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Magnifica Humanitas

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Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#761

Post by switchbak »

atq2119 wrote: post #548
switchbak wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Individuals were absolutely getting dehumanized ... since then are becoming ever increasingly more so" - do you mind backing this up? I and everyone I know has it a whole lot easier than a couple generations prior. I don't know a single person working the fields, doing dangerous work in a factory, working a coal mine, etc. Of course, I am fortunate enough to be in this position. Power is continuing to squeeze people…

You may be talking past each other. You're talking mostly about quality of life. That is different from being (de)humanized. Dehumanizing is treating other humans as not, or not fully, human. For example, the term "human resources" is dehumanizing because it puts humans on the same level as other resources. If you're treating humans like you'd treat, I don't know, lithium or the ocean, you're dehumanizing them. The m…

Agreed - treating humans as "human resources" is dehumanizing. And the most extreme is treating them as resources to be exhausted and discarded. That is exactly how coal miners or even laundry washers were treated in the past. You literally worked yourself into an early grave. That's a fate far worse than some HR lady treating you like a number - at least you're still alive.

Fundamentally it's up to you to find people that respect you (employers, friends, partners), and to find reward and meaning in your life. BigCorp is always going to treat you like disposable shit, and that's nothing new.

I think the quality of life would depend a lot on where you lived. Working a farm? Hard but rewarding (I presume). Nobility? Probably very nice. Working a dangerous machine in a sweaty factory? Probably pretty shitty - as evidenced by the fact that many people fought and died to improve their working conditions.

Certainly tech seems to be on a mission to try to ruin people's lives, addicting them and stealing their attention and drive. This is true, but also pretty easy to avoid once to see the game.

I'm saying that we ought to try to keep a sense of perspective here. Yes, you may be treated as an automaton or a number on a spreadsheet. But on average, you are probably in a much better position than most people through the last few hundred years.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#762

Post by bbor »

losvedir wrote: post #588
bbor wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) Well, it's you vs. the Pope and I! B) Fine, drop communism altogether -- it's evil and disgusting and bit my finger and should never be tried again. Can we work on a society where the means of production are owned by groups of laborers?

> Can we work on a society where the means of production are owned by groups of laborers? I have good news for you. As someone in my job's ESPP plan and with a 401k, it already is!

I… ok. I can see that I engaged with a conversation that inevitably invites common political disagreements — apologies!

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#763

Post by glkindlmann »

andrepd wrote: post #722

Not about AI, here is an interesting point > 176. In the development of her doctrine, the Church has gradually come to a deeper awareness of the gravity of these issues. It is true that past events cannot be judged anachronistically, as though the moral criteria that matured over time had always been available. Yet neither can we deny or diminish the delay with which both society and the Church came to denounce the s…

Thanks for highlighting this. I've seen a lot of popular press about Magnifica Humanitas that notes the slavery apology. It does make some sense with this (recent, as you note) humanist push, but shoe-horning a centuries-overdue apology about actual terrible slavery into a consideration of how AI might metaphorically enslave us feels a little weird.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#764

Post by girvo »

Aeolun wrote: post #756
girvo wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a whole thing. The priest at my high school was way into Tolkien and, more interestingly to me as a teenager: the Wolfenstein series of games!

The priest at your high school? This is a set of words I’ve never heard in the same sentence. Where was this? If you don’t mind me asking.

Australia! Catholic high school, though in practice amusingly secular

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#765

Post by threethirtytwo »

riccardomc wrote: post #670
threethirtytwo wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is just additional validations upon a stated fact that a jury and a judge is still a black box. Your retort is factual but illogical because it does not invalidate my point. All humans are black boxes and the black box argument is completely invalid just like your statement. In fact your statement illustrates the downfall of human intuition. You could not logically invalidate my point so you descended i…

Judges and juries are expressions of society and accountable to it. They're not a black box. Late-stage capitalist tech products left unchecked exploit human problems for profit. If you cannot see the difference and the flaw in your argument I am afraid you're too far gone.

Unless you can read minds they are a black box. They are only expressions of society because the inputs and outputs into these people are from society and similar to society. But the same can be said of LLMs. Your reasoning is irrational.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#766

Post by bhinml »

irdc wrote: post #533
ricardobeat wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure, another source then: https://www.vox.com/2015/2/20/8078979/pope-francis-trans-rig... I just cannot reconcile the idea of personhood being valuable with reducing humans to mere biology.

> In January, Francis said teaching the gender theory in developing countries is “ideological colonization” by wealthier nations.

Sounds about right to be honest. The claim that being a woman or a man is merely a matter of self-declaration is indeed an ideological view that arose from the western world.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#767

Post by Terr_ »

qsort wrote: post #36
jfengel wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of Western thought traces back to serious work by Church theologians. Even atheists are strongly influenced by the patterns they set down. The Catholic Church, for all its many faults, retains a serious intellectual tradition. (In fact I think atheists should make more effort to learn about the vast diversity of other faiths. It's very narrow to be atheist only about the Abrahamic deity. You end up incorporating…

> Much of Western thought traces back to serious work by Church theologians. The problem I have with this is that it's structurally a motte-and-bailey claim. If I have to take it literally, then it's obviously true and it's simply unserious to deny it: the Church does have a pervasive influence on Western civilization. The way it's often rhetorically used, however, is in opposition and to the exclusion of other stran…

> The way it's often rhetorically used

Survivorship bias is another issue. Rich past fields of disagreement and mistakes can be hidden behind the currently accepted outcome.

For example, imagine someone said: "Science™ has explained fire, you rely on that, therefore you should also respect this paper asserting X." But how can we be confident that X isn't more phlogiston of the current era? Is the arguer trying to improperly leech off of a past success?

Similarly, our status quo civilization is also defined by religious ideas that are rejected. For example, the idea that a god could/should order you to genocide all the Canaanites is not very popular right now.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#768

Post by jimmy76615 »

netcan wrote: post #325

It's kind of worth reading. Not to learn about AI. But... it is an interesting/historic intersection of religion and technology. Side note: (a) This new pope is very good at "political rhetoric" and (dare I say) polemic. He's a lot more relevant than recent popes. (b) There seems to have been a vibe shift, re: secular sentiments towards religion. There is potentially a lot happening at this intersection... say cathol…

> re: secular sentiments towards religion I'm not sure if we are talking about the same phenomenon here, but I have certainly seen indications of something I would describe in similar words. I have heard a lot of people recently think along the lines of appreciation for religion without really believing it. People that are skeptical whether Noah's ark ever really happened but that still think that the story is metaphorically wise enough to be counted as true in some sense.

Maybe it is just that I am getting older and wiser and projecting my own spiritual development on the people around me, but I think this general view towards religion seems to be gaining a lot of traction.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#769

Post by VanTheBrand »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #650

I'm curious if there has ever been an instance where people have been able to "tame" a technology to consider a broader, societal good, or if we've always just been at the whims of how any particular tech naturally concentrates or dissipates power. For example, if you look at the boom of the middle classes in the mid 20th century, this appears to me largely a consequence of the fact that industrial technology at the…

As mentioned in this very encyclical, nuclear proliferation. (though we seem to be backsliding on this one...)

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#770

Post by michaelsbradley »

michaelsbradley wrote: post #372
sometimelurker wrote: post #332

the guys name is Leo because the pope who was around for the industrial revolution was named Leo. I think he also has a math PhD but I could be wrong. he's 100% paying attention

It’s a Master’s not a PhD, but in math, yes.

For the record, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in math, not a Master’s or a PhD. I had looked that up previously, so knew it wasn’t a PhD, but recalled incorrectly when making my comment earlier today.
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