Imaginary numbers are a helpful tool for calculating things in our universe. All these holographic theories and their insights are based on a universe that behaves basically opposite to ours.
> Originally coined in the 17th century by René Descartes[4] as a derogatory term and regarded as fictitious or useless, the concept gained wide acceptance following the work of Leonhard Euler in the 18th century, and Augustin-Louis Cauchy and Carl Friedrich Gauss in the early 19th century.
I think the jury is still out wrt utility of AdS spaces. They could be useless toys, or they could be in the Descartes phase rn.
Not a physicist, but I think this paper used holographic principles to predict the minimum ratio of shear viscosity to volume density of entropy in fluids https://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0405231
> Why does ever single bleeding heart liberal globalist try and ignore the deep psychological truths about human tribalism?
I'll bite.
In the US, for one, every single person has an ancestor that thanked their lucky stars the locals didn't think the way that you are recommending we think today. Or an ancestor that suffered because the locals did think that way.
We honor that heritage by paying it forward, lest we be lumped among the trash of history that punished the Irish, the Chinese, and the Jews for the cardinal sin of living down the street.
That analogy doesn't work well. Their situation involved foreign powers enforcing jurisdiction and property claims over their land with a regular standing army; a completely different situation than modern immigration
I certainly don't understand all you're saying through this tortured analogy, but yes an "army" of judges that issue rulings is much, much better than an army of soldiers that issue killings
And yet american culture and values are from it's dominant and founding group. All other groups were expected to assimilate and join the melting pot.
>>In the US, for one, every single person has an ancestor that thanked their lucky stars the locals didn't think the way that you are recommending we think today.
I don't think you thought it through before you wrote this. As the locals, certainly didn't want what you imply and were defeated tribe by tribe.
> All other groups were expected to assimilate and join the melting pot.
I partially agree. Counter evidence is that Little Italy, Chinatowns and the like exist and have done for many decades. Ethnic clubs like Sons of Italy persist. Some Pennsylvania Dutch still don't speak English, and still set themselves apart. But at the same time, many from those groups join the majority culture and leave their old languages behind.
In this respect I don't see modern immigration in America any differently. Newer immigrant groups have their culture enclaves, but many from those groups also enter and adopt the majority culture.
> I don't think you thought it through before you wrote this
You're misreading my comment. For most of us, the locals at time of ancestor arrival had already displaced the natives to whom you refer
Fertility rate of 0.80.. and I thought Japan, Italy, and my own country had problems. Note however that https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/south-korea-p... says 0.76, and last year was 0.75, so there's barely any change there. Catastrophically low birth rate, and maybe it's not so hard to figure out why.
So you are happy with this outcome, but also so upset at the people that evangelized your preferred policy position that you think HN readers should cut them from the information diet?
Seems most likely that the public outcry actually influenced this outcome, so I don't see why the nuances of alarmism about it (imminent decision vs fait accomplit) should nix an entire information source.
> you are happy with this outcome, but also so upset at the people that evangelized your preferred policy position that you think HN readers should cut them from the information diet?
I'm fine with this outcome. I genuinely don't care about HN readers' opinions on this. I posted the original consultation to HN to crickets [1]. It's abundantly clear that people want to use this as a useless vector for griping.
> most likely that the public outcry actually influenced this outcome
Nope. Lots of reasons to show how and why that is the case. From personal connections to the timeline of the decision making. But I'm sure that's how the same YouTube commentors who misled the first time will spin it to great effect...
> I don't see why the nuances of alarmism about it (imminent decision vs fait accomplit) should nix an entire information source
Because they're bad information sources. They're terrific entertainment. And if you recognise that, keep subscribing. But this is in line with the numpties who listen to All In like it's the gospel.
After a couple years I realized the key part of “As an X I want Y so that Z” is the “so that Z”.
When managing teams these days, the only part I keep is the “so that Z” — what beneficial change in the world does this ticket make?
If the ticket name is just “fix this bug” then I’m not certain the engineer knows why it’s important, and knowing the importance of your work is itself important.
This seems to be a rumor being coordinated by OpenAI.
There's OpenAI employees spreading this rumor on Twitter with 0 evidence. Their entire evidence is "I keep hearing Anthropic wants to control AI". Their evidence is literal rumors.
The world saw Anthropic take a possibly company-killing risk wrt weaponizing their AI, and are rewarding them for holding to their values, for now at least.
It’s not like anyone owes Sam Altman their business just bc their product has become slightly, perhaps temporarily, better
Anthropic literally already works with companies like Palantir and others weaponizing their AI. Those just aren't quite as well known by the general public.
They have no values that align with humans prospering.
Source on this? Does anthropic work with them or do they simply use the normal product offering anthropic provides? Because the thing with the DoD was specific RnD for DoD purposes.
If someone just uses normal claude to make killer robots, i dont think thats on anthropic, that on the legal and regulatory system to step in and stop that
Any company of Palantir size is not just gonna have people using personal subscriptions to use Claude on mission critical software or it's development.
> We support the use of AI for lawful foreign intelligence and counterintelligence missions. But using these systems for mass domestic surveillance is incompatible with democratic values.
I hate that this discussion is about OpenAI vs. Anthropic and not OpenAI+Anthropic vs. Google.
Google put up so little of a fight against the DoW for their use of Gemini that we didn't even hear about it. They are clearly the worst of the evils here, but OpenAI is the one getting all of the negative press.
He's not commending it. He's using it to point out that the reaction, "Well, america had a good run i guess? Hope china can step up and fill the gap," is simplistic, hyperbolic and maybe a little hysterical.
Ah I read it as “the US was corrupt before, and that was OK because GDP was growing! So we are just returning to our roots now”
Now understanding the good faith argument better, doesn’t it even further support the ascendancy of China? The argument is: despite rampant spoils system corruption, the US eclipsed Great Britain on the strength of a large population with low trade barriers alone (both internal and external)
But China is now the country with the largest population and low trade barriers. So aren’t they playing the role of 1800s USA and we the role of Great Britain here in 2026?
Aside, I appreciate the content of your post, but it really does distract your point to sling insults like hysterical towards other commenters
Implying that this particular story ("WH proposes rules") is the final piece of evidence that might cause a reasonable person to conclude that the US is finished as world power does strike me as maybe a little hysterical.
If someone has an extremely simplistic view of how our society works and where our power comes from, then it is regrettable for that someone to even offer a prediction in public about whether our society's power will wane or (continue to) wax, especially a prediction as confident as "Well, america had a good run i guess? Hope china can step up and fill the gap."
And I love how Rayiner got downvoted severely for daring to point out that predicting the effects of this move ("WH proposes rules") is not as easy or as simple as many here seem to think it is.
Final piece of evidence? Of course not. But it's part of a stream of news for some time now that points in the same direction.
(And I have no idea why Rayiner was downvoted. I'm happy for them though—for sticking to principles and posting what may well be downvoted to oblivion. It's something I have become more comfortable with myself.)
Insinuating that the administrative state is racist by genetic fallacy while longing for a return to the era of Jim Crow is hypocritical enough for me to disregard his opinion.
The administrative state wasn’t merely created by the same progressives that gave us eugenics. It has its roots in the same dim view of the common man and how much agency they should be given. Woodrow Wilson and other progressives were deeply skeptical of democracy. He wrote about the how the “unphilosophical bulk of mankind” didn’t know what was good for them. And his solution to that was to have the government run by experts insulated from democratic politics: https://faculty.fiu.edu/~revellk/pad3003/Wilson.pdf.
That’s still the same mentality that underlies the modern administrative state.
> while longing for a return to the era of Jim Crow
Last I checked you guys are the ones who went to the supreme court to defend racial discrimination in college admissions and racially segregated voting districts. Within just a few terms!
> went to the Supreme Court…racially segregated voting districts
How is enforcing the two greatest anti Jim Crow laws (VRA and CRA), somehow, equivalent to returning to Jim Crow itself?
> the administrative state
I’m trying to understand better, but it just seems like you are very opposed to merit based hiring in government and I don’t understand why. I understand your appeal to history, but what could be a better approach than hiring on merit while also making those employees accountable to political appointees? Just replacing the entire ranks of government every 4 years?
> How is enforcing the two greatest anti Jim Crow laws (VRA and CRA), somehow, equivalent to returning to Jim Crow itself?
In both cases, republicans were the ones that wanted to enforce the civil rights laws. Democrats were the ones who wanted to violate the civil rights laws by treating people differently based on race. In SFFA they wanted universities to be able to discriminate against applicants based on race, and in Louisiana v. Callais, they wanted to draw racially segregated voting districts.
> the administrative state I’m trying to understand better, but it just seems like you are very opposed to merit based hiring in government and I don’t understand why.
Because the criteria we use for “merit” are degrees from elite universities, membership in professional organizations, etc. So while I think merit-based hiring for government is desirable in theory, what I think happens in practice is the emergence of a definable class of credentialed professionals, entry into which gatekept by non-government institutions like Harvard, etc. That turns over tremendous amounts of power to people and institutions that aren’t democratically accountable. And I don’t buy the premise that these credentialed professionals are any less political than anyone else. They, and the institutions they are affiliated with, have cohesive interests and pursue those interests in government.
I think it’s better to do what Trump did in 2024: get on stage with the people he intends to appoint to top jobs, and have them talk about what they want to do. Let voters see the team they’re voting for. Look, I also think RFK is a nutjob. But the response to that should be for the Democratic candidate in 2028 to get on stage with who they intend to appoint to HHS. Let them talk about their credentials and expertise and what they intend to do. Let them explain why RFK is a disaster and has made voters worse off. I think that’s a fantastic way for a democracy to operate.
> in Louisiana v. Callais, they wanted to draw racially segregated voting districts.
30 years of jurisprudence since Thornburg v. Gingles disagrees with this framing. That unanimous decision found racial districts a necessarily race-conscious remedy to race-targeted harm: republican gerrymandering of cohesive black communities in the south. Which was the same harm at play in 2026 Louisiana.
If you think a race-conscious remedy is more racist than race-targeted harm, you must also believe that minority communities have no right for representation. If that’s the case, be plain about your beliefs. Either way please stop publicly mistaking cause for effect regarding this topic of “racially segregated voting districts”
But there was no “race-targeted harm” in Louisiana v. Callais. You’re wrong about the facts of that case. The original Louisiana map, with one black majority district, was a computer-drawn map and there was no evidence lawmakers had used race in creating the map. There was no compact district that would give you a second black-majority district in the state. The second district they had to add was quite gnarly: https://louisianaradionetwork.com/2024/01/16/35175/
Louisiana v. Callais nowhere prohibits using a race conscious remedy to fix a specific, race-conscious harm. It’s totally compatible with that principle.
> you must also believe that minority communities have no right for representation
They are entitled to the same “representation” as everyone else: being able to vote for a representation in a district drawn without regard to race. They’re not entitled to “representation” in the sense of a racial quota system for districts. Minority groups will generally have fewer majority-minority districts in a state than their share of the state population. If they are evenly distributed, there may be no majority-minority districts. That’s just how math works.
> In both cases, republicans were the ones that wanted to enforce the civil rights laws.
Jeff Sessions in 1981 when he was the DA or ADA from Mobile, telling a judge in a lynching case of a black man that lynching wasn’t necessarily murder, doesn’t fill me with confidence about this take of yours.
> [blah, blah, progressives are the real racists, blah]
I never argued that you don’t believe this. I guess you’re disputing the word “insinuating”? Fine, you’re explicitly saying the administrative state is racist.
> Last I checked you guys are the ones who went to the supreme court to defend racial discrimination in college admissions and racially segregated voting districts.
Nice tu quoque but I’m neither a Democrat nor a liberal. You make this mistake with people a lot! Have you considered not assuming everyone who disagrees with you is a liberal?
The person I actually replied to wondered why you got downvoted. Thanks for the demonstration.
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