Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

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Re: Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

by vincecate » Wed Jul 22, 2026 8:18 am

Higgenbotham wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2026 3:35 pm ... it appears AI will not be replacing the Stackees as soon as expected?
The existing AI does not learn as it goes. They don't understand how to get weights to update in a useful way as it interacts with the world. So for now the weights are just "frozen". Human intelligence comes from updating the weights and making connections between things. So existing AI is like a kid who knows the whole encyclopedia but can't learn anything new. Not smart as in "quick to learn" but "very knowledgeable". Like having a low IQ assistant who has memorized the whole Internet. Can be a very helpful assistant but probably not the guy you want to run your company.

It seems they need a whole new algorithm beyond LLMs to really get something that is "quick to learn" in the human sense. No way to know how long this will take but I would guess 2 to 10 years at the current rate and maybe 3 to 15 at the funding rate after the coming AI crash.

Re: Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

by Higgenbotham » Tue Jul 21, 2026 3:35 pm

With all the uncertainty about whether Stackees can be replaced with AI, there seems to be a lot of jockeying around happening. Flood the country with H1-Bs or limit them? Open the border or close it? Release a slightly lethal virus (Covid-19) as a test case in the event AI can replace the Stackees to gauge how a larger wipeout can better be done later? Put the "accidental" release of viruses on hold now that it appears AI will not be replacing the Stackees as soon as expected? Start an assisted suicide program? Encourage a higher birth rate? I may be going out on a limb with these questions but it's possible I'm not. I tend to not want to stray too far because there's plenty of factual material and there are many factors which influence decisions. But some of the factual material does point in this direction.

Re: Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

by tim » Tue Jul 21, 2026 2:59 pm

Higgenbotham wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2026 1:35 pm Like all con games, the con game of Stacking, after 55 years, is reaching its natural limits. The population is exhausted, depleted and, in many cases, infertile. The birth rate has been plunging, decreasing the pool of Stackees.
The US labor market may soon face a new crisis: Too few workers
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... 59d09&ei=7

Starting right about now, fewer Stackees will be entering the work force than the Stackees leaving the work force. Think of Stackees as like worker ants who put the extra crumbs they gather into the bank accounts of the kings and queens who own the ant hills. Fewer ant hills and maybe no organized ant hills at all is the so-called "crisis" incoming that is being labeled a crisis that is not.

Where to get new sources of Stackees? What to do? Greed is insatiable. By God, if Stackees can't produce new sources of Stackees, we'll produce them ourselves, dammit! Enter the new con game and wet dream known as Artificial Intelligence. The modus operandi has not changed at all. Build a huge bubble to suck wealth out of. Try to rinse and repeat using large scale pumps and dumps as a model. The twist is this bubble is by far the biggest and most untenable one in the history of the world (my opinion). I guess we'll see how well poking and probing a bubble of this size works out. My prediction is when this bubble bursts, the world will plunge into a new dark age and my personal and new modus
I believe the governments of the western countries are attempting to replenish the stackees by importing immigrants from the third world.

During a fourth turning, where the western world is now, xenophobia is at an all time high making this a recipe for disaster.

The coming crisis could see western nations erupt in civil conflict against the third world immigrants.

Re: Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

by Higgenbotham » Tue Jul 21, 2026 1:35 pm

Like all con games, the con game of Stacking, after 55 years, is reaching its natural limits. The population is exhausted, depleted and, in many cases, infertile. The birth rate has been plunging, decreasing the pool of Stackees.
The US labor market may soon face a new crisis: Too few workers
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... 59d09&ei=7

Starting right about now, fewer Stackees will be entering the work force than the Stackees leaving the work force. Think of Stackees as like worker ants who put the extra crumbs they gather into the bank accounts of the kings and queens who own the ant hills. Fewer ant hills and maybe no organized ant hills at all is the so-called "crisis" incoming that is being labeled a crisis that is not.

Where to get new sources of Stackees? What to do? Greed is insatiable. By God, if Stackees can't produce new sources of Stackees, we'll produce them ourselves, dammit! Enter the new con game and wet dream known as Artificial Intelligence. The modus operandi has not changed at all. Build a huge bubble to suck wealth out of. Try to rinse and repeat using large scale pumps and dumps as a model. The twist is this bubble is by far the biggest and most untenable one in the history of the world (my opinion). I guess we'll see how well poking and probing a bubble of this size works out. My prediction is when this bubble bursts, the world will plunge into a new dark age and my personal and new modus operandi is: Flight Attendants, Prepare for Collapse.
Higgenbotham wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 10:49 pm My more specific predictions would be:
  • There will be a major global financial panic and crisis. Supply chains will break, resulting in unavailability of critical raw materials and components. Global trade will begin to shut down. As it begins to become apparent that the supply chain linkages are permanently broken, the global interlinked financial markets will shut down and cease to exist. This will all happen very quickly. It will not take years from the initial panic.
  • The focus of governments will turn to controlling their panicked and hungry populations. Due to lack of availability of imported goods and adequate storage "sufficient to reconstitute" a system consistent with nation state government, this will prove to be too little too late and most government will devolve to the local level as populations lose faith in their national governments and the national governments lose the resources and ability to control their populations.
  • There will be no large scale nuclear war. Instead, the population will be culled through starvation, local strife (including settling of long-standing scores) and disease. Wave after wave of pandemics will sweep the world.
  • Similar to national economies and governments, centralized utilities will fail or become so decrepit as to be unsafe and unusable. All centralized utilities including the power grid will shut down permanently.
  • The initial worldwide kill rate during the first couple decades following the financial panic will exceed 90%. The global population will be in the range of a few tens of millions when the bottom is hit in two or three centuries. Similar to the last dark age, the world's largest cities will have a population on the order of 25,000 and a large town will be 1,000.
  • Life during the coming dark age will be similar to the last dark age but worse due to environmental damage and pollution.
The bursting of the financial bubble I think is where the slide into the new dark age begins to accelerate and I agree that it is not too far off.

Re: Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

by vincecate » Mon Jul 20, 2026 10:57 pm

The US stock market is basically one big bet on AI at this point.
The Chinese model Kimi K3 was released Friday and is about as good as the US models and open source.
There are several other Chinese models like Deepseek V4 Pro GA, Qwen 3.8 Max
that should be released very soon and are also about as good as US models and open source (and so very cheap to run).
I think Anthropic and OpenAI are no longer trillion dollar companies. Don't see
how they can go public. So then OpenAI has no chance to give Oracle the $300 billion
they promised. So Oracle has spent real money building data centers but their customer
can not pay, so Oracle is in trouble. Microsoft was giving OpenAI money as an investment
that OpenAI then used on Microsoft's cloud, so Microsoft got revenue. This will stop.
Anyway, I think the bubble is about to go crashing down.

Re: Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

by aedens » Mon Jul 20, 2026 2:46 pm

Mark Twain ‘Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.’
Get hedged. I would consider in our zone 1977 punctuated it on that declination slope.
The few Academics seen it soon after had the actual sense to discuss we are only producing ditch diggers.
That exact date was also recorded. Makes that easy I do all the Wife paperwork so She can or is focused on the
service to the infirm and Widows in Her Group. I gave a brief to one and She could not process it given the levity
and suffering we are seeing in our area of His work.
I have limited Her to a few days as She is finally reading better material of consequences for the last half decade.
The only thing She regrets in my thought map of 47 years is Tactical training to survive the incoming effects
of the consequences unleashed on far to many. I will forward the recent elements in a way a thinking Soul must regard
since rights are from God and not the half wits still pissing in the well they draw from.

I got word one will not be returning to active duty as He was shot in Public Service to our Immediate Community.
I have seen to many good Men and Women disabled but still they serve.

Re: Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

by Higgenbotham » Sun Jul 19, 2026 6:54 pm

There's a corollary to this with regard to those who reach the point of recognition that a civilization is in decline. Since the point of recognition can, over the first few decades, be reached upon the realization that things have slowly deteriorated just below a particular person's unique threshold of comfort, the person who has recently reached this point will almost surely think that if we can just do (fill in the blank) that the decline can be reversed. It can't.

Examples of this might be: "Oh my God, look at Sleepy Joe Biden! He's senile and the border is being overrun! OMG, we're collapsing! If we can just get Donald Trump back in there we can make America great again." Or, "Oh my God, look at that idiot Trump! Barack and Joe handled Iran flawlessly and now that idiot has gone in there not even realizing the Strait of Hormuz can be closed! If that stays closed for much longer, the world economy can collapse, OMG! If we can just get Trump out of there, we can get back on track and save the world economy. We'll be back to the good old days in no time if Trump can be impeached and Gavin gets elected in '28."

Re: Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

by Higgenbotham » Sat Jul 18, 2026 4:47 pm

A big picture core conclusion is that over the past 80 years, what it takes to be a person of influence, whether it be in technology, government, media or any position of authority or responsibility is more and more wide ranging and random in terms of the person's qualifications to be there - to be supervising employees, to be offering advice to colleagues, to be running a major technology company, to have great wealth, to have the ability to make weapons of destruction, to be making decisions that affect large numbers of people, to be quoted, to be given public money, or whatever.
Guest wrote: Fri Jul 17, 2026 5:35 pm The third level knobs will be the ones that assure Sorites paradox.
They will never sit down since they never stood up for what should of been done.
Yes, you have summarized it correctly. Things erode, nobody recognizes it and one day the ruins are there all around you or, more accurately, your descendants - the ones that are left - and they have no idea what happened.

Image

Re: Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

by Higgenbotham » Sat Jul 18, 2026 4:22 pm

List the most quoted living people in the world

AI Overview

There is no official global data tracking who is quoted the most. However, public figures with massive media coverage, global leaders, and prominent thinkers emerge as the most frequently quoted living people.

World Leaders and Politicians
Donald Trump: Frequently quoted across global news for his statements on policy, media, and politics.
Vladimir Putin: His speeches and commentary on international relations are widely cited by global media.
Pope Francis: His remarks on faith, social justice, and ethics are regularly quoted globally.
Narendra Modi: His addresses and social media statements are frequently referenced across South Asia and international platforms.

Tech Entrepreneurs and Public Intellectuals
Elon Musk: Widely quoted for his commentary on technology, business, space exploration, and future trends.
Noam Chomsky: Heavily cited and quoted in academic, political, and philosophical discourse.
Bill Gates: Frequently quoted regarding global health, technology, and climate change initiatives.

Cultural and Activist Figures
Malala Yousafzai: Her statements on education and women's rights are globally referenced.
Oprah Winfrey: Her media commentary and personal wisdom are staples in popular culture.

Re: Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

by Higgenbotham » Sat Jul 18, 2026 11:35 am

Rank the top 20 universities according to how many students in approximately the year 1980 (number of students, not proportion) scored 800 on the SAT math

AI Overview

There are no comprehensive, historical records or official statistics published by the College Board that rank universities by the exact number of incoming students who scored a perfect 800 on the SAT Math section in 1980.

However, looking at historical SAT score data from this period, the top universities that enrolled the largest absolute numbers of perfect math scorers generally fell into two groups: massive engineering powerhouses and the most elite Ivy League schools. Based on historical class sizes and 1980 math score distributions, the top 20 universities that enrolled the highest count of 800-Math students would have looked approximately like this:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley)
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
Stanford University
Purdue University
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Cornell University
Carnegie Mellon University
Harvard University
Princeton University
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
University of Texas at Austin
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
Yale University
Columbia University
University of Pennsylvania
Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Chicago

Why this list?

To generate the highest total count of students with an 800 in SAT Math, a school needed two things: very high average math scores (placing a large portion of the admitted class in the top 99th percentile) and a massive undergraduate student body.

While elite schools like Caltech and MIT had the highest concentration (or proportion) of perfect scores, their small class sizes limited the absolute numbers. Conversely, major public research institutions like UIUC, Purdue, and UC Berkeley admitted thousands of engineering and physical science students, resulting in high total numbers of 800 scorers despite having slightly lower median score percentiles than the Ivy League.

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