@brent@thecanadian.social
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

brent

@brent@thecanadian.social

Pseudonymous social pathologist. Science acolyte. Technological heretic. Linguistic hedge wizard. Erratic graphomaniac. Favours cooperation over conflict, competition, or (especially) coercion.

The nature of reality is complex, and incomprehensible. But we can do better. We should prioritize facts and rationality over speculation and bias.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

gerrymcgovern, to random
@gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green avatar

Microsoft's jaw-dropping nauseous greenwashing

Microsoft’s AI Push Imperils Climate Goal as Carbon Emissions Jump 30%

The company’s goal to be carbon negative by 2030 is harder to reach, but President Brad Smith says the good AI can do for the world will outweigh its environmental impact.
https://revealnews.org/article/what-california-can-learn-from-saudi-arabias-water-mystery/

Ah, Brad, Brad, pull the other one, fella. Maybe for once in your life could you be honest? It's the good AI will do your stock price. That's all you care about.

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

@gerrymcgovern Worse, the "good" to the stock price is temporary.

Fake AI bubble is a flagrant pump-and-dump rug pull, being played by entire tech sector and its masters on retail investors, including all index funds, managed retirement accounts, and pension accounts. A scam so big it beggars the imagination.

The insiders will have sold everything off before it collapses.

mike, to random
@mike@thecanadian.social avatar

The best thing that could ever happen to Mastodon is if someone, someday builds a great instance coupled with a great client and hardly anyone cares that it's built on Mastodon.
If that where to happen it would be the moment that Mastodon fulfills its true potential.

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

@mike I agree about the client. But a singular instance would lead to centralization, no?

What if the client made choosing an instance transparent, and made it less about choosing a server, and more about choosing an identity, like choosing an avatar, and a culture or community? And automatically distributed users across multiple instances (all of which satisfied some kind of stability/reliability/ethics criteria)?

brent, to random
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

Humans really are astoundingly naive. Monkeys with grenades.

johnefrancis, to random
@johnefrancis@mastodon.social avatar

More lobbyist money into the CPC...

It's not a grassroots party.

The corporations are bringing the money. The neofacist hate groups like Campaign Life Coalition are bringing the noise.

The neofacists will be abandoned. They have the same uphill battle against mainstream conservatives and the charter. It would require frequent and regular federal use of the notwithstanding clause. I don't think PP will bother, it would interfere with the selling out of Canada.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-fundraiser-lobbyists-1.7196143

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

@johnefrancis This is what nihilism looks like.

samuteki, to random
@samuteki@ohay.ooo avatar

I struggle to get to the core of this idea, and I've been trying to for weeks or months, but the fascist/oppressor can change their philosophy like you change your shoes. Whatever fits best for the current situation.

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

@samuteki I can recommend a good book about this: Corruptible, by Brian Klass. Looks at the personalities of those who desire and are attracted to power, and how systems can limit the damage they can do (or fail to).

https://brianpklaas.com/corruptible

iramjohn, to random
@iramjohn@mastodon.social avatar

This is brilliant. And tragic.
https://www.takahe.org.nz/heat-death-of-the-internet/

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

@iramjohn As long as we allow ourselves to be treated in these ways, people willing to treat us in these ways will treat us in these ways. Some people are more than happy to abuse others for their own benefit. And they are not being restrained.

How do we stop them? (Hint: I think it's good government, good regulation, good policing, good courts. Am I wrong?)

brent, to random
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

There are some things we can understand. But many things we can only understand in simplified form.

It is hard—often impossible, in advance—to know which things you can simplify enough to comprehend, while still being able to predict—let alone control—them.

When we oversimplify, we acquire fictitious understanding, leading to false confidence. It is risky and dangerous to believe that you understand a thing, just because you understand a cartoon version of it. But we do that all the time.

brent, to random
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

Innovation is the creation of new ways to harness energy and resources, to convert them into things people value.

A key feature of innovation in a market economy is to make it easier for more people to use energy and resources. We package complicated technology into user-friendly products: electric grids, gas stations, gas pipelines, broadband.

But ease-of-use doesn't make us wiser or more prudent. It makes us more complacent, entitled, and wasteful.

No one likes to talk about this problem.

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

Another way of describing the paradox is that access to more energy, resources, and wealth doesn't make us smarter. They make us dumber.

As we embody smartness in machines and devices and networks, the people who use them are required to understand less, meanwhile feeling that they understand more. We don't develop intuitions about the costs of convenience, only the benefits. We even deny those costs even exist.

Machines hide the true complexity of nature and society.

brent, to random
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

If you think you understand the world…

think again.

brent, to random
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

I've been underwhelmed with most Star Wars franchise stuff for a long time, but this has piqued my interest. It looks like Ubisoft put a lot of love and care into this. Star Wars: Outlaws.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcdKEy-aJ6o

brent, to random
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

There should be an open source software license that explicitly denies use for LLM training.

brent, to random
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

It’s hard enough to look in the mirror, and see someone you barely recognize. It’s even worse to see artists you remember from their early days looking grey haired and middle-aged.

Thirty years is nothing, but so much changes.

brent, to random
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

I like to use my iPad for two main things—reading books and sketching.

The iPad routinely erases all of my books and drawings from local storage. They are backed up to iCloud. When I want to read a book, or see my sketches, I have to download them again. One… at… a… time. That might inexplicably fail, requiring a restart.

There are no settings to control this. And I have many GB of free space. But things must be deleted to make room, even if I want them to stay. This is good usability?

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

@mike I don't think Apple is unique in this regard.

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

@mike I meant insofar as promise versus reality, and general (lack of) respect for the customer. As opposed to the specifics of any one provider.

I dislike all cloud service companies. Apple offends me the least, I guess.

brent, to random
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

I’m so tired of people who believe that truth is a feeling.

brent, to random
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

Classic cars give me terrible cognitive dissonance.

LeftistLawyer, (edited ) to random
@LeftistLawyer@kolektiva.social avatar

Good morning,

My newest blog post is up. It’s titled ** On The Use Of Clubs. **

A snippet:

“What’s the first thing you think about when you hear the word club? Does it bring to mind a night out dancing with your friends? A day behind a fancy gate wining and dining between rounds of golf? Perhaps getting together with friends to play chess, or cards, watching birds, or exploring nature? Or, does it bring to mind something entirely different — …”

Hope you like it.
You can find it here: https://www.ianwelsh.net/on-the-use-of-clubs/

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

@LeftistLawyer

Social power requires organization. Progressivism is fragmented, perhaps because the various aims of progress are competing for resources? Would it not be better to tackle challenges one at a time, instead of all at once?

Organization implies common cause, shared strategy, and coordinated tactics. The oppressors and their dogs are well coordinated.

Meanwhile, efforts to build a just society are diffuse, and even interfere with one another. Which is how the elites like it.

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

@thesquirrelfish

I've heard that opinion, but I've never seen a convincing argument. History shows the opposite, I think.

Trying to change everything all at once is impossible. People change their minds one idea at a time. Nations change their values one law at a time.

Reality has constraints. To ignore them is to struggle in the dark.

@LeftistLawyer

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

@LeftistLawyer

Sorry but you've completely lost me. I can't tell who you're addressing, or what points you are dismissing. And to end on a menacing note—how is that not "self-defeating"?

The "right" are winning where they have coordinated in order to put people into positions of real power. Not because they join clubs. In the US, they fought for decades to control congress and stack the supreme court. And they did it. That is called strategic focus.

@thesquirrelfish

brent, to random
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

The should be a public rating system for corporate scamminess.

There has to be a way to push back against all the fraud-but-not-legal-fraud.

Giant companies make money off of fraudsters, without actually doing the fraud. They have outsourced it all. We can't prosecute all the small operators. Nor can we accuse the big companies of doing anything illegal.

Match made in hell.

Kind of like mutual funds and stock markets. Investors get abusive practises, safely and anonymously.

brent, to random
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

A journal article on authoritarianism from Nature (April 2023). Interesting just for the charts.

"At the end of 2021, just 20.3% of humanity lived in a ‘free’ nation, marking the 16th consecutive annual global decline in citizens’ political rights and civil liberties."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44159-023-00161-4.pdf

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

"The resurgence of authoritarianism implicated in this worrying trend also underlies some of the most divisive moments in recent history, including Donald Trump’s successful 2016 US presidential election bid, the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union and the rebirth of far-right political parties in Western Europe."

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

Social dominance orientation.

brent,
@brent@thecanadian.social avatar

"Given that the propensity to follow others and conform to in-group mores is a core feature of right-wing authoritarianism, low cognitive engagement and the tendency to uncritically take information at face value should foster authoritarianism. Indeed, numerous indicators of a high need for epistemic certainty, such as the need for closure, closed-mindedness and cognitive inflexibility, correlate positively with authoritarianism."

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