raze2012's recent activity
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Comment on Inside the conservative campus revolution in ~society
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Comment on Inside the conservative campus revolution in ~society
raze2012 Link ParentI don't want to say kids are getting dumber per se. I'm a young millenial so I'm still closer to them than I am to you in age. But there's definiely an element of superficiality when I dig into...I don't want to say kids are getting dumber per se. I'm a young millenial so I'm still closer to them than I am to you in age.
But there's definiely an element of superficiality when I dig into the interview that I never felt in my generation's politics (but it was likely there), likely shaped by how they engage with social media. Particularly the chapter president of one college at the end:
“Everybody I know watches Nick. He’s funny,” she told me by phone a couple of days before our lunch. Lachman tried to explain that he serves a different purpose than Kirk did. “Charlie, I take notes and apply to my life.” Fuentes “is a character; he likes to humor people.”
...When I asked if watching Kirk’s enemy is an act of disloyalty, Lachman acknowledged that her generation was struggling to fill the void he left behind. She wasn’t always sure where to turn herself. “Sometimes when I’m sad and in bed and want to watch Charlie,” she said, “I just watch Nick instead.”Which says 2 sad things here
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there really isn't much conviction in their principles here. All these politics are ultimately a game for them in multiple ways. a form of entertainment, and a form of advancement in their careers. When this career is determining policy of real lives, that can feel frustrating.
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While "lost" without Charile, they will fall back on pretty much anything that scratches a similar itch. Even if that itch is spouting (by the words of pretty much all the inerviewees in this piece) anti-semitism rhetoric. As long as its "funny", they will passively listen to someone who wants to enact the 4th Reich in real time.
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Comment on Inside the conservative campus revolution in ~society
raze2012 LinkWell, I guess this truly is Horshoe Theory in action. Liberals want to end genocide, conservatives want "America First" to the point of severing Israel ties. Progress? But it speaks to the larger...Hollyhand was held to account for having declared the U.S.-Israel relationship sacred. This audience was “America First” in all ways, and that extended to its desire to sever the U.S. alliance with the Jewish state.
The hostility on the tour baffled Hollyhand, as if the whole world had shifted underneath his feet in the few weeks since Kirk’s death. “I didn’t think this was controversial until this month,” Hollyhand told me, referring to his worldview.
Well, I guess this truly is Horshoe Theory in action. Liberals want to end genocide, conservatives want "America First" to the point of severing Israel ties. Progress?
But it speaks to the larger point of this experience. It's a microcosm of what's probably going to happen when Trump dies or otherwise falls out of power. People are trying to find the next unifying point among so many mixed ideologies who otherwise fell in line with one personality. And the results are messy.
Reading about people on the right critical of trump for not doing enough on deportations is concerning, to say the least:
These young Republicans share a hardcore vision of populist nationalism that puts them to the right of not just Kirk and Hollyhand but Trump, whose second term some of them are already deeming a disappointment. “The numbers are massively, massively insufficient,” Lyle said about the deportation of undocumented immigrants. Kihne thinks the expulsions are “smoke and mirrors” goosed by self-deportations and sensational images of ICE raids. Trump has imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas. He has also defended their necessity to corporate America, which has incensed many on the young right.
well, horshoe theory once again? Young conservatives also hate billionaires!
She is wary of turning off new recruits with too hard-core a message, even on Kirkian issues like abortion. “I would never bring up abortion, ever. Because that’s ‘Republican,’ not ‘conservative,’” Lachman said. “Gen Z is scared of the word Republican.” Instead, students “want to hear about free speech. Second Amendment rights is a big one. They love MAHA; they eat up the seed-oil stuff. Anytime we do DOGE things, they’re like, Hell yeah. The finance bros eat that up.”
This is so bizarre. "republican" is bad but "conservative" is good? But meanwhile one of the biggest sticking points in modern R's isn't that popular? But they also also are pro-health without understanding why America isn't healthy?
There's so many contradictory points, probably driven by a lack of education on the wider world structure. Or maybe it's just a cult; a way to hear "good words" but fall into actions that go against the meaning of said words.
When I asked who “they” were, she breezily suggested I do my own research. “We know who’s running the game,” she went on, glancing at her phone. I couldn’t tell how serious she was being. “You know, it’s a bigger picture. 9/11. MLK. JFK. Charlie Kirk.”
I don't even know how to begin to break this down. This just starts to sound like a Metal Gear Solid plot point (if you played MGS2 or 3, you know).
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Comment on Why America needs fewer bus stops in ~transport
raze2012 Link Parent"wealthy" is an interesting way of putting it. It's just that our commutes are so far and public transportation is so inefficient that going into debt over a car note is the "cheapest" option. my...Americans are wealthy and most Americans can afford private vehicles, so many prefer to not deal with the public transit experience.
"wealthy" is an interesting way of putting it. It's just that our commutes are so far and public transportation is so inefficient that going into debt over a car note is the "cheapest" option. my commute to work downdown is roughly 45 minutes, and it'd become well over 3 hours (with a good few miles of walking to boot) if I tried to plan a bus/train route down instead.
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Comment on Why America needs fewer bus stops in ~transport
raze2012 LinkI guess this is an urban-centric issues. In most suburbs I've been raised in in Southern Ca, stops feel pretty far and worse, are very infrequent. It tends to come on the hour. in my current...I guess this is an urban-centric issues. In most suburbs I've been raised in in Southern Ca, stops feel pretty far and worse, are very infrequent. It tends to come on the hour.
in my current example (as my car is being fixed), my nearby work route still requires a half mile walk from home to bus then another quarter mile from bus to work. But the fequency is at best 30 minutes. There are just some periods where missing a bus means an hour wait. That doesn't seem to be the usual bus culture from what I see downtown, let alone in places with robust public transportation.
But I guess that's the nature of a suburb. Everything is "far" unless you pick more expensive apartment living next to shopping complexes. The hills here kill a lot of motivation for walking to the closest complexes.
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Comment on Cory Doctorow | AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage. in ~tech
raze2012 Link ParentI do agree with this, and if I wasn't on Tildes I probably would have rephrased it, because I would not want to spend chains of comments arguing over a kneejerk reaction to the colloquial use...I completely agree with you that folks in online cesspools are using this term erroneously and in ways that cause harm
I do agree with this, and if I wasn't on Tildes I probably would have rephrased it, because I would not want to spend chains of comments arguing over a kneejerk reaction to the colloquial use these days.
But here, I was using narcissism in its acedemic sense:
excessive interest in or admiration of oneself
As you said, it's not an absolute evil nor good. Everyone needs a bit of narcissism to navigate life, But the overton curtain these days certainly runs in excess (I say "these days", but people have called a subset of boomers the "me generation" for quite some time), and I think being able to admit that is the first step to building empathy back.
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Comment on Cory Doctorow | AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage. in ~tech
raze2012 Link ParentIf this was about people wrongly learning about topics they previously knew nothing about, I would't have many issues with AI. Correcting misconseptions is much easier than trying to gain...I think characterizing people accepting something that is designed to produce responses that are acceptable, especially about topics they don't know much about, as narcissistic is an extremely uncharitable take on the entire situation
If this was about people wrongly learning about topics they previously knew nothing about, I would't have many issues with AI. Correcting misconseptions is much easier than trying to gain awareness at times. As long as people are open to being corrected (a big "if" today, I know).
But look at all the common use cases people tout these days:
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chat bots to tell them what they want to hear (this was what was on my mind with my comment). That is peak narcissism.
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generative art trained dubiously, but being used to tout out stuff that makes others "artists". Making a few small things for peronal use is fine, but claiming yourself equal to a craftsman because you have a drill now...
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The modern iteration of "let me google that for you" by trying to participate in discussions beyond your purview by pasting in LLM-generated answers.
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claiming yourself a great businessman by cutting expenses by trying to replace your entire team with AI. Once again, "I have a black box, I know more than all of you".
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feeling like responding to a chat message or email is "beneath you". So you tell an LLM to generate something and you paste that
I hope you see where I'm coming from here. I don't personally care if people want to cheat themselves out of everything, but they tend to drag everyone else down with them. And that's when it becomes a problem.
Narcissism isn't evil inherently. If you put a good spin on it you just call it "self-love". But narcissism typically blocks your ability to empathize, and we're certainly seeing the result of a society that does not care about one another.
I think characterizing people accepting something that is designed to produce responses that are acceptable, especially about topics they don't know much about, as narcissistic is an extremely uncharitable take on the entire situation
Yes you can say I'm not being empathetic here. But that's the paradox of tolerance for you. We don't build an empathetic society by trying again and again to appeal to the intolerable. America's beein trying to do that its whole history, and I don't think it's really been worth it.
But sure. My real ire is at the AI companies and the government not only failing to regulate, but to try and keep making it harder to regulate them. We were pretty close to making it impossible for states to regulate AI for a full decade last year. Even if that got ruled as unconstitutional under the 10th amendment, that would have been a very long legal battle while the rule was upheld.
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Comment on Cory Doctorow | AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage. in ~tech
raze2012 Link ParentI think my reservation to begin with is that "they don't protect small independent creatives" is a misnomer in and of itself. This is the cybersecurity argument of "well we don't have many...My perspective is more "we should weaken IP protections because they don't protect small independent creatives, as they only serve those already have money and power
I think my reservation to begin with is that "they don't protect small independent creatives" is a misnomer in and of itself. This is the cybersecurity argument of "well we don't have many viruses, we can cut own on costs".
A lot of IP's are protected indirectly because a large company rigorously checks for any work and its likeness as a risk factor. So IP law prevents a lot of lawsuits before they even start. That's valuable and not something to dismiss. All current lawsuits over IP tend to be edge cases and abuses. Things that would still happen no matter how weak or strong we make IP laws.
Using those edge cases as a vector for your argument feels misguided, as a result. Because those will never go away. Meanwhile, you "abolish copyright" and Disney is going to make millions selling Silksong plushies that will never go back to Team Cherry. They'll make way more than Team Cherry would make by putting Mickey into the next DLC. So the power imbalance is still there.
Big companies can scale up profit windows in places faster than you can.
When it comes to generative AI, my point is not "stricter copyright laws benefit the rich so might as well not bother", it's "stricter copyright laws harm the very people you're trying to protect here, and them also harming generative AI tech companies doesn't actually change that."
Sure, and I disagree. I'll use another metaphor; let's say you are a garden hose on low and Disney is a fire hose.
Right now there's a wide open waterslide to fill, so the fire hose wins. But it's a water slide at a park with dingy nails , zero guard rails, overpopulated pools, and a bunch of theft. These all suck, but Disney still makes money. because their money comes from putting water on the slide, not fixing any safety concerns.
Regulations make them need to care for the other stuff. Maybe Disney decides it's worth turning down the fire hose and it's still profitable, maybe they find another service who wants a firehose (and doesn't need pesky regulations). But either way, it means your garden hose has places to fit in, and you don't need Disney profits to succeed.
As it was before, you were never going to compete with a firehose, and right now everyone is looking for firehoses, at the expense of the customers who just want a fun, safe water slide. You may also not like having to care about safety, but in that case maybe it's also not viable for you. And that's fine. Because the customer's safety isn't just an option to weigh, it should be important if you want to run a water slide.
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Comment on Cory Doctorow | AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage. in ~tech
raze2012 Link ParentAt the current point we're at, it's people trying to argue that speed limits should be repealed because "slower cars shouldn't be on the road". They aren't even trying to pretend they want to be...I wouldn't want a road safety policy to be based on the idea that red cars are faster
At the current point we're at, it's people trying to argue that speed limits should be repealed because "slower cars shouldn't be on the road". They aren't even trying to pretend they want to be safe.
I wish one day we reach the equivalent of your argument. At least by then people will admit that safety is something to strive for.
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Comment on Cory Doctorow | AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage. in ~tech
raze2012 Link ParentThe snarky side of me says "avoid them". But in all honesty the one thing you need is skepticism. Approach any and all answers as if it came from some random bystander on the street. It can be...The snarky side of me says "avoid them". But in all honesty the one thing you need is skepticism. Approach any and all answers as if it came from some random bystander on the street. It can be correct, it also might 'feel correct' even if it's a subjective take. If it's not some throwaway trivia, make sure to gather more sources to reinforce the statement heard.
Make sure to review any writing, code, or art generated for imperfections, awkwardness, or simply uncanny details. If you don't have the skills to identify such imperfections, you probably shouldn't use it for those tasks.
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Comment on Cory Doctorow | AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage. in ~tech
raze2012 Link ParentIts clear from the hyper individualism and utter narcissism of today's society (or worse yet, the naiveness of the youth. They are an exception from the rant below) that that fascimile counts as...Its clear from the hyper individualism and utter narcissism of today's society (or worse yet, the naiveness of the youth. They are an exception from the rant below) that that fascimile counts as "good enough". That's the dangerous part of the marketing of this as "intelligence".
And I don't say narcissism to be cynical. I say that because these models really do not like upsetting the user with corrections unless legally modified to. People en masse aren't using these to challenge their beliefs nor better themselves. It's just one giant Yes man that wants to validate preconceived notions to try and lure them into eventual financial relationships. I'd call it manipulative if people weren't looking to be manipulated.
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Comment on Cory Doctorow | AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage. in ~tech
raze2012 Link ParentYeah, this is my misconception I try to rectify every other article. The dotcom bubble did not kill the internet. But it did push out a few major players and a lot of smaller, massively overvalued...Yeah, this is my misconception I try to rectify every other article. The dotcom bubble did not kill the internet. But it did push out a few major players and a lot of smaller, massively overvalued ones. The remnants of that still went on to become the new face of tech. Or a few old faces remained (Microsoft)
AI will probably have a similar fate.the big massive loser will likely be OpenAI unless Microsoft absorbs them in fully. Tons of others will die out, and one or two big players (Tesla is the obvious bet. Maybe Meta too) will fall from grace.
The only big difference is that the trillionaire tech companies probably won't be wiped out en masse, nor even stagnate away like the IBMs of yesterday did. They still have core products people use and will fall back to that. Maybe Antitrust finally catches up to them, but that's a different matter entirely.
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Comment on Cory Doctorow | AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage. in ~tech
raze2012 Link ParentCameras have regulations too. So I think either way it applies. I can't use a camera to invade someone's space, and picturing copyrighted work still had loads of gray areas.I'm a bit disappointed to see him repeating the same flawed justification about AI output not being copyrightable (tl;dr: the model isn't the monkey, as he implies. It's the camera.)
Cameras have regulations too. So I think either way it applies. I can't use a camera to invade someone's space, and picturing copyrighted work still had loads of gray areas.
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Comment on Cory Doctorow | AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage. in ~tech
raze2012 Link ParentI don't like that argument because yes, 99% of all initiatives disproportionately support people rich enough to argue for it (often on someone else's dime anyway). If it's not progressive taxing...I don't like that argument because yes, 99% of all initiatives disproportionately support people rich enough to argue for it (often on someone else's dime anyway). If it's not progressive taxing or welfare*, its probably something a rich person gets more out of
It feels like a form of soft defeatism to say "well the rich benefit more so we may as well not bother". We can work on that 1% while acknowledging that the 99% will still help regular people out some too.
*and even here, welfare arguably is a cost saving measure for the rich. Not having to hire security to navigate a low crime area helps immensely. The general stimulaton of economy for people who'd otherwise drops out helps everyone as well
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Comment on Cory Doctorow | AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage. in ~tech
raze2012 Link ParentThey are necessary. That inherently means they are valuable. Because the good alternatives aren't setup and the realistic alternatives are homelessness and all that entails. We were regressing on...They are necessary. That inherently means they are valuable. Because the good alternatives aren't setup and the realistic alternatives are homelessness and all that entails.
We were regressing on the idea of remote work a few years ago, and now these techno feudalists want to imagine a UBI world? I say "jobs are valuable" as a compromise, not as an idea that we need to live to work.
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Comment on Curl will end its bug bounty program by the end of January due to excessive AI generated reports in ~comp
raze2012 Link ParentI guess at that point the only thing to really do is require a government ID in order to be a valid account.I guess at that point the only thing to really do is require a government ID in order to be a valid account.
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Comment on Curl will end its bug bounty program by the end of January due to excessive AI generated reports in ~comp
raze2012 Link ParentI mostly wield IP law in the schadenfreude sort of way. They spent centuries gaming it to make it impossible for stuff to properly hit public domain. Now that it's profitable to ignore it they are...I mostly wield IP law in the schadenfreude sort of way. They spent centuries gaming it to make it impossible for stuff to properly hit public domain. Now that it's profitable to ignore it they are caught in a web of their own making. A proper IP law would have a good 90% of all recorded media be up for grabs, all the way to 1997.
Instead, 99% of the 20th century is stuck in the hands of people who sit on it. It's bad, but especially bad for companies. Deservedly so.
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Comment on Curl will end its bug bounty program by the end of January due to excessive AI generated reports in ~comp
raze2012 Link ParentIsn't that the case today? A verification mechanism would not change that.Isn't that the case today? A verification mechanism would not change that.
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Comment on Before and after the trigger press that killed Renee Good in ~society
raze2012 Link ParentI guess this is great reading for LEOs and lawyers in normal time. But it seems a bit moot when we consider these are not normal times, with normal responses and procedures under a normal...I guess this is great reading for LEOs and lawyers in normal time. But it seems a bit moot when we consider these are not normal times, with normal responses and procedures under a normal administration.
Many things could have de-escalated this, but I think we all know by now : the cruelty is point. As is the response to it, the halting of state investigations, and the swift abandonment of federal investigation. This should be a bog standard suspension of firing of a reckless "LEO" (using the term very loosely) and it turned into a state suing the feds over the ability to investigate a murder the entire nation saw in 6 different angles. It may even potentially escalate to a state national guard butting heads with federal "agents".
None of this is normal in the slightest. And it's a shame the fastest possible action we may get (as courts will take years on this) is perhaps yet another shutdown of the government in April, if congress is unable to sweep this under the rug.
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Comment on UK Conservative party would ban under-16s from social media in ~society
raze2012 Link ParentYes, hence the "political theater". There aren't that many sites employing addictive algorithms like this, so it's much easier to regulate and enforce than something as ever-present as porn....Yes, hence the "political theater". There aren't that many sites employing addictive algorithms like this, so it's much easier to regulate and enforce than something as ever-present as porn. That's exclusively going after the big boys. But no one wants or has the power to challenge the trillionaire tech corps.
I'm not even sure of you need strong regulation. Just require transparency as much as possible and audits where they claim its not possible. Truth is often the best disinfectant.
The slightly optimistic part of this piece is how TPUSA without Kirk has a power vacuum, and it's causing sentiments that Kirk would previously "keep in line" to really come out. In ways both to the right and left of trump. I think without filling that vacuum that TPUSA is going to be a piece in splintering the Right for a while to come. Between issues of being anti-establishment while seeing how Trump is blatantly establishment, to people who want to go even harder on anti-immigration efforts.
It's not good at all. But if they can't unite, they lose voting power. Guess we gotta take what we can get.