s3p5r

Crossposting this thread from [email protected] with the fortune article "Elon Musk’s AI turns on him, labels him ‘one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X’". The article itself is nothing much, but it does have this quote:

The smackdown from his own AI system, ironically, came soon after Musk touted the system to his followers in a tweet reading “Use Grok for answers that are based on up-to-date info!”

A little delicious irony is fine as a treat.

🛰Satle #106 1/6 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ https://satle.ca

I've never been, but it felt right. Turns out it was!

Especially given the events of the last week, that doesn't seem to have worked either, no matter how direct. The ineffectiveness would also explain why Fuentes has now been doxxed.

Yeah, ridicule or insults are generally not very helpful at promoting positive change, unfortunately. If they were useful, we'd tell parents to insult their children as a teaching method. The fact we don't recommend that might imply that ridicule is not great for personal growth. Insults usually only helpful as catharsis for the person using them. More reason to be considerate in choice, in my opinion.

Actual good actions are necessary to promote other good actions. I hope we both can do more good going forward.

That's definitely a fair point that it's quite indirect, which I think raises another question - why not just directly call the actions cruel / contemptuous / arrogant or belligerent / whatever else? Do we need to describe the person at all if it's really the actions that we're trying to discourage? Calling someone a slur, while harsh, seems to be perhaps as indirect as the dead hamster metaphor - if the goal is to condemn their choices.

I think it's great that you're considering this, and would like to add some food for thought.

Isn't it strange how many words in English are insults derived from medical descriptions (and sometimes medical descriptions derived from insults)? Cretin, idiot, imbecile, dumb, moron, spastic... even words we don't consider insults which do describe disabilities are used to describe bad things. Like being "blind/deaf to " or making "short-sighted" decisions. Our language is a reflection of our culture, and the English-language culture really dislikes human variation.

Finding words with the same harshness can be difficult, and it's also great to consider what makes a word harsh. Sending a message that behavior is not ok is important too, but I think we need to consider who we include in the collateral damage. Even if we don't intend it, many of our insults are historically created with bound associations which we perpetuate with their use. For example, moron has close ties with the American Eugenics Movement. That's something I think anyone with a shred of empathy would want to very much not associate with.

For practical advice on what to do, I'm a fan of using absurd metaphors. The Swedish have a good one for Fuentes. "Hjulet snurrar men hamstern är död" - the wheel is spinning but the hamster is dead.

If you describe something which you consider to be a bad choice as "going full retard", you associate making bad choices with cognitive disabilities. This is immensely harmful to people with cognitive disability who have to work every day to distance themselves from that prejudice. The association is discriminatory, and a bad choice.

For anyone else wondering:

Female fingerprints typically contain more densely packed ridges than male prints in the same area. These measurements were then compared against ridge density patterns found in contemporary Egyptian populations. ... The sex could not be determined for children.

Ah, thankyou for bearing with me, I see what you mean.

I just assumed there must be a large military office nearby and they were targeting the procurement personnel who do the actual contract and tender work, plus maybe the manufacturer headquarters is nearby and this is part of one of the more revolting symptoms of a highly militarized capitalist culture. I didn't get quite as far as drawing the connection to targeting politicians and staffers who likely can't put a meeting with missile sales reps on their publicly documented calendars, but that makes a lot of sense.

Help me out, the coffee isn't working today and I still don't get it. How does bribery fit in?

And sadder still, no friend or family can feed and house me. Economic coercion is very effective.

Even worse, this is still better treatment than when I worked state sector.

Imagine if you had to abandon your social life some years ago for the job and the only people you talk to on a daily basis are your coworkers on Slack.

Thanks for the reminder that my life is garbage, I guess. Unless you count the pleasantries I exchange with the person who makes my coffee in the morning?

I'm not employed by automattic, but this thread still cut deep with similar work culture.