JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
5d ago
it's far from certain that the current incarnation of the Democratic Party will ever get another President
Why not? They got Biden in. Average Democrat always beats average Republican, because Democrat ground game (including control over voting in virtually all population centers, with all possible shenanigans, which we all know is a long debunked conspiracy theory and never happens) is much stronger. Extraordinary Republican (like Trump) will beat average (like Clinton) or weak Democrat (like Harris) - but how many extraordinary candidates Republicans have on the bench? What if Democrats get a good candidate (good at being elected, I mean)?
JarJarJedi
5d ago
Russian prison culture has its own hierarchy, with the honor and authority of the senior ranking members dependent among other things on their resolution of disputes
The actual prison culture does, but street thug culture influenced by echoes of the prison culture doesn't respect any of that. If such thug gets into prison, he'd be either forced to adapt and learn respect, or will be killed. But while they are out there - and many of them are low-level enough to never get to prison - they don't have any such hierarchy.
JarJarJedi
5d ago
I am very surprised by a continued stream of praise (including such words as "genius") piled on HPMOR. I read it, and it was fun, and I admit the premise is pretty clever. But both as a fantasy book and as a literature it seemed to be very mid. Tons of plot lines lead to nowhere. Main reveal is obvious very early. The main protagonist is very Mary Sue. Other characters are severely under-developed. And coming back to the premise, what actually comes out of it? I mean yes, the protagonist wins (I don't think it's much of a spoiler that the titular character in a fantasy book wins at the end, and especially if he's named Harry Potter, right?) but isn't that where the interesting part starts? I mean, by that point HP is basically a god. And he intends to make everybody else into gods (without even asking them, of course - I mean why would he, they are all NPCs anyway). Or only wizards (what happens to muggles btw?) Isn't it something we may want to address somehow? Nah, we're done here, buh-bye.
I mean it's fun, I do not deny it. But genius? Life-changing? "one-shotted a substantial percent of the world’s smartest STEM undergrads"? I mean I knew undergrads now are not what they used to be, but really?
JarJarJedi
5d ago
A lot of cultures have this pattern of behavior. Especially low-trust cultures. Not every one has a scary foreign word to attribute it to, but I saw it many times. In Russian culture, especially with its lower rungs which are thoroughly imbued with prison culture, this is a pretty common pattern. In Israeli culture, again especially among lower rungs (keyword: ars), this approach to every interaction being zero sum win/lose exists and getting one over somebody is highly valued. I am sure there are a lot of other cultures where the same pattern exists, because it's a common human pattern. Not sure why the Urdu term would be any better to use than any other meaning "honor culture" and describing common failure mode of honor cultures. But pattern existing in a culture and the whole culture (or set of cultures) being subjugate to one and single dominating pattern are very different things.
JarJarJedi
5d ago
I didn't mean any people in this discussion, sorry if it isn't clear. I meant people in the US that pretended this was just a theoretical lecture on existence of illegal orders and not a threat (which of course they knew it isn't theoretical and it is very much a threat).
JarJarJedi
6d ago
That's a good point, looking at my reading list, probably the newest books I read in 2025 are Murderbot series, which, ironically, are written by Martha Wells, and Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. I've read about 25 books this year, but the rest of them aren't new.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
I mainly use goodreads for cataloguing my reads (since it has a list of books and UI to manage reading lists, and I am lazy enough to use whatever is there instead of building my own) and seeing what my friends (people I actually know, not facebook kind of "friends") are reading. I sometimes also review, but definitely not all books I read.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
Since publishing and readership overwhelmingly lean female
Why? Males stopped reading? I certainly didn't, and I know many people who are male nerds like me and who read. Is it the millennial/gen Z thing? Are males only doing tiktok or games now?
so I'm not super bothered by it.
I'm not bothered at all - my concern is not having time to read what I already want to read, not to find more reading based on somebody's opinion - I am just curious as to what is going on.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
Yes.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
Well, I know about all the Puppies saga and that stuff. I have some idea how that mechanics works. I wonder if it's the same in this case.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
Finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was an interesting ride (pun intended) but the end was kinda disappointing. After all that buildup, suddenly they just cried together and that was all? I mean I get it that real life has no "endings", but that's what I expect from fiction, however old-fashioned it is. Maybe it's too much to expect. But, I think I get what Pirsig was going for, and likely will read the sequel at some point next year.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
I was on goodreads, and out of curiosity, I took a look on final 10 Readers' Favorite nominees in SciFi category. I generally never use contests like that as a guide, but I saw an ad and I was curious about what I'd find there and if I recognize any names (spoiler: I recognized one). What I saw made me ask some questions. Out of 10 top candidates, 8 are female authors. I read the descriptions - I have never read the books themselves and likely never will, so that's all I have to go on - and in 7, the main protagonist(s) are women, in one they are bots, one had a mixed crew and in one I couldn't determine it. In young adult SciFi category, all 10 nominees are female. So my question is - why? I also checked last year winners - 11:4 female authors.
Since we're living in a clown world in clown times, I must post a disclaimer that I have no problem with either female SciFi authors or female sci-fi protagonists, and enjoyed (and continue to enjoy) books with either. Yet, somehow I didn't expect this situation. Why is it so - is it the case that 80+% of SciFi writers are now female? 80+% of good ones? Goodreads sample is skewed? Vote is rigged or meddled with somehow? Note I am not seeking a value judgement on this situation (as ultimately I personally don't care at all who is nominated or wins), but would like to understand its genesis.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
Of course, it does not cost a lot for the military to give access to their facilities and conduct tours and so on on any particular case - maybe some personnel/organization costs but compared to trillion-wide budget, it's not even a rounding error. However, the military is not providing those services to every comer, and can not do so - because then the cost will eventually become noticeable, and again, it's not the military's business. They are and have to be selective in this. And once they are selective in this, it only makes sense for them to select to cooperate with groups that share their values and goals. There's no reason why the Army can't give free use of their facilities to the local ukulele club, it indeed would cost them nothing. But it's not their business to do so, so if they choose not to do so, it's completely appropriate choice.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
Just in case somebody is dense and doesn't get the message, they are now saying it openly: https://notthebee.com/article/psaki-and-guest-explain-that-following-orders-from-trump-to-investigate-mark-kelly-should-result-in-nuremberg-style-trials
And that's a solid strategy - they are saying if you act against us, we will retaliate powerfully and personally against anybody working for Trump, using the whole force of the Federal Government. It is a credible threat because that's exactly what they did in Biden years (and, partially, in Trump years too). The similar threat from the Republican side, however, does not look credible - not that they are even trying, beyond emptily yelling "lock her/him up" on social media - because they are completely unable to deliver on it. Thus, for Democrats it is a winning move - unless Republicans find any way to counter it. Which they currently don't seem to be able to.
Most successful Democratic politicians are not terminally stupid.
Not sure what this is arguing for. Nobody argued they are.
they have long thrived under the present political system
And they created, in many states, a political system which is essentially one-party state, with zero chance for a non-Democrat or non-Leftist to be ever elected to any position of power. The Republican party is not banned, but it does not exist as a political entity. They would very much like to create the same situation nationwide.
Anyone who has heard of the French and Russian revolutions
You do not need a revolution for that. Revolutions are messy and unpredictable. Change some electoral maps, change some demography, change some laws, allocate some budgets, jail or bankrupt a couple of people who are too dangerous - and you get a uni-party system with all the external trappings of a democracy, but without any chance of anybody on the right to ever get any power.
If moderate Democrats (think Hillary) coordinate with DSA and commies to get rid of the Republicans, the next act in the play will inevitably be SJ Democrats and the far left coordinating to get rid of the moderates
It's not "will be", it is. Look at New York, Portland, Seattle and so on. Surely, the left will fight among themselves. But they will destroy the Right first, and then will fight among themselves.
Russia and the USSR are/were in fact one-party systems where elections do little to influence policy.
And yet, even they had "elections". So surely there's nothing that would prevent having "elections" between islamo-communists and trans-socialists. That's exactly my point - there's no need to cancel elections. If that's the only choice you'd ever want to have, then there's no reason to worry. If you'd like some more choice, you are already out of luck in all the blue spaces, and very well soon may be out of luck nationally. You will have plenty of elections, without any real choice.
JarJarJedi
7d ago
I really, really don't get it.
I don't see a problem here. I didn't see it, and don't intend to. I have a list of approximately 100+ books to read, about a year worth of already existing movie and video material to see (not counting the rewatches), and I have other stuff to do. At this point, for me to even pay attention to something new Hollywood (taking it expansively) produces they need to work really really hard to sell it to me. Why even care?
JarJarJedi
7d ago
None of those four, but they promised to Nuremberg anyone working for Trump, once they came back to power. Of course, it's not really feasible to prosecute every single person who worked for Trump - an in fact, in Nuremberg and after, not every single Nazi had been prosecuted and many, especially low-level ones, comfortably re-integrated into the society later - but it would certainly be a serious escalation. And I don't see why not do it at least to some measure - it's not like the Republicans are going to retaliate in kind. And tbh they don't need to escalate beyond that - while some totalitarian regimes descended to the point where the life of every single citizen was in peril, in most of them, day to day, one was relatively safe if one conformed and did what they are told. There's no need to murder or outlaw or bomb every single opposing person - it's enough to destroy a tiny active part and credibly threaten that the same will happen to any single person that makes trouble. And no need to suspend elections or anything like that - I mean Russia has elections. USSR had elections. As long as you control the counting process, the press, the narrative, can import voters by millions, and can occasionally just ban candidates - there's no risk in holding as many elections as you'd like. There's not even a need to have a dictatorship - DSA, Communists and Democrats can duke it out while successfully excluding anybody to the right, see California for example.
JarJarJedi
7d ago
Good luck. As somebody who went through it twice a couple of years ago, it's gonna suck, but it will likely be temporary. Take care of yourself, physically and psychologically, and let your wife and others help you. And just grind through the tedious and sucky part, eventually something will come up.
JarJarJedi
7d ago
JarJarJedi
7d ago
I put something like that in my custom prompt, and it helps to some measure. But I'm not sure it's introspection capacities are strong enough to even know it's fabricating.
JarJarJedi
8d ago
Why is it petty and stupid? The Military is not a general charity or some kind of all-around governmental funding/hosting agency. It has a very specific (though complex) goals and needs certain means and instruments to achieve these goals. If the army would suddenly declare it is founding a set of scholarships for people to learn play Ukulele while walking a tightrope, I'd be surprised - it doesn't seem to be aligned with the Military's mission at all. That doesn't mean I think playing ukuleles or walking tightropes is evil - it may be wonderful, but it's not what the Military is supposed to concern itself with. It used to be that Scouts embody all those qualities that the Military does concern itself with, so it made a lot of sense for them to cooperate. But Scouts are a separate organization, and they may decide they want to do some other thing now. Maybe concentrate on ukulele playing and tightrope walking, maybe on learning all the pronouns, maybe evaluating all the ways to be maximally safe and inclusive and writing them down in the notebook. The organization does what it wants to do. If that happened, and the goals of Scouts and Military are no longer aligned, why is it stupid to recognize this fact and part ways?
JarJarJedi
8d ago
Which was not, to my very clear memory of the time, what anyone was actually arguing.
There was a time where "not anyone was actually arguing" for open borders, welfare for illegal immigrants, on-demand access for men to women spaces and women sports, teaching in elementary schools about gay sex, declaring "whiteness" a root of all evils and many other things that we are observing today. Slippery slope exists, and is very slippery. So if some people saw this discussion and thought "if we don't object, in a short time we'd have public schools with Ebonics as primary teaching language" they may be right or they may be wrong, but they certainly weren't out of line to suspect a possible trend.
I understand how it may be frustrating to actual linguists that didn't want to play politics, but the reality is the science is now serving the politics, not the other way around. And the science community, in the search for power and influence, largely made it so. So now those are the rules by which they'd have to live - the rules of politics.
JarJarJedi
8d ago
On confrontation ChatGPT crumbled, apologizing, saying "because the text was hard to read" it simply pattern-matched the writing with similar writings it had been exposed to and extrapolated the entire remainder from that.
That's what happens every time it hits some complication. LLMs are psychopaths, they are trained to give you what you expect to hear from them, so if they can't give a satisfactory answer they will invent some lie that sounds plausible because something similar happened in their training corpus. If you catch them, they'd say "you are absolutely right, let me try again!" - and you can't even be mad, there's nothing there to be mad at. You can force it to make any kind of apology you want to hear, but it's all pointless because there's nothing in there that could apologize - it's just an engine whose whole purpose is to produce an answer you'd most likely expect to receive. If that's where they are looking for GAI what they will find if they succeed is just a lie machine that is lying in so sophisticated ways that nobody is smart enough to catch it.
JarJarJedi
8d ago
As if no one has ever advised Zelensky how to talk with Trump.
Maybe they did, but it certainly looks like he didn't listen. If Trump indeed were so easy to manipulate - I'd expect Zelensky, having not many other levers, to solicit every advice in existence on how to do that and manipulate the heck out of him. But that doesn't seem to be happening.
Yes, but not exactly. HPMOR's premise is that being intelligent makes you super-powerful. And it's not like Tolkien characters are not intelligent (please, no "why didn't they just order Eagle Uber to Mordor", it had been done to death) - it's just, as in the real world, intelligence is not enough. Otherwise we'd all be ruled by God Emperor Yud The First, The Only And The Eternal by now. But in HPMOR, intelligence makes you a god among mortals, pretty much literally. Unfortunately, this means all other characters (except maybe one or two) must be dumbasses for that to work out. That's disappointing.
Might be, not being a high-schooler I can't make much use of that, so here might be a part of it that I am unable to appreciate.
I must disagree here. The essence of how Potter wins has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with feelings, especially love. The whole premise of the original HP universe is that Voldie is smarter, more powerful, more capable, more ruthless, more everything, than any other character in the universe (including Dumbledore, which is close to his level but ultimately is also done in by him). And he still loses, because he doesn't know what it means to be human, and that's, evidently, how the magic works in that universe. HPMOR universe runs on pure intelligence, the concepts above aren't even featured there. Many people - especially rationalist, autist, introverted, hyper-intelligent geeks - may feel much more at home at the latter universe than at the former, but those are very, very different universes, and claiming HPMOR captures the "essence" of the original work is very far from the truth. If anything, it captures the external trappings while hollowing out the essence and substituting another - maybe more palatable to the geeks, but completely different.
I've noticed a number of literary mistakes (like, dangling plots, unmotivated actions, etc.) when reading it but of course I already forgot the specifics. But I am willing to believe HPMOR does not have a kind of mistakes that trigger the autists so much, like claiming in one part that certain staircase in Hogwarts had 12 steps, and in another chapter saying it's 11 steps. Of course, no normie reader had ever cared or will ever care about this. Avoiding such mistakes indeed may make it an easier read to certain category of readers - but that doesn't make it a work of literary genius. At least my threshold for it is much higher - and in a different place too.
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