Markass
Not the worst
User ID: 3843
Markass
Not the worst
8d ago
Bodycams did a lot to dissuade this incorrect notion. We have literal video proof that the overwhelming majority of the time the police shoot a suspect, it's because the suspect pulled a gun or knife. There was never any such epidemic of police being quick to shoot people.
Markass
Not the worst
8d ago
Here's a brilliant article on why "just be kind" produces bad policy.
(I like the author of this article, it would be so cool if he also posted on The Motte.)
Markass
Not the worst
8d ago
And they reacted by making a new site (Bluesky) in an attempt to usurp X as the dominant conversation site. Thankfully it seems rather irrelevant and subject to a form of evaporative cooling that results in it being an echo chamber for crazy beliefs.
The other, bigger deal is that you can bet they won't let something like Twitter be taken over by someone like Musk ever again. I'm suspect that The Onion wanting to take over Infowars was a sort of ironic retribution for Twitter. "You take over my site, then I take over yours, and fair's fair."
Markass
Not the worst
8d ago
Also as just one example: has Wikipedia been un-woked? If woke has been defeated?
Nope. The article for Kiwi Farms is still full of blatant lies.
Markass
Not the worst
9d ago
The FAA is a good example of regulatory capture. How is it that, in the land where healthcare is private, ATC is socialized and easily shut downs when the government does? They literally only have one ATC training academy in Oklahoma, there are no other options if you want to be an ATC. Predictably, this regulatory gatekeeping contributes to a shortage of ATC and pilots.
Markass
Not the worst
9d ago
I've long given up any hope of honest, good faith, thoughtful engagement on Reddit. That site is absolute cancer ruled by jannies who would rather dedicate their entire lives to removing wrongthink than get a job.
Markass
Not the worst
12d ago
I don't disagree that LLMs can do basic arithmetic. That doesn't change my stance. I think it's no different than if you somehow knew a gifted savant human who could do 99% of things well 99% of the time, but failed miserably at the 1%. I am fine with you asking this human to do a back of the envelope calculation. I am not fine with you just uncritically repeating what they say without checking it. Especially when it's a back of the envelope calculation, as you say. It's no different with LLMs. I think the major problem with LLMs is not that they exist and could hallucinate, but that it enables a lot of people who reach for the easy button and just press it without thinking for themselves. They can and should check everything being told to them. They can and should do their own research. When they don't, it can lead to lies being spread. Do you know why a lie can make it halfway across the world while the truth is putting its boots on? Because people don't check for themselves, they don't think for themselves, they just hear what someone else says and repeat it. A lot of people have replaced that someone else with an LLM.
Markass
Not the worst
12d ago
The onus is on you to verify what the LLM outputs, not for us to do it. Anyone can query an LLM, the only thing that makes such output valuable is when a human fact checks it.
Markass
Not the worst
13d ago
All mainstream immigration discourse never brings up other countries, because they have stricter immigration laws than America's, and anyway who wants to immigrate to Russia of all places.
Markass
Not the worst
13d ago
It seems like the NYT and its supporters, donors, etc. simply hate any and all immigration law existing or being enforced.
Markass
Not the worst
14d ago
(When someone pointed out how his argument applied to – uhh, another thing that people can pass themselves off as, he closed the comments on the article. Never change, Freddie.)
There is speculation that he is inconsistent on the trans question because of one particularly openly trans (and influential?) relative of his.
Markass
Not the worst
15d ago
My issue is that you still seem to be conflating two issues: Default judgments, and the jury who decided his punishment. We can have conversations about both, but we should be clear that most of Jones' trouble came about because he was obstinate and refused to cooperate with the court, thus earning himself a default. We can't peer into alternate universes but I would bet good money that if Jones had taken the case seriously and cooperated instead, he would've had a higher chance of success and would not have gotten a billion dollar judgment. On the other hand, if a judge had decided his punishment instead, I don't think it would have been much better. What, do you think judges are immune to psychological anchors? Do you seriously think that the same judge who was pissed off enough at his conduct to give him a default judgment would have gone easier on him? I sincerely doubt it.
The point of a jury system is that your fate doesn't rest with one person, the idea being that it's harder to influence and bias multiple people than one. As another commenter pointed out, if you don't think this is true, you are always welcome to opt for a bench trial (at least in criminal cases). The Afroman trial is a good example, where the judge was clearly biased in favor of the plaintiffs, but the jury was the decider and they sided with Afroman (and with free speech).
Markass
Not the worst
16d ago
How does the fact that Alex Jones got a default judgment by refusing to cooperate with the court factor into this? Most corporations would defend themselves pretty thoroughly that they don't ever end up with $1.4 billion judgments, because they aren't Alex Jones and understand they shouldn't piss off the one person deciding their fate.
Markass
Not the worst
16d ago
They function even better, they don't shut down when the government shuts down.
I do find it amusing how in the land where everything is private, especially healthcare, ATC is the one exception.
Markass
Not the worst
17d ago
I fear that you may have sampling bias with regards to crypto. You don't hear about the failed crypto thefts, only the successful ones. Successful theft of crypto requires some degree of intelligence and hard work, much like successful theft from bank. Not just anybody with Internet access can do it.
(I should be clear that by successful, I am also including getting away with it without being caught or facing significant punishment. I will grant that crypto theft in certain respects is easier than, for example, breaking into a bank, but unless you have perfect ironclad opsec you can't just steal money and get away with it.)
Markass
Not the worst
17d ago
1/ Another proof that crypto hadn't brought world peace and harmony as some more devoted fans promised, but crypto made crime cool again.
I disagree with both extremes. Crypto is just a tool, one that can be used for good or evil depending on the people who interact with it. The first bank robbery probably happened 15 minutes after the first bank opened. The first bank also brought immense benefits to society. Crypto is no different.
2/ Trust no one. If you want to make you crypto stash really secure, you need to make your own random number generator, this means using the gold standard of physics, radioactive decay. No randomer random events can be found in this universe.
You still have to trust that you or the code you run didn't mishandle the numbers or cause them to lose entropy somewhere. You still have to trust something, on some level. Trusting nothing is impossible. However, I do agree with the principle that you should trust the least amount of things possible. Generating your own numbers (if done correctly) may be such a solution if you suspect the built-in RNG is dodgy.
And using radioactive decay is excessive and unnecessary. The real problem is that they rolled their own crypto.
Markass
Not the worst
17d ago
Sometimes terrible employees do exist and they will obviously lose out to better alternatives. It's what happens.
I will not hire a bad employee in my department simply because I feel bad for them, and no one else will either.
Are you claiming that @birb_cromble's cousin is (or would be) a terrible employee, apropos of nothing besides the fact that he's sent out thirty job applications with no success?
Markass
Not the worst
19d ago
BLM did do one thing, they contributed to the rise of equipping police with bodycams, which is unquestionably a moral good. Naturally, they immediately reversed on this policy goal when bodycams revealed that most police were not in fact unjustifiably using deadly force against blacks, but that blacks routinely pull guns or knives on cops. So the one material change they achieved that they should be applauded for is something they don't want now and don't take credit for.
Oh, and BLM also bought a $6 million mansion. (Which, to be clear, enriches the leaders of the movement but does nothing for black people at large.)
Markass
Not the worst
19d ago
If they are literally drowning, that is a risk they took of their own accord and it is entirely their fault. No one's forcing them to do that, and we especially are not forcing them to, so it's not our problem.
Markass
Not the worst
19d ago
driving up costs for brokers and bulk carriers, but I think I speak for a lot of voters when I say "maybe that's a good thing".
Yes, because we don't need immigrants to work our jobs. We have no shortage of Americans willing to work. What we do have a shortage of are Americans who are willing to be underpaid, which is why companies love foreign labor so much. They are willing to be treated like slaves.
One wonders how one could advocate for workers' rights and treating employees fairly, and yet also support the importation of a workforce to be exploited by employers for the sole purpose of reducing costs.
Markass
Not the worst
19d ago
Trump could have pardoned everyone in J6 on his way out of office, and not done it after banking on winning 2024 (of which there was no guarantee) and doing it after taking office again, after those defendants suffered much monetary and jail time punishments. There are so many things Trump could be doing to fulfill his promise of financial access (under the misnomer of fighting against "debanking"). Etc. I agree with the other commenter when I say it's just incompetence.
Markass
Not the worst
21d ago
"Lots of variants" is an understatement. There is simply no standard specification of Markdown like, say, there is a specification of HTML or a specification of C.
Markass
Not the worst
22d ago
It should also be pointed out that while US driver licenses have mutual reciprocity with all 50 states, the same cannot be said for handgun carry permits. Another instance where gun rights are a privilege and driving privileges are a right.
I didn't even realize the username I was replying to. Amusing indeed.
More options
Context Copy link