skills" 99% of the time
Well let me map this a bit better from a null incentive point of view:
First point:
It assumes that AI has a will of its own. I will remind you that it is a reactionary or looped reactionary technology. It does not have the ability to be spontaneous as it is trained to respond to tokens not to survive. Please see the recent strategy game simulations where both Astra and Fable do not mind much being turned off in the absence of the biases of a prompter (who primes them on their behalf and are impossible to remove).
Second point:
There is little to no evidence that a jump in capabilities translates for one company translates into an exponential RSI that leaves the rest behind. As a matter of fact based on the existing data we can see that most competitors are incrementally improving and leapfrogging one another, with open source being a few months behind at best. Also we can see that the specific real world improvements are not that different across models outside cybersecurity, and even then there is a theoretical limit on the damage and previous generation models with human collaboration can achieve the same results (see Sol and Astra). Intellectual work is only useful when directed by humans, else it has no point.
There are two ways AI progress could go very badly and that we must avoid.
First, we could lose control of the future to AI. This is unacceptable; we are unapologetically on Team Humanity, and AI must always serve people. To ensure that, we need ways to ensure that alignment and safety techniques stay ahead of progress in model capabilities.
Second, we could end up in a world with too much concentration of power. If an extraordinarily powerful AI is used by one person or company to impress their worldview onto everyone else, the results could be extremely dystopian.
Avoiding these two threats requires walking a narrow middle path; for example, one country could gain too much power. Another example is one lab ending up with too much power.
Concave retweeted
Your argument about citizens defecting from the national project is such an incredibly good point.
Most countries that harbor this type of "economic project ultra diverse" attitudes are tiny ones with an unfair economic advantage that allows low taxation to sustain itself. No one would be loyal to stay through the thick
So many things have made me have the exact same reaction, to the point where I've become mildly conspiratorial about why so many ''experts'' have such a terrible read:
1. Largest oil shock in history (according to experts), enormous shortages incoming. I warn my friend in Thailand, I expect tremendous pain in EM and Europe: August 2026 was the best month for air travel EVER.
2. What Teo said about Romania's economic data: Real Estate prices haven't done down, city centers are still just as full every night.
3. Going back further, I remember every supply chains expert saying Russia's domestic flight industry will collapse with sanctions: hasn't affected it much at all.
I think the overall conclusion is that the modern economic engine is both more resilient, and much more intricate than ever before, rendering a large class of consultants and ''experts'' useless.
Something that's very real but sounds fake:
In the history of humanity we've never run out of any natural resource, ever. Marble quarries that built ancient Greece are still used today
So the idea that humanity will run out of Oil or Nat Gas is a monstrously stupid and damaging one.
We have the opposite situation, the actual world is so awash in natural resources that many rich countries have willingly decided to not use theirs and just buy from others.
The world has gotten dramatically less shit in the last couple of decades, thus allowing one to build a great life in way more places than before.
So the onus on migration has fallen one two types of people: The most desperate and the most ambitious.
Unless your ambition is to be a centimillionaire or billionaire, the US doesn't offer anything to the already rich foreign cohort.
Why don’t more people move to the US after “making it” in their home country? I don’t think it’s as simple as the US being undesirable, because the vast majority of rich Americans choose to stay in the US.
Is it:
1) Cultural chauvinism - US cities are worse than comparable non-US cities, but Americans still prefer them for subjective reasons
2) Cost differences - US tier-1 cities are equal to or better than non-US cities in terms of enjoyability, but costs are anchored to American wages and therefore an equivalent lifestyle is much more expensive
3) Tax strategy - the IRS is more aggressive and capable than most tax agencies, so no one wants to willingly put themselves under their authority
4) Something else?
Living in the EU is basically a humiliation ritual wondering what new bullshit Eco tax you'll have to pay next.
A simple 2 hour ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn now has a 9 Euro Carbon Tax
Vacation homes make sense when housing is cheap and international travel is expensive & cumbersome.
Nowadays the choice is between an extremely expensive asset to own, build & manage, with zero variety -- or any number of luxurious trips to any part and landscape of the world.
Vacation towns are about to get decimated.
Start in the 1960s. Somebody's grandparents bought a place like this on a middle class income. One earner, a decent job, a cabin on the water.
Their kids did a little better. Upper middle class, bigger house in the suburbs, and they bought a second home too. That was still normal.
Then look at now. Today the median first time buyer is 40 years old, an all time high, and first timers down to 21% of the market, an all time low.
People are hitting middle age before they close on a starter house, and plenty never do.
So the chain breaks right here. Three generations in, the handoff stops.
Now run it forward. The boomers own a staggering amount of this stuff, and over the next decade it will all come to market in the same window.
Lake houses, beach cottages, ski condos, desert casitas.
The heirs mostly don't want it. Insurance on anything near water, fire or hail has gone vertical. Property taxes reset on transfer in some states and just keep climbing in the others.
The dues on a resort condo run like a car payment and half these towns have cracked down on short term rentals, so the "it pays for itself" math doesn't pencil anymore either.
And an inherited house rarely stays inherited.
Somebody always wants the money instead.
So it gets listed. Usually right after probate clears.
Massive inventory is coming. But buyers aren't.
Get ready for these prices to go to rock bottom.
Propaganda I'm not falling for:
1. Alcohol isn't anywhere near the poison it's made out to be by modern health influencers. The longest living regions on the planet (Japan & the European Med) are renowned for their alcohol. Have your wine in peace
2. The sun isn't the enemy of your skincare. All the people I've met with the best skin tend to spend a moderate (not excessive) time in the sun whilst being active. I believe something with the pores opening up to sweat + UV light naturally cleanses them and zaps the surface level bacteria.