People have worried with every single new technology that it will enfeeble the masses, rather than empower them, and yet in the end, we usually find ourselves better off.

Yeah when I was learning in school we weren't allowed electronics for division, and I think I absolutely would be dumber if I had never done that

> People have worried with every single new technology that it will enfeeble the masses, rather than empower them, and yet in the end, we usually find ourselves better off.

If you're posting this from America, you're living in a society that is fatter than ever thanks to cars. So there's surely some nuance here, not every technology upgrade is strictly better with no downsides

Cars are an essential part of modern life, but the sweetspot for car adoption isn't on either of the extremes

In some parts of the world perhaps? They're not an essential part of life in urban areas designed to work well without them. As in, many people can live their lives never using one, let alone owning one.

On the other hand there are also big positives on both the societal and individual level. That's where the balance comes in. You want some individual travel and part of your logistics to run on cars, but not all of it. And probably a lot less of it than what most people in the 60s to 90s thought

For real, the amount of hate and vitriol I see expressed by people behind the “safety” of their steering wheel is unbelievable. Surely driving (excessively) leads to misanthropy like cigarettes to cancer.

Personally I also hurt my learning of trig identities and stuff because the symbolic algebra engine on my ti-89 was so good that I could rely on it instead of learning the material. Caught up to me in college with harder calc and physics classes.

That was good for a half-semester but then a formidable classroom opponent arose: a "new" boy who had been educated in another state using the very same textbook! I realized I'd have to commit at least a handful of the most useful trig identities to memory to solve problems quickly and remain at the head of the class. A weekend of furious comparison and selection ensued, but that was enough to carry me across the finish line in trig class.

Sometimes I take breaks from the calculator and even review math videos because it's embarrassing when I can't help my kid with their homework.

Taking care in how and when we use AI seems very sensible. Just like we take care how often and how much refined sugar we eat, or how many hours we spend sedentary.

But the analogy doesn’t actually hold up anyhow because the calculator and the navigator are deterministic. I can rely on their output.

LLMs have a probabilistic output that absolutely needs verification every time. I cannot trust them the same way I can trust a calculator.

I still memorize phone numbers. Hey, today that counts as "not using a database".

I am so rusty, that I just do add and subtract.

On the other hand, my grandparents, and father, could look at financial documents and do the calculations in their head.

People I know who stayed in finance longer than me, can crunch numbers rapidly.

I am around numerate people most of the time, so the occasions where I find I am the faster calculator around are jarring.

There are many conversations that go adrift because we can’t crunch numbers fast enough.

Is it a net loss to humanity in the face of the gains we obtained. Nope.

Is mental fitness of value to me, the same way physical fitness is of value to me? Yes, very much.

They simply do not believe that the consequences will be as bad as the models predict. And a lot of trust and good will has been expended on social issues, for example the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose, or to promote childhood reassignment surgery, etc. As a strategic decision, we have taken our eye off the ball, climate change is actually an existential threat, bathroom choice never was. You can argue that we can do two things at once, but there is a cost for dividing our focus and effort; even if it didn't raise the hackles of those already less predisposed to worry about the environment.

I think a lot of people miss this: each time you take up the good fight, you spend some trust/goodwill. If you're going to expend the public's goodwill, make sure that there is nothing more important to you than what you are expending it on, or expend less of it to save some trust and goodwill for this.

Ugh, I'm going to regret commenting here, but it really seems like this obsession is almost entirely on the right wing. In the US, the centrist Dems have been banging the appeasement drum for my entire political life, and it's gotten us nowhere.

Like... the right isn't going to wake up and start caring about climate change if everyone just shuts up and lets them discriminate against the hate group of the moment. The bathroom thing is also such a bait and switch, same as sports. In my state, we removed protections for housing and employment discrimination against trans people because... one trans athlete existed?

The real question we need to answer is why the right is so obsessed with other peoples' genitals, to the point that they have to make up stories and generate AI videos to get mad at.

I for one am sick of people focusing on a tiny fraction of the population and making them a scapegoat for everything. You're absolutely right that climate change is a bigger issue - so why can't we focus on it?

We can't focus on it because the anti-reality reactionaries are using trans people as a distraction. It's all one big malignant tumor on society, not a collection of unrelated issues.

It is a distraction and a useful one for MAGA. Among the Democrats, we keep getting tripped up by it and nominate candidates who don't realize the political land mine that it is. I am for gender equality, for racial equality, for renewables, for nuclear energy. But please win the election by prioritizing talking about jobs, jobs, jobs, economic disopportunity, and naked corruption. After winning the election, then you can address gender issues along with the full slate of Democratic platform priorities.

Democrats talking about jobs, economic disopportunity, and naked corruption gets no votes, because republican voters are not motivated by those. They are using those as talking point against democrats, but that is about it.

Republicans in the late 60s were the party of the EPA. What changed? People like the Koch brothers dumped literal millions into rightwing outlets big and small to talk about how awesome it is to burn oil.

A similar thing happened with smoking. Rush Limbaugh, even as he had lung cancer, was talking about what a myth it was that smoking caused lung cancer almost right up until his death.

Whenever you find highly monied interests, you can find a right wing propagandist that will tell you black is white.

And the insidious thing is that they don't spend their entire broadcast talking about the glories of oil or smoking. No, the best ones just insert it in as little throw away lines while talking about feminazis, gay people, trans people, black people, mexicans, etc.

That's effectively how the propaganda works. Get people highly tuned up on an emotional topic and then just slip in here and there lies that you don't even think about.

As a kid, I listened to probably a thousand hours of rightwing talkshow hosts because of my parents. Once I started viewing things with a more critical mind it became beyond obvious what game they are playing. Unfortunately, not everyone picks up on this game.

The world is burning before our eyes. It is unconscionable to use the rights and the bodies of the marginalized to put out the fire. What would be the point of making a better society if it requires leaving the most vulnerable behind? How would that even be a better society? We must be cognizant of who the real enemy is and never do the oppressor's work for them. Billionaires have class solidarity; for our planet’s survival, we must build solidarity as well. Fight the class war, and you fight climate change, transphobia, and all threats to life and liberty.

We're capable of fighting more than one political war at a time. All evidence points to the donor class actually being vested in these culture war issues. Democrat donors prioritise Gaza and trans issues. MAGA donors prioritise Israel and Bible thumping. The Adelsons aren't donating to GOP candidates to distract anyome class issues, they're donating because they have non-economic policy preferences to push.

I get annoyed by some performative language games too, but I just don't see any evidence that your broader claim here is true.

> Also, from what I can tell, the issue of trans rights caused issues in the centre when it lept to kids' sports.

Most people are willing to acknowledge that the sports issue is a bit complicated, but it's also such an incredibly niche issue and so much lower stakes than everything else. People got off their couches for the sports thing because it's a "safe" environment in which to express hatred towards an out group. You can tell that it was never about sports by the actions taken by the loudest complainers on the issue (enshrining housing and employment discrimination, weird laws about forcing teachers to report violations of religious principles to parents, creepy nonsense like the bill to make lists of all trans people or mass cancel all of their drivers licenses etc.)

Here's the reality: very few people actually believe climate change is an existential problem. As you say, this is abundantly signalled by very few folks being willing to compromise on other beliefs to advance it.

Want to build infrastructure? Cut taxes? Suddenly, people can put their differences aside. Want to do anything on the climate? Everyone has a policy bogeyman to attach, whether it be union requirements and gender issues or immigration and religious tests.

"Those who turn hoses on water protеctors

Are those who cage "Stop Cop City" protеstors

And enforce the brutality of the border

Same ones who enforce bans on drag performers

Same ones who enforce bans

On crossing state lines for abortions

Some of those that work forces

Are the same that burn crosses

Are the same that burn everything

For the bosses"

I don't think we totally disagree, but I come down differently on where to point the blame.

> What it needed was for strong left-wing people to stand up and denounce the distraction.

I mean, that did happen.

> To claim loud and proudly that transgender issues were not important when compared to climate change.

That was said, along with housing prices/inflation/corruption.

> Instead, we took to the street for BLM, when it wasn't an important issue

Here's where you're really, really losing me. You're:

1. Pivoting to a totally different issue

2. Ignoring the role of the media in promoting the most controversial takes and presentation of both issues. It sucks to blame people for having values when the real problem is for-profit engagement-based media.

3. Ick - it really rubs me the wrong way to see people say "BLM wasn't an important issue when compared to climate change". That seems really easy to say if you're not under routine threat of state violence, but BLM was a reaction to a very real epidemic of state violence against black people. To those people, that kind of immediate threat IS as big a deal as climate change. If anything, criticize the branding of "defund the police" (which was so bad I half wonder if it was a psyop).

Moreover, part of my original point was that climate change isn't a separate thing - it's a problem because the same systems that use wedge issues to divide us all benefit from the unsustainable status-quo.

The realpolitik take on this seems so short sighted - it takes for granted that some progress can be made on climate change by ignoring our values, while also ignoring that alienating the affected groups makes it harder to change our society enough to do anything about climate change.

No, i am not. It's the exact same issue. If you honestly believe that climate change is an existential crisis, then ALL other issues are by definition less important. That might be difficult to accept, because it feels like saying other issues aren't important. But that's not what i'm saying at all.

What i'm saying is, if something is about to destroy the entire world, then every other concern is a distraction. What does it matter what bathrooms we use, or if the police are using violence too much, etc?

Our actions speak to people who don't believe that climate change is real. Every time we take to the streets for ANY OTHER ISSUE, we re-affirm their belief that climate change isn't something to worry about.

You are showing exactly why we have been less effective at convincing people than we could have been. Because even you are diminishing the importance of climate change. Why should "they" give up any freedom, or luxury, in the name of climate change, if we give ourselves permission to assemble in public during a pandemic for a BLM protest, that let's face it, accomplished little.

You're using a very superficial argument and ignoring several of my points. If your literal home is on fire, is putting it out or running to safety less important than climate change? If you need to change an entire economic system to solve climate change, can you cavalierly ignore inconvenient members of that system that might be needed for a sufficiently motivated coalition? If you're worried about distractions, how can you blame the victims instead of the people committing the distraction?

> What does it matter what bathrooms we use

It ISNT about the bathrooms - that's the propaganda framing that you seem to have uncritically accepted. It's about random people trying to live their lives, and being denied housing and employment because of who they are. It's about the fact that we're talking about these people ONLY because of the propaganda machine.

> if the police are using violence too much

Must be nice that you apparently don't face the sharp end of this. To avoid triggering you with the "P" word, I'd suggest that your life experience is not universal and you should consider trying to understand a little bit about other peoples' lives.

> Our actions speak to people who don't believe that climate change is real.

And ignoring our values isn't going to convince those people, and those people will still think we're a bunch of woke idiots because their media has captured their minds.

> Every time we take to the streets for ANY OTHER ISSUE, we re-affirm their belief that climate change isn't something to worry about.

[all sorts of citations needed for unsupported reasoning]

This isn't about propaganda, well not in the sense you're using it. The argument, which you seem to disagree with, is the importance of focusing on a single existential issue, and ignoring everything else. To actually prove to people that are doubters, that WE actually BELIEVE what we're saying. That this really is the key thing to be worried about.

Everything else you're saying all amounts to the same argument, that climate change isn't important enough to take focus away from these other important issues. We just fundamentally disagree. And I contend your attitude is exactly why we have had so much trouble convincing the doubters that we're serious about climate change... when we're so willing to give just as much (if not more) energy to these other "distractions"

I don't see you responding anywhere to the general categories of criticisms I raised:

1. Climate change isn't one thing - it's a systemic problem in a system with lots of problems. 2. It seems ludicrous to assume that suddenly people will listen to us about climate change if we ignore other issues, ESPECIALLY because doing so would make us (or at least, me) moral hypocrites. We haven't even discussed direct causal issues, like political corruption. I honestly think no meaningful action is possible in the US on climate change until we have major reforms of our electoral and media systems - where does that put me in your oversimplified schema? 3. You're completely ignoring my argument about immediate needs. This is actually kind of funny:

> If your house is on fire, then put it out. But DON'T start a social movement that distracts from climate change.

The fire in this metaphor IS a social problem! Putting the fire out IS a social movement!!

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree, but either way - here's hoping we can do something meaningful about climate change. Have a good day.

If you honestly believe that it is an existential crisis, then you must accept that NOTHING WILL EXIST if we fail to address climate change. So any social gain we make fighting fires will be wiped out anyway if we fail to deal with climate change. That you don't see this, and that you are willing for all these other issues to share the stage with climate change, is a big problem. You want to blame the media, and the right-wing, and perhaps other things for the lack of progress, without fully comprehending your own part.

I think you're sort of proving the parent's point - when you're in an existential fight, is it really that important that you use the limited attention of the public to fight for the rights of a single person?

Trans rights ain't even that popular; most people are okay with "you think you're someone else? Well, fine, no skin off my nose". OTOH, the majority of people globally aren't okay with "It must be a crime if you don't treat me as a member of the opposite sex".

The identity politics, of all forms, sucked out much of the air from the room leaving precious little left for discussing things like climate change.

Whether we like it or not, human attention is a limited resource. If you're going to allow a few vocal nutters to direct the course of your discussion, then you can't very well complain, now can you?

I mean, that's what leaders are supposed to do - direct the discussion. When the opposition says "They want to let men into women's changing rooms", then you say "No, we don't support that at all".

I mean, voters find some things distasteful - you have to choose which of those things you are going to argue for, and which you are going to back down from.

Diluting your message so that you mention a little bit of everything is just dumb politics, because human attention is a limited resource!

Yes. That's what rights are. If we don't support them for one person, we don't have them for any person.

That's not the question that was asked. The question is whether it is wise to dilute your message when the message is warning of existential threat?

The binary question of fighting for a rights was never contended. The question was weighting that specific right against an existential threat.

There's more nuance here than you're willing to admit (hence the resounding loss of the left).

Literally conservatives did that. THEY made this focus of the debate. Democrats reaction do not even matter here. It is ultimately irrelevant, because people like you then obsess over imaginary democrats positions democratic party never really had.

It does indeed matter - they were the ones who were insufficiently convinced of their nominees messages. Not convinced enough to vote for them, at any rate.

The opposition does not matter when your "supporters" don't vote for you because the message they received is different from the message you think you transmitted.

It was a bad move to put themselves in such a position that they can't defend when conservatives attacks it, that was moving too fast and therefore we ended up with a conservative government.

You can say it was conservative that is to blame since they used this vulnerability of the liberals position, but you can also say that it was the liberals fault for doing things that is unpopular with a large part of their supporters so they are now in a vulnerable spot.

Not true. Conservatives are creating this point, because it makes their base afraid and more radical. It has nothing to do with what liberals do or don't do. It is not about splintering liberals, it is about creating a weak enemy so you can beat him. Liberals have two choices: join trans hate and gain no votes or do not join trans hate.

> it was conservative that is to blame since they used this vulnerability

I think conservatives are to blame, because they picked someone weak to bully him and use as political cudgel. Also because they lie.

> liberals fault for doing things that is unpopular

Except that it did not happened. There was no comparable democratic pro-trans campaign. You are just doing that funny thing where if there is a single person opposed to conservative agenda, then conservatives are absolved of everything.

> we ended up with a conservative government.

Conservative movement becoming fascists personality cult is the issue. In an alternative universe, there could have been pro-democratic lawful conservative government. Conservative did not had to imply what it does today. And conservative movement turning into what it is now is fully fault of conservatives.

Trans people haven't done nothing, there are many reforms that have moved the trans issue a lot that were pushed by trans people, that is not nothing. The right isn't innovating anything by rolling back those, they are just being conservative which is in their name.

You could argue those reforms are good, but you can't argue it is the right that is changing things here, the right just undo change they don't do the changing on these issues.

And you can't fault the right for trying to win the election. You have to try to win the election as well, throwing it away by sticking to unpopular policies such as trans in sports is just ignorant. It isn't just the right that doesn't want trans in sports, it is a large majority of the entire population that doesn't want that.

Interestingly it's a bit different in the UK. Both the main left and right parties had been promoting gender identity based policy for years, and it was only though the dedicated efforts of feminists who pointed out all the problems with this, and particularly the negative impacts on women and girls, that it recently started to be reversed.

For example, in the UK, it was Theresa May's right-wing Conservative government who planned to reform the law to make it easier, and with fewer medical requirements, for people to acquire a Gender Recognition Certificate. They had a public consultation too. This move was supported by the left-wing Labour Party.

And in recent years, legal action and advocacy by feminist groups has been a highly significant factor in policy changes around this area, most notably For Women Scotland who took their legal challenge all the way to the UK's Supreme Court, winning the case with a statutory reinterpretation of the Equality Act.

It's strongly my opinion that there are far fewer people championing 'wokeness' than there are 'getting outraged by it's pervasiveness'. Mainly for the fact that all media like to seize upon controversy, thus turning minor fringe issues into multiple days in a row of front page headline items.

Blech. I've done the same thing...

Address climate change, accelerate the shift towards renewables. It's something that actually fucking matters!

You fight this by keeping your own ranks in check. The right condemns nazis and racists, so you wont find any open racists and nazis in their ranks. The left doesn't do the same, so they leave themselves open to attacks based on having bad apples in their ranks.

You could argue the right is still worse, but you don't decide that the voters decide, so you have to clean up the ranks until the voters are happy with what you present, otherwise you leave yourself open to attack like this.

This is flagrantly inaccurate.

Being transgender wasn't some sort of political football 10 years ago even though 10 years ago basically everything that was happening WRT trans individuals that made the pearl clutchers clutch pearls was happening then and earlier.

The only reason "the left" started caring about trans individuals is because right wing reactionaries decided that it was the source of all the ills of the world. It was a pretty natural "no it's not, you guys are being insane". Especially because as a result to the right losing it's mind over trans individuals, we are seeing all sorts of insane over reactions in the law (In idaho, they are passing a law with a 5 year prison sentence for a trans individual taking a shit in a public bathroom).

This is basically how the cycle goes. The right targets a minority, the left defends the minority, the media capitalizes on the "both sides" of it all at the exclusion of talking about things like taxing rich people, funding public services, or addressing climate change.

The only time I've seen the reverse was BLM, but it's pretty much the same outcome.

It's not "insane" to question whether males should be allowed to access female-only spaces, or to resist the erosion of sex categories in law. Many women on the left have done exactly that, and have been vilified and harassed for it.

This is entirely made up right wing hysteria. Complain to them for beating that drum constantly, because the more people hate the more they vote for them.

Then the strategists who think like you got in her ear. Told her to stop attacking corporations to protect donations. Had her campaign with Cheney and talk about shooting home invaders. Then of course she refused to take a strong stand on the genocide in Gaza.

Her momentum faded and she lost. In the aftermath some braindead analysts tried to blame words like Latinx and transgender rights.

She didn't campaign on that shit. She campaigned as Republican lite and it fucked her.

The fascists aren't going to rewards you with good environmental policy just because you throw trans people under the bus. They'll just demand another sacrifice. Meanwhile gender affirming surgery on minors is so fleetingly rare that it basically only exists in right wing propaganda and here you are repeating it like it's a valid concern.

That's not to equate governments and private internet services, but I think it puts it into perspective, that even governments don't think suicide is the worst choice some of the times. Who are we to day he made the wrong choice, really it was his to make. Nobody was egging him on.

And if you believe people that say LLMs are nothing but stolen content, then would those books / other sources have been culpable if he had happened to read them before taking his own life?

If you imagine we just got unlucky with the _wrong_ people in power, you haven't yet learned the real lesson, and are doomed to support the entire thing continuing, or being reborn in new form.

Am almost 50. Was in the room being told I had to help offshore others jobs. That's why I claim this was no accident.

I like how you make it a character problem of the masses! How dare they not know things intentionally kept from them! How dare they select the subset of dumb options.

Media intentionally kept people like Chomsky and others off the airwaves to keep control of the narrative, but damn gen pop! They should have known!

You going to sell me on Intelligent Design next?

"Us"? Don't lump me into this. I’ve been mocking tech bros and software startups the whole time. Low skilled, know nothing work. I started in EE. I look forward to AI that organizes machine states without software engineer middle men inserting their preferences on me.

We need to look at ourselves, and the dream we've swallowed. It's not going to get better by voting out the current crop of criminals. There is a never-ending line of equally corrupt applicants, right behind them. The entire system has been subverted. There's no fixing it.

I'm not hopeful we will actually break out of the spell of modern big-government before we're surrounded by famine and rubble; but the seed needs to be planted now. Trump (and worse) is the logical and inevitable outcome of delusional self-indulgence, treating the state as an endless piggy bank, and knight in shining armour. It's just handing our fate over to the psychopaths, on a silver platter.

For whatever it's worth, working together in small groups ("prepping") is probably the best practical option we have as individuals and families. Building skills and local communities.

Yes. The proposal claimed that there will be too much AI slop, and it will inundate the review process with too much work and bring the entire system to a grinding halt, or worse, end up allowing code that lacks proper review into the kernel.

Linus basically said, "It might become a problem, but the bad guys are never going to admit they used AI, so it's not helpful to demand disclosure".

People keep telling me that an LLM is not intelligence, it's simply spitting out statistically relevant tokens. But surely it takes intelligence to understand (and actually execute!) the request to "read adjacent code".

But the question i'm really asking is... isn't it more than a sheer statistical "trick" if an LLM can actually be instructed to "read surrounding code", understand the request, and demonstrably include it in its operation? You can't do that unless you actually understand what "surrounding code" is, and more importantly have a way to comply with the request...

At this point I don't doubt that whatever human intelligence is, it's a computable function.

I have heard this a few times now, what is going on? The news hasn't mentioned anything about Neo Nazis, and there is no large organized effort to round up the Jews, let alone exterminate them. This seems like hyperbolic language that is in really poor taste, which undermines the seriousness of what the second world war was fought over.

imagine calling them like "my friend and i are both on lsd and we are both seeing that house on fire so could you check it out please in case it's real"

a trick i use sometimes is to check my phone camera to see if it also sees the same thing

You can't trust the pictures either.

But LSD and related psychedelics are uniquely able to help one reconnect with that part of themselves.

While I'm on LSD it looks like any picture/art/etc is literally alive. I don't really know how to explain it.

> But LSD and related psychedelics are uniquely able to help one reconnect with that part of themselves.

LSD absolutely helps me reconnect with many parts of myself. I have dissociative identity disorder and certain memories or even certain perspectives of memories can only be recalled when I'm on LSD.

"Hey, I'm hallucinating that that house is on fire."

"Whoa, me too."

...