Idiots participate in Bigger Idiot scheme, upset to find out they’re the Bigger Idiot.

Hard to predict.

This act broke the taboo against violence and shattered the perception of powerlessness. Turns out there is something you can do against these assholes, and it’s not as unpopular an option as you might have expected.

It may inspire imitation, emboldening other pissed victims. It may scare the other CEOs into treading more carefully. It might embolden progressive politicians to challenge the status quo, now that they see how popular that can be.

Or it might end up a big ball of hot air that doesn’t do anything. Like I said, hard to predict.

I once made a reddit comment in anger that was most certainly over the line. I don’t remember the context, but someone had my blood boiling quite badly, which I voiced by wishing pain on them. However, it was a support-oriented community, and my outburst was definitely not tone-appropriate for that environment - the last thing people seeking support need is a graphic description of pain. I got a two-day (I think?) temp ban from that sub, citing that reason. First I was pissed, then reflected, acknowledged my error and didn’t repeat that mistake.

In hindsight, I think that makes for a good moderation approach:

Lock an escalating thread, clean out comments that cross the line, hand out brief temporary bans to particularly excessive offenders or those continuing their venting spree in other threads after the first one was locked, give them an opportunity to step back and reflect.

Of course, there’s still the question of “what do the mods consider excessive?” But that’s a question you’d have either way.

It’s a common bait-and-switch joke. “I have Ligma” “What’s Ligma?” “Ligma Balls!” (The joke being that “Ligma” sounds like “Lick My”)

Maybe you’re familiar with a similar joke: “Hey, do you think it smells like updog in here?” “What’s updog” “Not much, what’s up with you?” (Here, the joke is that “What’s updog” sounds like “What’s up, dawg”)

Science communicators that make complex things accessible for the general public are a critical component to building and maintaining public support for scientific institutions. If we want science to serve public interests rather than corporate ones, we need to establish public funding for it, which requires a public understanding of what they are doing and why it’s valuable.

A blog I very much like and keep recommending talks about both the importance of this and the differing viewpoints within academic culture (specifically about history, but many of the concepts apply to sciences in general). It also has cat pictures.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard about toxic culture in universities (Section “The Advisor”). Again, the entry is about graduate programs in the humanities, but it’s not just a humanities-specific issue.

I personally didn’t know about HowStuffWorks (I was under the misconception that it was just a YouTube format, which I generally don’t watch a whole lot), but checking it out now, I definitely missed out, and I think it fits the criteria of the field-to-public communication.

To drive such a valuable contributor to such despair they no longer want to live at all is a disservice to the public, a threat to what good their institution can do (which, for all its toxicity, probably also provided valuable research) and most of all a crime against that person. I hope they’re held accountable, but I also hope that public scrutiny can bring about improvements in academic culture so that his death might still do some good in the end.

Entomolinguist

It mises the “good enough” human approximations of the “true names” when the latter is impossible for humans to pronounce: it doesn’t have to be the exact correct pronunciation. If the Ants can’t make the -lk- or -nt- sounds of my screen name and chant “Lennivekat”, It’s close enough that I get they mean me. I might try to teach them the correct pronunciation, then probably give up and ask what they actually want.

There should be a Lemmy feature (perhaps just a client implementation detail?) for LaTeX conversion

Now I want to learn more.

That is just about the greatest compliment you could give me, and I’m delighted that my own fascination has lit some in you too.

One blog I can’t recommend enough is A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, a Roman and Military historian’s look at pop culture depictions of history like the Siege of Gondor or the general stereotype of Romans, interspersed with general info about the social patterns around making bread, a discussion on the nature and severity of the collapse of western Rome, an argument on “Why We Need the Humanities” and even some thoughts on spaceship gun placement and a followup on starship design extrapolated from the factors that informed those decisions historically (like firing arcs or protection of vital components).

I’ll give you a single, half-hearted warning that you may end up sinking hours and hours into binging this, but I honestly think that it’s a good way to spend those hours.

Actually, it’s not entirely disconnected.

Concrete was mostly used in large building projects. These were expensive and thus usually sponsored by those wealthy enough to invest in such projects, particularly if they were vanity projects. In Rome, that would be the Emperors. Outside, it would typically take multiple sponsors.

The decline in economic stability around the Third Century, the reduction in profitable conquest due to military power being invested in civil wars of succession and the increasingly expensive bribes for the Praetorian Guard all contributed to Emperors having less money to spend on such projects, with predictable results: Less projects were built.

This is vaguely recited from an AskHistorians post, all errors are on me.

Much of Roman technology was lost because the collapse of state capacity and according administrative capacity rendered the balance of agrarian to non-agrarian workers unsustainable.

A high equilibrium, where the products of population centers supports and enhances the productivity of the agrarian surroundings while administrative pressure (like taxes) encourage the trade between the two: If the farmers need to pay taxes in coin, they need to sell surplus to merchants who ship it to cities to sell it. Conversely, the craftsmen producing iron plows, pottery and so on need coin too, so they sell tools, which the farmers buy to improve their yield. The state also buys services (like construction) and the elite buys luxuries, further creating jobs and fostering more technological development.

(Obviously, the elite skim a lot off the value produced by others - just because they did some good for others with it doesn’t mean they didn’t primarily do a lot of good for themselves.)

But when internal strife, plague, worsening climate, desperate invaders and identity politics all start breaking that machine, it’s hard to keep it from falling apart. And once the rural argarian production can no longer sustain the cities, the skills and crafts of the urbanites get lost.

That, or they opted to use buzzwords to secure funding from investors more willing to buy into the hype than actually interested about the research.

Or it’s just a joke, playing off of that trope or scientific headlines to make a caricature of Musk.

AGI and ASI are what I am referring to. Of course we don’t actually have that right now, I never claimed we did.

I was talking about the currently available technology though, its inefficiency, and the danger of tech illiteracy leading to overreliance on tools that aren’t quite so “smart” yet to warrant that reliance.

I agree with your sentiment that it may well some day reach that point. If it does and the energy consumption is no longer an active concern, I do see how it could justifiably be deployed at scale.

But we also agree that “we don’t actually have that right now”, and with what we do have, I don’t think it’s reasonable. I’m happy to debate that point civilly, if you’re interested in that.

It is hilarious and insulting you trying to “erm actually” me when I literally work in this field doing research on uses of current gen ML/AI models.

And how would I know that? Everyone on the Internet is an expert, how would I come to assume you’re actually one? Given the misunderstanding outlined above, I assumed you were conflating the (topical) current models with the (hypothetical) future ones.

Go fuck yourself

There is no need for such hostility. I meant no insult, I just misunderstood what you were talking about and sought to correct a common misconception. Seeing how the Internet is already full of vitriol, I think we’d all do each other a favour if we tried applying Hanlon’s Razor more often and look for explanations of human error instead of concluding malice.

I hope you have a wonderful week, and good luck with your ongoing research!

Are you permanently drawing data at full available bandwidth?

Data consumption isn’t a constant stream limited only by your speed, it’s a question of demand. Maybe compare it to getting groceries: Getting them by car may be quicker than on foot, but that doesn’t mean you’ll need more of them.

AI strong enough would be smarter than a human

General AI might be, but the type of “AI” we have right now isn’t general, isn’t smarter, it’s just a really expensive imitation engine that people keep mistaking for actual intelligence.

And the energy consumption and heat production are really not what our global situation needs right now.

My personal suggestion? Stop using Twatter.

Whether you move on to some other microblogging platform (like Bluesky or Mastodon) or just drop it entirely is a different question and depends on what content you care about. When you do check it, what do you check it for? Would you really miss that?

If it’s specific accounts or personalities you care about, you could check if they have opened alternative accounts on those other platforms and let that inform your decision. If it’s topics, I don’t know enough about Bluesky’s userbase to recommend it, but I know Mastodon’s @[email protected] has a bunch of topic-oriented curated lists.

X Corp. is majorly owned by Elon Musk

it will ruin the character of the neighbourhood

“Boy, I sure love the sound and smell of cars! Imagine if people walked quietly instead, that would be awful - who would I yell at for speeding?”

after someone […] ran over a residents dog along the street.

Why does it seem like safety measures only ever get approved after someone died?

(Visibility bias, probably - a death is just a lot more noticeable than a “would have died in an alternative timeline but didn’t because…” - but that doesn’t make such deaths any less tragic)

I was contesting the general logic of this sentiment:

Which “experts” do you need for what’s common knowledge?

I took this to mean “If common knowledge suggests an obvious understanding, an expert’s assessment is can add no value, as they would either agree or be wrong.” Put differently: “If it seems obviously true to me, it must be true in general.”

TL;DR: If you think you know more than experts on a given topic, you’re most likely wrong.

On a fundamental level, this claim in general holds no water. Experts in a given field are usually aware of the “common knowledge”. They also usually have special knowledge, which is what makes them experts. If they claim things that contradict “common knowledge”, it’s more likely that their special knowledge includes additional considerations a layperson wouldn’t be aware of.
Appeal to Authority as a fallacy applies if the person in question isn’t actually an authority on the subject just because they’re prominent or versed in some other context, but it doesn’t work as universal refutation of “experts say”.

For this specific case, I’m inclined to assume there is some nuance I might not know about. Obvious to me seems that large, central power plants are both easier targets and more vulnerable to total disruption if a part of their machinery is damaged. On the other hand, a distributed grid of solar panels may be more resilient, as the rest can continue to function even if some are destroyed, in addition to being harder to spot, making efforts to disrupt power supply far more expensive in terms of resources.

However, I’m not qualified to assess the expertise of the people in question, let alone make an accurate assessment myself. Maybe you’re right, they’re grifters telling bullshit. But I’d be wary of assuming so just because it seems true.

Yeah but wind power plants are ugly here instead of even uglier somewhere else that’s NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard).