3 ms·

It just seems like a lot of hate resulting from dysfunctional responses to life circumstances — admittedly, probably pretty bad life circumstances, from the sou

by kragen 14d ago

It just seems like a lot of hate resulting from dysfunctional responses to life circumstances — admittedly, probably pretty bad life circumstances, from the sound of it. Spreading hate online, especially accompanied by lies as in this case, doesn't seem like a socially positive action from my point of view. The author should have kept it to themself and maybe talked to someone who could give them a better perspective, rather than letting their hate out into the world to multiply.

donbox 14d ago
Its on the front page, there is some value.
- kragen 14d ago
  Being on the front page means it's engaging. It doesn't mean it's valuable. The actual value of many front-page posts is negative.
  - jakzurr 14d ago
    Amen. I read it because it was shorter than the Effective Altruism community stuff I'd been trying to wade through. It did seem a bit entertaining, but I found the ending a disappointment.
voidhorse 14d ago
You ought to apply your own standards to your own comments. The OP is an article that: 1. Raises a number of broad social and ethical concerns about AI. 2. Provides links to back up some of these claims. Yes, it also vents some frustration and includes personal anecdote, but there's nothing wrong with that. If you think something is a net negative for society, you should be frustrated. That doesn't make an argument "unreasonable" or "not well thought out". In fact, your entire response to the article is just anecdote and broad claims with no evidence or citations to back them up. If the article author has "a lot of hate resulting from dysfunctional responses to life circumstances" you must have a lot of naivety and kindness as a dysfunctional response to life's circumstances. If we do not critique things we perceive to be negative developments in society, things won't get better, and we'll let bad decisions slide. A somewhat emotive critique is not "hate". The author at least backed up their points with a few links, which is much more than we can say for your comments.
- kragen 14d ago
  Hacker News makes me so sad sometimes. What you perceive as naïveté is a kind of world-weariness that goes deeper than you can possibly imagine. It turns out that kindness is not in fact naïve. It is the only reasonable response to the human condition, which is far more desperate than you know. Emotive critiques can easily be hate. Hate is an emotion, so hate-filled critiques like this one are quite emotive. The historical record of people improving society by critiquing things they perceive to be negative developments in it is not really that great. Yes, that's how we got, for example, the abolition of slavery — but the anti-abolitionists justified their own positions by critiquing the genocide in Haïti, which was itself justified by people critiquing things they perceived to be negative developments in it. For every Civil Rights Movement we have a Great Leap Forward; for every Sherman Antitrust Act we have a Prohibition. You may not be able to avoid activism, but never forget that other activists spent their lives digging the ditches you're filling up, and others will spend their lives digging them again. The way out of this is to spend as much of your energy as possible creating positive-sum things rather than in zero-sum struggle.
  - voidhorse 14d ago
    Your posts make me sad. Your replies are a bunch of empty verbiage that fail to acknowledge the very basic and concrete flaws in your posts (lack of evidence for your claims, arguing past the article by completely changing the locus of analysis). > Emotive critiques can easily be hate. Hate is an emotion, so hate-filled critiques like this one are quite emotive. What are you even trying to say here? This set of statements is so general and flat as to be almost totally devoid of content. > The way out of this is to spend as much of your energy as possible creating positive-sum things rather than in zero-sum struggle. I'm not sure what any of this has to do with you doing basic things like citing sources or understanding that human beings have negative emotions and that they sometimes need to express them. You sound like a Panglossian fool. I'm not really sure what to say at this point. You seem totally immunized against reason.
    - dang 13d ago
      > You sound like a Panglossian fool. I'm not really sure what to say at this point. You seem totally immunized against reason. I realize both sides in this argument got unduly personal, but the attack you posted in this comment is particularly not ok. Please don't! We've had to ask you about this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47728150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47728150. Fortunately it doesn't seem to be a frequent habit but please don't post like this.
queenkjuul 14d ago
Yes, everyone who disagrees with you is unhealthy, okay.

by kragen 14d ago

donbox 14d ago

Its on the front page, there is some value.

kragen 14d ago
Being on the front page means it's engaging. It doesn't mean it's valuable. The actual value of many front-page posts is negative.
- jakzurr 14d ago
  Amen. I read it because it was shorter than the Effective Altruism community stuff I'd been trying to wade through. It did seem a bit entertaining, but I found the ending a disappointment.

voidhorse 14d ago

You ought to apply your own standards to your own comments. The OP is an article that: 1. Raises a number of broad social and ethical concerns about AI. 2. Provides links to back up some of these claims. Yes, it also vents some frustration and includes personal anecdote, but there's nothing wrong with that. If you think something is a net negative for society, you should be frustrated. That doesn't make an argument "unreasonable" or "not well thought out". In fact, your entire response to the article is just anecdote and broad claims with no evidence or citations to back them up. If the article author has "a lot of hate resulting from dysfunctional responses to life circumstances" you must have a lot of naivety and kindness as a dysfunctional response to life's circumstances. If we do not critique things we perceive to be negative developments in society, things won't get better, and we'll let bad decisions slide. A somewhat emotive critique is not "hate". The author at least backed up their points with a few links, which is much more than we can say for your comments.

kragen 14d ago
Hacker News makes me so sad sometimes. What you perceive as naïveté is a kind of world-weariness that goes deeper than you can possibly imagine. It turns out that kindness is not in fact naïve. It is the only reasonable response to the human condition, which is far more desperate than you know. Emotive critiques can easily be hate. Hate is an emotion, so hate-filled critiques like this one are quite emotive. The historical record of people improving society by critiquing things they perceive to be negative developments in it is not really that great. Yes, that's how we got, for example, the abolition of slavery — but the anti-abolitionists justified their own positions by critiquing the genocide in Haïti, which was itself justified by people critiquing things they perceived to be negative developments in it. For every Civil Rights Movement we have a Great Leap Forward; for every Sherman Antitrust Act we have a Prohibition. You may not be able to avoid activism, but never forget that other activists spent their lives digging the ditches you're filling up, and others will spend their lives digging them again. The way out of this is to spend as much of your energy as possible creating positive-sum things rather than in zero-sum struggle.
- voidhorse 14d ago
  Your posts make me sad. Your replies are a bunch of empty verbiage that fail to acknowledge the very basic and concrete flaws in your posts (lack of evidence for your claims, arguing past the article by completely changing the locus of analysis). > Emotive critiques can easily be hate. Hate is an emotion, so hate-filled critiques like this one are quite emotive. What are you even trying to say here? This set of statements is so general and flat as to be almost totally devoid of content. > The way out of this is to spend as much of your energy as possible creating positive-sum things rather than in zero-sum struggle. I'm not sure what any of this has to do with you doing basic things like citing sources or understanding that human beings have negative emotions and that they sometimes need to express them. You sound like a Panglossian fool. I'm not really sure what to say at this point. You seem totally immunized against reason.
  - dang 13d ago
    > You sound like a Panglossian fool. I'm not really sure what to say at this point. You seem totally immunized against reason. I realize both sides in this argument got unduly personal, but the attack you posted in this comment is particularly not ok. Please don't! We've had to ask you about this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47728150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47728150. Fortunately it doesn't seem to be a frequent habit but please don't post like this.

queenkjuul 14d ago

Yes, everyone who disagrees with you is unhealthy, okay.