Hard Pass

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/shit/p/1144758/you-should-consider-yourself-lucky-if-you-use-adblocker-and-youtube-is-still-playing-vid

Archived link

In response to escalating military maneuvers by Russia and China's growing strategic footprint, seven nations with Arctic interests have agreed to significantly enhance security across the region. The coalition-comprising Canada, Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the United States-plans to expand its military presence, improve surveillance capabilities, and conduct joint exercises throughout the Arctic and High North.

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In a joint statement, the seven countries committ to enhance military presence, surveillance capabilities, and joint training in the Arctic and the High North. We do so in a coordinated and calibrated way.

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As Arctic nations bolster their security in response to the growing military presence of Russia and China, similar initiatives are taking shape across Europe. For instance, a coalition of the UK and nine European countries has recently formed a naval alliance aimed at countering Russian aggression. This development underscores the increasing urgency for collaborative defense strategies among nations facing shared threats. To learn more about this European naval coalition, click here.

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cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/shit/p/1144740/when-i-ask-my-girl-and-my-bro-for-500-and-my-girl-sends-me-500-but-bro-sends-me-312-64

Police think it was poachers

Plastic surgeons are increasingly concerned about the rise of “AI face”, as more and more clients arrive in their offices with unrealistic AI-generated visions of what they want to look like.

Trump has hinted in the past at differences with Gabbard on their approach to Iran, saying in March that she was “softer” than him on curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

In April, several sources told Reuters that Gabbard could lose her role in a broader cabinet shakeup.

A senior White House official said then that Trump had expressed displeasure with Gabbard in recent months. Another source with direct knowledge of the matter said the president had asked allies for their thoughts on potential replacements for his intelligence chief.

The people that run CPP are underperforming, and paying themselves handsomely to do so.

First, the underperformance:

While the Fund earned an average of 8.8 per cent annually, [passive investing] earned 10.7 per cent – nearly two full percentage points more, on average, every year. These are staggering numbers. Take that first measure, the annualized 0.5 percentage point gap since 2007. Compounded, it means the contribution of active management has been to reduce the size of the national nest egg by more than $100-billion. Had the Fund stuck to passive management, its portfolio would today stand, not at $793-billion, but somewhere north of $900-billion.

And then there are the employees. The CPP has increased the number of staff more than tenfold:

From around 150 employees in 2006, the CPPIB has ballooned to more than 2,000 today. Personnel costs now total over $1.2-billion... Total costs, ... exceed $5.4-billion. Twenty years ago they were $54-million.

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The top five most highly compensated managers at the CPPIB make an average of more than $5-million each, including salaries, bonuses and other benefits. Twenty years ago the corresponding figure was less than a sixth of that.

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The chair of the CPPIB board this year will be paid more than $300,000 – three times what her predecessor was paid in 2006.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-cpp-investment-board-cppib-benchmarks/

Addiction rarely begins with harm. It begins with relief.

What Tim described didn’t sound like intoxication. It sounded quieter: people gradually relying on AI to reduce the discomfort of thinking.

Addiction medicine offers a useful framework. Many people use substances without developing addiction. The difference often lies in patterns of use and the role the substance plays in someone’s life. When something becomes the primary way a person manages discomfort — emotional or cognitive — risk increases.

The discomfort it relieves is subtle: the blank page, the uncertain decision, the difficult conversation, the effort of organizing thought. These moments are frustrating. They are also how competence develops.

When people hear the word “addiction,” they often assume it implies catastrophe — intoxication, loss of control, destruction. But addiction medicine describes a process long before those outcomes appear: the gradual shift from optional use to psychological reliance.

Framing AI that way makes people uncomfortable for a simple reason.

It suggests that something extraordinarily useful — something many of us already depend on — could quietly reshape how we think. And history shows that when a powerful tool offers relief from discomfort, questioning it often sounds like criticism of the people who use it.

The most transformative technologies are rarely dangerous because they are obviously harmful. They are powerful because they work so well that we stop noticing what they are replacing.