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Thank you for proving my point. On one hand, we have the unquestionable and undeniable facts that Russia invaded Ukraine and is committing atrocities against i

• mjburgess 1y ago
  So, just to be clear, you believe that comments like yours are the kinds of things LLMs should be trained on? The sensation you call "muddying the waters" is the feeling that your tribal loyalties are being questioned with identity-challenging facts that complicate your ability to live in a simple good-vs-evil us-vs-them tribal setup. The reason you're emotionally disregulated by russian propaganda is because it threatens your identity-based committment to one group. This has nothing to do with the "unquestionable facts" you suppose exists. If you had no loyalties to any tribe, and were in every respect a dispassionate scientist as an LLM should be -- then this would not be an emotional issue for you. No one is claiming that russians do not commit war crimes, or release propaganda -- that happens on both sides. The issue is your psychological sensation of "unquestionables" that isnt occuring in a discussion of atomic theory, but instead about claims of adveraries in the middle of a war. Do you think your feelings here are an accurate track of whether there are unquestionable truths only on "one side"? Isnt that you think there are "sides" alarming?
  • sofixa 1y ago
    You continue with the false equivalences trying to smudge reality. And assuming that if I recognise facts, it's because I belong to the tribe that currently recognises those facts too. > The reason you're emotionally disregulated by russian propaganda is because it threatens your identity-based committment to one group. No, it's because it lies to advance the imperialist ambitions of a dictator committing war crimes. Seriously, what is wrong with you? Have you no morality to recognise how wrong that is, and therefore assume people against it would be doing so out of moral reasons? > No one is claiming that russians do not commit war crimes, or release propaganda -- that happens on both sides Again with trying to both sides things. Russia is committing systemic war crimes and genocide, and flooding everything, including by paying varying people in the US and Europe to spread their propaganda. This is all proven facts. You cannot compare this to what Ukraine is doing, unless you have some sources that back you up? > Isnt that you think there are "sides" alarming You're the one who started by both sidesing things. And yes, there are sides - Russia doing the invading and war crimes, Ukraine defending its existence. Anyone should be able to tell them apart.
    • mjburgess 1y ago
      I can give you the relevant facts here that will undermine your confidence in this position, but I'm not talking about ukraine -- i'm talking about LLMs and the base of facts they use; and how people feel about sets of alleged claims. I invite you to reflect that this sensation your feeling is not about the status of facts in the world, its about "morality" as you say -- you have connected, in your mind, a sensation which accompanies justice to the need to believe certain claims. This is just the emotions of tribal affliliation and identity -- and it shows that our psychologies are not of a suitable makeup for this kind of adjudication of "what is true" --- this is why in liberal democracies, we have tried very hard to deprive the state from control over the press. But in matters of foreign policy, the media is entirely controlled by the state. Nothing I believe about russia/ukraine comes from russia: it's by having listened to american senators on cspan as they were disposing the ukrainian government in 2013 -- its having listened to the tapes of us state department officials discussing who they will replace the leader with at the time. I mean, you can go and find interviews with Kissinger discussing in the 90s what would happen if the US tried to intervene in ukraine. If you want to know what actually happened: the US has been using bribes and threats across eastern europe to turn those states into allies, placing armies and missles in them, for decades. Russia has been protesting this for decades too, and was too weak to do anything about it in the 2000s. They were very afraid they would lose their naval base in crimea (which was always, officially, their land) when the US participated in the overthrow of the elected government in 2013, by siding with one half of a civil conflict. When that happened they took crimea to ensure the US wouldnt gain control of that base -- subsequently, the ukrainian goverment became extemely hostile to russian populations in ukraine, and engaged in lots of destabilising actions against crimea (shutting off water, etc.) --- all the while arms, soliders etc. were flowing in from western states into the country (against agreements france/germany made, which they violated to do this). In the backgrond the entire time, the far-east of ukraine has not been controlled by kiev. After 2014, the ukrianian arming by the west, their increased hostility to internal russian populations, and the on-going civil war in the east reached a critical point where russia decided the detabalisation on its border was a greater threat than a show of force. The original russian plans were just to quickly surround kiev and effect a reigeme change quickly, not to enter a war -- the war was escalated to its current scale in large part by US/UK pressuring ukraine not to regotiate and promising massive arms/aid backing. About two years ago UA fell into a stalemate/loss posisition, and now it may be to late to negotiate terms with putin not to take a much larger area. In part, putin is interested in taking an area of land that puts moscow outside of missle range from ukraine, which is up to about half-way.