R3qn65's recent activity
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Comment on Metallica’s James Hetfield has a message for entertainers who bring their ‘bullshit‘ agenda to the stage in ~music
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Comment on Metallica’s James Hetfield has a message for entertainers who bring their ‘bullshit‘ agenda to the stage in ~music
R3qn65 Link ParentI don't know. Elsewhere in this thread you also stated "silence is consent... Silence is deeply political." To me that's an implicit requirement to state his political opinions at all times. Do...I don't know. Elsewhere in this thread you also stated "silence is consent... Silence is deeply political." To me that's an implicit requirement to state his political opinions at all times. Do you mean it differently?
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Comment on Those viral claims about plummeting Russian ‘bot’ activity have no basis in fact in ~society
R3qn65 Link ParentI just can’t get behind the concept of intentionally lying to society, no matter the perceived gain. I think it always backfires eventually.sure it’s pathologizing the concept of the “noble lie” but in this case it is an easy one to instantly upgrade your feed and others, it's a memetic algo update.
I just can’t get behind the concept of intentionally lying to society, no matter the perceived gain. I think it always backfires eventually.
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Comment on Those viral claims about plummeting Russian ‘bot’ activity have no basis in fact in ~society
R3qn65 Link ParentThat makes sense. I don’t necessarily agree with all of that but I get how and why you feel that way. The only thing I would note is that AI’s reputation for giving kind of shitty answers was far...That makes sense. I don’t necessarily agree with all of that but I get how and why you feel that way.
The only thing I would note is that AI’s reputation for giving kind of shitty answers was far more true a couple of years ago, when you last used it, than it is now. I’m not saying you should use it, given that you don’t want to. Just pointing out that “it’ll hallucinate” isn’t a very strong argument these days about why you shouldn’t use AI as a fact checker.
(I’m also not claiming that current AI doesn’t ever hallucinate, to be clear. But they’ve more or less worked out the bugs in a prompt like “check this” or “search that.” You’re going to get a better, more accurate answer than you would from 99.999% of human posters.)
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Comment on Those viral claims about plummeting Russian ‘bot’ activity have no basis in fact in ~society
R3qn65 Link ParentPretty much every time. I recognize that sounds like an outlandish claim but I think my reputation around here as a weird pedant will lend some credibility to it. And AI - talking about paid AI...How often do you fact check the facts it provides? Follow every source? Read the info within and follow the sources within it? AI is notorious for making shit up.
I don't even trust news articles on scientific studies without going and reading the actual study.Pretty much every time. I recognize that sounds like an outlandish claim but I think my reputation around here as a weird pedant will lend some credibility to it.
And AI - talking about paid AI here, to be clear - has vastly better epistemic hygiene, if you'll excuse my using the trendy term, than almost any human poster. It is wrong far less, invents stuff far less, presents things misleadingly far less. It is imperfect, true. But it doesn't need to be perfect to be useful.
There are some mitigating factors that make this more true for me than it might be for everyone. I have a context file tuned for accuracy over cheerleading and I prompt carefully. But even so, while it's true that AI can sometimes make stuff up... Have you ever been on Twitter or Bluesky? Lol.
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Comment on Those viral claims about plummeting Russian ‘bot’ activity have no basis in fact in ~society
R3qn65 Link ParentNot to derail things too completely, but can I ask how much you use AI? I am trying to understand how someone gets to a view so opposite from my own. Obviously, some users have become suicidal and...Not to derail things too completely, but can I ask how much you use AI? I am trying to understand how someone gets to a view so opposite from my own.
Obviously, some users have become suicidal and some have committed suicide. And the reputation for overconfidence is certainly well-deserved. I'm not contesting any of that. But I've found fact-checking something to be a massively helpful use of AI and I've never had it go wrong, personally. Has that not been your experience, or are you disinterested based on your overall position, or something else?
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Comment on Arguments about AI consciousness remain highly motivated and at best overconfident in ~comp
R3qn65 LinkThis was very good, thanks for sharing. Zvi sometimes over-writes, but he's a great thinker.This was very good, thanks for sharing. Zvi sometimes over-writes, but he's a great thinker.
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Comment on Those viral claims about plummeting Russian ‘bot’ activity have no basis in fact in ~society
R3qn65 Link ParentI mean, we can argue about "so much" but it's definitively a fact that at least some of the bigotry is fake. The US's senate committee on intelligence released a declassified report on Russian...It would be a real relief to know for a fact that so much of the bigotry is fake
I mean, we can argue about "so much" but it's definitively a fact that at least some of the bigotry is fake. The US's senate committee on intelligence released a declassified report on Russian malign influence in the 2016 American elections. You can read the report, but the short version is that Russia stirred up any group that they thought would interfere with American social cohesion. (See vol. 2).
That just doesn't mean that the Yandex strikes have reduced bot activity now. The two things aren't necessarily related.
It's reasonable to think that some bot activity was being routed through various Yandex data centers, sure - but as the OP points out, we should study that via expert analysis, not via anecdata.
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Comment on Former UFC fighter, Green Beret Tim Kennedy reportedly shot in Democratic Republic of the Congo ambush in ~sports.combat
R3qn65 Link ParentI don't mean this offensively, but this is so oversimplified that it's sort of stopped being true. For example, as this extremely anti-EU source (so, not friendly to my point) states, the military...I don't mean this offensively, but this is so oversimplified that it's sort of stopped being true. For example, as this extremely anti-EU source (so, not friendly to my point) states, the military aid from the EU to Rwanda is exclusively non-lethal. It's also quite small - €20M - and matched by equals support to the DRC. And the west, mostly led by the US, has consistently tried to negotiate peace between the DRC and Rwanda.
So it's sort of true in a very technical sense that the west provides some support to Rwanda, which supports the M23, but that does not mean that tech interests are deliberately trying to destabilize the DRC to get minerals.
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Comment on Why is there no word for please in the Nordic languages – are their speakers simply more direct, or is politeness expressed in ways outsiders may not immediately recognise in ~humanities.languages
R3qn65 LinkThis is a bit like saying "the French don't have a word for please! They might say s'il vous plaît as a way to signal manners." Which means, naturally, "please," even if the literal translation is...Danes, for example, might ask for a pastry in a bakery using the words må jeg bede om – "may I ask for" – as a way to signal manners.
This is a bit like saying "the French don't have a word for please! They might say s'il vous plaît as a way to signal manners." Which means, naturally, "please," even if the literal translation is different.
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Comment on Protests spread across France, growing from school demonstrations (gifted link) in ~society
R3qn65 (edited )Link ParentRegarding your first point, I think it's fair to say that nobody really knows. I think it'd be very difficult to convincingly argue that randomly giving someone a billion dollars would be a net...Regarding your first point, I think it's fair to say that nobody really knows. I think it'd be very difficult to convincingly argue that randomly giving someone a billion dollars would be a net positive for society, to your point. The issue is that generally, that's not how billionaires are created. Generally, they become billionaires because they own large shares of successful businesses they have founded. I don't know how good this data is, but citing forbes data it holds that 27% of US billionaires inherited their wealth and the other 73% are self-made. (I understand and agree that self-made is often "self-made" based on inherited advantages. Let's set that aside for now.)
So the real questions are a lot more about implementation. Even the most parasitic businesses still drive American economic activity - they're still a net positive. How do you prevent billionaires without preventing the businesses that produce them? This question is a lot harder to answer than it seems. For example, progressive taxes. That's fine on income and even on actual cash holdings, but imagine that you are a smart programmer who started a successful IT business. Over the years you grow it to be worth more than $1.5B while remaining the sole owner. You pay yourself a huge salary of $2M/year. You're a billionaire because you own that IT business, but you've only ("only") got a couple million in cash and investments. The government could take all of that, leaving you effectively penniless, and you'd still be worth over a billion dollars. But your business being worth a billion doesn't mean that it has a billion in a bank somewhere - that's an implied figure based on profitability and all that. So even your business doesn't have a billion for the government to take.
This is a simplified example, but even in real life inexpertly applied wealth taxes can try to take people for far more than they actually have.
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Comment on Protests spread across France, growing from school demonstrations (gifted link) in ~society
R3qn65 Link ParentTo calibrate my response, are you arguing that this is how things actually are or just speaking rhetorically to express your anger at the wealthy?The US deficit, a number in the trillions now, represents the cumulative amount that we come up short every year because the wealthy and their businesses are siphoning money away from the government in the form of government contracts and tax breaks.
To calibrate my response, are you arguing that this is how things actually are or just speaking rhetorically to express your anger at the wealthy?
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Comment on Protests spread across France, growing from school demonstrations (gifted link) in ~society
R3qn65 Link ParentThere is no convincing evidence that claims changed at all with the murder of Brian Thompson. There were multiple articles right after the murder suggesting that claims would change, but...The popping of a single healthcare CEO suddenly made claims get paid.
There is no convincing evidence that claims changed at all with the murder of Brian Thompson. There were multiple articles right after the murder suggesting that claims would change, but statistically there was no difference.
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Comment on The fine dining flip in ~food
R3qn65 Link"Across the country, some owners are doing the unimaginable: replacing their high-end restaurants with ones where diners can spend less." Interesting look at how some of the mid-high price point..."Across the country, some owners are doing the unimaginable: replacing their high-end restaurants with ones where diners can spend less."
Interesting look at how some of the mid-high price point restaurants are flipping into more moderate, reasonably-priced models.
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The fine dining flip
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Comment on Protests spread across France, growing from school demonstrations (gifted link) in ~society
R3qn65 (edited )Link ParentI think this is so reductive that it's probably not very useful. There are ~50 billionaires in france and ~200 billionaires in Germany (and ~1,000 in the US), so France has fewer billionaires per...I think this is so reductive that it's probably not very useful. There are ~50 billionaires in france and ~200 billionaires in Germany (and ~1,000 in the US), so France has fewer billionaires per capita. It's hard to estimate effective tax rates for billionaires, but most sources seem to put it between 20 and 30% for the ultra-wealthy in all three countries - which all are in extremely different economic situations.
I'm sympathetic to the idea that ultra-wealthy are not paying enough in taxes, but to say that they don't contribute any meaningful amount is flatly untrue. The top 1% of earners pay 40% of federal tax revenue in the US, for example. It's also, again, simply too reductive to blame all economic woes on that fact.
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Comment on Approved for altruistic kidney donation in ~health
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Comment on Anyone have any ketogenic diet stories? in ~food
R3qn65 Link ParentI think you need to approach this more like an alcoholic would. When you say "I may stop keto one day, but what I'm not going to do is eat packaged foods all day like I used to," it's not that...I think you need to approach this more like an alcoholic would. When you say "I may stop keto one day, but what I'm not going to do is eat packaged foods all day like I used to," it's not that that's wrong, exactly, but it's completely missing a plan and an acknowledgement of just how hard it is to not do that. It's like an alcoholic saying "I'm just not going to drink too much anymore" when they've already tried that. I see you bouncing from diet to diet - even in this thread! - from keto to eating only foraged foods or whatever.
None of this is going to work. Crash diets never work. That's just not how the body is wired. You've got to learn how to eat normally without putting extreme restrictions on yourself. Primarily, that likely means getting junk food out of the house, not going to where the junk food is, and not letting yourself get so hungry that you lose self-control. Eventually, your body's thermostat will re-regulate, to at least some extent.
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Comment on Trolley problem, again in ~humanities
R3qn65 Link ParentRespectfully, I think if you understood more about what the trolley problem is and why it exists, you wouldn't have such a problem with it. It's not trying to be a real-world scenario -- it's...Respectfully, I think if you understood more about what the trolley problem is and why it exists, you wouldn't have such a problem with it. It's not trying to be a real-world scenario -- it's trying to help us clarify our moral intuitions.
Here's a separate thought experiment, to try to clear away the baggage associated with the trolley problem. Peter Singer asked whether you would have a duty to save a drowning child, if you walked by the pond that the child was drowning in. Almost everyone responds yes, naturally. He then asked whether you would still have the responsibility even if it had some small material cost to you - your wallet was ruined, say. Almost everyone still responds yes. And if you saved one child, but the next day saw another drowning child? After all of this, Singer asks what ethical difference there is between ruining a wallet to save a child drowning right in front of you and a child dying of malaria on the other side of the world, who could be saved if you donated some money.
To say "but Peter Singer, I never run across drowning children, much less multiple" is just plain silly. That's not the point.
Similarly, the trolley problem isn't trying to teach us what to do when we see runaway trains. It's trying to help us clarify our moral intuitions. Most people answer very differently when the choice is to pull a lever versus to push someone onto the tracks. Why? The answer is important, and to say "a person wouldn't really stop a runaway train" is missing the point. The trolley problem came into being specifically to try to understand how doctors were making ethical decisions in the case of abortion. The simplicity and rigid nature of the thought experiment are features, not bugs, because it forces us to discard all of the "well, but..." and focus solely on the ethics.
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Comment on What is your pet peeve with language acquisition? in ~humanities.languages
R3qn65 Link ParentThe language module thing is almost entirely discredited, for what it's worth.The language module thing is almost entirely discredited, for what it's worth.
I suppose I mean it more figuratively than literally. If you're asserting that he's making a political statement whether he likes it or not (in this case, that he's fine with genocide), I'd call that a figurative requirement to talk about his political views at all times, no? Lest he be assumed to be fine with genocide?