VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
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User ID: 411
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
11mo ago
voluntarily sterilize themselves
I don't want to engage with most of this analogy, but I think your view is impoverished if it doesn't account for children's questionable ability to provide informed consent, and the seeming purpose of the law in attenuating their parents' ability to act as stewards for their children's interests. The question of what is truly voluntary is the heart of the matter.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
11mo ago
A sterile kid with diabetes is going to get lifelong injections and have to adopt if they want kids but I wouldn't characterize that as a "vista of terrifying possibilities".
I actually think "terrifying" would be a pretty reasonable word if one were contemplating a scenario in which children were being persuaded at scale by niche online communities to become infertile diabetics for life and the government were employing the power of the state to prevent parents from protecting them.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
4mo ago
Running circles around a shape-rotator like Sutskever is child's play for him.
Actually, reportedly, it was Anna Brockman crying and begging Sutskever to switch his allegiance that seemed to clinch it. Ilya had officiated Greg and Anna's wedding, held at the OpenAI office. Another point for Hanania's theory that women's tears win in the marketplace of ideas.
I don't mean to defend the zanier ideas of the rump right. Q-anon, 2020 election truthers, anti-vaxxers who ascribe every death of a previously vaccinated person to the vaccine, people who jump at globalist pedophiles under every rock and behind every tree -- it's nuts. There's a great deal of ruin in a party. So it goes.
THAT SAID, normies are quite right to worry about the loyalties of their local elite. Culturally, an American titan of industry likely has more in common with a French titan of industry than with his fellow Americans. Is it so hard to imagine the industrial, governmental and cultural elites of the world collectively furthering their interests as a class to the exclusion of their individual countries' interests?
In a season of Survivor, members of an alliance start to worry when a few of their members go off into the woods to meet with a few members of the opposing alliance. Maybe they're reconsidering their allegiance. Often they're right to worry.
Viewed through that lens, the WEF is a venue for defection against one's own country. They acknowledge it! They're globalists. The first letter of their acronym stands for it. Klaus Schwab seems to be the guy in charge. He may not have much power in his own right, by elite standards he's doubtless a midwit mediocrity as you describe, but however it came to be, he is the facilitator and proximate cause of an event that probably should be looked at askance by those concerned about whose side their own country's companies and government is really on. Obsessing over the social media ephemera of the conference is barking up the wrong tree, and ascribing personal agency to Klaus as though he can direct the tides of the illuminati via his keynote address is going too far, but it's forgivable, because the whole enterprise is a venue for collusion by the world's elite against everyone and everything else -- not in explicit drawing up of plans and executing plans of oppression, but in formation of shared norms and culture to the exclusion of those not there.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
1yr ago
I think the core of this very real problem, which we see in architecture and subway art as well as public statues, boils down to two things: Scott's barberpole theory of fashion and the tragedy of the commons.
The barberpole theory of fashion holds that being fashionable requires distinguishing your aesthetic from the aesthetics of the masses. It naturally drives elite circles who define themselves on the basis of their aesthetic sensibilities (artists and architects) to equilibrate on an aesthetic that most people will find unsettling or discomforting.
And the tragedy of the commons manifests from individual artists, architects and public works decisionmakers prioritizing their personal status among their aesthetically elite circle over the interests of the people who will see the art. Each time they decide whether to erect some modernist abomination in place of something that will actually brighten the day of the people who see it, they are deciding whether to give themselves a large direct payoff at the expense of everyone else receiving a small diffuse harm.
I guess this is inevitable in a post-scarcity society. Showy wealth and extravagance is no longer fashionable basically for the same barberpole reason that it associates one with the wealth-craving aesthetic of the masses, so elites compete for adulation of their peers in a contest to most dramatically degrade public spaces with unpleasant art.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
8mo ago
Sanctuary state is one thing, “come have your anchor baby in California” advertisements across Central America is another.
They're the same picture.
That's part of the bargain to be a lifestyle brand. If you want people to value your product not just for its practical utility but for what that product says about the people who consume it, then they're going to be as insulted by the unfavorable brand implications as they are flattered by the favorable. It doesn't matter that the ad wasn't "aimed" at them. Lifestyle brand advertising works by influencing what other people think of the product's customers, not just the customers themselves. The whole reason you choose to become a customer of a lifestyle brand is because of what you expect it will make other people think of you.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
4mo ago
A member of your board praising your competitor
Yes, this would be very unusual and blameworthy when "board" means "board of directors of a traditional C Corp." But OpenAI is a nonprofit and this was a nonprofit board. It was set up that way purposefully to allow the directors to slow OpenAI down if they felt it necessary for their mission. I'm glad that Sam prevailed, and I want them to accelerate at least for the time being, but the common assumption that "the board" was supposed to act to further OpenAI's commercial interests (as opposed to its mission) is wrong.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
4mo ago
Best since the previous Sam was deposed in the previous November
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
1yr ago
I dunno, setting aside the litigation specifics (the stuff about this being the product of a default judgment due to his refusal to comply with discovery requests etc.) I don't really have any objections. He dragged individual families who were not public figures through the mud in front of a massive audience, accusing them of lying about the deaths of their own children, in pursuit of some flagrantly delusional claims. Seriously messed up behavior and he deserves what he's getting. Yes the specific figure the jury came up with is disproportionate, but juries often do that when there's a sympathetic plaintiff, which is why even Antonin Scalia agreed with a substantive due process right of defendants to have judges knock excessive jury awards back down to the realm of reason, as will likely happen here too if Jones doesn't shit the bed again with his appeal. If the figure was awarded directly by a judge, I guess he's SOL subject to bankruptcy protections, but that's what you get for horribly and specifically defaming a huge group of innocent private families for years on end in front of a bizarrely large audience. Don't do that!
I was glad when the kid in Smirkgate was able (presumably) to drag cash out of the media organizations who defamed him during the summer fever dream of 2020, and I likewise don't feel bad for Jones here. Defamation has always been an exception to the first amendment, and unlike other putative exceptions for hate speech and the like I don't think it poses any kind of systemic risk to the right to voice opinions and ideas in public.
The troll on my left shoulder wants to remark that perhaps she'd feel less exhausted all the time if she reconsidered her veganism.
But substantively... what do you expect from EA? It is not a movement of technical achievement, even though its ranks are full of tech people, because EA isn't about building, it's about extracting others' wealth and spending it.
Scott Alexander's travails in persuading people that the media is generally dishonest without lying speaks to the interpersonal innocence of his tech-centric community. These are people who work in collaborative environments, whose defenses are weak to the finer modes of interpersonal manipulation because their passions and competencies lie elsewhere and they are unaccustomed to having resources that other people want to take from them. So a community that exists centrally to extract wealth from that community is going to feature activists who are best at manipulating that community. And one of the strategies suited to that project is performative female vulnerability. Megans.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
1yr ago
Well clearly the government is engaged in viewpoint discrimination in choosing which content to flag, and clearly it's a state actor, so I guess the only question is whether the government sending a note to Twitter asking for it to remove the speech constitutes interference with your speech. I think it does... there is a power dynamic, and even if there weren't, the government is still attempting to silence your speech. (And in practice, it seems, succeeding.)
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
1yr ago
I enjoyed Steve Sailer's commentary on the gas stove controversy. His theory is that this is really a climate change move, but needs to be dressed up as a health move to get the public to accept it. He sees this as a fumbled attempt to orchestrate academic "research," the media and regulators in that sequence to build momentum for a ban -- fumbled because the regulator spilled the beans too early, before the Cathedral finished its sermon.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
11mo ago
Every alliance that excludes you from its membership is an implicit threat to your interests. This is basic Survivor logic.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
1yr ago
If a depressed person said if you deny us medication or therapy then more depressed people will kill themselves, is this making a veiled threat or recognizing (what they see to be) factual truth?
Unironically, I think it's valid as their interpretation of factual truth if and only if they acknowledge that they're mentally ill. Because without that acknowledgment, then they maintain agency for their actions, and their decision to commit suicide is entirely on their own moral ledger. People who aren't mentally ill can get mad that other people are making them unhappy, but crossing the rhetorical line from unhappiness to suicide is just an abusive tactic in that context.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
1yr ago
Everything you and @sliders1234 said makes some sense to me. I know a few guys who are happily married to women and who either have an understanding with their wife that they'll sleep with guys from time to time (and she'll go do her own thing from time to time) or who specifically seek out MMF threesomes. Are they gay? My guess is they're probably innately more attracted to men than to women (otherwise why bother with all of the social coordination and self identity issues that such behavior must engender), but they certainly identify as straight. One of their wives kind of propositioned us for a threesome once, after we shared a bottle of wine, or at least left the idea floating in the air in a plausibly deniable way, which we didn't act on because, although he is really hot and a great guy, we're married and monogamous and pretty committed to the whole white picket fence lifestyle. Notably, none of these guys is obviously gay in terms of mannerisms.
I tend to agree that guys who aren't flagrantly homosexual in the stereotypical sense could (usually, probably) live happy lives married to women, and that being married to a woman would make it a lot easier to start and raise a family, for all of the reasons @sliders1234 mentioned.
On the other hand, being gay isn't just sex, it's whom you're attracted to, whom you develop crushes on, who causes butterflies in your stomach, whom you fantasize about holding hands with and going on adventures with and talking with until 5am on a school night. Getting to experience that full romantic journey is a core part of the human experience. That part of your life is usually over by the time you are married and settled, or a couple of years into being married and settled, but it's still a big part of your life in terms of time and particularly in terms of emotional impact.
Also, among straight couples, the woman is usually the partner who initiates divorce (something like 70% of the time?) and being married to a gay guy is only going to increase the sympathy she'll get from society if she does so, regardless of the understanding that she had. That would really scare me. I also would not be comfortable hiding a secret like that from the rest of society, and think it's morally questionable to marry a woman if you're a gay man -- that isn't the life that most little girls dream about having.
But yeah, I totally understand why a deniably gay guy might choose to marry a woman, and even why he'd be happy with having made that decision. It isn't for everyone though, and it wouldn't be for me, and IMO we shouldn't view it as justification not to offer legal same-sex marriage.
I think it is clear that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh have been laying the groundwork to engineer an opinion that all of the titles of the Civil Rights Act protect white and asian people from discrimination as surely as they protect black people. That was their long game in Bostock, which held that trans people are protected under the Civil Rights Act via the syllogistic logic that the CRA bans discrimination on account of sex, so (roughly) it is a violation to treat a man who wears a dress differently from how you treat a woman who wears a dress. I predicted that this was their intent in Bostock, and I think it was Gorsuch who indicated as much during the oral arguments in the affirmative action case -- I can't remember his exact phrasing but he invoked Bostock and asked why the same logic shouldn't apply to the same language in a different title of the CRA.
If SCOTUS clarifies the Civil Rights Act as protecting all races equally, then every tool that has been used to police covert discrimination against black people over the past century (sting operations, disparate impact theories, indications of animus, etc.) could in theory be used to police covert discrimination against white/asian people ("holistic" applicant reviews, rhetoric about "dismantling whiteness," etc.).
At that point all that is needed is a sufficiently motivated executive. Ron DeSantis in particular has proven apt at using the tools pioneered by civil rights activists to effect conservative change, and has been pretty sharp with other types of executive power to curtail liberal excesses.
So I don't know what odds I give it of coming to pass, but it does seem like the pieces are falling into place for a conservative campaign to dismantle affirmative action across the entire ambit of the Civil Rights Act, which is much broader than just higher education -- and to fight back against a slide toward ethnic spoils.
The biggest threat to this campaign is if the GOP nominates Trump instead of DeSantis. Trump can be counted on to fumble the opportunity, as he does everything. At this point I am hoping that fate intervenes to secure the nomination for DeSantis.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
4mo ago
that are pledging to leave for Microsoft
Read carefully. The most important word in the letter is "may." Not will.
I think most of the employees are going to stay, Shear will remain CEO, and Sam is going to end up in a small but potent research group in Microsoft. As to how long he'll stay... I can't imagine it will be long, a startup-guy billionaire like him at Microsoft would be like a tree trying to grow at the bottom of a cave.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
1yr ago
My personal hypothesis is -- bear with me here -- that he is a bitter narcissist with poor impulse control.
wouldn’t we have a twitter files of all this planning versus just have a conspiracy of similar interest groups.
We wouldn't have a Twitter Files of Twitter either if Elon Musk hadn't taken over. Unless the forum is owned or infiltrated by ideologically unaligned people, and there's public demand for news of the collaboration, then it doesn't even register as a conspiracy and never gets public play at all; it's just science, industry and regulators sharing information, which in some capacity we all agree that they should.
Climate gadfly says "regulator, pls ban", regulator says "we would never take such a step without a strong empirical justification of harm," researchers see the opportunity for impactful "scholarship" in this area and produce it, news media see the regulatory statement and the existence of "scholarship" in the area and hype it, regulator waits for the crescendo and then bans it. All of the communication can even take place in broad daylight at various climate and air quality fora.
People are obsessed with this issue for different reasons. On the right it’s a “muh based” form of copery in which Kanye’s schizophrenic views reminiscent of the average alleyway Hotep will somehow mainstream antisemitism back to the 1920s. On the left it’s that another Trumpist has been outed as a “real nazi” and must therefore be purged from public life with maximum prejudice. Some famous black people are upset because Jews in the entertainment business largely tolerate low-key black antisemitism as long as it doesn’t escalate and so they are annoyed that, in the heightened Kanye climate, they’re getting called out more than usual.
For those of us who hate the whole cultural marxism / "progressive stack" ideological edifice and want to see it torn to the ground, and who believe that the Jewish community punches above its weight both in terms of political power and in terms of specifically promoting the "progressive stack" ideology, and who are neither black nor Jewish and therefore have no dog directly in this fight, it's delightful.
As a wise man once taught, if you want to tear down an edifice, you heighten its contradictions. One towering contradiction in the progressive stack ideology is that, on the one hand, its foundation is an argument from disproportion ("Blacks Less Likely"), but on the other hand, the Jewish community (IMO its principal architect and custodian) is More Likely than anyone. Kanye and the ADL are doing hero's work right now to heighten that contradiction. It would be lovely for the Jewish community to be as explicit and vocal as possible about why they are excepted from the rules that govern this system, and I appreciate Kanye's efforts to solicit that explanation, even if there's little that I otherwise agree with him about.
I'm genuinely curious if you see a flaw ("muh ___") in my reasoning.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
1yr ago
Where HBD-tards drop the ball is the transition form "things like height, athletics ability, show high degrees of heritability" to "judging people by their individual qualities rather than their race is anti-science"
That wasn't remotely the topic of conversation.
North Koreans seem worse off than South Africans (than all Southern Africans) on any metric except violent crime rate, for which little data exists but which we can probably assume is lower in the DPRK. The DRC and Liberia have higher GDP/capita by some estimates.
I don't dispute your metrics, but there is a consistent effect where North Koreans who successfully defect to South Korea end up missing their home. Naturally this is blamed on "discrimination" but the defectors I have seen interviewed in the documentaries I've watched reminisce about villages where everyone knew one another and had a defined role in a tight knit community that lasted their whole lives. Not that this excuses the starvation or state-sponsored grotesqueries, but personally I would not find it an easy decision if forced to choose whether to be born into an average life in North Korea or in South Africa.
VelveteenAmbush
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong
11mo ago
My point is less that the decision should rest with the parents, and more that it shouldn't rest with the child.
Sometimes we leave the decision with the parents... whether to attend a parochial school, whether to allow the child access to Instagram, etc.
Sometimes we decide for the family; children aren't allowed to have sex with adults, for example, regardless of what the children or their parents think about it.
What we never do (other than with this trans issue -- at least, I cannot think of any other examples) is leave decisions of momentous lifelong consequences fully up to the child, and attempt to disintermediate the parents in favor of the child's own judgment.
So arguments premised on a child's voluntary and insuperable consent in high-stakes decisionmaking seem rather anomalous.
Replacing the toner usually fixes any issues you're having with the paper in my experience
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