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OrvGull · 2025-04-13T21:18:10-0400

balthazarr said:
If there's one positive in favour of Trump (I just threw up in my mouth a little) - he's living up to exactly what he promised on the campaign trail.

Everyone knew exactly what they were in for - even if they didn't realise the consequences.

Yup. A majority of American voters either wanted this or couldn't be bothered to stop it.

Shavano · 2025-04-13T21:16:39-0400

Diabolical said:
Unrelated, and something I meant to bring up a few days ago: State Department employees are being told to report when one of their coworkers exhibit ‘anti-Christian bias’. And I’m fairly certain that will mean whatever the people running the commission say. This feels, like soooo many actions of this administration, to be fully embracing autocratic norms. With a heady, back-to-the-50’s ‘Committee on Un-American Activities’ kind of vibe.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/11/state-report-anti-christian-bias-033535

Maybe they can start to work on the anti-Muslim bias at the same time, since that's a much more common thing to find in every government agency. They can start with the Pentagon. At the top.

F12 · 2025-04-13T21:15:36-0400

squiggit said:
What a great justification for massive tariffs. "Well you just don't have to buy stuff"

Exactly. You really don't have to buy stuff.

OrvGull · 2025-04-13T21:14:54-0400

planetary said:
I don't know why democratic talking heads haven't renamed tariffs "Trump Taxes". Were republicans in their shoes they would have done this via internal memo immediately. Anyone have any theories/wild speculation as to the lapse?

I've heard some say that. The problem is the news media is in Trump's pocket and doesn't report on what Democrats are saying and doing. They know if they don't obey ball he'll cut off their access and possibly their broadcast licenses. Most of the mainstream media is effectively state controlled at this point.

acefsw · 2025-04-13T21:13:59-0400

Constructor said:
There has been a very, very long string of implausible single-point failures leading up to where we are now, not even starting with ex FBI director Comey violating the rules to sabotage Hilary Clinton on the final stretch of the race. And the same kind of willful violation of rules and conventions in order to achieve what is happening now expanded from a trickle to a flood which is how that kind of thing goes.

That quite a few of the active perpetrators of these failures likely live in regret is utterly, completely worthless now.

I'm not so sure about implausibility or single point failures.

The Federalist Society was started because Bork didn't get confirmed, and for some, payback for Nixon.

The Olin Foundation, Scaife, (really hated the Clintons), and Koch were the primary funders - right wing reactionary business titans, the Fords and Lindbergh's of our time, except this time their side won out.

At their founding conference, their keynote speakers were Scalia, Bork, and Olin. They planned for the long term and have been extremely successful at executing their plan, creating a pipeline for getting members into influential judicial positions, including SCOTUS and in the Federal District Courts.

So, it's not surprising that we have had decisions like Citizens United, Bush v Gore, Trump v US, and such.

Also, they have long put forth the legal rationale for the unity executive, the gutting of State's rights, (unless it's inconvenient), and generally pushing the legal version of the Overton window rightward since 1982.

I don't see recent history as an aberration, I see it as they won.

OkinKun · 2025-04-13T21:12:33-0400

Emon said:
You literally ignored the entire part about not having enough data.

Because it is not a real problem. More than enough data already exists, to facilitate the creation of high quality synthetic data, thanks to the fact that AI already creates new data on par with human data, sometimes even better.
Additionally, even if progress in AI were to halt now, or sometime in the near future, I'm confident that what we already have, once fully deployed, will still be enough to upend our entire economic system and permanently unemploy an unignorably large portion of our society.
What is your motivation for wanting to deny this is happening? The sooner we accept it, and start demanding policy change, the less chaos the working class will have to suffer through.

Lt_Storm · 2025-04-13T21:11:03-0400

Bardon said:
I'm sorry, but where are you seeing this "thinly-facaded nature of his support" and "their private doubts about him"?

We are discussing collective illusions, social conformity, and preference falsification here. The idea is that with regards to issues viewed as controversial or related to one's social identity, people often lie about what they really believe in consistent ways which tend to lead them to conclude that the majority disagrees with their privately held beliefs, which they then continue to lie about because they don't want to stand out / be ostracized. So, using examples of their public shows of belief doesn't say much, because any public show of their opinion would be taboo.

On the other hand, if you talk to them about Trump for a little while*, you will often find consistent areas where they think he probably should be disqualified. But, because they don't talk about such things in public, they have no idea that such consistencies exist. Moreover, to publicly acknowledge that the deer isn't a horse would place them in the dangerous situation of going against the powers within their social group, which they don't want to do either.

The end result of all this is a kind of brittle false consciousness which causes Trump to have nearly unquestioned power, until, like any brittle thing, it shatters.

* Which sounds a simple thing to do, but is not. After all, they don't want to think about this, after all, if they were to really talk about it, then they would have to admit to themselves what they actually think about it which they categorically do not want to do because they don't like cognitive dissonance.

One off · 2025-04-13T21:10:54-0400

Sypher the 297th said:
"Democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people, but the people are retarded."

While it is true that the wisdom of crowds is a misnomer - evidence, the internet. I offer some other quotes.

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters. - Churchill

I have always, indeed, more or less humorously defined myself as a Democrat with a profound mistrust of the people. But I recognize that Democracy is the least bad form of government. It is, of course, peculiarly liable to be exploited by demagogues, who, instead of uplifting the masses, use them as a means for lifting themselves up. But whereas there is no way of correcting a maleficent autocracy save by smashing it, a maleficent Democracy contains the cure for its own evils. For the people has a sound instinct in the long run. - Zangwill

A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government... The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people—all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumours. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power. - CS Lewis

Shavano · 2025-04-13T21:09:29-0400

Every government position should require psychological screening for cruelty. We don't want a trace of it in the government workforce.

Diabolical · 2025-04-13T21:09:11-0400

A month ago, I started a trial of Kagi. Thanks @Jonathon for the push that finally got me to give it a shot.

I’ll be keeping this and paying for it. I still use DDG occasionally, especially for gif & youtube video searches because I like their preview interface better. But otherwise? It has been a truly superb experience.

Locke · 2025-04-13T21:09:08-0400

N4M8- said:
Should the republic survive to see another Democratic administration, given the precedents established under Trump, I advocate wholesale firing of everyone in CBP and ICE with recruitment focusing on college graduates with Humanities degrees.

At this rate we're going to need Nuremberg level trials.

etr · 2025-04-13T21:04:36-0400

Here is the double&speak that will likely reign.

The Supreme Court typically decides matter of law, rather than individual cases. If they disagree with a matter of law, they tell the lower courts what the law is, and leave it to them to apply it to the case at hand.

Trump is tlsaying that he won't defy the Supreme Court. He does not forswear defying lower courts, which is what he is doing here. The quote above assets that "federal justices" (possibly excluding SC justices--that's the interpretation they're angling for, whether or not they mean it) can't give orders to the executive branch. He (or more precisely, the folks giving him talking points) is banking on the SCOTUS giving orders directly because (1) they typically don't and (2) they may be reluctant to if they think he'll define them.

Look for the majority of the SCOTUS to take the out the Trump administration has left them, turning a blind eye to defiance of lower courts.

SomeOtherName · 2025-04-13T21:03:59-0400

Two things, there are no wolves in the Two Rivers? And killing Loial seems silly from the production angle because he is always on hand to act as the impartial narrator for drawn out histories and back stories that he has read in a book at some point.

Locke · 2025-04-13T21:02:14-0400

Bonusround said:
NYTimes:

I wish the media would stop giving any credence to the "only the president can do foreign policy" stuff.

It is no where in the constitution and the constitution explicitly contradicts this by requiring Congressional approval for declaring war, imposing tariffs or appointing ambassadors.

This is how the media pushes conservative bullshit. They echo it without ever examining it for years until people believe its true.

aleph_nought · 2025-04-13T21:01:24-0400

Fatesrider said:
"and it ~~could~~ will plunge the entire world into a recession."

Markets require stability to thrive. Without stability in markets, they crash. Trump's willfully ignorant stupidity deliberately destabilizes the markets.

Ergo, we WILL be plunged into a recession.

Ray Dalio, who I'm definitely not a fan of because he's a typical capitalist vulture-pig, still said something relevant: he's afraid Trump's recent actions will spur other countries to move away from the US dollar as part of their foreign reserves and for them to reduce dollar-centric trades.

The US runs a constant deficit because it effectively acts as the world's central bank with the dollar being the preferred currency for international trade.

Cryptocurrencies aren't going to replace the dollar either because nation-states won't deal with a "currency" run by a bunch of thieves, money launderers and rogue regimes.

Diabolical · 2025-04-13T21:00:27-0400

Here’s a full Politico article on the Abrego Garcia case, for those who don’t want to deal with the NY Times.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/13/abrego-garcia-el-salvador-trump-administration-00288502

Unrelated, and something I meant to bring up a few days ago: State Department employees are being told to report when one of their coworkers exhibit ‘anti-Christian bias’. And I’m fairly certain that will mean whatever the people running the commission say. This feels, like soooo many actions of this administration, to be fully embracing autocratic norms. With a heady, back-to-the-50’s ‘Committee on Un-American Activities’ kind of vibe.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/11/state-report-anti-christian-bias-033535

Prospero · 2025-04-13T20:59:14-0400

continuum said:
I CTRL-F'ed and didn't see what model...? Got a link-- if so that would be appreciated!

https://goldenmateenergy.com/produc...0w-lifepo4-battery-backup-and-surge-protector

Chuckstar · 2025-04-13T20:58:52-0400

Shavano said:
Midicholeran, perhaps?

What would non-sloppy theology look like? If a religion or religious leader says something is holy, that's what makes it holy. This has always been the case.

Honestly, that's retconning. If you instead think of the practice having come before the rule you're in most cases be closer to what really happened. Things that were commonly eaten by ancient Hebrews were considered normal. Things that were considered weird to eat by Hebrews were foreign and weird therefore gross. At some point what was considered acceptable and not acceptable was codified. Those that wrote the rules were concerned with purity. First and foremost, religious purity (no worshipping the wrong gods, and make sure when you worship the right god, you do it the right way), cultural purity (don't do the weird foreign practices), ethnic purity (don't marry the outsider), and even dietary purity (don't eat the weird foreign foods, or prepare them the weird foreign ways).

That's why a lot of things that are just as safe to eat as beef and goats are forbidden. Ancient Jews didn't eat them because it wasn't part of their culture. So no shrimp or rabbits or horses or countless other things (if they're prepared in safe ways but that's true of beef and goats too), but certain insect species were OK. I mean sure everything kosher or halal is safe for humans to eat. Priests would have got in some serious trouble if people died from what they told people the could eat.

The archaeological evidence is that pig was widely consumed in Canaan before the advent of Judaism. It was not some kind of foreign meat that they were trying to keep foreign.

Hand-waving that it was due to existing cultural differences is counter-factual. At least the people hand-waving about food safety are not contradicting any existing evidence. They just lack sufficient corroborating evidence to support the claim.

OrvGull · 2025-04-13T20:57:29-0400

dagar9 said:
Cancer? No problem. Surveillance? Big problem.

I'm not that worried about the power company knowing how much power I'm using. That's sort of part of their job.

DDopson · 2025-04-13T20:56:53-0400

ZippyPeanut said:
If this progresses well and the quantum hardware improves for this purpose, then is it logical to conclude that traditional AI hardware (looking at Nvidia) will become obsolete for AI heavy lifting?

Even more speculatively, will power consumption go down? Or will quantum hardware still require a bazillion megawatts to perform AI operations?

Over what timeframe? 20 years? 50 years? 100 years?

QC is theoretically able to do some very interesting machine learning tricks, but in practice it's very far from achieving the required qubit scales.

The actual calculations require exactly 0 Watts. Literally. If they consume power then the entire calculation is ruined. The helium-3 cryocoolers on the other hand, they do require a fair bit of electricity. We are so far away from having enough usable entangled qubits that it's hard to really compare power consumption numbers. Once you have enough qubits, adding just a few dozen more gives the equivalent of orders of magnitude more classical computing power, so that also makes the comparisons non-sensical. And then as to whether we use more computing energy in total, that really depends on how much demand there will be for whatever capability is provided by that new hardware. It's possible for something to both be more energy efficient, and for the increase in value it provides to significantly increase the total energy demand.

Alfonse · 2025-04-13T20:55:23-0400

One off said:
Fucking hell! Real investor (not market speculator) confidence in US has just evaporated. Keep an eye on bond yields. Much more of this chaos and economy go bye bye.

I'm starting to worry your government have actually brought in to Thiel's vision of burning the whole thing down and replacing with techno-corporate feudalism. (only slightly /s)

There is no plan. At least, not from Trump.

Maybe he's having his ears whispered into, but the man has always been mercurial in the extreme. He doesn't know what he's doing, and he doesn't much care. He's now planning to undo the undo he just did. Maybe. He doesn't fucking know.

Accelerationism and fascism don't really go together. Fascism needs a functioning system through which to oppress the populace. Trump is not breaking the system because he believes it needs to be broken. He's doing it because he genuinely thinks this is fixing it.

Just... let that sink in.

Lysanderion · 2025-04-13T20:49:42-0400

It seems Trump changed his mind, again. The tariffs are now temporary. Tune in tomorrow—or later tonight—for more flip flopping.

Bonusround · 2025-04-13T20:49:23-0400

theevilsharpie said:
Can you be specific about how Trump is ignoring a SCOTUS ruling? I don't have a NYT sub, and the headline doesn't match your assertion.

NYTimes:

In a brief legal filing, the Justice Department reiterated its view that courts lack the ability to dictate steps that the White House should take in seeking to return the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to U.S. soil, because the president alone has broad powers to handle foreign policy.

“The federal courts have no authority to direct the executive branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way, or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner,” lawyers for the department wrote. “That is the ‘exclusive power of the president as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations.’”

Bonusround · 2025-04-13T20:44:29-0400

AIUI Europe can fill many gaps, but the areas for which Ukraine is uniquely dependent upon on the US are:

air defense: Patriot missiles
air force: F-16 training and parts
intelligence: deep embedding of personnel and use of space assets

The US also sent a bunch of Bradley troop transports. I don’t know what a local substitute for those would be though I must imagine it exist. This is my basic/casual understanding – please add to, edit, and further flesh out the above list.

DDopson · 2025-04-13T20:43:57-0400

evanTO said:
Quantum computing seems like a good application for the fuzzy logic that under-girds AI training and inference.

That's usually not the best mental model for thinking about Quantum Computing. It's not typically attractive for problems that want "fuzzy logic". Instead, QC is most attractive for problems that, like finding the prime factors of a large integer, involve searching for one particular answer within an exponentially large space where there's no other good search strategies.

The crayon description for many QC algorithms is to start with a superposition of all possible answers (eg, all possible N-bit integers superimposed in N qubits), and then perform some sequence of valid quantum gate interactions such that all of the non-answers interfere destructively and the desired answer becomes the most likely measurement that will be read when the system is collapsed to a single value. Then if we perform that recipe many times, and most runs produce the same answer, while a few runs each produce some some unique one-off answer, it's pretty obvious which answer is the correct one, and which runs had errors.

The quantum gates aren't even anything particularly fancy. They are simple boolean operators similar to AND / OR / etc, except those particular gates aren't allowed because they violate the rules. Those rules being that you aren't allowed to destroy information, and you aren't allowed to ever make a copy a qubit. This means that all the valid gates have the same number of inputs and outputs, and that each output from a gate must be connected to exactly one input on a subsequent gate. So the gates aren't anything special, but the rules are so highly restrictive that it takes a tremendous amount of creativity to think up useful algorithms.

Still, it's worth it because if you can assemble enough qubits together and get them to perform a calculation without interference (first part easy; second part very hard), then you can solve math problems that would otherwise not be solvable on all the computers ever build, now and into the indefinite future until the heat death of the universe (one can compute an upper bound on compute power per unit energy and apply it all energy in the known universe, and 2^N grows really fast, so it doesn't take all that many qubits to exceed the theoretical upper bound for turning the entire universe into a maximally efficient classical computer).

For AI, I suspect that what's being thought of is solving the learning optimization problem of finding the learned parameter weights that minimize the objective loss function across all data in the training set. Which is pretty cool until you realize how big modern models are and how few qubits we've been able to arrange into non-errored computations. The gulf between those two scales is enormous.

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