AnarchistArtificer

@AnarchistArtificer@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI Seeks Additional Capital From Investors as Part of Its $40 Billion Round⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  The return comes from more future promises filled with ever increasing hot air. OpenAI is especially bad for this — In 2024, they spend $9 billion to make $5 billion. They’re losing money each year, but they drum up venture capital investment by saying “invest more money because some day we’ll be profitable”. Then they build larger, more complex GPT models to continue fuelling the hype machine, even though those models cost even more to run. But as long as OpenAI and the like can sustain the hype machine, venture capital will keep pumping money in. They have to, because they’ve got too much money in the system already, and when the bubble pops, the hot air will escape.

  If they invested into something cool or meaningful, their returns will be limited. Tech seems to be especially appealing for venture capital because it facilitates the illusion of infinite growth being possible. The super rich don’t really trade in money, because they borrow against their assets. Imagine if you owned a fairly modest house that was worth 500k, but you wanted to sell it for more. If you and a bunch of other people constructed an elaborate fiction that led to your house being valued at $10 million, then you could borrow multiple millions of dollars against the inflated value of your house. Even if early investors in a bullshit project wise up and realise their mistake, they haven’t necessarily lost money as long as other investors still think the bullshit is worth investing in. So the cycle of venture capital means that everyone has a vested interest in keeping the hype train going.

  It’s an absurd bubble, and it’s going to be absolute chaos when it bursts. Ed Zitron’s analysis explores it really well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do females got to be so hard to talk or flirt with?⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  “women” is pretty widely accepted, and has been for many, many years. The reason why “females” makes people uncomfortable is because even before it was overused by online misogynists, it had an overly scientific air to it that gives bad vibes, especially if it’s being used as a noun. It’s not unreasonable for women to feel uncomfortable when being referred to using language that would be more appropriate to use for animals. The oddness of this is most stark when you see phrases like “men and females”, rather than “men and women”.

  I don’t blame people for not being aware of the connotations of using the word “female” in this way, but it seems fairly straightforward that if there’s a strong consensus that a group of people object to being called something, that it would be courteous to respect that. And even if in a year from now, “women” became as stigmatized as “female” and there was a different preferred term, then using that preferred term would also be courteous. If you don’t want to be courteous, then that’s your prerogative, but given that OP wants to talk to women, then it seems like warning him against the word “female” is useful advice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do females got to be so hard to talk or flirt with?⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s a sweet story. I hope she had a good answer to your question. If she didn’t answer it back then, you should spring it on her like “you never did tell me what it was like being the queen of analogies”. She best have a good answer, after all these years

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do females got to be so hard to talk or flirt with?⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with men who take everything the wrong way, and then blow up at you for “leading them on”. That causes me, and many other women, to tend to default to being guarded when getting to know men. Even if only a small proportion of interactions end up making us feel scared for our safety, it still amounts to being frequent enough that this kind of guardedness ends up being a wise and necessary precaution for women in general.

  It sucks on many levels that this is needed. As well as being an uneasy way to exist as a woman, it also means that there’s a heckton of “false positives”, so to speak. I think that this can especially affect people who are generally socially anxious. I know that being aware of this doesn’t help you to actually figure out how to talk to women, but I’d advise you to try to not take it personally. A friend once told me that reminding himself of this fact actually helped him to feel more confident approaching women; when he was able to internalise the fact that the guardedness wasn’t necessarily aimed at him, but at assholish men who don’t respect women as people and won’t respect their boundaries (which wasn’t him), he found that it helped him to feel more at ease pushing himself out of his comfort zone.

  This problem is why it can be easier to meet women at hobbies and other organised social stuff. I used to really struggle with social anxiety in general, and I found that going to events made it much easier to get to know people, especially when the hobby in question made it easier to dip in and out of social stuff by focussing on the task at hand (board games was a big one for me)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨be gay, do computers⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  I do think that this makes you weird (affectionate), and I hope you never change, because your weirdness is wonderful.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨They even got their own island⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  In school, when I was 13, one of my friends was “dating” a 19 year old. I vividly remember how cool we all thought this was. Reflecting on it makes me feel sick.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elder Scrolls Online devs detail “inhumane” Microsoft layoffs as Xbox expects the “carcass of workers” to “keep shipping award-winning games”⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks for this, I appreciate it

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does anyone struggle with spending money foolishly on prostitutes?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not personally Christian, but I was raised that way. I was pretty strongly anti-Christian as a result of that upbringing, but when I got to university, my stance was softened significantly by meeting wonderful Christians who were incredibly based. I remember that one of them described that they almost left the faith because of discomfort with their humanity, such as lust. In the end, they concluded that if God had made them with the ability to feel lust and enjoy lustful activities, then it felt wrong to deny this part of themselves (and indeed, they found that their lust was far more moderate and manageable when they stopped fighting themselves so much).

  I feel like lust can be good or bad, depending on the context, rather like how I find that playing video games can be good or bad. Sometimes when I game it’s fulfilling, and a good use of my time. Sometimes though, I am desperately chasing some sense of escapism in a way that I can tell is harmful to me. Perhaps your battle would be better spent learning to discern the good from the bad. For example, if you’re super tight on money, then yeah, it’s probably not a great idea to be chasing the lust. But if you have the monetary means, and you’re in a good headspace about it, then perhaps indulging is not a bad thing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sabine Hossenfelder Has Started Openly Defending Proven Grifters⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  In a weird way, I appreciate her. I’m a scientist who has been drifting ever closer to science communication. I enjoy situations where I’m able to be in the role of a scientist who is able to “translate” dense scientific ideas so that other people can share in my enthusiasm. I feel pretty capable at situating my perspective within the wider sciences and making it clear when I’m talking about cool science stuff outside of my field. However, the more that I find myself nerding out in this manner, the more nervous I feel about being opinionated on non-science things; being a scientist gives me a weird kind of epistemic privilege because of how science is disproportionately valued by society, and I don’t want to inappropriately exploit that (even unintentionally). However, it’s not reasonable to expect scientists to just not hold and/or share their opinions on stuff like politics or history.

  I concluded that I just need to make sure I continue to do what I already do when I (a biochemist) talk about physics stuff adjacent to my stuff — just to a much greater degree. Sabine Hossenfelder is a great example of what not to do in this respect. I don’t believe that people should be forced to “stay in their lane”, but if you’re going to go wading into waters that are not your own, you gotta stay humble.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I think Personally, I don’t know. However, I am a cis person who has had body dysmorphia. Even when I was unhealthily thin, I perceived myself as disgustingly fat. I genuinely believed that things would be better if I just lost “one more kilo — just one more, and things will all be fine and I’ll start seeing myself as a human deserving of respect rather than just a disgusting lump. Yes, I know I said that 5 kilos ago, but just one more will do it”.

  There was a fundamental mismatch between my perceptions and reality. As a small aside, your comment mentioned “body dysphoria”, when I suspect you meant “body dysmorphia” (and “gender dysphoria” is what many trans people experience). I’m not highlighting this to be a persnickety asshole, but because I think the (body) dysmorphia vs (gender) dysphoria contrast is interesting. Whilst my experience was rooted in disproportionately magnified perceptions of flaws, gender dysphoria is rooted in reality: consider someone who is assigned male at birth who later comes out as a trans woman. If she decides to go for medical transition (which typically involves hormones and surgery), these are pretty serious changes that wouldn’t make sense if someone already believed they were a cis woman. Rather, the gender dysphoria that many experience arises from an acute understanding of both the biological reality of their body, and the sociocultural reality of how people tend to perceive that body. (I also want to note, as a biochemist, that the way that our bodies respond to hormones is also part of biological reality. Like, if someone assigned male at birth starts taking estrogen, their body will go “cool, guess we’re making titties now”. Human nature, if it exists as a unified concept at all, is fundamentally fluid, and I wish we spoke about this more)

  The key thing in distinguishing between gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia is the proposed treatment. Every kilogram I lost caused me to become more miserable, more caught up in my distorted perceptions, and more physically frail. Even before I had lost an unhealthy amount of weight, it would have been patently clear to an outside observer how bullshit my “just one my kilogram” spiel was. For trans people undergoing medical transition though, it’s a completely different story. Whilst I’m told by multiple friends that first starting HRT does feel like taking the red pill in the matrix, the ongoing reality of it isn’t quite so dramatic. Many of the changes are permanent, but they’re gradual enough that with support and oversight from medical professionals who understand trans people, there is so much opportunity to gauge whether this is the right path for a person. Whilst there are some people who regret transitioning, the regret rate for gender confirmation treatments is stunningly low compared to other cosmetic surgeries (I don’t have the number to hand, sorry). In terms of positive treatment outcomes, there are oodles of evidence that show that medical transition is absurdly beneficial — it’s a strong enough case that even if I didn’t care at all about the wellbeing of trans people, there’s a super strong case for the economic benefits of good access to gender affirming healthcare.

  To put it simply, the difference between body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria is evident in how they respond to treatment. The therapy I underwent focussed on unwinding and unlearning the false perceptions of myself. In contrast, conversion therapy is not just an inhumane way to respond to gender dysphoria, but proven to be harmful. On the other side of things, indulging my delusions would have just deepened my spiral, whereas medically supported gender transition is proven to save lives and increase trans people’s wellbeing.

  (N.b. I have focussed on medical transition here because that’s the angle that naturally arises from your question. However, not all trans people who experience gender dysphoria necessarily want to medically transition, finding that social transition (living as one’s chosen gender) is enough for them. I feel it important to highlight that many trans people I have known have expressed that they feel there would be far fewer trans people feeling they need to undergo medical transition if the world wasn’t so shitty to people who are gender non conforming. Also notable is that not all trans people experience gender dysphoria, and there are plenty of trans people who actively want to get away from thinking about things in terms of gender dysphoria, because they feel that it promotes an overly medical approach that can be harmful, such as how access to trans healthcare is increasingly being gatekept for bullshit reasons (their bigotry is transparent because in blocking access to trans healthcare, they are actively ignoring a pretty strong scientific consensus). Honestly though, I’m not the right person to discuss these nuances; I am in community with many trans people, but there’s a lot that I just simply can’t understand because I don’t have any direct lived experience of being trans. Furthermore, the trans community is far from a monolith, so discussions around terms like gender dysphoria, medical transition etc. ongoing.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK to lower voting age to 16⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve always found it silly that one could legally have sex with their MP, but not vote for them

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨10 incredible PC games that never got console ports—until Steam Deck happened⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Despite not owning one, I really like the Steam Deck because I suspect it has made my transition to Linux far smoother (for a while, I dual booted because I was fearful that gaming on Linux would be difficult.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Apparently the average radius of the Earth at its equator is 6,378,000m. This means that in a day, someone sitting on a couch at the equator would travel (2 * \pi * 6378,000)m, which equals 40053840m. There are around 86,400 seconds in a day, so the equatorial couch sitter travels at 464m/s (rounded to 3s.f). That’s 1040mph.

  I think the average walking speed is 3pmh. Amusingly, the mph figure I calculated above is 1037 if rounded to 4s.f. rather than 3, so the speed difference between the walker and a couch sitter is literally a rounding error.

  The conclusion here is something that everyone here already knew before I wrote this comment: it’s hard to make any sense of individual human health progress if we try to think of it on a planetary scale.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨p is for pHunky⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I thought it was “power”. That’s probably wrong though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Looking for the perfect 5 year anniversary gift?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives More Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Even More Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives All the Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives Knives

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What emotion is this?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I remember it felt super difficult

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Darkest Dungeon: We at Red Hook are heartbroken to confirm the passing of our beloved voice actor, Wayne June.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You say it’s a horrible way to learn that this is a thing, but I actually find it weirdly sweet how when someone dies, people who care about the deceased or their work jump to share stories of how they had been impacted. It reminds me of birthdays; I have friends who I don’t speak to much, but their birthday prompts me to reach out and say “hey! I’m glad you exist”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Darkest Dungeon: We at Red Hook are heartbroken to confirm the passing of our beloved voice actor, Wayne June.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Here is a super useful information thread. …boards.net/…/get-started-voice-acting

  There’s also a discord server attached, which feels cool and diverse in terms of what kinds of people are there — both hobbyists and professionals

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Here as well⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I wish you well for whatever remains of recovering from the illness, it sounds like you’ve had a rough time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bethesda confirms they are working on releasing new features you asked for, from city maps, to mod support, to all new ways of traveling next year for Starfield⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you’ve excellently captured the difference here. I didn’t get heavily into Elite Dangerous, but on one of my longest journeys, I scanned a few things that no-one had ever scanned before. I didn’t discover any awesome looking space phenomena that would be worth sharing (at least, none that hadn’t been discovered before), but the prospect that I could was exciting.

  Even just the idea that my name would be on other people’s screens if they came and scanned the same things I did, because we were all sharing the same world.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Milk⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Whilst this only applies to a minority of people who use these services, if you’re disabled, having someone else stand in line for you is a godsend.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨SAG-AFTRA Alleges ‘Bully Tactics’ as Studios Suspend Negotiations⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  “I’d kill to get a cut of the pie that every AI server I bring back up generates, on top of my raises.”

  The equivalent situation is more like if you had salary + residuals, and the residuals were a significant enough part of your compensation package that your salary was a relatively small impact factor. You take the residuals into account when budgeting household finances.

  Then over the course of years, you get less and less income from residuals, which shrink way faster than regular salary bumps can account for - everywhere has new servers you’ve been working on that technically lie outside your existing contract. The new servers are hugely profitable for the companies you work for, but your real world compensation shrinks, despite the new servers requiring just as much work on your part. It’s less about the residuals, more about the fact that you took a lower base salary on the understanding that you’d be getting a certain level of residual payments, and that’s undermined by the continually shrinking pay on technicalities.

  But on top of all this, imagine that the total compensation levels were never great, even before residuals shrink. Most people doing work like yours barely make ends meet, and it becomes harder and harder to afford basic living costs.

  Basically, there’s two points of contention when it comes to overall pay levels: the base level pay increase, which is a regular, time based bump; and the significant losses in net pay because streaming has led to increasingly unfavourable outcomes for actors and writers. Both of these problems could be solved without residuals, but it would require a base pay way higher than it is now. This would make the upfront costs of movies and TV shows insanely more expensive, and finding funding for projects would get much harder.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨oppa⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I know, right? I didn’t expect to watch it through to the end, but that was mesmerising