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Joined
3 yr. ago

Sorry about that.

  • You can find crazy folks for any and every political persuasion. The DSA as a political party is different than some random online user. Not to mention that it's within the realm of reason that people pretend to be progressive and intentionally say crazy stuff.

    Yes, abolishing prisons.

    Can you point me to where the DSA supports this? I vaguely recall one instance of someone in the DSA who tweeted something to this effect years back but has since adopted a more reasonable position. I apologise that I can't remember who that is. Maybe the same person you're talking about.

    In any event, it's not a platform the DSA as a whole supports. Do you understand the distinction? There are/were "pro life" Democrats but the Democratic party policy is pro choice. Does that make sense?

  • Yes, but that's magical thinking. The spoiler effect affects voting behavior. You aren't going to get 33% of voters to do that. Even if that did miraculously happen, the "blue" voter is faced with the spoiler effect in the subsequent elections; the point is that voters generally understand that splitting the vote is counter-productive.

    This is not up for debate, it's a well defined phenomenon.

    If you want more than two parties, push to move from plurality voting.

  • I strongly disagree that DSA is as far left as MAGA is right.

    Democratic Socialist != Socialist. Universal Healthcare and a stronger social safety net have nothing to do with socialism.

    Is there a specific DSA policy you're thinking of that goes too far left for you, personally?

  • I trust you're capable enough to do your own Google search.

  • To be clear, I didn't mean to imply that AI was flawless or had no room for improvement, only that it has made real, tangible improvements. This is why it shouldn't be used as a replacement for humans, but as a tool for humans.

  • I'm not sure why you got that from what I posted.

    I assumed you read the entire thread that led to mine. Kind of interesting that you apparently didn't, but not a big deal; sorry about the bad assumption.

    My point is that the only reason the USA "wasn't fascist" in the 19th century was because the term "fascism" hadn't been invented yet.

    Even without the word, the ideas existed. America didn't have a dictatorship, so it didn't meet the definition of fascism, regardless of the label we use.

    I can't say for sure, but I think you're confused about what these fascist dictators allegedly modeled after America. Is wasn't the system of government, it was the shitty way America treated undesirables. A democracy (as we all know) can treat even its own citizens in abhorrent ways and still be a democracy. In the simplest example, a country that directly votes on any given topic can vote to round up and kill all red-haired people. That's democratic. Terrible, yes, but democratic.

    I'm pretty interested in what, if anything, you're working towards here. Let's say I agree that American has always been essentially fascist, despite being able to vote out representatives. So what?

  • These are concerns with the healthcare system, not concerns with AI.

  • In this, I think we more-or-less agree; I just don't see that as a fault with AI, nor as a reason not to continue to develop/adopt AI.

    And maybe your point is what Doctorow was trying to make all along, but he pushed too far in the other direction? Even now, Code Generation is a useful tool, as long as it's used as only a tool by someone who knows what they're doing.

  • Fortunately, it looks like the DNC is learning from their past mistakes, and are rallying behind El-Sayed, at least from what I've read.

  • If you have any specific constructive criticism or corrections for me, I'll happily read them. Otherwise, it seems more like you're avoiding addressing what I've said and just looking to insult me, which I'm sure was not your intent.

  • It's never a great idea.

    There is no possible way you can even begin to support this statement.

    It's not exactly unheard of to read about an indie developer who says something like "I learned to code so I could implement my idea". It is a real thing. How many people had an idea but couldn't spend the time learning the skills needed to implement it? It seems wildly inprobable that the number is zero.

    Lowering the bar between idea and implementation, in a capitalist, surveillance/attention-based, target-marketed world further incentivizes low-effort, high-engagement practices and likely shrinks the space for high-effort markets.

    You're pointing out potential issues with the economic model, not with AI.

    Meanwhile the tools "lowering the bar" are rent-only or need hardware that is quickly becoming unaffordable. Silicon Valley's only play is enshittification. If it actually is successful it's only a matter of time before they switch from growth mode to profit mode and it's google search all over again but this time you're paying a monthly fee.

    This "there is an initial investment cost" issue has always existed. I couldn't learn to play guitar without a guitar. Except for a vague "AI = bad" sentiment, I'm not even sure why you're discussing this. I never said lowering the bar meant there would be no bar.

  • You may not have noticed that the definition is an AND statement, not an OR statement.

    Is there any point to this line of discussion? What's the end game here? You aren't going to convince me there's no point in voting.

  • I appreciate the reset, thank you.

    I think that you're taking a page out of the MAGA playbook. You clearly have an issue with the DSA, (and maybe progressives in general?) but instead of addressing their mainstream concerns, you're looking for the most sensational opinions of one candidate and shouting that the sky is falling.

    People in this country are worried about keeping a roof over their heads, food on their table, affording the care to keep themselves healthy. The GOP is trying its damnedest to push us into full on fascism. There's mind boggling amounts of corruption and grift going on in plain sight. Are you really telling me people are going to care even slightly about one candidate's view on Valentine's Day??

    Come on; give me a break. The only people that will (pretend to) care about that are people that were always going to vote MAGA anyway.

    Again, I really do appreciate the reset here. We were definitely talking past ench other for a bit there.

  • Webster defnes it as:

    a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictoral leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition

    (Mildly edited)

    Even when America had slavery and only white male landowners could vote, it was a democracy. Not a very representative one, but a democracy nonetheless.

  • That's a fair point, but it's not an issue with AI; it's an issue with corporate culture. Corporate culture can and does change, especially with advances in technology, but there will be a churn period where it's chaotic and mistakes are made.

  • As I said elsewhere, that's like saying the internet is just websites (and apparently for some people, that's all it is).

    However, it's irrelevant, Doctorow may have wanted to just discuss chatbots, but that doesn't mean that's all I'm allowed to discuss. I've tried to make it clear that I'm not just talking about chatbots. If I wasn't clear enough on that point, I apologise

    Now that this has been cleared up, do you have anything further to discuss?

  • You seem very passionate about this topic, but you're not really adding much to the discussion.

    Don't worry, its coming across loud and clear that AI could cure cancer and you'd still think it was better to have cancer than use AI. I get it. AI = bad, full stop. Message received.

  • useless half features will be stuffed into software and the more bloated "fall back" implementations full of duplicated spaghetti code will exist.

    Which happened without AI, too.

    Remember that AI, in whatever form or field, only has to be better than the average human in the field, to be useful to a company project.

  • There are studies that show that LLMs (chatbots) perform as well or better than human physicians.

    I'm not suggesting getting rid of physicians, though. This is a tool for humans, not a replacement.