whatnow37373

Let’s all focus on not waging bloody goddamn war against each other first before worrying about AI anything.

Those are all irrelevant. The market will magically fix everything, don’t you know that?

Populism is on the rise in my country as well but that’s orthogonal to my evaluation of individual policies. I dislike little-d dictators proclaiming to serve the needs of The People because as an European I am intimately aware of what that engenders. I like serving a System not a Person.

If a policy is enacted that I don’t like - which happens daily - then I shrug and reinvigorate my will to vote next time around.

I don’t really see how your conclusion follows from anything I said.

Surely there is some kind of due process? You can't just pick up foreign looking types and ship them off in black vans. That would be an illegal way to do that, I believe (I hope). I'm not American so I don't know how it works over there.

I can see how it is a possible source of confusion which is something we can ill afford in this already treacherous waters.

> But the biases of people are legitimate, while the biases of the elites are illegitimate. > [...] > while protecting legally recognized rights

Agreed, provided that by "elites" we mean the branches of government not just "successful people". I guess we're mostly in agreement. I'm just cranky about The People because in my country they are quite ... self-destructive, but that is a topic for another time.

I have a more maximalist view of what democracy means which is I believe more common in Europe and I suspect that's where most of your disagreement stems from.

First of all no single judge will be capable of upholding this, but let's say the entire judiciary has indeed decided to disenfranchise half the population I'd say they are grossly failing at their job. But anyway, your question was: is that democracy?

Well, it depends. In my democracy it would not be, because freedom is a big part of what democracy means here - even if The People decide freedom is unimportant. That's what we don't like about naked democracy, it easily leads to mob rule in which freedom is stripped and the tyrannical majority overrides all other concerns.

In my mind democracy is a broad system of checks, balances and institutions in which the will of the people is just one element. An important one, but definitely not the only one.

Just for entertainment consider this: if The People vote to keep women out of the electoral process, is that democracy?

Something I just realized that might be germane to this little discussion: I am European, not American.

We often use the word "democracy" as the vast eco-system underlying and upholding modern liberal societies in general, not just the elected parts. Whether that's correct use of the word - I suspect you think it's not - I leave open for discussion. If you want I can use the narrow definition in which case we are mostly in agreement.

Judges should exercise due caution and be mindful of their obvious biases.

However, this works both ways. Officials cater to their often not so well-informed electorate and this group, The People, is as susceptible to biases - if not more - as the so called elites are. Both should exercise restraint and be mindful of their biases, not just the judiciary. It takes a populist to claim The People are always right.

As you can tell I am also very much an amateur. I suggest you don't approach me as someone who has studied political science because I'll have a hard time keeping up.

There's a couple of aspects to it that, in my opinion, need to come together. Bypassing and/or undermining democratic institutions (media, courts, bureaucracy) and claiming exclusive representation - "I alone represent The People" - come to mind.

Mass deportations, without more context, in and of themselves are more a policy and less a political style.

You can execute this policy in a democratic or populist fashion.

Populism and democracy are orthogonal. Usually populists just ride democracy as a vehicle to where they really want to go.

If The People selected you as their Chosen Leader, who needs pesky Elites in the courts and the Corrupt bureaucrats holding you back, the Chosen One? All opposition to what The People want is elitist gatekeeping and needs to be violently eradicated.

Agreed. We started with one API to rule them all. What happened? Now we got two.. and now we have to communicate like this:

“So the backend gave this weird …”

“What backend?”

“The backend for the frontend…”

“So not the backend for the backend for the frontend?”

I jest, but only very slightly.

> dramatically reduce complexity

If you ever worked seriously on anything non-SPA you would never, ever claim SPAs “dramatically reduce complexity”. The mountain of shit you have pull in to do anything is astronomical even by PHPs standards and I hate PHP. Those days were clean compared to what I have to endure with React and friends.

The API argument never sat well with me either. Having an API is orthogonal: you can have one or do not have one, you can have one and have a SSR app. In the AI age an API is the easy part anyway.

That’s a very … liberal interpretation.

I find it fascinating how many interesting quotes turn out to be fabrications of unknown origin.

Possibly, but slowly and inefficiently.

The example he gives about geometry is actually quite interesting. It is one of the early highlights of a deep question: is this knowledge, geometry in this case, learned/learnable or is it, somehow, innate? Do we learn this from scratch or do we have innate pre-existing cognitive structures that are “configured” by experience? If the latter, what does “learning” mean? It’s definitely not what we usually mean. If the former, we meet Hume and Kant and have to show how we arrived at space and geometry ex nihilo.

If learning is essentially based on “configuring” innate structures, you can IMO state it is eternal or uncovered or whatever poetic vehicle you desire. I’d say give these pre-modern guys a break.

These are issues being discussed way into the modern era starting (again) with the likes of Hume and Kant and no easy solutions are available. This is not a solved problem.

I believe the point was this is preventable by having a slightly wider knowledge base.

Seeing that I am on HN and can unleash unrestrained pedantry I wish to ask where Cicero actually writes that because I cannot find it?

Truly inspiring. I, too, have learned from relevant sources that the future of NLP lies in patriotic sentiment and vigorous oil-adding.

Point is that competition is fueled by insecurity. If you are happy, truly content, with yourself you will find competing extraordinarily tiresome and unnecessary. Not saying it’s good for society by the way. I think our civilization needs the pathologically insecure to be disruptive and create room for innovation. Related traits are narcissism and psychopathy. Painful, but useful, in small doses.

Musk, Altman, Bezos they are basically caricatures.

I get the security issues, but let’s be honest. It’s not about that.

The poster included a sneer about “work”. This is about something else.

Ah, now suddenly you not only need to deliver work but you need to behave in a certain non-specified way. The contract then should arrange for that and perhaps pay extra because it’s a sign of dysfunction.

Hate to be that guy, but.. what’s the problem? The work is getting done for the price you agreed on. You care how it’s done suddenly?

If AI does it, it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

I’m sorry but capitalists that want to have it both ways annoy me. Agree on what gets delivered for how much and get out of the way. The “employer” mindset doesn’t jive with capitalism ya’ll are so fond of.

The point is not they lack values at any point in time, the point is they can switch them faster than you can say “capitalism”.

> I can't trust that Apple is honest about their privacy commitments

Oh, no! Who would have thought? What could we possibly do other than keep shoving money into their faces?

Abundance of sugar and fat triggers primal circuits which cause trouble if said sources are unnaturally abundant.

Social media follows a similar pattern but now with primal social and emotional circuits. It too causes troubles, but IMO even larger and more damaging than food.

I think this part of AI is going to be another iteration of this: taking a human drive, distilling it into its core and selling it.

A remarkable insight—often associated with individuals of above-average cognitive capabilities.

While the use of the em-dash has recently been associated with AI you might offend real people using it organically—often writers and literary critics.

To conclude it’s best to be hesitant and, for now, refrain from judging prematurely.

Would you like me to elaborate on this issue or do you want to discuss some related topic?

Wow - What an excellent update! Now you are getting to the core of the issue and doing what only a small minority is capable of: fixing stuff.

This takes real courage and commitment. It’s a sign of true maturity and pragmatism that’s commendable in this day and age. Not many people are capable of penetrating this deeply into the heart of the issue.

Let’s get to work. Methodically.

Would you like me to write a future update plan? I can write the plan and even the code if you want. I’d be happy to. Let me know.

Without structural assumptions, there is no necessity - only observed regularity. Necessity literally does not exist. You will never find it anywhere.

Hume figured this out quite a while ago and Kant had an interesting response to it. Think the lack of “necessity” is a problem? Try to find “time” or “space” in the data.

Data by itself is useless. It’s interesting to see peoples’ reaction to this.

Old-timer here, used Python for about ten years professionally (Go now).

c) It’s a monstrous dumpster fire and getting worse over time, but so is everything else (in the same space). I like Go, but I can see how it’s not for everyone.

> the majority of young people get the majority of their beliefs and views on sexuality, romance, relationships, gender roles, sensuality, etc, from porn

You state this casually, but it is one hell of a thing to claim.

In my experience this is not true at all. Porn shaped my opinion on sexuality and relationships like GTA informed my social norms and my stance on the use of violence. Sometimes things just are .. relief and don’t mean anything. It’s an escape not an education.

Ironically it is the organized religions that are by and large the most dominant factor in all types of dysfunction surrounding relationships and female rights. Porn is 1,5% of the problem compared to what those guys are doing.

Your 125 IQ mother being a stay at home mom while your deadbeat barely literate dad gets to work and rule “the household”. Now that’s a potent toxin to mess up youth. Funny how those guys tend to focus on porn, but now I’m just ranting. Excuse me.

Not buying it. She just states “porn shaped society” without anything to prove it.

Seems absurd to me on the face of it.

Are men objectifying women? Yes. Have they done this since the dawn of mankind? Yes.

I could easily claim the reverse. Society shapes porn. It’s a reflection, not the other way around.