Links for 2022-11-27
Wolves infected with Toxoplasma are 46x more likely to become pack leaders!! https://www.science.org/content/article/parasite-makes-wolves-more-likely-become-pack-leaders (paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-022-04122-0) [skepticism: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/snQGEAK8PTxSDra2m/richard_kennaway-s-shortform?commentId=YaKTkysKqkkgez5Qw]
Endemic Pathogens Are Making You Crazy And Then Killing You: Toxoplasmosis Spotlight https://www.hardtowrite.com/pathogens/
The map of the observable universe. https://mapoftheuniverse.net/
How many yottabytes in a quettabyte? Extreme numbers get new names https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03747-9
A 99.999% absorber of all wavelengths between ultraviolet to terahertz radiation https://the-redemption-of-vanity.com/public/pdf/carbon-nanotubes.pdf
We need more water than rain can provide: refilling rivers with desalination https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/11/20/we-need-more-water-than-rain-can-provide-refilling-rivers-with-desalination/
Raising of Chicago: “During the 1850s and 1860s, engineers carried out a piecemeal raising of the level of central Chicago to lift it out of low-lying swampy ground. Streets, sidewalks, and buildings were physically raised on jackscrews. The work was funded by private property owners and public funds.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago
Building arbitrary Life patterns in 15 gliders: “…arbitrary constructible patterns are ultimately encoded in the binary expansion of the distance between 3 clusters of local configurations, starting with just 15 gliders total.” https://btm.qva.mybluehost.me/building-arbitrary-life-patterns-in-15-gliders/
“Why obesity rate is 37.3% in US & 31.1% in Egypt, but only 4.3% in Japan & 4.7 in S. Korea? We provide robust evidence that national culture plays a key role in explaining these staggering gaps.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953622004737?dgcid=author
“The world's top obesity researchers came together, and couldn't agree on anything except the idea that fat people are not responsible for their own problems.” [The New York Times] https://archive.ph/bM4k7
From the scaling-pilled perspective, or even just centrist AI perspective, this is an insane position: it is taking a L on one of, if not the most, important future technological capabilities, which in the long run may win or lose wars. If China wants to dominate Asia, much less surpass the obsolete American empire, or create AGI, or lead in aerospace, or create '5G' or whatever, it's hard to see how it's going to do that while paying more for chips which are half a decade or worse out of date.
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He has never seen anyone lose a war due to lack of AI or GPUs; he's only seen disasters caused by lacking perfectly ordinary chips that his domestic manufacturers probably could've made 10 years ago. And in learning lessons from past chip incidents, what Xi brings to the table is: zero technical competence or expertise in the relevant area...
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If Xi makes a mistake on chips, a military mistake, then by the nature of things military, he may never realize it. If the engineers of, say, hypersonic missiles can't get enough high-end GPUs, their complaints will be ignored by the next layer of management and never punted all the way up to Beijing, and they will simply run their simulations at a lower resolution or take other shortcuts; and if the hypersonic missile in question turns out to be a lemon, inadequate to hit NATO units or US aircraft carriers, how will anyone ever find out short of a war over Taiwan---at which point it is far too late? Naturally, of course, given a supply of at least basic chips to work with, the establishment will assure him everything is fine, just like the Russian military assured Putin it was not a paper tiger or hopelessly undermined by corruption, and almost all the time they will be right.
The scaling-pilled AI view ought to be that scaling AI kills you. Why pretend that there's a strategic advantage here, as opposed to a loaded gun you can point at your own head if you're stupid enough?