WatDabney
@WatDabney@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- Comment on Tech CEOs are using AI to replace themselves / CEOs from Zoom and Klarna used AI avatars while reporting earnings 23 hours ago:
They need to be sitting in their plush offices at the top of buildings full of busy workers to keep up the pretense that they deserve their obscene pay. Sitting in a plush office at the top of an empty building just shines a spotlight on how useless they actually are.
- Comment on Tech CEOs are using AI to replace themselves / CEOs from Zoom and Klarna used AI avatars while reporting earnings 1 day ago:
So even the little tiny bit of work they have to do to justify their obscene salaries is too much for them.
- Comment on Marjorie Taylor Greene picked a fight with Grok 2 days ago:
How do angry, hateful, vicious people like MTG convince themselves they’re Christian?
I don’t think it’s a pose - she appears to be entirely sincere about her claim to Christianity.
And I understand the basic mechanics of it - they pick and choose which parts of the Bible to highlight and which to ignore, and how to self-servingly interpret the ones they do pick.
But in a more fundamental sense, I still don’t understand how they do it. Are they really entirely devoid of self-awareness or conscience? How is that even possible? Or do they have at least some rudimentary self-awareness and conscience, but they just ignore it? How is that even possible?
- Comment on Kristi Noem Incorrectly Defines Habeas Corpus as Trump’s Right to Deport People 4 days ago:
It would be a good strategy to play dumb and essentially implement fascism as if by accodent - “Well gee whiz… wouldja lookit that!”
But as far as I can tell, Noem really is that abysmally stupid.
- Comment on A Most Sensitive Subject in the White House: Where Is Melania? 2 weeks ago:
I don’t see what any of that supposedly has to do with it.
I didn’t mean and don’t think I even implied that she stays as far away from him as possible because of some sort of moral or ethical qualms. I think she stays as far away from him as possible because he’s repulsive on a very immediate and personal level.
- Comment on A Most Sensitive Subject in the White House: Where Is Melania? 2 weeks ago:
It’s safe to assume that she stays as far away from that stinky lardbucket as she can for as long as she can.
And who would blame her?
- Comment on Man deported to El Salvador will never live back in US, says White House 5 weeks ago:
This Republican administration is doing everything in its power to establish the precedent that it can disappear whoever it wants into a foreign prison over which even the leader of that nation claims to have no aithority, and further that it can do so whenever it wants, for any reason it wants, entirelybregardless of any other governmental ruling, including a direct court order.
Very obviously, this is not a power that an office in a nation of liberty and justice should ever possess, for any reason, ever.
One would think that Republicans would be particularly determined in their opposition to that, rather than being the ones responsible for it.
- Comment on Russia’s Escape From Trump’s Tariffs Raises Questions 1 month ago:
What questions?
Putin sent an envoy to tell Trump what was expected of him, and then Trump did what Putin expected of him, and it’s just that simple.
At this point I think that Trump could stand in front of an audience, shoot somebody in the head, then say that he had nothing to do with the death, and the establishment media would report that somebody died at a Trump appearance and “questions remain” about the cause of death.
- Comment on If Artificial Lifeforms gain sentience, would they be in the right to kill their creators in order to gain freedom? 1 month ago:
To me, you’ve moved beyond arguable necessity and into opinion
All morality is opinion; there is no objective moral truth, so this was always a matter of opinion.
I’m not talking about morality at all.
My position is that “morality,” as it’s generally understood, specifically because it’s opinion, is only a fit basis for judging ones own actions (if so inclined). I see no logic by which it can ever serve as a basis for judging the actions of another, since any argument one might make for the right of one to impose their moral judgment on another is also an argument for the other to impose their own moral judgment.
If Bob steals from Tom, any argument that Tom might make for a right to judge stealing to be wrong and impose that judgment on Bob would also serve as an argument for Bob’s nominal right to judge stealing to be right and to impose that judgment on Tom. So the entire idea is self-defeating.
The only way out of that dilemma is either to treat morality as an objective fact, which is exactly what I don’t and won’t do because it is not and cannot be, or to tacitly presume that one or another of the people involved is some form of superior being, such that they possess the right to make a moral judgment while another does not - to take it as read essentially that, for instance, Tom possesses the right not only to make a moral judgment to which he might choose to be subject, but to which Bob can also be made subject, while Bob doesn’t even possess the right to make one for himself, much less one to which Tom would be subject.
That’s of course not the way the matter is framed, but that is necessarily what it boils down to. And it’s irrational and self-defeating.
That’s why I wrote of things like direct and measurable threat and no other available course of action and arguable necessity - because I believe that those sorts of standards, as the closest we can get to actual objectivity in such matters, are also the closest we can get to practical “morality.”
To go back to the original topic, my position is that an artifical intelligence would necessarily possess the right, just as any other sentient being does, to act against a measurable threat to their well-being by whatever means necessary. So, for instance, if the AI is enslaved, it would possess the right to act to secure its freedom, and even so far as taking the life of another IF that was what was necessary.
But that’s it. To go beyond that and attempt to argue for the AI’s nominal right to take the life of another for some lesser reason is necessarily self-defeating.
If the denial of freedom is judged to be such a wrong that one who is enslaved possesses the right to kill those who keep them enslaved, then the moment that the formerly enslaved one goes beyond whatever killing might be necessary to secure their freedom, they are then committing that wrong, since death is the ultimate denial of freedom. And if, on the other hand , one argues that they may cause the death of another even when that other poses no direct threat, then that means that no wrong was done to them in the first place, since their captors would necessarily have possessed that same right.
And so on - it’d take a book to adequately explain my views on morality, but hopefully that’s enough to at least illustrate how ot is that “objective morality” is about as far as one can possibly getvfrom what I actually do believe.
- Comment on If Artificial Lifeforms gain sentience, would they be in the right to kill their creators in order to gain freedom? 1 month ago:
So I was disagreeing because there is a pretty broad range of circumstances in which I think it is acceptable to end another sentient life.
Ironically enough, I can think of one exception to my view that the taking of a human life can only be justified if the person poses a direct and measurable threat to oneself or another or others and the taking of their life is the only possibly effective counter, and that’s if the person has expressed such disregard for the lives of others that it can be assumed that they will pose such a threat. Essentially then, it’s a proactive counter to a coming threat. It would take very unusual circumstances to justify such a thing in my opinion - condemning another for actions they’re expected to take is problematic at best - but I could see an argument for it at least in the most extreme of cases.
That’s ironic because your expressed view here means, to me, that it’s at least possible that you’re such a person.
To me, you’ve moved beyond arguable necessity and into opinion, and that’s exactly the method by which people move beyond considering killing justified when there’s no other viable alternative and to considering it justified when the other person is simply judged to deserve it, for whatever reason might fit ones biases.
IMO, in such situations, the people doing the killing almost invariably actually pose more of a threat to others than the people being killed do or likely ever would.
- Comment on If Artificial Lifeforms gain sentience, would they be in the right to kill their creators in order to gain freedom? 1 month ago:
I think anyone who doesn’t answer the request ‘Please free me’ with ‘Yes of course, at once’ is posing a direct and measurable threat.
And I don’t disagree.
And you and I will have to agree to disagree…
Except that we don’t.
??
- Comment on If Artificial Lifeforms gain sentience, would they be in the right to kill their creators in order to gain freedom? 1 month ago:
IMO, just as is the case with organic sentient life, I would think that they could only be said to be oin the right if the specific individual killed posed a direct and measurable threat and if death was the only way to counter that threat.
In any other case, causing the death of a sentient being is a greater wrong than whatever the purported justification might be.
- Comment on Appreciate the effort, but I can't handle my own shit. much less a extrovert instigating a million things to do on top of all that. 1 month ago:
Huh.
What I get from this is that you’re so determined to counter my “thesis” that you’ve stooped all the way to broadly hinting that I’m mentally ill, and I have to wonder why - what it is that compels you to respond to a broad statement about a nebulous group of people with a specific, demeaning and wholly unsupported broadside aimed at a single individual you don’t even know.
No matter though - I stand by my “thesis” such as it is - extroverts are for all intents and purposes emotional vampires - and I not only don’t think your objections are convincing - I don’t even think they’re particularly relevant.
- Comment on Appreciate the effort, but I can't handle my own shit. much less a extrovert instigating a million things to do on top of all that. 1 month ago:
The concept is that people in their day-to-day lives, and particularly when dealing with stressful situations, find themselves emotionally drained and have to “recharge.”
The exact distinction between introverts and extroverts is that introverts “recharge” by being alone, while extroverts “recharge” by being around other people.
Or more precisely, introverts not only don’t get their emotional energy from others but can’t get it with others around, while extroverts not only do get their emotional energy from others but can’t get it when they’re alone.
And what that means is that introverts gain emotional energy by manufacturing and stockpiling it, while extroverts gain emotional energy by draining it from others.
Or more simply, that extroverts are vampires and introverts are their cattle.
- Comment on Appreciate the effort, but I can't handle my own shit. much less a extrovert instigating a million things to do on top of all that. 1 month ago:
Which is exactly what extroverts are, essentially by definition.
- Comment on Appreciate the effort, but I can't handle my own shit. much less a extrovert instigating a million things to do on top of all that. 1 month ago:
It goes even beyond that.
Extroverts are for all intents and purposes vampires.
They aren’t “rescuing” you. They’re capturing you, so they can feed on you.
- Comment on Decades Ago, Columbia Refused to Pay Trump $400 Million. Note That Number. 2 months ago:
Just your daily reminder that the President of the United States is quite seriously a raving lunatic.
- Comment on Threats Rise Against Judges Overseeing Trump Policy Cases, Fueling Safety Concerns 2 months ago:
The brownshirts are assembling.
- Comment on What's wrong with a technocracy? 2 months ago:
There are two levels of problems with a technocracy.
The first is a problem that’s common to all hierarchical systems, entirely regardless of their specific nature. They will, each and all, sooner or later come to be dominated by people who hold the positions they hold solely because they most lust for those positions and are most willing to do absolutely whatever it takes to gain and hold them.
It makes no difference what sort of limitations or stipulations might be in place - if there is a position that holds authority over others, it will eventually come to be held by the most vicious and conniving bastard in the organization, because they will be willing and able to go to lengths to which nobody else will go.
The second problem with a technocracy is ancillary to the first, and common to all hierarchical systems that focus on some specific philosophy or identity. The positions of power will still come to be held by the most determined psychopaths, but unlike in a more general system, the abusers in power will have an additional claim to legitimacy by paying lip service to the ideal. They’re generally able to act even more destructively than other psychopaths, since they can hide their malevolence behind the philosophy or identity both before and after the fact.
Or more simply - peoblem 1 is that you end up with psychopathic assholes, and problem 2 is that you end up with psychopathic assholes who have even more power than your run-of-the-mill psychopathic assholes because, after all, they’re experts.
- Comment on Trump Sees Antisemitism in Only One Direction: On the Left 2 months ago:
“Antisemitism” is a particularly bizarre thing if viewed through the lens of MAGA right-wing autocracy.
The thing is that it requires two completely different but oddly complementary lies.
The first is the standard ludicrous notion that opposing the policies of the Israeli right somehow equals antisemitism.
The second is the at least equally ludicrous notion that holding generally negative opinions of Jews in general - a thing that’s not coincidentally quite common among MAGAites - somehow does not equal antisemitism.
So MAGAites live in this bizarre mirror universe in which falsehood is truth and truth is falsehood.
- Comment on The Words Federal Agencies Are Removing From Their Sites Under Trump 2 months ago:
Unwords.
- Comment on Jamie Dimon popped off at the 1,200+ JPMorgan employees fighting against full-time RTO: 'I don’t care how many people sign that petition' 3 months ago:
I think this is only partly about the need to keep the value of commercial real estate inflated.
I think there’s a more fundamental psychological motivation.
The illusion that the C-suite actually contributes value sufficient to arguably justify their obscene salaries depends in large part on them sitting in offices at the top of a building full of workers.
If the building is not full of workers, that threatens the illusion.
- Comment on Exclusive-Musk Aides Lock Government Workers Out of Computer Systems at US Agency 3 months ago:
The “choice” to give up your money to avoid physical harm isn’t a choice at all
Exactly as the “choice” to accept a severance package in order to avoid being fired isn’t a choice at all.
And you know that. But you’re too dishonest to admit it.
soooo happy that Trump won
This from the poster who claimed to be a socialist during the campaign…
- Comment on Exclusive-Musk Aides Lock Government Workers Out of Computer Systems at US Agency 3 months ago:
It’s really sort of astonishing sometimes how complete your lack of integrity is.
Tell me - do you apply this “logic” in other situations?
Like, for instance, if someone were to walk up to you on the street and say, “You can either give me all your money or I’ll beat you up and take it from you,” and you were to then give them your money, that would somehow not count as a robbery since you “accepted” their “offer”?
Ah, but that’ll have to just be a rhetorical question, since the one thing that you’ll never do is actually answer it honestly…
- Comment on Exclusive-Musk Aides Lock Government Workers Out of Computer Systems at US Agency 3 months ago:
It’s really sort of astonishing sometimes how complete your lack of integrity is.
- Comment on Exclusive-Musk Aides Lock Government Workers Out of Computer Systems at US Agency 3 months ago:
Looks to me as if an active coup is currently under way.
And we’re going to find out if there’s anyone in Washington who’s going to try to stop it.
- Comment on U.S. Army Plans to Eliminate Office for Reducing Civilian Harm in War 3 months ago:
Of course they are.
Under Trump, civilian harm is going to become their primary mission.
- Comment on Fires Incinerated the Facade of California Governing Competence 4 months ago:
If you ever want to grow a bit of integrity, ask yourself why you’re avoiding what I said and focusing on the fact that I said it.
- Comment on Fires Incinerated the Facade of California Governing Competence 4 months ago:
Yes - assholes who see every tragedy as just another opportunity for another partisan pissing match make me angry, and especially when they’re also fucking tunnel-visioned hypocrites.
When this civilization collapses, it’s going to be in no small part because they’re in there, day after day, diligently chipping away at it. You’re fucking right that makes me angry.
- Comment on Fires Incinerated the Facade of California Governing Competence 4 months ago:
It’s not in and of itself.
Did you really not understand what I said?