This is extremely tangential to the areas of sneer interest, but seeing as this is the only technology related community I am in, I’m putting it here.
This song has been making the rounds on the charts/social media and I refuse to believe that it isn’t about the package management tool apt
Ah, finally, a paper article to pin to my Roko’s basilisk/David Gerard/X Æ A-Xii red yarn corkboard
Ah, yes. In case you were wondering about said Swiss businessman and whether or not his actions in the DPRK were morally sound, once again, Wikipedia has something to say.
This brings to mind my favourite podcast about black conspiracy theories: My Momma Told Me. They discuss Yakub and Oprah in equal measure.
Best case, this somehow causes the CIA to implode and the west to collapse along with it. Beworst case I’d have to give AI companies credit for providing the tools to said implosion. True worst case… I mean we are already there, i.e. the CIA exists and is operational.
Dust specks (of a certain kind) are known to cause mesothelioma
corbin's already nailed it. This is just another example of Nazi apologia, in which someone makes death threats that their supporters try to defend in public as just metaphors. I don't think it's essential to refute what the OP was saying, but here's my attempt:
But this is a deeply stupid story with a lede that basically says "I'm unfamiliar with even the most most famous 90s hip-hop". Tan, like many, many, many Internet commenters before him, was quoting Tupac's Hit 'Em Up, which, unless you think Tupac was literally calling out hits on Chino XL, was not intended to be a true threat at the time, and certainly couldn't reasonably be taken as one today.
Yeah, that's not how any of this works. As stated in the article,
The “die slow, motherfucker” line was a reference to a Tupac Shakur song, and Tan later apologized. That 1996 song, “Hit ‘Em Up,” escalated the simmering East Coast-West Coast rap rivalry into a lethal feud; Shakur was gunned down three months after its release.
So the OP is straight up wrong about being "unfamiliar with [...] 90s hip-hop," the research is right there. Also, I am not well versed in rap and rap culture, but I understand that in the 90s, rap and hip hop were intertwined with gangs and murder- thinking that a death threat in a song was not literal and "not intended to be a true threat at the time" is... naive at best, I imagine.
OP also says the threats "certainly couldn't reasonably be taken as one today." I don't think this is true. Let's look at the threats themselves:
[...] Fuck Mobb Deep! Fuck Biggie! / Fuck Bad Boy as a staff, record label, and as a motherfuckin' crew! / And if you wanna be down with Bad Boy, then fuck you too! / Chino XL, fuck you too! / All you motherfuckers, fuck you too! / (Take money, take money) / All of y'all motherfuckers, fuck you, die slow! / Motherfucker, my .44 make sho' all y'all kids don't grow! /
I don't think there's any other reading than the persona announcing their intent to use a ".44" on all the parties listed, which is a death threat for sure. Additionally, IANAL, but according to Greg Hill and Associates,
Death threats in a rap song can constitute criminal threats or threats against a crime victim (Penal Code § 140(a)) even if the victim never hears the song.
So yeah, I think this could still "reasonably be taken as [a threat] today".
That’s you making the mistake of applying good faith
I just read the post about 0 and 1 being invalid probabilities. Here’s my best attempt at interpreting it as a joke: This is clearly yud’s attempt at creating a mathematical trollpost using only words.
But yeah as someone with a (honestly atrophied) degree in mathematics I am struggling to figure out the post. Whatever he’s doing, he’s not performing mathematics; at best it is sophistry. Honestly it makes me sad that he wrote it at all and that people read it and agreed with it.
Reading it is like going to a restaurant, seeing “bowl of plain rice” on the menu, ordering it, and getting served an old boot full of glitter and sawdust. Seeing the comment section and seeing people that think yud is smart or correct about anything is reading the yelp reviews later for the restaurant and seeing people talk about how they’ve never tried rice before having it at the restaurant, and that it was really good and that now when they go to other restaurants with rice it’s never the real thing and they shouldn’t be trusted.
For actually interesting contrarian maths, go watch some Norman Wildberger videos or something.
If scientific racism is an attempt to legitimise racism, then this is scientific great replacement theory… which is just racism anyway.