fishtwanger
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User ID: 2896
fishtwanger
23hr ago
In some ways, it seems like a game, or most other types of job. It's an artificial toy system, but as long as it's kept contained, there's nothing horribly unusual about molding a bit of your brain into a shape that reacts to the output of the system. (Whether doing so is "good" is a different question, but it often seems to be necessary for modern life.) But yeah, there's a huge problem when you start altering your basic personality and political views based on artificial outputs, especially if you're not aware that that's what you're doing.
fishtwanger
23hr ago
spruke
Is that a version of this word? I never encountered either before, but the context seems right...
fishtwanger
1d ago
Depends on the type of game, but largely agreed.
Also, voice acting is a mistake. Too many resources get locked up in creating art that only applies to one or few paths. The result winds up being either a bad movie that stops every so often so you can press buttons or play a minigame, or a game that cripples itself to cater to the needs of the bad movie that's been grafted onto it like a second head.
fishtwanger
1d ago
I've seen the first episode, and am unsure whether to keep watching. (I've read the book and seen the 1980 miniseries, a few times each, and like them both, and am not worried about spoilers at all.)
It felt a lot like a certain failure mode often associated with Internet fan-fiction, where the author fell in love with so many of the side-characters that they wind up killing the pacing and narrative structure by ballooning out character "development" with empty scenes that could have better been collapsed into a throwaway reference or a single glance. (GRRM was very good at managing this in ASoIaF, at first. But after book 4 or so, it got beyond his ability to control.)
Despite the claims that various people involved never watched the 1980 miniseries, it was interesting to see how many casting and costuming choices mirrored it and played with it. I especially liked the new interpretation of Rodrigues; he seemed like someone who hadn't exactly gone native, but had adopted a pick-and-choose attitude toward philosophies of life, making him no longer fish nor fowl. And I pity the actor who has to follow in Toshiro Mifune's shoes, but he seemed to be doing a good job. I did not like Yabushige's characterization, but that's on the writers, not the actor. (And why did they alter the name? I searched for a while but found nothing.) I didn't like the actor for Blackthorne - partly because he looks so... early 21st century North American action movie - but maybe he'll grow on me.
Putting aside the annoyance I have at the various interviews that criticize the originals for culture war reasons, I did think there was a lot of promise in the idea of presenting the story from the Japanese viewpoint. The early part where the ship showed up out of the fog was spooky, and the samurai boarding it reminded me of space marines boarding a derelict hulk. But I think to do that properly, they'd need to view Blackthorne as something like a space alien, and the series overall as a "second contact" story with a new alien species that tells you that the "benevolent federation" that you've joined isn't quite so benevolent after all. But instead, they give us enough of his POV that this doesn't work, but not enough of his POV to really get into his head. They left out some bits that provide motivation for his actions, and sped through bits where he should have been working on communication difficulties.
fishtwanger
1d ago
specifically targeted by social media companies
If you look at this in relationship terms, this is gaslighting and abuse. Entity A is trying to act according to entity B's rules, but B is deliberately altering natural feedback in order to keep entity A isolated and weak. All A sees is that they try things that should work, but there's no sign of those things working, and so their model of the world gradually disconnects from reality.
divorce is a social contagion of sorts
I didn't see a link to the paper, but the article gave no indication that there was a reason to suppose a causal link. It seems entirely plausible that there's a hidden 3rd factor that contributes to divorce rates in both the subject, and in the subject's social circle. It seems like a lot of "post hoc ergo propter hoc". (And you identify a potential mechanism and cause for a 3rd factor later!)
Could Silicon Valley, not unlike how they targeted Crowder's business through the algorithm, having also targeted his marriage?
I doubt very much that it's deliberate. Bullies don't usually set out to cause the exact set of symptoms that their victims develop. Perhaps there were people who were deliberately pushing this guy's buttons to see what kind of damage they could do, but even if someone takes credit for intentionally causing the result, I suspect that it'd just be narcissistic post facto justfication at work. ("Yes, of course I planned that, aren't I smart?")
fishtwanger
1d ago
On the contrary, it might sometimes be the case that society will follow the rule more if I (1) break the rule, (2) keep it secret that I broke the rule, and (3) use my ill-gotten gains from breaking the rule to promulgate the rule.
I don't think it could never happen, but I think it doesn't happen very often, and has a chance of severely backfiring. SBF comes to mind. I think it much more likely that someone who breaks the rule and keeps it secret, will be less likely to follow through on promulgation, and more likely to continue to break rules and keep them secret. I think that anyone who actually cares about promulgating the rule shouldn't use high-variance strategies that risk destroying everything they worked for.
Or do you claim that secretly breaking a rule for the purpose of strengthening the rule is moral if the rule is a good one?
I think that's classic self-delusion, and while it might happen to lead to a correct conclusion in some instances, the chain of thought that leads to it is corrupt.
Do you believe, for example, that stealing a horse is immoral because it causes other people to steal other things if and when they find out about it?
Not solely because, but yes, among other things it contributes to the collapse of civil society, especially if it's never punished.
Is the immorality of A's theft mitigated by its secrecy, and the fact that it is instrumental in him promulgating anti-theft mores?
Not very much, but it's better than not hiding the theft, and better than using the proceeds from the theft to do more evil. Do you disagree?
I believe that B and C have done more damage to the moral prohibition against stealing than A has.
Partly this depends on whether A ever gets caught. (SBF, again.)
If so, should the actions of B and C be illegal, and punishable by prison terms longer than what A would serve if he had gotten caught stealing the horse?
Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of an organization that advocates for the violent overthrow of the government of the United States of America?
I don't think we humans have a good track record at using laws to propagate virtue. Especially when it comes to people acting in good faith who we think happen to be wrong. Are you suggesting that everything bad should be illegal, and that the law should be a perfect mapping of all possible actions to their ethical value and from there to the punishment or reward that is appropriate? (Should I report your comment for advocating for a system under which the comment itself might be bannable?)
All I recall advocating for was integrity and a bit of forethought. The alternatives, while not uniformly worse, seem quite lopsidedly worse. Hopefully we (humans) are in this (civilization) for the long haul.
fishtwanger
1d ago
I think I got it from "The Modern Mind" by Peter Watson, an "intellectual history of the 20th century":
fishtwanger
1d ago
I've heard Continental Philosophy described as the attempt to reconcile Freud and Marx.
I think the appeal is that both of them describe how people are shaped by their environment, thus implying that intelligent control of the environment could allow shaping of people, which is an incredibly seductive idea even if most people won't admit it. The contradiction is that Freud says that people are shaped by their families and social circles, and Marx says that people are shaped by their socio-economic class and the economic structure of society.
fishtwanger
1d ago
One of these is not like the others.
There can be some incredible body odor from people who don't shower and have been living outside for days or weeks, and putting who-knows-what into their body. I can smell it upon entering the public library near me. (Public libraries are another casualty of homelessness - they're good places to sleep during the day, dry and warm and quiet and reasonably safe.)
fishtwanger
1d ago
what is the right place to go to be a bum?
I would have said at the church serving free all-you-can-eat warm meals every weekday, when they're serving, but it doesn't make a dent in the people panhandling outside the grocery store half a block away. I asked, and one woman thought for a moment and said that she'd lose her spot if she went to get the free food.
Outside of the park, you can't just go and "hang out" because it's all owned by someone who will kick you out for loitering
The trick is to find corporate-owned commercial properties, preferably part of a nation-wide chain. They don't want bad publicity, their standardized policies don't let them adapt to local conditions quickly, and the employees aren't motivated to do anything because they get paid regardless (until the entire store shuts down).
I kind of think what we need is to normalize favela's/shantytowns.
Seattle tried that. People got killed and raped. And the ubiquity of cell phone cameras means that everything bad will get posted to the Internet, and the city will be blamed for allowing it to happen.
fishtwanger
2d ago
Maybe I'll post about this sometime, but for now, in short: I don't think the problem is related to intelligence. "Willpower" is closer, but that's a folk egregore. "Short time horizons" is better, but I think that's one of the symptoms, not the root cause. If I had to put a name on it, I'd call it "despair", as in the opposite of "hope".
There's no hope. It hurts to think about the future. At night, dreams are only about the past, or fiction, or fantastic scenarios like winning the lottery or gaining magic powers, never about what might actually happen next in day to day life. Money gets spent fast, because it's ridiculous to think of it making a difference in the future. The hole is so deep that any realistic amount of money won't help dig you out. If you pay the credit card off, it'll just be cancelled, but as long as they think they can get money from you, they'll still let you use it. The choice between eating out and eating in is simple: you can do it, it will make you feel better than otherwise, it won't make your situation significantly worse, and there's no meaningful evidence that systematic deprivation will lead to long-term benefits. Life will still be shit tomorrow, but at least you'll have a few hours of happiness today. And as shocking as it may seem, all of this is compatible with scoring highly on IQ tests.
And then, over the years, it becomes habit.
And that's when lack of self-awareness, which might be correlated with low intelligence, can cause people to lock it in. To believe that there is no other way, that they can't help themselves, that it's not their fault, that they're fine and the rest of world is to blame. And it's not like there's much evidence against that hypothesis. And from there, it's just a short step to thinking that it's people Not Like You that are doing this to you and everyone else you know: the Other, the Man, whites, blacks, Jews, men, women, liberals, conservatives, whoever. Them.
fishtwanger
2d ago
Isn't it less about representing a recognized state, and more about wearing uniforms and obeying an authority that can order a surrender? There were Confederate partisans, but the Confederate armies wore uniforms and surrendered when ordered. Pirates do neither. Hamas doesn't wear uniforms, and I doubt that most of them would surrender if their leadership in Qatar suddenly said "it's over now, we've lost the war: Israel is too powerful, and we don't want innocent Gazans to suffer any more".
fishtwanger
2d ago
This doesn't address the main thrust of your argument, which (to try to sum it up in less than one sentence) I think is about how proximity correlates to care, and what that says about universalist ethics, but...
Perhaps there is some deep metaphysical argument that establishes, on an objective basis, that one ought to behave the way they wish others in "their community" to behave
If you want society to follow a rule, hold to that rule and propagate that rule. If you hold to it but don't propagate it, it won't last. And if you propagate it but don't hold to it, people will eventually Notice.
Doesn't really matter what the rule is. Utilitarianism, Christianity, Nazism, whatever. And clearly other factors can be involved (like losing WWII).
Of course, if one were merely aiming for a short-term effect, like personal benefit, that doesn't apply. One might be able to fool enough of the people, enough of the time, to get away with whatever one wants.
fishtwanger
2d ago
This is a great way to get on the bad side of judges. They are not amused by people trying to game the system.
fishtwanger
2d ago
one of the purposes of Oct 7 was to disrupt the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia that Netanyahu was nearly achieving despite the dogma
Yeah, it seemed like the Palestinians were gradually being discarded by the governments of Arab/Muslim states (except perhaps Iran), even if the general population still cared. It reminds me of the way the Chinese government cracks down on nationalist revanchism every so often: partly it's that they don't actually want to invade Taiwan/wherever at this particular moment, but also it feels like they're setting things up so that they get to play "good cop" in international relations ("if you don't work with us, we might lose some domestic legitimacy, and then we'd have to appease those people").
Thanks for providing an infodump. I'm somewhat new here, and I confess that I don't know your position on this whole mess, but you seem like a calm and reasonable person. So I'm going to ask a couple more questions on sensitive topics, in case you still feel like answering. If you don't want to, I completely understand.
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I've seen a few videos that appear to be of harmless Gazans being shot dead. I don't think they're fakes. What's up with that? And why aren't they viewed as more of a Abu-Ghraib-level scandal by Israelis and supporters of Israel? I worry that Israeli society has fallen to the level that American society did shortly after Sep 11, where pretty much anything could be justified, and almost no one was willing to dissent. And that parts of the IDF are taking out their anger and frustration in ways that are more about personal vengeance than about any strategic purpose. Here's the two worst ones that I've seen; they're old but they've stuck in my mind. I haven't had the heart to look for more recent ones, and none have been forced into my attention, but I don't know whether that's because they stopped happening, or whether they're just better hidden. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-slams-uk-network-after-claim-unarmed-gazan-was-shot-dead-shortly-after-interview/ https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/26/middleeast/hala-khreis-white-flag-shooting-gaza-cmd-intl/index.html
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It seems that factions in Israel supported the initial incarnation of Hamas, decades ago, in order to destabilize the PLO/Fatah. What's your take on that? To me, it seems like either a short-sighted plan that backfired (much like assassinating heads of state, in hopes that whatever replaces them is more controllable), or an extremely cynical ploy to eliminate compromise in favor of the preferred extreme solution. (None of which should be read as relieving Gazans of their ethical responsibility for their own actions.)
Thanks again, in advance, for even considering a response.
fishtwanger
2d ago
What, then, is something we don't believe but take action as though we do believe?
Going in a few directions: faith? ideals? social fictions?
fishtwanger
3d ago
I've thought for a while that partisan infighting is the true opiate of the masses. But not in the sense that it makes us happy and relaxed.
fishtwanger
3d ago
Would the Ottoman millet system be another example?
fishtwanger
3d ago
And thus falls Rome Kabul.
We should have polls here; this would make a great question.
fishtwanger
3d ago
Thanks!
I didn't realize it had gotten that bad in the last few decades. I'd assumed that the Israeli left had come up with a different vision, but it sounds like they never did?
I'd heard talk about Netanyahu being unpopular and his coalition being shaky, prior to Oct 7, but from what you say it doesn't seem like there's anything coherent that could replace him? It's just "stomp hard" or "stomp harder"... :-(
fishtwanger
3d ago
I thought the casting in Hamilton was artistically appropriate. It implicitly compared the modern American black/white divide with the colonial-era American/British divide. Similarly, with the use of rap by the Americans contrasted with the more musical stylings of George III. I've heard that there's even another layer, with different factions of revolutionaries using different styles of rap, but I don't have the ear to tell. And that's not even taking into account Lin-Manuel Miranda being Hispanic. It all contributed to a theme of pitting the vibrant, vigorous, immigrant-fueled multi-cultural melting pot of America against the stagnant, static ancien regime of Britain.
fishtwanger
3d ago
The Israelis have radicalized and international pressure will radicalize them further still. The Israeli left is crushed utterly. Nobody believes peace is possible short of crushing the enemy now.
Could you go into this in more detail? It might be worth a top-level post.
fishtwanger
3d ago
Yeah, that sounds familiar. If you happen to come across those links, it'd be nice to have them here for reference, but no worries if not. :-)
fishtwanger
4d ago
Yeah, he did that.
There's a whole thing about the City of Seattle and King County selectively not enforcing certain laws (although the City of Seattle has gotten better, while King County is still playing progressive while the city suffers the results). Plus the thing about how a lot of gun control laws primarily target lawful users but ignore the illegal users who actually do most of the killing. I'm libertarian enough that I like having few laws, strictly enforced, and while I have some doubts about the wisdom of the 2nd amendment in the modern world, it - unlike abortion - is in the fucking Constitution until repealed.
But was it that specific event that caused the negative publicity and contributed to the shutdown? I'm curious; I don't know what it looked like to people outside. I was focused on the innumerable local problems, plus recovering from covid and dealing with some other life stuff.
Thowaway lines are one thing, but for anything with a plot, I think it does more harm than good.
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