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FDC

@oldaristocles.bsky.social

730 followers 200 following 740 posts

Hemlock Connoisseur PhD Candidate, University of Ottawa Lover of Plato, onions, and Shelby Proud member of the Green Party of Ontario He/him

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FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · Nov 19

1) Understanding Plato as a critic of Socrates.
2) The normative limitations of teleological concepts (especially post-Dewey).

kristopher g phillips, Ph.D. @kristophergphillips.com · Nov 18

Bluesky academics, lets get to know each other! Quote this & tell me: 1) a project you are working on & 2) an odd idea/theory you aren’t working on but keep thinking about

1. What can we learn from early modern metaphilosophy & education?
2. Descartes is neither libertarian nor compatibilist

John Carpenter’s ‘Halloran’ @profhalloran.bsky.social · Nov 18

Bluesky academics, lets get to know each other! Quote this & tell me: 1) a project you are working on & 2) an odd idea/theory you aren’t working on but keep thinking about

1. Can you model seasonal dynamics in child welfare populations?
2. State capacity.

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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 1d

Every single AI data center is a toxic investment, with most of its value tied up in GPUs that will be multiple generations behind by the time these things turn on - and then die in 3-5 years.

All to build for AI demand that doesn't exist.
edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo...

Actually, wait - how long do GPUs last, exactly? Four years for training? Three years? The A100 GPU started shipping in May 2020, and the H100 (and the Hopper GPU generation) entered full production in September 2022, meaning that we’re hurtling at speed toward the time in which we’re going to start seeing a remarkable amount of chips start wearing down, which should be a concern for companies like Microsoft, who bought 150,000 Hopper GPUs in 2023 and 485,000 of them in 2024.
Alright, let me just be blunt: the entire economy of debt around GPUs is insane.
Assuming these things don’t die within five years (their warranties generally end in three), their value absolutely will, as NVIDIA has committed to releasing a new AI chip every single year, likely with significant increases to power and power efficiency. At the end of the five year period, the Special Purpose Vehicle will be the proud owner of five-year-old chips that nobody is going to want to rent at the price that Elon Musk has been paying for the last five years. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the rental prices for H100 GPUs that went from $8-an-hour in 2023 to $2-an-hour in 2024, or the Silicon Data Indexes (aggregated realtime indexes of hourly prices) that show H100 rentals at around $2.14-an-hour and A100 rentals at a dollar-an-hour, with Vast.AI offering them at as little as $0.67 an hour.
This is, by the way, a problem that faces literally every data center being built in the world, and I feel insane talking about it. It feels like nobody is talking about how impossible and ridiculous all of this is - it’s one thing that OpenAI has promised one trillion dollars to people - it’s another that large swaths of that will be spent on hardware that will, by the end of these agreements, be half-obsolete and generating less revenue than ever.
Think about it - let’s assume we live in a fantasy land where OpenAI is somehow able to pay Oracle $300 billion over 5 years. Said money is paying for access to Blackwell…

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FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 5h

So, I think that the point of the comedy thing and sportswashing, and whatever is not to distract from the bad things. I think that the point is to provide enough other good that people stop caring. And having a lot of money really helps that.

FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 9h

I assume this person knows nothing about Johnny Cash and only thinks that country music is uncool.

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rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 14h

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When Klein scolds that "we have to live here with each other" he is making a statement about who it is he is getting ready to live with and who he is getting ready to live without, and most gallingly he is ignoring the fact that when it comes to supremacists all of us have been living with them already all along. Nobody is suggesting mass deportation of white supremacists, or the dissolution of straight marriages, or stripping away health care for conservatives. The troops and the cops weren't ever sent down primarily white streets, masked kidnappers aren't terrorizing white churches or corporate courtrooms. These supremacist hatemongers are being criticized, yes, and opposed, yes, and yes the culture of violence they have created sometimes ricochets back on them, but we are living in the country they demanded on having. We are all now experiencing the Republican proposition for humanity. Many of us are demanding they stop pursuing this proposition, and Republicans and other supremacist hatemongers insist this demand represents violence against them. Klein, by drawing the lines where he draws them, is agreeing with Republicans about this.

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Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 1d

Francesca Albanese: "The request to demilitarise and deradicalise Gaza... in the name of Israels security. Where is the security of the Palestinians, who have been attacked without respite for decades... where is the demilitarisation and deradicalisation of Israels society?"

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corpse @consume.red · 2d

paul feyerabend:

ponder @ponder.ooo · 2d

how do i make my posts more provocative without sacrificing their perfect truth

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FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 3d

He released some music, but no one really respects him any more, no. Total defeat.

FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 3d

Ah, yes, that’s an excellent point. Whatever communism might entail, there is definitely an imaginary communism that still affects political discourse. No objection here.

FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 3d

We shouldn’t doubt that debt would be transformed, of course, because debt has always taken different forms. I just don’t know what grounds we might have for believing that it would be gone entirely.

But then again, I’m also not a Marx scholar. Maybe he says something compelling about this.

FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 3d

That would be nice.

Although, only tangentially related, I do find it somewhat odd that people define Communism or whatever by simply negating features of capitalism. Like, why would we think that debt is eradicated? It’s the single most enduring institution in human history.

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FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 3d

Isn’t this basically just We Own This City?

FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 3d

This might mean that Americans could buy their own or their friends’ debt on the cheap. Unlikely, but possible. Maybe church groups or whatever could get together and do some charity.

Of course, knowing this administration, that’ll be illegal.

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Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 4d

The Green Party for the last few days have gained 1000 new members every single day.

We've just reached 87,000 members!!!!

Let's make hope normal again.

Join.greenparty.org.uk

Charles Keener @charleskeener.bsky.social · 4d

Zack Polanski is the Mamdani of the UK - and he's Green!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxt4...

Let's Make Hope Normal Again - Green Party Political Broadcast

YouTube video by Green Party of England & Wales

www.youtube.com

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Michael Burns @michaelburns.bsky.social · 4d

NEW BIG VIDEO UP NOW:

this one has it all - driverless taxis, ICE detention centers, weird guys obsessed with Lord of the Rings, and so much more.

youtu.be/_spw4MnVsHw

Your Robot Taxi is Fueling the Police the State

YouTube video by Michael Burns

youtu.be

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jeff com-BOO-ters @helldude.bsky.social · 5d

forum wars took over the government. the 10,000-page thread spilled out into the streets. people are getting their doors blown open and hogtied so that nerds can win an online argument. they tanked the dollar and fucked the economy permanently to own you

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FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 6d

I want to do a joke publication one day interpreting some famous biblical scholar’s paper with the same methods they employ for the bible just to, like, emphasise how meaningless the method sometimes is.

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Patrick Cosmos @veryimportant.lawyer · Sep 8

“I’m strong and I want to have like fifty kids and a farm” of course you do. You’re twelve. “I don’t want to eat vegetables I think steak and French fries is the only meal” hell yeah homie you’re twelve. “Maybe if there’s crime we should just send the army” bless your heart my twelve year old buddy

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Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 7d

I am just so fucking proud of her.

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FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 8d

People outside academia are finally discovering Tyler Cowen. This may be better than the Kershnar event.

Laura Jedeed @laurajedeed.bsky.social · 8d

I'm sorry: "if I wish to see a virgin on-screen"?

My Favorite Actress Is Not Human
Tilly Norwood doesn’t need a hairstylist, has no regrettable posts, and if you wish to see a virgin on-screen, this is one of your better chances. That’s because she’s AI.

A picture of some AI girl standing on an AI landscape with an AI monster behind her. I'm gonna be so real: she looks about 14

By Tyler Cowen

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FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 8d

Beyond that, you’re definitely right that the name does not define or limit the character’s role in the dialogue. I’m mostly just curious about the ways that the names become relevant and especially about how Plato’s Greek audience read them, since they obviously needed no translation.

FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 8d

And it’s at least possible that Plato uses Socrates’ name as a pretext to frame his character differently from other Socratics, since he does represent him as something of a saviour in ways that Xenophon doesn’t.

FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 8d

I mostly agree. I think there is another dimension to this, though: not that Plato chooses characters on account of their name but that he subtly reframes what they say in light of it. For Critias, for example, judgement is pretty important.

FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 8d

Curious: which characters do you think are obviously not chosen for their names?

And in those cases, do you think that it would be misleading to translate their names?

FDC @oldaristocles.bsky.social · 8d

This would genuinely be a funny debate because she’s management.

Reposted by FDC

Rafe Meager (they/them) @economeager.bsky.social · 9d

this is poetry

Cassetteboy @cassetteboy.bsky.social · 10d

New! Cassetteboy vs Keir Starmer.

This took absolutely ages, so if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi.com/cassetteboy we'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

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