First and foremost (and what I think the parent comment is getting at) whether you could truly say an LLM "understands" language
As a secondary quibble in the context of the parent post, though big overall, I would argue that the whole argument is moot since a human couldn't possibly learn the way an LLM does in a single lifetime
I checked sources, turns out literally tens of millions of people vocally and loudly disagree with you.
I think it's not helpful to anyone to come in here and be so resolute and so black and white. Especially in the face of an event that has drawn the eye of the international community as a potential genocide.
I'm not telling you what to believe, just that like, posting like you did is not engaging in any meaningful discussion.
I think the parent is referring to the situation before Oct 7th and likely going back to Israel's withdrawal in 2005. The detail I think he's trying to put forward is that before Israel's withdrawal the settlers in Gaza operated a flower export business of about that economic magnitude and that the greenhouses and infrastructure that was used for that business was left after Israel withdrew. There is some discussion of this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gush_Katif#Economy
We're talking about the history of the conflict which I think is important. The Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005 is part of how we got here so I think it's important for people following the conflict to know the details and not just respond emotionally to the terrible images of war- which I agree are disturbing.
Please do mention about the complete sea, air, and land blockade of Gaza, when you do that. You can mention the raid on Gaza freedom flotilla as well.
While Israel supposedly disengaged from Gaza, it had conducted similar attacks with hundreds of human casualties under the pretense of operational readiness, training, and the notorious mowing the lawn operations.
Of course some of them were so called retribution and responses, which mostly begins by rockets on Israel soil, but not by the brutal oppression it administers to Gazans.
Not OP. Sometimes it's good to have a lack of nuance and come with absolute black/white thoughts. At some point, we all internally, draw our own lines in the sand about how we think on a topic (that is hopefully until we encounter new information that necessitates a change). I know for a fact that my opinion on this topic is not accepted, likely won't be accepted by either prominent side, but I stick with it because it conforms to my internal thoughts, priorities and problem-solving properties.
Makes total sense in hindsight, here's hoping this gets confirmed. It's also just generally a good way for young kids to develop. Kids learn a ton by figuring out "can I climb this log?"
If you are considering investing tens of billions into infrastructure for manufacturing in a country, it seems like a business risk to choose a country that is currently facing genocide charges in the ICC and UN.
And before you brigade me, I'm making no comments about the validity of those charges either way. I'm saying it's an obvious increased risk as an investor. It's possible that Israel becomes subject to sanctions or subject to increased international scrutiny or gets embroiled in regional conflict.
Those seem like business risks that might change the calculus.
Being underwater on a mortgage and not being able to save aren't the same.
A mortgage that is underwater means the value of the home is less than the loan balance. That can happen for any number of reasons.
It doesn't mean anything about your ability to save money. If you make $5k a month and spend $5k on expenses, you can make all your mortgage payments (whether or not that mortgage is underwater) but still not save.
When outlets report savings of Americans they don't typically mean just in savings accounts.
> A mortgage that is underwater means the value of the home is less than the loan balance.
Indeed. Which means that when a home is not underwater, the owner has savings (or is breaking even, of course, but that is as equally unlikely and is for all intents and purposes considered to be the same as underwater).
> If you make $5k a month and spend $5k on expenses, you can make all your mortgage payments (whether or not that mortgage is underwater) but still not save.
Interest-only loans account for only 1-2% of mortgages. Outside of that small group, and the small group underwater (which very well may be the same group), if you are paying a mortgage, a portion of that is a portion you are saving. Mathematically, that has to be true. There is no way around it.
> When outlets report savings of Americans they don't typically mean just in savings accounts.
So, then, again the numbers don't add up unless we're counting children. Why would you count babies in those not able to save? Is a newborn not making enough money to be able to save a problem or somehow notable?
> Which means that when a home is not underwater, the owner has savings (or breaking even, of course, but that is as equally unlikely and is for all intents and purposes considered to be the same as underwater).
What? It doesn't mean this at all. You can have savings and still be underwater. If you have a 3.5% for your mortgage, but the market crashes after you bought at the peak, you can be underwater because your house lost value. And it would be foolish to pay down the loan rather than get a better rate for your savings.
Underwater mortgages are totally orthogonal concepts to savings.
> if you are paying a mortgage, a portion of that is a portion you are saving
I think I see your confusion. Yes, money saved into a home is an asset that you are building over time. However it's a non liquid asset, it's difficult to turn back into cash for, e.g., a surprise medical bill.
Repayment of a loan meets the strict mathematical definition of "savings" however it is typically excluded (as are, e.g., investments). For instance, the U.S. calculation of GDP does not consider repayment to be saving.
Savings are typically held in checking accounts, savings accounts, CDs, and money market accounts. Some people take a portion of their savings and invest them in higher risk items like stocks and bonds, but those are investments.
It's important to decouple the concepts of net worth (or even just worth) from the concept of "savings" because you can be taking actions that increase net worth (e.g. paying a mortgage) that don't increase one's savings. (Though, eventually, if you sell the home you could put any proceeds into savings.)
You wouldn't have savings in the house, but it is possible you have savings elsewhere, sure. However, if you are not underwater (or breaking even), you do have savings in the house, which is what the context speaks to specifically.
> Yes, money saved into a home is an asset that you are building over time. However it's a non liquid asset
There is nothing about savings that implies they must be liquid. If you are saving for a near-term purchase then savings for all practical purposes need be liquid, sure, but if you are young and saving for retirement liquidity is not of terrible importance. You have many decades in front of you to convert it into something else.
> Savings are typically held in checking accounts, savings accounts, CDs, and money market accounts.
Okay, but then we're again back to people not having savings because the returns have generally been poor, even basically non-existent in many cases, for a long, long time. Why would most people have savings in that kind of environment? The market has greatly incentivized surpluses to look elsewhere – especially towards real estate, where returns have been tremendous.
> It's important to decouple the concepts of net worth (or even just worth) from the concept of "savings"
That's for the earlier commenter to decide. It is not on us to prescribe their usage of a term. However, insofar as our discussion goes, it there is no such importance as we have already looked at both angles. No matter which direction you choose to go, the math doesn't add up with the presentation.
> There is nothing about savings that implies they must be liquid.
Here are several examples that disagree. Yes, in a strict Keynesian economic sense it is saving but saving is different from savings, despite the similarity in the two words. (Yes, you are right, this is confusing.)
"In terms of personal finance, saving generally specifies low-risk preservation of money, as in a deposit account, versus investment, wherein risk is a lot higher."
Disagree with what? I fail to see the difference from definition two.
It does not match definition one, of course, but that had to exist in an effort to be fair to the original commenter. It is not like you are going to go in like a horribly confused idiot and randomly redefine tillage or something. If the OP is using savings in the sense of the positive net value of a home, rationally one will be accommodating to that.
But it doesn't really matter what definition you choose. The math doesn't add up to what was presented under any definition.
What's challenging for you about these numbers? Your original response included mortgages in saving, which is atypical. If you exclude mortgages, which is typical, do the numbers make more sense?
> It is not like you are going to go in like a horribly confused idiot and randomly redefine tillage or something.
Try to remain on topic and avoid ad hominem, please.
Seemingly not, else we'd have seen the math already. Also,
1. Not having savings (in the personal finance sense) does not mean one is living paycheque to paycheque.
2. The article you link to defines living paycheck to paycheck as a scenario where the family income does not cover expenses. Principal repayment is not an expense. Outside of the 1-2% with interest-only mortgages, anyone who is paying a mortgage cannot be living paycheck to paycheck under the definition you have given. They must have surpluses over and above expenses in order to do so.
Again, the math does seem to work in that sense if you include children. But is there some reason we should be aware of newborns not making enough money to save?
> Try to remain on topic and avoid ad hominem, please.
1. It is on-topic. It explains why multiple definitions are present.
2. Ad homiem implies being directed at a person. The statement is not directed at a person.
What are you referring to specifically? I only noticed one bit that suggested that a loan payment is an expense, but:
1. It does not make clear what the payment is. If it is only to pay the interest portion of the loan, there is little question that it is an expense. That would be outside of the topic of principal repayment, though.
2. If we assume there is a principal portion included in the payment, it is said only with respect to student loans. The product of a student loan retains no value – literally worthless the moment you drive it off the lot. As such, it is not unreasonable to consider the principal an expense. There truly is nothing left. A house, not so much. Unless the house has lost value (an atypical situation), you didn't give up anything.
They didn't even cover the chemical composition and harsh structure of the regolith, which makes converting it to soil impossibly difficult and probably a good source of novel lung diseases. Or the low gravity resulting in issues for long term habitants. Or the length of the Martian day being annoyingly close to but not exactly 24 hours which will fuck up some rhythms. Or the general mineral paucity. Or the distance. Or or or.
Mars is incredibly cool as a science fiction destination, but I'd much rather see us target near earth asteroids as space habitats first.
I appreciate this. Suggesting that mental health is "just" a chemical imbalance is maybe addressing a very complicated system with a narrow fix.
That said, I'm likely biased to be predisposed to believe that mental health is a complex system based on other beliefs I hold or experiences I have (e.g. having suffered depression myself, having experienced homelessness, believing in the theory of alienation.)
But also, I don't know what you do to address systems that doesn't require radical or even revolutionary change. We're a far cry from even applying the mental health practices we do have to everyone who wants them today. To say nothing of the massive social stigmas associated with therapy, depression, and medications.
Perhaps "mental health" is such a broad diagnosis that talking about remedies for "mental health" may be unhelpful. The remedies for a paranoid schizophrenic may be very different to depression which may be very different to say ADHD.
Treating as a disease with a chemical cure does in part remove some of the stigma. But it's really only helpful if it addresses the root cause of the problem.
Much of the root of "modern" mental health is "feeling good" as in "I had to step back to protect my mental health" and that's more a social, and view-of-self issue that's best addressed with therapy.
So perhaps the categorization of "mental health" is as varied as "physical health" and we can accept that no one solution is going to fix everything.
ADHD isn't even a good diagnosis. We throw these words as if we know what the disease even is and all we need is to figure out the cure, when these diseases have dozens of variations "my ADHD is more like this", the definitions of the disease and classification change all the time. ADHD when I was a kid is very different from ADHD today.
So to me the article shouldn't even be "we need to take a wider approach to the cures", it should be "we don't know jack shit about mental health and need way more research".
They have on label use as weight loss medicine. It might be discovered first as a side effect, but it's genuinely considered a primary desirable effect these days.
I think parent's point was primarily that its not "hormone causes weight loss", its "hormone causes changes to innate drive, which change behavior, which causes weight loss". If you did the same things off the drugs that you did on, you would lose similar weight.
Given that, the rational of the original comment makes less sense. A hormone that changed your behavior such that the resulting behavior changes made you happier is far more of an obfuscated ask of modern pharmacology, as there is no behavior change that will reliably fix the problem the same way there is for weight loss (eat less).
