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mcpackieh

4,231 karma · joined June 18, 2023

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mcpackieh··on Google Brain founder says big tech is lying about AI danger
> We're talking about big tech employees.

Maybe you are. I am talking about all AI fear.

"The premise that AI fear and/or fearmongering is primarily coming from people with a commercial incentive to promote fear, from people attempting to create regulatory capture, is obviously false. The risks of AI have been discussed in literature and media for literally decades, long before anybody had any plausible commercial stake in the promotion of this fear."

Here's the list you've requested: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AIIsACrapshoot

mcpackieh··on German court prohibits LinkedIn from ignoring "Do Not Track" signals
> We are blocked at reading theirs

Maybe in Eurostan, but not in America.

mcpackieh··on Google Brain founder says big tech is lying about AI danger
Again, it really doesn't matter to my point whether or not you buy into the idea of William Gibson's intent being to warn people against AI. The point is that decades of media have given people ample reason to fear AI, such that present fear of AI cannot be solely attributed to present day fear mongering campaigns.

People have been spooked by the possibility for a long time. That's the point. If you really want to persist in arguing I can provide a long list of media in which AI is dangerous if not outright villainous. Will you make me do this, or will you accept that I can do this?

mcpackieh··on SCOTUS to decide if public officials can block critics online
> genuine

"People I like."

> trolls

"People I don't like."

Either of whom may or may not be constituents. In fact the people most motivated to 'troll' (give voice to dissent) will be the people who have a stake in the matter; constituents.

mcpackieh··on X says it is worth $19B, down from $44B last year
The sooner it dies, the better.
mcpackieh··on [dead]
From that thread: "Instagram (and Facebook) are well known to suppress pro-Palestine voices [...], so this seems like something consistent with what the company is known to do."

Yeah, I'm seeing a pattern here. On the bright side, at least Facebook has finally learned how to moderate consistently. /s

mcpackieh··on 'It's quite soul-destroying': how we fell out of love with dating apps
You didn't make an exception for school, nor did the comment you replied to. The only exception they cited was church and you didn't add any yourself until now. And why is school an exception to you, but work is not? Both are places people "have to be", places where people go to do something other than flirt and where they might feel trapped in a social situation they can't easily get out of. How is "my coworker asked me out twice but I still have to work with him" different from "my co-student asked me out twice but I still have to go to class with him"?

There's no meaningful difference here, particularly if you're a grad student. But I guess you'll now say that undergrads are allowed to ask somebody twice, but grad students must not ask more than once? Or maybe you'll just insult me and tell me to be miserable quietly like other people in this discussion already have.

mcpackieh··on Google Brain founder says big tech is lying about AI danger
That may be how you read it, but isn't necessarily how other people read it. A whole lot of people read cyberpunk literature as a warning about the negative ways technology could impact society.

In Neuromancer you have the Turing Police. Why do they exist if AIs don't pose a threat to society?

mcpackieh··on Meta to charge for ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram in Europe
No. "What you asked for" is a bold faced lie. By your account it shows you what you engaged with, even though you literally didn't ask for it.

And even "engaged with" is bullshit. What the hell does "engage with" even mean? What you really should be saying is it gives you more of what you pause scrolling on. That is neither asking for something, nor "engaging".

mcpackieh··on Google Brain founder says big tech is lying about AI danger
The fine line between bravery and stupidity is understanding the risks. Somebody who understands the danger they're walking into is brave. Somebody who blissfully walks into danger without recognizing the danger is stupid.

A technological singularity is a theorized period during which the length of time you can make reasonable inferences about the future rapidly approaches zero. If there can be no reasonable inferences about the future, there can be no bravery. Anybody who isn't afraid during a technological singularity is just stupid.

mcpackieh··on Google Brain founder says big tech is lying about AI danger
Is Mom scared because Musk told her to be scared, or because she thought about the matter herself and concluded that it's scary? Why do you assume that people scared of AI must be under the influence of rich people/corps today, rather than this fear being informed by their own consideration of the problem or by decades of media that has been warning about the dangers of AI?

Maybe Mom worries about any radical new technology because she lived though nuclear attack drills in schools. Or because she's already seen computers and robots take peoples jobs. Or because she watched Terminator or read Neuromancer. Or because she reads lesswrong. Why assume it's because she's fallen under the influence of Musk?

mcpackieh··on Google Brain founder says big tech is lying about AI danger
The premise that AI fear and/or fearmongering is primarily coming from people with a commercial incentive to promote fear, from people attempting to create regulatory capture, is obviously false. The risks of AI have been discussed in literature and media for literally decades, long before anybody had any plausible commercial stake in the promotion of this fear.

Go back and read cyberpunk lit from the 80s. Did William Gibson have some cynical commercial motivation for writing Neuromancer? Was he trying to get regulatory capture for his AI company that didn't exist? Of course not.

People have real and earnest concerns about this technology. Dismissing all of these concerns as profit-motivated is dishonest.

mcpackieh··on 'It's quite soul-destroying': how we fell out of love with dating apps
My father asked my mother out 5 times before she said yes. They've now been married for 45 years. Maybe if I tried that kind of perseverance it would work, or maybe the second ask would get me labeled and witch hunted by somebody like you who would then try to ruin my life for it.
mcpackieh··on The death of a public intellectual
It would be foolish to think the Gallic Wars happened precisely as Caesar wrote because his book was overt self-aggrandizing propaganda intended to boost his standing with the Roman public.

But as to the Gallic Wars happening at all? There is corroborating evidence. Other Romans wrote about it, often to damn it, and they treated the existence of the war as a fact. He brought tons of Gallic slaves back to Rome which would corroborate the most basic facts of the claim (e.g. that there had been wars with Gallic people) to other Romans who weren't there to personally witness it. Furthermore there is modern archeological evidence of battles and massacres which roughly line up with some of what Caesar claimed to have done.

mcpackieh··on The death of a public intellectual
It's perfectly okay to stay agnostic on things you don't know about. It's always okay to say "I don't know." If you were forced to take a position on something you don't know about yourself, then looking to relevant authorities may be a decent enough plan, but who's forcing you to take positions on things?
mcpackieh··on The death of a public intellectual
It really seems like Lex Fridman was boosted as a "safe Joe Rogan", a stoner/intellectual/macho podcaster guy, but one who won't lead his audiences into conspiracy theory territory. Or maybe it just seems that way to me because Lex obviously idolizes Joe Rogan and either smokes too much weed before his interviews or acts as if he does.

I really can't wrap my mind around how he managed to get so many high profile guests so fast, except to guess that his father's connections had a lot to do with it. Every part of his meteoric rise seems inorganic to me.

mcpackieh··on The death of a public intellectual
From his description,

>"You can watch the incredibly popular lecture series "Personality and Its Transformations", "Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief", as well as his "The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories" lectures for free."

I won't pretend I ever watched more than a few minutes of any of this stuff, but isn't it a bunch of inane rambling about finding deep psychological meaning or universal truths in fairy tails? Nonsense along the lines of "Slimey the worm from sesame street represents the dragon, the great primordial evil which the warrior, the eternal hero, must slay to conqueror his fears..."

It's the kind of analysis that right/conservative people with 'pragmatic/common sense' self-perceived alignments would usually mock college professors for, except in Peterson's case it gets lapped up because he mixes it in with things like "communism is bad because it murdered millions of people" and "If you're feeling depressed you should try not living like a slob"

mcpackieh··on 'It's quite soul-destroying': how we fell out of love with dating apps
Why would you bring that up in relation to " Richard Stallman #metoo cancellation attempt", unless you were trying to insinuate some sort of connection between his "obnoxious antisocial" tendencies and the sexual predator allegations (that is what is meant by "#metoo cancellation attempt")
mcpackieh··on AI can catalogue a forest's inhabitants simply by listening
Makes sense. Is "monitor forest restoration" the new "search and rescue" euphemism for military applications?

"We're going to use this robot to find people inside of urban rubble... uhh.... after earthquakes of course.."

mcpackieh··on 'It's quite soul-destroying': how we fell out of love with dating apps
None of that makes him a sexual predator. You're using "he's a weirdo" to imply "he's dangerous". Obvious bullshit.
mcpackieh··on 'It's quite soul-destroying': how we fell out of love with dating apps
I understand that, but it's also true just in terms of physical beauty as well. Hollywood women are nothing special, not anymore anyway. There are no more Audrey Hepburns in Hollywood. Hollywood's beauty standards for sex-icon women have severely deteriorated.

Charitable explanation: Hollywood has become better at selecting for acting talent instead of beauty.

Uncharitable explanation: Fewer Hollywood casting directors are straight men.

mcpackieh··on 'It's quite soul-destroying': how we fell out of love with dating apps
> If there’s a bunch of women ending up single, then that necessitates about an equal amount of single men too.

A minority of those single men have numerous (sometimes >hundreds) short-term relationships. But far more of those single men have very few or even no relationships at all. I think this disparity is far more extreme for men than for women.

If that upper echelon of single and promiscuous men were socially pressured to stop man-whoring and settle into healthy long-term relationships, then the rest would have better odds. Of course those men will never voluntarily change their ways unless there exists a strong social pressure to change. In the past, this pressure existed in the form of men without partners [wives, but it doesn't have to be wives] being viewed with suspicion if they wanted to attain social standing at work or in their community. This pressure has all-but evaporated into nothingness.

mcpackieh··on 'It's quite soul-destroying': how we fell out of love with dating apps
Personally I don't believe it would help, but I do think I understand civilitty's reason for suggesting it.
mcpackieh··on 'It's quite soul-destroying': how we fell out of love with dating apps
The women selected by modern Hollywood as sex icons are, for the most part, nothing special. There are at least three women working at my local grocery store that make Scarlett Johansson look like a hag. They're more beautiful than anybody I've seen in a movie in many years, and I've seen hundreds if not thousands of women like them out in public.

I know these sort of tastes are subjective, but I've talked to a lot of guys who feel the same way. The women in media are mid, most women who are young and physically fit can match if not greatly exceed the looks of women in media. However I acknowledge that women themselves often do not feel this way; they compare themselves to the female celebrities and feel bad about themselves even though most men would rate them higher than the celebrities. They rate themselves lower than men would rate them because media is toxic and purposely makes women feel insecure to sell more beauty products, lifestyles, etc.

mcpackieh··on 'It's quite soul-destroying': how we fell out of love with dating apps
Every time the app successfully matches two people well enough that they form a long-term commitment to each other, that is a step in the right direction. When the app instead matches people adequately enough for a short-term relationship but keeps them coming back to the app for more, that aggravates the problem.

Possibly, the commercial incentives of these apps have them deliberately optimizing for short-term matches. Or it may be the case that the apps are doing as best as they can manage and the problem is simply very difficult to solve. If the former is the case, then removing or regulating the commercial incentive might help.

mcpackieh··on Rare 2,100-year-old gold coin bears name of obscure ruler from pre-Roman Britain
"Rare 2,100-year-old gold coin bears name of Esunertos, an obscure ruler from pre-Roman Britain"

Two extra words. It's not so hard.

mcpackieh··on 'It's quite soul-destroying': how we fell out of love with dating apps
Then a substantial portion of them become bitter and offer bad advice to younger women encouraging them follow in the same path, because misery loves company. Or because the sour grapes mentality has them conclude that they never actually wanted kids and their lonely spinster alcoholic lifestyle is actually what they wanted; they tell people they're happy and are models to be emulated. They set up a new generation for failure to validate themselves.
mcpackieh··on 'It's quite soul-destroying': how we fell out of love with dating apps
Watching TV barely qualifies as a hobby at all, it's something you passively do in a pure-consumption mode. A common hobby that involves you going through a creative process is much better than a pure-consumption 'hobby'. Even "I like to discuss the TV I watch" would be a huge improvement.
mcpackieh··on 'It's quite soul-destroying': how we fell out of love with dating apps
Social pressure to commit to monogamous relationships is the only possible solution to this.
mcpackieh··on 'It's quite soul-destroying': how we fell out of love with dating apps
My understanding is that bugs are not actually drawn to light, but rather attempt to fly at a fixed angle to light, roughly perpendicular to it. When the light is the Moon, that keeps them flying in more or less a straight line. But when the light is close to them, they turn to keep the light at that fixed angle and consequently spiral in towards it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transverse_orientation

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