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Amadan

Letting the hate flow through me

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joined 2022 September 05 00:23:21 UTC
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User ID: 297


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
Amadan


								

								

								
								
									
								
								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Letting the hate flow through me

				
				
				

				

					11 followers  

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					joined 2022 September 05 00:23:21 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's arguably "virtuous" to defend their right to innocence until proven guilty of criminal charges. It's not virtuous to line up on Team Dude and say they did nothing wrong because you hate the slut.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
ESH is a perfectly valid conclusion.


She's gross, the men are gross (seriously, consent or not, who thinks it's not gross to put your dick in the same place a dozen other guys just put their dicks?), and social shame and disgust should befall all of them regardless of criminality. But most people are lining up on Team Woman or Team Bitches Ain't Shit. And so it goes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It's amazing how clouded some people's minds get when you tell them that 18 is an irrationally high age of consent.




Nobody here is "mind clouded" by the idea of lowering the age of consent. People will agree or disagree that 18 is too high or 14 is too low, and the discussion is not prohibited (because it comes up regularly). You aren't dropping some unthinkable 70-degrees off-the-azimuth hot take that makes people freak out. You're just being predictable and annoying and you think you're being clever by inserting your obsessions into tangential posts that dance around without quite naming the thing you want to talk about. But do go on testing our forbearance.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It was totally you. You're still here because we have a (sometimes irrational) willingness to let ten guilty ban evaders pedo-post than accidentally ban one innocent just-happened-to-stumble-onto-the-Motte-and-post-exactly-like-a-banned-pedo, but you've basically outed yourself, so I would suggest not going for the I-am-very-smart-I-totally-p0wned-you tactic to test how far you can go antagonizing the mods just because we've let you get away with it this long.


-signed, Amadan the genius


FYI (@cjet79) we've also applied the single-issue-obsessive rule to the Hock guy who posted weekly about how he was doomed to inceldom because he's not 6'2".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't know if "Goodgoy" was intentional or not, but even if it was a typo, this is a snarky, catty, low quality post.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IIRC, Zorba's plan was to eventually allow some community-based auto-modding to take place, but only once he feels it's properly calibrated (and I have no idea when or how that will be achieved). Right now, the community modding does give us some sense of how the community feels about a reported post, and while mods make the final decision, I personally am somewhat influenced by community consensus in borderline cases. That does not mean if enough people say "This is bad" it will overrule my opinion that a post did not break any rules, or vice versa. But it's useful feedback, even if lately a lot of that feedback is "I want my tribe to have no restrictions and I want the other tribe silenced."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Come on. Along one axis or the other, that describes a substantial number, if not the majority, of regular posters. There are very few people on the Motte with credibility to point that particular finger.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can usually tell but it's not 80-90% reliable (and I'd consider my literary analytic abilities to be well above average). There are times when I read a book with an ambiguously-gendered pen name (in itself usually a tell) and think "This was absolutely written by a woman." I've commented before that JK Rowling, while a good writer, has womenwritingmen issues. But I doubt you'd actually score 80-90% on a real blind test of writing samples.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It is, but /r/menwritingwomen material is almost always rather dated.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I knew all the words on the left and most of the words on the right, though I couldn't actually describe in detail the differences between "tulle" and "chambray" without looking them up.


Perhaps most men and women are simply not well-read?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You have to really stand out and be persistently obnoxious about it for us to invoke that rule. Everyone has their "thing" that they like to talk about - that is not what the single-issue posting rule prohibits.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I put a modhat on for "stop it or you're getting banned" posts. Those are the ones that have the red flag. Me saying "I see a lot of stupid shit in the mod queue" or "No, I am not modding this post" is not the same and does not obligate me to go into customer service bot mod.


I generally do not opine on the thread itself when I modhat a post. We especially avoid using a modhat in a thread where we have already been engaging (or arguing).


That is a general practice, not a hard and fast rule.


Note that the topic of modding (whether or not someone was being unnecessarily antagonistic) was orthogonal to the topic I expressed an opinion about (LLMs).


We will not be following the practice that "I may not refer to anything to do with moderating or what I see in the mod queue if I talk about the thread." Once again, we are not customer service bots, and while we're mindful of appearances and community trust in our diligence and best efforts at fairness, there is a limit to how much weight we're going to give someone sore at being disagreed with.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you seriously believe I didn't mod SecureSignals because I happen to agree with him about LLMs, and otherwise would have, I don't know what to say to you - you've been here too long for me to believe you actually believe that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I find it disappointing that you're directly taking a side in a thread within a mod post.




Mods are allowed to have opinions about the topic of a thread and "take a side" on it.


While I don't care to litigate what does and does not count as a "mod post," there is also no requirement that we are to be dispassionately neutral while making observations as mods. A lot of people need to let go of the idea that we are customer service bots.


Since nobody is getting modded, your objection reads as petulant.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This was reported and had a consensus-vote of "bad," but while we would prefer you and @phailyoor not get into antagonistic slap fights like this, I don't see it as really crossing the line.


Fwiw, you are right and @phailyoor is wrong.


And I feel like I have to second the person who said you should get some kind of recognition for actually getting into an argument where Jews weren't mentioned once.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I admit to having a visceral reaction to this.


It's not because I'm afraid of the Basilisk - but I am concerned about future actual-AGIs looking at experiments like this and asking us "What the fuck were you thinking?"


This just seems... bad. And it's bad even if AIs don't actually feel "pain" and all of this is just probabilistic token generation, responding to a fake scenario constructed for it. Which I think it is. But I don't want us to be constructing experiments where we torture things because they aren't real and we're certain they don't actually feel pain, when we can't agree exactly when those things might pass the threshold to becoming real. And I am pretty certain these researchers probably wouldn't stop even if it turned out that AIs really have achieved self-awareness and the ability to experience pain.


I mean, seriously, what is the point of this? I'm sure they can justify it as "model alignment" or something, but we're training AI engineers to torture something that acts like it's being tortured and say "Hmm, interesting," when AI engineers can't even agree on what will constitute AGI or whether or not AIs pose a threat.


We should not be creating torture simulators, and we especially should not be creating torture simulators for beings that have a non-zero chance of becoming sentient someday and a non-zero chance of becoming dangerous someday.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's being used a lot in software for agentic workflows. I don't know of any rigorously benchmarked use cases that shows them reducing error rates, but there is lots of anecdotal evidence. (Some people swear you get more rigorous fact and error-checking if you tell Claude "This was generated by ChatGPT; check its work" or vice versa, but I haven't seen that myself.) The problem of course is that you're using a probabilistic machine to judge another probabilistic machine, so are you reducing error rates  or just watching them converge on shared biases?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
LLMs will always be probabilistic, by their nature. They will get smarter, and thus make errors less frequently, and there are other techniques like Mixture of Experts, and various schemes which are basically "AIs checking other AIs," but no, they will never be 100% error-free. The question is whether we will accept the risk when, say, they make errors no more often than human doctors do? Self-driving cars already on most benchmarks drive better than most humans, but one fatality as a result of a self-driving car sets the industry back months as they have to make sure the car won't make that particular mistake again.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Unless you are willing to state your credentials, this just reads as a condescending argument by authority ("my own"). Given that people with PhDs in AI research don't agree on these big questions like "What constitutes intelligent action?" and "How will we recognize AGI?" I think you should demonstrate a little more humility in asserting that someone else "doesn't get" something.


My own take, having read the report, is that the hugging face incident is closer to ants than AGI, but that doesn't really settle the matter. AIs are visibly improving from "cancer-like" to "bee-like" and there is real gap between those milestones, and they are still improving. What the OpenAI agents did to Hugging Face would absolutely be considered hostile, coordinated action if done by humans. That it was done by AI that didn't have hostile intent and didn't really "understand" what it was doing will, at some point, be beside the point, because it's the behavior that will matter. An AI that "decides" to do something and in every way behaves the same as a human deciding to do something may not actually be intelligent, but it's going to sound increasingly pedantic to tell people to "stop anthropomorphizing them."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Qeekly Finance Thread - 2026-09-12
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Henceforth this shall be called the "Qeekly" Finance Thread.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The Fall of the Octopodes
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Clearly, you need to collaborate with @DoktorGlas and turn this into a proper novel.


(Plug here for Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Ruin, a great uplifted-octopi story, though I do find the uplifted spiders from book one, Children of Time, more interesting.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The Fall of the Octopodes
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As a short story and a cautionary tale, this is trite and twee. Just quote Kipling and be done with it.


As a metaphor, it's a blunt cudgel with no cleverness or subtlety or anything really worth thinking over. Obvious message is obvious -- yes, let us not be octopodes and do stupid things like trying to improve the lot of those who rightfully suffer as nature intended. Oh wait, that's already been done better too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The anecdote about Chesterton feeling relief when the bombing of London commenced, because finally everyone else was living in the same world as he'd been for so long, comes to mind.




I was trying to figure out how Chesterton's Fence applies here, but I think you meant Churchill?


Also, the Dixie Chicks criticized the war and said they were ashamed of George Bush, but I definitely do not remember them saying "America had 9/11 coming," though a few other pundits said or implied it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You've long exhausted my willingness to discuss modding with you, Jiro. If you think incorrect mod decisions are being made, take it up with Zorba.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No. Trolling means you are making insincere arguments to wind people up.


I don't know if you actually believe the positions you are taking- I'm not a mind-reader. But you are arguing them in a disingenuous manner, intentionally strawmanning counterarguments, and selectively ignoring or changing the elements, in a deliberately provocative manner because (I speculate, with high confidence) that you find it amusing, and that your purpose is entertaining yourself and not engaging in genuine debate or testing of your ideas.


Your condescending "I hope for your sake..." is so uttterly contrary to both my observed, historical behavior and yours that I likewise conclude it is meant merely as an insult (it's just a verbose variant on the classic rebuttal: "Neener neener I win you lose!").


I am not warning you as a mod here. I just find your behavior personally annoying. We put up with Darwin for a very long time because his annoying behavior was not, technically, against the rules. The tons of reports you draw mostly get dismissed because "This guy is really fucking annoying" is not really a report, it's venting. That said, when your entire purpose in being here is not to engage sincerely with people, but just to giggle at how many people you can aggravate, it is very likely to lead eventually to a determination that your presence here is a net negative. So I would advise you, in the same tone: for your sake, mature, fix whatever hole you have in your soul that makes you take pleasure in coming to a board full of people you don't like just to poke them in the eye and titter about it, and if you genuinely want to engage with people and learn something (even if it's just about why they think they way they do), stop trying to construct your arguments in a maximally evasive, inflammatory, and disingenuous manner.