thearctic's recent activity

  1. Comment on Mark Ruffalo and Matt Stoller: This merger can, and should, be stopped in ~movies

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    Yeah, my younger baby boomer dad who's very disillusioned about politics still has a strange attachment to CNN

    Yeah, my younger baby boomer dad who's very disillusioned about politics still has a strange attachment to CNN

    5 votes

  2. Comment on Mark Ruffalo and Matt Stoller: This merger can, and should, be stopped in ~movies

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    It's better that CNN dies than Paramount buys it out. This is about consolidating control of information by taking over several popular news brands and platforms for news rather than invigorating...

    It's better that CNN dies than Paramount buys it out. This is about consolidating control of information by taking over several popular news brands and platforms for news rather than invigorating a dying business

    10 votes

  3. Comment on US will revoke passports for parents who owe child support in ~society

    thearctic
    Link
    I'm not terribly opposed to this. People not taking responsibility for their children has reverberant effects beyond our comprehension and we should take it more seriously. Though, the law should...

    I'm not terribly opposed to this. People not taking responsibility for their children has reverberant effects beyond our comprehension and we should take it more seriously. Though, the law should be understanding to people struggling economically and should ensure recipients are good stewards of the money.

    1 vote

  4. Comment on US data center land use issues are fake in ~enviro

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    A large part of the founding vision for America as a country is to be a republic of yeoman farmers, so there's a lot of that in the gut reaction to side with farmers even when it's not practical....

    A large part of the founding vision for America as a country is to be a republic of yeoman farmers, so there's a lot of that in the gut reaction to side with farmers even when it's not practical. I'd say there's also an anti-modern sensibility of wanting to preserve a way of life from a simpler time. On the whole, I generally want those things, but there needs to be major reform to how we regulate and subsidize farming in this country. I think one starting point would be to massively raise requirements for ethical treatment of animals (Kurzgesagt did a video showing how relatively little it'd cost) and to think about how to expand consumer demand for the category of locally grown produce from independent farms.

    5 votes

  5. Comment on Young people are falling behind, but not because of AI in ~finance

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    The trend of pre-generative-AI automation is still well under way (self-checkout kiosks, Amazon replacing retail stores, robots in factories and farms, etc.), which affects most blue collar...

    The trend of pre-generative-AI automation is still well under way (self-checkout kiosks, Amazon replacing retail stores, robots in factories and farms, etc.), which affects most blue collar workers in some form or another, either in terms of employment or competition. An inter-country comparison, vis à vis Canada and the UK, would be very useful here.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on Are there alternative ways to invest savings? in ~finance

    thearctic
    Link
    If you want to protect your wealth against inflation in a relatively morally neutral way, investing some percentage into gold may be an option (of course, it shouldn't grow after adjusting for...

    If you want to protect your wealth against inflation in a relatively morally neutral way, investing some percentage into gold may be an option (of course, it shouldn't grow after adjusting for inflation). It also may be worth doing your due diligence to find a mutual fund with rigorous ethical standards (those with a religious affiliation or certification of some sort in particular may be worth looking into).

    2 votes

  7. Comment on What is your favorite dinosaur? in ~talk

    thearctic
    Link
    Pterodactyl, of course

    Pterodactyl, of course

    6 votes

  8. Comment on Health Canada approves 1st generic version of Novo Nordisk's Ozempic in ~health

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    This will go in the history books

    This will go in the history books

    12 votes

  9. Comment on Apple set to become third-biggest laptop maker this year in ~tech

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    Windows being as bad as it is seems like a deliberate self-sabotage campaign

    Windows being as bad as it is seems like a deliberate self-sabotage campaign

    5 votes

  10. Comment on Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys in ~society

    thearctic
    Link
    Takes me back to conversations I had in college with people figuring out the most ethical way to work in unethical companies. If someone shows up to their job and does the bare minimum, is that...

    Takes me back to conversations I had in college with people figuring out the most ethical way to work in unethical companies. If someone shows up to their job and does the bare minimum, is that theoretically better than letting someone else take the job? Or is it better to not take the job, forcing that company to pay a premium in the labor market to fill that position?

    6 votes

  11. Comment on The gravest threat to the American press in ~society

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    I suppose there's a philosophical question about when it's right for the press to hide things for the government. In the case of FDR being in a wheelchair during WW2, obviously it made a lot of...

    I suppose there's a philosophical question about when it's right for the press to hide things for the government. In the case of FDR being in a wheelchair during WW2, obviously it made a lot of sense to hide that. But in general, I don't support the belief or the heuristic that it's always the patriotic thing to guard state secrets. When the government is doing terrible or foolish things, it's the patriotic thing to blow the whistle.

    Though it may have endangered a few service people to do so in this case, the subsequent blockade of oil to Cuba has had a substantially greater humanitarian toll and the perceived "success" of the Venezuela operation likely tipped decision making in favor of assassinating the Iranian Ayatollah and other leadership, which has killed more US military personnel, has had devastating effects on American interests, and obviously has led to countless dead Iranians.

    If NYT and WashPo didn't release the info because they believed in the ethics of the operation or put their faith in the strategic decision making of the Trump admin, then they should come out and say so.

    5 votes

  12. Comment on The gravest threat to the American press in ~society

    thearctic
    Link
    Posted since I felt it introduced a lot of important data points on the topic.

    According to the news website Semafor, both The New York Times and The Washington Post knew in advance—unlike members of the U.S. Congress—that Trump was planning to invade Venezuela and abduct Maduro, but they agreed to not say anything.

    Such acquiescence to the dictates of official secrecy arguably does far greater harm to the press than anything that might happen to Harp. (As of press time, this subpoena has still not been served, perhaps due to the blowback it has received.)

    If the press is to survive this wave of attacks, it must do a far better job of standing up for itself and for the principles on which the journalistic profession is founded. Instead, we see evidence of cowardice, accommodation, and retreat.

    Posted since I felt it introduced a lot of important data points on the topic.

    13 votes

  14. Comment on Boomer hate in ~society

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    Not saying that you're saying that, but I think the framing isn't great.

    Not saying that you're saying that, but I think the framing isn't great.

    1 vote

  15. Comment on Boomer hate in ~society

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    I guess the question I'd ask is, why do we think we'd be any better? If an entire generation of people failed in some major way, it's almost by definition a systemic failure. It also seems very...

    I guess the question I'd ask is, why do we think we'd be any better? If an entire generation of people failed in some major way, it's almost by definition a systemic failure. It also seems very selfish to look forward to...your parents dying? Why frame things that way?

    6 votes

  16. Boomer hate

    ~society Ask
    There's a trope in politics to blame the Boomers for everything bad in society and to just wait until they die out. What's amazed me is just how widespread this belief actually is, based on...

    There's a trope in politics to blame the Boomers for everything bad in society and to just wait until they die out. What's amazed me is just how widespread this belief actually is, based on conversations I've had and things I've seen online. People have been waiting for old people to die out since the Boomers were kids. There are also countless Boomers in America that are going to retire in poverty. I don't have much to say aside from, this is stupid and we should do better. In short order, society will probably transfer its grievances from Boomers to Gen X then eventually to Millennials.

    32 votes

  17. Enjoying reading in the age of LLMs

    ~humanities Ask
    I used to really value the art of essay writing. There seemed to be such a richness in the different ways people would construct arguments, structure those arguments, then deliver those arguments...

    I used to really value the art of essay writing. There seemed to be such a richness in the different ways people would construct arguments, structure those arguments, then deliver those arguments stylistically, not just from the perspective of being persuaded as a reader but also from the perspective of seeing how a given writer thinks, relates to the living tradition of language, and understands the world conceptually. But it's basically lost most of its meaning to me in this age of LLMs. The reality is, LLMs are capable of writing texts that, if you gave them to a seasoned reader 5 years ago, they'd say it was well written and indicative of a truly thoughtful mind. Even if there currently exist certain tells with LLMs, those styles certainly existed in different ways in real human writing beforehand. Now, those perfectly reasonable set of styles are verboten and we have to dedicate half our deep focus to figuring out whether, or to what extent, an essay or article was written by AI. It's difficult to enjoy, let alone care, about essay writing and the writers behind them now.

    I can still find value in books, though, because they were written in the past and I don't mind never reading any non-scientific book published after 2022 if it comes down to it.

    23 votes

  18. Comment on Pokémon Go players built a thirty-billion-photo map for AI in ~tech

    thearctic
    Link

    Over the past decade, Pokémon Go players voluntarily submitted photos and short videos of public landmarks, street corners, storefronts, and urban intersections—all coming together to create a dataset that now stands at 30 billion images captured at ground level, across nearly every major city on the planet. Niantic Spatial, the enterprise AI and mapping division spun from Niantic Inc., has spent years converting that trove into something the robotics industry has never seen before: a photorealistic, street-level, continuously updated model of the physical world, built specifically for robots.

    That model is now being deployed to navigate Coco Robotics’ roughly 1,000 delivery bot fleet operating in cities across the country and around the world

    18 votes

  20. Comment on Welcome to a multidimensional economic disaster - the AI boom wasn’t built for the polycrisis in ~tech

    thearctic
    Link Parent
    I'm skeptical that the AI bubble collapsing would create a crisis worse than 2008, especially when it is itself is creating economic havoc. At a certain point, the catastrophizing is a narrative...

    I'm skeptical that the AI bubble collapsing would create a crisis worse than 2008, especially when it is itself is creating economic havoc. At a certain point, the catastrophizing is a narrative to sell you on the idea of bailing out people's faulty investments.

    12 votes