Regretfully, I can't. I'm not "in the field", I don't run in NLP circles, and my interest in it waned after I had alleviated some personal problems I was dealing with.
Yesss I feel like we're only scratching the surface of how powerful fungi are, and we'll keep uncovering new, amazing properties that will help us survive.
Maybe it's not pessimism but realism? We're already living in extremely exciting future times, surrounded from all sides by things that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth couldn't even conceive of 10 years ago. Our brains aren't made to handle so much progress so fast, plus there's plenty of outdated thinking as well as outdated infrastructure out there. There's still a lot of modernization that needs to happen in many niche areas, and maybe that's why the predictions in this thread seem pessimistic. To use a SpaceX metaphor, if human progress were a rocket, we're no longer working on the propulsion, we're currently working on the landing pad and system to bring the rocket back to Earth. Less exciting maybe, but extremely important and difficult nonetheless.
John Carmack mentioned that he's shocked by how little interest Big Capital has in nuclear fission (he's more into fission that fusion). He talks a lot about it in a recent Lex Fridman podcast, a good listen if you're into this. It's weird that this isn't the main focus of the whole energy industry.
There are actually a couple dozen fission startups. Fission is definitely an easier technical problem, but more difficult in other ways. Nobody minds if you fuse atoms, but you can't fission them without doing lots of up-front design and spending years getting through regulators.
Some regulators are friendlier to new technology than others. Canada does pretty well, and has at least three molten salt reactor startups. Terrestrial Energy in particular is pretty far along and has high praise for their regulators.
In the US, the NRC is much more difficult, and it's practically impossible to develop anything here besides a light-water reactor.
Thanks! Just watched, I think he's really underestimating how many companies are already trying to be the SpaceX of fission, and how difficult the regulators make it.
When he says "you build it, power a building with it, and the government will come around," that's a good way to land in prison. A while back I was watching a presentation at a conference for reactor startups, which warned that the government doesn't play around and will prosecute anyone who fissions atoms without approval.
And to some extent that's justified. The downside of those rocks that heat themselves when you put them together is that if you're not really careful, they can heat up way more than you wanted. Powering a building isn't the hard part.
That said, the NRC is way too obstructionist. We could follow the lead of Canada and be a lot friendlier to new technology, without compromising on safety.
Regarding his fusion comments, of the 35 fusion startups there are a handful attempting advanced fuels that could generate electricity directly, instead of just producing heat. Helion for example will be attempting net electricity production in 2024, without a heat cycle.
Presumably a lot of scary men who glow in the dark start to really care about your free time and personal connections when you do things with nuclear power.
How is this person teaching anybody if they can't even properly write, format, and cut out all the bull**t from their own article? This reads like a first-grader's story at best. I have zero credibility that this even happened. And the fucking gifs throughout the article... give me a break.
What else is new? Kudos for all the research, but I don't think any reasonable person needs any proof that all crypto is ripe with manipulators and scammers.
Great article! But I think you're missing the main point that you're not a software-development machine - you are a walking, talking, living human. And what you've described is the same decision making process described years ago in books by such renowned authors like Agatha Christie. Admittedly, she wrote fiction - but read at least one novel about Hercules Poirot, and you'll notice a pattern of thinking that is exactly like what you've described. The brilliant Belgian detective with a carefully maintained moustache would gather all evidence, observe everything he could regarding the case he was solving, and eventually find the right answer bubbling up from his subconscious. Same thing with Sherlock Holmes, same with Colombo if you're into all that stuff (I definitely am). Just because you're a software developer doesn't mean you're suddenly not a human anymore. The fact that your subconscious mind gives you the answers is simply how it works, and there's no way around it. For reference, see the Learning How To Learn course on Coursera - https://www.coursera.org/learn... - luckily they haven't made this one paid-access only, so you can enroll and see the first few videos to learn how your brain... learns, and comes up with conclusions and solutions to the problems you're facing. The most important thing I remember from the course is that our brains work in two states - focused and diffused. In Focused mode you kind of direct your pattern of thought from node to node, you're in control of your thought process but have access to a small database. In diffused (or relaxed) mode, your brain does the work for you, accessing a vast database in your brain that you can't recall using short-term memory. Thus the feeling that solutions, or conclusions come to you, but aren't devised by you.
But if you didn't do the work of accumulating information and gaining experience everyday, your brain wouldn't give you those solutions/conclusions at all. So in reality it is you solving those problems all the time.
