ace
18d ago
triggered by Trump
Yea, it's this. I've been listening to NPR daily for 2 decades, and I can't back it up with citations, but I know this shift happened in 2016. They went from giving a left-leaning viewpoint that still had some contact with reality to a fully cultural Marxist worldview where they would tell outrageously one-sided stories, lie by omission, and on occasion lie outright. Maybe they thought they were doing the right thing by aligning against Trump? I think Trump broke their principles. It's been a downhill slide ever since.
ace
6d ago
This is a great comment. I'd just like to add (in case it's not clear to others) that while recursive intelligence improvements are terrifying, the central argument that our current AI research trajectory probably leads to the death of all humans does not at all depend on that scenario. It just requires an AI that is smart enough, and no one knows the threshold.
ace
4d ago
You can never make the human face appear hyper-realistic enough to exceed the value of a good painting or illustration.
Never is an awful long time, dude. Have you seen what generative AI can do today? In 5 years, I bet it's seamless in a tech demo. In 20, I bet it's in games that run on plebian-tier graphics cards (if the human race makes it that far).
Have you seen BG3? I'm playing though it now. It's not remotely hyper realistic, but the body language, facial expressions, and fully voiced characters make a better experience than it would be without those things.
ace
1mo ago
You're overly pessimistic. This is definitely the trend in the last 15 years of consumer computing, but to within a margin of error, every server on the internet is running Linux, and so are most people who are serious about software freedom.
ace
21d ago
It'd be amazing for people to stumble out of this moving wondering "Am I in the matrix?".
ace
4mo ago
More than that, it's aligned interests. The places I've lived where I was renting and planning on only living there a few years, you better believe I didn't give two shits about the future of the place. Owning a home really changes the incentive structure.
I think people forget that democracy is a technology that improves upon what came previously -- violence. Instead of fighting and some dying, we can just count the fighters on each side and declare a probable winner without bloodshed. If the counting is a proxy for potential fighting power, whom should be counted? Men (because men do almost all the fighting) and landowners (because non-landowners have no incentive to stay and fight). Women's suffrage was a turning point in the republic, because it turns out you can just vote yourself other people's wealth.
ace
25d ago
I just saw the "Lex-Free Man Podcast" on Youtube:
https://youtube.com/@LexFreeMan-cf5hu
Some hero excised Lex out of the Lex Fridman Podcast. I doubt it will survive a copyright strike, but I find it amusing that somebody else holds Lex's opinions in as much esteem as I do. I still listen because he gets great guests (how?).
ace
4mo ago
The following is a comment about US media, not about the war in Gaza.
Whenever the mainstream US news covers the humanitarian disaster in Gaza (and the suffering is absolutely horrendous), the underlying subtext I get is "Israel should stop assaulting Gaza". But there's another path that would also end the humanitarian disaster, and that's the unconditional surrender of Hamas.
I'm not shocked that Hamas doesn't surrender, but I am shocked that the option is never even mentioned in passing by the talking heads. Do they not think of it? Is it too far outside the bounds of normal discourse? If this were any other military conflict in all of history, it would be considered decided by now, and Gazans would be suing for peace.
ace
3mo ago
I'd like to recommend a recent Lex Fridman podcast interviewing a real estate/banking conman, Matthew Cox. The recording is 6 hours long(!), but it didn't feel like it. It was a gripping tale from start to finish, though it took me a few days to get through it. As per usual, Lex is the worst thing about the Lex Fridman podcast, but in this one he mostly just shuts up and lets Matthew talk, and wow does Matthew spin a good story.
https://lexfridman.com/matthew-cox
I think you might like it.
ace
5mo ago
The reason for the choice of pronoun is obvious: That's the pronoun Sarah would want us to use. If you have a point to make, speak it plainly rather than asking stupid rhetorical questions.
Should you use the pronoun Sarah wants you to use or the pronoun for the gender you think Sarah is? If Sarah isn't in the conversation, does Sarah's preference even matter? Is there a "correct" language? Or is a word's correctness judged only on whether it facilitates a common understanding between speaker and listener? You obviously understood who all those "she"s and "her"s referred to, but would "he" and "his" have been a marginally easier read for you and other Motte readers?
I honestly don't know anymore.
ace
2mo ago
Also, selection effects, whereby more conservative women are more likely to get married.
ace
5mo ago
keep out of Palestinian territory.
This is disconnected from reality. Americans can fuck off and run half a world away. But Palestinian territory equals all of Israel, according to the Palestinians. And the various ne'erdowells in Gaza were regularly lobbing missiles, no matter the situation with the Israel settlers in the margins of the West Bank. Their issue is the existence of the state of Israel, not some rounding-error settlements. And Israel isn't going anywhere.
ace
11mo ago
I just got done listening to Eliezer Yudkowski on EconTalk (https://www.econtalk.org/eliezer-yudkowsky-on-the-dangers-of-ai/).
I say this as someone who's mostly convinced of Big Yud's doomerism: Good lord, what a train wreck of a conversation. I'll save you the bother of listening to it -- Russ Roberts starts by asking a fairly softball question of (paraphrasing) "Why do you think the AIs will kill all of humanity?" And Yudkowski responds by asking Roberts "Explain why you think they won't, and I'll poke your argument until it falls apart." Russ didn't really give strong arguments, and the rest of the interview repeated this pattern a couple times. THIS IS NOT THE WAY HUMANS HAVE CONVERSATIONS! Your goal was not logically demolish Russ Roberts' faulty thinking, but to use Roberts as a sounding board to get your ideas to his huge audience, and you completely failed. Roberts wasn't convinced by the end, and I'm sure EY came off as a crank to anyone who was new to him.
I hope EY lurks here, or maybe someone close to him does. Here's my advice: if you want to convince people who are not already steeped in your philosophy you need to have a short explanation of your thesis that you can rattle off in about 5 minutes that doesn't use any jargon the median congresscritter doesn't already know. You should workshop it on people who don't know who you are, don't know any math or computer programming and who haven't read the Sequences, and when the next podcast host asks you why AIs will kill us all, you should be able to give a tight, logical-ish argument that gets the conversation going in a way that an audience can find interesting. 5 minutes can't cover everything so different people will poke and prod your argument in various ways, and that's when you fill in the gaps and poke holes in their thinking, something you did to great effect with Dwarkesh Patel (https://youtube.com/watch?v=41SUp-TRVlg&pp=ygUJeXVka293c2tp). That was a much better interview, mostly because Patel came in with much more knowledge and asked much better questions. I know you're probably tired of going over the same points ad nauseam, but every host will have audience members who've never heard of you or your jargon, and you have about 5 minutes to hold their interest or they'll press "next".
ace
5mo ago
mails everyone a ballot every election
I hate to beat a dead horse about this after 2020, but does vote coercion or payment worry you at all? It worries me. Having a secret ballot is one of the last bulwarks against the mob (or your spouse). It's better if mail-in ballots are rare, with individually justified (and verified) reasons.
ace
6mo ago
I think you're wildly misinformed and ignorant.
You need to work on yourself until you're attractive to women. Get into a long-term committed, monogamous relationship with a woman who can stand being in the same room as you. Your mindset will improve.
Separately, I don't say this to many people, but you would benefit from advice from the pickup artist community. There's a lot to be said against that community, but the one thing PUAs get massively, overwhelmingly right is internal-vs-external locus of control. In the same sense that "the customer is always right", women are right about their preferences, and if you don't meet that standard, that's a you-problem, not a them-problem, or a society-problem. Those communities will have better, specific advice for your circumstances. This forum is not equipped to help you.
I come here for intellectual discussion, not [gestures wildly at all your writing] whatever self-indulgent pity party this is.
ace
5mo ago
80% of the members of the cult were women, and there weren't enough men to go around. But the cult leader had a fantastic idea.
I really thought this was headed somewhere else.
ace
6mo ago
Are you trying to make my point for me? Israel admits attacking the USS Liberty, but there's some dispute over the circumstances ... exactly what I claim would happen if Israel did in fact attack the hospital.
ace
8mo ago
Let's not casually talk of violence when a writer hasn't thought as deeply about an issue as you.
ace
4mo ago
If you own a home, you can sell it, but the price you get is (to a first-order approximation) the prosperity of the surrounding area. A renter just picks up and leaves and gets nothing no mater how well or poorly the area is doing.
Does “all other men” include Jesus?
More options
Context Copy link