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Yeah - really struggling to understand why people are not grasping this point. Yes, Easter Island was deforested far earlier - but you wouldn't compare the ste

Yeah - really struggling to understand why people are not grasping this point. Yes, Easter Island was deforested far earlier - but you wouldn't compare the steam engine's capability in resource extraction compared to what people on Easter Island were doing. It feels like people are almost straining to not understand the point - I think it's quite clear how ML + AI serve to extract resources of data at a unheard of scale.

jychang 6mo ago
It's the autism. And I say that endearingly. I'm an engineer who probably likes trains way too much. I intentionally pointed out the STEM-esque responses of pedantic correction as a symptom of a disciplinary blind spot: technically correct nitpicking that misses the forest for the trees, a tendency to atomize arguments and lose the structural point, and that tendency is a weakness, not a strength. There's also a lack of historical training to contextualize their own objection. That's also why I brought up Devereaux as an authority hammer: the actual domain experts consider those objections and dismiss it.
8note 6mo ago
the conclusion doesnt follow from the premise is the issue. the laws and enclosure happened basically orthogonal to the respurce constraints, so there's no actual comparison to draw. if you insist on a causation, id go with the opposite - the laws making ownership and forcing people off of land enabled the exploitation and innovation, not that it was cleanup for exploitation that was already happening. existing exploitation across all kinds of degrees was already being managed without the enclosure. if you just want to make stuff up, you can reference anything you want, like that some elaborate thing happened in star wars, and thus the same thing must be happening with AI
salawat 6mo ago
It is hard to convince a man of that which his income is dependent on him not understanding. -Upton Sinclair You aren't wrong. There's definitely going to be a need to drag people kicking and screaming to enlightenment unfortunately. Too much money to be made at stake otherwise.

jychang 6mo ago

It's the autism. And I say that endearingly. I'm an engineer who probably likes trains way too much. I intentionally pointed out the STEM-esque responses of pedantic correction as a symptom of a disciplinary blind spot: technically correct nitpicking that misses the forest for the trees, a tendency to atomize arguments and lose the structural point, and that tendency is a weakness, not a strength. There's also a lack of historical training to contextualize their own objection. That's also why I brought up Devereaux as an authority hammer: the actual domain experts consider those objections and dismiss it.

8note 6mo ago

the conclusion doesnt follow from the premise is the issue. the laws and enclosure happened basically orthogonal to the respurce constraints, so there's no actual comparison to draw. if you insist on a causation, id go with the opposite - the laws making ownership and forcing people off of land enabled the exploitation and innovation, not that it was cleanup for exploitation that was already happening. existing exploitation across all kinds of degrees was already being managed without the enclosure. if you just want to make stuff up, you can reference anything you want, like that some elaborate thing happened in star wars, and thus the same thing must be happening with AI

salawat 6mo ago

It is hard to convince a man of that which his income is dependent on him not understanding. -Upton Sinclair You aren't wrong. There's definitely going to be a need to drag people kicking and screaming to enlightenment unfortunately. Too much money to be made at stake otherwise.