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>> This guarantees worse outcomes.

[Citation needed]

An opposite argument is that compulsory voting smooths out or buffers the extreme radical urgency of any faction that might, in the right circumstances, carry the day in a low-turnout election.


Why put the [citation needed]? I've told you what my rationale is behind my statement. Just argue against my logic.

> An opposite argument is that compulsory voting smooths out or buffers the extreme radical urgency of any faction that might, in the right circumstances, carry the day in a low-turnout election.

That is a bad thing IMO. I am (and many other people) are disenfranchised by mainstream politics and I want to see more radical ideas/policies/opinions, I (and many others) don't want more of the same.


I'm starting to think that many of the "But the AIs tell me I should drive my car off a cliff!!" posters are just making stuff up.


I've seen enough weird output from some models to not think quite so negatively about nay-sayers.

If "stupid response" happens 1% of the time, and the first attempt to use a model has four rounds of prompt-and-response, then I'd expect 1 in 25 people to anchor on them being extremely dumb and/or "just autocomplete on steroids" — the first time I tried a local model (IIRC it was Phi-2), I asked for a single page Tetris web app, which started off bad and half way in became a python machine learning script; the first time I used NotebookLM, I had it summarise one of my own blog posts and it missed half and made up clichés about half the rest.

And driving off, if not a cliff then a collapsed bridge, has gotten in the news even with AI of the Dijkstra era: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/21/us/father-death-google-gp...


No! A friend of a friend asked an AI and the AI said they were real. Honest. But it was the other AIs. Not the one the friend asked.


This is not my experience. I just did a search for "dehumidifer" and ALL of the first 50 results are for dehumidifiers. The 51st result is for:

Vacplus Moisture Absorbers 6 Pack, 10.5 Oz Portable Humidity Absorber Boxes for Your Bathroom, Closet & Car, Dehumidifier with Fragrance

...which is related, no?


You’re right. I guess it was nlp gone awry when I looked for one 2 years ago but now it’s fixed.

Only the sponsored results are not dehumidifiers when I just did a search.

Sorry for the noise.


"By rote" != "Cargo cult programming" IMHO


I agree, fantastic book.


>> I think Anathem is Stephenson's best

Hard to choose for me, but I might cast a vote for the Baroque Cycle, although I love almost all of his science fiction as well.


I think I could make a good argument that our brains are machines for repeating past mistakes. Interesting to think about the opposite sides of the argument.


I've got a pretty solid case that it's both


Are we sure about that?


Do you have an alternative explanation to offer?


Alastair Reynolds, in "House of Suns", has a variation on this theme, with much-more-stretched timeframes.


Alcohol has played a role in plenty of similar accidents. Here's one I just read about yesterday, in which the writer William Burroughs shot his partner, Joan Vollmer, in the head (!) as part of a William Tell reenactment: https://www.openculture.com/2018/07/joan-vollmer-wife-willia...


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