• 0 Posts
  • 79 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
cake
Cake day: August 26th, 2023

help-circle





  • I don’t remember having heard any practical solutions to the problem so far. They work best on real data, but they rapidly grew to the point where they are generating dramatically more artificial data than humans are generating real data, so they have hopelessly polluted their own well.

    Its a very difficult problem to deal with no obvious solutions that are at all cheap, easy, or even feasible, so someone’s going to have a really, really smart idea for them to get over that hurdle. Add on to that the fact the types of AIs most impacted by his problem, the LLMs, are the ones that are currently the most heavily subsidized by venture capital. So, not only are they facing increasing technical hurdles, they are about to get increasingly expensive to operate at the same time as the seed funding is used up and they have to switch to a revenue-positive business model.


  • I don’t think the technological limitations are what are making those AR goggles get poor reception. They face a couple of non-technological hurdles that I think are going to be nearly impossible for them to overcome:

    • People don’t like strangers pointing cameras in their face to the point where they may even be brought to violence about it, so using these in public settings will continue to be isolating and potentially even dangerous.
    • The companies making things like this are too big to be capable of making a good product ecosystem. It has been an inescapable trend for over a decade+ now that these mega corps have stopped being able to make anything without too much monetization to be good anymore, so adoption is lukewarm, and they kill off everything new after a few years. They are surviving on things they made before that time that they have not managed to mess up all the way yet.

  • I’m not ignoring the bigger picture at all. I know that the conflicts and oppression of today often have historical context, but that context does not equal justification.

    It boils down to this difference:

    • Your ancestors oppressed my ancestors.
    • You are oppressing me.

    The historical events did lead to the current events, and, you can draw a direct causal line between the historical oppression and today’s, but those events were perpetrated by dead people against other dead people. The reason that, for example, black Americans have justified grievance, is because it is still ongoing and their conditions are still impacted. If the black American community today was fully repaired from those historical events, they would have no grievance, but we all know that didn’t happen, which is why they’re still justifiably up in arms about it.


  • Except for violence being involved, your example is not materially similar, though. Most of the oppression of ethnic Jews you’re referring to predates Israel’s existence, and certainly the existence of almost all present-day Israelis. Israel is playing the role of aggressor at this time in history; they did not suffer the oppression of their ancestors, and it was not perpetrated by any of the people they are fighting today.

    In the scenario I’ve described and those like it, there is a conflict between people that feel oppressed and those they feel are oppressing them–right now. It is not about revenge or settling an old slight, but about getting their current material conditions improved, as is clear from the fact that such a demand was made during the video from this terrible incident.


  • No, I would be even more devastated than I am now, because in addition to my planet, country, town, and general environment, my family is also harmed by the war going on around me.

    These people are taking up arms against those treading on them, and war is messy. You can blame the combatant for the specific harms he causes like you are in this case, but that is very philosophically close to blaming a bullet for a murder rather than the shooter. The combatant does have agency and culpability of his own, but not in the broader context of the combat he is in. In that context, those that created that scenario are the “shooters” and the individual actors are the “bullets”.

    I’m not mad at the North Korean soldier that killed my great uncle nearly as much as I am at the North Korean leadership and their enablers, and my own government, who together made that situation the hell that it was.


  • It goes ballot box > soap box > ammo box.

    These people are just about at step 3. They have been mired in a cold class war their whole lives that is starting to get hot.

    It is true that warfare is a grievous waste of resources, but I think the only appropriate place to put the blame for all of that waste is on the aggressor.





  • I think you might be surprised. Generative AI has limited utility and costs a lot to operate; so much, in fact that t does not appear there are enough natural resources on the planet we’re on to ramp it up to the scale that is intended. Soon, the hype-based funding will dry up, and the free and subsidized generative AI tokens will all disappear. Only then will we see the true cost of using it and if users will bear that cost. If it costs a lot of money to ask it to do things, people will go back to doing a lot of those things themselves.





  • Windows progressively worsening and Microsoft’s dubious practices are entirely independent issues from whatever is going on with Linux, though.

    People interested in and well-suited for Linux use may take that route, given the situation, but even users with no inclination toward or intention to switch to Linux can and do still have legitimate grievances with the company and its software direction.

    Almost everyone has to interact with Windows and Microsoft at some level throughout their lives whether they like it or not, so it is natural and constructive for them to make their opinions known. Microsoft may not respond to these criticisms in a sane or useful manner, but that is their failing, not a failing of the criticisms themselves.

    I find it helpful to consider the substance of the complaint and evaluate it on its own merits, as it sounds you may have already been doing. For example, someone that is solely spouting negativity with no concrete examples of what they dislike about this company and its products is not constructive nor contributing to the conversation, but if someone states specific grievance with a software or company behavior is contributing, whether or not Microsoft takes the contribution.

    If you, personally, have not encountered any problems with Windows or Microsoft that give you any pause or problems in your life, go nuts and use Windows, but knowing that alternatives exist is empowering. At the rate of decline in the quality of the Windows OS, it is not impossible that Linux could become superior in every meaningful metric without even improving. However, it is also conceivable that a user’s needs are such that those quality declines have not impacted you specifically.

    I had a Windows 7 machine for like a decade without a single crash or BSD, and now, a decade later, I have multiple brand new PCs with Windows 11 installs that came on them that have lockups, crashes, and other buggy behaviors right out of the box. It is not unusable, but its stability is more reminiscent of the Windows of the 90s than an improvement on the Windows of 2010. Again, if that’s not your experience, count yourself among the lucky ones and continue to use Windows and be lucky.

    I think the rabid evangelism for Linux around here may have convinced you to try it because of their fervor, rather than their reasoning. I hope you continue to have luck with Windows, but if not, feel free to switch any time! The angry nerds don’t have to impact your decision one way or the other.


  • People new on the job do not have their bearings. While they certainly can break a lot of things really quickly, generally they can’t do many things until they learn all the things that they can do and how to do them. Also bear in mind that this has already been going on for over a year, so many of the more breakable things are already pretty broken.

    I think that if you disagree with the people in power, it is actually to your benefit if they are in greater disarray. I think that its true as others have said that there will be no investigations of wrongdoing for guilty people that are dismissed like Kristi Noem and possibly also Pam Bondi, but the revolving door they’re creating may still be to their detriment.