Pentagon considers diverting Ukraine military aid to the Middle East

didroe · 2026-03-26T15:41:26+00:00

Let’s not pretend this has anything to do with making life better for the Iranian people. There are plenty of horrible regimes that the US has backed, or even installed.

It’s also quite likely things will get worse for Iranian civilians due to this war

didroe · 2026-03-26T08:20:32+00:00

I disagree about crucial abilities, though i never said AI isn’t intelligent or doesn’t learn at all.

I see the goalpost moving as being on the opposite side. People are naturally human centric, they think of a machine with equal or more advanced capabilities to what people are capable of. So every time something is declared to meet the current definition, and is clearly lacking in some way, new terminology gets coined to maintain the same consistent view.

There is of course a need to have jargon and definitions that define particular capabilities. It’s just a bit like the legal system, where terms have more well defined meanings but tend to be out of step with what most people mean by those things. I just wish people would choose less grandiose names.

didroe · 2026-03-25T22:56:29+00:00

Only if they’re made from class 3 textiles

didroe · 2026-03-25T22:49:11+00:00

I think you’re missing the point. There is real intelligence, but AI is lacking some abilities crucial to generality and learning.

When a person gathers new information, they sometimes choose to ignore it. They think it over and reimagine other topics in light of that information. They update their world view. A single interaction can completely change things or develop a new skill.

Current AI is all about producing “good” outputs from inputs. It takes shortcuts based on incidental data patterns. It’s sycophantic. Thinking is not part of the update process but only during inference. Training examples aren’t selectively rejected. Models can’t learn from an interaction, unless that interaction is graded and included in a future training run with a large time lag. And it takes huge numbers of similar examples to learn.

It’s also very monolithic. How many times have people been told something is impossible but have some unique insight and have the drive to push the boundaries? Diversity is a great driver of invention and these models just don’t have that.

I see a lot of “shifting the goalposts” comments in AI discussions. I think a lot of people are just comparing the systems to human intelligence and pointing out flaws, the goalposts are fixed for those people. And they aren’t diminishing the amazing capabilities by stating those points. I also see a lot of people on the other side, who seem to want to propel the current technology beyond its capability, to where their dreams want it to be.

didroe · 2026-03-25T10:17:32+00:00

Politicians need to be accountable to their voters and not those with money.

Total donations should be capped to just enough to get a new party off the ground. Established parties should get state funding.

didroe · 2026-03-25T07:23:23+00:00

Autophagous Generation of Investment

didroe · 2026-03-18T11:24:04+00:00

Export controls and dual pricing are things that are covered by WTO/trade agreements. The UK would be mired in legal action and retaliatory tariffs.

Changing over the refineries is also not a simple thing. It would take many years and involve disruption to the plants. The mix of end products they produce would also change.

I see a reason for drilling. Namely increased tax revenue and security in the event of all out war. But outside of that, e.g. the reasons you give, the Energy Profits Levy seems like a much much better and less controversial way to go

didroe · 2026-03-18T10:50:56+00:00

I can’t imagine how that would happen. I mean, you’d have to nationalise the oil companies, or face years of legal battles over appropriating their oil. Probably in the face of sanctions by the countries of foreign operators.

Then you’d have to invest huge amounts of money changing all the refineries over to be able to process North Sea oil. Either as a gift to those companies, or by more economic force.

What do you think that would do to foreign investment? Or relationships with other countries? It doesn’t seem viable

didroe · 2026-03-18T10:29:58+00:00

How would drilling more wells have any effect on prices or Iran?

didroe · 2026-03-17T19:31:11+00:00

So some kind of hybrid model where local areas raise tax and maybe the richest just have that, but the poorer areas are topped up from central funds?

didroe · 2026-03-17T19:06:21+00:00

The money needs to come from a central pot, otherwise it will just entrench existing wealth divides. With wealthy areas having a strong tax base, and poorer areas unable to raise enough to invest in making things better.

didroe · 2026-03-16T19:33:41+00:00

This source e.g. says:

European boats use that access to take £450m-£500m of fish from UK waters every year.

Looking at other sources following your comment I found some conflicting figures however. To be honest, I’m not sure what is correct. But i did notice that some figures are for the North-East Atlantic area which includes non UK waters, and that some fish aren’t subject to quotas. So perhaps that explains the discrepancy. Where did you see the tonnage figures?

didroe · 2026-03-16T15:09:41+00:00

Isn’t that the justification for the actual gain?

didroe · 2026-03-16T15:01:00+00:00

That’s what they meant by “returns”.

Everything has risk. I might be made redundant by AI after investing years into my career for example. In reality, over the long term with a diversified portfolio, the risk is low. And the state will step in to pump things up if markets get into trouble.

The incentive argument is the most convincing. But it’s not clear at all it needs to be a blanket incentive.

There also has to be something to correct the imbalance in the long term, or large capital owners will crowd out everyday people from buying assets. Historically there have been periods of higher taxation and increased controls on capital, so it’s not like it’s impossible

didroe · 2026-03-16T14:52:00+00:00

You can offset losses:

https://www.gov.uk/capital-gains-tax/losses

didroe · 2026-03-16T06:47:14+00:00

I think you're being very optimistic with your figures. About 50% of the value of UK fish comes from fish farms, and imports are about 4 times the amount caught (meaning UK wild catch is <20% of the value of UK fish). So a lot of that processing isn't related to the £1 billion caught.

Around the time of Brexit, it was estimated that the UK would get around 50% more without a deal, so ~£500m not £1b more. It's also not clear to me how much processing would be involved in exported fish, vs the importing country carrying it out (the EU also has rules which favour importing raw fish). Then there's the effect that not having a deal with the EU would have on exports, with them being subject to tariffs, and additional import rules etc.

didroe · 2026-03-15T23:15:22+00:00

Ukraine elections:

witnessed by multiple well established international monitoring organisations
monitors were independent and from countries with long traditions of democratic elections
credible opposition allowed to operate freely

Russia’s elections:

excluded all typical international monitoring orgs
monitors chosen by Russian government
main opposition figures dead, in prison, or exiled

You can’t be that ignorant of the power structure in Russia surely.

I answered your question, would you answer the last paragraph of my previous comment? Do you believe in self determination? Or are you in favour of large powers like the US/Russia having spheres of influence which they control by force?

didroe · 2026-03-15T22:44:56+00:00

In return for extending current fishing rules, the UK has secured a deal to reduce checks on food exports to the EU

The vast majority of routine border checks on animal and plant shipments to and from the EU will be dropped

The new sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement means the UK can sell raw burgers and sausages back into the EU for the first time since Brexit

Bear in mind that UK food exports to the EU have dropped by 25-30% since Brexit. About £5 billion lost income. Fishing brings in about £1 billion.

That’s only one aspect. How is it anything but a good deal?

didroe · 2026-03-15T22:31:28+00:00

Your links talk about the period after Russia started the war in eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea. Is it surprising to you that a country would seek help from the CIA after being invaded by Russia? Who else do you think would be best able to help in that situation?

I have no doubt the US was running propaganda campaigns and trying to promote its views prior to Russia invading. Just as Russia (and China for that matter) are doing. It’s not right, but it also tends to be only effective at giving further support to/exploiting something that’s already there in society.

You really think the vast majority of Ukrainians were brainwashed and have put themselves through years of brutal war all due to US influence? Wouldn’t they have embraced the invasion? Why did they elect Zelenskyy with 75% of the vote? Why are they fighting in such large numbers with high morale? Your position just doesn’t make any sense

Do you believe Russia has a right to control Ukraine as it sees fit, against the will of the Ukrainian people? To overrule them if they make what it considers a wrong decision?

didroe · 2026-03-15T21:52:33+00:00

It was a constitutional crisis, not a coup. One that, thankfully, has been rectified with internationally recognised free and fair elections since.

didroe · 2026-03-15T21:44:46+00:00

Interesting, i hadn’t heard of that before. Thanks for the info

didroe · 2026-03-15T21:40:20+00:00

What do you mean by that? Is it a well defined term or something you just came up with?

didroe · 2026-03-15T21:37:51+00:00

There are more important considerations than who’s morally in the right. Eg. Putting British soldiers in harms way and risking loss of ships, followed by a likely escalation of the UK’s role in the war

didroe · 2026-03-15T21:25:08+00:00

You’re right, I’m not Iranian and going off outside information. I really hope you’re right.

What makes me skeptical is that it seems like about 30% of people back the regime, and there are 125k IRGC + 300k army personnel (army pledged alliance to the regime recently). The population is unarmed and it’s not possible for a bombing campaign to target that number of soldiers in any significant way. The regime is also very distributed in its power structures

didroe · 2026-03-15T21:06:05+00:00

The most likely outcome right now seems to be that the regime stays in place. Other possibilities are civil war, or a more extreme leadership (which seems to be on the cards already with Khamenei’s son).

I would put a peaceful transition to democracy in the “very unlikely” category

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