Brainwavez
6hr ago
I’m sure a big draw towards vaporware is nostalgia for the old Internet.
I went to a public school, and my experience sounds similar.
Everyone went to the same campus.
We had a separate elementary and middle/high school.
Discipline was uniformly strict
Discipline existed, including suspension and expulsion, but wasn't especially strict. Students acted out, but I never saw anything compared to horror stories I hear today.
Flip side of that, no hallpasses, and in high school you didn't even need to ask permission to go to the bathroom, because if you abused the privilege you got in trouble.
There were honors and regulars classes for every core class except religious ed, with real tracking for math in the secondary grades.
We had honors classes, and math branched into calculus, statistics, and discrete.
Starting around 10th grade finals declined in importance, I think when I graduated there was one final exam(Latin) and that's it, we had essays and projects and whatnot for everything else.
Most classes had finals, but they were a small fraction of the overall grade. Some finals were multi-week projects.
Very importantly, your parents could not get you moved to a more rigorous/prestigious class, although sometimes teachers could, and you could transfer credits in from community college if you wanted.
Electives existed and were unsegregated, although a few of them had pre-reqs which kept it to kids in honors in related classes.
I think it was OK, but I wish there was less busywork, higher-level advanced classes, and more computer classes.
An idea from the old thread: instead of testing students and separating them into different schools, each student should learn at their own rate in the same school, via a vast universal online curriculum.
Additionally, instead of one final exam, there should be many interspersed exams. To save proctoring resources, each student could have a random subset of their exams strictly proctored, unknown before exam day.
Students would graduate either at a certain age or after passing certain lessons, whichever comes first. Then they could optionally keep taking lessons and exams (at home online, or by paying to enroll in an adult school). Enough progress in a specific subject would award them a Master’s degree.
Problems? I think it would still be unfair, stressful, unreliable, etc., but better than the current system. Students who don’t have access to coaches would be less disadvantaged, because the online curriculum would cover practically every subject and be designed by the best teachers. With many exams, students may be less stressed and hampered by exam-day sickness, since one bad exam grade is negligible. With many exams and random proctoring, cheating would be harder, even if proctoring was less strict to compensate for frequency.
Maybe they can with online resources like Khan Academy. They’ve gotten much better very recently (the latest improvement being one-on-one LLM tutors), so schools haven’t yet adapted.
Then, teachers only must ensure students follow the rules and answer rare questions, strictly less than they do now.
Substitute “merit” with “ability”.
It’s arguably unfair, but I can’t imagine a solid argument that it’s unjust that doesn’t also justify Harrison Bergeron.
I’m also sure some students would be over and under placed due to conscious and subconscious bias (because not all assignments can be graded on objective criteria, and everybody is biased), which is one reason I leave open the opportunity for a student to manually enroll in a higher class.
I am skeptical of the whole "encouraging children's natural interests instead of formal education" part
The students would still be required to take core subjects, just at different speeds. Although I also think there should be more electives, by having one teacher administering multiple (with the help of online resources).
At the end of the day, this system will benefit the best students the most, and it seems likely that the students would form cliques based on whether they are in the good or the bad class.
Sure, although I imagine there will be some exceptions. Partly because the less academic students may be more “cool”.
The best students are usually from good socioeconomic backgrounds, so this will easily be spun as discrimination and enforcement of the existing social order. Limiting social mobility, putting disadvantaged groups further behind, etc.
Unfortunately yes, even though it’s supposed to be exclusively based on merit.
However, if a non-disruptive student or their parent really wants to be in a class above their level, I think it should happen. If they struggle, some of their assignments should be replaced with those from their actual level and between, to try to prevent them from falling behind, but if they continue to insist they can stay. That may slightly alleviate complaints, because the students in the lower sections are there partly by choice (albeit partly by encouraged default).
I also support allocating extra resources to students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, especially those in upper-level classes.
Brainwavez
4d ago
How about a Montessori-like system, where students progress through classes at their own speed (instead of age)? They would still interact with similarly-aged students in social activities like meals, except disruptive students who are bothering others would be a separate group (who would be assigned some form of therapy).
Brainwavez
5d ago
Newcomb originally specified that Omega would leave Box B empty in the case that you tried to decide by flipping a coin; since this violates algorithm-independence, we can alternatively suppose that Omega can predict coinflips.
You’re right, I misunderstood the problem.
Why do they do that?
Why do people gamble?
Alternatively, they also misunderstand the problem. I wonder if the “practice run” method of predicting their behavior would change their mind.
Note that sometimes the "regulation" isn't from the government, but a parent organization.
For example, sometimes managers assign employees useless tasks to take credit for managing a higher number of employees, since that's the metric they get promoted on. Or to spend their yearly budget so next year's isn't reduced. Or because one of their employees is their boss's incompetent grandson.
When companies become large enough, they become pseudo-governments. A large, poorly-managed organization creates bullshit, regardless of whether it’s public or private.
Unfortunately, I frequently hear tales of managers assigning humans work they knew would ultimately be discarded, to inflate bureaucratic metrics. For example, it's common for organizations with yearly budgets to intentionally waste the entire budget if they wouldn't normally spend it all, because otherwise they'd be allocated less next year, and sometimes they do this by paying employees for unused work.
And unfortunately, I predict at least some of these organizations will replace the efficiency gains from AI with more useless emails, software, etc.
Fortunately, there are plenty of good use-cases for widely-available AI inference. OTOH example, people could create more immersive game worlds with AI NPCs, and use any extra inference for more detailed world simulation.
Computer speed has exponentially increased for decades. Developers have found plenty of bad use-cases for this extra speed (e.g. advertisements), but lots of good ones (e.g. easier programming languages, better graphics, and ML).
My interpretation:
Free will is indistinguishable from randomness, and your brain has some randomness. The alien understands your personality, but can't predict randomness. For example, maybe immediately before the experiment, they cloned you and ran a perceptually identical experiment; then, if your clone picked both boxes in the practice run, the alien didn’t fill the opaque box for the real run.
You can win $1,001,000, but only if you're lucky. For example, let's say you have a 50% chance of choosing both boxes. Then the alien has a 50% chance of filling the opaque box. You have a 25% chance of winning $1,001,000...but a 25% chance of winning $0, and 25% chance of winning $1,000.
You can't trick the alien: if you're more likely to choose both boxes, the alien is less likely to fill the opaque box. Formally, if you with probability p pick both boxes, the alien with probability 1 - p fills the opaque box. Imagine your clone, in the same perceived surroundings, with your same strategy.
| Alien / You | One box | Both boxes |
|---|---|---|
| Empty opaque box | $0 * (1 - p)p | $1,000 * p^2 |
| Full opaque box | $1,000,000 * (1 - p)^2 | $1,001,000 * p(1 - p) |
If the experiment was repeated ∞ times, on average you'd win $1000p^2 + $1000000(1 - p)^2 + $1001000p(1 - p) = $1000000 - $999000p; increasing p strictly decreases your average win. The statistically optimal strategy is to always pick one box.
Brainwavez
5d ago
Chamath, Marc Andreessen, Elon Musk, are a subset of the successful population.
Other successful people have good opinions, and/or a small online presence. The bad ones get most publicity.
Steve Wozniak may be a latter example.
What do you think about cyberlibertarianism?
Cyberlibertarianism is exactly what it sounds like: the belief that the internet should be fully unrestricted and ungoverned. The idea coalesced in the 1990s when the consensus on tech was far more optimistic.
I think it's a beautiful, unattainable ideal. It symbolizes (more than libertarianism) a broader absolute freedom and physical transcendence, to realize whatever you dream. But in reality, absolute freedom is impossible, power hierarchies are inevitable, and the internet is a physical construct that can be seized (on the other end of the spectrum, individuals and companies bypass without consequence internet restrictions like copyright, even in repressive countries via complex VPN setups). Intersectionally, the internet has led to good (e.g. long-distance communication with friends/family) and bad (e.g. asociality and toxicity from social media); should it be as unregulated as today if individuals and groups won't stop themselves from negative spirals (which may anyways lead to future violence and restrictions)?
Cyberlibertarianism's Origins
The ideas of cyberlibertarianism have been described in Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age (Esther Dyson, George Gilder, George Keyworth, Alvin Toffler, 1994) and A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (John Perry Barlow, 1996).
Basically to summarize the latter, it begins with
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
and includes statements like
We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Langdon Winner's "foresight"
The actual term "cyberlibertarianism" first appeared in Cyberlibertarian Myths And The Prospects For Community (Langdon Winner, 1997).
I think this is a good read. In a sea of cyberlibertarian idealism and optimism, Winner was realistic and pessimistic. He actually defines cyberlibertarianism in detail, then predicts how it will be adopted and warped, in practice, with outcomes.
Specifically, Winner defines cyberlibertarianism by breaking it into four sub-beliefs:
- Technological determinism: technology will rapidly, radically, inevitably reshape society
- Radical individualism: technology will enable freedom and self-fulfillment, unencumbered by "inherited structures" like social obligation, money, and government
- Free market, specifically from the Chicago school of economics. The Magna Carta argues for "property rights in cyberspace" by quoting Ayn Rand's The Property Status of Airwaves
- Abundance and liberal democracy. As technology keeps getting faster and cheaper, digital scarcity won't exist. As the internet connects people, they'll get along better. As the internet grants everyone access to vast literature and free debate, societies will become more democratic
Then he pivots to realism with this (IMO) excellent paragraph
As is generally true of ideologies, this framework of thought serves to both illuminate and obscure. It certainly illuminates the desires and intentions of those who see themselves on the cutting edge of world-historical change in Silicon Valley, Seattle and other high tech centers. More specifically, it illuminates what are ultimately power fantasies that involve radical self-tranformation and the reinvention of society in directions assumed to be entirely favorable. But this ideology obfuscates a great many basic changes that underlie the creation of new practices, relations and institutions as digital technology and social life are increasingly woven together.
In the remainder, Winner successfully predicts that cyberlibertarian dogma will lead to:
- Anticompetitive monopolies
- Ultimately restricting individuals' freedom in the absence of government restrictions
- Controlling the distribution of information, therefore influencing the zeitgeist, therefore influencing democracies
- Dissolution or mutation of existing institutions in ways that aren't entirely positive
- Replacement of physical communities with online ones, which are inadequate
- Because they split into echo chambers
- Because a minority of users carry the majority of discussion
- Replacement of local stores with depersonalized online (centralized) ones
- Replacement of physical communities with online ones, which are inadequate
Winner didn't have extreme foresight, just observation. These "predictions" had already began: the television industry (e.g. CNN) was already large and influencing the zeitgeist to further its interests, toxic online communities had already started forming (e.g. Usenet), and local stores were already being replaced (e.g. by Amazon). Winner also looked at historical literature on philosophy, economics, and politics.
The Intolerable Hypocrisy of Cyberlibertarianism
This blogpost showed up on Hacker News and inspired my post.
tl;dr: the author of this rambling blogpost describes the evolution of the internet under cyberlibertarianism (the dominant viewpoint in its early years), then criticizes cyberlibertarianism using the problems of today's internet.
I don't really like it: it's full of ad hominems, meaningless analogies, and overconfident claims (especially about other's thoughts). But it's somewhat informative, and I agree with the underlying ideas: cyberlibertarianism is naively optimistic, hence today's internet has failed to reach its full expectations.
Generally, a culture of distrust towards women that would mandate (or heavily incentive) paternity tests is far more liable to result in arguments and general suspicion, even in otherwise harmonious relationships once the issue is raised as it necessarily implies a fear on the husband’s behalf on the trustworthiness and fidelity of his wife.
The opposite: once the husband asks for a paternity test, there's already an argument and suspicion, and the only way it would be resolved is if the test confirms they're the father.
The child as such would benefit the most from being raised within such a home, even if in reality the child is actually not biologically related to one of its guardians.
I agree that the father should stay. But I argue that forcing him to pay child support is actually counterproductive here.
Brainwavez
9d ago
I follow A.Shipwright and one other artist, and my feed is filled with art (IMO only mediocre but I’m picky).
Scenario: A person roles into the hospital with a gunshot wound to the [organ that can be lived without]. The shooter has the same blood type as the victim.
Question: Is it ok to take the organ from the shooter to replace the organ of the wounded person?
Utilitarian: You can take the organ from the healthy person in the waiting room, they are easier to find and might have been the shooter anyways.
@stoatherd provided a good argument against this reasoning. In such a society, healthy people would avoid hospitals.
Likewise, the current situation discourages the adoptive father from supporting the child or even himself.
I actually think the adoptive father should be encouraged to raise the child as his own, key word encouraged. Coercion activates the innate human desire (common in men) to resist. No penalty for abandoning the child makes the father feel autonomous and "in control" when he raises them anyways, even if there's a (e.g. social) reward. (It also gives him control over the wife, but she still has the option of leaving him; if you think it's a bad or unfair outcome, can you think of a better or fairer one?)
But why not the biological father?
(And if he’s dead/incapable, maybe the state has to pay, but that’s the case when somebody isn’t tricked. Or that can be an exception, since the adoptive father would have less reason to envy him, although I still think it’s bad)
Brainwavez
10d ago
Here the interests don’t compete: getting non-biological fathers to pay child support (instead of biological ones) usually doesn’t benefit the wife and children.
I’d love to read a steelman for
-
Why a father should be forced to pay child support without a paternity test
-
Why, if the biological father is different, they shouldn’t be the one required to pay the child support instead
For example, I care about the mother’s and child’s interests, but how will 1) not create animosity from suspicious fathers, and 2) not decrease child support since the resentful adoptive father will try to evade it (at least as much as the biological one)?
My first big scissor statement was reading Reddit (outrage fanfiction) “my husband asked for a paternity test and I divorced him”. But I now understand that perspective: believing that your husband will always be suspicious of you, that they think with apathetic game-theoretic logic, while you want selfless and unconditional “true love”. I understand that acting like an unemotional autist is not rational, not harmless, not me (because I have emotions, desires, and even my logic is biased for them).
But I can’t even imagine a decent argument for 1) or 2).
Brainwavez
11d ago
When ChatGPT says the SPMM is wrong, does it provide sources or a mathematical proof?
Brainwavez
11d ago
That's the point: War Thunder is mostly fiction, but the leaked military vehicle specs were real.
Those exceptions are non-fiction.
I agree there can be some limits to acceptable expression, but they must be specific and have very good reason. I can't find a good reason against anything fictional, even fictional pedophilia. Generally when somebody morally criticizes "art", they're criticizing the fiction.
I at least find it plausible that there could be subcategories of icky stories, like those touching on suicide in a particular way, that could actually have negative effects on society and result in real world harm, perhaps in the ballpark of leaking military secrets or personal information.
In theory yes, but I think it would be too hard for anyone to form an argument against them that couldn't be broadly applied to harmless art, without hindsight.
More importantly, such infohazardous art would probably not be describable, or the reason for its ban would probably not be arguable, without leaking the infohazard. Meaning it would have to be secretly policed. Now, perfectly secretly policing art is indistinguishable from it not existing, and secret policing can be ethical (e.g. by downranking the art so the creator simply thinks noone likes it), so I don't object to it in theory. But secret police in today's first-world countries would require unimaginable competence, and historically secret police have a bad record, so I object in practice.
Brainwavez
11d ago
Death Stranding.........
Restating and extending this:
In theory I have no qualms with AI art, in practice I’ve yet to see a (knowingly) AI-assisted work I consider decent.
I suspect because (at least to me) originality and relatability (i.e. taste) are important in art; language and diffusion models especially lack both, and they lack the (predictable, easy) control necessary for the artist to infuse theirs.
An artist with taste can make incredible art in B&W, pixel, low-poly, etc. The medium is less important, and those being easy mediums to control, allow the artist to express themselves more accurately.
I think, like how AI for code is another abstraction, AI for art is another medium. Some people disagree, partly because today’s AI is a poor abstraction; likewise, today’s AI is a poor medium, because of the aforementioned lack of control.
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