Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending Sunday 04 August 2024

“It's real! Premium domains are expensive, but it's worth it,” Schiffman told me in an email after I reached out to ask if it was true.

[…]

"People just don’t get consumer, I view this as saving money. Much less money needs to be spent on marketing, it’s a one time thing," Schiffmann said.

there’s an entire type of startup guy embodied by Schiffmann, and I can’t be the only one who’s met this type more than once

The company advertises the device as “always listening” when connected to bluetooth. “When connected via bluetooth, your friend is always listening and forming their own internal thoughts. We have given your friend free will for when they decide to reach out to you.”

presented without comment

Forget the diss track person, I've tracked down the true origin of Friend:

I like how the advertisement's URL opens with a fucking O_Q like even its unsettled by this shit

the ad alone should be a thread it's the most insane thing I've seen in years

the yt comments are brutal btw definitely check them out

It’s like how can we make a depressing tamagotchi?

Here’s Friend’s advertisement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Q1hoEhfk4 . The music choice and general vibe is… unsettling.

This hast the same vibe as a trailer for shows like Black Mirror. I actually feel sad for the people they're targeting with this, holy shit.

unsettling.

Indeed.

Ugh, just reading the summary made me want to puke. What the fuck is wrong with those people. Who the fuck thinks that delegating the responsibility to computers is a good idea. Can't they cope with the outcomes of their choices and need to outsource that responsibility to some magick software

wait wait wait wait this it not substack of some deranged fash techbro ghoul like balaji srinivasan, that's JAMA, are you sure these are actual MDs and not three techbros in a stolen labcoat

one of them - first author - has three fluff pieces on genai in similar tone to their name, the other two, it seems to me, didn't wrote a thing about ai earlier

then again scott siskind exists, but this is not something that i'd expect even from him

that's fuckin grim.

Possibly anti-universal-healthcare fearmongering. This stat's been going around US conservative circles. And I even typed that before seeing the thread ended with:

Remember the lopsidedness of health spending and need when talking reform.

"Dear healthy people: don't let the sickly suck away all your money"

I mean, you know what the point is.

It's eugenics. It's always eugenics.

Okay first of all what the fuck is a TP0? I swear you guys just make those people up and they're lazier and lazier written each time.

Second, what's the point here? Like, is either of the tweets making a point? Cause it just sounds like someone discovered why universal healthcare is a good idea? The fact that spending is so unequal is quite literally the entire point in favour of having universal insurance?

Also

1% is responsible for 24% of medical expenses

Now do how much of the population gets 24% of the income :)

oh man i'd forgotten St Rev, a favourite minor nrx from the mid-2010s

that's just "poors don't deserve healthcare" what else

otoh aren't they going against their benefactors (old rich ghouls)?

christ and it's always the fucking bad-faith bullshit arguments. I bet if you pulled another dimension to the same fucking numbers there you'd instantly find some Rather Interesting correlations with income brackets, and if you pulled a dimension for care/spend class you'd find Another interesting correlation

I wish these people just fucking wouldn't, gah

this is the first thing i see on lemmy this week and i think it's already enough internet for me today, basilisk have mercy

also musk's downfall probably started the moment he became buddies with thiel

It's been 3 days, my hope that this is real is fading :(

Musk will always own that hilariously disturbing baby roleplay Twitter alt though

Well, history sure does fucking repeat itself again, doesn't it?

At its low point, some computer scientists and software engineers avoided the term artificial intelligence for fear of being viewed as wild-eyed dreamers. (New York Times, 2005, at the end of the last AI winter.)

This does suck for all the non-LLM ML stuff that has actual usage. (Even if a percentage of that was also snake oil, or had dubious success rates).

For as much as they like to talk about building things and solving problems the software industry doesn't seem to put a lot of effort into building things well or solving their own problems.

What amazes me, as a sort of US politics watcher from the outside, just how badly the various republicans weirdos are reacting to this. Esp Vance, posting his dolphin fucker stuff in the middle of the jokestorm about him being into furniture. But not just him, the GOP going 'don't be racist about Harris' and then all the racists doubling down on their racism, etc etc. The weird lashouts re weirdness. "how dare you call me weird! Grabs calipers I can see from your skull shape that you are ..."

For people from the future:

I'm a fan of Clonezilla, which is a debian-derived live distro designed specifically to clone partitions as well as whole disks. If you're comfortable with how Linux represents devices, it's as close as you can get to training-wheels-included imaging for free.

BIG WARNING: Be sure to write down the BitLocker key before you begin, or else it'll be a bad time!

insanely detailed geek pages. These contain the right answer! But not the specific right answer.

I had a windows problem once, so was looking through all that looking for an answer and saw somebody go 'I need to save my data, which is very important, so how do I fix this problem' and then they got a reply with 'follow these steps with step X making sure they would delete their data'. And this was before the whole era of AI slop so I fear how much worse it has gotten now.

@dgerard What kind of HD? I have at least 4, incl. 2 x 500GB, 1 x 1TB, that are not "seen" anymore by the system... as if the head was "locked" somehow...

Harry Potter and the Surprisingly Good Take (2024)

It's the same story as has ever been. "Smart People"'s position on anything is often informed by their current economic relationship wrt to the things they care about. And maybe even Yud isn't super happy about his profession being co-opted. What scraps will he have if his own delusions became true about GPT zombies replacing "authentic voices"?

No one is immune to seeing a better take when it's their shit on the line, and no is immune from being in a bubble without stake.

that's a linkedin-level take

Somebody got all his books from libgen and it shows.

other handy thing you can do: make a bookmark that has the URL be javascript:(function() { function bits go here} )();, and stick it in your bookmark bar

In the spirit of "worse is better", here is a ublock filter I just threw together to highlight all the comments less than a day old:

 undefined

    
! Jul 31, 2024 https://awful.systems
awful.systems##.comment article.comment-node :has-text("hours ago"):style(background-color:#7700AA)
 
  

EDIT: fix bug with 1 hour and 20 minutes ago. regex is even worse is better.

 undefined

    
! Jul 31, 2024 https://awful.systems
awful.systems##.comment article.comment-node :has-text(/(hour|minute)s? ago/):style(background-color:#7700AA)

  

This is really cool!

I was just thinking it would be cool to have something like RES's 'Previously Read' feature that only shows the new comments, and everything else is darkened or collapsed. This does a similar thing though and it's great for these weekly threads

The proud tradition of "no really, Trump isn't that bad if you pretend he's a normal libertarian who happens to be an asshole instead of listening to the words that come out of his mouth"

So many fully-cooked brains in that thread.

BTW, ever notice how easy it is to replace "robot overlords" in TESCREAL stuff with literally anything else? Compare this gem from the linked thread, "The Authoritarian Peril":

https://nitter.poast.org/pic/orig/media%2FGUAQszqWkAAGFRb.jpg

with this version where Tolkein stuff is seamlessly swapped in for evil sentient gaming rigs with no loss of generality:

A dictator who wields the power of the One Ring would command concentrated power unlike any we’ve ever seen. In addition to being able to impose their will on other countries, they could enshrine their rule internally. Millions of orcs could police their populace; mass surveillance would be hypercharged; dictator-loyal Ring Wraiths could individually assess every citizen for dissent, with advanced near-perfect lie detection rooting out any disloyalty. Most importantly, the orcish military and police force could be wholly controlled by a single political leader, and programmed to be perfectly obedient—no more risk of coups or popular rebellions. Whereas past dictatorships were never permanent, Isildur's Bane could eliminate basically all historical threats to a dictator’s rule and lock in their power (cf value lock-in). If the CCP gets this power, they could enforce the Party’s conception of “truth” totally and completely.

Realistically, most EAs will vote for the white male over the non-white female anyway, but it's on-brand for them to post a giant substack with reasons why.

Amazing quote he included from Tyler Cowen:

If you are ever tempted to cancel somebody, ask yourself “do I cancel those who favor tougher price controls on pharma? After all, they may be inducing millions of premature deaths.” If you don’t cancel those people — and you shouldn’t — that should broaden your circle of tolerance more generally.

Yes leftists, you not cancelling someone campaigning for lower drug prices is actually the same as endorsing mass murder and hence you should think twice before cancelling sex predators. It’s in fact called ephebophilia.

What the globe emoji followed with is also a classic example of rationalists getting mesmerized by their verbiage:

What I like about this framing is how it aims to recalibrate our sense of repugnance in light of “scope insensitivity,” a deeply rooted cognitive bias that occurs “when the valuation of a problem is not valued with a multiplicative relationship to its size.”

Someone posted this to /r/SneerClub and it got 150+ comments, didn't realize you can still start threads there.

Tangent: I had assumed nitter was dead and buried by now, glad to see there are still some functioning mirrors. I've found it impossible to share threads without.

Strange, they didn't count the number of utils I get by voting for Kamala just to make these bastards mald

Matt Yglesias argued that “Different Places Have Different Safety Rules and That’s OK” following the deadly collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh. And yet his arguments were perfectly correct, if maybe a bit “too soon.”

Jesus.

Roe v. Wade cannot be overturned twice

Where are your Bayesian priors now, asshole?

Siri, how can I unread a post?

Also look at this dude in the replies advocating for mask-off right-wing sexist / racist / fascist EA: https://x.com/diegocaleiro/status/1729715617945788773 ... if you dare 😱

All in for radioactive hurricanes though

She's listened to anecdotes "about kids who are like my kids" (👀👀👀), and that's quite enough engagement with that system, thank you very much.

As sympathetic as I am to the parents and children for whom public school is a necessity rather than a choice, I don't think she's actually wrong here? Putting her kids in public school won't magically immediately increase funding, reduce student/teacher ratios, improve facilities, get reactionary Texas nonsense away from history curriculums, or otherwise fix whatever problems those schools have. Rather it will mean that more people in that school have the resources to Karen their way into getting the people who can fix those immediate problems to make them a priority, and there's a time lag in how quickly that can be done (assuming parents still care enough to agitate as their kids get older and graduate). And while there are a lot of very good reasons to assume that growing up in a family with those resources has a more immediate impact than which school your kids go to (i.e. her kids are still going to have access and interest in private tutoring, PTA involvement, and a home environment free from the stress of economic precarity and that will benefit them regardless of what school they go to), we still talk as though giving your kid a good education at a good school is the most important single thing you can do to help them be successful. If we're going to talk like going to a bad school is like playing Russian Roulette with your kids, I'm not comfortable with the logic that everyone has a moral duty to play because it reduces each individual's odds of losing, y'know?

Of course, given her proximity to the Ratsphere I'm probably being incredibly charitable and she's actually worried about having her kids spend time too close to genetically inferior races with mathematically-described low IQs or something.

You know, I feel like it's only a matter of time before someone in the overlapping griftoverse tries their hand at immanentizing the eschaton by creating their own second coming - the MessAIah.

Can AI give you diarrhea?

Already does make me nauseous, so...

so… are we blaming muffin for this week? seems it’s more posts than usual this time ;p

I’ve been under a rock with a bunch of life stuff so I only learned of this yesterday, and holy shit

those snapshots from the earnings call are wild

Not read it yet, but I do enjoy that Harris Dr Who'ed Trump.

I like most of this article but

Instead, hundreds of couples gathered in a public space and sucked face. The women wore what we might call immodest clothing and the couples groped each other and kissed and kissed and kissed some more. For the police and the Turkish regime, this was an “irresolvable dilemma.” The police could not possibly turn violent against these smooching protesters. They would look brutal and, in some ways, silly. The public would surely sympathize with the kissing anti-authoritarians if force were deployed. Police are trained to respond to force, not non-violence. In this case, they slinked away and the protesters cheered and, in some cases, made out a little more.

did the law change

The townspeople didn’t engage the neo-nazi marchers with threats and force. Residents and local businesses instead pledged money for every mile the fascists walked in their journey to Hess’ burial site. They raised about $12,000 and gave the money to an organization dedicated to de-radicalizing young people trying to exit extremist groups. Protestors threw rainbow confetti on the neo-nazis as they passed the finish line of the marathon route the pro-democracy group had created as a way of mocking the little fascist walk. These adherents to a hideous political ideology were made into subjects of ridicule. They were made to be fools by folks who smartly refused to engage them the way they wanted to be engaged: With violence.

did they stop marching to the grave

idk the answer to the previous two questions but that he didn't say is pretty sus

Pro-democracy activists have shown that far-right demonstrations of power have six core goals: To legitimize their views, strengthen their self-image as part of the downtrodden, unite their squabbling factions, attract new people to the movement, control media coverage, and feel powerful and heroic. All of these goals were met with the violent counter demonstrations in Charlottesville. It could not have turned out better for the fascists.

Charlottesville was an unmitigated disaster for the far right

In fact, movements with a mere 3.55 percent of the population actively supporting them have never failed, according to Pranksters vs. Autocrats, a comprehensive review of nonviolence and dilemma actions.

credulous

Smearing your opponent as weird and out of step with the American voter is as good a strategy as we’ve seen in the 21st century. Is it high minded and philosophical? No, it’s not. Are normies high minded and philosophical? No, they’re not. This is why Marxists have largely failed to gain power. They think too much.

the attack line comes from leftist podcasts

(I should say there's a handful of places I don't entirely agree with the writing/references, but I don't think it kills the whole)

We should have let Google cook on this one so they’d reveal their next ad targeted at olympic athletes, where the premise is that instead of thinking about how to respond to letters from kids, they just use AI. Obviously to save time and let them get back to training and inspiring more kids!

This idiocy has been patiently submitted 3 times before but finally broke containment

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=theseedsofscience.org

There's a great sneer-novel about simulationists called If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe by Jason Pargin.

The villains of the story are a group of TESCREAL stand-ins who style themselves as the "Simmurai." They have the goal of breaking the "simulation" just the same as the authors of the (hilarious) paper you've shared. They have a very similar tone, which to my ears sounds like a serial killer winding themselves up to do the deed. The big twist is that the Simmurai have been unwittingly suborned by a Lovecraftian horror that has bent their plan to its own ends. The only thing standing in their way is a small group of working class millenials from Ohio, who get tangled up in the story because they once shot up some space drugs in a Denny's parking lot and can therefore see the true nature of the universe (maybe).

Saying “I no longer consent to being in a simulation”

Time to create a big mindfuck for the Rationalists. First have an active account on EA/LW and actively participate. Post this research as a talking point. Then leave one message 'lol just to be sure: I no longer consent to being in a simulation'. And then never touch that account + any related accounts ever again.

Of course one of the first things they try is torture, because "maybe the simulationists aren't as big of bastards as we are" is a reasonable hypothesis to test and not a reason to be locked up.

Also since we're messing with absurd thought experiments, I'd like to propose that when they declined consent the simulationists could actually just disable the part of that agent with a subjective personal experience, making them a P-zombie in the David Chalmers tradition. As such, they were no longer part of the simulation without adversely affecting any other aspect of it.

Is this stupid? Obviously, but let's be honest: it's probably less stupid than at least half of the actual paper.

In another episode of "anyone can upload a PDF and call it a paper mate, they don't even check"...

What the hell is "Seeds of Science"? Is that some weird arxiv thingy that also gives you a logo at the top?

I wanted to sneer at this, but it very quickly outgrew a Stubsack comment, so, enjoy, this is what you made me do

https://awful.systems/post/2059051

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