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It may already be happening in immigrant communities. What are their families going to do - report it to the cops?

They found that cultural factors were far more correlated with criminality than socioeconomic status.

I don’t speak Swedish and it appears that the full report is only available in Swedish.

From the end of their English summary:

Research questions

The presentation of results is based on the following central question: According to the published research, what is the significance of socioeconomic family background during childhood for explaining individual differences in offending?

Sub-questions include: What do studies from Sweden and other countries say about the correlation between socioeconomic background during childhood and involvement in crime? Are there differences between men and women? How strong is this correlation, and how does this compare with the strength of the correlations found for various factors described in the research as established risk factors for offending? How do researchers explain the links between socioeconomic background factors and participation in crime?

I also don’t trust an automated translation to accurately convey a full report and any nuance it may contain. It sounds like they are analyzing socioeconomic background and not socioeconomic status, is that correct?

There is a substantial difference between “I grew up poor” and “I’m currently unable to afford a dignified life.” Yes, statistically you are more likely to continue to be poor, but you background does not define your current status.

I stated: Most crime is a direct result of poverty.

I’m not arguing that crime is the direct result of growing up in poverty. I’m arguing that the goal of most crime (and I’m focusing specifically on what you might call “economic crime”) is the manifestation of someone’s need or desire for something that someone not living paycheck to paycheck would take for granted.

I’ve tried deadlines. I’ve asked for things to be done before our next meeting with the vendor we’re working with. Hell, almost everything I need done is clearly conveyed as “I cannot proceed to move your project forward until you perform X task that I don’t have the rights to perform or make a decision regarding your department’s policy on X.” In fact, I’ve shown up at the meetings with them and the vendor and literally told them the situation - they do everything that’s piled up in like 5-10 minutes and are apologetic. Then two days later I need another small thing and it begins again. So now I call for a meeting to “go over the project days the next vendor meeting.” I really just have a list of shit I can’t work on for the next vendor meeting because ya’ll don’t respond to all my requests otherwise.

Also remember, some of these are directed at my superiors - like the boss of the department I’m working with. It’s their project so it’s not like I’m getting in trouble or missing my deadlines. It just murders my flow state and frustrates me to no end when it can take days or weeks to get a response.

When I started my career I quickly became convinced that meetings are the opposite of work. Now a large part of my career is hosting meetings. 😬

I feel/felt similarly but I am now calling for meetings because it seems to be the easiest way to get my peers and superiors to do their fucking job so that I’m not stuck in limbo waiting for their parts to be finished. It seems like they only respond to slack mentions / emails / task assignments at random which leaves important, unanswered requests/questions just sitting there.

Sorry, this past year I’ve been working with another department for a project that, due to aforementioned woes, has run about 6-12 months more than it needs to.

I’m in the public sector and everyone is very busy and pulled in many directions so I kind of get it… but I want to be done with this thing.

It makes no difference cost wise to save a few cms of wood.

The cost savings is not only in materials. For manufacturing, lower quality materials and larger tolerances. Time to install and repair is lower because of how open the design is. Time to clean is lower because you can just soak the floor and mop without worrying about each stalls’ corners.

Brutal efficiency at the cost of comfort and privacy is what capitalism is all about. The US is just used to it and somehow also incredibly puritanical.

That said, efficiency isn’t a bad thing. There are some countries with some bathrooms that don’t have stalls - legit indoor public bathrooms where you just squat over a hole or urinals that are just one long wide trough. It’s about what you are used to.

Sadly many people have an ideological aversion to prison

The aversion I’m aware of is Punishment vs. Rehabilitation vs. Isolation.

Most crime is a direct result of poverty. Society should do it’s best to make sure we don’t have to weigh the moralality of stealing something you or your family need in order to survive and live a life of dignity. Those things should be provided.

Right now we basically just let those in poverty suffer and punish any of them that extract wealth from others (more accurately those not in poverty) in an “uncivilized” manner (stealing)… while simultaneously revering those who extract wealth from others in a “civilized” manner (wage theft, poverty wages, fraud, deceptive marketing, rent seeking, anticompetitive practices, frivolous lawsuits, etc).

Genuine dangers to society do need to be isolated. However, it’s important to at least try rehabilitation and addressing their needs before determining that someone is a genuine danger to society.

There is also the free will argument - arguing that people are who they are, free will is an illusion, and punishment is pointless - but it honestly just comes to the same general conclusions. If you can modify the behavior of a person so that they are able to coexist in society then work to do so. If rehabilitation is not possible, keep the public safe from that person and deal with that person as humanely as possible.

Clearly the author doesn’t understand how capitalism works. If Apple can pick you up by the neck, turn you upside down, and shake whatever extra money it can from you then it absolutely will do so.

The problem is that one indie developer doesn’t have any power over Apple… so they can go fuck themselves. The developer is granted the opportunity to grovel at the feet of their betters (richers) and pray that they are allowed to keep enough of their own crop to survive the winter. If they don’t survive… then some other dev will probably jump at the chance to take part in the “free market” and demonstrate their worth.

I’m not usually impacted by celebrities but I was hit surprisingly hard by the death of John Bain aka TotalBiscuit on YouTube. Why? He just kind of seemed like a regular, fairly young gamer and decent dude who just wanted to let people know whether a game might be worth buying… and then suddenly surprise, cancer. A shit ton of treatment and four years later, gone. It just felt like a reminder that life is random and unfair.

More than enough people who claim to know how it works think it might be “evolving” into a sentient being inside it’s little black box. Example from a conversation I gave up on… https://sh.itjust.works/comment/18759960

Hi 👋 I’m your AI news assistant, trained on Apple Valley News! Have any questions about this story? Tap a prompt below or ask me about anything!

And a terrible reminder of how things are going for us humans…

That was an example of a situation where time zones make sense. Any time it is important where the sun is in the sky, the time that it occurs will differ depending on where you are in the world. When is lunch break? When do backups run? When can you see the eclipse? If we weren’t in an interconnected world, it wouldn’t matter much but we need some convention to communicate information that is dependent on where the sun is, as that very often dictates human activity.

It seems like a universal time makes sense but I can’t think of a way to get around the fact that activity will vary according to timezones anyway.

And there are no other external factors that could possibly influence their compensation besides their objective “worth” to the hiring organization?

Edit: To clarify, might personal bias from the employer lead to a higher compensation? If two CEOs are interviewed and one went to the same college as several members of the board, or if several members of the board know one personally, but the known CEO isn’t as accomplished… is it possible that the CEO benefitting from bias is going be hired? Will the benefitting CEO receive a lower compensation, higher compensation, or the same compensation?

Is it possible for a CEO to lie about their ability and get hired under false pretenses? Is it possible for a CEO to be hired for political or “public image” reasons rather than talent/productivity reasons? Are these reflected in their compensation?

I think the word “learning”, and even “training”, is an approximation from a human perspective. MLs “learn” by adjusting parameters when processing data. At least as far as I know, the base algorithm and hyperparameters for the model are set in stone.

The base algorithm for “living” things is basically only limited by chemistry/physics and evolution. I doubt anyone could create an algorithm that advanced any time soon. We don’t even understand the brain or physics at the quantum level that well. Hell, we are using ML to create new molecules because we don’t understand it well.

I suppose the context of condiment vs. ingredient is enough. I don’t think many recipes use ketchup/catsup and most meals don’t leave tomato sauce out to be used as a condiment.

What I consider ketchup/catsup includes much more sugar and vinegar than what I consider tomato sauce. Is that not the case where you are from or is there a different word used?

We should stop using time zones

Check this out. I’m a business with at least one office in every US state. You want to know when my New York office opens so you can come by. Instead of seeing “Offices are open 9 AM to 5 PM” You now need to check every office… by state… by city? Time zones would be helpful even if we all used GMT, so that you could easily determine which time zone a business is in to set a reasonable time to be open.

DST can fuck off though.

The actors and athletes get paid a lot because someone is willing to pay that money, and they are willing because only a miniscule part of humankind has exceptional skills/talent.

I see. So you are saying that every CEO is paid what they are worth?

I think you’re either being a little dismissive of the potential complexity of the “thinking” capability of LLMs or at least a little generous if not mystical in your imagination of what the purely physical electrical signals in our heads are actually doing to learn how to interpret all these little shapes we see on screens.

I don’t think I’m doing either of those things. I respect the scale and speed of the models and I am well aware that I’m little more than a machine made of meat.

Babies start out mimicking. The thing is, they learn.

Humans learn so much more before they start communicating. They start learning reason, logic, etc as they develop their vocabulary.

The difference is that, as I understand it, these models are often “trained” on very, very large sets of data. They have built a massive network of the way words are used in communication - likely built from more texts than a human could process in several lifetimes. They come out the gate with an enormous vocabulary and understanding of how to mimic, replicate it’s use. If they had been trained on just as much data, but data unrelated to communication, would you still think it capable of reasoning without the ability to “sound” human? They have the “vocabulary” and references to mimic a deep understanding but because we lack the ability to understand the final algorithm it seems like an enormous leap to presume actual reasoning is taking place.

Frankly, I see no reason for models like LLMs at this stage. I’m fine putting the breaks on this shit - even if we disagree on the reasons why. ML can and has been employed to achieve far more practical goals. Use it alongside humans for a while until it is verifiably more reliable at some task - recognizing cancer in imaging or generating molecules likely of achieving a desired goal. LLMs are just a lazy shortcut to look impressive and sell investors on the technology.

Maybe I am failing to see reality - maybe I don’t understand the latest “AI” well enough to give my two cents. That’s fine. I just think it’s being hyped because these companies desperately need VC money to stay afloat.

It works because humans have an insatiable desire to see agency everywhere they look. Spirits, monsters, ghosts, gods, and now “AI.”

Yes, both systems - the human brain and an LLM - assimilate and organize human written languages in order to use it for communication. An LLM is very little else beyond this. It is then given rules (using those written languages) and then designed to create more related words when given input. I just don’t find it convincing that an ML algorithm designed explicitly to mimic human written communication in response to given input “understands” anything. No matter *how convincingly" an algorithm might reproduce a human voice - perfectly matching intonation and inflexion when given text to read - if I knew it was an algorithm designed to do it as convincingly as possible I wouldn’t say it was capable of the feeling it is able to express.

The only thing in favor of sentience is that the ML algorithms modify themselves and end up being a black box - so complex with no way to represent them that they are impossible for humans to comprehend. Could it somehow have achieved sentience? Technically, yes, because we don’t understand how they work. We are just meat machines, after all.