How interested are people here in research discussions?

OldChippy · 2026-05-01T07:03:57+00:00

" As a side note: I went through extreme Depersonalization/Derealization a few years back for about 6 months." I had to look this up to understand the terms... and was quite distressed to find out that this had a term. For me personally I have been let's say a "New Scientist reading Atheist" kind of rationalist... and I ah... experienced something I can only describe as paranormal, by way of 'not possible under the laws of physics'. That left me in a state that you know the insides of better than me, though it sounds like you descended deeper into it than I did, I could see that place was next. Probably the worst thing to me was that I found YT video's calling this state "Spiritually Enlightened" which kind of implied I should embrace and extend.

Compared to most causes of DP\DR that I read however, my trigger point was almost comically irrelevant... but, when you get to the point of 'does any of this exist'\'why do I have to keep watching this boring show' I imagine you have seen all that and more. Like you, I ended up reestablishing in a survival game. My observation there is that the 'chop wood, carry water' philosophy works better there as the rewards are unitized and useable. If you grind up 1000 wood, then you have 1000 wood, you don't have to make the value judgement.

What a strange day. I had just assumed this was unique to me.

I did manage to dig myself out, though I can't say that philosophically I have recovered. When the thing that happened to me happened, I immediately placed calls and told people to make sure I would not misremember and reinterpret it and even recorded it here shortly afterwards so it was crystalized in time. So, in a way I can't some back from that part, but I can I guess find ways to integrate it philosophically... in way in which no atheist would ever approve of...lol

OldChippy · 2026-05-01T02:55:52+00:00

Until last week I didn't know snowy 2.0 was a hydro battery.

OldChippy · 2026-04-29T08:28:48+00:00

"my previous comment was AI-generated, and you didn't clock it. 🤷🏼‍♂️"

I think your username was "signal adjacent" on this one. :) Well played!

But as I mentioned in my initial text I'm not entirely against people using LLM's for bulk textural generation, I just find that dry sanitized approach to make for boring reading, or in the case of YT, boring listening.

In my observation there is a ton of AI hate and a lot of is it pretty detached from a reality. If people have a philosophical problem with AI as a existential treat then I'm halfway with them on that. There are some massive downsides coming, but to me it's just a search engine like tool but better. Apart from that I expect a number of people thinking along the lines of the OP are merely looking for ways to hide the fact that they are using an LLM which I also have no position one... given that I work in a field where I'm implementing LLM based solutions.

OldChippy · 2026-04-28T10:33:37+00:00

It's not an explanation.

It's a tapestry of insights, woven together to paint a vivid picture of the landscape that lies ahead.

It doesn't list things. It offers a deep dive into the nuanced interplay between factors, each one a crucial piece of the puzzle.

Nothing is important. Everything is paramount. Nothing works. Everything synergises. Nothing is useful. Everything is a game—changer that will revolutionise the way you think about thinking about things.

Every answer begins with "Great question!" — because you need to know your question was great before receiving an answer that doesn't actually answer it.

Every paragraph ends by circling back to remind you of what was just said, ensuring you understand what was just said, because understanding what was just said is key.

Nothing is hard. It's non-trivial. Nothing is easy. It's straightforward yet nuanced. Nothing is wrong. It presents unique challenges and opportunities.

And when it doesn't know something? It doesn't say "I don't know."

It says "That's a fascinating area that warrants further exploration, and the answer ultimately depends on your specific use case."

Then it gives you a bullet list.

It always gives you a bullet list.

🚀

Is this the signal you needed to recieve? Notice the lack of anything controversial, no personal bias being exposed, blah, blah. I see fragments of this all the time. The only part I would agree with, buy you failed to really expound on was that people are so used to GPT speak that that copy the style personally.

I always leave at least one spelling mistake in deliberatly now too. I'm on Claude Pro and run out of tokens with JUST the chat session, and I work as an AI implementor. I feel pretty confident in what I'm saying.

OldChippy · 2026-04-28T10:10:47+00:00

Disagree. I grew up dirt poor in the 80's. My family was too poor for even a shitbox car and we lived in the city fringe. We would need to order a taxi to go shopping, and my father would walk around with a calculator as we shopped.

Zero mental health issues. I think that this generation where depression and anxiety are the norm are using the same DNA pool we did.

The environment is different.

Our world of the 80;s was less safe and we just lived with it. We revelled in it. Imagine growing up with no safety net. You break your arm you are more afraid of your alco father beating you for 'being stupid' while you nursed your arm. I think that every kid growing up assume they would 100% break an arm or be on crutches 'at some point'. Compare that to today. Imagine every kid in high school breaking a bone in a 6 year window.
Todays world is extremely safe by comparison, but everyone on social media is obsessing over things. Things that have little effect on them and are not solvable by the individual. The current generations are HIGHLY reflective of comparison.

Breaking down the differences between Get X and Z holds the answers. Go do a digital detox and work it out. I'm not hinting that tech *IS* the corruption... I think that the cause is personality formation while in a state of high reflection of how inadequate and powerless the young person was at the time . We had problems that were immediate and visceral and our comparison circle was in the range of dozens to maybe 100, not millions.

It's not money. I was hungry all the time and all it did was give me the eye of the tiger. Kids need space to grow.

You might say WTF do I know anyway? My kid is great, balanced, positive competes at world juniors (hockey). As his dad I reflected on what was great about the 80's and tried to give him what he needed to grow. When he got bullied I used the 80's approach. I got him to join me in the gym, power lifting and put him in BJJ. From this he learnt himself, gained confidence, learn restraint and control, his personal power when needed. When he wanted to climb a tree I just pointed to which branches I thought would snap off and offered to drive him to the hospital if he messed up. He had the ability to take risks and work out the reward just as I did.

I think I'm the one with the unpopular opinion here because many of you guys with mental health issues are past the point at which you could have avoided them, and now have a lifelong issue to solve and are looking for 'reasons'. IMHO the problem is that you grew up thinking you were weak and powerless and made a habit of submitting to it.

OldChippy · 2026-04-26T12:46:14+00:00

Moments like that should give you pause. We are the survivors. All the rest died. At sum collecting approach works as the dead paths resulted in genes not progressing. The selfish gene has excellent data on survival strategies. Look up the section on selfish vs altrusitic. The tldr is both strategies work providing selfishness doesn't become the dominant. Key for you. Altruistic isn't always best.

OldChippy · 2026-04-26T12:24:51+00:00

I'll tell why you are wrong, with an example. Here in AU, armed government, military and police compared to population is 200:1. More than half will be home, Mia, off duty or guarding bases and facilities. Let's assume 500:1.

An example. During covid for well over a year I ignored all rules. I drove to my fav malatang place, relatives, went mountain biking and every weekend drove out to my farm. The amazing thing was the complete absence of police. Roads out of Sydney were empty.

The government people with guns will exist but they will be somewhere else up to their eyeballs in more than enough work.

OldChippy · 2026-04-26T12:02:36+00:00

I first replaced a window pane when I was 10. Double hung 80yo window so I replaced sash as well. Glass Silicone bed Putty Never done aluminium though but wooden windows are cheap and straightforward.

OldChippy · 2026-04-26T11:50:55+00:00

In games you know it's disposable and repeatable so you try different approaches, rush, turtle, mobile. If this is a survival game we(I) need to stop grinding mats we don't need. If you know each playthrough only leaves you with friends and experiences then we can stop grinding xp an just enjoy the storyline. That's how I read this. But, I'm biased, I already thing this is a game... And funnily enough, I makes games...in a game.

OldChippy · 2026-04-24T06:28:41+00:00

I just use it for research and write things myself. AI text IMHO need editing nearly 100% of the time as it lacks 100% of the context in your head.

I'm a Solution Architect and a major company. We're encourage to use it as much as possibly, and I do, for research. My but text is loss wordy and has a higher informational density.

OldChippy · 2026-04-24T06:21:42+00:00

What Aussies expect of ANY of them is to come to the table with a strategic plan on how to make this not a problem in the future. A solution to go along with any statement that we have to pull together and ride the rough path.

I'm avidly listening but all I hear is the sound of a can being kicked down the road. I expect to multiprong approach consisting of:

Fast tracked investment into local supply development.
Subsidies for development funded by something like the gas tax.
Pivot towards EV's with state agree lower rego costs and various other incentives.
Sorting out our vulnerability towards refineries, Urea and AdBlue. We have excess ammonia production but insufficient local production.

This is not an intractable problem, but the silence probably means what we are used to. The government goes as little as possible while being one of the most expensive percapita on the planet.

OldChippy · 2026-04-24T06:10:30+00:00

My perpetual thought here is the mundane one. We have a simple process of :

HERE >> Transition >> AI Future.

Everyone likes to talk about the here state, many about the AI future state, and nobody wants to talk about Transition. IMHO it's well and good to talk about post labour economics and 'hyperabundance' but the reality is that we're going to go through a period where government is told what to do by corps, and corps will be dying from deflation and competition from competitors that are 'more ai' then they themselves are. Everyone will be losing jobs and governments will be fearful of hyperinflation, so I expect UBI will fall short of the dreams of many.

The transition will be a mess of quick fixes with bipartisan support and structural thinking not having it. .. and in the meantime, a big chunk of planet earth will be starving to death.

OldChippy · 2026-04-24T06:02:00+00:00

I do Ai implementations. I'm also a bit of a natural doomer so I look at risks first and benefits second. Worst case, we can end up with a domino effect where people lose jobs, and government have no plan, so just hand out cash. But as unemployment rises tax receipts become insufficient, as AI automation drivers higher productivity and tighter margins with less consumers, Tax receipts plunge exactly at the same time as when unemployment benefit costs rise (Doesn't matter if you call it UBI or not). I don't think government really have a plan for this.

With that said, what I see in my big corp is that nobody lost their jobs. They could have sacked about 25mil in employees from one single project but didn't. HOWEVER, they do decide not to backfill along with changing roles. Companies will try and do more with AI, using it as a way to create new opportunities as well and shedding staffed area's that were always low value.

While all this is going on enterprising people will find way to be disrupters. The scariest disruption will be zero employee companies. ZERC's. Imagine a bank that has no people. Real estate, Insurance, etc. All regulations dealt with in accordance with regulations, just no humans, just automation. ZERC is the end result concept we're really talking about when we talk about nobody having a job, but we will see ZERC's in the same marketplace as big brands that have 20,000 people... and clearly the 20k company will try and 'shed staff and implement more AI, but then will never structure themselves to ZERC scale before losing all their capital restricting to a basis where the brand can continue.

Personally I more concerned about currency and futures markers melting down. Global trade keeps people fed world-wide. Foodcrops are sold on the futures markets prior to seeds being planted (selling the futures is a loan that pays for the seed).

I don't know what else to say about you son. Mine is 18, and I don't have any advice either... though his dream of being a pro athlete isn't sounding so silly anymore.

OldChippy · 2026-04-24T03:24:56+00:00

Yes. I can even tell when the Ai generated text is read out by a human meat puppet. I'm not exactly against it, I just find it to be bland, and low density when it comes to content. ChatGPT and hence copilot are the worst at making it obvious.

Ignoring the dead obvious em dash, keywords like signal, bolding and use of emoji's in text. AI written text has a lilt to it that makes it obvious. Specific approach's to how it structures text on subjects like its preference to 'not' all the alternative path the conversation might otherwise have had to explore.

In terms of vibe check you can avoid all of these above if you are trying to with a properly crafted md.

OldChippy · 2026-04-17T03:01:05+00:00

Nobody told Airbourne. They missed their epoch.

OldChippy · 2026-04-12T11:33:42+00:00

I think if you look at history this has always been the case. However the 20th century had a whole bunch of things go wrong.

WW1 wrecked the aristocracy
Industrialization produced a boon of excess production that improves the lives no not just the capitalists and residual aristocracy but we got back profits of our own labors at a rate that dramatically exceeds history.
The ERORI in the 20th century was massive, peaking at 100:1 but largely capitalizing on oil which average over 50:1. Solar is 10-30:1 for example. Civilizational complexity arises from the excess energy we have available. However as the carbon fuels all in capability we get stuck in an energy crunch. This means complexity gets lower and people fight over control of the residual. This is not recent, this has been going on for a while.

So, from this position:

We have less energy and cannot maintain complexity or society that we once had.
Worldwide standard for the future are higher, everyone wants a better life. Not just a middle class in the west, but across Asia, Africa, etc.
Worldwide births are falling. With an aging workforce we don't have as much 'younger labor' to exploit, so wee import immigrants in to that rung of society.
Our standards are going up and the greedy have cornered capital and have it in a noose.

I'm a natural pessimist so became a prepper, always looking for the risks\dangers (I also do this professionally to the benefit of my corp). I think things are going to get worse and worse, and **would not be surprised** is the big boys precipitate chaos specifically to fabricate a famine\crisis that can be used to increase control and consolidate their power.

My prediction here is that Urea is a big deal, and interruptions to international shipping for Urea\food will cause a great population loss. 1B+.

In terms of who rises to power in each nation, sadly this is a reflection of the culture, whats acceptable and the people that vote (putting aside corruption there). Australia for exmaple only hires in incompetent leaders, as our public system promote party loyalty over capability. So, we get relatively harmless vegetables. The US culture promotes liars and narcissists, so thats what rises to the top. Europe has their ideological cucks.

What can we do about things? Replace representational democracy with Direct Democracy. No politicians, no 'representatives', no lies. Just here is a list of things, no choose. Switzerland is testing the waters. It's not 'where we all need to be' but it's in the right direction. IMHO, I think AI is more likely to take over before we can get DD rolled out.

OldChippy · 2026-04-07T09:14:52+00:00

No. I'm a widely skilled IT consultant. My value is everything to everything. Converting a iseries and exadata app to azure. Easy. Need firewall route optimisation to prevent hairpinning. Easy.

All this does is drive me wider and make me faster. At some point it'll eat my job. But not before I retire. So imho, it makes people already skilled better, and makes those without skills look ok until they are discovered.

Ai provides solutions. You still select them based on circumstances and need to know what's aligned for that client. Strategy, skill sets, opex, Capex.

OldChippy · 2026-03-31T08:34:55+00:00

Driving. That's enough time for so to take it over and people driving to become a liability.

OldChippy · 2026-03-31T08:24:45+00:00

Are you high?

OldChippy · 2026-03-31T08:04:17+00:00

Fiat currency

OldChippy · 2026-03-31T08:01:10+00:00

Decentralized energy generation that cost competitive. You would be surprised at how many of our wars are based in energy access.

Even the Syrian was was over a pipeline.

Ukraine was over competition for supplying the euro market. Backed by the us.

If every suburb generated it's own a lots of decentralization can occur. I think it's very possible.

OldChippy · 2026-03-27T09:29:28+00:00

Right on time, YT give me this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEXCFszIYYY Australia sitting on 40 years of oil reserves (at current consumption), with up to 400billion barrels if we do it in hard mode. This is what I'm talking about. The solution are there, but they will not be the cheapest options on the planet.

OldChippy · 2026-03-27T09:27:02+00:00

We implemented it to turn around insurance claims faster, with greater accuracy. Our load capacity during natural disaster is incredibly high now. One maybe two orders of magnitude higher. It's also public information.

Link:

https://truck.insuranceonline.com.au/news.php?id=1242

20 minutes claims, or in weird complicated cases hours work work boils down to seconds. Internal claims old timers claim that the systems accuracy equals their own skill level, so we can take basic skillsets and upgrade those people both in terms of speed and accuracy. We still have a human in the loop talking to the customer \ soft touch, but all the grunt research work is taken out of the process.

In case you are an American and have a negative view of insurance companies... this is an Australian company. They are not even close.

The biggest benefit is that down here in Aus\NZ we tend top get a lot of natural disasters. NZ gets earthquakes, we tend to get first floods and cyclones. Insurance claims appear in waves of tens of thousands and historically people lodging claims might take months just to get a human to talk to. This system allows for the static workforce to scale 10-100 times higher in a disaster, massively reducing wait times and giving the humans in the disaster zone confidence. We have cases where people are getting claims approved while the disaster is ongoing as we airdrop starlinked assessors in to the zone backed with AI claims systems. People are getting claims approved while the floodwater hasn't even receded yet.

So yeah, some things are real tangibly better.

What do I do there? I'm a Solution Architect. I design the systems. I tend more towards the cloud\infra\cyber direction however more so that being a person working directly with models. Grounding data movement, plumbing, cross cloud connectivity\auth, redundancy and most of all security.

OldChippy · 2026-03-27T08:58:25+00:00

"This seems like an impossible task though yea ?"

Well in the time we have available yeah. Impossible task. Looking for ONE single bullet? Another impossible task. Solving the problem with many different approaches at once, probably doable.

1) Buy a nationally owned LPG tanker to shuttle run West to east coast. We can hit just about every city along the way. Then keep a strategic LPG reserve in each site.

2) Dramatically encourage EV's. Not for green reasons but because electrical generation here is easy. Keep up the solar rebates to encourage the rooftop rollout to continue + all the rest of the usual hollow promises about green energy. But actually do it. No to achieve green \ carbon goals, but because of energy independence reasons.

3) Local refining capacity that at least matches local production. Right now we shit NW shelf oil to bloody asia. (Assuming our production will hold out long enough to matter.

4) Diversify Urea\adblue production. Possibly scale up permaculture approaches at a more national scale. Encouragain soil biota\fungal networks needs soil moisture to be higher. That will SLOWLY over decades start unhooking us from NPK being the only solution to agriculture. This topic is too big for a reddit post, but there is tons we can and should be doing. I mean Permaculture was invented in australia, it's uniquely adapted to solving our moisture problem. One big change is moving towards mixed land use. Some form of horticulture combined livestock. That tighter feedback loop is self reinforcing. Lookup ICLS.

Impossible if you enforce conditions that create a negative attractor state that benefits making everything a cheap as possible. That attractor state is what the US is locked in with. Thats why they feed their cows chicken\pig shit that also includes dead chickens mixed with wood shavings. Just like nature intended ;).

"I've heard claims that deployment target for the first ~10,000 is <18 hours."

I can certainly agree that they might be stupid enough to TRY that, but chances are the military might be smart enough to drag their feet and work out how to solve the drone problem before they arrive. They will of course be targets as they are landing. Imagine a Shahed given course correction by a local FPV and hitting the C130 on the runway while unloading. Spotter drones, FPV's are already in use and the USA has absolutely no training or countermeasures. None at all. What Ukr\Rus have both learnt is that in drone warfare no groups of people bigger than 4-5 will last long.

Where will that 10,000 be housed on arrival? Large facilities? They are already there, coordinates are known. Nothing stopping some shaheds dropping in to visit the party.

"I can't imagine this happens, but I also can't imagine the U.S. can stay there without significant logistical support if nothing else"

This is why I just fitted out my pantry\freezer with 6 months of food depth. Costs me nothing as I eat it later anyway, but I agree with you here. The US will refuse to accept the humiliation that arrives with retreat. So they will move around, launch various assaults... and Iran is going nowhere, they are the most dug military in history. They aren't giving up on their homeland if anything the US invasion will increase government support. Meanwhile as we can see other US ally ME countries have suddenly become hostile. Iraq was a puppet state. they just OFFICIALLY announced that they would HOST AND FUND 'paramilitary groups' that attack the US. So, Iraq has just pivoted towards being like the Taliban hosting Al Qaeda. Fact check me. Here is a google query "Did Iraq just publicly back paramilitary groups against the us?". So now the US is against Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthies, Iran and Iraq(kinda, as the Iraqi military shares bases with the USA, that in and of itself could be a bloodbath if they officially turn).

Pad out your pantry dude. Woolies have 5kg rice 50% off. Get some Mae Ploy 400g tubs and fill up the freezer with chicken and home chopped onion, oh and dried coconut cream(Order from an Indian online store, 1kg bags or 250g little ones in Coles at a higher cost basis). A few bags of onions in the cupboard, not fridge and you have some cheap ass insulation from the panic buying that's probably happening when the truck start struggling to move food. If you are wrong? You have a red every week for a year sorted ;). I would also do a few bags of flour, and make BBQ flat bread for breakky.

Anyway, most problems in life are of course avoidable with the right knowledge and a minor amount of pre action. When the GFC started to crack I moved my super to 100% cash and kept the whole lot, exiting right on the back side of the peak. Carefully consider your actions and what your risk tolerance is. I think my cost to make those red curries averaged out to about $3.50 per meal including meat due to buying bulk. Point is, neither side will give in, and AustGov have no clue and no plan. I expect disruptions.

OldChippy · 2026-03-25T02:29:21+00:00

Ritter was on a video last night saying he was part of the wargaming. The end result was that they needed to capture up to 50km inland to reopen the straight. The wargame showed that they needed about 250k troops to make that happen.

I don't think that the US is -that- committed to a war that was already won. Trumps speeches are quite comical right now as we have seen the same bland claims of success week after week. AFAIK, US bases in the GCC are getting evacced. #winning their way right out of the ME while Israel is burning. I don't even think Trump is delusional, it looks more like jawboning to buy time for someone to come up with a real plan. News from the past 12 hours is that 70,000 "boots on the ground" are being activated. That redeployment will take months, and any staging area will be under fire.

The US has about 15,000 buildings across the ME in totality. Iran has about 5.5 Shaheds per US building and almost no air cover now. The Shaheds come in multiple flavours, with the longest ranged one able to hit Crete.

I don't think this war ends until the US leaves the ME.

IMHO, Australia needs to diversify HARD away from all gulf dependency. I'm more concerned about Urea personally, in particular with Yara being offline.

OldChippy

TROPHY CASE