l332mn

Mind sharing your setup? I also have dual 3090s, but getting nowhere close to 300k context limits with 4 bit quantized models at that size (using vllm).

I don't work with Java projects, but I just give it access to the basic binaries it needs, though I reserve some commands for myself.

I use bubblewrap to sandbox the agent to my projects folder, where the ai gets free read/write reign. Non-synthetic env cars are symlinked into my projects folder from outside that folder.

The most credible theory in my eyes as to why they needed to invade Iraq, was that Saddam intended to boycott the US dollar, and rather sell Iraq's oil in Euros.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/feb/16/iraq.theeur...

There's a de facto global tacit agreement to sell oil in US dollars - on pain of unilateral sanctions by the US or military intervention by the US military. All countries who deviate from this agreement are in fact deemed enemies of the US. This includes, Iran, Venezuela, Russia and China, and (formely) Iraq and Libya. When they don't, that means that the US can't simply print dollars as they please and force other countries (who purchases that oil) to purchase US debt as well. Pricing oil in currencies other than the worlds reserve currency (the US dollar) affects the dollar value greatly. The US printed about 10 trillion dollars in two years. The rest of the oil-dependent world pays the price.

To state that the speed of light is the same only because the relative time is variable for respective observers is unconvincing

Not sure what you mean by relative time?

I'm sure your experience is valid, but you haven't established that most of what is produced in China is very bad. That's an exaggeration. The very fact that your company manufacture in China means at the very least that the quality of the goods produced there is sufficiently high for your purposes. That you also see bad quality while bottom-scraping the market is not surprising. This very obvious deduction generalises as well, due to the enormous number of western companies that manufacture in China. Their standards are certainly being met, because otherwise they could not outsource their manufacturing to China.

Chinese construction standards are de-facto low

Compare major cities in China with major cities in the west. Compare road infrastructure (esp. highway infrastructure) and train infrastructure in densely populated areas. Their highway network is an impressive feat. China is surpassing the west, and has already surpassed the west in infrastructure standards in many areas, e.g. by pioneering high-speed railways.

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/china-fastest-maglev-....

The US is currently making an attempt to improve the dire infrastructure situation, but we'll see how that turns out considering the intrinsic inefficiencies of state / federal infrastructure planning in the US. IMO it's almost surely to be hijacked by capital and the money will thus to a large extent be funnelled away to corrupt and undeserving profiteers.

https://news.wttw.com/2021/04/26/lightfoot-launches-1st-phas...

https://la.curbed.com/2016/11/1/13493756/los-angeles-driving...

but almost a 0% chance that we will see GDP/capita

GDP is not an accurate measure of general economic development in the modern world. The high GDP of the US does not correlate with its failing infrastructure, its inefficient medical and educational system, high amount of poverty, drug addiction and crime etc. The financialisation and de-industrialisation of the US economy decoupled the material standards of the people from the profits of the rich, and thus GDP is largely a fictitious number. So much of GDP is tied up in meaningless activity, like the production of overpriced weaponry, increasing bureaucratization and the prevalence of so-called "bullshit jobs", and in a corrupt and immoral finance / property sector which also poses a direct threat to global economic stability (cf. the financial crisis of 2008). Let's compare living standards, not GDP. China is rapidly surpassing the US in this area. While they still have rural areas which are underdeveloped, they have made major strides this decade and recently eradicated extreme poverty. Their next step is to eradicate poverty altogether.

Is it also political propaganda to show a patch of the Japanese flag?

In combination with Taiwan, of course it is. Why don't you think it is? The history here is that Japan had criminally occupied Taiwan for half a century, and once WW2 was over, the US has supported Taiwans independence from China ever since. Due to Japan's large scale genocide campaign in China, and the fact that they barely even apologised half a century after the war (with full US support), the Japan / Taiwan issue is naturally highly political and controversial in China. There's so much past wrongdoings, so pretending to be on a moral pedestal here is ridiculously ignorant. Even these days the US is threatening war with China over Taiwan, as they have been historically all along.

Xi-era Chinese nationalism is so fragile and easily bruised

Easily bruised only in the eyes of people completely ignorant of history, or who holds false or extremely biased historical views.

at the same time the quality of most things is very bad

What an ignorant thing to say. China generally produces high quality stuff, for their own population as well as for the entire world.

In Saudia Arabia the people are basically on universal basic income. In Norway on the other hand, the oil profits are all invested into the pension fund, which is very sparingly used for any other purpose.

They apparently don't like foreigners pushing political propaganda into the games they play.

Tbh, I think the fact that the Pentagon are basically brainwashing kids through games like Call of Duty deserves more attention. Some modern AAA games are highly political and filled to the brim with western imperialistic propaganda.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/22/call-of-d...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/mar/18/video-gam...

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/10/call-m10.html

As a mathematician, I can't recommend "Categories for the Working Mathematician" enough, written by the (co)creator of category theory himself.

Why would I reverse statements that are made on the basis of facts and research, of leaks and serious news reporting? Wikileaks is a thing for example, look it up. Not sure why you choose to refuse doing research into the topic and ignore evidence-based reporting to the contrary of your opinion that is presented to you, which you've been insulated against by a world of US & UK corporate media. You got to admit that you choose to live in that world, which is probably comfortable to you.

That's an odd, but unfortunately not uncommon, way of forming convictions. What are you unconvinced about? You openly admit that instead of uncomfortable information triggering your curiosity, it strengthens your already made up convictions to the contrary.

There's plenty of research, and leaks have uncovered much of the extent of US war crimes. The proportion of civilian casualties in Afghanistan (and Iraq) are immense, bordering 80%. This is because of the extremely low bar for claiming someone are enemy combatants.

See for example just the past few days: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/30/an-afghan-family-ki...

A "suspected" car bomb (not a car bomb at all), triggered the US to kill 10 innocent civilians. They claimed they targeted ISIS, and that no civilians were known to have died. This is the rule rather than an exception, which leaks and whistleblowers have extensively shown.

It's tough to admit, but these are the bare facts.

China will probably become much better than Norway, New Zealand and Switzerland once they increase their GDP. They have made major strides already despite their relatively low GDP per capita.

The US is the only country committing genocide. They have killed over a hundred innocent civilians in Afghanistan just the past few weeks. Over the past decodes they've killed around a million innocent civilians in the name of the hyper-aggressive and hypocritical "war on terror". Indirectly, they're responsible for several millions criminal murders during the same timespan, and they've not once been put to trial. They're not only failing their citizens, they're a genocidal, terrorist state.

But China is better than the US in all of those things. They don't wage war, they have better health care (no massive drug monopoly charging obscene prices for cheap insulin), higher life expectancy, way fewer people in jail per capita, less of a drug problem (no opoid epidemic), less obesity, not nearly as much violence, practically no school shootings (as opposed to weekly shootings), etc.. this iist is LONG.

Who's the main currency manipulator? The US, and its many, many trillions of dollars in debt which other countries are forced to purchase in order to participate in the global market. As long as the dollar remains the world reserve currency, i.e. as long as the US monetary hegemony lasts, the US will remain the leading currency manipulator. They've shamefully printed about 10 trillion dollars the past couple of years.

Care to give some examples of when this has happened?

This is how American propaganda works, not only to support the Afghanistan war, but to support US imperialist foreign policy in general. It's extremely manipulative, but also effective at controlling the narrative, in a 1984-esque fashion. It has lead to the result that the "official narrative" as portrayed by mainstream media and (complicit) politicians stands in stark contrast with the general public perception on the matter. It's basically taboo to be critical of the widespread use of propaganda to support imperialist policy, and you're generally deemed a conspiratorial lunatic if you point at CIA's role in all this in a manner which is critical both of them and the state which support them.

Where are all the journalists scouring wikileaks for real news? For real content, investigating the dark underbelly of foreign policy and war, etc.? Why are we only served with manufactured consent (i.e. bullshit) from BBC, CNN, etc.? When it comes to war, they eagerly repeat the manufactured lies about our "enemies", be it Saddam's WMD's, Assad's chemical missile attacks, Gaddafi's genocide - all exposed through wikileaks to be lies manufactured by "intelligence" agencies, in conflict with facts and evidence at hand at the time - which then serves to justify intervention on "humanitarian" grounds, but which is merely pretext for imperialist aggression. It's taboo, most of all for journalists, to take an interest in this. They are barred from mainstream media outlets, shunned even. Some are even killed (cf. the investigators of the Panama Papers). You will receive no financial support if you do, and you will be judged a foreign state actor if you're freelancing for non-western media outlets (e.g. RT).

Afghanistan and the USSR were on good terms, and had signed a treaty which included military assistance. The USSR was called upon to assist Afghanistan to contain uprisings. However, only after the Soviet-friendly leader of Afghanistan was assassinated by his own party members, did they intervene.

Both systems can and do commit huge amounts of resources to pointless, destructive forever-wars.

Only in capitalist systems is this a process of enrichment of the ruling class. The transfer of wealth in the US to the richest % on the basis of war has been immense. They're not pointless geopolitically either, since it serves to stifle and subjugate foreign governments into US alignment to support western predatory and exploitative economic policies (enforcing predatory loans and commanding oil trade). Hence aggressive imperialism combines several aspects of maintaining economic and military hegemony.

The USSR did not have a bourgeoisie nor a "local equivalent" thereof.

How? The planned economic system of USSR means that wartime production is a net economic loss serving no financial purpose. In contrast with the capitalist system, where war serves as a basis for the transfer of capital to the war profiteers, i.e. the national bourgeoisie. The comparison is invalid.

America's invasion. BRI wasn't a thing back then. Also, the USSR was invited by the Afghanistan government to contain a rebellion, it wasn't an aggressive (imperialist) invasion.

Over a 100 years ago this was part of Lenins analysis of capitalism, and the closely connected aspect of imperialism, both military and economic. This is not new, it has been a central part of a Marxist (in particular Marxism Leninism) understanding of the world in its economic expression long before it became obvious to Eisenhower.

The value of that money is the continued global class oppression by the international financial bourgeoisie, and the US-lead western hegemony.

The Afghanistan stalemate served several purposes as I see it.

1) To funnel money to the military industrial complex.

2) To contain China's Belt and Road initiative.

3) To maintain an active military presence in oil producing regions in order to dominate and control trade and to ensure supply (same for Iraq and Libya).

That's not really the issue. The three body problem does have an analytical solution in the form of a power series, but the problem is that it converges so slowly to be of any practical use.

Of course it is racist. I'm not sure if it was the Winnie the pooh, I assumed it was due to its prevalence and how the article described it as a cartoon depicting stereotyped features (yellow skin).

First of all, that statistic is not about household emissions, but emissions in total (production only perhaps). On the other hand, it doesn't include all types of household emissions either, because it doesn't account for the entire life cycle of emissions tied to products that has been produced in other countries, and which US citizens consume to a much higher degree than the global average. Household consumption is the main driver of emissions, and high-consuming societies bears much of the blame for the emissions generated by production which has been outsourced to other countries.

The paradox of the situation is that population levels is mostly correlated with consumption levels. Which means that lowering population by natural means implies much higher emissions in total. Population levels are tied to economic conditions, and it's a false hope to try to control it through policy alone, which can affect it somewhat in the short term but not at all in the long term.

Population control is a misguided concept, and has a grim history, ranging from mass sterilisation in India to the "lebensraum" idea of the Nazis. It's not a sensible path, and is mostly tied to extreme ideologies and Malthusian pseudo-science.

Pointing to Uganda, whose citizens represents probably about 1% of emissions per capita compared to the west is is crazy to me. How can one even excuse ones own high consumption levels while blaming Ugandans for reproducing, when one represents the same amount emissions as that of a small village in some places?

Emissions from household consumption is so much more than simply burning fossil fuel for energy, which amounts to only about 20% in total.