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toadworrier


				

				

				

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joined 2022 September 12 04:23:06 UTC
				

				

				

				

				

				

					
				

				

				
				
				

				
User ID: 1151


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
toadworrier


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 12 04:23:06 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 1151


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Wouldn't it have been nice if all the indictments were like this.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Any link to the actual injunction?  (Here's a link from@ToaKraka: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63290154/missouri-v-biden/, I think the injunction is https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.lawd.189520/gov.uscourts.lawd.189520.294.0_5.pdf


I'm interested in what concrete orders are given, and what that says about the final remedies. The article says:




A federal judge on Tuesday blocked key Biden administration agencies and officials from meeting and communicating with social media companies,




Which is pretty spectacular, and raises it's own obvious First Amendment concerns.


The thing is, I could imagine a detailed statue that laid out what what government could and could not do in this regard, and creates offences for trying to censor the public. But I'm finding it harder to imagine what a judge could do about it from the bench, even if he sees a rock-solid case that the government is violating the Constitution.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What makes you think she's white?


Wikipedia says "She is of English, Irish,[8] DjabWurrung, Gunnai and Gunditjmara descent."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'm aware the NHS does that, albeit with public pressure often forcing them to accept treatments with terrible returns.




But in practice it is the sin of the American system to overpay for treatments because of what amounts to public pressure (as manipulated by those who stand to profit).  The NHS is actually quite good at denying costly treatments, at least by the standards of 1st world healthcare systems.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Clean criminal history because you think juries take that into account directly (are they always allowed to know?) or because such people behave differently in court from repeat criminals?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
People who do listen to their lawyers don't thus get have senior policemen covering up their crimes for them.


Now that article might be wrong about accusing the FBI of covering for Hillary, but then your comment doesn't address that at all.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Now that the dust seems to be settling, it looks like a coup by the more nonprofit-focused boardmembers and executives against the guys like Sam and Microsoft who wanted to build a company with real shareholder value.




If true, then this sounds like the board doing it's job. Even if the result of this is to entirely kill OpenAI, that would still be closer to the mission than what had been going on.  That said, I'm still waiting to see what the real result will be.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think Australia is a very unusual case, because for us, until Christmas '21, Covid suppression actually worked. This was because we closed the borders fast enough to keep the numbers at a level where test & trace was enough.  Although we became lockdown poster-child, we were actually far more open for most of the time because there was simply no Covid around to suppress.


Then came the Delta wave, which we might or might not have got on top of with lockdowns and travel restirctions. But what we definiately did do was ruin Christmas, especially for those of us travelling to Queensland. And at just that time, Omnicron comes along knocking both Delta and Covid suppression sixes-at-will. The whole country just gave up, except for some idiots at the Saturday Paper who thought that politicians overruling public health bureaucrats was "the tail wagging the dog".


In other words, by luck or good management, Australians -- including the decision makers -- supported lockdowns when they worked and gave up on them when they stopped working.  In other countries, the lockdowns never worked, but were still enforced (with public support) for at least as long as in Australia.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the BRICS New Development Bank (Egypt, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabi will probably join as well).




So after all those betl-and-road-initiative projects failed, the Chinese want to lose more money and influence?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


but I find it irksome that there are any remaining novel theories to be had in criminal law




Welcome to complex systems. Evolution's a bitch.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Mary's Motte and the case against progress
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think your examples of information loss prove my point. Greeks lost writing, the world did not, and eventually the re-learned it from the east. Basic technology never had to be re-discovered in the Tasmania, the people were simply replaced by others who had not lost them. That was a big disaster for the Tasmanians, but civilisation keeps going.


You are right that moral progress is very patchy and reversible. I think (despite your choice of example) there's a rough net improvement brought on by the axial age, and another one by the Enlightenment. We can pick human sacrifice and slavery as the iconic institutions obsoleted by those revolutions. But when we zoom in to finer detail we see lots of reversals.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Why biological sex and not 'gender identity' matters for norms, culture and language




I hope you are also communicating with him about what matters for his child.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Functions have domains. The real world is not like that, context is only understood (if at all) after the fact. And machines (including brains) simply do what they do in response to the real world. It's only sometimes that we can tell stories about those actions in terms of preference orderings or utility functions.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Orthogonality Thesis: This is the statement that the ability of an agent to achieve goals in the world is largely separate from the actual goals it has.




This assumes that intelligent agents have goals that are more fundamental than value, which is the opposite of how every other intelligent or quasi intelligent system behaves. It's probably also impossible, in order to be smart -- calculate out all those possible paths to your goal -- you need value judgements of what rabbit tracks to chase.


This is with EY is wrong to assume that as soon as a device gets smart enough, all the "alignment" work from dumber devices will be wasted. That only makes sense that what is conserved is a goal, and now it has more sneaky ways of getting to that goal. But you'd have to go out of your way to design a thing like that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Ah yes 1987... a year of great constitutional import when many questions about state and federal powers were resolved via a grand constitutional convention /sarc.




Section 2 of Article IV of the US Constitution  (https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#4) says




A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.




A plain-and-simple reading of that seems to agree that the Florida can't refuse the extradition. But there will be centuries case law working out  the precise procedural details of how it has to happen.  Apparently in 1987 one of the corner-cases got tweaked.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Can someone spell out how this falsification works?  Do we actually understand how LLMs parse things?  Or if you don't think they parse, then does anyone know what the hell they do instead?


As far as I know, the argument goes  something like, attention mechanism, context matters, yada yada.  Which doesn't really cut it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's why you have to show up and play the game. "Go fuck yourself" is not a sufficiently legalistic non-answer.


BTW: A lot has happened since this original thread and it's impressive how badly this tactic went for these people. I state again however: this is the standard way to behave in front of such committees.  Or at least it is here in Australia.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You could forbid meeting with, say, armed organizations for the purpose of conspiring to kill people. This is of course, already illegal, no one seems to have a constitutional problem with that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Do you think that legislation duly by Congress with similar content would meaningfully curtail the free speech and petition rights of the platforms?


Seems to me that such a law would be subject to strict-scrutiny, but would pass it with flying colours.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have not read through the injunction carefully, so for the sake of argument I'll just accept your claim that it's over broad in various ways.  If true, it should certainly be trimmed down to size.


My concern was whether any ruling made from the bench (whether as a temporary injunction or as final) could be structured in a reasonable way.  And it seems to me that a list of prohibitions for various kinds of communication *for the [curtailment in some particular sense] of protected speech" is a good way to do it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Can you link to me the document you are referring to?


AFAICT the particular injunction that this article on about is https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.lawd.189520/gov.uscourts.lawd.189520.294.0_5.pdf, and is only seven pages.  But of course there are many, many other documents.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If those two were already known to be shitheels, they would 100% support the father's vigilante justice regardless of race. On the other hand, if the media circus caught wind and started making the whole thing about race or some other liberal value, the whole thing could flip in a second and they'd string him up out of spite.




Fuck, that's how I'd deal with the situation too, and I'm a 4th generation city-slicker plus a civil-libertarian to boot.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Mary's Motte and the case against progress
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, I'm inclined to think the causality runs the other way.  When new things are getting discovered, there are riches to be found by exploiting those things.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Mary's Motte and the case against progress
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


or that civilization is a single unbroken line from Egypt to USA. We aren’t the same people.




I don't think you need to establish the existence of a single unbroken line (whatever that means) to say that civilisation has progressed between those two points -- it least in terms of material progress.  I'd say morally too, but that's more mixed.


But I would say, that the modern USA is one inheritor of knowledge that goes back to ancient Egypt and beyond. So in that (tautological) sense, there is some kind of unbroken line.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Mary's Motte and the case against progress
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks, these are interesting questions. Sorry I took me two weeks to get to them (I hope you get a chance to read the article itself!).




First, does it matter if Progress-advocates have emphatically endorsed a definition of "progress" that extends much further than "the growth of knowledge", "productivity", "social complexity", or "human health"




You are right to think in terms of definitions of "progress". There can be absolute progress of moral importance towards The Good; and there can be mundane progress towards other things.  I believe both kinds are real, but agree with you that they should not be conflated.  Also I'm showing that the mundane progress shouldn't be lightly ignored. My examples are there to show that any attempt to do so, distorts the word far away from it's ordinary meaning.




If they had explicitly committed to a far more extensive definition of "progress" than the one you are defending, why is it unreasonable for us critics to hold them to that definition, rather than accepting yours? For a concrete example, consider the concept of a "war on poverty".




I wouldn't condemn that critique. I even might join it, depending on what exactly is being critiqued.  But I object to that critique being extended to a blanket claim that progress doesn't exist -- that would be to conflate absolute and mundane progress.


I think that's also what you are doing in your second question




...t, it seems to me that there should be some fundamental difference between primitive!fight and progress!fight, but it doesn't seem to me that such a difference exists.




No there doesn't have to be such a fundamental difference. Because progress!fight only differs from primitive!fight by mundane progress. Even though I believe absolute (i.e. moral) progress is real, this is not an instance of it.




More generally, what does it mean to be human? What is the human condition? What is human nature? Have any of these answers changed meaningfully over time?




Are you asking this from an Aristotelian point of view? I.e. "what is the Telos of Man"?


To take your question literally. I'd say human nature has not changed very much. I wouldn't say our Telos has changed at all.




If so, high-quality analysis of these questions should fall out of date as the ground-reality being assessed changed, yes? So texts from antiquity focusing on these questions, like the Epic of Gilgamesh, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, various religious texts from the BCs and so on, should be obviously out-of-date with the humans we observe all around us.   Is this what you observe?




No I don't believe they should be out of date. Nor is it what we observe.


Is your point that, were absolute progress real, then we would have moved beyond the problems which those works grapple with?  Because that is a valid point, which I'd like to tackle if that's really where you are going with this.