ace
4d ago
Evaluating wanting to have the act of sex outside of the context of a relationship with a guy is putting the cart before the horse. It flows out of getting to know somebody. Imagine how the trajectory of this lady's life would have changed if she had just gotten together with an steady boyfriend and had sex if and when she felt comfortable enough and attracted enough to that particular guy, not the abstract idea of sex where the guy is a placeholder. Were no men trying for long term relationships with her? Or were they, and she was just oblivious? Maybe she could have attracted more or better male attention using the guide @No_one posted the other day on what men are actually attracted to (https://www.jsanilac.com/dispelling-beauty-lies/).
There is absolutely zero medical basis for virginity.
Virginity isn't real.
As an aside, she (like most people TBF) seems pretty oblivious to evolutionary psychology, and what sex and virginity meant to illiterate goat herders with no access to antibiotics or pregnancy tests or STD tests and how that shaped sexual strategies and the evolution of our emotions and culture. From an evolutionary standpoint for men, the absolute worst case reproductive outcome is raising somebody else's kid. Guarding against that possibility occupies a lot of young men's thoughts. In all of human history, we in the last 60 years are the weird ones, where we can plan pregnancies and detect/manange/treat STDs.
ace
5d ago
Along these lines, I believe at the start of this experiment, @ZorbaTHut mentioned something about calculating correlations between plebian jannies and known-quantity moderators to figure out if any of the jannies could be trusted more, or if some should be trusted less. It's been a year(?) since then, but haven't heard what's become of that idea.
ace
5d ago
I don't. The janny classifying it as high-quality is a stronger signal, anyways.
ace
6d ago
In simple utilitarian terms Palestinians obviously suffer more.
I just want to point out that this is true, but it's completely unrelated to the validity of the grievances or whether anything should be done about it. Might doesn't make right, but neither does suffering and oppression.
ace
9d ago
I was following your thought process until this:
Jews do not want white people behaving like Jews, and they will flex enormous political, economic, and cultural power to stop it from happening.
This is a wild statement that you need to proportionally support with citations.
ace
12d ago
Yudkowsky believes:
- Human-value-aligned AIs make up a miniscule spec of the vast space of all possible minds, and we currently have no clue how to find one.
- We have to get the alignment of a super human intelligence AI right on the first try or all humans will die.
- Coordinating enough governments to enforce a worldwide ban on threat of violence of AI development until we learn how to build friendly AIs would be nice, but it's not politically tenable in our world.
- The people who are currently building AIs don't appreciate how dangerous the situation we're in is and don't understand how hard it is to get an aligned super human artificial intelligence aligned on the first try.
Given these propositions, his plan is to attempt to build an aligned super-intelligent AI before anybody else can build a non-aligned super-intelligent AI -- or at least it was. Given his recent public appearances, I get the impression he's more or less given up hope.
ace
12d ago
Fair enough. But you're the one who brought up the Obama administration by specifically claiming it used "torture and executions" (plural) as methods of political repression. To me "political" implies intra-country, not extra-national, but maybe you meant a more expansive definition of that word?
You talk abstractly about vague notions of 'political repression', but I have no idea who, concretely, you're talking about.
ace
12d ago
I admit I had not heard of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki before.
Two U.S. officials said the intended target of the Oct. 14 airstrike was Ibrahim al-Banna, an Egyptian who was a senior operative in Yemen’s al-Qaeda affiliate.
One administration official described the younger Awlaki as a bystander, in the wrong place at the wrong time. “The U.S. government did not know that Mr. Awlaki’s son was there” before the order to launch the missile was given, the official said.
Is that actually the best example you can come up with? I think it proves my point.
ace
13d ago
Snope's explanation of why the rumor is mixed is hilarious:
What's True
Harris did date former San Francisco Mayor and State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown for a period of time between 1994 to 1995. In his capacity as speaker, Brown appointed her to two political posts — first to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, and then to the Medical Assistance Commission.
What's False
Although Brown was technically still married during the time period that he dated Harris, he had been estranged from his wife Blanche Brown for more than a decade. Harris' first, successful run for office in 2003 happened well after the relationship ended, and Harris sought to distance herself from Brown.
So it's half true because Brown was estranged from his wife. LOL. The offensive part was trading sex for favors. The adultery is nobody's business but Mr. and Mrs. Brown.
ace
13d ago
This comment is unhinged. I'm reminded of the quote (paraphrasing) "You condemn a black-and-white morality as having only two colors; but you replace it with grey, which is only one."
To my knowledge, the Obama administration only sought the torture and execution of one US citizen on political grounds (Snowden). I'm quite happy to deny "moral community" to the nation's enemies, which is why I drew the line at US citizens.
Putin's Russia is wildly different. Take for instance Trump's election while Obama was in power. How does that fit into "Power suffers no competitors"?
ace
14d ago
One could argue. She dated her boss (Willie Brown) who subsequently appointed her to some cushy gigs.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kamala-harris-affair-willie-brown/
Snopes says the truth is "mixed", which means it's pants-on-fire level embarrassing.
ace
16d ago
No, I just think you're not very astute.
This was unnecessary to your otherwise very good points.
ace
18d ago
a magnet school whose admissions policies are occasionally a matter of public controversy
TJ?
(yes, that one)
Got it, thanks.
ace
24d 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
26d 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
1mo 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.
Having friends like these compromises one's values. Marginally higher economic growth isn't worth abetting genocide. I'm quite happy to see them take their ball and go home.
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