Amadan

Amadan More equal than others 21hr ago

It is true, and you insinuating that I'm knowingly lying is the kind of stuff that makes you inconversable.

Yet we are conversing, because you know you can say things like this and I may be annoyed, I may even be annoyed enough to respond to you, but you are allowed to carry on your own personal crusade complaining that we unfairly censor criticism of Israel (we don't) or that SS and other people riding a hobby horse are told to cool it because they just "posted about something they were interested in once a week" (please) and all you get is maybe a "snarky" comment or two.

Now, I'm not sure you maintain that pretense, so feel free to clarify. My point was that the standard I believed Naraburns was acting on when modding the comment was at best inconsistent. If this place consistently took issue with genocidal or otherwise grotesque rhetoric or sweeping unsupported statements

Okay, I'll play. I think you're being disingenuous, but I'll pretend this question is asked in honest confusion and good faith. (This is always a mistake. Trying to explain moderation never, in my experience, results in the person we carefully and patiently indulge saying "Okay, that seems reasonable. Thank you for clarifying.")

First, your examples of "genocidal rhetoric" are basically people saying "Palestinians suck." You know, like you and SS regularly say about Jews. And yet you are not banned.

Naraburns tells me I'm completely off the mark, the modding in this instance only happened due to the nature of the account and how rhetorically out of tune it was. Making a comment about the validity of nuking Israel from a game theory perspective is not forbidden. In fact, if this poster had done a better job there would be no issue to contend with from a mod perspective. So why care about the nuking Israel part? It's just a burner account using out of tune rhetoric.

That's correct. If someone wrote a serious post arguing for nuking Israel from a game theory perspective, they would not be banned (at least by me). You and SS regularly talk about how we should consider Jews an existential threat to Western civilization. People here have proposed stripping civil rights from women, reenacting Jim Crow, and making it legal to fuck children, and they weren't banned for arguing those things. We have demonstrated for years that merely making abhorrent (to some of us) arguments does not get you banned. Every last Joo-poster complains that we forbid Joo-posting after years and years of Joo-posting which we didn't stop. But when you actually push it over the line and get modded, you say "Hah, I knew you were covering for the Jews!"

But yes, a burner account showing up to argue that we should nuke Israel, or proposing that the age of consent is stupid and it's only natural for men to want to fuck 13-year-olds will probably be banned. Not because the argument in itself cannot be made, but when we see a fresh troll arrive to spout trollish opinions and without having established any credibility whatsoever, we know it's a troll. Not here for conversation, not here to genuinely test their "nuke Israel" or "fuck 13-year-olds" idea against people who will thoughtfully engage with them, but to giggle at the turd they dropped on the floor. What you don't see is all the posts that never appear. As @naraburns said, usually we just wouldn't have let a post like that out of the filter. I assure you, almost daily there are posts like that that we just delete and don't let out of the filter. Now and then, by accident or to make a point, one of them gets through, and then we make a public mod post, and people like you get all het up taking umbrage because how dare we mod in such an inconsistent manner, obviously we are just trying to prevent criticism of Israel.

Now, I just don't believe that's true. But even then, if the same poster ever raised the issue again or built off of that point in future posts I believe the mods would find some excuse to get them to stop. Which is similar to what happened with SecureSignals.

Depends on how he presents the argument. You keep mentioning SecureSignals as if we banned him. You will notice (you are well aware) that he is not banned. He was told, once, to occasionally post something that isn't about Jews. He kinda sorta complied, briefly, and now he's back to posting about Jews 95% of the time. And yet we haven't banned him. If we were being so vindictive, biased, and particular in our moderation, why haven't we? I can think of several posters who, almost always, are going to post about how one or more of: (a) women; (b) black people; (d) foreigners; (d) liberals, should be killed/deported/disenfranchised. Sometimes they get modded. Mostly we let them ****-post. It's adjudicated based on the individual post, trying to be as consistent as we can be.

You know all this. You've known it for years. You're just angry that you have to follow some rules when expressing how much you hate your enemies.

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Amadan More equal than others 23hr ago

We can't just announce a "high decoupling thread" even if we wanted to. What are you going to do when you start your new thread about Israel's legitimacy (I absolutely do not believe you have never read Israel threads on the forum before or that you just landed on Israel as your example by chance) and people refuse to decouple?

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Amadan More equal than others 23hr ago

and now you’re saying that it’s not a useful term and can have no useful meaning

You are just making things up at this point.

You want to have it both ways so you can feel righteous indignation and get upvotes.

This gets a rare LOL from me. Me, of all people, fishing for upvotes?

LOL.

I will continue to use it without caving to demands that I recite the technical researcher’s definition at every utterance,

I made no demands. I pleaded with you not to use a term being abused in an absolutely idiotic way. You are of course free to engage in as much idiocy as you wish.

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Amadan More equal than others 1d ago

We can have the discussions people want to have. You cannot force people to discuss things the way you want to discuss them. If you keep trying to start a conversation and it doesn't go how you want, perhaps the reason is not other people.

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Amadan More equal than others 1d ago

We sometimes allow people to start new posts outside the regular threads, but generally not just because they want to talk about one particular thing or set the parameters of the discussion. You can start a discussion; people will respond to it as they will. You may or may not be satisfied with how they respond.

I see no value in a "Philosophy thread" where it's pretty obvious you want to post on a culture war topic but then complain if people don't engage with it on a "philosophical" level.

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Amadan More equal than others 1d ago

I predicted "Not one-for-one" would be ignored as you go through a litany of all your particular complaints about Israel. Thanks for not disappointing.

You can of course cherry pick similarities and differences-- this is what motivated partisans do. Is our support for Israel exactly like our support for Saudi Arabia? No. Are Israeli settler activities exactly like American occupation forces everywhere from the Philippines to Japan to Iraq? Nope. Americans can (justifiably) point out how very different we are, and the locals can (justifiably) point out how it looks the same to them. Likewise, is Israel similar to South Africa? Is it the same as South Africa? Is it different from South Africa? It all depends on what ideological point you are trying to argue. (A common tell is using words like "obliterated." South Africa was obliterated, forsooth! You might almost convince some young'un who doesn't know history that we literally bombed them, Dresden-style.)

We definitely have had other allied countries spy on us, meddle in our internal affairs, and be fair-weather friends (or outright bad faith allies). There's another tell with the very specific and emotive language (the dastardly Israelis booby trapped office supplies! They stole nuclear secrets! etc.)

Sure, I get it. You think Israel is the worst country and the worst ally. And it's entirely 100% based on a sober line-by-comparison with all the other bad countries and bad allies, right?

A reminder, for all the Israel-haters, that I don't actually care about or like Israel that much. I'd be fine with cutting off almost all foreign aid to them or radically curbing our support unless they start being more docile, like a protectorate should be. But I think we should do that with many other countries, and I don't think Israel is particularly bad. I cannot help Noticing these isolated demands for fidelity. It's all about ethics in international politics, right?

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Amadan More equal than others 1d ago

SecureSignals got modded for making a post once a week on things that he found interesting that related to the holocaust and zionism.

This is not true. You know this is not true.

As for trolls (@naraburns has already pretty effectively answered your blinking doe-eyed "confusion" as to why a troll-post from a burner account proposing we nuke Israel got banned), it's true we don't get "sniped" in the way we did on reddit from leftists trying to get us evicted. Now that we are on our own platform, it would be more effort to go after Zorba directly or our upstream hosts, and it doesn't seem likely anyone cares about us that much. Nonetheless, we do periodically get sniped and trolled by the JAQers and the accelerationists and giggly edgelords. Why? Why does anyone do these things? For the lols, or maybe to screenshot the Motte's greatest hits for sneerclub entertainment.

I am sure they appreciate your much more sincere efforts.

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Amadan More equal than others 1d ago

No equivalence is exactly one to one. But the West Bank isn't part of Israel proper, and Gaza certainly isn't. Should it be? Maybe. Is Israel doing bad things in both places? I think so. But turn that back on the US again, and people will talk about all the places we have "occupied" and exerted our will and even allowed bad behavior on the part of American settlers.

My point isn't that Israel isn't blameworthy or that the US and Canada are necessarily as bad. It's that most of these critiques of Israel are essentially isolated demands for legitimacy. They aren't motivated by anything Israel in particular is doing that's worse or more nefarious than what other nation states do. It's motivated by a very particular dislike of Israel, for Reasons. Oh, the US gives too much money to Israel? You know what, I agree. We should give less money to lots of countries, in my opinion. I have a list. Oh, Israel gets involved in US politics and we should Notice and push back? I agree! There are lots of countries who do that--I have a list.

There is literally nothing anti-Israel activists say that is more convincing than what anti-American leftists say about the US (and some of what anti-American leftists say about the US is actually fair criticism!). There is no criticism anti-Israel activists have of Israel's involvement in global and American politics that isn't true of a number of other countries, from Egypt to Qatar to South Korea to Russia. (Remember the 80s, when there was great concern about how much US property Japan was buying? Michael Crichton wrote a novel about it. Yeah, Rising Sun was a technothriller but it was really a screed about Japan buying up Los Angeles real estate. And then people pointed out how much real estate was owned by the UK. Today, hmm, where are Chinese and Russian billionaires investing?) Oh, but Israel is more involved, gets more money? Has more (ahem) "dual loyalists"? Maybe. Questionable. But let's say it's so. Are the critics really, truly objecting to Israel in particular because they weighted the factors and somehow Israel scores at the top of the threat index? Nah.

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Amadan More equal than others 2d ago

Everything you've said about how Israel is an illegitimate colonizing power is also true of the US and Canada. You're surely aware of that. What the Arab revisionists say about "Is-not-real" is what a lot indigenous activists say about "Turtle Island." The only real difference is time and practicality - Arabs still believe if they get enough of the world to sympathize with them, they can destroy Israel, while even the most radical Native groups don't believe in their wildest dreams that they can expel white people from North America. Your straw men aside (hardly anyone literally defends "might makes right" as a principal, and democratists are quite aware of the failure mods of governing by popular sentiment, which is why the Founding Fathers went to great lengths to try to prevent that), yes, the reality is that a country has historical inertia. Many countries began as colonizing powers, as foreign invaders, with expulsion or subjugation of the previous inhabitants. Even accepting that narrative about Israel as true (and at best, it's a half-truth), once a country is established, you're not going to intellectually masturbate your way into delegitimizing it.

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Amadan More equal than others 2d ago

“Superintelligence” is a more useful term in several contexts than “AI” was.

How is it more useful, and in what contexts? The things you want to call superintelligence that are called AI today - how does calling them SI aid in clarity and communication? What are the things you think should be distinguished from "AI" which are being inaccurately and confusingly called AI today? Saying it is a more useful term implies that it conveys information that is not expressed by the current (accurate) term, and that this is causing confusion.

You cannot answer any of those things, because there is only one reason you're using the "new" term. Are you even aware of what "superintelligence" means to AI scientists? Do you understand the distinction between AGI and SI? What do you propose we call what used to be known as "superintelligence" instead?

Knowing what words mean, and thinking it's stupid to issue EOs forcing people to do search-and-replaces in thousands of federal documents because the President got pissy at AI safetyists and data center opponents is not freaking out. I am annoyed. I am annoyed at Trump, and I am annoyed at people who eagerly signal their obeisance to this foolishness.

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Amadan More equal than others 2d ago

I have no great words of wisdom or advice. What I will say is:

(1) Yes, you have lost time you will never get back. It's okay to regret that. But regret is the most useless emotion. It doesn't change anything. And every day, you are losing more time. So-

(2) You say you keep starting and failing. You start, persist for a while, hit a bump, and quit. It sounds a lot like addiction. It's harsh to tell people whose problem is will, "Just have more willpower." But finding the will is really the only solution. Eventually the gears catch and you move, or you don't. A support system is really useful and to that end, I understand you've had problems building friendships and a social support network, but you should explore ways to connect, find people with shared interests (hopefully not online crazy people like us who will take you down a rabbit hole). I don't say that like you can just will a friend group into existence, but you don't live in the wilderness (I assume)... there are people. Start meeting some.

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Amadan More equal than others 2d ago

I am reading what you're writing. You're referring to hypothetical technologies that don't actually exist yet and saying when they exist we should call them superintelligence. Okay, cool. But I am talking about applying that label now to existing technology. You, by your own admission, started using the term the moment Trump did. I don't think you understand the terms or the tech any better than Trump does.

All the compute being built will be used - yes, no duh. But that won't make it superintelligence. Using it for more and more things won't make it superintelligence. Calling what we build now "superintelligence" because it will be used for "infinite" things is just PR for AI companies, which once again, I wouldn't care about much beyond an eyeroll if the PR wasn't being enforced with an Orwellian Executive Order.

I'm not sure if you honestly don't get this, or... Well, I have already been absurdly accused of "TDS", but what do you call someone who will immediately say the sun is the moon if Trump declares it so?

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Amadan More equal than others 2d ago

I would use SI when talking about something that actually qualifies as superintelligence (generally speaking, the hypothetical future point at which AI has surpassed AGI and become literally superintelligent). No existing AI comes remotely close to that. A list of all the things AI can or will be able to do does not make it "superintelligence," because the key word there is "intelligence." We don't consider calculators superintelligent because they can do math thousands of times faster than a human; artificial neural networks obviously can do much more than calculate, but they still are nowhere near that quantum leap into superintelligence.

If you want to make a new definition for superintelligence that is different from what the industry and the AI field uses, okay, go you. But I'm absolutely going to continue to think it's retarded to call ChatGPT and Gemini and Opus "superintelligence," which Trump's Executive Order literally requires the federal government to do.

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Amadan More equal than others 2d ago

Yeah, I'm familiar. But are we really proposing not just to deport the Mooslims but Ellis Islanders and their descendants as well? Come on. It's all well and good to bemoan historical trends and mistakes you think we made a century ago, but there's based, and then there's KulakRevolt level insanity, which is sometimes perversely entertaining to read but not something I think anyone but very sick people actually consider recommendable policy.

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Amadan More equal than others 3d ago

I don't actually disagree, but I am not sure what you are specifically proposing. Jews and Muslims and Indians are assumed to be loyal to Israel/Palestine/India, or what? If someone declares their allegiance to a foreign country, yes, they are in violation of their oath. If someone talks about their deep cultural connection to a foreign country and you think that is a foreign loyalty, then you're going to have to exclude Irish-, Italian-, Swedish-, Mexican- etc Americans as well.

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Amadan More equal than others 3d ago

He's clearly a troll, but the comment you replied to is a good one. In a post-scarcity world, why should people born in one place get better gibs than others?

It's a fair question, but like many valid questions, there are thoughtful ways to discuss it, and there are belligerently eye-poking ways meant to provoke people. The former is called discussion, and is suitable for a discussion forum. The latter is called trolling, and is not.

Even his trolling pretty cute most of the time, in my opinion. I think we'd be worse off without him here.

I'm sure you do.

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Amadan More equal than others 3d ago

What's the difference between someone who benefits from being born in the right place and someone who benefits from being born into the right caste/family?

What makes you any more deserving of your unearned accident-of-birth benefits?

You're on thin ice with the race-baiting triumphalism you've been ramping up again lately. I'm letting it go because we certainly have white nationalists who say things just as bad about their outgroup, but your history is particularly bad and you're only getting a pass because your last final warning was seven months ago. But I can very clearly see that you're having fun trolling again. I still don't think banning you would be any loss.

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Amadan More equal than others 3d ago

Come on, now. I'm trying to be generous here, but "the Trump guy" who goes off using Trump phrases is noticeable, and it's not my overfocus to notice this in a thread that is largely about Trump. He's not using "superintelligence" in its normal sense, but in its Trumpian sense. I don't think you are being serious, I think you just like saying things like "TDS." There is a flip side of TDS, you know, where any criticism of Trump or Trumpish memes or Trumpish coinages triggers a knee-jerk "TDS!" response.

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Amadan More equal than others 3d ago

If Trump were talking about a hypothetical future when SI exists, I would shrug and think he's being optimistic and grandiose, as usual, but he literally issued an Execute Order requiring the federal government to call existing AI "SI." You calling it "superintelligence" just reads like you using Dear Leader's newly-minted buzzword. I mean, I don't recall you ever using that phrase until five minutes after Trump's EO.

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Amadan More equal than others 3d ago

And I've seen some unhinged accusations of "TDS" before, but this is pretty out there.

No, buddy. Superintelligence has a definition in AI research, and none of our existing AI is superintelligence. Trump literally issued an Execute Order requiring the federal government to call AI "SI." Federal agencies are being required to scrub references to "Artificial Intelligence" and replace it with "Super Intelligence" in all their documentation. It is absolutely retarded.

That is what I am objecting to. It's not "TDS" because I hate anything Trump does. It's annoyance that Trump issued a "deer horse" EO.

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Amadan More equal than others 4d ago

No, it isn't. Superintelligence does not exist yet.

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Amadan More equal than others 4d ago

I think "deadnaming" (neologism), or not using the "prefered pronouns" (again, recently invented set phrase) was at one point declared to be against the rules of this community.

Even if "deadnaming" were against the rules (strictly speaking, it is not - we will mod you for being an asshole about it, but not just for referring to Caitlyn as Bruce), it does not apply to technologies arbitrarily reacronymed by Executive Order.

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Amadan More equal than others 4d ago

Well, no, you are required to uphold and defend the Constitution, and if someone literally said "I don't believe in the Constitution and I want to destroy the Republic," there'd be a good case to deny that person office. But whatever you might suspect about certain elected officials, merely holding political or religious views contrary to what the Founders would have approved of doesn't mean someone isn't capable of following the Constitution.

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Amadan More equal than others 4d ago

Superintelligence

Please, please, please, for the love of Ahura Mazda, stop this.

I know, it's petty, and of all the things Trump has done that I dislike, declaring that AI should be called "Superintelligence" shouldn't be at the top of my list, but it is absurdity of the highest order to issue an Executive Order based on a shower thought. "Superintelligence" actually has a meaning in the AI field, and other than trolling people I can't even see what Trump's point was in doing this. Is it supposed to "own the libs" who hate data centers? Why the heck would you immediately switch to the new term like a Party member just notified of the latest un-words?

I agreed with most of the points in your top-level and thought it was a good and thoughtful post, for whatever that is worth.

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Amadan More equal than others 4d ago

You misunderstand what we mean by consensus-building; you don't get to express disdain for your outgroup as long as you're in the majority, and you are not allowed to recruit for a cause or assume that "everyone" is on your side. It is probably true that the majority of people here are right-leaning and unhappy with the electoral results. That doesn't matter. This isn't a right-leaning forum for you to rally support against the electoral results.

And doesn't this from you: "almost certainly a sockpuppet, and very likely a ban evader, consider yourself on notice and on our radar" constitute name-calling and bullying?

No, it constitutes an observation and a warning.

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