Greg's recent activity
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
Greg Link ParentDoes this really map to what they were saying, though? I read a comment about the use of statistics and stereotyping - one that I don't necessarily agree 100% with every nuance of, but one that...Does this really map to what they were saying, though? I read a comment about the use of statistics and stereotyping - one that I don't necessarily agree 100% with every nuance of, but one that seemed pretty specific and targeted in discussing that particular approach to how these issues are communicated - and this seems kind of a non sequitur.
It's also veering very close, at least by my reading, to suggesting that those who feel excluded (something that the original comment didn't actually suggest, as far as I can see) are part of the problem, when it could very much be the case that those who intend to be inclusive are still falling into some rhetorical traps because, y'know, we're all fallible humans and sometimes it's helpful to point out how lines of thinking and methods of communication can be improved.
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Comment on British AI startup beats humans in international forecasting in ~tech
Greg Link ParentI've worked alongside people from DeepMind on a couple of occasions, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that they employ some of the most ridiculously intelligent and capable scientists...I've worked alongside people from DeepMind on a couple of occasions, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that they employ some of the most ridiculously intelligent and capable scientists I've ever met. They've got a goddamn Nobel Prize under their belt! So you can call this personal bias if you like, or you can call it direct experience, but I actually put a lot of weight on someone being an author on one of their papers.
Like I said above, it's not a 100% guarantee of meaningful contribution when there are that many people listed and that many complex internal reasons governing who does and doesn't get a mention, and I'm sure not everyone at any large organisation is necessarily part of their A-team even on a good day, but in lieu of any other information it's enough for me to think they're probably actually working on some legitimate tech rather than just repackaging someone else's hosted LLM.
But yeah, I get it. It is a marketing piece. Given how little I could see about the company itself (that's actually why I ended up looking for the guy's personal CV, because I wanted to know if they were legit and couldn't see anything but copies of this same story when I tried to dig into the company) it's maybe fair to call it a puff piece. And we're being absolutely flooded by buzzword-laden crap under the banner of "AI", so I get the skepticism and the irritation. All of that is why I think it's even more important to sift out the work that could potentially make an actual positive contribution from the crap that almost definitely won't.
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
Greg Link ParentI think it didn’t need to be said at all. I think it’s entirely reasonable to say in general, I just don’t think it was the time or place - because the first post already acknowledged it, so it...I think it didn’t need to be said at all. I think it’s entirely reasonable to say in general, I just don’t think it was the time or place - because the first post already acknowledged it, so it wasn’t going unsaid, and because the second one’s strong conclusion of “just have to live with it” felt very much like it was shutting down the thoughtful exploration of the first, rather than adding to it.
But there’s something I’m clearly still not communicating well, because you’re suggesting I see it as a comment on all men, or on me. I don’t, I completely understand that the “not all men” is both implied, and pointed out explicitly in this case. I’m not asking for more hedging, or more carve outs.
I’m saying that being able to climb no higher than “one of the good ones” sucks, and in light of that I’d rather not be part of the group at all. But that’s not an option, nor is ceasing to use “men” as a categorical grouping at all, so I don’t really have a conclusion.
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
Greg (edited )Link ParentThose are some really interesting examples, and my answer is an absolute yes to all of the above, but with differing levels of intensity. The first and last - ancestors and humanity in general -...Curious to hear your thoughts on similar veins of thought. Does it hurt to be reminded that…
Those are some really interesting examples, and my answer is an absolute yes to all of the above, but with differing levels of intensity.
The first and last - ancestors and humanity in general - are painful in the sense of general empathy, in the sense of wishing the world could be better, and in the sense of feeling a kinship with those who have suffered at the hands of others. But they aren’t really examples of what I was meaning in my previous comment.
The government examples hit much closer to home, and they are an example of what I was talking about: actions of a group that I’m part of, unwillingly so, that hurt others. It’s nationality rather than gender, but it’s the same concept. I guess if I really boil it down what I’m saying is I don’t like being involuntarily grouped at all, because it just makes me want to scream “those assholes don’t represent me”. And since that’s always going to be the case with grouping on a characteristic or attribute rather than an action, maybe talking about the actions in the context of the attribute isn’t a great thing to do?
I’m genuinely posing that as a question - I’m thinking on my feet as I type this, less trying to make a point and more trying to genuinely explore an idea that I have an emotional response to but no real conclusion for.
Would you rather we not educate women on how to keep themselves safe in order to prevent men from being hurt by the reminder that the group they are part of commits more sexual crimes?
Of course not, but it’s contextual. The top comment was a thoughtful and heartfelt one that strongly acknowledged the genuine harm done by some men, but expressed sadness for what this means about the perception of male sexuality. I thought it was a really good point, and one that isn’t often discussed in such a sensitive way - in part I think because it is very difficult to do so without inadvertently appearing to be brushing off the genuine harm that, in part, leads to those perceptions.
In that context, a direct reply about the statistics absolutely didn’t read as an effort to protect or educate those who can benefit from knowing the information. It read as, essentially, “no, people are right to have a negative view of male sexuality and these numbers prove it, we’ve got to just live with that”.
I guess if I really boil it down, the exchange read to me as: “it’s a real shame that bad actors tarnish how an important part of life is perceived for our entire group, perhaps that’s harmful to the good members of the group, despite being understandable given the circumstances?” “yes but that group is objectively the bad one, deal with it”.
But I also don't think it's fair to blame that on the statements themselves, drawing attention away from the malicious actors in the space
I think this is perhaps where I didn’t do a great job of saying what I was trying to say.
I know the group I’m in is responsible for an enormous majority of global violence, both sexual and otherwise. If I could disassociate myself from the group I would, but it’s an innate part of me and part of how the world perceives me, so I can’t.
I’m not blaming the statements (or talking about the direction they push reactionary men, really, although I did pull the quote from that thread so I see why you went there), more reflecting on how and where they’re said, and how that affects the discussion of “men [group] [negative]” vs “men [individuals]”.
[Edit] Minor clarification
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
Greg (edited )Link ParentI'm going to copy something I said just the other day in another thread, because I think it's very relevant here: It doesn't have to be a question of social hierarchy, or guilt vs harm, or "the...I'm going to copy something I said just the other day in another thread, because I think it's very relevant here:
...it does sting a little that the majority of times "cis men" or "white men" are mentioned in general, it's as a pejorative. I didn't ask to be a member of those groups. I don't particularly identify with them as classifications that define me, or with masculinity as a part of my identity. I fully understand the context those things are said in and support the ideals that usually underly the statements. And I still feel that little bit of tarnish every time the groups I'm part of - the groups I didn't choose to be part of, but am nonetheless - are casually classed as the bad groups.
It doesn't have to be a question of social hierarchy, or guilt vs harm, or "the oppression of men", or even obligation. It just hurts to so often be reminded that the group we're part of, whether we want to be or not, is the bad group. It hurts knowing that it statistically is the bad group, and knowing that will always influence how the rest of the world relates to us, for that matter.
And yeah, that's a small harm in the scheme of things. In contexts other than a thread like this, or the prior one that was also about men's issues specifically, I wouldn't mention it at all. If being reminded of that is a price we have to pay to counter the actual, larger, systematic harms then it's a price I'd absolutely say is worth paying. But I don't know if it is a necessity. It seems like "don't judge whole groups of people based on the harm caused by some small subset of that group" is probably a positive angle to take regardless?
[Edit] Typo
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Comment on Biffy Clyro - Golden (KPop Demon Hunters cover) (2025) in ~music
Greg LinkUnexpected and confusingly enjoyable! It’s always fun seeing artists I like already cover something from way outside their genre.Unexpected and confusingly enjoyable! It’s always fun seeing artists I like already cover something from way outside their genre.
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Biffy Clyro - Golden (KPop Demon Hunters cover) (2025)
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Comment on Amazon to end commingling program after years of complaints from brands and sellers in ~finance
Greg Link ParentIt’s one of those things that makes perfect sense in principle and then fails to account for messy reality. Mass produced products are fungible, after all, that’s why they all have the same...It’s one of those things that makes perfect sense in principle and then fails to account for messy reality.
Mass produced products are fungible, after all, that’s why they all have the same barcode in the first place - why would you waste time and fuel shipping a specific one across the country when there’s another just down the road from the person who bought it?! Sure, the one down the road came from another supplier, but that’s just inventory tracking on the computer, it’d be crazy to physically move something hundreds of miles rather than just changing a line in a database.
Except you can’t make that base assumption about items being fungible when you don’t control the supply chain. You especially can’t when people actively know you’re treating items from untrusted sources that way, and might choose to deliberately exploit that fact. You can have the efficiency of centralisation at the cost of overhead to manage that in a trustworthy way, or you can have an open marketplace of independent traders at the cost of redundancy and duplication, because they are, y’know, independent. You can’t have both, however much Amazon might have tried to do so for many years.
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Comment on Forecast accurately predicting an unusual monsoon season reached thirty-eight million farmers in ~tech
Greg LinkCool use case! This is also going to be my go-to example for “people don’t just mean LLMs when they talk about AI*”, because I do worry about the valuable scientific applications like this getting...Cool use case! This is also going to be my go-to example for “people don’t just mean LLMs when they talk about AI*”, because I do worry about the valuable scientific applications like this getting caught up in the anti-big-tech-LLM backlash.
* Yes, I’d rather we used more accurate terminology too, but my point is that ship has sailed
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Comment on British AI startup beats humans in international forecasting in ~tech
Greg Link ParentGoogle Scholar shows a truncated list of authors, his name is present in the full list if you expand it on the original publication. You have actually stumbled across something that's a whole...Google Scholar shows a truncated list of authors, his name is present in the full list if you expand it on the original publication. You have actually stumbled across something that's a whole thing here, and needs a bit of context...
There's some debate about the trend for tech industry scholarly publications including 1,000+ authors, which is something that a lot of the headline papers do now, but being part of that thousand is no small achievement. On the one hand, yeah, it does kind of obfuscate the significance of any individual contribution, and it's definitely influenced in part by internal politics (who in the field wouldn't want their name attached to the main publication for a major model, after all?); but on the other hand, you don't get a piece of research at that scale done without a large team all doing meaningful work towards it, and unlike in academia there's far less likelihood that each subgroup within the team will be working on their own respective publications, so the single big paper with everyone on it is often the only way to really credit everyone who genuinely did make the research happen.
tl;dr he's an author on the big papers, but so are >1,000 other people. Most if not all of them probably did make real contributions, but it's hard to untangle how much is down to any one of them.
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Comment on British AI startup beats humans in international forecasting in ~tech
Greg Link ParentThe guy behind the company seems to be for real, so I think this is one of the comparatively rare occasions where they’re more than just a quick cash in wrapped around a ChatGPT API account.The guy behind the company seems to be for real, so I think this is one of the comparatively rare occasions where they’re more than just a quick cash in wrapped around a ChatGPT API account.
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Comment on California Governor Gavin Newsom praises Charlie Kirk’s outreach to young men, suggests Democrats do more of their own in ~society
Greg Link ParentI think we're talking about different groups, which actually helps me a lot because I was a bit concerned by how differently I seemed to be interpreting things compared to some of the replies (not...I think we're talking about different groups, which actually helps me a lot because I was a bit concerned by how differently I seemed to be interpreting things compared to some of the replies (not singling you out specifically, more a general sense).
I was replying to and thinking about a description that was specifically radicalised men, with neo nazis given as the concrete example - to me that implies a level of active and enthusiastic participation, and a level of (mis)information, because it's hard to be especially radical about something you're just not really considering at all. As I see it, a serious line is crossed when a person sees the real face of a group and still chooses participate rather than turning back; I meant it literally when I mentioned the swastikas and talking about feeding people to alligators.
It sounds like what you're saying is that a decent subset of people haven't really seen the face of what they're supporting, that they're just going about their day without it being a significant part of their lives. Like you say, they're still dangerous for the results of their actions, but not so much for their intent. I can believe that, and I think it's reasonable to treat them separately from the people who've made that step to flying the flags and saying the words for themselves - it's a lot harder to claim ignorance at that point.
We can quibble about exactly where the line of responsibility lies, where ignorance becomes wilful, where informing oneself becomes a duty in and of itself, but at a very broad level I do see the people you're talking about as being distinct to the people I was talking about. I think you might be uncomfortable with how many of the first group will cross that line into the second if you were to put the facts in front of them and press them on it, but I'm not going to hold people responsible for hypotheticals. As long as they are genuinely ignorant, I'd say their responsibility for the harm lies somewhere from accidental to negligent, whereas those who knowingly engage are willing participants in that harm.
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Comment on California Governor Gavin Newsom praises Charlie Kirk’s outreach to young men, suggests Democrats do more of their own in ~society
Greg Link ParentI very much see where you’re coming from - I tried to make it clear that as another person who “gets it”, even I find some of the messaging unpleasant and off putting, so I totally understand it...I very much see where you’re coming from - I tried to make it clear that as another person who “gets it”, even I find some of the messaging unpleasant and off putting, so I totally understand it being entirely alienating to others. That all makes sense to me. People coming to a point of “fuck the left” on that basis also, sadly, makes sense to me.
But, again, we’re talking neo nazis here. We’re not talking veneer-of-respectability Reagan republicans, we’re talking about people who are actively threatening violence based on race, nationality, religion, and gender identity.
So yeah, I understand being put off by the left, I understand making a reactionary u-turn there, but if a person doesn’t hit the brakes when their new community starts to break out the swastikas and talk about feeding their neighbours’ murdered corpses to alligators, I am absolutely going to question their integrity on a much deeper level.
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Comment on Samsung confirms its $1,800+ fridges will start showing you ads in ~tech
Greg Link ParentGeneral case Sony TVs tend to be notably better than average on this (partly because they use Android TV/Google TV, which is based on an actual widely used OS rather than the proprietary junk most...General case Sony TVs tend to be notably better than average on this (partly because they use Android TV/Google TV, which is based on an actual widely used OS rather than the proprietary junk most other manufacturers use) and Samsung tend to be notably worse than average.
It’s been a few years since I was working with smart TV stuff specifically, but from a quick glance that assumption still seems to hold, so I’d expect Sony to be fine. It also differs pretty widely by region even within a given brand, for legal and commercial reasons.
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Comment on Dirtbags made comedian Stavros Halkias famous. Now he’s helping them remake their lives. in ~life
Greg Link ParentI haven’t really seen any of his stuff, but I realised I recognised him from a clip that was floating around a while back and I absolutely love the whole vibe - anyone who's having that much...I haven’t really seen any of his stuff, but I realised I recognised him from a clip that was floating around a while back and I absolutely love the whole vibe - anyone who's having that much genuine fun with their coworkers/guests is alright in my book! I should definitely check out that podcast.
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Comment on Samsung confirms its $1,800+ fridges will start showing you ads in ~tech
Greg Link ParentIt can be done - gov.uk is excellent - but for every gov.uk we seem to have at least five Horizon ITs and NPfITs, so who knows how we're meant to get it done without that dice roll.It can be done - gov.uk is excellent - but for every gov.uk we seem to have at least five Horizon ITs and NPfITs, so who knows how we're meant to get it done without that dice roll.
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Comment on Samsung confirms its $1,800+ fridges will start showing you ads in ~tech
Greg Link ParentI'm skeptical that it's a discount, really: they're already charging what the market will bear, and if they thought they could increase the price then they would, so it presumably wouldn't...I'm skeptical that it's a discount, really: they're already charging what the market will bear, and if they thought they could increase the price then they would, so it presumably wouldn't (couldn't) go up if the ad revenue suddenly disappeared - meaning that it hasn't gone down as the result of the ad revenue being there either. But I guess that's a 30 second view of something bounded by business psychology, consumer psychology, game theory, information asymmetry, and good old incompetence too, so who knows what the real contribution to the pricing equation there is.
I will say that for me personally, I absolutely would forego the hypothetical discount to support ad free products. I don't want to live in a world of pervasive advertising, I don't want my peers to be continually advertised to, and I don't want my choices in the market to be influenced by their appeal to marketers as much or more than their appeal to end users. I think the negative externalities are much larger than the value of the cash discount, even if 100% of it were passed back to the customer. But I also acknowledge that I'm a tech industry person making tech industry money, so that's easier for me to say than most.
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Comment on Samsung confirms its $1,800+ fridges will start showing you ads in ~tech
Greg Link ParentI think their meaning is that the problem will come if/when that happens. Same issue as when you want a TV without “smart” features, like they mentioned, or a (newer/higher end) car without a...I think their meaning is that the problem will come if/when that happens. Same issue as when you want a TV without “smart” features, like they mentioned, or a (newer/higher end) car without a touchscreen.
Will it happen with fridges? I’m somewhat doubtful - I think enough people just see the ones with screens as weird or tacky, and enough people buy the basic commodity models anyway where adding a screen wouldn’t be cost effective, that the manufacturers won’t be able to push it too far on this one.
But there are enough examples of an entire market making a decision seemingly simultaneously and leaving the user with no other options that I’m never going to be 100% confident on that…
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Comment on Why people embrace conspiracy theories: It's about community, not gullibility in ~life
Greg Link ParentIt’s also a lot easier to believe things are fixable if there’s a “them” causing the problem. Just defeat the “them”! That might be a monumental task, but at least it’s clear. Confronting the...It’s also a lot easier to believe things are fixable if there’s a “them” causing the problem. Just defeat the “them”! That might be a monumental task, but at least it’s clear.
Confronting the reality that a lot of our problems are either unfathomably complex or, even worse, relatively simple to fix but would need everyone to start collaborating in a way that hasn’t happened in the last few millennia of human history is a fucking bleak realisation. Both mean that an awful lot of things are very unlikely to be fixed in our lifetimes.
I think one of the biggest issues when discussing power dynamics is that people often think of them as fixed, linear things rather than the incredibly complex, fluid, and situational interplay of factors that they actually are.
It causes resentment on both sides, because it gives everyone a justifiable reason to think that the people disagreeing are wrong, when they're just oversimplifying in a different way. Talking about the power gradient from men to women frustrates people because, as you rightly say, there's a strong concentration of unearned power among a small subset of men that the rest of us will never see. Talking about those small number of men having the power frustrates others in turn because even the "average" man is at least sometimes afforded the power to be listened to in meetings more readily than his colleague, or to live without his reproductive choices being legislated, or a plethora of other day to day examples.
I don't think it's fair to look at unwanted touching through the lens of power dynamics without acknowledging the roles played by social hierarchy, customer/employee hierarchy, employer/employee hierarchy, class hierarchy, and many other highly situational hierarchies that can easily and dramatically change the situation in conjunction with gender. But I think that complexity applies when discussing the dynamics experienced by the median man in other parts of life as well, and how his gender might sometimes shift things in his favour compared to a median woman in the same situation.