cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
2mo ago
This could technically be in the culture war thread, but would probably get dinged as a low effort post. I'm not going to approve it as is.
I generally suggest three things for a non low effort post:
- Context - what the heck are you talking about.
- Analysis - what is said and not said by the direct source. Adding personal analysis is highly suggested here.
- Opinion - What is there to discuss? Why should this change someone else's mind? did it change yours? Why do you think it should change people's opinons?
cjet79
2mo ago
This could technically be in the culture war thread, but would probably get dinged as a low effort post. I'm not going to approve it as is.
I generally suggest three things for a non low effort post:
- Context - what the heck are you talking about.
- Analysis - what is said and not said by the direct source. Adding personal analysis is highly suggested here.
- Opinion - What is there to discuss? Why should this change someone else's mind? did it change yours? Why do you think it should change people's opinons?
cjet79
2mo ago
Reagan is the classic example. But pat Buchanan in the 90s is an additional attempt. Government grew over the time period.
cjet79
2mo ago
Love that blog, I think I've read that post before but went ahead and read it again anyways.
cjet79
2mo ago
Ha I like this! I got Murray Rothbard.
I asked for other close matches,
- Lysander Spooner
- Ayn Rand
- Ludwig von Mises
- Friedrich Hayek
- David D. Friedman
And now I'm blushing.
cjet79
2mo ago
I play a weird sport called underwater hockey. I've mentioned it before. But that's not the fun part for this post.
There is a Turkish guy that occasionally plays with us. How do I know he is Turkish? Because he tells me and everyone he meets in just about every conversation.
He starts most of his introductions to strangers by guessing what nationality they are from. He is pretty accurate most of the time. But also it's a hilarious form of interaction to see in modern day America, where ethnic origins feel like a slightly taboo topic. I'll admit to feeling a little jealous.
His accent and clear foreignness helps him get away with it I think. Or maybe I could get away with it too and I just haven't tried the strategy of "guess their nationality" as an ice breaker. It also maybe ironically helps that he is a clear Turkish nationalist. He earnestly believes that Turkey is the next great up and coming country, and that I should look into investing in companies over there. Turkey is also going to do great in the next Olympics and world cup, or so he tells me. I should also consider visiting there on my next vacation, it's a beautiful country.
He makes me smile, but he also does a damn good job of recruiting random strangers. Remember how I said I know him through underwater hockey? Yeah he somehow convinces people to play this sport while hanging out in the hot tub before practice. We could use some more people to play with us. Maybe I should be a Turkish nationalist.
cjet79
2mo ago
I thought maybe that was the case that he had a magic sword. But it also happens in reverse where the orcs cut down the men defending the white city. And again the guys have plate.
cjet79
2mo ago
I just haven't seen the David and Goliath movie where he looks really badass with the sling (does it exist). I'm aware of the story.
The key word I used was "see".
cjet79
2mo ago
I played a lot of mount and blade. It's made me too practical minded.
Small weapon and shield for storming castles. You don't want the swings getting stopped in the scrum, and you need something for taking arrows.
On horseback: a shield on the back with a two handed weapon for weak enemies. Or a lance and shield for strong enemies. Bow and arrow for weakening enemies or killing peasants.
On foot in a field shield and medium weapon.
In media almost anything can be made to look cool. Though I have yet to see properly cool depictions of slings, halberds, and crossbows.
cjet79
2mo ago
Sadly most representations of combat utterly gloss over how effective even basic armor was, a medieval knight was a tank that was almost immune to sharp damage while not tired, and only really countered with blunt force trauma.
This has always bothered me. Aragorn was cutting down orcs like they were naked even when they wearing heavy plate.
Some media gets it right. There are two duels in the King that get it right. And "A Knight's Tale" which is silly in many ways also managed to get armor correct.
cjet79
2mo ago
I think its the same kind of telepathy we all have, where you move things with your mind that are connected to your mind via electrical signals.
cjet79
2mo ago
Paranoia and Trust are opposites. Trust is required for cooperation. Paranoia prevents it. You are too paranoid.
You cycle alts through here because of your paranoia.
We don't trust you in turn because the small request we have of users which is to maintain a consistent face/username is something you won't do.
Society is an iterated prisoners dilemma. You have chosen to hit defect on the assumption that everyone else will do so as well. You'll never be proven wrong, because you have defected first and most people run a tit-for-tat strategy.
cjet79
2mo ago
There is such a thing as cooperation. And it's a little ridiculous to think that Amadan would ban you for this comment.
cjet79
2mo ago
Ya obvious detections will get harshly punished. I suspect most detections will be in some gradient of uncertainty and we will lower the punishment or not impose it at all based on that uncertainty.
cjet79
2mo ago
The high bar is probably somewhat undetectable, and thus unenforceable.
If any given paragraph is approximately 80% your writing and your ideas, I would not be overly concerned with labelling it.
In general I'd still suggest not doing it. I think in many scenarios you'd be better off just not including that paragraph. Plenty of people already complain about walls of text.
cjet79
2mo ago
Is discussion on themotte a war for survival that must be won at all costs, or is it more like a sports competition where winning/losing is possible but both participants can be made better off through their participation?
In my mind themotte is much closer to a sports competition than all out war.
All sports competitions have rules that often forbid the most effective methods of "winning".
It seems silly to call it "insecurity". I can hop into just about any car with an engine and I can travel faster than Usain Bolt. Should he thus feel insecure about his speed?
Any competition short of all out warfare must occasionally update their rules to maintain the intended nature of the competition.
cjet79
2mo ago
Added above in the edit, this would absolutely not be a topic ban of any form.
cjet79
2mo ago
The starting post is my attempt to be neutral and just give everyone the lay of the land.
This post is me being opinionated.
I am very against AI generated content being on themotte. I think it makes the whole place pointless. I'm not against AI in general, it just seems specifically at odds with what makes this place useful to me.
I can have a discussion with AI without showing up here. I do this quite often for various topics. Cooking recipes, advice on fiction writing, understanding some complex physics topics, getting feedback on my own writing, generating business writing, etc. If I am here it is because I specifically do not want a conversation with an AI.
To me there is a value in discussion. Of my brain processing an idea, spitting it out onto a page, and then having other brains process what I have written and spit their opinions back out at me. Writing things is part of my thinking process. Without writing or talking about an idea, I can't really claim to have thought much about it. I believe this is true about many people. If someone else is offloading either part of their thinking process to an AI then the degree to which they have offloaded their thinking (either the initial reading/processing, or the writing/responding) is the degree to which I'm not getting additional value out of them.
Realistically there might not be much of a way to enforce this. Everyone could be going and feeding my writing to an AI and regurgitating its answers back to me. I just have to hope that they recognize how pointless and silly it is to do such a thing. I compared using AI on themotte to bringing a bike or a car to a fun run. It might be objectively better at accomplishing the "thing" we are doing. But everyone has a sense it is pointless and dumb to do so.
My other objection which may be mitigated in the future is that many of the AIs available have a sort of generic sameness to them.
Imagine all viewpoints can be summed up by a number ranging from 1-100. With 50 being an average viewpoint. Most AIs are going to spit out viewpoint 50 by default. I think you can currently make character AIs and have them spit out 40s or 60s with a higher rate of hallucinations. Google's "black nazi" image generator is I think a good example of them trying to push the AI's default opinion in one direction and ending up with some crazy hallucinations.
But there are plenty of real people with extreme viewpoints on any given topic, and plenty of them are here on themotte. Today's 50 is not yesterday's 50, and it likely won't be tomorrow's 50 either. Talking with the tail end view points is something I find interesting, and potentially useful. It is also generally more difficult to find viewpoints outside of the center. Themotte is a place that is often outside the center.
If everyone secretly started posting with AI's tomorrow to play a cruel trick on me, I don't think I'd immediately figure it out. But within a month I'd be gone from this place and would have lost interest. The center viewpoint is widely available and easy to find. I don't need to come to a dark and unknown corner of the internet to get it.
cjet79
2mo ago
The mods are discussing AI and how we want to handle them.
There will likely be a meta post incoming to collect feedback and make sure we have an approach that everyone here likes.
In the meantime it would be nice if people would avoid poking this obvious sore spot. I'd be fine letting you get away with doing it once. But you are doing it twice as a top level post. That is annoying and obnoxious. You should know better. 1 day ban.
cjet79
3mo ago
AIs and bare links are bad for some the same reasons. Mainly, you are not starting a discussion, you are demanding one for your entertainment.
Top level visible posts have some degree of value. This value should be reserved for people that add value to the forum. The main way that people add value to the forum is through interesting discussion.
The secondary problem with both bare links and AI generated text is that they exist as a low effort gish gallop way to wage the culture war. For example, you don't have to argue that Immigrants cause problems, you can just post a different news story every day about some immigrant being a criminal. AI can also just flood the space with content and words for your cause.
cjet79
3mo ago
Ari Schaffir standup. Both "Jew" and "Americas Sweetheart"
The Netflix series Tires.
Gilly and Keeves skit comedy. Season 2 was especially awesome.
cjet79
3mo ago
Sounds like you have it all figured out.
The argument against AI in this space is still pretty simple. It's like bringing a bicycle to a fun run. If you don't want to engage in a leisure activity it makes little sense to cheat at the leisure activity when you can instead just not do it.
Using an AI to debate other people is easier than debating them yourself. But it's even easier to just not debate them in the first place.
Themotte isn't a place that matters. This isn't X or reddit or some other major social network site where millions of voters can be influenced. There is no reward for "winning" here, so the normal molochian optimization pressures don't have to apply.
cjet79
3mo ago
I somewhat like it but I'd hate if I became part of the DC voting block. Northern Virginia laws sort of work because they are held back by the rest of the state from going full crazy blue.
When they are not held back you get a situation like Maryland, which has to deal with the Baltimore voting block and is dysfunctional.
You can see this dynamic with where a bunch of people live, it's the Virginia side that has grown massively both in population and wealth.
In case it was not clear from the edit, @netstack reversed this mod decision. @WhiningCoil is not banned at this time.
There is often a very fine line between booing your outgroup and discussing your outgroup. Especially when the topic of discussion is some of the worst characteristics of the outgroup. I feel like the post hit some "boo" applause lights while actually being a true discussion. I might have made the same call as netstack had I been in a hurry and just clearing out the backlog.
The mods are human. We care about the community. We do respond to feedback. We are active participants here and we care about the quality of discussion.
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