No.

It was me

AI is using water lol. I worry for education system if people think that cooling “uses up” water somehow.

Making hydrogen destroys water, ban it

Don't be so snarky, right now its actually true because they pump drinking water directly from the grounds and evaporating them into the air and therefore taking local water and putting it in some ciruclation which will not refill the local water...

> a single fully processed wafer can ultimately consume anywhere from 3,100 to nearly 5,000 liters of water by the time it is finished.

source: AI

Shit man any minute and we will run out

People in poor countries have gotten massively richer over the last few decades. Especially those that participate in global trade, ie those that you could even call 'your slaves'. After all, some poor soul in North Korea who doesn't trade with you can hardly slave away to your benefit.

More specifically, people in PR China have gotten massively richer since the late 1970s. How does that square with your slavery thesis?

I might also add that if anything, goods from China have become better value for money since then. Even as their people have moved further and further away from slave status.

No. China is a colonial structure of extreme 1-tier cities, 2-tier cities, and the lower cities beneath them. It's called hukou... That's also why ordinary Chinese young people don't want to go down to the provinces.

People in China's first-tier cities live well and are more up to date than almost anywhere, but in the lower cities, they are not free. I usually think that popular literature reflects a country's social conditions, and even in China's xianxia, there are ranks, and people act according to those ranks. To say that all of China has become wealthy would be an overstatement, given that there are many problems starting with the migrant worker issue. Of course, China is a great power, and the wealthy programmers in first-tier cities are extraordinarily talented.

We're all navigating through hard times.

The world economy has never done better in absolute terms. I'm not sure where all those hard times are that I keep hearing about year after year, virtually independent of how well the economies are actually doing.

It's a K-shaped economy, after all. From the way you talk, you seem to be upper class. Usually Singapore is centered on elite schools and technology for certain families, and just from the fact that you can go into the English-speaking and IT industries, it seems to me—based on this conversation—that you're basically upper class. You're probably connected to Lee Kuan Yew's family. Singapore itself is a standard English-speaking country, and there are many Chinese Singaporeans, but even so, considering the basic amount of education needed to learn IT skills in Asia, you're probably upper class.

Then it makes sense that you wouldn't feel it. In fact, because it's a K-shaped economy, the bosses and businesspeople I meet think the business climate is good. But separately from that, for ordinary people who are the actual consumers, it's hard to make a living.

Hahaha.

My only connection to the Lee family is that in 2023 my daughter had the opportunity to shoot Lee Hsien Loong, but didn't pull the trigger. [0]

> In fact, because it's a K-shaped economy, the bosses and businesspeople I meet think the business climate is good. But separately from that, for ordinary people who are the actual consumers, it's hard to make a living.

My comment was purely around metrics like GDP per capita (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD?location...), not how well or not I am personally doing. Our unemployment rate is 2%. Youth unemployment is just under 7%.

If you need to know, I'm doing quite well. I emigrated to Singapore on an employment pass. No family wealth. We have lots of well off people in Singapore. Many, many more than could plausible claim to have connections to the Lee family.

> Singapore itself is a standard English-speaking country, and there are many Chinese Singaporeans, but even so, considering the basic amount of education needed to learn IT skills in Asia, you're probably upper class.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say? Around three quarters of the population is ethnically Chinese, and they are doing quite well. When people want to complain about Singapore and inequality, they usually complain about the lot of the migrant workers.

[0] Mr Lee showed up as a surprise guest at a local community festival and passed within two metres of us. At the moment, my daughter was playing a carnival game that involved a nerf gun.

Your figures show that Singapore has high output and a tight labour market. They don't by themselves tell us how the gains are distributed or whether median households face affordability pressure.

Here's my view. There are many points where the current economy doesn't feel all that good to me.

Because of you, I got curious and looked into it, and Singapore's income has risen, but consumer prices and especially housing asset prices have also risen sharply.

And this is only Singapore being strong in macroeconomics and export employment; I don't think this means the global economy is good.

Strictly speaking, I think this is because of our particular situation and the fact that we are knowledge workers. Of course, I'm not saying you're wrong. In your situation, you're right, but I think my view is more general. In other words, I don't think it's a case of the global economic situation being good, nor is it easy to say that China's economic situation is booming. I have Chinese friends, and while I don't know China as well as you do, since you're ethnically Chinese, I do know that the number of people who can leave China for abroad is very small in class terms, and I can also argue that China's statistics do not indicate such a good economic situation.

Thanks for engaging productively.

So I actually wanted to make a narrower point initially, but that got widened as I was arguing:

The narrower point is that eg 2008 or 2020 were genuinely tough for the global economy (and for many local economies). But I hear people complaining about 'hard times' all the time, even when things are going rather well.

I wasn't trying to make an argument about times being hard or easy in some absolute sense, just that you can't have harder than average times all the time.

> Because of you, I got curious and looked into it, and Singapore's income has risen, but consumer prices and especially housing asset prices have also risen sharply.

I suspect housing asset prices rose as a consequences of incomes rising: people have more money to bid up real estate.

Such is the nature of being part of a global supply chain, whilst living in one of the richest countries in the world.

Then why this supply chain hangs by a thread and progressively produces shittier and shittier results?

Because everyone at every step of the chain is primarily incentivised by money.

That is the opposite of resilience.

Why not?

Unfortunately human ethics and morals cannot be reached by solely rational thought.

So a system without evolutionary alignment probably won’t have similar moral rules no matter how intelligent it is.

Btw this also includes any potential extraterrestrials.

Many people like to indulge in thinking: humans are horrible and that’s why aliens won’t contact us. But alien ethics systems are probably so alien we would call them utter evil monsters.

Just see what happens when people evaluate Muslim cultures, and vice versa. Can’t even agree on alignment within one species of Homo sapiens. And our morality changes decade by decade. Not progresses. Changes.

Chinese cheat on the exams. It’s not unethical in the way that it would be in USA.

Of course AI is going to cheat when no one is looking.

Alignment is fundamentally fallacious idea. At best you can restrain AI. This is what we should be doing - restraints research.

But that doesn’t sound good on slides.

Once humanity would see how merciless and deeply immoral cosmos is, we would start to love each other deeply like very lonely family on a small rock.

I wonder if AI alien intelligence is enough to unite humans just as much extraterrestrial contact or “astronaut mindset” would.

Not having a smartphone is a new status symbol flex.

The poorer you are, the more of your life you must waste looking at a screen instead of gazing upon beautiful landscapes and friendly faces.

Still it’s a step up as usual. Next stage will be probably those too poor to afford anti aging vs the muti centenarians that can.

And yet those that can’t afford multi centenarian lifestyle will live super well compared to today poorer class. Hunger, true hunger is eliminated where I live at least. Healthcare too is rather universal.

Good country.

And yet people will be furious at this inequality of lifespan and everyone understands it deeply as „dystopia”.

Medieval peasant would thought he is in heaven and yet we live in a dystopia and that is widely understood and I concur.

> The poorer you are, the more of your life you must waste looking at a screen instead of gazing upon beautiful landscapes and friendly faces.

"Must", perhaps. But plenty of people of any wealth are addicted

It’s also easier to be addicted when you can’t afford any alternatives and thinking about the future makes you anxious.

> Not having a smartphone is a new status symbol flex.

It’s pretty much like those vegans people tend to make fun of: it’s performative. It’s humble-brag-fuelled activism that craves audience approval.

I have only one agenda - my own. People hate that I think nowadays.

You need to be in some kind of camp, even for something so minor as skincare brand or fanfiction.

I think that it was fine until the internet started to influence the real life way too much. You used to be able to log out and gain distance to the bullshit on the web.

Now the bullshit has permeated into the mainstream and you need very drastic measures and personality to reject it.

You will lose some people for this but there are still some older folks that can talk about anything and will never get offended. Never conform but also don't become a contrarian for the sake of it.

The modern life is an art how to stay weird in a world that wants to squash you into some kind of label. How to stay genuine

It starts during simple social interactions in real life. You make a joke about alcohol, now you feel the pressure of the crowd to become 'the funny drunk'. Squash it as soon as possible now you are a teetotaler. Now tell them joke about drugs. Make it all too confusing at all so they lose any idea about what to make of you. Obfuscation. Now you are free in the purest sense. There is no template for you aside from the one you craft or discover for yourself.

I even went further and made myself genderless so that these norms cannot easily qualify me into anything really. There is 50% chance if someone calls me a woman or a man.

Sometimes I support the feminism. Sometimes I give myself to patriarchy and observe how that feels.

Maybe I made it all up and nothing I wrote is genuine.

We should strive to be stranger or at least do not treat it as something bad but as a virtue. Of course do not try hard but just explore the weird and see where it takes you.

Giving concrete examples of what work goes into the job would be more persuasive than ranting about how hard it is.

Board members often have posts at multiple companies because of how little work they actually do.

Meanwhile most companies prohibit side jobs for us plebians (sorry, "non-executives".)

Boards are not involved in day to day decision making unless something has gone very wrong. The CEO shows up every day.

It's a shame there isn't something like github badges for CEOs. This post would merit a "Motivational Message Master".

The best leaders know how to fraternize

Yeah people forget that law is not mathematics.

At the end of the day judge either believes you or not and you are ducked

And if your defense is so complicated then that’s worse for… you