iprayiam3
2d ago
Again, the analogy might not be a very good one, but we’re getting hung up on technical comparisons. My analogy was supposed to focus on the social ritual nature of where dividing lines are that focus on discrete moats around the methodology, rather than comparisons of outcome quality.
iprayiam3
2d ago
I can admit that it's not an adequate comparison, but the distinction I'm making is between repurposing existing art (signing a premade card) and outsourcing it to a computer (someone else signs the card for you). I don't think these are directly analagous. I'm not saying they belong in the same category, but the analogy is on the gradient down from personal touch to outsourced sentiment.
I'm not trying to make a generalized defense of lazy album covers. And I fully accept there's an argument as a soldier going on here to mask more utilitarian concern rather than an ontological one. Gun to their head, I'm sure a lot of people criticizing the AI album cover would prefer an interesting AI cover to a lazy repurposed image for a given instance, especially for a 2 bit band. But they are arguing for a moat around actually creative ablum art in general. With the repurposed picture, it can be lazy or unique, but not both.
This is analagous (but not categorically equivalent) to the moat of 'you at least have to sign the Hallmark card yourself'. OBVIOUSLY that's less meaningful than somethign unique and closer in practicality to nothing at all. But the ideosyncratic moat of 'signed card' has social signficiance that defends against a drift into nothing at all.
iprayiam3
2d ago
How would you compare something like content aware fill to inpainting or other AI image techniques?
For the argument of AI, I would not compare based on outcome, or level of effort, because I agree those are somewhat gradients. It is a question of technology used which has clear and unabiguous answers.
As far as I understand it, content aware fill uses ML, but not Generative AI.
So if one is against AI as a general category, then they can make an argument against CAF. Or if they are specifically against Generative AI, they can make an argument for CAF.
My main point is that Unaltered, Digitally altered, CGI, ML, and GenAI are all scrutable categories, not gradients or judgement calls. Now the valance you assign to the categories can be gradient or judgement calls.
But I disagree with the argument that the categories don't discretely exist or we can't to assign valence to them due to equivalency of outcome.
iprayiam3
3d ago
Sure but album cover art is already a Lindy anachronism, and this makes sense to be a place of resistance. Neither albums nor covers really exist anymore. It’s more obligatory ritual than anything else and I think someone faking a ritual is more taboo than someone participating lazily.
It’s like the difference sending a thoughtful thank you note and signing a card and having someone else sign the card for you.
Everyone can agree that the first is superior, but the autist mistakes the second and third for being equivalent.
iprayiam3
4d ago
And the spot that has bugged me for a while now: how much AI/digital assistance is really crossing the arbitrary line you've drawn?
My personal takes aside, how is this an arbitrary or ambiguous line; Whether or not an LLM was employed is pretty black and white.
The argument I keep seeing ends up taking this shape over and over:
AntiAI: LLM different from other tool. LLM bad.
ProAI: LLM not bad. LLM no different from other tools!
Whether or not 'LLM bad', it seems obvious that LLM is qualitatively different from other technology (except perhaps slave labor, but that's a tangent not worth exploring). But what I see most from the ProAI response is not a rebuttal of the leap from different to bad, but of a rebuttal of bad with a denial of different. Whcih I think is the weakest argument for a postive AI position.
iprayiam3
8d ago
See, it’s three where you get the minivan, and 4 is no issue.
It might help that my kids are relatively close in age, but logistics ain’t an issue for us.
I take my son to his piano lesson and watch my toddler, or I take my son to his piano lesson and watch my toddler and a baby, is not significantly differently
iprayiam3
8d ago
There's a lot of serious consideration here, and serious replies; so I'll add something a little more flippant. For me and my wife, our 4th was the easiest marginal change in every way (except the bedroom splitting). YMMV of course.
iprayiam3
9d ago
I originally beleived that DOGE was about systems not goals, and was a way to create a pipeline of influence for Musk side of techbro elites and government power.
From the look at what he was cutting, I can believe it was something more like an attempt at a hype-snowball. If they found quick and obvious and indefensible waste/fraud, while also turning over norms of 'you can just do that?!' slashing, the hope was that there's be snowball momentum to tackle bigger things.
In other words, you come in and start trying to follow all the polite beurocratic processes around suggesting entitlement cuts from an advisory capacity, you will never even get off the ground. Alternatively, you come in and shake shit up by highly publicisizing obvious waste, in efforts of getting populist support and visibility.
I think he actually almost reached escape velocity here, or got as close to a successful system as possible.
iprayiam3
12d ago
Conservatism is not an ideology. It's an orientation. Moreover, it's an orientation against a reference point, (which is why today's conservative is yesterday's liberal etc.)
People confuse this because contrast the term with liberalism, which can mean two things.
- Is just the opposite orientation of conservatism, and
- is an actual ideology - prioritization of safeguarding individual freedom and equal rights through rule-of-law and representative government
Most of the useless polticial showerthoughting is downstream of the confusion caused by the fact that the word liberal can refer to either, which conservative can't.
Both the complaints of liberals not being liberal, or conservatives not being ideological, or of assuming conservatives are ideologically illiberal etc.
At the end of the day, both American Conservativism and Liberalism are big tents each containing both liberals and illiberals.
iprayiam3
15d ago
70% sure, maybe. But what happens if it's 'just' 2008 levels of sudden disruption? And then a small stagnant window before another dive. I am more worried about falling into a series of local minima, where the immediate 'solutions' get us into a worse scenario.
In some respects 70%+ emplyment disruption, or a skynet scenario could be better, in creating a clear, wide consensus on the problem and necessary reaction. I am more worried about a series of wiley cyote getting over a cliff before he realizes it, falling, then repeating as he tried to get ahead of the next immediate shift.
iprayiam3
15d ago
No I think I was unclear, yes this is in line with what I'm seeing. When I said sr. mgmt doesn't realize the impact, I mean the follow through logic of the macro effects of every other company also freezing spending and hiring.
iprayiam3
15d ago
No I know. Of course that’s the biggest part of it. My overall point is I’m seeing uncertainty expressed in AI uncertainty, whether that’s just a rebundling of tariff etc uncertainty or not, my fear is that it is contributing to increased general uncertainty, which will be additive economic results trending from that uncertainty
iprayiam3
15d ago
but that might as well be a result of cutbacks due to economic uncertainty.
But this uncertainty is what I’m interested in. How much is effect but how much could snowball into cause? Buyers get skidding, forecasts go down, and so forth. I’m not saying it’s the leading cause of uncertainty to anywhere near it. But I am noticing it becoming a contributing factor
iprayiam3
15d ago
I've all of the sudden seen AI blackpilling break out into the normie space around me. Not so much about FOOM, and paperclipping, or terminator scenarios, but around the sudden disruptive nature, and especially around economic upheaval. Not exactly sure why. Veo3 has been part of it.
For example, coworkers suddenly aware that AI is going to completely disrupt the job market and economy, and very soon. People are organically discovering the @2rafa wonderment at how precariously and even past-due a great deal of industry and surrounding B2B services industries stand to be domino'd over. If my observation generalizes, that middle class normies are waking up a doompill on AI economic disruption, what is going to happen?
Let's consider it from 2 points of view. 1 They're right. and 2. They're wrong. 1. is pretty predictable fodder here - massive, gamechanging social and economic disruption, with difficult to predict state on the other side.
But is 2 that much less worrisome? Even if everyone is 'wrong', and AI is somehow not going to take away 'careers', people in mass worrrying that it's so will still manifest serious disruption. People are already starting to hold thier breath. Stopping hiring, stopping spending, running hail mary's, checking out.
Somehow, it's only senior management who doesn't realize the impact. (They keep framing 'If we can cut costs, we'll come out on top, instead of following the logical conclusion, if everyone stops spending the B2B economy collapses.) - I have a nontechnical coworker, who has recently recreated some complex business intelligence tool we purchased not long ago using readily available AI and a little bit of coaching. He had an oh shit moment, when he realized how cannibalized the software industry is about to get. The film industry seems about to completely topple, not because Veo3 will replace it immediately, but because, who's going to make a giant investment in that space right now?
I suspect the macro economic shock is going to hit faster than most are expecting, and faster than actual GDP gains will be made, but maybe I'm just an idiot.
iprayiam3
16d ago
He dated a chick for eight years before meeting her sister? That’s less believable than the no sex thing, unless the ‘dating’ was on the internet or something
Ah, I wish it were actually "fine tuned". Most of our instruments are blunt, our approaches to most diseases barbaric, the only saving grace being that they're the best we have and are better than nothing.
Well this is kind of my point with a disagreement about 'better than nothing'. I am not a pure naturalist, and don't want to imply a false dichotomy, but nor do I want overly broad equivalencies. I don't think all medical interventions are equally good, equally bad, or equally neutral.
But my metapoint here is kind of a a Russell's conjugation of sorts; Your better than nothing is my worse than default. Your fix is my treating the wrong problem; etc. Show me a transhumanist doctor, and I'll show you someone overmedicated.
It's easy to shun the notion of an extended, healthy and happy lifespan until it's you or a loved one dying in front of your eyes. Since I'd prefer nobody had to die unless by choice, I try my best to make it so.
This is the other half of my point, in that this is a motte to the bailey. None of the treatments we're talking about are about life extension; We can debate that separately, but my disagreement is more that the transhumanist axioms might have life extension as a, or even the goal, but these side-routes are not that.
Is that not a form of heaven as you believe in?
I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, but no? This is pretty orthogonal to any Christian concept of heaven.
iprayiam3
16d ago
I'd like to riff off this comment and muse on just how far apart our worldviews are. I assume you're positing it here for general interesting discussion; but if any of this feels too personal or prying let me know and I'll retract.
- You are on ADD medication
- You are on an antidepressants
- You are on semiglutine to counteract (partly) the weight gain from the anti-depressants
- You are looking at plastic surgery
I am sure from your perspective, this is exactly what the transhumanist plan looks like - medtech improvements and fine tune control over your inner chemistry and outer appearance. To me this looks like a medical doom spiral, and one that won't end in a post-humanist nervana.
I am not critiquing your decisions, as they flow out of your own circumstances I can't know intimately, and are in line wiht your axioms. I have always been a critic of your axioms however, and this seems (dispassionately amusingly) to be two movies on one screen -> a confirmation of each of our philosophies.
Anyway, best of luck on the weight loss and fitness goals, and again, apologies if this is too spicy.
iprayiam3
25d ago
I mean this is fine and all, but the angle that frames this as aw-shucksy, give yourself permission to spend on hired-help advice for the masses
e.g.
Instead it had a vibe: stop beating yourself up over your parenting decisions. So I put out a classified ad for babysitters and got two people I really like. Things are a little better now. I can even write research-filled book reviews again!
He is calling 'being wealthy enough to outsource parenting' a vibe
iprayiam3
26d ago
Yes, it's generally better not to broadcast complaints, especially as a man (like being cold on a second date). The exception is when you are seeking advice or building empathy credibility to provide advice or comfort.
Obviously Scott thinks he's doing just this, but the problem is common where the empathetic credibility attempt comes off as tone deaf and out of touch.
Generally if your audience is poorer than you, attempted 'down with the struggle' will have the opposite effect. Poorer in money, time, romantic success, whatever.
Dave Ramsay is at his worst when he tries to analogize some speaker problem to something in his own life (post-success) or parenting experience. His daughter, who's mostly taken over the show is basically a meme of this, constantly thinking her gilded life experiences are relatable.
Due to human variation and hedonic treadmill effects, everyone's feelings of hardship are generally real, but are not objectively comparable.
iprayiam3
27d ago
it'd be such a pleasant surprise for a girl to take the initiative to increase my comfort level instead of penalizing me for the gaffe of bringing it up
I mean sure in theory, yes. People don’t need to stick exactingly to red pill gender roles, but this anecdotes is so on the nose as a gender bent reversal of the cliche of all cliche examples of the ‘female comfort test’ with an outcome that digs into the gender reversal (he ends up with not just a scarf, but the “nicest” scarf), it has to be made up.
Before getting to the stealing, I'm more stuck on my aesthetic distaste to the vignette of a man on an early date telling the woman he's cold, and her giving him an article of clothing to comfort him (among the more feminine articles to boot). It's too perfectly set up as a subverted cliche, that I am 50-50 (edit on reflection, 70:30) that it's made up. I suspect many if not most of the people defending it are doing so on those very aesthetic grounds, and it's not remotely about agency, morals, or consequentialism. This is basically a manic pixie dream girl scene that crossed with light 'gender swapped' tittilation.
There's a very real trope about a certain kind of proclivity toward strong female to femdom fantasies, that is disproportionately represented in ratty kind of spaces, and people who like this stuff are likely to make up, hyperbolize, or latch onto real anecdotes online as a substitute for the actual paucity of it in the real world. The high agency stuff is just a laundering of a titilating fantasy about a strong female, playing provider to a meek guy with 'low agency', aka the sub.
OK
Regarding the lying and stealing, yeah morals aside, there's a russell's congugation here: My: high agency, your: unscrupulousness , their: low impulse control
To the extent that this is a real story, yeah run buddy. A girl who casually lies and steals for immediate time preference satisfaction (even (maybe espectally) if charitably done by proxy to near empathetic aquaintances) is bad news.
iprayiam3
29d ago
Re: the not allowed to give out a cup of water, it’s likely related to some general ups and downs in their loitering policy drama over the past several years.
I don’t recall the ins and outs and may be getting timing wrong but basically around George Floyd, there was a lot of bad optics around not letting people loiter or use the bathroom without being paying customers. This was seen as racism and bad. But meanwhile there were a lot of people taking advantage of such open doors policies, and basically loitering junkies we’re driving away customers.
Not giving out free water is perfectly reasonable way to discourage freeloading loiterers who might disrupt the appeal of the space for paying customers.
If you let that policy happen via discretion you risk the cancel mob highlighting perceived inequity, and wage workers don’t want to get plastered on the internet for that shit.
Blanket ban is much safer for the establishment as well as the workers to have blanket policies like this.
15 years ago I worked at a fast food restaurant right next to a college bar and we had similar policy because otherwise drink college kids who spent no money filled up the place and interfered with the business
iprayiam3
30d ago
Academics sound extremely lazy and whiny about trying out the most obvious solution: ditch all course-work based grading in favor of oral examinations and comprehensive graduation exams. This would immediately solve the whole problem (it would even align the incentives to get students to use LLMs for studying instead of cheating)
I don't think you even need to go this far in summative evaluation. You can still have graded, proctored tests, as well as essays written in class during a timed window.
You don't have to jump from aysynchronous homework -> graduation exam. You can go from current state to in-class, real-time testing. No reason for it to be oral or 1:1.
My biggest disgust here is not about the object level position, but the fact that for the past 2 weeks, MAGA has been pushing all the fiscal irresponsibility of the BBB and slandering any detractor as traitors to the border under a message that this now completely and totally undermines.
None of the argument for raising the debt ceiling or SALT deductions or anything else have any leg to stand on.
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