Anyone experimented with any open source LLMs? I know they are out there, but curious if any are even close to on-par with the big boys.
Funny you mention that. We'll be having Bob Murphy on our podcast soon, and I'll bring this up!
Gonna experiment with posting this here because the interface for inserting screenshots is better than on X, and I think this might be a more receptive audience anyway.
Now that Krugman has invoked the name of F.A. Hayek to defend Kamala Harris' policies, I must effortpost.
Unfortunately, it seems to me that this is once again a case of a progressive quote-mining Hayek to make a point he almost certainly wouldn't have agreed with.
First, let's look at the paragraph that follows. Krugman says Harris is not a full-on communist (true). She just wants to expand welfare, not fundamentally change the role of govt. Harris did support single-payer health care but now doesn't. But even if she did, says Krugman, it's not that radical or dangerous ("un-American")!
Hayek would disagree.
Hayek on "social insurance" from The Constitution of Liberty, more detailed than the The Road to Serfdom quote Krugman links: Progressives rarely mention the part in red, where he says that while the aim of govt providing a safety net is philosophically defensible, the actual methods are the problem, and as we'll see, a likely inescapable one in Hayek's telling.
He continues on to say that opposition to govt welfare is entirely defensible, just not purely on human freedom grounds. To understand this, you have to grok that Hayek defined freedom as the absence of coercion and placed a high value on prohibiting government monopolies.
He does not accept the "taxation is theft" maxim, which is why many libertarians dislike him. What he opposes is government action that prevents people from trying new experiments and competing with the state or state-connected actors to provide "essential" services.
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What Hayek is saying about "social insurance" is that in theoretical terms a state-supported welfare program could achieve its ends without threatening freedom.
The more sound reason to oppose it, he argues, is that the state apparatus that administers welfare in the modern world inevitably becomes a coercive and monopolistic one. There are strings attached to that money, always: Strings that serve the plans of the bureaucrats, not the individuals receiving the money.
It's fantasy ("illusion") to imagine a government machine powerful enough to administer welfare at nation-state scale while being kept in check against liberty violations. "Democratic control" ain't gonna cut it.
History shows the administrative state certainly never checks itself. This is why the recent Chevron reversal was so crucial. It allows courts, rather than "democracy," to exert more direct constitutional restraint on these agencies, likely to be more effective than Congress "doing something" (LOL).
THE GREATEST DANGER TO LIBERTY TODAY, writes Hayek, comes from the expert class running the bureaucracy for the "public good."
It is INEVITABLE, he says, that such an apparatus will become self-willed, uncontrollable and hegemonic.
Agree or disagree with Hayek's analysis, but does this sound like a guy who endorses anything close to resembling our modern welfare state? Or does it sound like a nuanced thinker conceding that the state could theoretically subsidize welfare in some non liberty-threatening way that he never quite specifies?
Hayek would almost certainly recognize massive problems with the way our current top-down welfare system distorts the market, coercively suppresses competition, and immiserates people. And to invoke him anywhere proximal to single-payer health care is a joke.
I get the criticism from libertarians that Hayek could've been more clear to avoid mischaracterization, or should've been more "hardcore" about opposing all taxation. I'm not arguing that he's that kind of libertarian. And that's OK.
But it's hard for me to see the way Krugman is quoting him here as anything other than a disingenuous way to normalize Harris' proposed expansion of social engineering and an intrusive welfare state.
What a great profile on the origins, growth, and awesome potential of Nostr for Reason by nostr:npub1trr5r2nrpsk6xkjk5a7p6pfcryyt6yzsflwjmz6r7uj7lfkjxxtq78hdpu.
Let’s go 🔥🔥🔥
https://reason.com/2024/08/13/can-nostr-make-twitters-dreams-come-true/
I’m not claiming to have any special knowledge of what’s going on. But… it is a very fucking weird way for the president to drop out.
Lyn is completely right that we’ve rapidly entered a new era where cryptographic verification is the only guard against catastrophic fakery.
nostr:note10ff5kurf3a2h5d8umneuq5dcgznlhcfreyvk34c946z25mlzk38qxccydr
Nostr has several value propositions. One is that it’s a viable check on corporate social media. If X leadership is ever tempted to abandon its current values and turn the network censorious, they’ll have to consider the existence of an uncensorable alternative as a competitor.
My reflections on the awful plea deal that Julian Assange was forced to take in exchange for his freedom and the threat it presents to freedom of the press.
And the good news: Assange definitively proved that information does, indeed, want to be free.
nostr:npub1zywedmndxjrcm9d0hljsk8uqaqf9d4mxya4c5gzdudrps5jkyshqe2s58k
Cerra un poco los ojos y dime si te ves
#negr0art
Badass
Latest episode of my weekly podcast JUST ASKING QUESTIONS examines the latest economic data out of Argentina six months into Javier Milei’s presidency.
In short, monthly inflation rate down, consecutive monthly budget surpluses, bond market recovering, major bill just passed Senate, approval ratings still positive despite extremely rough economy.
Looks like the wild Libertarian presidente might know a thing or two about governing after all… https://youtu.be/h1rD3CYyQO8
If you're ever looking to purple pill a friend, this discussion I hosted with nostr:npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s and nostr:npub1az9xj85cmxv8e9j9y80lvqp97crsqdu2fpu3srwthd99qfu9qsgstam8y8 ain't a bad place to start. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi2JbHWd_BM
Why has FDR’s dark side been hidden? Just asking questions.
Censoring opponents through regulatory pressure. Mass surveillance of private messages. Indefinite detainment of Americans. Abuse of emergency powers. Does this style of governance remind you of anything?
Check out my recent interview with historian David Beito about his revealing new book, “The New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights.” https://youtu.be/sydnBoR84n4?si=iUgAqWgy-Oarpc8E
The founders of Samourai Wallet have been indicted for "conspiracy to commit money laundering." We know why it's "conspiracy to commit" as opposed to just "money laundering."
It's because what they did was provide a privacy tool that some people could use for money laundering.
It is part of the government's ongoing war on privacy, specifically financial privacy. Those in power yearn for every transaction to be tracked, taxed and, if need be, frozen. The action against the Canadian truckers was the template, and CBDCs (programmable, instantly manipulated money) are the tool of control that they ultimately want.
First, they must dismantle the privacy-centric alternatives so there's no viable exit ramp once CBDCs and the like are implemented. That's what we've been witnessing with the attacks on coin tumblers like Tornado Cash and today's attack on Samourai.
They will point to bad people using these tools, just as they pointed out that Hamas raised some funds in various cryptocurrencies, without noting that a vast amount of money laundering happens with government-issued currency.
It's the same kind of bad-faith argument the FBI made in the '90s when they tried to kill end-to-end encryption altogether. "Sometimes terrorists might use it." Ok, and? They also use pressure cookers. The internet as we know it today would not exist if they had succeeded.
They are unlikely to succeed this time either, but unfortunately there will be casualties in the war on privacy, and those casualties will be those who openly thwart their ambitions of total surveillance.
My 2022 video including an interview with a Samourai Wallet founder here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIYiXbLRy1c
Momentum is building to "child-proof" the internet by requiring social media age verification. It appears likely that a combination of legislative action and immense political pressure on tech companies over the next 2-3 years will lead to what amounts to a Digital ID for virtually any website where users interact with each other. Online anonymity will become vanishingly rare.
This is one way Nostr becomes a final refuge for those seeking surveillance-free, unmediated communication.
How bitcoin transforms energy use
0:00 - Brooklyn’s bitcoin-heated bath house
2:28 - Bitcoin mining’s unquenchable thirst for cheap energy
4:10 - Why decentralization matters
5:14 - How bitcoin mining transformed a small Georgia farming town
6:35 - How bitcoin miners maximize energy efficiency
7:45 - Could bitcoin bootstrap solar power?
9:15 - How bitcoin monetizes “stranded energy”
9:38 - Answering bitcoin’s environmentalist critics
10:49 - How bitcoin stopped a Texas blackout
12:42 - Underground miners fixed Venzuela’s power lines
14:20 - The impossibility of stopping bitcoin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8gFppa4VLg&t=8s&pp=ygUccmVhc29uIHR2IGJpdGNvaW4gYmF0aCBob3VzZQ%3D%3D
What's the best, safest, most reliable p2p btc exchange at the moment?
Back from a long weekend in the semi-autonomous free zone of Prospera
on the Honduran island of Roatán for the “Alternative Visions in Governance” conference hosted by Reason Foundation.
Lots of stimulating discussion about “markets in governance” and the power of exit.
A phrase that stuck with me as I contemplate the power shifts unfolding in the early 21st century: “Softening of sovereignty.”
Will be sharing a recorded convo soon.
Pic: Me in Prospera last year drinking coffee purchased with bitcoin earned on Nostr in front of Amity Age Bitcoin Education Center, which has helped ~60 of the island’s vendors set up payments.
Julian Assange published material exposing uncomfortable truths about America's wars, and the US charged him with violating the Espionage Act for it. nostr:npub17q0ckkzg4d9ydjrar6dcummlvy6yg5cunwhnrvf7fjxj3r8l5rrs0ayrvm
and I talked about his ongoing imprisonment with his wife Stella assange
on this week's show. https://youtu.be/5j_KvkltUWI?si=NDAYLJi06Zvkca8A