Does it though? Maybe in absolute terms it spends "a lot" of thought on these things, but in relative terms it borders on nothing.
Measure it by VC dollars invested and what actual orgs at tech companies are assigned to. It's almost ALL on a 1-10 year horizon.
So, as gp notes... is it really that harmful to allocate <1% to "sci fi" ambitions, especially when most of what they actually produce is short-horizon, immediately-usable stuff?
Putting aside the nebulous notion "contribution to hard science"...
She became famous for adopting a strain of strident and problematic activism, using it to attack her colleagues and making claims just as wild as some of the ones she cherry picks to critique.
It's not at all surprising that she ended up an extremely divisive figure. And meanwhile, the state of the art sped far ahead of where she drew her line in the sand.
It's hard to find discussion of her that isn't strongly biased in one direction or another (surely, my own comment included). In my experience (sample size 1), when she gets brought up (or involved), the quality of the discussion usually plummets.
Various parts of their corporate structure and previous business/financial relationships are tied to the notion of “AGI” being achieved — which is poorly defined and likely to become a semantic/legal debate more than a scientific one.
So them pushing that language in their pr/marketing activity is not a surprise and not really even meant to be scientifically meaningful.
And as advertisers get declining human views on their ads, the value of the business model will dwindle until it needs to be replaced by other forms of revenue. Content that can't shift business models and requires revenue to continue will die off.
Edit: Maybe that's fine, maybe that's bad. Maybe new models will emerge and things will reshape. But I'm just supporting the case that AI agents will pressure the current "free" content economy.
I'm also and I pay for the services that I use to not see ads, but I don't pay for every single one. For example a local classified website is financed by ads, and I don't think anybody will pay for just looking at stuff there. Maybe they can switch to the model where the person puting the thing for sale would pay but hat is something where we are not currently.
I didn’t take that to be his point. I assume he says “economically efficient” because he means their strongest skillsets don’t have (m)any other uses and they wouldn’t be realizing their potential by leaving those skills unused.
He probably overstates that case, especially talking to early career interns that haven’t yet narrowed their specialization and could pivot to other highly quantitative roles that use other high level math.
He’s also probably flattering his audience, to whom “math research” is more likely to be status-bearing.
Yeah, I agree, this is a cool demonstration of growing capabilities in quantitative social sciences, probably soon leading to analyses that have been imagined for a long time but not (easily) possible until recently.
It'll take time to understand and integrate, but I imagine it should make theory that used to depend on small numbers of examples (glued together with rhetoric and charisma) richer and more sophisticated. Exciting.
Fast forward 20 years and we have propaganda machines that have been optimized on a nearly individual level, available to the highest bidder (or, more likely, available only to the people who happen to control the attention platforms at that particular point in history).
But, I suppose it's probably accurate to say that, within the walls of the academy at least, the potential for research on nuclear technology was exciting in the 1930s-1940s.
Fast forward 20 years and we have propaganda machines that have been optimized on a nearly individual level
And now I have to ask: what are the beneficial applications of this research? My gut reaction is to unplug, to go offline, to seek out in-person communication and to shun online media.
But I have watched all this play out gradually over time. What about the younger generations growing up now? Will they be more vulnerable to the ever-increasing sophistication of these techniques? Or will they somehow develop a resistance to them?
Again, my gut instinct here is towards pessimism. I work with young people as a volunteer tutor. Many of them seem to keep shutting down due to the overwhelming burden of information thrown at them. At the same time, their attention is sucked away by media which draws them into a frenetic loop of scrolling behaviour, like a mouse on a treadwheel. It's extremely disturbing to watch.
> Keep in mind this is rank speculation 20 years into the future.
It's a bit amusing that the comment right next to yours (albiet a cousin not a sibling) is insisting that what I'm describing is already happening.
The (naive) weaponization of this tech is already underway. What's more, the tools and methods to turn the categorization work in this paper into a goal-oriented optimization procedure already exist -- see for example the Diplomacy work from Meta; again, focus on methods, not the application.
The tech is here today, the barrier to use is low, and the incentive structure to weaponize exists.
What will take 10-20 years is the trickling of that impact into social processes and then the retrospective reflection of what happened.
Note, for example, that Facebook was founded in 2004, but it took 10-15 years for the impact on social processes to reach a point of significant material impact on global society and politics.
> If this were 2004 OP would have you convinced 90% of your day would be spent culling spam from your inbox.
It's not about the amount of time spent; it's about what happens in the time that is spent.
Spam, and online attention markets more generally, is an incredible apt analogy.
Even for the most strict definition of "spam", the market for prevention is pretty huge. Anti-email-spam tech alone accounts for ~$5B/yr in spend with a 21% CAGR. Going all-in on anti-spam tech in 2004 and capturing even of sliver of the market would make you very wealthy today.
If you include spam-like content on social media platforms, that number certainly more than doubles. On headcount alone, Meta told Congress that they have 40K employees directly working on trust and safety, and TikTok says they have about the same number. That's just headcount, and at just two companies.
Beyond that, the following question will prove only more prescient as time goes on: where does "spam" stop and "algorithmically curated content designed to part consumers from their dollar" start? Even today, the average person in places like the US will spend ~2.5 hours consuming algorithmically curated feeds on social media (in service to online advertising revenue). And many aspects of non-social media now have some aspect of quantitative optimization as well.
Contrary to your take here, with the benefit of hindsight, I think the "Eternal September" doomers of the early naughts significantly under-estimated the impact of information technology on how people spend their time and how society spends its resources. (And, anyways, your strawman is a bit too hyperolic -- no one was seriously arguing that 90% of anyone's day would be spend culling spam from their inbox, least of all me...)
It's reality. Russians started to use something like that few days ago. Messages from Russian bots are hard to distinguish from real people, while real people are shadowbanned by FB/YT. It's still relatively easy to see them (few dozens of new characters appears and start to sing almost in unison: stop the war, retreat early, leave occupied land to Russia, massive losses, etc.), but it's harder to catch them individually.
In Ukraine, to fight with fake accounts, government designed BankID[1][2] system, based on experience of few other countries, such as Canada. In this system, user authenticity is confirmed by a bank. It would be nice to integrate BankID with FB/YT/etc., then display country of the bank.
Concluding "who's worse" wasn't the point of this paper, it was to implement some automated analysis based on old social science models.
But, I'm surprised you conclude what you do because the high level findings seem to indicate that Russia war bloggers are more prone to the more extreme forms of "otherization" per the 4 degrees laid out in the model -- e.g. figure 7 shows Russian war bloggers significantly (but not massively) overindex on the 3rd (Villainization) and 4th (Dehumanization) degrees, which are the worse of the two, compared to Ukrainian war bloggers, who only overindex on the 2nd degree (Survival or Security).
Additionally, Table 4 shows Telegram channels that are more prone to otherization are more central (more influential) in the Russian blogger network than they are in the Ukrainian blogger network, as summarized by the line: "The results, shown in Table 4, reveal statistically significant correlations for both degree centrality and eigenvector centrality and the use of othering language by both groups of war bloggers, with a stronger correlation among Russian war bloggers."
Personal experience, but pro-Ukrainian accounts/channels are much worse in terms of "Othering", be it justified or not. There is a widespread tendence to call Russians a variety of names, such as "Orcs"[0], "Cockroaches", and "Zombies".
On the other hand I often see pro-Russian accounts define Ukrainians as "Nazis". The main difference is that Nazis is used as a political connotation and is usually referred to Ukrainian politicians and military members. Russian propaganda carefully describes the Ukrainian population as relatives captive of a far-right dictatorship. Ukrainian propaganda instead frequently dehumanizes the Russian population.
> The main difference is that Nazis is used as a political connotation and is usually referred to Ukrainian politicians and military members. Russian propaganda carefully describes the Ukrainian population as relatives captive of a far-right dictatorship. Ukrainian propaganda instead frequently dehumanizes the Russian population.
Straight up lie.
Russians dehumanized Ukrainians for decades. Khokli, Saloedi (pork fat eaters), chubatie (derogatory remark about cultural Cossack haircut), Petlurivci (reference to Petlura), Benderivci (Stepsn Bendera reference). I can continue for a very long while.
"If the dick is too short, it's Putin's fault — The people"
This is actually hilarious, thanks for sharing. By the way you seem to forget that Ukrainians have several ethnic slurs for Russians, like Katsap and Moskal.
I'm talking about what I see online since the war started. I don't know nor I followed the culture of Othering between Russia and Ukraine before that.
As I said, it's my personal experience, so it's not really up to you to say if it's a lie.
Nah, it's my personal experience from browsing twitter, reddit and several telegram accounts. I'm not going to waste time searching for examples to satisfy your unwillingness to accept my personal experience as valid. Do some research yourself, you'll see what I mean.
By the way I literally added a source for the Orc slur to my comment, perhaps you missed that?
When you said "propaganda" I thought meant from official sources or statements by well-known public figures - not random chatroom stuff on the internet.
Either way - you've answered the question. All I can suggest to you is -- just forget about all those social media channels. They're an extremely warped reflection of reality and not representative of anything. Looking for sample material in these places from which to draw inferences about the broader sociopolitical situation (or even as to what Ukrainians or Russians are actually like as people) is like looking for dating advice on 4chan.
Do you expect propaganda to only come directly from the government? Look at this operation by Israel for example[0]. The USA aren't new to this either[1]. A part of Wikipedia is literally a battle field between propaganda arms of different governments.
What we see today is a new form of "organic" propaganda, with tons of fake social accounts repeating propaganda pieces coming from the top. That doesn't mean that you should take whatever any rando says as a propaganda covert operation, but if you see patterns over time, those can probably be traced up to governments, agencies or organized groups.
The difference is that Ukrainians started to use bad names for Russian soldiers after invasion, while Russians use bad words for all nations they know long before the war.
PS.
War is much much simpler than peace. If you have good words for invaders — then you're traitor.
Just as Ukrainians have ethnic slurs for Jews [2], for example.
What's that supposed to prove?
The Russian language has its share as well of course, and guess what -- the most common one is identical to the same term as used in Ukrainian:
At the 23 February 2006 rally celebrating the Soviet Defenders of the Fatherland Day, a yearly tribute to war veterans, according to the newspaper Kommersant, marchers flourished signs with messages including "Zhyds! Stop drinking Russian blood!", "White State!", and "Russian Government for Russia".[13]
The vastly bigger point is that antisemitism has been on the decline (and officially discouraged) in both countries for quite some time, of course. My direct sources on the matter in Ukraine (i.e. Ukrainian Jews) uniformly and adamantly maintain that, while there was a bit of an upswell in the late Soviet era, by now it is so vastly reduced as to be a non-issue.
I'll definitely take their word over yours, any day.
Also, note that Jude is slur in Russian language, but common word in Ukrainian language, for example Zhydachiv[1] (Жидачів) town means "town of Judes", and so on. This is common source of frustration back then (about 100 years ago, when Russians occupied Western Ukraine), and now, when usage of word slowly returns back to norm.
Well your personal experience might seem a bit off, or biased (?) because lot of Russians address Ukrainians as "Khokhols"[0].
Not since the war, but since Russians have oppressed Ukrainians. It's quite a normalized and promoted slur, online and offline.
It's a culturally derogatory term like you have common slurs that were used to designate some ethnicities or races, like Chechens. These are cultural slurs, unlike "orcs" as an online slur which is a Western term, from a Western reference.
I think you should look more into how Russia has dehumanized some of its ethnic minorities within the Federation and its neighbors throughout the years and how it has until today.
Ah, I see where you're coming from... say no more.
So you're saying that some cultural symbol used in a derogatory manner to address the "Little Russians".. inferiors to Russia... is humanizing and a show of equal brotherly love?
You chose to empty the word of the meaning into a simple hairstyle, much like the Nazis just made use of cultural symbols to address the Jewish or Polish people.
It doesn't look like you're not being honest.
It's funny because that's one of the Russian twists in their propaganda, "let's focus on the subjective meaning of words... and not the actions!".
Here's my take on it, if someone goes into someone else land to erase their culture and kill as many people as possible, terrorizing them, and trying to make their living unbearable while addressing them by an ethnic slur, I'd say that's enough of a sign of dehumanization.
No, I've read it all. But looks like you've ignored the part where I said that an ethnic slur tied to actions is what renders it dehumanizing.
> You chose to empty the word of the meaning into a simple hairstyle, much like the Nazis just made use of cultural symbols to address the Jewish or Polish people for example.
Using your assessment, the Nazi Germany slur "Schlitzauge" was a "simple" ethnic slur to address Slavic people, or "Polacke" was "just" slur to address people from Poland. If you add the context of propaganda and war, and the actions toward those people I think it's pretty clear it was dehumanizing.
You don't need to be literal to dehumanize a group of people, it's actions taken with a given label that put meaning into a slur.
I've noticed this too, and it seemed like dumb propaganda on the part of the Ukranians. When you hear someone describing their enemies in cartoonishly dehumanizing terms, it doesn't really increase your respect for them (the speaker).
On the other hand, if your town was flattened, your family was killed, and you've been living in your basement for the last year, maybe that's just how you're going to be. Maybe no other response is reasonable.
(I still think "orc" is weak though. Something real would be stronger. Even just "beasts". Though, animals are frequently nice. "Monster" is a little metaphorical, but, monsters are also real (in that metaphorical sense). That might be stronger.)
The term originated due to their disorganized, unprofessional, looting heavy behaviors. It has gained prominence in the 2022 invasion mostly because of how pathetic they are. One of the famous quotes of the war is “We’re lucky they’re so fucking stupid”. Which is entirely correct. The understanding of the war from the Ukrainian side is that the Russian army is a huge, dumb horde that vastly underperforms for its size. That doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous. But we’re years into this three day special military operation and we still see laughably wasteful efforts by the Russian military every week.
Hordes of people running and driving through open fields against artillery strikes and FPV drones and suffering 90% casualties is the canonical mental image these days.
See the problem, that is incorrect. The term has been in use long before 2022. Originally it was coined during the 2015, and meant to be used for both sides due to how miserable and incompetent the entire thing looked (and was).
That is the problem with the paper in question as well - authors don't seem to be familiar with the topic they're trying to research, thinking it's a single event. The timeframe in the dataset is 2015 to mid-2023, which makes very little sense. The use of Telegram for war reporting and the language have been completely different at various points of this timeframe.
To add insult to injury, they are labeling various channels as pro-R or pro-U based on recent messages, but certain channels literally switched sides. They (and many others as well) wiped their message history multiple times, came back with slightly or completely different narratives, and their actual history can only be found in one of the Telegram-related cache services, if at all, as some of these services are either long dead or the info didn't survive. Some people who have been trying to profit from the war started multiple pro-R and pro-U media, including the Telegram channels, although 2022 quickly made them choose sides.
So much happened in 8 years they tried to shove into an LLM and do a primitive sentiment analysis. Gathering the full picture on this timeframe should have been their main thing, as it's not trivial. Just like with anything on the internet and in real life across 8 years, especially if you don't speak any of the languages. These results are not going to be accurate.
> (I still think "orc" is weak though. Something real would be stronger. Even just "beasts". Though, animals are frequently nice. "Monster" is a little metaphorical, but, monsters are also real (in that metaphorical sense). That might be stronger.)
You don’t understand Russian culture, they’ll wear Beast/Monster like a badge of honor. Orcs on the hand has negative connotation, because Orcs are usually bad guys.
Maybe because Ukrainians are right about Russians? Killing innocent people and starting an aggressive war for land and power somehow justifies them being called orcs, don't you think so?
It's important to put the line between yourself and the people who go in assault waves at your trench to preserve your own sanity. The thing is more of a natural response then top-down motivation in Ukrainian case.
To be clear, Ukraine was invaded, children kidnapped, summary executions, and women raped by the Russian soldiers. Plus, Russia launched missile strikes against hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, playgrounds, and supermarkets. Plus, indiscriminate glide bomb attacks against cities.
I occasionally call them orcs too. It’s an apt description.
No, the U.S. has not done worse than Russia has in this war. Not even in Vietnam, I think. But, I guess we were orcs when we invaded and occupied Iraq, since we had no business being there.
With regard to Israelis, any sort of othering will be perceived as antisemitism. But, what Israel is doing in Gaza is on par with what Russia is doing in Ukraine.
> No, the U.S. has not done worse than Russia has in this war. Not even in Vietnam, I think.
Rethink[0]. It just takes some basic math to understand that the USA has done much worse, even if we just consider civilian deaths estimates. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. And for what, to stop communism? Is that a valid reason to devastate three countries?
> But, I guess we were orcs when we invaded and occupied Iraq
Orcs once, orcs forever. Isn't that how it works? If you can call an entire population "orcs", then there must be some intrinsic evil rooted in their ethnicity, culture, or whatever it is.
It's recently become mainstream knowledge that those numbers were a more like wishful thinking than fact, also pretty useless because nobody parroting them knows any control group numbers, and would be off-topic even if true.
And the numbers themselves are NATO propanda to push a NATO world order, it's not all propaganda just because you disagree, pointing out that China disagrees with the US on a very US vs China geopolitical and ideological dispute is indistinguishable from cheering on your favorite sports team at this point.
No, it's communist propaganda. Physical elimination of richer or ideologically different people is the core of communist ideology. You should know that if you call yourself "antifa".
25k people starve to death each day[0]. Those deaths all happen in capitalist economies. That's 9 million each year, for who knows how many years since we developed the necessary technology to have a surplus of food. We're talking about hundreds of millions of preventable deaths, if not more. That's just the result of a very inefficient economic system—without even counting wars, lack of healthcare, and so on.
I'll happily choose communism over such an incredibly unjust system, even if it caused "100 million" deaths worldwide, as you say. That number is complete BS, by the way.
Massive food surplus is a feature of efficient market economies. By rejecting it on ideological grounds, it should come as no surprise that countries like Afghanistan or North Korea end up with hunger.
Their development into modern countries would free others from the burden of having to provide food and other aid to their starving citizens.
Ever wondered why goods are affordable in our "modern market economies"?
It's because we exploit labor and resources in poorer countries, at a fraction of what it would cost here, to produce cheap goods.
So what do you think is going to happen the day that all poorer countries have developed into "modern market economies" and we can't exploit them like we do today? You realize that our economies would have to change completely?
Nice argument you got there; it really shows your unwillingness to see things for what they are. Keep living the dream, no worries, there is no exploitation in the world, and your lifestyle is entirely moral.
Holodomor (genocide of Ukrainians by USSR) was planned for 8 years, and then carefully executed, while nobody plans deaths of starvation because of overpopulation.
I'm not too well-informed about the operational mechanics of the Holodomor, so if you have any articles/chapters to recommend in regard to the long-term planning process that led up to it, that would be appreciated.
I cannot find detailed history of Holodomor translated to English language. However, nothing special here: physical elimination of richer people is the corner stone of communism ideology. Communists did the same in all captured countries.
In this example, one among countless others, russia killed tens of thousands of civilians, in a couple of months.
russia caused more suffering in a few months of war than the USA in a decade in Vietnam. Comparing the two is utterly dishonest.
Russia caused more suffering in a few months of war than the USA in a decade in Vietnam.
Absolutely and obviously false, as you will quickly reveal to yourself by spending a few seconds looking up the toll of civilian deaths and maimings during the US-driven conflict in Vietnam.
Comparing the two is utterly dishonest.
The comparison is in any case completely vacuous. There's no indication that you're being dishonest here, however. Most likely it's a case of simple willful ignorance.
In this example, one among countless others,
There are exactly 3 others since WW2: Chechnya, Syria, Afghanistan.
Except these other interventions / invasions didn't cause "tens of thousands" of civilian deaths, and certainly not within "a couple of months". Most saw far fewer deaths, by an order of magnitude.
Only one comes close: the multi-decade conflict in Abkhazia. But that one saw atrocities committed by both sides, and the civilian death toll was probably significantly under 10k (including the phase of overt ethnic cleansing).
Even in Mariupol it seems the figure is closer to 8k-10k per [0]. Unfortunately the Ukrainian government sometimes provides unsubstantiated figures, and then these get misquoted and copy-pasted (for example neglecting to mention the distinction between military and civilian deaths). In the current war there've been no other massacres to compare with the scale of what happened in Mariupol (horrible as these events were, the numbers just weren't that big).
Pushing grossly inflated figures (or implications of such numbers) serves no purpose, and only serves to give the apologists for the regime that is responsible (such as we have in ample supply on in this venue) ammunition with which to nitpick and distract. "Western propaganda, russophobia" they will say.
After a second look I realize I got carried away and my earlier claim about the Ukraine war being harder on civilians in one year than the Vietnam war in a decade was not fair to the Vietnamese.
My point about the other conflict is just that russia fought them after WW2. Sorry if this was unclear.
The comment you were replying to seemed to relativize, contextualize the use of a dehumanizing term (‘orc’) that is frequently used by Ukrainians and supporters of Ukraine when talking about russian invaders. Whether the Vietnamese or the Palestinians similarly use dehumanizing terms about Americans or Israelis is irrelevant, just like the nationality, US or otherwise, of the person making this comment.
Literally none of that matters. Russia (at Putin’s whim) is the 100% aggressor here, pretty much all other concerns go out the window since it is 100% preventable with a simple Russian withdrawal and it all ends in hours.
Russian usage of Nazis is specific the Russian history of defending against the Nazis in WWII. It’s not like in the west. In Russia it’s a patriotic thing to imply that Russia is acting in self defense and justify their actions to the public. Russian propaganda to Russians is about convincing them it’s not a genocidal land grab.
The mass graves of civilians, mass deportation of children, erasure of cultural artifacts, leveling of cities, constant bombing of civilian targets, reeducation efforts beg to differ. You can rightly fuck off.
It is not, it’s a fact backed by many sources and the simple fact that Russia could choose to leave tomorrow and it all stop. This is 100% on Russian & Putin and weasel words should not be used to describe what is happening
Not when Russian president, minister of defense, chief of the general staff of the armed forces, and other people are internationally wanted for genocide and war crimes.
I think it quite fits perfectly the definition if you analyze the actions of Russia:
- Having a presidential statement saying Ukraine and Ukrainians don't exist (a major red flag, from a culture that is at least as old, if not older than Russia);
- Kidnapping and filtrating 30.000 children (one of the crimes of genocide);
- Terrorizing and bringing unlivable conditions to an ethnic group just because of their ethnicity and nationality - Russia has destroyed Ukraine power grids, destroyed medical facilities, much like they did in Chechnya;
- Stealing and erasing cultural artifacts, changing school curriculum of occupied territory to indoctrinate children against their culture;
Not to mention the mass executions of civilians, just because they were Ukrainians.
Is it? Putin has said he doesn't believe Ukraine to be a nation or Ukrainians to be a separate people. Genocide is the crime of erasing a culture. It does not mean killing everyone, although that's one way to commit genocide.
So it actually seems like the correct use of the word. It's the popular interpretation that is incorrect.
The parent comment to yours was apparently referring to "cultural genocide", which is apparently what you're nitpicking them on.
Meanwhile we have the infinitely greater fact that the aggressor is most likely guilty on all 5 counts of the definition you do cite (point 4 may be somewhat debatable, but its culpability on the other counts is beyond dispute by this point):
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
After the ICC decided that evacuation of orphans from the warzone is genocide, I don't think its "guilty" verdicts worth the paper they are printed on.
Right, they've just gone off to summer camp. Which they enjoyed so much (along with the language lessons) that they wouldn't even dream of wanting to go back home.
I tend to give those who are being invaded and genocided a little leeway in being angry and expressing anger/name-calling at their oppressors & murderers. This could end tomorrow if Russia pulls out or starts pulling back. I think it all boils down to that in the end, and it really is quite simple. The article however is still quite interesting as a study of propaganda.
Measure it by VC dollars invested and what actual orgs at tech companies are assigned to. It's almost ALL on a 1-10 year horizon.
So, as gp notes... is it really that harmful to allocate <1% to "sci fi" ambitions, especially when most of what they actually produce is short-horizon, immediately-usable stuff?