I think the concern is that it is all just reinforcing his own delusions and therefore not helping him lead a more balanced life, and potentially giving people some cheap laughs at the expense of the mentally ill.
His posts are largely unintelligible lists of unrelated words, and the bits that do make sense use religious and racist language mixed up with the Computer Science/Engineering stuff.
Makes a change from self-diagnosed autistics on slashdot I suppose.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world:
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
That doesn't mean that just because you're unreasonable you are making progress.
So no one is allowed to say anything negative about any article?
I'm fairly sure if I posted a "story" that linked to some Microsoft employee claiming that Linus Torvalds was funding ISIS a lot of people would want to express their non-positive opinion of it.
This would be a good argument on most forums, but on slashdot there will in fact be a lot of people who have written operating systems, and it is unlikely that many of them were worse than this.
A psychiatrist told me one time that I was the most normal, sane person he'd ever met, but considering his usual clientele that's probably not as much of a compliment as it may seem.
I wonder if he was including himself in people he'd met?
There's nothing wrong with pointing out that individual black or Chinese (or Indian, or Hispanic or whatever) people can be stupid racists, in the same way that they can be just plain stupid.
It just doesn't have anything to do with the fact that racism is essentially an institutioinalised problem of the powerful oppressing the weak.
they have managed to take what should be a major scandal ("hey, you guys, you probably shouldn't be LITERALLY SLEEPING WITH THE PEOPLE YOU'RE COVERING")
Even if it was true it wouldn't have been that major a scandal - one journalist and one gamemaker.
As it wasn't even true, it's amazing the amount of sound and fury this has generated.
It's called "Leftism". It is an ideology, and ideologies are not subject to reason or facts.
Anyone who uses the term "Leftism" to define all non-conservative political viewpoints has the bright, sunny worldview of a child who has tasted his first crack hit.
Yes, the difference between it being 2/3 vs.1/6 (i.e. 16/24 vs. 4/24) and 2/3 vs.1/4 ( i.e. 16/24 and 6/24)completely invalidates his point that there is an obvious disproportion.
The cop was not ruled innocent. You dont know what a grand jury does. Hint it does not rule on innocence. All it does it decide if there is enough evidence to potentially convict.
You are innocent until proven guilty of a crime. If there is no trial, you are innocent.
On slashdot, it's fine to advocate armed rebellion against a government which interferes with your internet browsing habits, but anyone who actually takes direct action against a failed justice system is just an asshat.
First, having fast access to a lot of facts is not a useful definition of intelligence.
Second, AI fans usually treat consciousness as either non-existent, or else just some trivial mechanical side effect of data processing power, neither of which are at all helpful considering that, as human beings, we know consciousness exists.
This professor doesn't get what artificial intelligence (AI) is. There really is no difference between AI and "real intelligence" the only difference is in size. We only call it AI because it isn't very smart yet. If we could construct a computer that would be at the size of a human brain in terms of neurological connections and had the same capacity we would actually have constructed a self aware computer.
The only real answer to this sort of nonsense is to say "go ahead and build your AI then".
Of course, the ability to do so will always be about twenty years in the future.
The "singularity" does not necessarily require artificially intelligent computers vs. pseudo-intelligent computers. It only requires an exponential growth of change in technology, mediated or enabled by some sort of computation. The details are semantics I suppose, the key is the exponential technological feedback cycle.
I think you could make the argument that we are already in it, via augmented intelligence. Used Wikipedia or IMdB lately? From your smartphone? Remember when you had to know stuff, instead of efficiently looking it up? I think the professor is right in one sense, but misses the bigger picture, we are already in a technological singularity.
I think you're the one missing the point. The fact that computers/the internet are making better tools available to human beings says abslutely nothing about whether computers/the internet will eve acquire sentience.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the concern is that it is all just reinforcing his own delusions and therefore not helping him lead a more balanced life, and potentially giving people some cheap laughs at the expense of the mentally ill.
Wouldn't you have more pressing things to concern yourself with?
Makes a change from self-diagnosed autistics on slashdot I suppose.
/Oblg.George Shaw quote ...
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world:
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
That doesn't mean that just because you're unreasonable you are making progress.
Be positive or go home
So no one is allowed to say anything negative about any article?
I'm fairly sure if I posted a "story" that linked to some Microsoft employee claiming that Linus Torvalds was funding ISIS a lot of people would want to express their non-positive opinion of it.
This would be a good argument on most forums, but on slashdot there will in fact be a lot of people who have written operating systems, and it is unlikely that many of them were worse than this.
A psychiatrist told me one time that I was the most normal, sane person he'd ever met, but considering his usual clientele that's probably not as much of a compliment as it may seem.
I wonder if he was including himself in people he'd met?
And if you dig deeper into the code and get down to the electrical level, you start hearing the sound of the universe.
Ohmmmm.
"A smell of petroleum prevails throughout."
I'm sure Bennett Haselton, a regular contributor, would be happy to oblige.
Slashdot's slacking: a feeble anti-M$ joke wasn't frosty piss.
It just doesn't have anything to do with the fact that racism is essentially an institutioinalised problem of the powerful oppressing the weak.
they have managed to take what should be a major scandal ("hey, you guys, you probably shouldn't be LITERALLY SLEEPING WITH THE PEOPLE YOU'RE COVERING")
Even if it was true it wouldn't have been that major a scandal - one journalist and one gamemaker.
As it wasn't even true, it's amazing the amount of sound and fury this has generated.
I assumed OP was being sarcastic.
Yet more proof that The Market just makes everything better.
so twisted by drugs, rampant casual sex, and the loss of the bond that makes a man want to FIGHT and even give up his life FOR HIS WOMAN
If that wasn't so long I'd use it for my sig as a joke..
You deluded buffoon.
It's called "Leftism". It is an ideology, and ideologies are not subject to reason or facts.
Anyone who uses the term "Leftism" to define all non-conservative political viewpoints has the bright, sunny worldview of a child who has tasted his first crack hit.
3 / 12 = 1/4, not 1/6. Learn math, libtard.
Yes, the difference between it being 2/3 vs.1/6 (i.e. 16/24 vs. 4/24) and 2/3 vs.1/4 ( i.e. 16/24 and 6/24)completely invalidates his point that there is an obvious disproportion.
Oh, wait, no it doesn't.
There's nothing disproportionate about responding to a physical assault with lethal force.
Oh don't be ridiculous. If you TOUCH someone (especially a cop) then it is physical assault.
If you stumble over your shoelace and hold your hands out to steady yourself, and touch my arm, that does not give me grounds to shoot you dead.
The cop was not ruled innocent. You dont know what a grand jury does. Hint it does not rule on innocence. All it does it decide if there is enough evidence to potentially convict.
You are innocent until proven guilty of a crime. If there is no trial, you are innocent.
So, Lee Harvey Oswald is innocent of killing JFK.
it was an immensely difficult case to build for the prosecutor as the only person alive who knew what happened was the one who pulled the trigger
Isn't this the case in most homicides?
OK.
Second, AI fans usually treat consciousness as either non-existent, or else just some trivial mechanical side effect of data processing power, neither of which are at all helpful considering that, as human beings, we know consciousness exists.
This professor doesn't get what artificial intelligence (AI) is. There really is no difference between AI and "real intelligence" the only difference is in size. We only call it AI because it isn't very smart yet. If we could construct a computer that would be at the size of a human brain in terms of neurological connections and had the same capacity we would actually have constructed a self aware computer.
The only real answer to this sort of nonsense is to say "go ahead and build your AI then".
Of course, the ability to do so will always be about twenty years in the future.
Even the notions "aware" and "sentient" are themselves misleading.
You are free to believe that you have no more awareness or sentience than a half brick, but it's simply untrue
The "singularity" does not necessarily require artificially intelligent computers vs. pseudo-intelligent computers. It only requires an exponential growth of change in technology, mediated or enabled by some sort of computation. The details are semantics I suppose, the key is the exponential technological feedback cycle. I think you could make the argument that we are already in it, via augmented intelligence. Used Wikipedia or IMdB lately? From your smartphone? Remember when you had to know stuff, instead of efficiently looking it up? I think the professor is right in one sense, but misses the bigger picture, we are already in a technological singularity.
I think you're the one missing the point. The fact that computers/the internet are making better tools available to human beings says abslutely nothing about whether computers/the internet will eve acquire sentience.