John Q Public

bitter lesson enjoyer and yimbyposter

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@0xmaddie_ People say it like it’s a bad thing but the surprising, impressive, counterintuitive bit is exactly that “predict the next token” can do so much

Bitter Lesson undefeated

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@samstein @mattyglesias and if you notice that and are frothing at the mouth about it:

a) it's too obvious that it's happening to write off as a conspiracy theory

b) you have less bandwidth to be mad about other would-be conspiracies

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@samstein @mattyglesias Important reason for this besides education polarization: There's a big real conspiracy going on in the Trump administration that takes up a lot of the same energy.

A clique of billionaires bought themselves influence and are using it to illegally rip up the government

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@colin_fraser there's also a God-of-the-gaps sort of thing here, in that anything that works and produces language will be called an "LLM" regardless of whether it is or includes one

e.g. I think you could argue o1/o3 et al aren't "LLMs" in the early-2023 sense but the word does refer to them

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@mattyglesias Moderate issue stances are compatible with media-friendly tactical radicalism: it’s the Trump 2016 playbook

A little more performative vigor without becoming far left would help

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@archibald_adam @AstorAaron @SupremacyWoke @JStein_WaPo if you are in line at the DMV, do you believe that closing half the counters would make the line go
1) faster, or
2) slower

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@dilanesper @Chuck_Decker55 @lxeagle17 @foam_boat @PangolinRollin @AdvOpinions I explicitly said in so many words that the votes would be counted and here you are putting words in quotation marks in my mouth that I didn't say.

you're hopeless, you're frankly dishonest and this discussion has no further point

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@dilanesper @Chuck_Decker55 @lxeagle17 @foam_boat @PangolinRollin @AdvOpinions not that there aren't attempts to get MAGA-friendly people on election authorities, but again, decentralization, and moreover blatantly not counting votes is a bad way to cheat: it's obvious, it's visceral, it's easy to grasp, it invites backlash

wouldn't expect it

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@dilanesper @Chuck_Decker55 @lxeagle17 @foam_boat @PangolinRollin @AdvOpinions splashy crises aside, the worry is abuse of state power to disadvantage the opposition, a la Orban and friends

vote counting as such ought to be honest regardless: states administer elections, aren't under federal control, and subverting such a decentralized system is hard/slow

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@dilanesper @Chuck_Decker55 @lxeagle17 @foam_boat @PangolinRollin @AdvOpinions I didn’t *say* it was cancellation of elections for god’s sake. I said there is a *risk* of elections being unfairly tilted against the opposition party.

I think it’s clear you just want to feel superior to other people and there’s no use continuing this

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@dilanesper @Chuck_Decker55 @lxeagle17 @foam_boat @PangolinRollin @AdvOpinions I can tell you a few things I would (and hopefully later this year will) find reassuring:
o) we don’t see pretextual prosecutions of opponents
o) Trump doesn’t openly defy the courts
o) Rs lose special elections this year, especially to the House, and don’t cry fraud

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@dilanesper @Chuck_Decker55 @lxeagle17 @foam_boat @PangolinRollin @AdvOpinions Seeing as you’re obviously a smarter, better, superior breed of being to me, here’s a question: what could you see that would cause you to change your opinion about this?

If you can’t answer that question, you haven’t thought about it hard enough.

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@dilanesper @Matt_barlowe @Mark_J_Ryan @lxeagle17 You’re being rude enough, and I find it annoying enough, to come right back at you: have you considered that you, a lawyer, are not sufficiently able to conceive of scenarios having to do with a breakdown of law?

When all you have is a hammer and a sense of superiority…

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@Chuck_Decker55 @dilanesper @lxeagle17 @foam_boat @PangolinRollin @AdvOpinions Indeed! All is not lost and the butterfly site goes too far toward doom

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@dilanesper @Chuck_Decker55 @lxeagle17 @foam_boat @PangolinRollin @AdvOpinions * “stop the steal” propaganda, who needs quotation marks in the right place anyway

[John Q Public @conjurial]

@dilanesper @Chuck_Decker55 @lxeagle17 @foam_boat @PangolinRollin @AdvOpinions None of this is proof that a second attempt would succeed, but they’re not total morons and have been working pretty hard to make sure it would have better odds