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ConcreteGidget

60 karma · joined December 19, 2020

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ConcreteGidget··on 20% of requests for Wikimedia Commons are for one image of a flower
Yes, but only 10 million times.
ConcreteGidget··on Vole.wtf
I really like this.
ConcreteGidget··on Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet
I think this is more the rule than the exception. The idea that states exist to serve the individual would be laughed at for most of human history. Be it God or the state, man exists to serve. Conscripting and killing young men for the sake of the state/God/glory has been one of humanities favorite pastimes.
ConcreteGidget··on Jack Ma makes first live appearance in three months in online meet
Does anyone have any book recommendations for non-chinese people to understand CCP power structures? I'm completely lost in all of this Jack Ma stuff.
ConcreteGidget··on Archive of 43k+ Donald Trump Twitter Screenshots
Theres a lot I don't know about the Soviet Union but the "Enemies of the People" were the leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party, not supporters of the party.

I agree that people like Giuliani and even people like Ted Cruz who indirectly bolstered the attack on the capitol building should be prosecuted but going after Trump Supporters themselves is dumb and these comments shouldn't even be made in jest as they are quite dangerous. Most of them are victims of predatory media companies. You sound like the gestapo.

ConcreteGidget··on 2-Acre Vertical Farm Run by AI and Robots Out-Produces 720-Acre Flat Farm
The government imposes its will all the time. It prevents you from shooting me or overthrowing the government. Surely this imposition is just? Surely this is more benign then letting you shoot me or letting you overthrow the government.

Why? Because it reduces human suffering.

Also surely with better technology we will be able to transform prisons into rehabilitation centers and thus reduce our countries prison populations and thus become a FREER country, albeit one with less rights?

I think comparing our government to a beehive or a pack of wolves is ridiculous I guess you can call governments "natural." Even if we consider this government natural, surely it doesn't have a natural state. What is the "natural state" of a government of 350 million people?

ConcreteGidget··on 2-Acre Vertical Farm Run by AI and Robots Out-Produces 720-Acre Flat Farm
We can definitely make systemic changes that help people make better "decisions." I don't believe in free will and you clearly do so we're kinda approaching this problem from fundamentally different frameworks. Stupid people shouldn't be culled but rather shepherded. Governments are artificial constructs so asking them to act "naturally" doesn't make sense to me as they have no natural state.

Also reducing human suffering seems to be a pretty good thing to do and your natural system doesn't seem to do that.

ConcreteGidget··on 2-Acre Vertical Farm Run by AI and Robots Out-Produces 720-Acre Flat Farm
"They also estimated we would have flying cars 20 years ago." My number comes from a collection of AI researchers from the future of life institute so I can't imagine a better "they" to defer to. That said, we are bad at predicting the future so who knows?

I never said we should forget about the average people or normal people as Yang calls them in his book "The War on Normal People."

Even if we don't have AGI we will have narrow AI such as self driving/factory stuff/textiles which will displace millions. I'm all for UBI or some sort of equivalent social safety net (I'm not an economist so I don't want to be prescriptive here as I have heard some drawbacks to UBI).

The technocrats have already created platforms that are tearing our social fabric apart by promulgating conspiracies and radicalizing our youth while reducing long-form literacy an increasing anxiety and depression.

What we need is some sort of social revolution that in my opinion could only be obtained by an authoritarian government that protects people from themselves and the exploitive tech corporations. Ban facebook to reduce conspiracy promulgation. Ban tiktok and ever increasingly addictive video games to prevent our youth from becoming dopamine junkees. Ban drugs so the listless and ever-growing welfare class remain mostly docile.

None of these changes are feasible in a country whose identity revolves around personal freedom/choice.

ConcreteGidget··on 2-Acre Vertical Farm Run by AI and Robots Out-Produces 720-Acre Flat Farm
By AGI I meant Artificial General Intelligence. There is no stopping or meaningful slowing of the machine.
ConcreteGidget··on 2-Acre Vertical Farm Run by AI and Robots Out-Produces 720-Acre Flat Farm
The people who are on this forum are cogs in a machine that, over the next 40 years, will displace millions of American workers. It seems where we are headed into a bifurcated society part overeducated technocrats part gig economy task rabbits.

Seeing the former group beginning to consider the effects of their work is dystopian.

I'm not sure what you mean by "mistake."

ConcreteGidget··on Ask HN: Are we in tech-stock bubble?
Stock market. Coronavirus was financially beneficial for the corporate portion of the upper middle class.
ConcreteGidget··on Ask HN: Are we in tech-stock bubble?
Its pretty crazy how no one is talking about how only 18% of the stimulus bill is going to individuals. I'm by no means rich but I made 80k passively this year so I don't know which side of the wealth transfer I'm on.
ConcreteGidget··on 2-Acre Vertical Farm Run by AI and Robots Out-Produces 720-Acre Flat Farm
If there is no way to work, there must be no way to provide value to others. Correct? If there is no way to provide value to another then there is no inequity.
ConcreteGidget··on 2-Acre Vertical Farm Run by AI and Robots Out-Produces 720-Acre Flat Farm
Maslow put "employment" in his hierarchy of needs. As a trust fund kid I've never had to worry about living in the streets but found that without the purpose of work I felt pretty worthless. If you live in the first world you basically have food water and shelter taken care of for you if you're resourceful. The rest seems to be climbing status hierarchies and opulence.
ConcreteGidget··on 2-Acre Vertical Farm Run by AI and Robots Out-Produces 720-Acre Flat Farm
It's pretty dystopian to see a page comprised of technocrats writing about these topics.

Median estimation for AGI is around 2060 so its not just "average" people.

ConcreteGidget··on 2-Acre Vertical Farm Run by AI and Robots Out-Produces 720-Acre Flat Farm
This is a pretty first world-centric perspective. There are slightly higher rates of dissatisfaction and hopelessness but quality of life is drastically improving in the second and third world. More efficient production results in better and more stuff even if the stuff isn't distributed perfectly.
ConcreteGidget··on Dasung just released a 25 inch eInk monitor
Thanks
ConcreteGidget··on Dasung just released a 25 inch eInk monitor
If you watch the video the display seems to be around 10fps which is the best I've ever seen for eInk.
ConcreteGidget··on Dasung just released a 25 inch eInk monitor
Is this company publicly traded? I've never heard of this company before.
ConcreteGidget··on Dasung just released a 25 inch eInk monitor
I'd like to add that we are watching a 24fps video of a monitor so the actual performance is probably even better.

Meanwhile my kindle oasis has like 1fps.

ConcreteGidget··on The web is 30 years old today
Except I can now pirate.

RIP Aaron Swartz

ConcreteGidget··on Blame the Algorithm
These posts feel like ragebait.

On the Hacker News welcome page there is a section about what constitutes "deeply interesting" and I feel this story falls under the category of a "robbery" and is thus irrelevant to readers outside of Palo Alto.

The reason I think this is a national story has more to do with the collective's hatred of the managerial/executive class.

I like this post so far as it explains how the algorithm was written by and for the administration and thus "the algorithm made a mistake" defense from the executives doesn't hold but the people who read Hacker News already understand this.

ConcreteGidget··on Richard Ford: Do we really need friends? (2017)
"The Guardian was founded as a socially-engaged newspaper for the working classes"

My point is that the pieces like this are inaccessible for the vast majority of people. Its meaning could easily be conveyed without so many obscure references. If this were in a literary magazine then fine, but this is the Guardian.

ConcreteGidget··on Richard Ford: Do we really need friends? (2017)
I've never worked in journalism but how does "You know something sceptical’s afoot when you find Larkin on your bedside table instead of Montaigne and La Rochefoucauld " get past an editor?

I think I'm pretty smart but I've only thoroughly read half of the authors mentioned in the post which seems to intentionally render itself unintelligible to anyone who identifies as "working class"

Theres nothing better than getting done at the construction job site, having a few light beers, and arguing about arcane renaissance philosophers.