V17's recent activity

  1. Comment on Mindful posting in ~society

    V17
    Link Parent
    I don't think it's just about influencers, I think organic online content can be just as important. I don't view people just posting online or bloggers as influencers. I just used those words...

    And I don't think influencers at this level particularly "influence" the election.

    I don't think it's just about influencers, I think organic online content can be just as important. I don't view people just posting online or bloggers as influencers.

    To be clear, I'm not talking about how debates "looked" or "felt"

    I just used those words because I personally haven't seen any of the debates or read about them, but I was writing that from the assumption that you're correct about them, I wasn't trying to imply that it's just subjective.
    Anyway.

    I don't really care about the same core question as you because I'm approaching it from a different angle. I appreciate everything you wrote and I read it. I just do not think this article is relevant, nor do I agree with its take as I feel it plays into a narrative I disagree with fundamentally.

    I am interested to know where the fundamental difference lies. I assume you care about election results, so is it that your line of "doing this just to increase the chance of winning elections is not worth it" is located elsewhere and this is over it? Do you think it's not going to help anyway? Or is it a different thing?

    1 vote

  2. Comment on Mindful posting in ~society

    V17
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I think that's a bad analogy, but maybe it's because we see the purpose of the article differently. I see the article as a part of online discourse that is on its own not going to help these...

    Again, it would be like if in economics, they tried to change inflationary expectations by telling people to spend less.

    I think that's a bad analogy, but maybe it's because we see the purpose of the article differently.

    I see the article as a part of online discourse that is on its own not going to help these elections, but that may be a part of some larger shift which happens over time. And I think it's entirely possible that this change is going to happen, in fact I think it's slowly happening already, because in this case it's not necessary to change the spending habits of the majority of the population, it's just necessary to change what discourse is perceived as dominant despite coming from a small minority of people.

    This has already happened in the past, it's how the described type of discourse became so strong - part of it was a chilling effect of throwing around accusations of racism, sexism, ableism and other forms of bigotry, but it pretty much happened one blogpost/twitter post/opinion article at a time. There's no reason why it couldn't happen again in a different direction, and the whole trend may realistically shift the outcome of elections in the future.

    From that point of view it's a worthwhile article, but maybe I should have been more specific initially that this is how I see it, not as "the article is definitely going to change people's behavior and shift the outcome of this specific election".

    You will never live in a world where Libs of Tiktok doesn't have any content. Never - it's impossible.

    True, but in a situation where the discourse shared by Libs of Tiktok is viewed as fringe and not seen as somewhat dominant in online spaces and some strongly liberal media, its impact is going to be much smaller. The research I found confirms that there is a sizeable gap between what people believe are the mainstream opinions in each party and what the real average opinions are or what the diversity of opinions within the party is, so the online discourse does seem to have a real effect .

    1 vote

  3. Comment on Mindful posting in ~society

    V17
    Link Parent
    Imo the research I talk about elsewhere in the thread supports that the article has some validity. One blog post is unlikely to change anything, but then again, it's just a blogpost, what else to...

    Imo the research I talk about elsewhere in the thread supports that the article has some validity. One blog post is unlikely to change anything, but then again, it's just a blogpost, what else to use it for but to get your ideas out. Thinking like that would pretty much mean not posting anything anywhere.

    Sometimes more people spread a similar opinion at a similar time (I bet that is the case with this one) and once you get over some critical mass, it definitely does have real influence on human behavior. The result isn't necessarily that those who do what the author preaches against change their opinions, it sometimes seem more like a different group of people gets a voice and becomes dominant in the public discourse for a while instead.

    1 vote

  4. Comment on Mindful posting in ~society

    V17
    Link Parent
    We seem to be talking over each other to some degree. I agree that Libs of Tiktok is evil. But that's beside the point. Libs of Tiktok sadly exists and my opinion on it is not going to change the...

    We seem to be talking over each other to some degree. I agree that Libs of Tiktok is evil. But that's beside the point. Libs of Tiktok sadly exists and my opinion on it is not going to change the result of elections. For me the important question is: is there any evidence that the author is right and doing what they tell people to do can help democrats win? With the US and the geopolitical situation being what they are this unfortunately affects me more than in the past, so it is something I care about as well.

    I spent some time looking it up, because surely there is data that would shed some light on who's more likely to decide elections: non-voters mobilised by being say more ideologically explicit, or undecided moderates swayed by being more controlled and moderate. I'm not sure if this is how you specifically would describe the conflict, but that's roughly what I've seen multiple times from others in various contexts, so that's what I went with. Of course reality is not binary like that, but some relevant data should exist.

    The way I understand the data that I've seen, I think it supports what the author of the article says to some degree, though it is more complicated.

    Eligible non-voters are a big group that can and does sway elections, but they're very heterogenous, which is evidenced for example by the fact that their preferred candidates (those who care) differ in each election. In 2020 their preference was 46:35 Biden:Trump, whereas in 2024 it was 40:44 Harris:Trump. source, pew research

    The reasons for their non-voting however do not seem to be hiding some sizeable group of people for whom democrats are not left enough, the biggest reasons were not believing that their vote matters, disliking politics and not caring about the outcome: pew research again

    There is some research on US moderates, and while there is some debate on whether "moderates" is the right description and their opinions often cannot be described on a single left-right axis, it does claim that there is a sizeable group of people who can be swayed to either side.

    However, different research also claims that direct persuasion (campaigning, debates etc.) of undecided people is not particularly efficient, which would correspond with how the debates with undecided voters looked to you, and quite often the actually undecided people who can decide an election are deciding not just who to vote for but also whether to vote at all. So undecided/eligible non-voters overlap, and the way I understand it the ones in the overlap are likely more important.

    There is some interesting research on the characteristics of moderates. Most commonly they tend to be younger, poorer and less educated, and so they also include the classic "working class" combination that has been leaving democrats over the years: people who are economically somewhat left, but socially conservative. The interesting part is that not just moderates/undecided but even many republican voters are actually economically somewhat left, if asked about specific economic policies and not about "redistribution" etc. in general.

    Generally research on whether moderate candidates or more strongly partisan/more extreme candidates are more successful show that moderates tend to do better, with one big exception - voters tend to value perceived competence and experience a lot, which explains why for example Bernie is so popular. The problem with strongly ideological candidates is that they tend to mobilize more people in the opposite camp than their own. (for example here)

    My hypothesis on the cause of the whole conflict is that one part of democrat voters sees democrats are sending moderate candidates and losing, so obviously being moderate doesn't work, whereas another part of democrat voters sees some of the strongly ideological discourse that happens online and concludes that their side is being too ideologically extreme which dissuades moderate voters. Some research shows that the latter is likely true, for both democrats and republicans, that there is a gap between what people assume is the average/most common opinion/ideological position vs what it really is, on both sides the reality is more moderate than people think. The evidence is not particularly robust here though. There is however pretty strong evidence that americans tend to significantly underestimate the diversity of opinions in each party - this does not directly support specifically the "online discourse makes people thing their party is much more radical than it really is" problem, but it does directly say that if a person bases their opinions on what they see online, it's highly likely that they do not realize their/the opposite party is in reality much more broad and diverse in its opinions.

    I have not found any direct evidence for what the author of the article says, but I think it is mechanistically supported by the above. There doesn't seem to be a significant highly partisan group that would be dissuaded from voting by democrats being more moderate, if we omit the fact that candidate quality and experience can and often does matter more than ideology. There seems to be more evidence for the existence of a group of people who either are genuinely around the center or who are economically left but not socially left, and for the fact that the way you present your policies to them matters a lot. And there is some evidence for the theory that being more strongly ideological is likely not a good thing as it mobilizes strongly partisan people on both sides.

    4 votes

  5. Comment on Wikipedia's list of the best video games: how many have you played, and what's missing? in ~games

    V17
    Link
    Some of the very old arcade games aren't that fun played on PC, but are super fun in the original cabinets. For example Missile Command uses a huge (like 6 inches in diameter) and heavy trackball...

    Some of the very old arcade games aren't that fun played on PC, but are super fun in the original cabinets. For example Missile Command uses a huge (like 6 inches in diameter) and heavy trackball to control your aim, you control it with your whole palm, it has significant inertia, and it gives the game a sense of urgency that's fun as hell and you completely miss it if you play it with a mouse or a keyboard.

    Similarly Asteroids and Battlezone on an actual vector display are cool as shit, much cooler than emulated. (though I remember having a lot of fun with bzflag when I was younger)

    I feel like with the later, more standardized arcade cabinets and with consoles it usually doesn't matter as much (apart from the whole CRT vs LCD issue), but with those old, non-standard arcade cabinets the construction is a big part of the fun.

    As for how many I've played, the answer is too many, but while the old part of the list seems to be pretty solid, post 2005 or so I disagree with many of the games on the list.

    10 votes

  6. Comment on Mindful posting in ~society

    V17
    Link Parent
    This is true, but it would have never worked that well if it didn't have a large number of social media takes that are genuinely hard to digest for even a moderate person, let alone hateful...

    I mean Libs of Tiktok also lies about and harasses people, intentionally targeting them for that harassment.

    This is true, but it would have never worked that well if it didn't have a large number of social media takes that are genuinely hard to digest for even a moderate person, let alone hateful people.

    It's weird to describe that as successful while saying "actually be nicer and more normal" instead of "you should lie and harass people".
    It's weird how the strategy is always to appeal to the worst folks rather than pointing out how awful the worst folks are

    The point of the post is "think about how your posting affects the people who matter in elections". You're probably not going to convince the undecided moderates to join your side by being hateful. I also do not, at all, think that undecided moderates are awful people. Even people swayed by something like libs of tiktok don't have to be. I know several people aged 60+ who know absolutely nothing about culture wars, are generally kind and vote not ideally, but not terribly, and when they see selected ultraliberal culture war takes from social media, they're horrified.

    absolutely targets vulnerable people as the "problem" rather than, again, the liars and the harassers

    The point is that "what is right" and "what gets votes" often doesn't overlap and you don't get the luxury of fixing legislature to slightly improve the former unless your side wins elections.

    But it's mostly preachy

    Sure, I'll give you that, but at the same time I've seen similar takes in the past and the reception always seems to be hostile enough that I don't blame the author for writing it anyway. I live across the pond, so my point of view is necessarily limited, but it seems like a genuine issue, like there's a sizeable group of leftists who consistently refuse to accept that a large portion of the population just doesn't care about politics as much as they do, but they're not necessarily bad people and due to the two party system, there's no other option but to have many of them on your side if you want to win.

    4 votes

  7. Comment on Mindful posting in ~society

    V17
    Link
    I am genuinely baffled by how controversial this seems to be. All the author is saying is: if you write stuff publicly, think of who your audience is the elections are coming and it would be a...

    I am genuinely baffled by how controversial this seems to be.

    All the author is saying is:

    • if you write stuff publicly, think of who your audience is
    • the elections are coming and it would be a very good thing if the democrats won
    • the people who decide the elections tend to be the currently undecided ones
    • undecided people probably don't share your strong opinions, that's why they're undecided, so keep that in mind when posting
    • unless you know that the above isn't true for your audience, in that case just do whatever you think is best for the goal

    I see absolutely nothing wrong with any of that, on the contrary in fact. MAGA online campaigns thrive on using real posts and opinions which, taken out of context but otherwise unedited, seem genuinely insane to your average undecided voter (or a right winger of course, but not necessarily, often even just a moderate center-leftist). This is why Libs of Tiktok was so successful, it did exactly this. Saying "maybe we shouldn't give them ammunition at least for a few months before the election" seems like a completely rational reaction.

    7 votes

  8. Comment on I want an RPG with reverse leveling in ~games

    V17
    Link
    I've seen this idea for the first time at least 20 years ago on a local gamedev forum, probably even earlier, and then a couple times since then. I assume that since nobody has actually made a...

    I've seen this idea for the first time at least 20 years ago on a local gamedev forum, probably even earlier, and then a couple times since then. I assume that since nobody has actually made a game out of it, they came to the conclusion that it just wouldn't be as much fun.

    These days with how good vibecoding has gotten, you could probably make a prototype yourself, though making it good looking still wouldn't be easy.

    8 votes

  9. Comment on ‘Superhuman’ AI tool spots heart disease in less than two seconds in ~health

    V17
    Link Parent
    IIRC that's what the older studies aimed to do as well. I'm completely fine with that, it's just that the article doesn't exactly address the biggest potential issues found in these methods so...

    IIRC that's what the older studies aimed to do as well. I'm completely fine with that, it's just that the article doesn't exactly address the biggest potential issues found in these methods so far. It is quite possible that ECG readings are generic enough that this is not a problem, but I'm not educated enough to know this.

  10. Comment on ‘Superhuman’ AI tool spots heart disease in less than two seconds in ~health

    V17
    Link
    I have seen several attempts at something like this (diagnosing covid from the sound of coughing, diagnosing whatever from x-rays etc.) and as far as I know none of them made it to practice...

    I have seen several attempts at something like this (diagnosing covid from the sound of coughing, diagnosing whatever from x-rays etc.) and as far as I know none of them made it to practice because it was too difficult to separate the actual signs of disease from unrelated variables.

    For example, x-rays from a specialized pulmonary clinic look slightly different than from a standard hospital, and x-rays of patients so sick that they cannot stand up and a mobile x-ray unit is used also look different. The model learned to recognize these and correctly rate patients from a pulmonary clinic as more likely to be sick, and patients x-rayed using a mobile unit as highly likely to be sick. After adjusting for these, it was not accurate enough to be useful.

    I know that the capabilities can be there theoretically, but I'll believe it when I see it in practice.

    2 votes

  11. Comment on The most important RPG nobody talks about (Ultima) in ~games

    V17
    Link
    The one problem I have with Ultima games is that I see the main series as games that get progressively more complex without getting considerably more user friendly. Akalabeth is simple enough and...

    The one problem I have with Ultima games is that I see the main series as games that get progressively more complex without getting considerably more user friendly. Akalabeth is simple enough and surprisingly can be fun for playing on the go. I played Ultima III through a Gameboy Color port on my phone many years ago, because that way at least the UI had to be simplified down to just a few buttons.

    Surely part of the problem was that I never read the manuals, I just downloaded the games from abandonware sites 10+ years after they came out, but I doubt that just a manual would help with a game as complex as Ultima VII. I always felt a lack of direction when I tried it a couple times. Yet when I look at the screenshots I am still tempted to just get a source port and finally give it a proper try.

    Now Ultima Underworld was a different beast. Amazing game, though with some obscure bullshit as well, like needing to write down a rune at the very beginning of the game in order to be able to finish it iirc. But I never got that far, so whatever. Still a fun game today, shame it wasn't mentioned as it's my favorite from the franchise.

    Sadly I missed Ultima Online, I only started playing MMOs when Runescape 2 came out and since I was a kid with no money that's all I had - in my opinion a considerably inferior game. Ultima Online walked so that Runescape could hobble around awkwardly.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on A three-year-old's metastatic cancer disappeared after two doses of CAR T-Cell therapy, genetically engineered immune cells that target cancerous cells in ~health

    V17
    Link Parent
    Holy shit, this is 10x more interesting than the linked article

    In terms of cost, it's moved somewhat in the West, but it's China that has really started to industrialize CAR-T. Costs can be as low as $40-$50k for blood related cancers. Is that nothing? No, but it's quite a lot less than the $500-$750k it would cost in the US or Europe.

    It's to the point where there's a real medical tourism industry around cancer patients from western countries going to China for CAR-T Therapy

    Maybe more remarkable than cost is speed - Chinese labs can get a patient their custom, genetically engineered T-cells in a matter of days.

    Holy shit, this is 10x more interesting than the linked article

    8 votes

  13. Comment on A three-year-old's metastatic cancer disappeared after two doses of CAR T-Cell therapy, genetically engineered immune cells that target cancerous cells in ~health

    V17
    Link
    CAR T cell therapy is exatcly not new anymore, and very similar successes have been observed years ago. There are two big problems with it. The first one I have no idea if it's been improved yet,...

    CAR T cell therapy is exatcly not new anymore, and very similar successes have been observed years ago. There are two big problems with it. The first one I have no idea if it's been improved yet, maybe it was, and it's that the immune response tends to be somewhat dramatic, which is dangerous and potentially life threatening or the patient.

    The second problem is that it is incredibly expensive, and as far as I know there are not really any known potential ways to make it significantly cheaper. This is why it was used within a special trial on a kid who underwent chemo and surgery and was surely going to die.

    The results can look almost magical, but this is very unlikely to become more common due to the cost. I am much more hopeful about MRNA cancer vaccines than about this.

    9 votes

  14. Comment on putt.day — a daily hole of mini golf in ~games

    V17
    Link Parent
    Nah. Those "adventure golf" courses that try to imitate real golf and are played with actual golf balls are fun. But the various styles of standardized miniature golf are also fun, you can play...

    Nah. Those "adventure golf" courses that try to imitate real golf and are played with actual golf balls are fun. But the various styles of standardized miniature golf are also fun, you can play competitively on them because they're standardized, and the huge variety of balls gives the game a ton of depth, which is fun on its own. They also play terribly with actual golf balls because they're not designed for it, the default balls that you're usually given as a casual player are softer and way less bouncy.

    I've tried all of those things in real life and the various miniature golf styles with a crazy range of balls are genuinely great fun.

    2 votes

  15. Comment on putt.day — a daily hole of mini golf in ~games

    V17
    Link Parent
    I wouldn't mind the long holes if the physics seemed fun. But it's not that great. I wonder if anybody has ever tried to build a realistic miniature golf sim. I have recently learned that while...

    I wouldn't mind the long holes if the physics seemed fun. But it's not that great.

    I wonder if anybody has ever tried to build a realistic miniature golf sim. I have recently learned that while minigolf is normally just played with one club (a putter), the official regulations for balls are intentionally broad and there are hundreds to thousands of legal balls, often offering drastically different playstyles. Some are as hard and non-bouncy as billiard balls, some are non-bouncy because they're from a dense foam, some are literal rubber bouncy balls (I think regulation says they can jump at most 0.75 m when dropped from 1 m height), and you can even play with a glass ball (and people really do), which naturally requires soft touch. They all behave slightly differently based on weather, so regulation allows players to warm the balls up or cool them down to some degree.

    4 votes

  16. Comment on KOReader: custom reader software for eink devices in ~books

    V17
    Link
    I like that it can be installed on the cheapest PocketBook devices, and it's super easy too (literally just drag the file into the correct folder through USB). Pocketbooks are as cheap as the...

    I like that it can be installed on the cheapest PocketBook devices, and it's super easy too (literally just drag the file into the correct folder through USB). Pocketbooks are as cheap as the cheapest Kindles, except they're not locked in any way and you don't need a user account either, just copy the files on the device and read. Their own reading application is just a tiny bit slow, which is solved by KOReader.

    3 votes

  17. Comment on I made a chill minimal 3D golf game that fits in 13 kilobytes - Sunshine Golf Classic in ~creative

    V17
    Link Parent
    I see your complete nonreaction to my pseudo-3D suggestion, so I will make my own golf game with blackjack and hookers.

    I see your complete nonreaction to my pseudo-3D suggestion, so I will make my own golf game with blackjack and hookers.

    2 votes

  18. Comment on I made a chill minimal 3D golf game that fits in 13 kilobytes - Sunshine Golf Classic in ~creative

    V17
    Link
    This is surprisingly fun. I think the biggest issue with golf videogames is being too easy, which I'd say this isn't. I only have one problem: I really dislike the graphics. Obviously this is my...

    This is surprisingly fun. I think the biggest issue with golf videogames is being too easy, which I'd say this isn't.

    I only have one problem: I really dislike the graphics. Obviously this is my problem, and I still think you did a pretty decent job with the limitations and themes.

    But if you ever considered making a sequel or a spinoff, I'd love to play exactly this, but in the style of oldschool Links games etc., with 2D billboarded trees and other plants, low-res phototextures and all that jazz. I love the early photorealistic attempts in golf games specifically, there's just something relaxing about them, and I know it could work with procedurally generated levels. I dared to make AI mockups to help my imagination.

    1 vote

  19. Comment on You Can See Everything | Official teaser in ~movies

    V17
    Link
    Can't wait. I will 100% be inviting friends for a beer fuelled cringe double feature together with the Raygun documentary.

    Can't wait. I will 100% be inviting friends for a beer fuelled cringe double feature together with the Raygun documentary.

    4 votes

  20. Comment on UN votes to adopt new world map to reflect Africa's true size in ~humanities

    V17
    Link
    I don't know much about map projections (though I am well aware of the downsides of Mercator), but Equal Earth honestly doesn't seem like a bad compromise... ...But I'm still finding it hard to...

    I don't know much about map projections (though I am well aware of the downsides of Mercator), but Equal Earth honestly doesn't seem like a bad compromise...

    ...But I'm still finding it hard to not be cynical about this. The whole idea that we're somehow not taking Africa seriously enough because of Mercator and that using a different projection is going to help shape the narrative and give Africa the voice it deserves just seem like utter nonsense. I have read some statements in this direction in the past and it sounded like no more than a run of the mill conspiracy theory, so the fact that in the end it got taken this seriously is just strange, though the reason why it happened may just be that their goal is harmless and the proposed projection is not bad. But it seems like an obvious result of busywork from one of the fields where "what specific outcomes do we expect from this proposal and how and when are we going to test whether we succeeded or failed and publish the results?" is not asked nearly enough.

    Especially since the projection is still a compromise anyway, compared to looking at an actual globe it seems so stretch Africa vertically and still keep Russia stretched horizontally enough that it looks bigger than it is.

    12 votes