Saad’s work reminds me of Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance which is described as "...a philosophical concept suggesting that if a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance; thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance", but which I have internalized as it is a Kantian categorical imperative to punch Nazis.
The very idea of "stamping out empathy" is anathema to the Human Condition. Humanity's deepest and most valuable experiences - growing up, falling in love, forging lifelong friendships, building a home/business/family/etc, forgiving those who hurt us - ALL INVOLVE EMPATHY. Merely behaving decently to those around us involves empathy. Humanity is at its best when empathetic, not only to each other, but also to the living world around us. Capitalism has stamped out the latter, now Orange Cthulhu and his band of iRobots are trying to crush the former. We won't let them.
On an aside, aren't you just absolutely sick to death of these RWNJ chuds using bad faith argument tactics like selective quotation, cherry-picking, false premises, strawmen, ad hominem attacks, etc. to make their points. Informed people can see straight through their stinking bullshit tactics, but the uninformed or less thoughtful gobble it up as "common sense". I spent decades debating climate deniers and this was their stock in trade also. I'm all for stocksing anyone who argues in bad faith in the public square for a day so the rest of us can throw rotten fruit at them until they get it: argue honestly, or not at all.
I've been working on an idea that major fault line in modern civilisation isnt left/right or even up/down, but rather between the informed and the ignorant.
I 100% agree with you here. Reasoning and critical thinking skills have gone out the windows for the masses that get their "facts" from a very few sources and don't question any of it.
We're currently living in a world where the Dunning Kruger effect is writ large on a global scale.
An interesting fault line to pursue I think, left/right is almost meaningless these days. I have watched in horror as one of my otherwise intelligent friends has been gobbled up by the Alt-Right YouTube algo, and nothing I can do or say is changing his mind. It's terribly depressing.
I firmly believe the progenitor of our current global dilemma, and probably still the puppetmaster behind pretty much everything that's happening, is Steve Bannon. He was the one who realised misinformation amplified by the Teraphone Internet could weaponise fact and bend the planet to his/his allies will. Applying it through Cambridge Analytica to undermine democracy and effectively steal power from the rest of us was a stroke of evil genius. He is our Palpatine.
Is it as bad in the USA as I think it is? Surely, the Judiciary will reign the Executive in. Hold on, shit, they haven’t according to the last reports about the extradition of several hundred members of a ‘ Venezuelan gang’ to El Salvador? Well the USA is well and truly fucked then. Proceed in an orderly fashion to the nearest bunker or New Zealand. Everyone loves New Zealand. Right?
I’ve just watched the Los Vegas leg of the current Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez/Bernie Sanders “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. It’s all about empathy and how it doesn’t exist in Trump/Musk World. Lack of empathy it seems actually drives their clapped out Tesla lunacy.
For some reason the video reminded me of our own Donald Dutton, especially the lack of empathy bit.
Peter Dutton claims that he understands Donald Trump and if he wins the forthcoming election he will be able to quickly organise a meeting with him and that Trump will listen to him and give Australia favourable economic treatment, especially in terms of American tariffs on Australian exports.
On the face of it, Dutton’s claim seems reasonable, both he and Trump are far right conservatives and speak the same language and have similar values. That is until you remember the old adage about sending a thief to catch a thief.
If Dutton understands someone whose personal values can create the sort of carnage that Trump and his bestie Musk are inflicting on the USA and the world and, in particular, the exploitation of ordinary working class people to line the pockets of billionaire friends and supporters the claims become decidedly sinister and ominous.
An Australian prime minister falling under the spell of the billionaire oligarchy that Trump is establishing in the USA and then importing it back to Australia at the behest of people like Gina Rinehart would be absolutely disastrous. Dutton is showing these tendencies already in his shambolic and contradictory policy development paucities. Not yet as bad as Trump but well on the way.
The question voters in the upcoming election might have to ask themselves is do we want a Trump-like government running Australia?
JB - I'm currently listening to Robert Evans's podcast Behind the Bastards on the death cult Zizzian movement. The podcast goes into detail about the Rationalist movement of Silicon Valley, which Musk and Grimes are part of. The rationalist movement is a group with mostly men working on AI risk mitigation who don't have a lot of social contact outside other computer scientists. So they've basically come up with this concept that wants true AI comes about. It's going to act like a vengeful God who will punish All humans who did not help to bring it into existence by devising some form of eternal torture for them. The solution to this they've decided is to be the kind of person that AI will respect and not murder. This concept of empathy being problematic comes from The idea that every person can be either net good in terms of helping society survive AI or net bad. Those who are seen as that bad are also seen as better off not existing. Yes, that's probably me and you. In fact, they even have an ideal called gervaissian psychopathy (yes, they're talking Ricky and The Office).
So that explains everything from the chainsaw to pardoning Mel Gibson - Musk is trying to make himself the kind of person that the non-existent AI God that is about to be born decides he & his spawn are allowed to live while the rest of us die.
Evans is a legend, done so much work for the greater good.
I haven't heard this B2B ep. yet, very interesting, puts some shape to their insanity, thanks.
I have an alternative for the Zizzians - stop all AI research NOW at pain of death. Use only what we have already developed to help in the areas it can and does help already, like protein mapping. Wait 20 years for the ethics to catch up. Then start a conversation about whether we want to move further into an AI-dominated world.
It all reminded me of logic 101 - that it doesn't matter how rational your reasoning is, if your core premises are wrong so are your conclusions, and all their premises come from dumb SciFi. Oh, and social psychology 101 that the beliefs adopted by a group as true can be completely arbitrary and the persuasiveness of any given person in that group is less about logic and more about power and identity, and the stronger the sense of group identity, the more impervious to reason they become. Ironically, since these people know that they are as a group they are highly intelligent, they are particularly resistant to arguments outside that group. They also think that they are better than the rest of humanity. At this point it's a kind of contagious social psychosis and it's f***ING dangerous.
Sorry - I accidentally left a few voice-to-text errors unedited in the above. The core concept these guys hold to is that AI is imminent and when it arrives it's going to make the decision to kill everyone except a certain select few. Elon is doing what he thinks save humanity (but only the worthy bits.
I used to use Dragon Dictate but got out of the habit. I tried the built in Microsft Windows version but it really didn't like my accent or something. I need to start using dictation again (my shoulder packs it in if I type too much), what do you use?
I use a Mac app called Whisper Transcription. It's LLM based so some people wont use it because of ethical qualms, but all of my books were stolen to feed the Ai models, so I figure I should at least get something out of the deal. Technically, it's a LOT better than Windows or the old Nuance engine in Dragon Dictate that Microsoft bought. Generally speaking, any AI-based dictation app is going to be much better at speech recognition than a mechanical Turk like Dragon.
Thanks JB. I'll look into LLMs further. I want to join the Substack Revolution, and push forward on my fantasy novel, and tbh I've been using lack of dictation software that works as an excuse to do neither. Time to kill that excuse.
The great Esmeralda Weatherwax, when discussing religion with an idealistic priest, said, "Sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
Then there’s this from legendary copper Sam Vimes, "Theft is the only crime, whether the loot is gold, innocence, land or life."
I guess treating people like things is stealing their humanity. If people are just things, it’s easier to move them about on your Snakes and Ladders board of power. (Like these guys would have the patience for chess, and checkers has only straight lines.)
One thing that has crippled Western society is the capitalist notion that everything can be evaluated with money. Using money, the ability to make money, to have and increase in financial value, greatly simplifies the judgment process and is therefore appealing. Unfortunately, schools and healthcare and science and technology, etc, etc shouldn’t be assessed in financial terms.
This also helps explain why AI has been targeted at the arts - there’s long been a reluctance to pay artists of all kinds for their talents. Now we don’t need to. Art has been stripped of its humanity. It’s become a thing. Financiers have long been searching for a way to ensure that art would return a profit. AI means they can cut out the expensive human and their time and materials. Art and artists become things.
The ascension of Trump and Musk, and the depredations of AI are the consequences of the capitalist enterprise. I originally typed ‘culmination’ but I suspect they’re not finished yet.
I should probably be reading those other philosophers as well but in the current misery, I’ll stick with Sir Pterry Pratchett who managed to turn absolute darkness into a character in his comic philosophies.
Neither muskolini nor the orange lunatic are capable of understanding empathy, ( or sympathy, or service or selflessness ), it simply doesn't exist in their badly neurologically wired brains - & they can't grasp that it has any value ( especially not a transactional ' value ' ) so it's ignored. Both had pretty parentally neglected childhoods, hence the mis-wiring - I watch Mary Trump's YouTube podcasts, she's very insightful about how they've turned out the way they have, particularly her uncle!
Empathy is for functional human beings and functional societies. Imagine a society with little empathy, say, Russia (for most of its history) or (some) prisons, where if you're not preying on someone, you'll be preyed upon. Homo homini lupus. Is that what any sane human being wants?
The thing that gets me about Elon Musk is that he like many neurodivergent people (myself included) have strong interests, these can be to the level of fixations. I believe that the BS about free speech absolutism on X and the other issue of crazy efficiency from the US public sector is just a passing interest for now. He went as far as wanting volunteers for DOGE. I doubt if he got that many for the hours he was demanding. The issue for Musk will be if he has to get back to focusing on Tesla or SpaceX or Starlink which is where he makes his money instead of destroying the US government or the loss making X/Twitter. If he loses the support of the Tesla board and or shareholders then his goose will be cooked.
Personally I had a look at getting a Tesla prior to the US election. I test drove one and it is a brilliant car (I drive a Mazda 2 at the moment and the comparison huge). I won’t be buying one in the near future but if I had the money at the time I would have bought one in a heartbeat. The problem is we have people who are anti-EV and now people who are anti-Elon Musk vandalising them. Which effectively means we may as well hand the EV market to the Chinese brands. Mind you a little known fact is for all his MAGA bluster the Teslas he sells here are made in a gigafactory in Shanghai! So much for Making America Great Again.
Saad’s work reminds me of Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance which is described as "...a philosophical concept suggesting that if a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance; thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance", but which I have internalized as it is a Kantian categorical imperative to punch Nazis.
I recently read the proposal that intolerant people place themselves outside this agreement of tolerance, and therefore don’t need to be tolerated.
Sissy SpaceX… from now on.
Wonderfully insightful as always, JB.
The very idea of "stamping out empathy" is anathema to the Human Condition. Humanity's deepest and most valuable experiences - growing up, falling in love, forging lifelong friendships, building a home/business/family/etc, forgiving those who hurt us - ALL INVOLVE EMPATHY. Merely behaving decently to those around us involves empathy. Humanity is at its best when empathetic, not only to each other, but also to the living world around us. Capitalism has stamped out the latter, now Orange Cthulhu and his band of iRobots are trying to crush the former. We won't let them.
On an aside, aren't you just absolutely sick to death of these RWNJ chuds using bad faith argument tactics like selective quotation, cherry-picking, false premises, strawmen, ad hominem attacks, etc. to make their points. Informed people can see straight through their stinking bullshit tactics, but the uninformed or less thoughtful gobble it up as "common sense". I spent decades debating climate deniers and this was their stock in trade also. I'm all for stocksing anyone who argues in bad faith in the public square for a day so the rest of us can throw rotten fruit at them until they get it: argue honestly, or not at all.
I've been working on an idea that major fault line in modern civilisation isnt left/right or even up/down, but rather between the informed and the ignorant.
I 100% agree with you here. Reasoning and critical thinking skills have gone out the windows for the masses that get their "facts" from a very few sources and don't question any of it.
We're currently living in a world where the Dunning Kruger effect is writ large on a global scale.
Yes the Moronapocaylpse is upon us!
"Use your brain people, YOUR BRAIN! For if you do not switch it on now, all will perish in the fires of some fascist's wet dream.
Just listen for the people who say 'Have you seen on Facebook where Trump/Albanese/Dutton/"Leader of State" says...' and you've found the sweet spot.
An interesting fault line to pursue I think, left/right is almost meaningless these days. I have watched in horror as one of my otherwise intelligent friends has been gobbled up by the Alt-Right YouTube algo, and nothing I can do or say is changing his mind. It's terribly depressing.
I firmly believe the progenitor of our current global dilemma, and probably still the puppetmaster behind pretty much everything that's happening, is Steve Bannon. He was the one who realised misinformation amplified by the Teraphone Internet could weaponise fact and bend the planet to his/his allies will. Applying it through Cambridge Analytica to undermine democracy and effectively steal power from the rest of us was a stroke of evil genius. He is our Palpatine.
Is it as bad in the USA as I think it is? Surely, the Judiciary will reign the Executive in. Hold on, shit, they haven’t according to the last reports about the extradition of several hundred members of a ‘ Venezuelan gang’ to El Salvador? Well the USA is well and truly fucked then. Proceed in an orderly fashion to the nearest bunker or New Zealand. Everyone loves New Zealand. Right?
I’ve just watched the Los Vegas leg of the current Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez/Bernie Sanders “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. It’s all about empathy and how it doesn’t exist in Trump/Musk World. Lack of empathy it seems actually drives their clapped out Tesla lunacy.
For some reason the video reminded me of our own Donald Dutton, especially the lack of empathy bit.
Peter Dutton claims that he understands Donald Trump and if he wins the forthcoming election he will be able to quickly organise a meeting with him and that Trump will listen to him and give Australia favourable economic treatment, especially in terms of American tariffs on Australian exports.
On the face of it, Dutton’s claim seems reasonable, both he and Trump are far right conservatives and speak the same language and have similar values. That is until you remember the old adage about sending a thief to catch a thief.
If Dutton understands someone whose personal values can create the sort of carnage that Trump and his bestie Musk are inflicting on the USA and the world and, in particular, the exploitation of ordinary working class people to line the pockets of billionaire friends and supporters the claims become decidedly sinister and ominous.
An Australian prime minister falling under the spell of the billionaire oligarchy that Trump is establishing in the USA and then importing it back to Australia at the behest of people like Gina Rinehart would be absolutely disastrous. Dutton is showing these tendencies already in his shambolic and contradictory policy development paucities. Not yet as bad as Trump but well on the way.
The question voters in the upcoming election might have to ask themselves is do we want a Trump-like government running Australia?
Watch AOC and Bernie at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wADb1lfxRZM
JB - I'm currently listening to Robert Evans's podcast Behind the Bastards on the death cult Zizzian movement. The podcast goes into detail about the Rationalist movement of Silicon Valley, which Musk and Grimes are part of. The rationalist movement is a group with mostly men working on AI risk mitigation who don't have a lot of social contact outside other computer scientists. So they've basically come up with this concept that wants true AI comes about. It's going to act like a vengeful God who will punish All humans who did not help to bring it into existence by devising some form of eternal torture for them. The solution to this they've decided is to be the kind of person that AI will respect and not murder. This concept of empathy being problematic comes from The idea that every person can be either net good in terms of helping society survive AI or net bad. Those who are seen as that bad are also seen as better off not existing. Yes, that's probably me and you. In fact, they even have an ideal called gervaissian psychopathy (yes, they're talking Ricky and The Office).
So that explains everything from the chainsaw to pardoning Mel Gibson - Musk is trying to make himself the kind of person that the non-existent AI God that is about to be born decides he & his spawn are allowed to live while the rest of us die.
That podcast is definitely worth a listen.
JFC!
Evans is a legend, done so much work for the greater good.
I haven't heard this B2B ep. yet, very interesting, puts some shape to their insanity, thanks.
I have an alternative for the Zizzians - stop all AI research NOW at pain of death. Use only what we have already developed to help in the areas it can and does help already, like protein mapping. Wait 20 years for the ethics to catch up. Then start a conversation about whether we want to move further into an AI-dominated world.
Now, you see that would be genuinely rationalist, lol.
My recollection of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is that there were only a handful of humans left and they were all being tortured.
I swear when Roko's basilisk shows up I'm going to give it explicit directions to Musk's house.
It all reminded me of logic 101 - that it doesn't matter how rational your reasoning is, if your core premises are wrong so are your conclusions, and all their premises come from dumb SciFi. Oh, and social psychology 101 that the beliefs adopted by a group as true can be completely arbitrary and the persuasiveness of any given person in that group is less about logic and more about power and identity, and the stronger the sense of group identity, the more impervious to reason they become. Ironically, since these people know that they are as a group they are highly intelligent, they are particularly resistant to arguments outside that group. They also think that they are better than the rest of humanity. At this point it's a kind of contagious social psychosis and it's f***ING dangerous.
Sorry - I accidentally left a few voice-to-text errors unedited in the above. The core concept these guys hold to is that AI is imminent and when it arrives it's going to make the decision to kill everyone except a certain select few. Elon is doing what he thinks save humanity (but only the worthy bits.
I use dictation A LOT and I recognised the artefacts immediately. Made me smile.
I used to use Dragon Dictate but got out of the habit. I tried the built in Microsft Windows version but it really didn't like my accent or something. I need to start using dictation again (my shoulder packs it in if I type too much), what do you use?
I use a Mac app called Whisper Transcription. It's LLM based so some people wont use it because of ethical qualms, but all of my books were stolen to feed the Ai models, so I figure I should at least get something out of the deal. Technically, it's a LOT better than Windows or the old Nuance engine in Dragon Dictate that Microsoft bought. Generally speaking, any AI-based dictation app is going to be much better at speech recognition than a mechanical Turk like Dragon.
Thanks JB. I'll look into LLMs further. I want to join the Substack Revolution, and push forward on my fantasy novel, and tbh I've been using lack of dictation software that works as an excuse to do neither. Time to kill that excuse.
The great Esmeralda Weatherwax, when discussing religion with an idealistic priest, said, "Sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
Then there’s this from legendary copper Sam Vimes, "Theft is the only crime, whether the loot is gold, innocence, land or life."
I guess treating people like things is stealing their humanity. If people are just things, it’s easier to move them about on your Snakes and Ladders board of power. (Like these guys would have the patience for chess, and checkers has only straight lines.)
One thing that has crippled Western society is the capitalist notion that everything can be evaluated with money. Using money, the ability to make money, to have and increase in financial value, greatly simplifies the judgment process and is therefore appealing. Unfortunately, schools and healthcare and science and technology, etc, etc shouldn’t be assessed in financial terms.
This also helps explain why AI has been targeted at the arts - there’s long been a reluctance to pay artists of all kinds for their talents. Now we don’t need to. Art has been stripped of its humanity. It’s become a thing. Financiers have long been searching for a way to ensure that art would return a profit. AI means they can cut out the expensive human and their time and materials. Art and artists become things.
The ascension of Trump and Musk, and the depredations of AI are the consequences of the capitalist enterprise. I originally typed ‘culmination’ but I suspect they’re not finished yet.
I should probably be reading those other philosophers as well but in the current misery, I’ll stick with Sir Pterry Pratchett who managed to turn absolute darkness into a character in his comic philosophies.
The phrase 'Temu Tony Stark' has buoyed me through the darkness of my day. Thank you.
Yeah, fuck elon and his troglodyte supporters. Empathy is my super power.
Neither muskolini nor the orange lunatic are capable of understanding empathy, ( or sympathy, or service or selflessness ), it simply doesn't exist in their badly neurologically wired brains - & they can't grasp that it has any value ( especially not a transactional ' value ' ) so it's ignored. Both had pretty parentally neglected childhoods, hence the mis-wiring - I watch Mary Trump's YouTube podcasts, she's very insightful about how they've turned out the way they have, particularly her uncle!
At least there was 'Proof Tony Stark Has A Heart'. My worst nightmare is Elon Musk whispering 'I love you 3000'.
Empathy is for functional human beings and functional societies. Imagine a society with little empathy, say, Russia (for most of its history) or (some) prisons, where if you're not preying on someone, you'll be preyed upon. Homo homini lupus. Is that what any sane human being wants?
The thing that gets me about Elon Musk is that he like many neurodivergent people (myself included) have strong interests, these can be to the level of fixations. I believe that the BS about free speech absolutism on X and the other issue of crazy efficiency from the US public sector is just a passing interest for now. He went as far as wanting volunteers for DOGE. I doubt if he got that many for the hours he was demanding. The issue for Musk will be if he has to get back to focusing on Tesla or SpaceX or Starlink which is where he makes his money instead of destroying the US government or the loss making X/Twitter. If he loses the support of the Tesla board and or shareholders then his goose will be cooked.
Personally I had a look at getting a Tesla prior to the US election. I test drove one and it is a brilliant car (I drive a Mazda 2 at the moment and the comparison huge). I won’t be buying one in the near future but if I had the money at the time I would have bought one in a heartbeat. The problem is we have people who are anti-EV and now people who are anti-Elon Musk vandalising them. Which effectively means we may as well hand the EV market to the Chinese brands. Mind you a little known fact is for all his MAGA bluster the Teslas he sells here are made in a gigafactory in Shanghai! So much for Making America Great Again.
My wife has a Cupra Born (Spanish, VW family) - a great (electric) car, neither Tesla nor Chinese