theluddite

Maybe. It had been almost 15 years since I last heard of him until the EA stuff started going mainstream, but he was a very well respected physicist, especially for how young he was back then. After having taken several very small classes with him, it would surprise me if he was a clout chaser. People are complicated though, so who knows.

I had Max Tegmark as a professor when I was an undergrad. I loved him. He is a great physicist and educator, so it pains me greatly to say that he has gone off the deep end with his effective altruism stuff. His work through the Future of Life Institute should not be taken seriously. For anyone interested, I responded to Tegmark's concerns about AI and Effective Altruism in general on The Luddite when they first got a lot of media attention earlier this year.

I argue that EA is an unserious and self-serving philosophy, and the concern about AI is best understood as a bad faith and self-aggrandizing justification for capitalist control of technology. You can see that here. Other commenters are noting his opposition to open sourcing "dangerous technologies." This is the inevitable conclusion of a philosophy that, as discussed in the linked post, reifies existing power structures to decide how to do the most good within them. EA necessarily excludes radical change by focusing on measurable outcomes. It's a fundamentally conservative and patronizing philosophy, so it's no surprise when its conclusions end up agreeing with the people in charge.

Yup that's about right. I think the obsession with engagement comes from a cultural desire to appear objective. It's performative more than it is rational.

You might be interested in one of my oldest posts: https://theluddite.org/#!post/why-attention-economy

It's about what you're saying. I come to an adjacent but slightly different conclusion than your comment.

Yeah, the broken Internet is just so much dumber than people think. Welcome aboard!

Haha thank you. I've generally found that Google decides most of the ad clicks that come from my site are "invalid," so it'll pay me and then take it back 🙃. 90% or so of my ad revenue has been reversed within a day or two. We're talking like 12 USD so it's not like I'm losing a fortune, but still!

Ah crap that sucks!

If i may be so bold, I and a few others write about tech at https://theluddite.org/.

I focus on the intersection between technology and human decisions. A lot of tech coverage has a techno-optimist, or tech-as-progress default perspective, where tech is almost this inexorable, inevitable, and apolitical force of nature. I strongly disagree with this perspective, which I think is convenient for the powers that be because it obscures that, right now, a few rich humans are making all our tech decisions.

I also write code for a living, which shockingly few tech writers and commentators have ever done. That makes it possible for me to write stuff like this.

Here ya go https://archive.md/dJLiu

That thing sounds awesome dude. I bet your dad has tons of awesome memories on it, and tons more swearing at it. Upload a pic if you've got one!

Ah, I see you beat me to it. Glad to see a fellow antique tractor enthusiast on lemmy. Here's a pic of mine. Your turn!

They're widely available online or even in person at auto parts stores, which in rural places double as tractor parts store. My local NAPA is quite good at tractor parts. This seems almost a miracle to us but it's possible specifically because old tractors were designed for repair. They have shockingly few parts when compared to modern ones, and the parts that they do have are so, so much more common across different makes and models.

I usually have an easier time finding parts for my 1950s tractor than my fucking 2007 GMC Canyon, which also breaks more often than my 70+ year old tractor.