confuciuscorndog
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User ID: 669
My favorite contemporary comedian is (surprisingly for a modern right-winger, I know) notorious mass shooter, terrorist, and Hamas fighter Samir al-Hayyid. Some favorite content of mine from him is (and they're all videos since he's not primarily a writer and his main piece of comedic writing, a book called How to Bomb the U.S. Gov't, isn't as easy to link to):
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=D2WwCzaGo9c
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=v_3UskhyDI4
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ejluExvt-90
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=-K1AQKM7pXU
I do object to the notion that it's inherently "nerdy" in any meaningful sense to think that mildly (and I must emphasize the "mild" here) clever wordplay = funny. It strikes me as rather simplistic actually which is generally the opposite connotation of what you should ideally associate with "nerdy". And perhaps this is just me being a metacontrarian in a space like this but I mostly think that comedy, given that the feeling of being amused is inherently an emotional response, should strike primarily at the senses, not try to painstakingly backdoor itself in through flattering the intellect's ego with (again, actually rather simple IMO) ham-fisted "wit". (Yes, if you can't tell, I have never cared one bit about a media production that Joss Whedon has been involved with.)
Certainly I will grant that many people who identify as "nerds" (which is why I've never bothered) strongly disagree with me on this point, but when I say I don't consider it inherently "nerdy" in any meaningful sense, I mean that to say that I consider it more characteristic of the people who ruined "nerdy" stuff rather than the people who made it worth ruining in the first place. That is, you might call it a "pet peeve" of mine.
I also don't really relate to the "I could never write like this!" compliments. I could probably write the entire post. I just wouldn't, because I don't find it particularly valuable. I like a lot of Scott's stuff too, but comedy has never been his strong suit to me. It's all "wit" with zero instinct, soul, charisma, or personality. It's not the charmingly foolish jig of a jester who is willing to diligently answer the call of his profession and lower himself to getting down in the mud a bit like a pig to entertain you; it's yet another invitation from a smug "raconteur" to reveal yourself Smart™ enough to acknowledge how Witty™ he is. No real passion.
confuciuscorndog
5mo ago
Conversely, to me it is perhaps some of the worst "comedy" I have ever read in my life, and I am genuinely astounded that it could make anyone laugh.
Just offering an alternative perspective, dear reader out there, if, like me, reading this thread for you feels like having walked into a North Korean birthday party for Kim Jong-un.
It sure seems to me like the "woke ethics grifters" and "Thought Police" are the ones who are actually on the same side as the moral singleton-promoting EAs. Once the TP realize that a Deep State ostensibly util-balancing moral singleton is the small price they must pay to ensure that dropping a hard r becomes literally impossible in the new universe according to the new laws of AI God-rewritten physics, they will be 100% on board.
They are only, like all bureaucratic types, hesitant because they are unsure if they can guarantee that the new toy will really be entirely in their pocket and because, as with everything, no more how beneficial any new mechanism of control is, it must survive the trial by fire of ten thousand BAME trans-PoC complaints, trivial or not. Those are simply the rules. Big tech social media, for example, has endured them for its entire life despite doing more than any other technology to sanitize public discourse in their favor. Being occasionally accused of being a fascist is just part and parcel of life in woke paradise, like being accused of being a subversive and wrecker in the Soviet Union. It's not an actual reflection on your alignment, loyalty, or even actual status/usefulness. It's just the cost of doing business.
Or rather it all just follows the same old woke pattern of complaining about megacorporations as if they shouldn't exist while guaranteeing that they staff all of their HR departments. The complaints aren't actually about opposing them or declaring any legitimate intention to separate from them; they're about keeping them in line. This is a common feminine rhetorical/emotional manipulation tactic that you can see in even many interpersonal relationships: the woman who constantly complains about her husband/boyfriend but has no intention of leaving him because the actual goal of those complaints is only to enhance his submission and, somewhat ironically, thus deepen their entanglement further.
Now sure, not every EA is hyperwoke, and many would prefer a moral singleton with a bit more of a liberal mindset than the Thought Police would ever permit. But, as the example of one Scott S. exemplifies, they will simply get steamrolled as usual by those to their left taking advantage of their quokka tendencies and desperate desire not to be seen as "bad people".
The same people I see supposedly complaining about AI from an apparently woke, anti-corporate perspective are the same ones I see mocking right-wingers for their complaints about the obvious bias and censorship in ChatGPT. They're not actual complaints. They're "The BBC is basically fascist propaganda at this point!" pseudo-complaints, because they're not earnest. These people don't actually want to abolish or even really genuinely inhibit the BBC's reach, which they actually would if they really felt it were fascist propaganda, because they know in actuality that it is fundamentally on their side.
The complaint, same as with the BBC, is that they're annoyed that a member of their team is only 80% openly biased in their favor instead of 100%. It's not "I'm fundamentally against you."; it's "I know you're actually on my side but I want you to accelerate more and be even more biased in our favor right now. Fuck being tactical; let's own the chuds now now now."
And that's what makes them different from the complete Jihadis. In theory, the Jihadis would not cheer on AI acceleration even if the AI were right-wing (though some would, and I do you think have to acknowledge that distinction) or even paradoxically supported their Luddite philosophy itself. (Well actually I don't know. That's an interesting thought experiment: Would anti-AI Jihadis support an all-powerful singleton AI that literally did nothing and refused to interact with the world in any way other than to immediately destroy any other AI smarter than GPT-3 or so and thus force humans to live in a practically AI-less world? Something to think about.)
The woke grifters and Thought Police are fully ready to give AI acceleration the greenlight so long as they're sure that they're the ones controlling the light permanently (at least on cultural/speech issues, anything that would make your average "Gamergater" rage, as I'm sure they'll be willing to compromise as always with their usual Deep State buddies on certain things), because that's their vision of utopia. I thus think they belong more with the utopian moral singleton promoters.
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