Do you think it will be a net social benefit for people to be taught 2 + 2 = 4 and 2 + 2 = 5 with equal weight, and let them come to their own conclusions?
How about if the person who owns the educational institution puts their thumb on the 2 + 2 = 5 side of the balance for their own ends?
I'm not sure if you actually haven't checked it since, but will give you the benefit of the doubt.
Accounts pushing white supremacy, the reversion of women's rights, hatred towards other on the basis of their race or religion, climate change denial, denial of science and promotion of pseudoscience, etc etc. are heavily promoted across the platform and get millions of engagements.
If you create a new account, the majority of the accounts you are shown and suggested to follow will be those pushing the above.
They've switched to a model of paying their users for engagement, which naturally encourages users to post the most engagement bait they can, which tends to be inflammatory and utterly lacking in depth or nuance.
I think you're speeding past the word "average" in the sentence. I'd argue that current frontier models already exceed the abilities of average humans across the majority of tasks you can do on a computer, although you might be able to argue that they tend to be a bit slower?
That latter part is debatable though - have you seen a non-technical person try to figure out something new on a computer?
Mine was not that severe. I would get mildly nauseous during normal commercial airplane turbulence, although very nauseous in small planes and the worst nausea of my life after a glider session, very seasick to the point of being debilitated, and then probably a 6 or 7 out of 10 when reading in the car for more than a few minutes.
I had motion sickness for the first ~38 years of my life, and had it cured.
Posting here because I went the majority of my life without knowing that such a treatment existed.
About a year ago I flew to the University of North Dakota and spent an hour a day over 3 days sitting in a simulator that would spin faster and faster while the facilitator talked to me over the headset and kept me distracted.
Was nowhere near as bad as I'd feared, honestly maybe a 3/10 on the discomfort/nausea scale.
Ever since then, motion sickness completely gone. I used to despise boats, calling them mankind's cruelest invention. Taken many flights, reading car trips, hot humid boat rides in rough seas in southeast asia since and... nothing.
Would 100% recommend. I think you can find the program at the bottom of this page, it's $400:
> There is no evidence it was highly coordinated and many reasons to believe it’s emergent. Cable TV and then social media created systems competing for attention. The content originators became increasingly decentralized, increasing both diversity and ruthlessness.
Hmm, not sure how you could conclude this given the abundance of evidence regarding the activities and influence of people like the Koch Brothers, Rupert Murdoch, Peter Thiel, the fossil fuel industry in terms of the global warming discourse, the general corporate and wealthy forces shaping Republican/Democrat policy over the last ~50 years.
The media influences alone that fuel the sensationalization of these issues are transparent, as are the threads that bind these media groups and those in power over them.
Look at what's happening to CBS and will soon happen to CNN due to the Paramount merger and the Ellisons/Bari Weiss for example.
> Historically untrue.
What? In what part of history have disorganized masses shown themselves to be powerful against "the intentional propaganda efforts made by the most powerful actors in society spanning decades" that I'm referring to?
Almost by definition the successful grassroots movements of the past that have created change were organized, no? I also don't believe there's ever been as effective a media (social and conventional) apparatus in human history as we've had the last half century.
> Starving, uneducated masses are easy to repress. Distracted masses only so long as they look away. And I think we’re seeing signs the American voter isn’t looking away.
I mean, this conversation started over the culture war bullshit that seems to have about as good a grip on Americans' attention as ever, although I agree that the material economic conditions are degrading so badly that they are more and more becoming the priority consideration.
That said, channeling that anger towards scapegoats like immigrants or jews etc is an old and effective playbook and I don't see why we wouldn't call that distraction.
I mean, I also have times where I find myself blaming people for being so stupid.
That said, you have to realize that this has been a very intentional propaganda effort by the most powerful actors in society spanning decades. Disorganized masses are largely powerless against that sort of effort and the outcomes are predictable.
In terms of why bird brains would be exceptionally efficient for their volume (and I assume by extension, mass), would be that weight is at a premium for them.
About a year back I tried to build a few latency-sensitive products on Groq, and found the response times would vary so wildly that it just about erased any benefit in their throughput. Is that still this case?
Idk, I’ve seen Deliverance, plus all those horror movies that start out on some desolate road in the woods at night. Seems likely a fair depiction of country living.
No thank you, I’ll stay in Manhattan and not get kidnapped and murdered by monsters tyvm.
Honestly, even if you join the field audit - who's to say they didn't plan everything in advance and that these aren't all crisis actors?
Who's to say they didn't drug you, and you performed the "field audit" on a psychedelic trip from within a padded cell controlled by the nefarious cabal of do-gooders?
Frankly, if you believe your own eyes and ears aren't lying to you, you may be a touch naive.
There are many ways of knowing if you actually want to find out. Third party auditors, evaluations, reputation… just… reading reports and looking at evidence of field work.
Too many people use this as an excuse to throw up their hands and say “well I guess I have no choice but to keep all my money for myself and donate nothing, damn, darn, totally not the conclusion I was secretly hoping to reach, not at all, oh man, damn.”
What, lol? You want me to write a comprehensive account of each country in Africa that had foreign interventions and enumerate them? What’s the character limit for comments on HN, how many full comments do you think I’d need to get to something approaching comprehensiveness?
Zimbabwe, we’re talking about the one that had China, USSR and SA providing weapons and training up until the end of Rhodesia around 1980? Then IMF/World Bank imposed market liberalization in the 90s, then sanctions from 2002-2024?
Truly, can’t understand why they’d be in bad shape, must be all their own fault. My brilliant white brain thinks it must be something genetic, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge wink wink.
Are you under the impression that western activity in Africa ceased with the end of colonialism? No fomented coups, conflicts, revolutions, arms and funding for rebel groups, continuous bribes and support to corrupt government officials to secure the flow of oil, minerals, etc. out of those countries into western hands? No proxy wars between the west and the USSR?
EU debt to GDP is ~80% avg across member states, US is ~123%.
US CPI 3.8% as of April, EU HICP 3.2% as of April.
IMF projects 2.3% growth US vs 1.1% growth EU in 2026.
Not sure I would say the EU is in a borderline catastrophic economic situation and the US is not?
If both are in catastrophic situations (it seems one could fairly make that assessment in either case), then again we’re back to “all societies are unstable, would we like to be pragmatic and compassionate during our brief moment of stability or vindictive and self destructive?”
How about if the person who owns the educational institution puts their thumb on the 2 + 2 = 5 side of the balance for their own ends?