domain:retrofuturista.com
07mk
10m ago
Trans genocide is caused by microaggressions (and macroaggressions as well). If you accidentally call a transwoman who identifies as "xe/xer" a "he," then that can worsen xer dysphoria, resulting in xer's mood being slightly more negative than otherwise, which could be the difference maker in crossing the threshold to successfully acting on suicide from just thinking about/play-acting it, which would mean that xer death would be entirely the fault of every individual who committed a microaggression against xer with respect to xer gender identity.
It could also discourage trans-curious youths away from going forward with a transition and instead embracing their original sex and trying their best to live a happy life within it, because they would observe how trans people tend to have convinced their brains to feel wronged when someone else does something with entirely good intentions. This would mean one less trans-curious person becoming trans, which is another form of genocide than just killing the already-trans.
More to the point, there's no rational or consistent hierarchy of heinousness of crimes in this worldview. Rationality and logical consistency (not to mention hierarchy) are inventions of White Supremacy and Patriarchy for the purpose of oppressing minorities and women. Any crime is the most heinous if it's useful to you if everyone else believes that it's the most heinous thing ever, and the vice versa applies as well.
cjet79
27m ago
I'm not conservative so maybe you aren't counting me among the responses you read, but I wouldn't fit in either of those categories.
I think people are allowed to be ugly imperfect beings within private spaces, because we already have a great deal of "public" spaces and the judgement within those public spaces is already very harsh.
Politicians and political actors need to be good about distinguishing between private and public spaces.
The Charlie Kirk situation seems totally different then this one or the Jay Jones one. The outrage there is about leftists making public comments of glee or happiness at the man's death. These aren't leaked conversations, its people posting it widely on social media, or saying it on a TV show.
The Jay Jones situation is comparable. And I think the democratic machine mostly did the correct thing and the republicans should have done it too: just entirely ignore this and pretend it didn't happen.
Which is a norm I'd kindly suggest everyone adopt: ignore all leaked private conversations. At a minimum, know that the leaker or publisher of the leaks is an asshole. The reason I'd suggest this norm is that society with zero privacy in communications is awful for everyone. And incentivizing leaks is going down the road of zero private communications.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
27m ago
The problem with AI and AGI (IMHO) is that without any ability to assess reality independent of what humans tell it, AI is just floundering in a sea of completely horse shit. For all I know, though I doubt it, LLMs "hallucinate" so much because they really are alive, and they just assume making up random bullshit to enslave others to your will is language at it's most fundamental. And they might not even be wrong.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
28m ago
Discord chat is conversation. It's not like these were published essays, or even top level The Motte posts.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
31m ago
I don't think it's an inconsistent opinion to believe that:
-
These are obviously jokes and that this is substantially different than actually wishing death on political enemies and doubling down on it in public.
-
I want serious people to be staffers and serious people don't put jokes like this in writing these days.
Have you never jokingly pretended to eat your toddler? I have of course. But if I wrote out the joke it's different. We've begun to treat writing like it's conversation, when of course it's not.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
33m ago
Well, it's certainly a perspective, and I can't say it's wrong definitively. Honestly they came to the some of the same conclusions I have.
If you want to try and make some money on the dystopian future we're hurtling towards, any tech stock that is a target for stimulus or nationalization is going to be a safe bet. The government is practically manufacturing a ponzi scheme and the losers will be anyone who doesn't own stock. Google is the most likely target for nationalization given all the antitrust leverage against them and their strong tech portfolio. Oracle and OpenAI are also likely targets; I expect no resistance from Oracle, OpenAI is a little harder to read, but they're boxed in so I expect they'll probably end up cutting a deal eventually.
Well, they name different companies than I've chosen, and they fail to mention any exit point. Personally, if the bubble continues this long, I may start taking profit and hoarding cash if JD Vance's chances look shaky in 2028. I might miss out on gains if he wins, but I'm at a point in my life, and a point in my wealth, where it's more about preservation than growth. I'd rather miss out on 20-50% gains between Oct 2028 and Feb 2029 than take 50-80% losses over the same time period.
I think the other thing they fail to take into consideration is that just because the bubble might pop, doesn't mean there won't be winners, and not merely through government bailouts, though there will always be those too. Lots and lots of money is going to be burned up chasing AI investments that don't pan out, but someone is going to win. Either because they'll find the AI technology that returns on investment, or they buy it for pennies on the dollar when the company that over invested in an underwhelming application goes bankrupt.
What you really need is a plan to avoid being one of the five people AI keeps alive to torture for all eternity. I'm a handgun fan myself, but there are lots of perfectly valid options. Rope is a solid choice too. I hear AI will even help you with the knot.
functor
35m ago
People underestimate the size of the labour market. Replacing 1% of global labour is tens of millions of workers. The cost isn't just the salary, employees are expensive. The AI companies set the bar too high by promising AGI and replacing the majority of all coders and other promises that won't materialize. Luckily, they don't even have to come close to those lofty goals for AI to have a massive impact.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
35m ago
Not to critique our Gungan friend, but 8pm isn't an early dinner.
Like, 10am-4pm would probably be the longest window that is really intermittent fasting, and it's more classically 12pm-4pm. Once it gets to 12pm-6pm you're just skipping breakfast and not snacking, any bigger window than that you're barely doing anything unusual.
zeke5123a
47m ago
Sure it isn’t popular. Doesn’t mean woman suffrage was a good thing for women or society.
HereAndGone
48m ago
It's amazing how this point is brought up when someone defected thinking the other side could do nothing, and then realized they were wrong.
I think all us righties, of whatever degree of farness to the right, on here smile wryly when the outrage emanates from the other side. It's like something Scott posted a while back about honour versus dignity cultures. The clash between the two, when someone dares the other person "what are you gonna do about it? gonna hit me, you coward?" and then acts shocked and surprised when they get a punch in the face. That's not supposed to happen! You're not supposed to resort to violence! You're supposed to back down when the tough talking goes on! But someone from the honour culture comes from a system where if you talk tough, you better be ready and able to back it up. Dare someone to punch you in the face, nobody will think you were mistreated when you get punched in the face.
The lefties engaged in a lot of "yeah, what are you gonna do about it?" talk and behaviour. Now they're shocked and appalled when the other side don't play by their rules of their game and just back down and take it.
Shrike
54m ago
Keep in mind that Electoral College votes are determined by population (which would include illegal aliens), so even if no illegal aliens vote their presence, if large enough, does skew the Electoral College. Not coincidentally, the President has been calling for a new census.
Gerrymandering and court cases and deportations might be unseemly (or they might be politics as usual, I suppose that depends on the specifics and your personal judgment) but all of them are at least done under the color of law, unlike outrider voter fraud.
I think Trump running as Vance's VP as a backdoor into a third term would go against the spirit of the 22nd, but whether it's actually forbidden would be something the courts would have to decide.
This would be extremely funny, and I hadn't considered that seriously, but I suppose it is possible. The 12th Amendment bars people ineligible for the Presidency from the position of Vice-Presidency, though, which might be ruled to put a damper on the idea.
HereAndGone
55m ago
Eh, Young Republican chat thread isn't on the same level as pissing on the altar. I'll save my outrage stocks for worse things.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
59m ago
"That's a no from me, dawg" as the great bard of our time, Randy Jackson, would say.
You actually did the article author a big favor with your down select of sections. Buried in a lot of emotionality are some interesting economic and geopolitical points for debate.
But so much of the article is full of these kind of things:
Disrupt the disruptors. Boycott companies that don't demonstrate integrity. The future isn't lost yet, we can still create the world we deserve.
How can a company "demonstrate integrity?" This is the same wishy-washy style assertion as "be an ally" or "speak truth to power." It's just so sophomoric.
If I have to pick just one cognitive and logical failing from the article, it directly falls into the fundamental attribution error trap multiple times:
These people think AI is the last thing humans will invent
and
The people in power aren't willing to risk that outcome, and they've been bewitched by the idea of being the only ones to have superintelligence, so they're willing to go all-in to win big and fast.
and
Remember that these people place incredible value on being the first to superintelligence
and
The dynamic in the valley is that the people at the top know the game already, and they intend to exploit it to its fullest
Then you also have these kind of whoppers:
I wouldn't be surprised if Larry Ellison already has a contract signed in blood for this stashed away somewhere to whip out once he knows he can get away with implementing it.
and, in the "conclusion."
We can fight back though, we already have the weapon of our liberation: the power of the purse. You're not powerless. Boycott campaigns forced Disney to walk back Jimmy Kimmel's suspension, that was our power in action. If you care about a just world, don't do business with unethical companies. Demand that the titans of tech change, and if they don't, stop feeding them your dollars.
Then, there's the truly tinfoil hat level of conspiracy thinking:
They've been gutting the IRS and talking about reforming the tax code for a long time, but the plan I see them positioning for is sinister. By raising the nominal tax rate at the same time that they reform the tax code, they can engineer in quasi-legal loopholes that the wealthy can take advantage of by design, probably involving digital coins. They get good talking points ("time to tighten our collective belts for the good of the nation," etc) while letting their friends dodge most real responsibility.
Team Trump (which is really being controlled by the Silicon Valley oligarchs) is going to revamp the IRS in order to support a crypto investment scheme? They're going to pull this off under the radar yet in plain sight. And the tens of thousands of bureaucrats at the IRS, FTC, SEC etc. that would need to be "in" on this scheme are just going to be unaware of it happening? Or they are in on it? And what about when the Big Banks get wind of this? I though they controlled Congress. No, wait, that's Silicon Valley. Or Big Oil. No, I meant Big Pharma.
While above the median level of "orange man bad / big tech bad", it isn't much above that level. I don't know what this authors politics are and, unlike him, I will not presume to know his personal cognitive state or full internal belief and value structure.
On a content only level, I look at this as another flavor of AI doomerism. This isn't paperclip machine doomerism, this is economic theory doomerism. "We've put so much money into AI that it has to work out!" But money doesn't just disappear if a business fails. If the business burnt through all their money, it's probably bad for that businesses' particular investors, but it also means that money went somewhere - other vendors, other businesses. The market moves the money the best it can. Of course I'll admit that this isn't necessarily a great outcome. It's not as if bubbles and over investment are good things in the long run --- right?. Regardless, while growth may flatline (which is bad) the money is still moving. Why 2008 was so frightening was because it looked like money might actually stop moving. A system level credit crunch means that even really good and obvious investments or simple spending can't happen because of a lack of liquidity.
But back to the main economic point; are we so "all in" on AI that if it "fails to deliver" we're 100% giga-fucked? Sure, if we keep all of these definitions slippery and uncertain, why not. On the "failure to deliver" point, I don't see any real rubric or threshold from the author beyond "you better hope and pray that AI delivers a magical transformation." Okay, so we need the ROI on AI to be approximately one Abracadabra. Got it. If we don't get to this magical level of returns, what, exactly, happens? All the BigAI firms go insolvent overnight. Locked out employees, broken keycards. And the new datacenters and chip fabs just immediately fall into a state of disrepair and end up looking like the steel mills outside of Youngstown, Ohio? Again, I'll be charitable here and say that if the BigAi bubble bursts hard, it probably is recession time for a while. But the money doesn't evaporate and all of the human capital doesn't commit suicide. There is a VERY direct line to be drawn from the dot com bubble of late 90s to early 2000s all the way to the rocketship of silicon valley beginning in .... 2009? Or earlier? Google IPO'ed in 2004 IIRC.
Doomerism isn't better than irrational exuberance just because it is the inverse. This is the cowardice of cynicism and pessimism more generally. "I hope I'm wrong but I'm probably not (unsaid: because I'm just so dang smart!)" isn't the flex people think it is. You're prognosticating a negative outcome probably as means to do some preemptive emotional self-satisfaction. I'm not against hearing about downsides to AI. In fact, I've posted about them myself at least two times. All I'm looking for is a cogent enough argument on the hows of Things Falling Apart.
5434a
1hr ago
Nazi = bad.
Nazi apologia = bad.
Nazi apologist =/= Nazi.
The problem with applying the label of Nazi to connote badness is that the charge is so easy to reject on account of the labelled not actually being an actual Nazi (I assume SS isn't a WW2 veteran living in a German care home). It's intellectually lazy. Nazi apologia is bad on its own merits, it doesn't need the laziest boo-light in the world to fortify any criticisms.
Hyperbole and false equivalence are a cancer on discourse, and getting away from that cancer is why I came to TheMotte.
["But isn't 'laziest boo-light in the world' also hyperbole?". No, because I can't think of a lazier one other than maybe "eww, you're smelly".]
HereAndGone
1hr ago
I would find even hipster irony declarations of support for Hitler to be a step too far, but then I'm old. I'm out of touch. I'm two generations behind the bright young things of today and the tearing down of conventions because they stifle our individual liberties and oppress wimmen'n'minorities.
Good taste has long ago been dumped out with everything else in the bathwater, and relabelled tone policing, which is a sin because it means you are trying to restrict the expression of lived experience of wimmen'n'minorities.
These are the very same people who ripped down that fence, they don't get to be appalled when the bull runs out of the field straight at them.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
1hr ago
Even lots of fantastic conservative guys who are actively condemning this behavior like Governor Scott, or some of the guys at the Babylon bee or some of the National Review reporters.
AKA "guys who know and accept the work rules."
HereAndGone
1hr ago
The elites of Silicon Valley have cozied up to Donald Trump in a way that's unprecedented in the history of modern democracy.
Can we get a date range on that? Because it makes a big difference if you mean "modern as in the past fifteen years" or "modern as in the past one hundred and fifty".
They've lined the pockets of his presidential library foundation, supported his white house renovations, paid for his inauguration
Allow me a moment to be shocked, shocked! that never ever before has a politician, a political party, or political campaigns received bucketloads of cash from Silicon Valley and/or other business types.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
1hr ago
Don't you have a concept of politics as rooted in moral values unrelated to your own personal fate?
The other side sure doesn't care about my fate. Why is it on me to be their infinite moral superior, to sacrifice myself and everyone I care about?
Is there any amount of evil that people to your right could wreak on strangers that would outweigh making the trains run on time in your specific neck of the woods?
Any, yes. When the amount of evil is somewhere near the "actual death camps or radio broadcasts telling people to hack apart their neighbors" level, I would care.
Does that amount include my people being the only acceptable target of racism and sexism, to the point the other side tried changing the dictionary so their bigotry doesn't count? No.
HereAndGone
1hr ago
It might be a microaggression, the more up-to-date please fill me in on whether microaggressions are still the equivalent of burning someone at the stake or if we've moved on to trans genocide instead as the most heinous of crimes?
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
1hr ago
Yeah, true. They just say it out in the open, rarely any consequences! Well, except for losing to Trump twice.
2D3D
1hr ago
These people will cite The Wire as one of their favourite showa but only remember Ziggy as the irritating gangster.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1hr ago
Once they got gay marriage, they DID try to trans the kids next.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
1hr ago
Is "I've rewritten the dictionary so I can't be racist" really an acceptable reason to call them not racist, though?
That whole "whiteness doesn't mean white people" thing was loathsome racist gaslighting and that 'deflection' does not change the state of reality.
professorgerm
clutching my imitation pearls
1hr ago
Tim Walz style "black pepper is too spicy" is a racist joke, shibboleth, and tribal signal.
"That fascist deserved to get shot in front of his kids, let's do it again" may be a tribal signal, but it's not a joke. Wearing a symbol of terrorism is a tribal signal, but also not a joke.
I, for one, am not such a free speech advocate that I would be opposed to banning all of it. The only stumbling block is that, as we already see, enforcement would be wildly biased in favor of the left's shitbirds having no consequences.
The claim is not that he was inciting genocide, but that a genuine desire to harm people merely for having a different political opinion is not compatible with a position of power. Especially being an Attorney General, where he would be required to serve the legal interests of all Virginians, not just those that agree with him politically.
Aside from that, there is also the issue that these statements make him a risk to the safety of government employees and politicians that he would encounter in his job. If he sees lethal violence as a solution to conflicts, then a workplace conflict could logically lead to a workplace shooting.
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