Except that in almost every instance where a profession has been automated, that’s exactly what happened. Having a computer that keeps track of your inventory makes the workflow better for the logistics department, and then using a computer to schedule deliveries makes that part easier as well. And you keep doing that and eventually you’re doing the work of twelve professionals and your team shrinks down to 1/12th of what it was. And then you chip away at those tasks until you halve the workforce again, and eventually the computer is doing all of those tasks and the people who used to do those things are obsolete. Then they go back to school hoping to find a training program where they can make money before AI takes those jobs too.

And these are the exact same stupid “it will never happen to MY industry” horseshit that has happened to every industry just before it got automated away. Nobody thought that computers would mean the death of stores, until they enabled people to shop from home and get it delivered. Robots were never supposed to replace workers in restaurants, except now even mid scale restaurants have discovered that it much cheaper to put a Wi-Fi enabled iPad on the table than pay a human to take your order. They pay one person to take the food out to all the tables. They reduce headcount and make more money. AI is taking over a lot of office jobs now too. But don’t worry, your industry is specialer than every other job that’s ever been automated away. I mean we NEED mailroom staff, because all the people who work in offices started in the mailroom (in the 1980s) except now there hasn’t been a mailroom since 1990s because people realized that they could reduce their labor costs by using emails instead of inter office memos hand delivered by humans.

People watch machinema and play video games with hours of cutscenes. If people were okay with animation, machinema, game cutscenes and so on before AI, they aren’t going to reject a film because it doesn’t have real actors. We watched this (https://youtu.be/jzQPYuwzwH8?si=FCsQoM2IE797BgQR) in 2000. I dare say that AI could produce something this good within five years.

In fact the fact that SAG has to fight so hard to prevent such a thing tells me exactly how scared they are of it. You don’t fight to ban things they you don’t think can take over your industry, you fight the things you fear will. If AI can’t do anything to threaten the livelihoods of people making movies and TV why was it critical that all production stop for weeks to make absolutely positively sure that no AI will ever be used to make an American movie? And what happens when other countries don’t honor that ban? If I make an AI show in France using no SAG has. No say. And it might cost a tenth of the cost to use real actors and crews.

I actually consider it bad that kids aren’t misbehaving anymore or at least at the same rates. The problem with that is that getting in trouble (provided it isn’t crime or hard drugs) does two things that are important for making stable healthy adults. First, it allows kids to make mistakes and learn how to make better decisions, and second it teaches them that even pretty serious mistakes are things you can recover from. The biggest problem for anyone raised with screens from birth is that they just don’t seems to develop the same sort of independence older generations did. We got into all kinds of Trouble. But the things that let us get into trouble made us independent: time alone, unsupervised with our peers. We fucked up, paid for it, fixed it, and realized it wasn’t that terrible. They never do it, don’t learn from making the bad decision, and never learn that those mistakes can be corrected and you’ll be okay.

To be honest, if I’m hiring and I want a leader, I want people who fucked up at least a little. Not because I want someone who makes bad decisions, but because I want somebody who isn’t afraid to try things. Someone who can make a mistake without going to pieces. Any kind of leadership, design, creative work, or even just getting things done requires a mindset that you need to move fast, break things, and figure out how to recover from that. Meekly sitting around waiting for someone to tell you exactly what to do and exactly how to do it not only means that you’re never going to get good at anything, but that you’ll have anxiety because you don’t think you can. In the mind of these kids who are afraid of messing up is the fear that if you make a mistake, you’re just done.

I think it depends. If it doesn’t matter to the overall project to have it perfect, then as long as AI is good enough it will be used more often than not. That’s why I’m laughing at writers who are all in on forcing the idea of “save the cat” forcing every story ever done to fit a single structure. AI can do stuff like that super easy. While it probably can’t make a great arty movie it can absolutely churn out formulaic crap easily and cheaply. And as long as people choose formulaic crap over arthouse cinema (which they reliably do) AI will take over most film jobs and make do with whatever minor inconsistencies and inconveniences that AI introduces to big blockbusters because it’s not like anyone goes to a marvel film to gawk at cinematography. As long as your film franchise is McDonald’s levels of formulaic, and that’s what your fans expect , there’s no reason to waste money on expensive humans.

I’m not sure of that. People love to say that about technology. The problem here is that the humans being replaced are pretty darn expensive and depending on the application, it’s probably going to save money on an order of x/5 just by getting rid of actors and actresses for films. That’s before considering things like cameramen, directors, writers, and crew to set up and take down sets. With sufficient resources, I don’t think you could easily tell the difference between a mid-budget TV show made this way and perhaps voice-acted (or maybe AI can do that too, not sure yet) given just how good video game graphics are already. And if I can make my sci-fi show for 1/10th the cost by not needing actors or a big crew, then I can put more money into writing and I don’t even need the same sized audience as other shows.

I’ve been into Stunna Gambino, KB Mike, and Public enemy (a throwback from the 1980s)

I’ve been into Stunna Gambino, KB Mike, and Public enemy (a throwback from the 1980s)

I tend to agree. I don’t see things like this or glass or that stupid Apple holodeck thing ever coming into common civilian use. They have too many negatives and are too expensive to replace the nearly ubiquitous phones already in use for home entertainment. I could see industrial use, for example using a device like that to give engineers the ability to see heat signatures, metal fatigue, or other signs of wear and tear. I could see this having a military use where, much like video games, a heads up map display is extremely valuable. Even engineering where you might want to have a virtual tour of the design in ways that let you touch controls or parts in VR without needing a prototype built.

One thing that absolutely floors me about tech-bros and their approach to technology is that they still, 3-4 generations into the use of technology don’t understand a simple concept that’s always been obvious to me: if the technology doesn’t significantly improve on what’s already out there at a similar price point, nobody will buy it. People didn’t buy cell phones because they were cool, they bought them because cell phones untethered them from landline phones that were connected to the wall. iPads became popular because they’re smaller, lighter and easier to use than laptops. Google Glass solves no actual problems. There’s nothing that the technology does that couldn’t be done with the cellphone. If you want augmented reality, it’s going to do much better as an app that you download to the phone and point at an object you need more information on than as a device you buy and wear and struggle to use.

This is what worries me about the West’s insistence on spending trillions on Ukraine. The public will for this kind of aid is already falling and has reached the point where at least a third of the country doesn’t support it. And this is for a country with limited strategic value. For Russia, having Ukrain means a buffer again invasion, but as far as it goes Ukraine is mostly farmland outside of Donbas that has mineral wealth.

China isn’t supporting Russia because it likes Russia or thinks it can win. They’re using the situation and trying to keep it going so we shoot our entire wad on Ukraine, demoralize our population against the idea of sending trillions in aide to a country to defend itself, and to take the opportunity to get off western oil markets. Once the public turns against Ukraine, I think they make a play for Taiwan. Taiwan is important, almost all of the high end computer chips we use are made there. It’s something we can’t let go of unless we want to be subservient to China in exchange for keeping our computers running. But how can you sell that to a public that’s already tired of seeing so much money sent to Ukraine in the billions every month?

My experience of internet recipes is that they’re often over complicated and use ingredients that are rare in the USA. The typical internet recipe has two or three pans going, a home made sauce, and a garnish. If you’re not comfortable in the kitchen, that’s a lot of things going at once. Add in the expense of the exotic ingredients, and the pressure of comparing yourself to semi-pro cooks as far as how your food looks, and I honestly don’t blame people for giving up early.

A pasta or a dish over rice is pretty easy. You can cook pasta or rice or even mashed potatoes by boiling them, and it’s hard to get it wrong unless you boil over the pot or don’t have enough water. Sauces I think are something a beginner should purchase. There’s no reason that they need to make a sauce when they’re first starting out. Sauces aren’t super hard, but when you’re trying to get everything else right, adding an extra complication for no reason just makes the process more difficult for little real gain. Use frozen meatballs if you’re first starting. In baking, I think, again making your own crust is a waste of time until you’re comfortable in the kitchen. Start easy. Make simple stuff, and don’t be ashamed of buying the occasional ingredient or substituting expensive ingredients for cheaper common ones that you already have.

The feeling of “I can’t do it” I don’t think comes from not being able to cook anything. Most of the time if you can follow simple directions, you absolutely can cook something. The problem is thinking that you have to make complicated recipes that have to look instagram worthy to be successful. Or that they have to be 100% made from scratch. I’ve cooked for a while, and nothing I’ve made is worthy of instagram, and I use premade mixes and sauces. It’s not shameful, normal people do it all the time.

My experience of internet recipes is that they’re often over complicated and use ingredients that are rare in the USA. The typical internet recipe has two or three pans going, a home made sauce, and a garnish. If you’re not comfortable in the kitchen, that’s a lot of things going at once. Add in the expense of the exotic ingredients, and the pressure of comparing yourself to semi-pro cooks as far as how your food looks, and I honestly don’t blame people for giving up early.

A pasta or a dish over rice is pretty easy. You can cook pasta or rice or even mashed potatoes by boiling them, and it’s hard to get it wrong unless you boil over the pot or don’t have enough water. Sauces I think are something a beginner should purchase. There’s no reason that they need to make a sauce when they’re first starting out. Sauces aren’t super hard, but when you’re trying to get everything else right, adding an extra complication for no reason just makes the process more difficult for little real gain. Use frozen meatballs if you’re first starting. In baking, I think, again making your own crust is a waste of time until you’re comfortable in the kitchen. Start easy. Make simple stuff, and don’t be ashamed of buying the occasional ingredient or substituting expensive ingredients for cheaper common ones that you already have.

The feeling of “I can’t do it” I don’t think comes from not being able to cook anything. Most of the time if you can follow simple directions, you absolutely can cook something. The problem is thinking that you have to make complicated recipes that have to look instagram worthy to be successful. Or that they have to be 100% made from scratch. I’ve cooked for a while, and nothing I’ve made is worthy of instagram, and I use premade mixes and sauces. It’s not shameful, normal people do it all the time.

I think a lot of “can’t cook” is overthinking it. The skills themselves are pretty simple. Sautéing isn’t rocket science, nor are boiling, frying, or chopping. People over complicated the idea of cooking to the point that they think they need to make 15-step recipes using rare and exotic ingredients. I think if people want to learn to cook, the first step is to stop watching Food Network. That’s like trying to learn to draw by looking at famous paintings. It doesn’t work and mostly discourages you because you can’t cook like a chef until you can cook like your mom. Honestly, the best thing is to get a non fancy basic-bitch cookbook BH&G, Good Housekeeping, something like that. Learn to do those recipes and you can pick up the rest later.

Right now, Artemis by Andy Weir. I like his stuff because he creates a future that’s a lot more of a blue-collar space experience. His heroes are not the graduates of space academy and don’t necessarily have their shit together. They mess up, they do stupid things. They just plain don’t know what they’re doing.

Not only does being so online skew what you see about your own world, but it actually creates alternative realities where what you see is only a small fraction of reality. If I wanted to, I could essentially watch nothing but Kdramas and anime, read news from Korea in English. I can do so in the same house as someone who watches nothing but sports. A MAGA person never has to see, hear or read anything that isn’t MAGA. The streaming services, explosion of content, and the ability to have private screens mean living in your own universe. I think this might be rather dangerous as shared, lived experiences and knowledge are what bind a society together. I don’t know how you can find common ground when we don’t share a set of facts or experiences.

I think I’m a bit more conservative on this as an American woman. The big issue even on non-contact sports is scholarships. College sports in America are a critical way that kids who otherwise could not afford a good college get in, especially for minorities. But, women cannot possibly compete for those spots even in the situation where a man, even one on hormone replacement is available. And with the prospect of free tuition on the side of a male student, this might be something they’d be willing to do simply to escape poverty. On the coaches side (again in the USA) there’s huge pressure to build a winning team. Coaches of Division I sports are often the highest paid people in that college. It’s a huge business, and if you can get just under the NCAA hormone levels with a couple of B p-team men, you can wipe the floor with a woman’s team. And thus, now you’ll essentially shut a lot of women out of those scholarships and those teams because they’re unable to keep pace with the men playing.

Couldn’t that definition apply to anything electronic? My cell phone matabolizes energy from a battery which i charge from a wall socket. It responds to commands I give it via a touch screen. Other than needing a factory to reproduce, it’s meets the definition.

It’s called the “hard problem” for a reason. Consciousness and free will are extremely hard to provide good definitions for, and in fact there are good philosophical arguments on how we — Humans — may not really have either one. Now if we can’t be sure that WE are conscious, that WE have the ability to exercise free will, is really not possible to make coherent arguments about whether anyone or anything else does. It ends up something like arguing about souls — and it’s amazing how groups of living things we didn’t historically see as “equal to us” were seriously considered to maybe not even have a soul. There are historical arguments during the pre-civil war era arguing about whether Black people had souls. We argue in much the same way about animals — are animals “conscious” which TBH is a stand in for the discussion people don’t want to have about rights. If you can deny souls or the modern equivalent of consciousness to a being whether it’s an amoeba, a cow, a robot, an alien or a human, then you don’t have to give them rights.

My interaction on the topic is fairly shallow. Mostly reading about it, although I’ll admit that science fiction has shaped my thinking as well.

I agree. I’m in retail, and there are a lot of people (not just millennials, but in every generation) who simply are entitled little shits. They seem to have no concept of how they affect other people, cannot stand the word “no” or even “it might take some time” . It’s a narrow segment of all generations and it’s weird to me how they’re so cacooned from the outside world that they assume everything is all about them. They can be late or absent and just ghost people without having to explain or even apologize for it.

I think a huge problem for the debate on whether robots and AI are conscious in any meaningful sense is less about the capacity of the machine in question and much more about the fact that consciousness is a hard problem in itself. We simply lack a good enough definition of consciousness to make any meaningful tests for consciousness that are based on real theory.

The general philosophical definition is that a conscious being has a subjective experience of the world. Or to quote the common question “is it like something to be an X?” Does it have an internal thought process, will, wants, and desires? Does it experience things subjectively? Does the robot experience something like pain when it falls off a platform? But how do you define pain? An amoeba will react negatively to a stimulus, and it will be attracted to others. But if it encounters water too hot for it and moves away is this a biological equivalent of machine learning, or is it pain? Keep in mind that amoebas have no CNS or brains, just a single cell. To my mind the amoeba could be doing either of these. It could be doing exactly like the robot falling off a platform. “This event is negative, avoid.” Or it could experience pain.

Cars, used as designed aren’t supposed to injure or kill people. Any time a gun is used properly, on the target it was designed to destroy, a life ends, whether human or animal. That makes guns a different animal than most other consumer products. No other consumer product is designed such that proper use on the target intended causes death. And outside of potentially causing that death (whether in self-defense or offense) there’s no use for them. Cars are transportation, they are used to move the driver and any passengers from one place to another at speeds faster than humans or beasts of burden can go. They’re designed to move cargo as well.

I believe that self-defense can be a necessary thing, and preparing for that can be perfectly legitimate. But the argument “other products kill too, and we haven’t banned them” is a deliberate obfuscation of the issue at hand — guns are, for better or worse, designed for the purpose of killing. Cars are transportation. Ovens are for cooking. Cold medicine is for making you feel less sick. Off purpose uses of those things that injure or kill are seen as problems to be solved, not features to be enhanced.

I don’t see how that’s better. If you allow a country into NATO that means that we go to hot war with any country that invades it (in this case Russia) no matter what. Add in that we’d basically be surrounding Russia, and I think we be at a hot nuclear war.

I think it's the lack of things like fiber and proteins and so on in the processed American diet. Fiber and proteins and fats make people feel full, and thus stop eating. I've done fairly well for myself sticking to a semi-paleo diet (I allow quality cheeses and 100% whole grain breads). But what I find is that I can chow down on processed versions of real foods a lot more than I can of the whole version of the same thing.

I'm a lot more pessimistic than you.

The GOP is running the political equivalent of prevent defense. Just like in 2008, they have the game plan of standing against anything the democrats want to do. They're going to make very good use of the filibuster that the democrats failed to do anything about. Our courts are packed with John Birch society vetted conservatives, which effectively means that a lot of legislation, provided that it actually gets past the Senate Filibuster, will be dead the minute it hits the courts. As far as democrats getting elected, I'm doubtful of this especially in the senate and the whitehouse. Reading the new voting laws that the GOP are putting in for the states they control, it's easy for them to manipulate the system to win no matter what the general public actually wants. I say this with a heavy heart, but I don't think our pseudo-democratic system is going to let the plebs get anything they want or need. No loan relief, no minimum wage increase, no infrastructure, and definitely no green new deal. To be blunt, anyone who still thinks the government will do anything for the plebs is willfully blind. We are on our own, for the most part.

Preview of coming attractions: the Attorney General of MO is suing to prevent a mask mandate. I don't think lockdowns are remotely on the table here. And again, I m telling you, if you're vulnerable, you need to figure it out yourself because there's no bailouts or lockdowns coming that I can see in the future. And those cities and states that try will be heavily resisted because everyone understands now that they'll lose a year of income and get $1400 with only a moratorium on payments of their rapidly expanding debt. That's if (as happened last summer) local cops don't simply announce that they have no intention of actually enforcing those mandates. If you want a real lockdown, you'll need the National Guard.

I mean it depends. One thing about 1918 is that most people who actually lived it are ... Dead. This means essentially that the stuff that lives on are things in the media reports. We have photos of guys in trenches and people in masks and anti mask leagues (which were formal clubs in 1918). On the other hand, judging from my family, the stuff we actually remember to pass down as oral history are things that affected us personally. My great grandmother caught the Spanish flu and lived. They boiled the silver wear (which probably didn't help because it's a virus, but what would a young Polish girl know). From the Depression I have stories of my great grandfather feeding random kids in Chicago and not charging some people for the milk he delivered. Also he had a blind horse.

I think people who personally lost jobs and houses will remember. People who couldn't have their weddings the way they wanted will remember (my grandparents couldn't get some stuff because of WW2, so they made their wedding meal brunch after trading ration points), they'll remember if they participated in protests. I think 1/6 will join 9/11 and the JFK assassination as a "where were you when" thing. For the record, I was watching the speeches, Ted Cruz put me to sleep, and I woke up 20 minutes later hella confused.

Stories that happened to you, you'll remember. Marquee moments that get press will be collective memories.

I had a coat I ordered online which I didn't know at the time came from China. Months went by, no coat. Like ordered it in November and it didn't show up. At the same time I started hearing all the weird stuff in Wuhan. I eventually put it together when I saw a post on Slatestarcodex about it. Which said that masks probably work. Then everybody bought TP.

Electorally it doesn't matter unless states actually flip. 10,000 more democrat voters in various blue states don't matter because of the electors. There's no reason for them to worry much about blue voters "voting really really hard" because their regions are generally blue anyway.

Electorally it doesn't matter unless states actually flip. 10,000 more democrat voters in various blue states don't matter because of the electors. There's no reason for them to worry much about blue voters "voting really really hard" because their regions are generally blue anyway.

We tolerate it because it's absolutely different.

In the real world, you don't know anything unless I tell you specifically. I went somewhere last Tuesday, you don't find out unless I TELL YOU. Unless you are following me and listening in, which is creepy.

Online, you pretty much telegraph the entire thing. You carry a locator in your pocket. You leave trails based on your IP address. There are no secrets. You can't tell the world where you are and what you're doing and then get mad because people know. You told them.

I feel that way too sometimes. I think it's a rather big ask for anyone to simply pause life except for social media. I feel bad for those who have it worse than I do. I think the key is finding healthy outlets for the needs you feel. I've rediscovered reading, and I'm trying to learn Korean because Kpop and kdramas are interesting. But you do you, which is the point.

You need something to keep you grounded.

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