thegayrabbi
1yr ago
No your assertions are false. At least you prove that your republican bitter reddit reject echo chamber is the same as the others: Fragile, insular, based primarily on a cult of personality and self-delusional double standards, and full of losers who don't go outside.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
There's other places to learn basic sociology than a blog no one's heard of.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
Are you unfamiliar with the common problems of hazing in fraternities and sports teams? If you are, I would suggest you google the phrase "sexual hazing" without quotes:
"Male hazing most common type of sexual assault, expert reveals":
https://www.army.mil/article/166188/male_hazing_most_common_type_of_sexual_assault_expert_reveals
"The brutal secret of school sport initiations":
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46282988
"How Hazing Escalates To Sexual Assault":
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
I don't read the Christian Bible just to "get up to speed with what people are talking about". I'm not going to read the biblical writings of this place either.
I'm happy to be impractically ignorant of The Motte's jargon.
It's evident from context what people are talking about. I don't need a milquetoast unfunny blog to explain it.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
Is the rapid advancement in Machine Learning good or bad for society?
For the purposes of this comment, I will try to define good as "improving the quality of life for many people without decreasing the quality of life for another similarly sized group" an vice versa.
I enjoy trying to answer this question because the political discourse around it is too new to have widely accepted answers disseminated by the two American political parties being used to signify affiliation like many questions. However, any discussion of whether something is good or bad for society belongs in a Culture War threat because, even here on The Motte, most people will try to reduce every discussion to one along clear conservative/liberal lines because most people here are salty conservatives who were kicked out of reddit by liberals one way or another.
Now on to the question: Maybe the best way to discover if Machine learning is good or bad for society is to say what makes it essentially different from previous computing? The key difference in Machine Learning is that it changes computing from a process where you tell the computer what to do with data, and turns it into a process where you just tell the computer what you want it to be able to do. before machine learning, you would tell the computer specifically how to scan an image and decide if it is a picture of a dog. Whether the computer was good at identifying pictures of dogs relied on how good your instructions were. With machine learning, you give the computer millions of pictures of dogs and tell it to figure out how to determine if there's a dog in a picture.
So what can be essentialized from that difference? Well before Machine Learning, the owners of the biggest computers still had to be clever enough to use them to manipulate data properly, but with Machine Learning, the owners of the biggest computers can now simply specify a goal and get what they want. It seems therefore that Machine Learning will work as a tool for those with more capital to find ways to gain more capital. It will allow people with the money to create companies that can enhance the ability to make decisions purely based on profit potential, and remove the human element even more from the equation.
How about a few examples:
Recently a machine learning model was approved by the FDA to be used to identify cavities on X-rays. Eventually your dental insurance company will require a machine learning model to read your X-rays and report that you need a procedure in order for them to cover treatment from your dentist. The justification will be that the Machine Learning model is more accurate. It probably will be more accurate. Dentists will require subscriptions to a Machine Learning model to accept insurance, and perhaps dental treatment will become more expensive, but maybe not. It's hard to say for sure if this will be a bad or a good thing.
Machine learning models are getting very good at writing human text. This is currently reducing the value of human writers at a quick pace. Presumably with more advanced models, it will replace commercial human writing all together. Every current limitation of the leading natural language models will be removed in time, and they will become objectively superior to human writers. This also might be a good thing, or a bad thing. It's hard to say.
I think it's actually very hard to predict if Machine Learning will be good or bad for society. Certain industries might be disrupted, but the long term effects are hard to predict.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
Maybe they'll show you ads for competitors, or content you enjoy with subtle product placement, like a cute dog with oreos in the background.
Did you try using the search function in the Google photos app?
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
Study whatever you want, but pursue as many networking opportunities as possible. Apply for internships in your field during the summers. Don't take rejection personally, but accept it gracefully. Find good reasons to go to your professors' office hours, like if you're having trouble finding internships. Prioritize homework and reading for class. Pursue productive social activities. Only drink on weekends, and only beer. Don't smoke marijuana ever. Shower and do your laundry frequently. Compliment people's strengths and be polite about their weaknesses.
If you do all that you'll be successful in any field. Pick something where you will enjoy doing those things.
Source: When I did those things I succeeded, when I didn't, I failed.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
You answered your own question regarding the bathroom. Good job. It's a personal identity if you just leave the restroom until the trans person is gone. It's a political one of you try to pass a law or meet the trans person subject to the law via the series of escalations you described.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
Let's discuss the difference between a personal identity and a political belief then. A personal identity is about how you try to relate to other people. A political belief is about how you think the state should use it's claim to legitimate violence in order to enforce its law. So if you're just being trans, you're existing a personal identity. If you're saying trans people shouldn't be allowed to use women's bathrooms according to the law, you're engaging in a political belief.
All trans people have a similar identity, but they can have a very wide range of political beliefs.
Conservatives do not share any particular identity, but possibly they might share some political beliefs. Honestly, they don't really seem to share any political beliefs, but that's a different discussion. Regardless, conservatives are conservative because of one or more political beliefs they hold, not their identities.
I don't feel the need to respond to your other questions because they address claims I didn't make and opinions I did not state.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
It's not about right and wrong. It's about social perception. Social identities are based on the fact that people have persistent perceptions of each other and their group affiliations.
To address the Marsey in the room, if you want to say Dylan Mulvaney is wrongly identifying as a woman, that is going to depend on the social context. I don't think he's a woman, but apparently millions of people do. Womanhood means different things to different people, which is why i don't like compulsory pronoun usage. You can refer to yourself however your like, and you can try to persuade people to refer to you a certain way, but I don't like being forced to pretend to believe something I don't believe. However, at the same time I don't feel the need to tell other people they're not allowed to believe trans women are women.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
I'm not transgender, and I never said I was.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
Bud Light is a beer, not a class marker. I certainly don't want to read, let alone re-read, anything that discusses the "Red Tribe" and the "Blue Tribe".
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
Sure, everything is political, because everything can be framed in terms of power. But some things are more political, because they exert more power, and some things are less. Dylan Mulvaney making a beer ad is less political than the reaction to it, which is more political. It's not "the most politicized speech it is possibly to make". It's a man, or a woman, in a dress, or a bubble bath, drinking a Bud Light. There are many many things far more political. The essence of politics is the control of the state and its exclusive claim to legitimate violence in the enforcement of the law and its sovereignty. Miss Mulvaney's bubble bath is not near to any of those things.
I'm kind of surprised at people who think Bud Light is some sort of exclusively Republican domain. It's Bud Light, not the NRA.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
You're right, I misread my sources.
I would say, Justin Trudeau isn't in the American political context. I don't think an American Democrat politician could wear that much black face and not get eaten by the left. Trudeau also apologized, called himself racist, and what he did didn't directly harm anyone. It was also politically and culturally insensitive, but not malicious, so it's not like a huge stretch to believe he was more stupid than maliciously racist. He's also very good looking, and as Prime Minister, not directly elected, so the vote that puts him in power is not as much a personal referendum on him. I don't know a lot about Canadian politics, but I'm guessing it's not as polarized and identity based as US politics because it's parliamentary. The American political structure has given it a particular propensity to in-group out-group dynamics and emotional affiliation with one's party.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
Identity is the perceived membership of particular in-groups and out-groups. It's a factor of human psycho-social dynamics, not biology. As we have seen here, conservatives seem to view their political alignment as an identity. They also seem to be eager to ascribe other people's political alignments as an identity, as you and the other two people replying to me have all eventually accused me of being on the side of liberals and making assumptions about my political affiliation. Liberals engage in that to a lesser degree, which is why there are so many different liberal factions that spend almost as much time fighting each other as they do conservatives. They couldn't even successfully elect Hillary Clinton because of ideological differences, which is an extreme weakness of the liberal movement.
Justin Trudeau wore brownface once as a high schooler. It is well within the ability of most liberals to understand the idea of doing something stupid and ignorant when in high school. Conservatives try to use that to weaken his political influence, and liberal don't let it work. It's too weak of a transgression, and he's too strong of a political force for liberalism otherwise.
There are obviously going to be counterexamples of these tendencies on both sides, but I'm talking about general trends and the behavior of the plurality, if not the majority. In a democratic system like ours, the tendencies of the plurality determine who is elected to political power.
This isn't about good or bad, or mean and virtuous, and I didn't use any of those words. Those are value statements you read into my opinions because apparently that's where you center your discourse. I might say the liberal tendency to eat their own is very bad, because it resulted in failing to elect Hillary Clinton. I might say the conservative ability to support each other in an identity based way is good because it enabled them to achieve political goals liberals thought were impossible, like repealing Roe v. Wade. Liberals frequently use ideological purity tests to be cruel to each other, and that probably leads to higher levels of anxiety in liberals. Conservatives will extend each other a great deal of kindness and community, which can lead to more prosocial behavior in conservative circles.
Generally though, I'd rather be a conservative at a pride parade than a trans woman in a men's locker room. Liberals are generally more tolerant of dissent and while a few might become aggressive, you have a distinct possibility of others defending the conservative's right to free speech. If one man in a locker room decides to be aggressive towards another for being gay or trans, the other men will not intervene, even if they disagree, because they will immediately be targeted as well.
Straight men absolutely do harass each other far more than any gay man harasses straight me. Straight men say crude and sexually demeaning things to each other all the time, especially in male only contexts. It is not reasonable to assume gay men are more likely to sexually harass straight men than that straight men are likely to sexually harass each other. I actually think the real disruption that gay men create in straight male dynamics is that straight men cannot safely sexually harass them, or just generally engage aggressively with them, the same way they feel safe engaging with other straight men. The same sexual jokes they can make with other straight men suddenly are recontextualized, and that makes them uncomfortable and uneasy. Gay men don't have a lot of choice but to learn to live with straight men to at least some degree, but many straight men, however, have trouble with the threat that a gay man can pose to the social dynamics of a straight male dominated context. If a straight man is too nice to the gay man, will the other men call him gay? If he's too mean, will the other men call him gay? If he imagines the gay man having sex with other men, does that mean he's gay? Straight men who exist in cultures with hostility towards gay men aren't worried about being harassed by gay men, and the idea that they are is laughable. They are worried about being harassed by other straight men regarding the way they choose to interact with the gay men. They don't know the rules.
You can see this right now with Bud Light. According to them, a gay man, Dylan Mulvaney, is drinking Bud Light, and has entered their social context. No one is worried about Dylan Mulvaney's harassment or reaction to them choosing to continue drinking Bud Light or not. All of these conservative men are performing for each other, lest they be harassed themselves for an improper reaction to this gay male encroachment on their beer. Some feel the need to make a video shooting bud light. Some make videos of themselves throwing away bud light. I'd bet a lot of conservative men don't care about it, but are worried about buying bud light in front of their friends in case their friends use that to harass them.
Straight men are not afraid of gay men, they are afraid of other straight men.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
The difference is not meaningless. If you would murder someone from another tribe regardless of their personal beliefs, then you're murdering based on identity. If you would murder someone from your own tribe based on their beliefs, you're murdering based on belief. The existence of green doesnt mean blue and yellow aren't different.
The trend is obvious. Liberals will frequently eat their own based on failures of belief regardless of identity, like with Al Franken. Conservatives will frequently support their own based on identity and regardless of belief, like Donald Trump and his history of cheating on his wife with a porn star.
Liberals will support someone like the current Pope, intrinsically conservative in identity, for expressing more liberal beliefs on gay people than previous Popes. Conservatives will shoot a case of their favorite beer, or applaud such a shooting, because they made one commercial with a trans woman. The trans woman doesn't express political views in the commercial, in fact, she actually says "whatever team you love, I love too" but conservatives hate her based on her identity.
Regarding this:
So these hypothetical conservatives consider gays/transgender types to be repugnant because they perceive them as making an incorrect political choice, not because they perceive it to be an immutable characteristic? This seems to undermine the argument you made in the very line above.
Conservatives would like to pretend they are hating people for their beliefs, rather than their immutable characteristics, so they recast immutable characteristics as political beliefs so they can justify their identity based hatred.
This is evident in one of the other replies to me that claims that blue collar hostility towards gay men is justified because gay men are intrinsically likely to sexually harass straight men. The poster linked an identity, being gay, with an inevitanle political action, sexual harassment, to justify the hatred of gay men.
They're smart enough to pretend that it's just harmful beliefs and actions from gay and trans people that they object to, like drag shows for children, surgery for children, and men in women's sports.
This commercial cleverly displays that this is just a facade designed to persuade moderate liberals such as myself that they are looking for any compelling reason to attack gay and trans people because their hatred is based on identity.
This whole website is based on the idea that it's better to object on ideological rather than tribal lines, even if tribalism is powerful. Conservatives are clearly the side of power through tribalism, and liberals are clearly the side of power through persuasive ideology.
The other two posters here are arguing with me. Because they think I'm gay and they think that is deviancy, or morally inferior. Maybe you are too. I'm arguing with them because I disagree with their comments. I don't hate them based on perceived identity.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
It's actually not as easy to be selectively closeted as you seem to think. People ask you questions about your life, and you are then given the options to either refuse to answer, in which case you are unfriendly, lie, in which case you are untrustworthy, or tell the truth, in which case you are provocative.
You have no claim to blue collar professions nor the right to establish them as safe spaces for gay hatred.
I have a fourth option, which is to advocate against your arbitrary definition of deviancy, which conveniently includes being gay, but not premarital sex, drinking, swearing, and hostility towards gay and trans people.
The idea that gay hatred in blue collar professions is justified because of a fear of sexual harassment is silly. I am sure straight men sexually harass each other, and gay men, far more than gay men might sexually harass straight men. Your ability to dismiss the fear of harassment that gay men experience while at the same time demanding gay men deal with constant "low level" hostility is evidence I am correct and you are not.
I would guess you simply just sympathize more with a straight man who experiences the presence of a gay man as intrinsically sexual harassment, whereas you see low level hostility towards gay men as justified because you think gay men are deviants.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
Your core argument is that your side is morally superior because conservatives are welcome in gay spaces if they're not "political", but gay people are not welcome in conservative spaces, regardless.
No, this is not my core argument. My core argument is that this advertisement is a smart unifying tactic for liberals because it demonstrates how much conservatives hate gay and trans people during a time when conservatives have been making political headway by pretending their anti-gay and anti-trans rhetoric is really about protecting women and children.
You don't actually know which "side" I'm on. You seem to be making assumptions about it. I feel no need to argue about which side is morally superior, because that's reductive, personal, and, as far as I can tell, directly not what this site is for.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
This website is named for the motte and bailey fallacy, right? I believe that's relevant to this discussion, where you started by expressing anger that a beer company picked a trans woman for one commercial and expressing glee at the violent and angry responses from conservatives, and now are asking me to find a way for a political pundit to express gay and trans hatred at a pride parade to prove... something.
My original point stands. The bud light ad with Dylan Mulvaney and the response to it demonstrate to gay and trans people that conservatives require to be allowed to exclude them, with violence if possible. It's a smart way to demonstrate that conservatives don't care about women and children as much as they just hate gender nonconforming men and women. They have gone from seeking out gay and trans people to victimize, to creating silos in which they feel justified in victimizing any gay or trans people who dare to enter, but the urge to react to gay and trans people with violence is unchanged.
Conservatives were making headway with their concern for trans children and women's sports, but they took the bait and started shooting cases of beer because a trans woman drank a bud light.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
A gay bar is not equivalent exchange for being unwelcome at your nearest health centers, entire professions, or the most well paying department at your corporation.
Are you saying that straight men have more to fear in regards to harassment from gay men than gay men have to fear from straight men? Because I think that's demonstrably false based on the history of gay men being beaten, sometimes to death, by groups of straight men, and the opposite never occurring at all.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
You're continuing to demonstrate my point. A conservative has to display specific political speech in liberal spaces to have his presence politicized. However, gay and trans people just need to display their personal identities to have their presence politicized.
They're not equivalent. Conservatives engage in hatred based on identity, and liberals engage in hatred based on beliefs.
This ad campaign is just a reminder that conservatives still view being trans or gay as a political choice first, and a personal characteristic second.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
Bud light is a beer, not a religion or political party. I think that's my point, that people who are aligned along political, religious, or politico-religious lines try to establish non-political and non-religious entities like a beer brand as off limits to their political or religious opponents.
The comparison between making one commercial for bud light with a trans woman celebrity and putting a statue of George Bush on the largest mosque in Portland is kind of silly to me. They're not similar.
Corporate brands aren't anyone's territory other than their boards' or shareholders'.
I think it looks like a triumphalist blue flag to you because you experience trans and gay inclusion as a loss. This situation reminds gay and trans people that their existence, without accounting political speech, is experienced as political speech, whereas the opposite is not true. A conservative man can go to a pride parade, just like in the blog post you linked, and not be threatened. To experience hostility and attention, he needs to do something political, like wear a police uniform, or hold a TERFy sign.
You can say both sides are doing the same thing, retiring conformance in certain spaces, but the degree to which the conformance required invades someone's identity is different. That's what's being demonstrated. We have all seen conservative speakers accosted on college campuses or shoved at pride events, but these people were trying to be as deliberately offensive as possible. This is the other side, where conservatives are literally shooting cases of beer in effigy because a trans woman took a bubble bath with a bud light.
To you it looks like a sly tactic in a culture war. To me it's a reminder that people like you might see my existence as a tactic first and a personality second. There's a degree to which you think a republican drinking bud light in a garage is more authentic than a trans woman drinking one in a bubble bath.
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
In the spirit of AI, you're welcome to just plagiarize it haha
thegayrabbi
1yr ago
I've just started seriously studying machine learning, and I think the languages models are just the tip of the iceberg, and most of the powerful modern AI is hidden behind NDAs and less noticeable technologies. Many things quietly occurred without too many people noticing, for example:
Google tagged everyone's photos in Google photos with their contents. I have Google randomly displaying photos on my home screen when it's plugged in, and it knows not to show anything NSFW, and generally picks interesting photos. Google knows exactly what's in my thousands of photos.
Social media moderation also perfected AI filtering of NSFW content to any degree of precision the platform wants.
Every large marketing company or department has started to calculate someone called a "lifetime customer value" using machine learning to discovery and target the groups of customers predicted to spend the most over a lifetime. New marketing interventions will be measured for effectiveness in influencing consumer behavior. Eventually ad campaigns could be individualized and AI generated to a shocking degree, without even seeming personalized, because we don't look at each other's phones. It's possible in the future no one will ever see the same ad twice, or even be able to tell the difference between an AI generated advertisement and human generated content. The difference might even cease to be semantically intelligible. If it's trivial for an AI to generate an excellent exercise video with a small mention of a wellness product, is that an ad or a helpful wellness video?
What happens when AI can generate a new marvel movie just for you, subtly based on your consumer preferences and sense of humor? The experience of everyone seeing the same movie could disappear the same way the experience of everyone watching something like the seinfeld series finale at the same time did.
Wow, I never could have guessed this obvious and simplistic summation of American politics from the context. Wait, no, what I mean is: this obvious and simplistic summation of American politics is incredibly evident from context and I learned nothing from this quotation.
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