> It seems unfair to call out LLMs for "spam, scams, propaganda, and astroturfing." These problems are largely the result of platform optimization for engagement and SEO competition for attention. They didn't create…
> In aggregate, however, I believe in the US presidential elections end up voting for their own best interests, as they see it This is extremely close to one of the early "OK, but maybe there's a reason what we're…
Spam, scams, propaganda, and astroturfing are easily the largest beneficiaries of LLM automation, so far. LLMs are exactly the 100x rocket-boots their boosters are promising for other areas (without such results outside…
Yeah, I think you nailed it. A ban on playing against "the house" would do it. Taking a fixed amount from each pot (as at poker tables) for play among patrons would still be allowed, but slot machines wouldn't. Your…
> Although, if you believe in that theory, you should reject democracy and aim for some form of aristocracy or monarchy. Not necessarily! It means that the model of the typical voter's behavior (and of the reasons why…
One may smile while sharpening a knife.
We're on track to be a much-richer Russia. Which is a lot better than being like Russia, and also as poor as Russia. But it's a lot worse than being rich and also not like Russia. I expect most of the pain will be from…
Voter behavior and motivation (and knowledge of the issues, and of basic facts about their own government...) is well-studied and has been for decades. Political scientists studied it really heavily for quite a while…
I have seen and enjoyed the first two movies but had somehow never even heard of the third one. It’s now high up my to-watch list, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Yeah I used to be for it on grounds of liberty but having seen a little of the actual industry it’s just purely corrosive, evil shit. It should be fought. I’d maybe be OK with some kind of well-thought-through thing…
It’s hard to express how frustrating it is to try to allow kids access to tech and the Web (it’s kind of important that they have at least some access! And isn’t a bunch of this allegedly for super-charging learning and…
It’s far easier to just pirate (nearly all?) GOG games. Like there are torrents with big chunks of their entire store on them, and I’ve seen allusions to an unofficial “store” that just has all(?) their games on it for…
> Plus the whole professional CS tournament scene is sponsored by these predatory casinos I once had a glimpse behind the scenes of the online sports gambling industry (only for a few months—turns out that was my limit…
“Democracy” in the sense of “a government with large amounts of citizen participation via voting, strong rule of law, and peaceful transition of power” (this is an entirely fine usage; it’s the main way most political…
Oh of course they were dystopias. But at least they were cool and there was a fair amount of competence floating around. My point is exactly that we got the dystopia but also it's not even a little cool, and it's very…
It's kind of incredible the news is so crowded with insanity that "minimum two justices are simply taking huge bribes more-or-less openly, and as many as all nine are doing some things that are at least ethically iffy"…
Dark, yes, but also cool and with a fair amount of competence in play, including among powerful actors, and often lots of competence. We got dark, but also lame and stupid.
The whole idea even accepting the core premise is OK to begin with needs to have a similar analysis applied to it that medical tests do: will there be enough false positives, with enough harm caused by them, that this…
I already adjust my clothing choices when flying to account for TSA's security theater make-work bullshit. Wonder how long before I'm doing that when preparing to go to other public places. (I suppose if I attended pro…
We got our cyberpunk future, except none of it's cool and everything's extremely stupid.
An enormous proportion of Republican voters were already Trumpers as early as the ‘90s, but didn’t have a candidate yet, so had to settle for “vote Republican to keep the democrats from doing all the bad things Rush…
They fucked up the design if they didn’t want factions (yes, a common term at the time for what we call parties) and did so in a way that makes it nearly impossible to fix in practice. The electoral college also never…
One nice thing about pointless witch hunts that go nowhere despite enormous efforts is that you can be sure a much-quicker process ending with something like actual consequences would ensue if there were real…
Say a prosecutor is elected and literally never prosecutes crimes. Any crime. Ever. Despite laws on the books stating they are, in some cases that have in-fact come up, required to. But this prosecutor keeps getting…
Can you point to any parts of the constitution that, if ignored, would represent the US state based on that same constitution no longer functioning correctly, or not as a continuation of the same state as before? If so,…
> It seems unfair to call out LLMs for "spam, scams, propaganda, and astroturfing." These problems are largely the result of platform optimization for engagement and SEO competition for attention. They didn't create…
> In aggregate, however, I believe in the US presidential elections end up voting for their own best interests, as they see it This is extremely close to one of the early "OK, but maybe there's a reason what we're…
Spam, scams, propaganda, and astroturfing are easily the largest beneficiaries of LLM automation, so far. LLMs are exactly the 100x rocket-boots their boosters are promising for other areas (without such results outside…
Yeah, I think you nailed it. A ban on playing against "the house" would do it. Taking a fixed amount from each pot (as at poker tables) for play among patrons would still be allowed, but slot machines wouldn't. Your…
> Although, if you believe in that theory, you should reject democracy and aim for some form of aristocracy or monarchy. Not necessarily! It means that the model of the typical voter's behavior (and of the reasons why…
One may smile while sharpening a knife.
We're on track to be a much-richer Russia. Which is a lot better than being like Russia, and also as poor as Russia. But it's a lot worse than being rich and also not like Russia. I expect most of the pain will be from…
Voter behavior and motivation (and knowledge of the issues, and of basic facts about their own government...) is well-studied and has been for decades. Political scientists studied it really heavily for quite a while…
I have seen and enjoyed the first two movies but had somehow never even heard of the third one. It’s now high up my to-watch list, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Yeah I used to be for it on grounds of liberty but having seen a little of the actual industry it’s just purely corrosive, evil shit. It should be fought. I’d maybe be OK with some kind of well-thought-through thing…
It’s hard to express how frustrating it is to try to allow kids access to tech and the Web (it’s kind of important that they have at least some access! And isn’t a bunch of this allegedly for super-charging learning and…
It’s far easier to just pirate (nearly all?) GOG games. Like there are torrents with big chunks of their entire store on them, and I’ve seen allusions to an unofficial “store” that just has all(?) their games on it for…
> Plus the whole professional CS tournament scene is sponsored by these predatory casinos I once had a glimpse behind the scenes of the online sports gambling industry (only for a few months—turns out that was my limit…
“Democracy” in the sense of “a government with large amounts of citizen participation via voting, strong rule of law, and peaceful transition of power” (this is an entirely fine usage; it’s the main way most political…
Oh of course they were dystopias. But at least they were cool and there was a fair amount of competence floating around. My point is exactly that we got the dystopia but also it's not even a little cool, and it's very…
It's kind of incredible the news is so crowded with insanity that "minimum two justices are simply taking huge bribes more-or-less openly, and as many as all nine are doing some things that are at least ethically iffy"…
Dark, yes, but also cool and with a fair amount of competence in play, including among powerful actors, and often lots of competence. We got dark, but also lame and stupid.
The whole idea even accepting the core premise is OK to begin with needs to have a similar analysis applied to it that medical tests do: will there be enough false positives, with enough harm caused by them, that this…
I already adjust my clothing choices when flying to account for TSA's security theater make-work bullshit. Wonder how long before I'm doing that when preparing to go to other public places. (I suppose if I attended pro…
We got our cyberpunk future, except none of it's cool and everything's extremely stupid.
An enormous proportion of Republican voters were already Trumpers as early as the ‘90s, but didn’t have a candidate yet, so had to settle for “vote Republican to keep the democrats from doing all the bad things Rush…
They fucked up the design if they didn’t want factions (yes, a common term at the time for what we call parties) and did so in a way that makes it nearly impossible to fix in practice. The electoral college also never…
One nice thing about pointless witch hunts that go nowhere despite enormous efforts is that you can be sure a much-quicker process ending with something like actual consequences would ensue if there were real…
Say a prosecutor is elected and literally never prosecutes crimes. Any crime. Ever. Despite laws on the books stating they are, in some cases that have in-fact come up, required to. But this prosecutor keeps getting…
Can you point to any parts of the constitution that, if ignored, would represent the US state based on that same constitution no longer functioning correctly, or not as a continuation of the same state as before? If so,…