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The dictatorship of the articulate

florentcrivello.com

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Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#61

Post by [deleted] »

jameshart wrote: post #53
quadcore wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youre twisting my point. Im not saying society was better then. Im saying it was simpler in its structure and certainly more predictive for a given person. Maybe a little bit happier on average even but if we disagree on that no need to break bad about it I can be easily convinced of the contrary.

Don’t mean to twist your point; I’m just putting some statistical information out there that I think suggests a more hopeful picture than your assertion that a random kid in 1950 had pretty good odds of a positive outcome compared to a modern kid having ‘very little’ chance of being happy. I don’t think it is fair to gloss over the large number of people who were children in the 1950s for whom their chances of happin…

[deleted]

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#62

Post by michaelwww »

I think we can all agree that we would like less regulation on us when we are trying to do something, but I wonder how much less regulation we would accept on others who are trying to do something we don't like? I don't think many want to live in a world with no regulation, because some idiot would dumping old cars in the river by our house. I don't know if we're over-regulated or that the world has become more complicated. Sunshine rights over buildings is a good example of an issue that didn't exist years ago. You could make the case that we're under-regulated in an area such as crypto finance.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#63

Post by 1dry »

Unspoken and underlying the author's entire worldview seems to be, "the more new things, the better," a not uncommon tunnel view in the engineering world. The purpose of regulation, ideally, is to ensure that whatever activity/process is being regulated is worth the cost(s) for the majority of people. Defining those terms and making that decision is precisely the job of regulators, who are ideally accountable to a democratic base. In the worldview where all that matters is "growth," people suffer. Running water is a huge quality of life win for EVERYONE. If you ask most people what would really help make their lives better, it's not gonna be colonizing mars, building tunnels under LA, whatever, it's gonna be access to resources we already have. Healthcare, clean water, clean air...perhaps we should think more about engineering as it can be applied to expanding access, and not so much to "making new things," which most people don't need or care at all about.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#64

Post by quadcore »

jameshart wrote: post #53
quadcore wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youre twisting my point. Im not saying society was better then. Im saying it was simpler in its structure and certainly more predictive for a given person. Maybe a little bit happier on average even but if we disagree on that no need to break bad about it I can be easily convinced of the contrary.

Don’t mean to twist your point; I’m just putting some statistical information out there that I think suggests a more hopeful picture than your assertion that a random kid in 1950 had pretty good odds of a positive outcome compared to a modern kid having ‘very little’ chance of being happy. I don’t think it is fair to gloss over the large number of people who were children in the 1950s for whom their chances of happin…

your assertion that a random kid in 1950 had pretty good odds of a positive outcome compared to a modern kid having ‘very little’ chance of being happy.

Didnt say a random kid. I said a kid randomly air dropped with no resource nor parenting. I didnt say what kid. I actually dont think he'd end up easily okay today, I could be wrong. Anyway my point was more about illustrating the complexity of society today compared to before, its not about sheer accuracy.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#65

Post by obblekk »

sharpneli wrote: post #60
obblekk wrote: post #26

After playing around with GPT-3 a bit, I've started to suspect a lot of humans are actually very good at manipulating semantic sentences, without necessarily understanding their content. It would explain why so many "smart" people will often speak long sentences that sound right, but have zero information content in them. Maybe it's just not that hard to construct grammatically and semantically correct, but zero info…

This reminded me strongly of https://www.overcomingbias.com/2017/03/better-babblers.html which rings more and more true as time goes by.

Great read, thanks. Large babble models indeed.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#66

Post by superchroma »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #43
superchroma wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suggest this speaks to the weight of your experiences coloring your view. It doesn't have to be this way, though, yours are just one set of lived experiences, and the systems you live in are not necessarily objectively the best ones. The issue you're discussing is that aesthetic objections are being used as a hard roadblock to progress. This suggests that aesthetic input needs to be received without them bein…

> I would suggest this speaks to the weight of your experiences coloring your view. > Anyway, I would encourage you to make a new submission about it This is extremely condescending and unnecessary. There is no reason for the other poster to “create a new submission” for their points. If you disagree with them that is ok, feel free to respond to the points. If you’re having difficulty responding to their points, don’…

There's no point going into the weeds in a discussion ten posts deep when we deviate from the broader topic. It discourages community engagement from the discussion we're having and the main thread and derails the thread as people have to scroll past it to see other comments. This is not why people are here, even if we feel passionate about the topic.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#68

Post by plaguepilled »

closeparen wrote: post #50
plaguepilled wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Almost as if the regulations... Protect? The... Consumers? No no, its the 'talkers' ruining it for the 'builders', surely. Not like people in a given industry ever want regulations. Please don't look up Louis Rossma-

So the more stringent the local housing regulators are, the more I should be able to find safe, decent, affordable places to live. Whereas in a place where the average project goes through fewer hearings, where the words "affordability" and "equity" rarely cross planners' lips, the housing should be poor quality, unsafe, way too expensive, only the rich living there. And if I go to a neighborhood that violates every…

Well, yes, that supports my point. Go look at Sydney's property market and the related alleged corruption.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#69

Post by barry-cotter »

throw149102 wrote: post #58
obblekk wrote: post #26

After playing around with GPT-3 a bit, I've started to suspect a lot of humans are actually very good at manipulating semantic sentences, without necessarily understanding their content. It would explain why so many "smart" people will often speak long sentences that sound right, but have zero information content in them. Maybe it's just not that hard to construct grammatically and semantically correct, but zero info…

According to the PIAAC, 54% of Americans are illiterate. That is, they are able to read simple things like menus, but they are not capable of synthesizing new information from multiple texts, or understanding the nuance of an authors argument. If I recall correctly, Americans scored an average of around 275/500, while the best scoring country, Finland, scored an average of 300/500. (This is a statistically significan…

Functionally illiterate and illiterate are different concepts. If you can read a menu the thing that’s stopping you from reading and understanding a complex text isn’t about letters and sentences; it’s the inability to recurse on abstract thought and build complicated thoughts that depend on a body of knowledge.

Eliding the difference between functional illiteracy and illiteracy confuses unnecessarily.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#70

Post by superchroma »

dralley wrote: post #32
superchroma wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely think that the wake left by crypto steaming by and then striking multiple successive icebergs demonstrates that regulation is crucial and that unregulated fields with potential profits very quickly become a hell dominated by huge corporations who start to dictate the terms of the field.

And Uber, and delivery services screwing over businesses, and scooter startups.

Oh, yeah, good calls there. They're so enmeshed now I forgot about them.
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