Comment Re:Closet Environmentalist? (Score 1, Funny) 293
We will never truly know how many dimensions the Chess game has.
We will never truly know how many dimensions the Chess game has.
Say it with me, now. As we all know, the infamous saying goes:
A COMPUTER
CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE
THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST NEVER
MAKE A MANAGEMENT DECISION
It's really incredible how marketing departments can radiate amnesia like this with such proficiency.
I don't quite agree with everything you said, but I'm willing to overlook everything because of your correct use of the word fecundity. 10/10, would reply again.
It's been a while since a comment on Slashdot made me happy. Thank you, sir.
Also, thank you for being a teacher. People say "thank you for your service" to military men when I'd rather say "fuck you for participating in the violent colonial exploitation of militarily weaker nations".
Thank you for your service.
I have kids too. I'm not going to pretend that I have all the answers. But parents have lost the ability to properly impart etiquette to their kids, in many cases because they have none themselves. So kids' behaviour in public has gotten worse. Simultaneously, adults have become spoiled brats unwilling to tolerate even the slightest discomfort, which is why you have people whining about having to listen to crying babies on flights. For fuck's sake babies are the literal future of our species.
Kids' etiquette needs to be improved.
Adults need to grow up.
I've travelled around the world, and it's only the so-called advanced Western countries that have this problem. For example, I was in Vietnam recently and kids' public behaviour was practically alien compared to kids back in Australia where I live. When kids did cry or make a ruckus, nobody even looked up. It was just understood that that is what it meant to live in a society that had kids.
Alternatively we fix that problem at both ends: we raise kids to behave well in public, and we as a society understand that putting up with kids who are in the process of learning etiquette is the price we pay for not going extinct.
Interesting that you feel that those are the only two options. Modern American society provides neither of those. In any case, the rest of the world finds it hilarious that no matter how often and how many of you dumbasses are driven to bankruptcy over mundane medical incidents, you STILL don't see the value in having a few social services provided at the government level. Don't mind me. You keep shrieking some shit about communism because I have to go. I have a doctor's appointment, because getting a regular checkup here in Australia isn't something I have to save up six months ahead for.
No, they use it because they feel that living in a fair society is a good thing. Fucking scumbags.
Sorry, I didn't mean to twist your panties. I was merely pointing out (pedantically, I admit) that the rules of logic are not identical to the rules of statistics. LLMs (and arguably all current generations of AI models) are inherently statistical systems. This can be pretty easily demonstrated by the fact that all current LLMs can be coaxed into saying things that are illogical. As you point out you can "approximate" logic and arrive at logical conclusions with these systems, but you are not doing so using a logic engine. You are doing so using a stochastic system.
At the philosophical level, logic exists outside of our neurons. Its rules are (as far as we accept anything in reality) independent of human existence. So just because our neurons are also subject to the imperfections of stochastic systems does not mean that ALL stochastic systems are logical.
Point of order. LLMs are not applying logic to a data set. They are applying statistical probability models to a data set. Not quite the same thing.
Well, what are you waiting for? Step on it!
(The idiots may also have been algorithms.)
Thank you for taking the time to read all that! You are right, of course. It is something of an unsolved problem with the design. The question of "exactly what work are these draftees contributing?" is something I'm still working on; it may not literally be core parenting or teaching work, but actually more like e.g. hanging out with your cool uncle on the weekend who helps you learn life lessons. Maybe said uncle isn't exactly teaching or parenting material, but he still has something to contribute to building a child's character, and is assisting the parents just by being around to lighten the load. The Big Brothers Big Sisters charity seems to indicate that this is a sound principle with incredible ROI.
There would also be mandatory training to teach people the skills needed to do this work (critical to figure out what goes in there.) Also I'd like to hope that the system would "even out" over a few generations; if we assume the root cause of dangerous personalities like BPD or NPD is being trapped (or in an echo chamber) with a toxic parent figure, the practice of this "socialized parenting" is essentially guaranteeing kids have alternative support networks that can soak some of those traumas. Efficiency would never reach 100%, of course (does it ever?) and there would always be some difficult people for whom alternative credit would need to be devised, but in any substantial system there's always other work to do—maybe a truly broken person contributes by grading homework or something.
You can just say openly that you're an edgy, racist teenager. It's fine; the first step to self-improvement is admitting that you need help.
It seems the pressing the key actually generates Win+Shift+F23... and also function as a Right Ctrl modifier at the same time? It may or may not function normally if you're outside of Windows.
I can't comment on your masculinity. I don't know you. But it seems like you're wounded, so let's cauterize it.
In a very strange sense, it is true that males are disposable, but this fact is built into sexual reproduction by evolution itself. In virtually all species, if one parent is responsible for carrying offspring and the other isn't, then by definition the former parent is anchored longer in the reproductive act, and is thus in need of protection during that period.
Mammals in particular have an "experimental male, stable female" genetic strategy where more pronounced variation in traits (height, academic performance, et cetera) is presented in males. With each generation these traits then get folded back into the matrilineal trunk, which is less affected by them. This specifically happens with traits on the X chromosome via Barr body inactivation.
So there's one answer that you can settle on, if you want to feel really shitty. You are disposable. Society isn't responsible for this, though. The game was rigged tens of millions of years ago when some fucking fish somewhere evolved live birth. Unless you're a salmon, you've drawn the short straw.
But there are a couple of other angles worth considering.
First of all—who is doing the disposal of all these men? Women aren't the ones declaring wars, or cheaping out on safety equipment, or blocking legislation that reduces gun violence. We didn't invent conscription and we didn't bomb the World Trade Center. I mean, fuck, Pete Hegseth is systematically firing female generals and wants to stop women from volunteering to serve in the military, even if they meet all the physical requirements for service. These bloodthirsty assholes are the ones actually killing you, and they should be your #1 enemy. All of these problems are reduced by a factor of ten just by moving to Canada, where the reproductive laws are basically the same as any blue state.
Now, as for reproductive politics... I used to be a fairly left-libertarian person on this issue and felt that the real problem was that people are immature assholes to each other. It seemed to me that custody and child disputes only happen at all because the people involved had shitty parents, and that the only solution was to get rid of societal expectations; live and let live, make it easier for single moms to get good jobs so they don't need alimony in the first place. (Another "-mony" word, but this time from -monia, "condition," + alo, "nourishment.") But these days it's pretty damn clear to just about everyone that the last thing civilization needs is yet more isolation and atomisation.
I think the actual solution is to turn parenting into a social obligation. It's a little different from how things are now, but I think the benefits would be worth it.
Consider the consequences of what would happen if made the following into a moral principle: your parents' generation raised you, so you have a duty to raise the next generation. In this system, every adult is expected to have and raise 2 kids, or contribute the equivalent amount of work to paideia by helping to raise the kids of strangers, teaching, tutoring, babysitting, et cetera. This would have the additional benefits of making childcare cheaper, reducing the work parents actually have to do alone, and reducing the power and scope of serial child abusers (can't hurt a lot of kids if positions of power over them aren't a viable career.) Experts would still exist for key jobs like high school teachers.
Parents still get to choose who they hire to help raise their kids, so you don't have to worry about some weirdo brainwashing them. Since virtually every adult is going through the labor pool, there's a ton of choice. Both parents and helpers would be anonymized during this selection process to reduce biases around gender, appearance, etc.
The enforcement is as follows: anyone refusing to do this work would be slapped with heavy taxes and might even have trouble getting good jobs later on in life, the same way having no high school diploma, or bad credit, or a criminal record can haunt you currently. (There would be waivers and exemptions, deferrals if you can show you're making progress, etc.)
For parents going through divorce proceedings, most of the gendered BS goes away. In situations of joint custody, there's less concern about which parent gets priority because it isn't just 2 people raising the kids. If a parent doesn't want custody during a divorce at all, then they're basically downgrading to the "default" option of paying their debt to society, and there's no real shame in it. The one who gets full custody won't have as much of a burden than a single parent would today because the broader safety net of socially subsidized childcare exists.
I have a very small mind and must live with it. -- E. Dijkstra