domain:cafeamericainmag.com
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
11hr ago
Hlynka doesn't come remotely close to meeting that description. He basically forced the mod team, many of whom called him a friend (beyond me what makes them do that) to hold the gun to his head. He then began yelling "shoot me if you dare, motherfucker". I do not recall if there was time for a surprise Pikachu face when he got shot.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
11hr ago
he stopped being a mod
Point of clarification, he didn't merely resign, the other mods removed him. I think that's unprecedented in all of Motte history.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
11hr ago
I’m in full agreement that it should never happen that a kid who can’t read and do math on grade level should not be moved to the next grade. The problem lies in the vested interests that almost everyone involved in public education have to bury systemic educational failures. Schools lose funding and prestige if kids don’t at least appear to be learning. Teacher and administrator pay are tied to kids being able to go to tge next grade and kids passing standardized tests. As such the pressure to cheat the system at tge expense of the kids is high. Once you add in the irate parents who will storm the school if little Johnny gets held back and you can pretty much expect “social promotion” to happen with the tests fudged to hide the evidence.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
11hr ago
Got a link handy? I must have missed all the drama, this ban came as a total surprise to me. Even in hindsight, the main commonality I recognize is atrociously bad takes on AI.
WandererintheWilderness
11hr ago
If you really believe that begging might save you, there is an argument for it, but otherwise, no, I can only despise the "morality" you advocate.
You expressed skepticism earlier that it would inflict guilt-ridden nightmares upon the executioners - but supposing it provably did, would your stance change? Or what if your death is to be witnessed by the public? If you think you're being unjustly put to death, it stands to reason you dislike the regime doing this to you, and want to use what little agency you have left to raise the odds that it'll be toppled or reformed. This is to say, it stands to reason that you want to make yourself a martyr. All else being equal, making as much of a stink as possible when they drag you to the gallows increases the odds of your death having consequences for your killers, whether it makes them second-guess themselves or drives public opinion against them.
Notably, this needn't take the form of whining and blubbering; you could also try and make an impression on the basis of fighting spirit, struggling and cursing your murderers until your last breath, to try and inspire others to show the same rebellious courage - even if you have ~0 odds of actually freeing yourself or injuring your captors. Much manlier, but also very different from "facing death with dignity".
I guess it depends on what kind of role you have the look of. e.g. if you're a nebbish-looking student protestor, or a woman, you'll probably make a more memorable martyr if the cameras capture you as a weeping victim slaughtered by merciless monsters. If you're a big strong guy, going out as a fiery revolutionary might be inspirational and make you look the bigger man, while a sobbing breakdown, rightly or wrongly, might indeed look pathetic.
(To be clear, none of this is about Hlynka's behavior, I'm just curious about the meta-argument.)
Tree
11hr ago
I think you know what I mean – there’s a tension between liberal egalitarianism which you generally support, and your traditional view of manhood as special protectors and providers, paying for everyting before going to the gallows with a smile. You foist plenty of duties on men you would never foist on women. They’re not even allowed to make a fuss on their last moments on earth when they’re wrongfully executed. By contrast you indulge women their tears in every situation, and tend to view them as innocent victims, like your idol feminist JK rowling (I’m not talking about the "anti-trans" stuff, which is fine and compatible with liberalism).
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
11hr ago
You know, I genuinely didn't suspect this was a Hlynka alt. Well-played to him, if true. I suppose my anger at people who write bad takes/highly faulty explainers about AI extends to both his incarnations.
Hmm.. What else?
A pathological inability to accept that they're wrong, or acknowledge error? I suppose that's Bayesian evidence. I, @DasIndustriesLtd, @rae, and probably several others wrote detailed explanations of why he was factually incorrect on so many points regarding the function of LLMs, and heard only the chirping of crickets (I will grant that he made an 'attempt' to address some criticism, but at the cost of only revealing even more fundamental confusion in the process)
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
11hr ago
I mean it depends. Getting one or two of the same data points — knowing post history, or having a similar political profile, sure, I can see that as coincidence. Once you add in posting style, knowing the history of the forum, knowing the SA connection, etc. after you hit 4-5 unique features being tge same, im generally high confidence in believing that it’s the same person. Writing styles are especially important because they’re both hard to fake and hard to mask, especially in multiple writing samples over time.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
11hr ago
He did get "special treatment" but we never hid that;
If I'm right and it's all above board then uh, why are you qualifying special treatment? I'm not trying to imply anything, just confused.
Corvos
11hr ago
seeing Hlynka banned inspired him to “take up the mantle” of defending the cultural/ideological corner that Hlynka had previously occupied
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
12hr ago
Boring to read, ineffective at getting your points across, way too long -- the AI is making your writing worse.
The person this essay was initially written to address, @EverythingIsFine, said he approved. At the end of the day, it's a morbid and difficult topic, and I am not fully satisfied with it in its current state. I also think that a lot of the negative feedback (which really isn't that much in absolute terms) is heavily colored by people jumping on the anti-AI bandwagon, rather than assessing the work as it stands. I already intend to rewrite it, add a whole bunch of additional data points and a deeper examination of MAID systems.
the clarity of communication in your post was very bad
Hard disagree there. The structure was chosen precisely to improve clarity, and that is what set people off in the first place. It appears perfectly clear to me, but then again, I wrote it. I invite you to find another comment claiming that it lacked clarity; none of the people raising issues with it other than you have said so.
Society should allow it yes -- but should it provide it?
"Society" allows buses and trains. It occasionally also provides buses and trains. The same holds here, since I have made the case that access to euthanasia is a net public good.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
12hr ago
I'm so sorry. I truly don't understand how anyone can have a functional use of math if they didn't at least learn basic arithmetic by rote. These alternate ways I see of doing addition, subtraction, division and multiplication out of common core are bonkers to me, because of how intensive they are in terms of the number of steps they require, or how much scratch paper you'd need for all the intermediate parts. They look more like academic proofs of how basic arithmetic works than how a person should be expected to functionally work with numbers in the spur of the moment.
I mean shit, just yesterday I was playing a game, figuring off the top of my head what the odds of a single 5 or 6 were off rolling a pair of dice. Came up with 20/36 in fairly short order. Although I will be marginally embarrassed if my off the top of the head work turns out to be wrong after all that.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
12hr ago
K. I meant the royal we, there was a thread a while ago where everyone many people were reminiscing about Hlynka, in which I thought Tequila basically came right out and said 'yeah gang, it's me!' in different words. And everyone many people reacted so nonchalantly that I thought it was already well known and I was just oblivious.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
12hr ago
But being the enforcer made him bitter (like it does to everyone who assumes that role)
Eh, more like jaded.
He did get "special treatment" but we never hid that; we have always given more slack to people with a positive record. However, that slack is not infinite.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
12hr ago
On what grounds? Your idea of 'manlyness'? You're generally liberal, but the sex stuff is your achilles heel.
I don't even know what you mean by "sex stuff" here. I despise cowardice, weakness, and lack of dignity and self-respect.
Right, but I don't think Hlynka thinks he's been justly punished for his actions.
Actually, he was pretty straightforward about his disagreement with Zorba and acknowledging that this disagreement necessarily led to his being removed as mod and then banned. We had many conversations with him: I don't know that he necessarily agreed that he was "justly punished" (obviously he wanted to keep doing what he was doing and he did not want us to make him stop) but he knew what he was doing and at the time seemed to accept the consequences.
Personally I don't consider most of the permabans the mods hand out justified.
This does not surprise me.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
12hr ago
I genuinely do not consider you the modal case of the Parrot-apologist I dislike.
Thank you for saying so. I would say this conversation stopped going anywhere a while ago, and I think our philosophy on AI is much more aligned than you think, but... I'm not trying to start anything again, but I won't let philosophy get in the way of practicality if I don't think there is a moral component. Which is how I see this situation.
jkf
12hr ago
Why do many people object to LLM usage? Why do even I draw a distinction between good usage of chatbots, and bad/value-negative behavior?
It can be a substitute for independent thought. It can be used to gish-gallop and stonewall. It can have hallucinations or outright distortions of truth. It can be boring to read.
Boring to read, ineffective at getting your points across, way too long -- the AI is making your writing worse.
Nobody cares how hard you worked (well, some people might, but I don't) -- the clarity of communication in your post was very bad, even though the chosen topic is interesting. I think you are high on Sam's supply, and should probably consider that if you are getting negative feedback on your writing methods, your self-assessment may be flawed.
I do not like the idea of killing people. That's usually the opposite of what a doctor seeks to do. I think that in some circumstances, it aligns with the wishes of those involved, and is a kindness. I would prefer everyone sit tight and try to wait it out till we cure most or all disease, including aging itself. That aspiration (which I consider pretty plausible) is of little utility when a 90 year old woman is dying in agony and asking to go out on her own terms.
There's the motte, yes...
The Bailey, which I am willing to defend, includes far less obvious cases, but that's informed by my firm opinions and professional knowledge, and once again, I would prefer to cure rather than kill. But if cures aren't on the cards, I think society should allow death with dignity, and I would take on that onerous task.
Society should allow it yes -- but should it provide it?
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
12hr ago
This forum has a ton of lurkers and users who at some point switch from only posting sporadically to suddenly becoming more active. It’s very plausible that TequilaMockingbird is one such user, and that seeing Hlynka banned inspired him to “take up the mantle” of defending the cultural/ideological corner that Hlynka had previously occupied. There has always been a contingent of users here who (bizarrely) found Hlynka’s posts profoundly insightful and important, and who thought he was fighting the good fight against the (imagined) “Blue Tribe” consensus of the community.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
12hr ago
The LCP seems to be well before my time. I wasn't even in med school when the program officially wrapped up. And I've only been in the UK for almost exactly a year now.
The most obvious of the critiques that stands out to me is that paying the local trusts for adherence to the policy is potentially misguided. It is standard practice to award funds on the basis of performance. Paying local trusts for adherence to an end-of-life protocol sounds like ordinary KPI management. We pay for sepsis bundles, maternal mortality reductions, time-to-thrombolysis, all the usual dashboards.
But the object-level signal here is different. If your target is “percent of palliative patients on Pathway X,” you create a reward for moving people onto Pathway X. In stroke or obstetrics, the KPI rewards rescuing people. In end-of-life care, a superficially similar metric can look like a reward for getting to the end faster. Most clinicians will ignore that perverse reading. Some will not. Families will presume the worst when outcomes are bad. This is not a moral condemnation. It is a predictable human response to incentives that look ugly from the outside.
Some lurid stories of people visiting sick relatives and noticing another patient begging for water, claiming to be thirsty, and being ignored by nurses, and when the visitors asked about it, they were told this person was 'nil by mouth', they were unresponsive, they were DNR, and it was none of the strangers' business, and so (it was claimed) they were being let die of dehydration by stealth.
I find this hard to believe. In the hospital I worked at, it was often the case that palliative patients were put NBM, but usually because they simply couldn't tolerate it. They presented severe choking risks, leave aside complications like aspiration pneumonia. More common was simply attempting to feed them as much as they could manage, usually manually and by means of thickened fluids. A lot of these palliative patients simply can't eat enough to keep them alive, and options like NG tubes or parenteral nutrition were decided against: dying patients often can't tolerate them, and they provide maybe a few days or weeks of life at the cost of reducing QOL even further.
NBM does not mean “no comfort.” People receive subcutaneous or intravenous fluids when appropriate. They get oral care, ice chips, and we do our best to ameliorate the sensation of dryness, which is different from actual dehydration. From the corridor, it can look like neglect. From the notes, it is usually a documented risk-benefit tradeoff made by clinicians who do not enjoy saying no to water.
My point? The first time would have been wrong to let him die. The second time would have been wrong to try and keep him alive. And both times, the hospital was trying to nudge us towards the death side of the equation. That's the lack of trust in medical experts that is at the heart of the debate.
I'm glad your father survived the initial hospitalization and gained many years of healthy life. However, I think both your family and the doctors did the right thing. We're not omniscient, patients who seem unlikely to die can pass away overnight, and in rare cases, those we judge to be on death's door might just not answer when the Reaper rings. We try our best to make hard decisions with limited information.
I've mentioned elsewhere a patient of mine from not long ago. Physically healthy as an ox, we thought, even if his brain was riddled with holes from the dementia. Then it turned out the previous hospital was negligent, he'd had a hemorrhage in his cranium, and deteriorated overnight. We even did the palliative paperwork, and were ready to provide end of life care as seemed inevitable.
I went away to India for a few weeks, and genuinely thought he was a goner. I came back, and found out that he was back on his feet, and as chipper as ever. The nurses seemed happier about that than they were about my return. I'd call this truly unexpected, as every single one of the doctors at the hospital genuinely expected him to die. It's a shame that he didn't get the benefit of such a reprieve from death while his brain was still healthy, but he might live another year or two yet.
Yet, he is the exception. In 9/10 cases, a patient like that will die regardless of what we resort to. The process of resorting to everything (including escalation to an ICU) is normally worse than keeping them comfortable till the end. Escalation to ICU can mean delirium in a bright room, tubes in places you do not want tubes, and no family at the bedside. Even the young and hearty do not enjoy their stay there, let alone the aged, frail and dying.
The lurid anecdotes make sense if you only see the sip denied. They look different if you see the swallow test, the chest x-ray, and the conversation the team had with the family yesterday. Perverse incentives make suspicion easier, which is why tying money to a pathway box is a bad idea even if it probably helps more than it hurts.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
12hr ago
Hlynka was a mod from back on reddit who took care of troublemakers and had a bit of a chip on his shoulder from growing up poor (like most of us who grow up poor) that he used to fuel the zingers he would level at troublemakers. But being the enforcer made him bitter (like it does to everyone who assumes that role) so at some point he stopped being a mod, but his former mod status gave him leeway to continue making zingers. But people were less willing to tolerate it when he wasn't using it for the good of the community and people started to feel like he got special treatment (he did). But I think to him he just felt like he was being the same person he'd always been, and it just kind of made him angrier and eventually he flamed out.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
12hr ago
Ok, so we're back to all teachers being the problem then?
Tree
12hr ago
Yeah, one is banned from the digital world, the other from the analog world. Astral plane, mortal plane. Hard to tell which one hurts more to lose, soul or body.
hydroacetylene
12hr ago
Yes thé normies are indoctrinated- because they’re, you know, normies.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
12hr ago
It's not the mockery. In fact, it's specially that it isn't mockery. It's a genuine, straight to the white viewer plea, so do something about Trump, because something must be done. The mockery I can handle. The "clown nose off" moments are when I turn off the TV.
I don't know a single person in clinical medicine who wants to eliminate opioids and while I'm sure there might be some crack pots that's an extraordinary claim that requires some evidence to be taken credibly.
Reactive under-prescribing in some outpatient settings is certainly a problem but that's not really your claim.
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