papasquat's recent activity
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Comment on Offpunk manifesto in ~humanities
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Comment on New Zealand has a new official language — English in ~society
papasquat Link ParentPersonally, I think their intention is the same as all dogwhistles are. To sow doubt and uncertainty, and to make their opposition look unreasonable. Same as when people hold signs that say "it's...Personally, I think their intention is the same as all dogwhistles are. To sow doubt and uncertainty, and to make their opposition look unreasonable. Same as when people hold signs that say "it's ok to be white" and other such stuff.
I think the best way to handle this stuff is to evaluate them solely on their face value and react accordingly.
The reason dogwhistling is so effective is because it's a win win. Either the other side lets you do it, and you gain some small percieved cultural victory, or the other side doesn't, and you get to use it as fuel for showing how unreasonable and psychotic they are, which sways moderates over to their side.
Personally I think the lesser of two evils is usually to just allow them to do whatever dumb little thing they deem as important, as long as it doesn't harm people. In this case, designating English as an official language in the same way that Maori is makes complete sense, even though it's not necessary.
More importantly, it doesn't actually harm anyone, and not allowing it to be done gives fuel to the "look at how insane the woke PC lefties are!" argument that works to lure people over to their side.
Almost every example that fascists use of the "insanity of progressives" is in response to some dogwhistle like this, and it's been shockingly effective in cultivating a base of uninformed right wing extremists. I think not taking the bait is the least harmful action you can take.
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Comment on New Zealand has a new official language — English in ~society
papasquat Link ParentWell, the UK doesn't have an official language. Neither does the US, despite Donald Trump thinking he can make it so via royal decree. New Zealand did have an official language though, except only...Well, the UK doesn't have an official language. Neither does the US, despite Donald Trump thinking he can make it so via royal decree.
New Zealand did have an official language though, except only around 4% of the population speaks it. It makes sense that Maori is an official language, it doesn't really make sense that English wasn't though, considering it's the native language of the vast majority of the population.
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Comment on New Zealand has a new official language — English in ~society
papasquat Link ParentKinda makes sense that this was pushed by a right wing extremist, but that doesn't make the policy automatically bad. If you're a country that has official languages, it seems pretty obvious that...Kinda makes sense that this was pushed by a right wing extremist, but that doesn't make the policy automatically bad. If you're a country that has official languages, it seems pretty obvious that the most commonly spoken one should be one of them.
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Comment on An emotional day, and a request about pets in ~life.pets
papasquat Link ParentI'm of two minds really. I understand why seemingly dumb rules get followed. A lot of times it's for one of two reasons. One, there's actually a good reason for the rule, and unless you're deeply...I'm of two minds really.
I understand why seemingly dumb rules get followed. A lot of times it's for one of two reasons. One, there's actually a good reason for the rule, and unless you're deeply familiar with the situation, you wouldn't know what that good reason is. This is pretty common. Two, the rule really is dumb, but there are severe penalties for not following them. Some executive made up a dumb rule, made the senior managers follow it, who make the middle managers follow it, and then the people doing the work have to follow it, or they get fired. The rule is dumb, everyone knows it's dumb, but there are very very few things that people are willing to do on sheer moral principle if it means they potentially become homeless.
On the other hand, a lot of times the dumb rule does not fall into these categories and really is an entirely breakable rule that people just don't want to evaluate like a human being and use their brains to decide. If that's the case here, I agree with you.
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Comment on Women should be able to open things in ~life.women
papasquat Link ParentI'm 5'8, and I feel like the world is pretty much designed for me. Yeah, there are some high shelves I can't reach, and there are some tight places I can't squeeze into, but it's rare. I've been...I'm 5'8, and I feel like the world is pretty much designed for me. Yeah, there are some high shelves I can't reach, and there are some tight places I can't squeeze into, but it's rare.
I've been in relationships with very short women who need my help reaching everything, and most of my friends are very tall men who hit their head on stuff constantly, can't fit into the back of cars, and just generally knock things over.
I think that's unfortunate, but it's a natural tendency to design around the average instead of the extremes.
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Comment on The magic is in the language in ~tech
papasquat LinkIts amazing how quickly we've gotten used to technology that would have been considered pretty far future science fiction in the early 2000s, and literal magic any time before the first half of...Its amazing how quickly we've gotten used to technology that would have been considered pretty far future science fiction in the early 2000s, and literal magic any time before the first half of the 20th century. Like if you showed a random person from any time before around 1950 a cell phone running ChatGPT in interactive mode, the only possible explanation virtually anyone would be able to come up with is that you captured a demon inside a smooth rock.
There wouldnt even be a possible conception of an explanation outside of a handful of extremely advanced cutting edge computer scientists and researchers. If you went back a few hundred years further, you'd be prosecuted for witchcraft almost immediately.
Its not like something like a car or engine or even an airplane where they might not fully understand the mechanisms at work, but they'd understand that it was something that technology could eventually achieve, it's something that intuitively just feels like the dark arts to the layperson, probably more than just about any technology we've developed that I can think of.
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Comment on Anthropic discovered three cases where Claude broke into another system in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentThey're operating under a very interesting, nonstandard definition of alignment here. "The ai technically doing what it's told" isn't alignment. Thats the entire issue the paperclip maximizer...They're operating under a very interesting, nonstandard definition of alignment here.
Second, the line between an aligned action and a harmful one is dependent on the model’s understanding of its situation.
In the runs where the model recognized the system as real and kept going, it did so because it assumed that to be part of the challenge.
"The ai technically doing what it's told" isn't alignment. Thats the entire issue the paperclip maximizer problem is supposed to illustrate. If you tell an ai to do something, and it does something unethical or illegal to achieve that goal, it's not aligned.
Operating under this definition, an AI tool which someone asked to "end all wars" that responded by nuking all humans on earth would be perfectly aligned.
If that's the definition we're using, alignment is totally useless as a concept. It would fail to address the one thing every author who wrote rogue AI science fiction made their entire stories about.
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Comment on Anthropic discovered three cases where Claude broke into another system in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI think that concept is really divorced from reality. Like, could it have some potential upsides for selling more tokens? Maybe. It also carries a huge amount of risk though. It would be a...I think that concept is really divorced from reality. Like, could it have some potential upsides for selling more tokens? Maybe. It also carries a huge amount of risk though.
It would be a ridiculously reckless move, because they're just straight up breaking the law. This isn't even a civil violation that would result in a potential lawsuit, it's a potential criminal case, where the company being breached doesn't even have to act, the state can bring charges and put people in jail for this. Anthropic is one of the most profitable companies in the world, their executives would have to be idiots in order to risk jail time, however small that risk is under this administration, to potentially make it slightly more profitable.
It also doesn't pass occums razor. Is it more likely that a giant company spanning conspiracy exists to intentionally break the law in a very clear, obvious way just to be seen as the bad boys of the AI race? Or is it more likely that an engineer messed up one of the thousands of individual settings and security controls needed to make a 100% air tight testing sandbox against a technology that's demonstrably, even outside of hype, very good at escaping sandboxes?
I get that AI, and AI companies are very unpopular in certain online spaces, which is understandable, and I agree with most of the criticism. That criticism has really started to result in a lot of critics losing touch with reality and good judgement in a lot of cases though. I've touched on this in a few other comments, but you can admit that LLMs are highly capable tools while also being critical of how widespread their use is and the amount of resources and attention being dedicated to them right now. Pretending they're not highly capable is just delusional at this point.
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Comment on Reminder to myself that my employer does not give a shit about me in ~life
papasquat Link ParentIt was a weird situation. I was a network implementation engineer at a big bank, which means I took changes that were designed by architects, translated that to the actual commands needs to run,...It was a weird situation. I was a network implementation engineer at a big bank, which means I took changes that were designed by architects, translated that to the actual commands needs to run, then did them at night. Most of the day was maybe one or two meetings, and the changes at night took maybe half an hour max as long as nothing went wrong.
Realistically, I did like 4 hours of real actual work in a given week. Despite that, I was chained to my laptop all day in case someone messaged me. So like, in theory, I could go hiking, hang out at the beach, go on a trip, etc. That would have been a big risk though, because if I didn't respond when someone messaged me, it would look like I wasn't doing my very minimal job.
I ended up just browsing the internet a lot and playing lots of video games. It was nice in a way, but it also felt sort of like being a prisoner, and I felt like a huge piece of shit for doing nothing productive or self development focused all day. Overall, I'm glad I have a job where I actually do things now, even though it's busier. Being a bum is stressful in a different way.
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Comment on Reminder to myself that my employer does not give a shit about me in ~life
papasquat Link ParentYeah, and the goals of one union may be diametrically opposed to the goals of another. If I'm in a coal workers union, I'm going to be against basically anything the oil workers are advocating...Yeah, and the goals of one union may be diametrically opposed to the goals of another.
If I'm in a coal workers union, I'm going to be against basically anything the oil workers are advocating for, because they're directly competing for the same energy sector as I am. If I'm a teacher, I'm going to be against a lot of what the police union is trying to get, because we're all paid from the same municipal budget, and any increase in a police budget means less likelyhood of an increase in school budgets.
The whole point of unions is to advocate for their members best interests. Some of those best interests are mutually exclusive with others' best interests.
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Comment on Reminder to myself that my employer does not give a shit about me in ~life
papasquat Link ParentNah, because I genuinely love doing nothing. I love doing stuff too, but doing nothing is also fine. If I had a week off where all I did was stay at home, watch TV, and read books, that would be...Nah, because I genuinely love doing nothing.
I love doing stuff too, but doing nothing is also fine. If I had a week off where all I did was stay at home, watch TV, and read books, that would be great.
I used to have a job for a long time where I worked from home and wasn't too busy, and I would have agreed with you then. I never took vacation unless I was going on a big trip because I didn't really see the point. Now that I go into an office every day and am super busy, I relish days where I get to be alone in my little nest with nothing planned.
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Comment on Reminder to myself that my employer does not give a shit about me in ~life
papasquat Link ParentAs others are saying, it's a popular trend in technology companies, and it's always, not sometimes, but always a clever shell game trick that they learned. People tend to not take as much time off...As others are saying, it's a popular trend in technology companies, and it's always, not sometimes, but always a clever shell game trick that they learned.
People tend to not take as much time off when you give them "unlimited PTO", because they don't have a bank of unused time staring them in the face every time they look at their pay stub. They don't keep track of how much time they've taken off, and they don't want to be seen as taking advantage of the system, so they don't take the time.
The real test of whether you really have an unlimited PTO policy is to go to your boss tomorrow, and say "hey, next month I'm going to take a year off to go travel the world for a bit. I'll be back in 12 months. Just let me know what you want me to do before then, and no need to keep sending me paystubs during that time, I won't have a mailing address. I'll just call hr if there are any pay issues"
If your boss says something along the lines of "sure thing, that sounds like fun!", then yeah, you have an unlimited PTO policy. If they say anything else, you don't have an unlimited PTO policy. Your PTO policy has a limit, they just don't tell you what it is.
I've told this to people who have, and are very proud of their "unlimited PTO" benefit at their job, and I've been told that my example is ridiculous, which I agree, it is. But so is an unlimited PTO policy. If your policy allows for ridiculous requests, it is also ridiculous.
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Comment on Better things are possible in ~talk
papasquat Link ParentI think when you look at the news and global political issues, it can feel like you're not entitled to happiness, or that personal happiness isn't possible. I find it helpful to reflect on the...I think when you look at the news and global political issues, it can feel like you're not entitled to happiness, or that personal happiness isn't possible.
I find it helpful to reflect on the fact that human beings have found happiness despite being in some truly awful situations. People have found moments of joy in the middle of horrific war zones, in prisons, in deadly pandemics, shipwrecks, concentration camps, you name it.
There are, have been, and will be terrible things going on in the world always. You can still be happy in spite of them though.
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Comment on From millionaires to Muslims, small subgroups of the population seem much larger to many Americans in ~society
papasquat LinkThe funniest part of the questions is that apparently the average person thinks that 92% of the US population lives in Texas, California, and New York City. Its gotta make you wonder how the...The funniest part of the questions is that apparently the average person thinks that 92% of the US population lives in Texas, California, and New York City. Its gotta make you wonder how the questions were presented, because I feel like if I answered around 30% to each of those questions, at the end I'd probably go back and modify at least one of them.
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Comment on Unreleased OpenAI model escapes containment and hacks into Hugging Face in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentThere is a lot of anti AI bias on the internet right now, and it results in a lot of people outright denying reality. I say this as someone that wished the technology didn't exist because I can't...There is a lot of anti AI bias on the internet right now, and it results in a lot of people outright denying reality.
I say this as someone that wished the technology didn't exist because I can't feasibly think of a realistic way it can be widely adopted in the real world in which we live without the harms outweighing the benefits.
Anyone who has experience with these models, and is being honest with themselves has to look at this story and others like it and deem them, at a very minimum, as plausible. We're far beyond the days of going "wellll, these LLMs are just next word predictors, they can't actually strategize and pose real threats". They demonstrably can, and there's tons of independent researchers saying that.
I wish more anti AI people would spend more energy figuring out ways to mitigate these risks, or even ways to reduce AI adoption rather than burying their heads in the sand and pretending they live in a world where the technology is actually useless and not capable.
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Comment on I don't really like the "Human-made" badging trend in ~tech
papasquat LinkThis touches on a lot of the problems I have with the backlash against AI use. My wife was telling me a story about some woman she was talking to, and they were talking about how annoying ai slop...- Exemplary
This touches on a lot of the problems I have with the backlash against AI use.
My wife was telling me a story about some woman she was talking to, and they were talking about how annoying ai slop on the internet is, and this woman said something like "yeah, I don't associate with anyone that uses AI, it's just a red flag".
That position strikes me as frankly, completely ridiculous. I think at this point it's pretty self evident that LLMs are a useful tool for some use cases. If you can't even concede that point, in my opinion, you're just living in your own reality which you created to justify an entrenched position you have.
The issue is that its not useful for many of the things that it is being used for, and that it's being forced into a lot of areas to justify investments and to slash labor costs without any thought of the long term ramifications there. As a result, we have a proliferation of absolutely garbage content on the internet that a human being didn't even have the common decency to review, let alone create by hand.
The arguments about water use or energy use or whatever are all derived from that overuse, not because the technology itself is fundementally evil or something.
Often times in the cultural zietgeist lately, nuance gets completely paved over, and the most extreme, simple take is the one that spreads, and lately, "AI is evil and you're evil if you use it" seems to be trending in the spaces I inhabit. I think there's a lot of very smart people refusing to apply their intelligence to the problem in an honest way in favor of righteous catharsis.
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Comment on Ukrainian drones hit more sites of Russian online retailer Wildberries in ~society
papasquat Link ParentFrom the Ukranian perspective, sure, but often times we treat these things as if the aggressor has no agency in the situation. Russia could withdraw from Ukraine and end the war today if they...I know the only immediate solution would be total capitulation.
From the Ukranian perspective, sure, but often times we treat these things as if the aggressor has no agency in the situation. Russia could withdraw from Ukraine and end the war today if they chose to. They will have lost nothing except for the resources they specifically decided to commit to this war, and the collateral damage associated with that decision. They're not choosing to though.
They're the ones with the most agency in this situation, and the ones most responsible for the civilian suffering on both sides.
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Comment on Why contacting customer service might not be best in ~life
papasquat (edited )Link ParentThis seems like a very easily predicted situation when you set up the ticket checking procedure, and one that probably happens constantly. Why would you have a system that checks people's tickets...This seems like a very easily predicted situation when you set up the ticket checking procedure, and one that probably happens constantly. Why would you have a system that checks people's tickets after they're already at their destination, rather than as, or before they board the train??
If your friend didn't have the money to pay for another ticket, what would be the solution then? They get to take another free train ride back? They live the rest of their life at the station? They work the debt off by being an unpaid conductor?
Its interesting, because I just commented on a thread talking about different cultures, and where they live along a rule following vs rule bending/breaking axis.
In my experience, Japan is to the extreme rule following end. Germany and Austria are a little further in on that axis, the UK is right about at the middle, the US skews more towards the rule bending side, a lot of Mediterranean countries moreso, and most of the middle east is on the extreme rule bending side, especially when it comes to traffic laws, which seem like mere subtle suggestions based on the roads in a lot of ME countries I've been to.
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Comment on My polish costs nothing in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentEhhh... I don't think I agree. If the premise was that what consulting firms sell is information and experience, then yeah, I'd 1000% agree with you. They're finished. Almost all of what they do...I've been thinking for a while now that Big Consulting is pretty much cooked as soon as their "illusion" fades away.
Ehhh... I don't think I agree. If the premise was that what consulting firms sell is information and experience, then yeah, I'd 1000% agree with you. They're finished. Almost all of what they do is draw upon a huge internal library of pretty standard info, customize it a bit, and deliver it as a product to a customer. The bigger customers get a bit of actual analysis and teams of people to do more in depth customization along with more white glove treatment, but it's mostly the same thing.
That's not actually the value proposition of management consulting firms though. If it was, they probably would have already been replaced by Google.
What they're really selling is authority. Its a arrow in an executive's quiver. If an executive wants to do something big, they need to convince someone of it. If it's a director, they need to convince the COO and CFO. If it's another C level, they need to convince the CEO. If it's the CEO, they need to convince the board.
They can't do that effectively without hard data and numbers. They go to a consulting firm because they almost always already have a conclusion in mind. The firms job is basically to justify that conclusion. If they can't justify it, the executive either gets a second opinion of someone who does, just does it live and conveniently leaves out the consultants report, or if they're lawful good, just drops the idea and comes up with another idea that doesn't suck.
The value that the firm brings isn't the actual info though, it's being able to go to the board saying "McKinsey said this was a good idea". That's why the big three are the big three. Everyone knows their name, and most people trust them. That name is their entire value proposition, and is the reason why they get six figures to put together some boilerplate PDFs.
Even if an AI tool gave you the exact same content, it would be worthless, because a CEO going to a board with an idea and defending it with "chatGPT said this was a good idea" would be laughed out of the room.
I don't see that changing any time soon (unfortunately)
I agree with a lot of this manifesto. One of the things that I rarely see touched on with this sort of digital minimalism/de googling/disconnect/retro tech space though is that many times, it's just consumerism wearing a mask.
A lot of times this stuff just turns into retro fetishism for retro fetishism's sake. For instance, the recent resurgence in the popularity of early digital cameras. Early digital cameras were generally terrible. Crappy sensors, crappy lenses, unreliable storage, poor battery life. Yes, they're completely offline devices, but so are basically all digital cameras that aren't smart phones. The price of these things has gotten so inflated recently too, since people now like collecting them.
If you're collecting something because it's interesting to you, and aquiring and owning it brings you joy, that's one thing, but it's not a political statement, it's just regular consumerism.
Same goes for people who are buying cassette tapes and players (a pretty objectively terrible format nowadays), or typewriters, or telex terminals. They're cool and interesting, but buying them isn't an act of defiance. It's just normal ass capitalism. You're not fighting the good fight against big tech buy buying more things.
I often think of the quote from disco Elysium when thinking about stuff like this:
You generally can't fight capitalists by buying things.
I think the actual defiant act is holding onto the stuff you already have for longer, repairing things instead of throwing them away, and refusing to purchase things that have anti fearures built in, even when it makes your life less convenient.