abraxas

@abraxas@sh.itjust.works

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abraxas ,

Yeah, I've noticed there's this weird cross-section of people who ask "do you believe everything you heard on the internet?" about some pretty established facts, and blindly believing Fox News.

abraxas ,

Oh god yeah, all the freaking time. I feel my brain turn to Jello when someone goes all-in on the "massacre was fake" bullshit, often insisting that no pictures exist, pretending it's just the Tank Guy pic. Someone references the notorious bike pic, they pretend you're talking about a similar bike pic that's a LITTLE less clear about tank treads crushing human bodies. You link them the actual bike pic, they either pretend they don't see the slaughter (best I heard was "they're not dead or run over, they're just taking a nap") or they start saying "well those were the violent people and China saved the peaceful protestors from them"

It makes me want to vomit

abraxas ,

He has implied the only reason he's running for a second term is because he doesn't want Trump to be president again.

We can never know, but if Trump weren't running, he might not be either.

abraxas ,

You say "better options" but a clear majority of Democrats thought Biden was the better option. And all the other candidates that anyone took seriously are in the same age range as them. Nobody younger knocked on the door with a platform really worth backing. Buttigieg had no Federal chops whatsoever, Harris was a freaking prosecutor.

Or if you're just talking "better in general", then you're talking about the Progressives war. Bernie still hasn't realized he'll never win a Primary, and the way his campaign sabotaged and undercut Warren's with necessary voting demographics was a killshot. Grassroot movements to call her a secret Republican. They should be ashamed of themselves.

abraxas ,

I mean....no. Her campaign was arguably the polar opposite of that to her detriment. She said she wanted to do something. Then she wrote up a detailed plan for it and published it, letting the other candidates find something in the details they didn't like and tear it apart.

She's a policy wonk who is a law professor first and a politician second.

I never saw anyone call her a secret Republican

There were a lot of "grassroots" youtube videos that came out and took lines of hers out of context. They would softball questions like "Warren is just as good as Bernie because they vote the same a lot, right? WRONG! Warren is a capitalist pretending to be progressive to steal your vote". And those grassroot video efforts started to trace back to Sanders campaign leadership. Nobody ever quite confirmed if Bernie directly knew his campaign was doing it, but the rule is usually that the campaign's action sare the candidate's responsibility.

abraxas , (edited )

He did better than he promised at basically everything. I really wanted someone who would push the envelope to the Left, but he never promised that and a lot of Democratic voters didn't want that anyway. He did recover us from COVID and dramatically improve the economy. He attempted some things that were more progressive than I expected of him, with various levels of success.

EDIT: he also compromised more with the Left than any president since Carter. Not much, but something

abraxas ,

Just because he has convinced himself that he is the only one that can beat Trump doesn’t make it true.

An unpopular president typically does better than a popular candidate. That's just how encumbancy works.

In fact I would argue that him running again is somewhat selfish.

Screw stats and precedent? Would you feel the same way if your favorite candidate ran and Trump crushed them by historic margins?

Why have we let ourselves get into the position we are in.

Because we're a party of compromise, and the other side is a party fo extremism. Our compromise involved someone with a lot of bullet points in his favor for our older voters while still appealing to enough of our younger voters.

abraxas ,

In 2020, I'd have said Warren. She was able to bring in almost every demographic, if she didn't lose progressive votes to the infighting with Bernie.

In 2024, nobody has a better shot than Biden.

abraxas ,

The moderate Democrats are probably the single largest voting bloc in the country. They don't get to be "the problem" in a Democracy. They're the base.

abraxas ,

In fairness, if 2020 had fallen differently Warren could've done it. If Bernie had backed her as a VP candidate instead of running, there was a solid shot they could've beaten Biden. She actually was leading the betting odds for "president" when the 2024 campaign began.

Warren had the opposite of what the Clintons had. She was a constantly progressive voter who could rally the moderate vote of a Harvard-trained law professor with a no-nonsense mindset.

She was also Obama-level known (unknown to common voters, but known to people who paid attention) so there wasn't years of hate-news on her. The worst they could get was a true story about her having Native American ancestors that was intentionally blown out of proportion. That's some Tan Suit shit there.

abraxas ,

Kamala was a tough-on-crime prosecutor. She might even be able to rally some of the right to vote for her.

Not sure that's saying something good about her, though.

abraxas ,

Yes. Despite your Trump vote, we will elect Biden and preserve this country.

abraxas ,

She was specifically asked if she had a conversation with Bernie where he said a very specific sentence. Nobody knows where the media got that information, but she answered truthfully and moved on. Then Bernie denied it up and down and turned it political.

How do we know who told the truth? Because they hot-micced her at the end trying to talk to him, shocked at how he accused her of lying on national TV.

If one had anything bad to say about Warren it's that she didn't know how to fight dirty anymore than Mcain did in his campaign. I'd buy that.

abraxas ,

Are you really bragging about your support of fascism now? Oh look, found the block button.

abraxas ,

You mean more than "she's a Democratic VP"? I wasn't aware of that. She seemed the most conservative-friendly candidate to me in 2020 except Bloomberg. Guess I wasn't aware of the particular hatred. I wonder why that could be. Surely not because she's both a minority and a woman.

abraxas ,

Interesting. I haved lived in and out of Purple areas in a deep-Blue state, so perhaps the Republicans here are a little less insane than the typical ones. Not surprised, really, just didn't realize

abraxas ,

Pretty much. I'm a progressive. Specifically, a socdem. I fully acknwledge that most people don't want what I want. The fact that one side is giving me a seat at the table and offering me some progress and concessions means the world to me.

and when Trump eventually dies, I might be more sympathetic to a discussion about the progressive bloc holding out for a platform shift to the left

I won't hold my breath, though. The Left is what... 13% of Democrats? If the Republicans fully died and the Democrats split, we Progressives would have to find allies to even win an election. Changing hearts takes time, and we've backpedaled a long way since the early 90's.

abraxas ,

The world of Go/Baduk might interest you on this topic. If you're not aware, Go is one of the oldest and most complicated board games in history. In 2016, after years of trying, an AI "did it", beat the world's best Go player. In the process, it invented many new strategies (especially openings) that are now being studied. It came up with original ideas that became the future of Go. Now, ameteur Go classes teach those same AI-invented Joseki (openings). In some cases, they were strategies discarded as mistakes, but the AI discovered hidden value in them. In other cases, they were simply never considered due to being "obviously bad".

Your last phrase is a deep misunderstanding for AI. "when it’s entirely trained to mimic us". In the modern practice of ML (which is a commonly used modern name for a supermajority of so-called "AI") is based around solving problems that are either much harder for computers than humans (facial recognition, etc), or unfathomably difficult on the face.

Chess has more possible positions than exist molecules in the universe. Go is more complicated than chess by several orders of magnituce. You can't even exhaustively solve for the 4-4 josekis without context, nevermind solve an entire game of Go. But ML can train itself knowing only the goal, and over millions of iterations invent stronger and stronger strategies. Until one of the first matches against a human, it plays at a level that nearly exceeds the best Go player that ever lived.

What I mean is... wargaming (as they call it) is absolutely something I would expect a Deep Learning system to become competent at.

abraxas ,

While you're right, let's not incorrectly imply that ML (especially Deep Learning) has never come up with new ideas.

Yes, it comes up with new ideas from old information, but some have argued that's what humans do. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, who themselves tood on the shoulders of nature.

abraxas ,

MAD was always criticized, but that criticism becomes more and more valid each year. There's too many options and opportunities on the field. A Second Strike is not guaranteed in the modern world. There are countless examples where soldiers or others in the chain of command will not obey a "destroy the world" order.

I'm not saying any country should take the gamble, but there are enough ways to put your thumb on the scales that a nuclear solution against a nuclear power could become feasible (if genuinely terrifying) in many hypotheticals.

abraxas ,

That's not really an accurate take of how machine learning typically works. Neural Networks (allegedly) learn in a way similar to how humans do, taking the data they are fed and building a weighted matrix of resolutions that seems most compatible. A historically interesting trait is that neural networks are often better pattern-discoverers than humans.

But note, the outcome of a neural network is NOT a "random combination of the information we feed them">

is pseudo-intuition (eventually) coupled with proper rationalization (the only part of intelligence computers can systematically do) enough to replace most tasks humans do?

I feel like this is a hard question to answer since it is based off controversial takes about ML. I am not a brain-is-a-computer hypothesis adherent, but we're talking about specific learning mechanisms that are absolutely comparable to human learning. Is "the learning humans do" enough to replace "the learning humans do"? I would say obviously yes.

abraxas ,

And don’t confuse things. We’re talking about intelligence here. Not learning

Are we? Alright. Can you describe a definition test for intelligence that we could agree upon that humans pass and no NN or other ML is capable of passing? I suspect you're confusing things. Not an intelligence,learning comparison, but an intelligence,consciousness confusion.

abraxas , (edited )

There are some serious downsides. In this case, this should get progressive alarms going off.

But before we get to the bulk, I'm going to repeat my last line's question first. Why invent new ways to fuck the poor in the name of gun control when we have solutions that work?

  1. It encourages transitioning gun ownership percentage to wealthy white people and less gun ownership to less-wealthy and non-white people (who, on average, make less money). This is the big one
  2. People don't like to admit it, but gun ownership DOES have a deterrent effect in high crime areas. Home invaders regularly mention avoiding houses of armed people when interrogated. I don't want ANYONE robbed on my street, but I definitely don't want my family victimized. My road has a dramatically lower home invader rate (based on value of property) than surrounding areas. Why? Outspoken gun owners due to the hunting culture (we have too many deer)... Do we really want to pretend to justify all the upsides of gun ownership to going to rich white people?
  3. Over 90% of gun crimes are committed with illegal weapons, a majority of which go back to legitimate owners and were stolen/given illegally. That means the liability insurance chain is already broken (or the rates go up, further alienating poor folks)

Simply tracing, background checks, and better regulation all-round would be more effective than a regressive tax on gun ownership. And those things are well-established and well-tested in society. Regulations WORK. So why invent new ways to fuck the poor in the name of gun control when we have solutions that work?

EDIT:

And some other thoughts that kinda go both ways at once. It looks like $300k is the quoted amount by most 2A firearm insurance companies. Almost like they lobbied for the bill. It makes me wonder if they would also lobby for weakening other regulations because "well gun owners are insured".

And part 2 as a flipside. It looks like the costs might not be terribly high. I'm seeing quotes as low as $30/mo. It's hard because they are all EXTREMELY shadey companies and (like other insurance companies) they like to hide their rates from potential buyers. As well as their fine print since the rates are so low from them avoiding paying out. By their fine print, it looks like they don't pay out if your action might have been criminal. So the insurance doesn't actually pay the victims of anything except accidental discharge.

But then, do we want to empower another questionably corrupt industry by mandating gun owners be their customers?

abraxas ,

You're Right. The Second Amendment is only a right for rich white people. Just like the 4th and 5th Amendments.

abraxas ,

Then fucking come up with gun control that doesn't focus on the poor.

The Left says "we should do this because it's better for everyone". The Right says "Yeah, but ONLY do it to the poor! Thank you"

abraxas ,

I agree that their interpretation would work that way, however, I don’t see how they can pretend their interpretation of the second amendment is anything like that of the first

Unfortunately, the highest law of the land disagrees with your interpretation at this time. They have this whole "plain meaning of words" mindset. The typical 3rd grader reading the 2nd Amendment would think "oh ok, I can have a gun". Therefore, that's what the 2nd Amendment means now.

They restrict time and place of first amendment rights constantly.

Yeah, that's covered by jurisprudence based around the needs of the country. And the law is right that the First Amendment doesn't say the freedom of speech is the freedom to disrupt (preventing people from going to their destination, vandalizing property, etc). But if you needed to buy Free Speech Insurance, that would get shot down as unconstitutional.

abraxas ,

In your opinion, are poor people inferior to rich people as to whether they have the right to protest or protect their families? Do you cheer when a poor person's child dies?

I'm sorry, I'm just gonna block your alt-right ass now. I don't talk to monsters and idiots.

abraxas ,

I agree completely. That's a better use of time than passing a law that will have little to no positive effect on gun control and only hurts the poor.

Just because a bill says a certain phrase doesn't mean we need to support it. A Gun Control law that says "White people get to take black people's guns" is not a good law. A Gun Control law that says "Gun ownership is punishable by death" is not a good law.

A law that says "you have to buy this insurance prohibitive to poor people but not rich to people" is not a good law.

The only thing worse than "a lot more guns" is "a lot more guns in the hands of only certain classes of people who already have too many"

abraxas ,

Here's some context for you.

For most of my life, banks ran an algorithm on overdrafting accounts so that charges would clear in whatever order triggered overdraft protection the most times. It was an open secret, then it came out and companies tried to insist they could do whatever they wanted.

Lots of real world cases of a single unexpected charge coming in and clearing a full day earlier than expected so a bunch of small charges (a pack of chewing gum) would each trigger the fee. $100 total charges, $500+ in overdraft fees.

abraxas , (edited )

Again, different countries might have banks work differently. When a debit is being applied (money removed from the account) it has a lifetime. First it is pending, and then it "clears".

It clears when the bank approves that the money transfer is definitely happening, and that is the moment it is removed from your account. Importantly, the debit clearing from your account on a purchase does not mean the other party has fully received the money.

It used to be that a lot of charges would sit pending overnight and then all pending charges apply in the morning. Yes, even small purchases like a pack of gum bought at the corner store. All they did (and I think Wells Fargo in particular got caught and there were lawsuits about this) was decide the order of clearing pending charges with the intent of maximizing overdraft fees.

And how does that work? Let's say I have $1000 in my account but forgot my $900 rent is coming out. ALong with some other transactions, they could clear like:

They could $0.99 gum, $150 car payment, $150 groceries, $900 rent. Overdraft fees = 1

Or

$900 rent, $150 car payment, $150 groceries, $0.99 gum. Same transactions processed at the same moment. Overdraft fees = 3! When that stuff happened to me back around '04, overdraft fees were $35 per overdraft. So that example was a $70 difference. In reality, between billpay and small purchases, the difference might be $500+.

My true story was that I had a dick of a landlord. My Bank's autopay was running slow and despite the bank check already being in the mail and deducted from my account, my landlord insisted I pay immediately, and I was dumb enough to cave. So I cut him a check and asked him to hold it a day or two til the actual check was delivered; he cashed the same day. Double-rent for a 24 year older meant my account went into the red. I had 10 pending transactions (from gas to bill pays) for the next morning. All 10 (despite being already delivered and should've cleared first) waited to clear until the double-paid rent cleared. I was charged $350 in overdraft fees, almost as much as my $500 rent was (cheap back then lol). And despite agreeing the check getting to him late was their fault, my bank refused to refund more than $100 in overdraft fees because that's what their algorithm valued my business at. I got the first rent payment back, fortunately. But was still out $250.

If I recall, the canned defense for this in lawsuits is "we just coincidentally process all transactions large to small instead of old to new because it makes sense to the bank to do so". If I recall, some states (maybe fed?) ended up having to pass laws regulating overdraft fees a bit. It didn't go far, but from what I hear it stopped that particular behavior.

abraxas ,

I think it's closer to that way now. There was incentive to banks in the past to process it differently.

That said, my bank's "pay bills" function still takes your cash out before sending the check, despite the check NOT being a cashier's check when not linked to an e-account. They just refund you in 90 days (or so) if it isn't cashed.

abraxas , (edited )

Yeah, I'm with you on #3. A few random white people cementing themselves to 93N in Boston did ZERO to support BLM. Nobody was educated. People who were otherwise neutral on the topic got mad at BLM.

I think a little bit of "unnecessary" disruption is a good thing in protests so a group isn't easily ignored, but if your ONLY outcome is to make enemies and alienate allies, you did something wrong. Nobody even remembered that the 93N thing was for BLM unless they were already invested in BLM.

Malcolm X had one small thing wrong. It wasn't that "Silence is Violence" wasn't true, of course it's everyone's responsibility to fight injustice even if we're not minorities ourselves... It's that he said the quiet part loud. When you push people to take sides, often they take the *other side *because of your actions, when they wouldn't have dreamed of doing so otherwise.

abraxas ,

It's a good point. If there were enough people they were blocking roads in every city on the same day, with thousands coming to cheer them on, it would be totally different then two people screaming obscenities on one highway in one city. The number of people you empower (or coerce I suppose) needs to outnumber the number of enemies you create.

abraxas ,

I'm sorry, but I think in many cases a road block does "just make you look bad". There was growing support for BLM in Massachusetts and it got popped like a ballon when those dumb kids blocked 93N.

Nobody was talking about how the cops dealing with the situation were one of the most racist police organizations outside of the Deep South. They were busy talking about how those dumb kids could be killed and the traffic they caused affected ambulences and some patient almost died.

off supply lines to financial districts or big corporations and put economic pressure on them

Again, using BLM as an example... Don't you want to have those corporations SUPPORTING the BLM movement? I mean, unless your protest is laser-focused on anti-capitalism, hurting businesses for no good reason just alienates the 99% of the population that isn't Tankie.

That same topic about "educating people how to protest" is "pick ONE thing you want to change, or your protest doesn't have a meaningful message". If you're protesting for the environment or protesting for women's or gay or trans or minority rights, you shouldn't be protesting against businesses. You should be recruiting them. I wanna walk into the office (after no traffic jam) and see someone having anonymously put up "Gay rights are human rights" posters everywhere. I want my place of employment to offer to match donations for these causes. Etc.

abraxas ,

Exactly this. If your disruption can be LASER FOCUSED at your target, I think there's an argument for it. I'm not on board with PETA-level animal activism, but I can understand and respect why they'd throw a gallon of red paint on someone's fur coat. And if BLM protestors throw white paint all over police cars to protest how the law enforcement is "white-washed", I would get it too.

But I'm pro-BLM. I used to donate to BLM-related causes. I got that money from my minority-owned job, and the black VP who had an interesting history of anti-racism gave a little rant about "those idiots chaining themselves to cement on the highway" when a BLM protest involved blocking off 93N..

abraxas ,

Agreed. But it fucks with ambulences. Protestors are usually good about getting out of the way for real emergencies, but when road block-offs are things like "giant blocks of cement", there's no choice.

abraxas ,

This image screams "Dresden Files" to me. About the only outlier is the girl. It seems a hybrid of Molly and Susan.

And the weird shark-jet, but my headcanon is that it's Sharkface, He Who Walks Before..

abraxas ,

Basically look at the AI generated cover, and you got Dresden Files. It's awesome and worth the read. A little rocky at first but it's the king of urban fantasy for a reason.

abraxas ,

This. There were plenty of articles pointing out how Trump supporters were already saying "he doesn't REALLY mean that" about the extreme policies he was pushing.

If a presidential candidate promises to something horrible, you take it seriously and vote against him. The end. Except we as Americans don't know that.

abraxas ,

Why do we hate the people who are easily fooled rather than the people who are doing the fooling?

The problem is willful ignorance. A lot of Trump supporters knew better from day 1 and chose to be easily fooled. I had a friend when I was a kid who used to cheer on the defendants in court cases when he thought they were guilty of heinous crimes because they got to "fuck with the system" if they got off. People like that grew up to vote for Trump because he would "fuck with the system".

I think it's ok to hate someone who voted for Trump BECAUSE they wanted to elect an enemy of the majority. It might not be productive to hate them, but it's okay to.

How long and how loudly... how open will their distaste for right wing

We're dumb evil immoral pedophiles who are going to hell, and every time we try to cooperate with them in any way they backstab us and then blame us. What exactly are we losing standing up to them when they're going to punch us whether or not we do?

I am starting to feel like you could just switch a few words around and then the shit we believe about them and the shit they believe about is identical

The concept is assymetry. The most obvious (Godwinian) example is to take virtually any anti-Nazi quote and intersperse the word "Jew". All of a sudden it becomes horrible and bigoted. You can absolutely then take any anti-Jew bigotry and say the word "Nazi", and it suddenly becomes just and true.

Why? Because Trump Supporters and Democrats ARE fundamentally different. The best answer to the paradox of tolerance says that tolerance is a social contract - we are to be tolerant to those others who accept to follow that contract, but it can be open season (in terms of intolerance, not violence) for those who do not.

abraxas ,

Yeah. At this point (honestly by 2020 no matter what) there's no question. The only two possibilities are a multi-million-Democrat conspiracy against him, or the dude's guilty of 21 major crimes related to election theft.

But Trump voters actually support the idea that it's ok for the Republican to steal an election. Simple as that.

abraxas ,

go so far as to stage a violent coup

...apparently as a distraction while he worked with Lawyers to setup fake faithless electors to invalidate the results of states he lost.

abraxas ,

I’ve been lucky enough to have some conversations with Trump voters and they have indeed said some dumb ass shit. But nothing unexpected, they’re all from fox n shit

Sure, in a few cases. In others, it was more on the tune of:

"I voted for Trump because he's going to raise taxes on the poor so they pay their fair share"

or

"I voted for Trump because he promised to get rid of illegal immigrants. Just because there aren't many in my state doesn't mean they're not CRIMINALS who should be removed at all costs!"

or

"I voted for Trump because he's going to do some crazy stuff like leave the Paris Climate Agreement. This is going to be fucking entertaining and I'll have my popcorn. People are gonna get PISSSSSED"

or

"I really don't like Trump, but no politician is perfect and I'm willing to deal with Trump because he's going to help us finally ban abortion".

Need I keep going? I blame them all.

abraxas ,

I'm not angry right now. I'm just telling it like it is to me.

Please be careful not to think you read emotions into comments when they might not be there.

abraxas ,

It's ok. It's so common that companies teach classes on interpreting (or not over-interpreting) emotion into email. It's one of multiple reasons people often get into heated arguments on the interrnet when they would not in person.

abraxas ,

A lot of us are really hoping Lemmy doesn't turn into tankie-voat to the extent a lot of lemmy instances are staying away from tankie instances. Being uncool with some shit (like making fun of mentally handicapped people) is part of that.

abraxas ,

The vast majority of people using the word Retard

I have had too many mentally challenged folk in my life, and they are offended by it. It's something to keep in mind.

the fucked sense of priorities... believing Russia/China have done nothing wrong

Oh yeah, they're idiots. Thank god they're not smart enough to make their dystopian wet-dream happen.

abraxas ,

I guess I'm not even living. Payless is more comfy than suit shoes, and more affordable.

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