InternetPerson

@InternetPerson@lemmings.world

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InternetPerson ,

Although I also think there is a correlatin between number of people and detrimental climate effects, it's wrong to reduce the causes to that. Despite the fact that "the richest 10 percent of people produce half of the planet’s individual-consumption-based fossil fuel emissions, while the poorest 50 percent — about 3.5 billion people — contribute only 10 percent", it is mainly due to our modern way of life and production. As you probably know, the climate started the downwards spiral since the industrialisation. If we werent producing so insanely much GHG-emitting stuff, it wouldn't be such a problem. (Regarding temperature alone. There are of course also other detrimental effects on our eco-systems due to things like overuse of fertilisers for example.)

InternetPerson ,

I bet this is also somehow the immigrants' fault. /s

(Looking at you, right-wing voters in EU. ò.ó )

InternetPerson ,

Get your facts straight next time.

This is also covered in others, more recent findings.
Want me to dig them out for you?

If you wouldn't buy that shit, Bezos won't be selling that shit and there would be no pollution

Which is part of what I meant by:

"it is mainly due to our modern way of life and production"

But not in such a condemning way as you.
The fact, that you were able to write your comment, shows, that even you felt the necessity to buy stuff. And I am 100 % sure that the device, you used for that, was not produced free of GHG emissions or under ecologically (or even socially) perfect conditions. As bad as this is, this is the case for most people. But did you have a choice? Can you live an average life in our current society without stuff like that? Do you even have the option to choose alternatives?

That's my point. This kind of "you buy, you choose" attribution of causal chains, is surely true to some degree. But imo it's an oversimplification to label it completely like that. I can't even buy fucking organically grown tomatoes in my closest supermarket. So I don't even have the option to choose the better alternative. This also applies to several other basic foods. Yet, I also need them. Most of the times such items are more expensive than the worse ones. The latter is a huge deal for people who really don't have that much money. So they literally can't buy the better options.

The market self-regulates that kind of stuff by itself to some degree. But not completely. And policies worldwide, especially in industry nations, fail to address these issues, thereby fueling the problem. Then of course there are further problems, like a lack of education and awareness about it and so on.

Another thing: how easy do you find it to see which product is the better one from an ecological perspective? How do you know it's not just greenwashing? Do you feel like it's an easy choice?
If so, congratz, you are a lucky one. But for most of the rest of us, that's really not made sufficiently transparent.

Again, something which needs to be regulated.

And then, Bezos and co. could make their whole business conpletely green. Do they want to? Nope. Bezos and co. also could decide not to take their private jets, or live in a private mansion, live lifestyles which cause so incredibly more emissions than the one of average Joes and Janes. And again, they decide against it. But yeah sure, go on making each customer and the whole of humanity responsible.

Not the amount of people are the problem, but their disregard for eco-systems, especially the failings of policies. Humanity managed to survive for thousands of years without fucking up the whole planet. Shit really started to spiral downwards since the industrial revolution.

InternetPerson ,

How does that even go together? Being anti-vax and at the same time condemning people for not being vaccinated?

InternetPerson ,

I bet, a lot of people felt that way throughout history.

However, given we have the internet, the best access for information we ever had, it's really ridiculous how little people seem to care about spending some time to critically think about their election choice.

InternetPerson ,

TL;DR:
The misuse of technology in capitalism threatens jobs and financial stability. Affordable robots and AI could either enhance our lives or lead to unemployment and misery. Proposals like an automation tax could fund education or basic income. We need good legislation to ensure technology benefits everyone, not just profits. Recent steps like Europe's AI act offer a little hope, but a lot more political action is urgently needed.

Long Version:
From my perspective, the core of the problem is not the technology, but the reckless way we use it in our capitalistic system. Or let's say, let it be used.

For example, a light load robotic industrial arm costs merely 1k to 5k € nowadays. The software for it is cheap as well.
What the business owners and managers see, is not an awesome new invention which could help to propel humanity into the future of a robotic utopia, but cheap labour force, aiding them to cut jobs in order to maximize their profit margin as human labour is expensive.

I am sure AI and robots are our future, one way or another, whether we want it or not.
But I would like to see a future where AI and robots help us to increase our quality of life, instead of making us unemployed and endagering our financial survival.

There are various ideas how this could be achieved. I don't intend to go way too in-depth here, so just as an example:
an automation tax: estimate to which amount a business can be automated and then demand a tax proportional to how much the business was automated. Such a tax could then be used to finance higher education for people or a universal basic income. Maybe at first just an income for those who can't get a decent job due to automation.

We had similar developments as those we see now with virtually all technological advances, where human labour was replaced by more and more clever machines. Jobs where lost due to that but it could still be seen as a good thing in general.

An important difference is the level of required skills though. Someone who's job it was to go around a street and light gas lanterns every day, extinguishing them some time afterwards, was replaced by electric light grids. A switchboard operator at a telephone company, who connected people manually, got replaced by clever hardware. And so on. Those people didn't require high skills for their job though. They had it a bit easier to find another one.

This becomes increasingly difficult as AI and technology in general advances. Recently we see how robots and AI are capabable of tasks where higher skills are necessary. And it's probable that this trend will incresingly continue. At some point, we will have AI developing new and better AI. An explosion of artificial intelligence can then be expected.

It's less a problem as long as people have job prospects in higher skilled work levels. But that will, for a while at least, not be the case. This has different reasons:

As I see it, we have a "work pyramid", where the levels of the pyramid represent the required skills and the width of the pyramid levels represent the amount of available jobs. In other words, there is a way higher demand for low skilled work than for high skilled work. (BTW, what I mean by work skill is the level of specialisation and proficiency, often connected to more intense and long training and education.)

As recent developments in AI now slowly creep into higher and higher levels, people may start investing in their own education in order to even get a job. But higher skilled work is less available making it increasingly tight and problematic to get one.

There may of course also be an effect observable where new jobs are created by enabling more even higher skilled jobs due to the aid of AI, but I think this has limitations. On the one hand, the amount of jobs created that way might be insufficient. On the other hand, people might not want to or can't get an education for that.

The latter needs to be emphasized from my perspective. There are a lot of people who simply don't want to study for a decade in order to get a PhD in something so that they can get some highly specialised job. Some people like the more simple jobs, those requiring more manual than cognitive labour. And that's totally fine. People should be happy and like the work they do.

Currently, not all people even have access to that kind of education. Be it due to limitations in available places at universities / colleges, or due to financial reasons or even due to physical or mental health reasons.

You may now understand, why I see that we are going to create more misery if we don't change the way we handle such things.

I would like to see humanity in that robotic utopia. No one needs to work, as most work is done by AI and robots. But everyone can get a fair share and live a happy life however they would like to live it. They can work, take up some interest and pursue it, but no one needs to.

But currently, this is probably not going to happen. We need good legislation, need to create a system where advancements in AI and robotics can be made without driving people into financial ruin. We need to set those guarding rails which help to guide us towards such a robotic utopia.

That's why I am advocating for putting this topic higher on political priority lists. Politics worldwide don't have it even set on their agenda. They are missing crucial time frames. And I really hope they'll wake up from that slumber and start working on it. I've got some hope. Europe recently passed their first AI act.
It's a start.

Sincerely,

A roboticist working in AI and robot research.

InternetPerson ,

Sadly not just the USA.

Gender bias in open source: Pull request acceptance of women versus men ( www.researchgate.net )

Our results show that women's contributions tend to be accepted more often than men's [when their gender is hidden]. However, when a woman's gender is identifiable, they are rejected more often. Our results suggest that although women on GitHub may be more competent overall, bias against them exists nonetheless.

InternetPerson ,

Thanks for pointing it out. There is clearly room for a lot of error.

InternetPerson ,

globally important

This is continually decreasing.

It's even funnier that the website itself is still using "twitter" as URL.

Zelensky: 'Our partners fear that Russia will lose this war' ( kyivindependent.com )

President Volodymyr Zelensky believes that Ukraine's partners "are afraid of Russia losing the war" and would like Kyiv "to win in such a way that Russia does not lose," Zelensky said in a meeting with journalists attended by the Kyiv Independent....

InternetPerson ,

How is it profitable?

InternetPerson ,

Or, you know, Russia could just get the fuck out of Ukraine and leve them in peace. Much better agreement imo.

InternetPerson ,

I think they meant other countries, which have liberty and democracy engraved to their core.

Also, please keep it civil. There was no need to be so condescending. If you're unhappy with the answer, there are better ways to express this. :)

InternetPerson ,

Wtf is going on with you on the other side of the pond there?

InternetPerson ,

As I've always said, climate protection is economy protection. In the long run especially.

But those fucks in charge are too short-sighted and narrow-minded.

Short term profits are more important than long term financial survival. Or, in case of our climate, even survival at all.

InternetPerson ,

No one is stopping you from giving yourself a treat for succeeding with such habits.

InternetPerson ,

Form your opinions critically, don't easily judge.

InternetPerson ,

Still looking for it.

InternetPerson ,

Much better version.

InternetPerson ,

What if you can't find the true problem?

InternetPerson ,

Hell, it even goes for people. Leave them a little happier, a little wiser, a little more prosperous than before.

I like that. Thank you. I'll try.

InternetPerson ,

When dealing with a busy person in a professional context;

  • Emails should be as short as possible while still conveying the needed information, don't make a busy person excavate the relevant info from somewhere near the middle of the fifth paragraph.
  • Whenever possible phrase a question in a way that can be answered in one word.

Not a fan of this. Feels like a result of over-optimization in a capitalistic, profti-driven society.

We are humans. Not machines. So treat each other like that. If you like to write a couple of more words to express yourself or some issue in a way that feels representing, go for it. Doesn't mean to escalate this into a novel, but it's fine to take a pause and talk more.

InternetPerson ,

Fake it until you make it?

InternetPerson ,

*Except if you want to do good science. Good scientists will identify false confidence and will aim to steer well clear of it

If someone isn't already doing that, they're not scientists.

InternetPerson ,

It's the basic driver of all somewhat intelligent life on earth.

Do something - fail - explore alternatives - do it again - success? Keep it. Fail? Back to exploring and retrying.

Whether it's babies learning to walk or you overcoming difficult situations in life. We should embrace errors and failures of others, as it's an opportunity for them and us to learn and prevent similar mistakes in the future.

InternetPerson ,

If someone says X, but does Y, this doesn't mean they are not right about X.

Other example, if someone is raising public awareness about littering in nature and is then caught throwing a plastic bottle into a forest, does that mean they are wrong?

Sure, it's shitty, but that doesn't make them wrong in saying that people shouldn't do it, even if they are not living up to their own words.

InternetPerson ,

I don't think that this makes it wrong. As I see it, the meaning of your advice is to prioritize self-care over work. It surely helps with mental and physical health. And I think this also applies to people saving lifes of others like medical doctors. They are also still people, they can also suffer from that kind of work. And I always prefer a doctor who thinks about getting enough sleep and quality time in life over someone who drives themselves mad and makes themselves sick by burdening the whole world on their shoulders.

If they can't help themselves, how can they help me?
Or, 101 of car crashes, first save yourself before you attempt to save others.

There are also others who help. It's not one single person's job to save everyone.

InternetPerson ,

You do you. :)

InternetPerson ,

One of my teachers back in school said that school was an education factory and we were the product.

Emergency rooms refused to treat pregnant women, leaving one to miscarry in a lobby restroom ( apnews.com )

“One woman miscarried in the restroom lobby of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency...

InternetPerson ,

Although you can't deny that there is a systemic connection between religions and topics like these.

InternetPerson ,

I always cook the whole package, which is usually about 500 g.

InternetPerson ,

Could be a funny character on what we do in the shadows (series).

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