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#81
Off the Record / Re: US - Greenland Crisis Thre...
Last post by OttoVonBismarck - January 22, 2026, 09:51:21 PMQuote from: Sheilbh on January 22, 2026, 08:15:02 PMZelensky's speech at Davos is fairly extraordinary - and touches on Greenland. It's worth watching because there's real anger and frustration there about Europe. But I'm closer to his thinking than the Alexander Stubb view:
https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/zvernennya-prezidenta-do-uchasnikiv-specialnogo-zasidannya-v-102517
Zelenskyy sees every day the consequence of European fecklessness and weakness.
At the end of the day--no one can make Europeans interventionists. Most Europeans want to live a good life, and don't like the thought of making it even 1% harder to help someone else. That isn't actually that unusual, that's probably close to a very human norm.
While it may rankle--the post-World War II concept of a large power defending a set of values worldwide is likely a historical aberration.
And obviously America didn't arrive at the position altruistically, a unique confluence of events--which included the rise of the Soviet Union and international spread of communism, convinced a lot of Americans that liberal democratic values being promoted globally was both moral and beneficial. Much of Europe actually never did buy into this, Europe was always far more skeptical of the sort of adventurism this worldview created.
Now that the U.S. is likely leaving this space forever, Europeans are seeing that while they were often skeptical of American adventurism, there's some places where they wish the old America was still around to address it. But it isn't, and Europe isn't actually willing to take that place, so has to simply accept things will happen they may not like.
I see little cause for optimism.
The minimalist hope is that Europe can get enough of its head out of its ass to defends its borders without U.S. help, that is very likely not going to be achieved, but hoping for anything beyond that is truly magical thinking.
I'll note that of the many gross impulses Trump feeds--the nativist desire to not help others is actually just the norm Europeans have mostly lived by throughout the post-war period.
#82
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by Sheilbh - January 22, 2026, 09:22:06 PMYeah they need to do environmental impact assessments.
Worth noting this is the data centre on the Iver landfill site - so while it is in the greenbelt it's very much a brownfield development. There's been a few brownfield developments that have been stymied at the environmental impact asseessment stage because there are some very rare species of spiders that basically thrive in post-industrial landscapes
This is the example Starmer gave of spiders blocking the development of a whole new town which is basically true. A train station was built with a plan for a new town around it and nothing has been built and 15,000 homes blocked (largely on brownfield sites) because it's now the home of a rare spider so a protected site 
Worth noting this is the data centre on the Iver landfill site - so while it is in the greenbelt it's very much a brownfield development. There's been a few brownfield developments that have been stymied at the environmental impact asseessment stage because there are some very rare species of spiders that basically thrive in post-industrial landscapes
This is the example Starmer gave of spiders blocking the development of a whole new town which is basically true. A train station was built with a plan for a new town around it and nothing has been built and 15,000 homes blocked (largely on brownfield sites) because it's now the home of a rare spider so a protected site
#83
Off the Record / Re: Facebook Follies of Friend...
Last post by viper37 - January 22, 2026, 09:04:40 PM
#84
Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...
Last post by Jacob - January 22, 2026, 09:02:29 PMThanks!
I took a different intended message from that passage and the section it was part of, though I may well have been projecting my own bias on to it (and I listened to it being simultaneously translated into English for what that's worth).
I don't think Carney intended to say that Quebec desired to be conquered - but he may have said so nonetheless
Certainly, I'm seeing plenty of reactions from Quebec in line with yours, so whether Carney meant it or not it seems he messed up.
I took a different intended message from that passage and the section it was part of, though I may well have been projecting my own bias on to it (and I listened to it being simultaneously translated into English for what that's worth).
I don't think Carney intended to say that Quebec desired to be conquered - but he may have said so nonetheless
Certainly, I'm seeing plenty of reactions from Quebec in line with yours, so whether Carney meant it or not it seems he messed up.
#85
Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread
Last post by Jacob - January 22, 2026, 08:52:57 PMQuote from: Admiral Yi on January 22, 2026, 08:43:23 PMReplicating every relevant incremental experiment since the dawn of time up to 2025 would have been an overwhelming burden as well.
Yup. Which is why trustworthy and well functioning peer-review system is valuable, as it significantly lessens the need for everyone to do it themselves.
#86
Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread
Last post by Zoupa - January 22, 2026, 08:50:41 PMQuote from: Admiral Yi on January 22, 2026, 08:43:23 PMQuote from: Jacob on January 22, 2026, 08:35:22 PMIndeed.
But replicating every relevant incremental experiment since 2025 in your field is going to become an overwhelming burden on individual researchers very quickly.
Replicating every relevant incremental experiment since the dawn of time up to 2025 would have been an overwhelming burden as well.
There was little need to replicate an experiment previously. That's the whole point of scientific journal publishing.
#87
Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread
Last post by Sheilbh - January 22, 2026, 08:47:52 PMYeah I think that's fair and I think there is a split again. I think like an awful lot that's going on in the world right now it's Janus faced and has a lot of possibility and risk. But I think it is likely to lead to new hierarchies and elites generally.
In some sense I think AI could help solve (or dissolve) current problems while in others accelerating them. So for example there has been in the last few decades a replication crisis in medicine (including cancer studies) and (especially) psychology but other areas too. The sheer volume of data that we can now collect combined with the business model of academia and the whole "publish or perish" culture means that lots of papers are being published that are not replicable. Within medicine the ones that matter I think are replicated and the duds ignored. In psychology millions of books were sold on the basis of experiments no-one can reproduce and those experiments also had a huge influence on politics (I think basically every Western state had a behavioural team in government - with a big impact for example on covid policy). I think the difference is maybe applying AI to a problem (or, indeed, to the code) v getting AI to write a paper.
In some cases I think AI will actually help unlock the knowledge in those vast stores of data (like the AlphaFold example), while in others it will further perpetuate the problem of research that just isn't true. In a way I think AI sharpens that because there is a question ethics and taste as much as anything about it that may cause more examination/discernment by academic publishing - in a way that decades of papers in areas (and, indeed, entire branches of psychology and economics that appear to have no factual basis but were hugely influential on policymakers) was kind of missed. It was human, it was in the correct form and, perhaps, sometimes it was too good to check - it was also quite possibly not true. So it will, possibly, split more explicitly between the work that is original and the work that isn't.
I was thinking about this with drugs research too. For example my understanding is that a lot of what the big pharma companies spend money is basically very minor changes to existing treatments - because there's a profitable seam there and it is lower cost to look at variation within the known. That is the current state of the art. Again with the massive datasets they have you can imagine that AI (like AlphaFold not ChatGPT) could be helpful in suggesting areas that are distinct for research.
In some sense I think AI could help solve (or dissolve) current problems while in others accelerating them. So for example there has been in the last few decades a replication crisis in medicine (including cancer studies) and (especially) psychology but other areas too. The sheer volume of data that we can now collect combined with the business model of academia and the whole "publish or perish" culture means that lots of papers are being published that are not replicable. Within medicine the ones that matter I think are replicated and the duds ignored. In psychology millions of books were sold on the basis of experiments no-one can reproduce and those experiments also had a huge influence on politics (I think basically every Western state had a behavioural team in government - with a big impact for example on covid policy). I think the difference is maybe applying AI to a problem (or, indeed, to the code) v getting AI to write a paper.
In some cases I think AI will actually help unlock the knowledge in those vast stores of data (like the AlphaFold example), while in others it will further perpetuate the problem of research that just isn't true. In a way I think AI sharpens that because there is a question ethics and taste as much as anything about it that may cause more examination/discernment by academic publishing - in a way that decades of papers in areas (and, indeed, entire branches of psychology and economics that appear to have no factual basis but were hugely influential on policymakers) was kind of missed. It was human, it was in the correct form and, perhaps, sometimes it was too good to check - it was also quite possibly not true. So it will, possibly, split more explicitly between the work that is original and the work that isn't.
I was thinking about this with drugs research too. For example my understanding is that a lot of what the big pharma companies spend money is basically very minor changes to existing treatments - because there's a profitable seam there and it is lower cost to look at variation within the known. That is the current state of the art. Again with the massive datasets they have you can imagine that AI (like AlphaFold not ChatGPT) could be helpful in suggesting areas that are distinct for research.
#88
Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread
Last post by Admiral Yi - January 22, 2026, 08:43:23 PMQuote from: Jacob on January 22, 2026, 08:35:22 PMIndeed.
But replicating every relevant incremental experiment since 2025 in your field is going to become an overwhelming burden on individual researchers very quickly.
Replicating every relevant incremental experiment since the dawn of time up to 2025 would have been an overwhelming burden as well.
#89
Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...
Last post by Grey Fox - January 22, 2026, 08:36:56 PMThat would be obnoxious by it selft but it's not what he said. He framed the entire situation as if Canadiens of the time chose to be conquered.
« Les plaines d'Abraham symbolisent un champ de bataille, et aussi le lieu où le Canada a commencé à faire le choix historique de privilégier l'adaptation plutôt que l'assimilation, le partenariat plutôt que la domination, la collaboration plutôt que la division. »
Adaptation over assimilation. Fat chance of that, until the quiet revolution assimilation was the objective.
Partnership over domination. Are you kidding me here, Mark? Decades after decades of treating francophones has 2nd class citizens. The federal government put Montreal's mayor in jail for 4 years without a trial, ffs.
Collaboration over division. We're still pretty divided.
« Les plaines d'Abraham symbolisent un champ de bataille, et aussi le lieu où le Canada a commencé à faire le choix historique de privilégier l'adaptation plutôt que l'assimilation, le partenariat plutôt que la domination, la collaboration plutôt que la division. »
Adaptation over assimilation. Fat chance of that, until the quiet revolution assimilation was the objective.
Partnership over domination. Are you kidding me here, Mark? Decades after decades of treating francophones has 2nd class citizens. The federal government put Montreal's mayor in jail for 4 years without a trial, ffs.
Collaboration over division. We're still pretty divided.
#90
Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread
Last post by Jacob - January 22, 2026, 08:35:22 PMQuote from: Admiral Yi on January 22, 2026, 08:12:20 PMWe can distinguish between those two papers, in the same way we could in the pre AI era. We replicate the experiment.
Indeed.
But replicating every relevant incremental experiment since 2025 in your field is going to become an overwhelming burden on individual researchers very quickly.