BertramDitore @ BertramDitore @lemm.ee

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2 yr. ago

I’m really trying to figure out how this piece is propaganda. What, specifically, about it is propagandistic?

Gaza is an issue that many Americans are passionately furious about. And while Booker’s speech was great in general, and I’m happy he’s at least trying stuff, I was also disappointed that a man known for his moral clarity didn’t focus on Gaza more. Is that propaganda? Please, help me understand.

Such an embarrassment.

Yeah, definitely. I delayed my career after grad school because I was assured (by people who were already set for life) that working as an unpaid intern and doing academic fellowships for slave wages would get me a higher-paying job, especially if I waited long enough for the financial system to recover after the ‘08 crash. That was utter bullshit, and now I have significantly fewer assets than most other elder millennials, am way behind on my retirement savings (which lost thousands in the last week thanks to Trump lighting it on fire…), I will never own a home, will never be able to pay off my student debt, and will probably never be able to start a family. Oh and I have good credit, despite my hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt. I’ve even had a good job for the last 5 years, but it’s all worthless bullshit when upward mobility is practically impossible, and even maintaining my current “wealth” becomes more unrealistic every day. I’m just surviving, that’s all. And I have it relatively good.

I pay $50 a month for 10 Gigabit fiber. Truly unlimited, no caps or throttling, and I can use my own equipment without issue. I can’t even fully take advantage of the ridiculous speed I have available with my current devices. But I can use a quarter of its potential and it’s still the fastest internet I’ve ever had. I used to pay three times this amount for way shittier service. It’s the one good deal out of all my bloated utility expenses.

It isn’t just you and me. Not even the people who designed them fully understand why they give the responses they give. It’s a well-known problem. Our understanding is definitely improving over time, but we still don’t fully know how they do it.

Here’s the latest exploration of this topic I could find.

LLMs continue to be one of the least understood mass-market technologies ever

Tracing even a single response takes hours and there's still a lot of figuring out left to do.

I highly doubt that. For so many reasons. Here’s just a few:

• What data would you train it on, the Constitution? The entirely of federal law? How would that work? Knowing how ridiculous textualism is even when done by humans, do you really think a non-thinking algorithm could understand the intention behind the words? Or even what laws, rules, or norms should be respected in each unique situation?
• We don’t know why LLMs return the responses they return. This would be hugely problematic for understanding its directions.
• If an LLM doesn’t know an answer, instead of saying so it will usually just make something up. Plenty of people do this too, but I’m not sure why we should trust an algorithm’s hallucinations over a human’s bullshit.
• How would you ensure the integrity of the prompt engineer’s prompts? Would there be oversight? Could the LLM’s “decisions” be reversed?
• How could you hold an LLM accountable for the inevitable harm it causes? People will undoubtedly die for one reason or another based on the LLM’s “decisions.” Would you delete the model? Retrain it? How would you prevent it from making the same mistake again?

I don’t mean this as an attack on you, but I think you trust the implementation of LLMs way more than they deserve. These are unfinished products. They have some limited potential, but should by no means have any power or control over our lives. Have they really shown you they should be trusted with this kind of power?

I’ve never understood this. He’s a 14 year old child, he’s not an adult. No matter what he might have done, his alleged crime doesn’t magically add 4 years to his life.

Habba is using this child’s life for her own reputation, I would guess…

White nationalism.

Notice how DEI has become a dog whistle for the N word? Some asshole on the right recently referred to someone else’s wife as a DEI wife. I mean, what??

Since they haven’t figured out a way to deport all the black citizens of this country, they want us to know that they really hate all brown people no matter if they’re here legally or not. So their hatred compels them to act like their true selves and try to kick out whoever they possibly can. They’re awful people, and history will remember them for it.

But you still got it in one, it really does boil down to them being hateful and scared.

It accomplished the blocking of Senate business for a full 25 hours. The Republican majority couldn’t do anything while Booker had the floor. That’s significant. Democrats are not in power, so obstruction is one of their only options. The Republicans are great at it, so I’m glad Dems are finally trying it too. Look how much the Republicans prevented Obama from accomplishing. I think they would consider their obstruction at that time to be an accomplishment.

There is very little that Democratic senators can actually accomplish from the minority. They certainly can’t pass their own bills, that’s how the Senate works unfortunately. So for now, this is what an accomplishment looks like.

While this is the shittiest of victories, it’s still a victory. By dismissing the case with prejudice, the judge took away Trump’s leverage over Adams. The prosecutor had originally asked that the charges be dismissed without prejudice, so they could continue to threaten Adams with prosecution if he didn’t do what Trump wanted. That’s how they could hold this over him. This ruling was basically as far as the judge could go within the bounds of the law. It’s not ideal, but it’s definitely better than the alternative.

I’m also confident there’s still a closet full of skeletons somewhere, so it’s not like this means Adams is now magically squeaky clean or anything.

It’s a pretty strange feeling when my first thought after waking up this morning, as a random Californian, was “fuck, I really hope Wisconsin came through for us.”

I’m hugely relieved, and this sends a very clear message that we can make Musk’s money worthless if we really want to. Let’s keep this momentum going.

They’ve had the physical stuff covered for a long time, but imagine the socially and emotionally charged atmosphere that must come with having to film something personal and intimate with a coworker. Both actors might have spouses at home, maybe they’re super close friends off camera, maybe they’re playing a different sexual orientation than their own. Who knows. People are messy. Everyone thinks about sex a little differently, so when you add all these things into a work environment, having a third party there whose job it is to prepare the actors and crew for exactly what’s going to happen when the camera is rolling, keeps things professional and makes sure each actor’s wishes are respected. Seems like a win for everybody.

If it makes everyone involved more comfortable, they’ll probably do a better job at making whatever tv show or movie they’re on, and it will be more entertaining for us. Plus, we as viewers can be relatively confident that none of the actors did anything they didn’t want to do.

If your faith can’t survive the existence of someone a little more secular than you, or a few probing questions from an atheist, then I think your faith is the problem.

The mere fact that I am an atheist who values a secular society not ruled by an organized religion, does not oppress you, Josh. I wouldn’t know how to oppress your spirituality even if I wanted to. Another thing: spirituality does not equal religion. They are not the same thing. Read a dictionary, then the bible, and then grow up. Problem solved.

As expected, a pretty wishy washy article from the nytimes. Based on all the recent court orders, I think the law is much more black and white on this than they make it sound. On top of that, notice how they say “lawful permanent residents are also protected by the Constitution,” which is true, but really only half the truth: any human being who exists on US soil is protected by the Constitution. Their legal status has nothing to do with it. So that’s a bit misleading. If you are undocumented you are still entitled to the same legal protections as a US citizen. The fact that many of the people targeted are documented matters of course, but not because they somehow get more legal protections than someone who isn’t. That concept is fundamental to our system.

But legal experts question whether the actions of the targeted students meet this threshold. Lawful permanent residents are also protected by the Constitution, including free speech and due process rights, which could set up a major legal challenge. Lawyers for those whose student visas have been revoked have similarly challenged the administration on constitutional grounds.

When a society continually shows that it doesn’t value education anymore, it’s only logical for educators to go somewhere that still does.

Those are good points, especially on nuclear deterrence re: Russia. I think Israel could be considered to be a bit different in that sense, since their nuclear program (that we know exists) is still technically a secret. But I think I’m probably wrong on how all that works, so good call.

Archive link.

Archive link

This represents a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of the geopolitics of the Middle East.

Israel is the country currently committing genocide against the Palestinians, attacking and trying to gain new territory in Syria, breaking ceasefire agreements, carrying out targeted murders of innocent children, journalists, and frankly anyone they feel like killing, and in general just acting like a country of vicious amoral killers.

And in case you’re worried about my tone or personal experience, I am a Jewish descendant of Holocaust survivors, with family who are Israeli, and with whom I will never speak again. Israel is the bad actor here, and unfortunately it’s not just the government and the army, but most of the general population that supports the genocide.

Nukes are not the problem, nor are they the solution or even an effective deterrent. And while Israel’s neighbors are by no means good global citizens, it’s Israel and its murderous, racist, and genocidal rage that are the problem.

Goldberg assumed it was fake, but he waited for the attacks to happen for confirmation, which they did. Perhaps people are a bit smarter than you think.

I did believe that I was the target of a disinformation campaign. And so when I got the text at 11:44 a.m. saying that at 1:30 p.m. bombs will start falling in Yemen, I thought to myself, 'Well, if there is actually an American attack at 1:30 p.m., then I'll know that that this that the Signal chat is real and I have to I have to consider my next steps.' "