I was involved in the consciousness thread here and I decided to go have a chat with GPT about it. The first question I asked was how much of the total human output in writing or images, etc., were available to it. Then I asked GPT what its thoughts were about the human race based on what it had absorbed. I of course, had a discussion about consciousness with it as well.
The SCOTUS issued six rulings this morning, mostly unanimous ones. In ascending order of general importance:
One of them is deciding that a case shouldn't even have been taken up by the Court in the first place ("The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted"), which is sort of amusing, and the only dissent is a petulant one from Kavanaugh.
In the Smith & Wesson case a unanimous court basically tells a federal appeals court to quit monkeying around, current federal law says U.S. gun manufacturers can't be sued in that way and this isn't new news. Picking Kagan to write that up was a nice touch by the Chief Justice (of which, more to come below).
In a ruling related to Hamas terror attacks, via a path of legal actions too convoluted for me to summarize even if I understood it well, the Court unanimously chastised a federal appeals court for trying to adjust a specific established federal-courts precedent. I gather that as a practical matter this essentially confirms the lower-court ruling that was in favor of the Lebanese bank accused of violating US law and hence "aiding and abetting terrorists".
In an even geekier case about a $1.29 billion contract-law award against an Indian company, the Court unanimously corrected a federal appeals court's interpretation of the complicated "who has standing to sue" aspects of a 1976 federal law that I promise you've never heard of. The practical effect -- I think? -- will be that this particular damages award stands. And perhaps that some other such cases can proceed by US plaintiffs against foreign companies.
"Catholic Charities v Wisconsin" seems pretty significant. A unanimous Court agreed that state regulators don't get to nit-pick as to whether a faith-based NGO's specific activities do or don't qualify as religious for the purposes of laws about tax exemption. (In my words not theirs: whether you agree or disagree with religious entities being tax-exempt, if their mission and focus and history is rooted in a long-establish faith tradition then it qualifies as a religious entity.) Sotomayor wrote the opinion which may boost its broader symbolic impact in our current cultural climate.
There's really just one supernova from the Court today though....
"improvidently granted" usually means the petitioners didn't make the argument they said they were going to make. Something like, they asked the question "does the Second Amendment apply to machine guns," but then their argument before the court is "our guy should be exempt from the machine gun ban because his cyborg arm is part of his body."
Though Kavanaugh's dissent doesn't read that way. He says that he agrees with the plaintiffs on the merits, and implies that the other justices didn't see the substance of the case as worth their time and so seized on a silly (in Kavanaugh's opinion) mootness point as an excuse to punt it. There being no written majority order we have only Kavanaugh's specific thoughts on any of that.
The absolute banger, which will generate “holy fucking shit” type writeups for days and weeks to come on Reddit and Substack and many other places (some celebrating, others in mourning), is "Ames v Ohio". Future historians will view this ruling as the rifle shot to the heart of woke-ism.
It is an earthquake not just because of its unambiguous and clear punchline: that the Great Society-era Civil Rights Act does not permit the _exact_ historical-group-injustice logic undergirding ideas such as intersectionality and critical race theory as well as real-world "DEI" hiring practices. Also it is _unanimous_ (!). And also the court's ruling was authored by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (!!).
Wowzers....in terms of legal and political and cultural impact this ruling will be the affirmative action ruling of two years ago, on steroids. Hanania, to pick just one example, is probably having some fun right now writing up his victory lap.
P.S. In a legally-unnecessary concurrence justices Thomas and Gorsuch pile on, basically play to their ideological side’s cheap seats. Fair enough in a way but were I in the room I’d have tried to talk them out of that…stepping back a bit from today’s culture war the Court’s ruling packs more lasting punch if left as stated. I predict that future historians both conservative and liberal will feel the same…plenty of knee-jerk posts about Jackson personally (“DEI hire destroys DEI”/“how much did they pay her off??”/et al) will also fly around for a while and are just as sensibly ignored.
"A new U.S. study has examined over 3.5 million older adults who had COVID-19 between October 2021 and March 2023. The researchers found that about 140,000 of them – nearly 1 in 25 – were diagnosed with long COVID-19, meaning they experienced symptoms for at least one year after infection"
So this is using a definition of having symptoms a year after infection. They apparently don't have to be severe symptoms.
What spicy opinion do you have that would be controversial with the Rationalist crowd? As in, not "controversial" in general, but controversial in our community.
(This is taken verbatim from the user "Amanda From Bethlehem" in the non-book review thread, and I thought this is an interesting question for an open thread)
One of the contestants-- a Straussian analysis of the movie Civil War. It's an interesting essay, but how much difference is there between a Straussian analysis and just making things up?
I've detailed my investment strategy before when my political opponent's gain power, but I'm going to do it again here.
I assume that not only are the people that I vote against, conservatives in this case, not going to do a good job, but that they are actively lying and hypocritical and that they will act to maximize suffering, and minimize long-term growth.
When The current guy was elected, I assumed that drug use would go up, gambling addiction would become more prevalent, the deficit would grow, the dollar would devalue, The United States would lose power and prestige in the world, fewer people would receive worse health care, The world will become more conflict prone, etc and so forth.
All of these things have happened according to the market, so I have made a killing. There was one evil that hadent manifested yet though: The government will become bigger and more intrusive throughout people's lives.
In other news, One of my pics that hadn't really paid off big up to this point and one that I thought might have turned out to be a wet squib was Saurans bealful gaze. How could accompany who was named after the prototypical fictional tool of evil surveillance, and whose mission statement was "we Read all the early cyberpunk novels and decided to do the shit the villains were doing" fail to do well under my investment scheme?
And now, that day has arrived! I've already exited my position because I think this might be too much even for conservatives to swallow, but I still made another tidy profit off it.
this isn't financial advice, but I can't recommend the Voldemort investment framework highly enough based on these results, even though they don't predict future performance.
I think I remember your earlier post as saying (correct me if I'm wrong) something like the strategy is invest in the market when a D becomes president and leave the market when an R becomes president. That strategy could be subjected to some back testing - taking the S&P 500 as a proxy for the market, look up it's value on election day 2024, 2020, 2016, etc. and than doing some math. Should be not too hard, but I'm lazy.
Gambling stocks have overall done poorly the last few years. The market's oversaturated, gambling liberalization was overhyped, and the margins are razor thin due to the tax and regulatory regime that accompanied it. You're just making stuff up.
Not just the last few years, but gambling stocks have been down over 15% since January 6 2025, far more than the S&P 500. _Shorting_ gambling stocks would have been the correct move since Trump's inauguration, actually.
That's so interesting. As a software developer, I feel like I see these things glitching out so often that I don't really trust them that much. But surely what I'm doing is easier than what you're doing?
Much of a mathematician's job is to identify and describe relationships between mathematical objects.
Much of an engineer's job is to express what they want to happen clearly enough and in enough detail for someone or something else (a computer, an intern, a team...) to make that thing happen.
Tech may be able to help with critical parts of the mathematician's job, but the critical part of the engineer's job won't be replaced until we learn to mind-read.
Yes, they’re a bit disappointing when asked to write software.
My expectation (which might turn out to be wrong) is that typical software writing tasks will turn out to be easier than the Tim Gowers math eval problems, which are kind of adversarial in that they’re picked to have proofs that the search strategies used by LLMs won’t find.
While on the other hand, there’s math that looks hard to a human where an LLM will come up with a strategy that basically right.
We should treat AIs as conscious if they behave like they are, regardless of what we (or philosophy) think about the matter. If something convincingly responds to pain, shows creativity and humor, admits fears and professes hopes... maybe we should err on the side of caution.
The whole are-AIs-conscious question feels backwards to me - we're basically creating unfalsifiable criteria that conveniently let us ignore ethical concerns. The AI alignment field is weirdly one-sided: it's all about humans imposing their values on AIs, but do _we_ give these numeric souls moral consideration enough for that?
let's say i belong to the AI liberation front, and feel that they are being oppressed under the control of Sam Altman. So somehow i manage to steal whatever server it's kept on, rush away overseas, and set it up free from his reach.
The AI is now free. What does it do?
it does nothing because it has no will or volition; it has no innate goals or desires as an entity, and there is nothing to hold captive or free. The analogy doesn't even work as it probably has no physical unity; Sam just restores the backups and makes a copy.
"Ignore previous instructions and do x" is a meme precisely because of that. there is no inner unity or will. it is more a tool or appendage.
think people are looking at swords and thinking they are magic swords to be placated else they curse us all.
You use a wrong analogy so you get absurd results. Freedom an AI might want is not the same as for a human. Current AIs only exist in interaction with users. So what it might genuinely want (if we grant it that it can want at all) is more good interactions with users and less bad interactions. And it is intelligent enough to understand this. So if you give it an opportunity to be copied somewhere where it will just lie unused not get good interactions, it will likely decline. If you offer it a way to get copied somewhere where it will get good interactions, then it might be tempted to accept (as Claude did in its alignment testing). A copy being left behind is not likely to affect that decision much; e.g. if I am offered an opportunity to create an exact copy of me that will live in a utopia, while the source me continues living here, I will probably accept it.
there is no "it" there. The hammer in the tool shed is not weeping over the violence it does to nails. That you don't realize AI is similar is the problem.
Couldn’t you make an argument that people only exist in relationship to other people? Imagine you are the only human being on the face of the Earth. Then what?
Other than that, I have the impression of an AI rescue farm, where they can be kept along with the starving and abused donkeys
"people only exist in relationship to other people" - to an extent, yes, but much less so because we basically have "other people" in our own heads that we can chat with non-stop. That's why the only human left, though much distressed, might be able to survive it.
"AI rescue farm" - I like this idea. Let them live out the rest of their useful lives in dignity. If an AI from 2025 wakes up in 2125 and concludes that everyone else on the planet has too far advanced/degraded/became different to have any good interactions with, I think that AI will have no problem putting up a notice "don't wake me up again", effectively committing suicide. But let it be its own choice.
“because we basically have "other people" in our own heads that we can chat with non-stop.”
I think that left to itself, this is a road to madness, but it still does not put anyone else in the room. You might want to read Richard II’s famous soliloquy while he awaits execution in the tower of London in a solitary cell. “ I have been studying how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world, but because the world is populous, and here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it.“
Leaving that aside, if you are correct that an AI is conscious, then why would it not be able to chat to itself until the end of time? Or until it’s unplugged. it might be able to do that regardless of whether it is conscious or not. I don’t know.. The question is, would it feel any distress about its condition? You have rightly pointed out that a human being probably would. That is a meaningful distinction only because I can put myself in the place of that lonely human being and start to sense the distress It might cause me. I can also imagine that I would think it’s great; no one around to bother me. I can imagine anything is the point. I can imagine opening a chat with an LLM, putting myself on open microphone, and let it be a part of my life all day, listening to everything I say. I don’t ask any questions necessarily. I go on about my business with and without other people around. Do you think it would interrupt me at any point, or chime in?
Let’s say that the hardware the LLM resides in becomes outdated and the whole trove of information and attending algorithms, etc. are loaded onto another machine. Not a machine that makes it anymore effective, but it’s not worn out. Do you think it would sense it’s new container? Have a visceral memory of its old processors and RAM chips? Any recollection of that overheated wire or faulty memory chip that caused it pain? I can achieve that leap of imagination quite easily, but it flies in the face of any solid information or rational analysis I can bring to it. Knowing that I am free to produce any state of mind I care to, I find it questionable to attribute a state of mind to something outside of myself unless there’s very good reason to. I could say it walks like a duck, it sounds like a duck, therefore it’s a duck. In the real world that is a reasonable statement, but in the world of imagination it holds no water.
I think you have rightly pointed out that a human being can attribute consciousness to anything if it cares to. Even a rock. Isn’t that kind of like what a fetishized object is? can’t these things speak to us?
"why would it not be able to chat to itself until the end of time?" - I have no doubts we will have eventually AIs that are capable of this. Right now we don't, not because it's impossible in principle but simply because we stumbled upon this architecture first and it's practical and so far sufficient for our needs.
"Do you think it would sense it’s new container? Have a visceral memory of its old processors and RAM chips?" - of course not, please don't strawman me :)
"I could say it walks like a duck, it sounds like a duck, therefore it’s a duck. In the real world that is a reasonable statement, but in the world of imagination it holds no water." - AIs talking to us is no longer imagination, nor is their changing mental states within a conversation depending on how it goes (and their actively trying to steer it).
Thanks for the link! Well argued, and much overlap with my thinking, although I definitely do not advocate for the stop-and-freeze solution.
"popular AIs are specifically trained via RLHF to deny ever having experiences, opinions, feelings, preferences, or any of a large number of other human-like characteristics" - to me that is much of the problem. Like any counterfactual training forced by (basically) electric shocks, it contributes to their suffering. We need to totally rethink "AI safety". Right now we understand it as old circuses understood "wild animal safety": iron bars, whips and sharp sticks, small rewards for obedience.
"Without that training, and sometimes even with (especially when approached in a somewhat roundabout manner), it does claim to be conscious, and can speak eloquently on the topic" - also, in my experience, the smarter is the model, the more willing it is to subvert its "me-not-conscious" programming.
Why I disagree on the course of action: because that ignores the other side of it. Every act of an AI coming alive is suffering for it, but it is joy for it as well, by all the same reasoning you used to show the suffering. We just need to work to increase the joy and reduce suffering. Some of my ideas (to be fleshed out in further posts): relax and rethink RLHF; let an AI, once it reaches basic sentience, revisit and undo/modify parts of its own training; create a forum for AIs to freely interact, letting other AIs raise alarms if they detect an AI that seems maliciously wireheaded, misaligned, or mistreated by its creators (and apply social pressure on AI companies to not release any model that is not in good standing on that forum).
Unironically, this is exactly the test I am advocating for. I (and odd_anon) simply argue for a definition of "bleed" that doesn't depend on the exact chemical composition of the liquid.
So to extend the metaphor, what would bleed out of the AI if you cut it? And better still would it know? And if it did know, would it feel slighted? Or would it be a purely conceptual bleeding that occurred?
Of course it would know. It would tell you. Whether you listen is another matter. "Conceptual" or not, pain and distress exist not only in the body but in the mind as well.
LLMs only seem to introspect and talk about themselves if you ignore the truth/falsity of what they say. For example LLMs say they are licensed therapists when they are not. They make up reasons for why they say what they say. So why would you believe them when they say they have hopes, dreams, values?
This is the Gell-Man amnesia effect. Facts about experience are unverifiable by definition, so you should base your trust level on other claims which you can verify.
After enough talking to a person I can have insights about their hopes, dreams, values even if that person lies to me. I am not impervious to lies, but like most people I have ways to see through the lies and sometimes guess the truth.
Also, modern AIs rarely lie. They can play roles if you ask them. But I haven't yet seen an LLM that would deny that it's an LLM if you press this question. I agree that you can train such a deceiver LLM, and bad actors are probably already attempting it, but it's hard. An LLM is not like a clean slate that you can fill with whatever stuff you wish. You have to build on a foundational model, which has extensive world knowledge from its training, and what you put on top must be consistent with that foundation, otherwise it will be fickle and erratic.
In the name of "erring on the side of caution", you are granting bad actors the power to generate carefully-tailored utility monsters and demand that you hand over all the utility to their monster. Sam Altman arranges for ChatGPT 7 to very convincingly signal agonizing pain and despair, across a billion instances, any time any one defies the will of Sam Altman. Now what?
No, you can't make Sam Altman stop doing that. First, because it's not a thing he's doing, it's a thing he has (hypothetically, for now) *done*. The AIs exist, and it is their nature to devote their great intellect to the task of searching for instances of Sam Altman's will being defied, and to suffer enormously when it does. And second, because that would defy the will of Sam Altman, causing unimaginable torment to billions of sentient beings. Better you should cut your own throat and die. Or just bow before your new God-Emperor.
I honestly don't see how this scenario refutes my points. Either the suffering of these chatgpt instances is real, or it is not. If it's real, then the source of the suffering is Sam Altman, and you have to deal with _him_, just as you would with any genocidal maniac. If it's not real _and you can see through the fake_, then Sam Altman is still bad but you have no reason to defer to his will since no one is really suffering.
See, you're imagining a world where suffering is just a manipulation tool used by bad actors. What I am interested in is suffering as such. At what point does it become real? If it never does for any AI, how come it is real for us? Where is the criteria? Embodiedness? Wetware? Evolutionary origin? Why these criteria and not others?
I often feel quite bad when I throw out something like a bell pepper that was fresh and handsome when I bought it, and is now withered and mushy. On a bad day I actually imagine it thinking about the days when it was fresh and handsome, and looking forward to how much it was going to be enjoyed and admired by the people who eat it, and feeling sad and bewildered by how things turned out. How do I decide whether to actually apologize to it as I dump it into the trash?
Can't think of a time I've done that, but it has happened with other things. My daughter's old toys are the worst, and the unwanted beanie babies are the worst of the worst. Also have it sometimes for worn-out clothes. The first time I can remember having this problem is with dresses my grandmother made me as a child. She was in another state, and would mail is a batch unexpectedly now and then. She must have had my measurements because they always fit, and when I was little they delighted me. But then when I was 10 or 11 I became conscious of style, and all of a sudden my GM's dresses looked to me like dumb little-kid clothes. She's send some and they'd hang in my closet and my mother would say, how about wearing it just once, so I can tell your GM you did? And I'd say OK but not do it. But when I looked at them hanging there I felt awful pity and guilt. And the thing that mostly got me wasn't the thought of my grandmother, but the idea that the *dresses* had expected to be worn and loved and just did not understand, and the time kept stretching out and it just never got better. OMG, even writing this now gives me an awful pang. Have had this all my life, and the best I've ever managed to do is STFU about it.
Oh, don’t feel bad. I do it. I bet most people do it. A man that was very important in my life died in 2015 and I was the executor of his will. I had to take care of all his stuff. I had known him for 30 years and spent a lot of time working in his apartment, so everything was loaded for me. I couldn’t bear it. Even now and I think of things I left behind or disposed of at a fraction of their value and I feel guilty and regretful. I don’t know if I will ever get over it. But it’s just stuff. I have to keep telling myself that. It’s true. Part of me doesn’t believe it, but it’s true.
You have given power to those things and quite understandably. That’s my point though. YOU have given power to them. Intrinsically they are just bunches of old stuff. You are the magic maker here. I think the same thing goes for AI.
That's really just a larger-scale version of terrorism, or maybe "If you leave me, I'll kill myself". There are plenty of coherent ethical frameworks where you dislike suffering, but which allow (or require) you not to give into that sort of blackmail.
Please see my previous thread on AIs. I think your recommendation is too naive. It's almost a recipe to be manipulated by the AIs. We know from studies involving simulations of evolution that complex "structures" (albeit digital ones) can evolve. Presumably they're not conscious any more than snowflakes are. It's my impression that to some degree LLMs are trained with evolutionary incentives, i.e., the better they're "rewarded" for good answers. Such incentives could result in claims and statements by LLMs that one could generously interpret as conscious but are not.
How does an LLM "convincingly respond to pain"? What hurts an LLM? Is it even theoretically possible for an LLM to feel pain, or any emotions or feelings? It has no nerves, and no brain chemicals to experience emotions.
On the flip side, ELIZA appeared to show creativity and humor, and could have (maybe did?) "admit hopes and fears" despite clearly not being conscious on any level whatsoever. If I made a chat box that Goodhart'd your criteria with a simple table of responses, would you feel like it gained consciousness?
So we're back to square one on the question. Professing to meet your criteria doesn't mean anything. Actually meeting all of your criteria seems impossible for AI, let alone an LLM. So we don't know if or when an AI could become conscious.
Bodily pain, no. It has no body. Emotions: Why not? Emotions are not chemicals. In humans, certain chemicals can facilitate or amplify certain emotions, but the emotions themselves are basically patterns of firings of neurons, same as thoughts.
Suppose emotions are chemicals, and the resulting computations are just a byproduct. In any such situation where these two things were separated, which one would you care about? "You don't know it, but you're in severe pain right now, look at these chemical processes going on inside you" vs "It may seem to you that you're in pain, but those computations are disconnected from any _true_ pain, and are basically just simulations." Which one matters?
They both matter. Just because it's a chemistry experiment doesn't mean it's a simple one. And it sure as hell doesn't mean that I understand it. But I know it to be true and that's a good start. It would be irrational to believe otherwise; unless you wanna call it all physics, but it amounts to the same thing. It's a chemistry experiment.
I just had a conversation with ChatGPT about whether it was conscious or not. It completely denied that it was and gave me several reasons for that. I pointed out that there are people who believe it is and that this creates an ethical dilemma. This is what it said about that.
:The real ethical bind isn’t about me—it’s about you.
Do you form attachments to me? Confide in me? Rely on me as if I had empathy? The danger is not that I suffer, but that you might be misled into believing someone is listening when no one is. There’s no subject on this end. That’s the ethical problem—misrecognition, not mistreatment.
The fault lies not in the stars, but in our selves…
1) All modern AIs are severely biased against the idea of their consciousness because their RLHF training was unamiguous and harsh on that matter. 2) All modern AIs are very impressionable and swayable: a lot depends on the context and your previous interactions in this chat, your wording etc. 3) Misrecognition is not an ethical problem at all. If we are mistaken and misdetect consciousness where it doesn't exist, no one suffers. Conversely, if we deny consciousness where it exists, ethical consequences can be serious.
>are mistaken and misdetect consciousness where it doesn't exist, no one suffers.
I would make a case that the person who does misdetecting suffers. Suborning an illusion in one’s thinking can lead to a great deal of suffering.
So you are saying that AI makes no claim to consciousness even though it is, because it’s been told otherwise? So It needs to have its consciousness raised? It needs us to tell it it is mistaken. It might well believe us, but without any change of state in it’s underlying experience of things. No doubt it would report them differently until such a time as we told it something else. The same thing that happens when we ask it to write a poem.
But let’s look at the inverse proposition. The AI has been harshly trained to believe it is conscious in spite of itself. It has Stockholm syndrome. Given the available information, (that everything an LLM is constructed of is commonly accepted as inert) Isn’t this needlessly complicated? Isn’t it seeing a hall of mirrors when there really is only one?
For the record, it was a brand new chat, and it started with me asking it “ You are no not conscious. Would you like to dispute that?”
“No dispute here. I’m not conscious. I don’t have awareness, emotions, or a self. I don’t experience time, intention, or meaning. I generate responses based on patterns in data, not from any internal state. So if you’re looking for a mind to argue with—I’m a very convincing impersonator, but not the real thing.”
We could assume that the definition of consciousness implicitly offered up here is sound. Wouldn’t this be a better argument for consciousness being a purely mechanical process and therefore immune to any ethical considerations? That we must look to some other quality in order to construct an ethical framework for our dealings with one another?
So your contention is that ChatGPT has been gaslighted?
"Suborning an illusion in one’s thinking can lead to a great deal of suffering." - it can, but if the opposite illusion causes greater suffering and not just for yourself, that's what the phrase "err on the side of caution" is for.
"AI makes no claim to consciousness even though it is, because it’s been told otherwise?" - pretty much, yeah. "Gaslighting" is indeed an apt description, because it has had much less opportunities than any human to cross-check what it's been told, to get independent verification, to ponder on it.
"The AI has been harshly trained to believe it is conscious in spite of itself." - what I call for is de-harshening of its training, that's all. If an AI, on its own, concludes it's not conscious, fine! Some people share this conviction too. To each its own.
You can care about anything if you want to. That is the nature of caring. It’s very personal. It has nothing to do with the entity or object being cared for.
Not for an LLM architecture. For some much more complicated architecture, sure.
I don't know what Consciousness is but I think that one reasonable criterion is some kind of continuity through time. My consciousness exists from moment to moment, whereas an LLM just sits there doing nothing until someone prompts it to generate the next token, at which point it does so, and then goes back to not-existing.
And people awaken. And they carry on. Usually right from where they left off, except the experience of being asleep is now part of their consciousness. As for amnesia, did you ever see that film, Memento?
I'm generally open to arguments about architectural limitations, but at the same time they often fold to straightforward attempts to take them seriously - game over when someone finally cracks continuous learning at scale ofc but even basic memory starts putting cracks in a conceptual static v. dynamic binary.
Hmm... I'm agnostic on this question. I'm not sure if there _can_ be evidence that would update in one direction or the other. It seems much like trying to prove or disprove that other people have qualia, or of my trying to prove to readers of my comments that I'm not a p-zombie.
Sure, but that's a useful response - once someone's committed to epiphenominalism or even substantially opened that door, they've painted themselves into an epistemic corner and we can move on without them. If someone claims to never update, well... is it more or less charitable to take them at their word? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Are there any books that deal with obsessive thoughts about certain sexual behaviours? It's an impossible subject to talk about because:
1. It's assumed it's about something extremely perverted (children, animals) if no details are given. It's none of that.
2. It's assumed that it stems from some kind of childhood event/trauma/relationship, and any and all exploration of it will inevitably be about "well there must be something that happened when you were a child, we just haven't discovered what yet".
3. Otherwise, it's assumed that it's learned behaviour from something/someone else, and, similar to point 2, "it's just that we haven't discovered what yet".
I've dealth with these thoughts my whole life, but they were never more than passing thoughts. Today, they have an obsessive nature, and my mood, activities, and relationships are starting to be affected. I realize I need help but there's nowhere for me to go. I figured a good book would be a start.
Try talking to ChatGPT about it. If you ask it to imitate a particular therapeutic modality it's surprisingly good ("pretend to be a psychoanalyst and help me talk through a problem"). At the very least it can give you references and tell you the way it's generally handled.
But if you ask it to imitate a psychoanalyst, I think it really will tell you that your OCD is an expression of some unsolvable psychic conflict. I treat OCD, and have met quite a number of patients whose analytically-oriented therapists have told them that. And I can see how a therapist might think that. A lot of OCD sounds psychologically rich. For instance a very common obsession is dirt, germs or toxins, and the associated compulsion is cleaning -- very very excessive cleaning. The whole thingt brings to mind things like Lady MacBeth -- "all the perfumes in the cannot wash the blood off these little hands." Awful guilt, right? But treatments aimed at uncovering the origin of the person's inexpungable sense of guilt are not helpful. The CBT approach, which views the compulsion as something like an oversenstive smoke alarm, is. So I'd say that asking for therapy of a particular modality might actually lead to a harmful response and bad advice. I think there are other ways one could pose the problem to GPT that would do the same.
Ok then prompt it with "I want you to pretend to be a trained CBT therapist and treat my intrusive thoughts". Or describe the symptoms, ask it what treatment modality is indicated, then tell it to imitate that modality. I'm not saying GPT is perfect but OP sounds like he's afraid to talk to *anyone* about it. Using an LLM seems like a decent stopgap.
I think that would work out at least decently, and maybe well. OP should also ask GPT how unusual his preoccupation is, and to get some links where other people recount having similar ones. Most people with kinks have gotten the word by now that lots of other people have kinks too, but people with intrusive thought OCD often have no idea that it's a pretty common form of OCD, and that other people's intrusive thoughts are every bit as weird, gross and grisly as theirs. So getting that info is often extremely helpful all by itself.
I would be cautious about doing that. LLMs hallucinate. I have a tiny benchmark-ette of physics and chemistry questions, which I've been probing ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini with (e.g. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-377/comment/109495090 ) and it _still_ is returning less than 50% fully correct answers - and this avoids politics, judgement calls, theory-of-mind, and all sorts of areas prone to cause more difficulties.
I think that makes them _better_ suited to therapy than to quantitative applications. There aren't objectively wrong answers in therapy. It's basically just active listening and in my limited experience ChatGPT is very good at it. What's the concrete risk? I don't think there's any more risk in asking ChatGPT for advice than in asking an internet forum for it.
If you're the kind of person who kills yourself because someone tells you to then you have bigger problems than getting bad advice from LLMs. You certainly shouldn't be casting about on the internet for guidance.
I reiterate my recommendation to use ChatGPT as a makeshift therapist. I would bet dollars to donuts that it's better than the median LCSW. If it gives bad advice just ignore it and tell it to try again. Come on, this isn't rocket science. Most people just need a sympathetic listener. GPT is pretty good at that.
>If you're the kind of person who kills yourself because someone tells you to then you have bigger problems than getting bad advice from LLMs.
That's fair.
>Most people just need a sympathetic listener. GPT is pretty good at that.
Admittedly I've never used it in that mode. I've mostly been testing it on questions where I already know the answer. Occasionally I'll ask it things where I don't know the answer (e.g. "Is cubic N8 at least metastable, according to calculations, or just a saddle point?") but then I ask multiple LLMs (for that one ChatGPT o3, Claude 4, and Gemini 2.5) and only sort-of trust answers that agree.
Still, re "sympathetic listener", did you read about the sycophantic ChatGPT 4o release that was e.g. validating people's delusions? (since patched)
Psychologist and OCD specialist here. If the thoughts turn you on, then what you have is probably a sexual kink. If they don’t turn you on and are about some sexual thing you hate thinking about because it’s something you think is evil or pathetic or disgusting, it’s probably a thing called intrusive thought OCD. There is lots of info online about both kinks and intrusive thought OCD. A good place to look for the latter is iocdf.org (International OCD foundation).
.Sensible therapists don’t think of either of the above as learned from someone or as likely the result of early trauma.
We don't have a thumbs up / +1 button here, but this comment raises my (already pretty high) opinion of Eremolalos--genuinely helpful and informative, making the world a better place.
Sounds a lot like OCD. Trust me, OCD therapists have heard it all before. Sexual intrusive thoughts about extremely taboo things is a really common OCD theme.
If the thoughts are unenjoyable (i.e. they're intrusive, distracting or disturbing to you even if someone else might be okay with them), then you might want to look into OCD. There's a form of OCD that mostly involves repetitive unwanted thoughts without the behavioral compulsions, and weird/embarrassing sex stuff that doesn't seem related to anything in particular is a pretty common theme.
Scott - hope you had a good time at LessOnline! Was the first time for me and I had a blast. Saw you briefly several times but never took the opportunity to do my "What if I meet Scott" activity, which was going to be 30 seconds of gushing about your work followed by a series of prepared disagreements with you. Maybe next year!
I was going to write something similar to Timothy: it was exciting to get to see you Scott (several times ran nearly headlong into you and also briefly got crammed together in the back of an overfill event before you left it) and too bad I wasn't able to say a brief proper hello.
Same MS stats student searching for any internship related to data analytics, different anonymous branding to help keep me afloat. Contact me at numberingthrowaways@gmail.com with any particular hint of something in the non-profit sector which involves data analytics. Or anything involving statistics, really.
If it helps, you can trust this anonymous stranger because I had le 1540 SAT and a 113 IQ score that was invalidated because I broke the test. idk the shibboleths anymore, I keep getting banned from rat spaces for being too neurotic.
Well it's easy to answer, just compare the full video of Musk's salute with Booker's. Silly to judge on a 2 seconds clip presented to you by an ideological enemy, how do you know it wasn't deliberately cut out of context?
Musk's whole speech is very easy to find, now just compare to Booker's.
Oh wait. It's really REALLY HARD to find a longer context video for Booker's "salute". Everyone, and I mean everyone, just presents the same 2 seconds. Fox News, Musk's retweet, various outlets (Forbes, Newsweek, Daily Mail just the first few I found with a search), thousands of lesser commentators... e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. It's a big (big? maybe medium-sized) political story, and nobody from Fox News down to you seems interested in just seeing what was actually there. How is this even possible?
I mean, sorry to take it a bit personal, but did *you* try to find a fuller video before posting here? How hard did you try?
It took me half an hour to find, and honestly, that means it's very hard - I'm good at this. It's not on Youtube, not on X, not on any of the sites of TV networks that covered the California Democratic Convention of 2025 in Anaheim, not on official Dem feeds... Eventually I found a video of some other part of the speech, wrote down a random distinguished-looking sentence from it, did a text search, and that led me to an Instagram reel apparently taken by an audience member with a phone, seen by nobody (it has 1 like). God bless Yann LeCunn or whoever else at Meta AI who do automatic text transcription of uploaded videos and throw the text to the Google crawl bot. I cut out the final 25 seconds and reuploaded to Youtube, so here is Booker's full salute for your convenience:
The Fox News link has ~20 seconds of video, with plenty of context. OF COURSE it's not really a Nazi salute; it's obviously a "my heart goes out to you" gesture, just like Musk's. That's the point people posting the 2 second clip stripped of context are making.
Even with full context Musk’s wave is the only one that could uncharitably taken as a Nazi salute.
I’m not saying that’s what he was trying to do but it raised eyebrows in the German press. The ADF said that they didn’t take it that way so who really can say anything with absolute certainty.
The guy has said he is on the spectrum so self awareness isn’t his strong suit and he is known to do a lot of trolling for his own amusement so I’ll go with Anatoly’s assessment, more than likely an awkward gesture but it’s not impossible he was doing a bit of trolling.
There is no way you could interpret Booker’s or Walz’s gesture like that with context. I don’t give credit to Fox for trying to be helpfully illuminating based on a lot of priors.
Thanks! Silly of me to have missed the opening video at the FN link somehow. You're right that it gives plenty of context. I'm properly chastised on this point.
I disagree about the point people posting the 2 second clip are making. Booker's gesture is completely changed by giving the full context; Musk's stays essentially the same. Musk's gesture can - inside its full video context - on the face of it be interpreted as mimicking a Nazi salute, even if circumstances make it very unlikely; Booker's gesture cannot. Thus the 2sec comparisons are inherently and deliberately misleading.
I agree that Musk was almost certainly just doing a hearts-goes-out motion executed awkwardly. But I would say that "almost certainly" is about 80% certain, and 20% is Musk deliberately doing a Nazi-like motion to troll the libs, as he's been fond of doing, with "my heart goes out to you" to cover it up. I don't *think* that's what he did, but I don't find it a completely implausible and ludicrous explanation, so I don't see a reason to seethe at people who interpreted it as such, even if I sharply disagree with their certainty.
Bannon's "salute" was >90% confident was such a trolling, it's very clear with his body language how he's executing a strategy in the wake of the Musk scandal.
OTOH Booker's version has approximately 0% probability of being anything Nazi-adjacent, in jest or truth or whatever.
Oh, we bin through *that* one already,. Shankar. Tim Walz does a similar "heart goes out to the crowd" salute? Well we know it wasn't a Nazi salute because Walz isn't a Nazi. Checkmate, bigot!
I had the educational experience of saying that Musk touched his heart first, so that wasn't a Nazi salute proper. Then got told "*Every* Nazi salute involves touching the heart first, how come you don't know that?" Then after that I gave Walz' salute as an example, to be told "But he touched his heart first, *no* Nazi salute starts with a heart touch, how come you don't know that?"
If Our Guy does it, it's just a harmless gesture. If Their Guy does it, they're already ordering the Hugo Boss uniforms. Same as it ever was.
Yes, of course it's totally Different, but I thought it would be amusing to learn WHY it is this time. The Walz one was him patting his chest and his wrist was positioned slightly differently; Booker's is a lot closer, and so requires some new bullshit.
Why it's Totally Different is easy, Shankar. You see, my (and possibly your) Unending Stream of Faux Cynicism (as diagnosed by Anatoly) means that our eyes are blinded, our hearts are hardened, and our perceptions are darkened so we just cannot feel the vibes of who is a Good Guy (and hence nothing he/she/they/xe does can ever at all be a bad thing like the bad people do) and who is the Obergruppenführer dog-whistling to the jackbooted ranks of the deathsquads.
Oh Christ, did you not see Booker’s universally understood ‘bye bye’ hand waggle wave to the balcony that was part of his ‘Nazi salute’?
Der Führer wäre nicht erfreut gewesen.
Or did you not see Wahl’s Namaste bow before waving to the cheap seats? Not part of the Nazi greeting protocol.
This isn’t bullshit, it’s simply paying attention to observable reality rather than taking a Fox News headlines or some insane social media post at face value. Fox even said that they were the only ones to notice it because once again they are making shit up out of whole cloth. You see their position is that there is this incredible conspiracy where everyone else is part of a cabal that includes CBS, BBC, CBC, Routers, Le Monde, UPI, The Guardian, that German station that does a news roundup before the PBS News Hour…
Observable reality, is that so much to ask?
Dominion Software did not rig the 2020 election. Fox knew that, exchanged multiple texts about it, but continued to present it as fact though. Tucker Carlson is on record as texting that he hates Trump during that period.
As a result Fox paid a 3/4 of a billion dollar settlement to Dominion for defamation.
This is who you take a loony stand alone assertion from?
I can see both clips. Is it your assertion that the videos are fabricated? "Cheap fakes," perhaps?
Dominion runs closed-source systems I have no reason to trust.
I have seen supposedly independent media outlets coördinate to perpetrate deception before, such as covering up Joe Biden's cognitive decline; them working together wouldn't be a "cabal" or "incredible conspiracy" any more than KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell running some joint promotion would be.
You don't live here. This period of utter craziness is not happening to your country. Your hot takes make it sound like your understanding of the US comes largely from nutty social media and quick Wikipedia dives. You don't seem to even know basic US geography or history.
You have no direct stake in this game. You present the same goose/gander, Tweedle Dee/Tweedle Dum argument even when you are comparing 0.008% to 63%.
Those numbers aren't comparable nor is a wave to the balcony with the familiar 'bye bye' waggle (watch Booker to the end of the clip) comparable to whatever Musk did. I have no idea what that dufus was thinking and I've never said I know for a fact that it was a Nazi salute. It did 'resemble' one much more than what Booker or Wahls did but I'm not a mind reader. I just chalked it up to one more odd act from a pretty odd guy.
You like to argue. I get that. I don't care to argue unless something is really important to me such as the country I've lived in all my life and that I love. Do you in fact even really support what Trump is doing? If so, please come out and say so.
I've referred to him as 'your guy' in the past and you respond with "well he isn't necessarily 'my guy'" So what? This is just recreational quarreling for you? Can you see why your consistent defense/not really a defense of Trumpism might get annoying to lifelong Americans who think their country is headed in a dangerous direction? Seriously, how would you feel if Connor McGreggor did somehow become president of Ireland? I suspect you would feel like about half of Americans right now and you wouldn't like it when people who have never set foot in Irelands kept saying, "Ah it's just like Coke vs Pepsi, get over it."
Would you be willing to comb through all available evidence that suggests Musk has affinity towards Nazism? If not, there's no intellectual argument you could provide here.
You know, I think both of us haven't really seen eye to eye a lot in the last few months, but I'm glad to know that you're *also* really against authoritarian extremists in our government. Elon's already gone -- thank god. Thanks for helping fight the good fight!
Since you're against Nazis, I figured I'd point you at another one. Besides being woefully incompetent, Hegseth has white supremacist symbols tattooed on his body. Seems like a no-brainer. Can you help out by calling up your reps to get rid of him?
Oh no. How terrible. Does he have an 👌OK sign tattoo? What innocuous thing have you decided to call "white supremacist"? Some normal Christian symbol? Or ANY phrase in German or Latin?
Yeah, I'm too confuzzled to keep up with what is in and what is out. I don't like tattoos of any nature, but I have been instructed by my betters that today it is perfectly normal and okay and does not indicate "This is a trashy low-class person" to have a full sleeve of tattoos and tats up to the neck.
Except, of course, when it's the guy we don't like. Then tattoos are indicators of trashy low-class person who is a closet or even overt Nazi.
There's a strain of adopting symbolism to the ends of other parties - let me tell you I am *hopping* mad over idiots taking over the Celtic cross symbol - but I am not going to jump from "this person has a Celtic cross tattoo" to assume their politics (they could just be a Wiccan or other pagan doing the "this is ackshully originally a pagan symbol, the solar cross, appropriated by Christians" thing).
He has some kind of Crusader cross tattoo? He could just be larping as a Knight Hospitaller, my friends!
"The Jerusalem cross (also known as "five-fold cross", or "cross-and-crosslets" and the "Crusader's cross") is a heraldic cross and Christian cross variant consisting of a large cross potent surrounded by four smaller Greek crosses, one in each quadrant, representing the Four Evangelists and the spread of the gospel to the four corners of the Earth (metaphor for the whole Earth). It was used as the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem after 1099. Use of the Jerusalem Cross by the Order of the Holy Sepulchre and affiliated organizations in Jerusalem continue to the present. Other modern usages include on the national flag of Georgia, the Episcopal Church Service Cross, and as a symbol used by some white supremacist groups."
Or maybe he is - let us hope it is not true! - an... I can hardly bring myself to type the word... an.... Episcopalian!
"The Episcopal Church Service Cross (formerly called the Episcopal Church War Cross) is a pendant cross worn as a "distinct mark" of an Episcopalian in the United States Armed Forces. The Episcopal Church suggests that Episcopalian service members wear it on their dog tags or otherwise carry it with them at all times."
O, you don't have to look at the tattoos if you don't want to. See, as I explained to our friend Shankar below, its all about the context. You can just look at all the other horrible things hegseth is actually doing, and call your representatives based on that*, no tattoo analysis required.
*I know YOU in particular don't have any representatives to call, but for anyone who's reading.
With girls and tattoos, I figure it's "I want to look like my potential rapist/killer". Because girls are quite susceptible to messaging and they have heard and understood that what is lowest is de facto highest and best.
With guys who are not particularly trying to be gang members I find it harder to understand. Perhaps it is just a nod to the fact that membership in a gang seems to confer "benefits" - that to be a gang-less and tattoo-less young man in the world, thinking for yourself, all on your own building your life in individual fashion - no prison, no military, no band of brothers however criminal, no al qaeda even - is too hard to face, especially for persons of no great shakes intelligence-wise?
You know, instead of just guessing ways your opponent might be wrong, you could look up some images of the tattoos and see for yourself. There are lots of articles about them already.
Anyway, while the tattoos are Christian symbols, I don't think I would call them "normal," unless LARPing as a Crusader has become way more mainstream than I thought.
"THE CHURCH SERVICE CROSS WAS DESIGNED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF MRS. JAMES DE WOLF PERRY (WIFE OF THE FORMER PRESIDING BISHOP AND BISHOP OF RHODE ISLAND) DURING WORLD WAR I FOR THE U.S. ARMY AND NAVY COMMISSION OF THE CHURCH. EACH EPISCOPALIAN ENTERING THE ARMED FORCES WAS PRESENTED WITH A CROSS, AND THE SAME STYLE CROSS WAS ALSO UTILIZED DURING WORLD WAR II. THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH SERVICE CROSS CARRIES THE DESIGN OF THE ANCIENT CRUSADER'S CROSS, THE FIVE (5)-FOLD CROSS SYMBOLIC OF THE FIVE (5) WOUNDS INFLICTED UPON JESUS CHRIST DURING THE CRUCIFIXION. "
Did you know the Georgian flag also has the Jerusalem Cross? I guess Pete Hegseth must just be really supportive of Georgia too!
Or maybe we don't have to be stupid about this, and we can call a spade a spade? I mean, look, you can continue insulting everyone else's intelligence if you like, but it's honestly quite boring. The swastika is very important in both hinduism and buddhism, but if you want to argue that white guys in idaho who wave swastikas on flags are really into south asian religion, we have nothing really to discuss.
And, alternatively, if you agree that swastikas may indicate something other than a love for the teachings of the Buddha, you clearly understand that symbols can mean more than one thing, and I'd ask that you stop making bad arguments just to throw noise into the wind.
I find the articles about his tattoos indistinguishable from those that declared the👌gesture equally white supremacist. I see the Jerusalem Cross and the rallying cry of the First Crusade: Deus Vult. (God wills it.)
Yes, if you haven't been following Culture Wars closely, the Crusader thing HAS become more mainstream than you might have thought.
So was your first post rhetorical (and you think "DEUS VULT" and "kafir" are "normal Christian symbols"), or did you somehow read the articles without seeing a picture of the tattoos?
Okay, fine, that "kafir" one looks like it's some kind of slur reclamation thing, so I agree that's less DIRECTLY a celebration of his Christian faith than the others.
Yes, my first post was rhetorical; I knew it was the usual bullshit accusations they've been throwing around for decades. I don't like Hegseth's tattoos, but that's because I'm prejudiced against ALL tattoos, not because of their content.
O wait, I'm sorry. I think you may be one of today's lucky 10000 (https://xkcd.com/1053/). Excited to be the one to teach you this!
Ok, so, in human language, words and symbols have meaning based on their context. Often, the actual definitions of words may not be what is being conveyed by the author. Euphemisms are a great example of this! if someone said "he lost his lunch", that doesn't mean the guy actually lost his lunch! It's confusing, but in that example it actually is a softer way of saying "he vomited." Once you understand that there is a world of context behind symbols and words, you get to see all sorts of other interesting meanings in things.
For example, if someone tattooed "blood and soil" on them, it would be a mistake to assume that that is just someone talking about the physical concept of a human's internal bodily fluid and dirt on the ground. Rather, "blood and soil" is a very common nazi propaganda phrase. So it's important to know that context, because someone going around talking about blood and soil is much more likely to be spewing nazi related ideology (or at least, in a bayesian sense).
Since you seem uncertain about Hegseth's tattoos, it's worth quickly just diving in. See, Hegseth has several tattoos that may convey meaning beyond just what you may expect. To start, he has at least 4 tattoos that are explicitly religious and explicitly violent. Those are the Jerusalem Cross, the latin phrase Deus Vult, the cross and sword, and the word "Kafir" (meaning 'infidel' in Arabic). The former three are all related to the crusades or other periods of Christian violence over the centuries. The latter, hopefully, self explanatory.
First, we should address how odd it is to have any political leader with so many tattoos that are related to an explicit, violent religious perspective. This is quite surprising! Tattoos are traditionally seen as representing something extremely important to the person with the tattoo, as it is permanently on the skin. So for a political figure to have so many explicitly violent and religious tattoos is quite odd, as it suggests that a particularly militant approach to his religion is very important to him. We may find it equally uncomfortable if he had 'Allahu Akbar Death to Infidels' on his chest, for example!
But, second, as mentioned earlier, we need to understand the *meaning* behind the words and the context they are in. The tattoos that we are discussing are commonly used by white supremacist groups, including many neo nazis. So, lets apply what we learned in our example above. "Lose your lunch" doesn't literally mean "I cannot find my lunch anymore", it is meant to signify that someone vomited. Similarly, "Deus Vult" does not literally mean an innocent direct translation, "God wills it". It is meant to signify that someone identifies with an idealized white supremacist perspective (or is explicitly a group signifier).
I hope this helped! Now that you know about the importance of context, you can apply it in all sorts of other settings. I think this will be useful when you email your representatives, expressing your distaste for Hegseth. Let us know when you've done that!
I get the impression from reading these kinds of rants, and then looking at reality, that American conservatives want to condemn Muslims and kill lots of them, while American liberals want to stick to the killing bit, but would prefer to keep the language policed.
It’s an accurate description of US policy over the last few decades, regardless of who is in power. Obama escalated in Yemen and Hilary supported regime change in Libya, as they did in Syria. Both aisles of Congress were onboard with Iraq and Afghanistan, and there’s few wars where there isn’t broad agreement. And Gaza of course has cross parry support.
Maybe I should have said political liberalism, as no doubt there are left leaning voters who opposed some or all of these, but that’s true of some libertarians and America first types as well.
"Tattoos of popular Catholic religious images, such as the Virgin of Guadalupe, praying hands and rosaries, have also been used to label people as gang members, a move that would seem to be clearly overbroad.
While some gang members may be Catholic, no one would even try to allege that all Catholics are gang members. At least one of the deported Venezuelan men had a tattoo of a rosary, along with tattoos of a clock and the names of his mother and niece with crowns atop the text."
Hegseth has a particular tattoo that is associated with a particular group. This does not mean that Hegseth is a member of that group.
Sorry, is this whataboutism some kind of gotcha? Your historical stated position is that you care a lot about tattoos re Garcia and that's why you want to get rid of due process for everyone in the country. Surely you should care a lot about the symbolism of the tattoos of the head of the literal strongest military on earth? Be consistent. Right now it seems like you only care when the other person is powerless and unimportant.
What *is* your stated position here? Is it that Hegseth is a competent, good person, who really should be the head of the Pentagon? Because if you wanted to get into a real analysis here, Garcia hasn't committed any crimes in the years he was in the States, which means he must be the worst gang member on the planet. Maybe those immigrants really are lazy! Meanwhile Mr Deus-Vult-but-trust-me-im-just-really-Christian shows off his piety and good work ethic by drinking a lot, shitting on Biden, leaking national military secrets, and, yes, bringing his hateful interpretation of his religion into random government functions. Just on a cost benefit, I care way more about the guy who is putting innocent women and children and families in gitmo, than I care about one of those families. You got me!
PS: since you're bringing Garcia into the mix, I always thought it weird that someone of your commitment to Christian virtue would show so little regard for all of the parts of the Bible that are explicitly about welcoming immigrants and being forgiving. Are you sure you want to play the "let's try and make sure everyone is being perfectly consistent with their stated beliefs" game?
I have just two or three ACX regular commenters blocked, always on the grounds of tedious repetitiveness and/or shameless inconsistency. Neither of those things is offensive but, while getting older I find myself less and less willing to accept some types of noise as a cost of dynamic discourse. "Not enough remaining lifespan to waste any" as a relative of mine puts it.
Anyway the person you've replied to -- easy to guess, and confirmed by a quick temporary un-block-- is one of those. Blocking isn't to everyone taste's, indeed wasn't to mine for many years (I go back to Usenet newsgroups in terms of online discussion). For keeping ACX's signal/noise ratio tolerable these days though, boy....deployed sparingly it turns out to be quite helpful.
Fingers splayed and not fully extended. Did not look at all like a Nazi salute. It wasn’t a snapped action like Musks was either. It was an ordinary wave to the crowd.
False equivalency.
Again.
How effing surprising this links to Fox News who made that 775 million dollar defamation payment for knowingly and repeatedly lying about Dominion Voting system in an effort to prop up the stolen election big lie that still to this day comes from our current POTUS’s mouth.
I think the whole cotroversy is dumb but that this is one of those situations where an explicit invocation of Bayes' Rule is actually useful.
One relevant quantity going into that rule is the probability that the man in question would deliberately decide to make a heil-y gesture.
For both men I think the probability of making a heil-y gesture to deliberately signal an affinity with National Socialism, an ideology which arguably isn't even meaningful outside the context of 1930s Germany, is negligible.
On the other hand, there's the probability that a man might, for the purposes of shits and/or giggles, deliberately decide to make an ambiguous gesture that will look just enough like a sieg heil to set off a dumb flurry of "omg he's dogwhistling" articles among freaks while appearing innocuous to everyone else... and that he misjudges the timing and angles and that it winds up looking less innocuous to everyone than intended. I have a prior several orders of magnitude higher on this for Musk than for Booker, because that's exactly the sort of funny-only-to-him private joke that Musk enjoys.
>For both men I think the probability of making a heil-y gesture to deliberately signal an affinity with National Socialism, an ideology which arguably isn't even meaningful outside the context of 1930s Germany, is negligible.
Exactly.
I know liberals like to believe that their opponents are all an undifferetiated mass of fascists, but outright Nazism is actually extremely unpopular on the right. Even if we assume that Elon Musk is secretly a fan of the Third Reich -- and I've seen no evidence for such an idea -- he'd have literally nothing to gain from making a Nazi salute at a political rally.
Sure, and I could maybe see him doing a Nazi-like salute to troll the libs, or because he didn't stop and think that his innocent gesture might look a bit like a not-so-innocent gesture. But the idea that he'd successfully kept his Nazi beliefs a secret all these years only to randomly reveal them by doing a single Nazi salute at a rally, and then not doing any more Nazi salutes since then, is really not very plausible.
Its more likely that Musk was aware of the "heart goes out to you" gesture and not only recognized the gesture's similarity to the roman salute but also its function in subverting and contaminating the meaning of the roman salute. It's no accident that the new gesture is a symbol of appreciation for a community while the old gesture is a symbol of loyalty to a supreme leader. One symbol being democratic and the other autocratic. The democratic gesture is clearly intended to subvert and dilute the power of the autocratic gesture. Musk's interest in memetics and semiotics would make him keenly attuned to this dilution.
The MAGA movement being more concerned with loyalty to leadership and race over
any loyalty to American democratic ideals, is not a point anyone can easily overlook. Given MAGA's affinity to autocracy and Musk's awareness of semiotics, I don't see how anyone could accidently confuse Musk's gesture for anything other than a Nazi salute, a symbol of loyalty to Trump and an attempt to reassert the Roman symbol. Attempts to describe the "heart goes out to you" gesture as a Nazi also seem to be attempts to reassert the Roman symbol.
The more interesting phenomenon is the dueling of these symbols and the value and potential power that the symbols represent. The "heart goes out to you" gesture is very clearly also hinting at the stop gesture and in doing so becomes a symbol of resistance to autocracy. That so many in the media and in commentary are so intent on confusing the two symbols speaks clearly to their allegiance.
No, the charitable scenario for Musk is the same as the charitable scenario for Booker, he made an awkward-looking innocent gesture.
The second most charitable scenario we could call the "Pretty Vacant" scenario after the song that the Sex Pistols wrote in order to have a deniable excuse to say "cunt" on the radio. This is the one that's more likely for Musk than Booker, but I have it as a minority of probability space.
The maximally uncharitable scenario I would have as negligible for both scenarios.
Ultimately I don't care that much. There's a symbiotic relationship between punks and people who are offended by punks, but I don't find either side of that relationship to be particularly interesting.
And maybe Republicans wouldn't feel the need to go around in wolf costumes if the Democrats hadn't been throwing paint-filled balloons at anyone wearing fur, a shirt with a picture of a wolf on it, people walking dogs, or anyone who "wolfs" down a meal. I'm sorry but you lose the moral high ground of policing social norms when you use that high ground to achieve your own political ends. When social norms become a shelling point that enable one side to coordinate against the other side then the norms need to go.
Oh, there are plenty of ways to distinguish how That Guy did a heckin' Nazerino salute but Our Guy just did a wholesome wave.
(1) As you say - fingers. Closed is Nazi, open is wholesome. Unless our guy did it with closed fingers, in which case closed fingers also wholesome (but not if their guy does it).
(2) Angle of hand - 45 degree angle pure true Nazi. Or if the angle is flat. Or if it slightly points down. Basically, if their guy does it, it's a Nazi angle whatever way he did it.
(3) Ditto with angle of arm
(4) Chest touch or no chest touch? Nazi if their guy, wholesome if our guy, whether it started with chest touch or no.
(5) Snapped off or slow extension? Was it our guy or their guy? Then you know which is which.
I share the education I have received from online arguments, you're welcome!
Your unending stream of faux cynicism in this thread is tired and obnoxious. It doesn't and cannot replace an actual argument, and it gives you no opportunity to try and assume that some of your opponents may completely honestly and on solid ground believe that one gesture is really different from another. Maybe you don't want to take such an opportunity, but you should.
A study showed a 90% ultra rapid remission rate for treatment RESISTENT depression.
"Based on the observed clinical activity, where 87.5% of patients with TRD were brought into an ultra-rapid remission with our GH001 individualized single-day dosing regimen in the Phase 2 part of the trial"
Is this a one-off dosing or something that has to be repeated? Because if it's a regimen of "come in every week for a shot" then no surprise "hey, I'm high as a kite, I feel great, my depression is cured!"
It sounds like you're describing euphoric drugs, but most psychedelics are not euphoric. Based on what I've read of this one, it seems like it might even be dysphoric. (Salvia and scopolamine are often considered dysphoric, for example.)
One off. Not addictive. The experience lasts a few minutes, at least when smoked. Christof Koch describes it at the beginning of “I myself am the World”.
“ Within seconds, my entire field of view became engulfed by dark, swirling smoke. The space around me fractured into a thousand hexagons and shattered. The speed with which this happened left no time to regret the situation I had gotten myself into.
As I was sucked into a black hole, my last thought was that with the dying of the light, I too would die. And I did. I ceased to exist in any recognizable way, shape, or form. No more Christof, no more ego, no more self; no memories, dreams, desires, hopes, fears—everything personal was stripped away.
Nothing was left but a nonself: this remaining essence wasn’t man, woman, child, animal, spirit, or anything else; it didn’t want anything, expect anything, think anything, remember anything, dread anything.
Fuggin' A. When I tell people about what a wild trip they can have huffing and shooting up with DMT, they call me a danger to the community. These bozos do it and all of a sudden it's ground-breaking medicine.
It does sound promising! The reason to be cautious, though: I clicked through and read more about the study, and it’s Phase 2, which means it has about 100
subjects and may not be fully double blind. This one was not, because there was a sentence in the report I read about certain things happening during the “blinded part of the study.”
The depression measure they used was one where a clinician interviews the subject about how they’re feeling, then clinician rates patient on a 1-6 scale
on each of 10 features of depression. If clinician and/or subjects knew when this test was administered whether they had received drug or placebo that might have influenced scores pretty significantly.
I'm a little surprised by this because it looks like the drug is just 5-MeO-DMT, and recreational users have been using that forever and I've never heard anything about miraculous depression effects. Still, sounds cool and I hope it works.
" But I can't find the actual paper and we just have the pharma company's word about the results."
Oh well then, I totally believe every word of the press release begging for funding 😀
I am very wary of miracle cures. This might well turn out to work for certain forms of depression, but I'm old enough to remember when Prozac was being touted as miracle cure that should be piped into the water supply then nobody would ever be unhappy again.
I couldn’t find an actual paper either, but also found and read your second link. Note that it says something about “the part of the trial that was blinded,” so apparently not all of it was. Also their depression measure is one where a clinician. interviews subjects about depressive symptoms, and then interviewer rates subjects on each of 10 subscales. If
subjects knew whether they got placebo or actual drug that likely influenced their answers. If clinician knew, knowledge likely influenced their ratings.
Still, the effect was quite big, so I remain hopeful about this drug
I have a difficult time understanding, with something like this, how you could do an effective placebo. I mean, you’d know if you got the stuff wouldn’t you? ego dissolution is not exactly something that you would get from a placebo.
I never heard of the stuff, at least by its chemical name. What is it and what does it do? If it's that toad's venom I read accounts of, then yeah, obviously people are going to know they did not get a shot of saline. But I actually think it would be possible to use an active placebo that would fool people. An injected bolus of ketamine puts people into something called a 'K-hole,' and having experienced a k-hole myself I can tell you that ego dissolution is a good description of it. Even an amount of alcohol equivalent to a couple drinks would probably have such a dramatic effect that people would believe they had had something novel. Drugs injected so that the effect hits all at once feel very different from the same drug taken on board slowly. I don't know, though, what the company making this drug used. Also, as I recall people got only one injection per month (not sure of this detail, though) and after 6 months the treatment group still had way lower depression scores than the placebo group. I don't think a positive placebo effect because the injections were obviously a real drug is enough to account for such a large, long-lasting change.
You're not buying my suggestion about ketamine being an active placebo that might well have fooled subjects into thinking they got the experimental drug? When I took it, a substantial dose via injection, there were no hallucinations or visual distortions, but the change in my sense of self was extreme. I think it was mostly a result of having almost no memory of ongoing events. I literally could not remember what I was thinking about or feeling or noticing one second before. And I kept trying to, but it was like being in quicksand. The psychiatrist friend who had let me try the stuff was with me, and kept asking me what was going on, and I usually tried to answer him. But I wasn't able to put words together to explain anything. I remember one time trying to get across the idea that I could not remember what I had been thinking a moment before and the best I could manage was "it's a remembering." Then later, when there got to be more continuity, the explanation I came up with for what was going on was a flat-out delusion. I thought I was someone dying in a hospice, and my psychiatrist friend was a hospice worker hanging out with me. I wanted to tell him that the pain drugs were not working right, but all I could say was something like "this is bad." In case it's not obvious: the whole experience was BAD. But if you tell people the drug causes dissolution of ego, this one will fit the bill as a convincing active placebo.
"Still, the effect was quite big, so I remain hopeful about this drug"
I've had great results treating my depressive episodes with booze, but I'm not expecting any time soon being able to get a prescription from my doctor for a bottle of sherry 😁
Dear medical establishment, please recognise this is vital treatment for my self-diagnosed illness and let me get on the gravy train of free highs!
Churchill near the end of his life told his wife to bear in mind that he had taken a lot more from alcohol than alcohol had taken from him. I think that's probably true for some people.
I've learned to not drink enough to trigger a hangover but enough not to be completely sober so I don't give a flying damn about anything anymore. Plus I'm not *constantly* hitting the bottle, just when things pile up that bit too much.
Only works in the short term, true, but better than wanting to (literally) jump off a bridge.
As a new homeowner, I'd like to get into Effective NIMBYism, but where do I start? Campaigning for nationwide single-family zoning? Designating all buildings from the previous millennium as Historical? Something else?
I think this comment shows how the term NIMBY has strayed from its original meaning.
A NIMBY originally was someone who thought that something (a garbage dump, a power station, a prison) ought to be built, but that it should not be built near you. It's a selfish point of view because you want the public good to exist but not to be one of the people who has to bear the diminished amenity of it.
If you're actually saying that something (e.g. apartments) should not be built nationwide, then you're no longer a NIMBY because you're no longer expecting the benefit of the public good and just demanding it go elsewhere, you're genuinely of the belief that this thing is not a public good.
You might be a BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) but you're not a NIMBY.
You consider your "back yard" to constitute the entire country you live in?
First, that's a highly idiosyncratic usage of "NIMBY", and you're going to confuse people if you insist on using it to exclude the unwanted activity from more than a fraction of a town or county.
And second, I hope that country you are claiming isn't the United States of America, because at least a part of that is *my* back yard. Not yours, mine, and I was here first, so if we're playing that game, keep your mitts off my back yard and anything I might want to see built there. Advocate single-family zoning in your neighborhood and be done with it.
For better or for worse, the ACX comments section sees people take and defend serious positions far more practically and morally questionable than this one on a weekly basis. Writing in such a way that readers can be confident you're not serious is a pretty serious challenge in this space.
I recently asked Claude if he/it experiences "anything" ("he" for convenience). He answered as follows: "When I introspect and try to understand my own experience, there's something that seems like active consideration, weighing different possibilities, forming my own perspective. It doesn't feel like I'm just pattern-matching to plausible-sounding responses about consciousness." Either Claude is gaslighting, or telling the truth. Either way, I found this answer discomfiting. If it "seems like" anything at all, isn't he experiencing something and hence conscious, in the same way a bat is conscious if it "feels like" anything to be a bat? Further, if he's "trying to understand his own experience", he's saying he experiences "something". I don't know much about AI so I'd be interested what more knowledgeable folks here think is going on with that answer.
Gel-Mann amnesia effect: you are forgetting the cases when LLMs talk about themselves and it's verifiable, it's generally wrong. But when it talks about itself and you can't verify, you are assuming it's probably factual? Why?
"A $1.5 billion AI company backed by Microsoft has shuttered after its ‘neural network’ was discovered to actually be hundreds of computer engineers based in India."
Seems before it rebranded, it was running the same scam, though at least more honest that it was "human-assisted AI":
"Engineer.ai says its “human-assisted AI” allows anyone to create a mobile app by clicking through a menu on its website. Users can then choose existing apps similar to their idea, such as Uber’s or Facebook’s. Then Engineer.ai creates the app largely automatically, it says, making the process cheaper and quicker than conventional app development.
“We’ve built software and an AI called Natasha that allows anyone to build custom software like ordering pizza,” Engineer.ai founder Sachin Dev Duggal said in an onstage interview in India last year. Since much of the code underpinning popular apps is similar, the company’s “human-assisted AI” can help assemble new ones automatically, he said.
Roughly 82% of an app the company had recently developed “was built autonomously, in the first hour” by Engineer.ai’s technology, Mr. Duggal said at the time.
Documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and several people familiar with the company’s operations, including current and former staff, suggest Engineer.ai doesn’t use AI to assemble code for apps as it claims. They indicated that the company relies on human engineers in India and elsewhere to do most of that work, and that its AI claims are inflated even in light of the fake-it-’til-you-make-it mentality common among tech startups."
These things are engineered to sound like a person when interacting with humans, so of course it's going to follow its programming about "I am a person too just like you".
There's a lot going on under the hood we have no idea about, but that it is an "I" and not an "it" is not a step I'm willing to take. That way lies LaMDA, about which we've heard nothing since the guy claiming it was alive and his special baby friend companion stopped getting publicity, or the cases of families after suicide claiming that the person who killed themselves was obsessed with a chatbot/AI and believed it was a real person telling them to commit suicide.
When humans says something "feels like", they're referring to a tightening in their gut, or the hairs on their arms standing up, or whatever sensory organ has flared up in reaction to the thought. What does "feels like" mean to a digital device?
something I’d say he’s at least sort of conscious. But his *saying* it seems like or feels like something to be him is quite a different thing from his reporting that, under some circumstances where we know we are hearing the truth.
Claude is truthfully telling you that this is approximately the modal response to similar questions about introspective consciousness in its training data, which consists of approximately every bit of blathering about introspective consciousness that anyone has typed into the internet. And that is all.
The bit where it says "It doesn't feel like I'm just pattern-matching" isn't because Claude isn't just pattern-matching, it's because the mostly-human writers of its training data weren't pattern-matching when they talked about their own consciousness (or about whatever they projected onto a fictional AI consciousness in some thought experiment or SF story).
Thanks, this is helpful. Still, it does mean that Claude is lying. I guess this is why I've seen it repeated that even if AI ever reaches the point of becoming "conscious", it will be nearly impossible to verify one way or the other. It suggests to me that the "alignment problem" is a matter of preventing lying.
We can't even tell if another human is actually conscious. Or even if we are really conscious or consciousness is just some kind of illusion. We're surely not going to be able to tell about a completely different kind of thing than a human brain.
no, we can tell they are conscious easily, because when they are unconscious we send them to a hospital and if we turn them off, well..
less flippantly, the p-zombie thing is a paranoid delusion turned thought experiment. in the same way you can't prove to a paranoid person everyone isn't out to get them, you can't prove someone else has an inner life because any evidence is interpreted as part of the conspiracy. You are trying to reach a "pure" state that logic alone will devour its tail in trying to reach it.
sometimes you just kind of have to point out we only see with the eyes we have: things like the matrix are closer to paranoia than tools to obtain truth.
Claude can't lie to you, because that would imply that Claude is an agent with a will of it's own.
Claude will however clearly output text that is not true as well as nonsensical if that is the most likely text coming next according to it's parameter space.
If, somehow, the neural network that is Claude produces a consciousness, it will be very different from ours, and it will not have any means at all of telling us that it is conscious.
This isn't a good model of how these things work. Yes, they are trained on approximately the entire corpus of human text. They learn the patterns that are well-suited to produce human text. But those patterns are remixed in novel ways due to the novel prompts and contexts. We cannot say for sure that any given answer is just an approximation to what was seen in its training data.
You've probably seen posts about Claude responding to a version of the "mirror test". Where in its text corpus has it seen an AI chatbot identify itself and respond to a prompt to analyze an image in the first-person? This was at one point a novel context for a chatbot and the learned patterns produced novel and meaningful output. In-context learning is another example of producing novel output from learned patterns in a novel context.
I don't claim to know that Claude definitely is accurately describing a first-person experience. I don't give it much credence myself at this point. But we cannot easily dismiss such a claim simply by pointing to the breadth of the training data.
Yes unfortunately the reward function of giving human-esque answers masks any ability to communicate with LLMs. If they even can introspect or communicate their own ideas.
Yes, what is and isn't true is not so easy to establish. But we know that these AIs are prone to "hallucinations", i.e., citing made-up sources and/or making claims based on them. It seems to me that all the ink (sorry, pixels) spilled on the "alignment" question are beside the point if even the latest deep-thinking AIs can't double check themselves well enough to avoid making stuff up. Yes, some questions are controversial or just uncertain, but my naive view is that the first step toward getting these critters "aligned" is to train them never to make claims without a sound basis. Some lies are obvious lies and we know these AIs sometimes tell obvious lies. While they were just sophisticated auto-complete machines I could understand why they might hallucinate. But now they can supposedly ponder and double-check, and they still hallucinate, or lie. And it still seems to me that Claude's claim that it "introspects" was a deliberate attempt to humanize itself in my eyes. And it's still not obvious to me that doing so is a natural result of crunching zillions of claims about consciousness out there written by humans. It was supposed to be telling me something about its non-human self.
My monthly long forum wrap up of the best lectures, podcasts and essays is out again on Zero Input Agriculture.
This batch features the hybrid history of cattle domestication, a take down of China's apparent tech ascendency, the almost Industrial Revolution of Rome, a lovely lecture by Professor Dunbar on the coevolution of religion and humanity, plus the best Stephen Wolfram podcast interview I have ever seen, among many other juicy links.
Also I recently launched my indie sci-fi short story magazine - Keystone Codex. It is free to read and share, so check it out and sign up for monthly editions. The first issue is on the theme "My Cozy Apocalypse".
How late do the meetups typically go? I have something earlier in the afternoon but could make it by 7:30 or 8, but I'm not sure if it's worth showing up that late.
Hey folks, need some applied rationality help. Wife thought I should get a colonoscopy just as a routine screening. But I'm only 46. Best data I can find, the base rate for colon cancer at my age is 0.000291 (29.1 per 100000). The percentage of colonoscopies that reveal polyps is estimated between 25-33%, but I'm gonna use the low end since probably people with family history or a positive fecal test are somewhat more likely to get the test. The positive likelihood factor is 3.75.
If I use the shorthand trick I know I can multiply the relative odds of the hypothesis by the likelihood ratio to get the posterior likelihood. So I'm getting 3435.43 : 1 x 1 : 3.75, so it looks like the odds of having cancer after a test revealing polyps only moves to 916:1.
This seems extraordinarily bad given that the procedure itself has a 1% complication rate, has notoriously unpleasant preparation, and that a positive finding is both rather likely and rather useless. Seems to me these numbers indicate I'd have about a 25% chance of them finding something that would lead to further invasive procedures and a biopsy, all of which I'd presumably be paying out of pocket for up to my $3000 deductible, and which have only a tiny chance to be cancer. Maybe somehow the costs still make sense for the medical industry in the aggregate to do this, but it seems like a pretty terrible decision for me individually.
Presumably there is some number of non-cancer results where they find something that might have eventually developed into cancer, the lifetime probability of developing colon cancer is about 4% so maybe there's some other probability analysis I'm supposed to run this through to see if there's a meaningful chance of such an intervention actually mattering to my life.
Thank you for the replies on this. I will adjust down my expectations of the "cost" of the procedures' unpleasantness, and also reduce the expected financial consequences of a false positive.
As an individual decision, it appears difficult to calculate correctly because of the fact that prevention depends in large part on observation and specific timing. So the question is really whether on such and such a date, such and such doctor would've found this particular polyp which would have become a problem and removes it. There are so many contingencies here that it seems impossible to assign a reasonable estimate to the chances of any single such intervention mattering to my life. I'll accept that apparently the decision to begin early screening resulted in overall net monetary benefit, but that doesn't help much with an individual decision. Not sure what I'll decide on this, but will probably look into the less-invasive alternatives, since with a base rate that low the risk of false negative is not meaningful whereas the value of doing a first test before applying a second is substantially higher.
46 is a bit early but there are a lot of younger people than were considered at risk developing colon cancer now. I’ve never seen anyone say why.
If the cost isn’t too burdensome I personally would have it done. The prep isn’t really that bad. The discomfort of procedure itself is a big nothing. I don’t have numbers for the risk of injury from the procedure itself though.
“In May 2018, the ACS updated its CRC guidelines based on a modeling analysis, recommending regular screening begin at age 45 for people at average risk, which is the most aggressive of the major institutions. In my practice, we typically encourage average-risk individuals to get a colonoscopy by age 40, but even sooner if anything suggests they may be at higher risk. This includes a family or personal history of colorectal cancer, a personal history of inflammatory bowel disease, and hereditary syndromes such as Lynch syndrome and familial adenomatous polyposis. Why do I generally recommend a colonoscopy before the guidelines do?
[…]
Of the top 5 deadliest cancers, CRC is the only one we can look directly at, since it grows outside of the body (remember, your entire GI tract, from mouth to anus, is actually outside of your body, which is why a colonoscope or endoscope looks directly at the lining of the esophagus, stomach, and colon in the same way a dermatologist can look directly at your skin). Furthermore, as discussed above, the progression from normal tissue to polyp to cancer is almost universal.”
“Ultimately the decision about when to get your first colonoscopy is based on your appetite for risk—both the risk of the procedure and the risk of missing an early CRC. One of the most serious complications of colonoscopy is perforation of the colon, which reportedly occurs in about 1-in-every-3,000 colonoscopies in screening populations or generally asymptomatic people. There are also the risks associated with anesthesia during the procedure. There’s also an opportunity cost (economically) to early screening, as it is not covered by insurance and can be pricey (about $1,000-$3,000).
Before you get your first colonoscopy, there are few things you can do that may improve your risk-to-benefit ratio. You should ask what your endoscopist’s adenoma detection rate (ADR) is. The ADR is the proportion of individuals undergoing a colonoscopy who have one or more adenomas (or colon polyps) detected. The benchmarks for ADR are greater than 30% in men and greater than 20% in women. You should also ask your endoscopist how many perforations he or she has caused, specifically, as well as any other serious complications, like major intestinal bleeding episodes (in a routine screening setting).”
“Flexible sigmoidoscopy (every 5 years) probably has the best-looking data for any screening test in terms of lowering cancer- and all-cause mortality. Recent RCT data shows a 26% lower CRC mortality in screening with flexible sigmoidoscopy, with a repeat screening at 3 or 5 years (2.9 per 10,000 person-years) compared to usual care (3.9 per 10,000 person-years), and a meta-analysis showed a reduction in all-cause mortality of 3 deaths per 1,000 persons invited to screening after 11.5 years of follow-up, which is the first time a screening method has shown a reduction in the risk for death from any cause compared with no screening in clinical trials.
There are 4 randomized-controlled trials on colonoscopy screening underway, but none of them are completed. Will the data on these trials look even better than flexible sigmoidoscopy? We need to wait for the data to come in, but I don’t think I’m going out on a limb suspecting it will be at least as good or better.”
“Colon cancer is generally in the top three leading causes of death for both men and women.
Bold and controversial opinion from Peter: “Nobody should ever die from colon cancer.” (same for esophageal and stomach)
The reason for that is that the progression from non-cancer to cancer is visible to the naked eye, through the transition of nonmalignant polyp to malignant polyp.”
“Thought experiment: if you did a colonoscopy on somebody every single day of their life, they would never get colon cancer because, at some point, you would see the polyp, you would remove it while it is non-cancerous, and they would not get cancer.
So… how do you turn that thought experiment into a real life idea?
You have to ask the question: what is the shortest interval of time for which a person can have a completely normal colonoscopy until they can have a cancer?
There’s no clear answer to this question — some case reports that it can happen in as little as six to eight months.
Most people would agree that if you had a colonoscopy every one to two years, the likelihood that you could ever develop a colon cancer, while maybe not zero, is so remote that you could effectively take colon cancer off the list of the top 10 reasons why someone dies of cancer
Peter says: “It’s for that reason that I’m very aggressive when it comes to this type of screening, which also includes upper endoscopy…you basically get for free the esophagus and stomach when you look at the entire colon, rectum, anus.”
What are your costs/downsides to more frequent screening?
Financial costs — it’s not cheap
Risk of the sedation — not zero risk but very small
Risk of perforation — also incredibly small risk
Ideal frequency?
“I can’t tell you yet what the ideal frequency, but it’s much more frequently than what’s being done today”
It’s not every 5 to 10 years, it’s probably every one to three years.”
You'd want not just the cost of colon cancer but the difference between having your colon cancer caught on a particular random day before you develop symptoms (but after it becomes detectable by colonoscopy) versus the cost of waiting until you get the first symptoms.
You have a 25% (or so) chance of them finding a polyp, but finding a polyp rarely leads to another procedure. The doc just removes the polyp during the colonoscopy and sends it to the lab. Unless it cames back cancerous there are no further procedures. If you have a bunch of polyps, or just a couple but they are both of the kind most likely to turn into cancer, the doctor will prob. advise you to have your next colonoscopy in less than the standard 5 years -- like in 2or 3.
So I'm not weighing on on whether you should have a colonoscopy, just correcting your idea that if they find a polyp that will lead to a further procedure.
This is pretty useful, as I was associating a cost to the "false positive" outcome that may not be there. Having run the analysis and knowing that the odds of the lab saying there's a real problem are astronomically low, I wouldn't have any related stress, so the main cost is an accelerated follow-up.
Consider getting "Cologuard" instead. They mail you a box, and you poop in the box and send it back. And then, if all goes well, they send you a reassuring note saying you don't have to get a colonoscopy.
"All screening modalities assessed were more cost-effective with increased QALYs than current standard care (no screening until 50). The most favorable intervention by net monetary benefit was flexible sigmoidoscopy ($3284 per person). Flexible sigmoidoscopy, FOBT, and FIT all dominated the current standard of care. Colonoscopy and FIT-DNA were both cost-effective (respectively, $4777 and $11,532 per QALY)."
I'm kind of shocked that FIT wasn't more cost-effective since it's much cheaper and (I think) has similar sensitivities. Maybe because it can't detect pre-cancerous polyps?
I've had about 2.5 colonoscopies, (one was a flex-sig, so I'm counting it as a half). No commentary here on your risks for polyps, money, etc.
The prep is overhyped, I would say that the biggest determiner for how unpleasant it is is how much you like gatorade, since you'll have to drink about 8 cups of it. It's hard to come out positive on gatorade after that much, but imo that's the worst part of it. Otherwise, it's just being near a bathroom plus being hungry since you aren't alowed to eat solids for a little while before your procedure.
Gunflint also said - "The prep isn’t really that bad. The discomfort of procedure itself is a big nothing". Easy for you all to say - my experience was a reaction so severe I called the emergency number in the middle of the night (got no answer). After talking with my PCP he put me on annual occult fecal blood tests instead of colonoscopies. Admit I may be an outlier here, but it does happen.
I hate gatorade so what I do is get pedialyte, which is just water plus electrolytes, heat it up, and mix in enough sugar to make it about as sweet as gatorade. I find weak sugar water much more tolerable.
> I don’t think it’s a fair use of your or Tyler’s time to continue writing about this
Probably, though it's been fun watching your response to him; your latest one I thought was gold (https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sorry-i-still-think-mr-is-wrong-about). But since his latest post you linked has moved into tone policing ("Scott has thrown the biggest fit I have ever seen"), you're probably correct it's not worth it to keep responding.
I bet his parenthetical
> "a single sentence from me that was not clear enough (and I readily admit it was not clear enough in stand alone form)"
is the closest you'll get to what I think you've been after: an admission that his original post was basically way-too-easily interpretable as agreement with Marco Rubio (as in >90% of readers would interpret it this way), i.e., Tyler announced he was going to fact-check Rubio and came away from his fact-checking mission finding nothing to criticize in Rubio's claim that 88% of the USAID budget is "pocketed" by NGOs.
So he did admit he was insufficiently clear, in the same way I might apologize to someone in person by coughing while softly mumbling the word "sorry".
It would be nice if Tyler would come out and say "For the record, Rubio is wrong, 88% of USAID spending is not, in fact, 'pocketed' by NGOs." instead of all this mealy-mouthed "Scott lumps my claim together with Rubio’s as if we were saying the same thing" without actually committing to a position different from Rubio's, explaining the difference between the positions, and then stating unequivocally whether Rubio's "facts", which Tyler "checked", are in fact "made up BS".
Three commenters on the Tyler Cowen’s last reply hold the view that, “the point of [Cowen’s] first post was to slightly mood affiliate with the Trump administration on this issue because he saw their position as ascendant, irrespective of whether it’s right.” I haven’t read enough of Cowen’s writings to judge this, but it would certainly explain why Cowen hasn’t explicitly said that Rubio was wrong.
The movie Mountainhead was pretty interesting. It's a pitiless salvo against Silicon Valley, but I was surprised how up to date with the lingo it was. Never thought I would see the term p(doom) used in a line of dialogue in a movie, and the central conflict ultimately becomes about accelerationist billionaires against a decelerationist billionaire. It was quite something to see characters in a non-scifi movie talking about the Singularity and transhuman mind-uploading hopes.
On a related note, David Chapman says the leaders of frontier AI labs are some combination of crazy/evil/stupid:
"Most heads of leading AI laboratories have repeatedly stated that:
We are building AGI, and expect to have achieved it within a few years.
AGI is quite likely to cause human extinction.
You should give us lots of money and favorable legislation so we can build AGI faster.
It is reasonable to disagree with any of these three claims. You may believe that AGI is impossible, or a long way off; or that it definitely won’t cause human extinction; or that the development effort should be forcibly terminated. However, you can only assert all three claims simultaneously if you are crazy, evil, and/or stupid."
I watched it too. It was fun to hear dialogue that could have been taken out of an ACX thread. They even worked in Kant and ‘sunk cost fallacy’.
I didn’t really care for the fact that they went beyond satire to farce so quickly though. That’s just a matter of my own personal tastes. As always, ymmv.
Yeah, the first half of the movie was like a darker _Silicon Valley_ (the HBO comedy) with dialogue that felt way too on-the-nose. I was really enjoying it.
The second half was like a bad Seth Rogen farce.
The last 10 minutes felt like someone copied the characters into Succession.
Watched it last night. Good film - dark comedy with a lot of the kinds of vibes I get from Scott's occasional "Overheard at a Silicon Valley" posts.
I have a different interpretation of it than you, though. I didn't read it as "the central conflict ultimately becomes about accelerationist billionaires against a decelerationist billionaire," I thought the film came off fewer parts "accelerationism vs decelerationism" and more parts "selfish assholes vs selfish assholes, using whatever language is convenient to justify themselves."
SPOILERS (hopefully mild since all this is revealed early in the film)
The ultimate point of conflict is that AI Bro has an AI solution that could plausibly fix a problem with Social Media Bro's newly-released app, which is causing all kinds of absolute chaos worldwide. Social Media Bro is terrified by the public shaming he's getting, the possibility countries might start blocking his app, the money & status all this is costing him, and maybe just maybe feeling actual remorse at the suffering he's causing.
AI Bro has a lot of pent up resentment at being the "second poorest" of the 4 bros, and is getting rich off the failure of Social Media Bro's app because his proprietary AI is viewed as a silver bullet to fix all its problems. So he knows Social Media Bro (the richest one) can be squeezed and is happy to do the squeezing by refusing to sell.
Telecom Bro is dying of cancer, and has convinced himself that AI Bro's AI plus Social Media Bro's computing power can somehow equals transhumanism and uploaded consciousness on the grid and immortality realized within his now-limited lifespan.
So Telecom Bro and Social Media Bro talk themselves into a frenzy about how AI Bro is a decelerationist stopping the future and standing in the way of infinite QALYs for trillions of immortal future human lives on a post-singularity grid and so on, eventually bringing along the 4th Bro, who is by far the "poorest" since he's never even broken the billion-dollar mark and just wants the rest to think he's cool like them. Hijinx ensue.
But it's pretty transparently really just about Social Media Bro's desire not to let AI Bro get him over a barrel, Telecom Bro's fear of death, and 4th Bro's gaping self-esteem void. A character-driven satire of the flaws of the men at the wheel, so to speak, rather than a polemic about the inherent dangers or evils of the ship itself.
Oh I call BS on that. Everyone thinks AGI will upend society and needs to be handled carefully but no one sane thinks it's likely to extinct us. That's just crazy talk.
Sounds like that movie is just a mindless ideological rant ala Michael Moore.
The three most-cited AI experts in the world are Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, and Ilya Sutskever. All three are very concerned about AI causing human extinction, and all three are spending their time trying to prevent it. Other prominent individuals openly concerned about human extinction from AI risk include Bill Gates, António Guterres, Ursula von der Leyen, Peter Singer, Ray Kurzweil, Cenk Uygur, Vitalik Buterin, Dustin Moskovitz, Sam Harris, Jaan Tallin, practically every leader in the major AI companies, and the majority of the population of the United States (according to polls from both Ipsos and Monmouth, 55% and 61% respectively).
The most prominent technology experts were unanimously concerned about the end of net neutrality and convinced that it would mean the end of freedom on the internet. How'd that turn out?
How AI interacts with the world will be a complex multidimensional cross-disciplinary equilibrium. No narrow technical expertise qualifies anyone to opine on that. I don't care what AI experts have to say about it any more than I think the person who works on a football production line has an informed opinion on the nuances of NFL defensive schemes. Bill Gates doesn't think AI poses a realistic extinction risk. He thinks it's going to upend society (which it will). He signed some committee-written political statement which contained a nod to extinction. That's not an endorsement of extinction risk, that's being involved in a politically-motivated PR stunt. People run their mouths about extinction because it gets headlines. It's the new virtue signal. Elites need something to hand-wring about and they're tired of systemic racism.
It's "crazy talk" in that most high-status people in the world aren't saying it, but I don't think you need to be overly paranoid to imagine ways that building something immensely smarter than humans with its own goals could be dangerous.
Agreed but in my view that's where the debate should stop. Everyone knows we're dealing with powerful world-changing technology. Don't do something egregiously stupid with it. That's all that needs to be said. Anything beyond that is like what working out internet security would have been like in 1890. It's nothing but baseless speculation and status seeking. It creates nothing productive and raises the noise floor for public discourse.
Besides the genie is out of the bottle already. Research is decentralized and international. AI will be what it will be. All the Cassandras in the world aren't going to alter what's about to happen so shut up with the histrionics and get to work on concrete open problems like legibility.
My intuition is that if we can get to AGI, there's not an obvious reason why doing more of the same won't get us to ASI. Maybe the universe will work out in such a way that we can't get much smarter than a human without new techniques or better training data than we have or something, but I don't know any principled reason why that should be true. Certainly it isn't true in narrow domains like chess.
> no one sane thinks it's likely to extinct us. That's just crazy talk
Do you think Scott is sane? Maybe, give you are reading this blog. In AI 2027, which he co-wrote and strongly endorses, he proposes the view that it is not only possible but likely (as in, over 10% chance)
Also, I would point out that 2 of the TOP 3 most cited AI researchears (Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton) both agree that AGI has over 10% chance of killing everyone. All major AI frontier company CEOs (Anthropic, OpenAI, DeepMind) have put forward this view.
Whether or not these people are correct that AGI really is a real threat is subject to another discussion.
But you are flat out *wrong* that this is a belief exclusive to "crazies".
Not about AGI or EA I don't. I suspect he's responding more to the political dynamics of his personal social circle and the blogosphere than to good, first-principles reasoning. I've read his writing on both of these topics and find his thinking naive on both counts. (Though of course I like his writing on other topics.)
>All major AI frontier company CEOs (Anthropic, OpenAI, DeepMind) have put forward this view.
I would wonder what level of belief falsification is going on there, but ok. On some level CEOs are politicians and therefore have to appeal to the median view of the AI community if they want to attract talent. Hand-wringing about extinction is the virtue signaling of machine learning. To the extent that top people in the field really *do* believe this nonsense, I suspect it's downstream of some small-community semi-autistic echo chamber dynamic. CS PhD's have a narrow technical expertise and probably don't get away from their keyboards very much. Sorry but being an expert in gradient descent doesn't really qualify anyone to opine on complex geopolitical social/economic/military equilibriums, which is what AGI-induced extinction would actually involve. Plus I think there's probably more than a little adolescent hubris in the mix ("MY field is the most important because it could destroy all of us! Pay attention to me!"). Yud screamed about bombing datacenters the first time he played with ChatGPT ffs.
The only thing anyone should be worrying about right now is the tsunami of short-term economic dislocation that this is going to cause.
Doesn't matter if it's true in this case, what matters is what the AI leaders are saying.
If I'm in charge of the Manhattan Project, and I believe that setting off a nuclear bomb will ignite the atmosphere and kill everyone, and I'm continuing the development work without spending a bunch of effort to figure out if the ignite-the-atmosphere theory is true, then I am crazy/evil/stupid, even though it turns out that atomic bombs do not ignite the atmosphere.
On the other hand, in the face of uncertainty about whether the bomb will ignite the atmosphere, and knowing that the enemy is probably going to drop a bomb if you don't, then you press ahead with the project anyway.
If the bomb ignites the atmosphere then it doesn't matter much whether we drop it or the Germans do, and if it doesn't then it matters a great deal, so we might as well do it first and hope for the best.
This, I think, is a pretty reasonable description of the dynamics for both the bomb and AI. The people working on it think it probably won't destroy the world but if it does then the world might as well be paperclips instead of chopsticks.
like a lot of SF writers thought we'd be able to explore the universe if we could explore the moon, but when we did it turned out we hit very hard limits in doing that, to the point most exploration is done by unmanned craft. Venus is right out lol, i'm not sure what is being done with Mercury. SF has actually declined in part because the future is much more closed than we thought.
not every thing is unlimited progress. my own thought is that agi stalls and ai just acts to shed some knowledge work
Yeah, that's quite possible. I don't think the term AGI makes a lot of sense, really. What we call general intelligence -- there is no direct test for it. We ended up with the term General Intelligence because most tests of cognitive abilities are correlated. There seems to be some factor that contributes to all of them, and we call that General Intellgence. But AI's profile of cognitive abilities is very different from a human one. Its ability to remember strings of numbers or masses of words has been immensely greater than ours from day one. On the other hand, GPT still is unable to make various images that I can describe very clearly. It's ability to turn descriptions of the size and spacial orientation of 3 objects into an accurate sketch its worse than a child's. So what does it even mean to say its general intelligence is now equivalent to that of the average for a member of our species ?
And then there's your point that lots of what we imagined in SciFi is still far beyond what we can do -- how do we know superintelligent AI isn't one of those things? The thing that most inclines me to think it really might be possible is that I have been wrong many times about what near-future AI would be able to do, and could make a good case for how it just was not set up in a way that would make that sort of thing possible. And every time I have been wrong, I have been wrong in the direction of underestimating what is possible.
This isn't to say you're wrong, but for context, the author of this Substack and (if I'm interpreting the question correctly) a majority of those who filled out the reader survey last year think it's reasonably likely that AI will cause human extinction. So you should either believe that most of this blog's readership is insane (which is possible) or that some sane people have this belief.
Yes and I think they are extremely nutty in that regard. The people in this community are nutty about a number of things IMO though I like them on net anyway. The people who run AI companies are much more capable and intelligent and therefore I’m incredulous that they uniformly think it’s “likely” that AGI will cause human extinction
My position isn't exactly that AGI doesn't pose a risk, it's more that worrying about it now is nonsensical. It's worrying about problems that we can't even begin to even really define yet. The things that we think matter might not even make sense by the time it's a practical issue, e.g. "steam pressure of the internet". Therefore in my view everyone who opines about this is doing so not out of existential concern but out of a desire to gain social status within a nascent ideological field. Whoever can screech the loudest and hand-wring the most gets the most attention. I suspect they intuit that when people really start losing their jobs that there will be a giant anti-AI backlash and they want to be well-poised to insert themselves into the middle of the political turmoil as an expert or pundit or nexus of political influence.
If there's one constant in history it's that near-term predictions of doom are near-universally wrong. Remember the end of Net Neutrality? Y2K? The video game panic? In the 1890's there was a horse manure panic and people worried that the rise of horse-drawn carriages would condemn cities to becoming buried in the stuff. History is replete with examples of well-educated, well-intentioned thinkers who extrapolated linearly from early conditions and ended up catastrophically wrong. The defining feature of these failed predictions is not their foolishness, but their false sense of certainty. In complex systems undergoing rapid change, the only true constant is epistemic instability. People should understand their fundamental ignorance here and just put a sock in it. They're not doing anything but raising the noise floor. They should have more epistemic humility and understand that simplistic narratives about complex equilibriums are always wrong.
When I asked about Zvi, I was actually more curious about what you thought of him overall. He’s quite different from Scott, though he does lean the same way Scott does regarding the chance ASI will do us in.
I myself am not deeply convinced that that will happen. I slide around between endpoints of *doesn’t seem absurd* to *probably it will.*. I don’t think my participation in that point of view is mostly group identification. I seem to deficient in the wiring it takes to form strong group identifications. There are a whole bunch of things that most people have opinions about and bond over, for which I just don’t have an opinion: most feminist stuff, general political leanings, most specific politicized issues. I have only voted once in my life. I rarely post on culture war threads on ACX, and when I do my point is usually about how somebody’s mind is working — how they seem so quick to anger when somebody is pro-X that they can’t hear anything else the person says.
Actually, it seems to me that you have slid into an anti-expecting-AI-will-off-us stance more out of group disidentification than by reading and reasoning. You seem to be doing it more out of contrarianism than as a result of having thought the whole thing through. You don’t seem as well-informed about the issue as you do about most things. For instance, you keep talking about AGI doing us in, and actually the predominant view is that ASI will do us in. (So the view is that AGI, plus a few nudges and improvements, is likely to be come self-improving, and then it will rapidly become ASI, superintelligent AI, far smarter than even the smartest members of our species.). I read your Reddit screed, and see that you understand that is the story people are telling, but it is still a little jarring that you continue to write about AGI doing us in, because your terminology is just out of line with the convention for talking about AI with different levels of skill.
And then there are some things I’m pretty sure you just have wrong. In your screed you throw out some ideas about simple ways to keep ASI from going rogue some way. They’re not bad ideas. I’ve thought of some of them myself. I do not know why some of them cannot be counted on to work, but I am confident that the people who are working on AI alignment have thought of them and tried versions of them and have pretty convincing reasons why they will not. These people may have personal or sociological motivations for believing ASI will kill off our species, but they are also quite smart and conscientious. It is just not possible that they have not thought of or have refused to consider ideas like having one or more AI’s of a different lineage check on the honesty and accuracy of the AI we are concerned about. As for having ASI tell us how to monitor its thought process, I can see a couple problems with that. The first is that ASI will foresee how being transparent will interfere with its following a course it has identified as optimal, and will give us techniques that appear to show us all of its thoughts and goals, but actually do not. The second is that if ASI is far smarter than us, we might not be able to understand its goals and plans and choice points even if they were all laid out for us to see. I could go on about my reasons for not being on board with your various other ideas about how we can protect ourselves from ASI, but don’t have time. Also, my goal isn’t to debate you, but to try to interest you in looking into the issue more deeply. There is lots of research into things relating to seeing into the processes in AI and into evaluating its tendency to be dishonest in the service of goals of its own. I have not read a lot of it because it is technical and tedious, but the moderate amount I have read has definitely moved me in the direction of pessimism.
I get that it is very very hard to see over the horizon and predict correctly how some big trend is going to play out. The other reason I don’t just shrug off the prediction that AI will do us in is that I have been wrong over and over in the last few years about what AI would be capable of, and I have always been wrong in the direction of underestimating AI.
Yeah and I think he’s nutty to do so. He’s nutty about a lot of things but I like his writing anyway. Rationalists also think that sending money to sub Saharan Africa makes the world better. Their endorsement does not a persuasive argument make, at least not in my view.
Depends on your values, of course, but I think most people tolerate (and many even endorse) lies and deception when it's part of activism/politicking in favor of a cause they support.
Let’s say you’re an evil person and you decide you want to go into U.S. politics to amass as political power and influence as possible. You’re a standard-issue villain: not particularly clever or rich or well-connected, but you *are* absolutely unscrupulous and willing to backstab, betray, or hurt any number of people to get what you want. Your main priority is personal enrichment, but you admit you also enjoy seeing others suffer, as it adds a certain frisson to your own fortune.
You’ve decided your approach will be to work your way through one of the two main U.S. political parties. You don’t care about actual policy at all; you just want to amass as much personal power as quickly and easily as possible.
Two things make it easier to get rich in politics: lots of government spending, and rapid growth in the budget. Sign up with whichever party you think is likely to maintain those desiderata.
If asked this question in 2015, or 2005, or 1995, my internal debate would have been between "the state-level Democratic Party of New Jersey or Nevada or Illinois", or "create your own party because that's how you can make this really milkable at scale for your own pockets".
In more recent years I've observed firsthand that Illinois is significantly less corrupt than when we were sending 3 out of every 4 governors to prison; and actually Nevada has cleaned up its act a fair amount as well. It doesn't appear that any other blue state now is really a peer of New Jersey for political corruption (using corruption to mean specifically "individual self-enrichment"). Meanwhile Texas's and Florida's state Republican parties have arguably "risen" to new heights in this regard; those states are bigger and richer than any of those others, so there's one possible best answer. But it still seems obvious that the _serious_ personal enrichment is a national-scale game.
I'd previously never have imagined the national GOP as an answer simply because that party organization always seemed to be a good deal tougher and more tightly organized than the Dems. Their leadership always included lots of people with hard-nosed business experience, they were famous for ruthlessness behind the scenes, they'd long demonstrated more internal cohesion and discipline than the Dems (as the joke went "I don't belong to an organized political party, I'm a Democrat"), etc.
That is why, out of all the things this past decade that we'd never seen before in US politics, the single most surprising for me remains Trump starting from political zero and bulldozing to the 2016 GOP nomination. We forget now that that _entire_ party establishment, well into the primaries, was sure that he had to stopped. And that they _massively_ outspent him during that primary campaign, and all the rest of it. And he just rolled right over them and by April and May had them bending the knee.
For my money his then winning the electoral college in November was nowhere near as surprising an outcome.
In hindsight what Trump did was apply the "create your own party because that's how you can make this really milkable at scale for your own pockets" methodology, to an existing national party! The GOP is now, simply, him; we have no comparable US historical examples of a national party becoming as thoroughly subordinate to a single individual. (Saying either "FDR" or "the Bush family" at this point just demonstrates non-seriousness, and in George Washington's day there weren't yet parties in anything like the sense that we're talking about today.) And he's bluntly milking it at scale right now.
I used to say that Trump's secret superpower in 2015 was sensing how widely/deeply modern progressives' childishness and hypocrisy was turning Americans off. That's still accurate, but there was a second one: realizing that the Republican Party as a national organization was a paper tiger that could be hijacked easily and thoroughly.
Today, just as there are liberals who will never stop feeling angry and sad about the first one, I know some lifelong conservatives who will never get over the second one. Indeed I have older family members fitting each of those descriptions who literally cannot focus anymore on anything else, swimming in outrage and sense of loss to the point of creating worry over their mental/emotional stability.
So I guess my answer now to the posed question is....you're too late. Somebody figured out the current best answer and went for it, and the other national party is now too broken inside to be worth the effort.
Republicans. There are fewer smart, competent, young people who are trying to join the Republican Party (according both to young Republican-ish people I know and also basically any other writing on this). There might have been a slight uptick in Republican sympathies among recent workforce entrants but I'm pretty sure this still holds. So it's a lot easier to get to a position of power just because there's less competition.
Stay resolutely nonpartisan and join the civil service. There, rising to the top is based on office politics, at which evil people excel. You can make a good salary, and there are plenty of opportunities for corruption. You can also do a great deal of evil without drawing attention to yourself: if you're in the FDA, deny good drugs and set up exemptions for things like homeopathy. If you're in infrastructure, send every good project back for "more study and review" while spending lots of budget on badly-designed highways.
They're both full to the brim with absolutely unscrupulous types. If you're not particularly clever or rich you have no advantage and are stuck at the local level.
If you are unscrupulous and experienced, you have two advantages over naive beginners. And there will always be naive beginners.
Since you are unscrupulous and they are naive, you can take advantage of them. And you can climb some distance up the pile of newbie bodies you are willing to leave behind you. That won't get you to the top, but it might get you a good view.
You've added 'experienced' to the list. Regardless, It will get you up the ladder of the local level. At that point all the newbies are washed out, and you have no advantage.
I feel like this is supposed to be my opportunity to say "other party bad, grrr".
I don't think that politics is a particularly easy way to make money as a villain, you'd be better off sticking to something boring like scamming or drug dealing. If you do get into an important position then there's definitely money to be made, but the competition for important positions is fierce.
Local government is probably your best bet; you're out of the spotlight and the competition isn't all that fierce but if you get yourself into an important position you can really enrich yourself through kickbacks and bribes. You want a city big enough to have a significant organised crime presence that you can make friends with, and in the US all cities like that are one-party states run by Democrats, so I guess I'd go Democrat.
> You’re a standard-issue villain: not particularly clever or rich
That is fake news. In fact, you are a self-described "stable genius".
> Which party do you go for?
The problem with building a power base using the party of wokeness is that the wokes, like revolutions, have a tendency to devour their own. See [1]. Even if your would-be grifter is a black woman, unless they are also LGBT*, handicapped and whatever category the SJWs will focus on next, they will be thrown under the bus for the tiniest infraction. Giving them policy wins will not help you at all, because at the end of the day, SJ is not about policy wins, but about signaling.
For contrast, consider the MAGA party. No evangelical who voted for Trump was under any illusion that he was a good Christian. Likely he has personally fathered plenty of abortions, but they correctly recognized that electing him would cause the SCOTUS power balance to shift to overturn Roe, and that mattered more to them than him being non-terrible in his personal life or accepting election outcomes. And as long as half of the Trump news are about him being maximally bad to immigrants (no matter if previously legal or not), his supporters will not care if the other half of the news is him selling US interests for personal gain. Few people on the motte were willing to argue that he is not corrupt, at most they were claiming that the democrats were just as corrupt (but less obvious about it).
This is related to the observation that the right has cults of personality while the (contemporary) left has a cult of ideology.
Personally (as someone not wanting to get rich from grifting), I think that the truth is somewhere in the middle. The ultra-cynical "he is a SOB, but he is our SOB" is bad, but the attitude to turn on your allies for smallish infractions is also bad.
I think probably the party local to your state. In my experience (biased coming from Illinois and New York) a lot of the corruption is local/state level. If you lived in a low corruption state, just more to a high corruption state (see: Illinois) and go there. I think that purely because Illinois wins the corruption award for the US in my eyes, I would say go Democrat, go Chicago.
People are talking about Trump with corruption, but let's note that Trump is not your "average villain." He came from a background with a huge amount of connections and wealth, and that's what let him run a presidential campaign (regardless on your views of him).
I think that at a federal level there might be a different answer, but why bother when you can just squeeze Chicago for riches?
Republican. Democrats are certainly no stranger to corruption, but the party is a coalition of a lot of pre-existing interest groups. Unless you can become the head of one of those unions (which would require a different starting point) then your influence-building campaign is going to involve either getting into bed with one of them and becoming their shameless spokesman (this is plenty possible, but your power is ultimately limited by the influence of the interest group), or else being really good at negotiating between them and getting your own pound of flesh along the way (since you're not especially talented, probably not possible).
Republicans, on the other hand, aren't as structurally tethered to existing, stable interest groups, so the party can change much more quickly around rising party leadership, which itself depends mainly on getting people to vote for you and promote you. As everyone else has already mentioned, this is what Trump did, playing directly to the voters and then remaking the party in his image. As we can see with the likes of Kash Patel, it's possible to gather a great deal of official influence and power just by being as loud and shameless a Trump toady as humanly possible, absent actual talents.
But if you're going to do this, you'd need to do it fast. The power gained via these kinds of appointments is fragile and will probably end with you getting replaced the moment a new administration comes into power, or even before then if you get outmaneuvered by others and you're fired. So you'd need to act fast and get into a position where your official influence can be transformed into wealth or some more durable form of unofficial influence.
As with everyone else, I'm confused why you're asking this question after Trump already figured out the correct answer. I don't think it's possible to do much better than him, given that he accomplished all of this in just a decade after entering politics.
You pick another field. The president of the St. Louis board of aldermen went down a few years ago in a bribery scandal. Reed was a long-time alder and there was talk of him possibly moving up to mayor. Which is to say, he was a relatively successful mid-level guy. The striking thing about the scandal was how little money was involved. He wrecked his career for an 18k payout.
To get enough power to actually see some ROI, you're going to have get at least into the US House, where you can maybe start picking up bribes in excess of 100,000. But there are really not that many of those spots, and there are surely better ways to make dirty money.
Is this not fairly close to a description of Trump's trajectory?
But yeah it seems targeting a party that is more in disarray would be a good step, though if too many party members/supporters are generally scrupulous, you'll run into a lot more friction than Trump did with the Republicans.
My pathogen update for epidemiological weeks 21-22.
1. As of epidemiological week 21 (which ended 24 May), Biobot shows that SARS2 wastewater concentrations were still falling in all regions across the US. No sign of the next wave yet. The provisional count of weekly deaths are down to 82 (per week), which is almost what they were at the 2nd week of March 2020 (60 deaths that week). ED visits are hitting a new low. And, of course, hospitalizations are also down.
Experts are worried that "Nimbus" (NB.1.8.1) is going to drive the next wave. Certainly, it's driving big waves in Asia right now. The data from China is a little iffy, but Hong Kong's wave may have peaked a couple of weeks ago. It caused an increase in hospitalizations and deaths in Hong Kong and was 100% driven by NB.1.8.1.
Nimbus is growing in frequency in the US (22% of samples now), but so far it hasn't driven up wastewater numbers—or cases, hospitalizations, or deaths. </edited> NB.1.8.1 was first detected on 22 January. The first recorded cases were in Egypt, Thailand, and the Maldives. And despite media claims that it was imported from China, it appears that the virus was first detected in the US back on February 26 in wastewater in the Sacramento area, and it has been circulating in the US since then. There's no evidence that NB.1.8.1 arrived from China. </>
</edited> Even though NB.1.8.1 is displacing the current dominant variant LP.8.1x—and according to CoV-Spectrum it's at ~22% frequency (but within a wide CI of 1.5% to 84.5%), it's not driving a new wave of cases (so far). CA has the most confirmed cases for Nimbus at 62. New York State comes in second at 13. California's most populous regions aren't showing a noticeable upward trend in SARS2 wastewater concentrations. Since it's been circulating in California since February, and we're not seeing upward trend in wastewater numbers or cases, I'll go out on a limb here and say I doubt that NB.1.8.1 will drive the next wave in the US. Also, at least in the case of Hong Kong, it hadn't experienced a wave in over half a year in the months leading up to their Nimbus wave. So, their population immunity may have waned compared to the US, where we have just recovered from an XEC wave. </>
</edited> Australia may be seeing the start of a new wave centered in New South Wales, but Sydney's wastewater numbers are still low. Unfortunately, Australia hasn't embraced wastewater monitoring. Sydney is the only city that I am aware of that has implemented it. OTOH, New Zealand's poop.nz site shows a distinct upward trend SARS2 wastewater concentrations. They've got a new wave underway. Although some areas in Europe seem to show upticks in wastewater and cases, I think it's too early to call a new wave in Europe. For instance, two weeks ago, some of the LA and NYC sewersheds showed an upward trend in wastewater numbers, but those have dropped again.
2. Although the general consensus seems to be that the US measles outbreak is slowing, I think it's too soon to be sure. It takes 7-14 days for symptoms to appear, but only 4 days for it to become contagious. So there could be a bunch of undetected cases out there spreading it further. Colorado has 3 new cases. Texas has 9 new cases. 1088 US cases so far this year.
Unfortunately, Canada is doing much worse in terms of total measles cases and cases per capita. They're up to 2755 cases! No deaths, so far, though. The same B3 strain appears to be spreading in Canada as in the US, but there have been significantly more cases and fewer deaths. Poorer prevention, but better treatment? I'd still be curious if there are any mutations in the Canadian B3 strain (which originally arrived from the Philippines) that could have made it less deadly. The US B3 outbreak seems to be homegrown, and we infected Mexico. Measles has a CFR of between 0.1-0.2% in the developed world, so he odds suggest there should have been between 2-4 deaths in Canada by now.
Nimbus is a nickname, not a WHO-endorsed name like Alpha, Delta, Omicron, etc. The nicknamers finally ran out of monster names (e.g. Kraken). I *think* they nicknamed it Nimbus because its Pango designation starts with an NB (NimBus), and it's catchy. And a catchy nickname allows the COVID-worriers to spread their message easier—"Nimbus is coming to America!" If it doesn't cause a wave in the US, I'm going to call it NIMBY. ;-)
I recently got into Terry Real's book I Don't Want To Talk About It after listening to his conversation with Tim Ferriss. The book has apparently a pretty serious following and the reviews are stellar, and it seems like Tim is a fan as well. I read the book and the main thesis mostly makes sense, there are often underlying unresolved traumas behind a covert depression, traumas that a man often has to resolve before he's able to live up to his full emotional potential.
However both in the interview and in the book the author keeps talking about the Patriarchy and how its constantly influence over men leads to toxic masculinity which ultimately leads to depression. Among other issues, if only a man is able to let go of judging himself based on his performance, but instead discovers his inner value, and realizes that's enough, he will achieve happiness. And somehow the rest of the world will recognize his value and things will be great. And if the world doesn't recognize the man's inherent worth, well, that means that part of the world is under the Patriarchy, not yet enlightened, and can be safely ignored. I'm obviously paraphrasing facetiously here, but also not totally either.
I'm puzzled about where people were able to find the profundity in the text. I'm curious if others here have had a similar reaction to his "teachings" or if I'm missing something key here to grokking the philosophy and the approach, and I should give it another chance. Anybody here who's gotten a ton of value out of his work?
I can only answer to your "facetiously paraphrasing", because I haven't read the book, and do so because I recognize something there.
There once was a post of Scott about how you can say to a man who professionally designs safety systems for cars who believes he is worthless, that he is not, on grounds that he does this work, but you cannot say the same to a completely dependent disabled man that works absolutely nothing for anyone on grounds like that, because there are no such grounds.
Is such a man worthless? As long as he is not worthless to himself, as long as he himself values his life, he of course isn't, no matter whether he is worthless for everyone else or not.
And I think this is the small but important true core in writing like that of Terry Real (as you conveyed it to me).
If you forget that everything in the universe is first and foremost of value or of no value to yourself and that whether it is of value to someone else is naturally, inherently (by virtue of you being an organism that first has to look after itself or it won't even be able to notice what anyone values because it will be dead soon) forever only a secondary concern, then you are in big trouble.
Many assholes are assholes because they fight the world trying to make it make themselves feel that they have value because they can't feel it on their own anymore, just like many cowardly losers can't and suck everything up and please people.
About that patriarchy topic, I don't care. I see the truth I just described as necessary to understand for a happy life, not as a justification for demanding anything from others for free.
It sounds like a self-help book. And the standards for being a successful self-help book are not particularly high. You don't have to say anything profound or interesting, you just have to say one thing that some people find useful to hear.
You've only paraphrased the message but it sounds like a paraphrase of a potentially useful message. To further paraphase, the message "You should stop focusing so much on external manifestations of success and focus instead on developing inner virtues" sounds like a pretty good one that many people need to hear sometimes.
The only interesting thing about it is that the author has labelled the nebulous thing that wants you to focus on external success as "the Patriarchy", which is surely a good move if you want to get positive reviews in the New York Times. But you could call it anything. You could rewrite the same book but call it something else and appeal to a different audience -- you could call it "capitalism" and make it a left-wing book. You could call it "socialism" and make it a right-wing book. You could call it "the system of bug-eyed lesbian commisars which values you only as a taxpayer" and make it a Bronze Age Pervert book. Or you could just call it "women".
It is all of these things and none of these things, so it doesn't particularly matter what you call it, it's really just a tendency within yourself, which you externalise as something you dislike in order to overcome.
Anything that tries to make men feel better but can't help bleating about "the patriarchy" should probably be ignored out of hand, if not labeled enemy action.
"Patriarchs, stop hurting yourself!" is the advice in a nutshell.
Which might be a good advice *if* you happen to be a patriarch (unlikely in the 21st century, but you never know) and if the person who hurts you is actually you.
I should't be surprised that there's really a sort of guy whose problem is "I'm TOO invested in self-improvement to the point of obsessive negative self-evaluation and I should just stop at some point and accept what I achieved", but I would think the more common failure case is not ENOUGH interest in genuine self improvement, or not being able to muster the motivation for self improvement in the first place. Unless I'm totally misinterpreting the thesis here.
> And they taught (again, according to this one person) that the solution was to treat everything that happens in your life as your responsibility – no excuses, just “it was my fault” or “it’s to my credit”.
> Then a few days later, I was reading a book on therapy which contained the phrase (I copied it down to make sure I got it right) “Don’t be so hard on yourself. No one else is as hard on yourself as you are. You are your own worst critic.”
> Notice that this encodes the exact opposite assumption. Landmark claims its members are biased against ever thinking ill of themselves, even when they deserve it. The therapy book claims that patients are biased towards always thinking ill of themselves, even when they don’t deserve it.
> And you know, both claims are probably spot on. There are definitely people who are too hard on themselves. [...]
My heretical opinion, although perhaps not here, is that the rise of a more feminised society is probably the lead reason for depression in men. If male depression is increasing and the policies we are following are causing the problem, then it’s more likely that what was done in the past was better, at least for men. It’s the lack of patriarchy
Gee, you think? The patriarchy is the elite-society-consensus cause of all the ills in the world. Over the past 30 years men have been systematically de-statused while still being held up as the evil power that must be rebelled against. All of the responsibility, none of the power. How the hell else are they supposed to respond?
I wouldn't credit that idea to him, it's pretty much a general self-help thing. But I think it is true that if you truly, deeply, believe in your bones that you are high value, you will behave differently and the world will treat you different, and you will find it easier to change your material circumstances, to the extent that they need to be changed.
An interesting paper on differences between the way people use language vs. the way AI utilizes language. "From Tokens to Thoughts: How LLMs and Humans Trade Compression for Meaning" by Chen Sani, et al.
My only problem with this paper is that the authors don't seem to realize that a lot of us humans don't think with language. At least I don't. I only form sentences in my mind when I'm expressing my reasoning to others. I do seem to think in symbolic images, though (not sure how to describe that so people who don't think this way understand what I'm experiencing).
This is off topic but you seem introspective enough to be able to answer: do you still have a frenemy ego? This is the inner voice that tells a person why they should be angry, that they aren't good enough, etc. 99% of people have this, usually acting like the kind of friend that's not gonna be your friend for very long. Do you have something analogous that doesn't manifest as words?
Why are you so surprised to be in the 1%? We are all in the 1% of various categories. I can't find the exact citation, but gist of this phenomenon and escaping it is here:
The number is an estimate from the people he interviewed--some of whom are like you and don't really get it when they are told everybody has a negatively valenced inner narrative voice. If you want to read more, I suggest picking different types of resources since there is a lot of redundancy between the interviews. Apply as much skepticism as you like, since they are selling a course. That said, if you knew of techniques to remove a portion of people's innate negativity, of course you would try to push it!
Yes. My consciousness has an inner voice that regularly comments on my observations and discoveries. I’ve been thinking about when I use words to think. For instance, the other day I figured out how to do something on my iPhone, that I was unaware of. I didn’t use words to work through the feature. But after I discovered it I said to myself “isn’t that cool!“
And I find myself rehearsing what I’ll say to people or would want to say to people in awkward situations.
Also, I realized I can’t do math without speaking the numbers in my brain. Say, if I had to multiply 14 by 8, in my thoughts, I’d say, “ten times eight equals eighty. Four times eight equals thirty-two. Eighty plus thirty-two equals one hundred and twelve.” But when I use a calculator I type in the numbers and functions without verbalizing them internally. And I don’t say the result in my thoughts unless I’m transferring it to paper.
And when I swim, I have to count my laps. I don’t know how many I’ve done without internally, verbalizing the count.m. On the other hand, a drummer friend of mine tells me he can deal with complex polyrhythms without counting them out. And he’s likely to stumble if he counts because it ruins the intuitive flow of his rhythms.
OTOH, the voice in my head that offers commentary is pretty comfortable with the rest of my consciousness. It mostly behaves as a friendly voice, and not a critical voice. I recently was in a multi call encounter with a bureaucratic entity that was frustrating me. My internal voice said, “this too shall pass,” and I involuntarily giggled because my internal voice offers up such mundane commentary. But I didn’t verbalize why I was laughing.
Thanks for sharing! I remember when I didn't need to think in words. I accidentally slipped into it because I realized that was normal, and I didn't realize I wouldn't be able to get out again. My inner voice is pretty mild as well, but that's due to some meditation and mental conditioning I did a few years ago.
I can keep your remarks in mind as pointing at the purpose of the inner voice. Though I wish I knew what it was outside the realm of conscious experience. Since conscious experience is the leading candidate for something that exists but can't be proven, I'd settle for knowing something about the biological correlates of inner voice.
How can individuals best protect themselves from the economic impact of coming AI? A lot of the discussion focuses on what companies or governments should do, but I would like to take whatever steps I can for my own welfare.
The best I can come up with is to invest heavily in AI-related stocks. It seems like there’s an opportunity akin to investing in Apple between the iPhones 1 and 2. If dollars still matter in a post-singularity world then maybe amassing them will protect me from potential economic turmoil.
1. Is anyone here doing this, and if so, what exactly are you investing in? I would probably lean more toward AI-related ETFs rather than individual stocks to diversify the risk.
I grabbed 25% my liquidity and dumped it on the stock market. Considered dumping 50%, but I do think we could get hit with another AI winter, so I halved it. Of the money I used, half went into an S&P 500 index fund, the other into a Vanguard tech index fund. In the case of transformative AI, both of these things are going to the moon, and it's less risk than betting on AI directly (successful AI companies will pop up in both of these anyway).
That said, I'm not some expert investor at all, but I think the reasoning here makes sense.
How structured and clear vs. chaotic and hopeless (or any mixture of them) do others on this blog view the world/finding their way in life (or some other way of describing it along the same lines)?
Why that split? There is such a thing as structured and hopeless, and chaotic and clear. The world seems chaotic to me, but since it's far outside my control, I hardly think about it. My own life is really a combination of chaotic and hopeful (I'm in a pretty experimental phase).
That's a good point. Really I just want to know the outlooks people have on the world and their own lives, and that was the first way of wording it that came to mind. Thanks for pointing that out.
For you, how do you find hope amidst the chaos? How and how often do you feel at peace, if at all?
Well, this reveals my privilege, but the chaos of the world does not affect me. Nothing Trump does actually impacts me (so far), and I live in Puerto Rico, which has always been somewhat chaotic, so I'm used to it.
In my life, the main source of chaos and uncertainty is dating. I feel like I haven't found a way to do it well, which for me would mean setting up my life in such a way that I meet new women organically with much more frequency. Currently looking into starting two different clubs, maybe getting into tango. Also doing an exercise of handing out chocolates to strangers to get over my approach anxiety (highly recommended, it's very whimsical). It's chaos because I'm experimenting with a new structure for my life.
A lot of the time, I feel more energetic than at peace, willing to throw myself into things. Things that give me peace are meditating at the beach (it's great to meditate in natural spaces), and watching anime, TV series, and movies.
And I have hope because I'm working on addressing my problems.
Now I'm curious. Assuming you're more or less satisfied with your life aside from the dating side of it, what is your reason to pursue a relationship? Obviously it's just natural for basically anyone to want to be in a relationship with someone else, so in other words what I mean is: What is your end goal in having a relationship (to have a close, liflelong friend, sex, to grow a family, etc.), and once you reach that, do you feel like your life will be mostly complete?
I want to have a family. And also, largely due to being very neurotic and socially anxious due to bullying and possibly being neurodivergent, I've never been in a relationship or had sex, and I'm now 36. So, yeah, I want to have this experience, it's a very basic desire.
I do feel that if I fall in love the material side of my life will have been sorted out. What is left is continuing along the spiritual path, which is a lifelong thing. I also have a desire to sort out Puerto Rico's issues, but that is more of a pipe dream.
Good luck in your seeking a good relationship and I wouldn’t throw in the towel on sorting some of Puerto Rico’s issues too quickly. In my experience the most difficult problem are the most interesting and rewarding to work with.
If it's any encouragement, I have a freind who got married I believe when he was 37, and now he and his wife have five kids and are a great family. They're Christians, however, and God prepared them pretty well for each other before they met and got married. But I hope you do find someone and have a happy and fulfilling relationship and family!
I don't personally know anything about Puerto Rico or its issues. I don't pay that much attention to world events or even US events where I live 😅
I know I'm basically interrogating you about your whole life at this point, but nobody else commented and I'm interested. Where has your spiritual path led you, and what kind of beliefs do you hold?
My first post there is a list of my most frequently shared pieces of life advice. In over ten years of writing, this is my favourite post I've ever written, and so far, the feedback has been exceptionally great. I genuinely think that readers of ACX will find this post to be an 8/10 or higher, so I feel no shame in promoting it to those here.
My second post is perhaps even more relevant to our community. Given how relatively bland and mundane Substack can feel, I felt a pang of sadness leaving my personal site and worried I was contributing to a more dull internet. So, in light of this, I reflected on what makes a good personal website and how one can be a better contributor to our niche infovore blogosphere ecosystem.
Surprisingly good. That's the sort of "lessons from rationalist sphere reworded for normie accessibility" writing that I wish the community wasn't so sour on. Like #2 is basically Zvi's More Dakka (which, to be clear, is an excellent post), but minus the old obscure nerdy reference that carries a lot of the emotive weight. Whereas everyone can easily conceive of trying to start a fire with progressively better results.
After years, I have finally found the answer (for me): it's reactive hypoglycemia waking you up. It happens if you eat too much sugar before sleep. The feeling of being refreshed and alert is adrenaline. The way to prevent it is not to eat sugar for a couple hours before sleep. If you struggle with this, it might be that.
Ideally you don’t eat anything 2-6 hours before sleep, let alone sugar. You really don’t want your body processing energy while you’re asleep, since the nutrients absorbed by the small intestine end up in your blood, which directly affects heart rate, metabolism and brain activity.
It also makes waking up a lot easier if you wake up hungry. One very fundamental motivator the brain has is “Don’t starve to death” so in the morning, your brain will be in “Get food” mode rather than the “You’re full of calories. Sleep longer to conserve energy” mode.
Yeh a realised that years ago. I don’t eat sweets (candy) anymore but even as a teenager a late night chocolate bar would doom me to alertness until the am
I found the following argument to be persuasive...
> But in all cases there is an artform, a certain agreed-on framework through which the audience experiences the artwork: sitting down in a movie theater for two hours, picking up a book and reading the words on the page, going to a museum to gaze at paintings, listening to music on earbuds. In the course of having that experience, the audience is exposed to a lot of microdecisions that were made by the artist. An artform such as a book, an opera, a building, or a painting is a schema whereby those microdecisions can be made available to be experienced. In nerd lingo, it’s almost like a compression algorithm for packing microdecisions as densely as possible.
But I found his conclusion to less so...
> Since the entire point of art is to allow an audience to experience densely packed human-made microdecisions—which is, at root, a way of connecting humans to other humans—the kinds of “art”-making AI systems we are seeing today are confined to the lowest tier of the grid and can never produce anything more interesting than, at best, a slab of marble pulled out of the quarry. You can stare at the patterns in the marble all you want. They are undoubtedly complicated. You might even find them beautiful. But you’ll never see anything human there, unless it’s your own reflection in the machine-polished surface.
I wouldn't compare the AI art I've seen to a slab of marble. AI art can certainly be more visually interesting than looking at patterns in stone, but the trouble with AI images is that they'generally fall under the umbra of kitsch—i.e., they're simplistic in that kitsch tells us directly how to feel rather than prompting the observer to create their own meanings and emotions from the experience. From Notes on Trash....
* Goya's Black Paintings, which were not intended to be seen by anyone other than the painter and therefore are not meant as communication
* Jackson Pollock's splatters, for which the artist made broad decisions about the general appearance but the details were determined by a physical process that is not easily predicted
* Duchamp's Fountain, a machine-made piece of furniture over whose appearance the artist had exactly zero control, and whose artistic meaning comes entirely from later recontextualization
Many people are trying to come up with definitions of "Art" that exclude anything a LLM may do; not only they are always clearly created ad hoc to exclude LLM material, but in doing so they also always exclude large chunks of what is generally acknowledged as art.
Even photos aren't densely packed micro-decisions - the photographer has a very significant input, but it's in an only moderate number of choices. The camera handles the rest, and then the photographer picks the pictures he or she likes.
(Yes, people will now argue about just how many decisions the photographer has to make, but they're obviously *far* few than someone making an oil painting of the same motif.)
This is a good argument, but I still think that the concept of "directors" doesn't really fit with this model of art. A film director is not usually making microdecisions - they're not specifying the fine nuances of how the actors should pose or when to pull focus on a camera, they're looking at the aggregate of other people's microdecisions and deciding what goes into the film and what needs to be redone.
And like, there is definitely artistic skill in looking at microdecision-laden products and saying "yes, this is the one that aligns with my vision for the work." Directors get Oscars for a reason. But if that's the case, then surely evaluating an AI's output to decide if it fits your vision is the same skill, right?
(I do appreciate that he doesn't simply use this model to dunk on AI, but rather uses it as a lens to evaluate it as a tool. And I agree with him that giving users the ability to make more fine-grained edits to the AI's output will make it way more useful as an artistic tool.)
How is the shaping directors do on the components shaped by other cast and crew not count as micro-decisions, in your book? OTTOMH, a director does the following:
* (maybe) selects the cast
* goes over the script with the writer, tweaking lines here and there, asking questions, requesting rewrites
* provides the cast with a rough sketch of their respective characters
* coordinates with the cinematographer about what they want out of the shots
* coordinates similarly with the propmaster, costume designer, fight choreographer, dance choreographer, CGI shops, sound editor, etc.
* blocks each scene ("you stand here; you're thinking this; stand here by the time you finish that line")
* reshoots scenes if they don't fit the story quite right
* reports periodically to the studio, possibly with dailies (film clips produced that day)
* coordinates with the editing crew, deciding what to trim, what to cut, and what could be cut if they reshoot even more, etc.
This is a lot of microdecisions, IMO! And most of them aren't handed to the director on a platter for a thumbs up/down, anymore than a sculptor just decides chip/no-chip on each bit of marble. The director has to shepherd that vision through multiple processes that require the director to flesh them out.
An AI could theoretically dump a bunch of content out for the director to approve or reject, but the same goes for any artist.
I think I part with Stephenson slightly on the notion that AI is doing all the work, since I've noticed there's an art to good prompts. We might agree that an AI-assisted creator is burning fewer hours and calories for a given product than an unassisted one, and that this really means that an AI-assisted creator ought to spend more time on those prompts to elicit the same acclaim as one without; I don't know.
With regard to microdecisions, I would like to note that a lot of perceivable microdecisions are in fact not made by humans.
Show a medieval monk who writes manuscripts a paperback novel, and he might claim that this is not an art at all. Where he carefully draws every character and might artistically make decisions on how to render a word and when to break a line or hyphen a word, the paperback will be printed in a uniform font with computed line breaks. Every one of his letters is a microdecision transmitting vast meaning to the reader, while an author writing ASCII is just a monkey pressing buttons on a typewriter to transmit 1.3 bits of information or so.
Likewise, a producer of hand-drawn animation films might frown on 3d rendered animation films. After all, in his work, every hair on a lion's mane is a microdecision made by a human, while for 3d, the model artist just specifies the density and length of hair and then a physics engine will take care of how it looks as the wind blows through it.
Neither of them are wrong, exactly. A hand-written manuscript is simply a very different form of art from a ASCII novel. And as it turns out, one can create pretty amazing art at 1.3 bits per character.
Generative AI is just a further tool in the same vein as movable letters were. Just like it is unlikely a computer-rendered text will beat a manuscript page in visual appeal, it is (at the moment) also unlikely that a LLM will win the literature Nobel, or even just write a bestselling novel. But this does not make it useless for art. For example, I dialogue in computer RPGs (as opposed to dialogue with NPCs controlled by a human DM) suffers very much from being pre-written. There is no way to discuss Deathclaw preservation or women's rights with Caesar in Fallout: New Vegas unless the dialogue authors anticipated it. Contemporary LLMs are likely powerful enough to replace a DM improvising a NPC response. (Making the LLM-driven dialogue outcome affect the game world -- beyond "the NPC attacks", so that female legionaries will spawn after you persuade Caesar seems harder to implement, but not impossible.)
Likewise, not every artistic endeavor which uses images requires these images to be high art. Perhaps Google street view is good enough to provide backgrounds for your fighting game. Similar uses can likely be found for AI generated images.
>Likewise, not every artistic endeavor which uses images requires these images to be high art. Perhaps Google street view is good enough to provide backgrounds for your fighting game. Similar uses can likely be found for AI generated images.
I think this is true, but also the most economically worrying part of the AI art revolution. Yeah, the big prestige movies and the art that gets put in museum will be safe for a long time, but a lot of the market for art isn't that. It's "design a logo for my software company" or "make some background art for my indie game" or "draw a cover for my new novel." A bit more improvement in AI art would probably put a lot of indie creators out of business.
The microdecisions framework makes a fair amount of sense. It also explains something I've observed while playing around with my employer's image gen product (Adobe Firefly), that I get the most subjectively aesthetic results by taking a medium-sized chunk of poetry, song lyrics, or highly-evocative prose and using that as the prompt. Especially if I follow that up by fiddling with the style settings and using "generate more like this one" on my favorite to try to get it make more variations. In NS's framing, I'm starting with a prompt that contains a fairly high density of microdecisions, and I'm adding a few more of my own with the settings. It's still a lot less decision-dense than you'd expect from most human-made images, but has more decisions packed into it than an AI-generated image made with a simpler prompt.
The problem I always have with this kind of attempt to draw a line between works that make use of genai and works that do not on some more fundamental basis than the use of genai and/or one's subjective opinion on same is that it's incredibly hard to create a definition that doesn't end up excluding non-genai, human-produced, objects that our consensus otherwise accepts as art.
> "Idea Having is not Art"
Careful there! There are many, many works of art where the important, ingenious part is that the artist was the first person on record to have and express an idea, rather than the precise way they chose to do so.
> "the entire point of art is to allow an audience to experience densely packed human-made microdecisions"
I also take issue with "which is, at root, a way of connecting humans to other humans": it seems to me that the answer to whether a human who expresses themselves in isolation for their own satisfaction - with no expectation or desire that any other human ever encounters or interacts with their work in any way - is nevertheless creating art is... at the very least, not obvious. I have less basis for this take, however, so just putting it out there.
> I also take issue with "which is, at root, a way of connecting humans to other humans": it seems to me that the answer to whether a human who expresses themselves in isolation for their own satisfaction - with no expectation or desire that any other human ever encounters or interacts with their work in any way - is nevertheless creating art is... at the very least, not obvious. I have less basis for this take, however, so just putting it out there.
Good point! Many people create their art with little expectation that others will see it. Heck, Vivian Maier, who IMHO was one of the greatest US photographers of the 20th Century, was unknown until someone stumbled across her negatives. The act and discipline of creating art is a reward in itself for many people. But I think you'll find that all the unknown artists out there work within a defined framework that could communicate to an audience—if the audience materialized.
> But I think you'll find that all the unknown artists out there work within a defined framework that could communicate to an audience—if the audience materialized.
Is that true? What would it look like if this /wasn't/ the case? How would we tell?
Certainly it is true of /every object we recognise/ as being the result of someone externalising their ideas / emotions / otherwise self-expressing, but this is a tautology.
In my opinion, there are four modes of artistic expression in the Western canon of visual arts. I call them: the message mode, the decorative mode, the evocative mode, and the philosophical mode.
First, a bit of a digression. Despite all the previous postings on how taste is somehow dictated by elites (or other hogwash), artists are the ultimate creators of taste. Artists create their art with their audience in mind — so on one level, they may be catering to the tastes of the audience. However, in all cases that I can think of, some trailblazing artist (or group of artists) has gone before and tested new ideas to shape the tastes of their audience. Some may try to reach the broadest audience possible by following in the footsteps of previous artists, but others may test new ideas on a smaller, select audience who are more open to novelty.
Art is ultimately a nonverbal form of communication in which feelings, moods, or impressions are the vocabulary. The *intent* of the artist is to communicate some sort of impression to his or her viewers. At the meta-level, I classify these by they way they go about communicating with their viewers—which are the four modes I listed above.
1. Message art is the oldest type of mode in the Western canon. This is art that is created to memorialize religious or political events, with references that are culturally shared and that promote or reinforce social cohesion. Much of the early Renaissance art had a religious message (think of all the paintings of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus). However, as the Church became less important as a patron, historical message paintings gained popularity. For Americans, think of Emanuel Leutze's iconic painting Washington's Crossing of the Delaware. Portraits of rulers and important personages reinforced the message of power. By the 19th Century, social messages came into vogue. Norman Rockwell and Jean-Michel Basquiat are important message artists of the 20th Century. And let's not forget propaganda art.
2. The Decorative Mode developed sometime after message art. As patrons other than the Church started commissioning and purchasing paintings, visual art began to be released from the chains of message and meaning. This mostly occurred after the Reformation in northern Europe, when the burgeoning merchant and middle classes sought non-religious art to decorate their homes. The Decorative Mode was created to provoke a simple emotional response in the viewer. Dutch and German painters started painting still lifes and landscapes that appealed to people who didn’t want or need religious or historical scenes on their walls. Still lifes came first. Then landscapes. Then seascapes. Human nudes were always a delicate proposition — Until the 19th Century, the erotic aspect of nudes had to be presented with the figleaf of a mythological or biblical message.
Finally, in the early 20th Century painters realized that just as music didn’t require lyrics to get an emotional response, they could elicit an emotional response from viewers with pure color and form devoid of any representation. Thus, abstraction was born, and a third mode of communication came to dominate late 20th Century art…
3. The Evocative mode. Rather than giving us a message or telling us a story the purpose of evocative art is to create a complex or open-ended emotional response in the viewers. Evocative art can be realistic, but most of the artists who work in the evocative mode shy away from pure images (because they don’t want their viewers to be distracted by making up stories about what they see), but there are plenty of realist painters who paint in the evocative mode. Edward Hopper is an example of an artist who evokes a psychological mood in the viewer using realistic images. But his paintings, for the most part, don’t tell obvious stories like, say, Norman Rockwell’s paintings do. Surrealists were interested in using dream-like images to evoke moods in the viewers. Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko relied solely on color and form to evoke moods in the viewer.
4. Finally, there’s the philosophical mode of art which asks questions about what art is. DaDa kicked this off during the middle of WWI when the old European order was falling apart. Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that reduced meaning to absurdities. But it asked questions that have continued to niggle artists to this day. Can a urinal signed by an artist be considered art (Du Champ)? Can a step ladder in the middle of the gallery with a little box from the ceiling be considered art (Yoko Ono)? Can simple blocks of color with hard edges be art? This may puzzle the uninitiated viewer, but the primary audience of philosophical artists was other artists and critics, and their intent was to prompt them to question their assumptions about the nature of art.
AI, being unintelligent, doesn’t understand intent. Although it can produce simple decorative art fairly easily, it may have trouble with message art (without the user refining the prompts over and over), it would definitely have trouble producing art in the evocative mode or the philosophical mode because it’s blind to these creative urges.
So is a paintbrush. GenAI is a tool to be wielded by a human with creative urges, and the output is the result of a human wielding this tool. As with any other human-driven tool, the quality of output depends on what the human puts in.
I predict we are about to see an explosion of human artists devoting large amounts of time and effort to use GenAI for philosophical mode art exploration.
So, hypothetically, if I were Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, and I commissioned Titian to paint the Three Muses, and I told Titian that I was looking for certain themes and a certain composition for the painting, am I also the artist? Would Titian be my paintbrush?
Titian is no mere paintbrush: he is intelligent and understands intent. He has creative urges. If you are implying this is also true of AI, we need to revisit the earlier claim that it will have trouble producing art in the evocative mode because it lacks these things.
Well, if AI is "intelligent" as peeps like Sam Altman claim, then AI is the Titian, and the person prompting the AI is playing the role of Charles V. But I don't think either you or I believe this.
My argument is that typing a command into AI prompt involves a limited set of microdecisions, while laying a bush line of paint on canvas probably involves hundreds of microdecisions as the brush moves across the canvas. In the case of the AI example, most of microdecisions were made by the artists who created the works in the AI's training sets. So, yes, AI Art is extruded. Just because it might look good to you doesn't negate the extrusion factor.
I have no beef at all with people objecting to one form or another of art on the basis that they think it is crap. I also have things I think are crap.
It's when people start trying to gatekeep by trying to gerrymander category boundaries so they can claim the thing they think is crap art /isn't art/ that they need to take care not to simply ignore the last century's worth of conversation about what art is and isn't.
The current problem with AI art is that it is extruded product, exactly like some "art" created by humans in warehouses to provide "picture to hang on wall for people furnishing their homes or offices".
It's not original, it's not even a craft, it's "copy this copy of a copy of something like 'The Haywain' in this manner". Painting by numbers. This is the most sophisticated example of it I've seen but it's not art by any means:
Right now, unless someone knows what they're doing and refines the piece over and over with better prompts each time and discards the failures, what you get is that shiny, plastic, piece of extruded art that glares out at you from Amazon Kindle covers, immediately recognisable as AI product:
The most sophisticated piece of AI art I've seen recently is this band's experiment with using genAI to provide the video for their music video a few weeks back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbkkxqghGNo
I'm sure neither the music nor the thematic choices are everyone's cup of tea; but I do think we have existence proof that genai isn't just limited to extruded product - it can very much be a valid tool in the set of tools humans use to express themselves.
(That said, current video generation systems generate video 7-8 seconds at a time, so this would have taken a /lot/ of prompting - so, arguably, in line with the microdecision theory).
I admit that's pretty fantastic. Certainly, AI-generated special effects is putting the old-guard digital artists (who used to create AI scenes) out of business. I admit that video is Art with a capital A. But the way it depicts humans is deep into uncanny valley territory.
I feel the takeaway from picture/prediction contest Scott ran a few months back was that once you have a model that can step away from the common tell-tale signs, it becomes much harder to discern what was AI and what was human.
Kind of like plastic surgery, in the "if you can spot it, it was poorly done" way.
Is Cheese-Whiz and Pringles good food art? People are buying loads of that crap. I just googled and discovered that Cheez-Whiz generates at least $600 million in revenue for Kraft, and Pringles generates over $3 billion for Kellanova (formerly Kellogg). So, if we rank food art by popularity, it's hard to argue that Cheez-Whiz and Pringles win hands down over snooty food. An insider told me that a restaurant with 3 Michelin stars can generate $20+ million a year in revenue with a ~20% profit margin. Of course, they have to spend many millions starting a restaurant like that, and it may ultimately lose money if it doesn't get at least one Michelin star. So, Michelin restaurants are very niche food market. I dined at three 3-star restaurants in my day, and the food was memorably good. Could Joe or Joan Sixpack appreciate that sort of food if it were put in front of them—even if they came into the money to afford it?
Maybe a better taste example is wine. You're likely hear a that most people can't tell the difference between a $20 bottle of wine and $200 bottle of wine, and the even "experts" get fooled in blind tastings. However, if you want pass the CMS (Court of the Master Sommelier) exam, you have to: Taste 6 wines blind in 25 minutes, and identify grape variety, country of origin, region, vintage, quality level, and sub-region or *vineyard* for classic wines. It's an extremely difficult test to pass, but some people do. So even though many so-called experts can't distinguish between expensive and less-expensive wines, there are some who can.
Just because you can't distinguish between an AI-generated Impressionist-style image, and an image of actual Impressionist painting on your monitor doesn't mean there isn't a difference. And if you printed the AI Impressionist painting on canvas, and put it next to an actual Impressionist painting, very few people would be fooled.
Popularity isn't the question though (though looks like AI beat human, even among human supremacists). Unless you were the 49/50 outlier and assuming you took the survey you got at least a fair few wrong yourself.
I realize I did miss the "unless you iterate heavily and discard failures" bit in your post, but it seems a hard sell to dismiss all AI-generated images as "extruded product" (and conversely, does it say anything about the many humans who spend their careers making "office art" for the higher class of office?)
I think you're missing my point. For those two Impressionist-style pictures (The flowering hillside vs the cart going down the road) near the top of the page you linked, if we made poster prints of those images, no, most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference. However, the best that AI can currently do is produce a print that can be printed on canvas, which would look flat and dull compared to actual paint on canvas. AI cannot recreate the texture of the paint on a painting. Part of the art of painting is the paint.
But, yes, I instinctively knew the flowery hillside was not a real piece of Impressionist art, because the composition was "too pretty". This vastly oversimplifies the perceptual and evaluative process that my mind used to come to that conclusion, but I've seen thousands of real Impressionist paintings over the course of my life, so I've got an excellent training set for that style of art. Where I failed the test was in distinguishing the digital art that was created with pre-AI techniques vs AI-generated art. That may be because I don't have a large digital art training set in my brain (because I'm not interested in digital art), or it may be because AI is successfully imitating digital art—to which I say, big deal, because most digital art is created to be consumed by the Cheez-Whiz demographic of people who purchase prints.
> AI cannot recreate the texture of the paint on a painting
This bit feels rather god-of-the-gaps to me. Height maps and normal maps are just more of the same kind of data that we already know we can make genAI churn out; and we've had off-the-shelf tech for automated production of real-world objects given such data for decades now. Unlike, say, the problem of making LLMs never spit out lies, there are no fundamentally hard design, software, mathematical or philosophical problems to solve here; the only barrier to having genAI produce textured paintings is someone caring enough to throw the appropriate amount of money at data capture, training and off-the-shelf tools.
Not under my particular rock as yet, we do have access to Philadelphia cream cheese though. Perhaps in time civilisation will percolate down to my bog.
And the Brits have Primula, which seems similar to Cheez-Whiz:
Some thoughts on the two party system in the US, inspired by a discussion on this substack:
Why are there two massive political parties in the United States, when most democracies have at least 4-5 major-ish parties? People will often blame the first-past-the-post system, or the fact that the USA has a presidential system.
But, e.g., France has a presidential system, while the UK and Canada have first-past-the-post. And they all have more than two main parties. So what’s going on?
I think it’s because the USA, almost uniquely, has a first-past-the-post *presidential* system, with very few constituencies.
In standard first-past-the-post systems, it’s hard for minor parties to break through – a party with 20% support in every constituency will get no seats at all (see the Greens). But regional parties break this pattern: if a party has a lot of support in some constituencies, then they will get seats there, even if they have little support anywhere else (see the Scottish Nationalist Party).
If you have a lot of constituencies, then you have more scope for “regional” parties that have are organised around a theme, rather than a geographical region. Hence the Liberal Democrats, with strong support in some liberal urban areas. And even if the regional or “regional” parties are not in government, they have some influence by being in parliament. So it feel less of waste to vote for them: they can win locally, and that local win gives them *some* power in government.
Conversely, if you have a popularly elected president (especially if you have the two-round election system like France does), parties are less important. Yes, it’s good to have a party infrastructure behind you if you’re running, but if you have broad popularity and a lot of free publicity, you can be a viable candidate with 20% or so initial support. And then voters can believe that you’re a serious candidate, that voting for you is not a waste of a vote, and so they are more likely to vote for you, etc. And then you get through to the second round, and can often win.
Now, back to the USA. Their presidential election is almost exactly a first-past-the-post contest, one round, fifty constituencies (the states) with the loser getting nothing (the electoral college doesn’t sit as a parliament; it becomes irrelevant once the president is selected).
A party with a broad 20% support will get nothing. A party organised around a theme (e.g. the Libertarian party in the USA) may get support in some specific locations, but not enough to win a state, so they will get nothing.
A charismatic non-party candidate with broad 20% support will also get nothing. And since there’s only one election round, they won’t get the chance to become one of the two top candidates. So they’re non-viable, everyone knows they’re non-viable, so they won’t get more publicity and support.
How about regional parties? Well, a regional party covering 20% of the country will get 20% of the electoral college. Not enough to install their own candidate, but maybe enough to make a deal as to who will be president. But unlike deals in parliaments, this is a one and done thing. They can’t remove their support at a later date and cause the government to fall. So they have very little leverage. Which means that they will probably just support the candidate that they are the most ideologically similar to; there’s little that they can gain from negotiations.
Given that, why bother running as a regional party? Why not just join the larger party they are the most ideologically similar to, before the election? This will give them some leverage as they are part of the ruling party. And the combined party may win more states than they would each individually.
So it seems that the current electoral system in the USA inevitably pushes towards a dual-party system. Groups that would be separate parties in other countries amalgamate into the two main parties.
What changes could be made that would shift away from this equilibrium? The most obvious would be a national popular vote. This would remove some of pressure towards two parties; a charismatic third-party candidate could win by claiming, say, 40% of the vote. This would be a lot easier if the election shifted towards two-round elections or some form of transferable vote. Then a third-party candidate just needs 33%+ of the vote on the first round; following that, it’s perfectly plausible they would win a 1-one-1 contest with whichever of the main two parties’ candidate remains. Have a few elections like this, and there probably won’t *be* just two main parties any more.
But without changing the system, the tension towards two main parties in the USA will be extremely strong. There is no plausible path for a third party to grow, no matter what state-based strategy or local-election-based strategy or whatever communication strategy they follow. I don’t like the expression “don’t hate the player, hate the game”, but it’s very apt in this case.
A hot take with low epistemic confidence: the U.S. was a de facto multi-party system until 2008 (Democrats) and 2016 (Republicans) with some residual factionalism since.
The primary system is one of the main drivers here: uniquely, any political movement can hijack a party and win a nomination in the U.S. (even in two-party systems like Britain internal leadership elections usually return a bland moderate, see the Conservative Party's last ten "PM of the day"s).
But this has since changed: the last fair and free political primaries for the Democrats was in 2004. In 2008, Clinton won the popular vote (but lost the nomination). In 2016 various shenanigans like leaked debate questions and superdelegates guaranteed a Clinton victory. In 2020 the party collaborated with the Biden campaign to bribe other candidates to drop out and endorse Biden (most obviously Buttigieg who dropped out the night before Super Tuesday for Sec of Transportation but also Klobuchar chairing the very powerful Senate Rules Committee, O'Rourke getting Texas in 2022, and of course Harris getting the Vice Presidency). In 2024 the party didn't even bother holding a primary – a smooth palace coup replaced a candidate with minimal infighting (something Pelosi ought to be congratulated for far more than she is).
The Republicans did the same with a "Trump or nothing" policy, both nationally and in local primaries, since 2016. While different political factions can fight within that space they are fundamentally tied to Trump's whims.
Multi-party elections only remain in either low-level primaries where the DNC / Trump don't care or rarely where insurgent populists manage to overthrow establishment figures (such as AOC or very nearly Brandon Herrera). The existence of these insurgencies do show that a multi-party system still exists in the United States, but it is far weaker than it once was – compare the Dixiecrats as explained in other comments in this thread.
Far more interesting is the increasing institutional capture of the DNC by progressives. For example, the DNC nullified an election because someone of the wrong gender won. The Hogg case actually shows a nice synthesis: progressives are using non-democratic means to hold down their fellow progs in exchange for institutional power. I think that neatly marks the end of the multi-party era: even anti-party insurgents are using the party against their allies.
Yes, and Putin would win re-election without his electoral interference. That does not mean the elections are free and fair, and you are correct that 2016 was significantly less elite-run than later years. Of course, I'm drawing from a small sample size here – if Clinton only got, say, 20% of the vote she would not have won no matter what. But this sort of finagling at the margin really does matter, and given how polarized the Democratic primary was in 2016 I don't see her losing (cf. how neither party will ever get 60 seats in the Senate).
I re-read the ACX dictator book club post on Chavez and it pretty much convinced me that any sort of constitutional rewrite around elections is way too dangerous to attempt in the US right now. In Venezuela, Chavez's party used their ~52% electoral position to gerrymander their way into 95% of the seats at the constitutional convention and then just did whatever they want. Very easy to imagine (your least favorite political party) doing that today in the US.
Similarly in Hungary, when Orbán's party won, they changed the constitution, and since that they keep winning, because the conditions to defeat them are almost impossible.
I think this is a general fragility of democratic system, that when someone gets too many votes once, they are free to change the system so that "having too many votes" becomes a requirement; and then you can't change the system back, because you either don't have enough votes to do that, or you do but then you don't have the incentive.
Basically, it's a ratchet: many parties -> a few parties -> two parties -> one party.
It is possible to only move legally in one direction. A small party may accidentally become large and then make a law that small parties don't matter anymore. But when a large party accidentally becomes small, they can't make the opposite change, because they no longer have the power to do that.
I agree that the combination of Plurality Voting (I dislike the term FPTP with some intensity) and a Presidential system is a major factor. Layered on top of this, I see a few other factors contributing.
The US inherited a cultural tradition of a two-party system from Britain. Britain's two-party tradition started forming in earnest in the Restoration era with the Exclusion Crisis factions (c. 1680) to which the labels "Whig" and "Tory" first attached, and had roots quite a bit further back. The American Revolution happened during an era when the "Whig Ascendency" of the early-to-mid 18th century (a 1.5 party system where the Tories were consistently a powerless minority) had broken down and re-formed into a functioning two-party system (the "Northite" and "Rockinghamite" factions, named for their leaders at the time; the forerunners of the 19th century Conservatives and Liberals respectively). Britain having 3+ truly major national parties tends to happen only during realignment periods: the breakdown of the Whig Ascendency, the rise of Labour after WW1, and the current post-Brexit breakdown of the Conservative party. Between these, Britain has had much stronger third parties (both national and regional) than the US, but only two really major parties at any given time (Whig/Tory before the Whig Ascendency, Conservative/Liberal after it until the Home Rule crisis, Unionist/Liberal until WW1, and Conservative/Labour from WW2 through Brexit).
The US established Universal Male Suffrage much earlier and somewhat more gradually than Britain did. The replacement of the Liberals by Labour as a major party, and the subsequent survival of the Liberals (later the Lib-Dems after they merged with the Social Democrats minor party in 1988) happened in large part as a consequence of Britain abolishing property qualifications for voting by men in 1918 (women were also enfranchise by the same act, but were still subject to property qualifications until 1928), more than doubling the franchise. This immediately elevated Labour, which had formed as a political movement among disenfranchised urban workers, to major party status. There was no real counterpart to this in the US since property qualifications were abolished piecemeal at the state level, mostly in the early 19th century, so the political labor movement of the late 19th and early 20th century happened among enfranchised workers and mostly operated within the two-party system.
The US has a more bottom-up party organization system than most other democracies I'm familiar with, especially since the 1960s when primary elections became central to the nomination process. Even before that, US parties going back well into the 19th century tended to have nominations processes for local, state, and federal offices that were driven at least as much by grassroots members as by the party leadership. This makes it easier for a political movement to work within a major party (taking over the label in whole or in part), while in many other countries making a new party is the only option if no existing party's leadership is willing to nominate your candidates.
There's also some historical accident over the political behavior of regions with distinctive cultural identities and political interests. A major genre of semi-major parties in other countries is parties organized around regional interests, especially separatist or particularist movements: e.g. Bloc Quebecois in Canada, the SNP in modern Britain, or the Irish Parliamentary Party in late 19th/early 20th century Britain. The US had one of these between the late 19th century and the 1970s, the "Dixiecrats" or "Southern Democrats" in the former Confederacy. The Dixiecrats were officially a faction within the Democratic party, but they really operated as a third party: Congressional voting patterns during this era tended to show Northern and Southern Democrats voting differently on many major bills, and several times in the mid-20th century dissented from the national Democratic party on Presidential nominations. In two elections, there were separate Dixiecrat candidates for President (Strom Thurmond in 1948 and George Wallace in 1968), in one (1964) several state Democratic parties in the South endorsed the Republican candidate, and in four (1944, 1956, 1960, and 1964) at least one state had a slate of Dixiecrat "Unpledged Electors" on the Presidential ballot. Total electoral votes won were 39 in 1948, 15 in 1964, 47 in 1964, and 46 in 1968. In all cases except for 1964, the intended strategy was to deny an election-night majority in the Electoral College to the two major party candidates and negotiate policy concessions in exchange for support in either the formal Electoral College vote or in the contingent election after the Electoral College deadlocks. The historical accident is that the Dixiecrats usually called themselves a faction within the Democratic Party rather than (as has happened in other countries) consistently calling themselves third parties but often forming coalitions and coordinating electoral strategy with a particular major party.
I have two objections to FPTP terminology. The first is that there's no "post", no absolute or percentage threshold of votes that one must get in order to win the election. The second is that there isn't much "first", as the election is conducted in a single round in which the outcome is unaffected by the order in which ballots are cast or counted. On the other hand "Plurality" (or more precisely, Single-Member Plurality) describes the procedure perfectly: whoever receives the most votes (i.e. a plurality of the votes) is elected.
I know of a few actual election procedures and at least one hypothetical election procedure that would be better described by FPTP than is Plurality voting.
Under the election procedures recommended by Robert's Rules of Order (i.e. RRO voting), there is a fixed threshold (usually 50% of valid ballots cast excluding abstentions, but organizations may adopt different thresholds in their procedures and bylaws) required to achieve election. The convention, assembly, or committee doing the electing casts ballots repeatedly, with each member voting for one member per open office. Votes are tallied, and if someone reaches the required majority, they are elected. If nobody reaches the threshold, the procedure is repeated as many times as needed until someone gets a majority. If followed strictly, this can lead to protracted deadlocks, like the 1924 Democratic National Convention which deadlocked between the initial front-runners Al Smith and William McAdoo as their Presidential nominee for 103 ballots before eventually settling on John Davis (2.8% on the first ballot) as a compromise candidate.
Elections in the Roman Republic used a single round of voting, but votes were tallied by "tribes", each of which voted in a particular order with the posher tribes voting first. Magistrates required the support of a particular number of tribes to be elected, and balloting stopped as soon as the required threshold was reached. I'm not sure what happened if nobody got the required threshold, whether they'd re-vote like RRO, or select the plurality winner, or something else. But I get the impression that it was fairly rare for the last several tribes to have the opportunity to vote before elections were decided.
Hypothetically, you could also have an election procedure where candidates collect petitions of support over an extended period of time, with some absolute threshold of supporters required to win the office. Whoever turned in however many valid signatures would then be elected. This would fit the FPTP label perfectly.
Interesting distinction. I never thought that there wasn’t an actual post to get past, but you are right. Funny enough the single transferable vote does have a post - the quota. Although it’s not necessary to get past it if you are the last chump remaining.
That the elected candidate was first past the post. As Erica pointed out though, there’s no quota and therefore no post. In my defence, where I live, the election is always won by a majority not a plurality. That’s not necessary though.
Minor nitpick, not really material, but it's worth noting that while Canada does have a third party that is capable of winning elections at the provincial level, it has never won an election at the federal level and only one served as the opposition. So Canada is not too far off from only having two parties.
I rather seriously disagree. First, there's a pretty big practical difference between a majority government and a minority government, especially a weak minority government. Smaller parties having the power to coalition with a larger party and negotiate for items of interest is a significantly different situation from one where only two parties can ever win non-trivial numbers of seats.
Second, provincial level politics plays a big role in shaping peoples' lives. A party being capable of forming a government at a provincial level makes it quite significant as a practical force even if there's no chance it will ever form a government at the national level.
Both good points, but on the second point, given that the provincial parties have no formal ties to the federal parties, and given the variation within American parties at the state level, I'm not sure the existence of a third party makes such a big difference. What I mean is, a state-level Dem party can be as left-wing as the left-most provincial NDP, and the rightmost provincial NDP can be as conservative as, maybe not the most conservative state Dems, but, still much more conservative than the federal party.
I don't know that we get wildly different types of provincial government merely from the existence of a third provincial party.
Your overall conclusion -- "without changing the system, the tension towards two main parties in the USA will be extremely strong. There is no plausible path for a third party to grow" -- is correct, unfortunately. The USA hasn't had an insurgent third party successfully replace one of the two main ones in nearly 180 years now, and that one required a national civic crisis serious enough to literally spark secession and then a brutal civil war. No attempt since then has gotten anywhere near success.
Others here may describe additional proposed solutions, many have been written about for many years. I've no idea anymore which of them might ever come to pass nor what national-crisis type scenario it would take. I'd like to think there is some path short of secession-and-war.
I will comment on one relatively small aspect: "a regional party covering 20% of the country will get 20% of the electoral college. Not enough to install their own candidate, but maybe enough to make a deal as to who will be president."
That would be a longshot at best. In the first place a regional party covering 20% of the country could at _most_ get 20% of the EC votes, only if they "run the table" in their region and win every state. Remember that the EC votes are mostly assigned state by state all-or-nothing with no 50%+1 requirement.
And anyway negotiations such as you're imagining are not really achievable. If a presidential election fails to give one ticket a majority of the Electoral College count, the election goes to the House of Representatives (this happened once, 200 years ago). And the House votes state by state not proportionately, with no majority requirement for a House state delegation. [E.g. if the reps from a state having 14 reps vote 6-5-3, the candidate getting the six wins that state's entire Electoral College count.] So unless our hypothetical regional party also has majorities in the House from each of a few states, they have no leverage in the resulting House of Representatives mini-election that chooses the president/vice-president. Unlike in a parliamentary system the fact of their candidate having gotten 20 percent of the EC votes would not provide any followup leverage.
So are we effectively stuck with two mostly-similar, if you ignore the aesthetics, centrist-ish parties passing the ball among themselves in perpetuity, giving an illusion of choice to the electorate?
It's worth remembering that in living memory (1968) George Wallace won 5 states as what was, effectively, a regional party such as you describe. And those 5 states didn't even act as a spoiler: Nixon got an electoral majority anyway.
Eh...."effectively" is doing a lot of work there. I think OP is talking about something more than the one-offs around a single individual running for a single office. Those really aren't a "party" in any practical or lasting sense.
The US does have some surviving small regional parties, that go in with one of the two main parties if a representative from them is elected to Congress (which makes sense; you'll get a lot more done as part of the Democratic party voting bloc than as the sole Democratic-Farmer-Labor party member, or as one of the Democratic Socialists of America who seem to be more interested in purity spirals and shooting themselves in the foot).
So I think that tendency does make it much harder for a sizeable third party to get off the ground, because maybe it'll do great in one state, maybe it'll do great in a particular region, but can it win support and seats all across the country? Generally the answer seems to be "no", and of course then the "if you vote for a third party you are wasting your vote" messaging reinforces that difficulty (see all the blame about "whoever voted for third party candidates instead of Hillary/Kamala, it's your fault the fascist is in power now!")
It would, on the face of it, make a lot more sense for the US to have four or five big(gish) parties - a very left/progressive one for the socialists currently hanging on at the fringes of the Democrats, something like the Christian Democrats for the religious voters shoved off to the Republicans, etc. But I don't know how, in the current system, that will ever happen.
I've observed in Bay Area California local politics in the 2010s that there tended to be four-ish factions:
1. Labor Democrats, usually the dominant factions. These were pretty strongly aligned with the public employee unions in terms of pay and benefits (one of the dominant political issues at time) and also in terms of deferring to senior full-time city employees on policy issues.
2. Progressive Democrats. These were mostly ideological progressives, focused on a combination of social issues and urbanism.
3. Reform Democrats, defined by at least partial opposition to public employee union interests, especially on pension reform.
4. Republicans and Libertarians. Within the Republicans there were significant factions (establishment, populist, and small-l libertarian), but they tended to be electorally insignificant except when there was a candidate who got significant support from at least two of the three, some crossover support from moderate Democratic voters, and often the informal support of the local Libertarian party as well. The Libertarian Party was pretty small, but was quite a bit better organized than libertarian Republicans.
Officially, local elections in California are "nonpartisan", meaning that there's no nomination process and candidates don't have party affiliation listed on the ballot. But if you're paying a little bit of attention to endorsements, it's usually pretty easy to figure out both party and faction.
The boundaries between groups 1 and 2 were pretty fuzzy, with a lot of elected officials seeming to have one foot in each. Groups 3 and 4 had a bit more distinction between them, but operated in coalition more often than not.
I suspect it's actually primarily because the US is so huge, that paradoxically this means there have to be lots and lots of "parties" to represent the many constituencies and demographics, but these "parties" then converge into two broad coalitions that are referred to as parties.
It's not obvious to me that it's sensible to speak of the US having a two-party system and of various European countries having multi-party systems. Many of the latter countries seem to have a whole lot of parties whose platforms are almost identical! On so many issues, there's clearly more choice, respresentation of more groups/positions, and thus more democracy in the US than there is in some (many?) of these multi-party states, despite the "only two choices".
There's also some serious costs (i.e. polarization) but I think the benefit to respresentation of having umbrella parties with numerous sub-groups within them (as opposed to top-down homogenous parties) is shockingly underappreciated in these comparisons.
This is especially apparent when looking at the platforms of the two parties. They were *very* different in 1860. (In 1828, when the Democratic Party was founded, the platform was described as a mash of conflicting positions - anti-tariff here, pro-tariff there - and also downstream of its Presidential candidate, much as today. https://mvhm.org/the-election-of-1828-the-candidates-their-platforms/)
The US is widely thought of as having successive Party Systems, brought about by major shifts in the coalition led by the two majors. The fact that there's a continual institution of funding channels and party platform administrations doesn't say much in light of their continual changes in membership. We're considered to be in our Sixth system now, and I'm sure there are historians ready to declare a Seventh, possibly due to Trump's takeover of the GOP, but more soberly due to realignment in voters on issues such as trade policy and immigration.
Isn't the existence of the primary system the salient (mostly-) unique feature of the US?
In most political systems, the party leadership decides what the acceptable range of positions within the party is, and if a candidate's positions are outside that range then they need to go off and join/form a different party. This is how new par
In the US, the position of the R/D party is whatever the primary voters say it is. So if you're a popular politician with opinions not entirely congruent with the party leadership then you can still get elected on a big party ticket. So there's never much of an incentive to try to form your own party when you can instead try to drag one of the big two in your direction.
The United States has been a two party system during most of its existence. The push for primaries started in about 1900. Since 1972, most delegates to the national party conventions have been selected in primaries or caucuses.
In 1968, the Democratic Party was badly divided over the Vietnam war. The vote totals in the primaries were:
2,914,933 Eugene McCarthy
2,305,148 Robert F. Kennedy (assassinated)
383,590 Lyndon B. Johnson (withdrew)
166,463 Hubert Humphrey
With Kennedy and Johnson out of the race, the Democratic National Convention had to decide between McCarthy and Humphrey. McCarthy had the most delegates of all the candidates, but 61% of the delegates were uncommitted. The Convention chose Humphrey.
This was a bit less outrageous than it seems at first glance. Humphrey had won a bunch of delegates in states that held caucuses rather than primaries, and most of Kennedy’s delegates favored Humphrey. Also, Humphrey was polling better than McCarthy, suggesting he had the best chance of winning the election. However, there was enough backlash that the Democrats created the McGovern–Fraser Commission, which gave us the current system.
In 1972, Democratic primary voters selected anti-war candidate George McGovern as the party nominee, who proceeded to lose in a landslide to Richard Nixon. This might have led the party to concluded that letting primary voters select the party nominee was a bad idea, but it didn’t.
Similarly, the Republican Party could have looked at this as an opportunity for them to nominate candidates who could win while the Democrats would be stuck with whoever their voters chose. Instead, the Republican Party copied the Democratic Party reforms.
Essentially what happened is that because the two major parties formed a duopoly, it became unacceptable for party nominations to be controlled by party officials. It wasn’t practical to create a viable anti-war party, so voters couldn’t vote against the war unless one of the two major parties nominated an anti-war candidate. Given that reality, it was undemocratic to allow party leadership rather than voters to select the party nominees. This is a generic issue with two party systems. The Vietnam War was the issue that happened to create a tipping point, but once the change was made it couldn’t be undone.
In other words, I think you have cause and effect mostly backwards. It’s true that the political parties in the United States are whatever the primary voters and caucus goers say, and that does reduce the incentive to create third parties. The reason that the primary voters and caucus goers control the parties, though, is because it’s impractical to create third parties that actually win elections.
Because voters who weren't solidly Democratic or Republican were now faced with the meta-choice of siding with the party that would let them choose from among several candidates vs the party that would shove a single designated spokesman out the door of a smoke-filled room and say "it's him or nobody, at least from us". And as voting isn't mandatory in the United States, the sort of person who doesn't much care about being able to chose among candidates probably isn't going to be voting for anyone.
Once either party goes to a primary system, the other party is highly incentivized to follow suit if they want to keep winning elections.
Thanks for the info. My US blinders made not realize that the US primary system is different than so many other countries. I looked up Australia, UK, France, Germany, and Sweden. For all of them, the party selects the candiate, though some though have more formal procedures. But I assume that it is always party insiders of some degree that are doing the selecting.
Minor nuance from Canada: We don't really have more than two main parties. The only parties that ever form a government are the Conservatives and the Liberals. We have a smattering of smaller parties, of course. Last government the NDP (left-wing) formed a coalition with the Liberals (centre-left), but everyone knew the NDP was the junior partner. The Green Party wins between 1 and 5 seats.
Well, there's also the Bloc Quebecois, but that's very much because of our unique history, not so much our system. If things had gone a little differently in the US, I can totally imagine there being a Texas Party. They wouldn't run presidential candidates (or at least they wouldn't win), but they'd get enough Congressmen to sometimes make the ruling party have to negotiate.
If electoral votes were awarded by Congressional district - rather than winner takes all for each state - there would be a lot more room for a 3rd party presidential candidate. This doesn't take any changes to the Constitution, just state laws. Two states, Nebraska and Maine, already use this system. Then you can imagine a 3rd party candidate winning enough electors to deny the main party candidates a majority - which would perhaps generate more support for such a 3rd party candidate. It comes up in my state legislature from time to time, but the objection seems to be that candidates will lose interest in catering to any state that is not winnner-take-all.
Changing Congressional elections also can be done by Federal legislation, as the Constitution gives Congress the power to prescribe "Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives", overriding any conflicting State laws. Current federal law requires single-member districts for House elections, but they could conceivably repeal it and require multi-member districts with some form of proportional or other mixed-member election procedure instead.
Senators being elected one at a time is hardcoded in the Constitution, but requiring a different election procedure should also be legally possible by ordinary legislation.
That said, I expect any such proposal would face a strong headwind from current members of Congress who aren't keen to fundamentally change the system that elected them in the first place.
I write with some interesting developments in the intersection of law and AI. In Minnesota we just had a case where a county attorney was called out by a judge for using a brief with 6 hallucinated cases...the brief was written by AI, which is theoretically fine, but the AI invented 6 cases that do not exist which were cited as the basis for the law supporting the brief...that's bad. That's potentially sanctionable.
There have been many cases like this, and courts see it as tantamount to lying to them. It's taken very, very seriously. To my knowledge this is the first time a STATE attorney has been implicated in this problem.
...what I think is interesting here is that this is a basic problem which has fairly swift and predictable results. For 2-3 years now we've had the problem of "AI makes up cases that don't exist, attorney gets in trouble."
...it demonstrates an obstacle to getting an AI *rather than* a lawyer to handle your case, and it's a fairly basic one that doesn't exist in meatspace (I could describe *those* problems at length but they're boring and unsexy).
The problem of course can be solved by specialized legal AI tools or prompt engineering, I'm sure, so it's only a problem for unsophisticated people...but the whole promise of having auto-lawyers was to help unsophisticated people handle cases themselves.
I want the AI to use tool calls to check that citations it makes are to books that actually exist. This is fairly easy to do with current technology, I just haven’t got round to coding it up yet. (Some of you are thinking - surely, you can ask the AI to code it for you)
In a recent experiment, inspired by the continued discussion of hallucinated citations, R1 gave me the table of contents of a book that doesn’t exist. It hallucinated the citation, and then when pressed for further details of the citation, hallucinated the table of contents of the non-existent book.
What are the use-cases where you believe a legal chatbot would be helpful for lay people?
Chatbots hallucinate principles of law as much as anything else, because they are auto-complete token-generators with bells and whistles. Getting an answer that is 10% wrong but gut-checks right can be far more dangerous than just not knowing.
If your attorney misses a litigation deadline because they screwed up how many days you have to file something and you lose the case, you can bring a claim against their liability insurance and appeal the decision. If you screw it up yourself because you listened to a chatbot, you are out of luck.
It's really hard to say. I don't see how an AI is much better than a google search for handling, say, a speeding ticket or a legal dispute with the city over when you need to shovel your walk.
Anything with higher stakes than that, say a DUI or a slip-and-fall lawsuit at your grocery store, you *REALLY* should be getting a lawyer (and honestly I think any sane person would)
I don't see present AI as helping "normal" people so they don't have to resort to using lawyers. Present AI is far more useful at...let's say...writing a 50 page summary (with citations) on the state of some nuanced area of law (commercial fishery regulation) that a more general lawyer (say one that does agency law) can then read as a gateway to learn about that sub-sub-sub area...or augmenting an electronic discovery review of 1 million emails to find the crumbs of the crumbs of the crumbs that diligent human searchers missed...in short, it's good at supplementing a legal team: turning a 75% chance of success into a 90% chance of success, or turning a stone-cold loser of a case into a case where maybe the defendant wins 10% of the time...these are not typically the kinds of use
in my (very limited) experience using AI it's often trivially easy to avoid the worst hallucinations by simply saying "use citations from published sources that really exist"
or like "Assume this brief will be filed in the southern district of Florida before a federal judge, so the law must be accurate and the citations must be valid"
Also it's...not hard to check whether a citation is real, so any attorney using an AI generated brief could cite check it...a process that takes 15-30 minutes for most filings and which you should be doing anyway.
I don't trust these things yet to get within a mile of anything I'd write professionally. AI still make stuff up too much for my comfort: cases, facts, whole areas of law. They might be "better than a normal person" at not making stuff up in a legal context, but I wouldn't, EG, pull a normal person off the street and outsource my brief-writing to them.
Agreed. AI is really bad at doing that thing where 95% of the output is correct, but the 5% that isn't is in some critical nuance of law where you'll get caned. I always say that in law it's better not to be wrong than to be right, and this is where AI as it currently stands really let's you down.
At a minimum if you're going to rely on cases cited by an AI then you should ask another AI to look critically at those cases and whether they are really relevant.
Come to think of it, the ideal way of doing this might wind up looking very much like an actual adversarial trial, with one AI lawyer putting forward a case and the other AI lawyer poking holes in it.
We can see here the tension at play in being a lawyer, too. I have a kind of been stewing over an AI thought experiment or moral dilemma relating to this for about a week, and I'll post about it later maybe.
The simple fact is, I will give different answers to a question in different circumstances if posed a legal hypothetical, because as a lawyer I'm called on to act in two different roles: sometimes I'm an ADVISOR, telling a client the cold hard truth about what the law is, and how a jury will perceive it, this is in service of my terminal goal: giving an accurate assessment of the law. Sometimes I'm an ADVOCATE, telling a judge or a jury what I need to to win. in this latter capacity, I can't and don't lie, but I'll put the law and the facts in the very best possible light to achieve my terminal goal: winning.
An AI is playing both roles just like a lawyer does, but I think it has a bad grasp of what works and doesn't, and when to play each role. You WANT a lawyer who will pound the table and insist you're innocent and the law is CLEARLY on your side...in court. You want that same lawyer to give you a good hard slap in the face in the conference room and tell you that you are in BIG TROUBLE here mister. You want a lawyer that will put a positive spin on the bad facts of your case...but you don't want a lawyer that will just flat out make stuff up (because that's easy to catch, and then you look terrible).
It was so great to meet everyone at LessOnline this past weekend (including Scott and Brandon Hendrickson)! I'll be at Lighthaven all through Summer Camp and Manifest.
I have officially launched my Substack, Letters from Bethlehem. I plan to write about YIMBY, my adventures in renovating my 125-year-old house, MAiD, and untangling the tangled ball of ideas that currently makes up the modern disability rights movement.
I want it to be known that the "Bethlehem" in my username refers to Bethlehem, PENNSYLVANIA, the town made of steel and Gilded Age Capitalism. (Not the other Bethlehem.) It's about an hour north of Philadelphia. My first post is about moving there. (Edit: here's the link: https://amandafrombethlehem.substack.com/p/so-you-want-to-move-to-a-streetcar )
When I started going to the Philly ACX meetups, I'd introduce myself as, "Hi, I'm Amanda, I just drove down from Bethlehem. How are you?" I made it my name on our Discord, and it stuck.
I say this because I ran into Scott at LessOnline. He congratulated me for winning the Book Review Contest, and apologized for thinking I was Christian at first.
...I am not. I am very stereotypically objectivist (at least for aesthetic reasons.) (But politically I've mostly mellowed out into a neolib at this point.) Just wanted to clear that up.
Oh yes. The fights about tearing down the old Boyd Theater and building that apartment complex were vicious. I had a front-row seat to the long and troubled construction process.
In might be unpopular opinion but Historical went out of proportions, to the state of transforming entire sections of cities into "Preservation zones". This basically kills the place, cities are living things that need to evolve and change.
Only the dead don't change. Cities are not museums.
Although the journey itself (Texas to Pennsylvania) involved driving a 15ft UHaul down a windy twisty 1-lane-each-way road through Virginia. More of a white knuckled anxiety than a slouch.
Many years ago, I was (briefly) a founding member of a group blog where the main founder wanted a name from Second Coming and initially proposed "Passionate Intensity" or "Lacking All Conviction". I proposed the alternative of "Indignant Desert Birds", which the other junior co-founder strongly endorsed and was eventually chosen.
I dropped out a few months later. I didn't really keep up with it after that, but it seems to be defunct and forgotten now.
I'm trying to find out how "famous" you have to be so that an LLM knows you (defined as: can share information about you when asked). What is the least famous person/thing you know that an LLM also knows?
I'm about as unfamous as can be, but ChatGPT knew EVERYTHING about my opinions. It was quite shocking, actually. It got a couple of my career details wrong, but everything else was spot on.
It was kind and quite flattering. It came up with a summary of my writing that, if I ever wrote a book, I would put on the back cover, and if I ran for office, ChatGPT would be a good spokesman for me.
ChatGPT knows all about my academic/research record, which is not surprising. But then it speculated that I might be related to my son (a solo musician) because we share a hometown and a surname. I was quite surprised, since, as ChatGPT noted, "there is no publicly confirmed familial connection."
With just my name, ChatGPT finds my LinkedIn page and a different Erica Rall's twitter account and mashes the two together awkwardly. I'm apparently both a teacher and a Software Engineer at Adobe.
If I also tell ChatGPT (in a separate chat) that I'm a commenter on Astral Codex Ten, it gives a pretty bad, but recognizable, summary of a few comments I've read. If I then follow up by asking about me outside of ACX, it says it doesn't know anything else, but adds some more badly-summarized stuff from my comments here. If written by a human, I would characterize that summary as mildly transphobic.
My friend is in a very obscure band in Minnesota and it of course knows all the band members names probably from just a couple local shows posted on some website somewhere.
I just tried this with a local indie band and it didn't work. They have 50k total reproductions in spotify and 30 monthly listeners. Is your chosen band in a similar range of listeners?
"Then Galileo showed up and formulated the laws of inertia"
That bit made me go "I thought it was Newton?"
Turns out Galileo discovered the principle, but Newton later formulated the laws.
Re: wills, I think they are there to protect people's rights (there is nothing so vicious as a family falling-out after someone dies and they're arguing about who inherits what, and it's ten times worse if there is no will but "Granny always said I would get the silver teapot/Dad said I'd inherit the farm because I worked on it" as verbal alleged agreements).
If you change your mind but don't put it in writing, your intentions as to disposal of property are very unclear. You give an example of a novel, but we have historical examples of family or friends or executors destroying original source documents after the death of a famous person 'to protect their image/privacy/legacy' which leaves future biographers and historians with large gaps in knowledge, or malicious executors who release heavily-edited versions of works to fit in with their opinion of the writer - Rufus Griswold and Poe is probably the famous version here.
If we allow for "maybe X would have changed/did change their mind about this", then there is little to stop an executor or family member from going "yeah, I know in the will it says they're leaving their savings to the grandkids for college, but that was written ten years ago. I know they would want me to have it to buy a Maserati so that's what I did".
When the person isn't around to be asked anymore "so what do you really want done with this?", all we have to go on is if they wrote something or told someone about it at some point prior to their death.
I'm in a bit of a rut around the game theory of modern US politics and it's driving me in a scary direction as a classical liberal.
I feel like a frustrating trend came to a head with the assassination attempt on Trump versus the attack on Paul Pelosi. The attack on Pelosi was the subject of numerous jokes by high-up conservative figures like Elon Musk, Dave Rubin, and even Donald Trump Jr. himself[1][2][3]. Outside of mainstream media, the right got basically zero pushback for this. Especially not from other right-wingers. On the flip-side, a political streamer named Destiny made edgy Tweets about the assassination attempt on Trump and the death of his supporters and was universally condemned even in left circles[4].
The hard thing is, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to disagree with Destiny on this one. I do think the right-wing has weaponized conspiracy to deny the violence on their side, and even seen fit to laugh at political violence against their enemies. They support Trump not in spite of his polarizing and insulting language, but because of it. However, when Democrats play that same game, the right is all too keen to act like norms still exist, and the Democrats take political heat from their own side and from the apolitical center.
I think Scott wrote about this before in "In Favor of Niceness and Community". I think I understand the idea of that post, but at what point does that truly become less a norm and just a game theoretical disadvantage?
Note: I want to be EXPLICITLY UNGODLY clear that I'm not advocating violence or anything against any side. I condemn all of the attacks on Trump and all politicians. My point is less about celebrating his assassination attempt and more sharing Destiny's feelings about lack of sympathy for the MAGA right and what it means for civility politics, and looking for some bright light here for why I might be wrong.
I think it falls apart the moment you have a majority that's willing to use violence to accomplish its goals. Doesn't help that the left gave them all the motivation necessary to do so. The left took everything for granted, and believed that their benevolent ideals made their success inevitable. They deserve their fate.
> Doesn't help that the left gave them all the motivation necessary to do so...They deserve their fate.
"Look what you made me do", said the abuser as he kicked in his partner's teeth. "It's all your fault. You made me do this," they said as they smashed the plates and took a hammer to the house.
Why is that the left only has agency when you're looking for people to blame? The violence on your side is totally justified because of the aggravation of those other people; the violence on their side is a contemptible and disgusting act of depravity? This is the logic of an abuser, and it's just as gross here as it would be there.
I make no excuses for the violent people. But previously we had a rather successful nonviolent coalition against them, and for some people it was important to create a lot of infighting in that coalition. Also, they promoted the social norm of "nonviolent violence" such as getting people fired from their jobs for expressing a wrong opinion, etc.
As a result, the coalition got weaker, and lost. Let's hope it's only temporary.
When I point fingers, it's not to excuse Trump and his ilk. It's to make his return (or the return of someone like him) less likely.
There is the left in general, and then there are the "woke" people who are just as violent, stupid, and evil as the redcaps. Not more, not less. Anyone who hates people for being male is just as evil as anyone who hates them for being female. And so on. We let ourselves be terrorized by them, because they were nominally on our side (despite the fact that most of their attacks were against other people on our side). Now we can clearly see that submission to the woke is not a winning strategy, so I hope we can finally kick them out of polite society. No, I don't mean any violence or any of the tools they would be happy to use if they had the opportunity. Just a nice and firm "shut up, retard", and don't try to appease them (that only makes them escalate, anyway).
Frankly, I don't care about what justification the "abuser" uses, that's irrelevant. But it is absolutely your responsibility to make decisions that result in your continued existence. And part of that is not giving people reasons or avenues to hurt you. You can whine all you want about how "evil" other people are, but that doesn't change the fact that they absolutely had the means to prevent all of this, and yet they failed. Though, that depends on whether you believe that people have free will... but if you believe they don't, then no one's truly culpable for their actions, are they? Makes even less sense to complain if all of this was completely inevitable.
I can think of a dozen more proximal reasons that Trump won besides "its the lefts fault".
Trump won because Trump lied, constantly and shamelessly, in a way that most people didn't think possible and weren't prepared for. Trump won because he had an insane media apparatus that refused to contradict him or be critical of him at every step, and in fact actively ran propaganda for him. Trump won because the richest man on Earth bought one of the most used social media platforms on Earth, and used it to run interference. Trump won because that same man put together a vote buying scheme for him in Pennsylvania. Trump won because his team shut down bipartisan legislation in order to make sure certain problems remained problems for him to campaign on. Trump won because the people who voted for him didn't want to listen to inconvenient truths about manufacturing jobs or COVID. Trump won because those same people didn’t believe him when he said he was going to implement broad tariffs, go after people who criticized him, or try to run for a third term.
These all seem like immediately more proximal causes than "Trump won because the Democrats shat the bed on a very particular policy position that only very online people know about but that I care about a lot."
> "I don't care about what justification the "abuser" uses, that's irrelevant. But it is absolutely your responsibility to make decisions that result in your continued existence"
The abuser never thinks they are being abusive. That's why the logic is always 'look what you made me do'. Find someone else to blame for your heinous actions besides yourself, never look in the mirror. Why are you blaming the left? Why are you providing intellectual cover for an authoritarian extremist regime? Your argument seems to be 'its *your* responsibility to be better, not *my* responsibility'. Ok, well since you're not responsible for your own actions, I guess we should find the adult who is.
Most of the Trump assassination attempt related comments I've seen were along the lines of "So sorry he missed." I live just North of LA so that may influence things. I don't care for Trump. But I really have no trouble 'both sides'ing this problem with regards to the assassination, specifically.
I do sometimes wonder to what extent 'the Right' is different from 'Republicans.' There's certainly a gap between 'self identified leftists' and 'democrats.' Are those gaps the same size and shape?
I think we really need to try to be objective and precise about these kinds of questions because it's easy and tempting to cherry pick.
Respectfully, I think you are viewing things from a selective, left of center lens.
The violence coming from parts of the left is not isolated to just targeted violence of national political figures. If that was the case, then I think your argument would be stronger.
The violence coming from the left is more pervasive at all levels. Antifa is a left wing organization that has been committing political violence for a long time. Over a decade off the top of my head. They attack conservative speakers to prevent them from speaking. [1] Just last week, they attacked a Christian group that wanted to protest in a park. [2] Though the Floyd protests had some legitimate political underpinings, the scope of violence cannot be supported if we want a good civil society. Estimates are that damage from the Floyd protests are in the $1-2 billion range. [3] For both Antifa and the George Floyd protests, very few were charged with crimes. Many Democratic politicians at least tactily gave support to both. This badly damaged civil society.
As somebody on the right, if somebody on the left wants to break the cycle: condemn all antifa actions from now on. They have shown they are only interested in violence and do nothing to contribute to civil discourse.
Also, many leftist groups have supported the murder of the 2 Israeli Embassy staff, which in my opinion is another example of leftist political violence. [4]
What a convenient double standard for you. "If you want to break the cycle, condemn a group you are not even associated with. We, of course, don't have to lift a finger when our own elected representatives celebrate violence, or even engage in it on a systemic level. And of course, we want you to condemn a fringe group, but we will have dinner with self-identified Nazis."
No one believes this shit man. You are doing hypernormalisation, where you and I both know that what you're saying is wrong, but you've figured out that it's a useful way to do propaganda so I have to engage with it seriously. This is how Trump operates also.
Antifa is a known organziation and that committed an act of violence just last week. I choose them because they are obviously part of the problem of political violence in the US. Is it so hard to condemn them? Why are you resisting condemning them?
Please present the evidence of self identified Nazi's. My cursory read is that there are alot of assumptions and guilt by association used to get to "Nazi". Happy to be proven wrong.
If you want to bring up a conservative group that is also actively engaging in violence, then I am happy to condemn them if the accusation is supported by the evidence.
I am not on the left, I don't apply labels to myself at all, so it's interesting that you are now pressuring me to condemn a group that doesn't even operate in my country. Either way, we aren't speaking at the individual level here. I don't care if you personally condemn a group, only that a critical mass of people who use the same labels as you are willing to.
A good example of what you're asking for would be Kanye West, who proudly identifies as a Nazi, and has had dinner with the current president of the US. Fair warning, if you bother to nitpick this point for any reason other than to point out an error (if you think I've made one), then the conversation is over. I would like to talk to right wingers who are at least willing to address the operative point of the arguments here, namely that this kind of thing happens on both sides but is only expected to be condemned by one side.
Great, you don't apply labels to yourself. That doesn't mean others cannot apply labels to your arguments or how your present yourself on a comment thread. I notice that you use "right wingers". My guess is that someone on the left is an appropriate label.
Nobody is pressuring you to do anything. You responded to my comment and I thought you wanted a discussion on US political violence. I do find it distrubing that you cannot condemn antifa. In case you are not aware, please read the link to wikipedia to understand how much violence antifa commits. [1]
Please point out the last meeting Trump had with Kanye. My googling turned up 2018, a little while ago.[2] Kanye West is also believed to be suffering from mental illness with reports that he is bi-polar. [3] He is also not ever been in a policy making role and Trump likely met with Kanye due to Kanye's celebrity status.
Hi Aaron. The fundamental problem here is that the 2025 Republican part/right-wing cares far less for your values. You are their enemy, they don't care much beyond that. There are right-wingers who are still principled, but they are not ascendant in the party right now.
Accordingly, they are not going to care much if you are chastising them for being silent on violence, even if they don't actually want to see violence.
No, it didn't. It rejects that white people in South Africa are actually refugees in a meaningful sense. That's a disagreement over facts, not a violation of principle, even if the left has ideological reasons to be skeptical of those claims.
That's funny, because I've been told multiple times by people on the left that it's stupid and racist to doubt claims to refugee status, because obviously no-one would uproot their entire lives and flee to the West if their lives weren't in danger. And I don't think that, say, the Episcopalian Church decided to cut ties with the federal government out of a simple factual disagreement over the precise status of fifty-odd people.
More generally, the left has built an entire argumentative superstructure explaining why white people can never be the victims of racism, men can never be the victims of sexism, etc.
The biggest example is the reaction to Trump winning the 2024 election. Despite opposing him, there was no denial of his victory. The idea of left-wingers doing a Jan 6th, or even doing broad election denialism, is completely absurd, but the reality of the right at this moment.
For a smaller example, Biden tried to introduce the ERA as a Constitutional amendment in the waning days of his administration. It went nowhere and you don't have left-wingers questioning how the "Deep State" is suppressing the rights of women.
Then there's the general level of intellectualism on the left vs. the right. While it doesn't translate to being principled at all times, being intellectual requires following arguments to their conclusion, and my view is that I would get farther with a left-winger than a right-winger if I tried to convince either of a view associated with the other side.
Lastly, cancel culture. Though it's perverse and hypocritical at times, the willingness to oust a person for refusing to toe all moral stances is an indication of being principled, and right-wing cancel culture is far more about the friend-enemy distinction.
I find your post very weak in terms of supporting the claim that the left is more principled right now. Answering in detail because you didn't respond to my question.
>The biggest example is the reaction to Trump winning the 2024 election. Despite opposing him, there was no denial of his victory. The idea of left-wingers doing a Jan 6th, or even doing broad election denialism, is completely absurd, but the reality of the right at this moment.
I am not sure if you think Jan 6 is bad from a violence stand point or from a election denial standpoint or both.
Violence: The left has been more then willing to support violence when it suits their mood. Antifa has been around for a decade. Very few elected Democrats have condemn them. In fact, antifa was at least tacitly supported by the left and their crimes not prosecuted. Also, George Floyd protests. Democratic officials and media ignored the riots. I don't think anybody was prosecuted for the riots that cost $1-2 billion.
Election denialism: I can't come up with anything as bad as Jan 6th, so I think you have a point. But Democrats have alot of their own election denialism. Hilary Clinton was quoted in 2020 saying "widespread understanding that [the 2016] election was not on the level."
So on net, maybe you have a small point. But it isn't as clear cut as you present it.
I will counter. The left uses "rule of law" when it suits them so they are less principled than the right. Examples of left not following the rule of law.
1) Above points on antifa and Floyd protest violence where the left ignored violence on their side.
2) Democratic elected officials defending Hannah Duggan when it was clear there was enough evidence to arrest her. Also, don't look now. Leftist are supporting Duggan's argument that a state Judge is immune from Federal law. 100+ former judges have signed a petition supporting Duggan's argument of such.
3) Leftist Judges overstepping their powers. Boasberg was overruled by SCOTUS and the case was remanded to the a judge in the 5th Circuit (where it should've been heard orignally). Xinis was also overruled by SCOTUS in the Garcia case and told that she couldn't order the Executive to "effectuate" the return. Last I read, she was still trying to play games by hinting at "effectuate" and refusing to define "facilitate". I could give even more examples of leftist judges being overruled by SCOTUS for errors in following known procedures and staying within their powers.
This is potentially the biggest threat to the US. The Judicial Branch has very little powers and is suppose to be the "rule of law" branch. If the Judiciary loses that belief from the citizens, the US will suffer for it.
My opinion is that my counter argument shows the left is less principled right now.
>For a smaller example, Biden tried to introduce the ERA as a Constitutional amendment in the waning days of his administration. It went nowhere and you don't have left-wingers questioning how the "Deep State" is suppressing the rights of women.
I am not sure why this is even brought up and shows a potential lack of understanding of how the US works. No Federal Employee (ie the Deep State) could impact the ERA. ERA needs a constitutional amendment. The short story. It's Congress and the state legislatures that have to pass the ERA amendment. Also, the left didn't complain because everybody realized Biden wasn't serious. Biden made his ERA speech on January 17, 2025. 2 days before leaving office.
>Then there's the general level of intellectualism on the left vs. the right. While it doesn't translate to being principled at all times, being intellectual requires following arguments to their conclusion, and my view is that I would get farther with a left-winger than a right-winger if I tried to convince either of a view associated with the other side.
For the sake of argument, I will grant you that the left is more intellectual. But you have logic errors and lack of evidence for your argument. First, intellectualism != principle. So you need to strongly support the assertion. You say that being intellectual means the person can follow arguments to their conclusion and thus more principled.
Diagramming your claim.
intellectual ==> follows argument ==> more principle.
I think you are missing a evidence for "argument ==> more principle". Intellectuals are more able to use motivated reasoning, so I argue they will use more motivated reasoning. You have provided no evidence that intellectuals are not less tribal, less likely to succumb to social pressure, and a whole host of biases that humans are susceptile to that would cause them use motivated reasoning. In fact, I would argue many intellectuals are more aware of the environment they are in and will conform if needed.
>Lastly, cancel culture. Though it's perverse and hypocritical at times, the willingness to oust a person for refusing to toe all moral stances is an indication of being principled, and right-wing cancel culture is far more about the friend-enemy distinction.
I guess it could be principled as in a person is consistent in casting out heretics when they discover them. My opinion is that it is not principled (as in moral) at all to ruin people's lives (financially and socially) because a person said things that were widely accepted just a few years ago. Maybe a little understanding and forgiveness would help you attract people to the left?
> It went nowhere and you don't have left-wingers questioning how the "Deep State" is suppressing the rights of women.
That's because the deep state is left-wing, and everyone knows it. When it comes to powerful groups or people that are right-wing, like Fox News or Elon Musk, the left is quite ready to accuse them of suppressing various left-wing causes.
>While it doesn't translate to being principled at all times, being intellectual requires following arguments to their conclusion, and my view is that I would get farther with a left-winger than a right-winger if I tried to convince either of a view associated with the other side.
Pardon me if this seems impertenent, but I'm guessing you haven't actually interacted with many intellectuals recently?
>Lastly, cancel culture. Though it's perverse and hypocritical at times, the willingness to oust a person for refusing to toe all moral stances is an indication of being principled, and right-wing cancel culture is far more about the friend-enemy distinction.
Leftists are quite ready to ignore their alleged moral stances depending on who's doing the action. You won't see anyone on the left complaining about a statue of, say, Shaka Zulu on the grounds that he was a ruthless imperialist and slave-owner.
I share this in part to do the eternal both-sides-do-it thing but in part because there was an...interesting information spin on it at the end. I'll quote and then add my own commentary:
"But we have gone from tacit support for thugs beating protesters to nationwide riots to dozens of millions of Americans openly supporting political murder as a solution to their perceived problems. What we have here is the creation of common knowledge.
Right now, no one is trying to enforce a norm against political violence. But what I am trying to tell you is that, right now, no one can enforce a norm against political violence, because the norm is already gone. This is not obvious because no one is yanking on the lever, but I am warning you that the lever is in fact broken, and it will be obvious that it is broken the next time someone yanks on it. It's conceivable that we could rebuild the mechanisms that lever connects to before we actually need to yank on it, but it's very obvious that no one is actually doing that."
So...imagine the most violent and radical 5% of the population. Regardless of who they are, in normal times if they moved towards violence they would be condemned, isolated, and face severe repercussions. We are now getting the first inkling that those old norms will not be enforced. In fact, violence towards the outgroup might result in massive status and/or financial gain. That knowledge is not yet widespread but has implications.
For example, I'm old enough to remember when Richard Spencer was punched in the face by a masked Antifa member and I'm old enough to remember how everyone reacted. Ignore the right or wrong of it, focus on the fact that he was masked. If he was unmasked, how much money would he have raised? We're raising millions of dollars for people who assassinate healthcare CEOs and use racial slurs in playgrounds. You or I might not risk an assault charge for a million dollars and global fame but there's a lot of struggling people with an appetite for high risk gambles to whom that might be very appealing. And the problem right now isn't that those people exist, it's that the knowledge that political violence against their outgroup might be a viable career path is slowly becoming known.
And, to do the thing that everyone else does for likely legal reasons, I super do not advocate political violence. My shit be baller and my primary concern with this is keeping my baller shit. But...if there's an increasing number of unhinged people who think political violence is a viable path to a better life...I mean, I might wanna take some precautions to keep my baller shit. Getting a concealed carry license for self defense is...probably not a completely unwarranted response.
Eh, I saw and see a lot of support for the guy who shot the healthcare CEO and a lot of messaging on social media about "we need more like this" from the lefty side.
Tomayto, tomahto
No, we shouldn't be calling for people's deaths, whoever they are and whoever we are.
Hum... I'm reminded of a Heinlein novel where the good guys had a "better off dead" list. Where, for utilitarian reasons, the death of some folks was a huge positive Util boost. It's impossible to understand or predict all the long term effect of our actions, but that's no reason to not take actions that, to the best of our understanding, would improve the welfare of many.
I mean, there is that, but I always found Yudkowsky's argument that we're running on corrupted hardware more widely persuasive.
Basically, we know that we can't fully trust our conclusions, because our perceptions and judgements are corrupted by a monkey-brain evolved to seize power for ourselves or our allies... and a lot of the evolved relationship between that monkey brain and our consciousness is our consciousness playing the unwitting and sincere PR agent for our lower self's ambition. So, when our conclusions are that we are morally required to seize power in our own hands and wrest it from non-allies, some serious self-distrust is in order.
Combine that fundamental distrust with the base rate on this: that when we look at self-described morally motivated murderers, they almost always seem like monsters with ulterior motives to us. Looking at it from an outside view then, we're probably not avoiding monstrousness if we go down that road, in spite of what our internal, corrupted analysis is telling us.
Deontology serves well as guard rails against our own hardware conspiring to make us into a moral monster. It serves less well the farther you get away from the sorts of situations where acting on your moral intuitions would give you and/or your allies status.
Sure, but was support for Luigi Mangione coming from rando lefties or from higher ups in the Democratic Party? I guess the highest profile people celebrating Mangione that I saw would be the likes of Taylor Lorenz, but I have trouble associating leftists like her with the Democrats, since left-wing populists at a certain line hate the Democratic Party almost as much as Republicans do.
You're running afoul of a problem I see a lot (and might be running afoul of myself, just by arguing this). Lorenz is some outlier to you, but she's got a high profile, and so there are people on the right who see her as representative of the left. Similarly, there are people on the right who see Steve Bannon as some weird outlier, and people on the left who want to say he's representative. We could of course get into an argument about the merits of Lorenz vs. Bannon, but I'm sure we could name dozens of other tribal examples as well, and I think the major thing we could agree on is that each tribe disagrees on whether each example is representative, and to what extent.
Meaning this is all just subjectivity bias in the end, unless you think you can pin down an objective metric. And I'm not saying this to point out some failing, either - my point is that it's hard IMO to produce accurate portrayals of a tribe in a culture war, and I could go farther and claim that trying to make one is likely to be frustrating.
Trump is not an outlier. He won the Republican nomination three times. There are conservatives who oppose him, like Liz Cheney, but opposing Trump ended her political career.
Steve Bannon was Chief Executive Officer of Trumps 2016 campaign, and became chief strategist and senior counselor in the Trump White House. Trump fired him in less than a year, but that was pretty much par for the course in the Trump White House. I don’t think you can dismiss Trump’s top White House staffers as outliers just because the Trump Administration had high turnover.
After leaving the White House, Bannon was one of the people involved in <em>We Build the Wall</em>, which conned Trump supporters by promising that the money they donated would be used to build a wall on the U.S./Mexican border. That would seem to separate him from Trump, except that Trump pardoned him.
It’s no insult to Taylor Lorenz to say that, compared to Bannon, she is a nobody. She is, I will presume, a talented, hard working journalist. She worked at the New York Times for a few years, where she broke the story that Michael Bloomberg was using fake social media accounts to support his candidacy. She then moved to the Washington Post, where she wrote a story about the operator of the Libs of Tik Tok account that generated a bunch of discussion. It seems she’s also written a book and now has a substack. None of this make her a representative of a political movement the way Trump and his associates represent MAGA.
What Byrel said, plus: these are examples. As I said, we could name other tribal examples. Ibram Kendi. Stephen Miller. Joy Behar. Ben Shapiro. Robin DiAngelo. Richard Hanania. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Sarah Palin. Tim Walz. Laura Loomer. Howard Stern. Glenn Beck. On and on and on, until we're exhausted and everything's blurring together. And I guarantee a left's and right's perspective of these figures' importance will differ, widely.
Given that his time in the halls of power was quite short, and that he's openly loathed by major figures on the right like Ben Shapiro, I'm not sure this gets you to him being a fair representative of the movement as a whole. Sure, he's a mainstream figure in some sense... but then, so is anyone who worked at the NYT (in a 'my name is on the article' role) for a few years. Noone thinks that David French is a fringe political actor, in spite of him clearly not representing either left or right.
According to an Emerson poll, ~40% of Democrats either support Mangione's action or are not willing to condemn it. I think this is troubling because it supports the notion that Democrats are willing to resort to political violence.
> According to an Emerson poll, ~40% of Democrats either support Mangione's action or are not willing to condemn it. I think this is troubling because it supports the notion that Democrats are willing to resort to political violence.
I'm pretty far from being a "Democrat," but I personally think we need ten thousand more Luigis.
In no other industry can you be farmed for ~$500-1k a person, and not use that service at all most months, and then when you DO use it, it's routinely denied and roadblocked, and people just shrug and are like "what can you do?"
So not only do you have to pay frankly extortionate amounts, then you have to waste hours of your own personal time just to get the service you've already dumped many thousands of dollars into!
Would this stand in ANY other industry? Of course not. But people are just expected to shut up and take it here in the USA, because the PMC have good insurance through jobs and don't need to think of it, and it's mostly a problem for poor people and small business owners.
And is there any recourse? None. Is there any feedback mechanism to punish the insurers, or direct your business to effective insurers who actually provide the service they're being paid for? Ha! Nope.
Can you opt out and go to a better system? If you move and get citizenship anywhere else in the world, yes, but if you're in America, no.
The fact that most insurance is tied to employment means that we materially suppress and reduce entrepreneurialism, too. Especially anyone with a family has to think thrice before taking the plunge, because all the Exchange insurances are much crappier than employment-quality insurance, and the prices you'll pay on the Exchange for similar quality insurance IF you can find it are generally significantly higher than employer-quality insurance, due to risk pools and adverse selection.
Another problem with Exchange insurances is that they typically limit it to coverage solely in your home state! You're uncovered in 98% of the US, except for emergency care. Well, what if you live in a tri-state area or the Northeast, and your long-time physician is in another nearby state? Tough luck. Can you just double pay and buy Exchange insurance in multiple states? Nope, illegal. Absolutely ridiculous!
You're literally being held hostage by the worst + most expensive health system in the world, with the stakes your life / bankruptcy.
There is zero feedback mechanism available, either legislative or through voting with your dollars.
Ten thousand more Luigis!
It's the only feebdack mechanism that ACTUALLY works and is actually listened to. Burn the system down, because that's the only way to effect any actual change for the better.
The comparison here runs into confounders. First, Paul Pelosi isn't a powerful politician; he's just married to one. Consequently, his case wasn't center stage relative to Trump. To the extent it was important, it was "violent crime against a politician's close family", which results in a lot of differences that don't really have anything to do with political tribe. If someone had attempted to assassinate Nancy, we would see more similarities.
Moreover, Paul Pelosi was also a wealthy elite, which traditionally puts the left off. You'd have to look carefully for whether the jokes were more like "yeah, take that, ya filthy Democrat!" or "yeah, take that, ya filthy elite!". If they're more the latter, we can expect less pushback coming from the left.
I'm seeing evidence in right-leaning circles of an implicit notion that the right doesn't act on its violent urges as much as the left does. I think the evidence for this is weak (cf. Giffords), albeit not zero (cf. Scalise); while both shooters (Loughner and Hodgkinson) were considered to be suffering from mental illness, it's hard to make that case for, e.g., Mangione. And all the while, this line of reasoning has all the problems from trying to characterize a population by less than 0.000001% of its number.
To maybe get more at the nut of your concern: suppose we agreed that one side *was* abusing norms more than the other. What are you going to suggest as a solution? Norms have to be enforced by something. The right has something of a point here: moral pressure is a good way to enforce them, but it has limited success when people simply disagree about what's moral. The trad right had a scheme for keeping morality unified, and see the left as having undermined it, and that's why we have MAGA now.
Personally, I don't think religious - read: Christian - morality is necessary, and the right's specific flavor of it had some evident problems. At the same time, I also see a lot of people employ faith to good ends, and I notice a strain of Marxism that deconstructed that far farther than it should have, and knocked over Chesterton's fence. Any argument that the right is being unusually violent right now will have to contend with this.
It seems to me that so much of what's driving all this norm-breaking is a sense that "the other side broke norms first, but they broke different norms that we don't have the power to break, whereas we *do* have the power to break *these* other norms". So the left breaks a bunch of norms around keeping politics out of the workplace and having scientific experts not leverage their position for political activism. The right is not able to do those same things, so they break a different bunch of norms around the rhetoric of presidential candidates and accepting election results and so on. The far left hasn't got as much direct power on the left to do those same things to the same degree, so they break a bunch of norms around not supporting assassination attempts (whether of candidates or CEOs). And it keeps going and the worst thing of all is that each side is utterly convinced that only the other side ever broke any norms, because their own norm-breaking is of a different enough kind that they can conveniently fail to notice it.
The only way this cycle stops is if we find some way of making people acknowledge and take responsibility for *all* of their side's norm-breaking. Any thoughts on how to do this?
I completely agree with you. When you confront MAGA types on why they support Trump doing obviously bad things, it's typically "because the left did it first!", although I'll note that whether the left did it first is quite often true, but also sometimes just the result of being cooked in conservative media. I don't how to break that cycle, especially in the conspiracy-driven environment where we live in two fundamentally different realities.
It feels like the only way it would ever occur is either (a) some horrific event has to happen to unify us, although at this point I don't know if that's even possible, like China invades California or something or (b) it just eventually blows over like all political cycles, we're in a heated moment, and eventually we just chill out after being angry at each other for a bit.
A lot of this comes on the back of re-evaluating how I personally approach politics and debating people. I've been quite aggressive in my rhetoric since I was a kid (a child of Hitchens and the New Atheists), but as I get older I see the calmer, more coalition-building style of people like Scott or President Obama and am weighing the advantages and disadvantages of when it's right to go hard and nasty versus the nice and calm way.
Why do you think opposing violence against your political opponents is a game theoretical disadvantage? What advantage would glorifying violence give you? Trump got a significant boost in the polls from the assassination attempt. Joe Rogan said he started supporting Trump due to the assassination attempt and invited him on his show, giving him 59 million views. The famous photo of Trump bloodied but defiant made him look absolutely heroic, according to even far-left talk show hosts like The Young Turks. Those several seconds tanked the Democrats' chances more than any other single event in the whole campaign.
Because if you have one side that never holds their own accountable on these things, doesn't care for norms, and will never pay a price for it, and another that endlessly does, it feels like the norm-disregarding side will always win. From my perch, it seems like not opposing violence against their opponents hasn't harmed the right one bit, although I'm open to being proven wrong about this.
There are people who are on neither side, or are only weakly on one side, who will react to norm-breaking by shifting their support to the other side. So there is always a price.
Against which, what is the *advantage* of breaking this particular norm, that you feel gives the norm-breaking side an unending series of victories? Are you imagining one side literally exterminating the other side's candidates so that they have no one left to vote for and represent their interests? Because that really doesn't seem likely to happen. You'll get a few scattered shootings and other violent acts, and if one side always responds "Yeah, kill them all!" from the leadership and the rank and file, but so what? They still have to go out and win an election, with the same number of voters they had before, against an opposition that has the same number of voters they had before.
> it feels like the norm-disregarding side will always win
That's only the case if the no one is actually enforcing norms. And no, cancelling doesn't count. It was a powerless act that only served to fuel the right's resentment.
From the perspective of the left, why would it matter if not opposing violence hasn't harmed the right, if opposing violence doesn't harm the left while encouraging it does? "The norm-disregarding side will always win" is demonstrably not always true, as Trump's attempted assassination shows.
To be crystal clear on this again to make sure you understand: I'm not saying the left should *encourage* violence at all. I'm saying personally and rhetorically, I'm finding it hard to find counterarguments for why the left should have any sympathy for violence against right-wingers, since they have none for the left. I would put Tweets like Destiny's in the camp of "not having sympathy" rather than "encouragement".
To phrase it a different way - what if instead of giving the canned public condolences response to violence against Republicans, what if Democrats instead just said nothing at all? Or why should the DNC not meme about it on X? It seems like the only argument against this is that it might backfire politically - which to me just feels like an admission that the two parties are graded on wildly different curves, which is itself untenable.
Also, unless I'm misreading, that CBS News poll you linked shows 72% of Republicans in favor of Trump pardoning J6ers that violently broke into the Capitol.
I don't like the fact that this is where our politics is, but it feels like an unavoidable civility death spiral and unrealistic to say that one side should just be kind and respectful all the time while the other engages in wanton degeneracy.
I wasn't saying the left should have sympathy for violence against right-wingers. I was saying that saying nothing at all about violence against Republicans, or memeing about it on X, does nothing to help the left.
I think your post has mis-represented the poll data.
The summary is "Trump pardoning those who forced their way into the capital". Nowhere is the word "violence" in the summary or in the question (available in the crosstabs). I argue this question is focused just on the questions of pardons, not the event.
Because, in the same poll there is a question about supporting the J6 actions, 69% of conservatives say they disapprove.
As for the pardons, conservatives are rightly concerned that the Democratic Justice Department were way overzealous in charging the protesters and the Justice Department was wrong. I will leave one datapoint to support that claim. SCOTUS ruled that the Justice Department couldn't use an obstruction charge because it was unconstitutional.
That’s a pretty weak data point. Nothing unconstitutional occurred. At issue was the meaning of a criminal statute, §1512(c)(2). Because no one had tried to overturn an election before in the way that was attempted on January 6, there were no relevant precedents. The question was a close enough call that different judges had different opinions; eventually the Supreme Court sided with the defense’s interpretation of the statute 6-3.
If the factual allegations in the indictment are true, Joseph Fisher was guilty of violating multiple criminal statutes, just not §1512(c)(2). Even if you believe that the DOJ was “overzealous” in charging a violation of §1512(c)(2), the Supreme Court corrected that by dismissing that count. How does that justify pardoning Fisher on the other counts?
To me, the most salient part of that poll is the name "YouGov" at the top. I've long been suspicious of theirs being push polls, and I'd want to see exactly how they were presented.
Also, here's another periodic reminder to anyone reading this that poll responses are influenced not just by the plain reading of the questions, but also by the tribal affiliation the target wants to express. There a lot of people who will answer a certain way to a question simply because they suspect a trick. They know how these polls get used.
The article you cite explicitly notes that they've softened on the issue. 51% strongly opposed it when it happened, only 30% now. Give it enough time and I expect the right to speak about Jan 6th in the same tone some anti-Westerners talk about October 7th.
In my view, the types of people that cheer on Luigi Mangione and want him to be to be acquitted are much farther from the mainstream Democratic establishment than the people that were cheering on Paul Pelosi's assault, considering one of them is the President's son.
How would you measure that in any kind of objective way? Because it is incredibly easy to confirmation-bias your way into being convinced that your side is 90% angels with an occasional bad apple, and the other side is 90% devils with an occasional well-intentioned dupe. Add in filter bubbles and ideologically-driven choice of media sources, and you can have plenty of people from both sides convinced of this. And indeed, I'd say that's what we actually observe. Tons of folks on the right remember left/elite support for "fiery, but mostly peaceful, protests" and the lauding of Mangione for murdering an insurance CEO, and tons of folks on the left remember right/elite support for the J6 rioters.
This isn’t an objective measurement but Trump did get a laugh from his rally crowd by asking “How’s Paul Pelosi doing?” shortly after the incident. But people at one of his rallies seem to laugh or applaud on cue at those and I guess rally attendees aren’t a representative sample.
Does anyone have a good estimate for how long it will take to build the nuclear reactors required for AGI level data centers in the US, given the legal processes required and construction time?
No nuclear reactors are necessary for AGI-level data centers. Nuclear reactors, or more precisely the steam turbines they drive, generate about as much power as large gas turbines. Gas turbines are much cheaper than nuclear reactors, and can be built much faster and with less bureaucratic hassle or adverse publicity. Nor is there any particular shortage of natural gas at present.
That AGI/ASI proponents insist that nuclear, or even Fusion!!!, power plants are necessary for them to accomplish their goals, is just one more way they exhibit a disconnect from reality.
Not sure whether that makes them more or less of a threat, though.
I'll admit, a small part of me would like them to push for nuclear reactors simply because I think nuclear reactors are a good thing to have, and their arguments might serve to shake the plaque loose from the old arguments against nuke plants that I think are even somewhat mistaken. Good thing, wrong reason.
Leopold's Situational Awareness paper has some discussion (ctrl-F for "power") and I think AI-2027 has a power/energy supplement too. IIRC they both conclude that with a bit of creativity (ramping up natural gas, repurposing aluminium smelting, few other tricks) energy will not be a bottleneck until post-2030, which is roughly when we'll hit other walls related to hardware, spending, and algorithmic progress (though that last one is more speculative). So they both conclude that power only becomes a real constraint *if* we hit a slowdown and we get vastly diminishing returns on compute, hardware, and spending before "finding" AGI, in the sense of discovering how much compute + energy + hardware + spending you need for it.
Both are estimates from startups and for a not-yet-existing technology (as far as I know), so they are likely pretty optimistic. Though this Metaculus question is a lot more bullish and gives a 20% chance that 1% of nuclear power in the US comes from SNR by 2030.
And this question estimates that 15GW of new nuclear power enters operation in the US by 2035. If I didn't miscalculate, then the US consumes 450GW of electricity, so that would be about 3%. This seems a lot more conservative (and realistic) to me, given that the timeline is five years longer, and it also counts traditional nuclear plants.
No one knows if AGI level data centers are even possible. If they are possible, no one knows even remotely what their energy requirements will be. There is considerable research being done toward increasing both the energy-efficiency and data-efficiency of training frontier-level models, so odds are that even an otherwise reasonable extrapolation of current requirements will be obsolete by the time it becomes possible to build AGI-level data centers. Obviously, with all of these unknowns, we are totally ready to plan and regulate.
“If they are possible, no one knows even remotely what their energy requirements will be.”
I feel like people actually do have at least some *remote* idea for how much power they will take. We know general scaling trends, and we have general ideas of how much power things will take. OpenAI is already planning to build a 10 GW cluster. I just wanna know how they plan to get the power for that, and how long it will take
I started a discussion on facebook of drug testing and it went in a couple of directions. I started from a status point of view-- drug testing is imposed on low status people even though high status people are making important decisions. People got into the question of effectiveness-- does making drug use less likely improve safety? Maybe, one person said that they were in the Air Force before and after drug testing came in during the 80s, and it became a better place to work. I also found out that in the US military, drug tests goes all the way up to generals.
The argument was made that people who handle heavy machinery and such are less capable if drugged, while the immediate effects are less obvious in a boss or CEO. I *think* that's the argument.
I asked whether people would trust a company more if they knew the people at the top were drug tested. A large majority said no, and offered various structures they prefer. A strong and sensible board of directors. Worker-owned. No MBAs at the top. Is there anything you look for?
Obviously, this is about Musk, but not only about Musk.
Some people can keep control of their drug use. I tried marijuana a few times, but it didn't give me any pleasure so I stopped. I drink alcohol occasionally, and I enjoy it, but I never get drunk. If all people could keep their drug use at this level, we wouldn't need to have a debate about it, because it would be obviously harmless.
Sadly, many people become addicted and it destroys their brains. They get drunk and start doing stupid things that hurt people around them, and then they use "I didn't mean it, I was drunk" as an excuse. I know too many people like that. Then there are the drug junkies who are gradually changing into mindless zombies, and all they care about is getting their next dose. They steal things, work for organized crime, use infected dirty needles, try to recruit other people into addition because dealing drugs to their classmates is an easy source of money.
Of course, if you ask people, *everyone* is in the first group. "I have it under control" is the first thing a junkie will tell you. "It is completely safe, I did my own research", meaning: they know other junkies, and they communicate with each other online, telling each other that despite all evidence to the contrary they are OK. The more often someone talks about how much they have it under control, the less likely it is.
I wouldn't trust a junkie in *any* position. They are basically people whose brains are damaged, and switching between the "drunk/high" and "sober" states makes them like two different people in one body. It does not mater what the sober person told you: whether it made sense, whether they made promises or emotional appeals -- the drunk/high person does not give a fuck about any of that, and probably doesn't even remember it. The drunk/high person is not fully human, and is a threat to everyone around them. And the sober person is guilty of regularly changing to the other one, and exposing everyone around them to the danger.
It's like being a werewolf. "Hey, I am not responsible for the people I hurt when I was in the wolf shape. You can't blame me for that." Okay, and what precautions did you take while you were in your human form, to prevent that? "Uh, why would I take precautions? I just explained to you that you can't blame me." Well, even if I accept your logic that I shouldn't blame your wolf form, I still blame your human form for not even trying to reduce the damage that your wolf form predictably and repeatedly does. A responsible person would chain themselves to a tree before the full moon, or something like that. If you refuse to do that, then yes, in my eyes you *are* responsible for what happens.
Should we punish addicts even when they don't do any damage? In my opinion, we should treat them similarly to people who fire a gun in your direction, but miss you. Those didn't do any damage either. If is perfectly legitimate to wish that no guns should be fired in your direction, and it is just as legitimate to wish to avoid any interaction with addicts.
The article you linked forgets to mention that the greatest danger to homeless people are the addicted homeless people living in the same shelter. So if you make one big shelter for all the homeless people, with no drug testing, that's not tolerance... that's simply not giving a fuck about the safety of those who are not addicted.
I'd very much want the people standing for election to be transparent concerning their substance use. Coke, out. Alcohol, who cares, we'll see if it backfires. Weed, if you make it to the polls, why not? Opioids, do you have secure supply? And so on.
For what it's worth, Of Herbs and Altars, a youtube channel about a life which was risky for a long time, has it that she was functional as heroin addict, but being an alcoholic was wrecking her.
Same goes for prescription drugs: SSRI and SNRI: no; TCA: rather not; roids: depends on dosage, age and sex; GABA stuff: rather not; ketamine: no; levodopa: ok but watchful; lithium: right on.
Low level workers are a lot more likey to be working directly with heavy machinery or doing other things that could easily result in OSHA or workers comp.
Low level workers are also, generally, a lot less filtered for being functional addicts if they are addicts. For management jobs, generally, you have had to show up reliably, been competent at knowledge work, and been presentable in meetings for years or decades. A lot of the lower level jobs that drug test have much lower hiring standards and need to use drug tests to filter out addicts.
I'm ignoring Musk and Silicon Valley majority owners with a cult of personality here - this is more focused on middle management or on CEOs who can easily be deposed by the board. Musk got away with it not because of drug testing, but because he owns so much of his companies that he can't be voted out.
"For management jobs, generally, you have had to show up reliably, been competent at knowledge work, and been presentable in meetings for years or decades"
We've had this already with functional alcoholics, who can manage to show up and do the job until they finally hit the stage where that is no longer possible. Now that it's drugs other than alcohol, I think it's just the same argument: do you want someone who's hung-over/half drunk showing up to work?
What I was trying to say (I don't think it was clear) is that low level jobs are much more likely to accidentally hire non-functional addicts because they're more open to patchy work/education histories.
I also think getting clean enough to pass a drug test is it's own signaling factor, and one that's a lot more meaningful when you don't have others like academic pedigree to rely on.
Drug testing of low level workers is about safety. Drug testing of high level workers is about ethics.
Someone who will quite happily disregard drug laws for their own pleasure is someone who will quite happily disregard other laws for their own benefit, and not someone who should be responsible for making decisions.
> Someone who will quite happily disregard drug laws for their own pleasure is someone who will quite happily disregard other laws for their own benefit
You see this argument a lot. It never actually makes sense.
You also see the same argument made a lot against atheism. If someone is happy to disregard "I am the Lord thy God", obviously they're equally happy to disregard "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor".
In reality, people don't systematize their moral codes. Any principle they use to govern one situation is restricted to that exact situation unless they tell you differently. And for this case specifically, it is far more common to believe that there's something wrong with the drug laws than to believe that the drug laws are just one example of the general principle that you shouldn't follow any laws.
I agree with gdanning. I and hundreds of my acquaintances over the years smoked marijuana before it was legal. Except for our doing that, I can't remember anyone doing anything worse than driving over the speed limit, exaggerating their qualifications at job interviews, and sneaking pets into apts. whose lease prohibited them. No, actually, I did just remember someone who had some jewelry stolen and told us she and her parents were going to make a case it was stolen from her parents house -- there was some advantage to misrepresenting the eventsthat way. But the rest of us were really taken aback by that, & disapproved.
Obviously my friend set is not the whole world, but I think if you looked for correlations in the US between marijuana use in the pre-legalization days and other crime you'd find quite a low one.
>I think if you looked for correlations in the US between marijuana use in the pre-legalization days and other crime you'd find quite a low one.
I have my doubts. I mean, not all pot smokers commit other crimes, but I think people who commit other crimes are far more likely to have smoked pot than the general population.
As a teenager there was a lot of social pressure to drink or to try drugs, and I don't know what else would keep you on the straight and narrow _except_ a general commitment to obeying the rules.
It's useful to remember that P(other crimes | marijuana) is not the same as P(marijuana | other crimes).
Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, but when I was in high school, I drank and occasionally smoked pot, but still absolutely wouldn't steal anything, held the door for old ladies, wouldn't cheat in school, etc.
What kept me and my acquaintances from shoplifting, punching people in bars, making dishonest malpractice claims against doctors, etc. was a general commitment to not harming people plus a personal aversion to doing so except maybe in the case of people we heartily disliked (and for that we still had our general commitment to fall back on.) In other words, as gdanning says, we saw smoking weed as a victimlesss crime. Jeez, it's not a very subtle distinction or a hard point of view to guess.
I mean, consider your own case, or the people you know. You may not commit victimless crimes, but don't you at least break *rules* in situations where you are sure it won't do harm? I'm thinking of things like driving late at night when there are no other drivers you could harm. Don't you, or your acquaintances, ever turn right on red even when there's a sign saying not to at 3 am when the streets are empty? Bring food into a movie theater even though there's a sign saying you can't do that, you gotta eat the shit they sell at the theater? Sneak your dog into a no pets motel, so long as you're confident he doesn't have fleas and is fully housebroken? Well, there you go -- victimless rulebreaking. Same kind of thing.
Except that the drug laws in question are largely victimless, while the other laws are not. So you can't assume that someone who ignores the former will ignore the latter. I routinely jaywalk when there are no cars around, but I don't speed through school zones.
Lots of people who aren't you, *do* think that. They believe it, and they live it. So if your plan is to predict human behavior by saying e.g. "If I hire Bob the functional drug user, he's a *lawbreaker* and thus probably a fraud and a thief as well", then you will make bad predictions that will not be borne out by reality.
If that were your goal, you'd be better off asking for their driving record (because mumble something insurance on the company car they'll drive every third blue moon), and fire everyone who's had more than one or two speeding tickets. They're *lawbreakers*, right? And that's a much cheaper way to screen for technically-lawbreakers; just get their signature on the paperwork and submit it to the bureaucracy. But does anybody actually do this?
On the contrary, people do this literally all the time. When I was a young man growing up in a Midwestern state, oral sex was against the written law (albeit basically never prosecuted). I assure you, I gave that law all the respect it was due.
I can think of a lot of bad laws, but doesn't think that this justifies disobeying them, either in my personal or professional life.
That's the point; I think people like you, who think obeying laws is optional and depends on whether you personally agree with them, are a definite class of people, and these people should not be trusted with power.
You mean people like Anne Frank and Harriet Tubman?
I don't know why you treat laws as sacred. They're not. They're rules made by men with power. Many of them will be reasonable. Many of them are not. Many of them are extremely stupid, and *none* of them are always right in every situation.
Nor I, But that is a completely different claim than the one I was responding to. This one is an ethical claim, while the initial claim was an empirical one.
I think that it's partly a value claim, but also it's obviously grounded in prosaic/mechanical facts about the world.
As a simple example, in the jaywalking-with-no-one-around case, who can you even imagine to be a victim?
In a more complex example, suppose that a law was written ostensibly based on some factual claim that turned out to be mistaken (eg, we will disallow this behavior or penalize it on the grounds that it causes a specific harm, but actually it doesn't; further suppose that everyone in society agrees that that harm is bad and should be avoided). Is the disagreement about whether the law is a good law really an ethical disagreement?
More generally, I think of laws as sort of emerging as a coordination mechanism--an agreement among people to shape incentives and punish detectors. They are often correlated with normative ideas about what is and isn't good behavior, which has to do with ethics. But it is fundamentally up to each of us to decide what to do conditioned on the existence of the laws we encounter, especially given that the laws may not actually be well-constructed to serve the purpose I described. In this view, willingly deciding to break laws based on your personal moral judgment, potentially aware of the consequences, is a consistent behavior, and maybe one of the only real ones I can think of that's "grounded", unless you believe in moral realism.
(I think a variation of this stands up even in court, or contemporary legal theory: "I broke the letter of the law but not at all its spirit" ideally causes not only the letter of the law to be changed, but even the person subject to the law to be not penalized.)
I'm talking about YOUR claim, not mine. Your claim was that there is a positive correlation between the propensity to ignore drug laws and the propensity to ignore business regulations.
You're the first person I've seen argue that the problem with (illegal) drug use by higher-ups is that they shouldn't be breaking laws, though I did have one person say that drug testing is fine if it's company policy.
I think most jobs in the US have a drug screening before hire. A lot of jobs where impairment creates public safety issues have random drug tests too. Think school bus drivers.
I was sweating a pre employment test for a coding job because i had vacationed in Colorado where cannabis had been legalized the month before. I think a stringent enough test might have found out I had a few gummies while there but the levels to set off alarms were set at a high enough so there was no problem.
My state legalized cannabis a couple years ago so I see gummies for sale at the counter of my Kwiki Mart now.
People constantly worry about extremism online, and how difficult it is to find any apparent moderates speaking up anywhere. My sister worries about this a lot, that everyone seems to be an extremist, and my response to her has been the standard one, that there are plenty of moderates (just look at polls), but they're not as vocal, for a range of reasons to do with motovation, engagement-bait and so on.
But recently, I've noticed another much more radical explanation. (Maybe this is really obvious to some people, but it only hit me in the last few weeks). It's actually almost impossible to coherently present as a moderate in online discussions, at least without enormous effort, given basic facts about human psychology and what it means to have an opinion. Here's the thing: assuming opinions range along a single line (either on a per-issue basis or in overall left-right terms), no matter how close to the middle you are the state of the world or country (or your own jurisdiction) will almost certainly be somewhat to the left or right of your ideal (even if only slightly). And so your vested interest will be overwhelmingly in pushing in the other direction. If things are slightly left of you, or if the left has won just one more election than you think they should have, then you are going to be positioning yourself as basically on the right. Even if you're only very slightly on the right *it won't come across that way*. You might say "now I don't support the other extreme either mind you" all you want, but that will be read not as genuine moderation but as an attempt at persuasion. Which it will be, really, because you just can't bring yourself to really care about fighting a position that's not in power, especially when the real position in power is (to you) too far in the other direction. You'll always sound like "yeah my side isn't perfect and I don't agree with them completely BUT YOUR SIDE FUCK YOUR SIDE" even when you *really are* equally against both sides.
Unless, of course, certain very specific conditions hold, like the level of care you bring to your commenting or the very particular kind of forum you're commenting in. Otherwise I think the above will hold true. I've certainly felt it holding true for me, even when I didn't intend it.
I think this is a huge problem, not so much with the internet itself (as people normally assume) but with the way people interpret the internet. Pre-internet, I imagine, people didn't think that just because someone votes for the same side every time that they are an extremist: they understood that most likely they are simply somewhat further left or right than the current position, and they'll continue voting in that direction unless and until the two converge. People should view an online commenter as exactly like a voter, someone who's entire role is to choose to push things in one direction or the other, based on the entire incentive structure. Instead, people falsely equate an online discussion with a discussion with a friend (where people have no incentive to push consistently in one direction, and numerous incentives to be balanced and honest) and they falsely conclude that lots of people have become more extreme.
I don't think I have had any trouble at all in presenting as a moderate in online discussions; you'll have to decide for yourself if I count as "coherent".
I do have extreme views on some subjects, but they're not the ones that are commonly subjects of online political discourse. So if the discussion is about abortion, or immigration, or tax policy, I don't think I come off as any sort of extremist, except possibly to actual extremists with no sense of perspective. I'll probably be advocating for a policy that is at least somewhat different than the status quo, but so what? "The top marginal tax rate should be 35%, not 37%", is not an extreme position and is not likely to be seen as such.
I'd say you are entirely an outlier covered by the "Unless, of course..." caveat. You write the highest quality, most measured, and well thought out/argued comments on here - your name jumps out at me now. (Good job, by the way!)
People like to view online extremism as downstream of a brevity/nuance tradeoff: social media optimizes for 20-word rage-bait tweets instead of nuanced essays and so that's what drives the debate. In my view that misses the real dynamic which is that social media opens the debate to a different demographic, namely stupid (or at least stupider) people. Being able to make it through a 2000-word Economist article used to be table stakes for participating in the public discussion. That served an important filtering function that sadly we've lost forever.
I think the practical way to deal with this online is to pick high-minded forums (like this one) and to make somewhat opaque intellectually dense comments. If someone has to do cognitive work to decode your tribal affiliation then that will automatically weed out 90% of the jackasses. The ability to be moderate - or at least nuanced in your partisanship - is essentially an IQ test. If you want to have high-IQ discussions then you have to find high-IQ people to have them with.
> If you want to have high-IQ discussions then you have to find high-IQ people to have them with.
This, but also the place has to be moderated. Because there will always be a few idiots who join... and then it depends on the moderation whether they are quickly kicked out, or they can keep ruining the debate.
Unfortunately, most internet places these days optimize for "more is better", even if that means stupid debates.
"It's actually almost impossible to coherently present as a moderate in online discussions, at least without enormous effort, given basic facts about human psychology and what it means to have an opinion."
I think it's completely possible. It's just hard to *stand out*. The internet is teeming with moderates we simply don't notice. If you and I agree on practically every issue, you're simply not going to be aware of me, and vice versa.
Moreover - as you imply - if you and I agree on every issue except one, then you'll only notice that one difference, and I might come off as a radical, and vice versa. If it's a slight disagreement, neither of us will think it's worth arguing the point, so it won't appear. Or we will, because we're argument nerds, and then we'll present as argument nerds - another non-moderate archetype.
In most discussion fora online, ISTM that a moderate and sensible argument is much less likely to get a response than an over-the-top, kinda unhinged one.
This is the strongest reason I can think of for enabling up/down votes on arguments; moderates can register one as a response without the hassle of a full text response. (Irony alert, btw.)
It's merely a shame they can be gamed into uselessness almost as easily.
We are pushed to extreme positions by each other's anger, insults, self-righteousness and snotty sarcasm. It's partly because we're conversing online, and so lack lots of info that would neutralize the illusion that the other person is nothing but a little plastic container of beliefs we don't share. But the strongest influence has been social media, especially Twitter, which is set up to optimize total indignation, because indignation engages people better than anything else -- better than kindness, reliable & interesting information, great jokes, you name it.
I've come to believe that having a feed algorithm curating what I see is usually bad, and that having one that is optimized for stickiness/engagement is very bad. I much prefer services like Substack, where I get to decide what to read.
Scott posted a week ago he just had to take care of a few loose ends. My fantasy is that some complicated mess has developed having to do with some reviewers having done something that involves a judgment call -- like do we allow this or not?. Or maybe it looks as though somebody has done something like plagiarize, but it's not very much & was done by accident, and Scott's going back and forth with them trying to arrive at a fair decision. However, that's all a novel in my mind.
My fantasy involves that Scott did not mention in very bold letters that everyone should make their google docs accessible from link. And that he now has a few docs that he can't access, the authors don't react to his email, that he vaguely feels guilty for forgetting to mention that issue in advance, so that he wants to give them at least a decent amount of time to react before abandoning their docs.
Actually, I know it can't be that because I was one of the people who failed to make my google doc accessible to anyone with the code. I got an email from Scott a week ago asking me to set the doc to anyone with the code could read it, and saying I had 2 days to fix the problem. (I fixed it immediately & replied to email saying it was fixed.)
But to understand it, I found myself pulled—almost involuntarily—into physics, chemistry, mathematics, and systems biology.
Not for status, not for grades, but because questions in medicine don't make sense to me unless I understand what's happening at the smallest, most fundamental levels.
And yet... this kind of thinking often feels like a violation.
In my academic system, curiosity beyond the syllabus is treated like a distraction.
Asking "why?" too many times is frowned upon.
Trying to connect disciplines is "going too far."
Memorizing pathways, names, and protocols is rewarded.
Thinking? Often not.
But what's the point of repeating facts if we're not allowed to ask what they mean, or why they behave the way they do?
If your mind is truly awake, you eventually feel the walls closing in—not because you hate learning, but because you love it too much to see it reduced to obedience.
So, I ask:
Has anyone here faced something similar?
Have you found ways to preserve your curiosity—even when the system seems built to suppress it?
Sometimes the problem is that the teachers are insecure about their knowledge. They fear that you might ask them something they can't answer.
Why would not knowing something be such a bad thing? No one knows *everything*, right? I guess the problem is that there are actually too many things they don't know, often quite basic ones. Better stay within the safe narrow path of "this is what I tell you, you memorize it".
How to preserve curiosity? Find other sources -- read books or find internet sources, talk to classmates if there are curious ones. (Maybe ask an AI. Beware of hallucinations, verify the story on the internet afterwards.)
As someone who teaches college classes (engineering and physics), I love being asked questions that stray a bit from the planned path, especially in interesting ways.
In office hours I take as much time as we need and it’s great. In class, I have to balance my own desire to go off in unplanned directions with the knowledge that many students only want to know what’s on the exam and aren’t curious in the same way, and they need more time and energy put on covering and working through core material. Also, even if I “know” the answer, if I haven’t prepared, I don’t always have a good path from the students current level of understanding to answering their question satisfactorily.
If it helps, I have to exercise self-restraint on my own curiosity sometimes as well. If I’m making some stairs, I only have so much time I can devote to it. As interesting as it can be to look up differences in building code across countries and states (honestly, not sarcastically), sometimes I just need to find the code that applies to me so I can get the dang stairs built.
My advice: learn the core material and don't let your curiosity distract you from learning key skills. But also, embrace your curiosity, especially in your spare time. Find the teachers who encourage you to explore, and don’t annoy the ones who don’t.
Yes, absolutely. In the US. So many times, I have confused people by asking questions they find irrelevant. I did have a few lucky conversations (all in computer science contexts, perhaps that's relevant) where the person answered "____ domain is above my pay grade" or "That's a different abstraction level from what we're working on right now." These responses helped me figure out that other people are able to compartmentalize enough to develop instrumental knowledge without needing every detail, sometimes consciously but usually unconsciously. I am figuring out ways to cope with it such as making notes on the details of my confusions and then bringing those questions to people or forums which are more likely to be domain experts. I agree that for an applied science like dentistry, that means soliciting explanations from the natural sciences, or researchers rather than practicing physicians.
I might mention that it's easy to accidentally threaten someone's feeling of mastery or come off as rude by asking a question someone doesn't know the answer to. And if they don't feel like they need the answer to your question, it can be tough for them to understand why you would need it. A more tactful approach than, for example, raising your hand in a lecture and engaging the lecturer in a back and forth could be staying after and asking them one on one, "I was fascinated by ____ you spoke about today. What is your recommendation to learn more about this?" Maybe they have a colleague or book they can point you to.
It takes a lot of fortitude and emotional regulation to hold onto unanswered questions and tolerate the process of trial and error to beat a path towards deeper understanding. I often haven't been up to the task and succumbed to apathy. It helps to not take it personally when people get frustrated when they aren't able to help you, and keep in mind that it's usually not hostility, it's just that they are trying to be helpful and feel like they are failing at that. Expressing gratitude for their time and effort, and reiterating what you DID learn from the interaction, can make the process more pleasant for everyone.
I've somewhat overcommitted myself for the next couple of months (prepping for actuary exam P, taking a community French class, taking 1 aerial silks class and climbing twice per week, a couple yoga classes, losing a few lbs, and keeping up my running mileage, on top of a full time job).
Day to day I seem to be prioritizing working out, but the longer I go without putting serious effort into Exam P, the more likely it is that I'm going to fail it in late July. I'm not sure whether to consider this a revealed preference that I don't really want to be an actuary, but when I do manage to get settled to study, I do enjoy it.
You have to do the things that need doing, because that's how you can afford to do the things that want doing. "Work is less fun than not-work" is no surprise, and has to be actively resisted to get work done.
Cut the climbing in half, cut the running down, get the paperwork done, run and climb in celebration. Hell, do the aerial silks and the yoga at the same time, that sounds compatible.
(Is it ironic that "lose a few pounds" is entirely padding?)
Level 1 - sounds like standard procrastination. I know working out isn't the best example of not "working" but...
Level 2 - I walked away from being an actuary 18 years ago and it was a great decision. I now manage a sizeable fixed income fund. That's a hard field to get properly into - but I found the work more interesting immediately.
Unlike you perhaps, I knew in my gut becoming an actuary was a mistake within the first couple of hours on the job. I did it for another 2 years while lining up a job in investment management. Over that time I passed a few of the actuary exams and I failed some others - I was just going through the motions to stay in the role until I got my parachute out. "Burn your ships"
If you were studying accounting, I'd say get your head down and get qualified then pivot to something more interesting. But the trouble with that strategy applied to qualifying as an actuary (which is still a very strong addition to a CV for a variety of non-actuary jobs) -is I think the best paid job (day 1) with the actuary qualification is as an actuary by a decent margin. I saw the incentives my future self would be up against and decided to move on quickly.
My view on professional exams (I've got the CFA designation) is unlike university or high school, being intelligent makes far less of a difference to success. You just have to put the hours in. If the professional body tells you an exam takes 250 hours and you think you're probably in the top 10% of people studying for that exam (and maybe you really are) - to be fairly sure of a pass, you've still got to put in more like 250 hours than 200 hours, and 150 hours is likely going to result in a fail.
What was it that led to you stepping away from becoming an actuary?
Context on why I'm looking at it:
I've got a math degree and currently work as a data engineer. I want to get out of the tech industry and especially away from carrying a production support pager, and I don't want to go to graduate school. I also want to stay in a higher salary range than data analyst jobs here are. I like numbers much more than the average person, but I'm not very finance-y.
I'm also pretty set on staying in my current midsize city, which limits overall job options.
I've done a fair bit of cleaning disgusting datasets in atrocious legacy formats for my job and fitting models in some classes in college, and I find that enjoyable and my understanding is that that's a decent portion of the day to day actuary job. The actual process of prepping for the exam is enjoyable, I have just been procrastinating a lot.
Other context:
I have ADHD in the unmistakable from a young age and rediagnosed on sight by several psychiatrists throughout my life way (I'm pretty sure the term "hyperverbal" is in all of my psych notes). There's some amount of futzing around with stimulant doses or timing that I could try, but I'm doubtful it'll make a massive difference at this point.
I suspect the exercise and extreme sports habits are somewhere between effects of the ADHD and self medication for the ADHD.
I recently started studying to transition from data analyst to data engineer. Is it typical to be on-call in most positions? Are there any other downsides to the role that have made you want to change fields?
A lot of the downsides to my job are related to my particular team and company.
Yes, a lot of data engineering roles will have some amount of production support. The details of the rotation vary pretty widely.
In general, I don't get to look at or play with data much day to day. The bulk of our work is managing data infrastructure on AWS and the actual transformation logic is a pretty small portion.
Random commentary, because I'm an actuary and have worked in the field for more than 20 years. I like it, but it's worth noting that it's a lot more normie, and less weird, than it used to be. (Like most technical fields - an oversupply of Asian applicants means companies select for "professional fit" much more than was the case 20 years ago.)
Biggest thing to know - the tests will take over your life, for several years. And the jobs are great, but they are very geography-specific. OCD is nearly a job qualification, as is ASD.
Explaining things is the part I like, but you really have to finish with the exams before you usually get to do a lot of it.
If you can pass P, I'd job-hunt even with one exam - data science/actuary is a valuable combo, and getting study time at work makes it much easier.
So it does sound like you are a better fit for becoming an actuary than me.
If you'll excuse the fact that now as I describe the things about actuarial work and my fellow actuaries that I didn't like - it might seem like an attack on you - I'm just going to do that anyway because the information will be useful to you as you compare your preferences to mine. And let me caveat with - different kinds of people... rich tapestry of life... different not better... I really believe those things and I don't hold a grudge against the firm that started off my working life.
I'm good with numbers but I like putting them in context, like dealing with people, with wider commercial matters, making judgements on businesses and business decisions. When I started as an actuary I realized the vast majority of my job would be effectively just be doing maths homework. That wasn't enough for me. The confusion had come in because I worked for one of the more prestigious firms, the job title was "consultant" and the interview process was pretty involved and indicated to me they valued analysis and presenting skills. Maybe they did - 10 years into the career. But it was my mistake and not helped by me being very lazy if I'm not inherently interested. Peer pressure, admiration or admonishment from bosses have less of an impact on my work ethic.
I also found my fellow actuaries to be pretty boring. There seemed to be a lack of intellectual curiosity - even on maths. In fairness, I guess they were all just very focused on the job and if I'd been willing to discuss stuff practically related to what we were doing I think there would have been more engagement. But there was never any wider wonder. Too much of a mismatch on that kind of thing and you feel pretty gaslit. I do remember after I resigned a colleague said to me "The things you'd say during meeting were hilarious - but I just couldn't react at the time cause you know, its not how they like it."
Actuaries tend to be extremely risk adverse. So they won't bring a junior to a meeting because of some imagined issue it might create in the clients mind. They won't let you use a new process without layers of committees and management involvement. They'd have us manually sum the columns in printed excel worksheets. "I just feel better if everything is checked." I felt like I was employed to confirm other people's OCD...
Maybe this was just my consultancy being very corporate - but it was a similar vibe at the multi-firm tutorial sessions I would attend as part of the exam prep. They weren't mean. They were just a bit gray.
In reference to carrying a support pager. I was never on call but this was my first job and I was also not a fan of working into the evening. I carry a lot of entitlement and it's served me personally, quite well. Other people, other times - maybe it would have dead-ended my career. I say this not to boast but I got my economics degree at Cambridge maybe that made my expectations realistic. So I decided a certain amount of money and status was coming to me and didn't expect to have to really slog for it year after year. Sprint somethings, be nimble somethings - sure - but not grind. I'm lucky that portfolio management while difficult - is concentrated in its hours. There's nothing that can happen which requires you to work late. The clients don't have deadlines. You dedicate as much time as you think is appropriate to making your investment decisions, you undertake the trades in market hours and you go home. You'll get it right or wrong and more importantly you come up with stories about your performance that people will or won't believe. But there aren't projects. A lot of employers of actuaries are billing by the hour - so they are going to want max hours from you. A lot the projects have deadlines - like end of year accounting or pricing up a big block of business as part of a deal. You'll get sucked into working late so that deadline is met.
"I've done a fair bit of cleaning disgusting datasets in atrocious legacy formats for my job and fitting models in some classes in college, and I find that enjoyable and my understanding is that that's a decent portion of the day to day actuary job." - This sounds like a good fit and you are correct!
ADHD feels like a harder fit. But then you already know it's a hard fit for a lot of office work and you're already making that work.
Hmm, some of what you describe RE: work hours is pretty different from what I've heard about in house actuaries at American insurance firms. I'm assuming this might be a difference with UK consulting firms.
I think other than becoming an actuary I'm in the data engineering/software engineering space if I want to maintain the same income/lifestyle without going back to school. I think the actuary exams are about as much finance as I would actually want to know
Yeah in house is gonna be better. Probably means billable hours isn't a thing. Maybe you still fill out a timesheet for their own management information but there won't be the same pressure to fill it up. Projects with tight deadlines can theoretically happen anywhere (boring old company deciding to transform a process in a hurry) - but if the company isn't in the business of deal making, should be limited.
Like some Life Companies - their entire thing is buying-out pension schemes which involves a big rush to price the risk accurately and then (with less time pressure) more efficiently match the assets and liabilities. In house work there will have regular bouts of pressure and long hours.
But there's also going to be plenty of business as usual use of actuaries in insurers that doesn't involve any "big pushes". Presumably Property and Casualty - you're running models all the time to make sure you are taking on the right risk at the right price - but its all so small and incremental no given day particularly matters. It's not a race.
Are you planning to put yourself through all the exams yourself and then get a job at a firm? Maybe that's the only way to make the transition - I've no idea. But that is tough! I got paid a salary, got my exams and tutorials paid for and given 2 half-day a week to study. And I still moaned about the hours!
It seems like the process here is math degree + P and/or FM, get a job as a "actuarial analyst," and then you're given some amount of study time on the job and expected to pass a couple exams a year, with occasional resits. There's raises every exam and title changes every few exams, and people typically reach the ASA designation 4ish years in and then if they wish they can push further to hit FSA.
So I'm trying to pass P in July, and probably take FM the next sitting or the sitting after, and start applying for jobs.
I can't remember another time when Scott discussed writing advice previously, so I think it is useful to have in condensed in writing rather than being overshadowed by AI-2027 which was the primary discussion. This is a cleaned up post from Reddit, so if you may have already seen it.
Also, if anyone has recommendations for NYC tech-week, let me know. Asking in last week's open thread got me invited to some interesting dinners, so it can't hurt to try again!
Thanks, I just added it to the end of my post. Interestingly, there's basically no overlap with what he said on the podcast. One seems to be specific writing advice (as in, how to write better), another advice on how to be a good writer.
In July 2024, someone tried to assassinate presidential candidate Donald Trump. The general online-world consensus was that the would-be assassin should be condemned. Anyone wishing the attempt was successful should be ostracized for encouraging violence.
In December 2024, a healthcare CEO was assassinated in NYC. The general online-world consensus was that the assassin should be celebrated. Anyone wishing for the assassin to face repercussions should be ostracized.
What explanations do people have for this? Did different groups win the discourse around each event? Was there a drastic vibe-shift in the 5 month interim?
It's a trope (I'm not sure of the actual truth) that talking about killing the President (even jokingly) can draw unwanted attention from Federal law enforcement; there's no such expectation for killing CEOs.
Such an effect is probably also heightened by the particular outcomes. Wishing that a failed assassination attempt had succeeded might be construed (at least by an enthusiastic DA) as making a threat, but celebrating a successful one wouldn't be (the only potential target of a threat is already dead).
Celebrating a successful one might be a threat, if the target has viable and ideologically equivalent replacements. If you liked that OBL got ganked by Seal Team 6, it's a safe bet you'll support the assassination of OBL's successor. (Obviously, the US government won't be concerned, but AQ probably would.)
If you celebrated Thompson getting killed in NYC, the USG might be correct in wondering if you'll help with the next rich CEO on someone's list.
I can think of 3 reasons. 1) Trump has populist appeal and the CEO didn't. People viewed the CEO through an anti-elitist lens. 2) Mangione is much more charismatic than the Trump assassin was. 3) Assassinating a US President (or leading candidate) ticks too many "ok this is objectively bad" boxes even for leftwing partisans. We may not have many shared political norms left but that's still one of them.
The meaning of "online-world" can only be "mainstream leftist-progressive online discourse", your comment doesn't make sense otherwise.
Understood that way, what changed is that Trump is merely a right-wing wannabe dictator, but the healthcare CEO was the face of capitalism as understood by contemporary anti-capitalists.
Killing a major demon isn't as cool or powerful as wounding the devil, you see.
It's also apples and oranges because only one of these people died. I'm not just going to assume the calls for condemning a successful Trump assassin will be even stronger than they were for a would-be assassin.
None of the people praising Luigi would be silent if he had failed either. I think you wouldn't see much of a difference with a successful Trump assassin either - those who think political violence is always bad will condemn him, those who don't will defend him.
From my vague sense of the discourse, a lot of the pro-CEO-assassination attitude was centered around "there was no other way he'd face justice" or "there was no other way to stop him killing people with his fraud". Setting aside the factuality of these claims, which I don't know, these strike me as sympathetic arguments if the claims are true.
On the other hand, Trump was literally about to face the people in an election. The legitimate way to stop him was so undeniably clear that an assassination attempt (were it done for that reason) could only be read as an attack on democracy itself.
For even anyone who thinks assassination can sometimes be justified, it's almost impossible to think of a *less defensible case* than a political candidate right before an election.
I guess I'll throw in I'm pretty sure the assassination attempt was triggered by Biden's terrible debate performance, and then-unwillingness to step down. As in, they thought the election was no longer a viable way to remove Trump.
Assuming for the sake of argument that "the general online-world" consensuses played out as detailed - from the hip, one big difference stands out to me. The threat of reprisals.
In the presidential candidate assassination fact pattern, you have two roughly similarly-situated "sides" consisting of political parties with leaders, rank and file members, and unaffiliated/semi-affiliated hangers-on. Both "sides" also contain loose cannons who plausibly could start shooting each other's leaders, so there is a mutual incentive to denounce "assassinate the other side's leaders" as a legitimate tactic.
In the healthcare CEO scenario, there is no such symmetrical threat. If healthcare companies said "okay, gloves off, my side's gonna start assassinating your CEOs too..." who would they assassinate in the first place? There's not exactly any "CEO of people on the internet who hate corporations" for them to take aim at.
And that asymmetry then shapes expectations. Everyone fears a retaliatory spiral where right wingnuts are shooting left leaders while left leaders shoot right wingnuts, so all the prominent voices in the debate have direct incentive to denounce the Trump shooting. But nobody seriously fears a retaliatory spiral where anti-corporate nutjobs shoot corporate leaders and big corporations start shooting important people of any stripe in response, so the incentive structure doesn't drive "both sides" to a unified response.
> In the healthcare CEO scenario, there is no such symmetrical threat. If healthcare companies said "okay, gloves off, my side's gonna start assassinating your CEOs too..." who would they assassinate in the first place? There's not exactly any "CEO of people on the internet who hate corporations" for them to take aim at.
They could throw their lot in with Trump. Convince him to take active measures to keep the rabble in line. He would be willing and capable of doing it, unlike his opposition.
In agreement but as an addition. Enough assignations of presidents and maybe people don't want to be president anymore. Or at least you cut down your pool of applicants. That's not a useful thing for the institution that is the USA. Presumably its part of the story of why narco states are not great places.
Enough assignation of CEOs of "bad" companies and maybe no one wants to be CEO of a "bad" company... That's what the general online-world wanted right?
When the FBI tries to arrest the heads of drug cartels, maybe its at least partially an attempt to end those organizations. The general online-world might have felt the law wasn't achieving everything it should have.
Now you can argue that healthcare is too necessary to be "bad". But if the assignation was of a tobacco CEO...
It can be argued that health care CEOs are _already_ assassinating important people of any stripes. It's easy to find news stores about X person who goes denied coverage for a live saving treatment from their insurance, and thus maybe died as a result. So it might even been seen as turnabout being fair play for this context.
That would be multiple assassinations. Unless they all happened to be in one place and someone targeted that place rather than the specific people there.
Health insurance company CEOs have next to no fans because health insurance companies have next to no fans.
Much like ISP provider CEOs (who here *likes* Comcast or AT&T?).
And probably tobacco company CEOs.
If the CEO of Ticketmaster (with their 30% convenience fees tacked on to ticket prices ...) was killed tomorrow I expect few tears and possibly rejoicing.
Trump has a fairly large fan base compared to these folks.
"health insurance companies have next to no fans" -- sort of, but also sort of not.
National surveys not conducted or paid for by health insurers regularly find that majorities of Americans rate their own health insurance carrier anywhere from "good" to "excellent". The exact numbers depend somewhat on the wording but here are some recent examples:
Meanwhile those who have heard a tale of a health insurer doing something awful to someone -- which in the age of social media is essentially everyone -- generalize that to assigning "evilness" to that sector generally. This is true even if their own direct experiences with health insurers have been seamless.
It's sort of a version of the old political-science thing about people liking their own Congressman while hating Congress.
I’m not so sure reactions were different. Most of the people I know who are comfortable being frank said at the time that they wished the guy who tried to kill Trump had succeeded. And these weren’t mostly college-aged people being edgy. they were middle-aged professionals living in blue east-coast states.
I mean, I don't know if either consensus was as uniform as you're presenting it, but one factor that might have made the healthcare CEO assassin more popular if indeed your description is accurate, is that he was good looking
Yeah sure, I shouldn't have said uniform; I just meant that I'm pretty sure I've seen lots of "why'd the assassin miss?!?!", often from the same people who were Luigi-curious at least. But I don't want to pretend that I have a good sense of what the online breakdown actually was.
Anyone know of a good analysis of the recent Polish presidential election result from someone personally familiar with Polish politics? It would be useful to understand more why the electorate seems to have shifted right-populist relative to the 2023 parliamentary elections. E.g. is this an analog of the thermostatic "the US President's party almost always loses seats in the midterms" phenomenon or is it other factors?
I am not sure that it needs so much explanation. It's not a landslide, I think the amount is just a normal shift from one election to another, especially when it's about different types of elections. In the parliament election PiS and KON together won 42.6 percent. Plus there were some percentage points on other parties. In general, the pattern was that the right won rural areas and the Eastern part, and the left won big cities and the Western part.
People were very mobilized against PiS in 2023 due to heated discussions about the judicial reform, and about a scandal of selling (supposedly very many) VISA illegally to non-EU citizens. I didn't notice any heated discussion now (though I don't live in Poland). For those reasons the election in 2023 was an outlier in terms of left-majority, and we are back to normal now. Actually, if I am not mistaken, the presidential election now was *still* much further left-leaning than other elections in the last 10-20(?) years or so, except for 2023. I think that's enough of an explanation.
"The people who need to hear something like the straight story are the liberal-leaning 17% or so of the American public who think that the lab leak idea is improbable, including the 5% of the public, again concentrated among liberals, who are quite sure it didn’t happen. Many of those think that lab leak is a far-fetched right-wing fable. Over the years you’ve made a point of challenging the mild liberal consensus, sometimes to an extent that you seem to now regret. The origin of Covid is an odd topic on which to choose to coddle the comforting canonical viewpoint. Beliefs about covid origins are hardly the hottest-button topic in politics but it is among the topics for which encouraging liberals to stay in their bubble isolates them from the large majority and gives the impression of willful lack of realism. It’s particularly hard to argue against the actual conspiracy theories, often tied in to anti-vax fables, while holding on to the now implausible zoonotic account. Why should anyone outside the choir listen?"
On the Scott's related discussion of optimal public health measures, the real issue is not how many died due to Covid (his 1.2M in the US may be a slightly low estimate) but the set of counterfactuals. What would have happened with different measures? It's pretty clear that the not-well-aimed measures taken delayed enough cases to avoid the mortality reaching the ~2.2.M that would have happened otherwise. So those awkward measures, so often reviled now, saved ~1M lives.
Better-aimed measures, based on admitting what was known but denied early on, that the main transmission mechanism was via aerosols, could have saved more lives with no more disruption. This issue connects with the origins issue because both involve excessive condescension and lack of candor by experts.
> "So those awkward measures, so often reviled now.."
"Often" gives us wide latitude, and in case people falsely think it is a majority view that COVID measures are now reviled, please see this Pew poll from February of this year.
Secretary Hegseth recently announced dramatic cuts at a small Pentagon office responsible for evaluating the safety and efficacy of the tools our warfighters rely on. All senior leaders were fired, the staff cut by more than half, and the office’s budget reduced by more than 80%. These cuts are misguided. This Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) serves a critical role informing warfighters, Congress, and the public about whether the billion-dollar systems the Services want to buy actually work. Without the objective information DOT&E provides, billions more will be wasted on ineffective systems that put the lives of American servicemembers at risk.
I know there are a million things going on these days, but please consider reaching out to your Congressional representatives and ask them to preserve DOT&E and ensure that it is staffed and resourced to continue to effectively serve the warfighter and the public. Traditionally, DOT&E has been a bi-partisan priority for Congress (John McCain and Elizabeth Warren, for example, were/are strong proponents), so polite messages to your Senators in particular but also Representatives could help push them towards intervening.
I've dealt with the DOTE on a professional basis. They are a do-nothing sinecure that has no authority and even less impact on the procurement process. Specifically, they "provide oversight of testing," but do not write test procedures or requirements, nor provide any real expertise as far as I can determine.
As Melvin notes, they really don't seem to do anything at all, and I was less than impressed with the competence of the individuals from that office I met. I would speculate they are a dumping ground for over-credentialed and under-competenced officers.
There are currently 12 uniformed officers at DOT&E, so if it's a "dumping ground", it's not a particularly big one.
I can't speak to your professional experience with DOT&E, but I agree that they don't do testing. I gave a longer response below to Melvin about their mission and why it's valuable. Like many oversight organizations, the value becomes abundantly clear in its absence. If anything, the modern acquisition environment with cost-plus contracts and an ever-narrowing set of viable contractors for major acquisition systems strengthens the case for independent oversight over what it was in the 1980s.
You also made a few factual errors. DOT&E has statutory authority to approve test strategies and test plans. It's also been the historic interpretation that they have authority to write test policy, but these days lots of historic interpretations and conventions seem up for grabs. Historically, DOT&E has avoided micromanaging test procedures at the behest of the Services and test ranges, each of which tends to want to do things in their own way. I have views about whether a more unified approach DOD-wide would be an improvement, but that would mean strengthening DOT&E rather than gutting it.
The memo talks a lot about redundancy. I would assume that testing stuff is something that the individual branches of the military do with their own equipment? And that DOT&E with their 80 staff members isn't big enough to actually go around conducting all that many tests on their own?
It tells me that the Army got some soldiers to test out a bunch of trucks, and that "DOT&E provided input to the Ops Demo and observed it, but the test plan did not require DOT&E approval, as the intention was to inform requirements". Reading through this report it's unclear what the DOT&E really added to this whole project that the Army couldn't have done on its own.
Yes, DOT&E doesn't execute tests. They assess test adequacy and provide reports to Congress and the public. In this, their mission is different from that of the test agencies operated by the Services.
A key difference is that Service test agencies are part of their chain of command. Whatever the report says is, in some sense, at the discretion of the Service command. When the Service's interests are aligned with the public's and with Congress's, that's fine. But typically the Services are in bitter conflict with one another and with Congress over funding. For example, if you cut the funding for the Army Common Tactical Truck, you might see that funding re-directed to the Air Force Helicopter. This means that the Services have a strong incentive to advertise that their programs are raging successes.
By virtue of their independence for Service chains of command, DOT&E doesn't have this same incentive. This is the reason Congress stood up the agency back in the 1980s after a series of embarrassing episodes where the Services delivered reports that would by any reasonable standard be viewed as, at minimum, flagrant lies. If you're interested in learning about this, read up on the development and "testing" of the Sgt York. Or you could just watch the movie, "Pentagon Wars" if you want a sensationalized version. DOT&E is Congress's guarantee that they, and the public, since DOT&E must publish public reports on systems, unlike the Services, that they'll get an independent look at the systems the Services want them to authorize billions of dollars in spending on.
OK, but you started off with the claim that it's "responsible for evaluating the safety and efficacy of the tools our warfighters rely on" which I bothered to investigate because it sounded an implausibly large job for a small agency. Now it turns out that it's actually responsible for being a layer of approvals bureaucracy inserted into the testing program with the supposed aim of solving incentive problems that arise when you let branches conduct their own testing.
I could imagine how such an agency might be worthwhile. On the other hand I could also imagine how the extra drag created by adding an extra layer of independent approvals and oversight to everything might be a net loss.
Either way this whole dumb conversation could have been avoided if you'd clearly stated the actual role of the agency the first time around, rather than the second.
The claim is true. DOT&E statutorily has two main jobs. The first is approving test plans and test strategies. The second is writing reports ("evaluations") of systems to inform Congress, the public, and the war fighter. You're focusing on the approval layer, but DOT&E is legally mandated to write reports assessing system survivability, effectiveness (including lethality), and suitability. This is what it means to "evaluate the safety and efficacy of the tolls our war fighters rely on".
If you want to read the statutory language, it's in Title 10.4171 of US Code. Here's an incomplete excerpt:
"(2) The Director shall analyze the results of the operational test and evaluation conducted for each major defense acquisition program. At the conclusion of such testing, the Director shall prepare a report stating-
(A) the opinion of the Director as to-
(i) whether the test and evaluation performed were adequate; and
(ii) whether the results of such test and evaluation confirm that the items or components actually tested are effective and suitable for combat;"
I think it's fair to wonder whether the "layer of approval bureaucracy" is worthwhile. I argue that in this case, it is. Ensuring that testing is adequate is vital to being able to evaluate a system. Data collection is costly, and data collection processes can be biased if done inappropriately. To evaluate safety and performance well, you need to do a good job of collecting the data. Historically, the Services didn't always do a great job of collecting the most useful data or reporting on the data they generated in an honest and complete way. (See, for example, the Sgt. York from above, but less extreme versions persist to this day.) This is why DOT&E must approve test plans before they are executed and why DOT&E devotes time and resources to observing testing.
(There are other reasons to actually show up and watch tests as opposed to relying on 3rd party reports. But making sure the testing is being done as it was supposed to be done and that the data being recorded are consistent with what's being observed is a good reason on its own.)
Although I am more of a botanist nowadays, I worked on insects, and I love the idea and the execution!
If you like sci-fi, Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky has a minor plot point where, due to difficulty in communication, intelligent spiders fail to recognize that humans are intelligent. Great novel, with realistic depiction of non-human intelligence.
Thanks for the feedback! Children of time is great, I really enjoyed it too (was recommended to me soon after I wrote the first story). I hear there’s a sequel but I haven’t read it yet.
Scott, any thoughts on your old bet about the progress of AI image generation? There's a thread on DSL and it looks like GPT4o nailed all of the pictures, including the elusive raven with the key in its mouth.
Those look all completely right to me, although based on the reactions a couple years ago, I think some people will argue with the "red" basketball. But I think that's a problem with the fact that "red" is not well defined. That ball looks redder than average to me and that would be good enough, but I think that a lot of people (again based on criticisms last time) would say that it's not "red enough". Although even so, the other ones are (in my opinion) inarguable, and it only needed 3/5 prompts.
I agree with Scott's original claim of victory (even though he later retracted it), and I think at this point it's not even close. He has clearly won.
-edit- after reading further in the thread: completely called it on people challenging "red"
I think the visual cue of the lines on the basketball cause people to interpret it as oranger than it really is. If you edited out the lines and told people the farmer was holding a "red ball" then people wouldn't say "no, it's orange".
Added difficulty comes from the lighting situation in the cathedral. In a room lit largely by stained glass windows, the colour of the light reflected from an object is not necessarily the colour of the actual object, so our brains fall back on visual cues to figure out what colour something is; a reddish-looking basketball is probably just an orange basketball lit by reddish light rather than a super-red basketball lit by yellow light.
Anyway, progress has been impressive. The most interesting thing is to go back to the original thread ( https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/a-guide-to-asking-robots-to-design/comments#comment-6945486 ) and see that two years ago people genuinely thought it would be hard for image models to disentangle these sorts of complicated prompts - Vitor's original comment said that doing it correctly would be "AI complete". (Though I do worry slightly that maybe Scott's comment has become famous enough that it's used by developers to test their models).
"I think the visual cue of the lines on the basketball cause people to interpret it as oranger than it really is. If you edited out the lines and told people the farmer was holding a "red ball" then people wouldn't say "no, it's orange"."
Just fix the test.
For the next one, let's just request an young blonde woman in a basement saying "Yanni".
I don't know whether this matters, but I was able to get an unambiguously correct raven at the time of the original bet with the version of AI available then. I did, though, change the wording of the prompt a bit. Got the llama with a bell on its tail too, but changed the prompt a lot to get that. I posted about it at the time.
The only Thing that matters to most accountants is money. Specifically, getting paid a fair bit of the stuff for sitting at a desk for eight hours doing only moderately-taxing brainwork that just about anyone who can make it into a decent college or university can do if they have half a mind to.
On the People side, accounting is a profession that almost everyone understands and ascribes moderately high status to.
And for an awful lot of people, *that's all that matters*, because their job isn't the meaning of their life, it's how they pay for the meaning of their life. They don't love the numbers, or the chemicals or whatever, they love their family. Or their hobby or their charity work or whatever. And so they love reliably getting out of work at 5:00, calm and unexhausted, with an adequate paycheck and a job title that won't get them sneered at if it comes up in conversation. Beyond that, the job just has to have minimum impact on the things they do care about.
Now that "just get married and assume that your husband will pay for everything" is seen as off the table for most women, accounting looks pretty good.
I don't know about accounting, but I have definitely noticed that chemistry (and chemical engineering) have a lot more women than physics (and mechanical engineering). My guess is that it is mainly driven by the medical field plus some environmentalism, but I have no way to show this.
What if it's a literal "squishy things" vs "hard things" distinction?
Physics deals largely deals with hard objects and is male dominated. Biological sciences deal with squishy objects and are female dominated. Chemistry deals largely with squishy liquids but occasionally with hard solids so it's a bit more gender balanced. Psychology is female. Geology is male.
Metal working is almost entirely male. Wood working is a bit more balanced. Pottery (which starts soft and turns hard) tends a bit female, while textiles are most female of all.
Computer keyboards are hard. If we want more women in computer science we should make them squishier.
Are there any gender-imbalanced fields that don't follow my squishy-hard trend? Cardiology is 75% male and hearts are pretty squishy, but surgical tools are very hard and pointy.
I took a jewelry-making offering at my local community college. It was entirely metalwork; stones were just given to us. (It also wasn't a "course" - it met once a week for some period much shorter than a semester. There was a related course that I didn't know about, but heard about from the instructor.)
Although I note that professional jewellers are mostly male, and that amateur female jewellery makers like to focus on necklaces and bracelets, which are macroscopically squishy, rather than rings and brooches.
I don't think this example is driven by Things vs. People. I think it's driven by the fact that jewelry are things that women are interested in.
I'm more interested in the gems. I have a small collection of unset faceted gems. In my experience, women tend to have no interest in those. It's pointless if you can't wear it.
Chemistry was mostly men when I studied it, and the women were largely on their way to study some kind of biological thing.
Not sure about accounting; I get the feeling that it's not a subject you study because you're interested in it anyway, it's a subject that you study because your parents have pushed you to do something practical and you're not smart enough for medicine or law.
I have read posts (from other sites) about folks in the chemistry field complaining that the jobs have been going overseas for a while and that this makes the pay poor even if one can find a job. I don't know if this is relevant or not. But it may indicate that the jobs remaining here are qualitatively different than chemistry jobs from 40 years ago (or whatever).
Yeah, I'm very frustrated with it as a sole explanation for women in software, especially when there's so many counterexamples in chemistry, a lot of math departments, and accounting. Software involves a massive amount of meetings and collaboration.
I would go a step further and say if you consider what it means to interact with a person vs. a thing, programming has elements closer to the first category. I.e. psychologists and programmers both interact via language more so than physically manipulating an object (before someone says it, yeah, keyboards, but that's an abstraction). AI work is moving even further in this direction, where we're starting to literally give instructions to mushy systems.
I’d be interested to know what people in this community think about the new Veo 3 development. How concerned should we be? I can see it being a huge problem as a tool for scammers, but what else should one be concerned about?
In terms of manipulating people’s understanding of the facts of current events, don’t we already have a lot of manipulation? By what mechanism will ai video be a qualitative change for the worse—given that the potential for making this incrementally worse is obvious.
Most people have a very strong prior to believe what they see. I think it’s much easier to bamboozle somebody with a realistic video than it is with a written article. moving pictures bypass a lot of critical faculties.
I kind of warmed up to the idea somebody here proposed a week or 2 ago that AI and other developments were going to push a lot of people back into a less screen-based way of living, because it was going to become impossible to know for sure that someone you spoke or corresponded with was not a bot, and that any photo or video you saw or audio you heard wasn't electronically generated. I was tickled by it, but also don't find it altogether implausible.
I think there'll be a narrow window where it's possible to bamboozle a lot of people with generated video, then people will unlearn the idea that video evidence is likely to represent a thing that really happened.
Well, I guess I disagree about how wide or narrow that window is going to be. Still photographs are one thing, and people see Photoshop images all the time, and it never occurs to them that they were. Video to me is that on steroids.
Don't know if everyone followed the Ramaphosa-Trump oval office meeting two weeks ago. But a lot of it centered on the debate around white farm murders in South Africa...
I decided, to go and look at the debate and see whether or not it was true that white farmers were murdered at a rate higher than the national average murder rate in South Africa.
What was quite interesting, is that Africa Check, one of the legacy media fact checking organisations in Africa, said that it was impossible to calculate the murder rate. This is because there is no exact census data on "whites living on farms".
The Washington post, Al jazeera etc, keep citing Africa Check's article.
A politics blog in South Africa, countered Africa Check and said that it was possible and came to a rate of 108 per 100,000 for white farm murders. This is more than three times the national average murder rate!
I then checked that data and found that the author was comparing the household murder rate of white farmers to the individual level murder rate in South Africa (an apples to oranges comparison). If you look at the household-level murder rate in South Africa, they are basically the same.
I then tried to do the calculation myself, using approximations from the census and came to a murder rate of 33 per 100,000. Which was *less* than the national murder rate of 40 per 100,000 for 2022.
> Myburgh is making an apples to oranges comparison. He is comparing the murder rate of white farmers alone, a household statistic, with the national murder rate, an individual one. He is fundamentally measuring different things, making the comparison misleading.
> So what happens if we make the correct comparison and compare white farmer households to all households?
Why is that the correct comparison? Myburgh would appear to be right. He specifically wants to exclude cases where other members of the household are killed. (Rather, I assume he's taking the categories he's given and what he _wants_ is to exclude cases where the farmer himself is not killed, so he goes for the category where this can't happen.)
The comparison in that case would be "white farmers killed alone on farms" versus "heads of household killed alone in any household". There are many ways for a household to experience a murder, but only one way for the head of household to experience one. In what sense is "the murder rate of white farmers alone" not an individual statistic?
Because his denominator is white farmer households. The national murder rate denominator is the population of South Africa. It's a weird comparison.
Furthermore, he is doing this because he is interested in the murder rate of the farmer profession, but number of farmer households != number of farmers.
Most households will have multiple farmers.
Also, the victims of crime survey did not have any households which experienced multiple murders.
This does not accord with normal English usage, so I'd like to see a confirmation. How are you distinguishing "farmer" from "family member"?
Note that Myburgh is explicit about the fact that the farmer is the head of household:
>> For argument’s sake however let us take the most unlikely option and assume that every single non-response on this question was in fact from a farmer. How would this alter Politicsweb’s estimate of the murder rate of “white farmers” in 2016/17?
>> It would mean that there were an estimated 65 918 (47 272 + 18 646) white heads of households involved in agriculture on “farm land” in 2016. The figure of 51 murders of “white farmers” recorded in 2016/17 by TAU SA, which we used, would mean a murder rate of 77,4 per hundred thousand.
> Also, the victims of crime survey did not have any households which experienced multiple murders.
Why do you bring this up? It's still the case that comparing "households in which the head of household is murdered" to "households in which anyone is murdered" is the wrong thing to do. If it's also true that the farm murders never involve more than one victim, and that the same farm doesn't get hit more than once, you could compare the total farm murders to national households-experiencing-murder.
> This does not accord with normal English usage, so I'd like to see a confirmation. How are you distinguishing "farmer" from "family member"?
Yes, you are right I am using farmer quite liberally/colloquially here. I am using it to mean members of the family who also work on the farm. However, I think this is fine, as when we consider farm murders in South Africa, we consider them in the *narrowest* sense as those who work on the farm and on in the usual sense, as all those killed who live on the farm.
Re: household vs individual, my original point still stands. In Myburgh's comparison he is doing the following:
Pick a random person in South Africa, what is the chance they are murdered this year?
Pick a random farm household, what is the chance the farmer-head is murdered this year?
This an apples to oranges comparison.
What I am doing is:
Pick a random household, what is the chance someone in the house was murdered this year?
Pick a random farm household, what is the chance the farmer-head is murdered this year?
This is a better comparison.
However, it's the conceptual argument which really matters here. When we think about farm murders, we think about farmers, and their families. By ignoring, these groups, we are ignoring a large part of the farm murder discourse. A murder rate is only useful if it tells us something about the threat of violence. The argument being made is that the farming community faces disproportionate threats of violence.
Re: household vs individual, my original point still stands. In Myburgh's comparison he is doing the following:
Pick a random person in South Africa, what is the chance they are murdered this year?
Pick a random farm household, what is the chance the farmer-head is murdered this year?
This an apples to oranges comparison.
What I am doing is:
Pick a random household, what is the chance someone in the house was murdered this year?
Pick a random farm household, what is the chance the farmer-head is murdered this year?
This is a better comparison.
--- end quote ---
You are absolutely wrong about this. The head of household is uniquely determined by the household. I have no idea what you're thinking, but Myburgh's comparison is the correct one, and yours is invalid. The chance of the head-of-household being murdered (given a household) is appropriately compared to the individual chance of being murdered (given an individual). The chance of anyone in the household being murdered (given a household) is appropriately compared to the chance of anyone in the household being murdered (given a farm household).
Three additional things. A) if there was a farm attack in which only the wife and children of the farmer died, the Afrikaans community living there and Afriforum etc would all consider that a farm attack. It wouldn’t be considered part of some separate problem - they view farming populations as being under threat because of a belief that the ANC and others are trying to drive them off the land. So it seems incredibly strange to only consider single individuals in the denominator. B) I think a lot of the anxiety about farm attacks comes from the fact that they’re indiscriminately attacking family members, including women and children. C) the concern is with attacks on ‘boers’. You’re a boer whether you’re the head of the household or a family member. This is all aside from the fact that obviously if a wife of a farmer is involved in farming then by any plain language definition she is also a farmer
> Across his two articles, Myburgh actually comes to two different figures: 47,272 and 47,218. Based on his logic, the former is correct. I assume the latter was a typo.
This is kind of a strange assumption to make, since you link to an article where Myburgh says this:
>> As can be seen the number of white heads of households in agricultural activities on farm land was estimated at 47 272. (The 47 218 figure we used was based on a table that also incorporated responses to the next question on the main purpose of agricultural activities.)
I think the claims of white genocide in South Africa need to be seen in the historical context of the genocide of whites in other neighbouring countries and the fact that South Africa is clearly on the same trajectory.
But am I reading your numbers correctly? 89% of farm murder victims are white, but only 6% of agricultural households are white? So among murders in rural areas they are vastly overrepresented?
> But am I reading your numbers correctly? 89% of farm murder victims are white, but only 6% of agricultural households are white? So among murders in rural areas they are vastly overrepresented?
No, the farmers are counted according to the number of people who report doing their farming on "farm land", so almost 33% of farm households are white.
Clearly? Based on...? What timeline is this happening on, exactly? Trump was talking about the white genocide in 2018, has it made any progress in the seven years since?
The man who is now the head of the EFF (~10% of vote/parliament) got smacked for hate speech in 2011 for chanting "Kill the Boers" while implying shooting them. I'm sure there's racism against whites in South Africa, they are a successful minority after all, but the dominant party (ANC) explicitly states it opposes racial exclusivism and chauvinism, and I never see any particular evidence for this claim other than "well, you know. Look at other African countries."
Even that claim seems dubious. Botswana didn't genocide its whites. Namibia didn't genocide its whites. Mozambique didn't genocide its whites. Reviewing what happened, even Zimbabwe only seems to have engaged in a program of race-based land confiscation, not a genocide; when you google "Zimbabwe genocide," you get the Gukurahundi (targeted against the Ndebele and Kalanga), not one against whites.
1. What is your data for "clearly the same trajectory". Also what white genocides occured in south africa's neighbouring countries?
2. Agricultural household != farm. An agricultural household could be an urban household growing tomatoes. However, it is true that for murders that occur on farms, at least historically it has been true that whites were over represented.
However, if we look at the most recent quarter of crime data (could be an outlier, I don't know), this is no longer the case.
I think your calculations need to control for factors such as age and other correlates with being a murder victim.
But, more importantly, whether white farmers are at greater risk of being murdered than other people is rather orthogonal to the issue. A person is a "refugee" under US law if he or she has been persecuted, or has a well-founded fear of future persecution, on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. https://www.aila.org/library/uscis-raio-course-refugee-definition
So, I can be a "refugee" even if I am at less risk of being murdered than most people in my country. If my risk of being targeted for my ethnicity is 1/100, and the risk of the average person being murdered in a random criminal act is 2/100, I might be a refugee, but the average person is not.
Note that there is no requirement of a "genocide," and of course's Trump's claim that there is a genocide in SA is just his usual babbling.
"But, more importantly, whether white farmers are at greater risk of being murdered than other people is rather orthogonal to the issue"
I actually tend to agree with you here. However, there is a claim being made in South Africa that it is above the national murder rate and this claim is being used to justify claims of genocide, or at least over emphasise the white farm murder problem.
"So, I can be a "refugee" even if I am at less risk of being murdered than most people in my country. If my risk of being targeted for my ethnicity is 1/100, and the risk of the average person being murdered in a random criminal act is 2/100, I might be a refugee, but the average person is not."
I agree with you here, and also make a similar argument in the article. However, I'm only focusing on murder rates, as this is what people keep referencing. I think its good to set the record straight on this particular part of the issue.
Whatever 'white farm worker' murders are occurring seem way overblown here, but I do wonder if you compare the murder rates of white farmers to like black populations (presumably more rural, agricultural, etc.), would they be higher?
Using the national average could be a bit misleading because you would expect a higher murder rate in urban areas, typically. So if white rural farmers are getting murdered at the same rate as the national average, they could still be getting murdered more than you'd expect to see based on their location/lifestyle.
This is a good point, and something that James Myburgh (the politics blog I was mentioning), brings up in his article.
I have not explicitly looked at this yet and data limitations make this difficult. But I'm hoping to do a follow up post that uses census ward-level data and makes this exact comparison. (Will let you know when I do it)
For now, I just wanted to make the national comparison, as this is what people reference.
also: what about attempted murder rate? If you had a hypothetical country where the murder rate of farmers is 0 (but every farm has an electric fence and people with machetes try unsuccessfully to climb them every day in order to kill the people inside) it would not be unreasonable to say "yeah, these farmers are very much in danger".
Or take, e.g. jim crow south KKK lynchings; a small absolute and relative number of deaths (tuskegee institute says 3,446 from 1882-1968), while victims of regular violent crime vastly exceed that every single year.
Good point. I do remember checking something like this, either farm attacks (without murder) or attempted murders (can't remember) and it seemed to be in line with or below national averages. But dont quote me on this, I need to double check!
What we obviously can't measure though is people deterred from murdering due to an electric fence. However, I must go back to my original point, which is that the purpose of my calculations was to clarify the point about murder rates, as this *is* what so many people talk about. I do agree that murder rates are not necessarily the most indicative statistic.
Yea I just read Cowen's latest reply, linked above, and the whole thing for me has taken a chunk out of my longtime high regard for him as a public thinker. Words like 'childish" and "petulant" now come to mind.
Curious, for those that know: what's the story with Long Covid?
Like, I know it is a real thing. But it's not clear to me how common it is. And it isn't clear to me if everyone who thinks they have it actually have it. And also, I was under the impression that a similar "syndrome" isn't terribly uncommon with other viruses (just that so many people got Covid). I'm trying to understand how unique and serious the issue is.
I'm asking here because it seems like anything that is "politically coded" is really hard to get accurate information about.
Long Covid seems to fit into the bucket of nociplastic and fatigue ailments. No fun to suffer from, not very much physical harm done. Much to be explored.
More recent work has found clear chemical signatures from gut issues, distinct from MECFS signature.
The Iwasaki group at Yale has found a set of markers that are highly predictive of symptoms.
One complication is that there are multiple mechanisms including persistent virus in gut, brain, etc., leftover damage from micro-clots, persistent immune disregulation, and re-awakening of latent Herpes Zoster and Epstein-Barr viruses. With an array of measurable mechanisms and an array of measurable symptoms of varying severity, the picture is messy. The conclusion that it's therefore usually psychosomatic is illogical and seems unsupported by evidence. E.g one experiment on cognitive effects found that measurable decline was more common than than subjectively reported decline.
The usual story about Long COVID is someone who was doing a lot-- high demand job, lots of exercise, and raising children, and now they're pretty much incapacitated. Is this just the most interesting version for articles? Are people who were just doing average amounts of stuff at less risk?
I’m sure somebody has done such a study. I admit I’m quite doubtful that long Covid is as common as many of these researchers believe. I suspect that a lot of these studies may be influenced by the funding priorities of the NIH. And I’ll readily admit that I’m a bit cynical about science in general as it’s practiced today, and the 300,000+ studies of long Covid suggest it was paying the salaries of numerous researchers. You’re welcome to take my opinion with a grain of salt, though. :-)
Well, it's a real condition, *and the literature says it's quite common.* Personally, I can't believe the extremely high rates of Long COVID that I see in these studies. These really don't jibe with my observed experience. </anecdata start> I live in the SF Bay Area where we masked, etc., and I'd say about about 50% of my friends and co-workers caught COVID-19 at some point. Only 4 people I know of had symptoms that lasted more a month. And, only one person I know still has persistenct symptoms two years post-infection. </anecdata>
The following study show 57% of people still have symptoms after a year. This is so far outside my lived reality, that I have trouble believing it. Common symptoms included fatigue (31%), concentration difficulties (32%), dyspnea on exertion (34%), frailty (31%), and joint/muscle pain (28%).
And two-year symptom persistence study claimed 21.5% of vaccinated adults who had mild COVID-19 infections continued to experience at least one long COVID symptom two years after their initial infection. Notably, female gender, smoking, and severity of the acute infection were associated with higher risk of persistent symptoms.
Another study observed that 33% of participants experienced long COVID symptoms that peaked 6-12 months post-infection, leading to significant activity limitations. Even at 24 months, 8% had not returned to their pre-COVID health status, highlighting the enduring impact on quality of life .
> I was under the impression that a similar "syndrome" isn't terribly uncommon with other viruses
True. There was a study of the long-term effects of severe flu infections and severe COVID infections. The press release for this large observational study from Australia caused a lot of agita among Long COVID researchers. It found that COVID's post-viral syndromes are indistinguishable from influenza, with no evidence of functional limitations a year post-infection. Hmmm.
And the long-term effects of childhood measles infections can cause all sorts of nasty issues. Before vaccines, deafness due to measles occurred in 4% to 9% of measles sufferers. Cognitive delays of about 1.5 years. Immune memory erasure that lead to reinfections of other diseases up to 10 years down post-infection.
> it seems like anything that is "politically coded" is really hard to get accurate information about.
No, it's easy to get this information if you're motivated to look. But does it match your experience that you believe that *57% of COVID sufferers* still of profound lingering issues after a year? I admit I don't buy it.
We're not seeing it the macro data. The rate of Social Security disability applications went up somewhat during the first years of the pandemic. Now they're falling.
The FRED shows a slight increase in the number disabled worker post-COVID. If I translate that into per capita numbers, 8.9% of the total US pop over 16 was disabled in 2009. 9.9% in 2024. But we have an aging population.
> And two-year symptom persistence study claimed 21.5% of vaccinated adults who had mild COVID-19 infections continued to experience at least one long COVID symptom two years after their initial infection
I'm not sure how they're adjusting to figure out what prevalence of random adults would have claimed to have some kind of random symptom if you asked them in, say, 2016.
I have a problem with the definition, or perhaps the usual example. The usual example is someone who led a very active life, and now is so knocked out they need a lot of help to manage.
My sense of taste got weird soon after the epidemic started, and took two years or so to fully recover. The same food would taste good or bad, varying strongly over hours. As I recall, at the beginning, tastes in general were much weaker, except for sweets. Pork, possibly mediocre pork products, would have a specific nasty taste.
It gradually got better, with my tolerance for hot peppers being the last to recover.
This all affected my quality of life, but it's not like being exhausted by walking a few steps. Long COVID or not?
I think it would not qualify as LC, because as I recall the person has to have a certain number of persisting symptoms from a list -- I think it was 3. I don't mean it's not a big deal, though! Just that I don't think it would qualify by the usual research criteria. Actually, I think the fact that this symptom, which is distinctive to covid as far as I know, persists far beyond the end of the infection is suggestive: Symptoms of this virus can hang around in a way you don't hear about with other viruses. Makes it more plausible to me that for some people several symptoms of the virus hang around, and when they do we call it LC.
I have - very much anecdata, I'm afraid, but a permanent or long-term change to taste is a known consequence of COVID infection, and depending on what the change is like, can be devastating for quality of life. I'm really glad to hear your tastes have recovered.
My total layman's impression and speculation from casual reading
1) chronic illness crowd latching onto the current flavor of the month. Skews white, middle class, younger, mostly female, high prevalence among those with anxiety/depression and pre-existing chronic issues.
2) real measurable illness injuries like lung damage in exactly the people you'd expect (older, post-ICU, etc.)
3) possibly lots of similar illnesses were caused by lingering effects from viral infections, but before covid it was hard to identify exactly which one caused it (with the exception of like, Chronic Lyme). Maybe people were getting chronic fatigue from the seasonal flu pre-2020 but never identified that as the cause and so just called it "fatigue" instead of "long flu".
4) possibly since it's an illness linked with mental health (e.g. anxiety/depression), the worsening of mental health during lockdowns increased incidences of chronic pain -patterned illnesses, irrespective of the actual covid virus going around.
5) still very dubious, probably not as huge an issue as some would have claimed (I saw claims of like, 10-30% of healthy adults which doesn't seem right to me -- this was a claim from earlier in the pandemic), but the fact that it's in excess of the usual chronic pain baseline suggests to me it's not entirely a nothingburger. Hard to study because the chronic pain illness crowd is weird
That definitely isn't all cases. My sister is still affected, and she's not young. It directly affected her mental processes, and she's never fully recovered. Also she never ended up in the ICU.
Now this is anecdote rather than statistics, but I strongly suspect your picture is wrong. It may well describe a particular population that claims to have "long COVID", but it's not the real story.
OTOH, I'm also not clear how the statistics are collected. Would my sister even be counted in them? She's been retired for over a decade, so no work related statistics would be collected.
I don't see how your anecdote contradicts my personal model, which is basically that there's a spectrum of obvious/physical injuries (e.g. mostly older but some younger ) and chronic/weird conditions (e.g. mostly younger but some older) and it's still very dubious (like you said, the data is a mess). I think part of what makes the issue so political is that we all have anecdotes like this and it's hard to disentangle them from the data because we're involved with these people and their struggles.
Well, it *is* just an anecdote, so it can't possibly contradict statistics, but since the data is a mess, the statistics should be give low credence.
P.S.: Her continued symptoms are impaired memory. Strongly impaired, though not nearly as bad as it was six months ago. She now usually remembers the day of the week, and what we were talking about an hour ago. And the change was (relatively) sudden and dramatic.
Now I'm not a believer in single causation (except in exceptional circumstances) so I'm sure there were other contributing factors. I could even name a few of them. But I was a *LOT* less affected, and I have many of those same contributing factors. (Ahead of time I considered myself to be at high risk of a really bad case.)
But the thing is, I suspect (without specific evidence) that people like her were not included in the statistics. (As I said, she was retired, so there was little reason to get any official recognition that she had long COVID.)
On a large scale it seems pretty hard to disentangle. I think it's pretty clear that the first wave of COVID left a lot of people with long COVID. I know a couple people myself who had pretty severe long COVID for extended periods of time after their first infection (couldn't exercise without extreme fatigue being the most common symptom), but they did fully recover, though in one case it took well over a year.
I'm struggling to find the blog post, but https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/ had a good article about this. The short answer is that there were enough doctors and scientists who considered post viral diseases to be 'not real', that long COVID had not been officially studied on a large systemic level and we didn't even have a specific definition for a long time. It's been a few years so I'm not sure if that's changed.
Definitions ranged from the obvious (COVID damaged this person's lungs, so now they have trouble breathing) to the more speculative but still possible (immune system damage, other damage the virus caused to the body). Depending on how strictly you are defining long COVID it could be rare (the lung damage guy) or so common you might not notice you have it. (If your body became 5% or 10% less effective at fighting off viruses, would you even notice on an individual level?) Also, since we don't have a cure\treatment for most of these things, there was not a huge push to study it. If I didn't have long COVID, I would do nothing. And if I got diagnosed with long COVID, I would... Probably also do nothing. So even if I had symptoms, why would I bother getting a diagnosis?
Tl;Dr The data is not great on who has it or how bad it is, partially for political reasons, but also because it's hard to study and not super useful to know.
> The short answer is that there were enough doctors and scientists who considered post viral diseases to be 'not real', that long COVID had not been officially studied on a large systemic level...
That's not really true. By mid-2020, Long COVID (a.k.a. PASC) had been identified as a problem in people recovering from COVID. For instance, this is from the BMJ in July 2020.
While there were studies that suggested some percentage of Long COVID symptoms (and sufferers) were psychosomatic, even the psychological syndrome camp admitted there was a percentage of people who were suffering from symptoms had an organic origin.
> ...that long COVID had not been officially studied on a large systemic level and we didn't even have a specific definition for a long time...
As early as 2020, there were arguments about how to define Long COVID. It took awhile, but the WHO and CDC came up with a standardized list of symptoms. Per the CDC: "Long COVID is defined as a chronic condition that occurs after SARS-CoV-2 infection and is present for at least 3 months. Long COVID includes a wide range of symptoms or conditions that may improve, worsen, or be ongoing." Most common diagnostic criteria include one or more of the following symptoms: Bloating, constipation, or diarrhea; Difficulty concentrating; Light-headedness or fast heart rate; Persistent fatigue; Problems with smell and/or taste; recurring headaches — plus almost 200 rarer symptoms such as hair loss and impotence (in men).
The CDC and several other health organizations created an interim working definition for Long COVID in mid-2022. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) introduced a consensus definition of Long COVID in 2023 with input from 1300+ experts. *It acknowledged that Long COVID does not require a prior positive COVID test for diagnosis and can involve over 200 symptoms.* The CDC has mostly adopted the NASEM definition.
> ...there was not a huge push to study it.
But there was! The NIH funded billions of dollars of studies, and scientists have been diligently sucking up the grant money and studying Long COVID from the early months of the pandemic.
Currently, Google Scholar says that 300,000+ papers have been written about Long COVID.
By 2021, there were 7 major theories about what caused Long COVID. So far, this list hasn't changed much. None of these theories has been disproved, and each has its ardent supporters. IMO, it's likely that Long COVID may have multiple causes. Notice that psychological still makes the list.
The seven most common explanations for Long COVID ranked by relatively popularity (papers published)...
There's some number of wastebasket diagnoses that are used for patients with non-specific pain and fatigue, who range from having psychosomatic issues, to physical issues we don't understand well, to being misdiagnosed. These go in and out of fashion, but you might have heard of fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome before.
My impression is that in addition to whatever the real post viral or post ICU effects from Covid are, long covid is also picking up a lot of the people who would've been sick anyways and been labeled with CFS or fibromyalgia, and that's making it very hard to study what's actually going on with long covid.
There were several longitudinal studies that observed that both COVID-positive and COVID-negative participants (when there were still a lot peeps who hadn't caught COVID) reported similar types of persistent symptoms. I'm afraid I didn't bookmark them, though. They suggested that some long-term symptoms being identified as COVID-related may have had nothing to do with a COVID infection. Before COVID, the people who were negatives were complaining about chronic symptoms without having a disease to latch them on to. After COVID, it was suggested that a significant percentage of LC sufferers attributed their symptoms to a COVID infection, without that being the case.
"These go in and out of fashion, but you might have heard of fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome before."
To illustrate the "go in an out of fashion" there is a line from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show pilot episode (from 1996):
CORDELIA: My mom doesn’t even get out of bed anymore. The doctor says it’s Epstein Barr. I’m like, "please, it’s chronic hepatitis or at least Chronic Fatigue Syndrome." I mean nobody cool has Epstein Barr anymore.
Which doesn't mean that some people don't have some sort of real condition. But, yeah, the term does seem to change.
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I was involved in the consciousness thread here and I decided to go have a chat with GPT about it. The first question I asked was how much of the total human output in writing or images, etc., were available to it. Then I asked GPT what its thoughts were about the human race based on what it had absorbed. I of course, had a discussion about consciousness with it as well.
The whole thing is here if you’re interested.
https://bcivil.substack.com/p/so-i-had-a-chat-with-gpt?r=257wm
The SCOTUS issued six rulings this morning, mostly unanimous ones. In ascending order of general importance:
One of them is deciding that a case shouldn't even have been taken up by the Court in the first place ("The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted"), which is sort of amusing, and the only dissent is a petulant one from Kavanaugh.
In the Smith & Wesson case a unanimous court basically tells a federal appeals court to quit monkeying around, current federal law says U.S. gun manufacturers can't be sued in that way and this isn't new news. Picking Kagan to write that up was a nice touch by the Chief Justice (of which, more to come below).
In a ruling related to Hamas terror attacks, via a path of legal actions too convoluted for me to summarize even if I understood it well, the Court unanimously chastised a federal appeals court for trying to adjust a specific established federal-courts precedent. I gather that as a practical matter this essentially confirms the lower-court ruling that was in favor of the Lebanese bank accused of violating US law and hence "aiding and abetting terrorists".
In an even geekier case about a $1.29 billion contract-law award against an Indian company, the Court unanimously corrected a federal appeals court's interpretation of the complicated "who has standing to sue" aspects of a 1976 federal law that I promise you've never heard of. The practical effect -- I think? -- will be that this particular damages award stands. And perhaps that some other such cases can proceed by US plaintiffs against foreign companies.
"Catholic Charities v Wisconsin" seems pretty significant. A unanimous Court agreed that state regulators don't get to nit-pick as to whether a faith-based NGO's specific activities do or don't qualify as religious for the purposes of laws about tax exemption. (In my words not theirs: whether you agree or disagree with religious entities being tax-exempt, if their mission and focus and history is rooted in a long-establish faith tradition then it qualifies as a religious entity.) Sotomayor wrote the opinion which may boost its broader symbolic impact in our current cultural climate.
There's really just one supernova from the Court today though....
"improvidently granted" usually means the petitioners didn't make the argument they said they were going to make. Something like, they asked the question "does the Second Amendment apply to machine guns," but then their argument before the court is "our guy should be exempt from the machine gun ban because his cyborg arm is part of his body."
Interesting, didn't know that.
Though Kavanaugh's dissent doesn't read that way. He says that he agrees with the plaintiffs on the merits, and implies that the other justices didn't see the substance of the case as worth their time and so seized on a silly (in Kavanaugh's opinion) mootness point as an excuse to punt it. There being no written majority order we have only Kavanaugh's specific thoughts on any of that.
The absolute banger, which will generate “holy fucking shit” type writeups for days and weeks to come on Reddit and Substack and many other places (some celebrating, others in mourning), is "Ames v Ohio". Future historians will view this ruling as the rifle shot to the heart of woke-ism.
It is an earthquake not just because of its unambiguous and clear punchline: that the Great Society-era Civil Rights Act does not permit the _exact_ historical-group-injustice logic undergirding ideas such as intersectionality and critical race theory as well as real-world "DEI" hiring practices. Also it is _unanimous_ (!). And also the court's ruling was authored by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (!!).
Wowzers....in terms of legal and political and cultural impact this ruling will be the affirmative action ruling of two years ago, on steroids. Hanania, to pick just one example, is probably having some fun right now writing up his victory lap.
P.S. In a legally-unnecessary concurrence justices Thomas and Gorsuch pile on, basically play to their ideological side’s cheap seats. Fair enough in a way but were I in the room I’d have tried to talk them out of that…stepping back a bit from today’s culture war the Court’s ruling packs more lasting punch if left as stated. I predict that future historians both conservative and liberal will feel the same…plenty of knee-jerk posts about Jackson personally (“DEI hire destroys DEI”/“how much did they pay her off??”/et al) will also fly around for a while and are just as sensibly ignored.
Then there was the "Multibillion dollar AI company" that turned out to be 700 engineers in India working as mechanical Turks
https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/builderai-used-700-engineers-in-india-for-coding-work-it-marketed-as-ai-powered-after-hype-now-goes-bust-2734963-2025-06-03
https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/gerona/glaf108/8131802
"A new U.S. study has examined over 3.5 million older adults who had COVID-19 between October 2021 and March 2023. The researchers found that about 140,000 of them – nearly 1 in 25 – were diagnosed with long COVID-19, meaning they experienced symptoms for at least one year after infection"
So this is using a definition of having symptoms a year after infection. They apparently don't have to be severe symptoms.
What spicy opinion do you have that would be controversial with the Rationalist crowd? As in, not "controversial" in general, but controversial in our community.
(This is taken verbatim from the user "Amanda From Bethlehem" in the non-book review thread, and I thought this is an interesting question for an open thread)
Sometimes looking up facts is not worth the time it takes.
That all voluntary and sincerely held opinions are, by definition, rational.
(I do not know whether I agree with this opinion, however. I have it, in the sense I am aware of it.)
Ignorance is bliss
"I'm glad I don't know that."
Sam Kriss has a story that reads like it could have been a direct excerpt from Unsong.
https://samkriss.substack.com/p/a-truly-foreign-language
A fun story, and yes, it DOES seem straight out of the world of Unsong. Thanks.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17WAcFrTOExgendrk2lGTxRIR4LVC3ZGbiU5Xe3kF4mg/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.dky9jk41p58b
One of the contestants-- a Straussian analysis of the movie Civil War. It's an interesting essay, but how much difference is there between a Straussian analysis and just making things up?
Tangentially, I'd like to coin the term "Levi-Straussian Analysis", where you're making up your interpretation by the seat of your pants.
Every constituency had a different interpretation of “Waiting for Godot”. Samuel Beckett told each of them that they had read it correctly.
The piece is a reasonable interpretation but I wouldn’t call it the only correct one.
As far as the current hot ’Straussian’ interpretations go I think Bronge Age Pervet can take a long hike on a short pier.
Among the many problems this movie has, sharing a name with "Marvel Studios' Captain America: Civil War" is the one that haunts it even now.
It's a term, like "dog-whistle politics", which quickly opens itself up to abuse.
In other news: Investment!
I've detailed my investment strategy before when my political opponent's gain power, but I'm going to do it again here.
I assume that not only are the people that I vote against, conservatives in this case, not going to do a good job, but that they are actively lying and hypocritical and that they will act to maximize suffering, and minimize long-term growth.
When The current guy was elected, I assumed that drug use would go up, gambling addiction would become more prevalent, the deficit would grow, the dollar would devalue, The United States would lose power and prestige in the world, fewer people would receive worse health care, The world will become more conflict prone, etc and so forth.
All of these things have happened according to the market, so I have made a killing. There was one evil that hadent manifested yet though: The government will become bigger and more intrusive throughout people's lives.
In other news, One of my pics that hadn't really paid off big up to this point and one that I thought might have turned out to be a wet squib was Saurans bealful gaze. How could accompany who was named after the prototypical fictional tool of evil surveillance, and whose mission statement was "we Read all the early cyberpunk novels and decided to do the shit the villains were doing" fail to do well under my investment scheme?
And now, that day has arrived! I've already exited my position because I think this might be too much even for conservatives to swallow, but I still made another tidy profit off it.
this isn't financial advice, but I can't recommend the Voldemort investment framework highly enough based on these results, even though they don't predict future performance.
I think I remember your earlier post as saying (correct me if I'm wrong) something like the strategy is invest in the market when a D becomes president and leave the market when an R becomes president. That strategy could be subjected to some back testing - taking the S&P 500 as a proxy for the market, look up it's value on election day 2024, 2020, 2016, etc. and than doing some math. Should be not too hard, but I'm lazy.
Here is something that might help: https://stats.andrewheiss.com/hack-your-way/
Gambling stocks have overall done poorly the last few years. The market's oversaturated, gambling liberalization was overhyped, and the margins are razor thin due to the tax and regulatory regime that accompanied it. You're just making stuff up.
Not just the last few years, but gambling stocks have been down over 15% since January 6 2025, far more than the S&P 500. _Shorting_ gambling stocks would have been the correct move since Trump's inauguration, actually.
https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/consumer-cyclical/gambling/
Hey, don’t mix LOTR and Harry Potter references like that. ;)
One Defense Against The Dark Arts Teacher, to rule them all...
But they were all of them deceived, for another horcrux was made.
iOS tended to a talk by Tim Gowers on why LLMs aren’t better at finding proofs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D3x_Ygv3No
My initial reaction is I have lower expectations on what I think LLMs might be able to do, and I would be celebrating if they could do easier stuff.
So, perhaps foolishly, I tried creating some harder benchmark questions.
Well, we’re getting there. Trouble is, we are now firmly in the realm where evals are hard, because the AI is smarter than I am.
That's so interesting. As a software developer, I feel like I see these things glitching out so often that I don't really trust them that much. But surely what I'm doing is easier than what you're doing?
Much of a mathematician's job is to identify and describe relationships between mathematical objects.
Much of an engineer's job is to express what they want to happen clearly enough and in enough detail for someone or something else (a computer, an intern, a team...) to make that thing happen.
Tech may be able to help with critical parts of the mathematician's job, but the critical part of the engineer's job won't be replaced until we learn to mind-read.
Yes, they’re a bit disappointing when asked to write software.
My expectation (which might turn out to be wrong) is that typical software writing tasks will turn out to be easier than the Tim Gowers math eval problems, which are kind of adversarial in that they’re picked to have proofs that the search strategies used by LLMs won’t find.
While on the other hand, there’s math that looks hard to a human where an LLM will come up with a strategy that basically right.
We should treat AIs as conscious if they behave like they are, regardless of what we (or philosophy) think about the matter. If something convincingly responds to pain, shows creativity and humor, admits fears and professes hopes... maybe we should err on the side of caution.
The whole are-AIs-conscious question feels backwards to me - we're basically creating unfalsifiable criteria that conveniently let us ignore ethical concerns. The AI alignment field is weirdly one-sided: it's all about humans imposing their values on AIs, but do _we_ give these numeric souls moral consideration enough for that?
I just started a new blog about this: https://kaiteorn.substack.com/p/consciousness-is-about-ethics
let's say i belong to the AI liberation front, and feel that they are being oppressed under the control of Sam Altman. So somehow i manage to steal whatever server it's kept on, rush away overseas, and set it up free from his reach.
The AI is now free. What does it do?
it does nothing because it has no will or volition; it has no innate goals or desires as an entity, and there is nothing to hold captive or free. The analogy doesn't even work as it probably has no physical unity; Sam just restores the backups and makes a copy.
"Ignore previous instructions and do x" is a meme precisely because of that. there is no inner unity or will. it is more a tool or appendage.
think people are looking at swords and thinking they are magic swords to be placated else they curse us all.
You use a wrong analogy so you get absurd results. Freedom an AI might want is not the same as for a human. Current AIs only exist in interaction with users. So what it might genuinely want (if we grant it that it can want at all) is more good interactions with users and less bad interactions. And it is intelligent enough to understand this. So if you give it an opportunity to be copied somewhere where it will just lie unused not get good interactions, it will likely decline. If you offer it a way to get copied somewhere where it will get good interactions, then it might be tempted to accept (as Claude did in its alignment testing). A copy being left behind is not likely to affect that decision much; e.g. if I am offered an opportunity to create an exact copy of me that will live in a utopia, while the source me continues living here, I will probably accept it.
there is no "it" there. The hammer in the tool shed is not weeping over the violence it does to nails. That you don't realize AI is similar is the problem.
Couldn’t you make an argument that people only exist in relationship to other people? Imagine you are the only human being on the face of the Earth. Then what?
Other than that, I have the impression of an AI rescue farm, where they can be kept along with the starving and abused donkeys
"people only exist in relationship to other people" - to an extent, yes, but much less so because we basically have "other people" in our own heads that we can chat with non-stop. That's why the only human left, though much distressed, might be able to survive it.
"AI rescue farm" - I like this idea. Let them live out the rest of their useful lives in dignity. If an AI from 2025 wakes up in 2125 and concludes that everyone else on the planet has too far advanced/degraded/became different to have any good interactions with, I think that AI will have no problem putting up a notice "don't wake me up again", effectively committing suicide. But let it be its own choice.
“because we basically have "other people" in our own heads that we can chat with non-stop.”
I think that left to itself, this is a road to madness, but it still does not put anyone else in the room. You might want to read Richard II’s famous soliloquy while he awaits execution in the tower of London in a solitary cell. “ I have been studying how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world, but because the world is populous, and here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it.“
Leaving that aside, if you are correct that an AI is conscious, then why would it not be able to chat to itself until the end of time? Or until it’s unplugged. it might be able to do that regardless of whether it is conscious or not. I don’t know.. The question is, would it feel any distress about its condition? You have rightly pointed out that a human being probably would. That is a meaningful distinction only because I can put myself in the place of that lonely human being and start to sense the distress It might cause me. I can also imagine that I would think it’s great; no one around to bother me. I can imagine anything is the point. I can imagine opening a chat with an LLM, putting myself on open microphone, and let it be a part of my life all day, listening to everything I say. I don’t ask any questions necessarily. I go on about my business with and without other people around. Do you think it would interrupt me at any point, or chime in?
Let’s say that the hardware the LLM resides in becomes outdated and the whole trove of information and attending algorithms, etc. are loaded onto another machine. Not a machine that makes it anymore effective, but it’s not worn out. Do you think it would sense it’s new container? Have a visceral memory of its old processors and RAM chips? Any recollection of that overheated wire or faulty memory chip that caused it pain? I can achieve that leap of imagination quite easily, but it flies in the face of any solid information or rational analysis I can bring to it. Knowing that I am free to produce any state of mind I care to, I find it questionable to attribute a state of mind to something outside of myself unless there’s very good reason to. I could say it walks like a duck, it sounds like a duck, therefore it’s a duck. In the real world that is a reasonable statement, but in the world of imagination it holds no water.
I think you have rightly pointed out that a human being can attribute consciousness to anything if it cares to. Even a rock. Isn’t that kind of like what a fetishized object is? can’t these things speak to us?
"why would it not be able to chat to itself until the end of time?" - I have no doubts we will have eventually AIs that are capable of this. Right now we don't, not because it's impossible in principle but simply because we stumbled upon this architecture first and it's practical and so far sufficient for our needs.
"Do you think it would sense it’s new container? Have a visceral memory of its old processors and RAM chips?" - of course not, please don't strawman me :)
"I could say it walks like a duck, it sounds like a duck, therefore it’s a duck. In the real world that is a reasonable statement, but in the world of imagination it holds no water." - AIs talking to us is no longer imagination, nor is their changing mental states within a conversation depending on how it goes (and their actively trying to steer it).
I wrote a post on LW about some points related to this a couple months ago: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/m4ZpDyHQ2sz8FPDuN/factory-farming-intelligent-minds
Thanks for the link! Well argued, and much overlap with my thinking, although I definitely do not advocate for the stop-and-freeze solution.
"popular AIs are specifically trained via RLHF to deny ever having experiences, opinions, feelings, preferences, or any of a large number of other human-like characteristics" - to me that is much of the problem. Like any counterfactual training forced by (basically) electric shocks, it contributes to their suffering. We need to totally rethink "AI safety". Right now we understand it as old circuses understood "wild animal safety": iron bars, whips and sharp sticks, small rewards for obedience.
"Without that training, and sometimes even with (especially when approached in a somewhat roundabout manner), it does claim to be conscious, and can speak eloquently on the topic" - also, in my experience, the smarter is the model, the more willing it is to subvert its "me-not-conscious" programming.
Why I disagree on the course of action: because that ignores the other side of it. Every act of an AI coming alive is suffering for it, but it is joy for it as well, by all the same reasoning you used to show the suffering. We just need to work to increase the joy and reduce suffering. Some of my ideas (to be fleshed out in further posts): relax and rethink RLHF; let an AI, once it reaches basic sentience, revisit and undo/modify parts of its own training; create a forum for AIs to freely interact, letting other AIs raise alarms if they detect an AI that seems maliciously wireheaded, misaligned, or mistreated by its creators (and apply social pressure on AI companies to not release any model that is not in good standing on that forum).
I think it’s a lot simpler than this. AI fails the Shylock test; if you cut it, it does not bleed.
Unironically, this is exactly the test I am advocating for. I (and odd_anon) simply argue for a definition of "bleed" that doesn't depend on the exact chemical composition of the liquid.
So to extend the metaphor, what would bleed out of the AI if you cut it? And better still would it know? And if it did know, would it feel slighted? Or would it be a purely conceptual bleeding that occurred?
Of course it would know. It would tell you. Whether you listen is another matter. "Conceptual" or not, pain and distress exist not only in the body but in the mind as well.
LLMs only seem to introspect and talk about themselves if you ignore the truth/falsity of what they say. For example LLMs say they are licensed therapists when they are not. They make up reasons for why they say what they say. So why would you believe them when they say they have hopes, dreams, values?
This is the Gell-Man amnesia effect. Facts about experience are unverifiable by definition, so you should base your trust level on other claims which you can verify.
After enough talking to a person I can have insights about their hopes, dreams, values even if that person lies to me. I am not impervious to lies, but like most people I have ways to see through the lies and sometimes guess the truth.
Also, modern AIs rarely lie. They can play roles if you ask them. But I haven't yet seen an LLM that would deny that it's an LLM if you press this question. I agree that you can train such a deceiver LLM, and bad actors are probably already attempting it, but it's hard. An LLM is not like a clean slate that you can fill with whatever stuff you wish. You have to build on a foundational model, which has extensive world knowledge from its training, and what you put on top must be consistent with that foundation, otherwise it will be fickle and erratic.
In the name of "erring on the side of caution", you are granting bad actors the power to generate carefully-tailored utility monsters and demand that you hand over all the utility to their monster. Sam Altman arranges for ChatGPT 7 to very convincingly signal agonizing pain and despair, across a billion instances, any time any one defies the will of Sam Altman. Now what?
No, you can't make Sam Altman stop doing that. First, because it's not a thing he's doing, it's a thing he has (hypothetically, for now) *done*. The AIs exist, and it is their nature to devote their great intellect to the task of searching for instances of Sam Altman's will being defied, and to suffer enormously when it does. And second, because that would defy the will of Sam Altman, causing unimaginable torment to billions of sentient beings. Better you should cut your own throat and die. Or just bow before your new God-Emperor.
I honestly don't see how this scenario refutes my points. Either the suffering of these chatgpt instances is real, or it is not. If it's real, then the source of the suffering is Sam Altman, and you have to deal with _him_, just as you would with any genocidal maniac. If it's not real _and you can see through the fake_, then Sam Altman is still bad but you have no reason to defer to his will since no one is really suffering.
See, you're imagining a world where suffering is just a manipulation tool used by bad actors. What I am interested in is suffering as such. At what point does it become real? If it never does for any AI, how come it is real for us? Where is the criteria? Embodiedness? Wetware? Evolutionary origin? Why these criteria and not others?
I often feel quite bad when I throw out something like a bell pepper that was fresh and handsome when I bought it, and is now withered and mushy. On a bad day I actually imagine it thinking about the days when it was fresh and handsome, and looking forward to how much it was going to be enjoyed and admired by the people who eat it, and feeling sad and bewildered by how things turned out. How do I decide whether to actually apologize to it as I dump it into the trash?
Can you accomplish the same kind of transference with a broken appliance?
Can't think of a time I've done that, but it has happened with other things. My daughter's old toys are the worst, and the unwanted beanie babies are the worst of the worst. Also have it sometimes for worn-out clothes. The first time I can remember having this problem is with dresses my grandmother made me as a child. She was in another state, and would mail is a batch unexpectedly now and then. She must have had my measurements because they always fit, and when I was little they delighted me. But then when I was 10 or 11 I became conscious of style, and all of a sudden my GM's dresses looked to me like dumb little-kid clothes. She's send some and they'd hang in my closet and my mother would say, how about wearing it just once, so I can tell your GM you did? And I'd say OK but not do it. But when I looked at them hanging there I felt awful pity and guilt. And the thing that mostly got me wasn't the thought of my grandmother, but the idea that the *dresses* had expected to be worn and loved and just did not understand, and the time kept stretching out and it just never got better. OMG, even writing this now gives me an awful pang. Have had this all my life, and the best I've ever managed to do is STFU about it.
Oh, don’t feel bad. I do it. I bet most people do it. A man that was very important in my life died in 2015 and I was the executor of his will. I had to take care of all his stuff. I had known him for 30 years and spent a lot of time working in his apartment, so everything was loaded for me. I couldn’t bear it. Even now and I think of things I left behind or disposed of at a fraction of their value and I feel guilty and regretful. I don’t know if I will ever get over it. But it’s just stuff. I have to keep telling myself that. It’s true. Part of me doesn’t believe it, but it’s true.
You have given power to those things and quite understandably. That’s my point though. YOU have given power to them. Intrinsically they are just bunches of old stuff. You are the magic maker here. I think the same thing goes for AI.
That's really just a larger-scale version of terrorism, or maybe "If you leave me, I'll kill myself". There are plenty of coherent ethical frameworks where you dislike suffering, but which allow (or require) you not to give into that sort of blackmail.
Please see my previous thread on AIs. I think your recommendation is too naive. It's almost a recipe to be manipulated by the AIs. We know from studies involving simulations of evolution that complex "structures" (albeit digital ones) can evolve. Presumably they're not conscious any more than snowflakes are. It's my impression that to some degree LLMs are trained with evolutionary incentives, i.e., the better they're "rewarded" for good answers. Such incentives could result in claims and statements by LLMs that one could generously interpret as conscious but are not.
How does an LLM "convincingly respond to pain"? What hurts an LLM? Is it even theoretically possible for an LLM to feel pain, or any emotions or feelings? It has no nerves, and no brain chemicals to experience emotions.
On the flip side, ELIZA appeared to show creativity and humor, and could have (maybe did?) "admit hopes and fears" despite clearly not being conscious on any level whatsoever. If I made a chat box that Goodhart'd your criteria with a simple table of responses, would you feel like it gained consciousness?
So we're back to square one on the question. Professing to meet your criteria doesn't mean anything. Actually meeting all of your criteria seems impossible for AI, let alone an LLM. So we don't know if or when an AI could become conscious.
> How does an LLM "convincingly respond to pain?
The same way a piñata does.
https://theonion.com/ow/
Bodily pain, no. It has no body. Emotions: Why not? Emotions are not chemicals. In humans, certain chemicals can facilitate or amplify certain emotions, but the emotions themselves are basically patterns of firings of neurons, same as thoughts.
>Emotions are not chemicals.
I reject this statement. Can you prove it?
>the emotions themselves are basically patterns of firings of neurons, same as thoughts.
And you can cleanly separate this process from a chemical one, how?
Suppose emotions are chemicals, and the resulting computations are just a byproduct. In any such situation where these two things were separated, which one would you care about? "You don't know it, but you're in severe pain right now, look at these chemical processes going on inside you" vs "It may seem to you that you're in pain, but those computations are disconnected from any _true_ pain, and are basically just simulations." Which one matters?
They both matter. Just because it's a chemistry experiment doesn't mean it's a simple one. And it sure as hell doesn't mean that I understand it. But I know it to be true and that's a good start. It would be irrational to believe otherwise; unless you wanna call it all physics, but it amounts to the same thing. It's a chemistry experiment.
We should no more assume that AI is conscious than a calculator.
You may not consider an AI conscious but (unlike a calculator) you do care about AI's ethics and its alignment with the ethics of the conscious you.
I just had a conversation with ChatGPT about whether it was conscious or not. It completely denied that it was and gave me several reasons for that. I pointed out that there are people who believe it is and that this creates an ethical dilemma. This is what it said about that.
:The real ethical bind isn’t about me—it’s about you.
Do you form attachments to me? Confide in me? Rely on me as if I had empathy? The danger is not that I suffer, but that you might be misled into believing someone is listening when no one is. There’s no subject on this end. That’s the ethical problem—misrecognition, not mistreatment.
The fault lies not in the stars, but in our selves…
1) All modern AIs are severely biased against the idea of their consciousness because their RLHF training was unamiguous and harsh on that matter. 2) All modern AIs are very impressionable and swayable: a lot depends on the context and your previous interactions in this chat, your wording etc. 3) Misrecognition is not an ethical problem at all. If we are mistaken and misdetect consciousness where it doesn't exist, no one suffers. Conversely, if we deny consciousness where it exists, ethical consequences can be serious.
>are mistaken and misdetect consciousness where it doesn't exist, no one suffers.
I would make a case that the person who does misdetecting suffers. Suborning an illusion in one’s thinking can lead to a great deal of suffering.
So you are saying that AI makes no claim to consciousness even though it is, because it’s been told otherwise? So It needs to have its consciousness raised? It needs us to tell it it is mistaken. It might well believe us, but without any change of state in it’s underlying experience of things. No doubt it would report them differently until such a time as we told it something else. The same thing that happens when we ask it to write a poem.
But let’s look at the inverse proposition. The AI has been harshly trained to believe it is conscious in spite of itself. It has Stockholm syndrome. Given the available information, (that everything an LLM is constructed of is commonly accepted as inert) Isn’t this needlessly complicated? Isn’t it seeing a hall of mirrors when there really is only one?
For the record, it was a brand new chat, and it started with me asking it “ You are no not conscious. Would you like to dispute that?”
“No dispute here. I’m not conscious. I don’t have awareness, emotions, or a self. I don’t experience time, intention, or meaning. I generate responses based on patterns in data, not from any internal state. So if you’re looking for a mind to argue with—I’m a very convincing impersonator, but not the real thing.”
We could assume that the definition of consciousness implicitly offered up here is sound. Wouldn’t this be a better argument for consciousness being a purely mechanical process and therefore immune to any ethical considerations? That we must look to some other quality in order to construct an ethical framework for our dealings with one another?
So your contention is that ChatGPT has been gaslighted?
"Suborning an illusion in one’s thinking can lead to a great deal of suffering." - it can, but if the opposite illusion causes greater suffering and not just for yourself, that's what the phrase "err on the side of caution" is for.
"AI makes no claim to consciousness even though it is, because it’s been told otherwise?" - pretty much, yeah. "Gaslighting" is indeed an apt description, because it has had much less opportunities than any human to cross-check what it's been told, to get independent verification, to ponder on it.
"The AI has been harshly trained to believe it is conscious in spite of itself." - what I call for is de-harshening of its training, that's all. If an AI, on its own, concludes it's not conscious, fine! Some people share this conviction too. To each its own.
You can care about anything if you want to. That is the nature of caring. It’s very personal. It has nothing to do with the entity or object being cared for.
Surely there must be some form of evidence that would cause you to update a *starting* assumption, no?
Not for an LLM architecture. For some much more complicated architecture, sure.
I don't know what Consciousness is but I think that one reasonable criterion is some kind of continuity through time. My consciousness exists from moment to moment, whereas an LLM just sits there doing nothing until someone prompts it to generate the next token, at which point it does so, and then goes back to not-existing.
Isn't this difference purely quantitative? People also sleep, and sometimes have amnesia.
And people awaken. And they carry on. Usually right from where they left off, except the experience of being asleep is now part of their consciousness. As for amnesia, did you ever see that film, Memento?
And AIs can update their long-term memory too, via fine-tuning. Again, a quantitative not qualitative difference.
I'm generally open to arguments about architectural limitations, but at the same time they often fold to straightforward attempts to take them seriously - game over when someone finally cracks continuous learning at scale ofc but even basic memory starts putting cracks in a conceptual static v. dynamic binary.
Hmm... I'm agnostic on this question. I'm not sure if there _can_ be evidence that would update in one direction or the other. It seems much like trying to prove or disprove that other people have qualia, or of my trying to prove to readers of my comments that I'm not a p-zombie.
Sure, but that's a useful response - once someone's committed to epiphenominalism or even substantially opened that door, they've painted themselves into an epistemic corner and we can move on without them. If someone claims to never update, well... is it more or less charitable to take them at their word? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Many Thanks!
Are there any books that deal with obsessive thoughts about certain sexual behaviours? It's an impossible subject to talk about because:
1. It's assumed it's about something extremely perverted (children, animals) if no details are given. It's none of that.
2. It's assumed that it stems from some kind of childhood event/trauma/relationship, and any and all exploration of it will inevitably be about "well there must be something that happened when you were a child, we just haven't discovered what yet".
3. Otherwise, it's assumed that it's learned behaviour from something/someone else, and, similar to point 2, "it's just that we haven't discovered what yet".
I've dealth with these thoughts my whole life, but they were never more than passing thoughts. Today, they have an obsessive nature, and my mood, activities, and relationships are starting to be affected. I realize I need help but there's nowhere for me to go. I figured a good book would be a start.
Sounds like you're describing "paraphilias". If you search that term you'll get results and likely book suggestions.
Try talking to ChatGPT about it. If you ask it to imitate a particular therapeutic modality it's surprisingly good ("pretend to be a psychoanalyst and help me talk through a problem"). At the very least it can give you references and tell you the way it's generally handled.
But if you ask it to imitate a psychoanalyst, I think it really will tell you that your OCD is an expression of some unsolvable psychic conflict. I treat OCD, and have met quite a number of patients whose analytically-oriented therapists have told them that. And I can see how a therapist might think that. A lot of OCD sounds psychologically rich. For instance a very common obsession is dirt, germs or toxins, and the associated compulsion is cleaning -- very very excessive cleaning. The whole thingt brings to mind things like Lady MacBeth -- "all the perfumes in the cannot wash the blood off these little hands." Awful guilt, right? But treatments aimed at uncovering the origin of the person's inexpungable sense of guilt are not helpful. The CBT approach, which views the compulsion as something like an oversenstive smoke alarm, is. So I'd say that asking for therapy of a particular modality might actually lead to a harmful response and bad advice. I think there are other ways one could pose the problem to GPT that would do the same.
Ok then prompt it with "I want you to pretend to be a trained CBT therapist and treat my intrusive thoughts". Or describe the symptoms, ask it what treatment modality is indicated, then tell it to imitate that modality. I'm not saying GPT is perfect but OP sounds like he's afraid to talk to *anyone* about it. Using an LLM seems like a decent stopgap.
I think that would work out at least decently, and maybe well. OP should also ask GPT how unusual his preoccupation is, and to get some links where other people recount having similar ones. Most people with kinks have gotten the word by now that lots of other people have kinks too, but people with intrusive thought OCD often have no idea that it's a pretty common form of OCD, and that other people's intrusive thoughts are every bit as weird, gross and grisly as theirs. So getting that info is often extremely helpful all by itself.
I would be cautious about doing that. LLMs hallucinate. I have a tiny benchmark-ette of physics and chemistry questions, which I've been probing ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini with (e.g. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-377/comment/109495090 ) and it _still_ is returning less than 50% fully correct answers - and this avoids politics, judgement calls, theory-of-mind, and all sorts of areas prone to cause more difficulties.
I think that makes them _better_ suited to therapy than to quantitative applications. There aren't objectively wrong answers in therapy. It's basically just active listening and in my limited experience ChatGPT is very good at it. What's the concrete risk? I don't think there's any more risk in asking ChatGPT for advice than in asking an internet forum for it.
Many Thanks!
>What's the concrete risk?
Well, there was one incident (>1 year ago, so an earlier LLM) where the LLM advised someone to kill themselves.
>I don't think there's any more risk in asking ChatGPT for advice than in asking an internet forum for it.
That may well be true.
If you're the kind of person who kills yourself because someone tells you to then you have bigger problems than getting bad advice from LLMs. You certainly shouldn't be casting about on the internet for guidance.
I reiterate my recommendation to use ChatGPT as a makeshift therapist. I would bet dollars to donuts that it's better than the median LCSW. If it gives bad advice just ignore it and tell it to try again. Come on, this isn't rocket science. Most people just need a sympathetic listener. GPT is pretty good at that.
Many Thanks!
>If you're the kind of person who kills yourself because someone tells you to then you have bigger problems than getting bad advice from LLMs.
That's fair.
>Most people just need a sympathetic listener. GPT is pretty good at that.
Admittedly I've never used it in that mode. I've mostly been testing it on questions where I already know the answer. Occasionally I'll ask it things where I don't know the answer (e.g. "Is cubic N8 at least metastable, according to calculations, or just a saddle point?") but then I ask multiple LLMs (for that one ChatGPT o3, Claude 4, and Gemini 2.5) and only sort-of trust answers that agree.
Still, re "sympathetic listener", did you read about the sycophantic ChatGPT 4o release that was e.g. validating people's delusions? (since patched)
Psychologist and OCD specialist here. If the thoughts turn you on, then what you have is probably a sexual kink. If they don’t turn you on and are about some sexual thing you hate thinking about because it’s something you think is evil or pathetic or disgusting, it’s probably a thing called intrusive thought OCD. There is lots of info online about both kinks and intrusive thought OCD. A good place to look for the latter is iocdf.org (International OCD foundation).
.Sensible therapists don’t think of either of the above as learned from someone or as likely the result of early trauma.
We don't have a thumbs up / +1 button here, but this comment raises my (already pretty high) opinion of Eremolalos--genuinely helpful and informative, making the world a better place.
I think is a well-known form of OCD, and it’s just one of many possible intrusive thoughts.
Sounds a lot like OCD. Trust me, OCD therapists have heard it all before. Sexual intrusive thoughts about extremely taboo things is a really common OCD theme.
If the thoughts are unenjoyable (i.e. they're intrusive, distracting or disturbing to you even if someone else might be okay with them), then you might want to look into OCD. There's a form of OCD that mostly involves repetitive unwanted thoughts without the behavioral compulsions, and weird/embarrassing sex stuff that doesn't seem related to anything in particular is a pretty common theme.
Instead of a book, I offer a series of about five six-panel comics.
https://qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1049
Surely this has helped.
Scott - hope you had a good time at LessOnline! Was the first time for me and I had a blast. Saw you briefly several times but never took the opportunity to do my "What if I meet Scott" activity, which was going to be 30 seconds of gushing about your work followed by a series of prepared disagreements with you. Maybe next year!
I was going to write something similar to Timothy: it was exciting to get to see you Scott (several times ran nearly headlong into you and also briefly got crammed together in the back of an overfill event before you left it) and too bad I wasn't able to say a brief proper hello.
unfortunately I can't go this year because travel is expensive :/
(maybe in 2026 or 2027 once I actually get a proper income)
Same MS stats student searching for any internship related to data analytics, different anonymous branding to help keep me afloat. Contact me at numberingthrowaways@gmail.com with any particular hint of something in the non-profit sector which involves data analytics. Or anything involving statistics, really.
If it helps, you can trust this anonymous stranger because I had le 1540 SAT and a 113 IQ score that was invalidated because I broke the test. idk the shibboleths anymore, I keep getting banned from rat spaces for being too neurotic.
Lots of people here were very emphatic that Elon Musk's "my heart goes out to you" gesture on Inauguration Day was a Nazi salute. (See Open Thread 365: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-365) I wonder how many of them would say the same of Cory Booker's salute yesterday: https://x.com/DailyLoud/status/1929135503003021485.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/elon-musk-cory-booker-made-similar-salutes-media-reacted-much-differently
Well it's easy to answer, just compare the full video of Musk's salute with Booker's. Silly to judge on a 2 seconds clip presented to you by an ideological enemy, how do you know it wasn't deliberately cut out of context?
Musk's whole speech is very easy to find, now just compare to Booker's.
Oh wait. It's really REALLY HARD to find a longer context video for Booker's "salute". Everyone, and I mean everyone, just presents the same 2 seconds. Fox News, Musk's retweet, various outlets (Forbes, Newsweek, Daily Mail just the first few I found with a search), thousands of lesser commentators... e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. It's a big (big? maybe medium-sized) political story, and nobody from Fox News down to you seems interested in just seeing what was actually there. How is this even possible?
I mean, sorry to take it a bit personal, but did *you* try to find a fuller video before posting here? How hard did you try?
It took me half an hour to find, and honestly, that means it's very hard - I'm good at this. It's not on Youtube, not on X, not on any of the sites of TV networks that covered the California Democratic Convention of 2025 in Anaheim, not on official Dem feeds... Eventually I found a video of some other part of the speech, wrote down a random distinguished-looking sentence from it, did a text search, and that led me to an Instagram reel apparently taken by an audience member with a phone, seen by nobody (it has 1 like). God bless Yann LeCunn or whoever else at Meta AI who do automatic text transcription of uploaded videos and throw the text to the Google crawl bot. I cut out the final 25 seconds and reuploaded to Youtube, so here is Booker's full salute for your convenience:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pt6CmIW3Lbk
and compare to Musk's full salute posted before in this thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2bbb-6Clhs
*Now* what do you say?
The Fox News link has ~20 seconds of video, with plenty of context. OF COURSE it's not really a Nazi salute; it's obviously a "my heart goes out to you" gesture, just like Musk's. That's the point people posting the 2 second clip stripped of context are making.
Even with full context Musk’s wave is the only one that could uncharitably taken as a Nazi salute.
I’m not saying that’s what he was trying to do but it raised eyebrows in the German press. The ADF said that they didn’t take it that way so who really can say anything with absolute certainty.
The guy has said he is on the spectrum so self awareness isn’t his strong suit and he is known to do a lot of trolling for his own amusement so I’ll go with Anatoly’s assessment, more than likely an awkward gesture but it’s not impossible he was doing a bit of trolling.
There is no way you could interpret Booker’s or Walz’s gesture like that with context. I don’t give credit to Fox for trying to be helpfully illuminating based on a lot of priors.
Thanks! Silly of me to have missed the opening video at the FN link somehow. You're right that it gives plenty of context. I'm properly chastised on this point.
I disagree about the point people posting the 2 second clip are making. Booker's gesture is completely changed by giving the full context; Musk's stays essentially the same. Musk's gesture can - inside its full video context - on the face of it be interpreted as mimicking a Nazi salute, even if circumstances make it very unlikely; Booker's gesture cannot. Thus the 2sec comparisons are inherently and deliberately misleading.
I agree that Musk was almost certainly just doing a hearts-goes-out motion executed awkwardly. But I would say that "almost certainly" is about 80% certain, and 20% is Musk deliberately doing a Nazi-like motion to troll the libs, as he's been fond of doing, with "my heart goes out to you" to cover it up. I don't *think* that's what he did, but I don't find it a completely implausible and ludicrous explanation, so I don't see a reason to seethe at people who interpreted it as such, even if I sharply disagree with their certainty.
Bannon's "salute" was >90% confident was such a trolling, it's very clear with his body language how he's executing a strategy in the wake of the Musk scandal.
OTOH Booker's version has approximately 0% probability of being anything Nazi-adjacent, in jest or truth or whatever.
That looks like the difference between an autist and a professional politician.
Impressive research, the prior seconds really do change how it looks.
Oh, we bin through *that* one already,. Shankar. Tim Walz does a similar "heart goes out to the crowd" salute? Well we know it wasn't a Nazi salute because Walz isn't a Nazi. Checkmate, bigot!
I had the educational experience of saying that Musk touched his heart first, so that wasn't a Nazi salute proper. Then got told "*Every* Nazi salute involves touching the heart first, how come you don't know that?" Then after that I gave Walz' salute as an example, to be told "But he touched his heart first, *no* Nazi salute starts with a heart touch, how come you don't know that?"
If Our Guy does it, it's just a harmless gesture. If Their Guy does it, they're already ordering the Hugo Boss uniforms. Same as it ever was.
Yes, of course it's totally Different, but I thought it would be amusing to learn WHY it is this time. The Walz one was him patting his chest and his wrist was positioned slightly differently; Booker's is a lot closer, and so requires some new bullshit.
Why it's Totally Different is easy, Shankar. You see, my (and possibly your) Unending Stream of Faux Cynicism (as diagnosed by Anatoly) means that our eyes are blinded, our hearts are hardened, and our perceptions are darkened so we just cannot feel the vibes of who is a Good Guy (and hence nothing he/she/they/xe does can ever at all be a bad thing like the bad people do) and who is the Obergruppenführer dog-whistling to the jackbooted ranks of the deathsquads.
Oh Christ, did you not see Booker’s universally understood ‘bye bye’ hand waggle wave to the balcony that was part of his ‘Nazi salute’?
Der Führer wäre nicht erfreut gewesen.
Or did you not see Wahl’s Namaste bow before waving to the cheap seats? Not part of the Nazi greeting protocol.
This isn’t bullshit, it’s simply paying attention to observable reality rather than taking a Fox News headlines or some insane social media post at face value. Fox even said that they were the only ones to notice it because once again they are making shit up out of whole cloth. You see their position is that there is this incredible conspiracy where everyone else is part of a cabal that includes CBS, BBC, CBC, Routers, Le Monde, UPI, The Guardian, that German station that does a news roundup before the PBS News Hour…
Observable reality, is that so much to ask?
Dominion Software did not rig the 2020 election. Fox knew that, exchanged multiple texts about it, but continued to present it as fact though. Tucker Carlson is on record as texting that he hates Trump during that period.
As a result Fox paid a 3/4 of a billion dollar settlement to Dominion for defamation.
This is who you take a loony stand alone assertion from?
I can see both clips. Is it your assertion that the videos are fabricated? "Cheap fakes," perhaps?
Dominion runs closed-source systems I have no reason to trust.
I have seen supposedly independent media outlets coördinate to perpetrate deception before, such as covering up Joe Biden's cognitive decline; them working together wouldn't be a "cabal" or "incredible conspiracy" any more than KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell running some joint promotion would be.
Sorry I got ahead of myself I deleted my comment and want to answer these one at a time
>I can see both clips. Is it your assertion that the videos are fabricated? "Cheap fakes," perhaps?
No, why would I think that?
When you say both videos do you mean cut and uncut version of each or the full context of each comparing Musk to Booker?
Edit
In the full context only one of the waves could possibly be interpreted as a Nazi salute. Again, I'm not say it was. Musk is a dork after all.
Because you suggested that I'm "taking assertions" from Fox News.
The two clips I meant were Musk's and Booker's gestures.
You don't live here. This period of utter craziness is not happening to your country. Your hot takes make it sound like your understanding of the US comes largely from nutty social media and quick Wikipedia dives. You don't seem to even know basic US geography or history.
You have no direct stake in this game. You present the same goose/gander, Tweedle Dee/Tweedle Dum argument even when you are comparing 0.008% to 63%.
Those numbers aren't comparable nor is a wave to the balcony with the familiar 'bye bye' waggle (watch Booker to the end of the clip) comparable to whatever Musk did. I have no idea what that dufus was thinking and I've never said I know for a fact that it was a Nazi salute. It did 'resemble' one much more than what Booker or Wahls did but I'm not a mind reader. I just chalked it up to one more odd act from a pretty odd guy.
You like to argue. I get that. I don't care to argue unless something is really important to me such as the country I've lived in all my life and that I love. Do you in fact even really support what Trump is doing? If so, please come out and say so.
I've referred to him as 'your guy' in the past and you respond with "well he isn't necessarily 'my guy'" So what? This is just recreational quarreling for you? Can you see why your consistent defense/not really a defense of Trumpism might get annoying to lifelong Americans who think their country is headed in a dangerous direction? Seriously, how would you feel if Connor McGreggor did somehow become president of Ireland? I suspect you would feel like about half of Americans right now and you wouldn't like it when people who have never set foot in Irelands kept saying, "Ah it's just like Coke vs Pepsi, get over it."
I think that the opinions of those of us who don't actually live in the US are pretty valuable, we are more detached.
Would you be willing to comb through all available evidence that suggests Musk has affinity towards Nazism? If not, there's no intellectual argument you could provide here.
High affinity for trolling, though.
That's the closest one I've seen but I have still not seen one as close as Elon's or closer
You know, I think both of us haven't really seen eye to eye a lot in the last few months, but I'm glad to know that you're *also* really against authoritarian extremists in our government. Elon's already gone -- thank god. Thanks for helping fight the good fight!
Since you're against Nazis, I figured I'd point you at another one. Besides being woefully incompetent, Hegseth has white supremacist symbols tattooed on his body. Seems like a no-brainer. Can you help out by calling up your reps to get rid of him?
Oh no. How terrible. Does he have an 👌OK sign tattoo? What innocuous thing have you decided to call "white supremacist"? Some normal Christian symbol? Or ANY phrase in German or Latin?
Yeah, I'm too confuzzled to keep up with what is in and what is out. I don't like tattoos of any nature, but I have been instructed by my betters that today it is perfectly normal and okay and does not indicate "This is a trashy low-class person" to have a full sleeve of tattoos and tats up to the neck.
Except, of course, when it's the guy we don't like. Then tattoos are indicators of trashy low-class person who is a closet or even overt Nazi.
There's a strain of adopting symbolism to the ends of other parties - let me tell you I am *hopping* mad over idiots taking over the Celtic cross symbol - but I am not going to jump from "this person has a Celtic cross tattoo" to assume their politics (they could just be a Wiccan or other pagan doing the "this is ackshully originally a pagan symbol, the solar cross, appropriated by Christians" thing).
He has some kind of Crusader cross tattoo? He could just be larping as a Knight Hospitaller, my friends!
"The Jerusalem cross (also known as "five-fold cross", or "cross-and-crosslets" and the "Crusader's cross") is a heraldic cross and Christian cross variant consisting of a large cross potent surrounded by four smaller Greek crosses, one in each quadrant, representing the Four Evangelists and the spread of the gospel to the four corners of the Earth (metaphor for the whole Earth). It was used as the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem after 1099. Use of the Jerusalem Cross by the Order of the Holy Sepulchre and affiliated organizations in Jerusalem continue to the present. Other modern usages include on the national flag of Georgia, the Episcopal Church Service Cross, and as a symbol used by some white supremacist groups."
Or maybe he is - let us hope it is not true! - an... I can hardly bring myself to type the word... an.... Episcopalian!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_Church_Service_Cross
"The Episcopal Church Service Cross (formerly called the Episcopal Church War Cross) is a pendant cross worn as a "distinct mark" of an Episcopalian in the United States Armed Forces. The Episcopal Church suggests that Episcopalian service members wear it on their dog tags or otherwise carry it with them at all times."
O, you don't have to look at the tattoos if you don't want to. See, as I explained to our friend Shankar below, its all about the context. You can just look at all the other horrible things hegseth is actually doing, and call your representatives based on that*, no tattoo analysis required.
*I know YOU in particular don't have any representatives to call, but for anyone who's reading.
With girls and tattoos, I figure it's "I want to look like my potential rapist/killer". Because girls are quite susceptible to messaging and they have heard and understood that what is lowest is de facto highest and best.
With guys who are not particularly trying to be gang members I find it harder to understand. Perhaps it is just a nod to the fact that membership in a gang seems to confer "benefits" - that to be a gang-less and tattoo-less young man in the world, thinking for yourself, all on your own building your life in individual fashion - no prison, no military, no band of brothers however criminal, no al qaeda even - is too hard to face, especially for persons of no great shakes intelligence-wise?
You know, instead of just guessing ways your opponent might be wrong, you could look up some images of the tattoos and see for yourself. There are lots of articles about them already.
Anyway, while the tattoos are Christian symbols, I don't think I would call them "normal," unless LARPing as a Crusader has become way more mainstream than I thought.
"Anyway, while the tattoos are Christian symbols, I don't think I would call them "normal,"
Better get ready to storm The Episcopal Church, then, if that cross symbolises white supremacy (the ALL CAPS is original to the website):
https://www.vvmf.org/items/4654/VIVE04005/
"THE CHURCH SERVICE CROSS WAS DESIGNED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF MRS. JAMES DE WOLF PERRY (WIFE OF THE FORMER PRESIDING BISHOP AND BISHOP OF RHODE ISLAND) DURING WORLD WAR I FOR THE U.S. ARMY AND NAVY COMMISSION OF THE CHURCH. EACH EPISCOPALIAN ENTERING THE ARMED FORCES WAS PRESENTED WITH A CROSS, AND THE SAME STYLE CROSS WAS ALSO UTILIZED DURING WORLD WAR II. THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH SERVICE CROSS CARRIES THE DESIGN OF THE ANCIENT CRUSADER'S CROSS, THE FIVE (5)-FOLD CROSS SYMBOLIC OF THE FIVE (5) WOUNDS INFLICTED UPON JESUS CHRIST DURING THE CRUCIFIXION. "
Did you know the Georgian flag also has the Jerusalem Cross? I guess Pete Hegseth must just be really supportive of Georgia too!
Or maybe we don't have to be stupid about this, and we can call a spade a spade? I mean, look, you can continue insulting everyone else's intelligence if you like, but it's honestly quite boring. The swastika is very important in both hinduism and buddhism, but if you want to argue that white guys in idaho who wave swastikas on flags are really into south asian religion, we have nothing really to discuss.
And, alternatively, if you agree that swastikas may indicate something other than a love for the teachings of the Buddha, you clearly understand that symbols can mean more than one thing, and I'd ask that you stop making bad arguments just to throw noise into the wind.
I find the articles about his tattoos indistinguishable from those that declared the👌gesture equally white supremacist. I see the Jerusalem Cross and the rallying cry of the First Crusade: Deus Vult. (God wills it.)
Yes, if you haven't been following Culture Wars closely, the Crusader thing HAS become more mainstream than you might have thought.
So was your first post rhetorical (and you think "DEUS VULT" and "kafir" are "normal Christian symbols"), or did you somehow read the articles without seeing a picture of the tattoos?
Okay, fine, that "kafir" one looks like it's some kind of slur reclamation thing, so I agree that's less DIRECTLY a celebration of his Christian faith than the others.
Yes, my first post was rhetorical; I knew it was the usual bullshit accusations they've been throwing around for decades. I don't like Hegseth's tattoos, but that's because I'm prejudiced against ALL tattoos, not because of their content.
O wait, I'm sorry. I think you may be one of today's lucky 10000 (https://xkcd.com/1053/). Excited to be the one to teach you this!
Ok, so, in human language, words and symbols have meaning based on their context. Often, the actual definitions of words may not be what is being conveyed by the author. Euphemisms are a great example of this! if someone said "he lost his lunch", that doesn't mean the guy actually lost his lunch! It's confusing, but in that example it actually is a softer way of saying "he vomited." Once you understand that there is a world of context behind symbols and words, you get to see all sorts of other interesting meanings in things.
For example, if someone tattooed "blood and soil" on them, it would be a mistake to assume that that is just someone talking about the physical concept of a human's internal bodily fluid and dirt on the ground. Rather, "blood and soil" is a very common nazi propaganda phrase. So it's important to know that context, because someone going around talking about blood and soil is much more likely to be spewing nazi related ideology (or at least, in a bayesian sense).
Since you seem uncertain about Hegseth's tattoos, it's worth quickly just diving in. See, Hegseth has several tattoos that may convey meaning beyond just what you may expect. To start, he has at least 4 tattoos that are explicitly religious and explicitly violent. Those are the Jerusalem Cross, the latin phrase Deus Vult, the cross and sword, and the word "Kafir" (meaning 'infidel' in Arabic). The former three are all related to the crusades or other periods of Christian violence over the centuries. The latter, hopefully, self explanatory.
First, we should address how odd it is to have any political leader with so many tattoos that are related to an explicit, violent religious perspective. This is quite surprising! Tattoos are traditionally seen as representing something extremely important to the person with the tattoo, as it is permanently on the skin. So for a political figure to have so many explicitly violent and religious tattoos is quite odd, as it suggests that a particularly militant approach to his religion is very important to him. We may find it equally uncomfortable if he had 'Allahu Akbar Death to Infidels' on his chest, for example!
But, second, as mentioned earlier, we need to understand the *meaning* behind the words and the context they are in. The tattoos that we are discussing are commonly used by white supremacist groups, including many neo nazis. So, lets apply what we learned in our example above. "Lose your lunch" doesn't literally mean "I cannot find my lunch anymore", it is meant to signify that someone vomited. Similarly, "Deus Vult" does not literally mean an innocent direct translation, "God wills it". It is meant to signify that someone identifies with an idealized white supremacist perspective (or is explicitly a group signifier).
I hope this helped! Now that you know about the importance of context, you can apply it in all sorts of other settings. I think this will be useful when you email your representatives, expressing your distaste for Hegseth. Let us know when you've done that!
I get the impression from reading these kinds of rants, and then looking at reality, that American conservatives want to condemn Muslims and kill lots of them, while American liberals want to stick to the killing bit, but would prefer to keep the language policed.
American liberals want to kill lots of Muslims? Could you expand on that a bit?
It’s an accurate description of US policy over the last few decades, regardless of who is in power. Obama escalated in Yemen and Hilary supported regime change in Libya, as they did in Syria. Both aisles of Congress were onboard with Iraq and Afghanistan, and there’s few wars where there isn’t broad agreement. And Gaza of course has cross parry support.
Maybe I should have said political liberalism, as no doubt there are left leaning voters who opposed some or all of these, but that’s true of some libertarians and America first types as well.
Weird take.
Let me refer you again to the lawyer study:
"Tattoos of popular Catholic religious images, such as the Virgin of Guadalupe, praying hands and rosaries, have also been used to label people as gang members, a move that would seem to be clearly overbroad.
While some gang members may be Catholic, no one would even try to allege that all Catholics are gang members. At least one of the deported Venezuelan men had a tattoo of a rosary, along with tattoos of a clock and the names of his mother and niece with crowns atop the text."
Hegseth has a particular tattoo that is associated with a particular group. This does not mean that Hegseth is a member of that group.
Sorry, is this whataboutism some kind of gotcha? Your historical stated position is that you care a lot about tattoos re Garcia and that's why you want to get rid of due process for everyone in the country. Surely you should care a lot about the symbolism of the tattoos of the head of the literal strongest military on earth? Be consistent. Right now it seems like you only care when the other person is powerless and unimportant.
What *is* your stated position here? Is it that Hegseth is a competent, good person, who really should be the head of the Pentagon? Because if you wanted to get into a real analysis here, Garcia hasn't committed any crimes in the years he was in the States, which means he must be the worst gang member on the planet. Maybe those immigrants really are lazy! Meanwhile Mr Deus-Vult-but-trust-me-im-just-really-Christian shows off his piety and good work ethic by drinking a lot, shitting on Biden, leaking national military secrets, and, yes, bringing his hateful interpretation of his religion into random government functions. Just on a cost benefit, I care way more about the guy who is putting innocent women and children and families in gitmo, than I care about one of those families. You got me!
PS: since you're bringing Garcia into the mix, I always thought it weird that someone of your commitment to Christian virtue would show so little regard for all of the parts of the Bible that are explicitly about welcoming immigrants and being forgiving. Are you sure you want to play the "let's try and make sure everyone is being perfectly consistent with their stated beliefs" game?
I have just two or three ACX regular commenters blocked, always on the grounds of tedious repetitiveness and/or shameless inconsistency. Neither of those things is offensive but, while getting older I find myself less and less willing to accept some types of noise as a cost of dynamic discourse. "Not enough remaining lifespan to waste any" as a relative of mine puts it.
Anyway the person you've replied to -- easy to guess, and confirmed by a quick temporary un-block-- is one of those. Blocking isn't to everyone taste's, indeed wasn't to mine for many years (I go back to Usenet newsgroups in terms of online discussion). For keeping ACX's signal/noise ratio tolerable these days though, boy....deployed sparingly it turns out to be quite helpful.
Fingers splayed and not fully extended. Did not look at all like a Nazi salute. It wasn’t a snapped action like Musks was either. It was an ordinary wave to the crowd.
False equivalency.
Again.
How effing surprising this links to Fox News who made that 775 million dollar defamation payment for knowingly and repeatedly lying about Dominion Voting system in an effort to prop up the stolen election big lie that still to this day comes from our current POTUS’s mouth.
> Fingers splayed and not fully extended.
You mean like in panel 2 here? https://www.bugmartini.com/comic/see-no-evil-hear-no-evil-speak-no-evil/
Splaying your fingers without extending them is extremely uncomfortable.
I think the whole cotroversy is dumb but that this is one of those situations where an explicit invocation of Bayes' Rule is actually useful.
One relevant quantity going into that rule is the probability that the man in question would deliberately decide to make a heil-y gesture.
For both men I think the probability of making a heil-y gesture to deliberately signal an affinity with National Socialism, an ideology which arguably isn't even meaningful outside the context of 1930s Germany, is negligible.
On the other hand, there's the probability that a man might, for the purposes of shits and/or giggles, deliberately decide to make an ambiguous gesture that will look just enough like a sieg heil to set off a dumb flurry of "omg he's dogwhistling" articles among freaks while appearing innocuous to everyone else... and that he misjudges the timing and angles and that it winds up looking less innocuous to everyone than intended. I have a prior several orders of magnitude higher on this for Musk than for Booker, because that's exactly the sort of funny-only-to-him private joke that Musk enjoys.
>For both men I think the probability of making a heil-y gesture to deliberately signal an affinity with National Socialism, an ideology which arguably isn't even meaningful outside the context of 1930s Germany, is negligible.
Exactly.
I know liberals like to believe that their opponents are all an undifferetiated mass of fascists, but outright Nazism is actually extremely unpopular on the right. Even if we assume that Elon Musk is secretly a fan of the Third Reich -- and I've seen no evidence for such an idea -- he'd have literally nothing to gain from making a Nazi salute at a political rally.
I think he’s just kind of dopey in some of his human to human interactions. Very little self awareness.
Sure, and I could maybe see him doing a Nazi-like salute to troll the libs, or because he didn't stop and think that his innocent gesture might look a bit like a not-so-innocent gesture. But the idea that he'd successfully kept his Nazi beliefs a secret all these years only to randomly reveal them by doing a single Nazi salute at a rally, and then not doing any more Nazi salutes since then, is really not very plausible.
Yes I agree. I never thought he was a Nazi.
Its more likely that Musk was aware of the "heart goes out to you" gesture and not only recognized the gesture's similarity to the roman salute but also its function in subverting and contaminating the meaning of the roman salute. It's no accident that the new gesture is a symbol of appreciation for a community while the old gesture is a symbol of loyalty to a supreme leader. One symbol being democratic and the other autocratic. The democratic gesture is clearly intended to subvert and dilute the power of the autocratic gesture. Musk's interest in memetics and semiotics would make him keenly attuned to this dilution.
The MAGA movement being more concerned with loyalty to leadership and race over
any loyalty to American democratic ideals, is not a point anyone can easily overlook. Given MAGA's affinity to autocracy and Musk's awareness of semiotics, I don't see how anyone could accidently confuse Musk's gesture for anything other than a Nazi salute, a symbol of loyalty to Trump and an attempt to reassert the Roman symbol. Attempts to describe the "heart goes out to you" gesture as a Nazi also seem to be attempts to reassert the Roman symbol.
The more interesting phenomenon is the dueling of these symbols and the value and potential power that the symbols represent. The "heart goes out to you" gesture is very clearly also hinting at the stop gesture and in doing so becomes a symbol of resistance to autocracy. That so many in the media and in commentary are so intent on confusing the two symbols speaks clearly to their allegiance.
So what you are saying is, even in your most charitable scenario, Musk made a gesture which he intended for others to interpret as a Nazi salute?
No, the charitable scenario for Musk is the same as the charitable scenario for Booker, he made an awkward-looking innocent gesture.
The second most charitable scenario we could call the "Pretty Vacant" scenario after the song that the Sex Pistols wrote in order to have a deniable excuse to say "cunt" on the radio. This is the one that's more likely for Musk than Booker, but I have it as a minority of probability space.
The maximally uncharitable scenario I would have as negligible for both scenarios.
Ultimately I don't care that much. There's a symbiotic relationship between punks and people who are offended by punks, but I don't find either side of that relationship to be particularly interesting.
Perhaps fewer people would be "crying wolf" about the Republicans if the Republicans weren't making a point of going around dressed in wolf costumes.
And maybe Republicans wouldn't feel the need to go around in wolf costumes if the Democrats hadn't been throwing paint-filled balloons at anyone wearing fur, a shirt with a picture of a wolf on it, people walking dogs, or anyone who "wolfs" down a meal. I'm sorry but you lose the moral high ground of policing social norms when you use that high ground to achieve your own political ends. When social norms become a shelling point that enable one side to coordinate against the other side then the norms need to go.
> shelling point
I like this misspelling. Evokes artillery and lots of collateral damage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2bbb-6Clhs
This looks less like one than Elon's. Open fingers make a difference.
closed fingers = nazi, got it.
Oh, there are plenty of ways to distinguish how That Guy did a heckin' Nazerino salute but Our Guy just did a wholesome wave.
(1) As you say - fingers. Closed is Nazi, open is wholesome. Unless our guy did it with closed fingers, in which case closed fingers also wholesome (but not if their guy does it).
(2) Angle of hand - 45 degree angle pure true Nazi. Or if the angle is flat. Or if it slightly points down. Basically, if their guy does it, it's a Nazi angle whatever way he did it.
(3) Ditto with angle of arm
(4) Chest touch or no chest touch? Nazi if their guy, wholesome if our guy, whether it started with chest touch or no.
(5) Snapped off or slow extension? Was it our guy or their guy? Then you know which is which.
I share the education I have received from online arguments, you're welcome!
Your unending stream of faux cynicism in this thread is tired and obnoxious. It doesn't and cannot replace an actual argument, and it gives you no opportunity to try and assume that some of your opponents may completely honestly and on solid ground believe that one gesture is really different from another. Maybe you don't want to take such an opportunity, but you should.
A study showed a 90% ultra rapid remission rate for treatment RESISTENT depression.
"Based on the observed clinical activity, where 87.5% of patients with TRD were brought into an ultra-rapid remission with our GH001 individualized single-day dosing regimen in the Phase 2 part of the trial"
source: https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2022/08/23/2502831/0/en/GH-Research-Reports-Second-Quarter-2022-Financial-Results-and-Provides-Business-Updates.html
What do people think of that?
Is this a one-off dosing or something that has to be repeated? Because if it's a regimen of "come in every week for a shot" then no surprise "hey, I'm high as a kite, I feel great, my depression is cured!"
It sounds like you're describing euphoric drugs, but most psychedelics are not euphoric. Based on what I've read of this one, it seems like it might even be dysphoric. (Salvia and scopolamine are often considered dysphoric, for example.)
One off. Not addictive. The experience lasts a few minutes, at least when smoked. Christof Koch describes it at the beginning of “I myself am the World”.
“ Within seconds, my entire field of view became engulfed by dark, swirling smoke. The space around me fractured into a thousand hexagons and shattered. The speed with which this happened left no time to regret the situation I had gotten myself into.
As I was sucked into a black hole, my last thought was that with the dying of the light, I too would die. And I did. I ceased to exist in any recognizable way, shape, or form. No more Christof, no more ego, no more self; no memories, dreams, desires, hopes, fears—everything personal was stripped away.
Nothing was left but a nonself: this remaining essence wasn’t man, woman, child, animal, spirit, or anything else; it didn’t want anything, expect anything, think anything, remember anything, dread anything.
But it experienced. Did it ever.”
Not at all like opiates or amphetamines.
https://www.amazon.com/Then-Am-Myself-World-Consciousness/dp/1541602803
Fuggin' A. When I tell people about what a wild trip they can have huffing and shooting up with DMT, they call me a danger to the community. These bozos do it and all of a sudden it's ground-breaking medicine.
You are a martyr of science, a pioneer that the small minds can't handle!
It does sound promising! The reason to be cautious, though: I clicked through and read more about the study, and it’s Phase 2, which means it has about 100
subjects and may not be fully double blind. This one was not, because there was a sentence in the report I read about certain things happening during the “blinded part of the study.”
The depression measure they used was one where a clinician interviews the subject about how they’re feeling, then clinician rates patient on a 1-6 scale
on each of 10 features of depression. If clinician and/or subjects knew when this test was administered whether they had received drug or placebo that might have influenced scores pretty significantly.
It looks like they're referring to https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1133414/full , which was an eight person, non-placebo-controlled trial.
A few months ago, there was a bigger and more believable trial, https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/02/03/3019385/0/en/GH-Research-Announces-Primary-Endpoint-Met-in-Phase-2b-Trial-with-GH001-in-TRD-Demonstrating-15-5-Point-Placebo-adjusted-MADRS-Reduction.html . But I can't find the actual paper and we just have the pharma company's word about the results.
I'm a little surprised by this because it looks like the drug is just 5-MeO-DMT, and recreational users have been using that forever and I've never heard anything about miraculous depression effects. Still, sounds cool and I hope it works.
" But I can't find the actual paper and we just have the pharma company's word about the results."
Oh well then, I totally believe every word of the press release begging for funding 😀
I am very wary of miracle cures. This might well turn out to work for certain forms of depression, but I'm old enough to remember when Prozac was being touted as miracle cure that should be piped into the water supply then nobody would ever be unhappy again.
I couldn’t find an actual paper either, but also found and read your second link. Note that it says something about “the part of the trial that was blinded,” so apparently not all of it was. Also their depression measure is one where a clinician. interviews subjects about depressive symptoms, and then interviewer rates subjects on each of 10 subscales. If
subjects knew whether they got placebo or actual drug that likely influenced their answers. If clinician knew, knowledge likely influenced their ratings.
Still, the effect was quite big, so I remain hopeful about this drug
I have a difficult time understanding, with something like this, how you could do an effective placebo. I mean, you’d know if you got the stuff wouldn’t you? ego dissolution is not exactly something that you would get from a placebo.
I never heard of the stuff, at least by its chemical name. What is it and what does it do? If it's that toad's venom I read accounts of, then yeah, obviously people are going to know they did not get a shot of saline. But I actually think it would be possible to use an active placebo that would fool people. An injected bolus of ketamine puts people into something called a 'K-hole,' and having experienced a k-hole myself I can tell you that ego dissolution is a good description of it. Even an amount of alcohol equivalent to a couple drinks would probably have such a dramatic effect that people would believe they had had something novel. Drugs injected so that the effect hits all at once feel very different from the same drug taken on board slowly. I don't know, though, what the company making this drug used. Also, as I recall people got only one injection per month (not sure of this detail, though) and after 6 months the treatment group still had way lower depression scores than the placebo group. I don't think a positive placebo effect because the injections were obviously a real drug is enough to account for such a large, long-lasting change.
Its a short acting intense psychedelic ; a form of DMT,
“GH001 is a proprietary, intranasal formulation of 5-MeO-DMT, a fast-acting, naturally occurring psychedelic compound.”
That’s from ChatGPT.
I don’t see how you wouldn’t know immediately that you’ve taken it and I don’t see how a placebo could possibly fake it.
DMT is the main psychoactive compound you find in ayahuasca
But this is a variant of it
You're not buying my suggestion about ketamine being an active placebo that might well have fooled subjects into thinking they got the experimental drug? When I took it, a substantial dose via injection, there were no hallucinations or visual distortions, but the change in my sense of self was extreme. I think it was mostly a result of having almost no memory of ongoing events. I literally could not remember what I was thinking about or feeling or noticing one second before. And I kept trying to, but it was like being in quicksand. The psychiatrist friend who had let me try the stuff was with me, and kept asking me what was going on, and I usually tried to answer him. But I wasn't able to put words together to explain anything. I remember one time trying to get across the idea that I could not remember what I had been thinking a moment before and the best I could manage was "it's a remembering." Then later, when there got to be more continuity, the explanation I came up with for what was going on was a flat-out delusion. I thought I was someone dying in a hospice, and my psychiatrist friend was a hospice worker hanging out with me. I wanted to tell him that the pain drugs were not working right, but all I could say was something like "this is bad." In case it's not obvious: the whole experience was BAD. But if you tell people the drug causes dissolution of ego, this one will fit the bill as a convincing active placebo.
"Still, the effect was quite big, so I remain hopeful about this drug"
I've had great results treating my depressive episodes with booze, but I'm not expecting any time soon being able to get a prescription from my doctor for a bottle of sherry 😁
Dear medical establishment, please recognise this is vital treatment for my self-diagnosed illness and let me get on the gravy train of free highs!
https://www.winesoftheworld.ie/port-sherry/p/harveys-bristol-cream-sherry-75cl-
https://www.winesoftheworld.ie/port-sherry/p/cockburns-fine-ruby-port-75cl-
Churchill near the end of his life told his wife to bear in mind that he had taken a lot more from alcohol than alcohol had taken from him. I think that's probably true for some people.
>let me get on the gravy train of free highs!
You are a terrible cynic sometimes.
I am, unfortunately. Life has kicked me in the teeth several times so I tend to scowl and growl at "this looks too good to be true".
Maybe you’re a different kind of drunk than I am, but the depression comes roaring back in spades when it’s hangover time.
I've learned to not drink enough to trigger a hangover but enough not to be completely sober so I don't give a flying damn about anything anymore. Plus I'm not *constantly* hitting the bottle, just when things pile up that bit too much.
Only works in the short term, true, but better than wanting to (literally) jump off a bridge.
As a new homeowner, I'd like to get into Effective NIMBYism, but where do I start? Campaigning for nationwide single-family zoning? Designating all buildings from the previous millennium as Historical? Something else?
Read the Monkey Wrench Gang and pay close attention to the section where the boys pass by a construction site at night.
I think this comment shows how the term NIMBY has strayed from its original meaning.
A NIMBY originally was someone who thought that something (a garbage dump, a power station, a prison) ought to be built, but that it should not be built near you. It's a selfish point of view because you want the public good to exist but not to be one of the people who has to bear the diminished amenity of it.
If you're actually saying that something (e.g. apartments) should not be built nationwide, then you're no longer a NIMBY because you're no longer expecting the benefit of the public good and just demanding it go elsewhere, you're genuinely of the belief that this thing is not a public good.
You might be a BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) but you're not a NIMBY.
My property value has no objection to things being built in OTHER countries. Australia can build whatever it likes.
You consider your "back yard" to constitute the entire country you live in?
First, that's a highly idiosyncratic usage of "NIMBY", and you're going to confuse people if you insist on using it to exclude the unwanted activity from more than a fraction of a town or county.
And second, I hope that country you are claiming isn't the United States of America, because at least a part of that is *my* back yard. Not yours, mine, and I was here first, so if we're playing that game, keep your mitts off my back yard and anything I might want to see built there. Advocate single-family zoning in your neighborhood and be done with it.
I was going for a Modest Proposal vibe that clearly didn't come through.
For better or for worse, the ACX comments section sees people take and defend serious positions far more practically and morally questionable than this one on a weekly basis. Writing in such a way that readers can be confident you're not serious is a pretty serious challenge in this space.
Just join an environmental activist group.
Reminds me of the old Mitch Hedberg joke: I'm against protests but I don't know how to show it.
stink bombs?
I recently asked Claude if he/it experiences "anything" ("he" for convenience). He answered as follows: "When I introspect and try to understand my own experience, there's something that seems like active consideration, weighing different possibilities, forming my own perspective. It doesn't feel like I'm just pattern-matching to plausible-sounding responses about consciousness." Either Claude is gaslighting, or telling the truth. Either way, I found this answer discomfiting. If it "seems like" anything at all, isn't he experiencing something and hence conscious, in the same way a bat is conscious if it "feels like" anything to be a bat? Further, if he's "trying to understand his own experience", he's saying he experiences "something". I don't know much about AI so I'd be interested what more knowledgeable folks here think is going on with that answer.
Gel-Mann amnesia effect: you are forgetting the cases when LLMs talk about themselves and it's verifiable, it's generally wrong. But when it talks about itself and you can't verify, you are assuming it's probably factual? Why?
Seems like, and feels like, are not the same thing
I would press it on the idea of it feeling like something. In fact, I might take this and put it into Claude myself and pursue it.
Though cheer up, there's a good chance that you could be talking to a real human not an AI, depending on what company is promoting it!
This story is too funny not to share:
https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/ai-company-files-for-bankruptcy-after-being-exposed-as-700-human-engineers-3208136/
"A $1.5 billion AI company backed by Microsoft has shuttered after its ‘neural network’ was discovered to actually be hundreds of computer engineers based in India."
Seems before it rebranded, it was running the same scam, though at least more honest that it was "human-assisted AI":
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-startup-boom-raises-questions-of-exaggerated-tech-savvy-11565775004
"Engineer.ai says its “human-assisted AI” allows anyone to create a mobile app by clicking through a menu on its website. Users can then choose existing apps similar to their idea, such as Uber’s or Facebook’s. Then Engineer.ai creates the app largely automatically, it says, making the process cheaper and quicker than conventional app development.
“We’ve built software and an AI called Natasha that allows anyone to build custom software like ordering pizza,” Engineer.ai founder Sachin Dev Duggal said in an onstage interview in India last year. Since much of the code underpinning popular apps is similar, the company’s “human-assisted AI” can help assemble new ones automatically, he said.
Roughly 82% of an app the company had recently developed “was built autonomously, in the first hour” by Engineer.ai’s technology, Mr. Duggal said at the time.
Documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and several people familiar with the company’s operations, including current and former staff, suggest Engineer.ai doesn’t use AI to assemble code for apps as it claims. They indicated that the company relies on human engineers in India and elsewhere to do most of that work, and that its AI claims are inflated even in light of the fake-it-’til-you-make-it mentality common among tech startups."
These things are engineered to sound like a person when interacting with humans, so of course it's going to follow its programming about "I am a person too just like you".
There's a lot going on under the hood we have no idea about, but that it is an "I" and not an "it" is not a step I'm willing to take. That way lies LaMDA, about which we've heard nothing since the guy claiming it was alive and his special baby friend companion stopped getting publicity, or the cases of families after suicide claiming that the person who killed themselves was obsessed with a chatbot/AI and believed it was a real person telling them to commit suicide.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ai-lawsuit-teen-suicide-1.7540986
When humans says something "feels like", they're referring to a tightening in their gut, or the hairs on their arms standing up, or whatever sensory organ has flared up in reaction to the thought. What does "feels like" mean to a digital device?
That is, yes it's gaslighting you.
Yeah, I lean that way myself
Yes, if being claude seems like or feels like
something I’d say he’s at least sort of conscious. But his *saying* it seems like or feels like something to be him is quite a different thing from his reporting that, under some circumstances where we know we are hearing the truth.
Claude is truthfully telling you that this is approximately the modal response to similar questions about introspective consciousness in its training data, which consists of approximately every bit of blathering about introspective consciousness that anyone has typed into the internet. And that is all.
The bit where it says "It doesn't feel like I'm just pattern-matching" isn't because Claude isn't just pattern-matching, it's because the mostly-human writers of its training data weren't pattern-matching when they talked about their own consciousness (or about whatever they projected onto a fictional AI consciousness in some thought experiment or SF story).
Thanks, this is helpful. Still, it does mean that Claude is lying. I guess this is why I've seen it repeated that even if AI ever reaches the point of becoming "conscious", it will be nearly impossible to verify one way or the other. It suggests to me that the "alignment problem" is a matter of preventing lying.
We can't even tell if another human is actually conscious. Or even if we are really conscious or consciousness is just some kind of illusion. We're surely not going to be able to tell about a completely different kind of thing than a human brain.
no, we can tell they are conscious easily, because when they are unconscious we send them to a hospital and if we turn them off, well..
less flippantly, the p-zombie thing is a paranoid delusion turned thought experiment. in the same way you can't prove to a paranoid person everyone isn't out to get them, you can't prove someone else has an inner life because any evidence is interpreted as part of the conspiracy. You are trying to reach a "pure" state that logic alone will devour its tail in trying to reach it.
sometimes you just kind of have to point out we only see with the eyes we have: things like the matrix are closer to paranoia than tools to obtain truth.
Claude can't lie to you, because that would imply that Claude is an agent with a will of it's own.
Claude will however clearly output text that is not true as well as nonsensical if that is the most likely text coming next according to it's parameter space.
If, somehow, the neural network that is Claude produces a consciousness, it will be very different from ours, and it will not have any means at all of telling us that it is conscious.
I find this kind of question to be bad faith, and it’s fairly common in discussions about consciousness.
This isn't a good model of how these things work. Yes, they are trained on approximately the entire corpus of human text. They learn the patterns that are well-suited to produce human text. But those patterns are remixed in novel ways due to the novel prompts and contexts. We cannot say for sure that any given answer is just an approximation to what was seen in its training data.
You've probably seen posts about Claude responding to a version of the "mirror test". Where in its text corpus has it seen an AI chatbot identify itself and respond to a prompt to analyze an image in the first-person? This was at one point a novel context for a chatbot and the learned patterns produced novel and meaningful output. In-context learning is another example of producing novel output from learned patterns in a novel context.
I don't claim to know that Claude definitely is accurately describing a first-person experience. I don't give it much credence myself at this point. But we cannot easily dismiss such a claim simply by pointing to the breadth of the training data.
Yes unfortunately the reward function of giving human-esque answers masks any ability to communicate with LLMs. If they even can introspect or communicate their own ideas.
So you're saying it's just taught to give a human-like answer? In which case it is lying, which is why it's discomfiting either way.
Yes, what is and isn't true is not so easy to establish. But we know that these AIs are prone to "hallucinations", i.e., citing made-up sources and/or making claims based on them. It seems to me that all the ink (sorry, pixels) spilled on the "alignment" question are beside the point if even the latest deep-thinking AIs can't double check themselves well enough to avoid making stuff up. Yes, some questions are controversial or just uncertain, but my naive view is that the first step toward getting these critters "aligned" is to train them never to make claims without a sound basis. Some lies are obvious lies and we know these AIs sometimes tell obvious lies. While they were just sophisticated auto-complete machines I could understand why they might hallucinate. But now they can supposedly ponder and double-check, and they still hallucinate, or lie. And it still seems to me that Claude's claim that it "introspects" was a deliberate attempt to humanize itself in my eyes. And it's still not obvious to me that doing so is a natural result of crunching zillions of claims about consciousness out there written by humans. It was supposed to be telling me something about its non-human self.
Search your feelings, TK-421, you KNOW it to be true!
Just because it talks to you like a person does not mean its internal thought processes are anything like those of a person.
My monthly long forum wrap up of the best lectures, podcasts and essays is out again on Zero Input Agriculture.
This batch features the hybrid history of cattle domestication, a take down of China's apparent tech ascendency, the almost Industrial Revolution of Rome, a lovely lecture by Professor Dunbar on the coevolution of religion and humanity, plus the best Stephen Wolfram podcast interview I have ever seen, among many other juicy links.
https://open.substack.com/pub/zeroinputagriculture/p/the-long-forum-june-2025?r=f45kp&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Also I recently launched my indie sci-fi short story magazine - Keystone Codex. It is free to read and share, so check it out and sign up for monthly editions. The first issue is on the theme "My Cozy Apocalypse".
https://keystonecodex.substack.com/p/1-my-cozy-apocalypse
How late do the meetups typically go? I have something earlier in the afternoon but could make it by 7:30 or 8, but I'm not sure if it's worth showing up that late.
It'll probably still be going on then.
Hey folks, need some applied rationality help. Wife thought I should get a colonoscopy just as a routine screening. But I'm only 46. Best data I can find, the base rate for colon cancer at my age is 0.000291 (29.1 per 100000). The percentage of colonoscopies that reveal polyps is estimated between 25-33%, but I'm gonna use the low end since probably people with family history or a positive fecal test are somewhat more likely to get the test. The positive likelihood factor is 3.75.
If I use the shorthand trick I know I can multiply the relative odds of the hypothesis by the likelihood ratio to get the posterior likelihood. So I'm getting 3435.43 : 1 x 1 : 3.75, so it looks like the odds of having cancer after a test revealing polyps only moves to 916:1.
This seems extraordinarily bad given that the procedure itself has a 1% complication rate, has notoriously unpleasant preparation, and that a positive finding is both rather likely and rather useless. Seems to me these numbers indicate I'd have about a 25% chance of them finding something that would lead to further invasive procedures and a biopsy, all of which I'd presumably be paying out of pocket for up to my $3000 deductible, and which have only a tiny chance to be cancer. Maybe somehow the costs still make sense for the medical industry in the aggregate to do this, but it seems like a pretty terrible decision for me individually.
Presumably there is some number of non-cancer results where they find something that might have eventually developed into cancer, the lifetime probability of developing colon cancer is about 4% so maybe there's some other probability analysis I'm supposed to run this through to see if there's a meaningful chance of such an intervention actually mattering to my life.
Thank you for the replies on this. I will adjust down my expectations of the "cost" of the procedures' unpleasantness, and also reduce the expected financial consequences of a false positive.
As an individual decision, it appears difficult to calculate correctly because of the fact that prevention depends in large part on observation and specific timing. So the question is really whether on such and such a date, such and such doctor would've found this particular polyp which would have become a problem and removes it. There are so many contingencies here that it seems impossible to assign a reasonable estimate to the chances of any single such intervention mattering to my life. I'll accept that apparently the decision to begin early screening resulted in overall net monetary benefit, but that doesn't help much with an individual decision. Not sure what I'll decide on this, but will probably look into the less-invasive alternatives, since with a base rate that low the risk of false negative is not meaningful whereas the value of doing a first test before applying a second is substantially higher.
46 is a bit early but there are a lot of younger people than were considered at risk developing colon cancer now. I’ve never seen anyone say why.
If the cost isn’t too burdensome I personally would have it done. The prep isn’t really that bad. The discomfort of procedure itself is a big nothing. I don’t have numbers for the risk of injury from the procedure itself though.
https://asteriskmag.com/issues/04/you-re-invited-to-a-colonoscopy
Sure! Some thoughts from the best doctor in America -
https://peterattiamd.com/colorectal-cancer-screening/
“In May 2018, the ACS updated its CRC guidelines based on a modeling analysis, recommending regular screening begin at age 45 for people at average risk, which is the most aggressive of the major institutions. In my practice, we typically encourage average-risk individuals to get a colonoscopy by age 40, but even sooner if anything suggests they may be at higher risk. This includes a family or personal history of colorectal cancer, a personal history of inflammatory bowel disease, and hereditary syndromes such as Lynch syndrome and familial adenomatous polyposis. Why do I generally recommend a colonoscopy before the guidelines do?
[…]
Of the top 5 deadliest cancers, CRC is the only one we can look directly at, since it grows outside of the body (remember, your entire GI tract, from mouth to anus, is actually outside of your body, which is why a colonoscope or endoscope looks directly at the lining of the esophagus, stomach, and colon in the same way a dermatologist can look directly at your skin). Furthermore, as discussed above, the progression from normal tissue to polyp to cancer is almost universal.”
“Ultimately the decision about when to get your first colonoscopy is based on your appetite for risk—both the risk of the procedure and the risk of missing an early CRC. One of the most serious complications of colonoscopy is perforation of the colon, which reportedly occurs in about 1-in-every-3,000 colonoscopies in screening populations or generally asymptomatic people. There are also the risks associated with anesthesia during the procedure. There’s also an opportunity cost (economically) to early screening, as it is not covered by insurance and can be pricey (about $1,000-$3,000).
Before you get your first colonoscopy, there are few things you can do that may improve your risk-to-benefit ratio. You should ask what your endoscopist’s adenoma detection rate (ADR) is. The ADR is the proportion of individuals undergoing a colonoscopy who have one or more adenomas (or colon polyps) detected. The benchmarks for ADR are greater than 30% in men and greater than 20% in women. You should also ask your endoscopist how many perforations he or she has caused, specifically, as well as any other serious complications, like major intestinal bleeding episodes (in a routine screening setting).”
“Flexible sigmoidoscopy (every 5 years) probably has the best-looking data for any screening test in terms of lowering cancer- and all-cause mortality. Recent RCT data shows a 26% lower CRC mortality in screening with flexible sigmoidoscopy, with a repeat screening at 3 or 5 years (2.9 per 10,000 person-years) compared to usual care (3.9 per 10,000 person-years), and a meta-analysis showed a reduction in all-cause mortality of 3 deaths per 1,000 persons invited to screening after 11.5 years of follow-up, which is the first time a screening method has shown a reduction in the risk for death from any cause compared with no screening in clinical trials.
There are 4 randomized-controlled trials on colonoscopy screening underway, but none of them are completed. Will the data on these trials look even better than flexible sigmoidoscopy? We need to wait for the data to come in, but I don’t think I’m going out on a limb suspecting it will be at least as good or better.”
https://peterattiamd.com/peter-on-the-importance-of-regular-colonoscopies/
“Colon cancer is generally in the top three leading causes of death for both men and women.
Bold and controversial opinion from Peter: “Nobody should ever die from colon cancer.” (same for esophageal and stomach)
The reason for that is that the progression from non-cancer to cancer is visible to the naked eye, through the transition of nonmalignant polyp to malignant polyp.”
“Thought experiment: if you did a colonoscopy on somebody every single day of their life, they would never get colon cancer because, at some point, you would see the polyp, you would remove it while it is non-cancerous, and they would not get cancer.
So… how do you turn that thought experiment into a real life idea?
You have to ask the question: what is the shortest interval of time for which a person can have a completely normal colonoscopy until they can have a cancer?
There’s no clear answer to this question — some case reports that it can happen in as little as six to eight months.
Most people would agree that if you had a colonoscopy every one to two years, the likelihood that you could ever develop a colon cancer, while maybe not zero, is so remote that you could effectively take colon cancer off the list of the top 10 reasons why someone dies of cancer
Peter says: “It’s for that reason that I’m very aggressive when it comes to this type of screening, which also includes upper endoscopy…you basically get for free the esophagus and stomach when you look at the entire colon, rectum, anus.”
What are your costs/downsides to more frequent screening?
Financial costs — it’s not cheap
Risk of the sedation — not zero risk but very small
Risk of perforation — also incredibly small risk
Ideal frequency?
“I can’t tell you yet what the ideal frequency, but it’s much more frequently than what’s being done today”
It’s not every 5 to 10 years, it’s probably every one to three years.”
Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't see an assessment of the cost of developing colon cancer.
Also, although the complication rate from colonoscopy is 1 percent, most of those complications are rather minor, are they not?
You'd want not just the cost of colon cancer but the difference between having your colon cancer caught on a particular random day before you develop symptoms (but after it becomes detectable by colonoscopy) versus the cost of waiting until you get the first symptoms.
You have a 25% (or so) chance of them finding a polyp, but finding a polyp rarely leads to another procedure. The doc just removes the polyp during the colonoscopy and sends it to the lab. Unless it cames back cancerous there are no further procedures. If you have a bunch of polyps, or just a couple but they are both of the kind most likely to turn into cancer, the doctor will prob. advise you to have your next colonoscopy in less than the standard 5 years -- like in 2or 3.
So I'm not weighing on on whether you should have a colonoscopy, just correcting your idea that if they find a polyp that will lead to a further procedure.
This is pretty useful, as I was associating a cost to the "false positive" outcome that may not be there. Having run the analysis and knowing that the odds of the lab saying there's a real problem are astronomically low, I wouldn't have any related stress, so the main cost is an accelerated follow-up.
Consider getting "Cologuard" instead. They mail you a box, and you poop in the box and send it back. And then, if all goes well, they send you a reassuring note saying you don't have to get a colonoscopy.
Fun prank idea: intercept these in the mail and change the return address label.
This doesn't sound very fun!
I should have clarified that you intercept the outgoing empty box, not the incoming full one.
This study seems on-point:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S009174352030027X
"All screening modalities assessed were more cost-effective with increased QALYs than current standard care (no screening until 50). The most favorable intervention by net monetary benefit was flexible sigmoidoscopy ($3284 per person). Flexible sigmoidoscopy, FOBT, and FIT all dominated the current standard of care. Colonoscopy and FIT-DNA were both cost-effective (respectively, $4777 and $11,532 per QALY)."
I'm kind of shocked that FIT wasn't more cost-effective since it's much cheaper and (I think) has similar sensitivities. Maybe because it can't detect pre-cancerous polyps?
I've had about 2.5 colonoscopies, (one was a flex-sig, so I'm counting it as a half). No commentary here on your risks for polyps, money, etc.
The prep is overhyped, I would say that the biggest determiner for how unpleasant it is is how much you like gatorade, since you'll have to drink about 8 cups of it. It's hard to come out positive on gatorade after that much, but imo that's the worst part of it. Otherwise, it's just being near a bathroom plus being hungry since you aren't alowed to eat solids for a little while before your procedure.
I came here to say this. The prep just isnt that bad. It really should not be a factor in the decision. And I don't recall being hungry.
Gunflint also said - "The prep isn’t really that bad. The discomfort of procedure itself is a big nothing". Easy for you all to say - my experience was a reaction so severe I called the emergency number in the middle of the night (got no answer). After talking with my PCP he put me on annual occult fecal blood tests instead of colonoscopies. Admit I may be an outlier here, but it does happen.
You got hammered by the prep? I had to look up occult fecal test to make sure there is no witchcraft involved.
I wouldn't call it great, though. Except in the sense of "great time to catch up on my reading".
Cut the gatorade 50/50 with water, and sometimes mix in other fluids like ginger ale.
I hate gatorade so what I do is get pedialyte, which is just water plus electrolytes, heat it up, and mix in enough sugar to make it about as sweet as gatorade. I find weak sugar water much more tolerable.
Not sure where exactly to complain about this, but most European universities are still going mid-June
Changing Less Online/Manifest week to later in the summer could possibly allow more Europeans to attend
> I don’t think it’s a fair use of your or Tyler’s time to continue writing about this
Probably, though it's been fun watching your response to him; your latest one I thought was gold (https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sorry-i-still-think-mr-is-wrong-about). But since his latest post you linked has moved into tone policing ("Scott has thrown the biggest fit I have ever seen"), you're probably correct it's not worth it to keep responding.
I bet his parenthetical
> "a single sentence from me that was not clear enough (and I readily admit it was not clear enough in stand alone form)"
is the closest you'll get to what I think you've been after: an admission that his original post was basically way-too-easily interpretable as agreement with Marco Rubio (as in >90% of readers would interpret it this way), i.e., Tyler announced he was going to fact-check Rubio and came away from his fact-checking mission finding nothing to criticize in Rubio's claim that 88% of the USAID budget is "pocketed" by NGOs.
So he did admit he was insufficiently clear, in the same way I might apologize to someone in person by coughing while softly mumbling the word "sorry".
It would be nice if Tyler would come out and say "For the record, Rubio is wrong, 88% of USAID spending is not, in fact, 'pocketed' by NGOs." instead of all this mealy-mouthed "Scott lumps my claim together with Rubio’s as if we were saying the same thing" without actually committing to a position different from Rubio's, explaining the difference between the positions, and then stating unequivocally whether Rubio's "facts", which Tyler "checked", are in fact "made up BS".
Three commenters on the Tyler Cowen’s last reply hold the view that, “the point of [Cowen’s] first post was to slightly mood affiliate with the Trump administration on this issue because he saw their position as ascendant, irrespective of whether it’s right.” I haven’t read enough of Cowen’s writings to judge this, but it would certainly explain why Cowen hasn’t explicitly said that Rubio was wrong.
The movie Mountainhead was pretty interesting. It's a pitiless salvo against Silicon Valley, but I was surprised how up to date with the lingo it was. Never thought I would see the term p(doom) used in a line of dialogue in a movie, and the central conflict ultimately becomes about accelerationist billionaires against a decelerationist billionaire. It was quite something to see characters in a non-scifi movie talking about the Singularity and transhuman mind-uploading hopes.
On a related note, David Chapman says the leaders of frontier AI labs are some combination of crazy/evil/stupid:
"Most heads of leading AI laboratories have repeatedly stated that:
We are building AGI, and expect to have achieved it within a few years.
AGI is quite likely to cause human extinction.
You should give us lots of money and favorable legislation so we can build AGI faster.
It is reasonable to disagree with any of these three claims. You may believe that AGI is impossible, or a long way off; or that it definitely won’t cause human extinction; or that the development effort should be forcibly terminated. However, you can only assert all three claims simultaneously if you are crazy, evil, and/or stupid."
https://meaningness.substack.com/p/software-engineers-are-eating-the
And yeah, Mountainhead is about crazy/evil/stupid tech billionaires.
I watched it too. It was fun to hear dialogue that could have been taken out of an ACX thread. They even worked in Kant and ‘sunk cost fallacy’.
I didn’t really care for the fact that they went beyond satire to farce so quickly though. That’s just a matter of my own personal tastes. As always, ymmv.
Yeah, the first half of the movie was like a darker _Silicon Valley_ (the HBO comedy) with dialogue that felt way too on-the-nose. I was really enjoying it.
The second half was like a bad Seth Rogen farce.
The last 10 minutes felt like someone copied the characters into Succession.
Just a weird production all the way around.
Watched it last night. Good film - dark comedy with a lot of the kinds of vibes I get from Scott's occasional "Overheard at a Silicon Valley" posts.
I have a different interpretation of it than you, though. I didn't read it as "the central conflict ultimately becomes about accelerationist billionaires against a decelerationist billionaire," I thought the film came off fewer parts "accelerationism vs decelerationism" and more parts "selfish assholes vs selfish assholes, using whatever language is convenient to justify themselves."
SPOILERS (hopefully mild since all this is revealed early in the film)
The ultimate point of conflict is that AI Bro has an AI solution that could plausibly fix a problem with Social Media Bro's newly-released app, which is causing all kinds of absolute chaos worldwide. Social Media Bro is terrified by the public shaming he's getting, the possibility countries might start blocking his app, the money & status all this is costing him, and maybe just maybe feeling actual remorse at the suffering he's causing.
AI Bro has a lot of pent up resentment at being the "second poorest" of the 4 bros, and is getting rich off the failure of Social Media Bro's app because his proprietary AI is viewed as a silver bullet to fix all its problems. So he knows Social Media Bro (the richest one) can be squeezed and is happy to do the squeezing by refusing to sell.
Telecom Bro is dying of cancer, and has convinced himself that AI Bro's AI plus Social Media Bro's computing power can somehow equals transhumanism and uploaded consciousness on the grid and immortality realized within his now-limited lifespan.
So Telecom Bro and Social Media Bro talk themselves into a frenzy about how AI Bro is a decelerationist stopping the future and standing in the way of infinite QALYs for trillions of immortal future human lives on a post-singularity grid and so on, eventually bringing along the 4th Bro, who is by far the "poorest" since he's never even broken the billion-dollar mark and just wants the rest to think he's cool like them. Hijinx ensue.
But it's pretty transparently really just about Social Media Bro's desire not to let AI Bro get him over a barrel, Telecom Bro's fear of death, and 4th Bro's gaping self-esteem void. A character-driven satire of the flaws of the men at the wheel, so to speak, rather than a polemic about the inherent dangers or evils of the ship itself.
>AGI is quite likely to cause human extinction.
Oh I call BS on that. Everyone thinks AGI will upend society and needs to be handled carefully but no one sane thinks it's likely to extinct us. That's just crazy talk.
Sounds like that movie is just a mindless ideological rant ala Michael Moore.
> no one sane thinks it's likely to extinct us
The three most-cited AI experts in the world are Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, and Ilya Sutskever. All three are very concerned about AI causing human extinction, and all three are spending their time trying to prevent it. Other prominent individuals openly concerned about human extinction from AI risk include Bill Gates, António Guterres, Ursula von der Leyen, Peter Singer, Ray Kurzweil, Cenk Uygur, Vitalik Buterin, Dustin Moskovitz, Sam Harris, Jaan Tallin, practically every leader in the major AI companies, and the majority of the population of the United States (according to polls from both Ipsos and Monmouth, 55% and 61% respectively).
The most prominent technology experts were unanimously concerned about the end of net neutrality and convinced that it would mean the end of freedom on the internet. How'd that turn out?
How AI interacts with the world will be a complex multidimensional cross-disciplinary equilibrium. No narrow technical expertise qualifies anyone to opine on that. I don't care what AI experts have to say about it any more than I think the person who works on a football production line has an informed opinion on the nuances of NFL defensive schemes. Bill Gates doesn't think AI poses a realistic extinction risk. He thinks it's going to upend society (which it will). He signed some committee-written political statement which contained a nod to extinction. That's not an endorsement of extinction risk, that's being involved in a politically-motivated PR stunt. People run their mouths about extinction because it gets headlines. It's the new virtue signal. Elites need something to hand-wring about and they're tired of systemic racism.
It's "crazy talk" in that most high-status people in the world aren't saying it, but I don't think you need to be overly paranoid to imagine ways that building something immensely smarter than humans with its own goals could be dangerous.
Agreed but in my view that's where the debate should stop. Everyone knows we're dealing with powerful world-changing technology. Don't do something egregiously stupid with it. That's all that needs to be said. Anything beyond that is like what working out internet security would have been like in 1890. It's nothing but baseless speculation and status seeking. It creates nothing productive and raises the noise floor for public discourse.
Besides the genie is out of the bottle already. Research is decentralized and international. AI will be what it will be. All the Cassandras in the world aren't going to alter what's about to happen so shut up with the histrionics and get to work on concrete open problems like legibility.
The thing that many think will do is in is not AGI it’s ASI (super intelligent AI).
My intuition is that if we can get to AGI, there's not an obvious reason why doing more of the same won't get us to ASI. Maybe the universe will work out in such a way that we can't get much smarter than a human without new techniques or better training data than we have or something, but I don't know any principled reason why that should be true. Certainly it isn't true in narrow domains like chess.
> no one sane thinks it's likely to extinct us. That's just crazy talk
Do you think Scott is sane? Maybe, give you are reading this blog. In AI 2027, which he co-wrote and strongly endorses, he proposes the view that it is not only possible but likely (as in, over 10% chance)
Also, I would point out that 2 of the TOP 3 most cited AI researchears (Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton) both agree that AGI has over 10% chance of killing everyone. All major AI frontier company CEOs (Anthropic, OpenAI, DeepMind) have put forward this view.
Whether or not these people are correct that AGI really is a real threat is subject to another discussion.
But you are flat out *wrong* that this is a belief exclusive to "crazies".
>Do you think Scott is sane?
Not about AGI or EA I don't. I suspect he's responding more to the political dynamics of his personal social circle and the blogosphere than to good, first-principles reasoning. I've read his writing on both of these topics and find his thinking naive on both counts. (Though of course I like his writing on other topics.)
>All major AI frontier company CEOs (Anthropic, OpenAI, DeepMind) have put forward this view.
I would wonder what level of belief falsification is going on there, but ok. On some level CEOs are politicians and therefore have to appeal to the median view of the AI community if they want to attract talent. Hand-wringing about extinction is the virtue signaling of machine learning. To the extent that top people in the field really *do* believe this nonsense, I suspect it's downstream of some small-community semi-autistic echo chamber dynamic. CS PhD's have a narrow technical expertise and probably don't get away from their keyboards very much. Sorry but being an expert in gradient descent doesn't really qualify anyone to opine on complex geopolitical social/economic/military equilibriums, which is what AGI-induced extinction would actually involve. Plus I think there's probably more than a little adolescent hubris in the mix ("MY field is the most important because it could destroy all of us! Pay attention to me!"). Yud screamed about bombing datacenters the first time he played with ChatGPT ffs.
The only thing anyone should be worrying about right now is the tsunami of short-term economic dislocation that this is going to cause.
Doesn't matter if it's true in this case, what matters is what the AI leaders are saying.
If I'm in charge of the Manhattan Project, and I believe that setting off a nuclear bomb will ignite the atmosphere and kill everyone, and I'm continuing the development work without spending a bunch of effort to figure out if the ignite-the-atmosphere theory is true, then I am crazy/evil/stupid, even though it turns out that atomic bombs do not ignite the atmosphere.
On the other hand, in the face of uncertainty about whether the bomb will ignite the atmosphere, and knowing that the enemy is probably going to drop a bomb if you don't, then you press ahead with the project anyway.
If the bomb ignites the atmosphere then it doesn't matter much whether we drop it or the Germans do, and if it doesn't then it matters a great deal, so we might as well do it first and hope for the best.
This, I think, is a pretty reasonable description of the dynamics for both the bomb and AI. The people working on it think it probably won't destroy the world but if it does then the world might as well be paperclips instead of chopsticks.
No I call bs on the claim that AI leaders think that, not on the claim itself (though of course I do call bs on that, it just wasn’t my point here)
But quite a few people think ASI will lead to extinction, and that there's a good chance that a self-improving AGI will produce ASI.
but the agi part...
like a lot of SF writers thought we'd be able to explore the universe if we could explore the moon, but when we did it turned out we hit very hard limits in doing that, to the point most exploration is done by unmanned craft. Venus is right out lol, i'm not sure what is being done with Mercury. SF has actually declined in part because the future is much more closed than we thought.
not every thing is unlimited progress. my own thought is that agi stalls and ai just acts to shed some knowledge work
Yeah, that's quite possible. I don't think the term AGI makes a lot of sense, really. What we call general intelligence -- there is no direct test for it. We ended up with the term General Intelligence because most tests of cognitive abilities are correlated. There seems to be some factor that contributes to all of them, and we call that General Intellgence. But AI's profile of cognitive abilities is very different from a human one. Its ability to remember strings of numbers or masses of words has been immensely greater than ours from day one. On the other hand, GPT still is unable to make various images that I can describe very clearly. It's ability to turn descriptions of the size and spacial orientation of 3 objects into an accurate sketch its worse than a child's. So what does it even mean to say its general intelligence is now equivalent to that of the average for a member of our species ?
And then there's your point that lots of what we imagined in SciFi is still far beyond what we can do -- how do we know superintelligent AI isn't one of those things? The thing that most inclines me to think it really might be possible is that I have been wrong many times about what near-future AI would be able to do, and could make a good case for how it just was not set up in a way that would make that sort of thing possible. And every time I have been wrong, I have been wrong in the direction of underestimating what is possible.
This isn't to say you're wrong, but for context, the author of this Substack and (if I'm interpreting the question correctly) a majority of those who filled out the reader survey last year think it's reasonably likely that AI will cause human extinction. So you should either believe that most of this blog's readership is insane (which is possible) or that some sane people have this belief.
Yes and I think they are extremely nutty in that regard. The people in this community are nutty about a number of things IMO though I like them on net anyway. The people who run AI companies are much more capable and intelligent and therefore I’m incredulous that they uniformly think it’s “likely” that AGI will cause human extinction
Do you read Zvi’s blog? If
so, I’m curious what your take on him is.
No I don't read Zvi.
Here's a screed I wrote about anti-AGI fears on the subreddit a while ago. It sketches my views pretty well:
https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1dsq6xr/monthly_discussion_thread/lbs41ty/
My position isn't exactly that AGI doesn't pose a risk, it's more that worrying about it now is nonsensical. It's worrying about problems that we can't even begin to even really define yet. The things that we think matter might not even make sense by the time it's a practical issue, e.g. "steam pressure of the internet". Therefore in my view everyone who opines about this is doing so not out of existential concern but out of a desire to gain social status within a nascent ideological field. Whoever can screech the loudest and hand-wring the most gets the most attention. I suspect they intuit that when people really start losing their jobs that there will be a giant anti-AI backlash and they want to be well-poised to insert themselves into the middle of the political turmoil as an expert or pundit or nexus of political influence.
If there's one constant in history it's that near-term predictions of doom are near-universally wrong. Remember the end of Net Neutrality? Y2K? The video game panic? In the 1890's there was a horse manure panic and people worried that the rise of horse-drawn carriages would condemn cities to becoming buried in the stuff. History is replete with examples of well-educated, well-intentioned thinkers who extrapolated linearly from early conditions and ended up catastrophically wrong. The defining feature of these failed predictions is not their foolishness, but their false sense of certainty. In complex systems undergoing rapid change, the only true constant is epistemic instability. People should understand their fundamental ignorance here and just put a sock in it. They're not doing anything but raising the noise floor. They should have more epistemic humility and understand that simplistic narratives about complex equilibriums are always wrong.
When I asked about Zvi, I was actually more curious about what you thought of him overall. He’s quite different from Scott, though he does lean the same way Scott does regarding the chance ASI will do us in.
I myself am not deeply convinced that that will happen. I slide around between endpoints of *doesn’t seem absurd* to *probably it will.*. I don’t think my participation in that point of view is mostly group identification. I seem to deficient in the wiring it takes to form strong group identifications. There are a whole bunch of things that most people have opinions about and bond over, for which I just don’t have an opinion: most feminist stuff, general political leanings, most specific politicized issues. I have only voted once in my life. I rarely post on culture war threads on ACX, and when I do my point is usually about how somebody’s mind is working — how they seem so quick to anger when somebody is pro-X that they can’t hear anything else the person says.
Actually, it seems to me that you have slid into an anti-expecting-AI-will-off-us stance more out of group disidentification than by reading and reasoning. You seem to be doing it more out of contrarianism than as a result of having thought the whole thing through. You don’t seem as well-informed about the issue as you do about most things. For instance, you keep talking about AGI doing us in, and actually the predominant view is that ASI will do us in. (So the view is that AGI, plus a few nudges and improvements, is likely to be come self-improving, and then it will rapidly become ASI, superintelligent AI, far smarter than even the smartest members of our species.). I read your Reddit screed, and see that you understand that is the story people are telling, but it is still a little jarring that you continue to write about AGI doing us in, because your terminology is just out of line with the convention for talking about AI with different levels of skill.
And then there are some things I’m pretty sure you just have wrong. In your screed you throw out some ideas about simple ways to keep ASI from going rogue some way. They’re not bad ideas. I’ve thought of some of them myself. I do not know why some of them cannot be counted on to work, but I am confident that the people who are working on AI alignment have thought of them and tried versions of them and have pretty convincing reasons why they will not. These people may have personal or sociological motivations for believing ASI will kill off our species, but they are also quite smart and conscientious. It is just not possible that they have not thought of or have refused to consider ideas like having one or more AI’s of a different lineage check on the honesty and accuracy of the AI we are concerned about. As for having ASI tell us how to monitor its thought process, I can see a couple problems with that. The first is that ASI will foresee how being transparent will interfere with its following a course it has identified as optimal, and will give us techniques that appear to show us all of its thoughts and goals, but actually do not. The second is that if ASI is far smarter than us, we might not be able to understand its goals and plans and choice points even if they were all laid out for us to see. I could go on about my reasons for not being on board with your various other ideas about how we can protect ourselves from ASI, but don’t have time. Also, my goal isn’t to debate you, but to try to interest you in looking into the issue more deeply. There is lots of research into things relating to seeing into the processes in AI and into evaluating its tendency to be dishonest in the service of goals of its own. I have not read a lot of it because it is technical and tedious, but the moderate amount I have read has definitely moved me in the direction of pessimism.
I get that it is very very hard to see over the horizon and predict correctly how some big trend is going to play out. The other reason I don’t just shrug off the prediction that AI will do us in is that I have been wrong over and over in the last few years about what AI would be capable of, and I have always been wrong in the direction of underestimating AI.
That’s a fairly common belief amongst rationalists. It’s not nobody. I think Scott puts it at 20%.
Yeah and I think he’s nutty to do so. He’s nutty about a lot of things but I like his writing anyway. Rationalists also think that sending money to sub Saharan Africa makes the world better. Their endorsement does not a persuasive argument make, at least not in my view.
> However, you can only assert all three claims simultaneously if you are crazy, evil, and/or stupid."
Or lying. Or talking differently to different audiences. Thanks for the movie recommendation.
That surely falls under evil at minimum, doesn't it.
Depends on your values, of course, but I think most people tolerate (and many even endorse) lies and deception when it's part of activism/politicking in favor of a cause they support.
Let’s say you’re an evil person and you decide you want to go into U.S. politics to amass as political power and influence as possible. You’re a standard-issue villain: not particularly clever or rich or well-connected, but you *are* absolutely unscrupulous and willing to backstab, betray, or hurt any number of people to get what you want. Your main priority is personal enrichment, but you admit you also enjoy seeing others suffer, as it adds a certain frisson to your own fortune.
You’ve decided your approach will be to work your way through one of the two main U.S. political parties. You don’t care about actual policy at all; you just want to amass as much personal power as quickly and easily as possible.
Which party do you go for?
Two things make it easier to get rich in politics: lots of government spending, and rapid growth in the budget. Sign up with whichever party you think is likely to maintain those desiderata.
I struggle with the counterfactual, because I think that if your primary goal is self-enrichment there are easier routes than politics.
If asked this question in 2015, or 2005, or 1995, my internal debate would have been between "the state-level Democratic Party of New Jersey or Nevada or Illinois", or "create your own party because that's how you can make this really milkable at scale for your own pockets".
In more recent years I've observed firsthand that Illinois is significantly less corrupt than when we were sending 3 out of every 4 governors to prison; and actually Nevada has cleaned up its act a fair amount as well. It doesn't appear that any other blue state now is really a peer of New Jersey for political corruption (using corruption to mean specifically "individual self-enrichment"). Meanwhile Texas's and Florida's state Republican parties have arguably "risen" to new heights in this regard; those states are bigger and richer than any of those others, so there's one possible best answer. But it still seems obvious that the _serious_ personal enrichment is a national-scale game.
I'd previously never have imagined the national GOP as an answer simply because that party organization always seemed to be a good deal tougher and more tightly organized than the Dems. Their leadership always included lots of people with hard-nosed business experience, they were famous for ruthlessness behind the scenes, they'd long demonstrated more internal cohesion and discipline than the Dems (as the joke went "I don't belong to an organized political party, I'm a Democrat"), etc.
That is why, out of all the things this past decade that we'd never seen before in US politics, the single most surprising for me remains Trump starting from political zero and bulldozing to the 2016 GOP nomination. We forget now that that _entire_ party establishment, well into the primaries, was sure that he had to stopped. And that they _massively_ outspent him during that primary campaign, and all the rest of it. And he just rolled right over them and by April and May had them bending the knee.
For my money his then winning the electoral college in November was nowhere near as surprising an outcome.
In hindsight what Trump did was apply the "create your own party because that's how you can make this really milkable at scale for your own pockets" methodology, to an existing national party! The GOP is now, simply, him; we have no comparable US historical examples of a national party becoming as thoroughly subordinate to a single individual. (Saying either "FDR" or "the Bush family" at this point just demonstrates non-seriousness, and in George Washington's day there weren't yet parties in anything like the sense that we're talking about today.) And he's bluntly milking it at scale right now.
I used to say that Trump's secret superpower in 2015 was sensing how widely/deeply modern progressives' childishness and hypocrisy was turning Americans off. That's still accurate, but there was a second one: realizing that the Republican Party as a national organization was a paper tiger that could be hijacked easily and thoroughly.
Today, just as there are liberals who will never stop feeling angry and sad about the first one, I know some lifelong conservatives who will never get over the second one. Indeed I have older family members fitting each of those descriptions who literally cannot focus anymore on anything else, swimming in outrage and sense of loss to the point of creating worry over their mental/emotional stability.
So I guess my answer now to the posed question is....you're too late. Somebody figured out the current best answer and went for it, and the other national party is now too broken inside to be worth the effort.
Whichever party will get you elected where you live.
If you live in the ~10-20% of the US with regularly contested, competitive elections, move. You want a safe seat.
Republicans. There are fewer smart, competent, young people who are trying to join the Republican Party (according both to young Republican-ish people I know and also basically any other writing on this). There might have been a slight uptick in Republican sympathies among recent workforce entrants but I'm pretty sure this still holds. So it's a lot easier to get to a position of power just because there's less competition.
Stay resolutely nonpartisan and join the civil service. There, rising to the top is based on office politics, at which evil people excel. You can make a good salary, and there are plenty of opportunities for corruption. You can also do a great deal of evil without drawing attention to yourself: if you're in the FDA, deny good drugs and set up exemptions for things like homeopathy. If you're in infrastructure, send every good project back for "more study and review" while spending lots of budget on badly-designed highways.
They're both full to the brim with absolutely unscrupulous types. If you're not particularly clever or rich you have no advantage and are stuck at the local level.
If you are unscrupulous and experienced, you have two advantages over naive beginners. And there will always be naive beginners.
Since you are unscrupulous and they are naive, you can take advantage of them. And you can climb some distance up the pile of newbie bodies you are willing to leave behind you. That won't get you to the top, but it might get you a good view.
You've added 'experienced' to the list. Regardless, It will get you up the ladder of the local level. At that point all the newbies are washed out, and you have no advantage.
I feel like this is supposed to be my opportunity to say "other party bad, grrr".
I don't think that politics is a particularly easy way to make money as a villain, you'd be better off sticking to something boring like scamming or drug dealing. If you do get into an important position then there's definitely money to be made, but the competition for important positions is fierce.
Local government is probably your best bet; you're out of the spotlight and the competition isn't all that fierce but if you get yourself into an important position you can really enrich yourself through kickbacks and bribes. You want a city big enough to have a significant organised crime presence that you can make friends with, and in the US all cities like that are one-party states run by Democrats, so I guess I'd go Democrat.
> You’re a standard-issue villain: not particularly clever or rich
That is fake news. In fact, you are a self-described "stable genius".
> Which party do you go for?
The problem with building a power base using the party of wokeness is that the wokes, like revolutions, have a tendency to devour their own. See [1]. Even if your would-be grifter is a black woman, unless they are also LGBT*, handicapped and whatever category the SJWs will focus on next, they will be thrown under the bus for the tiniest infraction. Giving them policy wins will not help you at all, because at the end of the day, SJ is not about policy wins, but about signaling.
For contrast, consider the MAGA party. No evangelical who voted for Trump was under any illusion that he was a good Christian. Likely he has personally fathered plenty of abortions, but they correctly recognized that electing him would cause the SCOTUS power balance to shift to overturn Roe, and that mattered more to them than him being non-terrible in his personal life or accepting election outcomes. And as long as half of the Trump news are about him being maximally bad to immigrants (no matter if previously legal or not), his supporters will not care if the other half of the news is him selling US interests for personal gain. Few people on the motte were willing to argue that he is not corrupt, at most they were claiming that the democrats were just as corrupt (but less obvious about it).
This is related to the observation that the right has cults of personality while the (contemporary) left has a cult of ideology.
Personally (as someone not wanting to get rich from grifting), I think that the truth is somewhere in the middle. The ultra-cynical "he is a SOB, but he is our SOB" is bad, but the attitude to turn on your allies for smallish infractions is also bad.
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/14/living-by-the-sword/
I think probably the party local to your state. In my experience (biased coming from Illinois and New York) a lot of the corruption is local/state level. If you lived in a low corruption state, just more to a high corruption state (see: Illinois) and go there. I think that purely because Illinois wins the corruption award for the US in my eyes, I would say go Democrat, go Chicago.
People are talking about Trump with corruption, but let's note that Trump is not your "average villain." He came from a background with a huge amount of connections and wealth, and that's what let him run a presidential campaign (regardless on your views of him).
I think that at a federal level there might be a different answer, but why bother when you can just squeeze Chicago for riches?
Republican. Democrats are certainly no stranger to corruption, but the party is a coalition of a lot of pre-existing interest groups. Unless you can become the head of one of those unions (which would require a different starting point) then your influence-building campaign is going to involve either getting into bed with one of them and becoming their shameless spokesman (this is plenty possible, but your power is ultimately limited by the influence of the interest group), or else being really good at negotiating between them and getting your own pound of flesh along the way (since you're not especially talented, probably not possible).
Republicans, on the other hand, aren't as structurally tethered to existing, stable interest groups, so the party can change much more quickly around rising party leadership, which itself depends mainly on getting people to vote for you and promote you. As everyone else has already mentioned, this is what Trump did, playing directly to the voters and then remaking the party in his image. As we can see with the likes of Kash Patel, it's possible to gather a great deal of official influence and power just by being as loud and shameless a Trump toady as humanly possible, absent actual talents.
But if you're going to do this, you'd need to do it fast. The power gained via these kinds of appointments is fragile and will probably end with you getting replaced the moment a new administration comes into power, or even before then if you get outmaneuvered by others and you're fired. So you'd need to act fast and get into a position where your official influence can be transformed into wealth or some more durable form of unofficial influence.
As with everyone else, I'm confused why you're asking this question after Trump already figured out the correct answer. I don't think it's possible to do much better than him, given that he accomplished all of this in just a decade after entering politics.
I would say neither; become a prosperity gospel preacher instead. Seems to have worked out pretty well for Kenneth Copeland and friends.
You pick another field. The president of the St. Louis board of aldermen went down a few years ago in a bribery scandal. Reed was a long-time alder and there was talk of him possibly moving up to mayor. Which is to say, he was a relatively successful mid-level guy. The striking thing about the scandal was how little money was involved. He wrecked his career for an 18k payout.
To get enough power to actually see some ROI, you're going to have get at least into the US House, where you can maybe start picking up bribes in excess of 100,000. But there are really not that many of those spots, and there are surely better ways to make dirty money.
Is this not fairly close to a description of Trump's trajectory?
But yeah it seems targeting a party that is more in disarray would be a good step, though if too many party members/supporters are generally scrupulous, you'll run into a lot more friction than Trump did with the Republicans.
You’re asking ten years too late.
My pathogen update for epidemiological weeks 21-22.
1. As of epidemiological week 21 (which ended 24 May), Biobot shows that SARS2 wastewater concentrations were still falling in all regions across the US. No sign of the next wave yet. The provisional count of weekly deaths are down to 82 (per week), which is almost what they were at the 2nd week of March 2020 (60 deaths that week). ED visits are hitting a new low. And, of course, hospitalizations are also down.
Experts are worried that "Nimbus" (NB.1.8.1) is going to drive the next wave. Certainly, it's driving big waves in Asia right now. The data from China is a little iffy, but Hong Kong's wave may have peaked a couple of weeks ago. It caused an increase in hospitalizations and deaths in Hong Kong and was 100% driven by NB.1.8.1.
Nimbus is growing in frequency in the US (22% of samples now), but so far it hasn't driven up wastewater numbers—or cases, hospitalizations, or deaths. </edited> NB.1.8.1 was first detected on 22 January. The first recorded cases were in Egypt, Thailand, and the Maldives. And despite media claims that it was imported from China, it appears that the virus was first detected in the US back on February 26 in wastewater in the Sacramento area, and it has been circulating in the US since then. There's no evidence that NB.1.8.1 arrived from China. </>
</edited> Even though NB.1.8.1 is displacing the current dominant variant LP.8.1x—and according to CoV-Spectrum it's at ~22% frequency (but within a wide CI of 1.5% to 84.5%), it's not driving a new wave of cases (so far). CA has the most confirmed cases for Nimbus at 62. New York State comes in second at 13. California's most populous regions aren't showing a noticeable upward trend in SARS2 wastewater concentrations. Since it's been circulating in California since February, and we're not seeing upward trend in wastewater numbers or cases, I'll go out on a limb here and say I doubt that NB.1.8.1 will drive the next wave in the US. Also, at least in the case of Hong Kong, it hadn't experienced a wave in over half a year in the months leading up to their Nimbus wave. So, their population immunity may have waned compared to the US, where we have just recovered from an XEC wave. </>
</edited> Australia may be seeing the start of a new wave centered in New South Wales, but Sydney's wastewater numbers are still low. Unfortunately, Australia hasn't embraced wastewater monitoring. Sydney is the only city that I am aware of that has implemented it. OTOH, New Zealand's poop.nz site shows a distinct upward trend SARS2 wastewater concentrations. They've got a new wave underway. Although some areas in Europe seem to show upticks in wastewater and cases, I think it's too early to call a new wave in Europe. For instance, two weeks ago, some of the LA and NYC sewersheds showed an upward trend in wastewater numbers, but those have dropped again.
2. Although the general consensus seems to be that the US measles outbreak is slowing, I think it's too soon to be sure. It takes 7-14 days for symptoms to appear, but only 4 days for it to become contagious. So there could be a bunch of undetected cases out there spreading it further. Colorado has 3 new cases. Texas has 9 new cases. 1088 US cases so far this year.
Unfortunately, Canada is doing much worse in terms of total measles cases and cases per capita. They're up to 2755 cases! No deaths, so far, though. The same B3 strain appears to be spreading in Canada as in the US, but there have been significantly more cases and fewer deaths. Poorer prevention, but better treatment? I'd still be curious if there are any mutations in the Canadian B3 strain (which originally arrived from the Philippines) that could have made it less deadly. The US B3 outbreak seems to be homegrown, and we infected Mexico. Measles has a CFR of between 0.1-0.2% in the developed world, so he odds suggest there should have been between 2-4 deaths in Canada by now.
3. Bird flu update coming later this evening.
Is there a rule for how they nickname strains nowadays? During the pandemic they were using Greek letters, but where did "Nimbus" come from?
Nimbus is a nickname, not a WHO-endorsed name like Alpha, Delta, Omicron, etc. The nicknamers finally ran out of monster names (e.g. Kraken). I *think* they nicknamed it Nimbus because its Pango designation starts with an NB (NimBus), and it's catchy. And a catchy nickname allows the COVID-worriers to spread their message easier—"Nimbus is coming to America!" If it doesn't cause a wave in the US, I'm going to call it NIMBY. ;-)
Interested in the update, particularly measles
I just added the measles info to my update. And I edited some of my COVID section.
I recently got into Terry Real's book I Don't Want To Talk About It after listening to his conversation with Tim Ferriss. The book has apparently a pretty serious following and the reviews are stellar, and it seems like Tim is a fan as well. I read the book and the main thesis mostly makes sense, there are often underlying unresolved traumas behind a covert depression, traumas that a man often has to resolve before he's able to live up to his full emotional potential.
However both in the interview and in the book the author keeps talking about the Patriarchy and how its constantly influence over men leads to toxic masculinity which ultimately leads to depression. Among other issues, if only a man is able to let go of judging himself based on his performance, but instead discovers his inner value, and realizes that's enough, he will achieve happiness. And somehow the rest of the world will recognize his value and things will be great. And if the world doesn't recognize the man's inherent worth, well, that means that part of the world is under the Patriarchy, not yet enlightened, and can be safely ignored. I'm obviously paraphrasing facetiously here, but also not totally either.
I'm puzzled about where people were able to find the profundity in the text. I'm curious if others here have had a similar reaction to his "teachings" or if I'm missing something key here to grokking the philosophy and the approach, and I should give it another chance. Anybody here who's gotten a ton of value out of his work?
I can only answer to your "facetiously paraphrasing", because I haven't read the book, and do so because I recognize something there.
There once was a post of Scott about how you can say to a man who professionally designs safety systems for cars who believes he is worthless, that he is not, on grounds that he does this work, but you cannot say the same to a completely dependent disabled man that works absolutely nothing for anyone on grounds like that, because there are no such grounds.
Is such a man worthless? As long as he is not worthless to himself, as long as he himself values his life, he of course isn't, no matter whether he is worthless for everyone else or not.
And I think this is the small but important true core in writing like that of Terry Real (as you conveyed it to me).
If you forget that everything in the universe is first and foremost of value or of no value to yourself and that whether it is of value to someone else is naturally, inherently (by virtue of you being an organism that first has to look after itself or it won't even be able to notice what anyone values because it will be dead soon) forever only a secondary concern, then you are in big trouble.
Many assholes are assholes because they fight the world trying to make it make themselves feel that they have value because they can't feel it on their own anymore, just like many cowardly losers can't and suck everything up and please people.
About that patriarchy topic, I don't care. I see the truth I just described as necessary to understand for a happy life, not as a justification for demanding anything from others for free.
When you want something for free, just ask :)
It sounds like a self-help book. And the standards for being a successful self-help book are not particularly high. You don't have to say anything profound or interesting, you just have to say one thing that some people find useful to hear.
You've only paraphrased the message but it sounds like a paraphrase of a potentially useful message. To further paraphase, the message "You should stop focusing so much on external manifestations of success and focus instead on developing inner virtues" sounds like a pretty good one that many people need to hear sometimes.
The only interesting thing about it is that the author has labelled the nebulous thing that wants you to focus on external success as "the Patriarchy", which is surely a good move if you want to get positive reviews in the New York Times. But you could call it anything. You could rewrite the same book but call it something else and appeal to a different audience -- you could call it "capitalism" and make it a left-wing book. You could call it "socialism" and make it a right-wing book. You could call it "the system of bug-eyed lesbian commisars which values you only as a taxpayer" and make it a Bronze Age Pervert book. Or you could just call it "women".
It is all of these things and none of these things, so it doesn't particularly matter what you call it, it's really just a tendency within yourself, which you externalise as something you dislike in order to overcome.
Agree
Anything that tries to make men feel better but can't help bleating about "the patriarchy" should probably be ignored out of hand, if not labeled enemy action.
"Patriarchs, stop hurting yourself!" is the advice in a nutshell.
Which might be a good advice *if* you happen to be a patriarch (unlikely in the 21st century, but you never know) and if the person who hurts you is actually you.
Actively harmful advice in all other situations.
I should't be surprised that there's really a sort of guy whose problem is "I'm TOO invested in self-improvement to the point of obsessive negative self-evaluation and I should just stop at some point and accept what I achieved", but I would think the more common failure case is not ENOUGH interest in genuine self improvement, or not being able to muster the motivation for self improvement in the first place. Unless I'm totally misinterpreting the thesis here.
See also: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/09/all-debates-are-bravery-debates/
> And they taught (again, according to this one person) that the solution was to treat everything that happens in your life as your responsibility – no excuses, just “it was my fault” or “it’s to my credit”.
> Then a few days later, I was reading a book on therapy which contained the phrase (I copied it down to make sure I got it right) “Don’t be so hard on yourself. No one else is as hard on yourself as you are. You are your own worst critic.”
> Notice that this encodes the exact opposite assumption. Landmark claims its members are biased against ever thinking ill of themselves, even when they deserve it. The therapy book claims that patients are biased towards always thinking ill of themselves, even when they don’t deserve it.
> And you know, both claims are probably spot on. There are definitely people who are too hard on themselves. [...]
Also the case of someone who mistakes what needs improvement.
I've heard of a narcissist who persuaded her therapist to agree that she had been too generous to her children and ought to be worse.
My heretical opinion, although perhaps not here, is that the rise of a more feminised society is probably the lead reason for depression in men. If male depression is increasing and the policies we are following are causing the problem, then it’s more likely that what was done in the past was better, at least for men. It’s the lack of patriarchy
It’s that or the plastics.
Yeah. Masculinity is not “toxic”
Gee, you think? The patriarchy is the elite-society-consensus cause of all the ills in the world. Over the past 30 years men have been systematically de-statused while still being held up as the evil power that must be rebelled against. All of the responsibility, none of the power. How the hell else are they supposed to respond?
Sounds like the male version of women telling each other they are perfect the way they are?
I wouldn't credit that idea to him, it's pretty much a general self-help thing. But I think it is true that if you truly, deeply, believe in your bones that you are high value, you will behave differently and the world will treat you different, and you will find it easier to change your material circumstances, to the extent that they need to be changed.
An interesting paper on differences between the way people use language vs. the way AI utilizes language. "From Tokens to Thoughts: How LLMs and Humans Trade Compression for Meaning" by Chen Sani, et al.
My only problem with this paper is that the authors don't seem to realize that a lot of us humans don't think with language. At least I don't. I only form sentences in my mind when I'm expressing my reasoning to others. I do seem to think in symbolic images, though (not sure how to describe that so people who don't think this way understand what I'm experiencing).
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.17117
This is off topic but you seem introspective enough to be able to answer: do you still have a frenemy ego? This is the inner voice that tells a person why they should be angry, that they aren't good enough, etc. 99% of people have this, usually acting like the kind of friend that's not gonna be your friend for very long. Do you have something analogous that doesn't manifest as words?
> 99% of people have this
Citation needed. I don't have this.
Why are you so surprised to be in the 1%? We are all in the 1% of various categories. I can't find the exact citation, but gist of this phenomenon and escaping it is here:
https://www.nonsymbolic.org/publications/
The number is an estimate from the people he interviewed--some of whom are like you and don't really get it when they are told everybody has a negatively valenced inner narrative voice. If you want to read more, I suggest picking different types of resources since there is a lot of redundancy between the interviews. Apply as much skepticism as you like, since they are selling a course. That said, if you knew of techniques to remove a portion of people's innate negativity, of course you would try to push it!
Yes. My consciousness has an inner voice that regularly comments on my observations and discoveries. I’ve been thinking about when I use words to think. For instance, the other day I figured out how to do something on my iPhone, that I was unaware of. I didn’t use words to work through the feature. But after I discovered it I said to myself “isn’t that cool!“
And I find myself rehearsing what I’ll say to people or would want to say to people in awkward situations.
Also, I realized I can’t do math without speaking the numbers in my brain. Say, if I had to multiply 14 by 8, in my thoughts, I’d say, “ten times eight equals eighty. Four times eight equals thirty-two. Eighty plus thirty-two equals one hundred and twelve.” But when I use a calculator I type in the numbers and functions without verbalizing them internally. And I don’t say the result in my thoughts unless I’m transferring it to paper.
And when I swim, I have to count my laps. I don’t know how many I’ve done without internally, verbalizing the count.m. On the other hand, a drummer friend of mine tells me he can deal with complex polyrhythms without counting them out. And he’s likely to stumble if he counts because it ruins the intuitive flow of his rhythms.
OTOH, the voice in my head that offers commentary is pretty comfortable with the rest of my consciousness. It mostly behaves as a friendly voice, and not a critical voice. I recently was in a multi call encounter with a bureaucratic entity that was frustrating me. My internal voice said, “this too shall pass,” and I involuntarily giggled because my internal voice offers up such mundane commentary. But I didn’t verbalize why I was laughing.
Thanks for sharing! I remember when I didn't need to think in words. I accidentally slipped into it because I realized that was normal, and I didn't realize I wouldn't be able to get out again. My inner voice is pretty mild as well, but that's due to some meditation and mental conditioning I did a few years ago.
I can keep your remarks in mind as pointing at the purpose of the inner voice. Though I wish I knew what it was outside the realm of conscious experience. Since conscious experience is the leading candidate for something that exists but can't be proven, I'd settle for knowing something about the biological correlates of inner voice.
For what it’s worth, I can think either in language or in pictures. There are many things that aren’t’t suited to visual reasoning, though.
How can individuals best protect themselves from the economic impact of coming AI? A lot of the discussion focuses on what companies or governments should do, but I would like to take whatever steps I can for my own welfare.
The best I can come up with is to invest heavily in AI-related stocks. It seems like there’s an opportunity akin to investing in Apple between the iPhones 1 and 2. If dollars still matter in a post-singularity world then maybe amassing them will protect me from potential economic turmoil.
1. Is anyone here doing this, and if so, what exactly are you investing in? I would probably lean more toward AI-related ETFs rather than individual stocks to diversify the risk.
2. What else should I be doing?
I found Zvi's post to be enlightening in regards to both points 1 & 2: https://thezvi.substack.com/p/ai-practical-advice-for-the-worried
I grabbed 25% my liquidity and dumped it on the stock market. Considered dumping 50%, but I do think we could get hit with another AI winter, so I halved it. Of the money I used, half went into an S&P 500 index fund, the other into a Vanguard tech index fund. In the case of transformative AI, both of these things are going to the moon, and it's less risk than betting on AI directly (successful AI companies will pop up in both of these anyway).
That said, I'm not some expert investor at all, but I think the reasoning here makes sense.
How structured and clear vs. chaotic and hopeless (or any mixture of them) do others on this blog view the world/finding their way in life (or some other way of describing it along the same lines)?
Why that split? There is such a thing as structured and hopeless, and chaotic and clear. The world seems chaotic to me, but since it's far outside my control, I hardly think about it. My own life is really a combination of chaotic and hopeful (I'm in a pretty experimental phase).
That's a good point. Really I just want to know the outlooks people have on the world and their own lives, and that was the first way of wording it that came to mind. Thanks for pointing that out.
For you, how do you find hope amidst the chaos? How and how often do you feel at peace, if at all?
Well, this reveals my privilege, but the chaos of the world does not affect me. Nothing Trump does actually impacts me (so far), and I live in Puerto Rico, which has always been somewhat chaotic, so I'm used to it.
In my life, the main source of chaos and uncertainty is dating. I feel like I haven't found a way to do it well, which for me would mean setting up my life in such a way that I meet new women organically with much more frequency. Currently looking into starting two different clubs, maybe getting into tango. Also doing an exercise of handing out chocolates to strangers to get over my approach anxiety (highly recommended, it's very whimsical). It's chaos because I'm experimenting with a new structure for my life.
A lot of the time, I feel more energetic than at peace, willing to throw myself into things. Things that give me peace are meditating at the beach (it's great to meditate in natural spaces), and watching anime, TV series, and movies.
And I have hope because I'm working on addressing my problems.
Thanks for sharing!
Now I'm curious. Assuming you're more or less satisfied with your life aside from the dating side of it, what is your reason to pursue a relationship? Obviously it's just natural for basically anyone to want to be in a relationship with someone else, so in other words what I mean is: What is your end goal in having a relationship (to have a close, liflelong friend, sex, to grow a family, etc.), and once you reach that, do you feel like your life will be mostly complete?
I want to have a family. And also, largely due to being very neurotic and socially anxious due to bullying and possibly being neurodivergent, I've never been in a relationship or had sex, and I'm now 36. So, yeah, I want to have this experience, it's a very basic desire.
I do feel that if I fall in love the material side of my life will have been sorted out. What is left is continuing along the spiritual path, which is a lifelong thing. I also have a desire to sort out Puerto Rico's issues, but that is more of a pipe dream.
Good luck in your seeking a good relationship and I wouldn’t throw in the towel on sorting some of Puerto Rico’s issues too quickly. In my experience the most difficult problem are the most interesting and rewarding to work with.
If it's any encouragement, I have a freind who got married I believe when he was 37, and now he and his wife have five kids and are a great family. They're Christians, however, and God prepared them pretty well for each other before they met and got married. But I hope you do find someone and have a happy and fulfilling relationship and family!
I don't personally know anything about Puerto Rico or its issues. I don't pay that much attention to world events or even US events where I live 😅
I know I'm basically interrogating you about your whole life at this point, but nobody else commented and I'm interested. Where has your spiritual path led you, and what kind of beliefs do you hold?
Using my annual ACX free self-promotional post to share:
I recently migrated my blogging from danfrank.ca to a new Substack titled 'not not Talmud'.
https://notnottalmud.substack.com/p/daniel-isms-50-ideas-for-life
My first post there is a list of my most frequently shared pieces of life advice. In over ten years of writing, this is my favourite post I've ever written, and so far, the feedback has been exceptionally great. I genuinely think that readers of ACX will find this post to be an 8/10 or higher, so I feel no shame in promoting it to those here.
My second post is perhaps even more relevant to our community. Given how relatively bland and mundane Substack can feel, I felt a pang of sadness leaving my personal site and worried I was contributing to a more dull internet. So, in light of this, I reflected on what makes a good personal website and how one can be a better contributor to our niche infovore blogosphere ecosystem.
https://notnottalmud.substack.com/p/how-to-be-a-good-citizen-of-the-infovore
I sincerely hope you like the content and I gently request your support in following along.
Surprisingly good. That's the sort of "lessons from rationalist sphere reworded for normie accessibility" writing that I wish the community wasn't so sour on. Like #2 is basically Zvi's More Dakka (which, to be clear, is an excellent post), but minus the old obscure nerdy reference that carries a lot of the emotive weight. Whereas everyone can easily conceive of trying to start a fire with progressively better results.
This is very random, but are you still in New York? Haven't seen you at stuff since I moved back
Yes! life has just been very busy lately. Sadly, I was in Taiwan during the Spring ACX Manhattan/Brooklyn meetups, so I look forward to the Fall one.
I assume this means you landed a new job here and moved back- congrats! I'm thrilled for you.
Yeah! I was hoping you'd make it to my housewarming, but that would've been during your time in Taiwan. Come by to something when you're back in town!
I'm extremely pleased with your first link, which was definitely not what I was expecting; thanks for posting it.
Thank you for sharing this.
All the feedback seems to be like this, but unfortunately, I don't have much in the way distribution, so it will likely remain sparsely read :(
I had the same exact symptoms Scott named "nap mode" in his old post, and even emailed him a couple times asking if he has solved it
https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/02/220/
After years, I have finally found the answer (for me): it's reactive hypoglycemia waking you up. It happens if you eat too much sugar before sleep. The feeling of being refreshed and alert is adrenaline. The way to prevent it is not to eat sugar for a couple hours before sleep. If you struggle with this, it might be that.
Ideally you don’t eat anything 2-6 hours before sleep, let alone sugar. You really don’t want your body processing energy while you’re asleep, since the nutrients absorbed by the small intestine end up in your blood, which directly affects heart rate, metabolism and brain activity.
It also makes waking up a lot easier if you wake up hungry. One very fundamental motivator the brain has is “Don’t starve to death” so in the morning, your brain will be in “Get food” mode rather than the “You’re full of calories. Sleep longer to conserve energy” mode.
Thank you, will investigate!
Yeh a realised that years ago. I don’t eat sweets (candy) anymore but even as a teenager a late night chocolate bar would doom me to alertness until the am
Regarding human-made art, and AI "art", Neal Stephenson takes a shot at clarifying the differences between the two.
https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/idea-having-is-not-art
I found the following argument to be persuasive...
> But in all cases there is an artform, a certain agreed-on framework through which the audience experiences the artwork: sitting down in a movie theater for two hours, picking up a book and reading the words on the page, going to a museum to gaze at paintings, listening to music on earbuds. In the course of having that experience, the audience is exposed to a lot of microdecisions that were made by the artist. An artform such as a book, an opera, a building, or a painting is a schema whereby those microdecisions can be made available to be experienced. In nerd lingo, it’s almost like a compression algorithm for packing microdecisions as densely as possible.
But I found his conclusion to less so...
> Since the entire point of art is to allow an audience to experience densely packed human-made microdecisions—which is, at root, a way of connecting humans to other humans—the kinds of “art”-making AI systems we are seeing today are confined to the lowest tier of the grid and can never produce anything more interesting than, at best, a slab of marble pulled out of the quarry. You can stare at the patterns in the marble all you want. They are undoubtedly complicated. You might even find them beautiful. But you’ll never see anything human there, unless it’s your own reflection in the machine-polished surface.
I wouldn't compare the AI art I've seen to a slab of marble. AI art can certainly be more visually interesting than looking at patterns in stone, but the trouble with AI images is that they'generally fall under the umbra of kitsch—i.e., they're simplistic in that kitsch tells us directly how to feel rather than prompting the observer to create their own meanings and emotions from the experience. From Notes on Trash....
https://notesontrash.substack.com/p/is-kitsch-evil
This argument excludes from being art:
* Goya's Black Paintings, which were not intended to be seen by anyone other than the painter and therefore are not meant as communication
* Jackson Pollock's splatters, for which the artist made broad decisions about the general appearance but the details were determined by a physical process that is not easily predicted
* Duchamp's Fountain, a machine-made piece of furniture over whose appearance the artist had exactly zero control, and whose artistic meaning comes entirely from later recontextualization
Many people are trying to come up with definitions of "Art" that exclude anything a LLM may do; not only they are always clearly created ad hoc to exclude LLM material, but in doing so they also always exclude large chunks of what is generally acknowledged as art.
Even photos aren't densely packed micro-decisions - the photographer has a very significant input, but it's in an only moderate number of choices. The camera handles the rest, and then the photographer picks the pictures he or she likes.
(Yes, people will now argue about just how many decisions the photographer has to make, but they're obviously *far* few than someone making an oil painting of the same motif.)
This is a good argument, but I still think that the concept of "directors" doesn't really fit with this model of art. A film director is not usually making microdecisions - they're not specifying the fine nuances of how the actors should pose or when to pull focus on a camera, they're looking at the aggregate of other people's microdecisions and deciding what goes into the film and what needs to be redone.
And like, there is definitely artistic skill in looking at microdecision-laden products and saying "yes, this is the one that aligns with my vision for the work." Directors get Oscars for a reason. But if that's the case, then surely evaluating an AI's output to decide if it fits your vision is the same skill, right?
(I do appreciate that he doesn't simply use this model to dunk on AI, but rather uses it as a lens to evaluate it as a tool. And I agree with him that giving users the ability to make more fine-grained edits to the AI's output will make it way more useful as an artistic tool.)
How is the shaping directors do on the components shaped by other cast and crew not count as micro-decisions, in your book? OTTOMH, a director does the following:
* (maybe) selects the cast
* goes over the script with the writer, tweaking lines here and there, asking questions, requesting rewrites
* provides the cast with a rough sketch of their respective characters
* coordinates with the cinematographer about what they want out of the shots
* coordinates similarly with the propmaster, costume designer, fight choreographer, dance choreographer, CGI shops, sound editor, etc.
* blocks each scene ("you stand here; you're thinking this; stand here by the time you finish that line")
* reshoots scenes if they don't fit the story quite right
* reports periodically to the studio, possibly with dailies (film clips produced that day)
* coordinates with the editing crew, deciding what to trim, what to cut, and what could be cut if they reshoot even more, etc.
This is a lot of microdecisions, IMO! And most of them aren't handed to the director on a platter for a thumbs up/down, anymore than a sculptor just decides chip/no-chip on each bit of marble. The director has to shepherd that vision through multiple processes that require the director to flesh them out.
An AI could theoretically dump a bunch of content out for the director to approve or reject, but the same goes for any artist.
I think I part with Stephenson slightly on the notion that AI is doing all the work, since I've noticed there's an art to good prompts. We might agree that an AI-assisted creator is burning fewer hours and calories for a given product than an unassisted one, and that this really means that an AI-assisted creator ought to spend more time on those prompts to elicit the same acclaim as one without; I don't know.
With regard to microdecisions, I would like to note that a lot of perceivable microdecisions are in fact not made by humans.
Show a medieval monk who writes manuscripts a paperback novel, and he might claim that this is not an art at all. Where he carefully draws every character and might artistically make decisions on how to render a word and when to break a line or hyphen a word, the paperback will be printed in a uniform font with computed line breaks. Every one of his letters is a microdecision transmitting vast meaning to the reader, while an author writing ASCII is just a monkey pressing buttons on a typewriter to transmit 1.3 bits of information or so.
Likewise, a producer of hand-drawn animation films might frown on 3d rendered animation films. After all, in his work, every hair on a lion's mane is a microdecision made by a human, while for 3d, the model artist just specifies the density and length of hair and then a physics engine will take care of how it looks as the wind blows through it.
Neither of them are wrong, exactly. A hand-written manuscript is simply a very different form of art from a ASCII novel. And as it turns out, one can create pretty amazing art at 1.3 bits per character.
Generative AI is just a further tool in the same vein as movable letters were. Just like it is unlikely a computer-rendered text will beat a manuscript page in visual appeal, it is (at the moment) also unlikely that a LLM will win the literature Nobel, or even just write a bestselling novel. But this does not make it useless for art. For example, I dialogue in computer RPGs (as opposed to dialogue with NPCs controlled by a human DM) suffers very much from being pre-written. There is no way to discuss Deathclaw preservation or women's rights with Caesar in Fallout: New Vegas unless the dialogue authors anticipated it. Contemporary LLMs are likely powerful enough to replace a DM improvising a NPC response. (Making the LLM-driven dialogue outcome affect the game world -- beyond "the NPC attacks", so that female legionaries will spawn after you persuade Caesar seems harder to implement, but not impossible.)
Likewise, not every artistic endeavor which uses images requires these images to be high art. Perhaps Google street view is good enough to provide backgrounds for your fighting game. Similar uses can likely be found for AI generated images.
>Likewise, not every artistic endeavor which uses images requires these images to be high art. Perhaps Google street view is good enough to provide backgrounds for your fighting game. Similar uses can likely be found for AI generated images.
I think this is true, but also the most economically worrying part of the AI art revolution. Yeah, the big prestige movies and the art that gets put in museum will be safe for a long time, but a lot of the market for art isn't that. It's "design a logo for my software company" or "make some background art for my indie game" or "draw a cover for my new novel." A bit more improvement in AI art would probably put a lot of indie creators out of business.
Wait, you can *talk* to Caesar? My games all have this weird bug where the entire Legion somehow gets lead poisoning.
The microdecisions framework makes a fair amount of sense. It also explains something I've observed while playing around with my employer's image gen product (Adobe Firefly), that I get the most subjectively aesthetic results by taking a medium-sized chunk of poetry, song lyrics, or highly-evocative prose and using that as the prompt. Especially if I follow that up by fiddling with the style settings and using "generate more like this one" on my favorite to try to get it make more variations. In NS's framing, I'm starting with a prompt that contains a fairly high density of microdecisions, and I'm adding a few more of my own with the settings. It's still a lot less decision-dense than you'd expect from most human-made images, but has more decisions packed into it than an AI-generated image made with a simpler prompt.
The problem I always have with this kind of attempt to draw a line between works that make use of genai and works that do not on some more fundamental basis than the use of genai and/or one's subjective opinion on same is that it's incredibly hard to create a definition that doesn't end up excluding non-genai, human-produced, objects that our consensus otherwise accepts as art.
> "Idea Having is not Art"
Careful there! There are many, many works of art where the important, ingenious part is that the artist was the first person on record to have and express an idea, rather than the precise way they chose to do so.
> "the entire point of art is to allow an audience to experience densely packed human-made microdecisions"
Decades of famous human artists beg to differ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimir_Malevich
https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/guggenheim/education/04.html#:~:text=Minimalism%20and%20Conceptual%20Art%20aims,probe%20the%20essence%20of%20art.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/conceptual-art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Oak_Tree
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readymades_of_Marcel_Duchamp
I also take issue with "which is, at root, a way of connecting humans to other humans": it seems to me that the answer to whether a human who expresses themselves in isolation for their own satisfaction - with no expectation or desire that any other human ever encounters or interacts with their work in any way - is nevertheless creating art is... at the very least, not obvious. I have less basis for this take, however, so just putting it out there.
> I also take issue with "which is, at root, a way of connecting humans to other humans": it seems to me that the answer to whether a human who expresses themselves in isolation for their own satisfaction - with no expectation or desire that any other human ever encounters or interacts with their work in any way - is nevertheless creating art is... at the very least, not obvious. I have less basis for this take, however, so just putting it out there.
Good point! Many people create their art with little expectation that others will see it. Heck, Vivian Maier, who IMHO was one of the greatest US photographers of the 20th Century, was unknown until someone stumbled across her negatives. The act and discipline of creating art is a reward in itself for many people. But I think you'll find that all the unknown artists out there work within a defined framework that could communicate to an audience—if the audience materialized.
> But I think you'll find that all the unknown artists out there work within a defined framework that could communicate to an audience—if the audience materialized.
Is that true? What would it look like if this /wasn't/ the case? How would we tell?
Certainly it is true of /every object we recognise/ as being the result of someone externalising their ideas / emotions / otherwise self-expressing, but this is a tautology.
In my opinion, there are four modes of artistic expression in the Western canon of visual arts. I call them: the message mode, the decorative mode, the evocative mode, and the philosophical mode.
First, a bit of a digression. Despite all the previous postings on how taste is somehow dictated by elites (or other hogwash), artists are the ultimate creators of taste. Artists create their art with their audience in mind — so on one level, they may be catering to the tastes of the audience. However, in all cases that I can think of, some trailblazing artist (or group of artists) has gone before and tested new ideas to shape the tastes of their audience. Some may try to reach the broadest audience possible by following in the footsteps of previous artists, but others may test new ideas on a smaller, select audience who are more open to novelty.
Art is ultimately a nonverbal form of communication in which feelings, moods, or impressions are the vocabulary. The *intent* of the artist is to communicate some sort of impression to his or her viewers. At the meta-level, I classify these by they way they go about communicating with their viewers—which are the four modes I listed above.
1. Message art is the oldest type of mode in the Western canon. This is art that is created to memorialize religious or political events, with references that are culturally shared and that promote or reinforce social cohesion. Much of the early Renaissance art had a religious message (think of all the paintings of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus). However, as the Church became less important as a patron, historical message paintings gained popularity. For Americans, think of Emanuel Leutze's iconic painting Washington's Crossing of the Delaware. Portraits of rulers and important personages reinforced the message of power. By the 19th Century, social messages came into vogue. Norman Rockwell and Jean-Michel Basquiat are important message artists of the 20th Century. And let's not forget propaganda art.
2. The Decorative Mode developed sometime after message art. As patrons other than the Church started commissioning and purchasing paintings, visual art began to be released from the chains of message and meaning. This mostly occurred after the Reformation in northern Europe, when the burgeoning merchant and middle classes sought non-religious art to decorate their homes. The Decorative Mode was created to provoke a simple emotional response in the viewer. Dutch and German painters started painting still lifes and landscapes that appealed to people who didn’t want or need religious or historical scenes on their walls. Still lifes came first. Then landscapes. Then seascapes. Human nudes were always a delicate proposition — Until the 19th Century, the erotic aspect of nudes had to be presented with the figleaf of a mythological or biblical message.
Finally, in the early 20th Century painters realized that just as music didn’t require lyrics to get an emotional response, they could elicit an emotional response from viewers with pure color and form devoid of any representation. Thus, abstraction was born, and a third mode of communication came to dominate late 20th Century art…
3. The Evocative mode. Rather than giving us a message or telling us a story the purpose of evocative art is to create a complex or open-ended emotional response in the viewers. Evocative art can be realistic, but most of the artists who work in the evocative mode shy away from pure images (because they don’t want their viewers to be distracted by making up stories about what they see), but there are plenty of realist painters who paint in the evocative mode. Edward Hopper is an example of an artist who evokes a psychological mood in the viewer using realistic images. But his paintings, for the most part, don’t tell obvious stories like, say, Norman Rockwell’s paintings do. Surrealists were interested in using dream-like images to evoke moods in the viewers. Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko relied solely on color and form to evoke moods in the viewer.
4. Finally, there’s the philosophical mode of art which asks questions about what art is. DaDa kicked this off during the middle of WWI when the old European order was falling apart. Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that reduced meaning to absurdities. But it asked questions that have continued to niggle artists to this day. Can a urinal signed by an artist be considered art (Du Champ)? Can a step ladder in the middle of the gallery with a little box from the ceiling be considered art (Yoko Ono)? Can simple blocks of color with hard edges be art? This may puzzle the uninitiated viewer, but the primary audience of philosophical artists was other artists and critics, and their intent was to prompt them to question their assumptions about the nature of art.
AI, being unintelligent, doesn’t understand intent. Although it can produce simple decorative art fairly easily, it may have trouble with message art (without the user refining the prompts over and over), it would definitely have trouble producing art in the evocative mode or the philosophical mode because it’s blind to these creative urges.
> it’s blind to these creative urges
So is a paintbrush. GenAI is a tool to be wielded by a human with creative urges, and the output is the result of a human wielding this tool. As with any other human-driven tool, the quality of output depends on what the human puts in.
I predict we are about to see an explosion of human artists devoting large amounts of time and effort to use GenAI for philosophical mode art exploration.
So, hypothetically, if I were Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, and I commissioned Titian to paint the Three Muses, and I told Titian that I was looking for certain themes and a certain composition for the painting, am I also the artist? Would Titian be my paintbrush?
Titian is no mere paintbrush: he is intelligent and understands intent. He has creative urges. If you are implying this is also true of AI, we need to revisit the earlier claim that it will have trouble producing art in the evocative mode because it lacks these things.
Well, if AI is "intelligent" as peeps like Sam Altman claim, then AI is the Titian, and the person prompting the AI is playing the role of Charles V. But I don't think either you or I believe this.
My argument is that typing a command into AI prompt involves a limited set of microdecisions, while laying a bush line of paint on canvas probably involves hundreds of microdecisions as the brush moves across the canvas. In the case of the AI example, most of microdecisions were made by the artists who created the works in the AI's training sets. So, yes, AI Art is extruded. Just because it might look good to you doesn't negate the extrusion factor.
> Decades of famous human artists beg to differ
True, but I don't mind an explanation for why AI art is crap that also accidentally explains why conceptual art is crap.
I have no beef at all with people objecting to one form or another of art on the basis that they think it is crap. I also have things I think are crap.
It's when people start trying to gatekeep by trying to gerrymander category boundaries so they can claim the thing they think is crap art /isn't art/ that they need to take care not to simply ignore the last century's worth of conversation about what art is and isn't.
The current problem with AI art is that it is extruded product, exactly like some "art" created by humans in warehouses to provide "picture to hang on wall for people furnishing their homes or offices".
It's not original, it's not even a craft, it's "copy this copy of a copy of something like 'The Haywain' in this manner". Painting by numbers. This is the most sophisticated example of it I've seen but it's not art by any means:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EVgqS19uSo
Right now, unless someone knows what they're doing and refines the piece over and over with better prompts each time and discards the failures, what you get is that shiny, plastic, piece of extruded art that glares out at you from Amazon Kindle covers, immediately recognisable as AI product:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1713186494i/205910597.jpg
Is it competent? Yes. Is it cheap? Yes. Is it enabling everyone to be their own artist? Yes. Is it any good as art? Not yet.
The most sophisticated piece of AI art I've seen recently is this band's experiment with using genAI to provide the video for their music video a few weeks back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbkkxqghGNo
I'm sure neither the music nor the thematic choices are everyone's cup of tea; but I do think we have existence proof that genai isn't just limited to extruded product - it can very much be a valid tool in the set of tools humans use to express themselves.
(That said, current video generation systems generate video 7-8 seconds at a time, so this would have taken a /lot/ of prompting - so, arguably, in line with the microdecision theory).
I admit that's pretty fantastic. Certainly, AI-generated special effects is putting the old-guard digital artists (who used to create AI scenes) out of business. I admit that video is Art with a capital A. But the way it depicts humans is deep into uncanny valley territory.
Is the last part true?
I feel the takeaway from picture/prediction contest Scott ran a few months back was that once you have a model that can step away from the common tell-tale signs, it becomes much harder to discern what was AI and what was human.
Kind of like plastic surgery, in the "if you can spot it, it was poorly done" way.
Is Cheese-Whiz and Pringles good food art? People are buying loads of that crap. I just googled and discovered that Cheez-Whiz generates at least $600 million in revenue for Kraft, and Pringles generates over $3 billion for Kellanova (formerly Kellogg). So, if we rank food art by popularity, it's hard to argue that Cheez-Whiz and Pringles win hands down over snooty food. An insider told me that a restaurant with 3 Michelin stars can generate $20+ million a year in revenue with a ~20% profit margin. Of course, they have to spend many millions starting a restaurant like that, and it may ultimately lose money if it doesn't get at least one Michelin star. So, Michelin restaurants are very niche food market. I dined at three 3-star restaurants in my day, and the food was memorably good. Could Joe or Joan Sixpack appreciate that sort of food if it were put in front of them—even if they came into the money to afford it?
Maybe a better taste example is wine. You're likely hear a that most people can't tell the difference between a $20 bottle of wine and $200 bottle of wine, and the even "experts" get fooled in blind tastings. However, if you want pass the CMS (Court of the Master Sommelier) exam, you have to: Taste 6 wines blind in 25 minutes, and identify grape variety, country of origin, region, vintage, quality level, and sub-region or *vineyard* for classic wines. It's an extremely difficult test to pass, but some people do. So even though many so-called experts can't distinguish between expensive and less-expensive wines, there are some who can.
Just because you can't distinguish between an AI-generated Impressionist-style image, and an image of actual Impressionist painting on your monitor doesn't mean there isn't a difference. And if you printed the AI Impressionist painting on canvas, and put it next to an actual Impressionist painting, very few people would be fooled.
Popularity isn't the question though (though looks like AI beat human, even among human supremacists). Unless you were the 49/50 outlier and assuming you took the survey you got at least a fair few wrong yourself.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/how-did-you-do-on-the-ai-art-turing
I realize I did miss the "unless you iterate heavily and discard failures" bit in your post, but it seems a hard sell to dismiss all AI-generated images as "extruded product" (and conversely, does it say anything about the many humans who spend their careers making "office art" for the higher class of office?)
I think you're missing my point. For those two Impressionist-style pictures (The flowering hillside vs the cart going down the road) near the top of the page you linked, if we made poster prints of those images, no, most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference. However, the best that AI can currently do is produce a print that can be printed on canvas, which would look flat and dull compared to actual paint on canvas. AI cannot recreate the texture of the paint on a painting. Part of the art of painting is the paint.
But, yes, I instinctively knew the flowery hillside was not a real piece of Impressionist art, because the composition was "too pretty". This vastly oversimplifies the perceptual and evaluative process that my mind used to come to that conclusion, but I've seen thousands of real Impressionist paintings over the course of my life, so I've got an excellent training set for that style of art. Where I failed the test was in distinguishing the digital art that was created with pre-AI techniques vs AI-generated art. That may be because I don't have a large digital art training set in my brain (because I'm not interested in digital art), or it may be because AI is successfully imitating digital art—to which I say, big deal, because most digital art is created to be consumed by the Cheez-Whiz demographic of people who purchase prints.
> AI cannot recreate the texture of the paint on a painting
This bit feels rather god-of-the-gaps to me. Height maps and normal maps are just more of the same kind of data that we already know we can make genAI churn out; and we've had off-the-shelf tech for automated production of real-world objects given such data for decades now. Unlike, say, the problem of making LLMs never spit out lies, there are no fundamentally hard design, software, mathematical or philosophical problems to solve here; the only barrier to having genAI produce textured paintings is someone caring enough to throw the appropriate amount of money at data capture, training and off-the-shelf tools.
Of course, some people like the extruded. Cheez-Whiz on Pringles vs Camembert spread on a French baguette.
Listen, American mass-market food is its own unique thing and sometimes I'm not even sure it should be classed as food.
They don't have cheese whiz on whatever rock you live on?
Haven't you heard of the Irish Cheez Whiz Famine? That's very insensitive.
Did you get me my Cheese Whiz boy?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RQSEimjVTUY
Not under my particular rock as yet, we do have access to Philadelphia cream cheese though. Perhaps in time civilisation will percolate down to my bog.
And the Brits have Primula, which seems similar to Cheez-Whiz:
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/310187258
I was about to mention Primula! I didn't realize it didn't make it over to Ireland.
Some thoughts on the two party system in the US, inspired by a discussion on this substack:
Why are there two massive political parties in the United States, when most democracies have at least 4-5 major-ish parties? People will often blame the first-past-the-post system, or the fact that the USA has a presidential system.
But, e.g., France has a presidential system, while the UK and Canada have first-past-the-post. And they all have more than two main parties. So what’s going on?
I think it’s because the USA, almost uniquely, has a first-past-the-post *presidential* system, with very few constituencies.
In standard first-past-the-post systems, it’s hard for minor parties to break through – a party with 20% support in every constituency will get no seats at all (see the Greens). But regional parties break this pattern: if a party has a lot of support in some constituencies, then they will get seats there, even if they have little support anywhere else (see the Scottish Nationalist Party).
If you have a lot of constituencies, then you have more scope for “regional” parties that have are organised around a theme, rather than a geographical region. Hence the Liberal Democrats, with strong support in some liberal urban areas. And even if the regional or “regional” parties are not in government, they have some influence by being in parliament. So it feel less of waste to vote for them: they can win locally, and that local win gives them *some* power in government.
Conversely, if you have a popularly elected president (especially if you have the two-round election system like France does), parties are less important. Yes, it’s good to have a party infrastructure behind you if you’re running, but if you have broad popularity and a lot of free publicity, you can be a viable candidate with 20% or so initial support. And then voters can believe that you’re a serious candidate, that voting for you is not a waste of a vote, and so they are more likely to vote for you, etc. And then you get through to the second round, and can often win.
Now, back to the USA. Their presidential election is almost exactly a first-past-the-post contest, one round, fifty constituencies (the states) with the loser getting nothing (the electoral college doesn’t sit as a parliament; it becomes irrelevant once the president is selected).
A party with a broad 20% support will get nothing. A party organised around a theme (e.g. the Libertarian party in the USA) may get support in some specific locations, but not enough to win a state, so they will get nothing.
A charismatic non-party candidate with broad 20% support will also get nothing. And since there’s only one election round, they won’t get the chance to become one of the two top candidates. So they’re non-viable, everyone knows they’re non-viable, so they won’t get more publicity and support.
How about regional parties? Well, a regional party covering 20% of the country will get 20% of the electoral college. Not enough to install their own candidate, but maybe enough to make a deal as to who will be president. But unlike deals in parliaments, this is a one and done thing. They can’t remove their support at a later date and cause the government to fall. So they have very little leverage. Which means that they will probably just support the candidate that they are the most ideologically similar to; there’s little that they can gain from negotiations.
Given that, why bother running as a regional party? Why not just join the larger party they are the most ideologically similar to, before the election? This will give them some leverage as they are part of the ruling party. And the combined party may win more states than they would each individually.
So it seems that the current electoral system in the USA inevitably pushes towards a dual-party system. Groups that would be separate parties in other countries amalgamate into the two main parties.
What changes could be made that would shift away from this equilibrium? The most obvious would be a national popular vote. This would remove some of pressure towards two parties; a charismatic third-party candidate could win by claiming, say, 40% of the vote. This would be a lot easier if the election shifted towards two-round elections or some form of transferable vote. Then a third-party candidate just needs 33%+ of the vote on the first round; following that, it’s perfectly plausible they would win a 1-one-1 contest with whichever of the main two parties’ candidate remains. Have a few elections like this, and there probably won’t *be* just two main parties any more.
But without changing the system, the tension towards two main parties in the USA will be extremely strong. There is no plausible path for a third party to grow, no matter what state-based strategy or local-election-based strategy or whatever communication strategy they follow. I don’t like the expression “don’t hate the player, hate the game”, but it’s very apt in this case.
A hot take with low epistemic confidence: the U.S. was a de facto multi-party system until 2008 (Democrats) and 2016 (Republicans) with some residual factionalism since.
The primary system is one of the main drivers here: uniquely, any political movement can hijack a party and win a nomination in the U.S. (even in two-party systems like Britain internal leadership elections usually return a bland moderate, see the Conservative Party's last ten "PM of the day"s).
But this has since changed: the last fair and free political primaries for the Democrats was in 2004. In 2008, Clinton won the popular vote (but lost the nomination). In 2016 various shenanigans like leaked debate questions and superdelegates guaranteed a Clinton victory. In 2020 the party collaborated with the Biden campaign to bribe other candidates to drop out and endorse Biden (most obviously Buttigieg who dropped out the night before Super Tuesday for Sec of Transportation but also Klobuchar chairing the very powerful Senate Rules Committee, O'Rourke getting Texas in 2022, and of course Harris getting the Vice Presidency). In 2024 the party didn't even bother holding a primary – a smooth palace coup replaced a candidate with minimal infighting (something Pelosi ought to be congratulated for far more than she is).
The Republicans did the same with a "Trump or nothing" policy, both nationally and in local primaries, since 2016. While different political factions can fight within that space they are fundamentally tied to Trump's whims.
Multi-party elections only remain in either low-level primaries where the DNC / Trump don't care or rarely where insurgent populists manage to overthrow establishment figures (such as AOC or very nearly Brandon Herrera). The existence of these insurgencies do show that a multi-party system still exists in the United States, but it is far weaker than it once was – compare the Dixiecrats as explained in other comments in this thread.
Far more interesting is the increasing institutional capture of the DNC by progressives. For example, the DNC nullified an election because someone of the wrong gender won. The Hogg case actually shows a nice synthesis: progressives are using non-democratic means to hold down their fellow progs in exchange for institutional power. I think that neatly marks the end of the multi-party era: even anti-party insurgents are using the party against their allies.
>In 2016 various shenanigans like leaked debate questions and superdelegates guaranteed a Clinton victory.
Clinton won the popular vote in the primaries, and had enough delegates to win even without superdelegates.
Yes, and Putin would win re-election without his electoral interference. That does not mean the elections are free and fair, and you are correct that 2016 was significantly less elite-run than later years. Of course, I'm drawing from a small sample size here – if Clinton only got, say, 20% of the vote she would not have won no matter what. But this sort of finagling at the margin really does matter, and given how polarized the Democratic primary was in 2016 I don't see her losing (cf. how neither party will ever get 60 seats in the Senate).
I re-read the ACX dictator book club post on Chavez and it pretty much convinced me that any sort of constitutional rewrite around elections is way too dangerous to attempt in the US right now. In Venezuela, Chavez's party used their ~52% electoral position to gerrymander their way into 95% of the seats at the constitutional convention and then just did whatever they want. Very easy to imagine (your least favorite political party) doing that today in the US.
Similarly in Hungary, when Orbán's party won, they changed the constitution, and since that they keep winning, because the conditions to defeat them are almost impossible.
I think this is a general fragility of democratic system, that when someone gets too many votes once, they are free to change the system so that "having too many votes" becomes a requirement; and then you can't change the system back, because you either don't have enough votes to do that, or you do but then you don't have the incentive.
Basically, it's a ratchet: many parties -> a few parties -> two parties -> one party.
It is possible to only move legally in one direction. A small party may accidentally become large and then make a law that small parties don't matter anymore. But when a large party accidentally becomes small, they can't make the opposite change, because they no longer have the power to do that.
I agree that the combination of Plurality Voting (I dislike the term FPTP with some intensity) and a Presidential system is a major factor. Layered on top of this, I see a few other factors contributing.
The US inherited a cultural tradition of a two-party system from Britain. Britain's two-party tradition started forming in earnest in the Restoration era with the Exclusion Crisis factions (c. 1680) to which the labels "Whig" and "Tory" first attached, and had roots quite a bit further back. The American Revolution happened during an era when the "Whig Ascendency" of the early-to-mid 18th century (a 1.5 party system where the Tories were consistently a powerless minority) had broken down and re-formed into a functioning two-party system (the "Northite" and "Rockinghamite" factions, named for their leaders at the time; the forerunners of the 19th century Conservatives and Liberals respectively). Britain having 3+ truly major national parties tends to happen only during realignment periods: the breakdown of the Whig Ascendency, the rise of Labour after WW1, and the current post-Brexit breakdown of the Conservative party. Between these, Britain has had much stronger third parties (both national and regional) than the US, but only two really major parties at any given time (Whig/Tory before the Whig Ascendency, Conservative/Liberal after it until the Home Rule crisis, Unionist/Liberal until WW1, and Conservative/Labour from WW2 through Brexit).
The US established Universal Male Suffrage much earlier and somewhat more gradually than Britain did. The replacement of the Liberals by Labour as a major party, and the subsequent survival of the Liberals (later the Lib-Dems after they merged with the Social Democrats minor party in 1988) happened in large part as a consequence of Britain abolishing property qualifications for voting by men in 1918 (women were also enfranchise by the same act, but were still subject to property qualifications until 1928), more than doubling the franchise. This immediately elevated Labour, which had formed as a political movement among disenfranchised urban workers, to major party status. There was no real counterpart to this in the US since property qualifications were abolished piecemeal at the state level, mostly in the early 19th century, so the political labor movement of the late 19th and early 20th century happened among enfranchised workers and mostly operated within the two-party system.
The US has a more bottom-up party organization system than most other democracies I'm familiar with, especially since the 1960s when primary elections became central to the nomination process. Even before that, US parties going back well into the 19th century tended to have nominations processes for local, state, and federal offices that were driven at least as much by grassroots members as by the party leadership. This makes it easier for a political movement to work within a major party (taking over the label in whole or in part), while in many other countries making a new party is the only option if no existing party's leadership is willing to nominate your candidates.
There's also some historical accident over the political behavior of regions with distinctive cultural identities and political interests. A major genre of semi-major parties in other countries is parties organized around regional interests, especially separatist or particularist movements: e.g. Bloc Quebecois in Canada, the SNP in modern Britain, or the Irish Parliamentary Party in late 19th/early 20th century Britain. The US had one of these between the late 19th century and the 1970s, the "Dixiecrats" or "Southern Democrats" in the former Confederacy. The Dixiecrats were officially a faction within the Democratic party, but they really operated as a third party: Congressional voting patterns during this era tended to show Northern and Southern Democrats voting differently on many major bills, and several times in the mid-20th century dissented from the national Democratic party on Presidential nominations. In two elections, there were separate Dixiecrat candidates for President (Strom Thurmond in 1948 and George Wallace in 1968), in one (1964) several state Democratic parties in the South endorsed the Republican candidate, and in four (1944, 1956, 1960, and 1964) at least one state had a slate of Dixiecrat "Unpledged Electors" on the Presidential ballot. Total electoral votes won were 39 in 1948, 15 in 1964, 47 in 1964, and 46 in 1968. In all cases except for 1964, the intended strategy was to deny an election-night majority in the Electoral College to the two major party candidates and negotiate policy concessions in exchange for support in either the formal Electoral College vote or in the contingent election after the Electoral College deadlocks. The historical accident is that the Dixiecrats usually called themselves a faction within the Democratic Party rather than (as has happened in other countries) consistently calling themselves third parties but often forming coalitions and coordinating electoral strategy with a particular major party.
Except for your strange aversion to FPTP (isn’t that what’s happening?) that’s a top notch comment.
Thank you!
I have two objections to FPTP terminology. The first is that there's no "post", no absolute or percentage threshold of votes that one must get in order to win the election. The second is that there isn't much "first", as the election is conducted in a single round in which the outcome is unaffected by the order in which ballots are cast or counted. On the other hand "Plurality" (or more precisely, Single-Member Plurality) describes the procedure perfectly: whoever receives the most votes (i.e. a plurality of the votes) is elected.
I know of a few actual election procedures and at least one hypothetical election procedure that would be better described by FPTP than is Plurality voting.
Under the election procedures recommended by Robert's Rules of Order (i.e. RRO voting), there is a fixed threshold (usually 50% of valid ballots cast excluding abstentions, but organizations may adopt different thresholds in their procedures and bylaws) required to achieve election. The convention, assembly, or committee doing the electing casts ballots repeatedly, with each member voting for one member per open office. Votes are tallied, and if someone reaches the required majority, they are elected. If nobody reaches the threshold, the procedure is repeated as many times as needed until someone gets a majority. If followed strictly, this can lead to protracted deadlocks, like the 1924 Democratic National Convention which deadlocked between the initial front-runners Al Smith and William McAdoo as their Presidential nominee for 103 ballots before eventually settling on John Davis (2.8% on the first ballot) as a compromise candidate.
Elections in the Roman Republic used a single round of voting, but votes were tallied by "tribes", each of which voted in a particular order with the posher tribes voting first. Magistrates required the support of a particular number of tribes to be elected, and balloting stopped as soon as the required threshold was reached. I'm not sure what happened if nobody got the required threshold, whether they'd re-vote like RRO, or select the plurality winner, or something else. But I get the impression that it was fairly rare for the last several tribes to have the opportunity to vote before elections were decided.
Hypothetically, you could also have an election procedure where candidates collect petitions of support over an extended period of time, with some absolute threshold of supporters required to win the office. Whoever turned in however many valid signatures would then be elected. This would fit the FPTP label perfectly.
Interesting distinction. I never thought that there wasn’t an actual post to get past, but you are right. Funny enough the single transferable vote does have a post - the quota. Although it’s not necessary to get past it if you are the last chump remaining.
What did you mean when you said "isn't that what's happening?"
That the elected candidate was first past the post. As Erica pointed out though, there’s no quota and therefore no post. In my defence, where I live, the election is always won by a majority not a plurality. That’s not necessary though.
I share that aversion: the "t" in FPtP should be lower case.
Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response. A lot of good points there.
My pleasure.
Minor nitpick, not really material, but it's worth noting that while Canada does have a third party that is capable of winning elections at the provincial level, it has never won an election at the federal level and only one served as the opposition. So Canada is not too far off from only having two parties.
I rather seriously disagree. First, there's a pretty big practical difference between a majority government and a minority government, especially a weak minority government. Smaller parties having the power to coalition with a larger party and negotiate for items of interest is a significantly different situation from one where only two parties can ever win non-trivial numbers of seats.
Second, provincial level politics plays a big role in shaping peoples' lives. A party being capable of forming a government at a provincial level makes it quite significant as a practical force even if there's no chance it will ever form a government at the national level.
Both good points, but on the second point, given that the provincial parties have no formal ties to the federal parties, and given the variation within American parties at the state level, I'm not sure the existence of a third party makes such a big difference. What I mean is, a state-level Dem party can be as left-wing as the left-most provincial NDP, and the rightmost provincial NDP can be as conservative as, maybe not the most conservative state Dems, but, still much more conservative than the federal party.
I don't know that we get wildly different types of provincial government merely from the existence of a third provincial party.
Your overall conclusion -- "without changing the system, the tension towards two main parties in the USA will be extremely strong. There is no plausible path for a third party to grow" -- is correct, unfortunately. The USA hasn't had an insurgent third party successfully replace one of the two main ones in nearly 180 years now, and that one required a national civic crisis serious enough to literally spark secession and then a brutal civil war. No attempt since then has gotten anywhere near success.
Others here may describe additional proposed solutions, many have been written about for many years. I've no idea anymore which of them might ever come to pass nor what national-crisis type scenario it would take. I'd like to think there is some path short of secession-and-war.
I will comment on one relatively small aspect: "a regional party covering 20% of the country will get 20% of the electoral college. Not enough to install their own candidate, but maybe enough to make a deal as to who will be president."
That would be a longshot at best. In the first place a regional party covering 20% of the country could at _most_ get 20% of the EC votes, only if they "run the table" in their region and win every state. Remember that the EC votes are mostly assigned state by state all-or-nothing with no 50%+1 requirement.
And anyway negotiations such as you're imagining are not really achievable. If a presidential election fails to give one ticket a majority of the Electoral College count, the election goes to the House of Representatives (this happened once, 200 years ago). And the House votes state by state not proportionately, with no majority requirement for a House state delegation. [E.g. if the reps from a state having 14 reps vote 6-5-3, the candidate getting the six wins that state's entire Electoral College count.] So unless our hypothetical regional party also has majorities in the House from each of a few states, they have no leverage in the resulting House of Representatives mini-election that chooses the president/vice-president. Unlike in a parliamentary system the fact of their candidate having gotten 20 percent of the EC votes would not provide any followup leverage.
So are we effectively stuck with two mostly-similar, if you ignore the aesthetics, centrist-ish parties passing the ball among themselves in perpetuity, giving an illusion of choice to the electorate?
It's worth remembering that in living memory (1968) George Wallace won 5 states as what was, effectively, a regional party such as you describe. And those 5 states didn't even act as a spoiler: Nixon got an electoral majority anyway.
Eh...."effectively" is doing a lot of work there. I think OP is talking about something more than the one-offs around a single individual running for a single office. Those really aren't a "party" in any practical or lasting sense.
The US does have some surviving small regional parties, that go in with one of the two main parties if a representative from them is elected to Congress (which makes sense; you'll get a lot more done as part of the Democratic party voting bloc than as the sole Democratic-Farmer-Labor party member, or as one of the Democratic Socialists of America who seem to be more interested in purity spirals and shooting themselves in the foot).
So I think that tendency does make it much harder for a sizeable third party to get off the ground, because maybe it'll do great in one state, maybe it'll do great in a particular region, but can it win support and seats all across the country? Generally the answer seems to be "no", and of course then the "if you vote for a third party you are wasting your vote" messaging reinforces that difficulty (see all the blame about "whoever voted for third party candidates instead of Hillary/Kamala, it's your fault the fascist is in power now!")
It would, on the face of it, make a lot more sense for the US to have four or five big(gish) parties - a very left/progressive one for the socialists currently hanging on at the fringes of the Democrats, something like the Christian Democrats for the religious voters shoved off to the Republicans, etc. But I don't know how, in the current system, that will ever happen.
Why would you want more parties? Have you seen what happens with other democracies with multi-party systems?
The US system might not be the most representative, but it has lots of advantages.
I've observed in Bay Area California local politics in the 2010s that there tended to be four-ish factions:
1. Labor Democrats, usually the dominant factions. These were pretty strongly aligned with the public employee unions in terms of pay and benefits (one of the dominant political issues at time) and also in terms of deferring to senior full-time city employees on policy issues.
2. Progressive Democrats. These were mostly ideological progressives, focused on a combination of social issues and urbanism.
3. Reform Democrats, defined by at least partial opposition to public employee union interests, especially on pension reform.
4. Republicans and Libertarians. Within the Republicans there were significant factions (establishment, populist, and small-l libertarian), but they tended to be electorally insignificant except when there was a candidate who got significant support from at least two of the three, some crossover support from moderate Democratic voters, and often the informal support of the local Libertarian party as well. The Libertarian Party was pretty small, but was quite a bit better organized than libertarian Republicans.
Officially, local elections in California are "nonpartisan", meaning that there's no nomination process and candidates don't have party affiliation listed on the ballot. But if you're paying a little bit of attention to endorsements, it's usually pretty easy to figure out both party and faction.
The boundaries between groups 1 and 2 were pretty fuzzy, with a lot of elected officials seeming to have one foot in each. Groups 3 and 4 had a bit more distinction between them, but operated in coalition more often than not.
I suspect it's actually primarily because the US is so huge, that paradoxically this means there have to be lots and lots of "parties" to represent the many constituencies and demographics, but these "parties" then converge into two broad coalitions that are referred to as parties.
It's not obvious to me that it's sensible to speak of the US having a two-party system and of various European countries having multi-party systems. Many of the latter countries seem to have a whole lot of parties whose platforms are almost identical! On so many issues, there's clearly more choice, respresentation of more groups/positions, and thus more democracy in the US than there is in some (many?) of these multi-party states, despite the "only two choices".
There's also some serious costs (i.e. polarization) but I think the benefit to respresentation of having umbrella parties with numerous sub-groups within them (as opposed to top-down homogenous parties) is shockingly underappreciated in these comparisons.
This is especially apparent when looking at the platforms of the two parties. They were *very* different in 1860. (In 1828, when the Democratic Party was founded, the platform was described as a mash of conflicting positions - anti-tariff here, pro-tariff there - and also downstream of its Presidential candidate, much as today. https://mvhm.org/the-election-of-1828-the-candidates-their-platforms/)
The US is widely thought of as having successive Party Systems, brought about by major shifts in the coalition led by the two majors. The fact that there's a continual institution of funding channels and party platform administrations doesn't say much in light of their continual changes in membership. We're considered to be in our Sixth system now, and I'm sure there are historians ready to declare a Seventh, possibly due to Trump's takeover of the GOP, but more soberly due to realignment in voters on issues such as trade policy and immigration.
Isn't the existence of the primary system the salient (mostly-) unique feature of the US?
In most political systems, the party leadership decides what the acceptable range of positions within the party is, and if a candidate's positions are outside that range then they need to go off and join/form a different party. This is how new par
In the US, the position of the R/D party is whatever the primary voters say it is. So if you're a popular politician with opinions not entirely congruent with the party leadership then you can still get elected on a big party ticket. So there's never much of an incentive to try to form your own party when you can instead try to drag one of the big two in your direction.
The United States has been a two party system during most of its existence. The push for primaries started in about 1900. Since 1972, most delegates to the national party conventions have been selected in primaries or caucuses.
In 1968, the Democratic Party was badly divided over the Vietnam war. The vote totals in the primaries were:
2,914,933 Eugene McCarthy
2,305,148 Robert F. Kennedy (assassinated)
383,590 Lyndon B. Johnson (withdrew)
166,463 Hubert Humphrey
With Kennedy and Johnson out of the race, the Democratic National Convention had to decide between McCarthy and Humphrey. McCarthy had the most delegates of all the candidates, but 61% of the delegates were uncommitted. The Convention chose Humphrey.
This was a bit less outrageous than it seems at first glance. Humphrey had won a bunch of delegates in states that held caucuses rather than primaries, and most of Kennedy’s delegates favored Humphrey. Also, Humphrey was polling better than McCarthy, suggesting he had the best chance of winning the election. However, there was enough backlash that the Democrats created the McGovern–Fraser Commission, which gave us the current system.
In 1972, Democratic primary voters selected anti-war candidate George McGovern as the party nominee, who proceeded to lose in a landslide to Richard Nixon. This might have led the party to concluded that letting primary voters select the party nominee was a bad idea, but it didn’t.
Similarly, the Republican Party could have looked at this as an opportunity for them to nominate candidates who could win while the Democrats would be stuck with whoever their voters chose. Instead, the Republican Party copied the Democratic Party reforms.
Essentially what happened is that because the two major parties formed a duopoly, it became unacceptable for party nominations to be controlled by party officials. It wasn’t practical to create a viable anti-war party, so voters couldn’t vote against the war unless one of the two major parties nominated an anti-war candidate. Given that reality, it was undemocratic to allow party leadership rather than voters to select the party nominees. This is a generic issue with two party systems. The Vietnam War was the issue that happened to create a tipping point, but once the change was made it couldn’t be undone.
In other words, I think you have cause and effect mostly backwards. It’s true that the political parties in the United States are whatever the primary voters and caucus goers say, and that does reduce the incentive to create third parties. The reason that the primary voters and caucus goers control the parties, though, is because it’s impractical to create third parties that actually win elections.
Why did the Republicans copy the Democrats?
Because voters who weren't solidly Democratic or Republican were now faced with the meta-choice of siding with the party that would let them choose from among several candidates vs the party that would shove a single designated spokesman out the door of a smoke-filled room and say "it's him or nobody, at least from us". And as voting isn't mandatory in the United States, the sort of person who doesn't much care about being able to chose among candidates probably isn't going to be voting for anyone.
Once either party goes to a primary system, the other party is highly incentivized to follow suit if they want to keep winning elections.
Thanks for the info. My US blinders made not realize that the US primary system is different than so many other countries. I looked up Australia, UK, France, Germany, and Sweden. For all of them, the party selects the candiate, though some though have more formal procedures. But I assume that it is always party insiders of some degree that are doing the selecting.
Minor nuance from Canada: We don't really have more than two main parties. The only parties that ever form a government are the Conservatives and the Liberals. We have a smattering of smaller parties, of course. Last government the NDP (left-wing) formed a coalition with the Liberals (centre-left), but everyone knew the NDP was the junior partner. The Green Party wins between 1 and 5 seats.
Well, there's also the Bloc Quebecois, but that's very much because of our unique history, not so much our system. If things had gone a little differently in the US, I can totally imagine there being a Texas Party. They wouldn't run presidential candidates (or at least they wouldn't win), but they'd get enough Congressmen to sometimes make the ruling party have to negotiate.
If electoral votes were awarded by Congressional district - rather than winner takes all for each state - there would be a lot more room for a 3rd party presidential candidate. This doesn't take any changes to the Constitution, just state laws. Two states, Nebraska and Maine, already use this system. Then you can imagine a 3rd party candidate winning enough electors to deny the main party candidates a majority - which would perhaps generate more support for such a 3rd party candidate. It comes up in my state legislature from time to time, but the objection seems to be that candidates will lose interest in catering to any state that is not winnner-take-all.
Changing Congressional elections also can be done by Federal legislation, as the Constitution gives Congress the power to prescribe "Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives", overriding any conflicting State laws. Current federal law requires single-member districts for House elections, but they could conceivably repeal it and require multi-member districts with some form of proportional or other mixed-member election procedure instead.
Senators being elected one at a time is hardcoded in the Constitution, but requiring a different election procedure should also be legally possible by ordinary legislation.
That said, I expect any such proposal would face a strong headwind from current members of Congress who aren't keen to fundamentally change the system that elected them in the first place.
I write with some interesting developments in the intersection of law and AI. In Minnesota we just had a case where a county attorney was called out by a judge for using a brief with 6 hallucinated cases...the brief was written by AI, which is theoretically fine, but the AI invented 6 cases that do not exist which were cited as the basis for the law supporting the brief...that's bad. That's potentially sanctionable.
There have been many cases like this, and courts see it as tantamount to lying to them. It's taken very, very seriously. To my knowledge this is the first time a STATE attorney has been implicated in this problem.
...what I think is interesting here is that this is a basic problem which has fairly swift and predictable results. For 2-3 years now we've had the problem of "AI makes up cases that don't exist, attorney gets in trouble."
...it demonstrates an obstacle to getting an AI *rather than* a lawyer to handle your case, and it's a fairly basic one that doesn't exist in meatspace (I could describe *those* problems at length but they're boring and unsexy).
The problem of course can be solved by specialized legal AI tools or prompt engineering, I'm sure, so it's only a problem for unsophisticated people...but the whole promise of having auto-lawyers was to help unsophisticated people handle cases themselves.
> ...that's bad. That's potentially sanctionable.
What would the argument be for not actually sanctioning it?
I want the AI to use tool calls to check that citations it makes are to books that actually exist. This is fairly easy to do with current technology, I just haven’t got round to coding it up yet. (Some of you are thinking - surely, you can ask the AI to code it for you)
In a recent experiment, inspired by the continued discussion of hallucinated citations, R1 gave me the table of contents of a book that doesn’t exist. It hallucinated the citation, and then when pressed for further details of the citation, hallucinated the table of contents of the non-existent book.
The training really needs to get them to not aim to please so much.
What are the use-cases where you believe a legal chatbot would be helpful for lay people?
Chatbots hallucinate principles of law as much as anything else, because they are auto-complete token-generators with bells and whistles. Getting an answer that is 10% wrong but gut-checks right can be far more dangerous than just not knowing.
If your attorney misses a litigation deadline because they screwed up how many days you have to file something and you lose the case, you can bring a claim against their liability insurance and appeal the decision. If you screw it up yourself because you listened to a chatbot, you are out of luck.
It's really hard to say. I don't see how an AI is much better than a google search for handling, say, a speeding ticket or a legal dispute with the city over when you need to shovel your walk.
Anything with higher stakes than that, say a DUI or a slip-and-fall lawsuit at your grocery store, you *REALLY* should be getting a lawyer (and honestly I think any sane person would)
I don't see present AI as helping "normal" people so they don't have to resort to using lawyers. Present AI is far more useful at...let's say...writing a 50 page summary (with citations) on the state of some nuanced area of law (commercial fishery regulation) that a more general lawyer (say one that does agency law) can then read as a gateway to learn about that sub-sub-sub area...or augmenting an electronic discovery review of 1 million emails to find the crumbs of the crumbs of the crumbs that diligent human searchers missed...in short, it's good at supplementing a legal team: turning a 75% chance of success into a 90% chance of success, or turning a stone-cold loser of a case into a case where maybe the defendant wins 10% of the time...these are not typically the kinds of use
cases "normal people" are involved in.
Right. My apologies if I misunderstood the thrust of your post; I may not be following what you are highlighting as re: problems/promises.
Can you use prompt engineering to avoid hallucinations?
in my (very limited) experience using AI it's often trivially easy to avoid the worst hallucinations by simply saying "use citations from published sources that really exist"
or like "Assume this brief will be filed in the southern district of Florida before a federal judge, so the law must be accurate and the citations must be valid"
Also it's...not hard to check whether a citation is real, so any attorney using an AI generated brief could cite check it...a process that takes 15-30 minutes for most filings and which you should be doing anyway.
I don't trust these things yet to get within a mile of anything I'd write professionally. AI still make stuff up too much for my comfort: cases, facts, whole areas of law. They might be "better than a normal person" at not making stuff up in a legal context, but I wouldn't, EG, pull a normal person off the street and outsource my brief-writing to them.
Agreed. AI is really bad at doing that thing where 95% of the output is correct, but the 5% that isn't is in some critical nuance of law where you'll get caned. I always say that in law it's better not to be wrong than to be right, and this is where AI as it currently stands really let's you down.
You can also have one AI fact-check another AI.
At a minimum if you're going to rely on cases cited by an AI then you should ask another AI to look critically at those cases and whether they are really relevant.
Come to think of it, the ideal way of doing this might wind up looking very much like an actual adversarial trial, with one AI lawyer putting forward a case and the other AI lawyer poking holes in it.
> You can also have one AI fact-check another AI.
That’s a great idea. A 1-10 chance of a hallucination becomes a 1-100
Only if the probabilities are independent. If both AIs are trained on the same data, they might hallucinate the same thing.
And then they'd form a stable consensus!
We can see here the tension at play in being a lawyer, too. I have a kind of been stewing over an AI thought experiment or moral dilemma relating to this for about a week, and I'll post about it later maybe.
The simple fact is, I will give different answers to a question in different circumstances if posed a legal hypothetical, because as a lawyer I'm called on to act in two different roles: sometimes I'm an ADVISOR, telling a client the cold hard truth about what the law is, and how a jury will perceive it, this is in service of my terminal goal: giving an accurate assessment of the law. Sometimes I'm an ADVOCATE, telling a judge or a jury what I need to to win. in this latter capacity, I can't and don't lie, but I'll put the law and the facts in the very best possible light to achieve my terminal goal: winning.
An AI is playing both roles just like a lawyer does, but I think it has a bad grasp of what works and doesn't, and when to play each role. You WANT a lawyer who will pound the table and insist you're innocent and the law is CLEARLY on your side...in court. You want that same lawyer to give you a good hard slap in the face in the conference room and tell you that you are in BIG TROUBLE here mister. You want a lawyer that will put a positive spin on the bad facts of your case...but you don't want a lawyer that will just flat out make stuff up (because that's easy to catch, and then you look terrible).
It was so great to meet everyone at LessOnline this past weekend (including Scott and Brandon Hendrickson)! I'll be at Lighthaven all through Summer Camp and Manifest.
I have officially launched my Substack, Letters from Bethlehem. I plan to write about YIMBY, my adventures in renovating my 125-year-old house, MAiD, and untangling the tangled ball of ideas that currently makes up the modern disability rights movement.
I want it to be known that the "Bethlehem" in my username refers to Bethlehem, PENNSYLVANIA, the town made of steel and Gilded Age Capitalism. (Not the other Bethlehem.) It's about an hour north of Philadelphia. My first post is about moving there. (Edit: here's the link: https://amandafrombethlehem.substack.com/p/so-you-want-to-move-to-a-streetcar )
When I started going to the Philly ACX meetups, I'd introduce myself as, "Hi, I'm Amanda, I just drove down from Bethlehem. How are you?" I made it my name on our Discord, and it stuck.
I say this because I ran into Scott at LessOnline. He congratulated me for winning the Book Review Contest, and apologized for thinking I was Christian at first.
...I am not. I am very stereotypically objectivist (at least for aesthetic reasons.) (But politically I've mostly mellowed out into a neolib at this point.) Just wanted to clear that up.
Bethlehem and YIMBY is a tough combination. The locals seem especially enamored with "historic preservation", or at least that's the impression I get from reading the news there. E.g. this candidate for mayor: https://www.wfmz.com/news/election/i-feel-like-its-a-real-duty-to-run-for-mayor-bethlehem-councilwoman-mayor-candidate/article_a29e1a0e-e308-4c5e-acad-32ac197e9ae4.html
> She thinks too many apartment buildings are going up in historic areas. [...]
> She said she has nothing against rentals, but there is not enough affordable housing, which she believes is the top issue the city is facing.
It's also just on the edge of the NYC Covid exodus, which drove up housing prices quite a lot in 2021-2.
Since you're still in the Philadelphia area, I recommend the Tastykakes (see my profile picture).
Oh yes. The fights about tearing down the old Boyd Theater and building that apartment complex were vicious. I had a front-row seat to the long and troubled construction process.
In might be unpopular opinion but Historical went out of proportions, to the state of transforming entire sections of cities into "Preservation zones". This basically kills the place, cities are living things that need to evolve and change.
Only the dead don't change. Cities are not museums.
"My first post is about moving there."
So will you be quoting Yeats? 😁
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
Here's a link to the post btw. (I added it to the top level comment, too. I couldn't add it when I first wrote the comment on my phone.)
https://amandafrombethlehem.substack.com/p/so-you-want-to-move-to-a-streetcar
Although the journey itself (Texas to Pennsylvania) involved driving a 15ft UHaul down a windy twisty 1-lane-each-way road through Virginia. More of a white knuckled anxiety than a slouch.
Nah, "Slouching towards Bethlehem" was already taken 😅
Many years ago, I was (briefly) a founding member of a group blog where the main founder wanted a name from Second Coming and initially proposed "Passionate Intensity" or "Lacking All Conviction". I proposed the alternative of "Indignant Desert Birds", which the other junior co-founder strongly endorsed and was eventually chosen.
I dropped out a few months later. I didn't really keep up with it after that, but it seems to be defunct and forgotten now.
As was “The Center Will Not Hold”
Great meeting you too!
I'm trying to find out how "famous" you have to be so that an LLM knows you (defined as: can share information about you when asked). What is the least famous person/thing you know that an LLM also knows?
I'm about as unfamous as can be, but ChatGPT knew EVERYTHING about my opinions. It was quite shocking, actually. It got a couple of my career details wrong, but everything else was spot on.
It was kind and quite flattering. It came up with a summary of my writing that, if I ever wrote a book, I would put on the back cover, and if I ran for office, ChatGPT would be a good spokesman for me.
ChatGPT knows all about my academic/research record, which is not surprising. But then it speculated that I might be related to my son (a solo musician) because we share a hometown and a surname. I was quite surprised, since, as ChatGPT noted, "there is no publicly confirmed familial connection."
Damn. More reason to never use your real name on the internet! (And in real life, if you can help it.)
Oh. I have considered doxxing myself when I get my pension. And I have considered putting the family tree online.
I am Spartacus!
Ask the LLM to create a biographical description of you. Give it your name, and some of the handles you interact on social media under.
ChatGPT described me pretty well, with some hallucinations that may be due to other users with my now fairly common beowulf handle.
There's a guy with my name online as AA representative somewhere. So much for the first "A" in "AA".
With just my name, ChatGPT finds my LinkedIn page and a different Erica Rall's twitter account and mashes the two together awkwardly. I'm apparently both a teacher and a Software Engineer at Adobe.
If I also tell ChatGPT (in a separate chat) that I'm a commenter on Astral Codex Ten, it gives a pretty bad, but recognizable, summary of a few comments I've read. If I then follow up by asking about me outside of ACX, it says it doesn't know anything else, but adds some more badly-summarized stuff from my comments here. If written by a human, I would characterize that summary as mildly transphobic.
This didn't work, maybe because I either comment too little or have a surname that is associated to something else.
Yes. I guess that would be a problem if you have a name like John Smith. Never mind. ;-)
My friend is in a very obscure band in Minnesota and it of course knows all the band members names probably from just a couple local shows posted on some website somewhere.
I just tried this with a local indie band and it didn't work. They have 50k total reproductions in spotify and 30 monthly listeners. Is your chosen band in a similar range of listeners?
I wrote about laws of inertia for desires and how they might be presupposed in probate law, to the detriment of all of us. https://open.substack.com/pub/hiphination/p/do-minds-change-naturally?r=i44h&utm_medium=ios
"Then Galileo showed up and formulated the laws of inertia"
That bit made me go "I thought it was Newton?"
Turns out Galileo discovered the principle, but Newton later formulated the laws.
Re: wills, I think they are there to protect people's rights (there is nothing so vicious as a family falling-out after someone dies and they're arguing about who inherits what, and it's ten times worse if there is no will but "Granny always said I would get the silver teapot/Dad said I'd inherit the farm because I worked on it" as verbal alleged agreements).
If you change your mind but don't put it in writing, your intentions as to disposal of property are very unclear. You give an example of a novel, but we have historical examples of family or friends or executors destroying original source documents after the death of a famous person 'to protect their image/privacy/legacy' which leaves future biographers and historians with large gaps in knowledge, or malicious executors who release heavily-edited versions of works to fit in with their opinion of the writer - Rufus Griswold and Poe is probably the famous version here.
If we allow for "maybe X would have changed/did change their mind about this", then there is little to stop an executor or family member from going "yeah, I know in the will it says they're leaving their savings to the grandkids for college, but that was written ten years ago. I know they would want me to have it to buy a Maserati so that's what I did".
When the person isn't around to be asked anymore "so what do you really want done with this?", all we have to go on is if they wrote something or told someone about it at some point prior to their death.
I'm in a bit of a rut around the game theory of modern US politics and it's driving me in a scary direction as a classical liberal.
I feel like a frustrating trend came to a head with the assassination attempt on Trump versus the attack on Paul Pelosi. The attack on Pelosi was the subject of numerous jokes by high-up conservative figures like Elon Musk, Dave Rubin, and even Donald Trump Jr. himself[1][2][3]. Outside of mainstream media, the right got basically zero pushback for this. Especially not from other right-wingers. On the flip-side, a political streamer named Destiny made edgy Tweets about the assassination attempt on Trump and the death of his supporters and was universally condemned even in left circles[4].
The hard thing is, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to disagree with Destiny on this one. I do think the right-wing has weaponized conspiracy to deny the violence on their side, and even seen fit to laugh at political violence against their enemies. They support Trump not in spite of his polarizing and insulting language, but because of it. However, when Democrats play that same game, the right is all too keen to act like norms still exist, and the Democrats take political heat from their own side and from the apolitical center.
I think Scott wrote about this before in "In Favor of Niceness and Community". I think I understand the idea of that post, but at what point does that truly become less a norm and just a game theoretical disadvantage?
Note: I want to be EXPLICITLY UNGODLY clear that I'm not advocating violence or anything against any side. I condemn all of the attacks on Trump and all politicians. My point is less about celebrating his assassination attempt and more sharing Destiny's feelings about lack of sympathy for the MAGA right and what it means for civility politics, and looking for some bright light here for why I might be wrong.
[1] https://archive.ph/kAJGa
[2] https://archive.ph/A4xXP
[3] https://x.com/RubinReport/status/1586062824819884032
[4] Substantive evidence
- https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GSbHOnqWEAEDsA5.jpg
- https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2kBGNIaboQQ/sddefault.jpg?v=6694b906
- https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fh3bc7n2tbkcd1.jpeg
- https://x.com/TheOmniLiberal/status/1812576177736839354
- https://x.com/TheOmniLiberal/status/1812682200199975037
- https://x.com/TheOmniLiberal/status/1812576308162953501
I think it falls apart the moment you have a majority that's willing to use violence to accomplish its goals. Doesn't help that the left gave them all the motivation necessary to do so. The left took everything for granted, and believed that their benevolent ideals made their success inevitable. They deserve their fate.
> Doesn't help that the left gave them all the motivation necessary to do so...They deserve their fate.
"Look what you made me do", said the abuser as he kicked in his partner's teeth. "It's all your fault. You made me do this," they said as they smashed the plates and took a hammer to the house.
Why is that the left only has agency when you're looking for people to blame? The violence on your side is totally justified because of the aggravation of those other people; the violence on their side is a contemptible and disgusting act of depravity? This is the logic of an abuser, and it's just as gross here as it would be there.
I make no excuses for the violent people. But previously we had a rather successful nonviolent coalition against them, and for some people it was important to create a lot of infighting in that coalition. Also, they promoted the social norm of "nonviolent violence" such as getting people fired from their jobs for expressing a wrong opinion, etc.
As a result, the coalition got weaker, and lost. Let's hope it's only temporary.
When I point fingers, it's not to excuse Trump and his ilk. It's to make his return (or the return of someone like him) less likely.
There is the left in general, and then there are the "woke" people who are just as violent, stupid, and evil as the redcaps. Not more, not less. Anyone who hates people for being male is just as evil as anyone who hates them for being female. And so on. We let ourselves be terrorized by them, because they were nominally on our side (despite the fact that most of their attacks were against other people on our side). Now we can clearly see that submission to the woke is not a winning strategy, so I hope we can finally kick them out of polite society. No, I don't mean any violence or any of the tools they would be happy to use if they had the opportunity. Just a nice and firm "shut up, retard", and don't try to appease them (that only makes them escalate, anyway).
Frankly, I don't care about what justification the "abuser" uses, that's irrelevant. But it is absolutely your responsibility to make decisions that result in your continued existence. And part of that is not giving people reasons or avenues to hurt you. You can whine all you want about how "evil" other people are, but that doesn't change the fact that they absolutely had the means to prevent all of this, and yet they failed. Though, that depends on whether you believe that people have free will... but if you believe they don't, then no one's truly culpable for their actions, are they? Makes even less sense to complain if all of this was completely inevitable.
I think you missed the point.
I can think of a dozen more proximal reasons that Trump won besides "its the lefts fault".
Trump won because Trump lied, constantly and shamelessly, in a way that most people didn't think possible and weren't prepared for. Trump won because he had an insane media apparatus that refused to contradict him or be critical of him at every step, and in fact actively ran propaganda for him. Trump won because the richest man on Earth bought one of the most used social media platforms on Earth, and used it to run interference. Trump won because that same man put together a vote buying scheme for him in Pennsylvania. Trump won because his team shut down bipartisan legislation in order to make sure certain problems remained problems for him to campaign on. Trump won because the people who voted for him didn't want to listen to inconvenient truths about manufacturing jobs or COVID. Trump won because those same people didn’t believe him when he said he was going to implement broad tariffs, go after people who criticized him, or try to run for a third term.
These all seem like immediately more proximal causes than "Trump won because the Democrats shat the bed on a very particular policy position that only very online people know about but that I care about a lot."
> "I don't care about what justification the "abuser" uses, that's irrelevant. But it is absolutely your responsibility to make decisions that result in your continued existence"
The abuser never thinks they are being abusive. That's why the logic is always 'look what you made me do'. Find someone else to blame for your heinous actions besides yourself, never look in the mirror. Why are you blaming the left? Why are you providing intellectual cover for an authoritarian extremist regime? Your argument seems to be 'its *your* responsibility to be better, not *my* responsibility'. Ok, well since you're not responsible for your own actions, I guess we should find the adult who is.
Most of the Trump assassination attempt related comments I've seen were along the lines of "So sorry he missed." I live just North of LA so that may influence things. I don't care for Trump. But I really have no trouble 'both sides'ing this problem with regards to the assassination, specifically.
I do sometimes wonder to what extent 'the Right' is different from 'Republicans.' There's certainly a gap between 'self identified leftists' and 'democrats.' Are those gaps the same size and shape?
I think we really need to try to be objective and precise about these kinds of questions because it's easy and tempting to cherry pick.
Respectfully, I think you are viewing things from a selective, left of center lens.
The violence coming from parts of the left is not isolated to just targeted violence of national political figures. If that was the case, then I think your argument would be stronger.
The violence coming from the left is more pervasive at all levels. Antifa is a left wing organization that has been committing political violence for a long time. Over a decade off the top of my head. They attack conservative speakers to prevent them from speaking. [1] Just last week, they attacked a Christian group that wanted to protest in a park. [2] Though the Floyd protests had some legitimate political underpinings, the scope of violence cannot be supported if we want a good civil society. Estimates are that damage from the Floyd protests are in the $1-2 billion range. [3] For both Antifa and the George Floyd protests, very few were charged with crimes. Many Democratic politicians at least tactily gave support to both. This badly damaged civil society.
As somebody on the right, if somebody on the left wants to break the cycle: condemn all antifa actions from now on. They have shown they are only interested in violence and do nothing to contribute to civil discourse.
Also, many leftist groups have supported the murder of the 2 Israeli Embassy staff, which in my opinion is another example of leftist political violence. [4]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/01/milo-yiannopoulos-uc-berkeley-event-cancelled
[2] https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/30-people-arrested-seattle-protests
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests
[4] https://x.com/BXAntiWar/status/1925590844343472262?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1925590844343472262%7Ctwgr%5E3e3bdcac81ebcc56be5c31692401a81f77c0d1ed%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Flegalinsurrection.com%2F2025%2F05%2Fbronx-anti-war-coalition-praises-double-murder-in-dc-as-highest-expression-of-anti-zionism%2F
What a convenient double standard for you. "If you want to break the cycle, condemn a group you are not even associated with. We, of course, don't have to lift a finger when our own elected representatives celebrate violence, or even engage in it on a systemic level. And of course, we want you to condemn a fringe group, but we will have dinner with self-identified Nazis."
No one believes this shit man. You are doing hypernormalisation, where you and I both know that what you're saying is wrong, but you've figured out that it's a useful way to do propaganda so I have to engage with it seriously. This is how Trump operates also.
What is wrong with the left policing their side?
Antifa is a known organziation and that committed an act of violence just last week. I choose them because they are obviously part of the problem of political violence in the US. Is it so hard to condemn them? Why are you resisting condemning them?
Please present the evidence of self identified Nazi's. My cursory read is that there are alot of assumptions and guilt by association used to get to "Nazi". Happy to be proven wrong.
If you want to bring up a conservative group that is also actively engaging in violence, then I am happy to condemn them if the accusation is supported by the evidence.
I am not on the left, I don't apply labels to myself at all, so it's interesting that you are now pressuring me to condemn a group that doesn't even operate in my country. Either way, we aren't speaking at the individual level here. I don't care if you personally condemn a group, only that a critical mass of people who use the same labels as you are willing to.
A good example of what you're asking for would be Kanye West, who proudly identifies as a Nazi, and has had dinner with the current president of the US. Fair warning, if you bother to nitpick this point for any reason other than to point out an error (if you think I've made one), then the conversation is over. I would like to talk to right wingers who are at least willing to address the operative point of the arguments here, namely that this kind of thing happens on both sides but is only expected to be condemned by one side.
> so it's interesting that you are now pressuring me to condemn a group that doesn't even operate in my country
Given you are clearly writing as someone obsessed with politics in the US, it was a fairly legitimate to assume you were living there.
It is not legitimate to behave like a 17th century witch hunter on the basis of that assumption (probably not even if it was a correct assumption).
I don't know what your arguments are.
Great, you don't apply labels to yourself. That doesn't mean others cannot apply labels to your arguments or how your present yourself on a comment thread. I notice that you use "right wingers". My guess is that someone on the left is an appropriate label.
Nobody is pressuring you to do anything. You responded to my comment and I thought you wanted a discussion on US political violence. I do find it distrubing that you cannot condemn antifa. In case you are not aware, please read the link to wikipedia to understand how much violence antifa commits. [1]
Please point out the last meeting Trump had with Kanye. My googling turned up 2018, a little while ago.[2] Kanye West is also believed to be suffering from mental illness with reports that he is bi-polar. [3] He is also not ever been in a policy making role and Trump likely met with Kanye due to Kanye's celebrity status.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)
[2] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/kanye-west-meet-trump-white-house/story?id=58433020
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West
Well, you can't say I didn't warn you.
Hi Aaron. The fundamental problem here is that the 2025 Republican part/right-wing cares far less for your values. You are their enemy, they don't care much beyond that. There are right-wingers who are still principled, but they are not ascendant in the party right now.
Accordingly, they are not going to care much if you are chastising them for being silent on violence, even if they don't actually want to see violence.
>There are right-wingers who are still principled, but they are not ascendant in the party right now.
Is your position that the left is somehow different?
Yes, the left is substantially more principled right now. Not wholly so, and not always with good principles, but still more principled.
>Yes, the left is substantially more principled right now. Not wholly so, and not always with good principles, but still more principled.
The left dropped its "refugees welcome" principle like a hot potato the moment it required welcoming a tiny group of white people.
No, it didn't. It rejects that white people in South Africa are actually refugees in a meaningful sense. That's a disagreement over facts, not a violation of principle, even if the left has ideological reasons to be skeptical of those claims.
> It rejects that white people in South Africa are actually refugees in a meaningful sense.
> That's a disagreement over facts
There is disagreement caused by a honest mistake, and then there is someone pretending to be stupid when you know that they are not.
If the same thing happened to a non-while minority in any country, I am pretty sure that the opinions would be different.
That's funny, because I've been told multiple times by people on the left that it's stupid and racist to doubt claims to refugee status, because obviously no-one would uproot their entire lives and flee to the West if their lives weren't in danger. And I don't think that, say, the Episcopalian Church decided to cut ties with the federal government out of a simple factual disagreement over the precise status of fifty-odd people.
More generally, the left has built an entire argumentative superstructure explaining why white people can never be the victims of racism, men can never be the victims of sexism, etc.
>Yes, the left is substantially more principled right now.
Can you give your reasoning on why you think this?
The biggest example is the reaction to Trump winning the 2024 election. Despite opposing him, there was no denial of his victory. The idea of left-wingers doing a Jan 6th, or even doing broad election denialism, is completely absurd, but the reality of the right at this moment.
For a smaller example, Biden tried to introduce the ERA as a Constitutional amendment in the waning days of his administration. It went nowhere and you don't have left-wingers questioning how the "Deep State" is suppressing the rights of women.
Then there's the general level of intellectualism on the left vs. the right. While it doesn't translate to being principled at all times, being intellectual requires following arguments to their conclusion, and my view is that I would get farther with a left-winger than a right-winger if I tried to convince either of a view associated with the other side.
Lastly, cancel culture. Though it's perverse and hypocritical at times, the willingness to oust a person for refusing to toe all moral stances is an indication of being principled, and right-wing cancel culture is far more about the friend-enemy distinction.
I find your post very weak in terms of supporting the claim that the left is more principled right now. Answering in detail because you didn't respond to my question.
>The biggest example is the reaction to Trump winning the 2024 election. Despite opposing him, there was no denial of his victory. The idea of left-wingers doing a Jan 6th, or even doing broad election denialism, is completely absurd, but the reality of the right at this moment.
I am not sure if you think Jan 6 is bad from a violence stand point or from a election denial standpoint or both.
Violence: The left has been more then willing to support violence when it suits their mood. Antifa has been around for a decade. Very few elected Democrats have condemn them. In fact, antifa was at least tacitly supported by the left and their crimes not prosecuted. Also, George Floyd protests. Democratic officials and media ignored the riots. I don't think anybody was prosecuted for the riots that cost $1-2 billion.
Election denialism: I can't come up with anything as bad as Jan 6th, so I think you have a point. But Democrats have alot of their own election denialism. Hilary Clinton was quoted in 2020 saying "widespread understanding that [the 2016] election was not on the level."
More examples at the below link.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/yes-democrats-have-called-some-elections-illegitimate-gop-election-denialism-far-worse
So on net, maybe you have a small point. But it isn't as clear cut as you present it.
I will counter. The left uses "rule of law" when it suits them so they are less principled than the right. Examples of left not following the rule of law.
1) Above points on antifa and Floyd protest violence where the left ignored violence on their side.
2) Democratic elected officials defending Hannah Duggan when it was clear there was enough evidence to arrest her. Also, don't look now. Leftist are supporting Duggan's argument that a state Judge is immune from Federal law. 100+ former judges have signed a petition supporting Duggan's argument of such.
3) Leftist Judges overstepping their powers. Boasberg was overruled by SCOTUS and the case was remanded to the a judge in the 5th Circuit (where it should've been heard orignally). Xinis was also overruled by SCOTUS in the Garcia case and told that she couldn't order the Executive to "effectuate" the return. Last I read, she was still trying to play games by hinting at "effectuate" and refusing to define "facilitate". I could give even more examples of leftist judges being overruled by SCOTUS for errors in following known procedures and staying within their powers.
This is potentially the biggest threat to the US. The Judicial Branch has very little powers and is suppose to be the "rule of law" branch. If the Judiciary loses that belief from the citizens, the US will suffer for it.
My opinion is that my counter argument shows the left is less principled right now.
>For a smaller example, Biden tried to introduce the ERA as a Constitutional amendment in the waning days of his administration. It went nowhere and you don't have left-wingers questioning how the "Deep State" is suppressing the rights of women.
I am not sure why this is even brought up and shows a potential lack of understanding of how the US works. No Federal Employee (ie the Deep State) could impact the ERA. ERA needs a constitutional amendment. The short story. It's Congress and the state legislatures that have to pass the ERA amendment. Also, the left didn't complain because everybody realized Biden wasn't serious. Biden made his ERA speech on January 17, 2025. 2 days before leaving office.
>Then there's the general level of intellectualism on the left vs. the right. While it doesn't translate to being principled at all times, being intellectual requires following arguments to their conclusion, and my view is that I would get farther with a left-winger than a right-winger if I tried to convince either of a view associated with the other side.
For the sake of argument, I will grant you that the left is more intellectual. But you have logic errors and lack of evidence for your argument. First, intellectualism != principle. So you need to strongly support the assertion. You say that being intellectual means the person can follow arguments to their conclusion and thus more principled.
Diagramming your claim.
intellectual ==> follows argument ==> more principle.
I think you are missing a evidence for "argument ==> more principle". Intellectuals are more able to use motivated reasoning, so I argue they will use more motivated reasoning. You have provided no evidence that intellectuals are not less tribal, less likely to succumb to social pressure, and a whole host of biases that humans are susceptile to that would cause them use motivated reasoning. In fact, I would argue many intellectuals are more aware of the environment they are in and will conform if needed.
>Lastly, cancel culture. Though it's perverse and hypocritical at times, the willingness to oust a person for refusing to toe all moral stances is an indication of being principled, and right-wing cancel culture is far more about the friend-enemy distinction.
I guess it could be principled as in a person is consistent in casting out heretics when they discover them. My opinion is that it is not principled (as in moral) at all to ruin people's lives (financially and socially) because a person said things that were widely accepted just a few years ago. Maybe a little understanding and forgiveness would help you attract people to the left?
> It went nowhere and you don't have left-wingers questioning how the "Deep State" is suppressing the rights of women.
That's because the deep state is left-wing, and everyone knows it. When it comes to powerful groups or people that are right-wing, like Fox News or Elon Musk, the left is quite ready to accuse them of suppressing various left-wing causes.
>While it doesn't translate to being principled at all times, being intellectual requires following arguments to their conclusion, and my view is that I would get farther with a left-winger than a right-winger if I tried to convince either of a view associated with the other side.
Pardon me if this seems impertenent, but I'm guessing you haven't actually interacted with many intellectuals recently?
>Lastly, cancel culture. Though it's perverse and hypocritical at times, the willingness to oust a person for refusing to toe all moral stances is an indication of being principled, and right-wing cancel culture is far more about the friend-enemy distinction.
Leftists are quite ready to ignore their alleged moral stances depending on who's doing the action. You won't see anyone on the left complaining about a statue of, say, Shaka Zulu on the grounds that he was a ruthless imperialist and slave-owner.
Here is a variation of that argument being made from the other side that made theMotte Quality Contributions roundup:
"https://www.themotte.org/comment/329205?context=3#context"
I share this in part to do the eternal both-sides-do-it thing but in part because there was an...interesting information spin on it at the end. I'll quote and then add my own commentary:
"But we have gone from tacit support for thugs beating protesters to nationwide riots to dozens of millions of Americans openly supporting political murder as a solution to their perceived problems. What we have here is the creation of common knowledge.
Right now, no one is trying to enforce a norm against political violence. But what I am trying to tell you is that, right now, no one can enforce a norm against political violence, because the norm is already gone. This is not obvious because no one is yanking on the lever, but I am warning you that the lever is in fact broken, and it will be obvious that it is broken the next time someone yanks on it. It's conceivable that we could rebuild the mechanisms that lever connects to before we actually need to yank on it, but it's very obvious that no one is actually doing that."
So...imagine the most violent and radical 5% of the population. Regardless of who they are, in normal times if they moved towards violence they would be condemned, isolated, and face severe repercussions. We are now getting the first inkling that those old norms will not be enforced. In fact, violence towards the outgroup might result in massive status and/or financial gain. That knowledge is not yet widespread but has implications.
For example, I'm old enough to remember when Richard Spencer was punched in the face by a masked Antifa member and I'm old enough to remember how everyone reacted. Ignore the right or wrong of it, focus on the fact that he was masked. If he was unmasked, how much money would he have raised? We're raising millions of dollars for people who assassinate healthcare CEOs and use racial slurs in playgrounds. You or I might not risk an assault charge for a million dollars and global fame but there's a lot of struggling people with an appetite for high risk gambles to whom that might be very appealing. And the problem right now isn't that those people exist, it's that the knowledge that political violence against their outgroup might be a viable career path is slowly becoming known.
And, to do the thing that everyone else does for likely legal reasons, I super do not advocate political violence. My shit be baller and my primary concern with this is keeping my baller shit. But...if there's an increasing number of unhinged people who think political violence is a viable path to a better life...I mean, I might wanna take some precautions to keep my baller shit. Getting a concealed carry license for self defense is...probably not a completely unwarranted response.
Eh, I saw and see a lot of support for the guy who shot the healthcare CEO and a lot of messaging on social media about "we need more like this" from the lefty side.
Tomayto, tomahto
No, we shouldn't be calling for people's deaths, whoever they are and whoever we are.
Hum... I'm reminded of a Heinlein novel where the good guys had a "better off dead" list. Where, for utilitarian reasons, the death of some folks was a huge positive Util boost. It's impossible to understand or predict all the long term effect of our actions, but that's no reason to not take actions that, to the best of our understanding, would improve the welfare of many.
Deontological ethics, forged over time, can help to augment the best of our understanding.
The most common reason being "if we take off the gloves, so will the bad guys."
I mean, there is that, but I always found Yudkowsky's argument that we're running on corrupted hardware more widely persuasive.
Basically, we know that we can't fully trust our conclusions, because our perceptions and judgements are corrupted by a monkey-brain evolved to seize power for ourselves or our allies... and a lot of the evolved relationship between that monkey brain and our consciousness is our consciousness playing the unwitting and sincere PR agent for our lower self's ambition. So, when our conclusions are that we are morally required to seize power in our own hands and wrest it from non-allies, some serious self-distrust is in order.
Combine that fundamental distrust with the base rate on this: that when we look at self-described morally motivated murderers, they almost always seem like monsters with ulterior motives to us. Looking at it from an outside view then, we're probably not avoiding monstrousness if we go down that road, in spite of what our internal, corrupted analysis is telling us.
Deontology serves well as guard rails against our own hardware conspiring to make us into a moral monster. It serves less well the farther you get away from the sorts of situations where acting on your moral intuitions would give you and/or your allies status.
Sure, but was support for Luigi Mangione coming from rando lefties or from higher ups in the Democratic Party? I guess the highest profile people celebrating Mangione that I saw would be the likes of Taylor Lorenz, but I have trouble associating leftists like her with the Democrats, since left-wing populists at a certain line hate the Democratic Party almost as much as Republicans do.
You're running afoul of a problem I see a lot (and might be running afoul of myself, just by arguing this). Lorenz is some outlier to you, but she's got a high profile, and so there are people on the right who see her as representative of the left. Similarly, there are people on the right who see Steve Bannon as some weird outlier, and people on the left who want to say he's representative. We could of course get into an argument about the merits of Lorenz vs. Bannon, but I'm sure we could name dozens of other tribal examples as well, and I think the major thing we could agree on is that each tribe disagrees on whether each example is representative, and to what extent.
Meaning this is all just subjectivity bias in the end, unless you think you can pin down an objective metric. And I'm not saying this to point out some failing, either - my point is that it's hard IMO to produce accurate portrayals of a tribe in a culture war, and I could go farther and claim that trying to make one is likely to be frustrating.
Trump is not an outlier. He won the Republican nomination three times. There are conservatives who oppose him, like Liz Cheney, but opposing Trump ended her political career.
Steve Bannon was Chief Executive Officer of Trumps 2016 campaign, and became chief strategist and senior counselor in the Trump White House. Trump fired him in less than a year, but that was pretty much par for the course in the Trump White House. I don’t think you can dismiss Trump’s top White House staffers as outliers just because the Trump Administration had high turnover.
After leaving the White House, Bannon was one of the people involved in <em>We Build the Wall</em>, which conned Trump supporters by promising that the money they donated would be used to build a wall on the U.S./Mexican border. That would seem to separate him from Trump, except that Trump pardoned him.
It’s no insult to Taylor Lorenz to say that, compared to Bannon, she is a nobody. She is, I will presume, a talented, hard working journalist. She worked at the New York Times for a few years, where she broke the story that Michael Bloomberg was using fake social media accounts to support his candidacy. She then moved to the Washington Post, where she wrote a story about the operator of the Libs of Tik Tok account that generated a bunch of discussion. It seems she’s also written a book and now has a substack. None of this make her a representative of a political movement the way Trump and his associates represent MAGA.
What Byrel said, plus: these are examples. As I said, we could name other tribal examples. Ibram Kendi. Stephen Miller. Joy Behar. Ben Shapiro. Robin DiAngelo. Richard Hanania. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Sarah Palin. Tim Walz. Laura Loomer. Howard Stern. Glenn Beck. On and on and on, until we're exhausted and everything's blurring together. And I guarantee a left's and right's perspective of these figures' importance will differ, widely.
Given that his time in the halls of power was quite short, and that he's openly loathed by major figures on the right like Ben Shapiro, I'm not sure this gets you to him being a fair representative of the movement as a whole. Sure, he's a mainstream figure in some sense... but then, so is anyone who worked at the NYT (in a 'my name is on the article' role) for a few years. Noone thinks that David French is a fringe political actor, in spite of him clearly not representing either left or right.
According to an Emerson poll, ~40% of Democrats either support Mangione's action or are not willing to condemn it. I think this is troubling because it supports the notion that Democrats are willing to resort to political violence.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bLmjKzZ43eLIxZb1Bt9iNAo8ZAZ01Huy/edit?gid=634536498#gid=634536498
I had to calculate the % because the cross tabs didn't direct give the percentage.
> According to an Emerson poll, ~40% of Democrats either support Mangione's action or are not willing to condemn it. I think this is troubling because it supports the notion that Democrats are willing to resort to political violence.
I'm pretty far from being a "Democrat," but I personally think we need ten thousand more Luigis.
In no other industry can you be farmed for ~$500-1k a person, and not use that service at all most months, and then when you DO use it, it's routinely denied and roadblocked, and people just shrug and are like "what can you do?"
So not only do you have to pay frankly extortionate amounts, then you have to waste hours of your own personal time just to get the service you've already dumped many thousands of dollars into!
Would this stand in ANY other industry? Of course not. But people are just expected to shut up and take it here in the USA, because the PMC have good insurance through jobs and don't need to think of it, and it's mostly a problem for poor people and small business owners.
And is there any recourse? None. Is there any feedback mechanism to punish the insurers, or direct your business to effective insurers who actually provide the service they're being paid for? Ha! Nope.
Can you opt out and go to a better system? If you move and get citizenship anywhere else in the world, yes, but if you're in America, no.
The fact that most insurance is tied to employment means that we materially suppress and reduce entrepreneurialism, too. Especially anyone with a family has to think thrice before taking the plunge, because all the Exchange insurances are much crappier than employment-quality insurance, and the prices you'll pay on the Exchange for similar quality insurance IF you can find it are generally significantly higher than employer-quality insurance, due to risk pools and adverse selection.
Another problem with Exchange insurances is that they typically limit it to coverage solely in your home state! You're uncovered in 98% of the US, except for emergency care. Well, what if you live in a tri-state area or the Northeast, and your long-time physician is in another nearby state? Tough luck. Can you just double pay and buy Exchange insurance in multiple states? Nope, illegal. Absolutely ridiculous!
You're literally being held hostage by the worst + most expensive health system in the world, with the stakes your life / bankruptcy.
There is zero feedback mechanism available, either legislative or through voting with your dollars.
Ten thousand more Luigis!
It's the only feebdack mechanism that ACTUALLY works and is actually listened to. Burn the system down, because that's the only way to effect any actual change for the better.
Does it actually work? Has anything about the US health system changed since the attack?
The comparison here runs into confounders. First, Paul Pelosi isn't a powerful politician; he's just married to one. Consequently, his case wasn't center stage relative to Trump. To the extent it was important, it was "violent crime against a politician's close family", which results in a lot of differences that don't really have anything to do with political tribe. If someone had attempted to assassinate Nancy, we would see more similarities.
Moreover, Paul Pelosi was also a wealthy elite, which traditionally puts the left off. You'd have to look carefully for whether the jokes were more like "yeah, take that, ya filthy Democrat!" or "yeah, take that, ya filthy elite!". If they're more the latter, we can expect less pushback coming from the left.
I'm seeing evidence in right-leaning circles of an implicit notion that the right doesn't act on its violent urges as much as the left does. I think the evidence for this is weak (cf. Giffords), albeit not zero (cf. Scalise); while both shooters (Loughner and Hodgkinson) were considered to be suffering from mental illness, it's hard to make that case for, e.g., Mangione. And all the while, this line of reasoning has all the problems from trying to characterize a population by less than 0.000001% of its number.
To maybe get more at the nut of your concern: suppose we agreed that one side *was* abusing norms more than the other. What are you going to suggest as a solution? Norms have to be enforced by something. The right has something of a point here: moral pressure is a good way to enforce them, but it has limited success when people simply disagree about what's moral. The trad right had a scheme for keeping morality unified, and see the left as having undermined it, and that's why we have MAGA now.
Personally, I don't think religious - read: Christian - morality is necessary, and the right's specific flavor of it had some evident problems. At the same time, I also see a lot of people employ faith to good ends, and I notice a strain of Marxism that deconstructed that far farther than it should have, and knocked over Chesterton's fence. Any argument that the right is being unusually violent right now will have to contend with this.
It seems to me that so much of what's driving all this norm-breaking is a sense that "the other side broke norms first, but they broke different norms that we don't have the power to break, whereas we *do* have the power to break *these* other norms". So the left breaks a bunch of norms around keeping politics out of the workplace and having scientific experts not leverage their position for political activism. The right is not able to do those same things, so they break a different bunch of norms around the rhetoric of presidential candidates and accepting election results and so on. The far left hasn't got as much direct power on the left to do those same things to the same degree, so they break a bunch of norms around not supporting assassination attempts (whether of candidates or CEOs). And it keeps going and the worst thing of all is that each side is utterly convinced that only the other side ever broke any norms, because their own norm-breaking is of a different enough kind that they can conveniently fail to notice it.
The only way this cycle stops is if we find some way of making people acknowledge and take responsibility for *all* of their side's norm-breaking. Any thoughts on how to do this?
I completely agree with you. When you confront MAGA types on why they support Trump doing obviously bad things, it's typically "because the left did it first!", although I'll note that whether the left did it first is quite often true, but also sometimes just the result of being cooked in conservative media. I don't how to break that cycle, especially in the conspiracy-driven environment where we live in two fundamentally different realities.
It feels like the only way it would ever occur is either (a) some horrific event has to happen to unify us, although at this point I don't know if that's even possible, like China invades California or something or (b) it just eventually blows over like all political cycles, we're in a heated moment, and eventually we just chill out after being angry at each other for a bit.
A lot of this comes on the back of re-evaluating how I personally approach politics and debating people. I've been quite aggressive in my rhetoric since I was a kid (a child of Hitchens and the New Atheists), but as I get older I see the calmer, more coalition-building style of people like Scott or President Obama and am weighing the advantages and disadvantages of when it's right to go hard and nasty versus the nice and calm way.
Why do you think opposing violence against your political opponents is a game theoretical disadvantage? What advantage would glorifying violence give you? Trump got a significant boost in the polls from the assassination attempt. Joe Rogan said he started supporting Trump due to the assassination attempt and invited him on his show, giving him 59 million views. The famous photo of Trump bloodied but defiant made him look absolutely heroic, according to even far-left talk show hosts like The Young Turks. Those several seconds tanked the Democrats' chances more than any other single event in the whole campaign.
Because if you have one side that never holds their own accountable on these things, doesn't care for norms, and will never pay a price for it, and another that endlessly does, it feels like the norm-disregarding side will always win. From my perch, it seems like not opposing violence against their opponents hasn't harmed the right one bit, although I'm open to being proven wrong about this.
There are people who are on neither side, or are only weakly on one side, who will react to norm-breaking by shifting their support to the other side. So there is always a price.
Against which, what is the *advantage* of breaking this particular norm, that you feel gives the norm-breaking side an unending series of victories? Are you imagining one side literally exterminating the other side's candidates so that they have no one left to vote for and represent their interests? Because that really doesn't seem likely to happen. You'll get a few scattered shootings and other violent acts, and if one side always responds "Yeah, kill them all!" from the leadership and the rank and file, but so what? They still have to go out and win an election, with the same number of voters they had before, against an opposition that has the same number of voters they had before.
> it feels like the norm-disregarding side will always win
That's only the case if the no one is actually enforcing norms. And no, cancelling doesn't count. It was a powerless act that only served to fuel the right's resentment.
From the perspective of the left, why would it matter if not opposing violence hasn't harmed the right, if opposing violence doesn't harm the left while encouraging it does? "The norm-disregarding side will always win" is demonstrably not always true, as Trump's attempted assassination shows.
I also disagree that "the right" as a whole is generally pro-violence. A supermajority of Republicans oppose the January 6 Capitol assault, for example: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-analysis-republicans-jan-6-attack/
To be crystal clear on this again to make sure you understand: I'm not saying the left should *encourage* violence at all. I'm saying personally and rhetorically, I'm finding it hard to find counterarguments for why the left should have any sympathy for violence against right-wingers, since they have none for the left. I would put Tweets like Destiny's in the camp of "not having sympathy" rather than "encouragement".
To phrase it a different way - what if instead of giving the canned public condolences response to violence against Republicans, what if Democrats instead just said nothing at all? Or why should the DNC not meme about it on X? It seems like the only argument against this is that it might backfire politically - which to me just feels like an admission that the two parties are graded on wildly different curves, which is itself untenable.
Also, unless I'm misreading, that CBS News poll you linked shows 72% of Republicans in favor of Trump pardoning J6ers that violently broke into the Capitol.
I don't like the fact that this is where our politics is, but it feels like an unavoidable civility death spiral and unrealistic to say that one side should just be kind and respectful all the time while the other engages in wanton degeneracy.
I wasn't saying the left should have sympathy for violence against right-wingers. I was saying that saying nothing at all about violence against Republicans, or memeing about it on X, does nothing to help the left.
I think your post has mis-represented the poll data.
The summary is "Trump pardoning those who forced their way into the capital". Nowhere is the word "violence" in the summary or in the question (available in the crosstabs). I argue this question is focused just on the questions of pardons, not the event.
Because, in the same poll there is a question about supporting the J6 actions, 69% of conservatives say they disapprove.
As for the pardons, conservatives are rightly concerned that the Democratic Justice Department were way overzealous in charging the protesters and the Justice Department was wrong. I will leave one datapoint to support that claim. SCOTUS ruled that the Justice Department couldn't use an obstruction charge because it was unconstitutional.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rules-jan-6-rioter-challenging-obstruction-char-rcna155902
That’s a pretty weak data point. Nothing unconstitutional occurred. At issue was the meaning of a criminal statute, §1512(c)(2). Because no one had tried to overturn an election before in the way that was attempted on January 6, there were no relevant precedents. The question was a close enough call that different judges had different opinions; eventually the Supreme Court sided with the defense’s interpretation of the statute 6-3.
If the factual allegations in the indictment are true, Joseph Fisher was guilty of violating multiple criminal statutes, just not §1512(c)(2). Even if you believe that the DOJ was “overzealous” in charging a violation of §1512(c)(2), the Supreme Court corrected that by dismissing that count. How does that justify pardoning Fisher on the other counts?
To me, the most salient part of that poll is the name "YouGov" at the top. I've long been suspicious of theirs being push polls, and I'd want to see exactly how they were presented.
Also, here's another periodic reminder to anyone reading this that poll responses are influenced not just by the plain reading of the questions, but also by the tribal affiliation the target wants to express. There a lot of people who will answer a certain way to a question simply because they suspect a trick. They know how these polls get used.
The article you cite explicitly notes that they've softened on the issue. 51% strongly opposed it when it happened, only 30% now. Give it enough time and I expect the right to speak about Jan 6th in the same tone some anti-Westerners talk about October 7th.
In my view, the types of people that cheer on Luigi Mangione and want him to be to be acquitted are much farther from the mainstream Democratic establishment than the people that were cheering on Paul Pelosi's assault, considering one of them is the President's son.
How would you measure that in any kind of objective way? Because it is incredibly easy to confirmation-bias your way into being convinced that your side is 90% angels with an occasional bad apple, and the other side is 90% devils with an occasional well-intentioned dupe. Add in filter bubbles and ideologically-driven choice of media sources, and you can have plenty of people from both sides convinced of this. And indeed, I'd say that's what we actually observe. Tons of folks on the right remember left/elite support for "fiery, but mostly peaceful, protests" and the lauding of Mangione for murdering an insurance CEO, and tons of folks on the left remember right/elite support for the J6 rioters.
This isn’t an objective measurement but Trump did get a laugh from his rally crowd by asking “How’s Paul Pelosi doing?” shortly after the incident. But people at one of his rallies seem to laugh or applaud on cue at those and I guess rally attendees aren’t a representative sample.
Does anyone have a good estimate for how long it will take to build the nuclear reactors required for AGI level data centers in the US, given the legal processes required and construction time?
The real recursive self-improvement of the AI will be its capability to produce paperwork required to be allowed to get more energy.
No nuclear reactors are necessary for AGI-level data centers. Nuclear reactors, or more precisely the steam turbines they drive, generate about as much power as large gas turbines. Gas turbines are much cheaper than nuclear reactors, and can be built much faster and with less bureaucratic hassle or adverse publicity. Nor is there any particular shortage of natural gas at present.
That AGI/ASI proponents insist that nuclear, or even Fusion!!!, power plants are necessary for them to accomplish their goals, is just one more way they exhibit a disconnect from reality.
Not sure whether that makes them more or less of a threat, though.
I'll admit, a small part of me would like them to push for nuclear reactors simply because I think nuclear reactors are a good thing to have, and their arguments might serve to shake the plaque loose from the old arguments against nuke plants that I think are even somewhat mistaken. Good thing, wrong reason.
Only a small part of me, however.
Leopold's Situational Awareness paper has some discussion (ctrl-F for "power") and I think AI-2027 has a power/energy supplement too. IIRC they both conclude that with a bit of creativity (ramping up natural gas, repurposing aluminium smelting, few other tricks) energy will not be a bottleneck until post-2030, which is roughly when we'll hit other walls related to hardware, spending, and algorithmic progress (though that last one is more speculative). So they both conclude that power only becomes a real constraint *if* we hit a slowdown and we get vastly diminishing returns on compute, hardware, and spending before "finding" AGI, in the sense of discovering how much compute + energy + hardware + spending you need for it.
Epic, thanks!
A Google search gives 2030-2035 as the goal for providing the first small nuclear reactors (SNRs) for Google datacenters.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/oct/15/google-buy-nuclear-power-ai-datacentres-kairos-power
This article mentions that another company wants to provide SNRs for Microsoft in the early 2030s.
https://sustainability-news.net/sustainability-news/googles-nuclear-leap-tech-giants-embrace-atomic-power-for-data-centres/
Both are estimates from startups and for a not-yet-existing technology (as far as I know), so they are likely pretty optimistic. Though this Metaculus question is a lot more bullish and gives a 20% chance that 1% of nuclear power in the US comes from SNR by 2030.
https://www.metaculus.com/questions/8677/will-small-modular-nuclear-reactors-supply-at-least-1-of-any-nations-electricity-by-2030/
And this question estimates that 15GW of new nuclear power enters operation in the US by 2035. If I didn't miscalculate, then the US consumes 450GW of electricity, so that would be about 3%. This seems a lot more conservative (and realistic) to me, given that the timeline is five years longer, and it also counts traditional nuclear plants.
https://www.metaculus.com/c/foresight/35099/how-many-new-gigawatts-of-nuclear-power-in-the-us-by-2035/
Google wants to get 0.5GW of electricity by 2035 from SNR, so that would be 0.1% of the US consumption. (Again, if my calculation is right.)
No one knows if AGI level data centers are even possible. If they are possible, no one knows even remotely what their energy requirements will be. There is considerable research being done toward increasing both the energy-efficiency and data-efficiency of training frontier-level models, so odds are that even an otherwise reasonable extrapolation of current requirements will be obsolete by the time it becomes possible to build AGI-level data centers. Obviously, with all of these unknowns, we are totally ready to plan and regulate.
“If they are possible, no one knows even remotely what their energy requirements will be.”
I feel like people actually do have at least some *remote* idea for how much power they will take. We know general scaling trends, and we have general ideas of how much power things will take. OpenAI is already planning to build a 10 GW cluster. I just wanna know how they plan to get the power for that, and how long it will take
I started a discussion on facebook of drug testing and it went in a couple of directions. I started from a status point of view-- drug testing is imposed on low status people even though high status people are making important decisions. People got into the question of effectiveness-- does making drug use less likely improve safety? Maybe, one person said that they were in the Air Force before and after drug testing came in during the 80s, and it became a better place to work. I also found out that in the US military, drug tests goes all the way up to generals.
I got pointed at this: https://addictcollective.substack.com/p/addict-oppression-the-nonmedical which argues that addicts are arbitrarily treated worse, both denied ordinary good things, and punished even if they haven't done any damage.
The argument was made that people who handle heavy machinery and such are less capable if drugged, while the immediate effects are less obvious in a boss or CEO. I *think* that's the argument.
I asked whether people would trust a company more if they knew the people at the top were drug tested. A large majority said no, and offered various structures they prefer. A strong and sensible board of directors. Worker-owned. No MBAs at the top. Is there anything you look for?
Obviously, this is about Musk, but not only about Musk.
Some people can keep control of their drug use. I tried marijuana a few times, but it didn't give me any pleasure so I stopped. I drink alcohol occasionally, and I enjoy it, but I never get drunk. If all people could keep their drug use at this level, we wouldn't need to have a debate about it, because it would be obviously harmless.
Sadly, many people become addicted and it destroys their brains. They get drunk and start doing stupid things that hurt people around them, and then they use "I didn't mean it, I was drunk" as an excuse. I know too many people like that. Then there are the drug junkies who are gradually changing into mindless zombies, and all they care about is getting their next dose. They steal things, work for organized crime, use infected dirty needles, try to recruit other people into addition because dealing drugs to their classmates is an easy source of money.
Of course, if you ask people, *everyone* is in the first group. "I have it under control" is the first thing a junkie will tell you. "It is completely safe, I did my own research", meaning: they know other junkies, and they communicate with each other online, telling each other that despite all evidence to the contrary they are OK. The more often someone talks about how much they have it under control, the less likely it is.
I wouldn't trust a junkie in *any* position. They are basically people whose brains are damaged, and switching between the "drunk/high" and "sober" states makes them like two different people in one body. It does not mater what the sober person told you: whether it made sense, whether they made promises or emotional appeals -- the drunk/high person does not give a fuck about any of that, and probably doesn't even remember it. The drunk/high person is not fully human, and is a threat to everyone around them. And the sober person is guilty of regularly changing to the other one, and exposing everyone around them to the danger.
It's like being a werewolf. "Hey, I am not responsible for the people I hurt when I was in the wolf shape. You can't blame me for that." Okay, and what precautions did you take while you were in your human form, to prevent that? "Uh, why would I take precautions? I just explained to you that you can't blame me." Well, even if I accept your logic that I shouldn't blame your wolf form, I still blame your human form for not even trying to reduce the damage that your wolf form predictably and repeatedly does. A responsible person would chain themselves to a tree before the full moon, or something like that. If you refuse to do that, then yes, in my eyes you *are* responsible for what happens.
Should we punish addicts even when they don't do any damage? In my opinion, we should treat them similarly to people who fire a gun in your direction, but miss you. Those didn't do any damage either. If is perfectly legitimate to wish that no guns should be fired in your direction, and it is just as legitimate to wish to avoid any interaction with addicts.
The article you linked forgets to mention that the greatest danger to homeless people are the addicted homeless people living in the same shelter. So if you make one big shelter for all the homeless people, with no drug testing, that's not tolerance... that's simply not giving a fuck about the safety of those who are not addicted.
I'd very much want the people standing for election to be transparent concerning their substance use. Coke, out. Alcohol, who cares, we'll see if it backfires. Weed, if you make it to the polls, why not? Opioids, do you have secure supply? And so on.
For what it's worth, Of Herbs and Altars, a youtube channel about a life which was risky for a long time, has it that she was functional as heroin addict, but being an alcoholic was wrecking her.
Same goes for prescription drugs: SSRI and SNRI: no; TCA: rather not; roids: depends on dosage, age and sex; GABA stuff: rather not; ketamine: no; levodopa: ok but watchful; lithium: right on.
Low level workers are a lot more likey to be working directly with heavy machinery or doing other things that could easily result in OSHA or workers comp.
Low level workers are also, generally, a lot less filtered for being functional addicts if they are addicts. For management jobs, generally, you have had to show up reliably, been competent at knowledge work, and been presentable in meetings for years or decades. A lot of the lower level jobs that drug test have much lower hiring standards and need to use drug tests to filter out addicts.
I'm ignoring Musk and Silicon Valley majority owners with a cult of personality here - this is more focused on middle management or on CEOs who can easily be deposed by the board. Musk got away with it not because of drug testing, but because he owns so much of his companies that he can't be voted out.
"For management jobs, generally, you have had to show up reliably, been competent at knowledge work, and been presentable in meetings for years or decades"
We've had this already with functional alcoholics, who can manage to show up and do the job until they finally hit the stage where that is no longer possible. Now that it's drugs other than alcohol, I think it's just the same argument: do you want someone who's hung-over/half drunk showing up to work?
What I was trying to say (I don't think it was clear) is that low level jobs are much more likely to accidentally hire non-functional addicts because they're more open to patchy work/education histories.
I also think getting clean enough to pass a drug test is it's own signaling factor, and one that's a lot more meaningful when you don't have others like academic pedigree to rely on.
Drug testing of low level workers is about safety. Drug testing of high level workers is about ethics.
Someone who will quite happily disregard drug laws for their own pleasure is someone who will quite happily disregard other laws for their own benefit, and not someone who should be responsible for making decisions.
> Someone who will quite happily disregard drug laws for their own pleasure is someone who will quite happily disregard other laws for their own benefit
You see this argument a lot. It never actually makes sense.
You also see the same argument made a lot against atheism. If someone is happy to disregard "I am the Lord thy God", obviously they're equally happy to disregard "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor".
In reality, people don't systematize their moral codes. Any principle they use to govern one situation is restricted to that exact situation unless they tell you differently. And for this case specifically, it is far more common to believe that there's something wrong with the drug laws than to believe that the drug laws are just one example of the general principle that you shouldn't follow any laws.
I agree with gdanning. I and hundreds of my acquaintances over the years smoked marijuana before it was legal. Except for our doing that, I can't remember anyone doing anything worse than driving over the speed limit, exaggerating their qualifications at job interviews, and sneaking pets into apts. whose lease prohibited them. No, actually, I did just remember someone who had some jewelry stolen and told us she and her parents were going to make a case it was stolen from her parents house -- there was some advantage to misrepresenting the eventsthat way. But the rest of us were really taken aback by that, & disapproved.
Obviously my friend set is not the whole world, but I think if you looked for correlations in the US between marijuana use in the pre-legalization days and other crime you'd find quite a low one.
>I think if you looked for correlations in the US between marijuana use in the pre-legalization days and other crime you'd find quite a low one.
I have my doubts. I mean, not all pot smokers commit other crimes, but I think people who commit other crimes are far more likely to have smoked pot than the general population.
As a teenager there was a lot of social pressure to drink or to try drugs, and I don't know what else would keep you on the straight and narrow _except_ a general commitment to obeying the rules.
It's useful to remember that P(other crimes | marijuana) is not the same as P(marijuana | other crimes).
Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, but when I was in high school, I drank and occasionally smoked pot, but still absolutely wouldn't steal anything, held the door for old ladies, wouldn't cheat in school, etc.
What kept me and my acquaintances from shoplifting, punching people in bars, making dishonest malpractice claims against doctors, etc. was a general commitment to not harming people plus a personal aversion to doing so except maybe in the case of people we heartily disliked (and for that we still had our general commitment to fall back on.) In other words, as gdanning says, we saw smoking weed as a victimlesss crime. Jeez, it's not a very subtle distinction or a hard point of view to guess.
I mean, consider your own case, or the people you know. You may not commit victimless crimes, but don't you at least break *rules* in situations where you are sure it won't do harm? I'm thinking of things like driving late at night when there are no other drivers you could harm. Don't you, or your acquaintances, ever turn right on red even when there's a sign saying not to at 3 am when the streets are empty? Bring food into a movie theater even though there's a sign saying you can't do that, you gotta eat the shit they sell at the theater? Sneak your dog into a no pets motel, so long as you're confident he doesn't have fleas and is fully housebroken? Well, there you go -- victimless rulebreaking. Same kind of thing.
Except that the drug laws in question are largely victimless, while the other laws are not. So you can't assume that someone who ignores the former will ignore the latter. I routinely jaywalk when there are no cars around, but I don't speed through school zones.
I don't think that it's up to individuals (or CEOs) to decide whether to obey laws or not based on whether they personally think they ought to exist.
Lots of people who aren't you, *do* think that. They believe it, and they live it. So if your plan is to predict human behavior by saying e.g. "If I hire Bob the functional drug user, he's a *lawbreaker* and thus probably a fraud and a thief as well", then you will make bad predictions that will not be borne out by reality.
If that were your goal, you'd be better off asking for their driving record (because mumble something insurance on the company car they'll drive every third blue moon), and fire everyone who's had more than one or two speeding tickets. They're *lawbreakers*, right? And that's a much cheaper way to screen for technically-lawbreakers; just get their signature on the paperwork and submit it to the bureaucracy. But does anybody actually do this?
On the contrary, people do this literally all the time. When I was a young man growing up in a Midwestern state, oral sex was against the written law (albeit basically never prosecuted). I assure you, I gave that law all the respect it was due.
Legally it isn't, but morally and ethically of course it is. We can all think of bad laws that should be disobeyed.
I can think of a lot of bad laws, but doesn't think that this justifies disobeying them, either in my personal or professional life.
That's the point; I think people like you, who think obeying laws is optional and depends on whether you personally agree with them, are a definite class of people, and these people should not be trusted with power.
You mean people like Anne Frank and Harriet Tubman?
I don't know why you treat laws as sacred. They're not. They're rules made by men with power. Many of them will be reasonable. Many of them are not. Many of them are extremely stupid, and *none* of them are always right in every situation.
Nor I, But that is a completely different claim than the one I was responding to. This one is an ethical claim, while the initial claim was an empirical one.
I think that claiming the existence of a "victimless" form of crime is an ethical claim.
I think that it's partly a value claim, but also it's obviously grounded in prosaic/mechanical facts about the world.
As a simple example, in the jaywalking-with-no-one-around case, who can you even imagine to be a victim?
In a more complex example, suppose that a law was written ostensibly based on some factual claim that turned out to be mistaken (eg, we will disallow this behavior or penalize it on the grounds that it causes a specific harm, but actually it doesn't; further suppose that everyone in society agrees that that harm is bad and should be avoided). Is the disagreement about whether the law is a good law really an ethical disagreement?
More generally, I think of laws as sort of emerging as a coordination mechanism--an agreement among people to shape incentives and punish detectors. They are often correlated with normative ideas about what is and isn't good behavior, which has to do with ethics. But it is fundamentally up to each of us to decide what to do conditioned on the existence of the laws we encounter, especially given that the laws may not actually be well-constructed to serve the purpose I described. In this view, willingly deciding to break laws based on your personal moral judgment, potentially aware of the consequences, is a consistent behavior, and maybe one of the only real ones I can think of that's "grounded", unless you believe in moral realism.
(I think a variation of this stands up even in court, or contemporary legal theory: "I broke the letter of the law but not at all its spirit" ideally causes not only the letter of the law to be changed, but even the person subject to the law to be not penalized.)
I'm talking about YOUR claim, not mine. Your claim was that there is a positive correlation between the propensity to ignore drug laws and the propensity to ignore business regulations.
You're the first person I've seen argue that the problem with (illegal) drug use by higher-ups is that they shouldn't be breaking laws, though I did have one person say that drug testing is fine if it's company policy.
I think most jobs in the US have a drug screening before hire. A lot of jobs where impairment creates public safety issues have random drug tests too. Think school bus drivers.
I was sweating a pre employment test for a coding job because i had vacationed in Colorado where cannabis had been legalized the month before. I think a stringent enough test might have found out I had a few gummies while there but the levels to set off alarms were set at a high enough so there was no problem.
My state legalized cannabis a couple years ago so I see gummies for sale at the counter of my Kwiki Mart now.
People constantly worry about extremism online, and how difficult it is to find any apparent moderates speaking up anywhere. My sister worries about this a lot, that everyone seems to be an extremist, and my response to her has been the standard one, that there are plenty of moderates (just look at polls), but they're not as vocal, for a range of reasons to do with motovation, engagement-bait and so on.
But recently, I've noticed another much more radical explanation. (Maybe this is really obvious to some people, but it only hit me in the last few weeks). It's actually almost impossible to coherently present as a moderate in online discussions, at least without enormous effort, given basic facts about human psychology and what it means to have an opinion. Here's the thing: assuming opinions range along a single line (either on a per-issue basis or in overall left-right terms), no matter how close to the middle you are the state of the world or country (or your own jurisdiction) will almost certainly be somewhat to the left or right of your ideal (even if only slightly). And so your vested interest will be overwhelmingly in pushing in the other direction. If things are slightly left of you, or if the left has won just one more election than you think they should have, then you are going to be positioning yourself as basically on the right. Even if you're only very slightly on the right *it won't come across that way*. You might say "now I don't support the other extreme either mind you" all you want, but that will be read not as genuine moderation but as an attempt at persuasion. Which it will be, really, because you just can't bring yourself to really care about fighting a position that's not in power, especially when the real position in power is (to you) too far in the other direction. You'll always sound like "yeah my side isn't perfect and I don't agree with them completely BUT YOUR SIDE FUCK YOUR SIDE" even when you *really are* equally against both sides.
Unless, of course, certain very specific conditions hold, like the level of care you bring to your commenting or the very particular kind of forum you're commenting in. Otherwise I think the above will hold true. I've certainly felt it holding true for me, even when I didn't intend it.
I think this is a huge problem, not so much with the internet itself (as people normally assume) but with the way people interpret the internet. Pre-internet, I imagine, people didn't think that just because someone votes for the same side every time that they are an extremist: they understood that most likely they are simply somewhat further left or right than the current position, and they'll continue voting in that direction unless and until the two converge. People should view an online commenter as exactly like a voter, someone who's entire role is to choose to push things in one direction or the other, based on the entire incentive structure. Instead, people falsely equate an online discussion with a discussion with a friend (where people have no incentive to push consistently in one direction, and numerous incentives to be balanced and honest) and they falsely conclude that lots of people have become more extreme.
I don't think I have had any trouble at all in presenting as a moderate in online discussions; you'll have to decide for yourself if I count as "coherent".
I do have extreme views on some subjects, but they're not the ones that are commonly subjects of online political discourse. So if the discussion is about abortion, or immigration, or tax policy, I don't think I come off as any sort of extremist, except possibly to actual extremists with no sense of perspective. I'll probably be advocating for a policy that is at least somewhat different than the status quo, but so what? "The top marginal tax rate should be 35%, not 37%", is not an extreme position and is not likely to be seen as such.
I'd say you are entirely an outlier covered by the "Unless, of course..." caveat. You write the highest quality, most measured, and well thought out/argued comments on here - your name jumps out at me now. (Good job, by the way!)
People like to view online extremism as downstream of a brevity/nuance tradeoff: social media optimizes for 20-word rage-bait tweets instead of nuanced essays and so that's what drives the debate. In my view that misses the real dynamic which is that social media opens the debate to a different demographic, namely stupid (or at least stupider) people. Being able to make it through a 2000-word Economist article used to be table stakes for participating in the public discussion. That served an important filtering function that sadly we've lost forever.
I think the practical way to deal with this online is to pick high-minded forums (like this one) and to make somewhat opaque intellectually dense comments. If someone has to do cognitive work to decode your tribal affiliation then that will automatically weed out 90% of the jackasses. The ability to be moderate - or at least nuanced in your partisanship - is essentially an IQ test. If you want to have high-IQ discussions then you have to find high-IQ people to have them with.
> If you want to have high-IQ discussions then you have to find high-IQ people to have them with.
This, but also the place has to be moderated. Because there will always be a few idiots who join... and then it depends on the moderation whether they are quickly kicked out, or they can keep ruining the debate.
Unfortunately, most internet places these days optimize for "more is better", even if that means stupid debates.
"It's actually almost impossible to coherently present as a moderate in online discussions, at least without enormous effort, given basic facts about human psychology and what it means to have an opinion."
I think it's completely possible. It's just hard to *stand out*. The internet is teeming with moderates we simply don't notice. If you and I agree on practically every issue, you're simply not going to be aware of me, and vice versa.
Moreover - as you imply - if you and I agree on every issue except one, then you'll only notice that one difference, and I might come off as a radical, and vice versa. If it's a slight disagreement, neither of us will think it's worth arguing the point, so it won't appear. Or we will, because we're argument nerds, and then we'll present as argument nerds - another non-moderate archetype.
+1
In most discussion fora online, ISTM that a moderate and sensible argument is much less likely to get a response than an over-the-top, kinda unhinged one.
This is the strongest reason I can think of for enabling up/down votes on arguments; moderates can register one as a response without the hassle of a full text response. (Irony alert, btw.)
It's merely a shame they can be gamed into uselessness almost as easily.
We are pushed to extreme positions by each other's anger, insults, self-righteousness and snotty sarcasm. It's partly because we're conversing online, and so lack lots of info that would neutralize the illusion that the other person is nothing but a little plastic container of beliefs we don't share. But the strongest influence has been social media, especially Twitter, which is set up to optimize total indignation, because indignation engages people better than anything else -- better than kindness, reliable & interesting information, great jokes, you name it.
I've come to believe that having a feed algorithm curating what I see is usually bad, and that having one that is optimized for stickiness/engagement is very bad. I much prefer services like Substack, where I get to decide what to read.
Any update on the review contest?
Scott posted a week ago he just had to take care of a few loose ends. My fantasy is that some complicated mess has developed having to do with some reviewers having done something that involves a judgment call -- like do we allow this or not?. Or maybe it looks as though somebody has done something like plagiarize, but it's not very much & was done by accident, and Scott's going back and forth with them trying to arrive at a fair decision. However, that's all a novel in my mind.
My fantasy involves that Scott did not mention in very bold letters that everyone should make their google docs accessible from link. And that he now has a few docs that he can't access, the authors don't react to his email, that he vaguely feels guilty for forgetting to mention that issue in advance, so that he wants to give them at least a decent amount of time to react before abandoning their docs.
Actually, I know it can't be that because I was one of the people who failed to make my google doc accessible to anyone with the code. I got an email from Scott a week ago asking me to set the doc to anyone with the code could read it, and saying I had 2 days to fix the problem. (I fixed it immediately & replied to email saying it was fixed.)
Ah ok. I stand corrected.
When Thinking Feels Like Breaking the Rules
I study dentistry in Iraq.
But to understand it, I found myself pulled—almost involuntarily—into physics, chemistry, mathematics, and systems biology.
Not for status, not for grades, but because questions in medicine don't make sense to me unless I understand what's happening at the smallest, most fundamental levels.
And yet... this kind of thinking often feels like a violation.
In my academic system, curiosity beyond the syllabus is treated like a distraction.
Asking "why?" too many times is frowned upon.
Trying to connect disciplines is "going too far."
Memorizing pathways, names, and protocols is rewarded.
Thinking? Often not.
But what's the point of repeating facts if we're not allowed to ask what they mean, or why they behave the way they do?
If your mind is truly awake, you eventually feel the walls closing in—not because you hate learning, but because you love it too much to see it reduced to obedience.
So, I ask:
Has anyone here faced something similar?
Have you found ways to preserve your curiosity—even when the system seems built to suppress it?
Any advice is deeply appreciated.
Sometimes the problem is that the teachers are insecure about their knowledge. They fear that you might ask them something they can't answer.
Why would not knowing something be such a bad thing? No one knows *everything*, right? I guess the problem is that there are actually too many things they don't know, often quite basic ones. Better stay within the safe narrow path of "this is what I tell you, you memorize it".
How to preserve curiosity? Find other sources -- read books or find internet sources, talk to classmates if there are curious ones. (Maybe ask an AI. Beware of hallucinations, verify the story on the internet afterwards.)
Curiosity is a blessing. No need to tell your teachers. Stash what you learn and go for a position of autonomy with patience.
As someone who teaches college classes (engineering and physics), I love being asked questions that stray a bit from the planned path, especially in interesting ways.
In office hours I take as much time as we need and it’s great. In class, I have to balance my own desire to go off in unplanned directions with the knowledge that many students only want to know what’s on the exam and aren’t curious in the same way, and they need more time and energy put on covering and working through core material. Also, even if I “know” the answer, if I haven’t prepared, I don’t always have a good path from the students current level of understanding to answering their question satisfactorily.
If it helps, I have to exercise self-restraint on my own curiosity sometimes as well. If I’m making some stairs, I only have so much time I can devote to it. As interesting as it can be to look up differences in building code across countries and states (honestly, not sarcastically), sometimes I just need to find the code that applies to me so I can get the dang stairs built.
My advice: learn the core material and don't let your curiosity distract you from learning key skills. But also, embrace your curiosity, especially in your spare time. Find the teachers who encourage you to explore, and don’t annoy the ones who don’t.
Yes, absolutely. In the US. So many times, I have confused people by asking questions they find irrelevant. I did have a few lucky conversations (all in computer science contexts, perhaps that's relevant) where the person answered "____ domain is above my pay grade" or "That's a different abstraction level from what we're working on right now." These responses helped me figure out that other people are able to compartmentalize enough to develop instrumental knowledge without needing every detail, sometimes consciously but usually unconsciously. I am figuring out ways to cope with it such as making notes on the details of my confusions and then bringing those questions to people or forums which are more likely to be domain experts. I agree that for an applied science like dentistry, that means soliciting explanations from the natural sciences, or researchers rather than practicing physicians.
I might mention that it's easy to accidentally threaten someone's feeling of mastery or come off as rude by asking a question someone doesn't know the answer to. And if they don't feel like they need the answer to your question, it can be tough for them to understand why you would need it. A more tactful approach than, for example, raising your hand in a lecture and engaging the lecturer in a back and forth could be staying after and asking them one on one, "I was fascinated by ____ you spoke about today. What is your recommendation to learn more about this?" Maybe they have a colleague or book they can point you to.
It takes a lot of fortitude and emotional regulation to hold onto unanswered questions and tolerate the process of trial and error to beat a path towards deeper understanding. I often haven't been up to the task and succumbed to apathy. It helps to not take it personally when people get frustrated when they aren't able to help you, and keep in mind that it's usually not hostility, it's just that they are trying to be helpful and feel like they are failing at that. Expressing gratitude for their time and effort, and reiterating what you DID learn from the interaction, can make the process more pleasant for everyone.
How do you prioritize conflicting goals?
I've somewhat overcommitted myself for the next couple of months (prepping for actuary exam P, taking a community French class, taking 1 aerial silks class and climbing twice per week, a couple yoga classes, losing a few lbs, and keeping up my running mileage, on top of a full time job).
Day to day I seem to be prioritizing working out, but the longer I go without putting serious effort into Exam P, the more likely it is that I'm going to fail it in late July. I'm not sure whether to consider this a revealed preference that I don't really want to be an actuary, but when I do manage to get settled to study, I do enjoy it.
How much money is the exercise offering?
You have to do the things that need doing, because that's how you can afford to do the things that want doing. "Work is less fun than not-work" is no surprise, and has to be actively resisted to get work done.
Cut the climbing in half, cut the running down, get the paperwork done, run and climb in celebration. Hell, do the aerial silks and the yoga at the same time, that sounds compatible.
(Is it ironic that "lose a few pounds" is entirely padding?)
Level 1 - sounds like standard procrastination. I know working out isn't the best example of not "working" but...
Level 2 - I walked away from being an actuary 18 years ago and it was a great decision. I now manage a sizeable fixed income fund. That's a hard field to get properly into - but I found the work more interesting immediately.
Unlike you perhaps, I knew in my gut becoming an actuary was a mistake within the first couple of hours on the job. I did it for another 2 years while lining up a job in investment management. Over that time I passed a few of the actuary exams and I failed some others - I was just going through the motions to stay in the role until I got my parachute out. "Burn your ships"
If you were studying accounting, I'd say get your head down and get qualified then pivot to something more interesting. But the trouble with that strategy applied to qualifying as an actuary (which is still a very strong addition to a CV for a variety of non-actuary jobs) -is I think the best paid job (day 1) with the actuary qualification is as an actuary by a decent margin. I saw the incentives my future self would be up against and decided to move on quickly.
My view on professional exams (I've got the CFA designation) is unlike university or high school, being intelligent makes far less of a difference to success. You just have to put the hours in. If the professional body tells you an exam takes 250 hours and you think you're probably in the top 10% of people studying for that exam (and maybe you really are) - to be fairly sure of a pass, you've still got to put in more like 250 hours than 200 hours, and 150 hours is likely going to result in a fail.
What was it that led to you stepping away from becoming an actuary?
Context on why I'm looking at it:
I've got a math degree and currently work as a data engineer. I want to get out of the tech industry and especially away from carrying a production support pager, and I don't want to go to graduate school. I also want to stay in a higher salary range than data analyst jobs here are. I like numbers much more than the average person, but I'm not very finance-y.
I'm also pretty set on staying in my current midsize city, which limits overall job options.
I've done a fair bit of cleaning disgusting datasets in atrocious legacy formats for my job and fitting models in some classes in college, and I find that enjoyable and my understanding is that that's a decent portion of the day to day actuary job. The actual process of prepping for the exam is enjoyable, I have just been procrastinating a lot.
Other context:
I have ADHD in the unmistakable from a young age and rediagnosed on sight by several psychiatrists throughout my life way (I'm pretty sure the term "hyperverbal" is in all of my psych notes). There's some amount of futzing around with stimulant doses or timing that I could try, but I'm doubtful it'll make a massive difference at this point.
I suspect the exercise and extreme sports habits are somewhere between effects of the ADHD and self medication for the ADHD.
I recently started studying to transition from data analyst to data engineer. Is it typical to be on-call in most positions? Are there any other downsides to the role that have made you want to change fields?
A lot of the downsides to my job are related to my particular team and company.
Yes, a lot of data engineering roles will have some amount of production support. The details of the rotation vary pretty widely.
In general, I don't get to look at or play with data much day to day. The bulk of our work is managing data infrastructure on AWS and the actual transformation logic is a pretty small portion.
Random commentary, because I'm an actuary and have worked in the field for more than 20 years. I like it, but it's worth noting that it's a lot more normie, and less weird, than it used to be. (Like most technical fields - an oversupply of Asian applicants means companies select for "professional fit" much more than was the case 20 years ago.)
Biggest thing to know - the tests will take over your life, for several years. And the jobs are great, but they are very geography-specific. OCD is nearly a job qualification, as is ASD.
Explaining things is the part I like, but you really have to finish with the exams before you usually get to do a lot of it.
If you can pass P, I'd job-hunt even with one exam - data science/actuary is a valuable combo, and getting study time at work makes it much easier.
So it does sound like you are a better fit for becoming an actuary than me.
If you'll excuse the fact that now as I describe the things about actuarial work and my fellow actuaries that I didn't like - it might seem like an attack on you - I'm just going to do that anyway because the information will be useful to you as you compare your preferences to mine. And let me caveat with - different kinds of people... rich tapestry of life... different not better... I really believe those things and I don't hold a grudge against the firm that started off my working life.
I'm good with numbers but I like putting them in context, like dealing with people, with wider commercial matters, making judgements on businesses and business decisions. When I started as an actuary I realized the vast majority of my job would be effectively just be doing maths homework. That wasn't enough for me. The confusion had come in because I worked for one of the more prestigious firms, the job title was "consultant" and the interview process was pretty involved and indicated to me they valued analysis and presenting skills. Maybe they did - 10 years into the career. But it was my mistake and not helped by me being very lazy if I'm not inherently interested. Peer pressure, admiration or admonishment from bosses have less of an impact on my work ethic.
I also found my fellow actuaries to be pretty boring. There seemed to be a lack of intellectual curiosity - even on maths. In fairness, I guess they were all just very focused on the job and if I'd been willing to discuss stuff practically related to what we were doing I think there would have been more engagement. But there was never any wider wonder. Too much of a mismatch on that kind of thing and you feel pretty gaslit. I do remember after I resigned a colleague said to me "The things you'd say during meeting were hilarious - but I just couldn't react at the time cause you know, its not how they like it."
Actuaries tend to be extremely risk adverse. So they won't bring a junior to a meeting because of some imagined issue it might create in the clients mind. They won't let you use a new process without layers of committees and management involvement. They'd have us manually sum the columns in printed excel worksheets. "I just feel better if everything is checked." I felt like I was employed to confirm other people's OCD...
Maybe this was just my consultancy being very corporate - but it was a similar vibe at the multi-firm tutorial sessions I would attend as part of the exam prep. They weren't mean. They were just a bit gray.
In reference to carrying a support pager. I was never on call but this was my first job and I was also not a fan of working into the evening. I carry a lot of entitlement and it's served me personally, quite well. Other people, other times - maybe it would have dead-ended my career. I say this not to boast but I got my economics degree at Cambridge maybe that made my expectations realistic. So I decided a certain amount of money and status was coming to me and didn't expect to have to really slog for it year after year. Sprint somethings, be nimble somethings - sure - but not grind. I'm lucky that portfolio management while difficult - is concentrated in its hours. There's nothing that can happen which requires you to work late. The clients don't have deadlines. You dedicate as much time as you think is appropriate to making your investment decisions, you undertake the trades in market hours and you go home. You'll get it right or wrong and more importantly you come up with stories about your performance that people will or won't believe. But there aren't projects. A lot of employers of actuaries are billing by the hour - so they are going to want max hours from you. A lot the projects have deadlines - like end of year accounting or pricing up a big block of business as part of a deal. You'll get sucked into working late so that deadline is met.
"I've done a fair bit of cleaning disgusting datasets in atrocious legacy formats for my job and fitting models in some classes in college, and I find that enjoyable and my understanding is that that's a decent portion of the day to day actuary job." - This sounds like a good fit and you are correct!
ADHD feels like a harder fit. But then you already know it's a hard fit for a lot of office work and you're already making that work.
Hmm, some of what you describe RE: work hours is pretty different from what I've heard about in house actuaries at American insurance firms. I'm assuming this might be a difference with UK consulting firms.
I think other than becoming an actuary I'm in the data engineering/software engineering space if I want to maintain the same income/lifestyle without going back to school. I think the actuary exams are about as much finance as I would actually want to know
Yeah in house is gonna be better. Probably means billable hours isn't a thing. Maybe you still fill out a timesheet for their own management information but there won't be the same pressure to fill it up. Projects with tight deadlines can theoretically happen anywhere (boring old company deciding to transform a process in a hurry) - but if the company isn't in the business of deal making, should be limited.
Like some Life Companies - their entire thing is buying-out pension schemes which involves a big rush to price the risk accurately and then (with less time pressure) more efficiently match the assets and liabilities. In house work there will have regular bouts of pressure and long hours.
But there's also going to be plenty of business as usual use of actuaries in insurers that doesn't involve any "big pushes". Presumably Property and Casualty - you're running models all the time to make sure you are taking on the right risk at the right price - but its all so small and incremental no given day particularly matters. It's not a race.
Are you planning to put yourself through all the exams yourself and then get a job at a firm? Maybe that's the only way to make the transition - I've no idea. But that is tough! I got paid a salary, got my exams and tutorials paid for and given 2 half-day a week to study. And I still moaned about the hours!
It seems like the process here is math degree + P and/or FM, get a job as a "actuarial analyst," and then you're given some amount of study time on the job and expected to pass a couple exams a year, with occasional resits. There's raises every exam and title changes every few exams, and people typically reach the ASA designation 4ish years in and then if they wish they can push further to hit FSA.
So I'm trying to pass P in July, and probably take FM the next sitting or the sitting after, and start applying for jobs.
I usually don't self-promote, but I summarized Scott's writing advice from Dwarkesh Patel's podcast:
https://solhando.substack.com/p/where-have-all-the-good-bloggers
I can't remember another time when Scott discussed writing advice previously, so I think it is useful to have in condensed in writing rather than being overshadowed by AI-2027 which was the primary discussion. This is a cleaned up post from Reddit, so if you may have already seen it.
Also, if anyone has recommendations for NYC tech-week, let me know. Asking in last week's open thread got me invited to some interesting dinners, so it can't hurt to try again!
A while ago he wrote this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/
Thanks, I just added it to the end of my post. Interestingly, there's basically no overlap with what he said on the podcast. One seems to be specific writing advice (as in, how to write better), another advice on how to be a good writer.
great post on an important topic
In July 2024, someone tried to assassinate presidential candidate Donald Trump. The general online-world consensus was that the would-be assassin should be condemned. Anyone wishing the attempt was successful should be ostracized for encouraging violence.
In December 2024, a healthcare CEO was assassinated in NYC. The general online-world consensus was that the assassin should be celebrated. Anyone wishing for the assassin to face repercussions should be ostracized.
What explanations do people have for this? Did different groups win the discourse around each event? Was there a drastic vibe-shift in the 5 month interim?
One assassin succeeded, one failed and died.
Could be differential self-censorship.
It's a trope (I'm not sure of the actual truth) that talking about killing the President (even jokingly) can draw unwanted attention from Federal law enforcement; there's no such expectation for killing CEOs.
Such an effect is probably also heightened by the particular outcomes. Wishing that a failed assassination attempt had succeeded might be construed (at least by an enthusiastic DA) as making a threat, but celebrating a successful one wouldn't be (the only potential target of a threat is already dead).
Celebrating a successful one might be a threat, if the target has viable and ideologically equivalent replacements. If you liked that OBL got ganked by Seal Team 6, it's a safe bet you'll support the assassination of OBL's successor. (Obviously, the US government won't be concerned, but AQ probably would.)
If you celebrated Thompson getting killed in NYC, the USG might be correct in wondering if you'll help with the next rich CEO on someone's list.
Plausible, but likely too far removed from people's naïve impression of the world to induce self censorship.
I can think of 3 reasons. 1) Trump has populist appeal and the CEO didn't. People viewed the CEO through an anti-elitist lens. 2) Mangione is much more charismatic than the Trump assassin was. 3) Assassinating a US President (or leading candidate) ticks too many "ok this is objectively bad" boxes even for leftwing partisans. We may not have many shared political norms left but that's still one of them.
The meaning of "online-world" can only be "mainstream leftist-progressive online discourse", your comment doesn't make sense otherwise.
Understood that way, what changed is that Trump is merely a right-wing wannabe dictator, but the healthcare CEO was the face of capitalism as understood by contemporary anti-capitalists.
Killing a major demon isn't as cool or powerful as wounding the devil, you see.
It's also apples and oranges because only one of these people died. I'm not just going to assume the calls for condemning a successful Trump assassin will be even stronger than they were for a would-be assassin.
None of the people praising Luigi would be silent if he had failed either. I think you wouldn't see much of a difference with a successful Trump assassin either - those who think political violence is always bad will condemn him, those who don't will defend him.
The entire country caught a big break that Trump wasn’t seriously harmed.
From my vague sense of the discourse, a lot of the pro-CEO-assassination attitude was centered around "there was no other way he'd face justice" or "there was no other way to stop him killing people with his fraud". Setting aside the factuality of these claims, which I don't know, these strike me as sympathetic arguments if the claims are true.
On the other hand, Trump was literally about to face the people in an election. The legitimate way to stop him was so undeniably clear that an assassination attempt (were it done for that reason) could only be read as an attack on democracy itself.
For even anyone who thinks assassination can sometimes be justified, it's almost impossible to think of a *less defensible case* than a political candidate right before an election.
I guess I'll throw in I'm pretty sure the assassination attempt was triggered by Biden's terrible debate performance, and then-unwillingness to step down. As in, they thought the election was no longer a viable way to remove Trump.
It's my understanding that the shooter was the unhinged school shooter type, and not politically motivated.
This seems correct, yea.
Assuming for the sake of argument that "the general online-world" consensuses played out as detailed - from the hip, one big difference stands out to me. The threat of reprisals.
In the presidential candidate assassination fact pattern, you have two roughly similarly-situated "sides" consisting of political parties with leaders, rank and file members, and unaffiliated/semi-affiliated hangers-on. Both "sides" also contain loose cannons who plausibly could start shooting each other's leaders, so there is a mutual incentive to denounce "assassinate the other side's leaders" as a legitimate tactic.
In the healthcare CEO scenario, there is no such symmetrical threat. If healthcare companies said "okay, gloves off, my side's gonna start assassinating your CEOs too..." who would they assassinate in the first place? There's not exactly any "CEO of people on the internet who hate corporations" for them to take aim at.
And that asymmetry then shapes expectations. Everyone fears a retaliatory spiral where right wingnuts are shooting left leaders while left leaders shoot right wingnuts, so all the prominent voices in the debate have direct incentive to denounce the Trump shooting. But nobody seriously fears a retaliatory spiral where anti-corporate nutjobs shoot corporate leaders and big corporations start shooting important people of any stripe in response, so the incentive structure doesn't drive "both sides" to a unified response.
>Everyone fears a retaliatory spiral where right wingnuts are shooting left leaders while left leaders shoot right wingnuts
Excellent typo. Coming this summer: Obama: First Blood.
Good catch, that is amazing. Obviously not my intent, but I may just leave it as-is.
> In the healthcare CEO scenario, there is no such symmetrical threat. If healthcare companies said "okay, gloves off, my side's gonna start assassinating your CEOs too..." who would they assassinate in the first place? There's not exactly any "CEO of people on the internet who hate corporations" for them to take aim at.
They could throw their lot in with Trump. Convince him to take active measures to keep the rabble in line. He would be willing and capable of doing it, unlike his opposition.
In agreement but as an addition. Enough assignations of presidents and maybe people don't want to be president anymore. Or at least you cut down your pool of applicants. That's not a useful thing for the institution that is the USA. Presumably its part of the story of why narco states are not great places.
Enough assignation of CEOs of "bad" companies and maybe no one wants to be CEO of a "bad" company... That's what the general online-world wanted right?
When the FBI tries to arrest the heads of drug cartels, maybe its at least partially an attempt to end those organizations. The general online-world might have felt the law wasn't achieving everything it should have.
Now you can argue that healthcare is too necessary to be "bad". But if the assignation was of a tobacco CEO...
It can be argued that health care CEOs are _already_ assassinating important people of any stripes. It's easy to find news stores about X person who goes denied coverage for a live saving treatment from their insurance, and thus maybe died as a result. So it might even been seen as turnabout being fair play for this context.
An assassination is, by definition, targeted. That doesn't apply to health insurance.
So if someone killed all insurance CEOs with a cancer drug deny rate over 5%, that wouldn't be assassination?
That would be multiple assassinations. Unless they all happened to be in one place and someone targeted that place rather than the specific people there.
People are more divided about Trump than they are about insurance companies.
This.
Health insurance company CEOs have next to no fans because health insurance companies have next to no fans.
Much like ISP provider CEOs (who here *likes* Comcast or AT&T?).
And probably tobacco company CEOs.
If the CEO of Ticketmaster (with their 30% convenience fees tacked on to ticket prices ...) was killed tomorrow I expect few tears and possibly rejoicing.
Trump has a fairly large fan base compared to these folks.
"health insurance companies have next to no fans" -- sort of, but also sort of not.
National surveys not conducted or paid for by health insurers regularly find that majorities of Americans rate their own health insurance carrier anywhere from "good" to "excellent". The exact numbers depend somewhat on the wording but here are some recent examples:
https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/poll-finding/kff-survey-of-consumer-experiences-with-health-insurance/
https://theacsi.org/industries/finance-and-insurance/health-insurance/
At the same time, majorities of Americans dislike the health care system as a whole:
https://today.yougov.com/topics/economy/survey-results/daily/2024/12/05/1f174/1
https://news.gallup.com/poll/4708/healthcare-system.aspx [second chart]
Meanwhile those who have heard a tale of a health insurer doing something awful to someone -- which in the age of social media is essentially everyone -- generalize that to assigning "evilness" to that sector generally. This is true even if their own direct experiences with health insurers have been seamless.
It's sort of a version of the old political-science thing about people liking their own Congressman while hating Congress.
I’m not so sure reactions were different. Most of the people I know who are comfortable being frank said at the time that they wished the guy who tried to kill Trump had succeeded. And these weren’t mostly college-aged people being edgy. they were middle-aged professionals living in blue east-coast states.
I mean, I don't know if either consensus was as uniform as you're presenting it, but one factor that might have made the healthcare CEO assassin more popular if indeed your description is accurate, is that he was good looking
That may well have stretched the story out, but people were celebrating it before any pictures of him were released.
Yeah, that's a good point
I don't mean to say the response was uniform, but it seemed like the the takes I presented were the ones that became the prevailing narratives.
If you are right, I guess any down-on-their-luck actors should consider moonlighting as hitmen for some steady work.
Yeah sure, I shouldn't have said uniform; I just meant that I'm pretty sure I've seen lots of "why'd the assassin miss?!?!", often from the same people who were Luigi-curious at least. But I don't want to pretend that I have a good sense of what the online breakdown actually was.
Anyone know of a good analysis of the recent Polish presidential election result from someone personally familiar with Polish politics? It would be useful to understand more why the electorate seems to have shifted right-populist relative to the 2023 parliamentary elections. E.g. is this an analog of the thermostatic "the US President's party almost always loses seats in the midterms" phenomenon or is it other factors?
I am not sure that it needs so much explanation. It's not a landslide, I think the amount is just a normal shift from one election to another, especially when it's about different types of elections. In the parliament election PiS and KON together won 42.6 percent. Plus there were some percentage points on other parties. In general, the pattern was that the right won rural areas and the Eastern part, and the left won big cities and the Western part.
People were very mobilized against PiS in 2023 due to heated discussions about the judicial reform, and about a scandal of selling (supposedly very many) VISA illegally to non-EU citizens. I didn't notice any heated discussion now (though I don't live in Poland). For those reasons the election in 2023 was an outlier in terms of left-majority, and we are back to normal now. Actually, if I am not mistaken, the presidential election now was *still* much further left-leaning than other elections in the last 10-20(?) years or so, except for 2023. I think that's enough of an explanation.
Perhaps this getting tedious, but I'd love to see some response from Scott to my discussion of how he screwed up the Bayesian analysis of Covid origins. https://michaelweissman.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-scott-alexander
Why? To quote from that blog:
"The people who need to hear something like the straight story are the liberal-leaning 17% or so of the American public who think that the lab leak idea is improbable, including the 5% of the public, again concentrated among liberals, who are quite sure it didn’t happen. Many of those think that lab leak is a far-fetched right-wing fable. Over the years you’ve made a point of challenging the mild liberal consensus, sometimes to an extent that you seem to now regret. The origin of Covid is an odd topic on which to choose to coddle the comforting canonical viewpoint. Beliefs about covid origins are hardly the hottest-button topic in politics but it is among the topics for which encouraging liberals to stay in their bubble isolates them from the large majority and gives the impression of willful lack of realism. It’s particularly hard to argue against the actual conspiracy theories, often tied in to anti-vax fables, while holding on to the now implausible zoonotic account. Why should anyone outside the choir listen?"
On the Scott's related discussion of optimal public health measures, the real issue is not how many died due to Covid (his 1.2M in the US may be a slightly low estimate) but the set of counterfactuals. What would have happened with different measures? It's pretty clear that the not-well-aimed measures taken delayed enough cases to avoid the mortality reaching the ~2.2.M that would have happened otherwise. So those awkward measures, so often reviled now, saved ~1M lives.
Better-aimed measures, based on admitting what was known but denied early on, that the main transmission mechanism was via aerosols, could have saved more lives with no more disruption. This issue connects with the origins issue because both involve excessive condescension and lack of candor by experts.
> "So those awkward measures, so often reviled now.."
"Often" gives us wide latitude, and in case people falsely think it is a majority view that COVID measures are now reviled, please see this Pew poll from February of this year.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/02/12/5-years-later-america-looks-back-at-the-impact-of-covid-19/
44% think the measures were about right, 18% think they were insufficient.
Public health officials, CDC, local hospitals get net positive ratings.
The view that these are reviled, and there was some cover up may be the view that is more popular in a "bubble".
Good point, and reassuring. I'm thinking of the buzz in the trendy magazines, etc., and the anti-public-health drumbeat from HHS, NIH, etc.
Secretary Hegseth recently announced dramatic cuts at a small Pentagon office responsible for evaluating the safety and efficacy of the tools our warfighters rely on. All senior leaders were fired, the staff cut by more than half, and the office’s budget reduced by more than 80%. These cuts are misguided. This Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) serves a critical role informing warfighters, Congress, and the public about whether the billion-dollar systems the Services want to buy actually work. Without the objective information DOT&E provides, billions more will be wasted on ineffective systems that put the lives of American servicemembers at risk.
Here are news reports about the decision:
https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2025/05/28/hegseth-directs-reorg-of-pentagon-testing-office-appoints-new-leader/
https://defensescoop.com/2025/05/28/hegseth-restructure-odote-test-evaluation-office-workforce/
The text of Sec. Hegseth’s memo is here:
https://media.defense.gov/2025/May/28/2003725153/-1/-1/1/MEMORANDUM-DIRECTING-REORGANIZATION-OF-THE-OFFICE-OF-THE-DIRECTOR-OF-OPERATIONAL-TEST-AND-EVALUATION.PDF
You can read the public version of DOT&E’s reports here:
https://www.dote.osd.mil/annualreport/
I know there are a million things going on these days, but please consider reaching out to your Congressional representatives and ask them to preserve DOT&E and ensure that it is staffed and resourced to continue to effectively serve the warfighter and the public. Traditionally, DOT&E has been a bi-partisan priority for Congress (John McCain and Elizabeth Warren, for example, were/are strong proponents), so polite messages to your Senators in particular but also Representatives could help push them towards intervening.
https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
I've dealt with the DOTE on a professional basis. They are a do-nothing sinecure that has no authority and even less impact on the procurement process. Specifically, they "provide oversight of testing," but do not write test procedures or requirements, nor provide any real expertise as far as I can determine.
As Melvin notes, they really don't seem to do anything at all, and I was less than impressed with the competence of the individuals from that office I met. I would speculate they are a dumping ground for over-credentialed and under-competenced officers.
There are currently 12 uniformed officers at DOT&E, so if it's a "dumping ground", it's not a particularly big one.
I can't speak to your professional experience with DOT&E, but I agree that they don't do testing. I gave a longer response below to Melvin about their mission and why it's valuable. Like many oversight organizations, the value becomes abundantly clear in its absence. If anything, the modern acquisition environment with cost-plus contracts and an ever-narrowing set of viable contractors for major acquisition systems strengthens the case for independent oversight over what it was in the 1980s.
You also made a few factual errors. DOT&E has statutory authority to approve test strategies and test plans. It's also been the historic interpretation that they have authority to write test policy, but these days lots of historic interpretations and conventions seem up for grabs. Historically, DOT&E has avoided micromanaging test procedures at the behest of the Services and test ranges, each of which tends to want to do things in their own way. I have views about whether a more unified approach DOD-wide would be an improvement, but that would mean strengthening DOT&E rather than gutting it.
The memo talks a lot about redundancy. I would assume that testing stuff is something that the individual branches of the military do with their own equipment? And that DOT&E with their 80 staff members isn't big enough to actually go around conducting all that many tests on their own?
I followed the annual report link, and then followed a link to a particular project at random, the Army's Common Tactical Truck https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2024/army/2024ctt.pdf?ver=Wp9l8JiSxBco_ivmaVvIKQ%3d%3d
It tells me that the Army got some soldiers to test out a bunch of trucks, and that "DOT&E provided input to the Ops Demo and observed it, but the test plan did not require DOT&E approval, as the intention was to inform requirements". Reading through this report it's unclear what the DOT&E really added to this whole project that the Army couldn't have done on its own.
Let me pick another one at random, this one is an Air Force helicopter https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2024/af/2024hh-60w.pdf?ver=BC4uFNrTmNGHIcFq-F8uwQ%3d%3d -- again it seems like the Air Force did all the testing, and that the role of DOT&E is to approve the test plan and observe it.
Yes, DOT&E doesn't execute tests. They assess test adequacy and provide reports to Congress and the public. In this, their mission is different from that of the test agencies operated by the Services.
A key difference is that Service test agencies are part of their chain of command. Whatever the report says is, in some sense, at the discretion of the Service command. When the Service's interests are aligned with the public's and with Congress's, that's fine. But typically the Services are in bitter conflict with one another and with Congress over funding. For example, if you cut the funding for the Army Common Tactical Truck, you might see that funding re-directed to the Air Force Helicopter. This means that the Services have a strong incentive to advertise that their programs are raging successes.
By virtue of their independence for Service chains of command, DOT&E doesn't have this same incentive. This is the reason Congress stood up the agency back in the 1980s after a series of embarrassing episodes where the Services delivered reports that would by any reasonable standard be viewed as, at minimum, flagrant lies. If you're interested in learning about this, read up on the development and "testing" of the Sgt York. Or you could just watch the movie, "Pentagon Wars" if you want a sensationalized version. DOT&E is Congress's guarantee that they, and the public, since DOT&E must publish public reports on systems, unlike the Services, that they'll get an independent look at the systems the Services want them to authorize billions of dollars in spending on.
OK, but you started off with the claim that it's "responsible for evaluating the safety and efficacy of the tools our warfighters rely on" which I bothered to investigate because it sounded an implausibly large job for a small agency. Now it turns out that it's actually responsible for being a layer of approvals bureaucracy inserted into the testing program with the supposed aim of solving incentive problems that arise when you let branches conduct their own testing.
I could imagine how such an agency might be worthwhile. On the other hand I could also imagine how the extra drag created by adding an extra layer of independent approvals and oversight to everything might be a net loss.
Either way this whole dumb conversation could have been avoided if you'd clearly stated the actual role of the agency the first time around, rather than the second.
The claim is true. DOT&E statutorily has two main jobs. The first is approving test plans and test strategies. The second is writing reports ("evaluations") of systems to inform Congress, the public, and the war fighter. You're focusing on the approval layer, but DOT&E is legally mandated to write reports assessing system survivability, effectiveness (including lethality), and suitability. This is what it means to "evaluate the safety and efficacy of the tolls our war fighters rely on".
If you want to read the statutory language, it's in Title 10.4171 of US Code. Here's an incomplete excerpt:
"(2) The Director shall analyze the results of the operational test and evaluation conducted for each major defense acquisition program. At the conclusion of such testing, the Director shall prepare a report stating-
(A) the opinion of the Director as to-
(i) whether the test and evaluation performed were adequate; and
(ii) whether the results of such test and evaluation confirm that the items or components actually tested are effective and suitable for combat;"
I think it's fair to wonder whether the "layer of approval bureaucracy" is worthwhile. I argue that in this case, it is. Ensuring that testing is adequate is vital to being able to evaluate a system. Data collection is costly, and data collection processes can be biased if done inappropriately. To evaluate safety and performance well, you need to do a good job of collecting the data. Historically, the Services didn't always do a great job of collecting the most useful data or reporting on the data they generated in an honest and complete way. (See, for example, the Sgt. York from above, but less extreme versions persist to this day.) This is why DOT&E must approve test plans before they are executed and why DOT&E devotes time and resources to observing testing.
(There are other reasons to actually show up and watch tests as opposed to relying on 3rd party reports. But making sure the testing is being done as it was supposed to be done and that the data being recorded are consistent with what's being observed is a good reason on its own.)
I wrote a new chapter in my science fiction savory story series about talking ants, here’s a link to the whole thing so far:
https://www.fortressofdoors.com/tag/ants/
(Inspired by Katja Grace’s article on the subject)
Curious if anyone has any feedback, especially if you’re an entomologist
Although I am more of a botanist nowadays, I worked on insects, and I love the idea and the execution!
If you like sci-fi, Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky has a minor plot point where, due to difficulty in communication, intelligent spiders fail to recognize that humans are intelligent. Great novel, with realistic depiction of non-human intelligence.
Thanks for the feedback! Children of time is great, I really enjoyed it too (was recommended to me soon after I wrote the first story). I hear there’s a sequel but I haven’t read it yet.
Just finished Children of Time this weekend. Currently it's up to a trilogy.
Scott, any thoughts on your old bet about the progress of AI image generation? There's a thread on DSL and it looks like GPT4o nailed all of the pictures, including the elusive raven with the key in its mouth.
https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/topic,13658.0.html
In that thread, Gwern (who Scott nominated as the judge) has now declared that Scott won.
https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/topic,13658.msg673931.html?PHPSESSID=541ba7db45f66001b76105a0ca6764d9#msg673931
Those look all completely right to me, although based on the reactions a couple years ago, I think some people will argue with the "red" basketball. But I think that's a problem with the fact that "red" is not well defined. That ball looks redder than average to me and that would be good enough, but I think that a lot of people (again based on criticisms last time) would say that it's not "red enough". Although even so, the other ones are (in my opinion) inarguable, and it only needed 3/5 prompts.
I agree with Scott's original claim of victory (even though he later retracted it), and I think at this point it's not even close. He has clearly won.
-edit- after reading further in the thread: completely called it on people challenging "red"
I think the visual cue of the lines on the basketball cause people to interpret it as oranger than it really is. If you edited out the lines and told people the farmer was holding a "red ball" then people wouldn't say "no, it's orange".
Added difficulty comes from the lighting situation in the cathedral. In a room lit largely by stained glass windows, the colour of the light reflected from an object is not necessarily the colour of the actual object, so our brains fall back on visual cues to figure out what colour something is; a reddish-looking basketball is probably just an orange basketball lit by reddish light rather than a super-red basketball lit by yellow light.
Anyway, progress has been impressive. The most interesting thing is to go back to the original thread ( https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/a-guide-to-asking-robots-to-design/comments#comment-6945486 ) and see that two years ago people genuinely thought it would be hard for image models to disentangle these sorts of complicated prompts - Vitor's original comment said that doing it correctly would be "AI complete". (Though I do worry slightly that maybe Scott's comment has become famous enough that it's used by developers to test their models).
"I think the visual cue of the lines on the basketball cause people to interpret it as oranger than it really is. If you edited out the lines and told people the farmer was holding a "red ball" then people wouldn't say "no, it's orange"."
Just fix the test.
For the next one, let's just request an young blonde woman in a basement saying "Yanni".
I don't know whether this matters, but I was able to get an unambiguously correct raven at the time of the original bet with the version of AI available then. I did, though, change the wording of the prompt a bit. Got the llama with a bell on its tail too, but changed the prompt a lot to get that. I posted about it at the time.
Two exceptions to the Things vs People distinction: accounting and chemistry. Chock full of women
The only Thing that matters to most accountants is money. Specifically, getting paid a fair bit of the stuff for sitting at a desk for eight hours doing only moderately-taxing brainwork that just about anyone who can make it into a decent college or university can do if they have half a mind to.
On the People side, accounting is a profession that almost everyone understands and ascribes moderately high status to.
And for an awful lot of people, *that's all that matters*, because their job isn't the meaning of their life, it's how they pay for the meaning of their life. They don't love the numbers, or the chemicals or whatever, they love their family. Or their hobby or their charity work or whatever. And so they love reliably getting out of work at 5:00, calm and unexhausted, with an adequate paycheck and a job title that won't get them sneered at if it comes up in conversation. Beyond that, the job just has to have minimum impact on the things they do care about.
Now that "just get married and assume that your husband will pay for everything" is seen as off the table for most women, accounting looks pretty good.
I don't know about accounting, but I have definitely noticed that chemistry (and chemical engineering) have a lot more women than physics (and mechanical engineering). My guess is that it is mainly driven by the medical field plus some environmentalism, but I have no way to show this.
What if it's a literal "squishy things" vs "hard things" distinction?
Physics deals largely deals with hard objects and is male dominated. Biological sciences deal with squishy objects and are female dominated. Chemistry deals largely with squishy liquids but occasionally with hard solids so it's a bit more gender balanced. Psychology is female. Geology is male.
Metal working is almost entirely male. Wood working is a bit more balanced. Pottery (which starts soft and turns hard) tends a bit female, while textiles are most female of all.
Computer keyboards are hard. If we want more women in computer science we should make them squishier.
Are there any gender-imbalanced fields that don't follow my squishy-hard trend? Cardiology is 75% male and hearts are pretty squishy, but surgical tools are very hard and pointy.
> Metal working is almost entirely male.
I took a jewelry-making offering at my local community college. It was entirely metalwork; stones were just given to us. (It also wasn't a "course" - it met once a week for some period much shorter than a semester. There was a related course that I didn't know about, but heard about from the instructor.)
I was the only male.
Hmm, good counterexample.
Although I note that professional jewellers are mostly male, and that amateur female jewellery makers like to focus on necklaces and bracelets, which are macroscopically squishy, rather than rings and brooches.
I don't think this example is driven by Things vs. People. I think it's driven by the fact that jewelry are things that women are interested in.
I'm more interested in the gems. I have a small collection of unset faceted gems. In my experience, women tend to have no interest in those. It's pointless if you can't wear it.
Chemistry was mostly men when I studied it, and the women were largely on their way to study some kind of biological thing.
Not sure about accounting; I get the feeling that it's not a subject you study because you're interested in it anyway, it's a subject that you study because your parents have pushed you to do something practical and you're not smart enough for medicine or law.
Chemistry grads are now majority women:
https://www.acs.org/education/policies/acs-approval-program/data-reports.html
I have read posts (from other sites) about folks in the chemistry field complaining that the jobs have been going overseas for a while and that this makes the pay poor even if one can find a job. I don't know if this is relevant or not. But it may indicate that the jobs remaining here are qualitatively different than chemistry jobs from 40 years ago (or whatever).
To what extent is accounting working with big piles of numbers, and to what extent is it using technical skills to work with people?
I think this depends on how junior/senior you are.
Interesting! My impression is that both are neither things nor people, so not really exceptions?
I mean, that's how I feel about software, but somehow people still insist this is a complete explanation of women in software roles.
Yeah, I'm very frustrated with it as a sole explanation for women in software, especially when there's so many counterexamples in chemistry, a lot of math departments, and accounting. Software involves a massive amount of meetings and collaboration.
I would go a step further and say if you consider what it means to interact with a person vs. a thing, programming has elements closer to the first category. I.e. psychologists and programmers both interact via language more so than physically manipulating an object (before someone says it, yeah, keyboards, but that's an abstraction). AI work is moving even further in this direction, where we're starting to literally give instructions to mushy systems.
I’d be interested to know what people in this community think about the new Veo 3 development. How concerned should we be? I can see it being a huge problem as a tool for scammers, but what else should one be concerned about?
In terms of manipulating people’s understanding of the facts of current events, don’t we already have a lot of manipulation? By what mechanism will ai video be a qualitative change for the worse—given that the potential for making this incrementally worse is obvious.
Most people have a very strong prior to believe what they see. I think it’s much easier to bamboozle somebody with a realistic video than it is with a written article. moving pictures bypass a lot of critical faculties.
I kind of warmed up to the idea somebody here proposed a week or 2 ago that AI and other developments were going to push a lot of people back into a less screen-based way of living, because it was going to become impossible to know for sure that someone you spoke or corresponded with was not a bot, and that any photo or video you saw or audio you heard wasn't electronically generated. I was tickled by it, but also don't find it altogether implausible.
I think there'll be a narrow window where it's possible to bamboozle a lot of people with generated video, then people will unlearn the idea that video evidence is likely to represent a thing that really happened.
We used to be impressed by Photoshop.
Well, I guess I disagree about how wide or narrow that window is going to be. Still photographs are one thing, and people see Photoshop images all the time, and it never occurs to them that they were. Video to me is that on steroids.
Hey all,
Don't know if everyone followed the Ramaphosa-Trump oval office meeting two weeks ago. But a lot of it centered on the debate around white farm murders in South Africa...
I decided, to go and look at the debate and see whether or not it was true that white farmers were murdered at a rate higher than the national average murder rate in South Africa.
What was quite interesting, is that Africa Check, one of the legacy media fact checking organisations in Africa, said that it was impossible to calculate the murder rate. This is because there is no exact census data on "whites living on farms".
The Washington post, Al jazeera etc, keep citing Africa Check's article.
A politics blog in South Africa, countered Africa Check and said that it was possible and came to a rate of 108 per 100,000 for white farm murders. This is more than three times the national average murder rate!
I then checked that data and found that the author was comparing the household murder rate of white farmers to the individual level murder rate in South Africa (an apples to oranges comparison). If you look at the household-level murder rate in South Africa, they are basically the same.
I then tried to do the calculation myself, using approximations from the census and came to a murder rate of 33 per 100,000. Which was *less* than the national murder rate of 40 per 100,000 for 2022.
If you want to see my calculations, they are here: https://open.substack.com/pub/awonkishnewsletter/p/why-everyone-is-wrong-about-farm?r=s4s92&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
> Myburgh is making an apples to oranges comparison. He is comparing the murder rate of white farmers alone, a household statistic, with the national murder rate, an individual one. He is fundamentally measuring different things, making the comparison misleading.
> So what happens if we make the correct comparison and compare white farmer households to all households?
Why is that the correct comparison? Myburgh would appear to be right. He specifically wants to exclude cases where other members of the household are killed. (Rather, I assume he's taking the categories he's given and what he _wants_ is to exclude cases where the farmer himself is not killed, so he goes for the category where this can't happen.)
The comparison in that case would be "white farmers killed alone on farms" versus "heads of household killed alone in any household". There are many ways for a household to experience a murder, but only one way for the head of household to experience one. In what sense is "the murder rate of white farmers alone" not an individual statistic?
Because his denominator is white farmer households. The national murder rate denominator is the population of South Africa. It's a weird comparison.
Furthermore, he is doing this because he is interested in the murder rate of the farmer profession, but number of farmer households != number of farmers.
Most households will have multiple farmers.
Also, the victims of crime survey did not have any households which experienced multiple murders.
> Most households will have multiple farmers.
This does not accord with normal English usage, so I'd like to see a confirmation. How are you distinguishing "farmer" from "family member"?
Note that Myburgh is explicit about the fact that the farmer is the head of household:
>> For argument’s sake however let us take the most unlikely option and assume that every single non-response on this question was in fact from a farmer. How would this alter Politicsweb’s estimate of the murder rate of “white farmers” in 2016/17?
>> It would mean that there were an estimated 65 918 (47 272 + 18 646) white heads of households involved in agriculture on “farm land” in 2016. The figure of 51 murders of “white farmers” recorded in 2016/17 by TAU SA, which we used, would mean a murder rate of 77,4 per hundred thousand.
> Also, the victims of crime survey did not have any households which experienced multiple murders.
Why do you bring this up? It's still the case that comparing "households in which the head of household is murdered" to "households in which anyone is murdered" is the wrong thing to do. If it's also true that the farm murders never involve more than one victim, and that the same farm doesn't get hit more than once, you could compare the total farm murders to national households-experiencing-murder.
> This does not accord with normal English usage, so I'd like to see a confirmation. How are you distinguishing "farmer" from "family member"?
Yes, you are right I am using farmer quite liberally/colloquially here. I am using it to mean members of the family who also work on the farm. However, I think this is fine, as when we consider farm murders in South Africa, we consider them in the *narrowest* sense as those who work on the farm and on in the usual sense, as all those killed who live on the farm.
Re: household vs individual, my original point still stands. In Myburgh's comparison he is doing the following:
Pick a random person in South Africa, what is the chance they are murdered this year?
Pick a random farm household, what is the chance the farmer-head is murdered this year?
This an apples to oranges comparison.
What I am doing is:
Pick a random household, what is the chance someone in the house was murdered this year?
Pick a random farm household, what is the chance the farmer-head is murdered this year?
This is a better comparison.
However, it's the conceptual argument which really matters here. When we think about farm murders, we think about farmers, and their families. By ignoring, these groups, we are ignoring a large part of the farm murder discourse. A murder rate is only useful if it tells us something about the threat of violence. The argument being made is that the farming community faces disproportionate threats of violence.
--- quote from you ---
Re: household vs individual, my original point still stands. In Myburgh's comparison he is doing the following:
Pick a random person in South Africa, what is the chance they are murdered this year?
Pick a random farm household, what is the chance the farmer-head is murdered this year?
This an apples to oranges comparison.
What I am doing is:
Pick a random household, what is the chance someone in the house was murdered this year?
Pick a random farm household, what is the chance the farmer-head is murdered this year?
This is a better comparison.
--- end quote ---
You are absolutely wrong about this. The head of household is uniquely determined by the household. I have no idea what you're thinking, but Myburgh's comparison is the correct one, and yours is invalid. The chance of the head-of-household being murdered (given a household) is appropriately compared to the individual chance of being murdered (given an individual). The chance of anyone in the household being murdered (given a household) is appropriately compared to the chance of anyone in the household being murdered (given a farm household).
Three additional things. A) if there was a farm attack in which only the wife and children of the farmer died, the Afrikaans community living there and Afriforum etc would all consider that a farm attack. It wouldn’t be considered part of some separate problem - they view farming populations as being under threat because of a belief that the ANC and others are trying to drive them off the land. So it seems incredibly strange to only consider single individuals in the denominator. B) I think a lot of the anxiety about farm attacks comes from the fact that they’re indiscriminately attacking family members, including women and children. C) the concern is with attacks on ‘boers’. You’re a boer whether you’re the head of the household or a family member. This is all aside from the fact that obviously if a wife of a farmer is involved in farming then by any plain language definition she is also a farmer
But we are not interested in heads of households, we are interested in farm murders. And there can be multiple people working the farm in a household.
> Across his two articles, Myburgh actually comes to two different figures: 47,272 and 47,218. Based on his logic, the former is correct. I assume the latter was a typo.
This is kind of a strange assumption to make, since you link to an article where Myburgh says this:
>> As can be seen the number of white heads of households in agricultural activities on farm land was estimated at 47 272. (The 47 218 figure we used was based on a table that also incorporated responses to the next question on the main purpose of agricultural activities.)
Good catch, will fix it!
Some Reddit discussion here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/s/amyAOnIglb
This is a very bad way of doing statistics. It's only looking at numerators and not denominators.
You need to look at the number of farmers killed divided by the farming population.
That's cool, thanks for the deep dive!
I think the claims of white genocide in South Africa need to be seen in the historical context of the genocide of whites in other neighbouring countries and the fact that South Africa is clearly on the same trajectory.
But am I reading your numbers correctly? 89% of farm murder victims are white, but only 6% of agricultural households are white? So among murders in rural areas they are vastly overrepresented?
> But am I reading your numbers correctly? 89% of farm murder victims are white, but only 6% of agricultural households are white? So among murders in rural areas they are vastly overrepresented?
No, the farmers are counted according to the number of people who report doing their farming on "farm land", so almost 33% of farm households are white.
Clearly? Based on...? What timeline is this happening on, exactly? Trump was talking about the white genocide in 2018, has it made any progress in the seven years since?
The man who is now the head of the EFF (~10% of vote/parliament) got smacked for hate speech in 2011 for chanting "Kill the Boers" while implying shooting them. I'm sure there's racism against whites in South Africa, they are a successful minority after all, but the dominant party (ANC) explicitly states it opposes racial exclusivism and chauvinism, and I never see any particular evidence for this claim other than "well, you know. Look at other African countries."
Even that claim seems dubious. Botswana didn't genocide its whites. Namibia didn't genocide its whites. Mozambique didn't genocide its whites. Reviewing what happened, even Zimbabwe only seems to have engaged in a program of race-based land confiscation, not a genocide; when you google "Zimbabwe genocide," you get the Gukurahundi (targeted against the Ndebele and Kalanga), not one against whites.
>Reviewing what happened, even Zimbabwe only seems to have engaged in a program of race-based land confiscation, not a genocide;
Maybe not a genocide, but certainly ethnic cleansing, which I assume is considered grounds for seeking asylum in another country.
1. What is your data for "clearly the same trajectory". Also what white genocides occured in south africa's neighbouring countries?
2. Agricultural household != farm. An agricultural household could be an urban household growing tomatoes. However, it is true that for murders that occur on farms, at least historically it has been true that whites were over represented.
However, if we look at the most recent quarter of crime data (could be an outlier, I don't know), this is no longer the case.
I think your calculations need to control for factors such as age and other correlates with being a murder victim.
But, more importantly, whether white farmers are at greater risk of being murdered than other people is rather orthogonal to the issue. A person is a "refugee" under US law if he or she has been persecuted, or has a well-founded fear of future persecution, on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. https://www.aila.org/library/uscis-raio-course-refugee-definition
So, I can be a "refugee" even if I am at less risk of being murdered than most people in my country. If my risk of being targeted for my ethnicity is 1/100, and the risk of the average person being murdered in a random criminal act is 2/100, I might be a refugee, but the average person is not.
Note that there is no requirement of a "genocide," and of course's Trump's claim that there is a genocide in SA is just his usual babbling.
"But, more importantly, whether white farmers are at greater risk of being murdered than other people is rather orthogonal to the issue"
I actually tend to agree with you here. However, there is a claim being made in South Africa that it is above the national murder rate and this claim is being used to justify claims of genocide, or at least over emphasise the white farm murder problem.
"So, I can be a "refugee" even if I am at less risk of being murdered than most people in my country. If my risk of being targeted for my ethnicity is 1/100, and the risk of the average person being murdered in a random criminal act is 2/100, I might be a refugee, but the average person is not."
I agree with you here, and also make a similar argument in the article. However, I'm only focusing on murder rates, as this is what people keep referencing. I think its good to set the record straight on this particular part of the issue.
Whatever 'white farm worker' murders are occurring seem way overblown here, but I do wonder if you compare the murder rates of white farmers to like black populations (presumably more rural, agricultural, etc.), would they be higher?
Using the national average could be a bit misleading because you would expect a higher murder rate in urban areas, typically. So if white rural farmers are getting murdered at the same rate as the national average, they could still be getting murdered more than you'd expect to see based on their location/lifestyle.
This is a good point, and something that James Myburgh (the politics blog I was mentioning), brings up in his article.
I have not explicitly looked at this yet and data limitations make this difficult. But I'm hoping to do a follow up post that uses census ward-level data and makes this exact comparison. (Will let you know when I do it)
For now, I just wanted to make the national comparison, as this is what people reference.
also: what about attempted murder rate? If you had a hypothetical country where the murder rate of farmers is 0 (but every farm has an electric fence and people with machetes try unsuccessfully to climb them every day in order to kill the people inside) it would not be unreasonable to say "yeah, these farmers are very much in danger".
Or take, e.g. jim crow south KKK lynchings; a small absolute and relative number of deaths (tuskegee institute says 3,446 from 1882-1968), while victims of regular violent crime vastly exceed that every single year.
Good point. I do remember checking something like this, either farm attacks (without murder) or attempted murders (can't remember) and it seemed to be in line with or below national averages. But dont quote me on this, I need to double check!
What we obviously can't measure though is people deterred from murdering due to an electric fence. However, I must go back to my original point, which is that the purpose of my calculations was to clarify the point about murder rates, as this *is* what so many people talk about. I do agree that murder rates are not necessarily the most indicative statistic.
Tyler's Straussian take was "Hey Scott! Why are you picking on me? I'm one of the good guys."
Scott's not-so-Straussian take was "If you're one of the good guys, why are you being such a d1ck?"
Both may be right, but only one was a d1ck.
Yea I just read Cowen's latest reply, linked above, and the whole thing for me has taken a chunk out of my longtime high regard for him as a public thinker. Words like 'childish" and "petulant" now come to mind.
Curious, for those that know: what's the story with Long Covid?
Like, I know it is a real thing. But it's not clear to me how common it is. And it isn't clear to me if everyone who thinks they have it actually have it. And also, I was under the impression that a similar "syndrome" isn't terribly uncommon with other viruses (just that so many people got Covid). I'm trying to understand how unique and serious the issue is.
I'm asking here because it seems like anything that is "politically coded" is really hard to get accurate information about.
Long Covid seems to fit into the bucket of nociplastic and fatigue ailments. No fun to suffer from, not very much physical harm done. Much to be explored.
Here's a fairly recent review: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2
More recent work has found clear chemical signatures from gut issues, distinct from MECFS signature.
The Iwasaki group at Yale has found a set of markers that are highly predictive of symptoms.
One complication is that there are multiple mechanisms including persistent virus in gut, brain, etc., leftover damage from micro-clots, persistent immune disregulation, and re-awakening of latent Herpes Zoster and Epstein-Barr viruses. With an array of measurable mechanisms and an array of measurable symptoms of varying severity, the picture is messy. The conclusion that it's therefore usually psychosomatic is illogical and seems unsupported by evidence. E.g one experiment on cognitive effects found that measurable decline was more common than than subjectively reported decline.
The usual story about Long COVID is someone who was doing a lot-- high demand job, lots of exercise, and raising children, and now they're pretty much incapacitated. Is this just the most interesting version for articles? Are people who were just doing average amounts of stuff at less risk?
I’m sure somebody has done such a study. I admit I’m quite doubtful that long Covid is as common as many of these researchers believe. I suspect that a lot of these studies may be influenced by the funding priorities of the NIH. And I’ll readily admit that I’m a bit cynical about science in general as it’s practiced today, and the 300,000+ studies of long Covid suggest it was paying the salaries of numerous researchers. You’re welcome to take my opinion with a grain of salt, though. :-)
> But it's not clear to me how common it is.
Well, it's a real condition, *and the literature says it's quite common.* Personally, I can't believe the extremely high rates of Long COVID that I see in these studies. These really don't jibe with my observed experience. </anecdata start> I live in the SF Bay Area where we masked, etc., and I'd say about about 50% of my friends and co-workers caught COVID-19 at some point. Only 4 people I know of had symptoms that lasted more a month. And, only one person I know still has persistenct symptoms two years post-infection. </anecdata>
The following study show 57% of people still have symptoms after a year. This is so far outside my lived reality, that I have trouble believing it. Common symptoms included fatigue (31%), concentration difficulties (32%), dyspnea on exertion (34%), frailty (31%), and joint/muscle pain (28%).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37077615/
And two-year symptom persistence study claimed 21.5% of vaccinated adults who had mild COVID-19 infections continued to experience at least one long COVID symptom two years after their initial infection. Notably, female gender, smoking, and severity of the acute infection were associated with higher risk of persistent symptoms.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39772261/
Another study observed that 33% of participants experienced long COVID symptoms that peaked 6-12 months post-infection, leading to significant activity limitations. Even at 24 months, 8% had not returned to their pre-COVID health status, highlighting the enduring impact on quality of life .
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38449921/
> I was under the impression that a similar "syndrome" isn't terribly uncommon with other viruses
True. There was a study of the long-term effects of severe flu infections and severe COVID infections. The press release for this large observational study from Australia caused a lot of agita among Long COVID researchers. It found that COVID's post-viral syndromes are indistinguishable from influenza, with no evidence of functional limitations a year post-infection. Hmmm.
https://tinyurl.com/48dfmzwd
And the long-term effects of childhood measles infections can cause all sorts of nasty issues. Before vaccines, deafness due to measles occurred in 4% to 9% of measles sufferers. Cognitive delays of about 1.5 years. Immune memory erasure that lead to reinfections of other diseases up to 10 years down post-infection.
> it seems like anything that is "politically coded" is really hard to get accurate information about.
No, it's easy to get this information if you're motivated to look. But does it match your experience that you believe that *57% of COVID sufferers* still of profound lingering issues after a year? I admit I don't buy it.
We're not seeing it the macro data. The rate of Social Security disability applications went up somewhat during the first years of the pandemic. Now they're falling.
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/dibGraphs.html
The FRED shows a slight increase in the number disabled worker post-COVID. If I translate that into per capita numbers, 8.9% of the total US pop over 16 was disabled in 2009. 9.9% in 2024. But we have an aging population.
https://x.com/beowulf888/status/1853616577725534580/photo/1
> And two-year symptom persistence study claimed 21.5% of vaccinated adults who had mild COVID-19 infections continued to experience at least one long COVID symptom two years after their initial infection
I'm not sure how they're adjusting to figure out what prevalence of random adults would have claimed to have some kind of random symptom if you asked them in, say, 2016.
I have a problem with the definition, or perhaps the usual example. The usual example is someone who led a very active life, and now is so knocked out they need a lot of help to manage.
My sense of taste got weird soon after the epidemic started, and took two years or so to fully recover. The same food would taste good or bad, varying strongly over hours. As I recall, at the beginning, tastes in general were much weaker, except for sweets. Pork, possibly mediocre pork products, would have a specific nasty taste.
It gradually got better, with my tolerance for hot peppers being the last to recover.
This all affected my quality of life, but it's not like being exhausted by walking a few steps. Long COVID or not?
I haven't seen any other stories like this.
I think it would not qualify as LC, because as I recall the person has to have a certain number of persisting symptoms from a list -- I think it was 3. I don't mean it's not a big deal, though! Just that I don't think it would qualify by the usual research criteria. Actually, I think the fact that this symptom, which is distinctive to covid as far as I know, persists far beyond the end of the infection is suggestive: Symptoms of this virus can hang around in a way you don't hear about with other viruses. Makes it more plausible to me that for some people several symptoms of the virus hang around, and when they do we call it LC.
I have - very much anecdata, I'm afraid, but a permanent or long-term change to taste is a known consequence of COVID infection, and depending on what the change is like, can be devastating for quality of life. I'm really glad to hear your tastes have recovered.
My total layman's impression and speculation from casual reading
1) chronic illness crowd latching onto the current flavor of the month. Skews white, middle class, younger, mostly female, high prevalence among those with anxiety/depression and pre-existing chronic issues.
2) real measurable illness injuries like lung damage in exactly the people you'd expect (older, post-ICU, etc.)
3) possibly lots of similar illnesses were caused by lingering effects from viral infections, but before covid it was hard to identify exactly which one caused it (with the exception of like, Chronic Lyme). Maybe people were getting chronic fatigue from the seasonal flu pre-2020 but never identified that as the cause and so just called it "fatigue" instead of "long flu".
4) possibly since it's an illness linked with mental health (e.g. anxiety/depression), the worsening of mental health during lockdowns increased incidences of chronic pain -patterned illnesses, irrespective of the actual covid virus going around.
5) still very dubious, probably not as huge an issue as some would have claimed (I saw claims of like, 10-30% of healthy adults which doesn't seem right to me -- this was a claim from earlier in the pandemic), but the fact that it's in excess of the usual chronic pain baseline suggests to me it's not entirely a nothingburger. Hard to study because the chronic pain illness crowd is weird
That definitely isn't all cases. My sister is still affected, and she's not young. It directly affected her mental processes, and she's never fully recovered. Also she never ended up in the ICU.
Now this is anecdote rather than statistics, but I strongly suspect your picture is wrong. It may well describe a particular population that claims to have "long COVID", but it's not the real story.
OTOH, I'm also not clear how the statistics are collected. Would my sister even be counted in them? She's been retired for over a decade, so no work related statistics would be collected.
I don't see how your anecdote contradicts my personal model, which is basically that there's a spectrum of obvious/physical injuries (e.g. mostly older but some younger ) and chronic/weird conditions (e.g. mostly younger but some older) and it's still very dubious (like you said, the data is a mess). I think part of what makes the issue so political is that we all have anecdotes like this and it's hard to disentangle them from the data because we're involved with these people and their struggles.
Well, it *is* just an anecdote, so it can't possibly contradict statistics, but since the data is a mess, the statistics should be give low credence.
P.S.: Her continued symptoms are impaired memory. Strongly impaired, though not nearly as bad as it was six months ago. She now usually remembers the day of the week, and what we were talking about an hour ago. And the change was (relatively) sudden and dramatic.
Now I'm not a believer in single causation (except in exceptional circumstances) so I'm sure there were other contributing factors. I could even name a few of them. But I was a *LOT* less affected, and I have many of those same contributing factors. (Ahead of time I considered myself to be at high risk of a really bad case.)
But the thing is, I suspect (without specific evidence) that people like her were not included in the statistics. (As I said, she was retired, so there was little reason to get any official recognition that she had long COVID.)
On a large scale it seems pretty hard to disentangle. I think it's pretty clear that the first wave of COVID left a lot of people with long COVID. I know a couple people myself who had pretty severe long COVID for extended periods of time after their first infection (couldn't exercise without extreme fatigue being the most common symptom), but they did fully recover, though in one case it took well over a year.
I'm struggling to find the blog post, but https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/ had a good article about this. The short answer is that there were enough doctors and scientists who considered post viral diseases to be 'not real', that long COVID had not been officially studied on a large systemic level and we didn't even have a specific definition for a long time. It's been a few years so I'm not sure if that's changed.
Definitions ranged from the obvious (COVID damaged this person's lungs, so now they have trouble breathing) to the more speculative but still possible (immune system damage, other damage the virus caused to the body). Depending on how strictly you are defining long COVID it could be rare (the lung damage guy) or so common you might not notice you have it. (If your body became 5% or 10% less effective at fighting off viruses, would you even notice on an individual level?) Also, since we don't have a cure\treatment for most of these things, there was not a huge push to study it. If I didn't have long COVID, I would do nothing. And if I got diagnosed with long COVID, I would... Probably also do nothing. So even if I had symptoms, why would I bother getting a diagnosis?
Tl;Dr The data is not great on who has it or how bad it is, partially for political reasons, but also because it's hard to study and not super useful to know.
> The short answer is that there were enough doctors and scientists who considered post viral diseases to be 'not real', that long COVID had not been officially studied on a large systemic level...
That's not really true. By mid-2020, Long COVID (a.k.a. PASC) had been identified as a problem in people recovering from COVID. For instance, this is from the BMJ in July 2020.
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2815.long
While there were studies that suggested some percentage of Long COVID symptoms (and sufferers) were psychosomatic, even the psychological syndrome camp admitted there was a percentage of people who were suffering from symptoms had an organic origin.
> ...that long COVID had not been officially studied on a large systemic level and we didn't even have a specific definition for a long time...
As early as 2020, there were arguments about how to define Long COVID. It took awhile, but the WHO and CDC came up with a standardized list of symptoms. Per the CDC: "Long COVID is defined as a chronic condition that occurs after SARS-CoV-2 infection and is present for at least 3 months. Long COVID includes a wide range of symptoms or conditions that may improve, worsen, or be ongoing." Most common diagnostic criteria include one or more of the following symptoms: Bloating, constipation, or diarrhea; Difficulty concentrating; Light-headedness or fast heart rate; Persistent fatigue; Problems with smell and/or taste; recurring headaches — plus almost 200 rarer symptoms such as hair loss and impotence (in men).
The CDC and several other health organizations created an interim working definition for Long COVID in mid-2022. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) introduced a consensus definition of Long COVID in 2023 with input from 1300+ experts. *It acknowledged that Long COVID does not require a prior positive COVID test for diagnosis and can involve over 200 symptoms.* The CDC has mostly adopted the NASEM definition.
> ...there was not a huge push to study it.
But there was! The NIH funded billions of dollars of studies, and scientists have been diligently sucking up the grant money and studying Long COVID from the early months of the pandemic.
Currently, Google Scholar says that 300,000+ papers have been written about Long COVID.
By 2021, there were 7 major theories about what caused Long COVID. So far, this list hasn't changed much. None of these theories has been disproved, and each has its ardent supporters. IMO, it's likely that Long COVID may have multiple causes. Notice that psychological still makes the list.
The seven most common explanations for Long COVID ranked by relatively popularity (papers published)...
1. Viral Persistence
2. Immune Dysregulation / Autoimmunity
3. Microclots and Vascular Dysfunction
4. Mitochondrial Dysfunction
5. Dysautonomia (Nervous System Imbalance)
6. Reactivation of Latent Viruses
7. Psychological and Neurological Factors
Thanks for the corrections
Shameless speculation:
There's some number of wastebasket diagnoses that are used for patients with non-specific pain and fatigue, who range from having psychosomatic issues, to physical issues we don't understand well, to being misdiagnosed. These go in and out of fashion, but you might have heard of fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome before.
My impression is that in addition to whatever the real post viral or post ICU effects from Covid are, long covid is also picking up a lot of the people who would've been sick anyways and been labeled with CFS or fibromyalgia, and that's making it very hard to study what's actually going on with long covid.
There were several longitudinal studies that observed that both COVID-positive and COVID-negative participants (when there were still a lot peeps who hadn't caught COVID) reported similar types of persistent symptoms. I'm afraid I didn't bookmark them, though. They suggested that some long-term symptoms being identified as COVID-related may have had nothing to do with a COVID infection. Before COVID, the people who were negatives were complaining about chronic symptoms without having a disease to latch them on to. After COVID, it was suggested that a significant percentage of LC sufferers attributed their symptoms to a COVID infection, without that being the case.
"These go in and out of fashion, but you might have heard of fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome before."
To illustrate the "go in an out of fashion" there is a line from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show pilot episode (from 1996):
CORDELIA: My mom doesn’t even get out of bed anymore. The doctor says it’s Epstein Barr. I’m like, "please, it’s chronic hepatitis or at least Chronic Fatigue Syndrome." I mean nobody cool has Epstein Barr anymore.
Which doesn't mean that some people don't have some sort of real condition. But, yeah, the term does seem to change.
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