StopTech

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[–] StopTech@lemmy.today 0 points 2 days ago

So something can't be called an x unless it meets every definition of x? I don't think that's how definitions work.

[–] StopTech@lemmy.today -2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

a son or daughter of human parents

[–] StopTech@lemmy.today 4 points 3 days ago

Yes, and the AI threat is also worse than everything mentioned in this article. The quote from the researcher at the very start is apt and should be taken 100% seriously.

[–] StopTech@lemmy.today 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I agree there will still be some things that people can do that they find enjoyment in. But look at how people use their free time today. Do people who like gardening spend more time gardening or on non-productive things like watching TV/YouTube/TikTok? Do people who like playing musical instruments but don't do it for work spend more time doing that or watching TV/YouTube/TikTok? What about people who like painting? Only a fairly small percentage of people do gardening, play music or paint, yet most people watch TV/YouTube/TikTok. Because passive (non-productive) pastimes are more attractive than active ones. Yet it's passive pastimes that make people depressed and feel like their life is meaningless (at least when they are used for more than a couple of hours per day). In the future these can be even more attractive with virtual reality and involvement of the other senses, including sexual stimulation.

I expect if people no longer have to work then even people who continue to have passionate hobbies will not want to spend more than 50% of their time awake on them. And since they will no longer have to prepare any food, clean the house, manage finances or do anything, the remaining 8 hours of their day (assuming they don't sleep excessively - also bad for mental health) will be on purely passive pastimes. And currently people spending less than half this time on social media are already depressed.

[–] StopTech@lemmy.today 0 points 3 days ago (3 children)

But I don't understand yours in light of what I have explained.

[–] StopTech@lemmy.today 0 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

I don't see what the contradiction is in what I said there and my other comment.

In a world where everything is done better and easier by machines I have a hard time imagining people wanting to spend years of their life learning how to program, how to paint, how to make furniture, how to do science and so on. Hardly anyone makes complicated software in assembly code now that we have higher level programming languages. Hardly any farmers don't use machinery. Hardly anyone mills grain by hand. People in developed countries don't wash their clothes by hand. People don't do things that we can now automate. Those things that everyone used to do now feel like way too much hard work. So I don't understand why you would think people would still break their backs to do productive things when others are getting better results by asking a robot to do it.

[–] StopTech@lemmy.today 0 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I never heard that in movies actually. And we know there are limits according to laws of nature but that's beside the point. Here's a good explanation of how technological progress has been accelerating.

The current generation of AI hallucinates as a fundamental property

The key word there is "current"

[–] StopTech@lemmy.today 1 points 3 days ago

Interesting thanks!

[–] StopTech@lemmy.today 1 points 3 days ago (7 children)

Where did I say otherwise?

You may not need external pressure for some things but you still need motivation. And I think motivation would be very rare in a society where everything can be done by robots with a simple request.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/49749386

If the video isn't working, try these links:

Clipped from full hour long video (around 49 minutes in): https://www.bitchute.com/video/jmhFAjqbxnQ

Europol report: https://www.europol.europa.eu/cms/sites/default/files/documents/The-Unmanned-Future-Report.pdf

[–] StopTech@lemmy.today 0 points 4 days ago (9 children)

I think it's quite obvious that for someone to do something that they know will take a lot of effort they will need some motivation to do it. Anybody who did anything did it out of necessity, some perceived benefit to someone or some personal interest in doing it. Nobody ever dug a hole for no reason unless they were extremely bored and had nothing else to keep them occupied but a shovel and some dirt.

 

Many are complaining about fuel prices going up because of the war on Iran, but prices were already high because of high taxes:

You can avoid these taxes by making your own diesel at home, potentially saving money while reducing waste and being less dependent on geopolitical affairs.

Biodiesel is easy to make from new or used vegetable oil and can be used instead of diesel in 21st century cars.

If you want to save a lot of money, ask restaurants for their old cooking oil cheap or for free. Biodiesel can also be made from animal fat, which is cheaper than vegetable oil, but there are fewer guides on the process.

Diesel can also be made from used motor oil if you have a centrifuge and a still for distillation: https://carobjective.com/how-to-make-diesel-fuel-from-used-motor-oil/

How to make a simple still from a pressure cooker, copper tubing and bucket: https://www.instructables.com/How-to-make-a-still/

Making a fractional distillation column isn't that much harder: https://www.instructables.com/Build-a-Lab-Quality-Distillation-Apparatus/

With this you could potentially separate crude oil into various components and use them for both gas and diesel cars, stoves, heating, oil lamps or sell them. Small sellers may be exempt from taxes depending on where you live.

For gasoline you could also try the ideas here, although they seem to be expensive or impractical for road users: https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Synthetic-Gasoline

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/49663892

Does technology provide more jobs than it takes away? In the modern world where most industries are constantly changing, most jobs are completely unnecessary, many are unproductive and people can move countries to find work it can be difficult to judge this claim. But we can go back before benefits, government-funded useless jobs, international travel and chaotic job markets. If we do that we can see more clearly how technology has affected the availability of jobs.

The Second (or British) Agricultural Revolution provides one example of technological change. Did it lead to more jobs or less? Here's what I learned about this today. Most of this information comes from here and the pages it links to.

This revolution wasn't an overnight technological development which led to a temporary wave of unemployment that ended as new jobs were invented. This was a gradual change over hundreds of years which led to rising unemployment and poverty that didn't go away.

The lead up to it began in the 1400s with enclosed farms that were able to make better use of the land and crop rotations. This became more common into the 1500s and meant that fewer people needed to work on the farms, causing some to slide into poverty. The government and nobles of the time were apparently unfamiliar with non-temporary unemployment except as a result of laziness or disability. It was a totally alien concept to them. In reaction to increasing numbers of beggars and vagrants the government passed laws to punish them. At the time making poverty harsh was seen as a way to motivate people to get jobs. This approach didn't seem to work as by the end of the 1500s the government decided to change their approach and begin making Poor Laws. The first (Old) Poor Laws provided housing, money, food and clothing to those who were unable to work because of age or illness, but at the same time the able-bodied could be made to work in houses of correction as punishment for being a "persistent idler".

The British Agricultural Revolution really started to take off in the mid-1600s and by the end of the century unemployment and poverty had increased further, leading to the workhouse movement. These gave housing and employment to the poor and reserved houses of correction for punishment. But put poverty didn't end and around 1 million Britons may have relied on poor relief by the end of the 1700s. The number of able-bodied males taking poor relief was rising and again this has been attributed to the enclosure movement that increased agricultural productivity.

Because machines were taking people's jobs, there were widespread riots that destroyed machines in 1830, known as the Swing Riots. The existing system of poor relief wasn't able to handle all the poor people so in response to this and the riots the New Poor Law was passed in 1834. This made it harder for the able-bodied to get relief and made workhouses harsher to discourage leeching. The new system was a complete failure because the unemployed either went without any provisions or suffered in prison-like workhouses. There was no attempt to undo whatever had caused all the jobs to disappear in the first place.

In the end the Poor Laws gave way to country councils providing public housing, government pensions and eventually the full UK welfare state. The Poor Laws were an early example of a European welfare program that influenced the development of welfare states beyond the UK.

So considering all this, do we really think technology has helped or hurt the public's ability to get jobs?

Before the 1500s it was unheard of to be unemployed unless it was temporary or you were too old or sick to work. Now find one developed country where that's the case today. I'd wager you can't. And what could possibly be responsible for that? Is it the increased population? Globalization? I don't think so. More people means more mouths to feed and more jobs. Globalization didn't take away the jobs in Britain between 1500-1900. The most reasonable explanation is that technology and efficiency improvements have caused the lack of jobs by taking over more and more of the productive work, leaving humans with pointless jobs or no work at all. And what good are efficient systems if they put us out of work so we can't afford anything? Maybe efficiency can be bad and sometimes it's good to do things the hard way?

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/49451102

The downside to this translator is only more related languages can be paired. But you can still get an understandable translation by going through an intermediate language. E.g., French -> Spanish -> English.

Edit: You can translate between any two languages with the beta version: https://beta.apertium.org/

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/49434861

This wiki can be a good place to get instructions on building and using low tech systems that will make you more self-sufficient and less dependent on centralized systems that could fail or deny you service.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/49434861

This wiki can be a good place to get instructions on building and using low tech systems that will make you more self-sufficient and less dependent on centralized systems that could fail or deny you service.

 

Want to reduce the money you give to the corrupt state, reduce waste and save money? Make your own diesel.

People are complaining about fuel prices going up because of Operation Epstein Fury, but part of the reason prices are high is because of high taxes:

Biodiesel is easy to make from new or used vegetable oil and can be used instead of diesel in 21st century cars.

If you want to save a lot of money, ask restaurants for their old cooking oil cheap or for free. Biodiesel can also be made from animal fat, which is cheaper than vegetable oil, but there are fewer guides on the process.

Diesel can also be made from used motor oil if you have a centrifuge and a still for distillation: https://carobjective.com/how-to-make-diesel-fuel-from-used-motor-oil/

How to make a simple still from a pressure cooker, copper tubing and bucket: https://www.instructables.com/How-to-make-a-still/

Making a fractional distillation column isn't that much harder: https://www.instructables.com/Build-a-Lab-Quality-Distillation-Apparatus/

With this you could potentially separate crude oil into various components and use them for both gas and diesel cars, stoves, heating, oil lamps or sell them. Small sellers may be exempt from taxes depending on where you live.

For gasoline you could also try the ideas here, although they seem to be expensive or impractical for road users: https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Synthetic-Gasoline

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