unkz's recent activity

  1. Comment on Stanford violated its AI policy by turning a Hispanic student into a fake Black woman in ad in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    I’m not saying all white people look the same, but I couldn’t distinguish the two supposedly different middle guys in a police lineup if my life depended on it. I do see that the shirt and...

    I’m not saying all white people look the same, but I couldn’t distinguish the two supposedly different middle guys in a police lineup if my life depended on it. I do see that the shirt and headphones are changed.

  2. Comment on In fighting for every black child, did I forget my own? in ~life

    unkz
    Link Parent
    Yes, no question whatsoever. How fantastical a scenario are you willing to contemplate? I would not commit genocide to give my child a leg up. To the rational extent of consequences that could...

    This feels overly simplistic to me. Best available opportunities for what? On what axis/axes? At what cost? If you could pay an affordable-to-you but exorbitant sum of money for your child to take another child's place at a high school with a very high acceptance rate to Ivy League colleges, would you? What if you knew that the student you replaced would be forced to go to a school with abysmal test scores and acceptance rates, but your child would otherwise be at a mid-tier school?

    Yes, no question whatsoever.

    What damage to your community are you willing to cause or abide at the expense of your child's success?

    How fantastical a scenario are you willing to contemplate? I would not commit genocide to give my child a leg up. To the rational extent of consequences that could realistically come from moving my child to a different catchment, I would probably accept any possible negative outcome to the community.

    As to the rest, I would say there are many better avenues for trying to benefit the community that don't involve depriving my children.

    4 votes
  3. Comment on In fighting for every black child, did I forget my own? in ~life

    unkz
    Link Parent
    What happened here is she ran into reality and failed to recognize the error in her previous thinking. I think there's a combination of things going on here. conflation of ideals with policy --...

    how she couldn't face herself in the mirror if she spent her entire career trying to convince parents with choice not to flee bad schools and then did exactly that when she had skin in the game

    Her ideals ran into the cold hardness of reality, that's true. But she's not the first to face that and won't be the last. And frankly, I admire idealists as much as or more than I pity them.

    What happened here is she ran into reality and failed to recognize the error in her previous thinking. I think there's a combination of things going on here.

    • conflation of ideals with policy -- the actual ideal is all kids should get the same quality of education, the incorrect policy is giving your children a bad education to lift up other children
    • sunk cost -- she was so invested in this incorrect policy that she couldn't recognize the need to find a new policy
    • social capital -- I don't think it was facing herself in the mirror that was the problem, it was facing her peers who would condemn her "hypocrisy"

    I don't see this as idealism which should be applauded, I see it as dogmatism that should be condemned.

    5 votes
  4. Comment on In fighting for every black child, did I forget my own? in ~life

    unkz
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    Uh, yeah. I would never consciously avoid giving my kids the best available opportunities. If I’m going sacrifice, I sacrifice myself, not my children’s futures. They talk about how they could...

    When Najya was entering pre-K, my husband, Faraji, and I decided to send her to the type of school that wealthier families with choices uniformly avoid — one that is low-income and mostly Black.

    Uh, yeah. I would never consciously avoid giving my kids the best available opportunities. If I’m going sacrifice, I sacrifice myself, not my children’s futures.

    They talk about how they could donate to the school because they are rich. Guess what: you can donate to any school you want, even if your kids aren’t suffering there.

    36 votes
  5. Comment on Mindful posting in ~society

    unkz
    Link
    I suspect a lot of people on this site are going to be very offended by this post. I don’t entirely blame them. They are broadly correct, but I do think it’s a bit ironic that this post about how...

    I suspect a lot of people on this site are going to be very offended by this post. I don’t entirely blame them.

    They are broadly correct, but I do think it’s a bit ironic that this post about how to talk to the right wing is like a case study on how not to talk to the left though.

    7 votes
  6. Comment on What's the oldest piece of clothing you own and still wear? in ~life.style

    unkz
    Link
    I’ve got some tuxedo shoes that are probably a couple decades old. I doubt I’ll ever need to replace them as I wear them maybe twice a year.

    I’ve got some tuxedo shoes that are probably a couple decades old. I doubt I’ll ever need to replace them as I wear them maybe twice a year.

    3 votes
  7. Comment on Donald Trump says the US has reached a "new" security deal with Denmark and Greenland in ~society

    unkz
    Link Parent
    My point is more that we have more evidence that there’s no reason to make any material concessions, and that we should stand firm against giving anything up.

    My point is more that we have more evidence that there’s no reason to make any material concessions, and that we should stand firm against giving anything up.

    1 vote
  8. Comment on Donald Trump says the US has reached a "new" security deal with Denmark and Greenland in ~society

    unkz
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I disagree. This is a good outcome for all countries negotiating with Trump. The lesson is, Trump can be satisfied by symbolic victories without giving up material concessions. Denmark did not...

    I disagree. This is a good outcome for all countries negotiating with Trump. The lesson is, Trump can be satisfied by symbolic victories without giving up material concessions.

    Denmark did not cede the Sudetenland, the US has acquired no lebensraum.

    4 votes
  9. Comment on Donald Trump says the US has reached a "new" security deal with Denmark and Greenland in ~society

    unkz
    Link
    So the status quo, precisely.

    So the status quo, precisely.

    18 votes
  10. Comment on Anthropic's Dario Amodei calls for AI oversight, joined by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    I don’t read that as saying anything like China would be willing to stop their pace of AI development. I think they are saying that frontier models should be controlled, but China does not have...

    I don’t read that as saying anything like China would be willing to stop their pace of AI development. I think they are saying that frontier models should be controlled, but China does not have frontier models — they are some 8-12 months behind from what I read. My take is this is similar to their position on fossil fuel use: they are behind the west, they recognize that there are risks, they will make investments in safety (like they invest in solar and wind) but until they are at parity they feel no particular need to halt their own increases.

    And frankly, why would they? If, unlike fossil fuels, the risk lives at a level of intelligence higher than any company has so far achieved, why would China not be entitled to access to the current state of the art?

  11. Comment on Anthropic's Dario Amodei calls for AI oversight, joined by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    Why would deepseek care about US laws? They aren’t going to stop distilling models.

    Why would deepseek care about US laws? They aren’t going to stop distilling models.

    4 votes
  12. Comment on Anthropic's Dario Amodei calls for AI oversight, joined by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    How does a development freeze change anything? I don’t quite understand. They release Astra, then it gets distilled like usual. ?

    How does a development freeze change anything? I don’t quite understand. They release Astra, then it gets distilled like usual. ?

    1 vote
  13. Comment on OpenAI agents attacked RubyGems back in May in ~comp

    unkz
    Link Parent
    It’s happening across multiple frontier models though. Are you suggesting that OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta are either colluding or are independently coming to the conclusion that they should be...

    It’s happening across multiple frontier models though. Are you suggesting that OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta are either colluding or are independently coming to the conclusion that they should be hacking outside parties to advance regulatory goals? Or is this something you think only OpenAI is doing, and the others are just honest mistakes?

    1 vote
  14. Comment on Cod fishing is back in Newfoundland in ~enviro

    unkz
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    I mean yes ok but you can see in the graph that stocks haven’t fully recovered even now.

    This is actually well below the globally-recognized standard for sustainable fishing, of about 20 per cent, he says. This year’s total allowable catch of 59,000 tonnes also pales in comparison to the 266,000 limit in 1988.

    I mean yes ok but you can see in the graph that stocks haven’t fully recovered even now.

    3 votes
  15. Comment on In search of the hypothetical iPhone Duo buyer in ~tech

  16. Comment on In search of the hypothetical iPhone Duo buyer in ~tech

    unkz
    Link
    Me, I’m buying one. My only complaint with my iPhone is its lack of pencil support, and now that itch will be scratched too.

    Me, I’m buying one. My only complaint with my iPhone is its lack of pencil support, and now that itch will be scratched too.

    8 votes
  17. Comment on Apple announces iPhone Duo, its first foldable iPhone in ~tech

    unkz
    Link
    Pencil support! I would have bought pretty much any new phone that supported the pencil.

    Pencil support! I would have bought pretty much any new phone that supported the pencil.

    4 votes
  18. Comment on Software for humans in ~tech

    unkz
    Link Parent
    I wonder how these projects would stand up to the watermarks that are being applied. It’s one thing to say, and possibly believe, that your project doesn’t have any LLM code in it, but if there...

    I wonder how these projects would stand up to the watermarks that are being applied. It’s one thing to say, and possibly believe, that your project doesn’t have any LLM code in it, but if there are unknown outside contributors… and of course the library ecosystem is riddled with LLM code, so if you vendor any of those libraries you may unwittingly add it in yourself. It’s like microplastics these days.

    8 votes
  19. Comment on Finland finishes building 200 kilometers of fence along its border with Russia, strengthening surveillance along the longest stretch of NATO boundary in ~society

    unkz
    Link
    I get that Russia is a problem but I do wonder about the impacts on wildlife. There's an interesting parallel with the US/Mexico wall here too.

    I get that Russia is a problem but I do wonder about the impacts on wildlife. There's an interesting parallel with the US/Mexico wall here too.

    2 votes
  20. Comment on OpenAI’s rogue agents were caught communicating via public wikis in ~tech