lvxferre

The interface is amazing. Clean, it doesn't leave huge amounts of empty space that scream "this was made for phone users, everyone else might fuck off", and the subforums already hint "we want to gather political dissidents". It feels like the 00s forums without looking like one, it's the best of both worlds.

I tried to register with a weak password (on purpose) to check security. It works; four tries and three different errors (capital letters required, special characters required, min length required). However, I feel like a user hitting this issue accidentally would've given up after the third try. Perhaps it could be worth to check for multiple errors at once, and output them all to the user; e.g. "The password must mix case, and contain special characters, and have a minimum length of 8". Just an idea/feedback, mind you.

>Essentially a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument.

Not quite. It's more like "a gun cannot be held morally responsible for its actions, so actual people should".

The difference is important here because, depending on the situation, you might still want to blame people who allowed the shooter to have a gun, not just the shooter.

>I think this argument breaks down as weapons get more powerful, e.g. if I could walk down to my local car dealership and buy a cheap tank powerful enough to level a city, it seems good to focus more on "ease of tank purchase" than "culpability for tank drivers". // I think the argument also breaks down as AI gets more powerful.

Note how we're still blaming people: the car dealer and the driver. Not the "it" = tank.

And it's the same deal with the AI. If you use an AI system in a way that harms people, sometimes the "car dealer" (the ones coding the AI) should be held responsible, sometimes the driver (you), sometimes both. But never "neither", i.e. "the AI is at fault".

Yup, different definitions; I was going to bring this up but chopped it to avoid the wall of text. (I'm glad that someone caught it up though.)

My definition is roughly "ability to process information and generate useful conclusions as a result". Rationality would be a "side-effect" of intelligence, not part of the definition itself. I think that it's more useful than the def provided by the author because sometimes intelligent people with dumb beliefs will also do dumb shit, that clearly contradicts their goals. Does that mean that they aren't intelligent to begin with? Acc. to the author's definition, yes.

A good example of that would be Steve Jobs. It's hard to claim that Jobs wasn't very intelligent (even if I don't like him); and odds are that "to survive" was one of his goals. Then why the hell would he prefer alternative medicine over actual medical intervention, for something as serious as a cancer? (It's just an example, mind you, we could use others.)

However, once you shift the definition of "intelligence" to the one I'm using, there's no paradox: he was intelligent, sure, it's just that his "processing ability" was not directed towards that specific goal. And sometimes it might've been directed against the goal.

It's like something is diverting that processing ability from the personal goals to something else. Dawkins' memeplexes might be the answer here: the memeplex "alternative medicine" was competing with the goals of the individual, and leeching off his processing ability to its own end, like a parasite of the mind.

So, alternatively, and in addition to what the author said, we get another line of thought: sometimes smart people have dumb beliefs because intelligence does not immunise you against parasitic memes. Perhaps it even makes you more vulnerable, as those memes will be abler to successfully reach you. And then, [this point agreeing with the author], once those parasites are installed, they'll divert your intelligence towards their goals.

[Sorry for the wall of text.]

I can relate to most of what he wrote. And I've also noticed the same pattern that he points out in

>Whenever I post of a cognitive bias or logical fallacy, my replies are soon invaded by leftists claiming it explains rightist beliefs, and by rightists claiming it explains leftist beliefs.

where both sides [often correctly] point out the fallacies of the other side, but fail to acknowledge their own.

>Since you’re reading about intelligence right now, you’re likely above average in intelligence, which means that you, whatever you believe, should be extra vigilant against your intellect being commandeered by your animal impulses.

I fucking love this slap on the face of the reader.

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I feel like there's something else though. Frankly I wouldn't call someone engaging in wishful belief "intelligent" by any measure; intelligence requires the ability to entertain multiple concurrent lines of reasoning, and in plenty of them your belief is wrong. [I can go further on that if anyone wants.] It's the same deal with some basic fallacies (mostly false dichotomy, four terms, and appeal to origins) that are often used to protect those stupid beliefs.

This sounds a lot like satire. This excerpt for example is blatantly self-contradictory:

>We’ve found zero [scenarios] that lead to good outcomes. // Most AI researchers think good outcomes are more likely. This seems just blind faith, though. A majority surveyed also acknowledge that utter catastrophe is quite possible.1

So they found zero scenarios that lead to good outcomes, but most AI researchers think that good outcomes are more likely?

Brushing off a majority view as w*shful "thinking", and then backing up the argument with a... majority view?

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Anyway. The problem with AI-driven decisions is moral in nature, not technological. AI is a tool and should be seen as such, not as a moral agent that can be held responsible for its* own actions. Less "the AI did it", more "[Person] did it using an AI".

Ah, nevermind. Your focus was on the last part of the quote.

My bad.

Perhaps it's a side effect of our desire for different flavours, that would encourage us (in a wild environment) to seek a diversified diet that provides multiple types of nutrients.

>> Cookbooks generally distinguish between seasonings [...] and **condiments** [...]

>huh? people in everyday speech frequently blur **herbs** and spices [...]

Emphasis mine. Thyme, basil etc. are herbs; ketchup, mayo etc. are condiments. At least acc. to what most people would call them.

The excerpt is correctly saying that people see stuff like ketchup, mayo etc. as intrinsically different from paprika, cloves etc.

This is just a guess but I think that there are two problems here, not one: 1) inefficiency strictu sensu (more operations required for the exact same task), and 2) lower diminishing returns (that kitchen sink being included weights far more than the rest of the project, but maybe you should still not remove it because it still provides a small return of user utility).

The reason that I'm scolding those users is not "disagreement". Disagreement implies that they have something to offer - an opposite point of view, or perhaps info conflicting with what I said. They don't, because they didn't even get the point of the text linked in the OP. Or the context where it was written, even if it's blatantly obvious for anyone actually reading it.

>You might have been serious or not when writing that, but framing your comment in a more positive manner will result in better discussion.

Frankly, the users who might get their very, very precious feelings hurt with this "learn to read" are most likely the ones who won't contribute jack shit to the discussion, no matter how polite of a tone you might use with them.

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Now, yet another thing that those users didn't get is that this text is two, perhaps three decades old. Things have changed and nowadays developers put a bit more of thought into the users. Even then, the general idea - "who cares about your data structure, show results that the users benefit from!" is still important.

I think that some users here in the comments are bloody missing the point.

It's easy to figure out what the authors are saying, provided that you guys have something called "basic reading comprehension". Here's a TL;DR: "software is being judged by the wrong criteria. Focus on the users, dammit. Software should be judged by its usability, speed, bug-freeness, and innovativeness." The authors aren't really picking a bone against structured programming (or object-oriented programming, or whatever), those bullet points sound more like the type of excuse for crapware that you'd hear back in the day.

Also look at the references; the newest one is from '94. This text is probably from '94-'00. Tech reference there should be contextualised to those times, not to 25~30 years later aka now.

Finally, the general tone being used by the text is not serious, it's cheeky and troll-ish. Odds are that the authors intended this as food for thought, not as a dissertation that should be analysed and replied with "ackshyually, this specific example is 0.573% inaccurate lol lmao".

>Yes, it is sophisticated. Phishing emails are opened more often then regular mail and click-rate is pretty high.

You're confusing "sophisticated" with "efficient". Phishing is efficient but unsophisticated; it boils down to one of the oldest tricks ever, to make you believe that $foo is $bar.

>No, Reddit. Phising is not a sophisticated attack.

You're right, it isn't. It's just Reddit admins lying through their teeth, it's their usual. Almost like they take most of the current Reddit userbase as braindead. (Spoilers: they might be right.)

In this specific case they're lying to not make it so obvious that they're pretty much incompetent to manage their site.

It's all about small decisions. I'll list some examples but keep in mind that they're just examples.

* Prefer markets that overall use less plastic, even if this might bring you a small inconvenience. For example if market A sells groceries in bulk (bring your own bag) and market B sells the same groceries in styrofoam trays, then you buy it in market A, even if it's a bit further from your home.

* Actively refuse unnecessary plastic. For example, where I live bakeries often put bread inside paper bags, and the paper bags inside plastic bags; so I usually tell the workers there "no need for the plastic bag". I'm still creating some garbage (the paper bag) but it's way less than I would otherwise.

* Homemade alternatives for store-bought products. It doesn't even need to be the same product, as long as it fills the same role for you - like homemade fruit juice versus soda, homemade tomato sauce, or buying Parmesan in chunks and grating it instead of buing it pre-grated in small packages. You'll need to take your tastes into account, but some replacements might be even cheaper or better than what you're replacing.

* Reusing containers so you need to buy less tupperwares. Like ice cream pots, soda bottles, even margarine pots. Where I live there are even jokes about how ice cream pots never contain ice cream, but cooked beans.