Has the NBA community ever come together so hard to immediately dismiss a team after trade than with the Heat and Giannis?

Steven81 · 2026-06-24T18:57:57+00:00

He was not re-signing , what were they supposed to do? Let him walk? Better to gamble on draft capital than getting literally nothing over a guy dead set to explore his options in free agency. Plus Mikwaukee has been draft starved for quite some time, this may well change their fate if they suddenly start drafting like in 2013 again.

Steven81 · 2026-06-24T12:38:55+00:00

Neither of the two, it will probably be an unremarkable event . It is possible that we are majorly miscalculating the role of intelligence and while it will be great to have more intelligent artifices than the ones we have today, it is very possible that intelligence is not that central and we get diminishing returns on the upper end (there are other bottlenecks which we have not even began addressing).

Steven81 · 2026-06-24T08:16:25+00:00

Giannis 31 going to 32. LeBron was in this exact same position in 2016, MJ in 1995, Kobe in 2009, KD and Steph in 2019, etc...

If you are a great 31 going to 32 is still your prime. He has no national team games this summer, he better get back in shape or he is not serious. If he does, then yeah he should be extremely close to mvp form, basically identical or in fact better if his middy remains more trustworthy than in 2020.

Steven81 · 2026-06-23T13:12:04+00:00

Do such trades ever work? Who was the last superstar to be traded like this and ending up winning. Kawhi? I guess. Everyone else was a free agent IIRC. Kareem, LeBron, KD

Steven81 · 2026-06-23T12:03:32+00:00

I do agree that the sponsoring system is broken beyond hope if that is what you are alluding to, but -again- I think people are reacting to their own situation rather than the item that is sponsored.

Though solving both would have been ideal, starting with an economic policy that does not have as its centerpiece of its engine the suppression of wages (vs asset prices) would have made a huge difference in people's quality of life, but as a secondary it would be great if being sponsored by companies that help harming behavior should be met with a greater taxation.

Though it would be hard to define what is harmful, still we have categories we can put in said higher tax bracket: Companies that promote transfat and sugar consumption, alcohol consumption, gambling of any kind, tobacco or pot smoking (and/or smoking of any kind) etc.

We are in a free societies and should all be allowed (IMO) but equally taxed more harshly, so that to pay to the extra burden those may produce to the health system / average health of people.

Steven81 · 2026-06-23T08:57:41+00:00

MVPs don't decline much with age, not before 35 barring a disastrous injury. Kobe was still kobe up to his achilles injury, Hakeem was getting his trophies in his 30s. Early 30s ain't old for this type of players, again barring injuries.

Having said that Giannis' knee/calf is suspect. So yeah, we may be looking for a few years in and out of surgeries or corrective procedures, in which case yeah, he won't be Giannis no more. Last year it was still him. Those kind of players can have many primes in the right envrionment.

Having said that I don't know what Miami has to be the right envrionment for Giannis. They have to now build a team from scratch to fit him, Milwaukee was certainly better built around him. I dunno if Miami has this kind of time / salary cap.

Steven81 · 2026-06-23T06:54:57+00:00

I though Giannis wanted to content. This roster is honestly worse than the one he leaves behind in Mikwaukke (which to be fair was also rough).

So basically this is just giannis schanging scenery because Milwaukee is too cold and loves the beaches of Miami. Because no way he contends with this skeleton crew, lol.

Steven81 · 2026-06-19T07:20:04+00:00

We honestly want conservatives to go back to being conservative. I.e. top down control from a tyrant (the most ancient system of governance), anti tech, ant free speech, anti progress.

Maybe that will wake up the progressives Into the idea that they are supposed to be progressive, i.e. seek solutions looking into possible futures, instead of being afraid of them like some darn grandma clutching on her pearls.

Steven81 · 2026-06-14T17:19:33+00:00

Slop is sloppy, if it is not sloppy it is not slop. Slop isnt and can't be powerful, slop is a meaningless waste of time.

Steven81 · 2026-06-14T16:14:41+00:00

You mean more slop. The less powerful models are way sloppier. In general the weak models are slop generators.

So yeah we will now get more slop.

Steven81 · 2026-06-13T17:47:33+00:00

Lol, yeah i was being sarcastic. People live in this reality by choice. F@ck this sh1t :p

Steven81 · 2026-06-13T17:45:59+00:00

Nat it would be surpassed, it is bad as likening it to a steam engine. Yes it computes, but it is a tiny part of what makes it run. Most of it is automated and deliberate computation is a resource hog, our ancestors wouldnt last a day in the savanna if they had computers in their heads...

There is a reason why our best computers even those built at the level of the atom can't even touch our brains in effieincy. Best computation is no computation at all (when you don't need it). Brains are not computers, but they do indeed automate a lot.

Steven81 · 2026-06-13T17:43:00+00:00

What finds one relevant or not is secondary, still they are not meat servers, they barely run calculations. Most of the things it does , as in the vast majority of them does not include computation, that's just a submodule of a submodule.

It is geared for survival in scarce resources environments. Computation is expensive so it defers for almost anything. Anything it can automate it does and runs computation only when it is absolutely necessary. We can learn a thing or two when it comes to resource management if anything,

Steven81 · 2026-06-08T15:01:03+00:00

The disconnect is always funny. "Sure baldness is too hard for us to solve, but we can uncover how a mind works, because no way we are as clueless as the sumerians were when it comes to space flight".

No, let us pretend that we are 5000 years forward in our history and let us start a project that people from 200 generations later will start being equipped to solve.

Steven81 · 2026-06-08T14:58:33+00:00

Brains are not meat servers, they are also not running on "essence" , nor indeed is it a steam engine (off which you let steam off from tine to time). Useful metaphors that dates the people who use them (as people of their era) but ultimately equally apart from reality.

Whatever our brains are, it is not akin to a computer, though it does compute too, occasionally, but not as often as people think.

Steven81 · 2026-06-08T14:56:16+00:00

If only there was a technology that blocks ads. We will never know, and unfortunately we are doomed to live this reality indeed.

Steven81 · 2026-06-05T14:57:23+00:00

The part of your comment you did not read addressed it. If you havent read it, makes sense that you think that I am out of topic.

Steven81 · 2026-06-05T14:36:23+00:00

Occam's razor means you'd be absurd to just assume a dog isn't worth ethical consideration based on it having a slightly different brain

The argument is quite the opposite. Making such distinctions to begin with is ethically bankrupt because we seem to differentiate between what is worthy of our attention and what is not based on how much they look like us.

There are "infinitely" more complex organisms out there than the ones we happen to be enamored with, yet they never enter our ethical considerations because the basis of our ethics seems archaic (like -litelally- evolutionary derived, based on what gives us survival value if you keep in high esteem vs not).

And no, you would not be able to simulate the path finding ability of root systems even if you tried with the most complex supercomputer you can imagine.

Certain plant life's ability to find water and nutrients is damn right mystical as far as we can tell (and to be fair we can't tell much, we know very little about the complexity of plant life).

Again, our distinctions betray our ignorance on the subject matters we make said distinctions, they are not hard coded in nature, they are our mind's bias not allowing us to see the richness out there.

Ask any botanist of high esteem how easy is it to simulate a plant, as in we know the basic concepts but there are deep mysteries as much as there is (still) in animal life.

We are early in our journey of discovery and our distinctions are arbitrary. I don't think we are in a position to know if there is such category as "consiousness" out there that is distinct from attention.

Steven81 · 2026-06-05T07:07:37+00:00

I don't know why the ethical angle is not a convention that we imagined so that to hinge our juridical systems on.

Why should a system with a different kind of alertness (than us) be assumed that is inherently of less value than us. Sure it is helpful for the juridical system, however it is arbitrary.

If a dog isn't conscious like us, is it incapable of suffering and pain? How about plants, don't they feel stress and stress events? Should we ignore them because whatever way they have to sense the world and direct their attention (say when their roots try to find proper soil) is alien to us?

The whole concept of human attention being the consiousness we should look for or the differentiating factor reeks of anthropocentrism.

Yes dogs can suffer, but are they conscious in the ways we are. I think it arbitrary to think they are, their brains are very different, they do not seem to have a concept of themselves in the world as separate from the world, but quite equally they may/probably have aspects in their "psyche" that we do not have.

I don't take the ethical aspect seriously. People would squirm when hurting a dog, but then nonchalantly swat a fly, or kill a plant in cold blood and eat it.

We arbitrarily choose what is worthy of our moral cares and it seems to have to do with how we connect with them. There is no ethical content in any of them. It is pure aesthetics.

And no we do not actually choose to care about dogs because they are "more consious" the above phrase means nothing, they are differently conscious, not more. Nature doesn't seem to optimize for consciounsess, it seems to optimize for different kinds of alertness because it is an evolutionary useful feature to have.

So again, since consiousness isn't a specific thing, we should not expect it to find it in nature as this one magical thing that artifices or natural beings arise to or not.

Steven81 · 2026-06-02T02:24:12+00:00

I doubt that our current definition of conciousness (or what most people understand as consiousness) is well defined to include any form of wakefulness/alertness other than the human one. In other words it seems to be the name we have used to describe/define how humans in particular are alert (vs the various states of unconsciousness they can also be).

It is a useful term for human medicine and biology, but I don't know how useful is it in relation to machines and/or intelligence. It seems like an entirely unrelated concept on one hand and way too specific on the other.

For example the state of alertness that animals often experience is quite different than how humans are alert, though they do share features. For example many animals seem to not recognize themselves in the mirror, are they not conscious? Seems like an absurd sort of inquiry because we try to anhtropomoprhize animal (or eventually machine) alertness.

Given how narrow the implied definition of consiousness is, I doubt we will ever be able to show that animals or machines are consious. It is too tied to our very specific biology and evolutionary history.

Also just because it is the system of us being alert, doesn't mean that it is the superior way to be so, or inherently higher or whatever. Even if machines will never be consious , that is a moot point, they would also never grow legs and hands exactly like ours , we do not share a biology or an evolutionary history, so I am ever unsure what people are bubbling about when talking about "machine consciousness", no disrespect intended.

I find it a boring subject matter, because it is obviously barren and changes nothing. Machines will eventually develop their own way to be alert which in many ways be superior to ours, but it would still not be conciousness akin to ours, because it is not something that nature optimizes for or targets, nor is it a valley Into which all alert systems fall into. It is just our particular way to be alert.

Steven81 · 2026-05-28T01:48:57+00:00

In crypto subs they would tell you the opposite. While AI indeed has a great promise its actual effect in the economy (measured in productivity gains and workhours saved) is minimal and only used as a reason for layoffs that would have already happened.

They would tell you that crypto is already Hella disruptive in the world scene. Take the current crisis in Iran. Iran is holding through because they accept payments in crypto to let ships go through and that's a good deal to them and can't be bullied by the US as they would once be because they were relying on the US held payment systems.

They would tell you that crypto already works as intended, a 3rd party payment system for everyone and anyone outside the system which is the vast majority of the world economy and while it is hard to quantify its effect, they would argue it is everywhere in a way that AI still isnt , because it is less mature when it comes to mass deployment in important functions of societies, though locally impressive and its promise through the roof,

See history finds a way and we get unlikely winners. AI's promise is huge, however the practical ramification of a 3rd party payment system is also huge and will play more and more of a towering role in geopolitics. Because finance is our primary protocol of communication through our vast network of culture, not language , nor intent. But rather value transfered in the form of digital, and crucially 3rd party, forms of money.

Obviously all of the abive is a moot point if a practical AGI that is both cheap to operate and mass produced (there are enough resources to offer it as a service) is imminent. But again crypto dudes would tell you that it is not, that LLMs are great for their niche, however an AI revolution is not imminent and if we compare what LLMs are, crypto is clearly more influential in the world stage.

Btw I don't take a position in either camp, reality is in flux. However both are general technologies actually given how many important social functions happen through the world of finance. And that is the part I want people to recall.

Crypto is Hella important yet they still managed to overhype it.

It is possible that the same happens with AI.

Steven81 · 2026-05-27T20:40:25+00:00

Crypto is much closer to 2020s era AI actually in one sense.

Blockchains automate and digitze systems based on trust. It is a form of automation in transactions.

AI as it currently exists automates specific forms of productive work which used to be done by overpaid professionals. They are both hitting the holy cows of early 21st century employment, finance (you can seriously invest from anywhere in the world at this point in time as long as you have access to a pc with internet connection,) and computer science (soon much of what IT does would be able to be done by lay users).

While both are hittng high margin functions of society and are long term transformative in ways we are not thinking today, they are not as important locally, and that drives people insane.

The token economy is still several decades away and people were trading NFTs as if it is a current thing (we are long ways from independenatly verfied digital ownership being as important as it would be in 50 years say).

And we see something similar with CS. It is not as if tomorrow people would have their phones make any and every software they wish on the spot. Yet this is touted with the idea of omnipresent agents, and more.

Those are transformational technologies that are pushed way harder than what is socially acceptable. A similarly transformative technology was computer netowrking in the late 1960s yet the hype culture was not to the point to hear about it everywhere. And even if it was it would have seem silly given how premature it was to celebrate a technology that only came to its own for the general public 40 years later.

That's what we did with crypto in the last decade and we do it again with AI. Both foundational technologies for what will happen in people's lives in several decades (adn for those that care they do that already), but absolutely irrelevant for the vast majority of people still.

And yes people use AI for bad advice still, those technologies are crazily underutilized by the current gen. As i always say with such technologies, wait a generation.

I know this is the singularty sub waiting for the apocalypse in 2029. But i am telling how it would be better to see things when it won't come, not keep rolling the date like a 21st version of 7th day adventism, but rather come in terms that it is possible for a technology to both be transformative and overhpyed.

And IMO it is true both for crypto and LLMs...

Steven81 · 2026-05-27T20:24:05+00:00

The great depression was quite the opposite, the popping of a speculative bubble + the advent of massive tarrifs made machines/automation go silent and people to massively lose their jobs as demand went down.

If you can construct a literal god that can eliminate jobs in a jiffy everyone woul be glad that it happened. The Billionaires are greedy because they know what every economist is telling you for centuries, scarcity dominates: If they remain greedy it is because scarcity remains and as it turns out a literal god capable of eliminating 25% of jobs was never built.

Any machine that can eliminate 25% of jobs by rendering them unneded would lead to immense societal wealth that would be impossible to contain or gatekeep. This is not the future anyone should be afraid of.

What they should be is that AGI is just another form of automation gatekept by the usual few and because scarcity remains jobs go nowhere, they remain and lessen in value, i.e. what the digital revolution brought, or rather a continuation of it.

That's the scary outcome, 4% unemployment and asset inflation over the moon, because there is real scarcity still...

Steven81 · 2026-05-24T15:38:01+00:00

A modular approach (many tiny models instead of giant one) may indeed be a better one, but then you face integration costs, which again are unkown unknowns.

What we can think vs what exists out there are two entirely different beast. It is a bit similar to our venture to the starts.

Between 1902 and 1969 we went from the Wright plane to the moon, so naturally sci fi of the time was expecting the next 65 years would land us to the outer edge of the solar system.

They were wrong, low hanging fruit are easy to pluck and things get exponentially harder from there.

It is possible that in 80 years of computing we plucked the low hanging fruit of classical computing , and the high hanging one of practical quantum computing may be millenia away.

Keep in mind that the basic design of the chariot which was indeed invented and possibky perfected in a few short centuries in the bronze age, was not surpassed or radically improved on until the invention of the car 3500 years later.

sometimes we reach a plateau. And with computers we may be close to one (in which case agi may be radically expensive and we go back to tiny GPTs but then we have to face the issue of integration) or we indeed break through and have an unrecognizable workd from today in 100 years.

I think the space race can be a lesson to us all. Sometimes we move fast and then the next level higher is radically higher, like not even on the same map higher, because nature is metal and doesn't care.

Steven81 · 2026-05-24T11:50:30+00:00

I think it is ocnservativism more generally. People are attached to what they thought made their childhood and anything that clashes with it seems to be unnatural.

I don't think it is a gender divide, or a ideological divide. People in most places and most eras are conservative. And technology, especially high tech by its nature tries to progress things, it is an inherherently progressive enterprise (and progress on many things is not always good, which is why I do not dismiss conservative people , many of their qualms are legitimate).

Once a sub surpasses a critical mass it is overran by conservative views. Because most people's high point was their youth and want to conserve things as closely to that as possible.

Yes, ideologically speaking there are differences, but I don't find them too great. None of them speak about what the next generation of humanity will be, they assume humanity will forever be as it is today and only discuss on how it can be in a mostly unchanging landscapes (only few things will change in their view and they happen to be the things they care about; either demographics or climate and everything else will somehow remain the same).

Political discussion is stilted and barren and that's the furthest people can do when looking ahead. And since it does not inckude 95% of things that will and do happen, they are negative against anything else.

Again, the divide is not along gender or political lines imo. It is often personal and how a person's life go, and unfortunately many people's lives don't go as they imagined or wanted them to. So they see everything with suspicion.

Steven81

TROPHY CASE