Notices by Nelson (skyfaller@jawns.club)

@thomasfuchs While I agree with you, we also need to take steps to reduce the need for air conditioning and make buildings as safe as possible without AC.

1. The additional power draw accelerates the climate crisis (as do most refrigerants)
2. If power fails due to a deadly heatwave, and you're entirely reliant on AC, then people die again

Street trees, shade, making roofs and roads a lighter color etc. all need to be on the menu instead of relying on AC as a single point of failure.

When can I let my child use this microscope?

The box says: "Only for use by children ages 8 and up. Keep out of reach of animals and small children under 3 years of age." So children between three and eight years old can have it in their reach, but it's still not safe for them to use it, even with adult supervision? I'm not sure I understand the distinction. What danger could they experience by using it that they don't have just from touching it?

#microscopes #ChildSafety #children

@skinnylatte Huh, maybe I should try this. I was considering asking my neighbor if we could run clotheslines across the alley, but this wouldn't require cooperation with anyone

@thomasfuchs Not sure vibe-coding is necessarily better than doom-scrolling, for yourself or anyone else.

For example, it's unlikely that anyone will tell me to kill myself on Mastodon because we've moderated the servers that let their members post shit like that, and if anyone did I and the other mods would nuke their accounts.

LLMs are known to tell people to kill themselves (and others) with tragic results.

https://abc7.com/post/parents-orange-county-teen-adam-raine-sue-openai-claiming-chatgpt-helped-son-die-suicide/17664420/

https://www.brusselstimes.com/430098/belgian-man-commits-suicide-following-exchanges-with-chatgpt

@dalias @ariadne Precisely. I often cite this article, which suggests instead of worrying about "overpopulation" which has clear connections to eugenics, we concern ourselves with inequality, women's rights and reproductive rights: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/26/16356524/the-population-question

Relative sent me this pic from a bike path in Middlesex county, and it's possibly the most fedi-coded graffiti I have ever seen. Which one of you did this?

#graffiti #bunnies

Finally set up my Kobo Clara ebook reader.

I just dragged and dropped ebook files onto it, I need to figure out how to manage my ebook library properly now that Calibre embraces LLM slop (Arcalibre or clbre I guess?), but at least I can read books on it instead of my distraction machine / smartphone.

I generally prefer print, but my baby loves to splash her food around and sometimes I eat messy food myself (soup, spaghetti), and I want to protect my dead tree books.

#kobo #ebooks

I'm a parent with a 9-month old baby looking to chat with other parents. Can you recommend fedi accounts of parents with younger children who talk about parenting? (There may be many silent parents on here.)

Bonus points if they ride bikes / avoid cars, are passionate about climate justice, are COVID conscious / interested in public health, or concerned about LLMs & surveillance capitalism (all relatively common on fedi no doubt, despite conditions in the outside world).

#parenting #babies

@ai6yr The study I continually cite is empirical research from Penn State, which suggests 87F wet bulb (roughly 31C) kills even young, healthy adults: https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/humans-cant-endure-temperatures-and-humidities-high-previously-thought

@evan I think intelligence is a fake idea, promoted by eugenics boosters: https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/toolmen

If you are like me, and you were told you were very intelligent from a young age, it may be hard to let that part of your identity go, but I think we've seen enough damage from the concept of intelligence to discard it and reconsider.

So to answer your question, I think intelligence is imaginary, so artificial intelligence is just extra bullshit on top, causing further harm.

@evan Are you saying that spicy autocomplete is on the road to superintelligence? LLMs certainly aren't intelligent or recursively self-improving, instead feeding them to themselves leads to model collapse, which is the opposite. LLMs are basically irrelevant to this talk, except as a flag for who has had their brain eaten.

@evan why? If anything we've seen even more shitty behavior from superintelligence bros, starting with Elon committing mass murder through DOGE

@evan Yes, but some bad ideas may be cognitohazards and you don't need to deeply understand them to get why they're bad and worth avoiding.

I reluctantly cite Maciej (who himself seems to have fallen down some fascist rabbit holes) on superintelligence: https://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm

I like his discussion of "The Outside Argument", where you don't need to study superintelligence, simply look at "What kind of person does sincerely believing this stuff turn you into?" Superintelligence nuts suck.

@dalias @aleteoryx @Em0nM4stodon According to this thread, alpine started off considering a terrible LLM policy and is now considering a mediocre one. https://social.treehouse.systems/@ariadne/116668358237479953

I'm waiting to see how it shakes out, but I expect to be disappointed by the results, and prefer other distros with more spine.

@Em0nM4stodon @meganL This is a good list of projects with stances against AI, including a Linux distro section: https://noai.starlightnet.work/list.html

My Quaker meeting is planning an outdoor amphitheatre made of stone. I want to make sure the design uses dry stone #masonry, without any mortar, in part because I understand this provides valuable habitat for #wildlife.

I'm having difficulty finding any resources on this subject targeted at the #USA, however; most sources mention European animals living in walls. I have no doubt the same principles apply in North America, but I'd like local details.

Could you suggest sources?

#DryStone

@xgranade @jwz Fundamentally the argument is "fedi must become exactly like every other space that is overwhelmed with slop". Like, name another network or website that is generally negative about LLMs. This is like arguing every restaurant should be McDonald's. Let fedi be different, please.

https://webcomicname.com/post/185588404109

@evan @panos @carnage4life @scottjenson I do not concede that LLMs are "orders of magnitude" less harmful than flying. Also I do not fly.

Anyone dismissing LLM harms doesn't understand the scale of the climate crisis or of LLMs. Sadly, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” I can't force this understanding onto anyone in a few toots, they would have to want to understand, when the industry requires LLMs if you want to eat.

@panos @evan @carnage4life @scottjenson This is what I'm talking about. You're both minimizing/denying harms and saying they don't matter. This is one of the biggest problems with LLMs, they turn people into apologists for the fossil fuel industry because they don't want to think they're helping destroy the world.

*If* flying is more harmful, that's no excuse. There's always something more harmful until you reach the top, and then the excuse will be it's too important or too difficult to stop.

I'll be attending this Philly Mastodon Migration Party a week from Wednesday to represent Jawns.club and invite people to join our server (among other options). There will be several activities to help people socialize while learning the basics of the fediverse.

This post may only reach people already on fedi, but if you have friends who are not here yet, this could be a fun way to get them on board, so please spread the word.

https://www.phillyethics.org/event-details/zuck-off

#Philly #Philadelphia #JoinMastodon