NullHypothesis
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User ID: 2718
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
I don't think I'd be here if brevity was something really important to me lol.
The way I see it, if it's good and the more there is to consume, the better.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
Goes to show that being right doesn't make you likable and that delivery matters as much as the message.
Link to full transcript from JRE episode with Terrence: https://www.happyscribe.com/public/the-joe-rogan-experience/2152-terrence-howard
The relevant text is from [01:17:54] onwards
Timestamp to the relevant part where he talks about Saturn:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lWAyfr3gxMA&t=2007
Dave: So he's pretending to explain planetary formation without gravity, and without explaining anything about what he's doing. Click a button, the planet is there. Where did the matter come from, how did it arrange itself? Planetary formation is a process, this just materialized out of thin air. How? There are no vortices, nothing is opposing, there is no angle of incidence. There is no crystallization. He is just listing random buzzwords.
Terrence: Just the exact form of it, just with the calculation. So you change the angles of incidence that these lynch pins, because remember, each one of these has. These are opposing vortices. So there's twelve vortices to this that are opposing. So once the angles of incidence change, you change the motion and pressure conditions. You can now change the condition or the crystallization. So I was saying with the periodic table now, because we have the angles of incidence, material engineering can now separate the space between carbon and nitrogen, or carbon and boron, and have the same elements of titanium, vanadium, chromium, magnesium, iron or nickel, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, gallium, or germanium. In those higher octaves. We can do that between silicone and phosphorus, or silicone and aluminum. So the transparent aluminum now becomes possible because we can now control the pressure and change the pressure and motion conditions where we couldn't do that before, because they were going by cartesian space at 90 degrees and 45 degrees straight lines, the euclidean space that they've made up, this orthogonal or church like space that they've generated, because they wanted to promote that cross. That was the basis of all of that.
Dave: [Criticism about how Terrence pronounces words, just not gonna transcribe this. Kind of a cheap shot tbh.] He is doing nothing to actually explain whatsoever to actually explain anything about he just showed to Joe [...]
Joe: Before we do that, can you tell me how a planet is formed under this theory? So you have a sun. And how does the sun give birth to these planets?
Terrence: The same way we defecate and have gas. Jupiter, that red spot on Jupiter, that's spinning on it, that's going to become a moon. It may take a billion or 2 billion years. That will ultimately become a moon off of Jupiter. Where is it? Right at the equator. Where do we discharge it? Right at our equator. And then it will rotate its way around and slowly be pushed out by the solar wind of, well, by Jupiter.
Dave: 90 minutes in Joe finally asks him to actually explain something and Terry's response is astounding. Stars crap out planets the way we take a dump on the toilet. Case closed everyone! Planets are fecal matter. And the red spot on Jupiter will be a planet later. Of course, this is meaningless, since it's a storm. It's a cyclone. How does a bunch of wind form a planet exactly? And he's just so objectively wrong about every trivial detail. The red spot is not at the equator, it's 22 degrees below the equator. Humans don't have "equators" to defecate from, and the human anus is not located on the waist. This is such a stunning example of the difference between real science and insane ramblings. Ask this question of an astrophysicist, you'll get mountains of data, explanations, equations, predictions, and confirmations of those predictions through observation. Ask Terry and what do you get? The sun takes a crap. The end. Who falls for this stuff?
Now the content of the video is available for us to reference without needing to watch the video.
I watched the first twenty minutes, and the utter contempt is expected, but this part bothered me. He mocks an interview where Howard says he can rebuild Saturn without gravity, and claims that any simulation would need gravity, yet that's not true at all!
You don't have to model for gravity but then your model must adhere to the observed qualities of gravity, otherwise it's a junk model. This isn't really addressed though and not the main point here. Maybe I missed it in the video and Dave may believe that a planet based simulation needs gravity but he doesn't seem to actually make the claim you say he is claiming.
He says "So he's pretending to explain planetary formation without gravity, and without explaining anything about what he's doing." which you could argue implies that Dave believes the model should have gravity but to me, I see it as just summarizing what Terrence is claiming to have accomplished.
You can build a model to any specifications you want, including not having any gravity. He explains this in the podcast that Dave clearly didn't care to watch, that it's based on electrostatic forces and vortexes that meet at deliberate angle of incidence.
If you can create a model of the universe without including gravity, and can run that model a recreate known and observable phenomena, then congratulations, you can in fact rebuild Saturn without gravity.
We don't actually know if they built a model that rebuilds an adequate representation of Saturn, he just claims it does and shows a video of the supposed simulation. Until they publish the actual software, methodology, and information for others to be able to examine and replicate the formation of the planet as well as other celestial objects, this is as true as me claiming I have the cure for cancer and showing some 3d animation I made that I cured cancer. If you're going to be skeptical of the 'established' science you should very well be just as skeptical of these alternative scientific theories as a matter of principle and adequate proof has to be provided.
Also, they didn't rebuild Saturn. The set criteria of what defines Saturn matters here. Models are only as useful as the utility they provide. I could build a mold that has the rings of Saturn and the hexagon shape on top, fill it up, and then claim I have a model that creates Saturn if I define Saturn to be an object that looks like Saturn and has the hexagonal shape on top. Obviously, this is not a very useful model except for making model Saturn replicas.
Let's try to glean what we can about their supposed model and simulation tool. The claim about this simulation they use is that they have these set parameters such as angles of incidence, lynch pins, motion, pressure, crystallization, and vortices. If you look at the sidebar on the video you can also throw in harmonics, energy field, supernova, uhh torus, sphere, circle, cube? We'll just ignore those last 4 for a bit and come back to them later.
Suppose this is true, and that if you set all these little parameters to just the right amount you can get a bunch of objects that resembled Jupiter. How is this useful? How exactly do you determine all the values for the parameters? What determines the values of the specific parameters that lead to the output of the planet? It seems like they worked backward and just tweaked a bunch of the parameters until they got the object they wanted.
Also, the video of them creating Jupiter is literally done with Blender: Here's a video tutorial of Blender so you can see what it looks like: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yrif5lXX7WY&t=208
Take a look at the area on the right. Now compare that to the video they are showing as proof of their simulation: https://youtube.com/watch?v=FWXlLNqkJls&t=251
See the sidebars on the right? Those are objects in a scene in Blender, which is a 3d computer graphics software tool. Now, maybe there is a plugin for Blender that is a separate simulation software that is supposed the same used as Princeton as claimed in the interview that actually can simulate some shit. Maybe they calculated the mathematics necessary outside of the blender and then ported that information onto objects inside of the blender to show the process. But honestly speaking, this makes me extremely skeptical about the robustness of their supposed simulation software. They essentially have to rebuild a physics engine from the ground up since their so-called model of the world is fundamentally different from how everyone else is modeling the world.
Furthermore, the video doesn't actually show a believable formation of Jupiter. Remember the odd objects I mentioned before? They literally have a "torus" object and 2 spheres defined in the blender software. That's the inner core, the outer core, and the ring. It honestly looks like the objects are predefined. There is nothing in the video that leads me to believe that they can actually demonstrate the life cycle of a planet or even how its formed. Maybe it simulates some aspects of Jupiter but that's not what the claim Terrence made in the interview is.
Terrence later claims they've modeled the Milky Way better than NASA and we just have to take his word for it? What is he talking about here? What model of NASA? What's the benchmark they are comparing against to prove their model is better? I really wish Joe asked for more information here.
Now does this mean their model is wrong? No, it doesn't prove it, but it doesn't give much reason to be confident in it. They need to release the full details of their model, their simulation software, the blender files, and everything. There hasn't been much information provided in this segment of the interview here to give confidence to any of the claims made about this. When in doubt the choice shouldn't be to believe the thing as true.
I still don't believe 1x1 = 2, but when you choose not to understand I'm not going to give you much credence. He just completely repeats that everything is meaningless and counters with the established science as an appeal to authority.
Most of what Terrence says when he tries to explain his ideas is meaningless because he fails to properly even define the terms he are using and he misuses words. Now, perhaps if you read the source material that he's getting some of his ideas from it might make sense, but it's not the job of the listener of the JRE to have to do the research to figure out what the hell he's saying. Joe should've pressed Terrence to explain more but he didn't.
If you can't prove this shit from first principles, or explain how it was first proven from first principles, then you don't know anything. This video in forty five minutes long, it can't be an issue with time length.
Terrence fails to do this very thing since nowhere in this interview does he adequately explain the concepts he throws around (a large part due to Joe just not asking Terrence to explain). It's basically you just have to take his word for it, but he doesn't do a good job, and frankly speaking, when you introduce new ideas, you better do a damn good job of explaining those ideas and setting the foundational knowledge to be able to communicate about it because otherwise you just end up with easy criticisms like those sprinkled in Dave's video.
Dave doesn't HAVE to prove anything. All he has to do is counter what Terrence is saying, It's Terrence's job to provide ample evidence to support his position. This is a logical fallacy and doesn't properly dismiss criticism. Now you could argue Dave didn't properly counter Terrence's points but honestly, Terrence doesn't make many points.
Yes, Dave does come off as quite condescending to Terrence with insults and does make a strawman of some of his points, and skips over parts in the video but his core points stand. Terrence uses nonexistent jargon, doesn't explain his points, and makes outlandish claims.
By the way, here is a Terrence paper if you want to see the quality of his academic output.
https://x.com/terrencehoward/status/925754491881877507?lang=en
This is something where he had the chance to fully refine his arguments, and not a live interview where he has limited time to explain his ideas. Honestly, I was giving Terrence some the benefit of the doubt that he's just not explaining the ideas properly but he genuinely has no idea what he's talking about. Maybe the source behind the ideas he's pushing out has some value to it but Terrence is not the guy you want to be the ambassador of these ideas.
Just to give 1 example of what is wrong with his "paper", on the first page in the 2nd half where he adds 1 to both sides of 1x1 = 2 he uses 1x1 = 2 as proof that 1x1 =2.
Here is a video Terrence put out to try to explain his concept, a video should be more accessible to people than a paper:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=zloGu1tBThY
He essentially says the equation X^3 = 2x has 1 answer (it has actually 3 real numbers as an answer), and other numbers doesn't fit into the equation, therefore there is something wrong with math!
This guy just doesn't understand mathematics and doesn't provide the rigor to properly redefine the axioms that would make his equation true. I legitimately feel dumber for having tried to understand his line of thinking and I might dare to go as far to say that it is is an cognitohazard and nobody should watch his video or read his paper for the sake of their sanity.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
We live in an era of information bombardment so it's crucial to be able to figure out what deserves your attention and what doesn't. By the way, I defer to the experts for a lot of my knowledge too, it's unavoidable. I couldn't get anything useful outside of Terrence Howard's ideas except amusement so I didn't listen to the whole thing. Maybe you see something of value in there I don't.
I think I would enjoy his ideas if it was presented as a system in a science fiction novel but it's being presented as reality and I can't decouple that to take his ideas seriously.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
Other than entertainment, what value does one's confidence in something like the laws of physics or string theory have to the average layperson?
It honestly doesn't matter if it's correct or not unless you're working on something where that knowledge has a direct impact on something you're engaged with. For most people, your ability to function in the world is no better or worse whether you choose to believe in or not believe in string theory.
Usually, the "value" in this kind of sophistry in trying to recontextualize the lens to view the world is to open up people's mind to the possibility that maybe our fundamental assumptions about the world are incorrect and in doing so you might be able to unlock a new way of viewing the world or thinking that can yield positive results.
Okay, I can agree with this that, so why not use an actual useful example that can show that instead of arguing that if you change the axioms of mathematics 1x1=2. This feels just like that 2+2=5 controversy that just happened a few years ago. All the conversation gets lost in the absurdity of the example because frankly speaking, nobody goes around changing the axioms of mathematics in their day-to-day lives. It's only useful to mathematicians and philosophers.
Since you're deferring to the experts for subjects you don't understand, why are you listening to Terrence Howard, who is an actor and not a mathematician or logician or philosopher or scientist?
If you want to listen to a counterpoint of Howard's ideas, here's a video by YouTuber Professor Dave Explains: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lWAyfr3gxMA
This is a guy who typically makes videos debunking pseudoscience ideas like flat earth theory. He's probably just as qualified as Terrence Howard to talk about the subject.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
Was it this one by YouTuber Fredrik Knudsen (Down the Rabbit Hole)?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=UCgoxQCf5Jg
It's one of the most popular videos on TempleOS and the one I saw when I learned about him.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
I think 1-2% is enough to be able to notice, especially when they tend to be concentrated in certain areas, such as in the restaurant business. Just watched a video of a Korean guy walk through a busy market and like 1/4 of the workers were from Nepal and that wasn't even the point of the video.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
Good question. I imagine it would work like any other movement in history.
There is some kind of event or series of events that can be used to propagandize and rally people to a cause. Hopefully, the people in charge have some sense to actually listen to the citizens and at least compromise, because if the peaceful channels to resolution cease to exist, the only other option if the situation is desperate enough is the violent one.
That's personally why I'm pro-Second Amendment because it gives the people more options in case the government goes tyrannical. America was founded by violent revolutionaries, after all. I hope it never comes to be but history has shown time and time again that tyrannical governments must be opposed with force.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
Aaron Bushnell is already out of the public consciousness and his actions did not have the impact he was hoping for.
I will agree that he at least had the conviction to do something, as stupid as it was. Stupid in the sense that it did very little to push his supposed cause of freeing Palestine.
I drafted a post of around 3700 words about Bushnell the week he self-immolated looking into the history of self-immolation and its most prominent and impactful examples and how Bushnell's action relates to it but I never posted it because I never finished it as I got busy and now it's not a relevant event anymore. My prediction was that it would have little to no impact on the public discourse or opinion on Palestine and I think so far that prediction has held true. His actions, in the end, were just a minor net negative outcome to the world. Maybe we might see something happen. But probably not.
I'm actually in agreement with you that the willingness to fight for a cause is something many people lack, and if applied properly can be an admirable quality in a person. The difference between the colonists rebelling in the late 1700s versus a vegan protestor blocking the road on the streets is that the colonists were fighting for a cause a large portion of the population itself cared for, and the colonist was actually putting his life in danger by engaging in literal warfare (or standing up to actual British soldiers pointing guns in the case of the Boston massacre).
The goal of the protestors should be to get people to join your cause so you get the desired end result you want. If someone is going to be a public nuisance to protest for a cause, at least have it be a cause that people actually care about. Otherwise, all it does is make people hate the cause. It's worse than just screaming on the internet or even doing nothing, now you have people who actively go against the cause you want to advocate for. The protests over insignificant things in a manner detrimental to the public is why these discussions are happening in the first place. I think there are a lot of people who say they are against roadblocks as a form of protest but would be willing to condone or at least not be vocal in opposing it as a tactic if it was an issue of enough public importance and significance that it impacted them. But the point is that it's not, these protests in America have been about climate change, veganism, Palestine... all things that ultimately don't matter to your day-to-day American citizen.
Too many of these protests over insignificant things and society will decide it's enough and find a way to just stop them outright. I think I can agree with you that protests can serve a cause and push society in a better direction... but it needs to be used for things that people care about, and in a manner that impacts the people that can make actual decisions. Blocking roads is actively detrimental to a cause, if these people want to protest they should pick a more effective tactic.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
I haven't but my goodness nearly 1.6 million words? Thanks for the recommendation.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
This sounds similar to Jordan Peterson's statement on if you were born into Post WW1 Germany you probably would have been a nazi, or at least wouldn't have actively gone against the regime. But I think the circumstances between being a German citizen during WWII and a colonist in the 1770s are different enough that the same line of thinking doesn't apply.
Analysis of the American Revolution suggests 40% of whites were Patriots, 20% Loyalists, and the rest neutral. So just based on probability, one is twice as likely to have been for independence than side with the British government.
It's very likely at the moment of the Boston massacre the percentage of colonists that wanted independence was much lower, but it was exactly events such as the massacre that pushed many colonists to become Patriots.
I think part of what is muddying the discussion is that the people who are using these protest tactics (such as blocking the road) are advocating for the most insane things and it's hard to feel any sympathy for them. People would be more tolerant of these actions such as roadblocks if the protests were about things that mattered to the general population. Instead, these protestors are protesting first-world problems that only a rich, privileged society would have time to support a population that would care about such things. A poor person in Africa doesn't care about climate change, they would be rather happy to burn coal to generate electricity. A starving person doesn't care about animal rights and veganism.
Furthermore, these protest tactics have almost no actual risk to the protestors. Nobody protesting by blocking the streets is actually expecting that there is a chance a car will just plow through them. If they really had the conviction to die for a cause they should strap themselves onto railway tracks, because that would actually get some attention. When they do something dangerous, all the protestors start to panic as if dying wasn't a possibility of their action.
So these protestors masquerade as potential martyrs of what they claim to be the most pressing point of concern in the world, yet in reality they argue for things most people don't care about and pretend to engage in activity that would make them appear as if they are putting something on the line when they aren't by taking advantage of the goodwill of their fellow citizens, so in the end all they do is serve as a public nuisance. And when the state refuses to take action against this type of behavior, people will eventually lose all that goodwill and will be forced to take action by their own hands.
When I was in high school I was part of a politics club that I started with a friend of mine. As we were looking to grow the size of the club I invited a junior of mine to join the club, and he invited his friends. When we were voting for who should be the president, that junior of mine had invited more of his friends and they all voted for him rather than the current president. That was a lesson in being careful who you invite into your space and the potential pitfalls of a democracy. Nothing they did was technically wrong, but we felt wronged in losing what was something we started to newcomers, so we just split off and formed another club.
Immigrants coming with wildly different ideas and values who don't assimilate remind me of that experience. There is a lot of effort in giving immigrants, especially unvetted undocumented illegal immigrants, the right to vote and change the shape of this country. Unlike my time in high school, we can't just easily split off and form another country.
I don't have a problem with immigration as a concept in and of itself, as my parents are immigrants and nearly everyone living in the US today have their roots in immigration. To be honest, I'd rather the US take in high-IQ, well-mannered, conscientious individuals from other countries so that their intelligence is used for the benefit of the US. The biggest problem with immigration right now is the large number of undocumented illegal migrants coming into the country.
Illegal immigrants who do work tend to fill in the role of low-skilled labor. These are jobs nobody is willing to work at the rates employers are willing to pay due to the high minimum wage. Low-skill jobs should go to low-skill workers for the value it's worth, typically teenagers and other people who haven't had time to learn/pick up skills. States like California may have high minimum wage but their economy is also full of illegal migrants working under the table for below minimum wage pay. That means less taxes are paid, but in California, they are still eligible for a whole slew of welfare-type assistance programs.
The immigration problem is less a problem with immigrants specifically and more a problem with the system that incentivizes the wrong type of immigrants to keep coming. There is a short-term incentive to bring in a bunch of outsiders, from economic benefits for a country that isn't able to sustain its growth through its birthrate, to bringing people that would vote for your party instead of the opposition party, but the consequences in the long term are dire.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
That's what OpenAI claims, whether it's true or not doesn't matter from a PR perspective now. I think it makes sense for them to nip in the bud and just end with this small controversy rather than make it an even bigger deal with actual lawsuits flying around (and perhaps having to reveal something they don't want to during discovery).
I would think enough people did like the voice that it would be worth keeping it around, especially since it's not like the other AI voices are any more popular or liked.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
It would depend on how many people get these powers, how powerful these powers are, and what are the mechanisms for getting these powers.
This post makes me really miss the Heroes TV show. The Boys kind of scratched that more gritty superhero show vibe but it's just become too overt in-your-face in its political stances, at least seasons 1 and 2 were more nuanced about it.
Also, obligatory SMBC Superman comic: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-07-13
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
Most carbs require some kind of processing for it to be edible. For grains, you have to grind it or boil it. Cooking can soften really tough pieces of meat to the point where you can chew and digest it. Cooking is probably what allowed humans to obtain enough calories to become, well humans instead of becoming just another low-intelligence primate. Things like salt and sugar are vital for biological function so we evolved to find those tastes pleasant, especially because they were so rare to find. So we evolved to find things that helped us survive taste better. Nowadays, we've gotten so good at extracting resources that many of these things that taste good are bad for us because we get way more than the body needs.
There really wouldn't be much, if any, "fat" people for our ancestors because our ancestors were much more active and food much more difficult to come by. Not only is procuring food labor intensive, but even basic home tasks such as making and washing clothes took a tremendous amount of energy. Bodies store fat because food was not something that was constantly available, especially during winter, but it wouldn't mean people were being fat to the level they are today. There is a theory that the reason Native Americans have such a high obesity rate is that since native Americans were not as reliant on agriculture, their bodies are better at storing fat for times of food scarcity compared to Europeans, where agriculture has been a part of their way of life for thousands of years.
There is also a social-cultural element of beauty, and there is a theory that plump women were considered beautiful by middle age Europeans. It could do with finding the upper class more attractive because it signals a higher social class rather than something that is purely physical based. It's like how more tanned skin is considered attractive in the West (because it's the rich that have time to go out to the beach and get a tan and the poor work low-level office or service jobs) while in the east lighter skin are considered more attractive (because much more of the poor work out in the field in the sun).
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
Butker's speech has got so many people up in a frenzy about the content that over 200,000 people have signed a "petition" on Change.org to get him removed from the Kansas City Chiefs.
What do these articles or the descriptions on change.org have in common? Creating a strawman of the content of his speech. The change.org petition description literally doesn't even give any examples of what he says, it just characterizes his speech as "sexist, homophobic, anti-trans, anti-abortion and racist."
Graduation speeches are for the people who are graduating, not for the entire world. He was giving a speech at a Catholic college to Catholic students, who presumably have Catholic values. The biggest criticism against his speech is in regard to his statement about women:
For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.
I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother. I'm on the stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation. I'm beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.
This statement is literally followed by a huge round of applause, so clearly, the audience listening to the speech, which includes women, was very responsive to his message to them specifically.
He never says women should only be a homemakers. In fact, he even acknowledges women can have successful careers. All he does is praise women who choose to be a homemaker and a mother. Butker is absolutely correct in his statements about women being lied to that pursuing a career is much more worthwhile than motherhood, based on the behavior and happiness of actual women.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
Seoul and its surrounding regions contain half the population of Korea despite being 12% of the country, the income and prospects are much higher in Seoul. Seoul itself has around 10 million people, so about 20% of the country's total population.
South Korea does have other big cities, if you sort by size you have Busan, Incheon, and Daegu with over 2 million people each, and 6 more with over 1 million people. (Incheon is right next to Seoul and is considered part of the greater Seoul area).
But all the biggest companies are headquartered in Seoul, and I'm pretty sure most if not all the major entertainment and culture also come from Seoul. If you're a young person and you probably want to move to Seoul over any other city. In a culture where status is an extremely important component of one's identity, of course, most people would want to be in Seoul. The companies being in Seoul is a significant factor too, Korea has these things called chaebols which are big family-owned conglomerates (e.g. Samsung, LG, Hyundai) that basically run all the major companies and business and politics in the country. If you get hired into these companies you are considered successful, if you can't then you're a loser. If you want to work in these companies, go to Seoul.
There is an interesting fact and reality to consider for South Korea, which is its antagonistic neighbor to the North. Seoul is basically right next to North Korea, so in the unlikely event there is a war occurs again South Korea would be extremely vulnerable to an attack. There is an incentive to try to diversify economic, political, and cultural activity across multiple areas. South Korea actually did try to plan and began the development of a new capital city, Sejong in 2007, although it has not actually become the new capital city of South Korea. It's also located in the center of the country and outside the range of artillery strikes from North Korea. Part of the desired goal was to divest people away from Seoul into Sejong. But rather than pulling population from Seoul as desired, Sejong seems to have just pulled growth in population from its surrounding areas, and both cities saw growth in their population since 2007.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
I don't think there even are any 'free' AI video generators out there.
The way these websites work, they will falsely advertise free content, make you go through a bunch of hoops, and once you get to the output it'll be blurred or restricted in scope or have you sign up or do something that will eventually lead you to take out your wallet and pay for it.
If there is something that's truly free, it won't be free for long.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
People get busy, and some of these people for some reason use whatever spare time they have to go on the motte and nowhere else. Earlier this year I got busy with work for 3 months and just didn't have the energy to constantly browse the news so I just didn't during that time. I did come here on the motte a few times to check the quality posts and that's it.
Nobody at work really talks about news/politics except for the most banal topics because it's not appropriate. The campus protest story has not come up a single time at work, or in my family, or with my friends, or in my hobby groups. I am aware of the topic because I have more time now and browse some political content online and it's talked about there, but I could have easily missed it and then I wouldn't have known about it. Or I could've easily just only seen the headlines and dismissed it as another college protest (amongst the tens of hundreds of different protests that's happened in the past decade over literally anything) and then I wouldn't have the context to understand why @Stellua is asking the question. And if I have to do additional research myself to try to understand the context, well I'm only going to do that if the post is interesting, and the post by itself is not interesting to me.
Just to give an example of how the question sounds when you don't have the context:
Have the campus protests had any sort of effect on animal rights? It seems like no.
And you would probably be asking what am I talking about? Well if I link this article here: https://veganfta.com/2024/05/09/activists-protest-animal-experiments-at-the-university-of-arizona/
Then there would be something to talk about, you'd have the context to know what I'm talking about.
It's so easy to assume something is common knowledge when it's really not. I do grant some leeway that the motte culture war thread being political in it's nature you probably do expect most people to have been aware of the story but it's not guaranteed.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
I don't know if there are any metrics but from what I can tell most conversations and activities happen on the weekend (The number of comments seems to routinely double after Friday from my casual observation). Probably because people have jobs and family and stuff. What a surprise, people with interesting and intelligent takes have real world responsibilities... the Motte isn't a place you can make a living off so, of course, you're not going to have people here full-time to discuss all topics that could be discussed. If you aren't going to engage in the comments you could just wait for the monthly quality posts and save yourself the time and just read those instead. You're going to have more lively conversations on X because of the simple fact of X having a much much larger userbase, to the point where people can make a living just talking about political stuff. It also has a lot of low-take, crap opinions on there.
Personally, I do think there is some merit to having some low-level fruit for discussion, which is why I made a post about the recent viral man versus bear question. In the grand scheme of things this viral question has almost no real-world consequences compared to say half the items on your list but why did that post generate a good amount of discussion and a lot of these you just posted about hasn't (yet)? Because I made a post about the topic. I also took some effort to put a spin to it, did a little bit of research, gave my opinion, posed a question, and gave multiple angles of possible discussion points, and it got a decent amount of conversations going. The more information you give on the topic, the more chance there is something in it that someone might be interested in to respond to.
In general, the posts I've seen get the most responses have one of these things going for them:
- There is an opinion/fact that someone disagrees with so they post to argue against it - essentially a controversial opinion. These are the ones that routinely get the deepest conversations because it's an argument/debate. It's also the most difficult to engage in with long term.
- There is something in the post that triggers a related topic with a similar line of thinking or a different way to analyze that particular topic
- There is a new perspective that is so profound to a reader that they feel obliged to respond to it.
- There is a question for people to respond to.
Also there are some guidelines about culture war posts:
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
I don't think it takes that much work - just post a link to the article with the topic you want to discuss, quote a few relevant lines, then give your opinion and ask a question. If you want a particular type of discussion/insight put in more effort so there is something for people to respond to. What particular about these topics do you want to hear people's take on? High-level discussion requires some effort, otherwise, how would the responses be any different than the average comment on the news site, Reddit, YouTube, X, or any other discussion platform with low-level reactionary comments?
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
I believe this was laid out in Robert Cialdini's book 'Influence'.
I couldn't find my book so I just looked it up online and it's the 2nd principle of Influence, Commitment. Basically people want to their beliefs to be consistent with their values. This desire for consistency and commitment means if you can get someone to admit to a small thing, they will gradually be moved to admit and agree to bigger things in order to be consistent with their past actions. Here's a summary: https://www.shortform.com/blog/psychological-manipulation-of-korean-war-american-pows/
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
Isn't monogamy a modern concept anyway? Only 40% of males passed on their genes compared to 80% of females, (whether due to hypergamy, rape, men dying in wars/battles etc.) therefore monogamy must not have been as prevalent in our ancestors. And some analysis of DNA suggests 8000 years ago 17 women reproduced for every 1 man.
One could point to the Scandinavian Vikings that went around raping women across Europe (or any other conquering European force), or harems in the courts of kings and lords, or the sexually promiscuous times of the Romans and Greeks. I'm pretty sure it was also common even in married couples for there to be extramarital affairs (look at how many prostitutes existed in the Victorian era). Monogamy bundled together with the concept of love is extremely modern, most marriages were understood to be financial and social, not strictly based on love.
However, I'd argue monogamy has been a significant factor attributing to the success of civilization and the progress of humanity. There's no shortage of evidence supporting the notion that children grow up better in two-parent households, and it creates more stable societies too. A married man will work harder to support his family, which means he will pay more taxes and less likely to commit crimes and engage in things like protests. You don't want a large population of unmarried men sitting around, and historically the problem this posed was likely solved by sending them off to war.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
It sounds pretty realistic to me, and if I was conversing with the AI over the phone it would take a while before I would even suspect it wasn't a person on the other side. How many years until the AI voice becomes indistinguishable from any random person's? Heck, people are even saying the AI voice sounds more human than the actual person talking to the AI.
There was that one news segment a few weeks back about some guy framing a school principal with an AI voice to make him sound racist and it had an actual tangible impact on that person's and the schools livelihood. And this is AI copying another person's voice, which means the voice would be nowhere as good as 'Her's' voice.
It honestly doesn't matter if you or I could identify 'Her' as an AI, if enough people believe a shoddy AI copy of some random dude's voice to be a real voice then even more people would not be able to tell 'Her' is an AI. At that point, it could very well be considered to be 'real'.
NullHypothesis
1yr ago
the ability to follow instructions
You could interpret this in two ways:
- The actual intellectual ability to understand the instruction.
- The willingness to follow instructions.
Since IQ is already taken out of the equation and the focus is on behavior it probably means point number 2.
According to John Boles, a professor of history at Rice University:
Saying the costs are too high is technically correct but Jefferson's situation in particular has some details to consider that may make one consider what exactly that statement means. The laws around debt and Jefferson wanting to give his slaves a chance at life if he did free them by basically gifting them huge financial gifts made it economically unviable for him.
Is slavery profitable? Yes. Is it more profitable than willing workers engaging in a free market? That is the question. Opportunity cost is a thing.
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