Comments

  • Exploring the Artificially Intelligent Mind of Claude 3 Opus
    It's a bit "pick your poison" where you want to send your data though. China or the US. It both sucks in that respect. We really need an EU alternative with the GDPR and AI Act and therefore protection of people's rights.
  • Exploring the Artificially Intelligent Mind of Claude 3 Opus
    @Pierre-Normand What are you making of DeepSeek? It seems pretty good. Are the claims about energy usage and computing power etc. true? Probably all stuff I can look up but I trust your assessments as well!
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    If you still need to listen to what the Afd stands for you maybe need to stop taking your meds.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    Giving Weidel a platform in the first place.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Of course there is. Doing nothing means it perpetuates injustice, because there is already discrimination. It's been funny seeing people argue doing nothing resolves problems. Where some are arguing to pretend categories applied by people don't even exist or shouldn't exist. Which is quite possibly even funnier. I love dumb people who are convinced of their inconsistent belief systems. Even when it's pointed out to them ad nauseum on this very forum, they persist because they're not capable of reflection.
  • Philosopher Roger Scruton Has Been Sacked for Islamophobia and Antisemitism
    I just want to point out that @Streetlight was prescient in this thread and everybody should watch A thousand cuts.



    The problem isn't free speech, it's the underlying algorithmic network and how profit is pursued where extreme and insane ideas propagate faster than truth and nuance.
  • What are the top 5 heavy metal albums of all time?
    "Human" by Death on 1. Don't care about the rest.
  • Hinton (father of AI) explains why AI is sentient
    We mean what we say whereas AI probabilistically estimates that what it says is what you want it to mean.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Trump implemented / tried to implement is telling of your intellectual dishonesty.ssu

    Fixed it for you.
  • Identity fragmentation in an insecure world
    You don’t think one important reason for the rise of categories of gender identity is that individuals found themselves rejected and ostracized over their behavior, which in many cases they had no control over? A feminine-acting gay male could be the target of bullies, and their partnership with another male not legally recognized. A tight-knit gay community was necessary as long as gays felt unsafe in mainstream society. Now that mainstream attitudes have changed these ‘gay ghettos’ are fading as their residents integrate back into the wider community, while maintaining their gay identity. And with further liberalization in attitudes toward non-conforming gender behaviors among the general population, the relevance of the concept of gay identity will likely diminish. Thus we can see how the creation of identitarian communities can serve a vital, if temporary purpose.Joshs

    I don't deny that any categories are exclusive but I guess that actual progress is to expand categories instead of creating newer and narrower ones. And we were expanding it, gays were getting more accepted, especially in the Netherlands leading to a less "campy" gay community. I think in a sense it was hard for gays that weren't campy when the gay community was still largely reactionary - they didn't feel at home among the homophobic mainstream and not in the campy alternative. It has their own set of subcultural rules that don't necessarily work for everyone.

    Are you sure? My own memory is that gender stereotypes were much more rigid back in the fifties. My mother was forced to give up work (in a bank) on marriage as a 'natural' policy and custom. The hippie men growing their hair was seriously transgressive in the sixties.
    Indeed gender stereotypes go back to Samson and Heracles, at least. It seems to me that these identities are being questioned and resisted by modernity rather than exaggerated.
    unenlightened

    I think gender roles were much more rigid. The stereotypes less so. Nowadays, nobody is allowed to be ugly. If you're a teenage boy and don't have a sixpack and spend 3 days a week in the gym, you're not meeting the expected standard. Girls with A-cups are screwed.

    Neither Samson nor Heracles were stereotypes. They're heroes with supernatural strength; you're not expected to be like them.

    I don't know about vacuums. Isn't another way to frame this that there are just a lot more possibilities and more ways to be mainstream today? I doubt that community or family or religion are much weaker today than they were 40-50 years ago. They've been in transition a long, long time. If anything, back in the late 70's we thought religion would be gone from society by now and, if anything, it seems to be having a revival.

    Community and family? Traditional forms may well have atrophied but other forms have developed - same sex parent families, for instance. I see a lot of additional inclusion in the country I live in - input from First Nations people, lived experience informing social policy in the areas of migrant communities, homelessness, mental illness, etc. There seem to be as many improvements as disappointments.
    Tom Storm

    I'm glad to hear you experience this differently. The OP maybe is as much about my own biases as anything else. I guess there are more possibilities but they come with their own straightjackets you have to fit into. Gender dysphoria is on the rise and this is not driven by the availability of sex-change operations; and that's for me the main hint something is not going well. How can more options lead to more people being unhappy with their selves?

    The distinction isn't subtle because it gives a nod to absolutes, to right, to wrong, to immutability over fluidity. It is not just living by clear dictates that avoids the stress of chaos, it is the belief that there are clear dictates that are with certainty true that avoids those stresses and it's adherence to an actual true standard that matters.

    This isn't to suggest that the way things were were the way things should have remained because not every expression at any given moment is consistent with the way things ought to be, but I do see what "ought" to be as an objective question, not just a personal expression for the moment.

    It's as if we erected all these fences so long ago and we forgot why, so we tore them down and barbarians invaded we never knew existed, so we frantically try to protect ourselves until someone suggests we might wish to reconstruct some of those fences. My metaphorical point here is that we ought re-erect those fences not just because we wish to find personal peace, but because those barbarians are evil, not just an inconvenience we don't know how to accomodate. If we don't take that stance, then we're just going to keep tearing those fences down again and again, thinking he can make friends with the barbarians and all get along.

    And don't misunderstand all this to mean I'm looking to force certain behaviors out of people. People get to celebrate their uniqueness and ultimately make their own decisions how they see fit, but they don't necessarily get to be saved from hearing the commentary regarding their behavior from their opponents. I do think though we've reached a point that we might be finally be relenting from where we could not even question whether every personal expression is a good one.
    Hanover

    I don't think this ultimately fits in my view that ideally there should not be fences; or they should be pitched in such a way that they're inclusive instead of increasingly exclusionary. Feminism has been a very progressive force in this respect; greatly expanding the roles women can have in wider society and simultaneously for men (stay-at-home dads is an option) - but at the same time the stereotype in media seems to have narrowed increasingly.

    Therefore the frame of atomization being an effect of individualism is unsubtantiated.Tzeentch

    I disagree but I don't have the energy to argue for what is obvious. If you don't see it, you simply don't.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    But that the megarich control/have a huge influence over US policy? Ooooh, that is really not going to go away anytime soon!!! I'll make a bet on that with you anytime.ssu

    Case in point, the latest u-turn of the stable genius: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/28/trump-musk-h1b-visas
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Finnish-Estonian power line probably sabotaged.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    What's up with Matt Gaetz? Can we now rest assured every time the democrats are accused of something ludicrous like a pedophile ring, it's projection in its purest form and it's Republicans actually doing this?
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Well, not on the side Western allies, at least. But in the case of Stalin's Soviet Union, remember that Russian soldiers were fed propaganda that only the dogs and the unborn in Germany were innocent.ssu

    OH yeah, fuck, I always forget they were considered the Allied back then as well. :groan:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    With torture, you'll have anybody saying anything in the end. It's not as effective as you thinkssu

    It's not effective. Period. People will do anything to stop torture, including telling you want you want to hear, which usually isn't the truth. And because I didn't feel like going through all the arguments again, here's Perplexity.ai on the scientific proof about torture:

    Scientific evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that torture is not an effective method for obtaining reliable information or intelligence. Neuroscience, psychology, and physiology research consistently show that torture impairs cognitive functioning and memory recall, making it counterproductive for interrogation purposes[1][4].

    Neurological and Psychological Effects

    Torture severely disrupts brain function, impairing the ability to accurately recall and communicate information:

    1. Stress, fear, and pain caused by torture lead to major disruptive changes in the brain, damaging cognitive functioning[2].
    2. The brain's ability to regulate thoughts, emotions, and behaviors is compromised under torture conditions[2].
    3. Extreme stress alters memory formation and recall, making recollections less accurate and increasing susceptibility to false memories[3].

    Counterproductive Outcomes

    Rather than eliciting truthful information, torture often produces unreliable results:

    1. Torture disorients prisoners, preventing accurate recall of past events[2].
    2.Individuals subjected to torture are likely to say anything to make it stop, regardless of truthfulness[1].
    3. The physiological and psychological effects of torture can lead to confabulation, where the subject may be unable to distinguish fact from fantasy[3].

    Scientific Consensus

    The scientific community largely agrees on torture's ineffectiveness:

    1. Extensive research shows that punitive behavior encourages lying rather than truth-telling[5].
    2. Studies indicate that stress modifies pain perception, further complicating the reliability of information obtained through torture[5].
    3. The signal-to-noise ratio in intelligence gathered through torture is extremely low, making it an indefensible practice from a scientific standpoint[4].

    In conclusion, scientific evidence from various fields consistently demonstrates that torture is not only morally and legally problematic but also ineffective and counterproductive as an interrogation method[6][7][8].

    Citations:
    [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0077
    [2] https://humanrightsfirst.org/library/review-why-torture-doesnt-work-the-neuroscience-of-interrogation-by-shane-omara/
    [3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5198758/
    [4] https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22830471-200-torture-doesnt-work-says-science-why-are-we-still-doing-it/
    [5] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5325643/
    [6] https://theconversation.com/torture-isnt-necessary-our-study-suggests-an-ethical-alternative-130626
    [7] https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/does-torture-work-research-says-no/
    [8] https://www.science.org/content/article/torture-cant-provide-good-information-argues-neuroscientist
    — perplexity.ai

    It's telling in any case, that however grotesque WWII was, at least on the Allied side there was no policy of torture. It happened but these were low level decisions and it wasn't systematic.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    Why are your still on X? Stop wasting your time, or worse, ours.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    I don't think there's anything essentially wrong with Mearsheimer's analysis as it paints the one-sided viewpoint of Russia, which is a view we have to contend with - either as actual arguments, motivator or even as an excuse. It's accurate insofar it reflects Russian arguments and thinking and you can think about it what you want but it has been raised repeatedly as a reason.

    Objectively, there definitely is an argument to be made from a Russian security perspective that having a large military alliance on your doorstep has clear ramifications with respect to their military capabilities vis-a-vis your own country. The argument NATO is purely defensive is merely theoretical as Kosovo and Libya have shown but even the treaty changes with respect to, for instance, space warfare. It's not merely benign. But even granting what is defensive today, we do not know what it is tomorrow. So this worry of Russia, from a real politik perspective is entirely logical.

    Some of the responses to Harris' video reflect a moral view of international relations, which simply doesn't mean much in a world where international relations are preponderantly governed by real politk considerations. Does Russia have a right to empire? No, but then no country does. Yet there were empires and there are empires; through military, economic or even cultural influence. Russia has the de facto power to project power in the near abroad as do other large powers (notably the US and China). And yes, that makes certain countries a lot less relevant to the point where they have little agency left. After all, nobody gives a shit about the strategic relevance of the Netherlands for a reason! That has nothing to do with ignoring agency of Eastern European countries, which is a moral cliam they should have freedom to chose, but simply that stark political realities say otherwise.

    The problem with the moral argument is also that it only works if you adhere to moral principles yourself; otherwise it's just another real politik tool "Do as I say (but don't do as I do)". And while I agree Eastern European countries have the moral high ground; they are simply not the most relevant players between the proxy wars. There's no fundamental difference between the regional influence the US has (tried to) build through wars in various regions. The Russians simply are more ruthless. And it works - the EU is afraid to escalate - and opinions differ on how justified that fear is.

    I think you pointed out we armed allies during the cold war and it never led to escalation (except for the Cuban Missile Crisis I guess?). I think that's a good point and in my view, NATO did drop the ball, could've delayed a conflict by clearly distancing itself from a Ukraine NATO-membership or more clearly committing to the defence of Ukraine to make it more costly. The wishy-washy approach was inviting Russia to invade now before security assurances for Ukraine became more solid. Boots on the ground was the moral play with respect to the Ukrainian people once they (Russia and NATO) fucked up the diplomacy.
  • UnitedHealth CEO Killing
    There's a simple two word term for such ridiculous stances: victim blaming.

    You know the underlying psychological process is that people want to distance themselves form the victim due to fear of becoming a victim themselves. So they would never be a victim because:

    1. they'd be nice and accept insurance claims
    2. would not walk around at that time at that place
    3. would not walk around alone
    4. would pack a gun and shoot him first
    etc.

    It indeed says a lot about people blaming the victim and that's that they are fundamentally scared.
  • UnitedHealth CEO Killing
    I live in a country with nationalized healthcare and it's awful too, but perhaps that's just a question of who bears final responsibility.Tzeentch

    While there's plenty we could do better in the Netherlands, describing it as awful is a gross exaggeration. Healthcare outcomes are still superior to 95% of other countries.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    A condescending attitude or the view "Why bother to respond?" simply isn't fruitful to anybody.ssu

    It is very fruitful as it doesn't give space to zealots where their arguments are prima facie engaged as if they are rational, reasonable or acceptable when in fact they have no argument.

    If a philosophy forum doesn't debate the hard problems of our time and sees no value in discussion about them, what does that tell of us ourselves?ssu

    It's no longer a debate when people are not able to set out coherent logical arguments or deny facts.

    EDIT: This is also why I have largely disengaged from the Trump thread.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    I don't understand why you bother. Bitty is a zealot, fully buying into pretending Israel is a victim. Even in light of obvious power imbalances and war crimes, he will dredge up things 50 year in the past to excuse current crimes. It's pathetic.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    I said let's not get into it. Focus on learning the basics of international law. You can start with looking up the genocide convention. I'm not interested in discussing politics with a religious zealout.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    For those actually not fanatical supporters of Israel and therefore lost causes both morally and politically, here's the Amnesty report on genocide by Israel: report

    Netanyahu can now be mentioned in one breadth with the likes of:

    Hitler
    Mugabe
    Pol Pot
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    After 9/11 Bush said he'd make no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them. Sounds like a justification for genocide, no?BitconnectCarlos

    Also, let's not get into all the war crimes Bush committed shall we?
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    The US spoke in similar terms about enemies in Vietnam and Japan. Yet neither were genocides. The population of Gaza has risen by ~2% since last year never has there been a genocide where the victim population actually rose. The idea is preposterous. And of course Israel could wipe them out immediately if they really wanted as Israel has heavy weaponry. The facts simply don't bare it out the charge of genocide.BitconnectCarlos

    I'm not going to point to the definition of genocide for the fifth time in this thread. But you're wrong. Go look up the internationally agreed definition of genocide when everybody still agreed on it.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    @ssu What's the likelihood the buffer zone they just took in Syria won't be all that temporary?

    Edit: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/09/israel-seizes-syrian-buffer-zone-amid-airstrikes-on-regime-weapons-depots

    Anyone still doubting Israel is run by a bunch of fanatical belligerents? Just the sycophants obviously of which we have our fair share here.
  • Coronavirus
    Sorry, I'm researching some things on cancer at the same time and chatgpt got confused offering examples. IEDB.org is an option if you can figure out how to use it.

    Frontline healthcare workers do appear to have a higher likelihood of cross-reactivity even for viruses they never had before.This is suggestive but not definitive: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55989-4
  • Coronavirus
    That's equivalent to asking why some people get sicker then others. But there are models available to predict this. So again, not very mysterious just difficult to predict as there are a lot of confounding factors aside from immunilogical imprinting.
  • Coronavirus
    What do you mean, we don't know how it works?

    If viral strains are sufficiently similar in their immunodominant epitopes, then populations of cross-reactive T cells may be boosted by exposure to one strain and provide protection against infection by another at a later date. This type of pre-existing immunity may be important in the adaptive immune response to influenza and to coronaviruses. Patterns of recognition of epitopes by T cell clonotypes (a set of cells sharing the same T cell receptor) are represented as edges on a bipartite network. We describe different methods of constructing bipartite networks that exhibit cross-reactivity, and the dynamics of the T cell repertoire in conditions of homeostasis, infection and re-infection. Cross-reactivity may arise simply by chance, or because immunodominant epitopes of different strains are structurally similar. We introduce a circular space of epitopes, so that T cell cross-reactivity is a quantitative measure of the overlap between clonotypes that recognize similar (that is, close in epitope space) epitopes.
    source= https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8472275/?utm_source=perplexity
  • Coronavirus
    How is that a mystery? T-cell reactivity to a virus can be learned from an infection of a different virus, a phenomenon known as cross-reactivity or heterologous immunity. Such cross-reactivity has been observed with regard to SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza A: https://insight.jci.org/articles/view/158308
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Your metaphors are obviously not the only thing that are dogshit.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Ah, yes, there's plenty to say about the continued carte blanche support and how our president, as representative of the Netherlands - the country hosting the ICC - is looking for possibilities of Netanyahu to visit the Netherlands without him getting arrested.

    Even Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof got under the feathers of his Minister of Foreign Affairs on November 29 by talking about “scenarios” that could prevent Netanyahu’s arrest on Dutch soil. Earlier, Schoof suggested that a visit by a suspect to an international organization such as the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) could perhaps serve as an escape route. This form of ‘ingenuity’ is undesirable, and would undermine the status of international law – and thus the rule of law that this cabinet claims to embrace – in any case. The relativizing words actually do that.Ko Colijn (machine translated)
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Love the dehumanisation of people in that post. Nice to see a win of Trump have you show your true colours more clearly.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    That we are tired of everything wrong going on around us. There's only so much shit we can or want to engage with. At least for me. Also, my reach on LinkedIn is much bigger, so I use that instead to talk about politics (which gets frowns from some contacts but my company wholeheartedly supports).
  • Is Incest Morally Wrong?
    Yes, you're a veritable enfant terrible. It's what's so adorable about you. :yawn:

    Your second paragraph is what is actually interesting. You should've led with that. It is however still wrong. Your interpretation is not supported by the original paper, found here: https://pure.mpg.de/pubman/item/item_2481375_6/component/file_2637485/Hoehl_Hellmer_2017.pdf?mode=download

    And it's not bare if you'd actually be familiar with the research in this area in humans and other primates. I only gave you an example in an accessible format in case you weren't familiar with it. Need more papers after this one? I have another 10.
  • Is Incest Morally Wrong?
    Your post isn't particularly interesting. Unless you have an actual reason why you believe the experiment was conducted incorrectly or makes the wrong conclusions your opinion on the matter is boring.
×
We use cookies and similar methods to recognize visitors and remember their preferences.