papasquat's recent activity
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Comment on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops in ~humanities
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Comment on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops in ~humanities
papasquat Link ParentI did notice the qualifiers, but they're not actually relevant to what you brought up. If you're criticizing atheists for "not believing in God while simultaneously doing X", it's already a flawed...I did notice the qualifiers, but they're not actually relevant to what you brought up. If you're criticizing atheists for "not believing in God while simultaneously doing X", it's already a flawed argument. Atheism isn't like Christianity. There's no inherent worldview associated with it beyond not believing in gods. You can be atheist but have all of the same views as a Protestant, minus belief in God. You can be an atheist and believe in bigfoot. There's no conflict there.
So an atheist agreeing with a Protestant about the nature of divinity, what constitutes virtue and so on isn't a problem for either atheism or protestantism, regardless of if they're a modern internet atheist or not.
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Comment on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops in ~humanities
papasquat Link ParentProbably for similar reasons why people go to operas without knowing Italian, or why people listen to music sung by people that don't speak a language they understand. You don't need to understand...Probably for similar reasons why people go to operas without knowing Italian, or why people listen to music sung by people that don't speak a language they understand.
- You don't need to understand the literal vocabulary of the words to get some sort of meaning from it
- People with enough familiarity with the content do understand what the message being conveyed is, because they've heard the same liturgy hundreds of times, without actually knowing how to speak the language
- It's a ritual, and people find comfort and belonging in rituals
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Comment on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops in ~humanities
papasquat Link ParentI mean... The only defining feature of atheism is not having belief in God. It's not hypocritical to be an atheist but also have protestant worldviews about literally every other aspect of life....I mean... The only defining feature of atheism is not having belief in God. It's not hypocritical to be an atheist but also have protestant worldviews about literally every other aspect of life. You're an atheist because you don't believe in God, not because you believe absolutely nothing that protestant churches do.
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Comment on Did Kamala Harris's silence on Gaza cost her the White House? in ~society
papasquat Link ParentNormally the reason they're accountable is primaries, but we barely have those for incumbents, so... I hate the convention of the incumbent being the automatic party pick and just completely...a lesser-of-two-evils candidate has no reason to improve if they aren't accountable to you.
Normally the reason they're accountable is primaries, but we barely have those for incumbents, so...
I hate the convention of the incumbent being the automatic party pick and just completely ignoring the primary because it just assumes that the person in power is automatically the best one for the job, which is totally nonsensical. Presidents should have to fight for their jobs every four years, not just from the opposing party, but from their own.
I also wish the DNC would get their thumb off the scale more generally. The name is the United states democratic party, so be democratic. If democratic primary voters nominate an establishment candidate after all, so be it, and at that point if you're not showing up to the election because of sour grapes about your preferred candidate losing the primary, basically everyone can agree that you need to grow up and stop being a child. If we don't actually have a real choice in candidates at every election though, I mean, it's still an irrational choice to not vote for the least bad candidate, but I at least understand why someone would.
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Comment on Did Kamala Harris's silence on Gaza cost her the White House? in ~society
papasquat Link ParentIt would make no sense to stage something like that. At 150 meters away with an AR-15 and a reflex sight like the shooter used, it would be extremely difficult to intentionally graze someone in...It would make no sense to stage something like that. At 150 meters away with an AR-15 and a reflex sight like the shooter used, it would be extremely difficult to intentionally graze someone in the ear instead of hitting him in the head, especially for a relatively untrained shooter. Trump would be taking a massive risk of blowing his own head off to maybe potentially win an election. Like, it would be more likely to hit him in the head or completely miss than graze him like what actually happened.
The shooter fired a bunch of shots in pretty rapid succession and only one grazed Trump. I'm all for a good conspiracy theory, but this one wouldn't make much sense.
It's a lot more likely that someone who really hated trump (no shortage of that) and didn't really have much to live for decided that this was his moment to do something about it, and his lack of training and planning made it so it didn't go how he thought it would.
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Comment on Reddit will require you to be logged in to use old.reddit.com in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentPeople in the techie sphere seem to overestimate how many people in the world care about the same things they do. Normal people don't really care about privacy, user hostile UI design,...People in the techie sphere seem to overestimate how many people in the world care about the same things they do.
Normal people don't really care about privacy, user hostile UI design, advertising, forced app downloads, or quality of discussion. They care about what site has, ragebait, memes, sexualized content, and their friends.
All of that stuff that people were so vocal about reddit killing are not things that most people who use the site, or any social media site care about. The people who care about that stuff run adblockers, don't post lowest common denominator content, and don't click on affiliate links, so reddit not only doesn't care about them, they actively want them gone.
That's something that is missed a lot in these discussions. Tiktok, Instagram, reddit, Twitter and so on do not want you on their sites. You just use bandwidth and complain. You don't watch ads or buy things or go along with their plan of extracting every possible dime out of your attention as possible, so you're not being catered to, and features are intentionally being introduced so that you leave the site.
That's why the reddit "protest" didn't work. All of these users left in droves with the intention of sticking it to reddit and forcing them to realize that they are alienating their users, but reddit just said "oh no this is horrible! Anyway, let's get back to the memes about women versus men and onlyfans posts"
It's the fate of any social media site with a profit motive. Tech savvy users are not profitable.
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Comment on AI adoption and IntelliSense in ~tech
papasquat LinkIt's something I've been thinking about for a little bit. All the major ai studios have been marketing their models, and more importantly, their apps as omni tools that are suitable for every...It's something I've been thinking about for a little bit. All the major ai studios have been marketing their models, and more importantly, their apps as omni tools that are suitable for every single task involving data in any way. The idea is that if the model itself can't handle the task (people are becoming much more aware of the limitations of what an LLM is good at and what it's bad at) it can quickly code up a one shot python script to do the task and use an ephemeral VM environment to run it, all without the user actually having to worry about what's under the hood. I can barely keep up with what the companies are falling their new ai features, but I believe Anthropic calls this Claude cowork. I think they've built some of this functionality into the normal Claude chatbot as well. I'm sure OpenAI, Google, Twitter and Microsoft have their own versions of this too.
That's all well and good when it produces the results you want. It very often does do that. But as anyone that's done any sort of data manipulation knows, when it doesn't, the failures are subtle and hard to detect unless you're the one that's been knee deep in the data and the code that manipulated it.
I hope people start seeing the flaws in this approach and come up with a solution. I don't know if we're ever going to go back to the days of bespoke, handcrafted small tools and add-ons to perform data manipulation tasks for us though. It's hard to make stuff like that for every edge case you run into, and people don't like doing hard things or paying people for their time to do hard things.
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Comment on AI job grief in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentYeah, the whole article fell flat on its face because of that presupposition. It completely shatters the central premise that this is somehow a new phenomenon. You're telling me that the artisan...Yeah, the whole article fell flat on its face because of that presupposition. It completely shatters the central premise that this is somehow a new phenomenon.
You're telling me that the artisan woodworker who created bespoke furniture with careful precision and finely honed skills from decades of experience doesn't use his job as part of his identity, but Kelly, the accounts receivable clerk at Allstate who took the job because it was the first position to call her back does? Kelly takes being laid off because of the new AI accounting tool harder than the woodworker did by being replaced by IKEA?
Nah, sorry. That angle doesn't hold.
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Comment on I made a satirical AI detector in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentYeah, that's what I mean. Like, sorry if the sentence construction you've always used before LLMs got caught in the crossfire bro. It's cliched and cloying even without the AI association though,...Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, sorry if the sentence construction you've always used before LLMs got caught in the crossfire bro. It's cliched and cloying even without the AI association though, learn to write better if you want people to take you seriously. It's the corporate memphis of phrasing.
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Comment on I made a satirical AI detector in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentFor me, the most dead giveaway is the "it's not just x—it's y" sentence framing. For me it's to the point where I actually don't even care if the writing is AI generated or not once I read that....For me, the most dead giveaway is the "it's not just x—it's y" sentence framing.
For me it's to the point where I actually don't even care if the writing is AI generated or not once I read that. It's so cliched and annoying I immediately stop reading anything past that.
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Comment on My partner says our relationship has always felt suffocating, but she does not know what she wants. What would you do? in ~life
papasquat Link ParentGood job! Breaking up is hard, and it takes guts to finally end something that is going nowhere. There are so many people that have wasted so many precious years of their limited life putting...Good job! Breaking up is hard, and it takes guts to finally end something that is going nowhere. There are so many people that have wasted so many precious years of their limited life putting themselves through misery with another person that they shouldn't be with.
I would say don't worry about dating right now. Enjoy being single. I always miss it a bit when I'm in a relationship. Don't rush to find someone, just enjoy doing whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it right now.
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Comment on Grand Theft Auto VI - Pre-orders and Edition information in ~games
papasquat Link ParentThey can't do it because then they wouldn't be able to milk people for all they're worth who will buy the same game twice.They can't do it because then they wouldn't be able to milk people for all they're worth who will buy the same game twice.
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Comment on No, artificial intelligence is not conscious in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentThey're really good voice imitators too. I imagine diffusion models will eventually become really good body language emulators as well once they have access to decent bodies. When they're good at...They're really good voice imitators too. I imagine diffusion models will eventually become really good body language emulators as well once they have access to decent bodies. When they're good at emulating all of the ways human beings have at their disposal to communicate, it will become basically impossible not to anthropomorphize them. They're basically machines designed for the explicit purpose of anthropomorphization. They're designed to be good at the types of interactions humans use.
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Comment on Why carbon capture can't solve climate change in ~enviro
papasquat Link ParentMy concern is that human capacity and resources are a zero sum game. We could put a lot of resources towards carbon capture, but a lot of those resources are drawn from the same pool as the ones...My concern is that human capacity and resources are a zero sum game. We could put a lot of resources towards carbon capture, but a lot of those resources are drawn from the same pool as the ones used for building out renewables and reducing energy consumption (namely, political capital and public budgets). Every billion you spend on a carbon capture plant is a billion you're not spending on solar and wind farms, or energy research, or public transit infrastructure.
I don't know if tying the planets long term health to billions of square miles of industrial plants is a viable long term solution versus just reducing humanity's carbon output to a level that the planet can naturally absorb using its existing carbon cycle.
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Comment on Marc Andreessen is a philosophical zombie in ~humanities
papasquat Link ParentI don't know how we got to a place where billionaires go on podcasts to say stuff that sounds like in-universe Warhammer 40k propaganda.I don't know how we got to a place where billionaires go on podcasts to say stuff that sounds like in-universe Warhammer 40k propaganda.
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Comment on How important is sexual chemistry/ability/quality to you when you date/marry/whatever? in ~life
papasquat Link ParentYou keep saying "bad at it" as if there's some objective measure of sexual skill. The only person that can judge whether sex with someone is good or bad is the person they're having sex with. That...it’s a more comfortable thought that I’m the problem as opposed to thinking peope can be physically bad at it.
You keep saying "bad at it" as if there's some objective measure of sexual skill. The only person that can judge whether sex with someone is good or bad is the person they're having sex with. That means that their perception of whether it's good or bad has as much to do with their expectations as it does with what the other person is doing. It's not like bowling where you have a set score at the end and if someone is above that score, they're good, and if they don't, they're bad.
It's not even like art, where there's a broad audience that can judge it with their own subjective tastes and come up with a consensus. There's an audience of exactly one, and people differ wildly in their tastes.
It would be more like someone who creates custom commissioned art for a single person. Even if everyone in the entire world hates their art, if the person who commissioned it likes it and is satisfied with their purchase, you can't say they're a bad artist, even if they're just drawing misshapen stick figures. They're satisfying their audience, so they're clearly not objectively bad.
You can colloquially say that someone is bad at sex, but what that actually means is that you didn't like having sex with them, not that there's some measurable problem that they have that no one will like.
I think squid is disgusting personally. I would never say that squid as a food is objectively bad though, even though I've had other food that I like. I just don't care for it.
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Comment on How important is sexual chemistry/ability/quality to you when you date/marry/whatever? in ~life
papasquat LinkIt's a factor, not a significant one though. I've been in relationships for a long time now, and as I get older, sex isn't as important to me. I still like it, and I couldn't be in a relationship...It's a factor, not a significant one though. I've been in relationships for a long time now, and as I get older, sex isn't as important to me.
I still like it, and I couldn't be in a relationship without it, but I've realized that other things are way, way more important with regard to who I spend my time with.
I also don't really view sexual compatibility as the same thing you're framing it as. Getting out of rhythm or whatever is just something two people sort of work out over time. You end up adapting to each other and finding what works for both of you.
I'd view sexual compatibility as something more akin to "she wants to have sex once a month, but I'd prefer twice a day", or "she wants heavy bdsm stuff and constant experimentation, but I just want to stick with doing the same stuff I like".
That stuff usually can't be worked through if you're too far apart. Rhythm or "skill" or whatever? After being together for a while, that stuff just tends to work itself out.
None of this really applies to casual stuff or one night stands, which I've already decided a while ago are usually unsatisfying and not really worth my time.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
papasquat Link ParentOne of the most annoying things about factorio is how the sloppy decisions you make early on completely bite you in the ass way later as you get severely limited by them. It forces you to just...One of the most annoying things about factorio is how the sloppy decisions you make early on completely bite you in the ass way later as you get severely limited by them. It forces you to just completely bulldoze parts of your factory and redo them from scratch. If it's bad enough, I've basically scrapped my whole game and started from scratch before, because too many changes at once completely ruin the mental model I have of how my factory works.
I guess that's part of the enjoyment for a lot of people, and I do admit that once that refactoring is done and works smoothly, it feels good... Until you run into the next bottleneck, and you get the feeling of "son of a bitch, not again".
I never quite figured out a way around that problem other than just copying other peoples designs, which saps all of the fun out of the game for me.
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Comment on These tacky men with ridiculous glasses want you to wear them too in ~life.style
papasquat Link ParentIt'll display your shield, ammo, and how many grenades you're carrying, obviously. I hate having to check that stuff manually.It'll display your shield, ammo, and how many grenades you're carrying, obviously.
I hate having to check that stuff manually.
Oh, I don't disagree with you, that's not what I was trying to say. I think calling anyone's spiritual beliefs silly is pretty rude if they're not hurting anyone. I was just saying that an atheist can still have a worldview, ethics, culture and so on that is derived from Christianity and Christian societies and still be entirely logically consistent. You don't have to throw out all of Christianity to count as an atheist. Just the god parts.