shem

@justinskycak i agree with that but i think the common sentiment now is that, if llms are going to be smarter and more knowledgeable than me anyway, what is the point of learning all this? there is a kind of nihilism that is pervasive among many students

@shemspemslem It is so important to acquire deep knowledge. Everybody knows that those who cannot outperform LLMs, get replaced by LLMs. Acquiring deep knowledge is the only way that you can outrun the bear.

Being able to do things that LLMs can't yet. Most people don't understand that the LLM training corpus is a small subset of all knowledge. There is so much knowledge you can scrape from the world, that doesn't exist anywhere online or in any book -- at least, not at the highest level of depth/detail that's useful when leveraging it. The way you scrape it is by getting your hands dirty solving messy problems in the real world.

@Branche_SC always felt like hypermaculinized men who are on test/steroids should rightfully be classified as part of a "hypergender" community

This is unfortunately incredibly funny They’re just male to male drag kings

@daneelchia i suppose it has to do with the fact that, more unique to china, the minorities (tibet, mongol, manchu) are mostly based in the periphery regions and not integrated within the core han areas, and so emphasising the multi-ethnic was to avoid balkanisation

@daneelchia i find it interesting that despite the revolution being sparked by anti-manchu sentiments against the qing, it would have been tempting to go down the han nationalist route to nation building, and yet they still went down the multi-ethnic approach

China’s minority policy actually looks closer to Singapore’s model than people in the West like to admit. In both systems: 1) minority groups have explicit protections baked into state policy, 2) quotas exist (education, housing, representation) that disproportionately benefit minorities, 3) and the state actively monitors citizens for extremism or chauvinism, not just separatism. What’s often missed is who Singapore identified early on as its biggest long-term risk: Chinese chauvinism from the majority population. That insight is underrated. Singapore understood that in a multiethnic society where one group is numerically and economically dominant, the main destabilising force isn’t minorities asserting identity, it’s actually the majority turning dominance into entitlement. So the system was designed to restrain the majority as much as protect minorities. Ironically, this is something the Chinese diaspora struggles with more than mainlanders. In Western societies, many diaspora Chinese grow up inside a racial hierarchy inherited from colonial structures: whites at the top, Asians competing beneath them, and other minorities pushed further down. That hierarchy was explicitly engineered by the British in places like colonial Malaya as a control mechanism. LKY didn’t just inherit that system but actually studied it, inverted it, and neutralised it. China’s approach today reflects a similar logic: the goal isn’t liberal multiculturalism, but containment of majority chauvinism, prevention of ethnic escalation, and preservation of state coherence. Whether one agrees with the methods is a separate debate, but the governing philosophy is closer to Singapore’s than to Western race discourse. The uncomfortable takeaway is this: states that actually govern multiethnic societies seriously tend to fear the majority’s excesses more than minority identity… because historically, that’s what breaks countries.

@alz_zyd_ very curious to know if there is a similar equivalence in other fields; what is the "bitter lesson" in economics?

One of the most important ideas in modern AI is this little essay, "The Bitter Lesson", which you can read in around 10 minutes

@hoeflatoor Other dense cities also have the same issue. The real reason is a lot simpler.....

My schizo theory is that the reason why Singaporeans get bashed for being ugly is the constant LEDs and noise pollution creates high cortisol which induces Cushings symptoms, low thyroid and general misandry in the populace Imagine an MOE that mandated quality red light exposure for children… aspirin in the water supply… poetry for reading… it could be so beautiful

@alz_zyd_ Not just the department, the entire field/research community is becoming increasingly irrelevant

To be honest, statistics departments deserve a little bit of market pressure. They teach one of the most important fields in the modern world, and in a fair % of cases they teach it not that well. If you want to be a data scientist, econometrics/etc teaches that better

@justinskycak for memory yes, but for grokking a difficult problem/concept deeply I feel like 30 minutes is almost never sufficient

Training for 30 high-intensity minutes each day will yield 2x the training volume as compared to a weekly 3.5-hour training session where each consecutive 30-minute segment is only 75% as productive as the previous.

@ZhangTaisu why would they do this when there is a relatively large supply of immigrants that would be able to cover the deficit?

(Singapore too, probably.)

One prediction I’m sure of: within 15 years, most non-liberal societies with declining birthrates that have fallen below 1.5 will shift from carrots (i.e., benefits) to sticks (penalties) to induce more births. China will likely be “in the lead” on this. newyorker.com/magazine/2025/…

@alz_zyd_ mmorpgs like wow, runescape etc are all dying out afaik, general shift to mobile gaming, grand strategy games seems to be doing well? all of this is highly region dependent too

What are the big structural changes in gaming in the past 1-2 decades? A partial list: - Rise to absolute dominance of the MOBA - Birth of the battle royale - Soulslikes - Renaissance for roguelikes and platformers? - RTS died - RPGs, FPS doing decently, relatively small changes

@bryancsk how do you explain singlish tho

Mental illnesses and NIMBYism are transmitted via the English language

@alz_zyd_ shape rotators in absolute disbelief, wordcels will reign supreme in this ai world

do you still remember those papers going around on twitter, niecly proving mathematically that the structure of LLMs implies they'll never be good at math some of you believed those papers

@alz_zyd_ using extrinsic motivation like test/grading will not lead to long term knowledge retention, so is the purpose of education just the studying or the signalling from the grading in itself or do we want the students to actually learn the material?

The problem with grading is that incentives induce studying, but studying is only good up to a point. So you want some incentives so students study a positive amount; but not so much incentives that students study a stupid and pointless amount

@alz_zyd_ (too much) class ranking in a competitive environment leads to a zero-sum mindset, which is not an ideal environment for children to grow up in

"Classranks are bad because some classes are harder than others and classrank doesn't show that" IMO, this is a silly argument. If we do classranks within each class, we have one problem: some classes are harder than others

@alz_zyd_ tis not just the students that are thinking less, methinks

It's probably fine for students to use ChatGPT in schools. The students are thinking less, but the total amount of thinking in schools is increasing, since the LLMs are thinking more than the students ever did

@bryancsk completely ignoring LKY's wishes feels like a very LKY thing to do

"Trampling on the wishes" of Lee Kuan Yew to turn his home into a museum shall be our republican triumph. For lo, we have excelled you, and we have outlived you, we will overrule you, and we shall bury you. What you wish demolished, we shall exhibit on our own terms.

@AngelicaOung @xeveriano1 you might be referring to the more popular panang curry - which is actually thai (I was extremely confused about this myself)

@xeveriano1 Wow cool! I love penang curry anyhow so I know if I go I won't get hungry!

THE THREE FINAL WILLS AND TESTAMENTS OF SUN YAT-SEN The first, to his family, was a simple note: "Because I've given my all to the state, I have neglected my family's affairs. All my books, clothing, house etc I leave to my wife Soong Ching-ling as a memento. My sons and daughters are grown. I hope they take good care of themselves and inherit my aspirations. This is my instruction." 余因盡瘁國事，不治家產，所遺之書籍、衣服、住宅等，一切均付吾妻宋慶齡，以為紀念。余之兒女已長成，能自立，望各自愛，以繼余志。此囑！ The second, to the nation, is the famous one! "For 40 years I've toiled for the people's revolution with the aim of securing a free and fair China. In the course of my experience, I realized we must rouse the masses and unite with the nationsof the world which treat us as equals and struggle together. The revolution has not yet succeeded. All my comrades must continue the struggle in accordance with [his books] and carry it through to completion. The National Congress must be convened and the Unequal Treaties must abolished as soon as possible. This I ask of you!" 余致力國民革命，凡四十年，其目的在求中國之自由平等。積四十年之經驗，深知欲達到此目的，必須喚起民眾及聯合世界上以平等待我之民族，共同奮鬥。 現在革命尚未成功，凡我同志，務須依照余所著《建國方略》、《建國大綱》、《三民主義》及《第一次全國代表大會宣言》，繼續努力，以求貫徹。最近主張開國民會議及廢除不平等條約，尤須於最短期間，促其實現。是所至囑！ He also left left a will to the Soviets. I won't translate it as he sent it typed in English: TO THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS MY DEAR COMRADES, AS I LIE HERE, WITH A MALADY THAT IS BEYOND MEN’S SKILL, MY THOUGHTS TURN TO YOU AND TO THE FUTURE OF MY PARTY AND MY COUNTRY. YOU ARE THE HEAD OF A UNION OF FREE REPUBLICS WHICH IS THE REAL HERITAGE THAT THE IMMORTAL LENIN HAS LEFT TO THE WORLD OF THE OPPRESSED PEOPLES. PEOPLES STILL VICTIMS OF IMPERIALISM ARE DESTINED TO SECURE THEIR FREEDOM AND DELIVERANCE FROM AN INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM WHOSE FOUNDATIONS LIE IN ANCIENT SLAVERS AND WARS AND INJUSTICES. I AM LEAVING BEHIND ME A PARTY WHICH I HAD HOPES WOULD BE ASSOCIATED WITH YOU IN THE HISTORIC TASK OF COMPLETELY LIBERATING CHINA AND OTHER EXPLOITED COUNTRIES FROM THIS IMPERIALIST SYSTEM. PART DECREES THAT I MUST LEAVE THE TASK UNFINISHED AND PASS IT ON TO THOSE WHO, BY REMAINING TRUE TO THE PRINCIPLES AND TRADITIONS OF THE PARTY, WILL CONTRIBUTE AS REAL FOLLOWERS. I HAVE THEREFORE ENJOINED THE MOUNTAINS TO CARRY ON THE TASK OF THE NATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT IN ORDER THAT CHINA MAY BE FREED FROM THE SEMI-COLONIAL STATUS WHICH IMPERIALISM HAS IMPOSED UPON HER. TO THIS END I HAVE STARTED THE PARTY TO KEEP IN TOUCH WITH YOU; AND I LOOK WITH CONFIDENCE TO THE CONTINUANCE OF THE SUPPORT WHICH YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS HERETOFORE EXTENDED TO MY PARTY. ALLOW ME TO EXPRESS MY FERVENT HOPE THAT THE DAY MAY SOON DAWN WHEN THE U.S.S.R. WILL GREET, AS A FRIEND AND ALLY, A STRONG AND INDEPENDENT CHINA AND THAT THE TWO ALLIES MAY TOGETHER ADVANCE TO VICTORY IN THE GREAT STRUGGLE FOR THE LIBERATION OF THE OPPRESSED PEOPLES OF THE WORLD. WITH FRATERNAL GREETINGS, (signed) Sun Yat-sen TBH until I visited his mausoleum in Nanjing I wasn't sure exactly what Sun Yat-sen...did? Despite being so upheld (as the father of the RoC in Taiwan and the pathbreaker of the revolution on the PRC side) he was the saintly and ghostly man on the 100NT bill who thought a Free China was a good idea but just flailed and died until the real Men of Destiny arrived on the scene. His contribution was a lot more concrete after I saw all those letters he wrote and all the different parties he worked with. You can see a bit of it in his wills. Sun Yat-sen's genius was no matter who he was talking to he somehow tailored the Chinese Nationalist cause to align with theirs, and makes supporting China not just the righteous move, but the smart one. And there was a plain-spoken urgency to his writing that somehow manages to be completely authentic yet leave plenty of wiggle room. Sun Yat-Sen was truly the Capybara of revolutionaries, working with such strange animal friends as warlords, Soviets, opportunistic Japanese backers, idealistic western and diaspora backers, man on the street, intellectuals... TBH tho...I can also see why he failed to ACTUALLY complete the revolution despite going at it hammers and tongs for 4 decades. He's the visionary, not the king.

@robkhenderson possibly related to why women have higher rates of autoimmune diseases compared to men

3 interesting findings: 1. Females’ immune systems respond more effectively than males’ to trauma, sepsis, and shock. One reason for this stronger immune response is that the X chromosome carries more immune-related genes than the Y chromosome—and females have 2 X chromosomes.