blakestacey

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[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 2 points 3 months ago

Part 6 quotes a Motte'r as saying,

This distrust of experts dates back at least to Eliezer Yudkowsky and LessWrong. Eliezer pointed out, rather convincingly, that mainstream philosophy is a total mess, and that taking a philosophy course is not a great way to improve your thinking. Most likely you’ll waste your time learning about Pythagoras or something.

The thudding lack of intellectual curiosity is giving me a headache. Why study Pythagoras? Hmm, how about learning how to talk about a semi-legendary person of whom we have no direct written evidence, only stories written centuries after the fact?

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

And thus Poker Face joins Sandman in the "no longer interested in Season 2" pile, but for different reasons.

The plot of Uncanny Valley centers on “a teenage girl who becomes unmoored by a hugely popular AR video game in a parallel present.”

So, Tron again, then. But with goggles this time.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 17 points 3 months ago

"Kicked out of a ... group chat" is a peculiar definition of "offline consequences".

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 7 points 3 months ago (10 children)

One thing I've been missing is takedowns of Rationalist ideology about theoretical computer science. The physics, I can do, along with assorted other topics.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

(thinks)

(thinks)

I get it!

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 16 points 3 months ago (2 children)

In commenting, we did not disclose that an AI was used to write comments, as this would have rendered the study unfeasible.

If you can't do your study ethically, don't do your study at all.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 1 points 4 months ago

OK, this isn't about AI slop, but it is complaining about Wikipedia. Its article about that kind of "amnesia" named by gobshite Michael Crichton is shoddily sourced and seemingly in violation of the site's policies.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Even setting aside the fact that Crichton coined the term in a climate-science-denial screed — which, frankly, we probably shouldn't set aside — yeah, it's just not good media literacy. A newspaper might run a superficial item about pure mathematics (on the occasion of the Abel Prize, say) and still do in-depth reporting about the US Supreme Court, for example. The causes that contribute to poor reporting will vary from subject to subject.

Remember the time a reporter called out Crichton for his shitty politics and Crichton wrote him into his next novel as a child rapist with a tiny penis? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

That Wikipedia article is impressively terrible. It cites an opinion column that couldn't spell Sokal correctly, a right-wing culture-war rag (The Critic) and a screed by an investment manager complaining that John Oliver treated him unfairly on Last Week Tonight. It says that the "Gell-Mann amnesia effect is similar to Erwin Knoll's law of media accuracy" from 1982, which as I understand it violates Wikipedia's policy.

By Crichton's logic, we get to ignore Wikipedia now!

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Also on the BlueSky-o-tubes today, I saw this from Ketan Joshi:

Used [hugging face]'s new tool to multiply 2 five digit numbers

Chatbot: wrong answer, 0.3 watthours

Calc: right answer, 0.00000011 watthours (2.5 million times less energy)

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

NOT THE (PORK-FILLED) BEES!

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