the difficulty with creating a good LLM benchmark is revealing the folly with IQ tests as well turns out measuring intelligence is incredibly difficult, perhaps even impossible the only useful measurement is "how well does this help me achieve my goals", which is immeasurable

@sirnippol @MattZeitlin Oh you're right. The one concession I'll give to vance is labor force participation for men (25-54) is at an all time low

This was Vance’s point in his NYT interview - that labor force participation does not count labor force dropouts, people who are so disillusioned they stop looking for jobs altogether Whether or not this is a significant number that will return as he suggests is the real question

@coldhealing This is a common technique of monopolists to frame themselves as a smaller fish in a different, larger pond to avoid antitrust attention Amazon is 38% of e-commerce sales in the US, but only 4% of retail sales Guess which stat they’re going to try to emphasize? 🥺

Money is an amplifier If you’re in the right mindset it’s an amazing tool to achieve your goals If you’re fucked up it will make your life even worse because you can use money to avoid the hard aspects of life you need to confront

The artist who turns to Marxism is a pussy, abdicating their responsibility to create art within constraints by blaming society Every great artist figured out how to navigate the financial world to make their art, whether it was cozying up to rich patrons or being relentless

Studying humanities is studying humans. human. gods greatest creation. its the greatest gift to be able to study this

@coldhealing incisive critique of corporate life from houellebecq if he was vegan and a twink

@sivori I've always found it cringy when someone rejects compliments or gifts under the pretenses of being humble Graciously accepting a gift is far more humble than denying someone the gift of giving

I get a deep sense of malaise in a luxury gym everything laid out perfectly to maximize your comfort whole gym is climate controlled, shower heads with perfect water pressure, they're using some fancy fragrance in the air Defeats the whole purpose of a gym which is a tough place to contrast your comfortable modern life.

Bookstores have an advantage that Amazon has never been able to recreate, which is aimlessly picking up books and flipping to random pages to get a feel if it’s worth reading

The synthesis is using navals hourly rate calculation to decide when to outsource busywork A lot of people are spending too much time running errands, chores when they should be mercilessly defend ing their time time is priceless and should be spent on loved ones, passion projects, furthering oneself as you put it

Remember that there’s no such thing as a perfect circle or rectangle in reality Zoom in on it long enough and you’ll find some irregularity violating its mathematical constraint Perfection is a lie, the artist can only approximate to the platonic ideal

One thing from brothers Karamazov is Alyosha is implored by his mentor to embrace daily human life instead of retreating into the spiritual monk path A monk like path is narcissistic, truly enlightened individuals want integrate in society and spread their happiness to everyone around them

My view on immigration is pro immigration, assimilation is highly important, people who refuse to speak English by default are bad for social fabric Unfortunately this places me in the republican side of things, grouped with the same people who view their stance on immigration purely through color Tough scene

@SarAllyce people need to stop being nerds about eating. I feel bad when I eat out 5x a week, and feel great when I eat 2x a week, and that's the data I use to make a decision on what to eat not being autistic about ingredients

ilya had a popular soundbite where he said AI could become maximally wise if you prompt it with something like "respond as if you are a maximally wise person" a misunderstanding of wisdom, thinking a statistical representation of the world can simulate wisdom when it's a byproduct of struggle, experience

honestly whether or not stuff is privatized or socialized is besides the point, if you live in a high trust society things will fall into place regardless of political system

Went to the bookstore and witnessed a guy cold approaching a girl Later I saw him and his friends taking pictures of each other in front of a bookshelf to post on instagram sensitive young man male manipulator pick up artist bootcamp

Dollars can be thought of as labor points as in how many you have is “how much human labor can you command” The real purpose is to get other people to do your bidding Hence the real desirable thing is power, the ability to get other people to do what you want, money is a loose proxy