LOGIC💣

I think “mediocre” in this context would be mediocre to most people.

I think you cannot ask about something subjective without getting people’s personal opinions. If you ask about an aspect of a mediocre thing, then you can expect at least some debate about what counts as mediocre, and probably none of the people’s answers will be correct.

For me, a “mediocre” movie would be something that I would only watch again if a friend wanted to watch it, but if it was just an option and I got to choose, I’d never choose it. But if it was just “on”, I might not change the channel. Let’s see, like The Rock directed by Michael Bay.

And then there are “bad” movies that I wouldn’t watch even if I had a friend who wanted to see it, like any other Michael Bay movie that I’ve seen. Armageddon had pretty good music, but it wasn’t mediocre. It was bad.

I might have a strange definition of mediocre, but basically, I think that if I had seen the movie once, and then I decide it’s worth watching again, then somehow it must not be mediocre. I’ve seen Spawn several times.

If Spawn counts as a mediocre movie with good music, then you’d think Flash Gordon would be in the same category. But I don’t think either of those movies are mediocre.

I see what you’re saying, that there are two cases. One where the ends is the goal of the person who used the means, and one where the ends is not the goal of the person who used the means. I only mentioned the latter in my comment.

But from my perspective, if the stabber purely intended to uncover cancer, and for some reason they actually had the expertise and knowledge to know that that specific person had cancer, and this was somehow the only way to prove it, then the action itself is inherently altruistic. From my perspective, it wouldn’t be less altruistic even if the person turned out not to have cancer. So, I don’t think it would count as the ends justifying the means.

If the same stabber, with the same expertise and knowledge, actually had multiple ways of achieving the ends, like they could have talked about it rather than stabbing, but they chose the stabbing route, then I think you can’t say that the stabbing was justified, regardless of whether the cancer was discovered.

There may be other cases worth digging into. I’m sure there are lots of examples I didn’t think of, but I’d be surprised if they were convincing to me. The reason is that, my experience has taught me that good ends are most predictably the results of just and informed actions.

I think lots of people believe that the ends can justify the means.

But to me, that expression means the same thing as, “Whatever causes a good outcome must not be bad.” And I not only disagree with it, I don’t even think it makes sense.

I heard a story about a guy who was stabbed in a mugging and during surgery for the stabbing, found out that he had cancer, which saved his life.

But nobody is going to go to the judge during the mugger’s trial, and say that his decision to stab the guy was “justified,” and so he should be released to stab again with his completely justified stabbing history.

No, the things that are justifiable are those which are good and informed actions. You can’t justify bad or ignorant actions simply because of luck.

Ahh. I was going to say that sometimes, urban areas can be safer than rural areas. And then I realized that you probably have a typo. You said “so you would rather live” but I think you meant “so if you would rather live”.

fancy cabinet

Maybe this is the old man in me talking, but every time I’ve had any sort of lighting in my PC or RGB in my mouse, for example, it’s just been distracting. Nobody but me ever even looks at my PC, and now, every time I see a fancy cabinet, it just looks like an eyesore to me.

Let’s see if the rats want to play global thermonuclear war.

I don’t wish to make too many tangential top-level comments, so I am declaring this the tangential thread, but all I can think of is that America is on a path where someday we’ll also have journalists who will literally have to choose between the truth and their own safety. We already have so many who choose lies over the truth when their safety is not questioned.

steganography markers

On top of everything else, this isn’t even the correct term, nor does its meaning match the sentiment you wish to convey.

America was founded on the concept of no taxation without representation.

I have been reading a lot of fiction lately.

Listen, the important thing isn’t to court optimism. It’s to avoid pessimism. Pessimistic thoughts tend to be sticky and refuse to go away. Mindfulness meditation can help you give those thoughts the boot.

But it also helps to stay busy. Like my hobby of reading fiction.

Exercise can also help.

Staying optimistic can backfire if you’re over optimistic at all.

Next year, they’re using a scientifically accurate star.

I wonder… you know how webpages use widgets to try to see if you’re human? Apparently they collect various data about how you interact with the webpage to figure out whether you’re human. Perhaps they could use that data to make a fingerprint that can tell people apart. It maybe would be fairly inaccurate, but combining it with other information like IP address or location information could work together to make a better digital fingerprint.

It’s more like the ancient phenomenon of spaghetti code. You can throw enough code at something until it works, but the moment you need to make a non-trivial change, you’re doomed. You might as well throw away the entire code base and start over.

And if you want an exact parallel, I’ve said this from the beginning, but LLM coding at this point is the same as offshore coding was 20 years ago. You make a request, get a product that seems to work, but maintaining it, even by the same people who created it in the first place, is almost impossible.

For me, the important thing is that this is a vibrant community.

That means that from the mods’ perspectives, they don’t get too loaded down with moderation work, or need to defend themselves and create friction with the community.

It also means that when people want to contribute to the community, they’re not afraid of what the mods will say. If they post without reading the rules, like probably most people do, it’s really the poster’s fault. But if they are afraid to post even after reading the rules, then I think that has a freezing effect on the community.

As for people who are looking for loopholes, I think they’re trying to make the mods’ lives harder, and so I don’t really think they’re worth worrying too much about. They’ll probably get banned sooner or later because that is the attitude of a troll.

Just my opinion. I’ve never been a mod, and I don’t think I could handle that responsibility. I just try to be empathetic with everybody involved.

You’re right. One problem is, even though mods already have the power, specifically saying in the rules that the criteria is subjective sounds like something that a mod would make when they are tired of having to explain their moderation choices.

They can just say that it was low-effort, and problem solved. They don’t need to explain themselves, right?

But when the rules are vague, I think they’ll end up with more complaints from people who have different criteria of low-effort from the mods. This sort of interaction leads to accusations of mods power-tripping.

If the mods can nail down exactly what is low-effort, like, “X will always get removed. Z will never get removed unless it violates other rules. Y may be at risk of the moderator’s mood. You have been warned.” If they nail things down a bit more, then they will probably make things easier for themselves in the long-run than just keeping things vague.

Plus, if the rules are not vague, then people can discuss them safely when the rules are changed. When rules are vague, people will simply be upset that moderation was sprung on them, and everything will be discussed while people are upset. My belief is that people best discuss things while calm, and not while experiencing one person having power over another.

I haven’t read the article, but I have read previous accusations of the same thing, so I assume it’s the same.

Basically, the new AI companies are all losing money, but they are all investing big money in each other which makes it look like the industry is doing well.

Did you make a similar comment to OP, who only spoke negatively of a well-used and well-understood system?

What is OP’s proposed alternative? What’s a realistic plan to get there?

Here’s what OP said in the body of their post.

Most european countries use 2 round elections or proportional representation.

Although I’m not sure when they wrote that. The post was edited, so it’s possible that it wasn’t there when you first saw the post, and didn’t re-check the post before writing this comment.

What is your reason for saying that?

Just saying something negative makes it seem like it’s a bad idea, but that just encourages people not to change at all. A voting system that tries to satisfy the Condorcet criteria will be far better than any FPTP system.

It’s easier to tear down than it is to build up. What’s your proposed alternative?