majromax's recent activity
-
Comment on Ukraine destroys more than forty military aircraft in a drone attack deep inside Russia in ~news
-
Comment on How my life changed with ADHD medication in ~life
majromax Link ParentNote that there are pill bottles with timer-caps, which automatically count the time since the bottle was last opened. It can't help you with "take the pill out of the bottle, forget the pill,"...I had those senior people MON to SUN boxes and I'm not sure if I took one already or forgot to refill it last week.
Note that there are pill bottles with timer-caps, which automatically count the time since the bottle was last opened. It can't help you with "take the pill out of the bottle, forget the pill," but it would conclusively tell you if you haven't even done that much.
-
Comment on Removed Reddit post: "ChatGPT drove my friends wife into psychosis, tore family apart... now I'm seeing hundreds of people participating in the same activity. " in ~tech
majromax Link ParentThe system is what it does. The output of a language model is just text, so the only thing that can be regulated is text. Returning to the original post, if I – a human person – give you...People are saying "we can't regulate text" but an LLM is not just text. If it was, I would agree.
The system is what it does. The output of a language model is just text, so the only thing that can be regulated is text.
Returning to the original post, if I – a human person – give you sycophantic responses that feed into your delusion that you've unlocked a hidden plane of thought or somesuch, there's no obvious liability that attaches to me unless I give you instructions that cause specific and physical harm.
The efficiency with which this stuff can be pushed into existence by just a few rogue actors is so staggering that no human court system can begin to handle the cases it can potentially produce.
This is an argument against stringent regulation, not for stringent regulation. "Rogue actors" that want to cause harm aren't going to operate openly under an AI banner. They'll slide into your DMs, at scale, with models that pretend to be human. Most marks won't even realize that they're conversing with AI agents, evading the whole LLM-targeting regulatory regime.
-
Comment on Removed Reddit post: "ChatGPT drove my friends wife into psychosis, tore family apart... now I'm seeing hundreds of people participating in the same activity. " in ~tech
majromax Link ParentHold up, how do you decide what is 'damaging society'? In 1825, advocating the equality of races would have been seen as 'damaging society' in huge chunks of the United States. Today, some people...Once we start throwing people in jail for damaging society, businesses will regulate themselves.
Hold up, how do you decide what is 'damaging society'?
In 1825, advocating the equality of races would have been seen as 'damaging society' in huge chunks of the United States. Today, some people in high political office would argue that advocating for LGBTQ rights is 'damaging society'. A few select people think that vaccination is 'damaging society'. Religions often think that contrary information 'damages society'.
Don't give the government a gun unless you're very, very sure where they're going to point it, not just today but tomorrow as well.
Same way McDonald's was held liable for making cofee too hot,
McDonald's was liable not just because their coffee was hot, but because the company knew (revealed through internal memos) that the coffee was being routinely and deliberately served undrinkably hot and that this could cause injury.
any business with a wet floor and no sign is liable for injury.
That's not necessarily true. A missing 'wet floor' sign doesn't always lead to liability (e.g. if the floor is in an off-limits area), and a 'wet floor' sign doesn't automatically absolve businesses of liability. Beyond that, businesses and their insurers also care about the nuisance potential of lawsuits, so whether or not there's liability they'll put signs up just to make lawsuits harder.
They aren't criminal fines, but we definitely need some criminal charges when the scale of damage to society is this large.
"Criminal" doesn't mean "civil, but big." Criminal law involves a whole new standard of proof and the potential for incarceration. Do you really think that ChatGPT can be proven to cause harm in individual cases beyond reasonable doubt? If not under current law, then how broadly do you think new law needs to be written to satisfy that standard, and what other conduct will it capture?
-
Comment on Philosopher Slavoj Žižek on 'soft' fascism, AI and the effects of shamelessness in public life in ~humanities
majromax Link ParentI disagree, at least in the short term with respect to Trump's norm-breaking. I don't need an ideology to stop at a red light, and I'd think less of anyone who runs said red light without an...The fundamental problem with the Democrats is that they have no ideology.
I disagree, at least in the short term with respect to Trump's norm-breaking. I don't need an ideology to stop at a red light, and I'd think less of anyone who runs said red light without an obvious emergency.
Trump's norm breaking is at minimum a threat to the idea of the United States government as a stable, professional gestalt, and at worst it's a threat to the principle of rule of law. Ideologies in an industrialized country with a democratic system only make sense under this kind of stability since any ideological policy worth its salt is long-term. It will do no good to (e.g.) increase capital taxes if the rich know they only need stall four years for the wheel to turn such that all will be forgiven – or at least not enforced.
My opinion is essentially the opposite of yours. I think the fundamental problem with Democrats is that they saw signs of an existential threat to the American system, and they talked about existential threats to the American system, but they acted like the 2024 election was just an ordinary race to be decided on the basis of tax and spending policies.
If you are a politician who sincerely thinks that the nation is facing an existential threat, whether foreign invasion or domestic coup, you put aside your differences with your normal opponents to form something like a unity government. Ideological disputes have to wait for the crisis to pass, or else there will be no government left to fight over. With that mindset, Harris should have been running slightly to the right of McCain, not as a typical progressive.
As attributed to Ben Franklin, the United States is a republic – if it can keep it. Conventional politicians have slept on the latter half of that for a couple of decades now, and we're now in the 'find out' stage.
-
Comment on US voters were right about the economy. The data was wrong. in ~finance
majromax Link ParentThe BLS has extensive documentation of their methods, including a link to the survey questions they use (pdf). However, if you aren't certain about the processing that goes into an unemployment...The BLS has extensive documentation of their methods, including a link to the survey questions they use (pdf).
However, if you aren't certain about the processing that goes into an unemployment rate, my FRED link above also includes the prime-age employment rate. That's just the fraction of people in the 25-55 demographic who have jobs, without excluding people from the denominator if they aren't looking hard enough. That accounts for many potential confounders, including "not looking because of disability" or being a stay-at-home parent.
The only thing really being 'adjusted' for in the 25-55 statistic is the nation's demographic shift, but "fewer people are working because more people are older and retired" isn't, to my mind, very interesting as a symptom of some hidden recession.
-
Comment on US voters were right about the economy. The data was wrong. in ~finance
majromax Link ParentIndeed, and if you make that comparison (the graph also includes the prime-age employment rate), mid-late 2024 numbers look much more like an expansionary peak than a recession. It's particularly...It also points out a flaw in U3 but neglects to mention U6 that addresses their complaints. They could have compared U3 against U6 and the trend over time to make their case.
Indeed, and if you make that comparison (the graph also includes the prime-age employment rate), mid-late 2024 numbers look much more like an expansionary peak than a recession.
Instead they invent a new metric and decline to explain why we should believe theirs.
It's particularly pernicious to include a low-income line and call it "functionally unemployed." Poverty lines change with time, and that makes it extremely difficult to reconstruct what that level might have been historically.
Poverty lines themselves are also measures of consumption, and they make for poor measurements of wages. A family making $25k/yr that owns their own home outright is in a much superior position to one that rents in New York City on the same wage, but they're identical from an income standpoint.
-
Comment on California will require insurance companies to offer coverage in wildfire zones in ~enviro
majromax Link ParentThe article's phrasing seems to be poor, but the general description sounds like it's demanding relative parity of market share rather than number of contracts. An insurer with a 10% market share...Sure insurers will now be able to pass on the cost of reinsurance to consumers and might re-enter the market because of that, but they're going to have to eventually have an 85% high-risk portfolio? Who the hell would do that?
The article's phrasing seems to be poor, but the general description sounds like it's demanding relative parity of market share rather than number of contracts. An insurer with a 10% market share overall in the states must (eventually) have a market share of 8.5% in the high-risk segment.
-
Comment on The sham legacy of Richard Feynman in ~science
majromax LinkFrom someone who did watch the video, my summary of its thesis statements: Feynman never wrote a book. All of the books that we have "by Richard Feynman," those books that create the legacy of...- Exemplary
From someone who did watch the video, my summary of its thesis statements:
Feynman never wrote a book. All of the books that we have "by Richard Feynman," those books that create the legacy of Feynman as a person in popular consciousness, were written or assembled by others who had their own interests. Feynman's legacy is chiefly the result of Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman, which is the assembly of a bunch of stories told by a then-50s Feynman to a then-20s Richard Leighton. Other books came later as everything Feynman touched became gold.
The stories in Surely You're Joking are not true. Most are completely unverifiable, happening in anonymous places to anonymous people, but when we do have extrinsic evidence it contradicts the story as told. That doesn't mean that Feynman completely made them up, but he did 'workshop' them to retell them for maximal impact. They're closer to tall tales about the fish that got away than an authentic recounting of his life.
Feynman deliberately projected this image; the tales that showed up in Surely were indeed told by him on recording. By all accounts, he was an asshole. However, at least for much of his life he was nicer to people than these stories would suggest, and in later life he recognized that the casual misogyny of his earlier stories was at least inappropriate if not wrong. This reflection is missing from his legacy, presumably since 'brilliant asshole' sells better.
Despite being a genuinely brilliant physicist, there's no physics in Feynman's legacy as a person and media figure. This does a disservice to Feynman fans (including just about every teenager who is pointed towards Surely You're Joking after expressing an interest in science), who are implicitly told that the important part of 'brilliant asshole' is 'asshole'. Feynman had a genuine enthusiasm for new knowledge and worked hard to deeply understand everything he was shown, but those inspiring traits are also lost in his mythos.
-
Comment on Heat pumps used to struggle in the cold. Not anymore. in ~enviro
majromax Link ParentTo be fair, I also suspect there's some design difference regarding condensation or icing. An air conditioner operating in a hot climate shouldn't be seeing ice buildup.The only difference between a “heat pump” and an AC is a cheap valve that allows it to run backwards.
To be fair, I also suspect there's some design difference regarding condensation or icing. An air conditioner operating in a hot climate shouldn't be seeing ice buildup.
-
Comment on Two sides of the same coin in ~humanities
majromax (edited )LinkNo, and in fact by Bayes Theorem you should be slightly more suspicious that the coin is a double-headed coin. On the other hand, you should now be confident that the coin is not a double-tailed...Without picking the coin up to confirm the side that is down is tails. Could you ever know that it is tails ?
No, and in fact by Bayes Theorem you should be slightly more suspicious that the coin is a double-headed coin. On the other hand, you should now be confident that the coin is not a double-tailed coin, and if your initial suspicion was symmetric that's where the increased skepticism would come from.
Suppose you start by thinking that there's a 1-in-a-million chance that a randomly-tossed coin is double-headed, the same chance that it's double-tailed, and the residual (999,998-in-a-million) that it's a fair coin.
After the toss, you observe that one side of the coin is heads. If the coin was double-headed, the probability of it being double-headed was 100%, if it was fair then 50%, and if it was double-tailed then 0%. To write this in conditional probability notation, where P(A|B) means "probability of A if B is true/observed:"
- P(heads | 2 head coin) = 100%
- P(heads | fair coin) = 50%
- P(heads | 2 tail coin) = 0%
We also know that absent any information about the coin, we'd expect P(heads) = 50%.
Bayes' theorem states P(A|B) = P(B|A)*P(A)/P(B), essentially allowing us to reverse the way conditioning works. Rather than "probability of observation given an assumption about the underlying truth", we end up with "probability of the underlying truth given an assumption" (and our previously-existing belief!).
Running this through with our numbers gives:
- P(2 head coin | heads) = P(heads | 2 head coin) * P(2 head coin) / P(heads) = 100% * 1e-6 / 50% = 2e-6 (2 in a million)
- P(fair coin | heads) = P(heads | fair coin) * P(fair coin) / P(heads) = 50% * (1-2e-6) / 50% = (1-2e-6) (999,998 in a million, no change)
- P(2 tail coin | heads) = P(heads | 2 tail coin) * P(2 tail coin) / P(heads) = 0 * 1e-6 / 50% = 0 (no chance)
Now, if the same coin is flipped (without you seeing both sides) and lands on heads again, we start to become slightly more skeptical of the 'fair coin' hypothesis. P(2 heads | fair coin) is 25%. Interestingly, P(2 heads) is not 25% thanks to the very small influence of the unfair coin: it's 25% * P(fair coin) + 100% * P(2 heads) = (25%*(1-1e-6) + 1e-6) = (25% + 0.75e-6)[†].
- P(2 head coin | 2 heads) = P(2 heads | 2 head coin) * P(2 head coin) / P(2 heads) = 100% * (1e-6) / (25% + 0.75e-6) ≈ 4e-6 (4 in a million)
- P(fair coin | 2 heads) = P(2 heads | fair coin) * P(fair coin) / P(2 heads) = 25% * (1-1e-6) / (25% + 0.75e-6) ≈ (1 - 4e-6) (999,996 in a million)
[†] — This seems weird, but the unfair coin contributes disproportionately to this result. Consider P(1 billion heads): this will essentially only happen if the coin is a double-headed coin, so if we know nothing about the coin ahead of time then we must assume that the chance of 1 billion heads is equal to the chance that the coin is a double-headed coin.
-
Comment on How to build greener, affordable AC for high humidity and hotter summers in ~engineering
majromax Link ParentIn a simple box view of thermodynamics, heat ingress into the home from the outside is proportional to the temperature difference. For example, it it's 80F outside, then a home at 72F would have...An AC doesn't have to work harder to maintain 72 than it does 76 unless it's excessively hot and / or humid outside.
In a simple box view of thermodynamics, heat ingress into the home from the outside is proportional to the temperature difference. For example, it it's 80F outside, then a home at 72F would have about double the natural heating flux from the outdoors than a home at 76F.
I presume you're rejecting or at least heavily nuancing this view? I suppose this would be less true for heavily-insulated homes, where the largest share of heating comes from interior energy use (both electrical equipment and mammal metabolism) or temperature-independent fluxes like direct insolation.
-
Comment on The spectacular failure of the Star Wars hotel in ~movies
majromax Link ParentI'm deeply confused by the cost structure implied by the failure. Per her calculations at the beginning, at something close to the 'base' rate she was paying $120 per hour of scheduled time....unbelievably overpriced, cashing in on their brand to fleece customers for every penny they can.
I'm deeply confused by the cost structure implied by the failure.
Per her calculations at the beginning, at something close to the 'base' rate she was paying $120 per hour of scheduled time. Suppose a full two-thirds of that goes towards both the "cruise" or "resort"-style experience plus the additional depreciation from the effects-heavy environment. That would leave $40/hr as the experience premium.
That rate should have allowed Disney to hire at least one staff member per party to monitor/assist nearly full-time! How could the operation have thus been blind to any guest (like Nicholson) struggling to engage with the experience? Since the hotel's conceit is that it's a cruise liner, there would even be an in-setting justification for heavy concierge service.
Yet the hotel failed, so badly that Disney outright pulled the plug rather than let it fade away. Something about it must have cost much more than predicted, but I can't understand where the money went.
-
Comment on Seattle’s law mandating higher pay for food delivery workers is a case study in backfire economics in ~finance
majromax Link ParentWhat profit? Remember that in the thought experiment above, the subsidy problem still happens even if there's no profit left for the owners. Then, the subsidy comes at the expense of other, more...The only difference is that your business gets to profit off however many widgets they can make per hour without covering their ability to subsist.
What profit? Remember that in the thought experiment above, the subsidy problem still happens even if there's no profit left for the owners. Then, the subsidy comes at the expense of other, more productive workers.
Besides that, if the disabled worker would be a 'ward of the state either way,' it does affect the state's budget whether it's on the hook for the equivalent of $30/hr (a full 'living wage' equivalent) or just $10 (the difference between the paid wage and a living one).
The fact that you refer to new workers undergoing training is a great example here -- it is absolutely normal to not expect workers to be productive while they're still being trained, and it would be fucking dystopian not to pay them a living wage during their training.
Or, I don't hire trainees, and instead I use the cross-subsidy saved to improve the wages of expert employees. The factory across the street can pay its trainees a living wage, but as soon as they're competent I'll hire them away with a nice pay increase.
As a Nash equilibrium, this ends up with no company providing training. Instead, we all demand that prospective workers complete a community college curriculum on widget-making at their own expense, perhaps with an un(der)paid internship for credit. Even if we can't completely eliminate training, we can minimize the period for which we're on hook to pay the trainees.
-
Comment on Seattle’s law mandating higher pay for food delivery workers is a case study in backfire economics in ~finance
majromax Link ParentSuppose I run a widget factory. Net of material inputs and capital costs (maintenance, depreciation), I can sell widgets for a gross profit of $10 apiece. The living wage in my area is $30/hr. If...There is a reading of what you said that involve treating groups such as the disabled as second class workers who should be paid less and I'm sure that is not what you intended.
Suppose I run a widget factory. Net of material inputs and capital costs (maintenance, depreciation), I can sell widgets for a gross profit of $10 apiece. The living wage in my area is $30/hr.
If I have workers who produce at least 3 widgets an hour, then I'm capable of paying them a living wage, and whether or not I do that is a matter of relative bargaining power. The law and regulations can push here in the workers' favour.
However, what if I have a worker who can't produce 3 widgets per hour? This could be someone with a disability, or it could also be a new worker undergoing training who just isn't yet proficient. In either case, their output isn't capable of supporting a living wage. The living wage law would force me to take a net loss on the worker, subsidizing the living wage out of either profits (the intention, presumably) or the wages of other, more productive workers. It's to my advantage to just not hire these underperforming workers, leaving them as someone else's problem or as wards of the state.
This does not seem a desirable outcome. Extra widgets don't get made, and the workers who could most use the living wage don't receive one at all.
-
Comment on Seattle’s law mandating higher pay for food delivery workers is a case study in backfire economics in ~finance
majromax Link ParentAgain, could someone please define exploitation? How can I look at an employment contract and decide if it's exploitative, in a policy-meaningful sense? First, that would seem to lead to the poor...Other than the social issues their exploitation of people's labour has caused in the first place, of course.
Again, could someone please define exploitation? How can I look at an employment contract and decide if it's exploitative, in a policy-meaningful sense?
Perhaps we make sure that all jobs are paid such that nobody working a reasonable amount of hours (let's say 35 hours a week) needs state support to not starve and have basics like shelter, heating and so on.. that's a broad-power, whole-society move and should be reasonably inescapable.
First, that would seem to lead to the poor effects alleged in the here-linked article. For living-wage laws to result in a truly living wage, you need to presuppose that full-time work is generally available. Under conventional economics, that's not a given when the minimum wage is raised too far.
Second, I'm not sure this is even a desirable outcome because of the free exchange it restricts. Should I be forbidden from paying the neighbour's teen $50 to watch my kids for the evening, solely because at an annualized 35hr/wk rate it doesn't result in a living wage?
Third, what of genuine self-employment? New business-owners often can't pay themselves a wage at all, let alone a living one, while their business starts before they have clients/customers. A freelancer who takes a job with a fixed project fee might underestimate the amount of work it will take, resulting in a non-living wage through only their own actions. It seems coercive to have the government come in and tell these people that they're criminal for underpaying themselves.
-
Comment on Seattle’s law mandating higher pay for food delivery workers is a case study in backfire economics in ~finance
majromax Link ParentThat begs the question that the city is a reasonable jurisdiction to implement this goal. Cities are obviously best-placed to handle local issues, but I'm not sure if values-alignment of...However, this law is Seattle's attempt to force companies to align their businesses with society's values.
That begs the question that the city is a reasonable jurisdiction to implement this goal.
Cities are obviously best-placed to handle local issues, but I'm not sure if values-alignment of businesses (or economic redistribution, depending on your framing) is truly a local issue.
-
Comment on Is Nebula worth it? in ~tech
majromax Link ParentBecause the site knows what it has, but you can only guess. This is also the fundamental legitimate purpose of advertising: to make the would-be customer aware of a choice. This can easily become...I agree but I would also additionally add that why does it need to be a site initiated recommendation?
Because the site knows what it has, but you can only guess. This is also the fundamental legitimate purpose of advertising: to make the would-be customer aware of a choice.
This can easily become exploitative, but fortunately that kind of exploitation is contrary to Nebula's business model. Ad-driven social media profits from view-time (through advertisements), but Nebula profits from its subscription fee. Nebula profits most if you remain interested enough to renew your subscription, but beyond that your watch-time is just a cost (hosting/bandwidth).
-
Comment on Seattle’s law mandating higher pay for food delivery workers is a case study in backfire economics in ~finance
majromax Link ParentYou seem to be operating from one hidden premise, that it's the employer's responsibility to ensure that the employee doesn't starve. This isn't outlandish, but it's also not obvious. If my...I think your premise is flawed. It's working from the basis that these people don't provide enough value to earn a living wage. People shouldn't be required to provide value to live
You seem to be operating from one hidden premise, that it's the employer's responsibility to ensure that the employee doesn't starve.
This isn't outlandish, but it's also not obvious. If my employer just has to pay me for time worked, then my life is my own. If my employer also has a responsibility to make sure I don't starve, then arguably they should have much more control over my life, such as coercing me to make "wise" choices like buy healthy vegetables rather than beer.
This idea is also pre-modern, in the sense that it fits well in a quasi-feudal society with land-owning manor lords and land-renting peasantry. Again, this kind of society is organized around that economic hierarchy, so the rich are not just economic Big Men but also expressly at the top of the social hierarchy.
In the modern market economy, we also have the problem that jobs aren't fixed. A land-owning nobleman needs a relatively fixed quantity of labour to farm the fields, and if they don't have that labour the fields lay fallow. A factory, however, can be built in many places, and many service jobs are even more flexible (not needing heavy infrastructure).
If the law forces companies to take unwanted responsibility for social problems, then many companies can simply relocate or not enter the market, leaving the region to a weird kind of autarky.
The goal of general welfare is laudable, but I don't think it can be achieved by devolving individual responsibility to the unwilling. It needs to be treated at the whole-society level, using the broadest powers that offer the fewest avenues for escape. In particular:
You're basically making the same argument that Walmart makes when they don't pay their workers enough and they still have to rely on food stamps.
I think this is something closer to a policy success: people are better off than if unemployed, and they also don't starve. Even under the framework that Wal-Mart's profits are exploitation, it seems like the simpler answer is to tax the profits to fund the welfare programs. If we're unable to come to come to a consensus as a society that we need to appropriately fund welfare programs, that's an indictment of us rather than of Wal-Mart.
-
Comment on Seattle’s law mandating higher pay for food delivery workers is a case study in backfire economics in ~finance
majromax Link ParentShould you be allowed to pay the neighbour kid $20 to mow your lawn, or $50 and some pizza to babysit your kids for the evening? How about buying a case of beer for your buddies who help you move?...- Exemplary
If people being paid a living wage means the "solution" isn't feasible anymore, then was it a solution in the first place?
Should you be allowed to pay the neighbour kid $20 to mow your lawn, or $50 and some pizza to babysit your kids for the evening? How about buying a case of beer for your buddies who help you move?
Should it be legal for you to volunteer to clean up the park, but illegal if you receive a token $10 for a day's work? Does the answer differ if you're an idle tech millionaire versus a homeless person who often sleeps in the park?
None of these are living wages, but all of them are economic exchanges.
Or was it exploitation?
What is exploitation?
Modern market economics valorizes the voluntary exchange. If two people come to a free agreement to exchange one thing for another, then there's a strong assumption that neither party is left worse off, and often both benefit.
This isn't always true – there could be hidden coercion, or an asymmetry of information could mean that one party knows more than the other. However, mere difference of bargaining power doesn't change the basis calculation. It can change the distribution of gains from the exchange, but it still won't force someone to make a trade that knowingly leaves them worse off.
You might be thinking of exploitation in the sense of profit as exploitation, but Marx was a better sociologist than economist[1]. Regulation can affect bargaining power to some degree, but it can't force companies to offer work where they don't want to. The choice of "work or starve" just becomes "or starve", since a company that doesn't enter a market doesn't owe anything to the people it doesn't hire.
But there are ways to speed up delivery without breaking the law or being unsafe.
Batched deliveries would do the trick, but that would give up on some of the instant gratification of on-demand delivery. Informally, many drivers operated in this way under the table (even if by stacking deliveries from different apps) in order to boost effective wages.
[1] — Mind you, Marx was working at the dawn of modern economics, so he deserves a lot of credit as a historical figure. However, much as Freud's psychological theories have either been absorbed into the modern orthodoxy or abandoned, there's very little left to take from Marxist economics as a coherent theory.)
The best explanation that I've seen recently is that Russia's objective is inherently an imperialist one: it's fighting to defend its claimed sphere of influence. Thinking of itself as a superpower, it has a natural right to a sphere of influence where it has the final say over international arrangements, regardless of the sovereign wishes of the affected countries inside this alleged sphere.
In that view, Ukraine's post-Euromaidan attempt to align itself with the EU and by extension the US/NATO is an attack against Imperial Russia. In particular:
Of course this view is complete bollocks, more like the warped mindset of an abuser rather than that of a rational state actor. However, it explains most of Russia's actions, including its opinion this would be a 3-day SMO, its extremely aggressive internal rhetoric, and its expansion of demands for peace as the war has bogged down.
Unfortunately, this spells bad news for any peace process. Russia's baseline demand is that Ukraine cease to have an independent foreign policy, and from its imperial perspective any peace deal that results in a viable, independent Ukrainian state is a loss relative to its assumed position circa 2013. Of course, an independent, sovereign, and viable Ukraine is also the most basic term of any Ukrainian-acceptable peace deal.
Sadly, I fear that this means the war will continue until one party or the other is exhausted. The availability and routine use of long-range strikes by both parties makes even a de-facto ceasefire (digging in along current lines of control with a steady reduction of combat intensity) impossible.