hooser
9d ago
Thanks for the video recommend, I now have a new favorite youtube channel to explore!
Part of the attraction of the Aubrey/Maturin novels for me is how well Patrick O'Brien manages to convey the sheer complexity of construction and operation of a man-of-war sail ship, with the added convolution and dysfunction of the system of staffing and commanding it. Reading these novels makes me want to understand the system better, and understanding the system makes reading these novels even more interesting, an excellent positive feedback.
hooser
9d ago
I had a similar experience. I've been reading the Aubrey/Maturin novels (which I wholehartedly recommend), so I needed to get a better grasp on sail-ship terminology and rigging. I found some reasonable diagrams and explainers, but I wanted more visuals to make the whole rigamarole stick in my head. Came across a comprehensive youtube video that seemed to fit the bill, though I quickly realized it's AI-generated.
So I thought to myself: well, AI-generated visuals are better than none, right? But then I considered: well, how would AI know what's what? What is it trained on? How careful were the prompts to ensure quality? If any? Isn't it more likely that the entire video, from start to finish, is based on a quick prompt with no thought for ensuring accuracy? And then I noticed the carpenter hammering nonsensically off to the side of a random spike stuck out of a yardarm. Yup, no attempt to ensure accuracy. So yes, AI-generated visuals are worse than none.
hooser
9d ago
Still, I think it is bad form to out him here, where it will be difficult to reply without acknowledging his authorship (which would technically be against the rules of the contest)
The very first paragraph of the book review, right after the opening quote from the book, is a copy-pasted anecdote that self_made_human shared on this forum. It's very memorable. Plus, someone already explicitly pointed the author out in the comments section of the book review.
hooser
9d ago
we somehow have to pretend that most human written text isn't shit and that the painstaking process of communication imbues it with further value
Most of the human-written text is indeed shit, because most human thought is half-formed nonsense. The process of getting your thoughts out of your head (writing, speaking, or otherwise) is the first step of actually forming the multi-dimensional incoherent impressions and feelings into something coherent. I know that's how it is for me, and I have witnessed enough college students struggling (when pressed) to get a coherent thought out to suspect that the experience is close to universal. There are the blessed few who can erudite off the cuff, and even fewer of those say anything of substance.
And yes, the process is painstaking. One gets better at the skill of forming and communicating a coherent idea, but that skill requires one to keep putting the thoughts that feel so wholesome and brilliant in one's mind down on paper and recognizing their inanity and pettiness, over and over. Painstaking, and humbling. But valuable. When I take the time to set my half-baked ideas down, I can see where they lead, from outside myself. And as often as not, I end up disagreeing with what I myself have put down, and changing my mind, or adjusting the ideas to something far more nuanced. It makes me more open to further changing my mind on the matter. Hegel's dialectic in action.
So I recognize the value of forming my own ideas in my own halting way. By extension, I support this effort in others.
hooser
9d ago
I'm pleased that the channel posts the disclaimer. I didn't see it since I didn't click on the channel. Now I know. It's like falling for an ad. Do it once, and the shame of it will keep me away from falling for other ads for some time to come.
hooser
9d ago
More likely we will default back to personal recommendations from people we know.
hooser
9d ago
I didn't see the disclaimer on the channel, I got to the video by another route and I have to say that I appreciate it being somewhere. This one was good inoculation for me, and I have to remind myself that this was done half a year ago. Watcher beware.
hooser
10d ago
Begrudging congratulations to @self_made_human for producing a book review entry that's good enough to make it as a finalist of Scott's Book Review Contest, yet AI-sloppy enough to make the comments section focus almost exclusively on the (un)acceptability of undisclosed use of AI.
This reminds me of a video I stumbled on the other day. It's a 12-minute "documentary-style" video essay telling the story of a rescue dog that gets dropped off at a shelter without any documentation. It's a cute, healthy dog that should be eminently adoptable except for his utter refusal to engage with anyone. Five months in, the dog's time at the shelter is up, and he is scheduled for transfer to doggy prison (or whatever, the point is that it's the end of trying to get him adopted). But a woman brings in her small, shy six-year-old deaf girl, and amazingly the dog responds to the child alone, and knows all the hand-sign commands. Turns out the dog was raised by a deaf old man, who then had a stroke. That's the gist, though the video packs a whole lot more dramatic beats, twists, and turns.
It's a real tear-jerker... if it describes a true story. Unless it's made up. Which, come to think of it (I say to myself as I review my reaction to the video), it probably is. Because how can there possibly be a dog smart enough to learn sign commands, yet so dumb that it couldn't possibly figure out any other forms of human-dog communication. Yeah, I smell bullshit.
But OK, maybe it's like a video short fiction, it's not supposed to be real, no more than any other kind of fiction. Then I can judge the video on this fictional-short-film kind of merit, and not worry about thinking critically on the veracity of facts. Damn it, they really should have specified that this is fiction. Then I can enjoy it as such. It has good plot beats. The actors are cute and relatable. Especially the dog.
Unless it's AI-generated. Posted March 2026. Possible. Fuck.
When I read something that, presumably, is the human author's thoughts, only for it to turn out to be LLM's output, I feel a similar betrayal of trust as when I read something purportedly factual that turns out to be fictional, even if not actively meant to deceive. This is definitely true if the entire output is LLM-produced, and remains partially true if LLM is used for editing that inserts LLM-created phrases. Like this zinger from the review:
He holds the buck in his hand, hot as coal, and tries to douse it in hotter tears. He orders his thumping heart to be still. He fails on both counts.
I hope this forum preserves the norm of humans writing for humans by humans, even as I know that the overall tide is flowing the other way.
hooser
12d ago
Indeed, there is a rise in one-person companies in sectors where AI can do work.
hooser
16d ago
Sounds like a clear packaging tape, those are of variable quality and get worse with age. We use a lot of FrogTape painter's tape, electrical tape, and good old duct tape, and those all work as advertised.
hooser
1mo ago
Using the AI to do something like summarizing some data relevant to the discussion seems like an unambigously good thing for the quality of discussion.
Using the AI to find a reliable source of the relevant data, and you presenting the data together with that source, would be far more valuable to the quality of discussion.
When we post on the Motte, we argue, even as we do whatever we can to not antagonize. If you post a summary of some crucial data that supports your argument and goes against mine, then either I get convinced by your data (and soften my position on the argument), or I question your data. None of the AI produce the data themselves, what sources (if any) are they using? How reliable are those?
Come to think of it, the argumentative nature of the Motte gives a reasonable guidance to appropriate AI usage. If I assume that my respondent may disagree with my position, and I genuinely wish to discuss an issue on which you'll disagree, I need to build trust and maintain transparency. In a text-based forum format, nothing undermines trust more right now than the suspicion that one is talking to a chatbot, so I would steer away from using AI for any editing. (I have found myself fondly noticing spelling and grammar errors. I don't make any on purpose, but I am sure I have dropped an article somewhere in my post.) I don't see any issue with using AI to search for evidence (data, quotes, whatever), it makes for a good search engine, so long as I ask for links to sources, check the source, and present it to my respondent.
hooser
1mo ago
Unusual, yes, but the exceptions can be amazing. We stayed in an AirBnB in a small town in the middle of Missouri (pop. >5000), where the couple rented out three bedrooms of their enormous farmhouse, and everyone was expected to a shared sit-down breakfast of bacon, sausages, fried potatoes, and fresh-baked bread.
hooser
2mo ago
Maybe something like the American Contract Bridge League, about 130,000 members, mostly older women. Bridge used to be a very popular semi-organized past-time among housewives in the 1940s--1970s.
hooser
3mo ago
I was in a public area and the guy looked old and frail and harmless, which seemed like good grounds for this to not result in my murder and grounds for him to need assistance, so I did so.
Positive karma for you!
The guy looking at your scrubs most likely thought: this fella looks healthy and helpful and harmless, which seems like good grounds to ask for his assistance. So he did. Life is not Twitter. Politics plays a distant n-th, even in the lives of those who wear MAGA/BLM hats. And that's a good thing.
hooser
3mo ago
Where I live, the Humane Society requires a screening questionnaire and $200 for adult dog (extra $50 for a puppy). Other pet adoptions are similar. I know a bunch of people who got their dogs with reduced or waived fee because someone was doing a charity promotion to subsidize adoption.
Most of the animals in the rescue system are fostered out. Only the most un-fosterable get kept in the shelter. When we went to pick a dog, they offered us binders full of dogs to peruse. We asked to see the dogs they have on premises, and got a tour of the solitary-confinement cages with giant snarling beasts throwing themselves at the plexiglass.
The Humane Society used to put down un-adoptable animals. They stopped doing that around the turn of this century. Some people who had to get rid of their dog would release it rather that give it to a rescue shelter, figuring that at least this way the dog had a chance at life. The Humane Society's goal is to reduce strays, especially the dangerous kind. Housing some unruly monsters is worth the price of having a reputation of never killing the animal except in medical need.
hooser
4mo ago
Does Boston accent ('Bahstahn') count as foreign? It's not in England. They did the whole tea-into-the-bay thing to solidify that position.
It has only one vowel (æ?)
hooser
5mo ago
hooser
6mo ago
Dostoevsky in the original Russian
Or, more precisely, Dostoevsky with dialogues jumping between original Russian, French, English, and German. His upper-class characters jump between the four languages in their conversations, as they would in real life at the time. No properly-educated young lady would speak Russian without at least a hint of a French accent.
hooser
7mo ago
These are totalizing worldviews. They don't stand up to detailed scrutiny and don't capture the nuance of the world. But they are self-consistent.
These are what the Humanities folks call "interpretive frameworks". (also "critical perspective", or "theoretical framework", though "theory" means something different to them than to scientists) You can examine whatever you want (a diner menu, say) "through the lens" of one of such frameworks (feminist theory of Judith Butler, say), to arrive at hidden patterns (like, notice that eggs are cheaper than sausages, hmmm...).
The practitioners say that the point is insight, not proof. I suspect that the point is to test rhetorical innovation.
In Humanities, success isn't about correctly predicting the physical world. Success is in coming up with ideas that people will discuss, or better yet passionately argue. So the more your idea is like a Shiri statement, the better it is for you.
hooser
8mo ago
Oh yeah, he definitely did it for the effect ripping out a book page had on others. Anti-fetishism, like you said. The effect only worked because most people get a bit of book fetishism drummed into them from an early age. Like, book burning is what totalitarian regimes do.
hooser
8mo ago
There are two kinds of book lovers: those who love the form, and those who love the substance. Back before electronic readers, I dated a guy who would buy a book to read on his flight, and tear out pages that he already read. To lessen his baggage load. Horrified this librarian we knew.
hooser
9mo ago
A few porn producers make a lot of money; most make little. A few musicians make a lot of money; most make little. A few soccer players make a lot of money; most make little. Society condemning or condoning the activity has little to do with it, so long as the activity is legal.
If there is a market for a type of a product (porn, music, soccer-play), and the product scales (once you make a song, you can make many copies for cheap), then the bulk of the market gets captured by the top talent.
Warehouse workers, on the other hand, get close to similar payment. Maybe the more experienced ones get three as much as newbs, but not a thousand times more. Warehouse work doesn't scale.
hooser
10mo ago
Get married.
If the two of you are ready to consider your situation from the "us" perspective rather than from the "you and I" perspective, then marriage makes that explicit. If you marry, you will purchase a home as a couple. If you must move, at least you will know what you're suffering for. If she must move, she'll also know what she is suffering for.
If the two of you are not prepared to marry, than you making financial sacrifices on your partner's behalf is presumptuous, based on shaky and possibly erroneous assumptions. There may be reasons for her switching justifications.
Best of luck!
I'm getting a distinct sense that you are mustering arguments against (some) single men's perceptions of the women currently in the dating pool, and not even these same men's perceptions of women in general. If that's so, then accurate observations of women in general are not all that relevant.
Judging partnership traits of all women by looking at the single-and-looking women is like judging work ethic and know-how of all workers by looking at the unemployed-and-looking. Almost all current workers have passed through this stage, many more than once. Those with great, or even reasonable, work ethic and know-how quickly get jobs and become unavailable to other employers. The pool of the unemployed is therefore over-represented by those who have something unemployable about them.
Exactly the same observation explains any griping you hear about the men in the dating pool as well.
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