- anonymous_sorry parent"I apologize to the world at large for my inadvertent, naive if minor role in enabling this assault"
- In the same way it's better that adults are the recipients of the harms of smoking, drinking or gambling. It's still not desirable, but societies have settled upon thresholds for when people have some capacity to take responsibility for their choices.
Not saying those thresholds are always right and should definitely apply in this case, but it surely isn't an alien or non-obvious concept.
- Others have suggested "bullshit". A bullshitter does not care (and may not know) whether what they say is truth or fiction. A bullshitter's goal is just to be listened to and seem convincing.
- It's very impressive indeed.
Linux goal is only for code compatibility - which makes complete sense given the libre/open source origins. If the culture is one where you expect to have access to the source code for the software you depend on, why should the OS developers make the compromises needed to ensure you can still run a binary compiled decades ago?
- There's an interesting asymmetry in language in this area.
Jobs are "created" by a company or an industry.
But they never seem to be "destroyed", instead they are "lost".
If the company starts hiring again, they're "creating" new jobs, not "finding" the ones they were careless enough to lose.
- I think just be specific - a suicidal sixteen year-old was able to discuss methods of killing himself with an LLM by prompting it to role-play a fictional scenario.
No need to say he "lied" and then use an analogy of him lying to a human being, as did the comment I originally objected to.
- So for me, it's not about being reductionist, but about not anthropomorphizing or using words which which may suggest an inappropriate ethical or moral dimension to interactions with a piece of software.
- Mayyybe, but since the comment I objected to also used an analogy of lying to a person I felt it suggested some unwanted moral judgement (of a suicidal teenager).
- I mean, for one thing, a commercial LLM exists as a product designed to make a profit. It can be improved, otherwise modified, restricted or legally terminated.
And "lying" to it is not morally equivalent to lying to a human.
- That's certainly a reasonable argument.
Another is that this is a new and poorly understood (by the public at least) technology that giant corporations make available to minors. In ChatGPT's case, they require parental consent, although I have no idea how well they enforce that.
But I also don't think the manufacturer is solely responsible, and to be honest I'm not that interested in assigning blame, just keen that lessons are learned.
- You can't "deceive" an LLM. It's not like lying to a person. It's not a person.
Using emotive, anthropomorphic language about software tool is unhelpful, in this case at least. Better to think of it as a mentally disturbed minor who found a way to work around a tool's safety features.
We can debate whether the safety features are sufficient, whether it is possible to completely protect a user intent on harming themselves, whether the tool should be provided to children, etc.
- The historical conception of race doesn't translate simply to human genetics.
There is more genetic variation within a what we might call a race than between them. And it's interesting to note that the genetic diversity of Eurasian populations is in large part contained within the much greater diversity of Africa. In some sense we're all Africans. On top of that there has been a good amount of mixing, both historically and in the present day.
To think in terms of "races" might lead one to hold a mental model of impermeable boundaries between populations that in many cases were never present, and certainly aren't today. Geneticists tend to use the word "population" instead, since it doesn't connote any unhelpful assumptions about uniform or fixed phenotypes within a well-defined species subgroup.
Of course there are certain obvious environmental adaptations that have been selected for in different geographies/climates, as well random genetic drift between distant populations. Sometimes those difference might have medical relevance, and you can make statistical generalisations about the prevalence and distribution of genetic markers within any group you like. But for most medical and public policy applications it is likely most useful to focus on populations within an administrative area, and increasingly, individualised medicine.
- I was uneducated on the subject of coalition games, so looked it up. But I leaned these games are defined by a mechanic where players can form binding contracts with external enforcement/punishment.
I don't see how this applies to voting at all in countries without compulsory voting.
Communication and iterations also don't seem that relevant to my argument about free-riding, since one's voting record is not usually visible.
- I think this disagreement stems from the fact that, by instinct, you think socially. When I hear the word "rational", I think of the economist's model of a individual acting to optimise their own utility.
Of course in many (most?) situations, we get the best outcome overall by acting socially. But, to me, free-riding on the socially-motivated activities of others is a "rational" strategy (with a insignificant chance of one brick/vote making a difference), if not a laudable one. Which is why I don't advocate the "rational" strategy.
I appreciate your point that if everyone took that strategy we'd all suffer. I can never control what everyone does, but maybe I can build or support a big enough coalition to improve outcomes for the majority, or at least people like me. But free-riding will still be an option many choose, unless punished severely (which most countries don't when it comes to voting).
I don't argue that people "choose to get poor results", I argue that some proportion may recognise their possible effect on the democratic outcome is so small that on some level they have no effective choice at all. That's just the reality of being one among an elaborate of many millions. Democracy is still the best option we have, I hasten to add.
In Prisoner's Dilemma, as originally formulated, I believe communication is expressly forbidden. And even where it's allowed, in a one-off game the optimal strategy for an individual uninterested in the welfare of their comrade is to collaborate with the authorities. If both participants take this strategy, it's to the detriment of both. This apparent paradox is what makes it so interesting. Now you can solve the paradox with communication through repeated games, which I think is what you allude to.
- This page says the theory was first proposed in 2007, but I remember being told about it at university around 2003.
- Doesn't mean they're photosynthesising with all frequencies of light though. Probably just pigment.
- Chlorophyll reflects green light, meaning it doesn't use these frequencies.
Who knows, maybe that's why the retinal photosynthesis evolved first though.
- No that's just a pigment. They still contain chlorophyll.
Often you'll find leaves in full sun are redder, because they need less chlorophyll to operate at full efficiency. Leaves more in shade may be darker, as they require more chlorophyll (meaning light is absorbed across most of the visual spectrum by the pigment and chlorophyll together)
- I find the embankment metaphor confusing, but to play along: I don't have the option of engineering a margin of safety because I only have one brick. Is it worth me lugging it to the riverside?
Maybe, it depends on the risk and the distance I've got to carry it.
In all likelihood many won't bother without being directed, encouraged or otherwise socially motivated. And they must ignore the surprisingly persuasive pro-flooding lobby, of course.
> Rational behaviour can't, almost by definition, predictably lead to bad outcomes.
Given you previously mentioned Game Theory, this is a surprising claim. Prisoner's dilemma? Tragedy of the commons?
Note that I'm not sure how much any of this applies to the real world. My main argument is against a model of voters as purely "rational". They are not, and in some ways at least, that's probably a good thing. I certainly think rationality is a very poor argument against extending the franchise to 16 year-olds.
- I meant when you're already on the vehicle mid-journey, and you just have to sit at a random stop for a while so you don't catch up to the one in front.
I get why, it just feels like your time is being wasted.
Of course, the trade-off is that next time you'll have a shorter wait to catch a bus or train because some other passengers had to sit and twiddle their thumbs for a bit
- It isn't half annoying when you're on the London Underground or a bus, and there's an announcement that you will be waiting for a few minutes at a particular stop to "even out gaps in the service".
It seems so perverse to artificially delay a load of passengers because others are running late. But at a system level it probably makes sense.
- When I enter the polling booth, I never expect to effect the result, whether my coalition has a chance of winning or not. That is, I do not expect a candidate in any constituency I am voting in to win by exactly one vote (or tie and thereby have a 50:50 chance of winning by drawing lots). I think such an occurrence is exceedingly unlikely.
A rational anaylsis would therefore conclude I'm wasting my time and energy even just walking to the polling station, let alone keeping up with political developments through the intervening months and years. As you say, in a hyper-rational world turnout would be way lower - whether it would oscillate and overcorrect as you suggest, or reach a stable equilibrium, I'm not sure.
But whatever my motivation for voting and trying to stay informed, I do not believe it is primarily rational. It's probably some mixture of duty, diversionary entertainment, and ritual. If lowering the voting age to 16 could help inculcate that sense of duty and better establish that ritual, that would be a pretty convincing reason to do it in my opinion.
- > If adults were rational they'd use their communication skills to form broad coalitions
Yes. And in detail, with this model of a rational electorate, skilled influencers put the effort in to devise a policy platform and convince others that it is good for them. The majority pick a platform that they are convinced by.
It's worth it for the influencers, because they have an outsized impact. It's worth it for everyone else only if choosing a coalition is very low-effort. Or if they are entertained by the influencers.
Again, I'm an ardent democrat. I'm just pointing out the flaws in any argument that assumes rational voters are a good thing - because it's rational to not waste much time on voting. Instead, democracy works best when voters feel an arguably irrational sense of duty and civic pride.
- If adults thought completely rationally they wouldn't vote at all, since the chance of their single vote making any difference is insignificant.
Or even if they did, the amount of effort they'd put in researching, considering and modelling the potential outcomes would would be commensurate to the impact they would expect their vote to have. I suspect for a good chunk of adult voters, this is in fact the case.
So it's not obvious to me that including more voters whose decision-making is more emotional will necessarily produce worse outcomes. It's conceivable it'll produce better outcomes.
Edit: I'm being downvoted. To be clear, I'm an ardent democrat, but the idea that people vote analytically and rationally doesn't make sense for the above reason. The most informed voters are, in my experience, often highly emotional.
- > But, I think there is a conversation around this to ask how many of the people using a Steam Deck actually go into desktop mode or care that it is Linux
If Linux adoption is to increase significantly (and I guess I'm of the opinion that would be a positive thing), then at some point that can only be done by acquiring users who don't care particularly deeply or understand much about their OS. That is, the vast majority of people. And that's probably not going to happen by converting that demographic to true believers.
Some of those people might decide they want to dig deeper later, and that's great. Most won't and that's fine too.
It would be a bit asymmetrical to restrict the definition of "Linux user" to folk who really care what Linux is or know their way around coreutils.
- Pretty sure I had this corrected on more than one occasion when I was at school. Also licence/license. I remember one day figuring out the parallel with advice/advise as a way to remember which was which. So C for the noun and S for the verb.
Weirdly (to my brain), Americans always spell practice with a C, but always spell license with an S.
- It's not sloppiness, it's economy.
You can convert between log bases by multiplying by a constant factor. But any real-world program will also have a constant factor associated with it, depending on the specific work it is doing and the hardware it is running on. So it is usually pointless to consider constant factors when theorising about computer programs in general.
- That's not a stupid question. But I suggest reading the linked article which pretty much covers this.
- I tend to relieve myself into a watering can in the privacy of the shed.