What do AI companies have to do with anything? The prompts would be generated by the company running the site, not the AI company. The quality of performance depends on the quality of the prompt and what data it has access to far more than on the model training.

You slow the initial spread of posts for long enough to throw AI at the problem and analyze the factual accuracy of every post, or at least every post that any user flags as misinformation or factually incorrect.

For posts that are obvious satire (e.g. from known satire sites, etc.), flag them with a clear "This post is satire" warning at the beginning of the post.

For posts that are just flat-out lies, mass cancel the post automatically:

1. Prevent it from appearing in anyone else's feed or spreading.
2. Fan out the ban scan to recognize similar posts from people who saw the original post, recursively cancel those.
3. Backtrack to see if any posts that the original poster might have seen posted similar information from which the false post was derived, and recursively cancel those, including fan-out and backtracking from there, etc. until you have a complete graph of every post that appears to be derived from the lie.
4. Bulk distribute a post to everyone who saw the original post, explaining what was untruthful and why the bot believes that it was untruthful, providing factual citations to refute the original post. You do this in bulk to everyone who saw the original post all at once, not through organic spread, making it faster to refute a lie than to spread it originally.

In your fact checking ban post, you make it possible for anyone who believes that the cancellation was unjustified to submit external citations as evidence of its accuracy. After 72 hours, all citations submitted by anyone who saw the fact checking ban post are deduplicated, consolidated, and sent to a hundred human reviewers. These reviewers vote to either: A. reinstate the original post, B. reinstate the original post with clarification at the beginning (this post is mostly correct except XXX, this post is satire and is not intended to be taken as truth, this post is an opinion piece that disagrees with broadly held scientific consensus and the evidence presented herein should be treated with skepticism unless proven correct by larger/stronger/more robust studies, etc.), or C. uphold the ban.

If a post is reinstated, every post flagged as a consequence of the original flagging is also reinstated in a similar fashion, with clarification if applicable.

In other words, make it easy for users to report that something is a lie, make the resulting fact checking be aggressive at immediately halting the spread of things that are clearly untruthful, and make corrections spread faster than the lies did originally.

The last critical piece is the ability for an individual user to choose whether to see posts that have been flagged as being lies. If they choose to repost something that is already flagged, it will be seen only by other people who have chosen to opt out of hiding factually erroneous posts, so the spread will be mostly limited to those who have already bought into one or more conspiracy theories, but that's still moderation rather than outright banning of the content. And people would be free to write new posts that point out that a post on a subject has been banned and telling people why they think it should not be banned. Of course, in most cases, that will paint the person as a nutter, but at least you'll know. :-)

Unfortunately, at some point, in the U.S., certain political groups decided that things that are contrary to established facts are "opinions" that cannot be questioned, rather than lies, so demanding factual accuracy will be seen by many as political bias, which is why this will probably never happen.

Any time I get a political ad, I assume that their position is questionable enough to require spamming me with ads, and therefore that I should probably do the opposite of what they're advertising.

Moderation is censorship by definition. So no, there cannot be ways to moderate those things without censorship.

What you mean is that governments requiring companies to censor things is bad. And in general, I agree.

Corporate-driven censorship is also generally bad, where corporations censor things to protect their interests or boost their revenue without a legitimate public interest in mind.

The real problem is that social media does not give the public control over what they consume, and subjects us to increasingly low-quality garbage from increasingly distant voices in a desperate attempt to drive interaction in spite of a declining user base. And that effectively becomes corporate censorship, as the garbage drowns out the organic content from our friends that we actually went to the site to see. Yet it is by design. Sites like Facebook appear to completely ignore our "I don't want to see this" signals and continue to shovel this garbage. As a result, I go to Facebook an order of magnitude less often than I did ten years ago, but at the same time, I know that other people find the algorithmically driven shovelware to be compelling, and they're the ones being manipulated by this stuff.

With that said, I don't want government censorship. I want government to require social media to give control to users, to publicly disclose how their algorithms shape what users see, to allow independent audits to ensure that their algorithms are working for the public good rather than just for the corporate good, etc. We need more access to information, not less, but we also need to be able to filter what we see. Because if news media, etc. is not serving as a filter to show us the most important information and filter out unverified information and clear misinformation, then we need tools to help us moderate what we see, and maybe by sending those signals, also influence what our friends see and reduce the garbage a bit.

The problem is that there are propagandists in the first place. Here's the way I see it:

• Early 1980s: The 24-hour news cycle made people demand immediate access to news.
• Mid-1980s through today: Low pay, media consolidation, newspaper closures, and mass layoffs made journalism an increasingly unattractive career, causing most of the best and brightest to leave the field or not enter it, resulting in a gradual decline in the news media's ability to lead interviews, call politicians on outright lies, etc.
• 1987: Fairness doctrine eliminated, allowing the rise of biased talking head infotainment shows.
• 1996: Fox News started broadcasting with the explicit intent to create a right-biased news source.
• 2003: MSNBC took a leftward shift to counter Fox News.
• 2009: Social media reached peak users, where gaining more eyes was impractical, so the only way to increase ad revenue was to increase screen time or increase ad count or both, and increasing ad count would reduce screen time in the absence of a mitigating factor, so sites began shifting from most recent posts from your friends to most clicked/viewed, resulting in the rise of clickbait.
• 2013: The Russian government formed the Internet Research Agency, a.k.a. Glavset, a Russian company tasked with online propaganda, including disinformation and trolling campaigns on social media.
• 2016 through 2022 or so: Social media began showing more and more content from people who are not your friends or friends of friends and groups that you have never joined in a desperate attempt to get more screen time out of a plateauing (and later declining) daily active user base.
• 2022: A far-right-wing propagandist buys Twitter.
• 2023: Glavset shut down, though it is generally assumed that other groups took up its mission.

The social media dates are based on Facebook. Other social media behaved similarly at around the same time, plus or minus a couple of years.

But ultimately, it's all about companies focusing on profit above all else, without the slightest bit of concern over the negative impact of their choices. And as long as social media companies — and media and news sources in general — are predominantly for-profit entities instead of nonprofit corporations, they will be at best marginally harmful to society, and at worst, massively so. The profit gained from using hype and propaganda and clickbait and massive amounts of slant to drive viewers/readers is simply too strong a motivation to overcome as long as the focus of an organization is making profit, rather than breaking even.

And yeah, social media is part of the problem, but the mainstream media abdicated their responsibility to inform the public at least a decade earlier, and arguably three decades earlier, creating the information vacuum that social media filled. And the fact that it's a lot harder to refute a lie than to publish the truth in the first place made social media's increasingly extreme amplification of troll campaigns incredibly harmful, but the public's tendency to repost whatever garbage they see and the ease with which people can repost things they see to broader and broader audience made that problem much, much worse.

So yes, traditional social media is a large net harm to the public as a whole. Instead of helping bring us together, it has largely driven us apart. We would be much better off if Facebook groups ceased to exist and became separate discussion forums like we had before. We would be much better off if public Facebook posts were banned going forward, requiring people to actually copy and paste before sharing other people's posts beyond the friends or followers of the original person, or at most, one hop away. We would be much better off if sites like Facebook were forced to allow us to disable algorithmic spam in our feeds, including all posts suggested from people that our friends follow, groups distantly related to groups that we're in, etc. And so on.

Census by the founders includes *every person* not just citizens. Disagree with the founding fathers on that one eh? Also there is an easy thing to do with people who are illegal, just make them legal. Reagan knew there isnt a practical alternative and now a new generation will have to learn that.

Nope....I liked Reagan a LOT, but he fucked up really badly on that one thing allowing an amnesty....caused a rush on the border...Hey everyone isn't perfect and he fucked that one.

Fuck legalizing them....send them all back and try to come in the legal way. I'm not against streamlining and reforming our immigration system to legally come here, but even with that we should be choosy about who we let in, only those that will benefit the US and show they will be likely to meld into the melting pot and become US citizens.

We need to set up system around work that will pretty much lock out ANY person here that is not here legally....I hate the thought of a national ID, but if something similar to it had to be in place to root out all the illegals, make it impossible to work and live here, I'd be for it.

And maybe we need to amend the constitution and ONLY count citizens and ONLY allow most things for citizens....let's make it as unattractive and difficult as possible for illegal immigrants.

A couple of things about the issue.

Firstly, it's usually explained using insult and hyperbole. That's not a way to get others on your side. There's an old saying "it's not enough to be correct, you also have to be effective". It's usually used on... wait for it... nerds, who are typically very smart but cannot communicate well, and who fall back on insults when they cannot communicate well.

Secondly, for some reason no one wants to debate the issue. The mantra is "the science is settled", which isn't really how science works, but there are STILL gaping logical holes in the entire edifice that no one wants to clear up. Such as: other than rising global temperatures, the theory hasn't made testable predictions of any consequence that have actually come true. For example, in 2005 after Katrina, someone noted that "due to climate change, hurricanes will become stronger and more frequent", and then we had about a decade of no major hurricanes.

Thirdly, and this is the one that really bothers me: even if the science is settled, even if the conclusions are correct, climate change does not indicate what should be done. I've reviewed probably two or three dozen experiments aiming to mitigate the effects over the years, they ALL had the best of intentions, and they've ALL failed, sometimes spectacularly, and always adding more CO2 to the atmosphere than if we had done nothing.

In the meantime, since 2000 when Al Gore brought the issue into the public eye, I've seen the rise of solar panel farms, windmills are everywhere in the midwest, and we've gone from about 2% renewable (year 2000, mostly hydropower, and discounting wood) to about 30% today (also discounting wood). New technology is taken up at an exponential rate, so expect those numbers to rise faster in the near future.

Several technologies have been developed that we're right on the edge of deploying (carbon capture by electrolysis, fusion energy generation, robotic labor (various companies)) or in the middle of deploying (EVs, various companies) that should help enormously.

And finally, the issue has become political. The premier maker of EVs, the one who made EVs that people want to buy, is vilified by the political side that wants you to believe in climate change. A sect of that side wants to replace capitalism with communism, even though the resource utilization of that model is one third to one half of what we have today, and would slow down the innovation and advancement that might help us solve the issue.

But if you're not on board, you're a science denier.

It took 40 years to convince everyone that smoking was bad for us, now we have to endure the people who think they're right and have to insult us because we don't believe them.

Stop badgering us about it, it's not about science it's about economics, and it won't be a problem in a decade or two.

(Note for the observant: This post is rife with observable trends and verifiable facts, so expect the other side to downvote it into oblivion, because that's the way to convince people.)

The moon is fake! The woke commie Dims turned the rigged puck-lamp too high!

Sorry about that!

Light bulbs are very small things; the energy that goes into making them is likewise very small, regardless of type. The electricity an incandescent bulb burns is, by contrast, not at all small. You also have to replace the incandescent bulb far more often.

There's all sorts of exhaustive analyses out there, but the TL/DR is:

One incandescent bulb takes ~1-1,5kWh to manufacture and lasts ~1000 hours
One LED bulb takes 8-20kWh to manufacture and lasts ~25000 hours (commonly modern home construction doesn't even use lightbulb sockets anymore; the fixtures are designed to not need "bulb replacements")

So even on manufacturing, the LED bulb wins because it's up against 25 incandescent bulbs. But that's all trivial, because:

60W × 25000h = 1500 kWh
9W * 25000h = 225kWh

So a few extra or fewer kilowatt hours in manufacturing is irrelevant. It's totally dominated by usage energy.

Incandescent only wins one category: disposal (it's just glass and a little metal, you can just throw it in the trash; LED is e-waste and gets recycled). But in both cases, you're talking tenths of a percent of lifetime energy usage.

Three we are going to see a bump in immigration to the US as the Republican's have made immigration enforcement a total disaster...

Disaster?

I hardly think so....they have gotten the PR wrong in many cases, but I and lots of folks appreciate the efforts and accomplishments so far.

The main problem is, we're not rounding up and deporting illegals fast enough in large enough numbers.

But progress is progress and we're already starting to see some change in good numbers.

One nice side effect will be, hopefully, if we can deport enough NON citizens, they won't be counted in the next census and the reapportionment of house seats to more represent actual CITIZENS in states will come about....

Open up more housing to citizens with illegals gone out of places....and take huge fiscal burden off our government services (education, medical, etc)....with them off the roles being a burden.

Lol, a company dominated by Rationalists/Yudowski fans is "far left activists" now ;) The entire premise of HPOMR is that Lily Potter cast a spell to make her sister Petunia more attractive so she could marry a better husband, and when they adopted Harry, instead of having him attend public school, they homeschooled him, so he became brilliant. Very "woke" premise there ;) I don't know if you've heard, but the Rationalist community is the middle of a scandal right now for putting career-limiting pressure on women in the AI space to attend sex parties, including rape-themed ones. All those dang woke feminists, amiright?

You can suggest that, but you are saying "give up your close ties to family/friends/social life", and "move further from your job, or find a new one". Obviously if they really want kids they will make it work, but it's the ones who would like them but are not willing to give up so much of their lives, and limit themselves to one or zero.

Im saying exactly that....if need be, you MOVE to where life is better in general.

Grow up, be an adult make adult decisions.

When exactly did people start being such pussies and afraid to move out on their own...? This wasn't so unusual only a few decades back.

Hell in pioneer days....married couples would load up the wagon and head west often to never see family again.....

That's a bit extreme but is shows mankind often moves to where it is best to live.....when did people get so afraid to leave mommy and daddy? Can people not make friends in new places?

People act like it's a big deal.

Ever since I went out of state to college...I've almost never lived back in my home city or state....it's been great and no downside whatsoever....

I don't see what the big fucking problem ius with kids today.

I have a VERY tight loving family I grew up with, parents, cousins....I still have lifelong friends there and along the way in all states I've lived in.

Moving doesn't mean the end of relationships, just changes....

From observation and what I read...it seems that largely, at least in the US....it is liberal women/couples choosing to NOT have kids the most and birth rates amoung conservatives are rising in some cases....

Good deal that means over time...the liberals will self select themselves out of society....win win.

Really though, children are a huge commitment that, when done properly, requires you basically remake your life around what is best for a stable family unit for the next 20 years and really, once you have a kid, you'll always be a parent.

Err....well, that's been the common, well known NORMAL way of humans since the beginning till about...well, maybe 10-15 years ago when people went off the rails and norms went down the drain?

I mean, no one questioned this at all in all of humanity till just recently......

I think more than anything this is due to toxic feminism which has been fermenting to a head in recent years.....woman are going against what nature tells them and we have society backing that up.

But I get surprised to hear people today stating what you just did sounding like it is a foreign concept someone is newly trying to push on society?

it's hard to say if the Republicans will continue to lean into anti-immigration as hard as Trump did.

God I hope so.....we still have a LONG way to go to get rid of all the illegals that are currently here and need to go....