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SubstantialFrivolity

I'm not even supposed to be here today

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joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
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SubstantialFrivolity


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
I'm not even supposed to be here today

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For what it's worth, it isn't just the trendy international cosmopolitan cities (ie NYC, Chicago and LA) which have insane house prices in the US. I live in Denver (nice city but not really trendy) and we have the same problem.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 30, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I definitely agree. Kerrygold is wildly overrated. The only thing that's really different about it to me is the color. I can't say I notice a difference in taste.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't agree we've had rapid improvements over the last 12 years. We haven't really had any noticeable improvement since the introduction of ChatGPT (2-3 years ago? I forget), and we didn't have anything to write home about for a long time before that. From my perspective, we had a big spike of improvement once, and nothing since. Therefore it doesn't seem likely to me that huge progress is about to happen any day now.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't see how it's begging the question at all. Why shouldn't it be the null hypothesis, rather than the claim that we will see AI eclipse humans soon? Why is it begging the question when I do it, but not when someone else chooses a different theory? I'm willing to agree that the choice of "what is the appropriate null hypothesis" is not one which can be proven to be correct, which is why I said "to me" the correct null hypothesis is that we won't see that soon. But I'm not willing to agree that I'm committing some kind of epistemological sin here.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Gotcha. So it's not that you're opposed to those things per se, but that you're opposed to pretending like they are reaching the goal (when in fact they aren't).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Because right now we're not even close to AI being able to equal humans, let alone exceed them. And because this is cutting edge research, we simply cannot know what roadblocks might occur between now and then. To me, the correct null hypothesis is "it won't happen soon" until such time as there is a new development which pushes things forward quite a bit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'm not a fan of gender reassignment surgery, or hormones, or putting on a dress.




I'm actually kind of surprised by that. As a transhumanist, I would've thought you were all in support of gender reassignment surgery (since it fits in nicely with the idea of breaking out of the limitations of the meat body one was born with). Can you expand on your thinking there?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You're right, it is amazing that we can even consider that. I don't think anyone disagrees on that point. The disagreement here is that our resident AI hype posters keep going past that, and claim that AI will be able to outshine us in the very near future. It's possible, as I said in my other comment. But we simply are not there yet, and we (imo) don't yet have reason to believe we will be there real soon. That is the point of disagreement, and why people sound so skeptical about something which is nigh-objectively an amazing technical achievement. It's because they are responding to very overblown claims about what the achievement is capable of.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It doesn't need the holocaust and slavery museums though...




To be fair here, the national Holocaust museum in DC is one of the most powerful and memorable experiences I've ever had in my entire life. That museum is great, or at least it was 23 years ago when I went. Maybe it has gone down the drain since then, but I would be in favor of keeping it assuming it's still the same quality. We don't need more than one, though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


As much as the right complains about this, the wound is entirely self-inflicted.




Your make a good point overall, but it is an overreach to claim that this is entirely the fault of the right. Even when things weren't as bad as they are now in academia, there was still a bias (as you yourself said). I myself saw it when I was an undergrad student: conservatives were shamelessly (if clandestinely) mocked in ways that would never fly if it happened to other groups. I remember people leaving taunting messages on the chalkboard used by the university Christian group, or vandalizing political signs for conservative candidates. Nobody cared. But I strongly believe that if, say, the black student group had someone put derogatory messages on their chalkboard, there would have been a campus outcry and investigation of it.


That is the kind of environment conservatives faced, and even though it wasn't as bad as it has become, it wasn't remotely welcoming either. Would you make your career in an environment that was tacitly hostile to your beliefs and way of life, just to try to fight the good fight? I certainly wouldn't, and I can't really blame those who wouldn't either. I think it's fair to say that the right-wing culture which is suspicious of academia and other "not real work" kind of jobs is their own fault. But there are other factors here which aren't their fault.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I wish I had a dollar for every time people use the current state of AI as their primary justification for claiming it won't get noticeably better, I wouldn't need UBI.




He didn't say that. He said that the state today is not very good, not that being unimpressive today means it will be unimpressive in the future.


Besides which, your logic cuts both ways. Rates of change are not constant. Moore's Law was a damn good guarantee of processors getting faster year over year... right until it wasn't, and it very likely never will be again. Maybe AI will keep improving fast enough, for long enough, that it really will become all it's hyped up to be within 5-10 years. But neither of us actually knows whether that's true, and your boundless optimism is every bit as misplaced as if I were to say it definitely won't happen.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Why hasn't it already?




In my opinion, it hasn't because (contrary to what AI hype proponents say) it can't. AI simply isn't very good at doing things yet. To use the specific example I know well and actually have interacted with, LLMs don't write good code. It has wildly inaccurate bits that you have to check up on, sometimes to the point that it isn't even syntactically valid. It actually slows you down in many cases to try to use LLMs for programming. A skilled programmer can use AI tools as a force multiplier in some situations, so they do have a (fairly narrow) use case. But the idea that you could replace programmers with LLMs is just plain laughable at this stage of the game.


I'm not an expert in every field. But given that AI is not actually very good for coding, one of the things its proponents claim it to be good at... I don't exactly have high hopes that AI is good at those other things either. Maybe it'll get there, but there's not sufficient reason to believe "yes it will definitely happen" just yet. We have no way of knowing whether the rate of progress from the last few years will continue, or whether we are going to hit an unforseen wall that blocks all progress. We'll just have to wait and see.


So, I think that is why the great AI replacement hasn't occurred. It isn't able to successfully happen yet. At best, right now you would replace humans with AI that does the job extremely poorly, and then (in a few years, when the hype dies down) humans would get hired back to fix all the stuff the AI broke. Which is a distinct possibility, as that is what happened a couple of decades ago with outsourcing jobs to India. But as painful as that would be, it's not "all these human jobs are over now".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In our case... nobody, nobody and nobody. I think that like you said, this comes down to personal style differences.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Like others have said, I'm confused what physical strength differences have to do with having sex. I have sex [citation needed], and it's never been relevant. My wife and I are having fun jamming our genitals together, not wrestling.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for March 26, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I strongly agree with this. The key to satisfaction in life is to not attach too much importance to external validation. External validation is nice, but it may or may not happen based on various factors. Instead do a good job at something because you take pride in it and know you did the right thing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Maybe I just didn't get far enough in the game (I'm only in chapter 2), but I never saw a situation where you spent profit factor to get gear. It was always a check where as long as you had enough profit factor, you could buy everything the vendor had and not take a hit (because as you said, rogue traders have more money than God). The only times where I would gain or lose profit factor were based on quest decisions I made.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 21, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Another gripe I had with it was the gear system. A Rogue Trader, even one down on their luck, has more money than God.




I personally felt the gear system did a really good job of capturing that. There's no such thing as money for you, you can always afford to buy everything that the vendors have on offer. The only gating factor is rep and game progression (which is really what profit factor boils down to). The latter wouldn't be a thing in the fluff, but eh... the nature of video games requires that the player have a power curve, so I give them a pass on that one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Probably not cry. But I think she would be upset at either of those things.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not sure where exactly the "bleeding heart" line lies, but my (black) MIL is extremely neurotic and fairly liberal in her politics.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 23, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If there's a discussion prompt, there must be a question in there, right? Seems like a good fit for SSQS to me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If they could take California that would also be pretty nice of them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, I love reply-all storms. I get why email admins hate them, but as I'm not an email admin I get to just enjoy the hilarity of people begging everyone to stop/sending memes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I actually think I might be, although not for ideological alignment purposes. I have warmed up to the idea that we should bring back the requirement to own property, or something like it. That way the voters have skin in the game. Currently many people don't and I do think it negatively influences the way they vote.


I also don't think Heinlein was too far off the mark in Startup Troopers. You get to vote once you prove that you are willing to act selflessly in service of your fellow countrymen. In general I think we have too much focus on rights in America, and not enough on social obligations. Rights are great! But at the same time rights should go hand in hand with responsibility, and I feel like American culture has dropped the ball on that count.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And? They are entitled to their opinions and to vote on what they wish. That isn't a reason to control what education they can receive.


To be blunt: I consider progressive ideas (identity politics, belief in equity rather than equality, etc etc) far more harmful than the notion that the earth is 6000 years old, or that people shouldn't take vaccines. So if I were to support controlling education so as to shape future voters, I would be trying to stamp those ideas out, not the ones @justawoman mentioned. I'm sure that would give her no great comfort if I was to have my way. Which is of course why it benefits us all to support more local governance of teaching standards in the first place: when the government can dictate what is and is not appropriate to teach in a top-down fashion, it can be used to control ideas you find repugnant just as easily as those you find desirable. So it's best to not give that power to the government in the first place, or if you must give it over (which we probably must), then do your best to make sure that the damage it can do is limited. By letting these decisions be made as locally as possible, we make it difficult for a bad actor (whatever that means to you) to hijack the education of all the children in this country.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's frustrating to me that this would even be a consideration for teachers. At my job, when the company wants me to do something boring, I don't get to just decide to not do it. It should be the same way for teachers: we don't care you find it boring, it's effective, and your job is to teach not to be entertained.