So, he doesn’t have the choice to be better, it is our responsibility to make him better. We do have the choice, yet he doesn’t?
Comment on Elon Musk’s Grok Twitter AI Is Actually ‘Woke,’ Hilarity Ensues
tias@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months agoBut he’s not going to do that. Stop thinking in terms of whose fault it is and instead think about what is effective. Yes, the racist is a bigot but hes also right: the treatment he was subjected to did result in him becoming more racist. So if you truly want fewer racists in the world, look for another strategy that is preferably supported by science.
Necronomicommunist@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
tias@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
No, choice is universally an illusion. The things I am saying here are also the effect of past events, as is the fact that you responded. The point I’m trying to get across is that moralizing and saying things like “he’s an adult, he should change his behavior on his own” is wishful thinking and neglects a rational approach to what will actually achieve what you want.
ram@bookwormstory.social 9 months ago
Determinism is actually a really silly argument to make for anything. Determinism doesn’t posit that people don’t make choices, but simply that the choices made are determinable, even if they in every way resemble “free choice”. We are a part of the variables that determinism says contributes to these choices, but your solution is we sit with a sock in our mouth because it’s so very mean to tell Elon he’s a cunt “because he has no choice”. You’re, put plainly, a fool, if you believe for a second that predetermined choices make someone any less of an asshole. Elon Musk is a harmful, narcissistic asshole is no different than “the total result of Elon Musk’s predetermined decisions are to behave as a narcissitic asshole.”
Yes, under determinism, he has no choice in the matter, just as a gun used to kill someone has no choice in being a killing machine, or a pencil in a 4th grade classroom has no choice in being a penis drawer.
Deterministic sophistry being used to soften, excuse, or in any way lessen the value of peoples’ individual actions is mere sophistry, and completely misses the point of the philosophical theory.
tias@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
You’re right, it’s a bit silly to claim that people don’t make choices. I use the word “choice” all the time for something that I believe is happening in me and in others. The AI in a computer game also makes choices, every if/else statement in a piece of software is a choice. It comes down to what people mean with the word. What I disagree with is the notion that there’s something ephemeral happening that decides if a person “deserves” to be spit and kicked on - just on account of them being morally reprehensible and not because of any meaningful analysis of what would improve the situation.
but your solution is we sit with a sock in our mouth because it’s so very mean to tell Elon he’s a cunt “because he has no choice”.
That’s misrepresenting what I’m saying. I’m absolutely not saying that we should just let him go on because he has no choice. That would be like letting an alligator roam free in the city because “it’s just doing what alligators do.” But to kick and spit on the alligator “because it’s evil” isn’t a good strategy either.
I’m saying he is a problem, and to fix the problem we should analyze what is causing the problem and devise a rational plan of action that will mitigate that as much as possible. At its core it’s a question of mindset - are you just letting your anger out because he’s the devil, or are you keeping a cool head and thinking about how to attack the problem at its root. Ultimately the goal should be to make the future better, not to exact retribution for the past.
It’s like debugging a computer program: we don’t yell and curse at the program for having bugs; we try to figure out what is causing the bugs and fix them.
Necronomicommunist@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
It’s incredibly rational to dunk on an idiot with a superiority complex.
Why do you think getting a point across matters? When getting a point across to Elon Musk it isn’t worth it since he’s got no free will.
tias@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
Free will has nothing to do with the ability to be influenced, in fact you might even say the opposite is closer to reality. The more predictable something is, the easier it is to influence it. I’m sure you agree that your computer has no free will, and you can easily get it to do different things just by clicking the mouse.
So what’s the rationale for dunking on an idiot? Do you believe that people shitting on Musk on Twitter will actually cause him to be more woke and compassionate toward others?
dojan@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Neuroscience is pretty confident that choice is not an actual thing We can control one of these three things to get the effect we want.
Bullshit.
djsoren19@yiffit.net 9 months ago
I can confirm it’s bullshit, because neuro being confident of anything is bullshit.
The human brain is an enigma we know nearly nothing about. Whether or not free will exists is still a pretty massive unanswered question. This person is at best an idiot, more likely a troll, and at worst a Nazi trying to excuse others bad behavior.
sudoreboot@slrpnk.net 9 months ago
We don’t have to prove that the brain isn’t puppeted from some external realm of “consciousness” in order to say we can be quite confident that it isn’t, because positing that there is such a thing as free will in the traditional notion of the term is magical thinking, which most of us might agree isn’t particularly respectable.
What we can do is take a compatibilist approach and say there is something that is “effectively indeterministic” about human decision making, because we can’t ever ourselves predict our own actions any faster than we observe them. I don’t have any moral contribution to make here; I just wanted to add this reflection.
CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
I should add that I reject the idea of anyone making a choice. Neuroscience is pretty confident that choice is not an actual thing; it’s all cause and effect. The behavior we are seeing from Elon Musk now is caused by his genes, how he was brought up, and how people are treating him. We can control one of these three things to get the effect we want.
We can’t control any of these three things because I am unable to make a choice in how I treat him. My behavior in how I treat Elon Musk is caused by my genes, how I was brought up, and how people are treating me.
So with that in mind: Elon Musk is an idiot causing actual harm to the world and people need to stop enabling this piece of shit. The world would be a better place if he lost all his money and was a poor man with no platform to spread his hateful ideas.
ram@bookwormstory.social 9 months ago
Is this how you excuse any wrongdoing of any person who’s ever existed? Holding people accountable, both in private and public, is a part of that influence upon who he is. At this point, I’m comfortable saying Elon Musk is a lost cause, and the best thing we can do is make him less capable of harming society yet further.
Not everyone gets a redemption arc, that’s only a thing in novels. Elon Musk has no desire to understand normal people, and that’s something is simply impossible to contend with.
tias@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
Tigers are dangerous animals that sometimes eat people. They have brains, they make “choices” in the sense that there is a decision process going on in their brains. When a tiger eats a human we can call that tiger “evil”, maybe try to get back at it by torturing it to teach it a lesson.
If I tell you that this is just in the nature of tigers, and torturing the tiger does little to prevent tigers from eating humans in the future, then that’s not an “excuse”. The word is kind of meaningless in this context. If we don’t want to get eaten by tigers we can stay away from tigers, or keep them locked up, or possibly kill all of them (not as “revenge” but as a preventative measure).
So I disagree with your categorization of this as an excuse. I’m not excusing anything, and I’m not promoting a redemption - that too is a concept steeped in the idea that people have choices. But I agree with you that holding people accountable can be an effective way to influence people. We have a justice system both to rehabilitate people from repeating crimes, and to discourage people from committing crimes in the first place. The key is to think rationally about how to influence people in an effective way. I’d argue that the prison system in the US, for example, has not been effective in preventing crime because it forgets about the rehabilitation part.
Elon may very well be a lost cause as you say. Even so, I believe chastising him on social media is making things worse, not better, so the people who do that are not acting rationally. The adult approach is to think about an effective way to prevent him from doing more damage while not giving the wrong signals to the rest of society. He has a tail of followers so care needs to be taken that he doesn’t become a martyr for them.
ram@bookwormstory.social 9 months ago
I don’t agree with punitive “justice”. It’s ineffective, bad, and wrong.
But I do agree that, while rehabilitative justice takes place, we must protect society from those who are doing harm to others.
Your “adult approach” allows him to continue to freely do harm to people, and in no way addresses it nor the harm those who think he’s acceptable perpetuate.
This is another excuse to do nothing.
sudoreboot@slrpnk.net 9 months ago
I don’t see em suggesting any particular solutions, so I’m not sure what you are criticizing or why you think it would result in Elon remaining at large any more than from figurative fruit throwing.
I agree that social repercussions have a place, but I also agree that it is only “good enough” for many – but not all – situations. Seeking a more sophisticated approach based on studying and identifying potential root causes seems to me like it would be more sustainable, not to mention an opportunity for individual growth.