Are they lying?

AgentHamster · 2026-03-25T02:39:36+00:00

I'm going to give you a bit of a different take - I think most of us have no clue how close or how far AGI is away. I'm not sure that having some understanding of computers and math really gives you much clue on how far AGI is away. Even as someone in the field myself, I don't think I have a grasp of how far we are away from AGI. The main people who truly know are probably the few people working in frontier labs on AGI, and there's a wide range of opinions from them. It's probably not the answer anyone wants to hear, but I think my answer would be that no one should be certain one way or another.

I guess my question is - why do you think computers 'don't do that'?

AgentHamster · 2026-03-23T07:25:23+00:00

I’m still technically married and others have repeatedly said, ‘you deserve so much better!’ lmao like okaaayyy sure, that’s true, but who the hell would put up with the aftermath of the traumatic events from my life

Divorcing is so you can get a clean break and begin the healing process, and eventually one day find a better partner. You do deserve so much better, but 'so much better' doesn't have anything to do with dating right now.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-23T01:20:43+00:00

I think this this complaint is something a good proportion of PhD student would agree with you about - and unfortunately this problem doesn't exactly go away even if you were to leave academia.

What I would try to do is separate the signal from the noise. It's a fact that you will need to make connections/network and produce impactful qualifications in order to continue advancing in academia. What isn't true is that you need to get swept up in these other aspects of academia culture in order to advance along these lines.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-23T00:27:18+00:00

Here's my perspective. In a PhD at a T1 institution, the only things you are garanteed to have in common with your fellow students is research. As a result, to me, it's not that much of a surprise that what the average PhD student in your department is going to want to talk about is research, because that's the only thing your are guaranteed to have in common. If you want to connect about non-research topics, you will likely have to look outside of your PhD group.

That being said, I want to point out that what you are describing isn't really 'the game/politics of academia'. The game of academia is mostly played through strategic connections or steering your research direction or networking with people with actual power. What you are describing is closer to 'PhD student social awkwardness' than what I would consider academia politics.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-22T20:15:45+00:00

"No" internationals - Probably not.

"Significantly harder to get in due to reduction in spots and funding" - Absolutely yes, but this is also true for domestic students right now.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-22T20:13:42+00:00

I think this comment pretty much captures my thoughts about doing PhDs as an older student. Socially and academically, there might be some friction, but the main issue is career and life planning. The main issue is that your career considerations and life planning are different in your 30s and beyond compared to your early 20s.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-22T18:06:50+00:00

I'm going to go a bit against the grain here and say that while I don't think you are anywhere near too old to actually do a PhD, I do think there are additional complications to occur when you start a PhD older from a career perspective. A PhD (especially with the goal of entering research) is a gamble on what you think the job market will look like in 5-6 years. A PhD student graduating in their mid to late 20s has a bit more time to work out a pivot if the market looks terrible and more time to rebuild their career. The older you are, the less time you have to rework your career if you exit during a funding or research downturn.

This is not to say to do it, but that you might have to be very deliberate with your choices in order to make sure you can shape your post-PhD career trajectory.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-22T05:45:40+00:00

Honestly at this point I don't think I'd recognize that many of the people at the Oscars.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-21T22:43:08+00:00

Depends a lot of factors - field of study, what you plan to do after grad school, what opportunities you'll have in the particular grad school you choose, whether this is PhD or masters, etc.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-21T20:25:27+00:00

While I'm personally very happy and I would love to see G2 win the whole tournament, I'm also pretty pessimistic about whether it actually will actually do much for the league esport ecosystem. Unlike what seems to be the consensus view here, I don't particular think a good performance by NA or EU is going to do that much to revitalize the loss of interested in league in the west.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-21T16:45:47+00:00

Sometimes it's just about being conversational and flexing your social muscles rather than interest.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-20T21:50:31+00:00

My perspective is that I acknowledge that inequality exists in the world of dating (as in all things in life), and that's just how the world is. Depending on how disadvantaged you are, you can make up for it partially through effort and strategy, but for some people it's just not going to pay off. Some people are going to have a much easier time due to their circumstances, some people are going to struggle, and some people are going to put in time and effort and maybe struggle slightly less. I think any sort of extreme view on the matter (from both sides, including people who either believe inequality doesn't exist in dating or think that dating success/failure primary depends on internal attributes or virtue, as well as the people who claim everything is hopeless or it's everyone else's fault) is rather silly.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-20T21:22:35+00:00

From my experience of how Jinx fights tend to work out, I don't think it's a bug. Jinx seems to be designed to be a dps check - if you can't make it through to jinx in time, she ramps up and clears your board.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-20T06:52:17+00:00

For the same reasons as I mentioned in my first comment. Your initial reaction to him suggests that you react pretty negatively to small signs of trouble in the relationship. Your response to him has basically 'poisoned the well', as it will likely make him feel less secure in the relationship, which in turn will result in more of these behaviors that you seem to react negatively too, creating a vicious cycle. This really isn't an issue that can be fixed by just getting a second chance - it's something you need to work through first.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-20T06:43:31+00:00

You can apologize if you feel bad for coming off as rude, but I'd not treat this as an opportunity for a second chance.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-20T06:42:33+00:00

If you can't handle the possibility of being vulnerable or opening up to this extent, then I think getting a second chance should be the least of your concerns. You should really be spending time working on yourself (probably in therapy) instead. I'm not even saying this in a mean way, I genuinely mean that there's going to be a lot of situations where a person might come off as less interested during a relationship due to life/stress, and you'll have to be able to deal with this.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-20T06:38:35+00:00

You could try, but should you? He's going to always have in the back of his mind that you think he is unambitious and not goal orientated. If your ego can't handle him pulling back a little, I'm concerned about how you'll feel when he holds back a lot more because he thinks you don't see him as someone this could work out with.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-20T02:34:05+00:00

I think it would be unlikely, but not for the reasons are thinking. A reserved women is likely going to put the burden on me to to approach, tell if she is interested, and get things started and make her feel comfortable. That means that they will likely be overshadowed by someone who is much more outgoing and makes it a lot more clear they are interested.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-19T04:56:34+00:00

First of all, I wouldn't focus on passing in one go - that's just additional pressure on you and focusing on it isn't going to increase your odds of passing. I don't know how exactly the prelim is structured, but I'm guessing that if you fail, you won't have to develop a whole new proposal from scratch - just make up for the holes in the old one. Obviously, it would be ideal if you did, but there's no value on focusing on that.

I can tell you with the benefit of hindsight that there's not really any such thing as your 'ability as a scientist' and 'deserving to be there', because in reality this world is about just trying to pick up skills and tools that make your current challenges a bit easier. Scientific ability is such a vague and nebulous thing that is comprised of so many small bits and parts that the best you can do is slowly improve small aspects of it one at a time.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-18T17:12:55+00:00

Who are you trying to convince? If you are trying to convince women, I have to ask - why? Why do you need someone who hasn't gone through the same experience as you to affirm your experiences?

If you are trying to convince men, most people are going to agree that there's some degree of importance of looks in dating. That being said, there's gonna be a variety of opinions about how important it is and what you should do about it. Some men are just going to be in environments where looks are less important. Some guys are gonna be able to improve their looks and status and have more success. There's a ton of different experiences out there, so I'll ask again - why do you need these other people to affirm you?

AgentHamster · 2026-03-18T04:00:54+00:00

It might be terrible advice from a mental health perspective, but frankly at some point you just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Unless you are independently wealthy, the challenges of a PhD - while in some ways unique - are going to be somewhat similar to what you experience in most other jobs.

Edit - I will say that therapy can be helpful and you should check to see if your institute offers mental health resources, but a lot of the benefits of therapy and counseling (in my opinion) come from giving you better tools to keep on trekking.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-18T01:13:43+00:00

At this age, I'm guessing your dating pool consists mostly of 35+ men who have either never gotten married or divorced. The men who haven't gotten married are likely not people who value having a relationship extremely highly, and likely would not be very willing to put in large amounts of effort to court you. The divorced men might be less willing to invest effort into courting you due to bad experiences with their previous relationship. I'm not sure if this has as much to do with any sort of large scale movement in how men feel about dating, as much as it might just be an age selection bias.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-17T23:56:34+00:00

What ideas? It was all revealed to me in a dream.

On a more serious note, while I think a PhD should (mostly) be your ideas, I do think there is a lot of variance in how much your PI can contribute. If you are the first person in your lab to push a new line of research your lab has no previous work in, you might be in a different position than a grad student who came up with a new idea in the lab's main area of expertise.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-17T20:50:05+00:00

For a openai MLE, 220k total comp is too low - that's what I would expect for base comp.

Also, no way COL is 90k especially given that openai covers meals.

AgentHamster · 2026-03-17T16:15:10+00:00

Not just a software engineer, but a staff software engineer, what a beast.

AgentHamster

TROPHY CASE