ArbitraryValue
@ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on I got a big head start early in life in not giving a shit about what other people thought. 3 hours ago:
Well I don’t think teens are cool, so there!
- Comment on Google removes pledge to not use AI for weapons from website | TechCrunch 6 hours ago:
If there’s a conflict and I get to choose whether or not the side I’m on has killbots, I’ll definitely choose killbots. Especially if the enemy has them.
- Comment on I am required to pay taxes to the US government, not elon musk running a fraudulent government agency, why should I pay? 9 hours ago:
Why aren’t burly men coming for musk?
He has the support of the people with a monopoly on violence.
How can my neighbor sit by and let it happen to me
The fact that your neighbor can’t do anything is what makes it a monopoly.
- Comment on I am required to pay taxes to the US government, not elon musk running a fraudulent government agency, why should I pay? 10 hours ago:
Does it matter who has the monopoly on violence, if you don’t? You pay taxes because if you refuse to for long enough, burly men with guns will eventually take your stuff and lock you up.
- Comment on antposting 1 day ago:
Termites and ants are natural enemies.
Like beetles and ants.
- Comment on antposting 1 day ago:
Isn’t that a termite mound?
- Comment on I'll have one war please 1 day ago:
When I was a kid, I was fascinated by dinosaurs. I wanted to be a paleontologist until I really thought about what the fact that dinosaurs are extinct means. It means that a paleontologist can only ever find the remnants of cool animals that are all already gone. Sure, the skeletons themselves are interesting but they’re still just a faint trace of the real thing, which is forever in the past.
I feel like that about traveling as a form of exploration. Seeing Machu Pichu for myself would be kind of interesting, but what’s the point of repeating something millions of people have done already? I’m not going to see anything that they haven’t seen. The experience might still have some hedonic value to me, but in that sense it wouldn’t be different in kind from staying home and playing video games.
There’s still plenty of new stuff to see and do in the world, but it’s far less straightforward than just getting on a plane. You have to do scientific research, invent something, or create truly original art.
- Comment on AI Company Asks Job Applicants Not to Use AI in Job Applications 1 day ago:
I applied and they never responded. I failed the Turing test?
- Comment on Fucking hell 2 days ago:
This will secure an alliance with Spain.
- Comment on Not Americans right now 2 days ago:
You should have bought stock in Cal-Maine foods :)
- Comment on Chain of thought AI 3 days ago:
Meanwhile , a greasy lump of gel can have a much more severe crisis for only 20 watts.
- Comment on Chain of thought AI 3 days ago:
we are so speedy about being context aware we don’t even notice
I think the difference isn’t that we’re fast at being context-aware but rather that we’re slow at noticing.
- Comment on Not even OpenAI's $200/mo ChatGPT Pro plan can turn a profit 4 weeks ago:
I think this is just OpenAI marketing.
“Insane thing: We are currently losing money on OpenAI Pro subscriptions!” he wrote in a post.
The problem? Well according to @Sama, “people use it much more than we expected.”
Oh no, ChatGPT is too useful to customers! Altman isn’t going to be telling any real problems that OpenAI has to the whole world over Twitter.
- Comment on Why do AI bros and other staunch AI defenders seem happy about the potential of killing off the creative industries? 4 weeks ago:
I can appreciate a sunset or a flower without needing these things to have “a human behind it all”.
With that said, art is far from the most important potential application of AI. I am merely amused that right now I can ask a computer to draw a cow in the style of Monet and get a pretty good result. The amazing thing is not present-day capability (which is remarkable but not world-changing) but rather what the rate of progress implies about the near future. I think that a computer better than any human at everything (or at least at every intellectual task) is likely within my lifetime.
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
- Comment on Delicious bulk relief 4 weeks ago:
Why forbidden? They’re the same chemical, and chalk like this, meant for young children, shouldn’t have any toxic additives.
- Comment on Would "god cum" be correct? 5 weeks ago:
Yeah, and there’s no meaningful difference between terms “substance” and “matter” except that “matter” is probably the one that the test taker is expected to memorize without really understanding.
- Comment on 84% of H-1B Visas Go to India and China: Is It a Scam in Disguise? 5 weeks ago:
The people who get H1Bs aren’t representative of the world, but the native-born tech worker population isn’t representative of the USA either. There are cultural factors involved, not just the judgement of the people who issue H1Bs.
Other than the gigantic tech companies, the other beneficiaries of the H-1B visa program are India and China. Seventy-two percent of H-1B visa recipients were from India; 12% from China.
That’s 84% of the total number.
DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. It’s intended to boost the number of “minorities” in an organization or institution. And at least 84% of the time, that’s exactly what the H-1B program produces!
The idea that DEI programs are for the benefit of Indian and Chinese people is, frankly, nonsense. Hasn’t the author heard of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard? It’s kind of a big deal.
- Comment on Why can't someone create a public alternative to health insurance in the USA? 1 month ago:
Insurance company profits are already capped by law. I don’t think your ideal insurance company would be much better for the customer than the already-available options are.
The companies must spend at least 80 cents of every dollar they collect in premiums from small businesses and individuals on health care, and 85 cents per dollar for large employers. The remaining 15 to 20 percent is all they are allowed under the Affordable Care Act to spend on administrative costs like overhead and marketing and to keep as profit. Any additional revenues are to be returned to consumers in the form of rebates.
Note that the remaining 15 to 20 percent has to cover all the costs of actually running the company. It isn’t just profit.
Insurance companies do have to compete with each other on price. Employers who provide insurance want the cheapest insurance that their employees will tolerate. Healthy people want the cheapest insurance that they expect to protect them from sudden, catastrophic expenses. If your business plan is to spend more money than the existing insurance companies do, and your target market is people unhappy with their current insurance companies (these people are probably have expensive problems) then you’re not going to do too well…
- Comment on USA | California bill would give public university admission priority to slaves' descendants 2 months ago:
It’s rather unlikely to pass and probably unconstitutional if it did. This is all for show.
- Comment on Clippy's coming for you 2 months ago:
Man, this hits close to home. Just yesterday I decided to get in touch with an old friend from college and I found out that she had died in a car accident years ago, not long after I lost touch with her. Don’t put things off, folks.
- Comment on Bears Cave 2 months ago:
- Comment on Having $270 billion dollars and spending the bulk of your time trying to make more money is like weighing 900 pounds and thinking "ooh, I bet I can get to 1000". 2 months ago:
If you’re a billionaire, that usually implies that you really enjoy being a successful businessman and I don’t see why business success for its own sake would be inherently less satisfying than other sorts of accomplishment.
- Comment on The grand prize 3 months ago:
I’m seeing $30,000 per ton there (as of 2018) so wouldn’t the cubic meter cost about $640,000?
- Comment on what's stops one from scavenging the best parts of old phones and putting them into a new one? 3 months ago:
Don’t forget about device drivers. I can’t even install a newer version of Android on my Android phone because the community never managed to get the antenna to work after upgrading the OS.
- Comment on Brazilian Wandering Spider 3 months ago:
So, uh, is the spider hotter in person? Because the picture isn’t doing it for me.
- Comment on It's a learning exercise 3 months ago:
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel.
- Comment on Reddit says it is not covered by new Online Safety Code as it has moved its jurisdiction to the Netherlands 3 months ago:
I oppose letting anyone define hate speech as a matter of principle, because even if I agree with the definition completely now, I may not continue to agree with the definition in the future. Look at what has been happening in the USA since the October 7 attack: a lot of people I had considered my political allies turned out to have beliefs I consider to be hateful, and meanwhile these people consider my own beliefs hateful. The solution is not to empower a single central authority to decide which sort of hate is allowed. It is (as it has always been) to maintain the principle of free speech.
- Comment on Reddit says it is not covered by new Online Safety Code as it has moved its jurisdiction to the Netherlands 3 months ago:
I’m a little surprised to hear people so willing to let the government of Ireland determine who they are allowed to hate and for what reasons.
- Comment on The ability to be spontaneous in life is directly proportion to the size of your bank account 3 months ago:
Most financially secure people still work full time. I suppose that in theory, they’re able to quit their jobs without suffering immediate, catastrophic consequences but if they actually did that sort of thing, they wouldn’t be financially secure for long.
(In my experience, many financially secure people actually work much more than full time. I think they would be better off if they didn’t because at some point time becomes more valuable than money, but they have the sort of personality that compels them to. This is often related to starting out without financial security.)
The very rich can do crazy stuff without consequences but they’re such a small part of the population that I don’t think comparing oneself to them is useful.
- Comment on How come people who are against abortion are in favor of the death penalty? Kind of seems like a contradicition/ 3 months ago:
There’s no logical contradiction between believing that some people should be killed and believing that other people shouldn’t be killed. You might as well ask why a soldier would shoot at his enemies but not his allies.
