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Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

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Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#161

Post by erelong »

tptacek wrote: post #123
erelong wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Second Vatican Council movement has had "popes" that seem to directly attack previous Catholic teaching; I expect this will resolve to the council being rejected as a false council like the "robber council" of Second Council of Ephesus, as well as the papal claimants being declared invalid or "not popes" since that time. The analogy would be like if, since the world cup of soccer is going on, FIFA had a meeting a…

I think the thing here is that if you're simply declaring yourself to be in a different religion than Popes Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, and Leo XIV, there's not much to be gained arguing with them. Like, a Zaidi Shia Muslim would also disagree with Vatican II. There's nothing wrong with that. They're just, you know, in a different religion.

Right, so that's initially how I thought this would resolve itself: sedevacantists elect a pope for themselves and just have a separate religion and let the Vatican be (see "conclavism")

Except it doesn't seem to have happened like that and seems to be more in character in my view like the Western Schism, where there was confusion about who the pope was or if there was a pope for 40 years (except this time it's longer and there is added confusion with a false council and false teachings that appear to come straight from the "pope")

Hence I argue since a lot of people seem to think these teachings came "from the Church", there is "legitimate confusion" and more of something where the Vatican will have to be straightened out as reverting to previous norms in order for things to move forward.

It's possible it could resolve in this direction though of just separation (but, from "our" view, all the Catholic churches are practically possessed by a false movement; not unlike the East-West Schism though where half the churches went in a non-Catholic direction)

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#162

Post by erelong »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #141
erelong wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Second Vatican Council movement has had "popes" that seem to directly attack previous Catholic teaching; I expect this will resolve to the council being rejected as a false council like the "robber council" of Second Council of Ephesus, as well as the papal claimants being declared invalid or "not popes" since that time. The analogy would be like if, since the world cup of soccer is going on, FIFA had a meeting a…

Considering the Catholic Church also teaches that ecumenical councils are infallible, if you propose that Vatican II taught error, then you must also reject a church doctrine which predates that council.

Here's the train of thought:

ecumenical councils where a pope presides with bishops are infallible (something of what you are saying);

Vatican 2 appears to be such a council but also taught error contrary to teachings of infallibility (seemingly impossible);

The only proposition we can think of as to how Catholicism can be consistent without falling in to contraction with the above facts then, would be to conclude that such a "pope" that taught error could not have been a pope in the first place, but was an heretic who then taught those heresies in a false council

(There are some other arguments about popes who can fall in to error or heresy but they are more speculative)

Thus the OP document about AI we wouldn't expect to be reliable from a Catholic standpoint and it goes out of its way to make all kinds of statements not related to AI which we are also critiquing here in this comment chain

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#163

Post by tptacek »

erelong wrote: post #161
tptacek wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the thing here is that if you're simply declaring yourself to be in a different religion than Popes Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, and Leo XIV, there's not much to be gained arguing with them. Like, a Zaidi Shia Muslim would also disagree with Vatican II. There's nothing wrong with that. They're just, you know, in a different religion.

Right, so that's initially how I thought this would resolve itself: sedevacantists elect a pope for themselves and just have a separate religion and let the Vatican be (see "conclavism") Except it doesn't seem to have happened like that and seems to be more in character in my view like the Western Schism, where there was confusion about who the pope was or if there was a pope for 40 years (except this time it's longe…

I'd just say that none of this has much to do with "Catholicism" in the sense that the overwhelming majority of people worldwide mean when they use the term. It's not jarring or problematic or controversial to believe in some adjacent but incompatible Catholic-like religion; at this point we're literally just discussing names.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#164

Post by erelong »

thewebguyd wrote: post #125
erelong wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Second Vatican Council movement has had "popes" that seem to directly attack previous Catholic teaching; I expect this will resolve to the council being rejected as a false council like the "robber council" of Second Council of Ephesus, as well as the papal claimants being declared invalid or "not popes" since that time. The analogy would be like if, since the world cup of soccer is going on, FIFA had a meeting a…

GS 36 is just reaffirming Aquinas and his doctrine of primary and secondary causality. Primary cause being God is the source of all being and sustains everything, secondary cause being that God created a universe where created things have real, intrinsic causal powers. A fire burns because it has the natural property to, not because God is directly performing an action to burn the wood. "enjoy their own laws and valu…

Here's the issue: the documents are deliberately vague, so for many years it's been said they can be read "through the light of Tradition" to mean things like you say which sound "traditional".

However, the documents themselves do not speak clearly in a traditional way, but must be evaluated as "objectively ambiguous".

Consider some teaching could be of three options: clearly Catholic, ambiguous, or clearly non-Catholic; what category are we to put ambiguous statements in, if we collapse this to either "clearly Catholic" or "clearly not Catholic"?

It seems they must be considered as "clearly non-Catholic" then, since they cannot be in the category of "clearly Catholic". Or else ambiguous teachings would have to be considered to be equivalent to clearly Catholic teachings, which makes no sense.

It's kind of like "pass / fail" in school: do we "pass" the ambiguous teachings, or "fail" them? They seem to "fail" when considered rigorously: if we ask - Catholic or not? They are judged as "Not Catholic".

Can even someone claiming to be a pope make something ambiguous into a Catholic statement? It doesn't seem that's possible. Hence, the Vatican 2 statements, being "objectively ambiguous", are judged as "clearly Not Catholic", logically implying a pope could not have taught them.

(This is something of the reasoning process I propose when trying to evaluate these ambiguous statements which defy simple binary categorization; it is an ongoing effort of "research and dialogue")

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#165

Post by madars »

huhkerrf wrote: post #120
KPGv2 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always feel like this take is exclusively made by New Yorkers. I never had a problem with taxies in Texas. I had to schedule a pickup time, yes, but they always showed up, the taxis were clean, they were fast, they were helpful, and they were kind. Like that whole "medallion" thing and taxi driver retirement livelihoods being destroyed because their medallion became worthless. Gotta be like five cities that use the…

I've taken plenty of taxis in both NYC and Texas, and pre-Uber they were terrible in both. Calling a taxi in Austin meant a 50% chance that it would get there on time, or you'd wait 30 minutes. Calling back didn't help, you would just get the dispatcher saying, "Well, I guess it's not coming then, huh?"

Similar experiences in Boston area. Hailing a taxi at a taxi stand (e.g., at Prudential or Logan) - good experience to this day. Calling dispatcher - half of the time they don't show up (esp. so for scheduled airport rides) or show up late or arrive in a smoke-filled car. Hackney carriage medallions might have been bad investments for some cabbies, but Uber/Lyft are simply a much better service for the customer. Uber/Lyft takeover had little to do with price (though, yes, they were cheaper) and everything to do with reliability and overall quality of service.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#166

Post by Forgeties79 »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #89
mike_hearn wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Pope is pleading for multilateralism and responsible regulation of technology. According to the Economist at least, he doesn't seem to know what he wants. The encyclical sounds like a grabbag of every progressive meme and worry out there, whether they contradict each other or not. You can't have both multilateralism and AI regulation (however that's defined). If you have genuine multilateralism then there will…

Describing the pope’s proposals as progressive and anti-money laundering laws as the antichrist… this is like a parody of the most blinders-on kind of libertarianism. For those of you playing at home, you can definitely have multi-lateral agreements without creating a one world government. We’ve had a chemical weapons ban for decades over which many of the multi-lateral parties were in hot and cold wars with each oth…

Anytime the pope comes up on HN it’s always a really quick way to find out who is very happy to step away too far out on a limb as they discuss subjects they know very little about (to be clear not talking about you)

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#167

Post by [deleted] »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #139
steveBK123 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracies don’t necessarily pick the best leaders but they give a veto to the people such that the worst leaders don’t last long. A technocracy can build high speed rail in a decade but it can also institute multi decade one child policy, multi year zero-covid, barricade people into their own homes and ban entire industries at the whim of a single leader. There is less course correction.

Worst leaders don’t last long? Boy I wish that were true.

[deleted]

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#168

Post by maxerickson »

esafak wrote: post #157
maxerickson wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you own a well and sell the clean water. I learn that boiling the stream water makes it safe and tell people about it. What do I owe you? Uber and AI are certainly more complicated than that, but you are pretty close to arguing that the constructed rights of some people inhibit the rights of other people.

How does that analogy apply to AI, where a handful of companies are attempting to replace the entire white collar market with computers? It fits neither qualitatively, nor quantitatively.

If somebody thinks the computer can make a better PowerPoint, what business is it of yours to stop them from using the computer to make a PowerPoint?

There's a big political problem to solve, but it's how to give most people decent material standards of living if computers are doing all the work, not how to freeze things in place so that people can keep doing tasks that (assuming success) the computer is better at.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#169

Post by wizzwizz4 »

jubilanti wrote: post #105
knollimar wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, the question seemed like one of those low effort "have you thought about just not building buildings, hmmmmm?" that requires more effort to address than it took to ask. That "combatative-without-seeming-combatitive-for-the-purpose-of-seeming-like-the-good-faith-one" hackernews pretend good faith socratic argument is what it read to me. Apologize if it wasn't the angle you were going for. If the stated goal is…

Both of you are being insufferable.

Have you read the Socratic dialogues? They are also insufferable.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#170

Post by esafak »

maxerickson wrote: post #168
esafak wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that analogy apply to AI, where a handful of companies are attempting to replace the entire white collar market with computers? It fits neither qualitatively, nor quantitatively.

If somebody thinks the computer can make a better PowerPoint, what business is it of yours to stop them from using the computer to make a PowerPoint? There's a big political problem to solve, but it's how to give most people decent material standards of living if computers are doing all the work, not how to freeze things in place so that people can keep doing tasks that (assuming success) the computer is better at.

Again, this analogy makes no sense. People use PowerPoint, they don't get replaced by it.

The goal of AI companies is to replace workers entirely; that is the only way their valuations make sense, and OpenAI's charter says this explicitly.

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