@p@dj@ryan@ins0mniak@lanodan It's an analogy. In this analogy the dipshit authoritarians are the teachers in the Pink Floyd song who take pleasure in torturing their students but go home to their fat, psychopathic wifes who beat them within inches of their lives. I'll dig out my kid's crayons later if that explanation wasn't clear enough.
@ins0mniak@p@dj@ryan@lanodan Notice how they all laugh about taking away people's phones. They remind me of the line in Pink Floyd's song The Happiest Days of Our Lives...
"But in the town it was well known When they got home at night, their fat and Psychopathic wives would thrash them within inches of their lives."
@sickburnbro@MechaSilvio@gentoobro As someone in the industry who has had first hand knowledge of how close the tech is to the singularity I think it wise to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
@sickburnbro@gentoobro I don't think it is wise to underestimate something with singular focus and an expanding aptitude that never sleeps or takes lunch breaks and vacations.
@gentoobro@sickburnbro I just left a large software company a few months ago. Two major releases per year. AI got added to some of the modules two and a half years ago. Today's release essentially eliminates the need for 40% to 50% of DevOps and dev engineering keyboard jockeys. The releases keep coming.
@TrevorGoodchild@Orkin_Awk@ChadleyDudebro@EdBoatConnoisseur@sickburnbro This is one of the few AI market segments where I see a potential gains for humans. AI has the potential to be much more accurate at differential diagnosis than humans. AI is already far outpacing humans in radiology diagnosis.
@h4890@toiletpaper It is human nature (particularly when a human has an IQ above 100 or so) to question things.
"What will happen if I sail my ship too far past the horizon?"
"You will fall off of the earth you crazy man. Everybody knows that you crazy conspiracy theorist."
Incongruence begets curiosity which begets questions which begets theories and hypothesis which begets advancement, innovation and understanding. The questions, hypothesis, innovations and understanding aren't always correct but we are less human when we allow our natural curiosity to be stifled. When was the last time you heard a parent or teacher tell a child to question everything? Pretty sad, isn't it?
@toiletpaper@h4890 I think you are right about having a balanced and scientific approach to questioning things. And, perhaps the last 5 years have jaded me more than is good for me. But, let me tell you a true story that demonstrates why today I personally think erroring on the side of disbelief in any human authority, including scientific authority, is the safer bet.
About 32 years ago my then wife and I were friends with another couple that my wife had grown up with from childhood. We were all in our mid 20s and doing the upwardly mobile climb into the middle class. He was finishing studies to be a pediatrician. I can't remember what his wife was doing at that point in her life. I do know that she became pregnant and delivered a healthy baby girl named Hailey. It was their first and, being childless ourselves, we loved Hailey as she began unlocking new parental instincts in both of us as well.
I believe it was at five months that I learned Hailey had passed away suddenly. My wife and I rushed to the hospital and were shown to a private room where the couple sat holding their dead child. They both seemed soulless. Devoid of spirit as they clutched their lifeless Hailey. It was just the five of us in the room and I remember thinking that this was the first time I had ever felt this depth of sadness before. Hailey's funeral, with her tiny coffin, was surreal to me.
Prior to childhood immunizations crib death statistics were not even recorded because they were so rare they were statistically insignificant. The Amish receive no immunizations and have no crib death. These are things I've learned only in the past four or five years.
After Hailey's death I went to all of the SIDS fundraisers, SIDS runs, etc.. I made sure my own infants never flipped on their stomachs and that blankets stayed out of the crib. Imagine that. Me, an adult with an IQ of 121, believing that a perfectly healthy human baby could be killed by sleeping on its stomach or by a blanket in the crib and that otherwise, crib death was just a big medical mystery with no other known reasons. Yet, that's exactly what I believed. I'm not a scientist, but if today you were to ask me which scenario was more likely to have killed Hailey, a blanket in her crib or a cocktail of chemicals injected into her body just days before, today I would choose the latter.
I think of this story and dozens of others like it and am amazed at how easily I was fooled by illegitimate authority. Illegitimate and compromised science. Illegitimate and compromised expert opinion. I think about how comfortable I was living in a realm where I didn't have to concern myself with research and large swaths of science. The experts did that for me. All I had to do was take their food pyramid advice on life and I would be happy. I am disappointed I wasn't instructed to be more questioning of everything no matter what and am regretful I didn't have this understanding and resolve when my children were young.
We don't know what we don't know and this more often than not includes our own limitations and weaknesses. Having a reflexive response of, not doubt necessarily, but curiosity and question about all things is what I currently believe to be the safest position, regardless of the authority.
@sickburnbro@TrevorGoodchild@jb Oh, I think he's pissed and has both the resolve and the means. I've seen him talk about it a few times and it is hard for a [non-Jewish] man to hide shame and vitriol. I can see it in his face.
@BowsacNoodle@eee Welp then. Here's my story on Taco Bell meat that no one here probably wants to here (mute convo now).
In about 2011 I was working for the largest network equipment manufacturer in the world. One of my sales colleagues was bemoaning the fact that he was going to have to drive three hours to the middle of nowhere in Iowa to visit some mysterious customer for what was likely to be a pretty small sale. Mysterious? The facility he was visiting had only one phone number and one fax number that were both manned by only two people. My colleague also had to sign a non-disclosure agreement prior to coming on site (which he obviously ignored since I am telling you this story now). So, he goes to the facility to talk firewall shop and as he is walking through one of the hallways to the conference room he passes a large plate glass viewing window into a manufacturing section of the facility. Keep in mind, he had no idea what they did at this facility when he arrived there because they wouldn't tell him and it was stipulated in the NDA that he wouldn't reveal anything about what they did there. As he looked through the window he found himself looking at giant steaming vats. Each vat had piping that went into some sort of processing machine. Out of that processing machine were translucent pipes with a brownish reddish colored substance being pumped through them. This is where he saw yet another machine being fed by these translucent pipes squirting the brownish reddish substance into large plastic bags with the Taco Bell logo on them. What he found out was that this plant bought all of the waste meat and carcases from IBP and other processers, boiled it down as much as they could and then made meat out of it for Taco Bell. I imagine TB wasn't their only customer.