ace
2d ago
I was following your thought process until this:
Jews do not want white people behaving like Jews, and they will flex enormous political, economic, and cultural power to stop it from happening.
This is a wild statement that you need to proportionally support with citations.
ace
5d ago
Yudkowsky believes:
- Human-value-aligned AIs make up a miniscule spec of the vast space of all possible minds, and we currently have no clue how to find one.
- We have to get the alignment of a super human intelligence AI right on the first try or all humans will die.
- Coordinating enough governments to enforce a worldwide ban on threat of violence of AI development until we learn how to build friendly AIs would be nice, but it's not politically tenable in our world.
- The people who are currently building AIs don't appreciate how dangerous the situation we're in is and don't understand how hard it is to get an aligned super human artificial intelligence aligned on the first try.
Given these propositions, his plan is to attempt to build an aligned super-intelligent AI before anybody else can build a non-aligned super-intelligent AI -- or at least it was. Given his recent public appearances, I get the impression he's more or less given up hope.
ace
5d ago
Fair enough. But you're the one who brought up the Obama administration by specifically claiming it used "torture and executions" (plural) as methods of political repression. To me "political" implies intra-country, not extra-national, but maybe you meant a more expansive definition of that word?
You talk abstractly about vague notions of 'political repression', but I have no idea who, concretely, you're talking about.
ace
5d ago
I admit I had not heard of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki before.
Two U.S. officials said the intended target of the Oct. 14 airstrike was Ibrahim al-Banna, an Egyptian who was a senior operative in Yemen’s al-Qaeda affiliate.
One administration official described the younger Awlaki as a bystander, in the wrong place at the wrong time. “The U.S. government did not know that Mr. Awlaki’s son was there” before the order to launch the missile was given, the official said.
Is that actually the best example you can come up with? I think it proves my point.
ace
6d ago
Snope's explanation of why the rumor is mixed is hilarious:
What's True
Harris did date former San Francisco Mayor and State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown for a period of time between 1994 to 1995. In his capacity as speaker, Brown appointed her to two political posts — first to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, and then to the Medical Assistance Commission.
What's False
Although Brown was technically still married during the time period that he dated Harris, he had been estranged from his wife Blanche Brown for more than a decade. Harris' first, successful run for office in 2003 happened well after the relationship ended, and Harris sought to distance herself from Brown.
So it's half true because Brown was estranged from his wife. LOL. The offensive part was trading sex for favors. The adultery is nobody's business but Mr. and Mrs. Brown.
ace
6d ago
This comment is unhinged. I'm reminded of the quote (paraphrasing) "You condemn a black-and-white morality as having only two colors; but you replace it with grey, which is only one."
To my knowledge, the Obama administration only sought the torture and execution of one US citizen on political grounds (Snowden). I'm quite happy to deny "moral community" to the nation's enemies, which is why I drew the line at US citizens.
Putin's Russia is wildly different. Take for instance Trump's election while Obama was in power. How does that fit into "Power suffers no competitors"?
ace
7d ago
One could argue. She dated her boss (Willie Brown) who subsequently appointed her to some cushy gigs.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kamala-harris-affair-willie-brown/
Snopes says the truth is "mixed", which means it's pants-on-fire level embarrassing.
ace
9d ago
No, I just think you're not very astute.
This was unnecessary to your otherwise very good points.
ace
11d ago
a magnet school whose admissions policies are occasionally a matter of public controversy
TJ?
(yes, that one)
Got it, thanks.
ace
17d ago
You can never make the human face appear hyper-realistic enough to exceed the value of a good painting or illustration.
Never is an awful long time, dude. Have you seen what generative AI can do today? In 5 years, I bet it's seamless in a tech demo. In 20, I bet it's in games that run on plebian-tier graphics cards (if the human race makes it that far).
Have you seen BG3? I'm playing though it now. It's not remotely hyper realistic, but the body language, facial expressions, and fully voiced characters make a better experience than it would be without those things.
ace
19d ago
This is a great comment. I'd just like to add (in case it's not clear to others) that while recursive intelligence improvements are terrifying, the central argument that our current AI research trajectory probably leads to the death of all humans does not at all depend on that scenario. It just requires an AI that is smart enough, and no one knows the threshold.
ace
1mo ago
triggered by Trump
Yea, it's this. I've been listening to NPR daily for 2 decades, and I can't back it up with citations, but I know this shift happened in 2016. They went from giving a left-leaning viewpoint that still had some contact with reality to a fully cultural Marxist worldview where they would tell outrageously one-sided stories, lie by omission, and on occasion lie outright. Maybe they thought they were doing the right thing by aligning against Trump? I think Trump broke their principles. It's been a downhill slide ever since.
ace
1mo ago
It'd be amazing for people to stumble out of this moving wondering "Am I in the matrix?".
ace
1mo ago
I just saw the "Lex-Free Man Podcast" on Youtube:
https://youtube.com/@LexFreeMan-cf5hu
Some hero excised Lex out of the Lex Fridman Podcast. I doubt it will survive a copyright strike, but I find it amusing that somebody else holds Lex's opinions in as much esteem as I do. I still listen because he gets great guests (how?).
ace
1mo ago
You're overly pessimistic. This is definitely the trend in the last 15 years of consumer computing, but to within a margin of error, every server on the internet is running Linux, and so are most people who are serious about software freedom.
ace
3mo ago
Also, selection effects, whereby more conservative women are more likely to get married.
ace
3mo ago
I'd like to recommend a recent Lex Fridman podcast interviewing a real estate/banking conman, Matthew Cox. The recording is 6 hours long(!), but it didn't feel like it. It was a gripping tale from start to finish, though it took me a few days to get through it. As per usual, Lex is the worst thing about the Lex Fridman podcast, but in this one he mostly just shuts up and lets Matthew talk, and wow does Matthew spin a good story.
https://lexfridman.com/matthew-cox
I think you might like it.
ace
4mo ago
I didn't literally mean the apartment you live in. I meant the neighborhood/city/region/state/country (I was purposefully vague about the scope).
You're talking about things that affect you. Of course you care about the condition of your literal apartment when you can force the landlord to fix it free of charge. But people passing through generally aren't lobbying for long-term infrastructure improvements of the town.
ace
4mo ago
The following is a comment about US media, not about the war in Gaza.
Whenever the mainstream US news covers the humanitarian disaster in Gaza (and the suffering is absolutely horrendous), the underlying subtext I get is "Israel should stop assaulting Gaza". But there's another path that would also end the humanitarian disaster, and that's the unconditional surrender of Hamas.
I'm not shocked that Hamas doesn't surrender, but I am shocked that the option is never even mentioned in passing by the talking heads. Do they not think of it? Is it too far outside the bounds of normal discourse? If this were any other military conflict in all of history, it would be considered decided by now, and Gazans would be suing for peace.
ace
4mo ago
If you own a home, you can sell it, but the price you get is (to a first-order approximation) the prosperity of the surrounding area. A renter just picks up and leaves and gets nothing no mater how well or poorly the area is doing.
ace
4mo ago
More than that, it's aligned interests. The places I've lived where I was renting and planning on only living there a few years, you better believe I didn't give two shits about the future of the place. Owning a home really changes the incentive structure.
I think people forget that democracy is a technology that improves upon what came previously -- violence. Instead of fighting and some dying, we can just count the fighters on each side and declare a probable winner without bloodshed. If the counting is a proxy for potential fighting power, whom should be counted? Men (because men do almost all the fighting) and landowners (because non-landowners have no incentive to stay and fight). Women's suffrage was a turning point in the republic, because it turns out you can just vote yourself other people's wealth.
Thanks for expanding that. I see where you're coming from.
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