MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
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User ID: 1783
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
14d ago
But compared to the USA, Russia hasn’t been a globe-trotting military power imposing its will on other countries. This is the first large scale military invasion of a sovereign nation by Russia since the end of the Cold War. Compare that to America who has invaded Iraq twice, bombed Libya, invaded Afghanistan, and expanded NATO to include almost all of Eastern Europe. Whether or not you agree with either the geopolitical position (not wanting a NATO member along a difficult to defend border) or the stated aims (removing Nazis from Ukraine) or not, it’s not exactly the military adventures of the USA.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
3d ago
The problem is of course that AI can take jobs faster than we can train people to do them. It’s just as adaptable as we are, maybe more so. Can an AI atttached to cooking utensils make a hamburger that’s as good as Five Guys? I think it probably could, given enough time. If it can do that I think it could probably make just about any food you wanted. I think it can also produce creative writing and movies and TV. What it takes is someone deciding to train it.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
1d ago
I suspect what’s actually going through Abbot’s mind in the near future is his political future. He’s angling to be seen as a defiant leader something like Desantis is in Florida. I don’t think trans athletes come around often enough that there’s going to be more than one or two in all of Texas. If those few happened to go to private school, there’s no real way for the state to enforce a private school’s policy on trans athletes. If my math is right there are only 12,000 trans people in the entire state, with most being over 18. On that sense the issue would barely even be an issue unless the government were taking very strong sides on it. But it makes great press in the news cycle.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
25d ago
I would tend to think the strictness is probably more of a long term help than the rather lax modern Christian practice, or the even more lax pagans. The reason is that the West is losing a sense of cohesion and shared mores. A religion with shared dogma and strict practices would seem like a way to get the structure that’s lacking in the modern secular system. Thus Saith The Lord has a finality to it that “because it’s current year” doesn’t. Having a practice that gives structure to the day or week would seem to give a much stronger shared community than a loose structure.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
5d ago
I don’t think you can really compartmentalize to that degree with any integrity. In most governments and political parties they have openly stated platforms and they at least intend to make good on those promises. You can’t support only the good without accepting the bad. You can’t have support for a faction that kills gays and support gay rights. You can’t support the political goal without supporting the social goals because if they get their goals of defeating IDF they’ll go right back to running Gaza the way they want to.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
12d ago
I think that Nate Silver’s approach is correct, though like you, I don’t think his math is right. Probability modeling is just simply more accurate than gut feelings. Or as Ben Shapiro likes to say “facts don’t care about your feelings.” And this is something the left especially has missed quite often. In fact they missed out on putting a liberal on the bench because RBG didn’t retire with a Dem majority.
And if the polling data is showing that Biden loses in 2024, you’re talking about minimum 2029 before we could replace a justice with a liberal judge. If Trum does really good, he might win in 2028 thus making the next replacement window at 2033. That puts her at near 80.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
12d ago
In general I think formalism is a good thing. If we’re to have a debate on the merits of a certain social system or political ideology, we must know what it is that we’re actually talking about. If I’m advocating for “democracy” or “white nationalism” or “communism” it’s absolutely important to know what the terms actually mean. The first reason this is important is that it prevents people from speaking past each other. If “communism” is formally defined as “state ownership of capital” then we can be sure we won’t get lost in the weeds of talking about things that look like communism that actually aren’t like Kibutz or monasteries or nuclear families. It also avoids the issues of changing definitions and snuck premises. If we don’t define Communism, then either one of us are free to change the definition in ways that suit us. If I don’t agree with communism, I can redefine it to be only totalitarian socialism and dismiss everything else as “not really communism” even if it would meet the definition. If I’m in favor of communism, I can do this in reverse and start including Sweden as a communist country because some utilities and the health care system are state run. It also prevents to snuck premise problem where I talk about things that I really wish were part of the communist system but aren’t.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
19d ago
I think it’s a self-preservation thing. Lots of people just have this odd need to believe that AI isn’t really going to take over the art scene, from movies to music to writing and painting and so on. And it will end those pursuits as a viable career simply because it will be orders of magnitude cheaper to have an AI write and make the next Star Wars movie than it will be for them to waste that money on human writing and acting and so on. Just a few humans to tweak the output is all you really need, and that’s essentially one guy doing the fixing.
It’s already getting hard to tell the difference between a human and a bot, and that’s tools that are pretty stable and probably were developed and trained 3-5 years ago. Give it five more years and the professional arts will be dying because they’re no longer different enough from AI to justify the price.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
14d ago
He annexed Donbas and considers them a part of Russia, which makes any attempt to retake them an attack on Russia proper.
The other thing that I think is dismissed too lightly is that him losing the war is likely to be fatal to him. Russia has a history of killing or deposing rulers who lose wars. If the only way to win in Ukraine is to use nukes then he’s likely to at least think about it.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
19d ago
Aren’t most of us doing this now? I mean most people are assuming that this was negligent simply because a shooting occurred. But my contention is outside of buying a troubled teen a gun and taking him to gun ranges to practice with it (which is negligent) a lot of the things they did would not be that unusual for a family that owns guns. And I think that matters because you shouldn’t be able to convict someone of not taking extraordinary measures to prevent a crime.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
20d ago
It’s unreasonable to hold someone responsible for choices that other people make unless they’re knowingly making choices that a reasonable individual would see an enabling a crime. If I leave my keys on the counter, that’s not participating in the roommate using my car to drive to his girlfriend’s house and shoot her. If I know he’s going to get her in some way and I knowingly give him the keys, sure I get that. Any person watching would interpret that as me giving the guy the keys to go harm his girlfriend.
I think it has to go through that reasonable man test. If a reasonable person looks at the situation and says that the parents knew or reasonably should have known that he wanted to kill people, and they knowingly provide him a weapon and ammo and refuse to secure it, yes, they’re involved. But if it’s “there are guns in the house,” not really. And especially if the kid gets into a safe or something, at that point, they’ve done everything reasonably doable to keep the kid from getting a gun.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
21d ago
In what way? I don’t know of anyone who takes the idea literally in the sense that they think that there’s a literal perfect [object] in heaven that Al, similar things on Earth resemble. On the other hand the concept is used quite a lot in mathematics as mentioned below and in law. We have legal definitions of all sorts of things which is why tomatoes are vegetables in a legal sense. It probably happens in CS as well.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
14d ago
True, but then again, we expanded NATO eastward to a difficult to defend border after it told Russia it had no intention of doing so. Even if Poland wanted in, it’s hard to ignore that having NATO troops and military equipment on the border of Russia is at least somewhat provocative. And given that it’s all of Eastern Europe and soon Ukraine as well, Russia is going to be basically surrounded. It’s about equivalent to Russia forming an alliance with Mexico and Canada. I can’t imagine a universe in which the USA would not view that as a threat.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
15d ago
I’ll say We, as in NATO would be stupid to do it. Putin has nukes and has said repeatedly that NATO in Ukraine is his red line. If Putin is backed into a corner where either option is “lose and die”, the restraining force of gentility just isn’t going to stop him.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
22d ago
I’ll agree that the last semester of high school is coasting, and that the program is only a week or two. But we’re also considering the money factor which can add up quickly and take money from other important programs and issues. A room, food, transportation, and materials is probably in the realm of $2000 a kid. If you’re sending more than a couple of kids we’re probably talking about 60,000 a year on the program. Money that could be used for dozens of other programs or materials that could be used to educate kids in skills and knowledge they will need in their future lives.
Which will long term benefit Americans? Kids who understand science and math at high levels, or that they spend a week in a school in a red state (or blue depending on district)? That the majority of kids read on grade level, or that they go on a field trip? A robotics lab or science lab? And this is why I think even if it’s just a week in the last semester, unless it’s completely self funded, it’s really taking a lot of money from other very necessary programs that would benefit every student.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
22d ago
I don’t see why it has to be through schools particularly though. The general idea is good, traveling to places unlike the places you usually go (and that aren’t built to cater to people like you, aka tourist destinations) definitely grows you as a person. But to me, schools are already doing way more than they can possibly do: welfare office, therapy, socialization, and so on. This leaves too little time for the purpose of educating the children to know the basics of literacy, numeracy, and science literacy that they absolutely need. If the kids were doing well in those areas as compared to international standards, we could have the conversation about trying to do other things.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
10d ago
First of all, the person who makes a positive claim is the one obliged to provide evidence. This is simply elementary logic. Negatives cannot be proven, so it’s not on me to prove that no conspiracy happened, it’s on you to provide some evidence that there is a conspiracy.
Second “it’s obvious” isn’t evidence. If it’s obvious, proving it should be easy.
Third, I don’t accept YouTube as a source. Find me a newspaper or other print source so I can check on the facts presented.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
20d ago
I think we’re largely in agreement. It’s a weird part of American hobby culture where you do anything and the expectations are to somehow monetize the product. Don’t make videos or keep a blog for fun, don’t just paint or write for your buddies, even gaming is now turning into “get good, and twitch-stream it and try to be in esports.” I think it’s weird that almost everything has to be optimized and monetized as though “just have fun” isn’t a valid reason to do something.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
23d ago
I’ve never understood that though. These people basically have a very expensive hobby and generally need to be told that. I would expect them of everyone else to be willing to economize especially on things that don’t matter much in the name of getting the actual writing out in public. Yet it’s exactly these people who seem the most upset by the prospect of AI covers and AI editing (I understand the pushback on AI story development and writing, as these are the point of being a writer, without which the “author” is reduced to prompter and unimportant to the work itself) when it would actually reduce their sunk costs. Having human cover art is in the hundreds of dollars range, and human editing is about $3000 for a novel-length work. AI reduces those costs to near zero which reduces the break even point for a self published book from $3500 to the cost of a maybe on the order of $300 or less for AI subscriptions. At $5 a book, we’re down from a break even of 700 books to a break even of 60 books.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
11d ago
My understanding is that he can’t serve more than two consecutive terms. Since Theresa gap, he gets two more.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
2d ago
I think there’s also an aspect of “fashion barber poles”. I think my clearest political example would be something like color-blind politics where the race of the person wasn’t supposed to matter at all. This was the goal in the 1970s and 1980s. A not-racist believed that race didn’t matter. The problem was that “normies” started to buy in to that. Essentially they won. Everyone from Reagan to Bernie Sanders believed in that at the time. So it loses a bit of cred not because of internal problems with the movement, but because if you’re upper class, there’s a certain amount of pressure to not be mistaken for the unwashed masses. And much like fashion, food trends, and media trends, ideological trends follow in a predictable pattern of the aspirational trying to imitate the elite, the normie imitating them, and the elite wanting to separate themselves from the mainstream. Thus the movement changes to things that normies don’t do.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
1d ago
I’ve always found the “history” argument weak. The reason people protest is at least ostensibly because there’s a moral wrong being committed. Yet, the “right side of history” argument doesn’t even engage with the moral arguments. If the cause is morally right, then it is right, whether or not history goes along with it. Second, history isn’t even a line, it’s a graph it can and has changed direction multiple times. The Romans were okay with being gay, until they became Catholic. Several countries have gone from being communist to being market liberals at the same time other states have gone the other way.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
19d ago
It’s not a scam it, like solar is overrated for large swaths of the globe simply because the weather and geography often make those solutions impractical. Solar only works in places that have a lot of sunny days. And transmission can only go so far. Wind has a similar problem— if the place isn’t windy enough, there’s no power. Add in the space requirements for either solution, and it’s a minor source of power that people overhype because they want to believe you can get free-ish energy that’s perfectly green and leaves no waste. I think it’s a step backwards simply because for most of the globe nuclear fission is so much more efficient per meter of space used and produces so little waste that anything that stops people from wanting more nuclear energy is a step away from green energy.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
8d ago
I think a lot of this could be somewhat curbed if there were reasonable requirements to get various helps from the government. If you want assistance, it should be assistance and therefore you should have a job. That doesn’t seem controversial to me. And it would work. If having sec 8 housing required having a full time job, then people would be much more likely to find and keep a job. Add in a requirement that nobody living at that house commit a felony and a lot of these sorts of problems get handled.
I think it actually could become a problem in that the far left and far right are in pretty strong agreement on the accusations against the Jews, that they’re manipulating narratives to their own benefit, and that they only care about themselves. The left has absolutely blamed all Jews for the actions of Israel, and they don’t seem to care what Hamas and other Palestinians have done or want to do. There’s barely even a whisper of blame on Hamas for launching the attacks or holding hostages or the crimes committed during the attack. And when you couple that with full support of the intifada, chanting of the slogans that deny Israel’s right to exist,
Personally, I think most of the Gaza situation is on Lakud which isn’t all Israelis and has little to do with Jews who don’t support Lakud or Natanyahu.
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