Genuinely confused - I never said or thought that we should placate anyone. Just advocating that we think through the methods we use when we communicate and the effect it will have.

Well, a single action is never going to de-program these people. You ask why any approach would make anything better or worse, but I noted why certain approaches make things worse. I don’t know how to affirmatively convince these people, but I’d say a necessary (even if not sufficient) condition to making things better is not making them worse.

I mean, this is psychology, not politics or logic. When someone is told not to do something they feel they have the right to do, they are more likely to do it. When someone is told they’re stupid when they have been trained to feel correct and logical, they are more likely to stand by that belief. If a figure that they have developed a vicarious, parasocial relationship with is validly criticized, they will denounce the critic as if it were an attack on the core of their being, rather than agree with the critique.

These right-wing beliefs are like psychological parasites, ticks. The only correct solutions are to remove it with surgical precision with a careful plan. Prodding it and squeezing it is what you instinctively want to do, but that just makes it dig in further.

Careful, this is bat country.

The woman left the house before 13News arrived. She returned just after noon accompanied by a lawyer. The group of ten or so investigators left a few minutes later.

So the FBI were in there, the woman left and came back with a lawyer, and then almost immediately the FBI left. Boy, that doesn’t sound at all like they were conducting an illegal search.

“Whoops, we pushed to prod and have no backups. Sorrryyyy!”

I mean, when you collapse that logic you’re effectively saying random is the same thing as non-deterministic. But they’re different things, because even if an infinitesimally exact moment in time may “always” produce the same result, because the arrow of time only points in one direction, no such deterministic result can ever be replicated, and if the result cannot be replicated, then what is the difference from random?

Google Assistant: Let’s build a product around functionality.

Gemini: Let’s build functionality around a product.

Any guess which method works better?

I’ll also add one after “50 DAYS.” Definitely been at least 3 years since January 20.

Elon is operatic-level self-destruction, portraying what happens when adolescent inferiority complexes meet big midlife crises and the over-compensation has absolutely no money, time, power, empathy or good taste limitation.

This hair is just the latest example.

To be honest, I want to do a calculation how much it would take to live without a job but baking/cooking everything from scratch, and other simplified life things.

I feel like most retirement calculators assume you’re going to be living exactly as you were, but food, transportation, many living costs are higher to save time that a job takes up. So it’s partially a self-reinforcing cycle.

Instead, I think in retirement my costs would go away down, and I’d at the same time be doing things that feel meaningful, like baking my own bread. But maybe I’m delusional.

Freemium dark patterns are also enshittification. It’s slight clickbait/ragebait, but not far off.

Is…is the car glued together?

The fastest way to dehumanize immigrants is to normalize not treating them like humans.

I have now!

I think for me, the challenge is finding something that breaks down trends and ideas without resorting to discourse that’s been overworked. Vocabulary that already has been politicized by society won’t change any minds because exposure immunizes people against ideas, even good ones. The revolutionary idea becomes mundane given exposure plus time.

That’s what I think is unique about Adam Curtis, is he studiously avoids any framing that feels like a rote “capitalism” critique, but instead speaks to something more fundamental to human nature.

Yep, same. I really enjoyed All Watched Over, which I feel presciently explains some of the techno-fascism trends that have taken over the last six months, and of course Hypernormalization which is the corollary politically.

I feel like we’re in an era of anterograde amnesia where national memories reset every two weeks, and his work makes me feel slightly less insane, both remembering and filling in the gaps of how we got here.

I’m not aware of any similar. But since it’s so rare I come across people who actually know who this is, I’ll ask: what’s the best one, in your opinion?

I get that it’s usually just a dunk on AI, but it is also still a valid demonstration that AI has pretty severe and unpredictable gaps in functionality, in addition to failing to properly indicate confidence (or lack thereof).

People who understand that it’s a glorified autocomplete will know how to disregard or prompt around some of these gaps, but this remains a litmus test because it succinctly shows you cannot trust an LLM response even in many “easy” cases.

Seven figures? Try nine. Musk spent an absolutely staggering amount getting Trump elected.

Thanks, I didn’t know that!