Whew.

The thing about these incidents that I find most interesting is that they basically reveal a widely held suspicion among many people that these government contractors are over-crexentialed bullshit artists.

This just shows what we’ve all suspected: they’ve been cutting corners, claiming underserved authority, and making up shit for years. But now some folks are checking and reporting on it.

Respectfully, religion really isn’t the cause, it’s just correlated with ethnicity, like language.

The up/down vote system directs the ranking algorithm on how to order posts and comments, and it visually signals to the user the relative popularity of a comment.

This, imo, is a wildly underappreciated mechanic for combating a lot of the harmful issues people associate with social media.

Most people recognize that discourse on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. is designed to divide and inflame people. the reddit-style downvote is remarkably effective at addressing this:

It does two key things in particular:

1. Downvoted comments are down ranked and hidden, so people are exposed to less toxic content.

2. If people do engage with unpopular comments, the negative score influences how people engage with them. On Facebook, commenting to defend Biden’s Israel policy will get elevated and create viscous fights. On Lemmy, it will get flagged with a virtual dunce cap. You can dunk on it, but there’s no point in arguing with it: we can all see that the argument is already over. Laugh and ignore.

Taken together, these discourage people from feeding trolls, and in doing so reduce the incentive to post something uncivil or stupid. It’s a remarkably powerful tool to address a huge problem, and I wish more people understood this.

The murdered we’re Al-Muntasir Billah Abdullah, 26; and Youssef Asasa, 37.

Their poor families… Also, fuck the AP for making that paragraph 11. Jeez.

This is clever.

I think to complete the concept, it needs to have an absurd feature that is supposed to justify connectivity, and a way to stop it from functioning when commanded.

How can a pan break? I guess the handle can fall off? So it has a solenoid that locks on the handle. The pan is sold as a subscription where they replace the pan part to keep it’s Teflon coating fresh. And if you mess with it or use it more than 20x the handle falls off.

'Guys, it’s no big deal. I was just doing a science experiment to test whether escaping from a life sentence for my crimes was feasible.

So far, my hypothesis appears to be false.’

Yeah, agree. Tables can be used standing or while sitting in the floor. Chairs are nice, but without tables a lot of stuff would happen at floor level anyway.

Definitely easier to get by without chairs.

This is an excellent shower thought.

I get that that’s the intended meaning, but op makes a good point.

Also, there was a lot more hope than change.

Ultimately, Obama did a perfect job executing neoliberalism. And by demonstrating the outcomes of neoliberalism when perfectly executed, I think he also executed neoliberalism in the other meaning.

I think this is the main story. I don’t think it’s new info, but it confirms the issue persists: this LLM is so heavily trained to fawn over Musk that it doesn’t exercise any application of context or attempt to find truth.

Which is sad.

The other issue I have is that this is an example of a recurring issue in which the tech obsessed ultra wealthy declare their plan to solve a problem for which a very straightforward policy solution already exists.

We don’t need tech to extend lives or feed the hungry. We just need to remove the paywalls to existing resources.

This is what I was going to say.

Also, long form narrative. Right now LLMs seem to work best for short conversations, but get increasingly unhinged over very long conversations. And if they generate a novel, it’s not consistent or structured, from what I understand.

It’s an amusing premise, but I think that if you actually pay attention to the arc of his life and everything said by the people who understand him (Mary Trump’s book is perhaps the best on this), it doesn’t bear out.

By all evidence, Trump doesn’t really experience romantic attraction, and his sexual appetites have always been primarily for power and attention. Read Stormy Daniels account of his “lovemaking”. He doesn’t really like getting sweaty. During the years he was a famous lothario, he widely faked this image due to having an enormous fear of STIs, especially HIV.

He does seem to enjoy bodies, but almost always through the thrill of conquest: he likes taking something he considers a prize.

Does he secretly long for cock? Has he suppressed urges under social pressure? Almost certainly not. He’s always revelled in being sexually deviant, and thrilled in violating social norms, so if he wanted men he likely would’ve direct the 90s getting rich for being a famous gay pervert instead of a getting rich for being a famous straight pervert.

It’s highly likely that he’s gotten sexual service from men or femboys, because that fits the profile. But suck a dick? No. Never. Not because it’s gay: because it’s giving. This is a guy who has almost certainly never given oral service to anyone, man or woman.

What show is this?

First, I think she’s a shameless exaggerator.

Second, this is so stupid. Forget your health: how do you actually think you’re effective without rest? Every human being knows exactly how rest works, because we can all run this test ourselves.

This myth persists that some people can force themselves to be effective with minimal rest by pure will, despite the fact that every one of us has experienced sleep deprivation at some point, and all of us know that without sleep we have the intelligence of a 9 year old.

Anyone who claims to be the exception to this biological rule is either lying or they’re stupid because they didn’t sleep and now have the intelligence of a nine year old.

Also: not “needing” sleep is often something said by people with insomnia. People like Trump and Musk do survive on only a few hours of sleep a night. But this isn’t because they’re strong or smart: it’s because their brains are not functioning correctly and they can’t get sleep they need.

Sleep isn’t optional. This PM is fucking up their job by walking through life confused and disoriented.

I addressed this in several other responses.

I’m aware that there is a strong consensus among the actual scholars who study this. The issue is that a consensus is being obstructed throug editorial control by elites. The question being debated, imo, isn’t whether Israel committed genocide (we all know they have). It’s whether Wikipedia breaking standard procedures is a sound strategy to circumvent the suppression of truth by elites.

I think the case in both directions is strong. It’s very appealing in the short term.

Can you specify which alternatives you’re talking about?

Also, I don’t know what’s specifically questionable about any of this. I haven’t disputed or justified anything. I’ve just expressed a contrary opinion on tactics.

I want to be clear.

I know it’s a genocide, and I agree that this is the consensus of academic scholars. The only real dispute is coming from donors who can manipulate the editorial process.

This is the crux of the dispute within Wikipedia: when the system works correctly, scholars write; their institutions publish; Wikipedia summarizes. But if bad actors interrupt the execution of step 2, should Wikipedia break protocol further to circumvent the attack? Or effectively allow it to be successful to maintain process?

I think the argument for the former is compelling, but I think Wales recognizes the downstream consequences, and I think I very reluctantly agree.

The bad actors do need to be countered. I just don’t think Wikipedia is an effective tool to do so.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I think Wales is correct.

I understand this seems irrational, because of course Israel committed genocide in Gaza. And Wikipedia’s job is to describe reality, right?

Wrong. Wikipedia’s job is to describe historical and scientific consensus. It is fundamental to their mission that they do all they can to avoid arbitrating disputes. I know that’s painful, but it’s a matter of roles: academics and media organizations arbitrate, and Wikipedia’s role is to catalog and communicate the consensus these organizations reach.

It’s terrible that a minority of biased actors have managed to prevent media and academic institutions from reaching consensus when the subject is so straightforward and obvious. But until that is addressed, unfortunately Wikipedia is hampered from describing the consensus reality by the needs of their core mission. They are designed to be downstream of these organizations, and they have to be to remain effective to their core mission. It’s like how the UN lets war criminals like Netanyahu visit and speak. As much as we’d all like them to kick him the hell out, doing so undermines the core purpose of the institution. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s the job description.

I think one solution is that their should be more than one crowd-sourced encyclopedia for the world. Wikipedia will always suffer from a Western, English-speaking bias.