Speaking of Sacha Baron Cohen, here’s Ali G’s take on feminism.

Twenty years ago, the media that kids had available for consumption was age rated.

It was, still is, was ten years before, and trust me that didn’t stop me one bit.

What’s different then and now is the degree of choice people employ in their media consumption. It’s not like there was no Nazi propaganda on the net in 1990, it’s that who the fuck seeks that stuff out. The feeds that were choice-free were, yes, sanitised (TV, radio, though if you stayed of long enough TV would show rather interesting things), but also numerous. Like at least seven TV channels over the air, and plenty of radio stations (though most played shoddy music). Imagine having seven tiktok feeds you can’t fast-forward but switch in between. On current algorithmic platforms, you skip something, get shown the next thing, algorithm learns about you, about how to draw its hooks specifically into you. Back in the days, you couldn’t skip, switched away, and if there was only uninteresting stuff on the other channels you switched off. Internet? Age of web rings, search barely even existed. Anyone remember altavista?

I roamed the library, inhaled multiple series of books whole-sale, but in between, there was always this magic moment: Browsing. Looking at things, shaking them a bit, see if they’re actually interesting. Great availability of things, yes, but also limited time, and preferences, so you got picky.

That’s the skill that’s getting lost: People are outsourcing their consumption choices to algorithms. Worse, ones who care about nothing but retention, how can they keep you hooked so you watch more ads.

…which btw ties back into youth protection. Ratings etc. exist but the general consensus in youth psychology is that as soon as youth seeks something out by themselves, they’re ready to consume it. Ratings are there so that kids don’t stumble across things inadvertently, not so that they are completely unable to consume it. A hoop to jump through, maybe some secrecy, all that is a proper framework, “they think it’s not for me, I think otherwise”, puts the mind in the right inquisitive-but-cautious frame. That, however, presumes a choice algorithm that’s running in your head, and not in the cloud.

And meanwhile, “media literacy” is understood as “spotting fake information”. BS. Any information will become true to anyone if you allow it to be fed to you without getting your own agency involved. The question is less “are kids able to sniff out BS” – they by and large are. The question is whether they have the power to say “I choose not to continue down this path”, whether they have trained that muscle. Because without that no amount of skill in spotting bullshit will save you.

Yep the resting face is not a good judge of character, the active one is much more telling, and in Vance’s case it’s “self-righteousness without contentedness to back it up”. You can’t be discontent with yourself and at the same time think yourself to be the pinnacle of insight, at least not without a hefty dose of neurosis, that is.

Tate’s motivational and fitness content

Speaking of, let me present to you the anti-Tate

With regards to AI?. None tbh.

TBH, that might be enough. Stuff like SDXL runs on 4G cards (the trick is using ComfyUI, like 5-10s/it), smaller LLMs reportedly too (haven’t tried, not interested). And the reason I’m eyeing a 9070 XT isn’t AI it’s finally upgrading my GPU, still would be a massive fucking boost for AI workloads.

But this isn’t about changing a definition, it’s about expanding recognition to a previously mischaracterised portion of the population.

If racoons were at one point considered to be cats but now we know they’re actually much closer related to bears than anything else, are we changing the definition of “cat” and “bear”?

That’s long since been the case, e.g. the Linux Kernel assigns its own CVE numbers, they’re a CNA. Which keeps the “root” CVS database completely out of the loop short of saying “this here is your namespace and scope”. Canonical is a CNA, Airbus is a CNA, both covering their own products. 453 in total.

Still important to have a fallback though because not all projects are big enough to do that kind of stuff, and you always want there to be some database you can report something against.

If China never wants to export REE again because other countries have built their own refineries sure, they can.

It shouldn’t surpris too much given Mike Pondsmith’s general record of clairvoyance that NetWatch is a European Corp.

And, no, “Vos videmus” totally isn’t a creepy motto. Based out of London, one could almost think that it’s the London CCTV system turned sentient AI.

I don’t think citing the US supports your case. You’re talking about a country where the only time everyone is on one page, is interested in the same thing, a moment of cohesion, is the ads during superbowl. American culture may technically exist but it has close to zero depth. Regional identities are deeper, largely because immigrants clustered together, one source nation here, another one there.

It’s also not really comparable because much of that increase was due to immigration, often whole families, also I think you meant more like 30%, not 3%. Niger has a growth rate of 3.66, a median age of about 15. Fifteen. Half are younger, half older than that. Politically, it’s a complete shitshow that makes the Trump regime look sane. There’s such a thing as too much teen spirit.

And even without that it should continue to ensure visibility. So that a kid from a small village with five age peers knows that they might be the odd one out in their village, but they’re not alone. A place large enough to have a parade is large enough to have a (semi-)dedicated bar, and vice versa.

That’s still not a graph of Japan.

More importantly, you’re not looking at the derivative, that is, the growth rate:

The growth has very much peaked, the last large countries are currently undergoing demographic transition (from having many kids, few survive, over having many kids, many survive (growth spike), to hawing few kids, of which pretty much all survive), e.g. Nigeria will be done by 2100. And societal collapse because people either can’t do anything but care for the elderly, or social cohesion is failing because the elderly aren’t cared for, does not depend on absolute numbers, it depends on the raw growth rate, because young people from 1900 aren’t going to care for the elderly in 2100. And the growth rate it depends on is the local one how many Nigerians do you think fancy caring for Chinese elderly.

Oh and those projections above are with a moderate estimation of future fertility, that is, when the average country turns out like France. Not if the average country turns out like Japan or Korea.

Also, just to make this clear: There’s nothing wrong with the population shrinking again. Or growing, the earth is far from its carrying capacity if we’re doing it right. The trouble is shrinking too quickly, or for that matter growing too quickly. We should pine for two kids per woman, ±0.5, thereabouts: Don’t veer too far off replacement levels. And all that can be done by proper social policy, parental leave, good schools, work/life/family balance, sex ed, etc.

“fear of decline”

You’re not making an argument, there. You’re showing a graph that’s misleading because it starts at fucking 10000 BCE. Look at a graph of Japan if you want to talk about Japan, and of the current generations not prehistory.

it’s about the productive output, and as we all know, that has risen tremendously the last few years.

Ah, yes, because having a machine that can churn out pottery like noone’s business helps a lot with elderly and palliative care.

There is absolutely a limit how few kids a society can have before it collapses. Where that is is currently not particularly clear because the situation is unprecedented, but that there is a limit is crystal clear. 10 young people caring for 100 bed-ridden elderly and one kid, how long is that going to last, even if you automate everything else?

They’re also complaining about “women being excluded from women’s spaces by agents of the patriarchy posing as women”. They’re also not necessarily using “TERF” as a label. They’re using typical fascist-style “words mean whatever we want them to mean in the moment” type of stuff, hiding clear-cut positions behind pretend nuance, hence why I favour clarity.

Nah I’m demanding clarity. A clear question “Do you mean excluding TERFs or excluding women” and the answer is “I want to be inclusive”. It may not be meant as such, and I’m definitely not implying that it was, but that’s exactly how a TERF would evade questioning.

A clear “Fuck TERFs” would have provided plenty of clarity, and been much shorter. Also, it would have said “Fuck TERFs”.

Either can describe a bar that throws out Nazis or a Nazi bar, depending on perspective.

Support for re-joining increased form 40% to 60% from 2021 to 2024.

Main stumbling block has always been the fisheries policy, same with Norway, Iceland and the Faroer, and while truth be told the CFP really needs reform it also has lost much economical importance for the countries. Well maybe except the Faroer.

Greenlanders and Faroese are still EU citizens, btw, by virtue of being Danish citizens, with all the privileges that entails. That kind of special status won’t be possible upon independence, it’s going to be all-in or all-out. Ask Brits how losing EU citizenship feels like.

It’s not the money as such but Greenland not being ready for full independence. They don’t want independence to leave them worse off, poorer, as a playing ball of larger powers, etc.

Basically Greenland is a 30yold guy living with their parents figuring out how to get their own place. They aren’t thrilled about the situation, but the parents are tolerable and it definitely beats being homeless.

Denmark gets a friend out of this, and a good conscience. Also, business opportunities. Applies to Europe in general, I very much doubt Greenland will go for independence without joining the EU. Not only would it provide safety, but it also means sovereignty while still being able to draw on cohesion funds.

According to gamedevs, 1-player pong (that is, vs computer) involves AI. It’s a description of role within the game world, not implementation, or indeed degree of intelligence, or amount of power. Could be a rabbit doing little more than running away scared, a general strategising, or a right-out god toying with the world, a story-telling AI. Key aspect though is reacting to and influence on the game itself or at least some sense of internal goals, agency, that set it apart from mere physics, it can’t just follow a blind script. The computer paddle in pong fits the bill: It reacts dynamically to the ball position, it wants to score points against the player, thus, AI. The ball is also simulated, possibly even using more complex maths than the paddle, but it doesn’t have that role of independent agent.

EU offers Trump removal of all industrial tariffs

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Last time around the Yanks wanted the EU to accept chlorinated chickens I don’t think anything has changed in that regard. They’re just playing the headlines.