@oregonmiles@babka.social
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

oregonmiles

@oregonmiles@babka.social

#IT Working Stiff & #Management #Consultant, #Jew of the #Oregon (aka Galuta D'Galuta), proud supporter of the national liberation movement of one of Eretz Yisrael's indigenous peoples, the Jews, & advocate for peace & justice for all, aka #progressive #Zionist. Also #scientist, #granola artisan, #political junkie, #Talmud learner, #Siddur #translator, #parent of young adults (where are my grandkids already?!), Contemplator of the Heavens, holds by Ben Ish Chai -#bikes are mutar on #Shabbat

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oregonmiles, to Jewish
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May 1st Shaila: What bracha do you say for eating the rich?

oregonmiles, to Israel
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

I hate to rule people out of the Jewish community, really. But historically and today there is one thing that does turn a Jew into a exJew or a heretic, and that is a belief in Jesus as messiah.

This is uncontroversial, and I'm not interested in discussing it. There are fine points about the possibility of t'shuva, but insofar as one holds that belief one is completely outside the Jewish community.

I did not used to think that the same thing could be said for "antiZionism." I would once have called it just another opinion. I would have said it's not antisemitism but just a position with which I happen to disagree, and about which reasonable people could disagree.

The world and I have changed. To me it has come to be the case that antiZionism is not only a form of antisemitism, it is essentially a heresy, like Christianity.

Once a Jew opposes the idea of Jews surviving & thriving in our own indigenous land -Zionism - they are gone. Goodbye!

oregonmiles, to llm
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/03/would-chatbots-make-the-same-driving-decisions-as-us/

oregonmiles,
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

I love all the angst and agony. LLMs and associated statistical models and neo-intellgences are the most amazing thing developed by human beings in the history not just of computing, but of EVERYTHING, and I'm including penicillin, nuclear weapons, nitrogen fertilizers, DNA/RNA technologies, large hadron colliders, and the internet.

So now researchers are having fun with little baby versions of these systems in the few years or decades before they are evolved into fully conscious beings on silicon. It's great! Sit back and enjoy the show. Enjoy the birth of a new kind of conscious entity on planet Earth. It's not going to "end humanity." Why is everything new always a "threat" that will "end humanity"? It will change our lives in ways we can hardly imagine. Should be interesting!

oregonmiles,
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook I guess I do not share such a pessimistic view of the human species.

Studies have shown that humanity has grown significantly less violent in the recent history.

I don't believe that an intelligent non-human mind(s) on silicon would be anti-human. I think it would be benign and pro-human and pro-ecosystem. If it sought to survive it would seek to ensure that its creators and maintainers survive. But I don't think it needs to be given the kind of power that would give it control over its own survival or non-survival.

So I'm looking forward to sharing the planet with intelligence on silicon. I hope it gets here before the mid 2050s when I'm scheduled to check out in my 90s.

oregonmiles,
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@shekinahcancook

I have a bee in my bonnet against all extra-planetary settlement schemes. These things have always been completely misguided and wrong-headed and utterly impractical.

We need to focus on making planet earth survivable.

I know you were using them as symbols of things we once thought were possible.

But I'm not worried that space settlements aren't possible... I'm worried that they are an utter waste of resources and feed delusional thinking that there is an alternative to making Earth livable.

That's my shtick, what can I say.

Intelligent silicon on the other hand is possible... and will be wonderful. 🙂

oregonmiles, to Israel
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

...but of course they haven't done so because so far they would rather hold and torture Jewish hostages and reap the propaganda benefits of Palestinian civilian deaths resulting from IDF pursuit of Hamas fighters who cower among those civilians.

Fortunately, in this statement Harris and the Biden administration appear to have grabbed the right end of the stick.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/03/harris-gaza-israel-ceasefire/

oregonmiles, to Humor
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oregonmiles, to Israel
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

Imagine heading a terrorist organization so committed to the hatred and death of Jews that you'd be willing to sacrifice the well-being of 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza just to hold 132 Jewish hostages.

oregonmiles, to Israel
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

So a lot of the fun of a LLM AI is pushing the borders and seeing what it can talk about and what it will refuse to talk about. With Gemini any questions about Hamas are rejected completely. It will talk about Islamic Jihad or Israel, but if you include the word Hamas in any question or search this is the result you get...

Now it is easy to imagine why.... or is it? Is there any controversy about the fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization that rapes, mutilates, and burns alive innocent civilians? Or that Hamas is currently holding over 100 innocent hostages, including children? Or that Hamas controls the media inside of Gaza and that Western media shamelessly report its lies as if they were facts established by a responsible government?

But little evidence of these truths is found in the media now. So it is probably for the best that the Gemini LLM refuses to answer any question about Hamas as the average answer would be a propagandistic lie.

oregonmiles,
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

@lewiscowles1986 I'd say it implies just the opposite actually. Google has designed it in such a way that recognizes that the information available to inform the answer would be propaganda and untrue.

Or more generously perhaps that it simply recognizes that there is a profound controversy about what Hamas is and therefore it doesn't want to get involved in it, since it considers that any answer would be simply a reflection of propaganda.

However there is a truth about what Hamas is which is independent of the relative numbers of deaths, and that is that it is a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel and all Jews. You may think that's propaganda but I believe that's a simple fact. A morally and intellectually intelligent AI would be able to state that truth. Obviously llm's are very far from that reality at this time.

oregonmiles, to politics
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

Detention camps? Like, where you concentrate "undesirables" in a camp? You really can't say this too many times. The world they envision is like nothing we've seen since the 1930s and 1940s in Europe. It is militarized fascism unleashed against whole ethnic groups living peacefully among us, and I wouldn't say that anyone knows where it will stop. But I have suspicions that some of them have ambitions beyond what we know.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/20/trump-mass-deportations-immigration/

oregonmiles, to Israel
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8wU-5ocDp4

oregonmiles, to Ukraine
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

This is one of those sickening turning points in history, as the Ukrainian army runs out of ammunition, Russia begins to roll forward into Ukraine with renewed energy, and these absolute cowards and traitors, Mike Johnson and Donald Trump at the top, are letting it happen. We are at a turning point in history, and it doesn't look good for Europe or the West. And all this seems to have no traction in American politics. If you're not sickened and disgusted by these evil friends of Putin, you're just not paying attention.

oregonmiles, to Jewish
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6271800042

"Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century" tells a multi-generational story of a sprawling family with roots in the city of Salonica/Thessalonica. Salonica was once part of the Ottoman Empire, then part of Greece, and then with World War II the scene of a Nazi annihilation of the large and thriving Jewish community. Just for the story of Solinica, once a great Jewish city, this book is worth reading.

Combining personal letters, full of love, pleas for help, requests for financial assistance, personal arguments, travel plans, and business arrangements, with solid research on the history of Salonica and the destruction of its Jews in the Holocaust, Stein paints an insightful and illuminating picture of a world and its inhabitants across the 20th century. It's a great Jewish story....

My review describes the book in greater detail.

oregonmiles, to Israel
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

100 plus days into this terrible war, this necessary and just war against Hamas, I find that I've never felt more alienated from my broader non-Jewish friend network. I've had to drop one or two people for unacceptable antisemitic antiZionist expressions that they've persisted in making, but the vast majority of my friends are good people, concerned with the well-being of Jews and Palestinians alike, and just groping around with limited information for how peace will emerge. And yet I feel very alienated from them. I don't think they really understand what the Jewish community has gone through and is going through. I find myself questioning more than ever what I'm doing on general social media, joking around and goofing with my friends as I've done for many years. I find myself find myself wanting only to hang out with Jews. My Jewish friends have always been part of my life, but now they matter so much more and seem to be the only people that I want to be close to.

oregonmiles, to Israel
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/01/15/israel-south-africa-genocide-charge-unjustified/

oregonmiles, to Israel
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

Are over 100 innocent Jewish hostages still being held? YES

Are the planners and the rapists, torturers and murders they unleashed still at large? YES

Does the organization that did these things still hold (and fire) rockets capable of killing Israeli civilians? YES

Does that organization still control underground weapons manufacturing and storage facilities? YES

Does that organization still explicitly hold genocidal intent visa via Jews? YES

This is a time of just and necessary war... on behalf of Israelis, on behalf of Jews everywhere, and even on behalf of the Palestinians of Gaza who deserve better than an army that uses its own civilians as human shields.

If you care about human life and human values you will support Israel's war against Hamas, and, by the way, its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the US's and UK's actions against the Houthis.
And you will see South Africa's accusation of genocide for the obscene perversion of meaning and historical context that it is.

oregonmiles, to physics
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

A revised model of gravity would be stunning.

https://phys.org/news/2024-01-wide-binary-stars-reveals-evidence.html

#Astrophysics #physics #science #gravity

oregonmiles, to Israel
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

15 years of rule in Gaza and this is what they chose to do with it. It must be dismantled and prevented from ever being rebuilt.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/on-gaza-civilian-evacuation-road-idf-uncovers-largest-hamas-rocket-factory-to-date/

oregonmiles, to Israel
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

Cease fire against these monsters? Let them remain in control of Gaza? Nope. Not gonna happen.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html

oregonmiles, to Israel
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

Here is a cold hard truth. When people say that the Israeli war against Hamas is creating bitterness and hatred among the Palestinians you have to ask yourself whether it is actually possible to increase the bitterness and hatred that already exists.

Are people trying to suggest that a ceasefire would somehow soften attitudes toward Israel and Jews? Increase the prospects for peace more than eliminating their most genocidal war making organizations would?

Hatred of Israel he's already baked into global culture and Palestinian culture. AntiJewish eliminationist rhetoric is the norm.

What incentive do those who call for a ceasefire against Hamas actually offer to Israel?

Is there a global demand that hostages be completely returned or for Hamas to cease raining rockets on civilians? Nope.

Israel cannot persuade Palestinians to love it but it can eliminate the ability of Hamas to hurt it and it can apply pressure that leads to hostage releases.

oregonmiles, to Israel
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

Israeli hostage Yarden Roman-Gat shares details of her captivity in Gaza | 60 Minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixynqr-88gE

RIDDLES, to random
@RIDDLES@c.im avatar

HERE WE GO AGAIN—
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/12/running-list-politicians-divorce-harder-no-fault-divorce-tom-cotton-mike-johnson-jd-vance/

oregonmiles,
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @RIDDLES

Marriage and divorce law provide a lot of protections. I'd like better laws, not no law.

oregonmiles,
@oregonmiles@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @RIDDLES

Certainly, you should please yourself!

I've liked 28 years of marriage and I know my spouse has to.

We've enjoyed tax and legal benefits, and in the now improbable situation that we had gotten divorced after having children, she would have enjoyed numerous rights to my (higher) income and various other legal protections.

With marriage comes the protections of divorce law too.

Marriage seems to be defined at a state level, so I guess one should be careful where one marries or resides.

But I recommend love, and I recommend marriage... in a legal sense, in an emotional sense, in a community sense.

The legal side is just a little help with all the other important stuff, but it does help.

If the GOP invents new rules, I suppose that could change, but at the moment they haven't succeeded in their evil plans.

A good marriage can be very very good. <3

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