That’s why he couldn’t hold it in.

Originally, a qipao was supposed to be a loose-fitting gown

Source for this? From living in Asia (not in China, but in a predominantly Chinese community), I’ve only seen qipao be form fitting, never loose. Even seeing older pictures of women in qipao, they’re always form fitting. And more often than not, women seem to use them to intentionally highlight their figure.

Chinese communities tend to have a strong conservative bend, but that doesn’t mean they’re puritanical when it comes to sexuality, especially the sexually suggestive.

Some might not realize that this is necessary to avoid the Australian sandworms. She was just trying to share her culture with us, and we gave her so much grief for it, smh.

Nothing is ever better in every conceivable way than the current state of the art.

Probabilistically, sure, but it’s not impossible that there has been some piece of knowledge or understanding that’s been missing, and that massive breakthroughs are possible once the process is figured out.

I think a fair modern example is LED light bulbs. They are better in every conceivable way than incandescent or fluorescent lightbulbs: they last longer, use less energy, shine brighter, use less toxic materials, and are easy to mass produce. But there were several decades where much of the industry believed that LEDs would never be very useful as a light source because we could only produce red and green, and it was generally believed that a blue LED would be impossible to produce.

Then one guy decided it would be his life mission to invent the blue LED, and the sonuvabitch did it. Now LEDs are the only sensible thing to use to produce light.

It’s always possible for this kind of breakthrough to happen, especially in material science where the complexity of how molecules interplay is nearly incomprehensible.

Trump keeps insisting that he defeated Biden too fast this time: beat him before the votes were even cast by winning so hard in the first debate.

So yes, it’s exactly what you said: Trump knows that he never gets to legitimately claim victory over Biden, so he’s delusionally claiming it anyway with any rationale he can come up with.

I think the point is that Republicans detest the idea of being weird no matter what, so they would rage at the suggestion of being a good weird anyway. To them “good weird” is an oxymoron, even though they are actually very weird and not in any kind of good way.

no

At best this post is letting perfection be the enemy of “not ceding to a fascist narcissist that aims to be a dictator and will do incalculable damage whether he manages to overthrow democracy or not”.

At worst this post is bait from a Russian troll farm that’s trying to demoralize leftists so we act against our own interests by making shallow ideological appeals.

Either way, get bent.

My only concern is the demographic that would have been too lazy to vote but now will be frothing at the mouth to vote against a black woman.

I can only hope they’re outweighed by the demographic that was apathetic toward Biden but is willing to get off the couch to vote for Harris.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kq8Xlbb3bOw

And what if someone is convinced that acts of cruelty towards some humans is the most effective way to reduce cruelty towards a large number of animals? They might think that you’re not vegan because you’re allowing more cruelty towards animals to exist than they are. I have encountered self-identifying vegans who genuinely think this way.

This has to be the stupidest take on the term “plant based” I’ve ever heard. I swear, “plant based” is just the “No true Scotsman” of vegans… anything that a non-meat-consumer does that a vegan doesn’t like makes them plant based instead of vegan. It’s so asinine and intellectually dishonest.

Vegan people can be assholes too. Assholes will inevitably exist in any demographic that gets sufficiently large. I have known people who identify as vegans who insist that it’s preferable for humans to die than for non-human animals to die.

Also since when is open exchange of ideas and concerns equated with control?

Am I trying to control you if I suggest that you not leave your tap running in California because fresh water is a precious resource in drought-plagued land?

Am I trying to control you if I suggest that you reduce your plastic consumption because we have a major microplastic crisis so severe that human babies are being born with plastic already in their body?

Am I trying to control you if I point out that the modern meat industry is ecologically unsustainable, so you’re going to have to switch to being vegetarian sooner or later since the meat production will literally collapse itself, so you may as well start now before it’s a global crisis?

If I suggest that you not hit yourself in the head with a hammer, is that me trying to control you, or is that just an act of very basic concern for your well being? And if hitting yourself in the head with a hammer becomes trendy, am I trying to control everyone if I suggest that we shouldn’t be doing that because brain injuries will make us dumber as a society?

Thanks for your candid views on this.

To be clear, our interest in subsistence farming is not intended to do anything to solve the problems we’re facing as a society. It’s an attempt to figure out how we might try to survive locally after the global supply chains collapse. We’re particularly researching what crops might be viable in a landscape that has been reshaped by the changing climate. Additionally we’re studying everything we can about community organizing and systems of self-governance that promote collaboration over individual greed.

This might all sound defeatist to someone like yourself who is still committed to fighting the good fight, but we see it as a contingency plan that our community’s ability to survive may depend on in the future.

I really admire that you’re committed to recycling and waste reduction. Do you have any resources you’d recommend for me to learn more about what’s going on in that space and what’s being done to combat the acceleration of plastic and electronics waste?

I know it’s “not your job” to educate me, but everything I can find on the topic suggests that we don’t have a viable path to manage the accelerating growth of waste, and we don’t have very effective systems for recycling, so even recyclable waste is mostly just being dumped in landfills because it’s more “economical” to just keep churning out products from new materials. I’d be very happy for all of that to be wrong, so any credible source you can point me at to debunk that narrative would be very much appreciated.

Let me know which part was confusing to you

The part where you left out any viable path for any of the hypothetical solutions to be realized 🤷‍♂️ You of all people should know that a blueprint is worthless if there’s no process available to build what it describes.

Damn here I am thinking that this is one of the most important parts of civilization.

I mean yeah, I do agree that sanitation and water works are the crowning achievement of human civilization to this very day. But I’ve gotta say it doesn’t inspire confidence if the people running those systems think that concerns about sustainability are something to have a group chuckle about.

Just because the work you do is important doesn’t mean it’s beyond the scrutiny of ecological sustainability. All your good work won’t amount to much in the long run if we can’t find a path to reducing consumption and prolonging the viability of these systems. We don’t have infinite resources, and our ability to recycle is nowhere near what it needs to be to keep up with economic demand.

Tell you what, why not be the change you want to see in the world and stop flushing your toilet, stop using tap water, stop recycling anything, and don’t set your garbage out.

My partner and I are unironically taking the time to research subsistence farming and how to maintain very basic personal water collection and waste removal/reuse systems. We’re also learning about perma-computing so that hopefully we can preserve some of the knowledge that humans have accumulated into the future.

We see it as a foregone conclusion that human civilization as we know it will entirely collapse, probably sooner than anyone cares to admit, so we’re making contingency plans. People with your dismissive attitude are a big part of why we see it as a forgone conclusion. Because as far as we can tell you’re in the 95%+ majority of people on this planet, which means hardly anyone is putting effort into solving these existential problems that we’re facing. Problems which you have offered no viable solution to, despite your insistence otherwise.

That isn’t my job.

So then you didn’t “solve” the impossible problems.

I hope you and your colleagues have a good laugh about how the work you do is contributing to the march towards the end of human civilization as we know it.

I never suggested these problems are impossible to solve, but you haven’t solved them in your post because you haven’t laid out how to overcome the political and economic resistance to implementing any of this, and that’s where the biggest challenge is.

Although I think it’s naive to believe that nuclear power and renewable energy can allow us to keep consuming energy recklessly. Renewable energy technology still puts a significant strain on the environment, in terms of mining rare-earth elements, pollution produced during manufacturing, and material waste from devices that have reached end of life. Nuclear energy is rife with controversy… I used to be firmly in support of it, but I’ve grown skeptical, largely because of the ecological damage from the mining and construction processes, and we don’t have a clear story of what end of life looks like for a nuclear power plant. A plant can only be expected to operate for 40-60 years at which point it needs to be demolished and rebuilt, repeating the massive costs of material waste and construction all over again.

At the end of the day the only way for humanity to survive is for everyone to be reducing their consumption, but I honestly the think the vast majority of people today would rather die and take everyone else down with them than accept more responsible consumption habits.

I can’t tell if you’re suggesting that foundation models (which is the underpinning technology of LLMs) aren’t being used for the things that I said they’re being used for, but I can assure you they are, either in commercial R&D or in live commercial products.

The fact that they shouldn’t be used for these things is something we can certainly agree on, but the fact remains that they are.

Sources:

• Wayve is using foundation models for driving, and I am under the impression that their neural net extends all the way from sensor input to motor control: https://wayve.ai/thinking/introducing-gaia1/

• Research recommending the use of LLMs for giving financial advice: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4850039

• LLMs for therapy: https://blog.langchain.dev/mental-health-therapy-as-an-llm-state-machine/

So this all goes back to my point that some form of accountability is needed for how these tools get used. I haven’t examined the specific legislation proposal enough to give any firm opinion on it, but I think it’s a good thing that the conversation is happening in a serious way.

Literally nothing you’ve said gives any indication that you actually know the current state of foundation model research. I won’t claim it’s my research specialty, but I work directly with people whose full time job is research and tuning on foundation models, and everything I’m saying is being relayed from conversations that I have with them.

“Cannot ever possibly be used like that”… Like what specifically? To drive a car? That’s being done. To give financial advice? That’s being done. To console people who are suicidal or at risk of harming themselves? That’s being done. To make kill / no kill decisions in an active warzone? It’s being considered (if not already being done in secret).

This technology is being used in extremely consequential positions despite having very weak guarantees around safety. This should give any reasonable person pause. I’m not taking any firm stance on whether this specific regulation is the right approach, but if you think there should be no legal accountability for the outcomes of how this technology gets used then I guess you’re someone who thinks seatbelts should be optional in cars and it’s okay for airplanes to fall out of the sky due to neglect.