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[Lērisama]

Occam’s razor: The simplest explanation that accounts for all observed facts is the best.
Occam’s hair transplant: The conspiracy theorist is right.

Occam's shave: the simplest explanation is right, even if it doesn't quite account for all the facts.

[Man in Space]

Occam’s razor: The simplest explanation that accounts for all observed facts is the best.
Occam’s hair transplant: The conspiracy theorist is right.

Occam's shave: the simplest explanation is right, even if it doesn't quite account for all the facts.

Occam’s perm: There, that was just a happy accident. And hey, look what we did with it. We’ll put in some trees here, give the ol’ barn some company.

[alice]

Occam's shaving cream: go on, do your best

[Ahzoh]

The vet thinks my cat might have cancer.

[Raphael]

The vet thinks my cat might have cancer.

Best wishes.

[Travis B.]

The vet thinks my cat might have cancer.

Sorry to hear!

[Ahzoh]

The vet thinks my cat might have cancer.

Best wishes.

Idk, I feel like my cat isn't long for this world. It depends on if it's aggressive or not. We'll have to see what the vet says when they finished analyzing.

[Raphael]

Another installment of "Things I would post in the AI Thread if the AI Thread hadn't been closed", there's this recent blog post by David Schraub, which I bring up here mainly for the one comment that it has as I write this, the one by Alex I.

https://dsadevil.blogspot.com/2025/10/a ... erall.html


TL:DR, using AI might well work for a while, as long as you're lucky, and as long as you're lucky, you might well be better off than people who don't use AI because they're afraid of getting unlucky.

[Starbeam]

Or you could not use the energy clog labor theft device, and instead look things up like a normal person

[malloc]

Or you could not use the energy clog labor theft device, and instead look things up like a normal person

Quite. Granted, my signature might as well be "intelligentia artificiālis dēlenda est" at this point considering how much I have said on this topic.

[rotting bones]

Personally, I think AI vs. anti-AI is yet another distraction from class struggle like idpol.

---

Has anyone else noticed the world has become a much happier place since the Venting thread was closed?

[malloc]

Personally, I think AI vs. anti-AI is yet another distraction from class struggle like idpol.

Meanwhile many people including myself consider AI a powerful weapon in the class struggle for capitalists since it threatens the employment prospects of numerous workers.

Has anyone else noticed the world has become a much happier place since the Venting thread was closed?

Purely an illusion. All the problems that caused the unhappiness still exist and have only multiplied.

[rotting bones]

Meanwhile many people including myself consider AI a powerful weapon in the class struggle for capitalists since it threatens the employment prospects of numerous workers.

I agree. Like Chomsky said, a hammer serves different purposes in the hands of a carpenter and a torturer. Here's how a Marxist professor puts it: https://youtu.be/u_-XWxdYCf0

Purely an illusion. All the problems that caused the unhappiness still exist and have only multiplied.

Sarcasm.

[rotting bones]

TL:DR, using AI might well work for a while, as long as you're lucky, and as long as you're lucky, you might well be better off than people who don't use AI because they're afraid of getting unlucky.

Capitalist competition keeps us in an perpetual state of emergency where producing nonsensical slop is better than nothing. There's no way people are going to stop using AI as long as these conditions persist.

[lëtzeshark]

Idk, I feel like my cat isn't long for this world. It depends on if it's aggressive or not. We'll have to see what the vet says when they finished analyzing.

Oh, no, very sorry to hear this... always really hurts to lose a pet, especially if they've been with you for so long.


Random: We have four new people joining our lab group over the next three months. Funnily enough, however, two of them are already in Luxembourg for personal reasons (as far as I know, +1's) and another needs to stay in Germany for now (to complete the naturalization process), so I only need to really do my usual "welcome to Luxembourg" stuff for one of them. (And some other smaller things for the others.)

Another funny thing is how differently the interviews turned out compared to our first impressions from the CVs. In the case of the first position we hired, we had three candidates to interview, and the person who we ended up hiring was initially at the bottom of that list (though primarily because their field felt like a mismatch to the project)... but after the interviews were done, they were very clearly the best. Similarly, we had seven interviewees for the other position, and the one that ended up getting the position was in the middle of the pack after the CV assessment.

[keenir]

Quite. Granted, my signature might as well be "intelligentia artificiālis dēlenda est" at this point considering how much I have said on this topic.

I think you misspelled Intelligensia Delenda Est.

Purely an illusion. All the problems that caused the unhappiness still exist and have only multiplied.

Sarcasm.

That assumes Malloc knows what sarcasm is. Based on past experiences, I cannot support that claim.

[keenir]

The vet thinks my cat might have cancer.

I hope your cat's problem is resolved quickly and without pain. My sympathies.

[malloc]

Quite. Granted, my signature might as well be "intelligentia artificiālis dēlenda est" at this point considering how much I have said on this topic.

I think you misspelled Intelligensia Delenda Est.

Wiktionary gives the spelling intelligentia.

[Raphael]

The frustrating thing is, I think discussions of AI can actually be quite interesting and informative and insightful and important, as long as malloc can be kept out of them.

Or you could not use the energy clog labor theft device, and instead look things up like a normal person

The whole point of the comment I linked to is that, in the short run, that might leave you behind those of your co-workers who do use the energy clog labor theft device and who have, so far, been lucky enough to avoid the pitfalls that might involve. Which, in a hypercompetitive environment, can be extremely bad for your future prospects.

Personally, I think AI vs. anti-AI is yet another distraction from class struggle like idpol.

For low-income men like you or me, to say that idpol is a distraction from the class struggle is basically a way of saying that the problems of other people are always just a distraction from the things that really matter, which is to say, our problems. Don't you think that that is a fairly oh-so-convenient and self-centered attitude to take?

(Now, as you know very well, I disagree with some idpol types on some things. But I think I'm smart enough, old enough, and levelheaded enough to understand that that doesn't mean that they're always wrong about everything.)

I agree. Like Chomsky said, a hammer serves different purposes in the hands of a carpenter and a torturer.

Chomsky has long been fine with those torturers who hate the same people whom he loves to hate

Here's how a Marxist professor puts it: https://youtu.be/u_-XWxdYCf0

I don't see how anyone with a simplistic enough view of the world to take Marxism seriously has any business being a professor.

TL:DR, using AI might well work for a while, as long as you're lucky, and as long as you're lucky, you might well be better off than people who don't use AI because they're afraid of getting unlucky.

Capitalist competition keeps us in an perpetual state of emergency where producing nonsensical slop is better than nothing. There's no way people are going to stop using AI as long as these conditions persist.

On this, I agree with you.

[zompist]

I don't see how anyone with a simplistic enough view of the world to take Marxism seriously has any business being a professor.

Capitalist competition keeps us in an perpetual state of emergency where producing nonsensical slop is better than nothing. There's no way people are going to stop using AI as long as these conditions persist.

On this, I agree with you.

Though that's basically taking a Marxist position!

Personally I'm more of a Wildean socialist. It's a human right to produce nonsensical slop. Generally we call it "art" or "hobbies"; I don't want some central commissar deciding where the dividing line is.

Also, you young whippersnappers understandably, but wrongly, blame everything you don't like on "capitalism". Socialists in power are very very good at keeping up a "perpetual state of emergency", and no slouches at producing "nonsensical slop" either.

You all are about ten years too young to know that capitalism can work just fine. The big mistakes were a) letting a plutocratic class develop again, and b) MBAs. It's the MBA who loves AI slop, because it's what they're taught. The whole idea of an MBA is that you abstract out all the specifics and real-world knowledge in an industry, leaving only the bullshit. Then you put a bullshitter in charge.