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Magnifica Humanitas

vatican.va

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Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#511

Post by Manuel_D »

vintagedave wrote: post #10

> a uniformity that eliminated diversity and that chose homogenization over communion Unrelated to AI, but a wonderful support of the breadth of humanity in this anti-DEI time. > We must, then, avoid the “Babel syndrome,” namely the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including…

Opposition to DEI is not opposition to diversity so much as it is opposition to discrimination. More than just discrimination, DEI often came in the form of a particularly dishonest and two faced approach to it. Unlike affirmative action - which in my experience tends to acknowledge that sometimes justice requires a measured and deliberate exception to equality - DEI often tried to simultaneously condemn the idea that we were discriminating in favor of certain groups, while also effecting policies that were overtly discriminatory.

If I told my executives I would dock their pay if they exceeded a cap of X% men in their org, would that be discrimination? I doubt many would contest that issuing explicit penalties for breaking a cap on a particular gender. Ah, but what if I gave executives a bonus for reaching an "inclusion milestone" of (100-X)% women? That's not discrimination - that's DEI. Microsoft [1] and Intel [2] both instituted this policy.

My own past employers extended this logic to headcount. In 2019 we instituted a policy of reserving EDP (engineering, product, & design) headcount for "diverse" candidates. What does does "diverse" mean? It means women of any race, as well as Black and Latino men - though in practice >95% of "diverse" candidates were white and Asian women. Each quarter, 20 heads were reserved for hiring "diverse" candidates, and when managers hired from this reserved pool it did not count towards their allocated headcount. You see, if I have a headcount of 100 and I exclude men from applying to 20 of those, then that's discrimination. But if I have a headcount of 80 and we allocate 20 additional headcount that's exclusively available to women, that's not discrimination that's DEI.

This is why, as contradictory as it may sound, I do consider myself supportive of affirmative action, but opposed to DEI. Certainly there are some groups that implement DEI in a transparent and honest manner, but my read is that DEI tends to be done in a two-faced manner while "affirmative action" carries the connotation of being upfront that sometimes equality needs to be honored in the breach to ameliorate the unequal circumstances of reality.

1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-17/microsoft...

2. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-...

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#512

Post by moogly »

dbalatero wrote: post #356
tom2026hn wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worry that companies like Anthropic, which are moving toward RSI, may prioritize speed over the timely identification of irreversible risks.

Did you mean AGI? I'd think whatever else they are doing, LLMs are reducing RSI...

Maybe. I am not convinced I type fewer keystrokes being a Markdown Monkey compared to writing code largely via autocomplete. Fewer Tab keystrokes, for sure.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#513

Post by ricardobeat »

irdc wrote: post #493
bombcar wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “mystery of the person” is a common theme in Catholicism - it can be seen in other (especially the “social”) encyclicals. Rerum Novarum by the current pope’s namesake is worth a study.

Not a Roman Catholic but I am occasionally interested in what the Church has to say on ethical matters. What does the Church understand by "mystery of the person", and how does it relate to the assertion by the Church that, for example, gender (one aspect of the human subjective experience) can be understood purely in terms of biology?[0] 0. https://www.catholic.com/qa/the-churchs-position-on-transgen...

I don’t think you can take any writing by american TV priests as gospel

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#514

Post by smitty1110 »

irdc wrote: post #493
bombcar wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “mystery of the person” is a common theme in Catholicism - it can be seen in other (especially the “social”) encyclicals. Rerum Novarum by the current pope’s namesake is worth a study.

Not a Roman Catholic but I am occasionally interested in what the Church has to say on ethical matters. What does the Church understand by "mystery of the person", and how does it relate to the assertion by the Church that, for example, gender (one aspect of the human subjective experience) can be understood purely in terms of biology?[0] 0. https://www.catholic.com/qa/the-churchs-position-on-transgen...

[dead]

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#515

Post by whatshisface »

9087653545 wrote: post #438
tete wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really rather unfortunate. I wished religious people took their stuff seriously and not so often end up concluding that the bible wants them to harm people or something. I guess it must be the same that make people think they must deliver freedom in form of bombs all the time.

"Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!" "Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known a man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves." "...And there is also with you Shimei the son of Gera... He came down to meet me at the Jordan, and I swore to him by the Lord,…

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain."

"Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him. And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus and took him. And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me."

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#516

Post by lstodd »

plotti wrote: post #487

The answer is sortition a.k.a. democracy by lot. From my subjective understanding it is The only institutional democracy variant that puts a firewall between money and power.

You can't have money without it being power. So no, you can't have a firewall between them.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#517

Post by ngcazz »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #272
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #127

This quote is from 1903. Times haven't changed that much: > Not a handful of rich people, but all the working people must enjoy the fruits of their common labour. Machines and other improvements must serve to ease the work of all and not to enable a few to grow rich at the expense of millions and tens of millions of people.

The truly interesting question, and the crux of the matter, also hasn't changed much since 1903: How?

Revolution!

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#518

Post by rmb173rd »

komali2 wrote: post #277
adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to somehow separate the horrible evils that have been inflicted on the world by Communism before you can get people to consider words closely associated with it. Being anti-communism is good not only for the individual's health but for their society as a whole.

What specific horrible evils do you mean? And how do you attribute them to, specifically, organizing an economy along communistic lines? I ask because if we can take a country with a communist economy, or striving for one, and blame all its evils on communism itself, I have a few things I'd like to point out as being the horrors of capitalism: 1. Atlantic slave trade - millions dead (many on the ships), millions ensl…

This is important and rarely discussed. I'd add that there's a larger pattern tying these cases together, one that also speaks to some of the Encyclical's broader points: whether it's the Politburo of the USSR, the Court of Directors of the East India Company, or the Board of the United Fruit Company, historical atrocities in any age, society, or economic system almost always occur in the context of enormous power concentrated in few hands. It isn't capitalism or communism but the absence of accountability.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#519

Post by BloondAndDoom »

jdw64 wrote: post #248

>“technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate, and use it,” If critical decisions affecting human life—such as hiring, lending, crime prediction, and welfare—are processed in an opaque black box, people will lose their fundamental right to explain their context or appeal against the machine's algorithmic verdicts

I feel much much smaller version of it already happened. Many many customer facing processes in companies (from customer support to lost & found departments) almost all automated to a point if you are outside of the norm you are screwed. Time you are going to spent is higher than the value you are going to get most of the time.

For the very same reason these companies are very anti-diversity. Because everything designed for a majority of you are minority in terms of your style of living (which many minorities are) then you are going to struggle, happens to me all the time, and one of the reasons I actually moved out of the US to country that I feel more included).

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#520

Post by coffeefirst »

sirnicolaz wrote: post #396
speak_plainly wrote: post #230

I know lots of people are excited because an ancient institution has something to say about AI.... But what's said is not really novel or even interesting. The letter aims to maintain the status quo of the project of the Church. The world is shifting under the Vatican's feet and the crappy system they once lorded over is done. It's time for change, maybe people don't need to work anymore and maybe people should aim t…

"people should aim to reengineer humanity and eliminate illness, old age, suffering and vulnerability" sure, that's exactly where AI is headed. also: just imagine a world where people don't age. just imagine it for a second.

Like this? https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-postmortal-a-novel-drew-mag...

(I highly recommend the book. I do not recommend the world it imagines.)

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