justcool393
you are loved <3
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User ID: 1784
Is Covid-19 still a thing anyone here is interested in? Anyway, Eric Winsberg of the Chronicle of Higher Education published this article entitled
We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever (2023-08-10, archive link because the site is kinda borked)
Anyway, I'm not sure anything super new is said in here, but I found it to be an interesting meta-commentary on the clash between science and politics. It starts off by telling an abridged version of the story of Ignaz Semmelweis and then analogizes it to science discussion related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The analogy isn't exact but I think it's still relatively fair tbh.
My impression is honestly I agree with the article. Though I think there's a balance from being super close minded to having such an open mind your head falls out, the scientific consensus being at such odds with the political messaging seems... quite problematic indeed. So I think the question partially becomes... "how do you make sure that scientific consensus which is supported shines through, even when it may be politically inconvenient to do so?" My relevant concern seems to be less about "the science™ being wrong"1 and more about "the science being right but it becoming too politically inconvenient to do so" or the lack of even carrying out such studies in the first place in the worry that it might to inconvenient conclusions.
1. I recognize the problem of reproducibility of results. And while I do agree it's likely a larger problem than is known about, especially in light of the recent Stanford scandal, I do think there is quite a bit more malicious intent with regards to politically inconvenient conclusions.
Another day, another entrant into the OpenAI drama. Emmett Shear is the new interim CEO of OpenAI.
I don't know why it was surprising to people that Sam wouldn't come back. The company was meant to be subservient to the nonprofit's goals and I'm not sure why the attempted coup from Sam's side (you know the whole effectively false reporting that Sam Altman was to become the new CEO) was apparently "shocking" that it failed.
The OpenAI board has hired Emmett Shear as CEO. He is the former CEO of Twitch.
My understanding is that Sam is in shock.
https://twitter.com/emilychangtv/status/1726468006786859101
What's kinda sad about all of this is how much people were yearning for Sam Altman to be the CEO as if he isn't probably one of the worst possible candidates. Like maybe this is just a bunch of technolibertarians on Twitter or HN or something who think that the ultimate goal of humanity is how many numbers on a screen you can earn, but the amazing amount of unearned reverence towards a VC to lead the company.
In any case, here's to hoping that Laundry Buddy won't win out in the rat race for AGI, lest we live in a world optimized for maximum laundry detergent. Maybe we'll avoid that future now with Sam's departure.
Anyway, I'll leave this to munch on which I found from the HN thread.
Motte: e/acc is just techno-optimism, everyone who is against e/acc must be against building a better future and hate technology
Bailey: e/acc is about building a techno-god, we oppose any attempt to safeguard humanity by regulating AI in any form around and around and around"
justcool393
you are loved <3
5mo ago
he's on reddit's board and was the interim CEO after Ellen Pao left. he helped to bring Steve Huffman back as CEO. people complained about Ellen Pao ruining reddit by making it into a "SJW safe space" or whatever, but the truth of the matter is a lot of that happened not as the result of Ellen's tenure, but because of board pressure being applied after Ellen left.
Sam is a part of that and is probably also why reddit is basically forced into the "we must grow at all costs and justify our valuation" mode of operation and has been since even before interest rates started rising.
justcool393
you are loved <3
5mo ago
Altman has demonstrated extreme willingness to help great number of people, this isn't about numbers on screen but about demonstrated goodwill.
yes, loopt was very successful. he also did great work at reddit helping to drive it into the ground as well. worldcoin isn't a totally creepy and terrible thing. very great CV there.
but more to the point: he's a investor, goodwill does not at any point enter the picture and it'd be remiss to think otherwise. that's the only thing they care about, ultimately. it seems clear to me that Sam probably hoped to sell out OpenAI and fortunately their structure made it so it didn't work.
justcool393
you are loved <3
9mo ago
Looking at Reddit comments might not necessarily be instructive of the general reaction but it's been nothing but relief so far.
one thing that I've always found interesting is that the thing that tends to unite the internet is a very pro-nuclear power stance. reddit, twitter, themotte, hell even rdrama, are from what i can tell, decidedly pro-nuclear power. it's an interesting trend that i've seen that has had quite large staying power. it's hard to argue that reddit for example has the same general politics as it does 10 years ago, but even then the issue of nuclear power seems to be constant.
i'm sure there are some small groups that are anti-nuclear on the internet, but i think you'd be more hard pressed to find anti-nuclear communities online than to find a lot of different things. i find that observation to be pretty interesting.
i'd argue this is for good reason: nuclear power seems to be an amazing way to generate base load, tends to emit less radiation than coal powered plants1, and is dozens or hundreds of times cleaner than other energy sources.
1: the study i linked found that for the energy generated, more radiation is given out by fly ash, which contains trace amounts of uranium and thorium. while the amount of radiation that makes it into people from both of these sources isn't dangerous, it's worth pointing out when given the concerns of "gonna be irradiated."
justcool393
you are loved <3
9mo ago
updates:
It gets better
Rate limits increasing soon to 8000 for verified, 800 for unverified & 400 for new unverified
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675214274627530754
Now to 10k, 1k & 0.5k
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675260424109928449
all within the span of a few hours
you've been spamming this sorta content all over this very thread and it's gotten incredibly annoying. you've been pretending that no one in their right mind would talk about how it relates to morality (note: links to multiple comments here) when this is a pretty clear angle that people would talk about it from.
i cannot buy that you had no idea people would talk about the morality of decisions. reference to morality is there from the bloody title of the post and discussing the moral turpitude of a choice or another is an incredibly obvious discussion point when we're talking about a problem like this. this is also the culture war thread ffs, discussion of morality of a certain thing is a pretty obvious jumping off point even if the darn title didn't mention it.
people've responded to your points and you keep ignoring them and insisting an incredibly uncharitable form of the argument. name calling by calling people virtue signalers, sarcastically making the strawman that people who disagree with you are calling you fascist with the implicit assumption that these are The Outgroup™, and just general uncharitablity and being a complete jerk.
which while there are strong opinions that some of the people you disagree with probably hold, your refusal to engage at any level but the most in-group signaling way is incredibly boring, unproductive, way more heat than light, and annoying. if you don't care so much as you say, just don't participate, or make a comment detailing your problem with the poll rather than pretending to be shocked shocked that people would have a long form discussion on something that has multiple different angles in the culture war thread of all places.
justcool393
you are loved <3
5mo ago
yeah no kidding. as an aside to all of this, i've got to say, the media reporting on this was downright shameful.
obviously there were the initial reports about the firing which were fine, but the weird concocted narrative about how it was totally confirmed that they were going to capitulate reach a "truce" by the entire board resigning was surprising. it didn't make any sense except as a PR fluff piece.
like the media on this couldn't have been more wrong about what happened if they tried.
what's notable about this is like this isn't some gossip rag that we're talking about here, I'll read the gossip rags and the TMZs but I don't expect the reporting quality to be top notch (well, TMZ is usually at least accurate, if inconsequential). it's entertainment and I know what I'm signing up for when I read it.
but this is Bloomberg we're talking about here that got immensely suckered. people pay them lots and lots of money for this high quality info. I don't expect them to be particularly favorable to OpenAI's position here which as best as I can tell does seem to be about them not wanting to sell out, but Bloomberg was unfathomably wrong.
I think what was most irritating was that it makes about 0 sense for the board to fire a CEO then in less than 24 hours go "uh well uh whoopsie," reinstall Sam as CEO, and collectively resign for no reason. I can't believe no one bothered to go through this process when fact checking.
justcool393
you are loved <3
5mo ago
what if someone just doesn't get insurance then...
justcool393
you are loved <3
8mo ago
Come on, just tell us reds we're all devils and be done with it.
what's the point in this baiting?
justcool393
you are loved <3
8mo ago
"If that choice makes me Evil, then you are Stupid".
It is generally considered more bad to be evil than stupid or incapable. There are a lot of things people do that are incredibly risky in order to save a life or in fact not be burdened with having, by their own inaction, ended one. People will take incredible amounts of risk to save young children or people who are doing something potentially dangerous, in fact a lot of times endangering their own lives. People also die in this way.
Why? Because generally people aren't sociopaths and have some sense of morals beyond "stupid ppl and people who are incapable of X thing should go die." People will and do demonstrably put themselves at risk to save themselves or to save multiple people. That is something to be applauded.
It does not make one stupid to prioritize human life.
In any case, the logical and moral option are the same one, which is blue. It's moral because saving and helping those are who are less able and capable is something that should, in my opinion, be valued. A red world is inherently an incredibly low trust world by it's very nature (all of the people who would perform self-sacrifice have been killed off!) and honestly sounds really terrible.
Regardless. It only takes 50% of the blues to go blue, while it takes 100% of reds to go reds with the same outcome. I've seen people who post here who misread the question and pick the one they weren't intending to pick, and I don't think they're inherently stupid or whatnot, and I generally don't believe in even killing people who make a simple mistake to be a good thing.
justcool393
you are loved <3
9mo ago
both in this and reddit's case, it's an obvious cop out. the people using training data on reddit have access to the entire corpus from 2005-2022 via torrent, and it's probably way more clean than any future data
but most notably of all, the corpus of reddit contains a lot of spam, and when I say a lot I mean it. it was amazing how much is just completely unmoderated spam on there.
in twitter's case, I don't buy it either. I guess maybe pre-2022 but it's like the best data has probably been already scraped
justcool393
you are loved <3
5mo ago
it necessarily would increase it if there are more people on the road. but how many people it has an effect on doesn't matter. in your proposed world, if X% of drivers don't have insurance, that's X% of drivers that have never been tested.
look, driver's tests may be incredibly easy to pass, but it is a working high-pass filter. if someone (not on the basis of discrimination like what the Aussies want to do) can't get a driver's license because they've failed a driver's test, what makes you think they're going to get insurance for driving if they can't pass that exam?
and what's even worse now is that you have people who have been previously filtered out of driving altogether are now both on the road and uninsured.
that sounds like a recipe for disaster.
justcool393
you are loved <3
9mo ago
The title of that article is laughably false. The underlying point it is based on, that under normal operation a nuclear plant releases less radioactive material into the environment than a coal plant, is technically true but grossly misleading.
I addressed this in the footnote.
the radioactivity concern is concentrated purely into the possibility of something going wrong.
It is a quite common myth that living near a nuclear power plant emits radiation during ongoing operations.
I mean, there is rdrama.net for low effort culture warring I suppose...
justcool393
you are loved <3
1yr ago
Frying something with breading being a good way to increase the calorie count of a thing cheaply.
OP didn't even mention that it was fried lol but yeah "fried chicken and watermelon" is a pretty obvious stereotype. it takes a lot to try and deny that.
justcool393
you are loved <3
5mo ago
A non-narcissistic person will be able to consider the possiblity that she is mistaken and that when community with as high an average IQ this one forms an consensus, indicated by mass-votes is correct; while a crank considers disagreement a sign of suppression and persecution.
this comment has a nice "to be fair you have to have a high IQ to understand themotte" type vibe to it, which comes across as pseudointellectual at best.
more seriously though, just because a comment is highly downvoted doesn't necessarily mean it's inherently garbage or that it was a "low IQ" opinion. a lot of very smart opinions or ideas were not deemed to be very popular in the past, and I think it'd be foolish to think that what we think is objectively correct.
justcool393
you are loved <3
8mo ago
it's xkcd 356 for rats. as @hbtz pointed out on another medium
its a pretty good question! its a idiot economist, commons problem, and altruism problem triple whammy
its also prolly a spiritual problem cuz mottecels prolly dont rate the psychological cost of living as a red pill picker as opposed to a blue pill picker
justcool393
you are loved <3
8mo ago
absolutely not. blue is the obvious one because if anyone errs, they die if everyone picks red and they pick blue, but someone erring with picking red doesn't cause a negative effect in blueworld.
the Lizardman Constant of people (+ some others who have genuine mental issues or are very young) don't die if everyone picks blue
While I am not a fan of stereotypical Redditors, I also fail to see why being convinced that a man 2000 years ago rose from the dead despite a near-total lack of evidence that this happened other than the writings of a few people who probably never knew him in real life is supposed to make one better than a stereotypical Redditor.
because people were:
- a dick about it.
- incredibly cringey.
okay so one of the things that you saw on reddit a lot was this complete disdain for anything Christian. probably because they were teenagers or whatever, but the people getting upset over people saying "bless you" or "merry Christmas" or their mom wanting to pray at Christmas dinner or whatever were absolutely flooring. it seemed like a caricature. the amount of people saying how they owned the fundies or whatever, whether true or not1 was absolutely flooring. you also had the professional quote makers acting with a complete lack of self awareness. or the faces of atheism people. or the people who would argue about it endlessly in YouTube video responses (remember when those were a thing?) and culture war forums.
people essentially made their identity about not believing in God and getting really really mad at anyone that found comfort or peace within religion. it kinda dominated the internet. and when people would discuss how not everyone are like these knuckleheads, it'd erupt into a well... holy war with everyone else being wrong on the internet in their view.
i imagine a lot of them were teenagers who were rebelling against their parents for making them go to church on Sunday or whatever. and no doubt, people do have legitimate grievances, but internet flamewarring and circlejerking didn't really do anything.
1: i would be remiss to not point out the MsScribe story where a woman spent years faking harassment from Christian internet stalkers for internet clout.
justcool393
you are loved <3
10mo ago
Nothing, short of a Musk-at-Twitter style purchase and purge, can do that.
I really do find it hilarious that people think Twitter is that much different with Musk at the helm as far as Trust & Safety goes. It's basically more of the same, but Musk found a great way to appeal to right-wingers by talking about "free speech" and stuff. Twitter was already the most free speech media, nothing in T&S really changed much except for Trump being unbanned.
justcool393
you are loved <3
5mo ago
i don't really see the point, i think it'd likely just be as abused as upvote. it'd just be that "quality post" would be the new upvote and "not quality" would be the new downvote where "agree" is just a weaker form that would be uncommonly used.
i think it would be neat to see some indicator of controversiality though.
justcool393
you are loved <3
1yr ago
Yeah, newspapers used to be mainly reporting on facts, not thinly veiled social activism
yellow journalism was an extremely popular form of journalism. cruddy articles is nothing new and is as old as time immemorial
justcool393
you are loved <3
8mo ago
What cost would that be?
negative reactions to surviving where someone else didn't are common. this is not a hard concept to understand nor grasp.
by the power of snuggles and friendship, magic will happen and we will gain the ability to fly if I do that!")
in this scenario, i think you have to realize that 50%+1 picking blue does save everyone, including those who misread the question or whatever.
someone in the HN thread reminded me of this again, and I remembered I didn't remember the entire story here. part of the thing with reddit was not only did Sam Altman engineer Conde Nast into being a minority stakeholder and by helping to manufacture a bunch of leadership crisises at reddit. if you're not familiar with this, here's Yishan, a former CEO of reddit, saying exactly this in a manner that is second only in wink wink nudge nudge to If I Did It.
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/comment/cszjqg2/
this seems similar to what ended up essentially happening at OpenAI, although it's over board seats rather than stake in the company.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38386365
I imagine this HN commenter is right and at the end of the day this comes down to capitalism.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38376123
this is probably not news to themotte, but it also seems pretty evident to me that the nonprofit's goals were wholly unimportant to those working there. whether you like openai or not1, the name was and is a punching bag essentially because it's neither open nor ai. the weird structure seemed to those working there probably just was seen as tax evasion (sorry, avoidance) and that aforementioned rubber stamp.
but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Larry Summers of all people2 being added to the board is darkly hilarious though. it's basically taking off the mask.
1. I don't particularly care one way or another about them as I don't use their stuff nor plan to.
2. this part is more unrelated snark so i'm leaving it to a footnote, but he's a great measure for economists. he managed to predict that 3 contradictory things were going to happen with regards to inflation and none of those 3 things happened.
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