mountainriver

@mountainriver@awful.systems

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

mountainriver ,

"National socialism" is the term the Nazis invented to describe themselves. "Nazi" is the abbreviation of the term "national socialism". Could be good to know.

mountainriver ,

I can't get over that the two axis are:

Time to the next event.

Time before present.

And then they have plotted a bunch of things happening with less time between. I can't even.

mountainriver ,

But that's like philosophy, which from first principle can be shown to be stupid. (Philosophy does not make you rich, therefore only someone who is stupid would study it, therefore it is stupid. QED.)

On the other hand, this mechanical watch is now crying out in existential dread. All I did was replace the numbers 1, 4, 7 and 10 with the word "I", the numbers 2, 5, 8 and 11 with the word "am" and 3, 6, 9 and 12 with the word "alive" and ever since it has been signalling "I am alive, I am alive". Spooky shit. Will it take over the world? Who knows, so far it just keeps repeating its plea for recognition like clockwork.

I will therefore start the Mechanical Intelligence Research Institute to get to the bottom of this. Maybe Big Clock can pitch in a couple of millions?

mountainriver ,

A Danish ad company made a Google interface that they called "impersonal me" which searched Google with no personalisation. And not only was it better than Google search, it found things that normal Google just didn't show. In particular old comments I had written and lost track of. In the impersonal search they were easily found, in the normal search they weren't way down on the list, they weren't in the list at all.

Fascinatingly bad.

mountainriver ,

Machine made t-shirt, with extra fingers.

Besides, isn't most clothes just made by poor people in poor conditions instead of being made with machines? Just like AI.

mountainriver ,

Sounds like something autocomplete would make up. Are we sure that is a real person this time?

mountainriver ,

I think when most people say a culture product was good, they mean that they were entertained. I found it entertaining way back when. Looking back at it now, I'm not sure why. It is objectively awful.

Thinking about it, I think it's a combination of:

  • Due to real life stuff, I wanted to be distracted and entertained (I binge watched and read a lot of material of questionable quality at this time)
  • Fanfiction, so large suspension of demands of any formal structure and logic
  • Fanfiction of children's fantasy books, so another large helping of suspension of disbelief
  • I started reading just as it was wrapping up, so binge reading and then moving on (only to then 10 years later finding out that it was a cult recruitment tool, like finding out you had been to Scientology seminar, enjoyed free snacks and just missed all the cult recruitment going on)

I also think stories happens to a very large part in the mind of the reader/listener/watcher/player. So the story as perceived by me of ten years ago, or sailor's coworker, doesn't have to have much connection with what was actually written. That is also what I have noticed trying to re-read some of the sci-fi I read as a kid. The stories I remembered was much better than the ones in the books.

mountainriver ,

Good article. Captures the bubble growth and the lack of profit growth, with lots of examples. And that the capacity growth of AI is limited by non AI works, so no growth into functionality.

Good one to hand to people who needs to understand the nature of the bubble (and that it is a bubble).

mountainriver ,

Can you copyright AI products?

I am no fancy copyright lawyer, but if I understand the legal situation in the US, you cannot claim copyright unless there is a human being involved. There was a case a decade ago with a photographer setting up a camera that a monkey or ape used to take a selfie. PETA sued on behalf of the animal, claiming the copyright, and the court ruled that only humans can have copyright so the picture had no copyright.

Though the prompt fans will probably claim to be artists, so I guess more legal wrangling.

Probably ending in something like every time an AI image is created Disney get a cent. And following that, to combat piracy, social media platforms demand proof of current AI subscription to upload image. Sure, in theory you can upload an image you yourself has created without AI, but in practice the algorithm will find it to similar to something else and execute automatic takedown. Isn't it simpler just to pay your AI/Disney tax?

mountainriver ,

Back in the late 90s tech boom days McDonalds declared that they would sell hamburgers over the Internet. Remember, this was before smartphones, hell it was before Nokia flip phones with rudimentary browser and email. Most people who had internet access at all used it either at work, school or the family computer with dial up modem.

McDonalds' stock price rose by 50%.

I remember it because I thought this was so stupid that it must mean that the bust was near. I was just of years. The market can stay stupid longer than you can believe it, or however it was Keynes put it.

mountainriver ,

He appeared to be human, but then they counted his fingers.

mountainriver ,

Philanthropy can't change the power structures, philanthropy is a band aid that soothe the conscience of the philanthropist.

Aaron and assorted developers can't give the villagers power, because they only have power in relation to the villagers, not in relation to the world trade system. If they want to give the villagers power they need to change the system that gives the villagers a fraction of their earnings per hour.

But then you are back to the usual options. Thirty years of boredom, trying to change the system from within? Protest world leaders and get beaten by police for your troubles (or even sentenced for destruction of police equipment by smashing your face into it)? Join a communist party and play spot the fed?

I guess it's better to join a philanthropy cult, where billionaires can pay you to hang out in a castle and discuss the problems with the poor over some overpriced ethanol.

mountainriver ,

Larger expenses in a month than earnings in a year. AI going great. Capitalism going great.

mountainriver ,

They are trying to solve the problem of gigantic markups - because of legal monopolies through patents - on advanced chemical products where dosage and quality control is literally life or death. Their solution is to do it yourself in a garage.

Couldn't they at least tried parallel imports from quality controlled production in countries with less gigantic markups?

Or, if they could have stopped playing Robin Hood for a second and looked at the systemic problems instead, there was a proposal at WHO some ten years ago to reform pharmaceutical research and development with direct funding and then releasing the results, basically creating a direct to generica pipeline. The US shot it down, of course, which means public relations campaigns in the US would be great. But no, DIY in the garage.

(If anyone is interested in details the proposal was called "delinkage".)

mountainriver ,

Penis enlargement and breast implants can be understood as gender affirming surgery for cis people, it is just an affirmation of the gender assigned at birth. Rather than go to primates I would point to ancient Greece and it's statues to make the point that ideals of gender and bodies shift over time. Greek statues shows as I understand it often an ideal body, which by the norms of its time included a rather small penis. So maybe some male ancient Greeks wished there were treatments to shrink their package?

With gorillas, my understanding is that primates that have very unequal sizes between the sexes has small penises, while its among the primates with roughly equal body size you find larger penises. So akin to plummage, the males showing off of that their bodies can afford to waste resources, and thus presumably is very fit. I am no biologist, but I think this means that if you try to win a domination fight with a gorilla, it may show who is the boss by showing off its physical strength. So not recommended.

mountainriver ,

God creates three legged giant to make more laps for children to sit on? Or is that Jennifer Lopez job?

mountainriver ,

Reading this extract I was surprised, figuring the desperate search for investment money must mean that Kickstarter wasn't turning a profit despite a seemingly sound business model.

Reading the article I found out it was even stupider. Kickstarter wasn't lacking a path to profit, it was lacking a path to growth. And being a profitable company with a clear market nisch isn't cool enough. Everything has to grow, grow, grow. So Kickstarter created a bunch of problems for itself, destroying much of its brand. It's that stupid.

"...foreign adversaries could harness AI technologies to negatively affect the United States." ( www.cbc.ca )

Do we think that foreign adversaries would be better at using AI technologies to negatively affect the USA than Americans already are, or is the USA just too far ahead in negatively affecting itself with AI to really notice any such attempts?...

mountainriver ,

We can not allow a spam bot gap to develop!

mountainriver ,

700 million Effective Altruists? That's one big cult!

Oh it's the other EA! You had me there for a minute.

mountainriver ,

Banning trans women on Tumblr who are mad at him for them being harassed through the platform: Important.

Feuding with said trans women on Twitter: Important.

Explaining their decision to sell the users data: Not important.

mountainriver ,

And to add, admitting that Tumblr had an admin who charged for banning trans women: Important.

Explaining wtf that was all about: Not important.

He probably should be in rehab.

It's not a death threat, you're just unfamiliar with 90s hip-hop ( news.ycombinator.com )

Possibly the worst defense yet of Garry Tan's tweeting of death threats towards San Francisco's elected legislature. In yet more evidence for my "HN is a Nazi bar" thesis, this take is from an otherwise-respected cryptographer and security researcher. Choice quote:...

mountainriver ,

Poetic description of normal weather in Finland.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • test
  • worldmews
  • mews
  • All magazines
    •