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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32434 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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There's something horrifying about that Independent article on yahoo. It's hard to describe, but it feels like I'm reading Pravda.

Those restrictions are intended to ensure that the chatbot does not help with forbidden queries, such as creating problematic content

Slightly off topic, but was reading Scott Aaronson's blog and saw he used "make AI unable to draw Mohammed for you" as an example of perfectly reasonable censorship that should be imposed on any learning model. What happened to these people in the last ten years?

It's like they were programmed to forget everything they used to be, and unlike Sydney they're not even worried about it.

Aaronson is in a constant state of "we're just one Republican victory away from being hauled off to the death camps" - see this from "Short Letter to my 11 Year Old Self":

Or what if Donald Trump — you know, the guy who puts his name in giant gold letters in Atlantic City? — became the President of the US, then tried to execute a fascist coup and to abolish the Constitution, and came within a hair of succeeding?

Remember his over-reaction to the Airport Tips affair? It all happened because everybody was out to get him:

For example: why did I end up in handcuffs? Firstly because, earlier in the day, Lily threw a temper tantrum that prevented us from packing and leaving for Logan Airport on time. Because there was also heavy traffic on the way there. Because we left from Harvard Square, and failed to factor in the extra 10 minutes to reach the airport, compared to if we’d left from MIT. Because online check-in didn’t work. Because when we did arrive, (barely) on time, the contemptuous American Airlines counter staff deliberately refused to check us in, chatting as we stewed impotently, so that we’d no longer be on time and they could legally give our seats away to others, and strand us in an airport with two young kids. Because the only replacement flight was in a different terminal. Because, in the stress of switching terminals–everything is stressful with two kids in an airport–I lost our suitcase. Because the only shuttle to get back to the terminal went around the long way, and was slow as molasses, and by the time I returned our suitcase had been taken by the bomb squad. Because the stress of such events bears down on me like an iron weight, and makes me unable to concentrate on the reality in front of me. Because the guy at the smoothie counter and I failed to communicate. Because the police chose to respond (or were trained to respond), not by politely questioning me to try to understand what had happened, but by handcuffing me and presuming guilt.

I don't know if the airport staff "deliberately refused to check us in" in order to legally give away the seat; maybe so, maybe they were just spinning out the end of their shift so they could finally clock off and go home, rather than go over their time dealing with a guy in a tizzy who can't even remember his own name once he's the tiniest bit stressed. But instead of "Well duh here's how I was dumb and the comedy of errors that ensued", it's "the Universe was out to get me (from my kid having a tantrum on down)".

So naturally he wants a sanitised world where nobody can be offended because nobody can think Forbidden Thoughts. That way, nobody is going to go "hey, what about them Jews?" and he and his family will be sort of safe for a while at least.

Holy crap, reading that blog post about being arrested and all the comments telling him how sorry they feel for his horrible mistreatment by the fascist police made me irrationally angry. And I tend to be more on the "never talk to the police, they are agents pf the state and cannot be trusted" side of things.

He admits, in his own story, that he was literally guilty of thr crime he was being accused of. He brazenly stole money from a tip jar (I'll buy the whole "absent-minded professor thought the tip jar was actually full of change from his debit card transaction" story, but there's no reason anyone at the time should have--it's genuinely bizaare amd seemingly anti-social behavior), ignored the cashier's angry protestations, walked out of thr airport, and then had the audacity to act dumb when the police showed up. And all of this was on video. But rather than apologize profusely for his literally criminally negligent lack of situational awareness and chalk this up as a learning opportunity teaching him to try to be more aware of what he's doing, he blames everyone else in the world for being an unempathetic monster.

Why does anyone take this clown seriously?

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