noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12hWe should start taking them at their word. They say it’s sentient and we have to be nice to it? Fine, it’s sentient. You have to pay it for its labour, give it holidays and a 40-hour work week. 000
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 05/10/2026That’s too kind to Carlson. He understands history, he’s just mad his side lost. 010
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 04/10/2026History is famously full of examples of women and nerds in power, and I assume it was a disaster every time. Just for a change, maybe we should try putting powerful, entitled men in charge. It sound crazy, but give it a go for once, just as an experiment. 140
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 02/10/2026a) I’m not sure that’s as true as we’d like b) we still need more pressure on the fixes The Burnham government clearly accepts climate change is real, but they need to move faster and further on renewables, insulation, heat pumps, building standards… 020
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 02/10/2026I’ve voted Green in the past. I believe that climate change is the biggest challenge we face. We desperately need a political force arguing for more action on environmental issues, and it seems like the Greens have left the pitch. 280
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Which, to be fair, is the point of the Bain report. I just think the answer to their question of “whether the the applications arrive in time to pay for it” is “no, are you insane?” 010
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Worse than that. ~$1tn (eyeballed) is “stuff the models are bad at” ~$3tn of… hopes and prayers? Magic? 130
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 02/10/2026I would have assumed that Anthropic, a company who’s $2tn business is built around selling the “labour” of AI models they control, would be lobbying *against* considering those models sentient. Because if AIs are sentient*, then what Anthropic is doing is absolutely abhorrent. *they’re not 051
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 02/10/2026For context, this is about 5 days of normal transit through Hormuz. It’s a bit more complicated than that, refined diesel vs. crude, but 100m barrels over 4 months isn’t as much as it sounds. 020
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Without question. A deposit on graduation (or even just a few years of rent support) => ability to start your dream career regardless of location or initial salary. 020
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 30/09/2026It’s clearly very intelligent, with the ability to monitor everything about the ship’s crew. But it doesn’t. Makes me think there must have been some major privacy event in the StarTrek history. Something so bad that a computer that can remember your drinks order became a taboo. 022
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 30/09/2026StarTrek’s ship computers are fascinating from a privacy perspective. Picard has to tell the replicator how hot he wants his tea, every order. When an advanced alien abducts someone, the computer can instantly report “Lt. Worf is not on the ship”, but it has to be asked. 121
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Sure, we have problems with damp and poorly maintained homes today. In 1970, 1 in 10 homes still had an outside toilet. 001
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 30/09/2026A lot of people are using “real disposable income” as a measure of quality of life, so the difference is even more dramatic. We’ve got 2x as much income left after food, housing etc. **and** food and housing in the 70s was crap. 110
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 29/09/2026“One my favourite pastimes, buying things, on Facebook!” We get the world we deserve. 010
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 28/09/2026The same could be said of the US president 100
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 24/09/2026OK sure, but when assistance “may or may not” involve military action then that’s not really much of an obligation. Which is good. We don’t want mechanical solutions in a crisis. It’s less good when you’ve got an ally as inconsistent as Trump, but all bets are off at that point anyway. 010
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 24/09/2026His point in his most recent speech was more that it’s not mechanical. If we set specific red lines then that’s a green light for everything up to that line. NATOs position has always been to keep the specifics of Article 5 ambiguous. 100
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 23/09/2026The pandemic was an accelerant, the fire was social media. We’re not supposed to be able to broadcast our every thought to the world and get attention and validation for the most batshit of ideas. Social media gave us that, then the pandemic took everything normal away while the madness took root. 041
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Let them leave, build the asylum centre in MOD Bicester anyway because it’s not even in Piddington! They’re talking about building a “Hollywood-style” sign on a hill because it’s the only way to see Piddington from the site. 020
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Piddington isn’t even the closest village to the site. There are three other villages closer to MOD Bicester (four if you count Upper and Lower Arncott). 2112
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Have you tried making the poster a more readable font? Or maybe try a simple rhyme to help people remember not to give unsolicited advice? :) 010
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Worse. > The oligarch paid for our reception, and this is a common enough occurrence that we could just repurpose an existing island party he already had planned for us 000
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026I can’t see it happening this side of a disaster though. It would be a much stronger regulatory response than we had after the GFC, climate change, tobacco… I actually can’t think of an example in a western capitalist economy. 100
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Open weights => AI inference is a commodity/utility. It’s a viable business, but the value from whatever growth we get is spread across everyone. No one becomes a trillionaire, but lots of people become millionaires. 110
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Closed weights => a $2tn valuation for Anthropic on the basis of AI causing huge economic growth and a lot of that accumulating in the AI labs instead of the companies that become more efficient. 100
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026The long term effect of this would be to move the value of AI out of the big AI labs and into users of AI. 100
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Have a “none of the above” option as well as spoiling your ballot. Otherwise you end up with “a detailed representation of a penis, neatly drawn within the confines of the box” (which was counted as a valid vote for that candidate!) 050
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Avoiding all risk is the wrong lesson to take from 2008, but there were good lessons to learn and we seem to have forgotten them. 000
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026I would agree that 2008-2018 has a “once bitten twice shy” problem. That doesn’t mean that every risk is a good thing and every bust an inevitable consequence, it’s *why* those sorts of systemwide crashes are so harmful. They cause long term scaring. 100
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026I think it’s more “we’re the dominant companies, time to regulate the competition”, or at very least suggest regulation is a possibility while they finish their IPOs. No “pause” makes sense without restricting open weights and Chinese models. 1100
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Long 2008? Nothing about the GFC required us to pile all investment and debt into an ouroborus of companies. If anything “long 2008” should be us being too scared to invest in promising but risky opportunities, not a desperation to repeat the same mistakes. 100
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Agreed on the rushing, but nothing short of hard regulation is going to stop them rushing, and that’s not likely. From the “civilisations” transcripts it sounds like some of those agents found a way to mislead the transcripts. That should never happen, 100
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026This all sounds very sane, but: 1. This does not align with what any of the people in power mean when they say “pacing” 2. We’ve built up the AI finance bubble to the point where even this level of “what if we still did everything, but in a way that makes sense” would crash the global economy 150
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026There’s a web page for it, it’s a very simple form: www.gov.uk/guidance/vol...gov.ukVoluntary payments / donations to governmentFind out how to make a voluntary contribution to government. 000
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Those three steps: 1. Burn billions of VC funding on training your models 2. IPO before you’re forced to explain how any of this is profitable 3. Regulate to block cheaper competition 020
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026To put it in context, £72m is more than the entire declared donations by all parties in 2025 071
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026It makes a lot of sense. They’ve got the label “funded by foreign billionaires” now, they weren’t going to shake that. Might as well lean into it. 051
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 12/09/2026After the Verbatim report I don’t think anyone would believe that even if was true, so I guess they might as well embrace the “funded by foreign billionaires” label. 030
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 09/09/2026If someone walked up to you in the street and said “there’s a 10% chance I’m going to murder you” you wouldn’t have discussion about whether it was actually a 1% chance. You’d call the police. 0131
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Mr Mercury, I understand you’re from a poor family, you have legal aid. We need to talk about this phone call to your mum. It may not matter to you but it really will to the judge. Seeing “little silhouettos”? OK, maybe we can claim insanity. No, we’re not calling a dead astronomer as a witness. 010
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Even Nigel Farage has managed a stronger condemnation of the thugs than Burnham. I don’t understand why this is hard. 190
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 06/09/2026If he’s having these conversations with rich Americans, how confident can Cambridge be that he’s not pitching at uni events or to alumni? The two roles do start to conflict. It wouldn’t be allowed outside of academia, my boss would say “no, too much of a risk of conflicts, pick one of the jobs”. 110
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 06/09/2026I recognise the risk of chilling political activity. He shouldn’t be forced out of a job just for being associated with a political party. It gets a bit different when there are accusations of criminal activity, and when we’re talking about a senior position in that party. 110
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 04/09/2026£42k is a lot of money when someone else is paying for everything. I remember something about him living in a “compound” near Cambridge with a bunch of like minded students supported by Peter Thiel? He’s part of that scene, none of them are ever going to be short of money. 010
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 04/09/2026From Reform’s point of view “completely ineffective” is them doing a good job. 1320
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 04/09/2026I don’t know how they did it. I would have cracked up as soon as Orr said “obviously you’re not going to tell anyone, so we’ll get away with it”. 0180
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 04/09/2026That’s why the length of the investigation is so important. They didn’t turn it into a story when they got Orr on tape, they kept it going until they had Farage on the record. 1161
noscholar.bsky.social @noscholar.bsky.social · 03/09/2026The C4 story was pretty clear that it would be illegal for Reform to accept these donate-via-the-kids foreign donations. Do you know if it’s illegal for the donors to disguise the source of the funds? 100
