Ponti Min 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

Because, according to the BBC, everything about Scotland is crap, and would only get worse if it wasn't for the broad shoulders of the Westminster entity holding us up. Just think -- it is wasn't for WM, Scotland could be as poor as Norway!

In other words, "far right" and "far left" mean how far to the right or left of the center of public opinion a party's supporters are.

Assume public opinion varies along one dimension. Then the higher vote share a party gets, the harder it is for their median voter to be far from the center of public opinion.

We need PR so the electorate gets what they vote for. So if 61% of the voters vote for a certain type of party, those parties collectively will get 61% of the seats.

The counterargument would be that given they are doing well in the polls they cannot be that far from the center of public opinion.

2025 Caerphilly by-election - Wikipedia

In 2021 in Caerphilly, Labour and Tories between them got 63% of the vote. Yesterday they got a measly 13%. The Labservative duopoly is visibly crumbling before us. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Ca...

Links 54: ASI dangers, and dumb "smart" beds things I found interesting

pontifex.substack.com/p/links-54-a...

Government of the rich by the rich for the rich.

Clearly that's the sort of age when people are biologically ready to have kids.

It was absurd to arrest therm in the first place, as quite clearly they had broken no law.

Statement on Superintelligence “We call for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence, not lifted before there is (1) broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably, and (2) strong public bu...

superintelligence-statement.org

More countries with frontier models makes AI doom less likely so Europe should have an AI initiative, to save the world

Europe should start a major AI initiative, creating a frontier model, doing lots of AI alignment research, and pushing for a worldwide enforceable pause on AI until it can be properly aligned.
pontifex.substack.com/p/more-count...

Newspapers and Liespapers Liars should be honest about it

Related: Newspapers and Liespapers pontifex.substack.com/p/newspapers...

Your Right to Decide whether Scotland is independent

pontifex.substack.com/p/your-right...

Let's call a spade a spade.
Starmer cares more about Israel than about British citizens. His loyalty is to Israel not Britain. He is a traitor.
IMO treason should carry the death penalty, *especially* if the person doing it is in high office, such as a head of government.

Thinking, Fast and Slow - Wikipedia

I also think that current AIs seem a lot better at doing "system 1" thinking than "system 2". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinkin...

What I would look for is behaviour that appears to be purposeful striving towards a goal.

If you can't define intelligence, how do you know LLMs don't have it?

As for "consciousness", using that word has exactly the same issue: how do you define it operationally?

The BBC is biased against the Green party.

How are you defining intelligent?

LLMs can translate between more language pairs than you can. LLMs can draw better art than 99% of humans, and faster. LLMs can solve more Euler problems than 99% of humans can. LLMs can do programming better than 99% of humans.

If AIs don't have "intelligence" now, they're pretty close to it.

Review of "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" My review of Yudkowsky & Soares' new book

My review of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies pontifex.substack.com/p/review-of-...

The Right to Walk Away It's harder to oppress someone if they can walk away

And if that right means anything it must include the right to secede from the USA.

The Right To Walk Away is a guarantee against oppression. pontifex.substack.com/p/the-right-...

this is entirely possible. Starmer needs to watch out, or he will hemorrage votes to the left (Greens), right (Reform), and center (Lib Dems).

(Yes I know I've spelt that word wrong; the official spelling is crap).

It's a possibility. If the Westminster government gets more and more unpopular and support for indy soars, they might go for it.

Someone was arrested recently for saying the disapprove of the ban on Palestine Action. When people are arrested for being against gomvt policy, a line has been crossed.

"If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" book discussion · Luma Edinburgh's Lighthouse bookshop welcome PauseAI to host a book club on recently published New York Times non-fiction bestseller: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone…

Discussion of "If Anyone Builds it, Everyone Dies" -- Edinburgh's Lighthouse bookshop, Monday 20 October 2025.
luma.com/e952soii?tk=...

A silly own-goal by the Zionists. Whoever runs their propaganda operation is incompetent.

I can't imagine any other reason to do so