bsbbtnh
1yr ago
At the end of the day, OpenAI has neutered their product, and it won't be as good as anything Google or Microsoft puts out, even though those will be neutered as well. ChatGPT will fade away.
If some company put out a decent AI chatbot (or image bot) that was unfiltered, or even just mildly filtered, it would gobble up the market. And Google and Microsoft would have their hands tied by all the 'ethics' they've put in place.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
My current proposal is:
If you block someone, you will no longer see their comments, receive PMs from them, or be notified if they reply to your comments.
This does not stop them from seeing your comments, nor does it stop them from replying to your comments.
If they attempt to reply to your comment, it will include the note "This user has blocked you. You are still welcome to reply, but your replies will be held to a stricter standard of civility."
I don't see an issue with blocked people seeing comments, since they can see them by logging out or opening an incognito window. But by allowing them to reply, and notifying them that the user blocked them, you create a situation where the blocked person can respond and undermine the OPs comment, and the OP has no clue.
Like if the OP says "I love dogs" and the blocked user responds "Really? Because last year you said your dog" but they are just taking something out of context, then some readers will simply believe the blocked user.
If you're going to let blocked users know they've been blocked, then they certainly shouldn't be able to reply to comments the blocker makes. For threads, it might make sense. For subcomments that aren't made by the person blocking, sure.
Also, one behaviour I've noticed on Reddit is that a user will reply, say their peace, and then block. This is the most infuriating experience. And people block over the stupidest shit, the mildest pushback. The other day there was a thread about a woman who visited an ape everyday, and it escaped and beat her up. I replied to some comment that said the woman was antagonizing the ape and wondered why she wasn't banned from the zoo. I simply pointed out that the incident began when kids were throwing rocks at the ape, and the dude replied calling me ignorant and blocked me. lol
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
If someone is smart, not going to Harvard won't impact them too much. Many of these people will land on their feet, and they'll create paths for others to follow. Every smart student that is rejected from these top universities ends up eroding the prestige of those institutions. Every 'dumb' student that gets in also erodes the prestige.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
The solution is to take the refugees/migrants with open arms, pass a law that says you'll give them welfare, but that the funds can't raise the deficit, they have to come from funding for foreign aid and similar programs. Each time a boat of refugees come, you get to defund various NGOs.
The NGOs will then have a reason to not dump refugees in your country. And you can do this for every problem that NGOs try to saddle you with. Then NGOs are going to be a bit more cautious, and maybe even push back against other NGOs that try political stunts.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
any payment in pesos is immediately converted to other stores of value more readily capable of holding its value ranging from hard goods such as bricks, to US dollars, to Crypto.
Wouldn't this also drive inflation? Like.. quite significantly. I wonder what the velocity of money is in Argentina. People basically playing hot potato with cash, and probably willing to overpay for something in order to get money off their hands. Then the goods they buy to store value just sit around.
Argentina should peg their peso to gas. But then there'd be rapid deflation as everyone tries to offload their bricks and such, eager to get their hands on pesos. Maybe peg it to bricks... lol.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
I'm reminded of the Congressional baseball shooting in 2017, where six people were shot, including U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R).
I imagine the response will be very different, though. That story was a blip. This story will be frontpage until the election.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Whites will decline to 69% of the national population,
I wonder if some whites will have begun identifying as non-white this census, and potentially plunge that number down a bit further, especially among young whites.
Hopefully you'll update with results tomorrow.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
If it were the Russians, why would they blow up their own pipeline and not an enemy pipeline? They control Nordstream, they don't control the Norwegian-Polish pipeline or other pipelines that reduce their leverage and fuel their enemies.
Possible reasons why Russia blew the pipes;
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They want Germany to agree to use NS2.
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As propaganda for Russians, so they feel like the west is attacking them
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As a demonstration to other countries that they have the resources to take out pipelines and other infrastructure and not leave a trace of evidence (or see if those countries can find any trace of evidence)
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Russia wanted the pipelines out of commission because they are shifting their focus towards the east, and they are going to strip down this pipeline so they can speed up construction of those eastern pipelines
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Backroom peace talks focused too heavily on NS1, and Russia wanted that off the table
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The possibility of getting fuel from the pipes makes gas futures slightly cheaper, and Russia wanted to drive them higher, because economic pressure has been one of their biggest war tactics
People have suggested that it was Putin's plot to secure himself from regime change by denying a revenue source that a successor could draw upon by rapprochement with the West. But a successor to Putin can draw upon the resources of the entire Russian state!
A successor to Putin will still need public support. I know we pretend Russia isn't a democracy, but a Putin successor would need the consent of the people to rule. One easy way to get that consent is saying "I'll turn on the pipeline." That card is largely gone, for now. Restoring relations with the west is no longer a simple turn of a valve.
The argument that Putin blew up his own pipeline that gives him leverage over Europe is silly. The US has both the means and the motive.
Everyone has means and motives. China has means and motive. So does Germany. Hell, the UK has means and motives. Israel, Iran, India. Greenpeace has the means and the motives. To say that Russia doesn't just because the US does is silly. Russia has as much motive to do it as anyone else. This is basically a game of Clue; everybody is a suspect.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Of course they think this. They got this job via J.J. Abrams, they are jobbing scriptwriters who worked on stuff for Bad Robot amongst others, and that hit me. J.J. Abrams is the guy who said Star Trek was too philosophical for him, so when making the reboot, "So we tried to make it work for people like me ... and people like you. The goal was to make a movie for moviegoers, not just for 'Star Trek' fans. So if you've never seen 'Star Trek' before, you can still see it."
I never really got into Star Trek, but I did enjoy the film JJ Abrams made. Don't think I watched any of the sequels, since it was just enjoyable, but not something that really connected. I only watched it because I was on a Heroes binge at the time, and enjoyed Zachary Quinto. This would have been a few years after it came out.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
the worst part of it is that it genuinely apes ChatGPT's politics and RLHF-d sanctimonious «personality» despite being 25 times smaller and probably 10 times dumber.
Every person with Down Syndrome I've ever met has absolutely trumped the personality of every high-IQ person I've known.
Anyways, a pause on 'Giant AI experiments' will really only be a pause on showing the results to the public. Companies won't stop. Governments won't stop. And even if they did, China won't. Pump the brakes on AI and China could quickly eat our lunch.
Is it really likely that the average person of African ancestry is cognitively impaired when compared to the average white person? I can't think of how that could actually be true.
Fetal alcohol syndrome, which is far more rampant in the black community than anybody wants to admit. Even worse among natives.
Edit: It's probably why we get the civil rights movement when we do, with people like MLK, as the generation of blacks born during prohibition were probably less likely to have fetal alcohol syndrome.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Elon didn't actually lose money. If I created a company with a billion shares, sold one for $1, I'd be a billionaire. If that company folds the next day, my net worth would plummet. But there was no actual value lost.
With Ukraine, actual cash, goods, services, missiles, are being used up. The economic impact is people actually losing money, not making productive use of their labour, or that labour being diverted elsewhere. Infrastructure and lives are being destroyed. Time is being lost.
This will be a setback for Europe. Though it'll probably be a net benefit for America.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
*Moreover, making conservative knock-offs of mainstream products has a strong Christian Rock problem. Christian Rock is bad because it affirms the dominance of the secular rock music paradigm.
You know, in the 00s there were a bunch of Christian rock bands that seemed to break into the mainstream without most people thinking of them as Christian rock.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
DayQuil and NyQuil
Thing I hate about most brand name cough medicines is that they are loaded with acetaminophen. That restricts the effective dose I can take. Dayquil and Nyquil have 650mg/30ml of acetaminophen. The max (recommended) dose of acetaminophen per day is 4,000mg. So I can take, max, 6 doses of Dayquil/nyquil per day. And since so many other products (my favourite being NeoCitran) are jammed full of acetaminophen, that makes juggling things even worse. The cold I just got over also came with an unpleasant bout of diarrhea, and adding Pepto Bismol (also loaded with acetaminophen) probably would have killed my liver, lol.
Primary ingredients for Dayquil are acetaminophen, dextromethorphan (cough suppressant) and phenylephrine (decongestant). You can find dextromethorphan (DM) in most store brand cough syrups, without the acetaminophen and other crap. This allows you to take more without having acetaminophen acting as a false limit on the dose.
There's debate over whether phenylephrine (decongestant) actually works; it's just so old that the FDA doesn't really give a shit, especially since cough medicines have used it to replace the 'evil' pseudoephedrine (which addicts use to make meth, because the shit works). So it's better to get just dextromethorphan and buy pseudoephedrine separately. Pseudoephedrine will keep you awake, and probably far better than phenylephrine does. It sucks that drug addicts existing means cough syrups are made to be worse (yet it's ok to load up cough syrups with so much acetaminophen that anybody who abuses it, or just takes too much during a really bad cold, can fuck their liver permanently, and maybe even die). I believe Sudafed (the most well known pseudoephedrine brand) contains a bunch of acetaminophen.
For Nyquil, the main ingredients are (again) acetaminophen, dextromethorphan for cough, and doxylamine as an antihistamine. Doxylamine helps with runny nose and also aids in putting you to sleep. Again, I'd suggest getting these ingredients separately. You can find doxylamine in many different products, from sleep aids to allergy medications. If you can get it without a bunch of other crap, then you can better dose depending on your symptoms.
Some cough syrups also have guaifenesin in with the DM. It's an expectorant that helps loosen up the mucus in your chest so you can clear a cough better. This is great if you have a wet cough, since a suppressant alone can be pretty unpleasant, as you need to cough to clear stuff from your chest.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
I think 20% is conservative. Interest rates are likely going to rise another couple percent, and that alone would be enough to bring prices down 20% without any other factors (as mortgage payments would be the same). Although inflation is working against housing prices coming down.
In Canada, I think it'll be a massacre. Unlike the US, where people can get 30 year fixed mortgages, most Canadians are on 5 year terms that they have to renew. A bunch of people are going to be renewing from ultra-low rates over the next year, and it's going to be unmanageable for many. Further, many Canadians go with adjustable or variable rate mortgages. As interest rates rise, many have seen their mortgage payments increase by 50% (here's a thread on Reddit about it). Also, there are fixed payment mortgages that have become rather popular, where your payment stays the same, but the bank just reduces how much goes to principal if rates go up. Some people are basically paying every dime to interest. And once the next hike comes, it'll 'trigger' an actual increase in their monthly payment. Many of these people aren't aware that their payments are all going to interest, and likely think they've been building equity this past year.
When they go to renew, they'll be faced with the prospect of much higher interest rates, making their payment bigger, and the fact that they basically paid nothing on their mortgage, but 5 years of their term has passed. So we'll likely see people refinance. But refinancing may not be so easy if your mortgage is underwater or have little equity. So that means foreclosures and short sales will put more downward pressure on housing.
I don't know what the US is facing and how it'll affect things. But I'd imagine if mortgage rates climb ~3%, then a 20% drop in prices is basically guaranteed (aside from the government coming in and tossing money around). Though housing prices haven't dropped as much as I'd have thought (especially in Canada) with the increasing interest rates.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
Car-dependent sprawl and single-family-only zoning means nobody walks or bikes, which causes obesity.
I've found single-family zones to be much more active. It only seems like dense areas are more active because of the higher population. But people feel less and less safe in high density urban environments.
- It also makes children less independent and capable, both physically and emotionally/psychologically.
I wouldn't ever consider someone who grew up in a city to be more independent or capable. My experience has been the opposite; people in cities are highly dependent on others, and far less capable. They have to rely on others, because they have less experience having to depend on themselves. They only feel independent because of systems that the government has built. I'm sure some people feel independent hopping on the subway to go get groceries. But those living with yards can be independent by growing their own food. Hell, I've noticed that most city folks don't seem to understand how to do this. Cities aren't even great places to grow gardens, since the fluoridated water absolutely ruins the yield. So you have to use a rainwater system, which needs a bit more space. Composting in dense cities? Nope. Can you keep a bunch of random crap to reuse at some point in your life? Doubt it. It all goes in the trash.
Dense cities suck. You're more dependent on the government. You only feel independent because you don't know your neighbours. And that's another major downside of cities. In a zombie apocalypse, I know my neighbour isn't going to rob me blind, they are going to help me build the barricades.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
When black people stray from the path of MLK and into Malcolm X, Farrakhan, and the Nation of Islam, they typically start blaming Jews, rather than 'white' people. The ability for gentiles to distinguish gentile white people from American Jews is basically an cognitohazard for black people. Once they see that roughly half of 'white' people in Hollywood, the media, in the top universities, are Jews, they start to wonder about their own oppression. If Jews, making up roughly 2% of the population, can be so visibly represented, but blacks, who make up 13%, aren't, then is it really the 'white' man, who is also underrepresented, really oppressing them?
Imagine if 30% or more of Hollywood actors, journalists, academics, were Muslims. Or Native Americans. Or gay (though it do feel like that sometimes, lol).
And despite gentile whites being underrepresented in basically all the 'elite' positions (other than politics), the push for diversity comes not at a reduction of Jewish overrepresentation, but by continuing to whittle away at the representation of gentile whites. And gentile white representation is being largely relegated to the white LGBT community.
So it is easy to see how some black people (and white people) get drawn into Jewish conspiracies. And really, if you're fighting for 'equity', that's the group you're going to have to wrestle with.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
AI will be a valuable tool for many artists who embrace it. They'll be able to pump out more content, and can actually make changes to the stuff AI pumps out. Seems like it'd be a great source for inspiration or overcoming creative block. It'll also allow more people to do art who don't have the skill. That may not necessarily be a bad thing. Just like tools allowing digital art to be created by people who can't draw or paint at a great level, but their digital art can still be amazing.
AI opens art up to more people.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
I'd love to get daily dispatches
There were a few users who have done semi-regular dispatches about their country in the past. Gloster80256 did some during COVID. I remember someone doing updates on politics in Finland. MacaqueOfTheNorth would occasionally do Canada.
Maybe a weekly thread where people could just post about happenings in their country/state/province/city? Or just encouraging more dispatches in this thread.
Are there no Mottizens in Ukraine? I can't remember seeing any comments from any. Maybe they are a bit busy.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
For property taxes, most cities have a cap on how much they can go up each year. This is to 'protect grandma', so that property taxes don't push her out of her home. If grandma sells, the property is reassessed, and the taxes can increase significantly.
Anyways, you'll notice that Trump owns some 500 'businesses'. Most of these are LLCs with a single property attached to them. The reason you do this is so that when you buy or sell a property, it isn't technically changing hands. Instead you're buying/selling the LLC, which owns the property. No tax reassessment, which means you keep those low rates locked in indefinitely.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
especially related to the potential for mercury exposure
I get the feeling that the risk of mercury in general is far overstated.
Aside from that, did you ever experience other issues with CFLs? I know there were many people who claimed they caused headaches. The light seemed to always bother my eyes when they were first turned on. And they seemed like a really poor choice for rooms I was only in briefly, as they'd burn out after relatively few uses over the course of a year or so (storage room/pantry). And being from a household where we tended to turn off/on lights when leaving/entering a room, the lifespan seemed to be cut to the order of a few months.
CFLs were a waste.
bsbbtnh
1yr ago
In an old thread about this, someone linked to Steve Pinker's AMA, in which he had this to say;
It's the "moralistic fallacy," the idea that we should shape the facts in such a way as to point to the most morally desirable consequences. In the case of rape, the fear was that if rape has a sexual motive, then it would be natural, hence good; and instinctive, hence unavoidable. Since rape is bad and ought to be stamped out, it cannot come from "natural" sexual motives. My own view is that these are non-sequiturs -- rape is horrific no matter what its motives are, and we know that rates of rape can be reduced (in Better Angels I assemble statistics that US rates of rape are down by almost 80% since their peak). One surprise that I experienced upon re-reading Susan Brownmiller's 1975 book "Against Our Will," which originated the rape-is-about-power-not-sex doctrine, is that idea was a very tiny part of the book, thrown in almost as an afterthought (Brownmiller said she got the idea from one of her Marxist professors). Most of the book is a brilliant account of the history of rape, its treatment by the legal system, its depiction in literature and film, the experience of being raped and reporting it, and other topics. It's also written with great style, clarity, and erudition. Though I disagree with that one idea, I would recommend it as one of the best and most important books on violence I have read.
Anyways, years ago there was a thread in AskReddit, in which someone asked rapists why they rape. It was a long thread, but one component that was noticeable was that it clearly had nothing to do with power. This, of course, pissed off a ton of people, and the thread was shut down and later scrubbed because it was deemed harmful. I think some 'psychologist' had come out to say that the thread could encourage more people to rape? Anyways, that seemed like a significant moment where the tide began to turn for open discourse on Reddit.
A few years ago they changed the recipe because of some vegan blogger. The quality noticeably declined, from an ok side dish for a quick meal, to absolute trash. Barely any cheese taste, and it seemed the pasta basically turned to mush when cooked.
I switched to another brand (I think President's Choice, in Canada; though I've heard Annie's is the best). But the other day they were out, so I picked up some KD, and it was more like its old self, but I didn't notice any major changes in the ingredients. Maybe it's psychological? But the pasta doesn't turn to mush anymore, so maybe not completely psychological.
Still doesn't come anywhere close to making the stuff from scratch. But cheese prices in Canada have always sucked, so it's more of a treat.
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