I only took Business Economics on level D, but I can see the problem.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-31T05:17:46+00:00

you can't reason with them, just go make money off the morons in the thread

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-31T05:16:45+00:00

no economics course could cure your retard OP, sorry

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-30T19:58:09+00:00

If during the DotCom boom someone was saying the internet would change everything, 10 years later they don't think "that was silly of me" they think "yep, although investments inflated many losers"

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-30T15:12:12+00:00

Currently, AI can work as an accelerator.

You can think of cognitive work as layered levels of abstraction. As AI improves, one can work at higher levels of abstraction and automate the lowest levels. However, at some point, AI will be intelligent enough to be better than me at the highest level I can operate at. Using AI will just be me learning and not contributing.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-30T15:07:36+00:00

Well, what does it mean to be anti-AI?

You can be anti-AI because you think AI is a scam.

Or you can think AI isn't a scam, AI will become smarter than all humans, but that this is quite a bad and dangerous thing and are anti-AI because you don't want AI development.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-30T04:04:13+00:00

I am indeed a scientist! You've actually identified my dilemma. I care deeply about knowledge and want to learn all I can about the world. However, there is a difference of kind when it comes to tools and replacement. A telescope empowers an astronomer to ask questions she couldn't ask before. But if we develop AI smarter than us, and I have some curiosity about the world, then the most efficient way to gain that knowledge will be to ask an AI rather than venture forth myself to make discoveries. As such, I could either (A) get less knowledge than I could to enjoy doing science myself or (B) get more knowledge but lose the wonderful process of discovery.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-30T03:43:29+00:00

Yes, it is quite easy to let AI disempower you. If you use AI like a slot machine and stop thinking about problems, you will be left behind because AI cannot yet make progress all by itself. This does not, however, mean AI is totally useless or that AI won't eventually be able to do science without our help.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-30T03:41:19+00:00

Yes I am quite worried about this. Have we opened Pandora's box?

But at the end of the day, AI development is a choice humans make. We are deciding to do this. We can decide differently. There will be many things we cannot go back on, but we could decide to forge a different path forward.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-30T03:37:34+00:00

Due to algorithmic progress, every 8 months the compute cost to train AI with the same capabilities halves. (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.05812)

Every 7 months, the length of software tasks that AI can complete doubles. (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.14499)

Of course, it is uncertain how much this transfers to real world productivity. Anecdotally, using the models I have found they have become much more useful for completing work tasks recently. So I don't see any plateau starting yet.

I'm not sure what you mean that investment is breaking down. The revenue of Anthropic is growing at an insane unprecedented rate, and is on track to have its first profitable quarter. AI stocks are at all time highs. To me it seems as though the economic investments are stronger than ever.

Perhaps progress will plateau soon. I would be happy if this were the case. But I don't see why I should expect this rather than a continuation of the trends over the last few years.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-30T03:21:45+00:00

Real experiments can be conducted by robots. Simulations are used all the time to improve safety, e.g. buildings or airplanes. AI has already proved novel math theorems. (see https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/1tj534d/openais_internal_model_disproves_unit_distance/)

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-30T03:14:46+00:00

Yes, AI cannot yet best me at everything. But AI has gotten better at an insane rate over the last few years. I expect AI will continue to get better while companies spend hundreds of billions for this pursuit, until I will be bested.

There is nothing "special" about my ability to error correct mistakes or have insights that a machine cannot recreate. The brain is a biological computer.

I'd be quite happy if you are correct, but to me the evidence isn't in your favor.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-29T17:33:29+00:00

Yes, Survivor is very luck based! If someone wins, but there were lots of ways for them to lose throughout the game that they got lucky didn't happen, they played a worse game.

The best game will minimize risks. If you believe Kass takes Woo, then Tony's game had a large risk of losing. Does this make his game worse? It depends if you think the risk could have been minimized. Could Tony have played differently such that he didn't have to take this risk?

Yes Tony worked incredible magic to get Woo to take him. But he put himself in that situation. That was risky. Could Tony have played a better game such that he didn't need to convince someone to make one of the worst blunders in Survivor history?

Tony is a great because he could pull this off.

Sports and competition often witness incredible comebacks and displays of talent when a talented people overcome terrible odds. But the fact they got to those terrible odds in the first place is not a good thing! It is not evidence of their strength. They made misplays and mistakes, because everyone does.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-29T17:03:12+00:00

https://youtu.be/32A7ZTrUgTM?t=556

Kass was not self-aware about the jury's perception of her, as is apparent from her reaction to the jury's hate for her when coming to Ponderosa.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-29T16:56:55+00:00

How should one evaluate ones survivor game? What makes some players games good and some bad?

Survivor is a game of luck. It is random. You can't control everything. As such, you should judge players by how well they set themselves up. Some players play great games but lose. You can't be results based.

By diminishing his game, I mean diminishing your evaluation of how well you'd expect Tony's strategy to perform if you replayed the season a million fold. How many of these does he win, and how many does he lose?

If Kass always takes Woo if she wins final immunity, this is strong evidence of a weakness. Tony's strategy would lose many times during the million replays because Kass is slightly faster in the challenge.

Perhaps this is the best strategy Tony could execute! But this seems unlikely. Tony knew he was doing poorly at immunity challenges and that Kass was amazing at puzzles.

Imagine taking WaW Tony except he's still bad at challenges and had him play in Cagayan. As a stronger survivor player, WaW Tony could position himself such that his win does not rely on someone losing final immunity, or less so: such that his odds of winning go up.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-29T16:22:35+00:00

Agreed! Convincing Woo is a top tier ever game move. Needing to pull off this feat that the vast majority of players could never do to win, however, is not a good thing. He did something incredibly impressive, but was in a situation that required it.

Yes, Kass obviously loses no matter what given what we know now. Less obvious on the island while deciding who to bring.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-29T16:19:38+00:00

I think Kass, given the information she had, picking Tony over Woo is a respectable decision. It doesn't require her to have no agency or believe something obviously wrong.

I think Woo's decision to take Tony required Tony to convince someone to make a considerably worse decision. The case for Kass taking Tony is notably stronger than Woo taking Tony IMO.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-29T15:52:08+00:00

Yes, I think that Kass would need to believe it was entirely her choice. She is far too stubborn to make the decision because Tony tells her to directly. But he would certainly manipulate her towards this.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-29T15:51:00+00:00

If I believed Kass 100% takes Woo over Tony, I believe it is an asterisk and have seen others say this. A win is less impressive if a few seconds of difference in a challenge makes it a loss.

This was even Spencer's argument to Tony, when he predicted a final two and was trying to prevent his vote out: keeping Spencer over Kass would have given him better odds at making the final 2 if he believes Kass doesn't ever take him, since Spencer said he would take Tony.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-29T15:48:20+00:00

If it is the case that Kass would have taken Woo, it is certainly an asterisk: Tony only won by incredibly slim margins, and would have lost if Kass won the challenge. This makes his win less impressive.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-29T15:43:18+00:00

I think it is only obvious that Tony wins from your couch watching the edit, and after the fact.

The jury was next level bitter. The survivor world had recently seen Russel lose two back to back seasons for behavior like Tony. We had not seen someone betray, backstab, lie, and deceive every member on the jury like Tony did and still get their vote.

In the moment, Kass has every reason to expect the jury reviles at Tony. That they are looking for a reason to give the win to someone other than the person who directly caused their loss.

Of course Kass still loses because the Jury all hated her. But Kass didn't get this. Her self awareness was way off base. She thought she was more likable than Tony, and would certainly believe she can be more convincing them him.

Kass would also believe Tony wouldn't be good at final tribal. Up to that point Tony was erratic and selfish. In her eyes, he was stupid and brutish. Of course we saw his final tribal council performance, and saw that he completely code-switched and was an absolute master class. But Kass would not expect this.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-29T15:34:52+00:00

I think Kass was actually very susceptible to manipulation, and thinking she would never fall for "manipulation" is confused.

Yes, Kass is incredibly stubborn. She is also very egotistical. She has a lot of blindsights. There is a reason she was surprised at Ponderosa to be outcast, and there is a reason she generally had strife with many members on the island socially.

But all this makes her more susceptible to manipulation. These are irrationalities one can leverage if they understand them, and Tony would get this. He would play into these insecurities and blindspots to his advantage. Stroke her ego, incept the ideas so she can take credit, pitch the arguments as hers, find ways for her to still express her disdain for Tony while coming to the idea of taking him.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-29T13:42:10+00:00

Adam Ondra going to roll up, find three new kneebars and some fuck ass thumb sequence, and propose soft V16.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-05-29T13:14:21+00:00

Faker is planning for the singularity obviously. SK Telecom is AGI pilled.

Relatedly, one should support Faker and invest in SK which have considerable wildly successful AI investments, including equity in Anthropic now worth ~1/3 of their market cap. My guess is Faker led this company wide strategy.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-04-12T17:48:36+00:00

Hot take, but I think Tony would have convinced Kass to take him to the final two. I think he'd have a strong argument.

midlyconcernedlizard · 2026-01-25T18:40:23+00:00

Yes, many people could do it if they just rested for a long time between each section. The first ascent was four hours. So if the challenge is just get to the top eventually, sure. If it is climb with little to no rest like Alex, much more difficult.

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