Quantumfreakonomics
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User ID: 324
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
Do people drive the speed limit there?
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
The Chinese Room thought experiment was an argument against the Turing Test. Back in the 80s, a lot of people thought that if you had a computer which could pass the Turing Test, it would necessarily have qualia and consciousness. In that sense, I think it was correct.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
I will occasionally get those, “Make women desire you; stop being so nice,” ads on YouTube, delivered by an attractive-but-not-unreasonably-attractive woman with exaggerated gestures and expressions offering to tell you “the secret” to getting girls. I am generally pretty resistant to advertising. I will usually click the “skip ad” button, but in a world of finely-tuned manipulative advertising, where every ad for me is like this, could this be the key to emptying my bank account?
Ordinarily I wouldn't post personal Reddit drama here, but the thread is slow and I'm mad.
Here is a post that I saw on /r/baseball:
Anthony Bass promoting anti-LGBTQ propaganda on his Instagram
You probably noticed that the thread is locked with a moderator message: "The trolls are flooding in, and the conversation has run its course at this point. Friendly reminder to love your neighbor, and that it's not intolerant to oppose bigotry. Everyone have a nice holiday Monday!"
This message was posted only a few minutes after I was permanantly banned from /r/baseball for comments in that very thread! In fact, I believe they are referring to me as one of the "trolls flooding in". Lets take a look under the hood to see what counts as perma-ban and threadlock-worthy comments.
First, the actual article in question. Anthony Bass is a pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays. He posted an Instagram story saying Christians should boycott Target and Bud Light. That's it. That's the "anti-LGBTQ propaganda". I posted a top-level comment in the thread sarcastically making this point.
Is this a high-effort comment? No, but if you are familiar with the sports subs at all then you know that this type of low-effort sarcasm is all over the place. That's the posting culture there. I also got involved in another comment thread.
JaysRaineman73 -18 points 2 hours ago: "Who the fuck cares. So tired of this shit. I only care about how he plays on the field. If he’s not abusing or hurting anyone, it’s irrelevant."
realparkingbrake 11 points 2 hours ago: "On what planet does denying people the same rights as everyone else not qualify as abusing or hurting them?"
QuantumFreakonomics -4 points 2 hours ago: "What rights do they not have? Name them? How is he hurting anyone? How does asking people to not purchase products from a specific mega-corp hurt anyone? Am I hurting people every time I go to Walmart and not Target? Please, I’m begging you. Actually think about the things you are saying. Don’t just parrot the same irrelevant lines you’ve seen other people use."
PuppyPunter21 4 points an hour ago: "Well, if any players live in Florida, they have recently passed quite a few laws targeted against them. The continued promotion of these types of boycotts encites more hate. Covid caused more hate towards Asians, Kayne West promoted more antisemitism. Ignoring it isn't a solution."
QuantumFreakonomics 3 points an hour ago: " 'Well, if any players live in Florida, they have recently passed quite a few laws targeted against them.' What rights did these laws take away? The right to have teachers come out in front of their students? I had never heard of that "right" before a few years ago. 'The continued promotion of these types of boycotts encites more hate. Covid caused more hate towards Asians' Is your position that someone shouldn't be allowed to talk about an issue if it could possibly cause someone else to hate another group? I don't see how that is a workable position at all. Should we not have instituted Covid restrictions or even complained about covid in order to prevent Asian hate? 'Ignoring it isn't a solution.' Why not? People speaking their mind on public issues is the bedrock of Democracy. Some of those people are going to say things you don't like. A democracy where certain issues are not free to be discussed is not much of a democracy at all.
This was the extent of my participation in the thread. I did not expect my comments to be particularly well-received by the Reddit population, but I felt that I pointed out enough legitimate issues that I would be safe from accusations of trolling. I was wrong.
Here is the modmail message I received informing me of my permanent ban, along with the brief conversation we had before they muted me with their absolute power.1 For reference, here are the /r/baseball rules. Would an honest reading of these rules give you any reason at all to think that anything I posted would not be allowed, much less permaban worthy? You would have to be steeped in internet leftist culture to understand that, "Trolling, threatening, harassing, or inciting violence towards individuals or groups will not be tolerated. Racist, sexist, or otherwise intolerant language in both comments and submissions will be removed." means that pointed questions against the progressive consensus will get you tossed out.
I understand why so many subreddits are complete circlejerks now. It's not about echo-chambers and voting dynamics. They literally just banned everyone who disagreed.
1. Here is the source they cited for their "62%" figure. I'll let you decide for yourself whether this poll is applicable
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
40 CFR 120.2 defines "waters of the United States" to include wetlands, and "wetlands" to mean "those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions."
Isn’t this backwards? Are you allowed to use CFR to interpret United States Code? Regulators can’t claim jurisdiction unless a statute grants them jurisdiction right?
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
At first I was going to say that this is simply a prominent example of emotivism, but really it’s not even that. The “hurrah trans kids” isn’t disguised as a proposition, it’s disguised as a command. “Protect trans kids”, is an imperative sentence, exactly the same as, “Workers of the World Unite.” It’s the Greengrocer’s Sign. What it means is, "I, the movie studio Sony Pictures work here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace."
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
Here’s a possibility: When a school has a problem where students with characteristic X are being bullied, one of the tactics administrators might use is to hold assemblies and hang up posters about how cool characteristic X is. If characteristic X is “being trans”, and the state has a law saying that schools cannot encourage kids to be trans, then that cuts off that avenue of solving the bullying problem.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
"constitutionally sufficient if Congress clearly delineates the general policy, the public agency which is to apply it, and the boundaries of this delegated authority.'"
That's the whole issue though right? Congress told EPA to regulate "the waters of the United States", there was some amendment passed that implied that this includes "wetlands adjacent thereto" (because you know, what else are you gonna do about this?), then the EPA decided that this means they can regulate any relatively flat area with reasonably high annual precipitation (i.e. the most densely populated parts of the country).
Plessy died because it was no longer possible to maintain the legal fiction that segregated facilities were "separate but equal". When Chevron dies (and it will) it will be because it is no longer possible to maintain the legal fiction that agencies are operating within reasonable interpretations of statutes.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
If the legal landscape does change, this is a chance to empirically test Richard Hanania's thesis that Woke Institutions is Just Civil Rights Law.
I'm almost certain that Hanania has the pathophysiology correct. His mistake is in thinking that this makes the problem easier rather than impossible. The Civil Rights Act is probably the singular most beloved act of congress in American history, maybe not by up-or-down popularity vote, but certainly by intensity-weighted metrics like "number of people who are willing to die to preserve it." Legislative repeal is a non-starter. Judicial review seems promising at first -- the Roberts Court espouses all the principles of freedom and limited government required to overturn the law on a pure legal basis -- but should they touch the cornerstone of modern American legal and ethical theory that is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 they would get packed within a month. Anyone hoping for Republican senate support should expect the John McCain Experience.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
I guarantee (especially given that the Budweiser part of InBev is in the midwestern largely Catholic city of St. Louis) that someone in that room knew the Mulvaney cans were a terrible idea that would cause backlash. They said nothing because being anti-trans is dangerous to their career.
I'll tell you what they were thinking. They were thinking, "we need to sell beer to children without getting in trouble." The Beer Institute (the beer industry self-regulatory organization) has a rule that beer advertising can only appear in media where 73.6% of the audience is 21 years of age or older. Do you think that Dylan Mulvaney's Instagram following is more or less than 26.4% under 21? They were hoping that they'd be able to get away with it because no organization wants to be seen as transphobic.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
Western Ghats
Don't they have literal man-eating tigers there? Maybe tigers are less of a threat to "alone and unguided" backpackers than I am imagining, but this brings up a general problem with international travel beyond "touristy" places. Most people have no idea what the local dangers are in places they have never spent significant time in. In the Southeast United States, people know not to let small children or pets wander around the water's edge unattended. Tourists from other states don't have these instincts. People who grew up in India probably have an innate "common sense" understanding of how to not get eaten by tigers. OP almost certainly does not.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
They would have to figure out a way to sell moderation without selling the site itself. Twitter is “valuable”, but it does not generate much income.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
So it would seem to be less mod = more users = more profits
This may be what Reddit wants, but it's not what the volunteer moderators want. The power mods wanted The_Donald gone because having a conservative community that large and influential on the platform meant a steady influx of right-wing users into other communities. This was referred to as "brigading", and the mods complained until the admins did something about it. Mods do not want vigorous discussion on their subreddits. They would much rather a circlejerk where all rulebreaking comments are already massively downvoted before a mod even gets there.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
Well there is some level of labor required just to remove spam and enforce the actually important rules. Reddit won't be able to get volunteers to do it if their every decision is second-guessed by admins, and paying employees to do all that work would be both expensive and anti-creative.
The Reddit model is basically feudalism, which makes it inefficient and unreliable financially. You essentially have to steamroll over entrenched interests if you want to get money out of the thing.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
The threshold for “it’s not worth it” is actually quite low
I don’t believe this. The implication of your entire comment is that progressive activists would rather not have to expend effort against their enemies. I think that’s wrong. The substitution of the progressive surrogate goal in the place of meaningful labor in order to satisfy the Kaczynskian power process is the whole point of progressive activism. They love crushing their enemies. Victory begets victory. It does not beget resting on one’s laurels.
You seem to be under the impression that conservatives won the Bud Light fiasco. If they did, then why is Bud Light still donating to the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce? They lost 20% of their entire multinational conglomerate’s market cap and they’re still pulling this shit.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
neither they nor other beer brands that cared to the same audience will try a similar marketing technique again.
Why not? Has the internal culture changed? Have they become more sensitive to the values of their core customers? The evidence suggests they still think LGBT inclusivity is more important than appeasing the politics of rednecks. Unless AB’ internal messaging is explicitly marking this as a cynical move to stay in good graces with the powers that be, some poor sap is going to rise through the ranks actually believing that LGBT inclusion is a core value of Bud Light, and then they’ll make the exact same mistake as soon as they’re put in charge of marketing.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
Surely it wouldn’t be that hard for an adversary like Russia or China to repurpose a few uranium centrifuges to generate material samples with weird isotope ratios. If they then used those samples to build strange aircraft and flew them over the United States they could potentially cause a good bit of chaos.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
It doesn’t have to be radioactive. It just has to freak out the guys running the mass spectrometer and you’ll end up with official reports saying things like “atomic analysis unlike all known terrestrial samples, possible extraterrestrial origin.”
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
Haven't the Rangers never held a pride night? I remember reading a few years ago that they were in hot water for being the only MLB team to not have one. I had assumed they caved at some point like everyone else, but maybe not.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
They're already shutting down the Star Wars Hotel they spent fabulous sums constructing. It was only open from March 2022 to Sept 2023.
Just looked this up. They themed it off of the SEQUEL trilogy. Are they retarded? The sequel trilogy ended with Rise of Skywalker in December 2019. Nobody cares about Rey or Kylo or The First Order anymore. I know Disney is all about marketing synergy, but that only goes so far. You can use banked-up nostalgia to sell subpar movie tickets for $15 each, but you can't then use those subpar movies to sell $6,000 themed vacations.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
I can’t believe this shit. The front running candidate is probably going to be in jail on election night, and the challengers are scrambling to find an angle of attack. It’s right in front of you ya imbeciles.
Look, I get it. The prosecution seems unfair and you want to struggle against it and fight back. Here’s the problem:
It’s a trap
They want you to vote for him in the primary. You really think the best case they can come up with is misreported hush money payments to his mistress? No. They’re hoping the Republican base bets all their political capital on Trump, secures him the nomination, and then they’re going to drop the hammer and make Republicans look like treasonous buffoons for supporting the guy again instead of adopting any meaningful policy platform.
You don’t have to throw Trump under the proverbial bus (like he did to his supporters on January 6), you just have to not nominate him to be the Republican candidate for President of the United States.
EDIT: Well well how the turntables. I suspect that these charges are at least legally sound, if not "fair". The argument that, "Everyone does it. These felony charges are bullshit." would be a lot stronger if we didn't all see over the last 8 years how differently Trump acts from normal politicians. You don't have to nominate this guy. DeSantis can run on an, "I'll pardon Trump, but he shouldn't be president," platform.
Quantumfreakonomics
11mo ago
Last night Fox News was wall-to-wall Trump damage control. Now that the actual indictment is out they've got lawyers on tacitly implying they've got the goods and Trump is fucked.
No. This is mechanistically wrong. It does not “search for samples” in the training data. The model does not have access to its training data at runtime. The training data is used to tune giant parameter matrices that abstractly represent the relationship between words. This process will inherently introduce some bias towards reproducing common strings that occur in the training data (it’s pretty easy to get ChatGPT to quote the Bible), but the hundreds of stacked self-attention layers represent something much deeper than a stochastic parroting of relevant basis-texts.
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