3 ms·

A lot of people just don't want to spend their attention cycles on something that they don't find useful nor stable right away. There's just absolutely no reaso

by esjeon 3y ago

A lot of people just don't want to spend their attention cycles on something that they don't find useful nor stable right away. There's just absolutely no reason for people to do free labors of figuring out what the thing is really good for nor testing the stuffs for billionaires. Sometimes the winning strategy is simple ignorance.

xpe 3y ago
> There's just absolutely no reason for people to do free labors of figuring out what the thing is really good for nor testing the stuffs for billionaires. This is an unexpectedly emotionally strong response, indicating antipathy towards billionares (presumably related to their wealth, influence, actions, morality, and so on). I'm not following how my relatively milquetoast comment brought about this reaction. Would you like to explain the backstory? There is clearly more to it, and I'd like to hear it. There is also an implied 'thou should not' that I'm getting from the "absolutely no reason to do free labors". That is a very specific and pessimistic framing, which I'll comment on a few paragraphs down. > A lot of people just don't want to spend their attention cycles on something that they don't find useful nor stable right away. To situate the substance of your comment relative to mine: you are suggesting the importance of narrowly-defined, individual-oriented, easy-to-compute usefulness. That is certainly one view. And, yeah, I get it. For most of life's decisions, this is what people do. And for good reason. Let's say for the sake of argument that I share your concerns about powerful forces playing outsized roles. For this paragraph, I'll be a committed socialist. From such a point of view, I will strongly reject claims that one should view usefulness in such a way with just one sentence: It is in one's self-interest to be curious and look beyond one's current frontier. Tools, even those tools created by forces you oppose, can serve your ends. It is better to understand and harness their power. Most, if not all, effective social activists throughout history take a pretty long view. The want change now, but they know they'll have to plan to get there. The ones that don't plan and use the tools at their disposal have a hard time building a movement. Putting aside the political philosophy now... Remember, we're talking about the development of technology that, at the very least, creates the illusion of intelligent textual communication. That's no small thing. It doesn't matter if you think it is overhyped or not, it is an unmistakable force. The rate of change in unprecedented. This isn't anything like most 'typical' questions or decisions we face in life. Even from an individual point of view, learning how to best take advantage of AI can be an important time saver or for many in our field, a competitive advantage. So, reverting to a mindless form of usefulness isn't in our self-interest. Anyhow, for what it is worth, this line of discussion is quite different from my point, which was largely epistemological, pointing out that the word 'usefulness' is hardly operational unless specified. I would also add an opinion: using the term when communicating with others pretty often invites misunderstanding, because statistically, the word has become quite comfortable. This combination of comfort despite inherent ambiguity is a recipe for comically predictable misunderstanding.
- esjeon 3y ago
  > This is an unexpectedly emotionally strong response, indicating antipathy towards billionares ... Would you like to explain the backstory? You overthought there. It was meant to be a sarcasm against the toxic internet fanboyism. From my experience, many of the tech hypes from the last decade have been driven by cult-like fandoms literally worshiping large tech companies and their billionaire CEOs. It's beyond my understanding how people spend their free time and energy just to endorse and protect such businesses, who will do good even without the worshipers anyway. Yet, fanboys actively try to express their loyalty, and keep disturbing others with bold claims (which are borderline misinformation). This hurts people by causing unnecessary FUDs and exposing unsuspecting victims to unstable experimental products. This is the dark side of hype. > Tools, even those tools created by forces you oppose, can serve your ends. First, it's not "oppose"-ing. It's about not choosing at all. Second, that's basically how everything work. Even though more than 99.99% of the global population is uninterested in the optical system of EUV photolithography, its design has been continuously improved and allowed us to get power efficient high performance chips, impacting practically the entire planet. Impact alone can't be a reason for attention, or everyone must get bombarded by a large volume of information everyday. > Anyhow, for what it is worth, this line of discussion is quite different from my point, which was largely epistemological, pointing out that the word 'usefulness' is hardly operational unless specified. Your comment was being overly pedantic to the level that everything becomes meaningless.
  - xpe 3y ago
    I appreciate what you are saying about Internet fanboyism. Personally, I can recognize Elon Musk for perhaps being the right person at the right time to advance Tesla while also disagreeing with many of his actions and detesting the example he sets. It is interesting to think about how hype works and the role of devoted fans. Hype has been around longer than mass media; clearly there are deep roots in human psychology. Fanaticism (i.e. around one's preferred sports team) has pretty primal roots. (Aside: I wonder if the popularity of sports decreased during WW2. Seems to me in the face of real war, a simulation is less compelling.) > It's beyond my understanding... Perhaps. But what if you find one such person, ask questions, and put yourself in their shoes? There is a story there; probably one that doesn't follow your logic. Two common drivers are identity and group membership. By e.g. becoming a public fan of some product, a person can identify with a narrative of something they care about and belong to a group. It often gives people a sense of being ahead of the curve, or creative, or intelligent, or whatever it is they value. Even if your particular reasoning is sound (i.e. the billionaires don't need the fanboys, so why bother?), why do you think your logic would be the key driver? In other words, if your reasoning was already top-of-mind for such fanatics, they wouldn't be fanatics at all. I'd guess you already know much of this. Perhaps what you mean is you dislike the consequences of fanboyism. But I doubt that is what really bothers you. Here's my guess. It is much deeper: you don't like that people are illogical and therefore self-defeating. It doesn't help that they also things worse for the rest of us.

by esjeon 3y ago

xpe 3y ago

> There's just absolutely no reason for people to do free labors of figuring out what the thing is really good for nor testing the stuffs for billionaires. This is an unexpectedly emotionally strong response, indicating antipathy towards billionares (presumably related to their wealth, influence, actions, morality, and so on). I'm not following how my relatively milquetoast comment brought about this reaction. Would you like to explain the backstory? There is clearly more to it, and I'd like to hear it. There is also an implied 'thou should not' that I'm getting from the "absolutely no reason to do free labors". That is a very specific and pessimistic framing, which I'll comment on a few paragraphs down. > A lot of people just don't want to spend their attention cycles on something that they don't find useful nor stable right away. To situate the substance of your comment relative to mine: you are suggesting the importance of narrowly-defined, individual-oriented, easy-to-compute usefulness. That is certainly one view. And, yeah, I get it. For most of life's decisions, this is what people do. And for good reason. Let's say for the sake of argument that I share your concerns about powerful forces playing outsized roles. For this paragraph, I'll be a committed socialist. From such a point of view, I will strongly reject claims that one should view usefulness in such a way with just one sentence: It is in one's self-interest to be curious and look beyond one's current frontier. Tools, even those tools created by forces you oppose, can serve your ends. It is better to understand and harness their power. Most, if not all, effective social activists throughout history take a pretty long view. The want change now, but they know they'll have to plan to get there. The ones that don't plan and use the tools at their disposal have a hard time building a movement. Putting aside the political philosophy now... Remember, we're talking about the development of technology that, at the very least, creates the illusion of intelligent textual communication. That's no small thing. It doesn't matter if you think it is overhyped or not, it is an unmistakable force. The rate of change in unprecedented. This isn't anything like most 'typical' questions or decisions we face in life. Even from an individual point of view, learning how to best take advantage of AI can be an important time saver or for many in our field, a competitive advantage. So, reverting to a mindless form of usefulness isn't in our self-interest. Anyhow, for what it is worth, this line of discussion is quite different from my point, which was largely epistemological, pointing out that the word 'usefulness' is hardly operational unless specified. I would also add an opinion: using the term when communicating with others pretty often invites misunderstanding, because statistically, the word has become quite comfortable. This combination of comfort despite inherent ambiguity is a recipe for comically predictable misunderstanding.

esjeon 3y ago
> This is an unexpectedly emotionally strong response, indicating antipathy towards billionares ... Would you like to explain the backstory? You overthought there. It was meant to be a sarcasm against the toxic internet fanboyism. From my experience, many of the tech hypes from the last decade have been driven by cult-like fandoms literally worshiping large tech companies and their billionaire CEOs. It's beyond my understanding how people spend their free time and energy just to endorse and protect such businesses, who will do good even without the worshipers anyway. Yet, fanboys actively try to express their loyalty, and keep disturbing others with bold claims (which are borderline misinformation). This hurts people by causing unnecessary FUDs and exposing unsuspecting victims to unstable experimental products. This is the dark side of hype. > Tools, even those tools created by forces you oppose, can serve your ends. First, it's not "oppose"-ing. It's about not choosing at all. Second, that's basically how everything work. Even though more than 99.99% of the global population is uninterested in the optical system of EUV photolithography, its design has been continuously improved and allowed us to get power efficient high performance chips, impacting practically the entire planet. Impact alone can't be a reason for attention, or everyone must get bombarded by a large volume of information everyday. > Anyhow, for what it is worth, this line of discussion is quite different from my point, which was largely epistemological, pointing out that the word 'usefulness' is hardly operational unless specified. Your comment was being overly pedantic to the level that everything becomes meaningless.
- xpe 3y ago
  I appreciate what you are saying about Internet fanboyism. Personally, I can recognize Elon Musk for perhaps being the right person at the right time to advance Tesla while also disagreeing with many of his actions and detesting the example he sets. It is interesting to think about how hype works and the role of devoted fans. Hype has been around longer than mass media; clearly there are deep roots in human psychology. Fanaticism (i.e. around one's preferred sports team) has pretty primal roots. (Aside: I wonder if the popularity of sports decreased during WW2. Seems to me in the face of real war, a simulation is less compelling.) > It's beyond my understanding... Perhaps. But what if you find one such person, ask questions, and put yourself in their shoes? There is a story there; probably one that doesn't follow your logic. Two common drivers are identity and group membership. By e.g. becoming a public fan of some product, a person can identify with a narrative of something they care about and belong to a group. It often gives people a sense of being ahead of the curve, or creative, or intelligent, or whatever it is they value. Even if your particular reasoning is sound (i.e. the billionaires don't need the fanboys, so why bother?), why do you think your logic would be the key driver? In other words, if your reasoning was already top-of-mind for such fanatics, they wouldn't be fanatics at all. I'd guess you already know much of this. Perhaps what you mean is you dislike the consequences of fanboyism. But I doubt that is what really bothers you. Here's my guess. It is much deeper: you don't like that people are illogical and therefore self-defeating. It doesn't help that they also things worse for the rest of us.