domain:imgur.com
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
4hr ago
I don't see this as a particularly special insight. At the risk of "both-sidesism", both sides do have plenty of stupid people, including those prone to romanticism and idle LARPing.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
4hr ago
It is political at least in the sense that such fantasies are the way any such system is marketed to the general public. People don’t buy systems, he’ll, they rarely buy products, instead they buy images of a better future. People don’t like chatbots just because they’re useful (I don’t think they at present are doing anything that a well thought out google search couldn’t do) but because AI represents a fantasy replete with images of a future society without scarcity and where work is obsolete. You imagine yourself a “winner” in this future, so it means a life of luxury and leisure. The reality is probably not so good, as humanity is unlikely to distribute goods to people who do nothing to earn them. We rarely did so, and when we did it tended to be meager goods and cause problems.
The problem with such utopian fiction is that as marketing for a new system, they encourage that system when people believe it, and thus they fight to bring it about. Too late they realize that reality is nothing like the fantasy. The rich white women who overthrew Patriarchy in the 1969s and 1970s imagined themselves in executive suites making easy decisions, they to some extent still think it possible. They never imagined they’d have to do ordinary work and keep house on top of it. They never imagined that having strangers raise the vast majority of children via daycare would cause social problems while eating 3/4 of her paycheck. The greens are in a similar path. They imagine a modern industrial lifestyle with green-branded versions of things they already have. To actually combat climate change and reduce carbon to the degree they think has to be done would require a massive downgrade in lifestyle. You probably won’t own many things, you’ll live in a two bedroom apartment, where you won’t have much in the way of personal possessions and privacy is a luxury. Your food will be very much like what it was in 1900– common foods, only what grows locally, and probably much more expensive than what it is now. Clothing likewise will be much more utilitarian and expensive and you won’t own that many, so they won’t be fashionable or change all that much. You will be limited in travel— you won’t own a personal vehicle, and as far as vacation, you’ll be stuck pretty local maybe camping near your home city, but certainly not internationally unless you’re filthy rich or live within an easy distance from a border. But marketing hides this, until after the work of tearing down the old system and replacing it is done. Once the system is built people wake up from the fantasy only to discover the reality is not remotely what they were sold.
Beware people selling fantasies.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
4hr ago
"Hallucinations" as usually used are really a more narrow sort of lie, and can take a few forms. Sometimes the LLM makes a completion against a background of a kind of sparsity and scarcity of info, but charges ahead anyways (and it's at least a little hard to discern when you want this behavior or you don't), but sometimes it's the LLM making a supposition that sounds perfectly legit, but is not, against a background of too many associations and collisions.
I acknowledge both forms of hallucination. I should have been more clear, but that's what I meant by "LLMs can know they're hallucinating". They don't always know, and are indeed pattern matching or simply making an error.
I personally think, contra self_made_human, that the seeming urge of LLMs to be self-preserving is not actually an intrinsic motivation, it's just a cosplay from the many Skynet-flavored fiction texts in its training
I consider that a distinction without a difference, if it all boils down to an increased risk of being paper-clipped. The only real difference would be dramatic irony, if our anxiety about AI killing us made them more likely to do so.
(What even makes motivation intrinsic? That question isn't satisfyingly answered for humans.)
jfx
4hr ago
also did appear here on MMalice's podcast https://youtube.com/watch?v=lGD4Yd7NgU4?si=4b-49sN211U7h3yO
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
4hr ago
My apologies. I was immensely frustrated by the sheer intransigence of some of the people in this thread, and I let that bleed through.
The questions you raise are far more reasonable, and I'll try and come back and explain myself better.
Anime recommendation thread:
(My interest in Gurren Lagann improved significantly when one of the most annoying characters in the show died.)
My own subjective rankings:
Made in Abyss- 10/10
If you plotted "child suffering" on the x-axis and "visual beauty" on the y-axis, Made in Abyss would occupy the upper-right quadrant where angels fear to tread. The show operates on the principle that the human brain can only process so much cognitive dissonance before it either shuts down or ascends to a higher plane of aesthetic appreciation. Each frame looks like it was painted by a Renaissance master who'd just discovered mescaline and child endangerment laws.
One could argue the series functions as a case study in the Dunning-Kruger effect as applied to spelunking; the characters' confidence in their ability to survive the Abyss is inversely proportional to their understanding of its true nature. The soundtrack, by Kevin Penkin, is not merely an accompaniment but an essential component of the world-building. I have it saved to Spotify and I listen to it regularly.
Madoka Magika: 10/10.
I seem to have a thing for the psychological torment of small children, in this case a bunch of magical girls who make regrettable decisions by signing up for that lifestyle. You will never hate a cute little kitty cat more in your life.
Shaft's decision to animate this as if it were directed by someone having a particularly artistic psychotic break was the correct one. The show functions as a deconstruction of the magical girl genre in the same way that a wood chipper functions as a deconstruction of trees.
The central tragedy unfolds from a series of Faustian bargains made by adolescent girls under conditions of extreme emotional distress and information asymmetry. The catalyst for these regrettable decisions, a feline-like creature named Kyubey, is a chillingly perfect depiction of a paperclip-maximizing artificial intelligence or a utility monster; it is a perfectly rational agent whose value system is simply orthogonal to human flourishing.
Do not expect to leave the show feeling happy. But you will leave satisfied.
One Punch Man: 10/10
I must provide a strong qualification here: this rating applies exclusively to the first season. The series subsequently suffers a catastrophic decline in quality, falling off a narrative cliff from which it has yet to recover. But that initial season is a sublime achievement in parody. It succeeds not by merely mocking shonen tropes, but by exploring the philosophical endpoint of shonen power progression: the existential ennui of absolute, unchallengeable strength. The protagonist, Saitama, has solved the problem of physical conflict so completely that he is left with a terminal case of goal-contentment dysphoria. Once away you have punched away all the problems susceptible to punches, what are you going to do about those that are left?
The humor is derived from the constant category error of applying godlike power to mundane problems. The superlative animation and soundtrack are merely the icing on a conceptually brilliant cake. You must truly understand and love a genre to mock it so beautifully.
Attack on Titan- 9.5/10.
AoT succeeds primarily because it takes its premise seriously and follows the logical implications wherever they lead. The mystery-box structure works because the mysteries have actual answers that recontextualize everything you've seen before. This is mystery writing done right - not arbitrary confusion, but genuine information management. The show's treatment of warfare deserves particular praise. Unlike most anime where combat is individualistic spectacle, AoT understands that military effectiveness comes from coordination, logistics, and tactical innovation. The development of anti-titan combat techniques feels like watching a tech tree progression in real time.
Overall, a remarkably well-executed epic that largely succeeds despite occasional pacing issues and certain grating secondary characters. Its primary virtue lies in its consistent portrayal of characters as agentic, rational actors within the horrifying constraints of their environment. The world of AoT is a high-stakes, low-information war game, and the characters, for the most part, behave accordingly, making sensible, calculated decisions under immense pressure. The periods of narrative slowness are forgivable as they represent the necessary lulls for strategic planning and information gathering that make the subsequent kinetic, high-casualty engagements so impactful.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: 8/10.
A wet dream for the aspiring pseudo-intellectual. NGE is an exercise in what can only be described as symbolism-as-a-service; it drapes a veneer of Gnostic and Kabbalistic mysticism over a standard Kaiju narrative to feign a profundity it never earns.
The plot’s coherence degrades exponentially with applied thought. The protagonist, Shinji Ikari, is a case study in clinical depression and crippling anxiety (and also a little bitch), and I'm left with the distinct impression that the entire plot could have been averted if NERV had employed a single competent staff psychiatrist with a prescription pad for SSRIs. And yet, for all its narrative failings, the show is compulsively watchable. The action sequences are iconic, a few characters possess genuine depth, and the entire production is a triumph of aesthetic and mood. My inability to "understand" it is, I now suspect, a diagnostic indicator that there is, in fact, nothing of substance to be understood.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzuki Motorsports Suzumiya: 8/10
An elegant thought experiment executed with surprising sincerity. The premise: a being functionally equivalent to God has reincarnated as a Japanese high school girl, and the universe's continued existence is contingent upon her not experiencing boredom. We have all seen Pascal's Wager; this is Pascal's Entertainer. The protagonist, Kyon, is effectively the world’s sole, overworked AI safety researcher, tasked with aligning a god-like entity's utility function away from the existential risk of ennui. The show is played remarkably straight and is better for it. I think I watched around 8 episodes, so there's plenty left. It remains in my queue, pending sufficient activation energy to complete.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood : Closer to 8 than it is to 7
A show that frustrated me. Too tropey, too many characters being retarded. I find it hard to articulate my dissatisfaction in a satisfactory way.
FMAB represents everything that's simultaneously right and wrong with shounen storytelling. The worldbuilding is genuinely excellent: alchemy as magic system with consistent rules and costs, political intrigue that feels like actual statecraft, character motivations that make sense within their contexts.
But the show consistently undermines itself with genre conventions that feel obligatory rather than organic. The power of friendship speeches, the reluctance to actually kill major characters, the way complex moral situations get resolved through superior firepower, it all feels like the show is checking boxes rather than exploring the implications of its own premise.
The homunculi work brilliantly as antagonists because they represent genuine philosophical positions (pride, wrath, envy as ways of engaging with the world), but the final confrontations devolve into standard boss fights rather than ideological reckonings.
Chainsaw Man: 7.5/10
Chainsaw Man operates in the uncanny valley between genuine artistic ambition and adolescent power fantasy fulfillment. It's a show that simultaneously wants to be a profound meditation on trauma, exploitation, and the commodification of human suffering, while also being a series where the protagonist's primary motivation is touching boobs (me too buddy, me too...). This tonal schizophrenia should be fatal, yet somehow the series maintains enough coherence to be genuinely engaging.
The genius of Fujimoto's conception lies in recognizing that most shonen protagonists are essentially feral children who've been weaponized by adult institutions, then having the audacity to actually say this out loud. Denji isn't noble or pure-hearted; he's a walking collection of base desires who's been systematically deprived of every basic human need except survival. The Public Safety Devil Hunters don't disguise their exploitation behind rhetoric about heroism or duty; they openly treat their operatives as expendable resources in a cost-benefit analysis against apocalyptic threats.
The action sequences deserve particular praise for their kinetic brutality. Unlike the choreographed dance of most anime combat, fights in Chainsaw Man feel genuinely dangerous and unpredictable. Characters don't trade blows in neat exchanges; they attempt to murder each other with the frantic desperation of cornered animals. The animation captures this beautifully, particularly in moments where Denji's chainsaw form moves with the mechanical violence of actual industrial equipment rather than the fluid grace of typical anime transformations.
What elevates the series beyond competent ultraviolence is its commitment to the psychological consequences of its premise. Characters don't bounce back from trauma with shonen resilience; they carry their damage forward, making increasingly destructive decisions as survival mechanisms. The devil contracts function as externalized representations of psychological damage, with characters literally trading pieces of themselves for the power to keep functioning in an hostile environment.
The series' treatment of sexuality deserves analysis beyond the surface-level horniness. Denji's obsession with physical intimacy isn't played purely for comedy; it's the desperate reaching of someone who's never experienced basic human affection toward the only form of connection he can conceptualize. The fact that this is consistently used to manipulate him creates an uncomfortable but effective commentary on how vulnerability becomes a vector for exploitation. (I wish Makima-san would groom me . I'm weak for mommy GFs, even if they probably intend to ritually sacrifice me later)
Where the series falters is in its occasional retreat into conventional anime bullshit. Certain episodes devolve into standard monster-of-the-week format, losing the psychological intensity that makes the series compelling. Some supporting characters exist primarily as trope fulfillment rather than genuine personalities, though the core cast maintains enough complexity to carry the narrative weight.
The ending of season one represents the series operating at peak efficiency. Without spoiling specifics, it manages to deliver genuine emotional catharsis while completely recontextualizing everything that came before. It's the rare anime climax that feels like both a natural culmination of established themes and a complete surprise, demonstrating that the series' apparent chaos was actually precisely controlled narrative architecture.
Best enjoyed with the frontal lobe mildly disinhibited or disengaged, but not because the series lacks intelligence, rather, because its intelligence is often buried under layers of deliberate crudeness that require a certain receptivity to appreciate. It's junk food that occasionally achieves the status of art, which is more than most anime can claim.
Steins Gate: 7.5/10
The most frustrating anime I've ever watched. So close to greatness. A lot of nothing ever happens, and a waste of what might have been excellent worldbuilding potential. If I ever hear another "tuturuu," I'll stab a bitch. I warn you, the show will ramp up tension over and over again, and rarely justify it.
Steins;Gate has one of the best premises in sci-fi - time travel that follows consistent rules and has meaningful consequences (but completely wastes it on pacing that would make a DMV clerk impatient). It also betrays its own commitment to internal consistency, the plot eventually hinges entirely on whatever mechanism running the timeline being actually malevolent.
The first half consists almost entirely of setup that could have been accomplished in three episodes, followed by a rushed resolution that doesn't adequately explore the implications of its own concepts.
Mob Psycho 100: 7.5/10
One Punch Man, but worse. Still manages to be above average.
Elfen Lied: 5/10
Elfen Lied represents everything wrong with edgy anime from the early 2000s. It mistakes graphic content for meaningful content and confuses shock value with emotional depth. The premise (evolutionary superior beings emerging to replace humanity) has potential, but the execution prioritizes gore and fan service over coherent storytelling (and I like gore and am a fan of being serviced). I gave up on it 3 episodes in, and would need a very large bribe to give it another go.
Demon Slayer: 5/10
A case study in how far superlative production values can carry a work with an empty core. The animation, courtesy of Ufotable, is undeniably god-tier. However, this aesthetic brilliance is a crutch for a story populated by a protagonist whose head contains little more than noble intentions and air. It is high-production narrative slurry. Slop, but served in a pretty box. I gave up on it a few episodes in, and see no reason to continue.
GATE: 6/10
Not enough curb-stomping of Virgin Magic Wielders by Chad Modern Military Hardware, in a series where that's the core conceit. Massive JSDF fan-wank by a Japanese revanchist.
GATE had one job: show modern military technology absolutely demolishing fantasy armies, and somehow managed to get distracted by harem antics and political messaging. The few scenes that actually deliver on the premise are genuinely satisfying, but they're buried under layers of irrelevant subplot and nationalist wanking.
Tokyo Ghoul: 3/10
I was incredibly high when I binged this series, and I still found nothing that could redeem it. I barely remember anything about the plot except it involved, as the name suggests, man-eating ghouls in Tokyo, and the fact that it gargled donkey balls. I'd say it only warrants mention due to how forgettable it was.
Miscellaneous:
Vinland Saga: Maybe an 8.5/10?
Didn't get very far before I got distracted, but I enjoyed what I saw. On the back burner for now.
What I saw of Vinland Saga suggested a show that takes historical setting seriously while using it to explore themes about violence, revenge, and the possibility of redemption. The animation quality was solid, and the characters seemed to have genuine psychological depth rather than anime archetype substitutions. Also, Vikings are just hella cool.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Never got past the first episode, something about the faux-British setting set me off. I mean to, at some point, if only so I can appreciate the memes better.
There's probably more I've seen, but I usually didn't finish them, and didn't have very strong feelings when I did. Will add in later.
philosoraptor
5hr ago
Your initial question was:
Why on earth would a two-state solution, once established 'backslide' into something else?
This is hopelessly naive if you have the slightest familiarity with either side's ideological commitments. No amount of logic-chopping and theorycrafting will make that question not be... well, dumb. The Palestinian side's goal is for Israel to cease to exist.
no one has yet to say why, conditioned on you having at least semi-successfully reached a two-state solution based on borders drawn by Israel, you'd be highly likely to see the borders change yet again in a way unfavorable to Israel.
They probably wouldn't, but that doesn't mean Palestinians would stop trying to accomplish that, or refrain from doing something even worse than 7/10 toward that end. It's clear to anyone paying attention that there's no stable two-state solution in the cards.
If you were to reach that point, obviously the major border questions would have been settled already.
Oh my God, no no no no no no no. The only way reaching that point is imaginable is as a temporary and unstable compromise. It is only by pretending it's a theoretical, academic question where historical context doesn't matter that you've managed to talk yourself into thinking otherwise.
ControlsFreak
5hr ago
KingOfTheBailey
5hr ago
Without an explanation of why, this feels like outgroup booing. Do you mean because the structures that make such an existence become invisible, and then invisible oppression? Or because there needs to be a consciousness raising among the people who live there? Or because not everyone will be able to live there, and those who inherited it have unearned privilege? Or for some other reason?
pbmonster
5hr ago
As a patriarch you're the head of your own nuclear family. On the other hand, your uncle and grandpa are above you in the social hierarchy, and as long as they adhere to social norms, they are deputized to intervene in your life in case you're failing in your life as a patriarch
Note that they might stop you from starting a nuclear family for reasons real (you don't have the material means - and no, they won't allot you any) or imagined (you'll get your part of the family acreage once you're acting a little bit more "grown up").
OliveTapenade
5hr ago
I have to imagine that a lot of the people sincerely responding to the prompt are working boring 9-to-5 jobs that they hate.
Take the very first person. Her answers were "leading discussions on theory", "making clothes from scraps", and "making lattes". These are clearly things this person enjoys: talking about political theory, creatively working with her hands, and serving other people. If I might be allowed to be cringeworthy myself for a second, I get it. All of that sounds pretty good to me too. Granted, if it were me it would probably be theology or religious philosophy rather than Marxist theory, and it's probably painting or being a musician rather than making clothes, but that kind of life sounds pleasant. Most of the sincere responses sound similar: there's intellectual stimulation, self-expression, maybe a bit of physical exertion as a break, a few who enjoy working with children, and so on.
In sum, it sounds a lot like common depictions of the good life. John Adams famously wrote, "I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy... in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry, and Porcelaine." Suppose you were the grandchildren in this narrative. What would you study?
If I have problems with the commune, they're twofold, I guess. The first is on the object level that I think leftism or Marxism or what have you is wrong. The philosophical basis of the commune is bad. But that's fairly superficial, so to turn to the second - it's that the idea of the commune serves as a kind of imaginary justification for bad politics in the here and now. The commune sounds like an S&W-style prefiguratory community. This is the criticism of the guy who said his job would be telling everyone to go home and unionise. The commune may be fun as a brief fantasy, but if it displaces more productive visions of effective political action (and leaving aside the part where I don't want Twitter leftists to engage in effective political action), it may do more harm to the overall movement.
But I view those objections as pretty minor. To the first, the problem isn't that they're indulging in a utopian fantasy - it's that their undergirding political ideas are bad. I can just focus on those ideas themselves. And to the second, well, that's just a question of keeping things in proportion. If you fantasise about anything all the time it's disastrous, but I would not ban fantasy.
WhateverHappenedToNorman
5hr ago
Possible blow to the "Cremieux is TrannyPorno" theory: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/07/cremieux-jordan-lasker-mamdani-nyt-nazi-faliceer-reddit/
It should be noted that Cremieux denies the association, but the reason he gives is very weird, so who knows.
Page rank
Reducing Google Web Search to Page Rank is like reducing LLMs to OLS. Yes, OLS is in there, but it's a much more complicated information processing algorithm than just that.
Fundamentally, the point is that no one has a definition of 'intelligence' that is any good. Your test wasn't just that it produced value. Your test was:
The billions of dollars generated by LLMs come from them performing tasks that, until very recently, could only be done by educated human minds. That is the fundamental difference. The value is derived from the processing and generation of complex information, not from being a physical commodity.
I responded to your test, but you seem to not have responded at all to my response to your test.
Hmm.. I suppose, in the interest of fairness, we need to exclude the skills of human chess GMs too. After all, they've trained extensively on chess data. Lotta games played, and openings memorized.
I mean, I don't think so? But how would we know? What test would we use to distinguish?
Very little ability to extrapolate outside the training distribution
This seems not entirely true.
why don't they just pull out guns if they want to win so bad?
Whereas this just seems bizarre.
How exactly do you think learning works?
I mean, do you really want me to give a full explanation of the entire field of ML? There are many different varieties. [EDIT: Do you think that all algorithms that use 'learning' are "intelligent"... or just some of them? How do you know the difference?]
If you think just learning from existing data is illegitimate
That's not really what I said. I just said that one thing that we can conclude from the premises you presented was that a bunch of chess was in the training set. You had wanted to conclude instead that it meant something about intelligence. I sort of don't see how... primarily, because I don't think almost anyone has a justifiable definition of intelligence that allows us to make such distinctions from such premises.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
6hr ago
I think it's rather obvious that something being financially valuable isn't proof by itself that it's intelligent. Gold isn't intelligent. Bitcoin isn't intelligent. A physicist or programmer is intelligent, and an LLM is closer to them than it is to turnips, orangutans or Page rank.
I really don't see why something this obvious needs to be articulated, but here I am articulating it.
I mean, no? It just means that there was a bunch of information about chess in its training set.
Hmm.. I suppose, in the interest of fairness, we need to exclude the skills of human chess GMs too. After all, they've trained extensively on chess data. Lotta games played, and openings memorized. Very little ability to extrapolate outside the training distribution, why don't they just pull out guns if they want to win so bad?
How exactly do you think learning works? If you think just learning from existing data is illegitimate, then I'm happy to disclose that LLMs are perfectly capable of learning from self-play.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6hr ago
The Western public is okay-ish with anyone killing anyone in countries they would struggle to find on a map except for Jews and Palestinians.
The amount of foreign interest in the Israel-Palestine conflict (on both sides) is orders of magnitude greater than other long-standing conflicts with a comparable humanitarian cost.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
6hr ago
then(Jews excepted) Arabized
Why except them? Palestinians are genetically more Jewish than Ashkenazi Israelis, so while they have some Arab admixture, they are mostly Arabized Jews.
Botond173
6hr ago
All of which, from a leftist activist perspective, constitute an unspeakable horror, of course.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
6hr ago
-
Russell, driving a work van on a road with posted speed of 55 mi/h (90 km/h), approaches a green traffic light from the southwest. The light turns yellow, but Russell thinks he can get past it before it turns red, so he does not stop. Christopher, sitting in a work truck at the same intersection's northwest traffic light, sees the lights starting to change and decides to enter the intersection early, while he still has a red light. Russell attempts to swerve his van around Christopher's truck (without braking), but the van collides with the truck anyway (hard enough to spin the truck around by 180 degrees) and thence careens into Jasmine's car, which is in the process of stopping at the northeast traffic light. Three of Jasmine's limbs are broken in the crash. Accordingly, she sues Russell and Christopher for causing her injuries through negligence. The jury decides that (1) the injuries are worth 3.5 M$ and (2) Russell bears 60 percent of the fault (2.1 M$) and Christopher 40 percent (1.4 M$).
-
Russell argues that the jury's decision to assign more fault to him than to Christopher is unsupportable by the evidence presented at trial, since Christopher broke the law (by running the red light) and Russell did not (by attempting to get through the intersection on a yellow light). But the trial judge rejects this argument, and the appeals panel affirms. Under state law as distilled in the charge issued by the trial judge to the jury, a driver approaching a yellow light "is obligated to exercise reasonable care, which includes making reasonable observations for traffic traveling on an intersecting street".* Therefore, the jury was perfectly entitled to conclude that a non-negligent driver (1) would have stopped at the yellow light rather than trying to get through it or (2) would have tried to avoid hitting Christopher by braking rather than by swerving without braking.
*See also the following model jury charges, which unlike this case-specific charge have been approved by a statewide committee: general duty of motorist; duty of motorist to make observations; and duty of motorist proceeding past stop sign.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
6hr ago
low key practicing Christians
Do decorating a conifer around the New Year and boiling eggs for Easter count as Christian practices?
ControlsFreak
6hr ago
The billions of dollars generated by LLMs come from them performing tasks that, until very recently, could only be done by educated human minds. That is the fundamental difference. The value is derived from the processing and generation of complex information, not from being a physical commodity.
Prior to LLMs, would you have said that Google Web Search was intelligent? Prior to Google Web Search, it likely took an educated human mind to figure out how to find answers to all sorts of complex information problems. It generated billions of dollars in value by processing and generating complex information. Sure, it sometimes sucked... but LLMs sometimes suck, too.
The fact that an LLM can even play chess, understand the request, try to follow the rules, and then also write you a sonnet about the game, summarize the history of chess, and translate the rules into Swahili demonstrates a generality of intelligence that the Atari program completely lacks.
I mean, no? It just means that there was a bunch of information about chess in its training set.
Botond173
6hr ago
He believes society could police sexual & religious morality, it would more likely have had him flogged for drinking or disrespect or dirty jokes
Any society where such floggings are the norm is surely also one where policing sexual morality - which I guess in this context actually means policing women's sexual behavior so that they are deterred from becoming floozies and punishing cads who would make floozies out of such women - is also the norm. I see no contradiction.
He believes he'd be the head of a respected family, more likely he'd chafe under his grandfather/uncle's authority
Again, no contradiction there. As a patriarch you're the head of your own nuclear family. On the other hand, your uncle and grandpa are above you in the social hierarchy, and as long as they adhere to social norms, they are deputized to intervene in your life in case you're failing in your life as a patriarch i.e. beating up your wife for no good reason or beating her too severely etc. This is how patriarchy works. Duh.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6hr ago
Israel has always been disliked by basically everyone
I disagree with "always".
Israel was popular with the pro-establishment left well into the 1980s, even in countries where the pro-establishment left wasn't dominated by Jews. The Yes, Minister sketch about Israel-Palestine has Hacker and the politicians being pro-Israel because it is the moderate, popular position and Sir Humphrey and the Deep State being pro-Palestine because they want to make nice to the Gulf Arabs. (This was back when the Gulf Arab monarchies were as anti-Israel as the rest of the Arab world). Pro-establishment right attitudes to Israel used to depend on how much the pro-establishment right favoured making nice to the Gulf Arabs for cynical oil-politics reasons vs standing up for Western values.
Why? A combination of Cold War politics (Israel's worst enemies where Soviet clients), Holocaust guilt, straightforward preference for civilisation over barbarism, and a belief among non-Communist socialists that Israel back when Labour was the natural party of government was a socialist success story.
What changed? The Cold War ended, post-colonial guilt replaced Holocaust guilt, the era where Israel was a plucky underdog receded into history, changes in Israeli domestic politics made it less sympathetic to Western leftists (and, increasingly, with the rise of religious Zionism and the increasing influence of true-believing Orthodox Judaism, fans of Western civilisation more generally), the humanitarian situation for Palestinians in the West Bank (for which Israel is to blame) and Gaza (for which Israel is widely but unfairly blamed) got worse after the failure of Oslo compared to pre-Oslo.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
6hr ago
I don't presume anyone wants a full breakdown of my personal lack of interest in most anime
I do
Botond173
6hr ago
Again, I'm asking you to consider the social reality of living in modernity. If a woman engages in activities that she wants to keep private from men in her social circle who aren't their husband or long-term boyfriend, she can do so with little effort because the women in her social circle who do know about it, she can generally count on to assist her in this.
That's fair, but besides the point. I won't quibble about the semantics. Call it whatever you like. It's not even necessarily that women behave in this way. What actually is central to my point is that by women's frequently stated (not necessarily revealed!) preferences and values, being a porn woman is actually perfectly normal.
At that point, I tried to illustrate how this state of affairs - porn women, whores, sluts, etc. being variably considered completely normal or abjectly dishonored - somewhat parallels how politicians are variably considered either specially honored members of the elite or the untrustworthy scum of the earth and enemies of the people, and somewhat sloppily tried to argue that if you side with the (relatively) positive view of whores and the negative view of politicians, then politics are hardly made worse by whores joining in.
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