domain:noahpinion.blog
hydroacetylene
8hr ago
The church of the subgenius was, to be fair, actual satire.
doglatine
8hr ago
For sure there are sectors less prone to disruption, but I don't know about the majority of the economy. Finance alone is 20% of the US economy and there's huge potential for disruption there. Professional scientific and technical services are another 10%, and many of those (e.g., management consultancy) are also vulnerable to AI transformation. Healthcare (20%) obviously has massive legal barriers in place but AI will increasingly nibble around the edges (e.g. in healthcare administration, AI therapy).
Ioper
8hr ago
Everything that requires extensive capital investments and permitting will be very slow to change, as will the government, and areas where there are natural monopolies.
Disruption isn't really possible for the majority of the economy.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
8hr ago
Something is just off in the first world
It happened very fast too. There have always been minorities who are loudly disgruntled with good reasons (particularly older people in declining regions), but in the noughties and even the early teens the dominant outlook was Thatcher/Blair/Reagan/Clinton style optimism. By 2019 (even pre-pandemic) if you weren't some kind of doomer you stuck out like a sore thumb as either an out-of-touch establishment tool or a Silicon Valley investor talking their book.
In the UK, you can date the change to somewhere between the 2012 Olympics and the 2016 Brexit referendum. The US isn't very different.
Given the timing and speed of the shift, I am inclined to blame algorithmically-curated social media.
aldomilyar
8hr ago
There were about 40,000 lobotomies ever in the United States over the course of decades and there are about 1.5 million Trans people in the United states. Even if only 10% of them are pursuing surgical correction/puberty blockers, that doesn't really line up. Lobotomies were likely more damaging case-by-case, but a 30%~ suicide rate indicates that there is no particular happiness coming from gender confirmation.
Ioper
8hr ago
In my experience the questions do not really need to be that hardcore, but perhaps we have different definitions of what hardcore is.
I do agree about LLMs being a very good way to get introductory information. How valuable this is for the median developer I don't know. A lot of people seem to be working with the same languages and APIs for a long time.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
8hr ago
Are we really going to pretend that the lifetime outcome changes of taking drugs that massively and irreversibly alter your body and playing a tabletop RPG are anywhere near the same?
What's next, you're going to argue that methheads are just trying to have fun?
iprayiam3
8hr ago
70% sure, maybe. But what happens if it's 'just' 2008 levels of sudden disruption? And then a small stagnant window before another dive. I am more worried about falling into a series of local minima, where the immediate 'solutions' get us into a worse scenario.
In some respects 70%+ emplyment disruption, or a skynet scenario could be better, in creating a clear, wide consensus on the problem and necessary reaction. I am more worried about a series of wiley cyote getting over a cliff before he realizes it, falling, then repeating as he tried to get ahead of the next immediate shift.
fmac
8hr ago
Has anyone found:
'1) Any actually useful or coherent guides on AI prompt engineering?
or
'2) Anyone who is legitimately good at prompt engineering and can be learned from (they give examples, explain how they do it, etc)?
I find that every subreddit dedicated to prompt engineering is just snake oil blogspam trash. People on twitter like to talk shit that they've developed prompts to "10x" their productivity but refuse to share or elaborate.
The only "good" example I've found so far, is the o3 geoguesser prompt (can see in the Astral Codex Ten article about it https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/testing-ais-geoguessr-genius). The person who wrote this is clearly quite good at this, and reading this prompt is really interesting. But it's hard to learn from one great but specific example how to generally get better at prompt engineering (which does clearly have an effect on output quality, although I doubt anyone can explain which parts of a prompt are valuable and which are fluff).
The big labs also post some stuff occasionally, I am reading this one (https://www.kaggle.com/whitepaper-prompt-engineering) by google right now. But I am curious if there is any more distilled sources of info from users.
I've also been super interested in Pliny the Liberator (https://x.com/elder_plinius) who seems very good at jailbreaking AI's with snippets of text that I cannot believe actually work. They seem to be real/people treat them like their skills are legit, which they must be, but also kind of skitzo and is any of this real?
doglatine
8hr ago
I agree with this -
If you've ever seen how the sausage gets made at a major company, jobs are very much withheld and created on more of an internal, political basis than any actual needs the companies have.
...but this would suggest to me that the disruption will come from new entrants (startups and scaleups) who can effectively leverage AI tools to transform workflows. If Status Quo Inc don't incorporate AI effectively and sell their services for $1000/hour, but Insurgent Inc are able to sell materially equivalent goods for $100/hour, then clients and customers will eventually switch suppliers. Obviously this won't apply as strongly in industries with very strong incumbent advantages, but even here I would expect some disruption - see e.g., Palantir making inroads in military procurement.
rae
8hr ago
Historical eunuchs who were castrated pre-puberty had remarkably increased lifespans (and that’s with no sex hormones, having estrogen in your system would decrease the odds of osteoporosis), so if there’s major health issues arising from puberty blockers, it would be a side effect of the particular medications, not of blocking puberty itself.
There’s also a difference between the compromise protocol of “go on puberty blockers until age 16, then start estrogen/testosterone”, and “start HRT ASAP to go through cross-sex puberty at a normal age”. The whole point of the former was to let the minor have time to decide if they want to transition or not, but that seems to have been lost in the debate.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
8hr ago
I cannot speak for others but at my own software company it would be a mistake to assume all the work we currently get done is all the work there is to do. We have a long and constantly growing backlog of things we would like to do to improve our product but must constantly prioritize due to much less capacity. If all our productivity doubled with AI the result would likely not be "the same work done with fewer people" but "much more work done with the same people."
This is a direct refutation of your "read" on Rowling
No it isn't. I read the essay long ago, and it is entirely congruent with my read of Rowling as willing to tolerate transition in certain narrow cases, but not actually in favor of it. Even assuming Rowling is telling the truth about this trans woman she "happens to know" (has she come forward and offered comment? I wonder if we're talking about a friend of many years as opposed to someone she's met once at a friend of a friend's baby shower), the essay only makes room for transition as a "solution for some gender dysphoric people", not a life choice people are free to make for any reason. She explicitly endorses the view that "candidates for sex reassignment" should go through "a long and rigorous process of evaluation", which is to say, that some adults who want to transition shouldn't be allowed to.
Moreover, she only seems to even care about medical transition. "A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law", she writes, as if that were inherently beyond the pale. I'm sorry but those just aren't the words of someone who approves of social transition for anyone, let alone for minors. Granted, it's possible to approve of social transition without thinking it should be recognized by law - but someone who held that idiosyncratic view still wouldn't start that sentence with "a man".
And again it's not that I want to crucify her for this or anything, she's entitled to her views. But it makes her a poor champion for the specific cause of "all else aside, puberty blockers are medically hazardous", a case which would be better made by someone who enthusiastically endorsed social transition, and indeed a theoretical risk-free perfectly-reversible sex-change procedure, while cautioning that we should be much more careful about the medical implications of the imperfect options that exist today.
Corvos
9hr ago
I'm thinking of the
massive, gamechanging social and economic disruption
case, where say 70% of people become unemployed or suffer a sharp reduction in status. I don't like mass migration either, or the repeal of the death penalty, but the opposition to those is ~50% of the population max and most of those are pretty wishy washy about it. Governments hate disruption more than anyone, if too much happens too fast I can entirely see the government just bringing the hammer down, like China did with Ma. There's nothing technologically inevitable about cloud-based AI remaining available. And once it looks like one side of the China/America divide might start dialling this stuff down, I can well imagine their opposite number gratefully following suit.
In short, government with unanimous popular backing is still the biggest beast out there. IF it comes to the kind of unemployment figures above, I think AI companies will bend the knee or be broken. Obviously, if things remain as they are, the future is much more murky.
naraburns
nihil supernum
9hr ago
Sorry to reverse-uno you, but I'd like a source on that.
...have you even bothered to look?
Here is Rowling's essay on the matter, published five years ago. Just one excerpt:
I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people . . . Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned.
This is a direct refutation of your "read" on Rowling, which you apparently never bothered to check. I would be very interested in a response from you detailing how you are now revising your priors, especially in connection with the credibility you will afford in the future to the sources of your misinformation on Rowling.
Silverdawn
I wake up 🔄 There's another psyop
9hr ago
Really? I thought it was very hard to get an ADHD diagnosis, especially as an adult.
Massively depends on the country in question. I've been trying to get ADHD medication for over 2 years in Eastern Europe with no success so far.
WandererintheWilderness
9hr ago
but they let the lessers attend school in the US because of the most fortuitous consequence of reducing opportunities for Americans.
How do you square this with the top level comment's economic argument that on net, foreign students' tuition results in over half a million more domestic students enrolling than in the counterfactual?
wraelk
9hr ago
RFK Jr. sounds like a corpse.
You said JFK. Barring some new information, he is a corpse.
WandererintheWilderness
9hr ago
I think you misunderstood my post. I do not deny that there is a social spread of transgender. That's obvious. I object to the phrase "social contagion" because it implies that this spread is a bad thing we ought to stop, as opposed to a value-neutral - or even beneficial! - social trend like any other. I object to it for the same reason I might have objected, decades ago, to "there is a satanic plot to corrupt children into playing Dungeons & Dragons". Doubtless there were indeed marketing experts working very hard to convince more children to play Dungeons & Dragons! That is not in doubt! But playing Dungeons & Dragons isn't witchcraft and being transgender isn't a horrible disease, therefore the one is not satanic corruption and the other is not contagion. They're just neat activities propagating through populations that find them to be fun ways to spend their lives.
WandererintheWilderness
9hr ago
I don't necessarily mean that she thinks social transitioning minors should be against the law, or that she wants all adult trans people rounded up in the streets. But it seems pretty clear that she's, like, not in favor. All else being equal she would rather there be fewer trans people in the world; she wouldn't want any children of hers to transition; etc. I think it's fair to describe this as being "against" social transition & adult medical transition even if she's tolerant of them despite her disapproval.
HereAndGone
9hr ago
It does not need to be taken as a serious objection.
But the well-meaning (to be as charitable as I can) jump on it as indicating dysphoria which means "this child is trans" and then we get the "if not allowed to transition, they will commit suicide"
Puberty and Gender Incongruence
• There can be huge psychological stress: self-harm/suicidal ideation due to incongruence between the developing body and internal feelings and body image; e.g. periods/breasts developing or facial hair/deepening voice etc...
• Additional stressors of bullying and possible family rejection
• Young people often disclose around this age, as their bodies are developing and feeling ‘different’ to the way they feel inside. This can lead to co-occurring mental health difficulties, with suicidal ideation and self-harm (Mayock et al. 2009; McNeill et al., 2013). Eating disorders with over/under eating and also young people not wanting to use the bathroom.
and schools doing things like hiding from parents that their child is socially transitioning on the rationale that "parents not supporting their trans child is abuse", though that seems to be changing at least as far as official policy is concerned due to protests and backlash:
Communicating With Families
It is still important for schools to maintain positive communication and working relationships with family members. A consortium of LGBTQ advocacy groups and educational associations produced a guide for Colorado educators that includes the following advice about working with families:“When contacting parents or guardians of a transgender or gender nonconforming student, school personnel should use the student’s legal name and the pronoun corresponding to the student’s gender assigned at birth unless the student, parents, and or guardian has indicated otherwise... In some cases, notifying parents of the student carries risk, such as being kicked out of the home or experiencing rejection from their family. Prior to notification of the family, school staff should work closely with the student and consider the health, well-being, and safety of the student.”
Detailed guidance from the Massachusetts Department of Education also offers helpful considerations in communicating with families, particularly when a student is the target of bullying and harassment:
“School officials should use their discretion in discussing the incident and avoid sharing information that might endanger the mental or physical health and safety of the student. Where the student has not disclosed his or her sexual orientation or gender identity, expression, to his or her parents and the student believes he or she may be at risk if it is disclosed, to the extent possible, discussion should focus on facts regarding the student's involvement as a target or aggressor and on safety planning, not on information that reveals the actual or perceived gender identity or sexual orientation of the student. As in all bullying incidents, school officials should offer resources and support to the student and family.”
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
9hr ago
No, it's just a silly joke based on you getting the first initial wrong. Unless I there's another Kennedy in the admin that I'm not aware of.
WandererintheWilderness
9hr ago
If gender dysphoria isn't an illness, then it's not a social contagion. But also: if gender dysphoria isn't an illness, then there's not really any good argument that insurance companies should be required to pay for treatment.
I think the conventional way to thread that needle is that you can be transgender without having gender dysphoria (ie you have no morbidly negative feelings about your current gender, you just get gender euphoria from a switch). Thus, the spread of transgender itself is not the spread of a contagious illness; gender dysphoria simply develops organically in people who had become trans in the positive sense beforehand. If smoking becomes popular in a given population, lung cancer will rise, but "lung cancer is a social contagion" would be a rather odd way to put it; ditto "bone fractures are a social contagion" for a population that's gotten really into mountain-climbing lately.
That being said, if push comes to shove I think we should just bite the bullet that gender dysphoria isn't an illness. We just pretend it is because the government has yet to implement a decent UBI, so we unconvincingly pretend a transition budget is a natural part of healthcare. Perhaps we could see about creating separate transition grants, decoupled from health insurance? This is all pretty far out of the Overton Window, so we're stuck with the kludge. Still, internally, the trans movement takes it as implicit that you understand that much - that "transgender is a mental illness" is a convenient fiction for browbeating the government into giving money it wouldn't otherwise give, and shouldn't be taken as axiomatic in any other context.
But if a male wants to put on some womanface and call himself Tina, Rowling seems happy to "yaass queen" him
Sorry to reverse-uno you, but I'd like a source on that. I've never, ever seen Rowling say it's good to let minors transition or refer to a MTF as a woman. My read is, she might be socially liberal enough, in the true sense of the word, to tolerate social transition as a "live and let live" kind of deal, but she is still clearly against it in the sense that it wouldn't exist in her concept of an ideal world and she'd be very put off if any friends of hers transitioned.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
9hr ago
Women enjoy infodumps from men they like not because they like the infodumps, it's because they like these men.
Remarkable how quickly you drop to a motte-and-bailey doctrine here. Here is what you said, emphasis added:
Based on her own words, this is clearly false. Then, when I tried to correct you, you doubled down and asked me to be the one bringing evidence, instead of you. So I brought the evidence, and your response was to simply withdraw to a motte:
I no longer regard you as engaging honestly in this conversation, so I guess that's the end of it.
More options
Context Copy link