somethingsomething
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User ID: 1123
somethingsomething
18d ago
You can throw things in the back without opening the door is the basic answer I think. Very casual, like you're getting stuff done on you're own time, your gear exposed to the elements etc. Work vans are more ubiquitous for actual company cars.
somethingsomething
5mo ago
I agree that this question should definitely be asked here. The dissident right doomerism (which mirrors the 2016 Sanders whining) reminds me of my black/white thinking depressive episodes. It's a kind of justification, not a logical argument. What the right wants to do, just like what Sanders wanted to do, is difficult. Being an outsider is difficult. It is a political miracle for Trump-aligned right-wingers that Trump is electable, when every historical precedent would suggest otherwise. There will probably never be anyone like him in our lifetimes. The fact that he closely lost an election to a former Democrat Vice President under a fairly popular administration should not cause people to spiral so hard. It's an emotional reaction to a very normal possibility that your preferred outsider candidate can lose.
I happen to strongly believe that the election was not stolen, but I imagine that the people here who do also want to live in a high-trust society. My question for those people is, what does it mean if you're wrong about the election? If you learned for a fact the election wasn't stolen, and you had been shouting otherwise, you'd be forced to consider how you contributed towards lowering societal trust by lowering its faith in our democratic process unnecessarily. It's been totally reckless for the right-wing to jump on this boat with so little meaningful evidence. For all I hear about high-trust societies here, that aspect of things, the fact that the right-wing very loudly questioned an election that was very likely totally fine, seems to me to have massively increased distrust. And again, if they're wrong, then what was it all for?
somethingsomething
2mo ago
My thinking is that the right-wing elite collapsed, due to and resulting in more rising right-wing populism, and populism basically selects for bad characters. It's the responsibility of the elites to not screw up so much that no one has faith in them anymore, and they failed to do that
somethingsomething
1mo ago
I gave it a read, and yeah it's a pretty accurate summary. But I don't agree that the gemini version is meaningless, and I don't think the limitations you suggest in your post would have made the Claude test better. We have a pretty good idea now of the varying level of crutches needed to be useless (none), to get through some of the game, and beat the game. Now we can ask the question of what would it take for a LLM to not be useless without human assist.
In my mind, it basically needs to write code, because the flaws to me appear fundamental due to how predictable they are across LLMs, and seeing versions of these issues going back years. The LLM has to write a program to help it process the images better, do pathfinding, and store memory. In that sense it would be building something to understand game state not that differently than the current RAM checking from reading the screen.
It then needs to have some structure that vastly improves it's ability to make decisions based on various state, I'd imagine multiple LLM contexts in charge of different things, with some method of hallucination testing and reduction.
And it has to do all this without being slow as hell, and that's the main thing I think that improved models can help with hopefully. I'd like it if any of the current Twitch tests started taking baby steps towards some of these goals now that we've gotten the crutch runs out of the way. It's odd to me that the Claude one got abandoned. It feels like this is something the researchers could be taking more seriously, and it makes me wonder if the important people in the room are actually taking steps towards ai agency or if they kust assume a better model will give it to them for free.
somethingsomething
1mo ago
This aligns with my vibes although I've looked into it a lot less than you have it appears. The "nerd metaphysics" you describe seems to always be what I encounter whenever looking into rational spaces, and it always puts me off. I think that you should actually have a model of how the process scales.
For example you have the AI plays pokemon streams which are the most visible agentic applications of AI that is readily available. You can look at the tools they use as crutches, and imagine how they could be filled with more AI. So that basically looks like AI writing and updating code to execute to accomplish it's goals. I'd like to see more of that to see how well it works. But from what I've seen there it just takes a lot of time to process things, and so it feels like anything complicated it will just take a lot of time. And then as far as knowing whether the code is working etc. hallucination seems like a real challenge. So it seems like it needs some serious breakthroughs to really be able to do agentic coding reliably and fast without human intervention.
somethingsomething
6mo ago
I'm no scholar but the answer may be two authors/traditions. The Q source of Jesus' teachings along with the book of James representing the Jewish Jesus' traditional arguments, and the rest coming out of Paul's more radical anti-law, platonic tradition that survived into modern Christianity while the James school died out.
But I agree that from what I've read, Jesus as super moral innovator seems a bit overboard, I have to imagine he cribbed a good amount from John the Baptist and there was a kind of apocalyptic Jewish movement he was joining and learning from.
As an atheist I just feel like when the Christians try to make any kind of historical argument I find it unconvincing because they gloss over the details. Obviously there's no perfect person, Jesus had flaws, and the fact he is so worshipped today is as much an accident as history as how much Mohammed is worshipped. The issue with Christians is they really want Jesus to be the messiah. If they dropped that then they could actually understand something about themselves, and then I would feel comfortable worshipping with them.
somethingsomething
8mo ago
Occam's razor in my opinion is that Harris, Clinton, and Obama in his 2nd year underperformed, and turnout has been increasing as America becomes more polarized and politically activated.
Biden overperformed for the same reason normies went to BLM rallies in 2020, there was an huge anti-Trump awakening, it's just petered out.
Compare that to a 15 million vote fraud coverup, which is more likely?
somethingsomething
4mo ago
Well the "uncalled for" quip does kind of point at a question of who started it, the easiest way to avoid that is to describe the smear campaign sans judgement. I feel like on this site you constantly get reminded of all the reasons why the innocent conservatives just had to rebel against the mean democrat which conveniently ignores how dems felt under his predecessor (and "we hated him too" doesn't quite make up for it)
somethingsomething
10mo ago
I don't see it as a moralistic movie. The logic of 2/3 of those beats rest entirely on Napoleon's insane dance performance. It's not by being a good person that Napoleon succeeds, it's by doing something totally out of character and ubermenchian that wins everyone over. Note how in the final scene he hits the thetherball as hard as he can over and over.
somethingsomething
6mo ago
I really disagree with this, I think the analogy would be that if all the cooks in Italy believed their work was done in the name of the flying spaghetti monster, it wouldn't make all of their work worthless.
I think it's really important that Christianity imported Jewish morality to pagan Europe along with some Platonic philosophy, and that its followers stemmed the tide of Islam. Islam or something like it may be contingent on Christianity, you start getting into a rabbit hole of alt-history, but I think a pagan Europe would have been much weaker regardless and that would have been bad. Europe as it existed with Christianity basically created modern society, vastly increased the wealth of the world, and vastly decreased its overall suffering. If Jesus died for anything, you can at least say it was for that, even if he wasn't really God. And he did get a good millenium of unquestioning worship too, it's just that it's over with now.
Either way, Merry Christmas!
somethingsomething
1yr ago
I think this essay fails as a defense of hip hop. You can't just go through a list of how cool this sample was or this lyric, or this genre fusion. I've listened to a lot of hip hop and explored the history, and there's a lot of complexity under the surface level "coolness" that is pretty compromising. There are plenty of intolerant or less informed ways to dismiss it, but the kind of over the top glorification you see here just doesn't move me.
There is talent in the genre, and it compares favorably in a lot of ways to the braindead pop today. But if you're talking about "black" music, it doesn't hold a candle to what black artists were doing in jazz, just nowhere close. And on the other hand I feel like the "blackness" of hip hop has been artificially maintained over time, whereas jazz was explicitly multi-cultural and that is one of its many better values as a genre.
somethingsomething
5mo ago
The question is how much noise and populist rage does this justify, and does it justify the language that has enabled people broadly to believe in much more conspiratorial takes under the umbrella of "the election was stolen". For instance I think it is a very good thing that that effect was much more muted after Al Gore lost, and the adults in the room encouraged moving on, at least much more than in this case where believing the election was stolen is a requirement to be a part of the Trump admin.
somethingsomething
6mo ago
I don't think they were in total conflict, I just think like I said they were different schools. I also think Acts was written by the Paul school so it's going to paper over what might have been more difficult disagreements to make it look like everyone important was okay with what Paul was doing.
Worshipping with no Jesus messiah would just be worshipping God, the sacredness of each human's existence, the mystery of consciousness, the light of love and morality in a vast dark universe, channeled through the best moral teachers we have including Jesus, yada yada. Yeah it's kind of just new-age humanism, and all the mechanisms keeping the church together would probably fall apart, but I do think if everyone could let go of the superstitions and utopian ideas while still keeping the machinery running there'd still be plenty worth worshipping in neo-Christianity.
somethingsomething
6mo ago
Yeah that scene captures the movie well, it's not just rough or forgetful, but kind of a jaw droppingly overwritten, stilted, over budget high school play.
somethingsomething
6mo ago
I watched jt in the theater and it has to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and I was rooting for it, since I knew going in that Copolla was going against the cultural grain.
Nathalie Emmanuel's performance is the worst I've ever seen on film. The dialogue between her and Driver are a joke, and delivered with zero chemistry. Aubrey Plaza is hilariously unconvincing.
The themes are broadcast in screaming capital letter, absolutely zero subtlety. "What do you think is the most important institution?" "Marriage" with no further comment.
There are a few good visual pieces but mostly it's a blown out, blurry mess when it tries to get fancy.
Then there's the fucking crossbow scene.
It gave me a lot to think about how such a great artist can put out such total drek.
somethingsomething
5mo ago
I think it's literally just the shape of their heads and relative size.
somethingsomething
5mo ago
I agree that the mainstream media environment is not trustworthy and I don't go for them for unvarnished truth. But again I think there's a good comparison on the other side, so many on the left believe that Trump can never be right about anything, so they believe the opposite of whatever he says, which creates a huge blind spot that ultimately degrades societal trust. It can be a similar problem regarding what the right believes about mainstream media.
somethingsomething
5mo ago
I think that's a fair point, I could probably have targeted my critique more precisely. You could make a parallel to the "russia hoax" where Trump made it very much appear that he was a Russian asset, moreso than he really was. How much do we blame Democrats for going rabid because of that? I think ideally the democrat media would have been more measured and patient, and the temperature on everything could have stayed more reasonable while the professionals did there work, and I think an honest Democrat who engaged in any over-the-top accusations would reflect on that behavior as ultimately net-negative.
It is possible that bad behavior is so obvious that the rabble rousing is correct, but I should have clarified my point which is that when it is a failure, like it is here, those who were in the thick of it should acknowledge it, and move towards acting with more prudence if they realize the evidence wasn't quite so open and shut as they thought. If what I believe is true, then a very large amount of social trust was lost with little provocation from the party that supposedly highly values social trust. That party should reflect on that if it's being honest with itself.
somethingsomething
5mo ago
I had similar reactions reading the republic recently with how much felt like it could apply to our times but I didn't quite pin it as "progressive left" entirely, although there are definitely some echoes there. I think there are clear echoes in modern populism generally, as well as with liberalism which both have strains in both American parties, and the left/right divide in general. Given that Plato's alternative suggestions were completely unworkable, the temptation for me is to throw my arms up and say "that's life", but the other commentator's description of Aristotle makes me want to follow up with his writings which I've barely explored.
somethingsomething
2yr ago
It's also a pretty absurd trope. I'd be surprised if anyone really believes that the successful men in the dating market are always or even mostly those who "respect women". It's an interesting inconsistency so many liberals have where they simultaneously see all of these issues in gender relations and yet so often the dating scene is "working as intended" when they want to use it as a cudgel.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
Yeah learning about the pace at which TNG episodes were written and shot was a revelation to me, and it made me question why so much is invested in a show that was, as good as it was, clearly hobbled by not having time to really flesh out ideas and rework bad scripts, and was basically rushing all the way to its end.
Similarly, years ago I was listening to a Phil Ochs song about how terrible "liberals" are and it just hit me, why am I getting my political opinions from music? From rock to rap, why are the pop stars determining what I think over political scientists, essayists etc.
It's feels like even the most deep cuts of pop culture feel shallow as a puddle, it's like it's all expressionism, just surface level reactions to things, no humility, no ability to dig deeper, due to time constraints or just ignorance of the authors. And it almost feels like a psyop where we're told to just stay in the there, don't try to look up the past, it's all problematic and boring. Like they read Great Expectations and Shakespeare in High School just to intimidate and bore you so you stay away from that stuff for good.
somethingsomething
8mo ago
3 different candidates vs 1 candidate? Two females vs one male? rederendum on Trump vs referendum on Democrats? Pandemic vs no pandemic? Trump telling people not to mail in votes vs not doing that? Height of BLM popularity vs. not? Sometimes people get more votes and sometimes less?
somethingsomething
11mo ago
It's not just social conservatism. Trump is weird, and so is the online right which Vance feels tied to. Hanania is weird, Moldbug is weird, people on this website are weird.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
Why is your criteria that men must explicitly state this preference? There's been infinite debates on "mansplaining" but I believe there is a kernel of truth to it and it's revealed through behavior. I think the gendered aspect is overrated though and what you're really dealing with are blowhards that are socialized around other blowhard men, and I find them unpleasant as a man to a similar degree and would hate being married to one. Importantly though, these types have no self-awareness and are unable to articulate their true preferences.
I have depression as well, which I blame mostly on a stressful, lonely childhood that gave me attachment issues, using marijuana as a go-to coping mechanism through young adulthood to the present day, and failing to land in some kind of realm of family/community in adulthood to smooth over the various psychological rough edges I have. A little over a year ago I did a ketamine sequence over 7 weeks which I found to be beneficial, but it didn’t quite result in a lasting fix for me, and I ended up going on an SNRI about half a year ago which has felt more reliable in the long-term so far.
The ketamine experience was truly beautiful and fascinating though, and I will probably do it again, but I want to have a significant amount of time between using it to avoid it feeling like a crutch or a recreational drug experience.
I got into meditation in the past, and doing so I feel like really benefited the trip because I was able to go into that zone and really relax, while following different paths my brain was going on. I had explored Jhanas on my own in an amateurish way, and I was definitely able to experience some piti eruptions in ketamine land. I felt a connection to the Eleusinian Mystery rituals, and in moments of awareness I felt a lot of appreciation that I got to live in a time where this mystical state was accessible. It reinforced a feeling that life has meaning, because I was experiencing “meaning” in such a profound-feeling way, that it seems truly odd to imagine a universe devoid of meaning that could produce such states.
All that wasn’t enough to really deeply change me, as I was still spending days alone feeling like my life is still “shit,” so to speak. Possibly that’s because I already kind of knew these things that ketamine was revealing to me through past meditation experiences. Once I was on the SNRI, it felt like the non-marijuana coping mechanisms I had developed were easier to implement, like understanding feelings are temporary and not getting too attached to negative spirals. I don’t have a feeling of why they are easier, they just kind of are, which I’m thankful for, although I’m not sure what the future holds in terms of actually trying to make a better life happen for myself.
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