What’s up today? (Part 1)

22 posts were split to a new topic: Discussions over Trans people

Unfortunately I had to move the post that started the discussion, otherwise the new topic is missing the start.

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Simple modification you Scot’s can do if ya got a lawn chair about - save ya the money.


– although I reckon that’s a bargain price.

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Privacy. Security. Freedom

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Small steps probably the right move.

Big brother is watching you, a Russian version: Dumped data shows widespread surveillance of Russian citizens

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Seems chatGPT has a little political bias. I have tried a few of these myself and the responses are genuine.
Still must admit it has been fun despite the obvious flaws.

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Haha, I find myself increasingly annoyed when it is busy and I need to use google. :sweat_smile:

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I feel like i have achieved something when i get it to admit an error or tell me I am correct :rofl:

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Haven’t read the article or much Orwell but I’ve read lots of Huxley and the first was Brave New World in which books are banned. :man_facepalming:t2:

His last novel was about an island utopia that gets destroyed by invaders who want its oil (Huxley died in 1963).

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It’s only a short thread maybe give it a read. Forgive the obvious mistakes and maybe think about the message

“In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us.

Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us…”

Who do you think got it right?

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I think characterising such deep thinkers and prolific authors is suspect, though I don’t pretend to know enough about either to contradict those specific claims.

Regardless I think it’s a pointless question. People who try and reduce complex systems to simplistic trivia aren’t worth listening to IMO so while for some that’s effective clickbait for me it’s the opposite.

Social systems - anything involving one or more humans - are complex and present problems that are irreducible, and effectively insoluble. I think you can try, and sometimes succeed in making them better but because they are complex there will be unintended consequences. The more simplistic the approach, the more likely that is.

I could write more about this! Essentially humans are natural problem solvers, and our typically reductionist approach works well in areas where that is appropriate.

In natural systems it’s more about creating better conditions and letting the system get on with what it already does when it has what it needs.

Tinkering inside that system may help where parts are less well interconnected, but you can’t expect to tinker with one part of a highly connected system without affecting all the other parts, and it’s impossible hard for humans to tinker well with them all at once.

I think this is one reason why it is so hard for political philosophies to deliver their goals. We can’t conceive of a complex enough solution to adequately control a system as complex as a society. It would require different kinds of thought and different kinds of intervention than the few crude tools and levers that humans can conceive and apply.

Over time society has improved if rather bumpily, by many important measures and human problem solving has played its part in that. There are some key inventions (vaccines [cough]), and systemic level interventions (universal healthcare) which undoubtedly contributed greatly.

But as we see, even things which for many seem no brainers are rejected by others. Nothing is simple when it comes to human level complexity.

See, I said I could write more. Oops!

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Careful now!!! thats nasty socialism - OR JustPlainCommonSense

you missed out sewerage systems and clean drinking water - neither of which has ever been provided by “market forces”.

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