this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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TechTakes

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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

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Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid!

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post, there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (10 children)
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So facebook (I’ll never call it the other name, get fucked zuckyboi) decided their LLM is so good that obviously they have to force it on everyone with an icon in your face you can never turn off[0].

Figured I’d give it a try via support channel/address, their response is even more insulting than you might guess:

[0] - of course when it doesn’t see enough adoption they’ll probably start trying to force use of it in even sneakier/controlling ways

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

You can share feedback and tell us about your support experience by completing this [three question survey.](https://www.whatsapp.com/survey/......)

lol. the sheer fucking hubris.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Ohio State commencement speaker was bitcoin maxi Chris Pan, who tossed a suggestion to buy bitcoin into the middle of his speech, got audibly booed.

Molly has some fun details on Musk's hell site.

His speech notes.

From the notes, it starts with normal inspirational speech garbage-- life pro-tip: do not repeat stupid parables saying that blind people have limited perspectives to large audiences-- then bitcoin comes up in the middle:

I know this might feel polarizing but I encourage you to keep an open mind. Right now, I see Bitcoin as a very misunderstood asset class. It is decentralized and finite which means no government can print more at will. In the early days, the exchanges for Bitcoin were prone to hacks and fraud. But this issue has been solved with the recent launch of bitcoin ETFs backed by the world’s 2 largest asset managers, BlackRock and Fidelity. And you can hold these ETFs in your retirement accounts just like you hold the S&P 500.

I’d love to do a demo for you: So here are 4 quarters. Inflation after 4 years has turned this into 3 quarters of purchasing power. Now if we apply some innovation and open-mindedness… Investing in your financial literacy will unlock so much freedom and possibilities for you.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

His Twitter bio says that he's "helping a billion people." That's quite a flex!

Here's molly white's thread on nitter.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

University President Carter holding up a "bitcoin" in the part of the speech about the quarters

Ayahuasca Intelligence

Chris Pan on insta: Got some help from AI (Ayahuasca Intelligence) this week to write my commencement speech for 60k grads and family members at OSU next Sunday. We are in challenging times - wanted something extra heartfelt. (Tried Chat-GPT but wasn't that good lol). "They'd say this to you in Peru, you know: This is our university. You went to Harvard, we went to Ayahuasca." -- Terence McKenna

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

I often thing back about the smug coiners mocking the TSA agent looking for physical bitcoins on a pro bitcoin person, when they do stuff like put bitcoin data in actual coins or make bitcoin coins.

(It does amaze me a little bit none of them seem to got that this was actually bad for bitcoin, as this just shows how hard to understand it all is for normal people, and them doing it themselves is just confusing more people intentionally)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Imagine going to university only to learn that the president falls for grifters that 10 year olds can detect.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

So about that.

Ted Carter is apparently on the board of an bitcoin mining company called TeraWulf.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

"my dad's ~~a better grifter~~ stronger than your dad!!!!"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Ah yes, tell me again about the novel useful things genML can do. I seem to remember something about it helping people?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Introducing AI-Powered Audiobooks of Rational Fiction Classics

You know, sometimes I wish my words had touched more lives, but at least I can console myself with the discovery that nothing I've written has fucked people up that badly.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Google has supplemented their AI customer service backend with a just as stupid AI front-end. They're pushing you to make refund claims with "Google AI". It's a chat bot, and you're pushed to use it to see the status of your refunds. Clicking a button and viewing a table of refund requests is apparently too Web 2.0, so instead you can ask a chatbot to pull up that status of your refunds one...by...one. It's the second least useful use of a chatbot I've ever seen personally, right behind the chatbot they put into my office's seating software.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (4 children)

someone re-invented email-threading. It's billed as a way to have "long and complex discussions." Their prototypical example? Yud's utterly pointless thoughts on imaginary scenarios conjured up by his immense brain. Orange site is skeptical and yearns for 4chan instead.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Fractal sealions

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

I love the HN response that’s basically “soooo, usenet with trn, then?” Though a client that handles email reply bottom posting with “>” prefixed fragments more accurately describes this use case.

Either way there is nothing new under the sun.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Their entire manifesto could have been replaced with:

"Oh hey check out our threads in threads demo so you can comment on comments!"

Like it's not that deep. It doesn't need a manifesto.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This manifesto could have been an e-mail!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Hi, Im threadGPT, I am an advanced AI which will make concise bullet points out of longer email or comments, here is a bulletpointed list of the above comment.

  • This manifesto could have been an e-mail!
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The feature I am looking forward to the most in comminication apps is having a machine learning model listen to those "quick calls", generate summary and action items and post them right back in the thread. You get the benefits of both worlds that way.

Oh, you do, do you?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Announced a year ago. AFAIK nothing like it actually exists yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DaJVZBXETE

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

EA forum: Stock prices in a VC-forced bubble show that society will make trillions from AI!!!

first comment: "uh, wtf, that's not how anything works."

reply to this comment: "oh yeah? well DEBATE ME"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

at least crypto isn't involved this time. few understand (real world economics)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

For such ostensibly smart people, the basics of finance and economics are surprisingly elusive!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

not that we should complain too much about this: it's given them the loss of the castle, the loss of a university-shielded ~~wastebasket~~ think tank, and may yet give them some more losses at scale!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

I like his reply to the second (expunged) comment as well: “AI won’t take our jobs, it will just create value but even if it does take all the jobs we won’t be poor because GDP will go up and when number go up, we steal underpants, ???, PROFIT!”

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (5 children)

This sneer sponsored by me getting surgery last Friday and being extremely sore


https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bkr9BozFuh7ytiwbK/my-hour-of-memoryless-lucidity

Surgery is the perfect opportunity to test one's "Am I in the matrix?" mental sigils and other fun rationalist mind games!

Several years ago, I was thinking about worthwhile precautions to take against strange scenarios and wanted a way to defend against erasure of my short-term memory, e.g. by the CIA or alien abductions.

Of course someone made a follow up post encouraging readers to experiment with dangerous hardcore drugs for giggles.

This is presumably the sort of thing which is tough to get past an institutional review board these days, but easy to do yourself over the weekend with a friend or two.

Little mention that this might be a terrible idea, but at least someone pointed it out in the comments

Important notice: benzodiazepines are serious business: benzo withdrawals are amongst the worst experiences a human can go through, and combinations of benzos with alcohol, barbiturates, opioids or tricyclic antidepressants are very dangerous: benzos played a role in 31% of the estimated 22,767 deaths from prescription drug overdose in the United States.

Lesswrong and drug abuse. A match made in heaven.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

it sounds like what they're trying to do is Wada test, for no particular reason, with zero knowledge what they're trying to do or what tools do they need for that

about everything what could they learn from that is already described in psychiatry and psychology textbooks, but it's too hard for homeschooled first-principlers like them

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Several years ago, I was thinking about worthwhile precautions to take against strange scenarios and wanted a way to defend against erasure of my short-term memory, e.g. by the CIA or alien abductions.

What...

Makes you wonder if LW just attracts people with weird paranoid thoughts, or that you get more weird paranoid thoughts due to being a lot on lesswrong. Right

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

This is another example of how LW is a cult, if some other commenter had replied like this you’d expect the reply to be ignored but the respondent is of the same tribe, so author has no problem exposing them (and himself, by extension) as cranks to an appreciative audience (us).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Nothing illustrates the difference between rational and Rationalist than ignoring the advice of trained professionals and instead roping in a SO to help perform ad-hoc personality tests. Dude's gonna need to work to keep that girlfriend coz it's unlikely he's going to find someone else willing to put up with his shit.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

this is peak 18-century science

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Inorite! “Here, let me replace my blood with blood from a horse, it should make me stronger”

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

we have mkultra at home

on the other hand, that's just speedrunning being jordan peterson

on the third hand, our very good friend apparently never had been drunk

on the fourth hand, our very good friend also didn't clock that maybe his ability to assess his own mental state was disturbed (it was) (severely)

on the fifth hand, this is an effect of many drugs, iv line suggests midazolam but maybe ketamine was an option. neither are exactly easily available for regular civilian (other benzos are)

first principling that benzos are completely safe, yeah way to go, 10/10. also not their first rodeo, but lwers on drugs would be megaminds on adderal, at least that's what could be noticed previously

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Jesus, that second post.

[Benzos are] not only a great amnestic, it’s also apparently one of the most heavily prescribed drug classes historically, and used recreationally - which puts very strong lower bounds on the drug’s safety in practice, and means it’s probably readily available.

Yeah, because no widely used drug has ever turned out to be harmful, right?! Right?! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to huff some glue. After all, glue huffing is widely practiced recreationally - by kids, even - so it's probably safe, right?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

that's a very carefully worded comment. there's a reason why benzos were commonly prescribed in the past (but less so now)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Benzos

Apparently JBP might still be on benzos, after he tried the russian coma method (which seems to have blasted his mind further, he was already weird before, but now he just seems even dumber). So GG there LW.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Also

> “Unless you’ve used benzodiazepines before and know what dose you need, you should probably google around for dosing guidance”

Yup, kids, you should google for safe benzo usage. That’ll be safe. Yup. Super rational.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Eh, just ask ChatGPT.

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