Th4tGuyII

Do we need to remind people that LLMs don’t actually have a brain, and really, really shouldn’t be in charge of anything with real life implications?

They aren’t actually doing a cost-benefit analysis on the use of Nuclear weapons. They’re not weighing up the cost of winning vs. the casualties. They’re literally not made for that.

They are trained to know words, and how those words link in with other words. They’re essentially like kids doing escalation of imaginary weapons, and to them nuclear bombs are just a weapon particularly associated with being strong and deadly.

You mean to tell me that all these years of the UK Gov refusing to increasing the NHS’s budget to match inflation - in effect cutting their budget - has resulted in worse care outcomes, as it incentivises shorting on staff and cutting corners to meet targets?

Writing rules and procedures can’t get you out of a problem caused by said rules and procedures not being followed due to external pressures.

The UK Gov loves to fixate on dealing with symptoms rather than the actual problems behind them, then goes all Surprised Pikachu when their “fixes” don’t work. It’s been the same routine for decades now.

That’s gotta be a joke right?

The US Government is quite literally sending bloodthirsty hounds against their own people, and dragging innocent tourists off to detention centres for no reason, yet the UK is rated worse due to the couple of terror attacks we’ve had over the last year??

I think I know where I’d rather take my chances as a tourist. Yikes.

So why did ICE detain her, and keep her locked up for so long? A possible answer began to emerge over the weeks she was incarcerated. As Karen got to know the guards at the Northwest ICE Processing Center where she was held, she kept hearing the same thing from them: that ICE officers are paid a bonus every time they detain someone. “Individual ICE agents get money per head that they detain – the guards told me that,” Karen says.

It’s no secret that the Trump administration has been pouring money into ICE. Its annual budget – $6bn a decade ago – is now $85bn; ICE is now the highest -funded law enforcement agency in the US. Since last August, new recruits can expect to receive a signing-on bonus of up to $50,000. Karen’s experience has left her convinced that ICE agents are being given even more incentives – to arrest and detain anyone they possibly can, even blameless tourists who have all the paperwork they need to be in the US.

Knew they had sign-up bonuses, but had no idea that ICE agents were also given a bonus for locking people up - that’s an absolutely perverse incentive for a job that should be as objective as possible.

No wonder innocent people are getting dragged off to detention centres (or worse), it literally pays for them to shoot now and ask questions later.

Also, the US government has $80 billion to throw at bloodthirsty hounds, but had to send DOGE to scrounge through various agencies to find a few billion? Something doesn’t quite add up there, almost like the incentive wasn’t finding money.

Yeah. I think this is the likely answer.

Amongst the sheer number of initiatives and councils being pulled out of, concerningly many of them relate to the enforcement of international law, and to human rights in general.

If the US was planning on violating international law (again) anytime soon, this would certainly be a good indicator for it.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Donny J make good on his threats. Question is how will that play out when both parties have nukes and might be willing to use them.

Looks like the US is intent on starting this year with a bang.

The list is HUGE and spans across so many agencies and so many disciplines it’s absurd.

I mean FFS does Donny J actually mean to tell us that the “Science and Technology Center in Ukraine” runs contrary to US interests?

If that’s actually true - that doesn’t spell good things for the US’s future intentions for Ukraine.

Also a few of these are rather telling of the current trajectory of the US’s policies:

• Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals, and Sustainable Development;

• Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services;

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

• International Renewable Energy Agency;

• International Union for Conservation of Nature;

• UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries;

For starters this is a metric fuck tonne of environmental initiatives to pull out of, and shows the Republican-led US is going to be making a generational push towards screwing over the environment.

… And then some other notable initiatives:

• Freedom Online Coalition;

• Global Forum on Migration and Development;

• Global Counterterrorism Forum;

• International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property;

• International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance;

• International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law;

• UN International Law Commission;

• UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals;

• UN International Trade Centre;

• UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children in Armed Conflict; Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict; and Secretary-General on Violence Against Children;

• UN Democracy Fund;

• UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women;

It’s rather concerning how many of the councils the US is pulling out from relate to international law, upholding democracy, and to human rights in general.

An agreement with Russia isn’t worth the paper its written in. The Kremlin lies as easily as it breathes.

Exactly. If anyone thinks Russia will stop at Ukraine, they’re a fool

I wouldn’t say it’s just more important, I’d say it’s a moral imperative to support Ukraine’s fight for it’s sovereign land over keeping buddy-buddy with a government running rampant with corruption and Russian puppetry

For her part, the chancellor told BBC News that she thought “sustainable aviation and economic growth go hand in hand"

As said in the article, the technology to reasonably decarbonise planes doesn’t really exist yet - so the only path to “sustainable aviation” is to reduce it to the point it can be properly offset by other decarbonisation efforts.

That makes these two concepts almost entirely mutually exclusive without proper planning, and just slapping multiple airport expansions down then saying “It’s fine, we’ll plant a few trees at some point” doesn’t fucking cut it.

It’s easy to say don’t fight back when you’re not the one getting beaten up and mugged

It’s not over-analysis of subtle body movenents, it was a straight up Nazi salute

Israel gets all the munitions it wants to enact a genocide, but Ukraine has to fight for every bullet to fight for its own sovereignty against a modern day dictator. The US government’s priorities really are something.

Would the US like it if another country tried to push it to the side and negotiate on its behalf on literally any issue, not even war-related?

Do you think the US would accept the outcome of such negotiations willingly?

I suspect it wouldn’t, so expecting another country to do so is pure hypocrisy.

You’d think this would be a fairly cut and dry issue - the countries helping Ukraine wouldn’t like it either if another country started negotiating terms on their behalf (especially not with a monster like Putin).

Ukraine and its people should be the ones to decide their own fate.

I swear people who think otherwise must’ve read David vs. Goliath and sided with the Goliath.

Mirror molecules that by themselves could easily pose a risk to anyone exposed by them.

My point in even mentioning Thalidomide was that we already know what mirroring even a simple compound can do to living things, nevermind complex proteins and entire organisms.

GMOs can be dangerous as is without proper safeguards, but at least in most instances it’s only the living organism itself that’s dangerous. With mirroring, any part of that organism could be dangerous to normal lifeforms, so even sterilised mirror waste could be dangerous

I know they’re not directly related, but my point, as I said to @skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de, is that we already know even simple mirroring molecules can do to living things, nevermind complex proteins and entire organisms.

lf there’s no proper safeguards, it could do unimaginable damage (which is also why I used Thalidomide as an example, as it inspired literally tonnes of safeguards post-scandel).

Like GMOs can be dangerous as is, but at least in most instances it’s only the living organism itself that’s dangerous. With mirroring, any part of that organism could be dangerous to normal lifeforms, so even sterilised mirror waste could be dangerous

Man, you ain’t gotta be rude.

I meant the article I linked to the Thalidomide scandal. I was surprised that chirality wasn’t mentioned even once in the wiki article about it causing birth defects, considering it’s chirality was a key factor in that scandal.

I know it wouldn’t be in the OP article because they’re only minorly related instances, but my point was tjat we already know what mirroring even a simple compound can do to living things, nevermind complex proteins and entire organisms.

And IMO, using arguably the single most widely known instance of mirror chemicals gone wrong to make that point is perfectly valid.

Yes, but like any tool, if there’s no safeguards, it will could do unimaginable damage (which is also why I used Thalidomide as an example, as it inspired literally tonnes of safeguards post-scandel). Like GMOs can be dangerous as is, but at least in most instances it’s only the living organism itself that’s dangerous. With mirroring, any part of that organism could be dangerous to normal lifeforms, so even sterilised mirror waste could be dangerous

Fair. I had thought that article with the scandel would mention it, but apparently doesn’t. Only the main article does.

It has two possible configurations:

• The Right handed configuration had the desired effects and isn’t harmful.

• The Left handed mirror caused birth defects.

Oh and the best part is, if you try to make a pure mixture of the right handed version, it can convert to the left handed one in the body!

Exactly this!

For the most part Pathogens and even GMOs are only present an environmental threat in their living form, and once properly sterilised, can be disposed of safely.

These mirror organisms would be dangerous in living and dead form, as they’d be chuck full of mirror proteins and biological molescules, any of which could trigger an environmental disaster if released by accident, so they’d have to be completely destroyed to be safe.

Without proper regulations to ensure proper safeguards are in place, continued research into these organisms is plain dangerous