Iβm going to level with you. I have listened to The Devil Went Down to Georgia for most of my life. We were a country music household, this was a staple of my childhood along with Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, and that one Chipmunks country album.
I have no idea what βFire on the mountain run boys run/The Devil's in the house of the rising sun/Chicken in the bread pan picking out dough/Granny does your dog bite no child noβ means and at this point Iβm too scared to ask.
this is the key part of the song, that a lot of people miss. people have this misconception that the contest between Johnny and The Devil is about who is the better fiddle player. but it isn't. its about who is the better fiddler.
in a time before things like radios and record players, every time you heard music was because there was somebody in the room with you playing an instrument. and many, many, many social events involved dancing, which requires music. so, if you're planning any kind of gathering in the american south or appalachia, you need to find a fiddler. and the fiddler's job is to play music that everybody knows and likes and can dance to.
the mistake The Devil makes in his bet with Johnny is that he misinterprets the contest as being about technical ability, so he has this big flashy song. he plays fast and impressively with a band of demons playing unfamiliar instruments in unfamiliar rhythms. he's definitely more skilled at playing than Johnny, and thinks he has it in the bag.
but Johnny wins because the contest is about being the best fiddler. the song uses these lines mentioned above as a shorthand for saying that Johnny is playing these songs. Johnny launches into a set of the most popular songs, played well, and that's what gives him his big win. A good fiddler knows all the hits, and can read the room to know what to play next. The Devil loses because he completely fails to read the room, and doesn't know the right songs.
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Itβs funny that when you address the fact that men have more physical strength than women, people act as though youβre saying women are inferior. Like do you people think gorillas are superior to humans? maybe in a boxing match, sure, but I donβt see gorillas running successful democracies and building rockets to take them to the moon.
βOhhh so you think women are just useless little fragile waifs who canβt take care of themselves and should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchenβ no. Literally no one said that either. Women have several physical advantages over men including flexibility, more dexterous hands, and better resistance to famine and disease. But in a world where everything was designed for men and their bodies and men regularly use their greater physical strength to terrorize women, pretending there are zero physical differences between the sexes is not the more feminist stance. It puts women in harmβs way
exactly!!! painting physical strength disparities as anti-feminist only serves to aid male violence and victimize women. you teach a woman that she's as (physically) strong as any man, and she will be woefully unprepared when she's in a situation where it's her strength against his.
if you've ever had to fight off a man, either for your safety or another woman's, you would realize how insanely strong even the most sedentary man is. in addition to natural upper body strength, they have longer arms, larger hands, and stronger grip strengthβit's easier for them to grab you, and when they do, you are not getting away without fighting dirty.
it's why women's self-defense classes teach unique incapacitation methods that do not rely on upper body strength, but on weak spots, dexterity, and making use of our legs.
i want all these feminists who have an issue with this to ask a man in their lives to subdue them without holding their strength back. then i want them to try and get away. then i want them to come back to me with how it went.
now, imagine a situation where a man's full intent is to hurt you, where he is exercising the full extent of his strength in an attempt to victimize you, and ask yourself how that would go.
instead of pretending that the strength disparity doesn't exist in an effort to prove women's value, stop making physical strength a defining factor of worthiness.
We also know that young girls are prevented from being as physically active as their male peers. A decent portion of the male-female strength disparity is that young girls are deprived of food to make them skinny, put in clothing that restricts their movement, and excluded from physical activity, while boys experience the exact opposite.
Pretending that the strength disparity does not exist is just turning a blind eye to this form of discrimination, and it denies us the chance to work on it.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
"Gish Gallop" is the debating term for an opponent who makes so many claims that "it's impossible to address them in the time available" (it's named for Creationist Duane Gish, who was notorious for this tactic):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
I think about the Gish Gallop whenever I'm asked to comment on AI.
Here's a recent example: last week, I had a pre-interview call with a radio producer who wanted me to come on a 13-minute segment to discusses "whether there's a problem with AI governance?"
I asked what the show meant by that: was it whether regulation of AI in commercial or public sector decision-making needed more oversight? Was it that the siting and provisioning of data-centers needed more democratic accountability? Was it that workers deserved more of a say in AI's impact on labor markets? Was it that customers and/or audiences should be able to opt out of AI customer service and AI slop? Was it about whether we needed some kind of system to prevent "runaway AI," in the event that we teach so many words to the word-guessing program that it wakes up, becomes God, and turns us all into paperclips?
"Oh," the producer said, "all of that."
In 13 minutes.
You see the problem, right? The AI industry has made so many claims about its past, present and future that it's almost impossible to have a reasonable critical conversation about it:
Shortly after I did the radio show, a newspaper editor who'd heard my segment got in touch to ask me if I'd write an 800-word op-ed about the subject, and also, could I address claims that "AI is the next Industrial Revolution?"
I keep finding myself on stages or panels where an AI-struck person says something like, "AI is the next industrial revolution. It will change everything we do. It will let anyone create important works of art. It will cure cancer. It will take us to space. It will solve the climate crisis."
Or sometimes it's an AI critic, but that person's criticism is really more "criti-hype," which is when you accept tech industry hype claims at face value, and then criticize them rather than questioning them:
AI criti-hype might ask what we'll do once AI takes all our jobs, or what we'll do when AI replaces the government or teachers or doctors, or what we'll do when AI can bypass our critical faculties and brainwash us or drive us all mad.
What do you say to that? I usually start by talking about whether there's any economic basis for keeping the AI servers running. AI is β by far β the money-losingest venture in human history, and it's practically impossible to overstate just how bad the AI business is. Not only does AI have terrible unit economics, those unit economics are getting worse over time:
AI's happiest customers cite cost-benefit calculations that depend on truly unimaginable subsidies from the AI companies, who are basically selling $100 bills for $5 apiece. It would be pretty amazing if you couldn't find people who'd extol the virtues of this arrangement. But when AI companies try to raise the price of those $100 bills to, say, $20 apiece, those ecstatic customers fly into a rage and start loudly proclaiming that AI is so inefficient that they will lose money on this arrangement:
Now, it shouldn't fall to me, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, to point out that capitalist enterprises require profits to be sustainable. You can't keep a business afloat by selling $100 bills for $5, nor for $20. You can't even make a profit selling $100 bills for $100 apiece! For a company to succeed, it needs to take in more than it expends.
AI is a money-furnace, and AI hustlers are clearly on the hunt for a way to force all of us to feed every dime we've got to it. Elon Musk's (now scuttled) gambit to make every pension saver in America bail out Grok (and Twitter, but at a mere $44b, the losses from Twitter are dwarfed by the titanic losses from Grok) was the most ambitious and shameless population-scale bag-holder scheme, but it's not the only one:
So before we ask about the capabilities AI will acquire in the future, we should at least give some consideration to the question of whether anyone will be willing to fund the development of those capabilities, and if so, where the money would come from? Likewise, before we ask whether AI can perform adequately in a job, we should at least consider the possibility that the company that sells that AI tool will be bankrupt in a year or two. When we fight about data-center buildout, we mostly talk about the (considerable) environmental downsides to them β but what about the question of what we will do with these data-centers after their owners go bankrupt, possibly even before they can be provisioned with electricity? How many laser-tag arenas do we actually need?
This is just one example of the questions that you could spend days unpacking, which make many of the other questions about AI a little silly. Like, even if you think there are limitless returns to scale for creating new AI capabilities, which means that if we keep the money-furnace burning it's only a matter of time until it powers a cure for cancer and the end of the climate emergency, how much money do we need to shovel into the furnace before that happens, and where will it come from? There are plenty of cancer researchers who have promising approaches they haven't been able to pursue due to funding shortfalls.
Unless there's some way to estimate how much money we have to give to AI companies before they cure cancer, we should at least consider the possibility that the true sum is "more money than exists now and that will ever exist." We should also consider that whatever benefits to cancer research that AI might deliver could come with a higher price-tag than the promising cancer research we're dropping because we can't find far more modest sums.
Likewise, it may be that the amount of CO2 that AI will generate atmosphere before it "solves climate change" will render Earth permanently unfit for humans, consuming the only habitable planet capable of sustaining human life in the known universe. I mean, I suppose that's one way to "solve" climate change, but it's a pretty drastic solution.
My next book (out later this month) is The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI. I wrote it because I was frustrated by other people demanding that I talk to them about AI, and then handing me 800 words or 13 minutes to address fifty nebulous, poorly supported claims about AI:
Now that I'm about to go out on the road with the book, I find myself frustrated anew by the need to try and pull together a compact way to address the broad, incoherent claims the industry uses to keep its bubble inflated and the money furnaces roaring. The series of essays I've developed here on Pluralistic are part of that effort:
But it occurred to me that this whole enterprise of making sense of AI needs to be framed in the context of the messiness of AI itself, and AI boosters' overwhelming, promiscuous and disjointed Gish Gallop.
And let's not forget that It took 200 years for that labor movement to win significant advancements! The first Industrial Revolution started in 1760, and the 8-hour work day was only widely accepted after the First International Labor Organization Convention of 1919.
And furthermore, the economic boom and social progress that we could enjoy during the second half of the 20th century on the west, very much depended on outsourcing all the bad consequences of the industrial revolution (the dangerous labour practices, the pollution, the devaluation of labor, etc.) to third world countries.
Anybody who tries to sell the Industrial Revolution as an aspirational model for AI is not only bullshitting you but asking you (and your kids, and your grandkids) to suffer unimaginably for the nebulous posibility of a better future 200 years from now.
and don't lose sight that most of what the snake-oil conmen are selling as "AI" is nothing of the kind
real proto-AI shows up in things like Ukrainian drones that can find their way across vast distances (based on maps), navigate around obstacles (using a variety of proximity sensors), identify targets (based on secret algorithms and databases of targets vs friendlies), and even decide when to attack based on other secret algorithmic data. now that stuff is useful (and a bit horrifying)
LLMs are just autocorrect machines that contain the sum total of human endeavor - including an ever-expanding trash-pile of LLM hallucinations. they don't even do their most basic jobs - search and autocorrect - as well as the "dumb" versions from decades ago
one big difference is that actual proto-AI uses databases limited to the information needed, and someone filters out the trash before feeding it to their machines
but that would require hiring experts to continuously sift through the dross, adjust the databases, monitor the output, and a lot of other things that these corporations are not interested in doing because that means they'd have to hire new people instead of lay off more
either they've drunk their own kool-aid and believe their marketing hype that they're making magic fire-all-workers machines, or else they don't care and are just extending their grift as long as possible to siphon off as much of the economy as they can
So last month I got hit by a car and died right. Which I didn't initially realize until I watched some guy haul my body into his pickup and drive off. Which, being that it's deep in rural Michigan, I assume means my body will make some venison jerky and maybe some wall decoration, and I'll be resigned to being one of hundreds of deer ghosts floating around Saginaw, which is w/e. But then I find out the guy works at a taxidermy shop or something, and he's actually pretty good at stuffing and mounting deer carcasses, which I come to find out when I find myself face to face with my old body in the shop window. So naturally, I figure since ghosts need to possess something to interact with the living world and etc etc etc the most logical thing to do is to possess my own body, since it's basically a statue of myself. And a little surprisingly, it actually fits like a glove. Like, since it's my body, it feels like stepping right back into place. So I get out of town and back to my herd, eventually. And that's where the trouble starts coming into it, because after I get settled again, I don't know how to explain to everyone else what feels so weird. Like since I can move my body and do everything I used to do, it's functionally the same, like nothing happened. Or it SHOULD be, so I don't know how to explain how it's NOT. But it's just hard to explain it to someone who's never been hit by a truck I guess
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From what I remember of back when Millennials were outpacing Boomers at internet and tech stuff in general, this is going to cause a lot of issues for companies angling to use slop in marketing because the younger set are always going to be better at spotting it than the older, but the older are going to be the ones approving marketing campaigns and ads and etc. Meaning, the older people will not ever be able to tell what might actually convince the younger.
The good news is that if it persists and Gen Z and Gen Alpha continue to scoff at the generated stuff, then marketing departments aiming at them will just have to give up on using it because they won't be able to figure out how to fool their targets with it.
The bad news is that this won't apply to scams and campaigns aimed at older people, so once again we're going to have a situation where the kids will be the ones lunging across the coffee table to stop Mom from giving her financial info to that really obvious fake scam mom oh my god do NOT buy that it isn't even a real thing.
after a lifetime of hearing about aragorn but not reading the books or watching the movies, genuinely nothing could have prepared me for his actual introduction. the hobbits picked this man out of a dumpster. he is a textbook softspoken angst prince and he is covered in dirt and he probably smells so bad. heβs the coolest man alive and is so casual about it. his number one skill is Knowing Where They Are and his number two skill is Having A Horrible Destiny That Torments Him. tolkien got it in one iβm afraid aragorn son of arathorn you are the guy of all time
And then the movies went and understood the assignment by casting Viggo Mortensen.
Described by legendary fight choreographer and Olympic fencer Bob Anderson as βthe best swordsman Iβve ever trainedβ, and insisted on using a real steel sword to get the movement right. Actually bonded with the horses he rode and worked with over the course of filming. Was noted by cast members as being the natural leader of the actors when they were together. Went hiking and fishing in full costume for the sake of authenticity, even repairing damage to the costumes himself to better convey the life of a self-reliant ranger. Actually learned Sindarin, and speaks it more frequently in the films than any other character including the elves. Is an actual polyglot, speaking four languages fluently and having a passing knowledge of six more. Personally composed and performed music for the soundtrack.
They needed someone to play the guy of all time, and they actually GOT the guy of all time.
Didn't just bond with the horses, he bought the horse that played Brego after the movie. (He also bought the horse that Arwen's stunt double rode for her.)
During the fight with the orcs at the end of Fellowship, one of the orcs is meant to throw a knife at Aragorn. There was a mix-up with the props and the orc actor threw an actual knife instead of the blunt prop. Mortensen casually managed to block it with his sword anyway.
As well as hand-repairing his costume, he also was the one who suggested Aragorn have a small bow for hunting, since he lived in the wilderness and would need one. No one else had thought of it.
It was also his suggestion to take Boromir's arm guards and make everyone cry.
He and Peter Jackson once had a whole conversation where Jackson called him 'Aragorn'. Neither of them noticed for about half an hour.
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Finally, some new art! Really had fun with the colors on this one, feels the complete opposite of the rainy spring Iβm experiencing right now π§οΈ
adrian: obviously grace and rocky have a deep bond that i can't really fully understand from being alone in space saving the universe
grace: obviously rocky and adrian have a deep bond that i can't really fully understand from being married for almost two centuries
rocky: hello eriddit. i (302M) have two mates (337X) (40M) who are both brilliant scientists. i love them both very much and was very excited when they started courting each other. however WIBTA if i thought they were too close? like i'm no slouch or anything, i'm an engineer, but you get these two talking about origin of life research and it starts going WAY over my carapace β
following people who are into wrestling is just like "holy shit johnny appleseed just hit burner hurtzog (evil artfilm director-themed wrestler) with the Prostate Puncher 5000! can't fucking stand that guy!" like all day long
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