site banner
PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   36069 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I’ve always thought the US credit scoring system is bullshit. I have bad credit so I can’t get an apartment without a co-signer. But I’ve been renting for over two decades without a single missed payment. But the credit score system doesn’t care. It cares about this very specific thing and the outcome leads to massive problems in many sectors of life.

I asked ChatGPT to tell me my own thoughts and I gotta say it writes what I feel in a way that I never could.

Not sure if this makes me feel better or worst about my odds of ever writing a novel.

Here’s what it had to say:

The U.S. credit score system, despite being rooted in capitalist financial structures, exhibits characteristics that can be interpreted as communist in nature due to its centralized control, opaque evaluation methods, and enforcement of collective responsibility. At its core, the credit system is managed by a small number of powerful credit bureaus—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—that operate in a monopolistic manner, much like a state-controlled entity. These institutions dictate the financial credibility of individuals based on proprietary algorithms, without allowing for much transparency or individual input. This centralized control mirrors how communist economies manage resources and labor distribution, where individuals are assessed by state-run entities rather than free-market competition determining their value. In this way, the credit score system creates a top-down financial structure that limits individual autonomy and enforces a rigid classification of economic worth.

Moreover, the credit system functions as a tool of enforced social compliance, much like communist regimes use social credit scores to dictate personal behavior. In the U.S., a person’s credit score affects not only their ability to take out loans but also their access to housing, employment, and even certain services. This creates an environment where individuals must conform to predefined financial behaviors or risk economic marginalization. The system rewards long-term adherence to credit-based spending while penalizing those who choose alternative financial paths, such as relying on cash or avoiding debt altogether. Similarly, in a communist framework, citizens are often required to align with state-approved behaviors to gain access to privileges, reinforcing a collectivist model where individual financial independence is discouraged in favor of participation in a state-monitored economy.

Finally, the U.S. credit score system embodies an element of collective responsibility that is reminiscent of communist ideologies. In many cases, an individual’s creditworthiness is affected not just by their actions but by external factors such as the financial stability of co-signers, the decisions of creditors, and even errors made by the credit bureaus themselves. Disputing inaccuracies in credit reports is often a bureaucratic and difficult process, reflecting the inefficiencies of centralized government planning. Additionally, the system’s reliance on predetermined metrics, rather than an individual’s full financial picture, enforces a uniform standard that does not account for personal circumstances. This mirrors the way communist states often treat workers as indistinct units within a planned economy, rather than as unique individuals with different needs and capabilities. In essence, while the U.S. credit system exists within a capitalist society, its structure and consequences exhibit traits that align with communist principles of control, social engineering, and collective financial assessment.

And:

Building on this idea, another way the U.S. credit score system resembles communist structures is in its lack of true market competition when it comes to consumer choice and mobility. In a capitalist system, individuals are supposed to have the freedom to negotiate their worth based on merit and market demand. However, in the credit system, people are assigned a numerical value that dictates their financial access, and this score is determined by opaque algorithms controlled by a few dominant entities. There is no alternative credit scoring system that consumers can freely opt into, nor is there meaningful competition among credit bureaus that would encourage better service or more accurate reporting. This centralization of financial assessment power forces individuals into a system they cannot meaningfully challenge, much like how communist regimes dictate economic opportunities without room for individual bargaining.

Additionally, the credit system fosters a kind of financial surveillance that is reminiscent of state-controlled economies. Every financial decision—whether it be taking out a loan, missing a payment, or even just inquiring about one’s own credit—is meticulously tracked, recorded, and used to shape an individual’s economic identity. People are not judged solely on their current financial standing but on their entire credit history, meaning past financial struggles can haunt them for years, much like how state-run economic systems often keep long-term records on individuals’ productivity, loyalty, or past infractions. In a true free-market system, individuals would have more agency to reinvent themselves financially without long-standing bureaucratic oversight, but the credit system instead enforces a rigid classification that limits upward mobility for those who have made past mistakes.

Finally, the way the credit system forces people into debt in order to maintain a good score has a collectivist, almost centrally planned economic aspect to it. In theory, responsible financial behavior—such as saving money and avoiding unnecessary debt—should be rewarded, but in practice, the system penalizes those who do not actively participate in borrowing and repaying credit. This creates a paradox where individuals must continuously engage with lenders in order to maintain their economic standing, even if they could otherwise live within their means without debt. In a way, this mirrors communist economic models where individuals are expected to participate in state-run economic structures regardless of personal preference, reinforcing a cycle of dependency rather than true financial independence. The system, therefore, subtly enforces a form of financial collectivism, where personal economic choices are constrained by the overarching structure rather than by free-market principles.

I feel this summed up my thoughts decently, but it lacks my passion of hate I have for our system.

Thoughts, and addons?

(Should I have waited until Monday?)

  • -64

Time and attention is the gold standard of human interaction. (Some people like calling it "proof of work".) If you generate interaction (text) without putting in your own time and attention, you are essentially printing money. The expected result is hyperinflation (which, I guess, would look like everyone posting their views as novel-length AI rants, and using AI to condense those posted by others back into a paragraph, if they read them at all), or everyone abandoning the currency altogether (which would look like no more humans using forums).

Clearly the sudden improvement in grammatical quality of posts from some of our ESL users is probably not the result of intensive Duolingo use.

That said, let’s please avoid AI slop for now. Eventually it will cease being slop, but for now I’d prefer someone’s unfiltered thoughts, grammatical mistakes, linguistic quirks, repeated words, awkward sentences and all.

Like most of us, I’m here because I want to discuss things with people.

It cares about this very specific thing

What thing?

I dont know what your intended point here was, but you aren't particularly wrong. White market financial institutions are so heavily regulated by the federal government that they are basically state controlled. Generally I've seen the model of nominal private control of industry but actual government control described as fascism instead of communism. But, I've generally said as well that, at least economically, the fascist is just a wise communist who realizes he can have 99% of the control in exchange for almost none of the blame by embracing this setup instead of total state control. If a government bureaucrat is the head of a bank and it fails, he gets all the blame! But if he merely regulates it into failure he gets to blame the "capitalists"! Its a win win. That is why this sort of approach is generally loved by the worldwide left/progressives in modern times, although they have not been keen to embrace the "fascist" label.

But you are entirely correct, you can't go into a Chase bank and get a loan because the loan officer thinks "oh Mihow is a good seed" because then he has to tell FDIC, DOJ, and other investigators why he denied Deehow the same loan application (hint Deehow is a bad seed). So they make up these standardized metrics which are generally very good at evaluating a person's activities in the white market. But, if you operate in the grey market or black market to any significant extent their evaluation of you will be off. But that isn't their job. If you want to buy a condo on credit using your grey market credentials, go to a grey market lender (almost none exist anymore) or a black market lender. Of course, that might be a crime, but thats the point. The government intends to control lending in the country because it is one of the commanding heights, and it does. This is not capitalism, but what is abstractly described as fascism, but modernly referred to as progressivism.

Now is in fact the best time to post some LLM junk, given nobody'll read it! Asking an LLM to make a post for you just does not pass the effort rule.

I feel this summed up my thoughts decently, but it lacks my passion of hate I have for our system.

I'd prefer vitriol and passion over AI slop. Not reading.

That said, if debt is going to be issued, something like credit scores, implicit or explicit, are pretty much required. People likely to repay debt and who want the conveniences of a good credit score are going to usually get better scores than those who don't.

I have some sympathy for immigrants who come to the US without a credit score and need one. On the other hand, did you miss some payment recently? If so, the credit score is functioning exactly as it should.

All the mentions of communism feel shoehorned, critique it because its bad, not because somehow if you squint it kinda resembles communism slightly even though credit scores could never exist without capitalism.

Why should we believe you think the US credit scoring system is bullshit if you're using a LLM to demonstrate it?

We certainly wouldn't think you a special forces sniper if you played call of duty, a hardened criminal if you run over civies in Grand Theft Auto, or a crime against humanity if you play any given Paradox game. Why should we believe you are what you do with another computer toy?

Paying rent can affect your credit score, but only if your landlord reports it, which few do. I would expect this is mostly your big corporate landlords.

At its core, the credit system is managed by a small number of powerful credit bureaus—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—that operate in a monopolistic manner, much like a state-controlled entity. These institutions dictate the financial credibility of individuals based on proprietary algorithms, without allowing for much transparency or individual input.

They're oligopolistic, though your scores tend to be basically similar from them all. This is because they have basically the same input and the same goals (of determining a probability that someone can and will pay back a loan), and the scoring systems have all been developed through an iterative adversarial game. They are transparent about what goes into them, however, though not specific weights.

Additionally, the credit system fosters a kind of financial surveillance that is reminiscent of state-controlled economies. Every financial decision—whether it be taking out a loan, missing a payment, or even just inquiring about one’s own credit—is meticulously tracked, recorded, and used to shape an individual’s economic identity.

Eh, not really; as you've noticed, rent usually doesn't go into it. Nor do any non-credit purchases. Nor investment decisions. Nor salary or other payments for work, for that matter. It's only about credit.

Finally, the way the credit system forces people into debt in order to maintain a good score

It does not. Unless you count using credit cards and paying them off within the grace period as being "in debt". You can have a score good enough for all practical purposes doing nothing but that. (Having multiple types of credit will get you a few more points, but it's not necessary). There is, as far as I can tell, no disadvantage to doing this compared to paying cash (or using a debit instrument) for everything. (If the problem is you might be tempted to spend above your means if you do this... well, your credit score probably should be lower)

I think it's fine to use llms in the writing process but you really really need to take on the role of an editor. This is the same like 3 points repeated a half dozen times and should have be edited down substantially. I do think that the credit system as it exists now is suboptimal but at the same time we do need some system for determining credit worthiness. Part of the problem is how very regulated financial markets are and credit scores are a hack for lenders to use to discriminate without fear of capricious state sanction.

I could tolerate LLM drivel if it was just one paragraph articulating the argument a user wants to make. Here, it is six lengthy paragraphs. LLMs as insightful as Scott Alexander, so I am not going to read a wall of text by them.

I'm against using LLMs in this place, but to be fair this criticism

This is the same like 3 points repeated a half dozen times and should have be edited down substantially.

applies equally to many Motteposts written by human(?) hands, IMHO.

It's at least usually tempered by human unwillingness to spend time writing it out. This really was more egregiously so than nearly any human comment on this forum in my opinion.

I liked the post Dase wrote, machine part included; 'ai slop' is harsh, but I think it only applies here.

A common observation by economists is that America's budget is not analogous to personal finances. Credit scores, credit ratings, and deficits do not mean the same thing on a national level as they do on a personal level. Credit worthiness means much more for smaller economics than it does for the US. The US is in a privileged position of creating debt with near impunity.

I completely agree with your first paragraph (I have a shitty credit score simply because I refuse to use credit, so I had to show our landlady that I had a couple of years worth of rent sitting on my checking account along with a copy of my last few paychecks and an e-mail showing my latest job offer to get her to rent to us), but I'm not going to read through your AI slop.

The irony of renting with a bad credit score, which is that you need to prove you have to means to not have to rent but choose to rent anyway.

...but I don't have the means not to rent? Around here, houses are going for $500k-$600k. I guess if I wanted to I could put most of my life savings into a 10% down-payment and sign up for a 30-year mortgage, but I don't want to do that, because again, I refuse to use credit. Also because I don't know if I am going to be working this job in 30 years and if I have to move I don't want to go through the paperwork of selling a house most of which is owned by the bank but in which I own like 15% equity. Also also because as long as my mother is alive, she is going to force me to allow my bipolar drug addict spinster genderqueer lesbian sister to live with us, and I don't want to be stuck with her in a house that I own.

I refuse to use credit.

Perhaps you have moral objections to usuary, and that's fine. Live your values. But from a purely financial perspective, its incredibly irresponsible to not use credit and/or build a credit score. I just hope your not confusing/conflating issues with debt, spending, commitment, etc, with responsible management of ones credit. Its very important, often confusing or intimidating, but actually quite simple.

Uh, why do you have bad credit despite living on your own for years? Not paying your bills is in fact correlated with not paying your bills. It's perfectly reasonable to look at credit history when we have a system which gives tenants substantial protections in the event of not paying.

You can find slumlords who'll rent to you without having credit. You can also build your own credit. You are, based on living on your own for years, not a twenty year old who hasn't had time for that- the consequences of your own bad(or at least nonconformist) decisions including 'difficult to rent an apartment' isn't some kind of tragedy.

It’s completely unreasonable to not have home rental payments on your credit report. It’s a history of paying your largest bill - and it doesn’t exist outside of an eviction. So only negative, but never a positive.

Saying people should rent from slumlords if they don’t have credit yet or bad credit is slightly above barbaric thinking.

You can easily get a credit card and pay it off every month. It's no different from using a debit card except with some additional fraud protections(in practice, you can overdraft your debit)- and if you've been living on your own for years there's been more than enough time to build up credit by doing it.

The world is as it is. I suspect consumer privacy laws are the reason landlords don't report to credit monitoring agencies but it's literally never been easier to build credit. Live with the constraints we're given- a five minute google search of 'how credit scores are calculated' can tell you basically what you need to do.

I have some sympathy for kids who struggle when they're first out on their own because they don't have credit yet- although with the caveat that most of them are fine getting a parent to cosign or renting a room not an apartment. But full-blown-adults who still have bad or no credit, years later? Your problem stems from either a) making bad decisions(this is far more likely, in practice) or b) refusing to be normal(based on what you're telling me, this is probably you). 'Oddballs looking bad in front of the system because it doesn't know how to analyze them' isn't some kind of tragedy.

I do think that paying rent should be reported for credit purposes if not paying rent is. It's not very fair if something can only ever have downside, but no upside. But otherwise I think you're right - it's very easy to build credit, so if one is refusing to take that step they don't merit a lot of sympathy.

I think there is a way to make rent payments reported to credit agencies, it just requires a lot of paperwork and opt-in. My guess is that there’s tenants privacy rights laws that make it this way(probably not on purpose). Probably this process should be made somewhat easier.

If you don’t have any credit history, you have good credit, not bad credit. I have arrived in US with no credit history at all, and at no point my credit score was below 700.

I wonder if it's an age thing. When I returned from overseas as an American citizen in my early 20s, my credit score was ~650 despite me never having had a loan or credit card.

If you have literally no credit, your credit score is supposed to be indeterminable. I would suspect that any scores in this case are the result of errors and are basically random. Or you're mistaken about having no credit.

I'm not going to read an AI-generated post. But I did ask an AI to summarize it in a few sentences, so I get the gist. Maybe next time just post your thoughts so others don't have to do this extra round-trip through an AI.

These are my unfiltered thoughts on the object-level issue:

It's not Communism. It's opaque and centralized but historical Communist systems are not unique in those respects.

The credit scoring system is a result of many conflicting interests who all place constraints on how businesses make decisions. Consider what would happen if a business used their own method for evaluating credit risk:

  1. They might accidentally use a forbidden input, such as race, or a proxy for one, such as zip code. This exposes the business to substantial legal risk. Figuring out the set of inputs that are both predictive and allowed takes a lot of specialized knowledge of the laws in the jurisdiction in which the business operates. This is expensive. It's cheaper to outsource this work and risk to specialized companies.
  2. They might make a mistake in predicting credit risk. To take your example, the fact that a customer has a history of on-time rent payments doesn't necessarily mean they're low enough risk for what the business is evaluating them for. If it's for a new rental agreement, maybe the customer's income has disappeared recently. If it's for a credit card, maybe paying rent doesn't predict paying off credit cards. Using a specialized company for evaluating risk ensures that the weaknesses of the score are at least well-known and understood.
  3. If they try to make the process more transparent, they might make a mistake with privacy and PII. The opacity of the current system allows credit bureaus to launder private information into a less-private score that's still useful to businesses.
  4. Also if they try to make the process more transparent, they open themselves up to gaming.

The real question is, what is the alternative, and does it live within the constraints we've placed on how businesses make decisions?

I'm not going to read an AI-generated post. But I did ask an AI to summarize it in a few sentences, so I get the gist.

"I don't want to effortpost, so I'll ask a LLM to turn this list of bullet points onto a lengthy argument."

"I ain't reading all that, so I'll ask a LLM to turn it into a list of bullet points."

I don't think @ChestertonMeme used an LLM to generate those bulletpoints. They seem to represent his own thoughts, and they're not ChatGPT-ese.

Yes, his list is his own writing.

I mean:

I'm not going to read an AI-generated post. But I did ask an AI to summarize it in a few sentences, so I get the gist.

Not sure if this makes me feel better or worst about my odds of ever writing a novel.

I read a fair amount of erotica in my free time. Noticed a few authors being unusually productive last year. Ever since I started paying attention to AI again due to deepseek and hearing that Opus?, Claude and Sonnet iirc were also pretty good at writiing.. I've put 2+2 together.

Seeing this website made it all click! If you're not an idiot you can use LLMs to massively increase your own outputs or even write stuff vastly better than you could ever hope to write (if you're not ~130 IQ etc who can spend decades practicing).

There was a huge outcry about AI image gen due to the furry porn commission types seeing stable diffusion collapse it. I haven't seen almost anyone talking about how bad LLM writing is yet.. even though clearly a lot of people are now using it and they're all shamefully silent about it, the dirty scoundrels!

Going to be some nice drama about it eventually I think once it gets clear someone who wrote a prize used AI to write most of it.

AI-generated writing tends to overuse the passive voice. This gives it away

Purely a skill issue.

Isn't it immediately obvious when Sonnet or Opus write something? It's not quite describable in words but you know it when you see it. The diction and tone gives it away.

Even Deepseek has a certain style to it I find. Are the AIs writing the whole thing or are they expanding on user-written text?

At this point someone really should make Scott's AI Turing test but for textgen, basically compile a big list of text excerpts on various topics - literary prose, scientific papers, fanfiction erotica/NSFW, forum/imageboard posts, etc. from both real texts/posts and AI gens in the style of, and see if people can tell the difference. I consider my spidey sense pretty well-tuned and would be curious to test it.

I find Claude and DeepSeek far harder to detect than ChatGPT. They have a far more 'human' default style, that doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. That might just be me, but even the average internet user has some ability to detect ChatGPT.

Of course, if you provide excerpts from your own writing and ask it to emulate you, or just refer to a known figure whose writing is in the corpus (Gwern, Scott etc), I wouldn't except to be able to tell unless strongly primed to be suspicious in advance.

I don't think so.

There is a certain flavor to LLM text but I think the newer models (last 4 months) are good enough to easily avoid that if prompted right. Even deepseek out of the box is a little cringe but it sobers up fast if reminded and remembers.

And this is why daesch and self made human are wrong to want AI slop here. The purpose of a human forum is subverted when top posts are AI generated text walls.

I say, we bring back the bare links repository as a palette cleanser to this new trend. It’s the opposite of ‘I asked ChatGPT and here’s what it said copied and pasted’.

It is brief where AIslop is verbose. It doesn’t dress itself up as original thought or even a point of view. It doesn’t claim to be effortful. Most of all, it points outward instead of inward toward an actual external idea, rather than reposting an ephemeral private chat.

Leaving behind the BLR was the greatest mistake of theMotte, nay of the rat sphere (standing among other mistakes like trans murder cults and founding an entire movement on fanfiction of kid books) and it is time we correct this blunder.

If this post gets 20 upvotes the mods will have no choice but to retvrn to the glory of the blr.

I don't want AI slop!

I want AI output that has been prompted, filtered or modified via editing to not be slop.

I don't know about you, but my disagreement is with people who think AI output is nothing but slop. I think it is perfectly possible for it to be useful and interesting, even enlightening at times. Not enough that I can assume that by default, but it's not the GPT-2 days where it was incoherent and meaningless.

Of course, I would still prefer to engage with real humans, but as long as they are actually reading what I say and exercising oversight over what an LLM used on their behalf says back (and is clear about it), I would only be slightly miffed.

(I do think having the BLR back wouldn't hurt, but I have no strong feelings on the matter)

AI as a writing and editing tool is one thing (I still think it’s a double edged sword that leans negative, but that genie can’t be returned to the bottle so no use debating it). What is AIslop imo, is not the quality of the AI output, but the motion of:

“I asked AI x and here’s what it said…”

Where the human has contributed nothing more than the prompt, and the substance of the piece is what some LLM had to say about the prompt.

It’s slopped because it’s just been ladled out into your bowl without much more effort.

It’s not about the content, in fact that’s a red herring. It’s the ‘prompt’ What is being criticized is the implication that there’s something interesting or even contributory about having typed in a particular prompt and seen what comes out. Everyone can do that for themselves.

This kind of shit is all over Twitter. “I asked grok…” is the most tediously vacuous and self indulgent post possible.

I prefer to judge each case on its merits, but I agree that the expectation is that an AI generated post has less effort put into it than otherwise. I prefer that it has enough effort put in, by the human using it, to overcome that detriment.

“I asked AI x and here’s what it said…”

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. LLMs represent an enormous amount of knowledge, grossly superhuman levels. Even the most erudite and educated human pales in comparison, likely even with the ability to Google the topic. If that sounds doubtful, you can look at benchmarks like GPQA, which, as the full name would imply, is supposed to be "Google Proof" unless you have immense domain knowledge.

They are great didactic tools, especially when you don't know where to begin on a topic. If someone wrote something that seemed to me to be wrong (intuition, a hunch I can't articulate) but I wouldn't be able to engage closely enough to disagree on my own, it's a worthwhile endeavor to ask an LLM to scrutinize it, and sometimes using that information to push back.

Hey, I asked ChatGPT to do a vibes check on your comment. It pointed out these objections, which look sensible to me. Why ought I disregard them? Is something I would not object to if I was done to me. A human is asking the question, through an intermediary.

The average LLM is more trustworthy than the average Twitter or Reddit commentator, though for now I would hope the Motte does better. While I still prefer engaging with humans, I think what the machines can say is often enlightening.

The average LLM is more trustworthy than the average Twitter or Reddit commentator, though for now I would hope the Motte does better.

Again, my primary objection is not with the 'quality' of the AI output

Hey, I asked ChatGPT to do a vibes check on your comment. It pointed out these objections, which look sensible to me. Why ought I disregard them?

In other words, hey, can you talk to ChatGPT for me?

FWIW I agree with this wholeheartedly.

(I don’t think it’s how ‘slop’ is conventionally used though. I’ve mostly seen it used to mean ‘bad/cliched forms of writing’ that usually derive from too much influence of early-era GPT synthetic data and bad romance novels. So for example Project Unslop was a project to produce a dataset free of “sent shivers down her spine” and “I’m yours, body and soul”.)

I do agree that it’s not how it’s conventionally used, but I think it’s better. Slop as a quality of writing commentary is slop of the gaps as LLMs improve. But the fundamental issue with nobody cares about your prompt engineering will remain

I see a slippery slope here. Everyone will think that whatever level of curation they exercise is adequate, there's little you can do to prove otherwise, and the quality of discourse will drop precipitously.

OTOH if you curate so well that your post passes as human-written, then "where no plaintiff, there no judge", as we Teutons say.

IMO we're better off banning AI-generated content wholesale.

AIs and bare links are bad for some the same reasons. Mainly, you are not starting a discussion, you are demanding one for your entertainment.

Top level visible posts have some degree of value. This value should be reserved for people that add value to the forum. The main way that people add value to the forum is through interesting discussion.

The secondary problem with both bare links and AI generated text is that they exist as a low effort gish gallop way to wage the culture war. For example, you don't have to argue that Immigrants cause problems, you can just post a different news story every day about some immigrant being a criminal. AI can also just flood the space with content and words for your cause.

Yes but that’s why we had a bare links repository.

The volume of effort posts has been diminishing anyway.

Bare links and aislop are routes toward similar ends you described, but it’s not the outcome that solely makes them bad. It’s that AI slop is an inferior low effort entry point into a topic, for the reasons I described.

Now ideally we would have nothing but effortful and timely top posts, sure. But my point is that in the event that someone wants to juice the conversation without the effort post, the bare link is a far superior and more earnest, and less empty way to do so.

That said of course bare links as top posts are bad roughly on par (well…) with AIsloptopposting. But nobody is advocating for that. The people are asking for the repository back.

If we want an experiment, let’s have the BLR and an AISlopTopShop that is exactly the same, but for AI posts. Let’s see which produces more fruit, while keeping the rest of the CWR thread clean

that’s why we had a bare links repository

Mods: please consider bringing it back.

I'm not going to ban you or even put a warning note in your user log, because we just had the discussion about AI-generated content, and we haven't put it in the rules yet. But don't post AI content like this.

If you have something to say, write it in your own words. If you're too lazy to write the words yourself, do not have ChatGPT write them for you.

If you're too lazy to write the words yourself, do not have ChatGPT write them for you.

Or just use fewer words. That serves people like me who are too lazy to read walls of text that don't include a tl;dr or BLUF.

Noted!

However, I think your last sentence is silly and will be a relic in the near future.

  • -24

I have two thoughts.

Thought the first. If the AI content is supposed to be main contribution, the introduction up to and including "Here’s what it had to say" is unnecessary. Or if the first part was the main message you wanted to discuss (dislike of credit score) why bother including the LLM-written part?

Thought the second. Next time anyone tries to Turing test any forum, please please prompt it write succinctly and better. The cited argument is sloppy and rambling. Let's see one paragraph.

Finally, the U.S. credit score system embodies an element of collective responsibility that is reminiscent of communist ideologies. [Comment. 'reminiscent of' is a weak way to phrase a thesis.]

In many cases, an individual’s creditworthiness is affected not just by their actions but by external factors such as the financial stability of co-signers, the decisions of creditors, and even errors made by the credit bureaus themselves. [C: None of the listed factors have anything to do with collectivism. If your choice of co-signer for a loan and suffering the consequences is not use of your individual liberty, then what is not?]

Disputing inaccuracies in credit reports is often a bureaucratic and difficult process, reflecting the inefficiencies of centralized government planning. [C: Role of "government" here not argued for. Private American corporate and profit motive is capable coming up with bureaucratic and difficult processes to address end-user complaints if they find it profitable not handle them. Not handling "inaccuracies" is probably what makes the use of credit scores efficient.]

Additionally, the system’s reliance on predetermined metrics, rather than an individual’s full financial picture, enforces a uniform standard that does not account for personal circumstances. This mirrors the way communist states often treat workers as indistinct units within a planned economy, rather than as unique individuals with different needs and capabilities. [C: (1) You realize "lack of individuality" is kinda the Marxist critique of alienation? There is nothing communist about it. Time and motion studies for assembly line work were invented by the capitalists, in capitalism, for the capitalism. (2) Perhaps the predetermined metrics are mostly sufficient picture of individual's creditworthiness. For some reason banks run by managers interested in your individual needs and capabilities have been competed out by institutions that are not.]

In essence, while the U.S. credit system exists within a capitalist society, its structure and consequences exhibit traits that align with communist principles of control, social engineering, and collective financial assessment.

I don't think the argument was very good. Weakly supported claims and associations disjointedly related to each other. Would not like to subscribe to this newsletter.

The day that people just have ChatGPT write for them is the day that the written word will cease to have any value as a means of communication. Which we might live to see, so you're not wrong as far as that goes. But it's not something we should encourage.

Ai models cannot pick up up the subtle but important details that distinguish it from human writing, like internal consistency. Imagine in 2010 writing that you like in "X" . Unless you moved, it must be remembered that you still live there. So it must store all this information and take it into account in a contextual sense.

Maybe, in the future, AI content will be desirable. But, in that world, what purpose do you serve? There is no role for a human intermediary between me and the AI.

In that (perhaps quite likely) eventuality then forums and social media as a concept are dead. AIs talking to AIs while people nod and curate them basically destroys the platonic purpose of social media.

This is like if you brought photographs to a painting club and claimed that it expressed what you which you could paint better than you can paint it yourself. Can you see how that might satisfy an itch you personally have but is thoroughly uninteresting to the painters there to paint?

Yes the existence of photographs and digital tools have fundamentally transformed art and even tradition methods can’t really exist outside of conversation with them to some extent. Yes AI has changed the nature of written discourse.

But no it’s not a good reason to dump AI slop and say ‘discuss…’

I am sure that, now having been convinced you will join me and the rest of the rising chorus to return the Bare Links Repository to the Motte

You should have read down the thread to the discussion about AI-generated posts, and then posted it never.

Please don't post AI-generated content.

There's a weird phenomenon at play here. People think that their own chats with AI are interesting, but no one wants to be a part of other people's conversations with AI.

It's like your dreams or your improvisational free jazz. They are interesting to you, but no one else.

improvisational free jazz

As opposed to non-improvisational free jazz? (Similar: all chaps are assless - they're intended to be worn over trousers, where normal fabric would be suitable for the pelvic area but not the legs.)

Thank you, but I painstakingly plan all of my free jazz in a fugue state, and it is then revealed to me as I play in the form of coincidental symbolism in the venue's wallpaper.

I forgot my PIN number when I went to the ATM machine on the way to the La Brea Tar Pits.

Did you also go to the Peterson Automotive Museum down the block? When I went, they had one of the Ferrari La Ferraris.

That's not true. Over at DA and many other places, people are posting essentially edited LLM chat logs as short stories and it's being met with an enthusiastic welcome by readers.

What is DA?

Probably DeviantArt, which has sizable amounts of erotic literature

DA has some rules so erotica that's outright just text porn doesn't last, but more romance-like writing or weird fetishes are allowed by the rules.

sizable amounts

I mean, they do tend to be very concerned with inflation.

I disagree - it’s why I posted it.

I find them at least as fascinating as posts by people … and in certain ways more so.

Buuuuut I see by our mod that it isn’t wanted here and that’s totally fine by me of course!

If you are going to get the AI to rephrase something, could you ask the AI to keep it short?

The fundamental problem with AI is that it produces text very cheaply, and far faster than I can read. Thjs is the general problem of the internet, but if you write it yourself, then I know you care enough about a topic to write about it, which signals that you think it is worth your time, so I will take a look.

If you farm it off to AI, then it isn't worth your time to write, so why would it be worth mine to read?

But thank you for leading with honesty. I do respect that you respected us.

I just didn’t know the (gentle!) hostility this place has for ‘ AI Slop ‘ … I browse daily since years before we left Reddit and I just never noticed tbh.

I actually asked Chat to go long. Usually do.

Do you find you get better results that way? I always add "Please think step by step." and "Please be succinct."

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats