this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
25 points (100.0% liked)

TechTakes

1586 readers
281 users here now

Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] gerikson@awful.systems 10 points 5 months ago (9 children)

Problematic developer with AI crush realizes she's just dust under the wheels of progress

https://justine.lol/history/

You know those polls that say fewer than 20% of Americans trust AI scientists? It shouldn't be the case, because no group is doing more right now to elevate the universe to a higher state of complexity. You know who the public does trust? Open source developers.

Justine, LOL indeed.

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 9 points 5 months ago

elevate the universe to a higher state of complexity

girl my life already too complex, ain't no one need elevation to an even higher state of complexity

can we maybe do a lower one?

In classic Rationalist fashion, she noticed something she didn't like, hypothesized a cause with no real evidence, and then proceeded to rant about the implications of that unproven hypothesis.

My suspicion, on the other hand, is that because Claude is just reproducing statistical patterns from its training data is simply reflecting the fact that she is referred to as a Nazi coder far more often than she is as some kind of open-source luminary. Unless her github metadata signs everything "Justine T the open-source developer" then that association isn't reflected in the patterns extrapolated from the training data.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

One of my kids is a huge Gravity Falls fan and has recently acquired The Book of Bill. For some reason, Bill's anecdote about silly straws reminded me of the grok discourse:

FUN FACT: When you use a silly straw to murder someone, it becomes a serious straw!

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 10 points 5 months ago

I wonder how soon we’re going to hit the “we have team $foo building that internally since we can’t use $serviceX for that (externally hosted has security issues)” phase of corporate fafo

why am I thinking of this? oh, no reason. just pondering the cyclic nature of history I guess you could say.

[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 10 points 5 months ago (3 children)
[–] saucerwizard@awful.systems 9 points 5 months ago

ABSOLUTELY CURSED

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 7 points 5 months ago

Hey, that's the epic battle fantasy guy. I loved his games back in the flash days.

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 7 points 5 months ago

It would be pretty funny for someone to be so awful that they get haunted by an Atheist. I mean, it's unlikely, but if it were possible then this would do it.

[–] saucerwizard@awful.systems 10 points 5 months ago (8 children)

OT: whats the best way to explain rationalism et all to complete normal people with no connection to tech?

[–] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 9 points 5 months ago (8 children)

It's a little bit like a tiny version of the Mormons if Joseph Smith had read the collected works of Isaac Asimov instead of the Bible and also his name was Yud.

Or to go with less of a sneer, the Rationalist/TESCREAL/Californian Ideology is a loose grouping of fringe beliefs rooted in old-school science/tech fetishism with a lot of science fiction overlays and libertarian/reactionary politics that effectively define "let ultrawealthy tech capitalists do whatever they want" as the only reasonable choice and make it a moral imperative.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

Techish (I would use the word techbro here, but that needs an explantion even) people who want to make their fictional science fiction utopia real, but got so scared of their own science fiction ideas going wrong and killing everybody they started a cult around rationality, sort of a Vulcans fan club. They have a pattern where they think they and their methods are smarter and better than actual experts.

When trying to do their own research with an open mind, but they left their minds so open that all kinds of sexists and racists crawled in. Who are welcomed as long as they are verbose enough.

And to close it off, Musk is a fan.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] swlabr@awful.systems 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Personally I might try explaining some of the foundational stuff before going into the big R. Scientism, utilitarianism would be my starting points.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 10 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I first read this comment before having coffee and thought that "R. Scientism" was a joke about Asimov's robot novels.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 7 points 5 months ago

I knew R. Scientism. I went to high school with his son. He was a real piece of shit

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] dgerard@awful.systems 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] dgerard@awful.systems 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)

Today in finding statistical association in text data is not the same as reading

Your name appeared in a lot of articles about terrible crimes. You know who else's name appears in those articles?

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›