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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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				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 10, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Interesting, though I’d say probably not the right thread.




I have a meta question: what is up with people putting AI news in the culture war thread? It's not just @self_made_human by any means, but I have no idea why the topics keep getting posted here. It's not really culture war in any way, so shouldn't they get their own threads?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for March 12, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I know it's sobering, but try to look on the bright side: some people don't have the realization you had until it's too late, and their loved ones are gone. Whereas you realized in time to carpe that diem, and enjoy the time with them while you have it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For the record, I strongly oppose a ban on ICE vehicles. Let the market decide if they stay or go. An EV happens to make sense for my wife and me, but I will never ever be ok with mandates.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


He was never a paragon though. He's a whiny arrogant prick in AotC who basically abandons his Jedi training as soon as he's alone with Padme and then commits mass murder. He isn't even really seduced by the dark side, he's tricked because Palpatine just lies about how he can save his wife from death by pregnancy, and then immediately goes into kill-children mode.




Sure, but those are flaws in the execution. The story tells us that Anakin is a paragon (in Obi-Wan's dialogue in episode 4, with the prophecy about him being the chosen one, etc). So yeah, the execution is flawed but the idea is very much there.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To be fair, I am baffled by conservatives being mad about electric vehicles. I had a conversation with my dad where we talked about my wife's electric car, and Dad said he would never get one. Which I said makes sense, as he lives on a farm so he has very different car needs than my wife and I do. He replied that even if his car usage was different such that it made sense to get an electric car, he still wouldn't get one.


I didn't get into it with him cause I value family harmony, but I just can't understand that mindset. Why not get an electric car if it makes sense for your needs? Just to own the libs or something? It seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face to me. I get opposing electric car mandates. I get not getting electric if the cost-benefit analysis isn't favorable. But I don't get opposing electric on principle.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is the way. At the the of the day it's a free time activity you do for fun, not a self-improvement project. If you aren't having fun, it's ok to put it down.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I maintain that Revenge of the Sith is the best Star Wars movie. While the execution is certainly flawed (in the ways which you already noted), I think the story it tries to tell is a wonderful idea. The slow corruption of a paragon into a villain is a great story, and far more interesting than the standard hero's journey stuff the original trilogy is about. I do wish that the execution was better, but I give it a lot of credit for unevenly executing a great story idea (as compared to the original trilogy which successfully executes a boring story).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Why does it matter if it needs training to do a task? Isn't it far more important that it can do the task?




Because, as I said, we already have specialized programs which can play games. Therefore it's not actually new or impressive if we have yet another specialized program which can play a game.




Are humans not general intelligences because we require "training" on many broad cognitive tasks? Does going to school, college or uni remove generality?




There's an important difference here though. Humans don't, in principle, require training. You could (and we have in the past!) discover all the things that university teaches on your own. Getting training is about reducing the time it takes for the human to learn those things, not because a human is unable to even do them on its own.


That obviously goes even more for something like playing Pokemon, which is something small children are capable of learning to play on their own without anyone giving them instructions. If something needs training to do that, it's less intelligent than a human so it isn't a breakthrough in the search for AGI. We don't care about AI playing Pokemon per se, but it is a good benchmark for "can it do things which a human can do on its own easily".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


From the context, it seems that Claude was not really trained (in the NN sense) to play Pokemon.




I've seen this defense a lot but IMO it holds no water. The whole point of an AGI would be that you don't have to train it for specific tasks. The G stands for "general", after all. If you have to train it specially to play Pokemon, then it fails the test.


I have no idea why people think it would even be valuable to train a model to play Pokemon. We have had purpose-built computer programs playing games like chess, go, and even Starcraft for decades now. Doing that with Pokemon is obviously achievable, but it also isn't impressive.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In this case, when people are using words to mean the exact opposite of what they actually mean (and doing it with apathy for the correct meaning, which is even worse), I would say I'm not convinced that there will ever be a point where it becomes correct usage, even if everyone on the planet were to use the phrase this way. But I'm also a diehard prescriptivist, so YMMV.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I think "could care less" has become common enough to become a correct version of the phrase




No, it's still very much incorrect. People are just depressingly bad at using language properly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The plaintiff is the trustee for the bankrupt borrower, meaning the debtor is not directing the action. The trustee’s job is to find every avenue of relief permissible under the law.




Gotcha, I didn't catch that detail. I thought that this was a case where the borrower himself was claiming his residence was different once he was in bankruptcy court.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 7, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


He lives in a weird edge case where the codified law says one thing and the title paperwork say another. He shouldn’t be held responsible for a mistake on the county’s forms.




I think that this moves beyond a simple mistake in government forms, and goes into wilful fraud. He claimed to be living in county A, votes in county A, presented a license from county A. But then, when it advantages him, he claims to live in county B. He seems to have known the whole time that he technically lived in county B, and took advantage of the government confusion so that he could dodge his obligation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But even then, it seems to me like you would need to qualify that. If you say "your positions are consistently unserious" that's one thing, but "you're an unserious person" strikes me as a general attack on someone's character. That's how I read the original sentence, at least.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don’t interpret the rules of this site as prohibiting any commentary on the quality of a user’s output...




For what it's worth, I think the misstep here was saying "you're a deeply unserious person", rather than "this is an unserious position". The latter is, as you said, a comment on the quality of a person's output. The former is (at least imo) a personal insult.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And did you report those comments? I don't disagree that you take a lot of heat (though not all of the things you mentioned are legitimate grievances). But nobody said that the people on this forum are angels. You are expressing views that are unpopular here, and for better or for worse that means you're going to get people dogpiling you. To some extent, that simply means you have to have a thick skin. Go look at @Amadan posts sometime - he routinely gets dogpiled and downvoted into oblivion just because some people don't like him. He still posts here, though, even though I'm sure he doesn't like it any more than you do. That's the kind of mental toughness that you frankly will simply have to have to post here.


To the extent that people are violating the rules while piling on, then you need to be reporting them. If you have been, and if there hasn't been anything done about any of those posts (which you would need to follow up and look at, because it's not like the mods are going to ping you when they warn someone), you should take that as a sign that the moderators disagree that people are breaking the rules. And then do with that what you will - if you think that means you don't want to hang here then don't. But I find it very frustrating that, at least in this specific instance, you're refusing to even try to get the mods to intervene, and then using it as an example of why you think the site is bad. That's not fair in the slightest. And if you haven't been reporting other interactions you felt violated the rules, then frankly your complaint has no legitimacy at all. The mods aren't omniscient, and they need people to report violations of the rules if they are to help enforce them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Report people when they break the rules, don't argue back at them. This is like, rule 0 of the Internet. Also, it's been not even an hour since the comment you are complaining about was made. It takes time for one of the mods to be online, see the report, and decide what to do with it.


I agree with you that calling you an "unserious person" is a violation of the rules. But the rules aren't a magic wand that prevents breakage. Bad comments need to be reported (especially in a thread as old as this one), and you need to be patient to let the process work. You can't hold this post up and say "see, this is why I'm quitting" when the moderators haven't even had a chance to respond yet.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Of all the metaphors I ever expected to see used to describe the transcendental nature of heaven, doujin wasn't anywhere near that list. But man, I'm here for it.


Obligatory: fucking weeb. ;)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To be fair that's way less inexplicable than "what's Ethiopia". I'm still surprised by that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sure, it would be a bad thing. But it's only going to be weeded out by natural selection to the extent that you're so lazy that you die off. Presumably people with genes that made them that lazy are long since dead, but everyone else got to work (because they had to) and so they passed on their traits to us.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Only because Christians rarely bother to spell out what day-to-day existence in heaven actually means.




I don't think it's fair to say "don't bother", because the situation is more "can't". You're asking finite beings to describe something which is not just infinite, but completely alien to our experience. Of course people can't adequately describe that.


But that also doesn't detract from my original point: it isn't "cope" to say that death is a good thing if your framework of existence says "after we die we get something even better than the best things here". That's just straightforwardly true in that case! Note that I'm not trying to convince you the framework is true, just pointing out that if you accept that framework for the sake of argument then death is obviously a good thing.




Well, I'm 35, and I still don't see it; my reasons for being weary of life are all fixable. I'm tired of getting old, but that can be fixed by being eternally 18. I'm tired of watching my friends and family die, but that can be fixed by making them all eternally 18. I'm tired working a job I hate, but that can be fixed by making AIs do all the jobs. I'm tired of having lost the love of my life, but that can be fixed by forking her and modifying the copy just enough that she will still want to be with me until the last star grows cold and the universe comes to an end.




You're cheating here by including things that are not really related to your original scenario of "living in an 18-year-old body until the heat death of the universe". Yes, your body breaking down over time would be fixed. If we assume that you're also preventing any form of death, then losing your loved ones would be mostly fixed. But that doesn't bring back the loved ones you have already lost, it doesn't prevent your loved ones from deciding they want to gracefully exit life (at which point you lose them), it doesn't magic AI into existence to do your crappy job, it doesn't change human nature such that people will actually be nice to each other for the first time in recorded history.


Like yeah, if you wave a magic wand that says "every bad thing about life is gone now" then living forever is great. But that isn't what you said, you simply talked about living forever by itself being good enough. But it isn't, you would need to fix all the other problems too.


It gets even worse for your case when you think through what fixing all the problems in the world actually would require. Not just tech, though the tech barrier is so high that it should give us pause as to whether it can ever happen. The sheer fact of individuality means that sooner or later, two people are going to have desires which conflict with each other. Now what? Unless you mind control one or both of them, at least one of those people is going to be unhappy with the outcome. Even with a magic wand, this is unfixable. I guess you could use mind control, but that seems like the utopia now has a dark dystopian underbelly that is needed to make it work (yes Persona 5 Royal, we see you over there). Not a very satisfying utopia any more. Perhaps the sort of thing one might write a short story about walking away from. ;)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Even "The natural environment had limited resources" doesn't seem like a good enough reason for the desire to self-neglect and to avoid opportunities which are obviously good just because they're a little bit difficult.




But that is the long and short of it. Consider humans before the fairly modern era we have:


    

  1. Food is more scarce
    2. 

  2. You have to work way harder for it (physically)
    3. 



Because food was scarce, it was advantageous to survival to store up calories as fat. And because you had to exercise just to eat, everyone had to exercise. So there was no selection pressure pushing humans to develop in a direction where the body would maintain its health without exercise.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can't tell if you're calling George's words or Tolkien's "cope", but if it's the latter then I think you're mistaken. Tolkien was Catholic, and his setting reflected his beliefs. Death is absolutely a good thing in that framework, because you get to be with God, and that is such a profound joy that all else pales in comparison (even being in an 18-year-old body until the heat death of the universe).


Also, I think you're underrating how weary the world can become after even just our short stay here. Some of those problems would be obsolete in your hypothetical scenario, but not all. At some point, when you've seen a pointless genocide for the hundred thousandth time, is the fact that your body works great really that much of a solace? One thing I've noticed in spending time with old people (proper old, not @George_E_Hale lol) is that they are often quite ready to lay down their cares and rest. And the young never quite understand it because they just haven't been through enough of life to get to the point where death seems like a welcome end to things (with some exceptions, like very depressed people). But it's a very real thing, and to be honest I can understand it a lot more now at (almost) 40 than I could at 25.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Jesus Christ, some people won't see the Singularity coming until they're being turned into a paperclip.




Dude. We could've had a program play Pokemon badly decades ago. It isn't impressive to have one do it just because it's playing Pokemon badly in a novel way. Or, to use your own snarky format:


Some people are trying so hard to see the Singularity coming that they are giving themselves eye injuries and calling the visual noise "the Singularity".


Edit:


I also think that "it's not trained for this" is an exceptionally poor argument when you're discussing artificial general intelligence. The whole point is whether the program can cope with situations it wasn't made for! If it can't (and it sounds like it can't), then it isn't AGI, full stop. Nor is it impressive that it can play at all, given that we have had AI playing games for a long time now (and it actually plays well when it is designed for it). "It can play the game, even if badly" is table stakes here, not an innovative development.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My guess would be that it's something from the rdrama code base which either was not fully implemented there, or it got broken when we removed various other features (there were a lot). And in either case was never fully excised.