Joined the Mayqueeze.

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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Thanks for your comment. They demonstrated something and I didn’t mean to dismiss that out of hand. It can be one data point hopefully among many.

    But this time this new paradigm is very much controlled by the wealthiest of the wealthy.

    I think that was true with the socials to a point as well, all aflush with venture capital and people like Peter Thiel dicking about there as well. I think radio and television needed capital as well to get going. And the printing press wasn’t cheap either and Gutenberg needed investors. So I think it’s a retread at scale as well.

    We don’t believe everything we read, hear, see, and come across on social media either. The resistance to so-called AI is already building up. People who don’t use it at all, people who try to avoid it, and businesses are regretting letting a lot of people go for this crap. We’ll find a way to filter out the bullshit as well. Nobody jumps out of their seat when a train comes out of the tunnel on the silver screen any more. Consider that image as apocryphal and metaphorical in this context.


  • The researchers cautioned, however, that, because they did not have a control group of people given counterarguments by humans, they could not definitively say the 30% reversal rate reflected an effect unique to AI.

    This study may be considered one data point and if others add to it, okay. But until then, this is not worth getting outraged over.

    Also, if you are in a position to change this dramatic outcome by altering a train’s course or pushing a person off a bridge, you probably won’t have the time to ask an LLM to enter into a philosophical debate with you. So this measured a highly theoretical change of mind about a virtually never to be encountered philosophical dilemma. The remote likelihood of such situations landing in their lap must have been very present in the participants’ minds while answering. It’s like playing with monopoly money or shooting a bunch of NPCs. A study about a more life-like scenario (political beliefs, cultural norms, work practices, etc.) which ticks all requirements of a well peer-reviewed study would probably be more insightful.

    We are also retreading all the debates about misinformation from when the web came about and then again with the advent of social media. Which had previously been held when movable type came about in Europe. Or the advent of radio and TV. The long arm of history shows we’re getting better at dealing with these changes.


  • There are laws and case law that make criticism of Israel harder than in other places. Post WW2 pro-Nazi and antisemetic speech was basically declared hate speech. Courts have taken a narrow view of what counts as antisemetic. There are in excess of six million reasons for that hard swing in the other direction.

    So I would say the long version is this: you can criticize Israel but you need to pay close attention to how you say it. Criticizing the existence of the Jewish state is possible as well but you need to weigh your words even more carefully.

    Moderators on an internet forum may take an even narrower approach to avoid any sort of legal trouble. And thus continues a chilling effect.

    Freedom of speech is a tricky subject. Post WW2 the US had the influence to export their constitutional values, such as a first amendment, to Japan and West Germany. In both cases they punted. It’s not without some irony when I say opinions on how to establish freedom of speech in a democratic constitution vary.



  • Your account is five days old. So I don’t think your message here carries a lot of weight unfortunately. That post is violating the community rules as well. And the account defended itself to not be a bot when no one accused it of that. So it’s probably not a great case to use to start a warm welcome campaign.

    Former redditors should be familiar with something like forum rules and how to check them.



  • Daniel is one of the founders of Mullvad and part owner. He took a big chunk of change from his private wealth and donated it to a horseshoe loonie party. Horseshoe because they try to marry ideas from the extreme left to immigrant hateful ideas from the extreme right. Loonie is self explanatory. His donation made it possible for that party to run a nationwide campaign.

    Mullvad users who got mad simplified this to Mullvad fees finance a Nazi party directly. Which isn’t true. How much of this donation truly came from VPN fees is also a matter of debate. They aren’t strictly Nazis, more xenophobic communists. But assholes are still assholes and people choose labels differently. There is a lot of kneejerk reacting going on.

    The company seems to want to ride it out. They correctly point to this being a decision by a private citizen who may exercise his free speech by donating to the loonie party. But they either don’t recognize the PR hell of being guilty by association as a company or they know the subscription drain isn’t as bad as the online outrage makes it look like. They publicly say this is all about free speech, which is their DNA, yada yada yada.


  • This isn’t good. It’s also not entirely correct. Mullvad isn’t financing this party directly. One of the owners took his money he made from the company and donated it to the loonies. He could’ve bought crypto with it, spent it in blow maybe, but he didn’t. “Mullvad is financing this party” is not correct. “Your Mullvad fees may have ended up indirectly financing this party” is correct and an ongoing concern. So is their tepid response to the story breaking. I would still advise caution, hammer them with public outrage pressure on the socials, and hope they get rid of the loonie party donor before you bankrupt an otherwise serviceable VPN provider. If that guy is still there in a couple of months, by all means leave.

    There is no shortage of c@<%s in the tech sector.