wronged is not the same as right.

@cshentrup i can always look to you for moral support!

we like to imagine social movements have learned from Gandhi, MLK.

we don’t like so much to imagine that those who would prefer the sort of _status quo_ their tactics successfully opposed also learned.

i was young and stupid then. the difference is, now i am old and stupid.

the more i learn about git, the more i learn i have to learn.

cf @b0rk jvns.ca/blog/2023/11/01/confus

@jhavok It hasn’t dominated so far, because it’s been terrible relative to humans. People prefer to pay for a human narrator.

LLMs simulate understanding of text, sometimes pretty persuasively. They may or may not be able to peform the kind of verbal inflections we expect from comprehension then interpretation. If they can’t, I think people will stick with human readers and prerecorded audiobooks. If they can, I think we’ll just skip the audiobooks and have them read to us.

@jhavok if automated tools narrate well enough they could record audiobooks listeners would like, then they’ll quickly become good enough to generate them on demand. i can see a human narrators remain equilibrium or an automated narration on demand one, but not one where people buy recordings of automated narrations, except during a transitional period.

i don’t think the endgame is AI-recorded audiobooks.

it’s no audiobooks at all, but automated systems capable of serviceably performing a text for us on demand.

@paninid (of course!)

hatred is so much easier than pain.

“the extremist must find a way to change the politics of the situation from a 0-100 sliding scale into a binary choice between 0 and 1. In other words: Where thoughtful men once queried ‘what is your preferred policy outcome given the means at our disposal?’ they now must demand ‘whose side are you on?’” mosaicmagazine.com/response/is

to promote peace need not imply a demand that any side capitulate.

there are other means of contesting outcomes than armed conflict.

peace requires only mutual acceptance of alternative forums under which the conflict might continue, under less negative-sum terms. it need not imply acceptance of a final outcome.

@elbowspeak we’ve been happy with our kids’ school. there’s a bit of a don’t-ask, don’t-tell aspect to the hot button issues. they just had their scholastic school fair. i might have asked whether the "Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice" collection was included. i decided not to. i know the teachers are doing their best in spite of the bs from the state level. putting them or the school in a position of having to defend what they don’t want to would do the kids little good.

@elbowspeak i haven’t seen the kid getting taught Prager U material or stuff like that yet. (he’s only in fourth grade.) i don’t worry about that, though. he thinks for himself and i think is likely to recognize and roll his eyes at indoctrination, and develop his own take on the underlying issues.

in reply to self

@Alon @JoshuaHolland @ChristoFBG I really hope it works out. It’d be great if Netanyahu were out and PA could serve as a unified authority and a process towards a more permanent settlement might resume. Again, though I understand why the current strategy might have felt necessary and justified, what was felt was not well thought. I think if PA as partner is the outcome you are after, the character of Israel’s response renders that harder than alternative approaches might have. I’ll still hope.

@Alon @JoshuaHolland @ChristoFBG there's no excuse for anyone to celebrate the Oct 7 massacres.

but the blood of 8000 and counting mostly innocents (beyond perhaps no-excuse sympathies) is a high price to pay for deterrence by punishment, and that deterrence may be countered by the resurgent hatred it has engendered among Palestinians and the risk to Israel of a larger war.

i think even on terms that consider only the long-term interests of Israel, the choices made thus far have been unwise.

so are we going to see Elon Musk lobbying for a generous child allowance, or at least an expanded, fully refundable CTC?

Screenshot of Elon Musk tweet:

Having children should be incentivized, not be a financial penalty like it is in most countries!

We must create the next generation of humans or spiral into oblivion. Screenshot of Elon Musk tweet: Having children should be incentivized, not be a financial penalty like it is in most countries! We must create the next generation of humans or spiral into oblivion.

"leap from the moral high ground into a pool of blood"

so well put. by @JoshuaHolland zirk.us/@JoshuaHolland@mastodo ht @ChristoFBG

my fave halloween costume.

you have to remember i'm a lazy fuck.

in my 20s i was invited to some crazy loft halloween party, and had nothing to wear. so i found some cheap purple face paint and just splotched it on my face.

then

"well, what are you supposed to be?"

"what do you *think* i am?"

"umm..."

"what do you see?"

"uh"

"i'm a Rorschach test!"

it was supposed to be some nanotech science fiction hypthetical, but i look at gaza and i see gray goo.

the subject of the e-mail was “band books”, and it was not in error. it was from a music teacher at the kid’s school.