Grayscail's recent activity
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Comment on Most people think playing chess makes you 'smarter', but the evidence isn't clear on that in ~games.tabletop
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Comment on Are most political talks performative? in ~talk
Grayscail (edited )LinkI certainly have had the same kind of thoughts. I dont know if Id say "most" though, I think there is a vocal minority that falls into a specific pattern. You know how sometimes a group of people...I certainly have had the same kind of thoughts. I dont know if Id say "most" though, I think there is a vocal minority that falls into a specific pattern.
You know how sometimes a group of people will do a big disruptive protest that blocks a street or something? Some people will say "these guys are being counterproductive, being a nuisance will only drive people away" and other people will respond "you dont get it, being disruptive is necessary to force people to pay attention to you, this is the way you get results".
The underlying rationale here seems to be that because these protests are in service of some greater good, that outweighs the minor amount of bad that comes from intentionally trying to bother someone. The problem I see with this is that this justification reaches into the future and assumes success, and then uses that presumed positive effect to compensate the real time negative effect they are subjecting people to. Which is maybe justifiable, but in practice a lot of protests dont succeed in achieving any kind of change. So for a lot of these protests, it really ends up being a net negative that youre putting out in the world. A minor negative, but a negative.
But wait, not really. Because these people are not doing a one off thing are they? They are part of a cause and a movement, so theres no such thing as failure. Its just one small contribution to the larger effort that might eventually pay off. This acts as a kind of ethical loophole where as long as the cause you are fighting for is magnanimous enough, it justifies all sorts of minor transgressions.
I would liken it to how some Christians are really shitty people, but because they define goodness as synonymous with being a christian, as long as they keep going to church that justifies looking down on everyone less religious than them. At least in their own eyes. And because they have that justification that they are already a good person, they never bother to reflect on their bad behaviors.
This is where the performative aspect comes in. If you are a bit of an asshole, adopting these broad reaching worldviews gives you an excuse to indulge in your worst tendencies. If all the problems in the world boil down to just capitalism, or just religion, or just the other side, then by fighting that one problem you are fighting every problem and ummediately have the moral high ground in all sotuations. You can be obnoxious and sanctimonious and look down on people for not being as good as you are and still tell yourself you are a good person.
I think this is the core of the problem. People want to be seen as fighting for the right causes, but that perception is the goal, not solving problems.
Im not trying to accuse everyone who has strong beliefs of this. I think there are people who do this, people who do this unconsciously but bekieve they are being sincere, and people who are genuinely sincere. But the people who are sincere will eventually fall out of getting into arguments with strangers and eventually start committing more to direct action once they fins a community with shared values. But the people who just want the clout of fighting for the right causes have no incentive to ever do that. This group of people has the most incentive to loudly and publically talk about politics without really doing much. And because theyre trying to hard to be liud, they stick in your mind. So when you think about the political discussions you have had, you mostly think about those ones.
I wouldnt say I have a good answer of what to do about it. Ive been getting put off by this for a while and its really frustrating. Like people are constantly trying to force me to engage with their various opinions, but its all ultimately a waste of time. My only solution has been to tey and disengage from politics and just try to make sense of things on my own without external influence. I know that wouldnt be acceptable for a lot of people though.
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Comment on Stack Overflow and OpenAI partner to strengthen the world’s most popular large language models in ~tech
Grayscail LinkI cant wait for Open AI to start responding to every query asking for me to lay out the part numbers for every component in my computer before it will consider giving me an answer. Or for that...I cant wait for Open AI to start responding to every query asking for me to lay out the part numbers for every component in my computer before it will consider giving me an answer. Or for that answer to be "have you considered doing something completely different than what youre trying to do instead?"
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Comment on Ireland can’t blame its anti-immigrant problem on Rishi Sunak – The sudden arrival of European-style populism in Irish politics is the result of thirteen years of government complacency in ~misc
Grayscail Link ParentI think its saying "Ireland didnt suddenly become xenophobic in response to Rishi Sunaks divisive politics, Ireland has been xenophobic for a good while now"I think its saying "Ireland didnt suddenly become xenophobic in response to Rishi Sunaks divisive politics, Ireland has been xenophobic for a good while now"
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Comment on ‘I’m a blue whale, I’m here’: researchers listen with delight to songs that hint at Antarctic resurgence in ~enviro
Grayscail LinkSo is that a direct quote? From the whale? Oh, ok But its you saying that, right? Like, Im sure that probably is the gist of what the whale call is for. But whales dont necessarily have words or...So is that a direct quote? From the whale?
“We think the message is: ‘I’m a blue whale, I’m here,’” Miller said.
Oh, ok
“If you think about … us almost wiping them out, and extinction, then it becomes more poignant to think about them saying, ‘I’m still here, here I am.’”
But its you saying that, right? Like, Im sure that probably is the gist of what the whale call is for. But whales dont necessarily have words or poetic irony. I dont personally think the whale is making a defiant statement of resilience about how its a survivor.
I just watched a youtube video about that sign language gorilla that might have been fake, and Im all riled up about people projecting onto animals.
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Comment on AI, automation, and inequality — how do we reach utopia? in ~talk
Grayscail LinkI think if any such utopia will come about it will be paralell to the mainstream of society for a while. I think there is something wrong with the strategy of building up a grassroots movement to...I think if any such utopia will come about it will be paralell to the mainstream of society for a while.
I think there is something wrong with the strategy of building up a grassroots movement to take over the federal government and enact that kind of change from a top down level, and it will never fully pan out.
Instead advances in AI and automation will build up to the point where small independent communities will be able to live mostly "off grid" while still being embedded in the larger nation level society to fulfill backup needs when your local production fails or is insufficient.
So itd be like a community level thing where youd have something akin to a neighborhood greenhouse and community center where you have access to stuff like 3d printers and automatic hydroponic crops to harvest food from. This might also include something like a microgrid hub for your whole neighborhood to share energy. But outside of your community thered still be the same system we currently have so you could always work a job and use the money to buy stuff from stores.
At first Id expect these types of communities to need a lot of upfront work and investment to set up, so it will maybe be limited to people who are willing to develop the right skillset to use those automation tools by hacking things together. Youll probably need to spend your own money buying your own stuff and it will probably be specialty commercial equipment that will be expensive until enough scale grows to where the price comes down.
These factors will dissuade people from trying this out for themselves, which is why I think it will be a niche thing at first. Similar to the homesteading movement, but I think the concept will work better when oriented toward small communities with certain shared resources rather than single family self sufficiency. The former is really not much of a departure from current apartment complexes. And I would expect there will be a large number of corporate versions of this who will do exactly that, create apartments with self sufficiency amenities as a selling point.
Eventually once the price point comes down to a level that encourages mass adoption, pretty much everwhere will be within range of some sort of self sufficiency ammenities. Possibly they would even be in overlapping territories of different groups offering access to their resources. So at this point you have your pick of where to get what you need, and the controller of each one would be able to impose their own conditions of how to get access.
All of this will be constrained by material and energy limitations. Hopefully we could collectively decide on a few core materials we can use to make the bulk of things a person would want and chose them to be easily reused or recycled materials. But I think we would need some kind of big advance in energy for this to become accessible to everyone.
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Comment on A Reddit-led boycott of Loblaws, one of Canadas largest grocers, begins today in ~finance
Grayscail LinkI thought Loblaw was a last name made up for the name Bob Loblaw' Law Blog. I'd never heard it as a last name before.I thought Loblaw was a last name made up for the name Bob Loblaw' Law Blog. I'd never heard it as a last name before.
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Comment on Aaron Sorkin is writing some kind of ‘Social Network’ sequel in ~movies
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Comment on The "Great Games"- AAA titles, easy brand recognition- are what everyone pushes. But sometimes you need a "just average" game. in ~games
Grayscail LinkI like low end games because they don't focus on trying to look impressive as much. Like some of these video games have so many pretenders cuscenes and so many hand holdy tutorials that I get...I like low end games because they don't focus on trying to look impressive as much.
Like some of these video games have so many pretenders cuscenes and so many hand holdy tutorials that I get bored before I even get to the gameplay part.
AAA games in particular really want to prove that their new Gen hardware and all the manpower they put in the game is worth it, so they really go hard in trying to showcase as much spectacle as they can, but really I just want to get to the action part. Graphics have been more than good enough for me for like 15 years at this point.
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Comment on A golden age of renewables is beginning, and California is leading the way in ~enviro
Grayscail Link ParentI don't know if I would say synthetic or virtual inertia are interchangeable with inherent physical inertia. That commentary by Stephen Stroul distinguishes virtual inertia from FFR, but its still...I don't know if I would say synthetic or virtual inertia are interchangeable with inherent physical inertia. That commentary by Stephen Stroul distinguishes virtual inertia from FFR, but its still fundamentally a decoupling of the inverter frequency from the grid frequency.
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Comment on A golden age of renewables is beginning, and California is leading the way in ~enviro
Grayscail (edited )Link ParentMark Jacobson is a professor from Stanford who has been working on this 100% renewables roadmap for many years now. He wrote a version of it back in 2014-2015 which Bernie Sanders sort of adopted...Mark Jacobson is a professor from Stanford who has been working on this 100% renewables roadmap for many years now. He wrote a version of it back in 2014-2015 which Bernie Sanders sort of adopted as his preliminary climate policy during his Presidential run. As a result of the heightened visibility of his work during that time, other researchers tool a look at that paper, and came back with several critiques which they published in a response paper.
The troubling event is that Jacobson responded by suing some of the authors of the response paper for defamation, claiming their paper defamed him by pointing out those errors. The lawsuit was eventually withdrawn, but I find it very suspicious that Jacobson filed a lawsuit against the scientists who criticized his findings, which prevented them from speaking openly about their critiques. In a business setting when you use a meritless lawsuit to silence your opposition, it's called a SLAPP suit, and it's illegal. I think if Jacobson had carried out his lawsuit in its entirety, it would have been guilty of doing the same.
Personally I don't think anyone who would be willing to use legal chicanery to covern up valid criticisms should be trusted as a reliable source of information.
My thought regarding the high electricity cost is that solar panels and wind turbines do not provide inertia in the way that synchronous generators do, so in order to maintain good frequency stability the grid operator is supplementing renewables with lots of reserve power natural gas and turning that on when appropriate. But peaked plants charge more for electricity since they know they are not on all the time an they charge more when they are on to make up the difference. So you're paying a premium for gas power, but since gas is making up your inertial load you end up running it all the time like it's baseload.
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Comment on A golden age of renewables is beginning, and California is leading the way in ~enviro
Grayscail (edited )LinkI'm not sure how much stock I want to put in any commentary by Mark Jacobson, but there's still some good info in the piece. I would consider it possible, maybe even likely, that those two are...I'm not sure how much stock I want to put in any commentary by Mark Jacobson, but there's still some good info in the piece.
Detractors claim that the growth of renewables in California has resulted in high electricity prices. California has the third-highest electricity prices in the U.S. To the contrary, the growth of WWS in California has prevented prices from rising further. This effect is demonstrated by high WWS generation but low electricity prices in other states: Of the 11 that have higher annual-average production of WWS as a percent of demand than California, 10 are among the 25 states with the lowest electricity prices. Five are among the 10 states with the lowest prices.
So why are California’s electricity prices high? California has the third-highest natural gas prices in the U.S. and still uses that fossil fuel for backup electricity. In addition, utilities have passed on to customers the costs of the San Bruno and Aliso Canyon gas disasters, gas pipe retrofits, wildfires caused by transmission line sparks, and burial of transmission lines to reduce such fires
I would consider it possible, maybe even likely, that those two are related and perhaps causal.
I feel that in the past Jacobson's analysis has been too focused on looking at macroscale values of total electricity produced and total consumed without factoring in the system stability of the grid as a cost metric. Which leads to this apparent paradox of California having very expensive power despite having all this cheap renewable energy.
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Comment on Cartoons such as Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, or Avatar? in ~tv
Grayscail LinkTeen Titans had good overarching plots with each season having a big picture antagonist. And tons of character development for each of the team members. One of the best cartoons ever, in my...Teen Titans had good overarching plots with each season having a big picture antagonist. And tons of character development for each of the team members. One of the best cartoons ever, in my opinion. I think it would be a good fit for what you are looking for.
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Comment on US Congress approves bill banning TikTok unless Chinese owner ByteDance sells platform in ~tech
Grayscail Link"It seems that TikTok is on the clock, but will the party ever stop? No." -Kesha, probably"It seems that TikTok is on the clock, but will the party ever stop? No."
-Kesha, probably
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Comment on What makes someone a "decent" person to you? in ~talk
Grayscail LinkI have adopted a kind of Pyrrhonic attitude of just not thinking anything of anyone because there are too many possible variables in a person's life that could affect why they act the way they do....I have adopted a kind of Pyrrhonic attitude of just not thinking anything of anyone because there are too many possible variables in a person's life that could affect why they act the way they do.
There's so many movies and books and TV shows that are constantly trying to juke you out with twists and secrets. You think a person is one way because of the things you see of them, but then the writer reveals something that's supposed to change your perspective on it, like "haha! Didn't see that coming did you? Don't you feel silly for judging so prematurely? Just goes to show you, huh? Maybe you should be more understanding/sympathetic to strangers."
So now whenever I see someone do anything I reflexively think that I don't know enough about the person to have any idea if they are good or bad. So whatever guess I take is worthless and shouldn't be taken with any certainty.
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Comment on Scientists push new paradigm of animal consciousness, saying even insects may be sentient in ~enviro
Grayscail Link ParentI think people tend to understand that there is some kind of spectrum of intelligence. And when they say stuff like "animals aren't conscious" that's based in part on the poorly defined...I think people tend to understand that there is some kind of spectrum of intelligence. And when they say stuff like "animals aren't conscious" that's based in part on the poorly defined definitions we have of stuff like what consciousness really is.
What they're really saying is just that animals are not like us humans to some significant degree.
Like, if you hear about ant death spirals, and how ants will sometimes get stuck in a loop and just walk in circles until they all die, that sounds weird to think of humans doing that, and nobody ever being like "wow, this scenery sure looks familar". If a pack of dogs somehow got into a chase which led them in a circle, eventually the dogs would probably stop running and do something else. So it feels like there's some meaningful distinction in how ants are processing things and how dogs are processing things that lead to ants having this seemingly robotic behavior, but other animals that we think of as closer to human do not.
But it's hard to describe weird behavior patterns with an overarching term so lots of people just default to the idea of "consciousness" or "sentience" or "sapience" because those are all thinking words.
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Comment on Two years to save the planet, says UN climate chief in ~enviro
Grayscail Link ParentI'd disagree with this. I think that even if people don't know the exact details of what's happening in the world, they can pick up on the vibe when other people are reaching too hard or...I'd disagree with this. I think that even if people don't know the exact details of what's happening in the world, they can pick up on the vibe when other people are reaching too hard or exaggerating things too much.
As a result, a lot of times people will talk about things they think are important, I will lose interest because I don't trust them. All it takes is one line that feels like they're a little too overconfident, and suddenly I will be suspicious that this person is actually giving me bad or misleading information.
Because I know that some people are willing to lie for what they decide is the greater good, I dont feel like I can take anyone at their word. That last line you wrote is pretty insulting, no? The thought that some stranger is going to come up to me and start trying to proselytize to me with the attitude of "this dummy is too stupid to make decisions on his own, so I'll have to lie to him for his own good" makes me not want to collaborate with others on making the world a better place.
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Comment on Finnish startup hopes solein, protein grown with CO2 and electricity, will cut environmental impact of farming in ~food
Grayscail Link ParentI dont really follow meat substitute news, but the article seems to indicate that things aren't going amazingly for Beyond Meat and similar brands.Vainikka says that is the key problem for cultured meat, or lab-grown meat. The market value of newly listed companies such as Beyond Meat soared during the coronavirus pandemic bubble, only to come crashing down as sales slumped. The opening of Solar Foods’ first factory will be crucial in persuading investors that the company will not suffer the same fate.
I dont really follow meat substitute news, but the article seems to indicate that things aren't going amazingly for Beyond Meat and similar brands.
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Comment on Finnish startup hopes solein, protein grown with CO2 and electricity, will cut environmental impact of farming in ~food
Grayscail LinkI suspect that if this ever takes off it will be in the form of chicken nuggets and sausage, or other things that consist of pulverized mush of other stuff. I'd expect the perceived ickyness would...I suspect that if this ever takes off it will be in the form of chicken nuggets and sausage, or other things that consist of pulverized mush of other stuff. I'd expect the perceived ickyness would prevent it from becoming popular as a standalone consumer facing product.
Though personally I have always wondered if hydrolyzed spirulina would be any good.
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Comment on The internet used to be ✨fun✨ in ~tech
Grayscail Link ParentFair enough. That's a good example, I feel like I understand better.Fair enough. That's a good example, I feel like I understand better.
I cant wait to shout this at someone over voice chat during a game