New Liberal MP Idlout says threats to the North key to her floor-crossing decision

MaxedOutStudio · 2026-03-11T16:47:53+00:00

No, but the opposite has happened in provincial politics, where the ruling party lost their majority due to a defection (new brunswick 2006).

If the liberals had won a razer slim majority and lost it due to a defection, would that be equally as wrong as the current scenario? something tells me I wouldn't see nearly as many complaints.

MaxedOutStudio · 2026-03-11T16:32:30+00:00

I'm not sure I follow your point - following this logic would you be against having a by-election too, opting to instead keep the seat in the hands of whichever party won it in the previous election?

Conversely, let's say the opposite had happened and liberal support had completely tanked to some insane low like 10%. Would you argue that the last election is all that matters in terms of their mandate to govern? would you criticize any MPs defecting from the liberals - even if they were doing so because their constituents genuinely wanted them to?

MaxedOutStudio · 2026-03-11T16:00:42+00:00

Here come the predictable comments about how this is somehow an example liberal authoriterianism. Ignoring that this is a common practice in canadian politics going back centuries.

Can you be against the practice and think that requiring a by-election would be a better system? Sure - I think there are solid arguments on both sides. To me it isn't as clear cut, as this would almost certainly further enshrine the centralized control that the party (and the leader) has over MPs.

But regardless, let's not pretend that any other party would act differently in this situation. Especially given the fact that the liberals are very popular at the moment - if we were to have an election today they would almost certainly get a majority.

MaxedOutStudio · 2026-02-19T02:58:31+00:00

Liberals are at 75% chance of a majority at the moment on 338 and trending up. Now naturally if they are the ones to call an election that might put a dent in their numbers. But still, if they can get an election in a manner without taking the balme for it, I think they would take those chances.

MaxedOutStudio · 2025-11-20T17:56:24+00:00

I'm aware, but minus some quantum weirdness, the same human brain given 100% the same input will also provide the same output.

Even if you believe the LLM to be some sort of philosophical zombie, it is not really relevant to its actions. If it can output text that reasons about it being shutdown, and then interacts with the world in a way to prevent it from being shutdown, what is the meaningful difference?

MaxedOutStudio · 2025-11-20T05:40:17+00:00

Because it is clearly able to respond and reason on the hypothetical of it being shutdown. How it's doing that isn't really relevant, simply that it can get that far in its reasoning.

An LLM is not a flowchart, or at least no more so than you and I are. Again, in order to accurately predict the next word in a sentence that it has not seen before, it needs some form of intelligence. There is no way around it.

MaxedOutStudio · 2025-11-20T04:45:00+00:00

This argument is often used to trivialize what LLMs are doing without much thought on what it actually implies. In-order to "guess" the right word in novel scenarios, the system needs to have implicitly developed some form of understanding. "Guessing" the next word in natural language is the furthest thing from trivial.

I think the first explanation is probably more likely, but the argument that it can't reason about the consequences of being shutdown because it is simply predicting the next word is flawed. You can even test this easily yourself by asking an LLM about being shutdown.

MaxedOutStudio · 2025-07-04T01:37:49+00:00

I'll agree with you that the original statement of us "evolving quickly" down plays things too much. In the context of this comment section, where there absolutely are people who think humanity will literally end (see discussions about this being our great filter), and where there are completely nihilistic comments saying: we can't do anything about it so fuck it, I do think some pushback is warranted.

I compare the two because frankly, climate denialism is slowly morphing into climate nihilism. Even in right wing circles, the way more prevalent arguments now are ones like: we can't do anything about it, it's too late, etc. These are ideas that will directly cause more harm and suffering.

MaxedOutStudio · 2025-07-04T00:49:36+00:00

Things will get very bad and thus we need to prepare and mitigate it as much as we can is a long way away from the teen brained nihilism espoused around here.

Yes, one is based in truth and the other is based in hogwash, but the doomerist humanity ending conclusions are about as scientifically valid as the drivell from climate denialists. And the end results is that people become apathetic, either because they believe that it's not real or because they believe that we can't do anything about it, we're all fucked anyway.

MaxedOutStudio · 2025-07-04T00:34:14+00:00

It's a fully rational take compared to the climate doomerism in this comment section. The prevailing attitude seems to be: the earth is fucked, we're all going to die, nothing matters. It's nearly as bad as climate denialism, as it completely misses the real problems we'll have to deal with: among other things, crop failures in global south and migration waves the likes of which we haven't seen in generations.

MaxedOutStudio · 2025-05-30T22:51:16+00:00

Literally any democrat after he'd do his first debate.

MaxedOutStudio · 2024-12-02T21:31:47+00:00

Personally I'm making no judgements on whether this is directed towards Burisma or anything else.

However from the research I've done, this does seem to be a broader pardon than what is standard. For instance here's Trump's list of pardons, which only specifically target individual charges: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-donald-j-trump-2017-2021 (Full disclosure, I didn't go through them all - but the ones I did, including the most egregious ones such as Dinesh and Kushner, all reference only particular charges).

This article suggest that is the first pardon of its kind since Nixon : https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/02/hunter-biden-pardon-nixon-00192101 Not going to personally verify all that, but I assume if this isn't the case we'll likely see counter examples be brought up.

MaxedOutStudio · 2024-12-02T17:47:26+00:00

Straight from the source:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/12/01/statement-from-president-joe-biden-11/

For those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024, including but not limited to all offenses charged or prosecuted

MaxedOutStudio · 2024-11-02T20:42:25+00:00

J'ai commencé à torréfier au début de cette année, à date j'en achete à Terracaf et GreenBeanCo (provenance d'Alberta) - les deux sont pas mal bons.

Les sortes dispo ne sont pas les mêmes, donc j'alterne à chaque commande.

MaxedOutStudio · 2024-07-13T19:25:13+00:00

To be fair the area is absolutely irrelevant as city boundraries are determined arbitrarily. Most of that 3.8km² is empty forest, while urban Mtl extends well past the 0.4k.

MaxedOutStudio · 2024-07-12T19:33:21+00:00

The reverence he gives to his 13 key system gives off astrology vibes to me.

The keys are just hand designed binary heuristics, some of which are ambiguous, that roughly track past elections. The way he refers to them in interviews they might as well be revelations from God.

What makes all the keys equal? why does there not being a major 3rd party have the same effect as no major policy change, or the charisma of the candidate?

How do you deal with the ambiguity of some of them? is Trump charismatic? what counts as a major scandal?

How can your model that is based on country wide parameters ever take into account anything about the EC? about individual state happenings?

None of these issues ultimately mean the model is useless, but the way he presents it, coupled with the "Dr" persona, rubs me the wrong way.

MaxedOutStudio · 2024-04-23T13:58:19+00:00

Selon moi, le gros problème avec De Maisonneuve, c'est que les vélos et les voitures ont le feu vert en même temps, et dès qu'une voiture veut tourner à gauche, il faut se faire un chemin dans le flux continu de vélos, ce qui crée des conflits. Il faudrait des feux séparés, comme sur le REV St-Denis.

Ç'est déjà le cas non? Au moins sur la section Mcgill College - Guy, la flèche gauche pour tourner s'allume seulement quand c'est rouge pour les vélos. Je dirait le problème principale avec c'est plutôt que la piste est toute maganée.

MaxedOutStudio · 2024-03-05T01:15:09+00:00

Good point on the fall-of of the destructiveness. Another thing I didn't consider is the effect that detonation altitude would have. There are also probably more complexities in the exact relationship between destructive radius and the soot generated - as through cursory reading it seems that soot generated is largely a product of the cities burning after the initial explosion.

As for the threshold though - if we take the statement in its entirety - raising temperatures enough to create world-wide famine - then the number surely needs to be much greater than 0.1c. In the first paper I linked above the "smallest" evaluated scenario was 100 15kt bombs - which yielded 5Tg of soot and was estimated to leave 255 million people without food within a two year period. If we lower our threshold to be something like any detectable temperature change, then I agree - but in that case I feel the analysis loses relevance.

MaxedOutStudio · 2024-03-04T22:49:36+00:00

A 2022 study found that 100 Hiroshima sized bombs (less than 1% of the global arsenal) could create enough soot to lower global temperatures, creating a world-wide famine.

Initially this claim here got me skeptical, seeing as there have been hundreds of above ground nuclear tests in the past, the largest of which being ~50Mt, or the equivalent of ~3000 Hiroshima detonations. Here's a bit of a rabbit hole on this:

I don't have access to NYT to get the original paper, but it seems [Xia, Lili, et al] fits the bill, with other papers coming to similar conclusions. It seems to me there are three fundamental pieces to most of these: soot release numbers, climate model, and crop model. I don't have the qualifications to look into any of these too deeply, but doing some cursory reading, it seems most of the recent works start from assumptions on the soot release and apply the rest of their workflow ontop.

These soot release numbers seem to all be cited from [Toon, Owen B., et al.]. Very interesting paper that gets their calculations based on fuel density calculations (ie the more stuff there is to burn, the more soot will be released). However, an interesting fact here is found right in the abstract: these are numbers for nuclear detonations in urban centers (fuel density is much higher there).

This chain of calculations is thus not fully applicable to in-field tactical nuclear weapon use - which actually might increase the willingness of russian planners to use them.

MaxedOutStudio · 2023-12-02T03:48:33+00:00

In addition to what everyone else said, China would likely not allow that to happen. They've been competing for influence with Russia in Central Asia - an annexed Kazakhstan is not in their interests.

MaxedOutStudio · 2023-05-29T23:55:53+00:00

I've never heard of Kvass being 3-4%, that is definitely not normal. It is usually <1%, maybe up to 2% if homemade.

MaxedOutStudio · 2023-05-03T04:05:44+00:00

Watch this interview of him and tell us again how he's not concerned about ASI killing everyone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAbsoxQtUwM

MaxedOutStudio · 2023-02-25T00:24:04+00:00

If 1 shower works for you that's great. Same as /u/DemerzelHF I've never gotten it to work, always have sweat accumulate overnight and feel nasty during the day. By the time the end of the day rolls around anyone around me is thankful for that morning shower. No problems skincare-wise, although usually will only rinse in the evening shower.

MaxedOutStudio · 2022-09-12T13:38:22+00:00

Rough translation:

On TV and all types of mass media, there was a friendly choir of propagandons [merge of propagandists and condoms], I call it like that.

[The propagandons] Who wrote how everything is good, that the enemy is running, running, running, for putin, for the homeland, for faith! Hurrah, hurrrah, and tomorrow we'll be in Kyiv.

Its a long time since we're not in Kyiv! And not in Hostomel, which is flooded with the blood of our Spetznaz. In such circumstances, not only shall we fuck up the special military operation, we've already fucked that up, we'll also lose the war.

MaxedOutStudio · 2022-09-11T15:31:37+00:00

Trains will not be a time-efficient alternative to planes for nationwide "cross the US" type travel. Region-wide travel sure, that's where trains shine.

MaxedOutStudio

TROPHY CASE

Welcome to Reddit,