For someone complaining about slop, I found this unreadable.
Knitting bullshit
51–60 of 221 posts
Re: Knitting bullshit
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could justify basically anything with that logic. Change isn't always about progress.
In this case, the user is deciding that they choose what progress is. I am saying, that people who use the tool and value the utility of it decide what is progress. If people listen to the podcast, or use doctors in the phone because it provides them any value, it will be a change and a perceived progress for them. If the generated podcasts did not bring any value to the users, such as validation, or engagement, they…
"But how does the collapse of truth and meaning in society affect you personally?"
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2565163-smugjak-but-how-does...
Re: Knitting bullshit
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was a couple of images in before I sussed it. Bullshit images, but pleasing enough to look at. Without the images, it would have either been a big wall of text, which would have put me off reading, though I did give up about 25% of the way through after sussing the images and thus the incoherence in the argument. The images bring something to the article. They were cheap/quick to generate. The increase the potentia…
Reading that made me feel like you wanted to be contrarian from the get-go and dismiss the article with the least effort possible. The whole point of the images is that they're low-effort AI slop, it's part of what she's trying to point to when someone is generating unsupervised automated podcasts about knitting.
I came in indifferent but it doesn’t take much to make me give up on an article linked on hacker news. I use it as bubblegum while waiting for a compile/prompt, intent ally for stuff that can be dropped easily. I saw her disclaimer at the end. My point was that the slop images make a more appealing article than if they were absent
Re: Knitting bullshit
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was a couple of images in before I sussed it. Bullshit images, but pleasing enough to look at. Without the images, it would have either been a big wall of text, which would have put me off reading, though I did give up about 25% of the way through after sussing the images and thus the incoherence in the argument. The images bring something to the article. They were cheap/quick to generate. The increase the potentia…
The AI images were deliberate and part of the narrative. Ie, you can generate slop with zero effort. from TFA: "All of the images in this post were generated by an ai in response to the simple two-word prompt “lovely knitting” Edit: ps: Kate Davies is an actual creator who has been creating knitting patterns for years.
Yes, I saw. By giving up I meant I skimmed to the end. The images improve the article
Re: Knitting bullshit
#55> one of the most pernicious things about this particular kind of bullshit is the way it casts any form of critical scrutiny as a terrible failure of sensibility.
What a great line. And you'll probably notice this technique being used by very skilled bullshitters and master manipulators: any request for rigor or scrutiny is met by something like genteel condescension. You're treated as if you've committed a breach of etiquette, and that's one of the reasons the technique is powerful -- you're likely to feel embarrassed and, following that, to back off.
Re: Knitting bullshit
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this case, the user is deciding that they choose what progress is. I am saying, that people who use the tool and value the utility of it decide what is progress. If people listen to the podcast, or use doctors in the phone because it provides them any value, it will be a change and a perceived progress for them. If the generated podcasts did not bring any value to the users, such as validation, or engagement, they…
"But how does the collapse of truth and meaning in society affect you personally?" https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2565163-smugjak-but-how-does...
Your meaning and your truth, not necessarily other peoples who find their meaning and truth in other things.
Go to China, or Congo and you will find that the public might hold a different version of some truths than you do.
We had religions dominating the world order for thousands of years, which projected their versions of the truth onto their societies.
If we would extrapolate that to today and to your opinion, it would be that everyone in the middle ages actually had it all figured out, they knew that the religious texts about splitting oceans or the moon were fake, and were all just playing along with it for the social structure.
Maybe it just happens that the LLM-generated stuff is the next thing in this iteration.
Re: Knitting bullshit
#57I wonder if (or, more accurately hope that) this kind of slop will eventually die out as people realise how little care is put into it. I am more and more convinced that if the devil existed he'd take care of the bigger stuff, but have an army of little devils that encourage people to do things like make unsupervised automated podcasts about knitting, relentlessly chipping away at the messy joys of living.
At the start of Good Omens, there’s a scene where demons are sharing their recent misdeeds. A couple of them are sharing “classic” demon stuff like killing and possessing, but Crowley (the protagonist demon) shares more modern evil deeds, such as creating traffic jams. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Omens I’d link to a clip of it, but to your point some devil is making it frustratingly hard to find.
It's been years, but I seem to recall that Crowley specifically is very proud about making sure some motorway project got botched, because the continual drip of suffering from the accumulated jams and road rage makes him look really good in the spreadsheets even though he's not much for the classical showy stuff. Millions of little instances of suffering adding up year on year, instead of a handful of incidents of really intense suffering.
Re: Knitting bullshit
#58Am I to believe that those 700K+ downloads are organic traffic? Who's listening to all this stuff?
By McHealy's logic, we ought not be concerned about that. After all, it's low-stakes content.
Re: Knitting bullshit
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
A looooot of assumptions here. We have yet to see any of these brave new ideas actually work. Therapy has never been more available, yet mental health is through the basement. I’m also not seeing any evidence that young people are the driving force behind turning the world to shit. Every Gen Z person I know craves authenticity, connection, and meaningful work. All of this is the opposite.
It's interesting how every time this argument is made, its about subjective experiences of 'craving'. If this was the objective reality, we would have a majority of Gen Z engaged in movements, social groups and other concepts that would help them fulfill their 'cravings'. However, it seems to not be the case, it seems like they prefer to spend their free time to doomscroll, or sit at home, and engage more in parasoci…
That’s one explanation. The other explanation is that young people feel powerless to change anything, and that they are hooked against their will on deliberately addictive ad delivery platforms.
The more alarming conclusion here happens to be backed by a lot of science, unfortunately, so it’s not easy to dismiss.
Re: Knitting bullshit
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the start of Good Omens, there’s a scene where demons are sharing their recent misdeeds. A couple of them are sharing “classic” demon stuff like killing and possessing, but Crowley (the protagonist demon) shares more modern evil deeds, such as creating traffic jams. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Omens I’d link to a clip of it, but to your point some devil is making it frustratingly hard to find.
It's been years, but I seem to recall that Crowley specifically is very proud about making sure some motorway project got botched, because the continual drip of suffering from the accumulated jams and road rage makes him look really good in the spreadsheets even though he's not much for the classical showy stuff. Millions of little instances of suffering adding up year on year, instead of a handful of incidents of re…
Yes, I think you’re right. And if I recall correctly, near the end he’s trying to get somewhere but gets stuck in traffic by the same problem he caused.