Notices by William Pietri (williampietri@sfba.social)

@kims Congrats on escaping!

What would your dad do with the left-handed vegetable peelers?

@cwebber You mean decent-ralized, like making them decent? I hear Bluesky is making use of AI moderation plus libertarian market incentives, so I'm sure they're much more decent than this place.

Chicago's turnout was huge! We marched around and the crowd was many blocks long. The age range was very broad, too. I saw so many signs I loved! #HandsOff #chicago #Illinois

Hard same.

I didn't realize there were any blockchain fans left! They may be few in number but they are as tiresome and blockworthy as they ever were.

In the 15+ years people have been promoting blockchains, this flowchart remains undefeated.

@jzillw
Oh, totally agreed. The whole alpha-nerd thing is just toxic masculinity in different, less fashionable clothing. But there were a lot of entirely decent nerds too. For me part of what changed with the rise of the tech bros was that the increasing social power of tech created huge rewards for being awful.
@cstross

@cstross Very interesting! I've often thought that the religions I admire in the abstract turn out to be just as terrible in practice if they end up socially dominant. I suppose that applies to 90s nerd culture just as well.

If Meta is trying to suppress a former employee's book, seems like something I should read. I just bought a copy.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/12/arbitrator-prohibits-meta-whistleblower-from-promoting-tell-all-book.html

This was totally a shock to me. Care of community is almost a reflex for me, and the pandemic really shook my faith. I spend a lot of time thinking about what it would take to create communities where mutual care is the default.

So what I am seeing in DOGE is the confluence of two kinds of aggressive ignorance. It's a bunch of mouthy white dudes who are used to jumping in, performing genius, and fucking with things they don't understand. Things they won't ever understand. And those dudes, having never experienced the sting of consequences, can even conceive that there might be a problem.

7/

Both computers and finance are pervasive technologies. So much of our society makes use of both of those, and much else can easily be cast into those terms. That can easily make those skills seem universal.

2/

I've been thinking about the shitshow that is DOGE, and I see two kinds of professionalized arrogance: tech and MBAs. A thread!
1/

That's something I've benefited hugely from as a techie. I've gotten to work in so many different industries: education, finance, publishing, government, non-profits, and more. It has been a huge joy to dive in and learn about another slice of the world. Another set of people and their industry-specific language and culture.

4/

I think that's made worse by our education systems. If you get a CS degree or an MBA, you can expect to jump into a wide variety of jobs with no industry-specific training or experience.

3/

But what if you don't care about being truly effective? What if you're goal is quick nominal wins or self aggrandizement or just extracting a bunch of cash and moving on? In that case, arrogance and ignorance aren't problems, they're tools.
6/

But I think it's very easy for people with both CS and MBA degrees to start out thinking a broadly applicable skill means they don't have to learn anything. When in my experience, it's the opposite: if you want to be truly effective, you have to dig in and get up to speed pronto. And you'll have to develop a lot of respect for people who know the domain, and for the complexities they've taken years to understand.

5/

If you see somebody described as "he's just like that" or "he can't help himself", ask if he's like that when he might be held accountable. E.g., in front of his boss, his mom, at church, when a video camera is recording.

Occasionally, he really can't help himself. But it usually turns out that he can, and that there's a pattern to when he can't. E.g., he's a jerk to juniors and peer women, but perfectly controlled in front of his male boss. That's when you know it's not illness, it's abuse.

We've launched! After months of work, MLCommons has released our v1.0 benchmark that measures LLM (aka "AI") propensity for giving hazardous responses.

Here's the results for 15 common models: https://ailuminate.mlcommons.org/benchmarks/

And here's the overview: https://mlcommons.org/ailuminate/

I was the tech lead for the software and want to give a shout out to my excellent team of developers and the many experts we worked closely with to make this happen.

I am seeing some defeatist nonsense with the upcoming Trump inauguration, talking as if America is over. I say: Fuck that!

I will not obey in advance. I will not spread despair. I will not quit trying to push things forward.

America has always been flawed, and has faltered many times. But MLK Day reminds us that there are American ideals that are worth fighting for, even when things seem hopeless. Especially when things seem hopeless!