This is the truth 100%. The ‘what you want to hear’ thing is the reason we have so many products with capital protection or smoothing so people can pretend you get stock market growth without the risk. It’s disgraceful. Spoiler - you can get growth or low risk but never both.
Frequently the reason why you've had a 'bad experience' with a Financial Adviser is because they told you what you wanted to hear, which time proved wrong. Those who tell you what you need to hear repel you, seek a 'no person' to co-navigate your families financial future.
@FlashForFreedom I don’t think this comes directly from the degree. I suspect there is a significant selection bias for people who choose these degrees with people who then make other life choices that don’t prioritise earnings. It’s not the degree but people and their choices
@BitcoinSapiens This is dangerous and irresponsible. Most things are scarce and people compete for that resource. Property, holidays, food, raw materials etc. The idea that reducing labour cost will remove this problem is laughable. Saved money will be consumed by inflation in the other stuff
This is, perversely, good news for Britain, Australia, Japan, Europe, and other countries being cut off that would once have seen themselves as close allies of the United States.
It shows us what the future may hold if AI is the strategically and economically decisive technology of the 21st century and is controlled by the US and China. It is good news because *it may be happening early enough to give us time to act.*
I think this will be rescinded pretty soon, but it’s a sign of things to come. In a future where frontier models cannot be used outside the US, our industries and economies will fall behind and American businesses may not be able to operate overseas. We won’t be able to defend ourselves militarily with defence systems built on obsolete software. Europe 2031 is a good scenario of what a future like this could mean: https://t.co/AMc5LrFJeS
Some of the things we need to do are ‘no regrets’ measures we should do anyway. But some are genuinely costly and risky.
We need cheap electricity – powered by gas, coal (this is costly, coal is very bad), deregulated nuclear fission – whatever can provide *cheap, reliable, 24/7* power. This almost certainly excludes wind power, which is enormously expensive and unreliable. We need projects to be able to connect to the grid in days rather than years by paying for fast-track connections.
We need to make it incredibly easy to build data centres, with the property taxes retained locally and hypothecated for local tax cuts so there is some direct benefit for locals. This doesn’t need to be nationwide.
We need to create new regulatory regimes for innovative businesses that give them the right to hire and fire staff with ease. The difficulty and cost of firing staff is one of the main reasons Europe has fallen behind so badly. We need to create a parallel employment regime that companies and workers can opt in to: https://t.co/YaNOXK1Po2
Even though I think it will probably fail, I think we should probably try to create a good, non-American frontier AI lab. I am quite pessimistic about this – even extremely well-resourced, innovative software companies are struggling to do this. But the stakes are so high that not trying seems foolish.
One thing that might work in our favour is the number of brilliant AI engineers who are not US citizens, who under the current export controls do not have access to Mythos/Fable even if they live and work in the US. What happens to Demis Hassabis, Ilya Sutskever, Andrej Karpathy, and the many other Europeans, Canadians, etc who are working on AI models in Britain and America who are affected by this?
I do not think we should force our own companies to use model, because this would exacerbate their economic weakness – this lab should have to compete on an even playing field. I am deeply sceptical that this can work, but we cannot rule it out. If we do it, it has to be able to pay US salaries, operate without political constraints. https://t.co/Um05rUF4Vq
It is cope to tell yourself that Trump is an aberration or that these export controls are a one-off. To repeat, I think these specific controls will be lifted quickly and it will be easy to move on and forget it happened. But this is a look into a potential future. Every one of us that is not a US citizen is at risk. The standard political divides do not apply here; the question is whether you grasp the enormity of AI as a technology. We have to act!
Recovering from Thatcherism. > how Thatcherism left Britain the poorest country in Northern Europe, how a return to competition could fix it, and why "just crush the NIMBYs" is a really bad plan for boosting British growth. By me. Just now. https://t.co/EyUxaNzmnl
Tom Bombadil is the most mysterious character in The Lord of the Rings.
He's the oldest being in Middle-earth and completely immune to the Ring's power — but why?
Bombadil is the key to the underlying ethics of the entire story, and to resisting evil yourself...
Tom Bombadil is an enigmatic, merry hermit of the countryside, known as "oldest and fatherless" by the Elves. He is truly ancient, and claims he was "here before the river and the trees." He's so confounding that Peter Jackson left him out of the films entirely.
This is understandable, since he's unimportant to the development of the plot. Tolkien, however, saw fit to include him anyway, because Tom reveals a lot about the underlying ethics of Middle-earth, and how to shield yourself from evil.
The hobbits meet Bombadil early on in their quest, before they reach Bree and the Prancing Pony Inn. He rescues Merry and Pippin from Old Man Willow, and invites the hobbits to stay at his house in the Old Forest.
There, the hobbits realize something strange about him: the Ring has no power over Bombadil whatsoever.
When he wears it, he remains visible. He treats it as a plaything, making it disappear with a magic trick. Indeed, at the Council of Elrond, Gandalf rejects the idea of giving the Ring to Tom, for he would likely misplace it or forget about it entirely.
So just who is he, exactly?
When Frodo asks this very question to Tom's wife Goldberry, she simply responds "He is." It's a cryptic answer that echoes God's famous answer to Moses in the Book of Exodus: "I am who I am."
Thus, many theorize that Bombadil is God, some kind of angelic being, or even the spirit of the Music of the Ainur (due to the fact that he is constantly singing). But Tolkien's letters reveal something considerably more interesting…
In April 1954, Tolkien wrote:
"The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship… but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control.But if you have, as it were, taken a 'vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself… then the questions of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless…"
So, Bombadil is a representation of what it means to take pure delight in the world around you — to experience people and things simply as they are, without any thought for what they could be or how you could use them. And this is why the Ring has no power over him.
To Bombadil, the One Ring is simply a ring, and the possibilities of what can be achieved through its power are of no importance. He is able to resist its evil precisely because he is entirely content with the world around him.
At the end of the story, having accomplished what he set out to do in Middle-earth, Gandalf pays Tom a visit before returning to the Undying Lands:
"I am going to have a long talk with Bombadil: such a talk as I have not had in all my time."
If Bombadil is the epitome of simply enjoying life and being, Gandalf is the epitome of doing. He guides the hobbits, fights the Balrog, and runs up and down Middle-earth to help destroy the One Ring.
But now that he's finally liberated from doing, he immediately heads to Bombadil's. He does so with a sense of relief, as if he's at last able to access a purer and higher mode of being — a sort of innocence that cannot be fully experienced by those consumed by doing.
Of course, by this Tolkien doesn't disparage the value of action. The entirety of LOTR displays the importance of rising up against evil, even in the face of all odds. But with the inclusion of Bombadil, he does remind readers that fighting isn't all there is.
Bombadil reminds us that while it's important to strive and *do*, it is just as important to occasionally step back and *be*. Indeed, your ability to do so plays a crucial role in helping you resist the allure of evil…
Read the full piece here:
https://t.co/aqK2daehIL
The unsung hero of The Lord of the Rings...
@JoCooper0sk3@ArturNadol7566@BBC That’s all well and good but China is not on the news much. Tell that to the news editors and the public who are obviously much more interested in the US.
@GeorgeSmileyOBE Have to sell a lot of players for exactly that reason. Given we need to buy a few it will be a problem to sell so many and get decent bids. Everyone will know we need to sell
@mr_james_c Companies put in a low amount because staff prefer higher salaries vs higher pensions. There is a direct trade off between the two and the market for staff is clear - salaries attract people. Putting this on companies is unfair because they have been forced into it by government
Watching the BBC FA cup coverage the pundits talk about Man City as if it were an England match and City are England. Let’s have a bit of balance @BBCSport
@Bjarne147@AscendedYield If you set up a company you will probably fail and lose money. Not setting one up isn’t failure it’s a way of managing your own risk. Entrepreneurs should be respected because they are willing to risk everything