Poligofsky 🇨🇦 .. 🚫🤖

@PaulBusch@cosocial.ca Any chance of getting the name without having to click through to the video? For those of us in quiet mode? @tod@hci.social

@GeriAQuin@mstdn.social There ought to be a law?

@jackwilliambell@rustedneuron.com I never understood the psychological profile of the assumed poisoner. What was their motive? Were they just “crazy”? And crazy smart? Why did they stop? I’m not generally into conspiracy theories, but, in contrast, the suspicion (and I heard there was some evidence, too) of a poorly run and monitored factory, that accidentally let some cyanide into the Tylenol production line, seemed more plausible to me. I admit, I’m not free of bias about corporate incompetence.

I expect people to have irrational expectations, and consequently, to act irrationally and unpredictably. (Including myself, I guess.) I would like to know, if it is possible to know, what reasonable expectations for human behaviour might be. Other than to have no specific expectations at all. Just when you think people are predictable, they surprise you. The difference, really, is whether your expectations are for individuals or populations. Like predicting the motions of particles in a gas or liquid. Individuals behave erratically, but the collectives behave probabilistically. Most people don't understand probability, and can't make probabilistic predictions. Maybe we could teach them, but their ability to learn and apply such knowledge would itself follow probabilistic rules. Probability is a bitch. And she works in mysterious ways.

An organization made up of exceptionally skilled designers and builders, led by a self-deluded fool, will build the wrong thing, and fail. #llms

@GeofCox@climatejustice.social What’s frustrating is that both business and government go to great lengths to keep regular people in the dark about this. They promote erroneous and obsolete ideas about money and debt (and lots more besides), because keeping people ignorant and misinformed benefits those in power. The “classes” are rooted in different understandings of how the world works. Those with privilege—collectively, if not always individually—do what they can to preserve the difference, by putting obstacles in the way of everyone else.

@onion Different modes of thinking? Rapid switch ruins your momentum.

@collectifission@greennuclear.online My Apple watch (series 8) seems reasonable. Nothing better to compare it to. Watch estimates 240 “active” calories (290 total) for 30 min of rowing. The rowing machine estimated 350 or so, without biometrics or other data. Whereas the watch knows my height/weight/age, and can read my heart rate (and other things? blood oxygen?).

@collectifission@greennuclear.online Impressive! Isn’t good cardio fitness all around better at coping with heat? Lower rest heart rate; better blood flow; less waste heat production; leaner muscles meaning easier waste heat shedding?

@collectifission@greennuclear.online right. I used to take cold baths in the evening, when I didn’t have an air conditioner. Definitely helped feeling cooler and sleeping better!

Everything consequential is now a collective action problem. Our future is now utterly dependent on whether we can learn to work together. But we have spent decades internalizing an anti-collective philisophy: we should all act as atomic units, driven only by personal appetites, and coordinated wholly through financial transactions. The next few decades may be very painful. How might things improve?

Celebrating someone's death makes their supporters hate you more.

Creatine, ketamine, whatever!

RE: https://indieweb.social/@jbz/116922991823197987 Emblematic of… things…

Just cracked a bottle of Featherstone Onyx 2020. Any other #niagarawine drinkers on this network?

I feel bad for the wildlife. Even far from the fires, they still have to breathe the toxic air. #wildfires

If companies were limited in the amount of profit they could enjoy, then they would have no motive to amplify the dark patterns of consumption, to drive habitual behaviours and dependency, or to monopolize markets. But we will never have the courage to set such limits, or even make them culturally repugnant. Exploiting each other is a key feature of our particular European heritage—perfected by the USA, and exported world-wide.

RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/116917430203992463 Ignoring the browser, and its interpreters and renderers, which are a few orders of magnitude bigger than DOS and BIOS.

I’m skeptical of basically every theory based on “feelings”. Emotions are your subconscious lying to you, as often as not.

RE: https://indieweb.social/@jbz/116928835677520503 I know it’s uncool to like centralized power generation, but this is bad-ass.

@williampietri@sfba.social A belief in one's cultural exceptionalism, combined with the reality of one's economic and/or social insignificance, writ large? When a group of people believe they are awesome, but no one respects them, because they are in reality ignorant dogshit racist imperialists, they get really belligerent, and double down on their racism and imperialism. They prove they are really good at one thing: marching, shooting, bombing, raping, and pillaging. I don't know; only guessing.

Birch seedling in my backyard.

RE: https://mas.to/@dmacphee/117014790449463409 I haven't read the article, but the quotation alone is worth boosting. I used to work for this person. He has, shall we say, socialization issues. But he also has a (quite small) cult of personality, which prevents many people from recognizing his pathological qualities.

Evil people only have power because stupid people adopt their narratives, take their money, obey their orders, and buy their products. What is the cure for stupid?

Basing your life and identity on fandom is a risky choice, in the long run.

A life plan that assumes repeated good fortune is a recipe for disasater.

Most people see most people as objects. We don't have much choice in the matter. The challenge is to know that they are people, even if you don't have the bandwidth to empathize with them. This is a hard ask. We evolved from non-sentient life. Empathy is a late-stage development. It required sentience (and perhaps co-evolved?). It served those who deployed it assiduously. Is there a selection mechanism that would benefit individuals that showed universal empathy? I can't imagine one. Especially because, when confronting universal suffering, it evokes sadness, if not outright despair. These are demotivating emotions. Survival requires positive motivation.

How do you equalize the imbalance of power without starting a war? Is class war—civil war—inevitable? Is it desirable? Is it the only realistic option? Or is it just that we are too impatient, and unwilling to look for better solutions? Is it that the revolutionaries lack any organizing principles, other than anger and retribution? Or do they lack any concrete, inspirational vision, other than revenge and abstract ideas of freedom? A better society—a better world—requires more people to actively help care for it. Instead, most seek only to attain a comfortable lifestyle. Really, there are few real opportunities to act effectively. Politics is a brutal and exhausting social battlefield. Charities are weak and unappreciated. Our focus should continue to be anti-trust action: shrink the corporations. They are the main vehicles for concentrating wealth and power. Ideally we would socialize critical industry, reversing the neoliberal privatization trend. Instead, we have our hearts and minds set on war.

@infobeautiful@vis.social “Suddenly” — I mean, descriptive, but cause?

@space_cadet@aus.social Probably bundles node.js, and every github repo for every node library. And Chromium/electron. And every ad network and input tracking library. And maybe a bitcoin miner. And a local LLM model. Or ten. Why is every app 10x or 100x bigger now than ten years ago? Why not?!?

@maisiesummers@mastodon.nz The incredibly elusive good pun. Nice.

Entitlement is a bad look. But all too common. I get it. The world is not fair. But bitching won’t change it. Do something. Even if it’s just inspiring someone with a positive vision. But bitching ain’t that. Only thing worse than pointless complaining is a complainer circle jerk.

People, in general, are reliably disingenuous. But no point calling them out on their bullshit.

The only thing authoritarians like about democracy is how easy it can be to fool the public into electing an anti-democratic government. It's how Hitler took over Germany. And it keeps happening. People seem unable to understand that democracy is reversible. Mostly becaue they are checked out, and too lazy to do the bare minimum to protect their rights. Complacency can be a terminal disease.

The most effective approach to power hoarding is to *break it up*. Make rules against it, yes. But they will find loopholes. Breaking up a power bloc is the same as destroying it. That requires a power bigger than the one which poses a threat. And so we get history: a never-ending process of building up power blocs to attack and dismember other power blocs. Meanwhile, regular people, with little interest in power games, try to live their everyday lives as best they can, in peace. At least, until they get hoodwinked or conscripted into the war machine, or merely crushed beneath its treads.

The majority of the software industry should have switched to maintenance mode twenty years ago. There is very little need or opportunity for "innovation", except in applications of abuse, exploitation, and further concentration of economic power. But it's hard to empower individuals in a society dedicated to convenience and abdication of responsibility. The "bicycles of the mind" were long ago mangled under the wheels of the monster trucks of insatiable appetite.

Does Microsoft destroy everything they touch?

@nixCraft@mastodon.social Design is not code?

If someone does something you think is wrong or bad, ask yourself: what would have inspired them to instead have done the right or good alternative? Look deeper into human motivation, to understand human choices and actions.

I keep waiting for people to share their ideas for how to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Other than a firehose of dire facts, shouting, blaming, and scolding. What was that they say about doing the same thing, and expecting a different result?

I can’t get over how “Corsi-Rosenthal box” sounds like a science fiction macguffin for warping time and space. In stark contrast to the simplicity and everyday practicality (in these weird times) of the actual thing.

@david_megginson@mstdn.ca Anti-design? It's anti-joy, anti-fun. Fear of being different, noticed, singled out, judged? The banishing of brick and natural wood grain is offensive. It seems pathological. In sympathy, staining wood is more difficult, labour-intensive, and expensive than primer and two coats of stain-resistant paint. But painting over masonry? Horrible.

It's almost like, if you give anyone your personal data, you give everyone your personal data. Even the government shares your data with anyone who asks. In the future, people will have no control over their identities. Maybe it's the twilight of individuality. We will be reduced to our assigned roles, our unchanging characteristics. Only the ruling class will retain their individuality and rights. Neo-feudalism. The new serfdom. Very few people realize what is happening.

It's always worth remembering that people are *inherently* selfish. Also, not that good at predicting problematic outcomes of their selfish choices. People are *biased*. They are not reasonable, nor rational, nor open-minded. So many problems arise not so much from that, but form irrationally expecting people to be otherwise.

The sad reality is that a lot of people are obsessed with exerting control over others, for no reason but the thrill of having and exercising power. Power for power's sake. An emotional drive which subordinates the healthy drive to help and care for others. But consider how humanity evolved. (Everything about us must be understood in the context of our evolutionary history!) It is optimal for an organism (or social group) to harvest energy and resources from the easiest—least energetically costly, and least risky—sources. Sometimes, that means stealing from your neighbour (be they a different person, social class, or nation). Human-on-human resource predation requires acknowledgement; it is a fact of life. Only then can practical, effective systems can be designed to resist it. There is no point appealing to higher powers, or innate moral sentiment. The perpetrators have already dehumanized their victims. Morality is irrelevant. In that dynamic, only real power can resist power.

RE: https://mastodon.world/@davidho/116956653915957598 People saying this writing is slop, without evidence. Whatever, the information is valuable. Our governments should be paying for this kind of work. Except our governments are just as corrupt as these greedy corporations. The site also has a “ledger” of trustworthy companies and their brands. But very USA-centric. I hope it expands to Canadian brands. One problem may be that brands are increasingly easy to generate as new “fronts” for the same underlying manufacturing. Drop shippers.

Intuition is fraught with danger, in a world so different from the one our ancestors evolved in. To the point that many people deny that the ancient past, and our evolutionary history, even exist. Instead of recognizing their own maladaptive behaviours, many people just want to blame some scapegoat, and find some saviour to make it all better. I’m doubtful that people can be trained, at scale, to overcome these intuitive failures. Intuition is a self-preservation system, and the first thing it looks to protect is itself.

"When all is said and told, the "naturalness" with which we use our native tongues boils down to the ease with which we can use them for making statements the nonsense of which is not obvious." The essay is nonstop bangers. I am firmly on his side. While symbolic language is no guarantee—and any given instance has its strenghts and weaknesses—it is a requirement to be unambiguous and definitive. The exact qualities required when defining a process. Doesn't matter if the process is followed by a machine, a person, or an institution. The language must be specific so that the thinking about it is also specific, and errors are made glaringly obvious, either by analysis or during execution. https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD667.html