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[silverspawn]

wellllll maybe but like no one knows those? I've never even heard of ActivityPub

[Awaclus]

wellllll maybe but like no one knows those? I've never even heard of ActivityPub

But you have heard of Mastodon, which uses it. You might have also heard of e.g. PeerTube and Nextcloud, and if you read the news, you would know that Tumblr is adding ActivityPub support and Meta is developing a new ActivityPub based social platform.

[faust]

yeah sure, torrents are probably better. But there's no company behind them. I think there's value to having a megacorporation whose business model doesn't incentivize algorithms that actively make their audience stupid.

You're still thinking about the direct effects on consumers, but I'm thinking about the symbolic value. I don't think it's good if every social media platform is effectively evil. It makes it look like there's no alternative. What's the course for reforming facebook or twitter or youtube or tiktok if we have no example of a platform that works differently?

I love it. How come there are no megacorporations that aren't actively evil? It's also as if... capitalism is bad.

[silverspawn]

But there is a megacorporation that isn't actively evil, that's the whole point!

Like, I think what this shows is that, yes, capitalism is indeed a prior cause of the bad incentives that lead to the evilness, so if we didn't have  capitalism, we wouldn't have the evilness. But Netflix shows that the ad-based revenue model is a more proximate cause.* So while removing capitalism would fix the issue, removing the ad-based revenue model would also fix the issue, and it's a smaller step.

[*]: Because if you're Netflix, your optimization target is actually pretty much "make sure the user likes the platform as much as possible" since then they'll renew their subscription. But if you're youtube, the optimization target is "maximize the time the user spends on the platform" (since then they'll watch more ads). Youtube benefits if you get radicalized and spend hours watching conspiracy videos; Netflix doesn't.

[silverspawn]

Can we agree that the ad-based model should be overthrown? I mean you need something to replace it, companies need to make themselves known, but it could be regulated to only be allowed at very specific places.

[silverspawn]

So it turns out What's our Problem (the WaitButWhy book) spends a lot of time on the problem of "social justice extremism" taking over institutions. I did not expect this because none of it was in the published sequence on the website. It basically start with this abstract model of different modes of thinking and how that applies to societies, and then argues in excruciating depth that it applies to this particular brand of social justice activism, and also for the extent of the problem.

I think I'm sold that it's a bigger issue than I realized. faust, you should read this book and give your take. This is definitely totally completely analogous to watching one video that critiques effective altruism.

[silverspawn]

I've also looked at a bunch of reviews, and all but exactly one very negative review were entirely based on saying that this focus was bad, though no one argued why. Fine. But like one thing you can't deny is that this is his genuine conclusion after spending six years thinking about what goes wrong in society. I don't remember if the community was polled, but I strongly suspect that it leans left because these communities basically always do and he's never even touched this topic before. One of the reviews I've seen gleefully asserted that he's pandering to his audience, and I'm saying this makes absolutely no sense.

And it's not like the other side wasn't handled, he just spends a lot less time on Trump&co

[silverspawn]

And like there is a lot of data in here

[Awaclus]

But there is a megacorporation that isn't actively evil, that's the whole point!

Netflix is definitely actively evil. Not as much as Amazon perhaps, but they don't just have a business model that doesn't do anything to guarantee the preservation of culture, they're spending money to thwart efforts to preserve it.

[silverspawn]

Fine, then they're less evil. I think this point is a formality; of course they are acting against piracy.

Like, corporations usually don't have decency. They're not moral actors. They're alien entities selected for by capitalism. They will do evil things if it's in their interest. Thwarting piracy is in Netflix' interest, so they'll do that. But this is much less bad than making their customers stupid.

[faust]

So it turns out What's our Problem (the WaitButWhy book) spends a lot of time on the problem of "social justice extremism" taking over institutions. I did not expect this because none of it was in the published sequence on the website. It basically start with this abstract model of different modes of thinking and how that applies to societies, and then argues in excruciating depth that it applies to this particular brand of social justice activism, and also for the extent of the problem.

I think I'm sold that it's a bigger issue than I realized. faust, you should read this book and give your take. This is definitely totally completely analogous to watching one video that critiques effective altruism.

I'm not exactly sure what kind of problem "social justice extremism" is. I don't know too much about WaitButWhy, but so far what I've seen doesn"t look too promising. Just earlier I thought about making a comment about the WaitButWhy graphic you posted and about how "idea supremacist" is a ridiculous term, but then I didn't get around to it and the discussion had moved on.

Anyways maybe I'll get the audiobook at some point. I'll let you know once I do and have thoughts.

[silverspawn]

So it turns out What's our Problem (the WaitButWhy book) spends a lot of time on the problem of "social justice extremism" taking over institutions. I did not expect this because none of it was in the published sequence on the website. It basically start with this abstract model of different modes of thinking and how that applies to societies, and then argues in excruciating depth that it applies to this particular brand of social justice activism, and also for the extent of the problem.

I think I'm sold that it's a bigger issue than I realized. faust, you should read this book and give your take. This is definitely totally completely analogous to watching one video that critiques effective altruism.

I'm not exactly sure what kind of problem "social justice extremism" is. I don't know too much about WaitButWhy, but so far what I've seen doesn"t look too promising. Just earlier I thought about making a comment about the WaitButWhy graphic you posted and about how "idea supremacist" is a ridiculous term, but then I didn't get around to it and the discussion had moved on.

Anyways maybe I'll get the audiobook at some point. I'll let you know once I do and have thoughts.

it's a term he makes up to differentiate two kinds of activism (one which he thinks is good and one which isn't)

well if nothing else we can at least agree that audio is the best format to listen to books.

[silverspawn]

also if you do try and really hate it don't continue for the sake of itself

[faust]

Okay, so now I've done chapter 1 and the interlude. I guess the parts that will really get on my nerves are yet to come.

Chapter 1: The Ladder
I find it weird that the system is called a ladder when it's really a spectrum. I guess some simplification is fine though. As pointed out in the text, this idea of two opposing forces is nothing new and here just a variation on existing ideas. Fundamentally I am not a fan of presenting it as "primitive mind" versus "higher mind" and the valuation that comes with that (it is pointed out that the primitive mind as its uses, but overall it's painted as a negative force). It's presented as though you can be in a state of pure reasoning; but all reasoning needs to be motivated. If you are going for this sort of dualism, I feel like the Freudian model makes more sense.

I have doubts about how big of a difference there really is between the "supergenie" of scientific collaboration and the "golem" of the Mongol empire, and the usefulness of that distinction in general. But we'll see how it is used going forward.

Interlude: The liberal games
Alright, this annoys me. It's dripping with American exceptionalism. It has few sources or data. And worst of all, it pretends like the liberal system somehow ended the "power games", which is of course in complete contradiction with any leftist analysis. I imagine that this sets up some issues Urban might have with modern-day left-wing movements, as they would of course deny these assumptions. We'll see how it goes.

[silverspawn]

I think he calls it a ladder because climbing it requires effort, whereas the natural force pulls you downward.

[silverspawn]

to me the whole model feels like an insanely accurate representation of daily struggles, though I usually think of it in terms of what I spend my time doing rather than how I argue. Like the default mode is to chase the next small pleasure, and the higher mind-y stuff is to do the things that I know will make me more productive and feel better but that require effort

[Awaclus]

well if nothing else we can at least agree that audio is the best format to listen to books.

That's definitely true, it's really difficult to listen to books in formats other than audio.

[silverspawn]

well if nothing else we can at least agree that audio is the best format to listen to books.

That's definitely true, it's really difficult to listen to books in formats other than audio.

Really difficult, but maybe not impossible! I think the mapping from sensory inputs to qualia is actually not fixed, and you could in-principle represent visual input with sound. Which arguably happens to an extent with synesthesia. So like the normal mapping is only done because it works best, it doesn't have to be that way. And if it weren't, you could listen to books that are in visual format!

[silverspawn]

but honestly, I barely read anymore. Listening is so much easier. These days I just spend hours upon hours playing I wanna find my destiny and have stuff read to me by the awesome NaturalReader premium voices.

As a byproduct I'm getting really good at the game. I think I'm close to breaking into the speedrunning leaderboard.

[silverspawn]

visit NaturalReader.com/premiumvoices and use the code silverspawn20 to have 20% of your first purchase. That's NaturalReader.com/premiumvoices, 20% of your first purchase! NaturalReader.com/premiumvoices.

[silverspawn]

very random thought but man smoking when you're pregnant is really messed up, come on

[silverspawn]

It just happened in a movie I'm watching and there's something in me that gets really angry and wants to protect the baby. This is probably what pro-life people feel like wrt abortion! If so this is the first time I emotionally emphasize with the position. In my mind, aborting a pregnancy early is no worse than not having a child at all, but smoking and then having it is more akin to mistreatment of living children.

[Awaclus]

Like, corporations usually don't have decency. They're not moral actors. They're alien entities selected for by capitalism. They will do evil things if it's in their interest. Thwarting piracy is in Netflix' interest, so they'll do that. But this is much less bad than making their customers stupid.

I don't think this really applies to SMEs. They might do evil things if it's in their interest, but it often isn't, because their success is highly dependent on people being excited to support them — it's almost impossible to completely boycott e.g. Amazon or Google, so they can get away with a lot of bullShiT, and even something like Netflix which is at least pretty easily boycottable if you strongly object to any of their practices is extremely difficult for other legal services to compete with because the sheer scale of their company allows them to have a massive selection of movies/TV shows, stable servers, etc in a way which wouldn't otherwise be realistic.

Not only that, but in a smaller organization, people tend to have more agency and therefore act with more integrity, and won't always be entirely unwilling to make bad business decisions (or at least rationalize how they're actually good business decisions even though they're obviously not) if that's what it takes to stand up for their values. Something like this still happens in megacorporations to some extent too, but a lot less, because people there have a lower threshold for thinking it would be someone else's responsibility to have that integrity.

For example, it would also be in Spitfire Audio's interest to thwart piracy, but instead of doing that, they run Pianobook, a community for people to create and share sample libraries (i.e. the type of product that directly competes with Spitfire's) for free. I would go as far as to say that Pianobook is the most important positive direct contribution to music culture other than piracy, by anyone anywhere ever.

The problem is not with capitalism itself, it's with the obscene centralization of wealth and power that happens when nothing is being done to stop that.

[silverspawn]

Yeah, like companies aren't automatically soulless, but capitalism selects for soullnessness, so the longer they exist and the larger they are, the more likely they are to be soulless.

[Awaclus]

Yeah, like companies aren't automatically soulless, but capitalism selects for soullnessness, so the longer they exist and the larger they are, the more likely they are to be soulless.

I don't think it really selects for soullessness. It's difficult to turn a new business into a successful business if it's not something people can be excited about, and people aren't excited about soulless things. It's just that established, large enough companies bypass that selection.