Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

People Staring at Computers (2021)

kylemcdonald.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 130 posts

Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)

#111

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

ewzimm wrote: post #97
P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you get upset when people say "evolution does X"? It's the same thing, it doesn't really matter if the process is clean or tumultuous, it's a reasonable heuristic to understand the status quo.

I'm not upset in either case, but that's another good example of the problems in attributing personified intelligence to an abstraction. Especially in the early days, people tended to substitute "God" with "evolution" and shoehorn evolutionary processes into areas where they didn't apply because they used to attribute them to God. This still happens! Sometimes, it's just "the universe." This was usually based on the…

Who said anything about personified intelligence?

"X does Y" implies nothing of the sort.

If I say "The River Flows" am I arguing that the river is intelligent?

No, absolutely not, you've setup a strawman from the very beginning.

"The police are only there for ... " does not imply there's some overlord with a power point document with a bullet point outlining what the police are there for.

Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)

#112

Post by nescioquid »

Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #108
nescioquid wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put another way, society and culture are things that are essentially imaginary. They take place in the mind, and I doubt society or culture could organize itself without some shared imaginary space strewn with personifications and myths. Take that away and society and culture become impossible. Your unease is more warranted for things like evolution, which does not depend on a shared imaginary space.

>Put another way, society and culture are things that are essentially imaginary. Where did you get that from GP's post? They're simplying saying not to anthropomorphise societal systems.

I meant that the qualms he was enumerating could simply be restated this way, and my only addition here is that these societal/cultural things all are essentially imaginary (and depend on anthropomorphism and metaphor), unlike something like evolution. Apologies for my phrasing.

Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)

#113

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

antihero wrote: post #110
Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will you do if I rob you? Who will you report this to? What stops me from burglary? Also, city guards have existed in Europe and China since before tge US existed. They didn't use the word "police" obviously. I wish "cops = nazis" people would explain what they would have instead.

The idea that you can’t criticise the failings and nature of something you also use are so tiring. Crime happens for so many reasons, some of which force maybe required to stop or hold people accountable, and many of the reasons are endemic to the system we live in. Other things could be prevented by provisioning elsewhere.

When did I say you can’t criticise the failings and nature of something? I stated that your assertion was wrong, and asked questions that need answering by "defund the police" people. You never explicitly stated you want to dedund the police, but this is the argument those people make for it's removal. I read an article in the magazine of a major newspaper that said to remove prison and the police entirely, and this was before Floyd. I never said you support this position, and I never gave you any instruction. I asked you relevant questions and examined your statement.

You didn't respond to any of it

Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)

#114

Post by [deleted] »

whycombinetor wrote: post #37

Dunno how the hell one would not expect this to be be highly illegal. The guy literally wrote a software tool that covertly sends images from an unsuspecting device's camera to his personal servers, and installed+activated it on target machines belonging to the US's 3rd largest company by market cap in 2010 (now 1st largest). I get that in the pre-Snowden world, it felt like you were building a cutesy proof-of-concep…

[deleted]

Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)

#115

Post by mixmastamyk »

mjburgess wrote: post #57
mixmastamyk wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you have it all figured out, including motivations not expressed in the piece.

Of course they're not expressed. I did however go and read articles from 2011, which give a clear account consistent with my interpretation.

Your descriptions of a mustache-twirling villain are overstated to say the least.

Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)

#116

Post by stavros »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #20
FoomFries wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you have a case where the officer will try and use what you said against you. So, even if it wasn’t knowingly in truth, in practice it will be up to you to defend that truth. Whereas silence saves you the hassle.

In practice, good-faith and respectful interactions with law enforcement have a positive outcome.

Good faith and respect in interactions with law enforcement only seems to go one way, though.

Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)

#117

Post by grecy »

Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #107
antihero wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is literal truth that the first police in the US were slave hunters and the first police station in the world was to protect from theft at the Wapping docks

What will you do if I rob you? Who will you report this to? What stops me from burglary? Also, city guards have existed in Europe and China since before tge US existed. They didn't use the word "police" obviously. I wish "cops = nazis" people would explain what they would have instead.

> What will you do if I rob you? Who will you report this to? What stops me from burglary?

In yesterday’s discussion about getting mugged in San Fran, virtually every comment said “the police did not help”.

Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)

#118

Post by ewzimm »

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #111
ewzimm wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not upset in either case, but that's another good example of the problems in attributing personified intelligence to an abstraction. Especially in the early days, people tended to substitute "God" with "evolution" and shoehorn evolutionary processes into areas where they didn't apply because they used to attribute them to God. This still happens! Sometimes, it's just "the universe." This was usually based on the…

Who said anything about personified intelligence? "X does Y" implies nothing of the sort. If I say "The River Flows" am I arguing that the river is intelligent? No, absolutely not, you've setup a strawman from the very beginning. "The police are only there for ... " does not imply there's some overlord with a power point document with a bullet point outlining what the police are there for.

I’m talking about how the framing makes people think and how we can drift toward abstraction over reality. When we talk about the police or the state being created to do something, we’re implying that the intention involved in its creation might be the most important thing about it. At least it still expresses the will of it’s creator. For something involving as many people as police or states, I think this undervalues the importance of individual intentions over abstract insitutional goals.

For specific examples here like, “the police are not there to help you, only the rich,” you can easily find counterexamples, but let’s be a little more generous and imagine it means that the individual intentions of officers are negated by something else. That something else is more likely to be the interests of real living people and not abstract institutional purposes for which the police were created. The institution might provide them an opportunity to pursue their goals because of the power it presents, but any misalignment of goals with public interest is because of the intentions of people in the system, not the will of the system itself.

Maybe that seems too obvious, but I think it’s established that people tend to anthropomorphize things, and when we talk about the will of the police or the state or a corporation, it’s easy to slip into thinking of an abstract entity as a person with thoughts and desires, which only hides the problem.

Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)

#119

Post by ewzimm »

nescioquid wrote: post #112
Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Put another way, society and culture are things that are essentially imaginary. Where did you get that from GP's post? They're simplying saying not to anthropomorphise societal systems.

I meant that the qualms he was enumerating could simply be restated this way, and my only addition here is that these societal/cultural things all are essentially imaginary (and depend on anthropomorphism and metaphor), unlike something like evolution. Apologies for my phrasing.

I like this explanation, but I might say abstractions are mutually translatable in a society. People having similar ideas is convenient but not necessary. I could imagine a society where everyone thought differently but used AI as a universal translator to make their ideas and personalities compatible.

Maybe you wouldn’t consider it a real society if they depended on machine translation, but we’re partially there already. It would still be a collection of minds with their own identities and intentions coordinating through an abstraction.

Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)

#120

Post by ewzimm »

nescioquid wrote: post #104
ewzimm wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not upset in either case, but that's another good example of the problems in attributing personified intelligence to an abstraction. Especially in the early days, people tended to substitute "God" with "evolution" and shoehorn evolutionary processes into areas where they didn't apply because they used to attribute them to God. This still happens! Sometimes, it's just "the universe." This was usually based on the…

Put another way, society and culture are things that are essentially imaginary. They take place in the mind, and I doubt society or culture could organize itself without some shared imaginary space strewn with personifications and myths. Take that away and society and culture become impossible. Your unease is more warranted for things like evolution, which does not depend on a shared imaginary space.

Evolution depends on multiple minds coordinating. A virus’ fate will be decided by thinking people eventually. It’s not fair to talk about something as broad as evolution if you only focus on the early period where determinism is easy to represent with math. The process involves intentions as much as anything.
Post reply on HN