gwern is a legendary blogger (although blogger feels underselling it… “publisher”?) and has earned the right to self-aggrandize about solving a problem he has a vested interest in. Maybe he’s a megalomaniac and/or unemployed and/or writing too many words but after contributing so much, he has earned it.

I was more willing to accept gwern’s eccentricities in the past but as we learn more about MIRI and its questionable funding resources, one wonders how much he’s tied up in it.

The Lighthaven retreat in particular was exceptionally shady, possibly even scam-adjacent; I was shocked that he participated in it.

I’ve been to Lighthaven many times and it has always been great. Can you explain what you’re talking about?

What does any of that have to do with the value of what’s presented in the article?

Wow, thats one hell of a reaction to someone's blog post introducing their new project.

Its almost as if someone charged you $$ for the privilege of reading it, and you now feel scammed, or something?

Perhaps you can request a refund. Would that help?

What's up with the non-stop knee-jerk bullshit ad hom on HN lately?

We're tired, chief.

The earth is falling out from under a lot of people, and they're trying to justify their position on the trash heap as the water level continues to rise around it. It's a scary time.

Technically it’s only an ad hominem when you’re using the insult as a component in a fallacious argument; the parent comment is merely stating an aesthetic opinion with more force than is typically acceptable here.

I read your BRILLIANT synopsis in the tone of Sir Humphrey (the civil servant) from "Yes Minister". Fits perfectly. Take a bow, good sir ...

I was with you until you said react. Just export to existing metrics software like Prometheus. Or do anything other than use an entire JavaScript framework for a simple UI. I swear, JS-Brain is as terminal as microservice and cloud brain.

If I keep getting married at the same pace I have, then in a few years I'll have like 50 husbands.

Assuming you did not use an LLM to craft your comment, I’d say “case in point”.

If your words don’t portray who you are, what does?

People make mistakes in the words they use, I often think “oops, I shouldn’t have said it like that”.

If said once, yes.

Actions? I generally judge people by what they do, not what they say - though of course I have to admit that saying things does fall under "doing something", if it's impactful.

The truth is that both words and actions communicate something, especially in combination. And sometimes words are the action.

That's exactly the point. In your case, you don't want to show who you are, connection or not does not matter.

Because a difference in scale can become a difference in category. A handful of buggy crashes can be reduced to operator error, but as the car becomes widely adopted and analysis matures, it becomes clear that the fundamental design of the machine and its available use cases has fundamental flaws that cause a higher rate of operator error than desired. Therefore, cars are redesigned to be safer, laws and regulations are put in place, license systems are issued, and traffic calming and road design is considered.

Hope that helps you understand.

Is the sarcasm really that opaque? Who would unironically equate buggy accidents and automobile accidents?

I’d like to introduce you to the internet.

There’s a reason /s was a big thing, one persons obvious sarcasm is (almost tautologically) another persons true statement of opinion.

Thanks. I wasn’t aware of that.

It took me a minute to realise you were joking too! :)

How much time have you spent around developers?

I got my first tech job in 1998. Some of the most sarcastic people I’ve ever met.

I think reductionist opinions about the "Free market" and price competition being the only factor are naive. Culture and trust are major components of a project, and cultural sensibilities and development culture can be a part of procurement decisions.

I worked for a company that chose Tresorit over any other option because it gave them Data Sovereignty, E2E encryption, and most important, it was not American.

There is intrinsic value in being "Not made in America" and data sovereignty is a major issue for a lot of organizations. Just as an American company would be concerned about storing their data in China, the rest of the world is/should be concerned about storing their data in the US.

We are a little misled, on purpose, with the term "sovereignty", though. For instance, if you are a French entity then sovereignty means your data stay in France. Moving things to de facto EU control is the opposite of sovereignty.

I think Chomsky would have a lot to say about this and the broad manufacturing of consent taking place across Europe.

> For instance, if you are a French entity then sovereignty means your data stay in France. Moving things to de facto EU control is the opposite of sovereignty.

It’s something that crops up fairly often and I think most of the time from people who are profoundly misguided or just cannot understand that other people might see things differently. Germany is never going to annex parts of France while the EU is a thing. It’s on purpose. The whole construct is full of feedback mechanisms that make it physically impossible.

So yes, for a French company using Hetzner is a bit more risky than OVH, but not that much, and either of those are much better than Azure or AWS.

The big countries all have projects for national infrastructure for things like defense and taxes. In these cases everything needs to be directly controlled by the state and it makes sense to use a local company. Most of the time that would be companies you’ve never heard of.

For random users in the EU, it does not matter because all big service providers will be following the same regulations.

So if someone doesn't agree with the narrative and points out the obvious manipulation taking place they are wrong, misguided, or simply stupid... I mean, you couldn't prove my point any better, could you? And quite ironic, too about others seeing things differently...

Not in general, but in this case, somewhat. It does not make sense to you because you are seeing it through the wrong prism. That it is better from a sovereignty point of view to use a German company than one from outside the EU is the whole point of the EU. It’s not an aberration or merely a byproduct. Your point of view is quite common and we see if regularly all across the internet, but it’s still missing the point.

What this means to most people is really independence from the US, whatever the wording. Could you expand on this "manufacturing of consent" part? Who's doing the manufacturing here and at the bidding of whom?

And for a lot of cases, that's ok. The world is a connected place, and it's more economically efficient for that. You work best when you trust your friends. You balance self reliance, according to your best judgment.

It's sure worrying to watch a good friend become an enemy. But you won't fix that by swearing off friends entirely.

This means exactly nothing in relation to my comment, but that and the bare downvotes are actually a good illustration of my point about manufacturing consent.

The same chomsky who claimed that Epstein is a "highly valued friend and regular source of intellectual exchange and stimulation"?

In addition: the same chomsky who wanted to send Ukraine into oblivion?