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"Although we often boast about AI’s ability to create, we should instead focus the conversation on the kind of society AI produces. Good intentions mean nothing. It is not a society of industry and creation, but consumption. Billions of dollars are being funneled into AI initiatives because they promise a return on the investment–not by the furthering of our humanity, but the siphoning of creativity, talent, and labor to those who manage the AI."
- Austin Hoffman
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“Generative AI is going to do for human cognitive faculties what the automobile, potato chips, and the La-Z-Boy recliner have done for human physical fitness.”
-Johann Cellarius
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“Generative AI is going to do for human cognitive faculties what the automobile, potato chips, and the La-Z-Boy recliner have done for human physical fitness.”
-Johann Cellarius
"Although we often boast about AI’s ability to create, we should instead focus the conversation on the kind of society AI produces. Good intentions mean nothing. It is not a society of industry and creation, but consumption. Billions of dollars are being funneled into AI initiatives because they promise a return on the investment–not by the furthering of our humanity, but the siphoning of creativity, talent, and labor to those who manage the AI."
- Austin Hoffman
An old friend of mine. He’s frickin insightful but he doesn’t do the internet in any meaningful way.
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"Many North-American neighbourhoods are designed for maximum independence and leave little opportunity to interact or encounter anyone. People use personal vehicles from garage to destination, visit drive-throughs, place online orders, opt for food delivery. Most social interactions happen online, where algorithms cater to our interests and desires. There are few rubs in life, that require us to bend, compromise, concede, or find a literal common ground. Our homes are large, our streets are wide, our opinions and views are fed and coddled online. And when we face each other in person, we wonder where all this division has come from."
- Peco Gaskovski
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"Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike."
- Alexander Hamilton
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"If you put a big monster in a small room, you put a little cash on the floor for the people that kill it! That's just good manners! Everyone knows the real friends are the treasures we found along the way!"
- Haley Starshine, Rich Burlew's Order of the Stick #1306
This is a little more in the original spirit of the thread, rather than the current one, but I feel this is amusing enough to merit a mention.
One of the guys I work with (a young fellow I've referred to in other threads as "The Kid") has a rather unique manner of speaking, with one of the more common forms this takes being a patented form of "non-answer." A few examples:
The Kid: "Hey, check out my new knife. You like it?"
Foreman: "Nice. Where did you get it?"
The Kid: "Oh, I just bought it."
The Kid: "Did you hear? They just banned low-riders in South Carolina!"
Foreman: "Oh yeah? Why's that?"
The Kid: "'Cause they didn't want people driving them."
Foreman: "That tree you just planted is in the wrong spot. Weren't you listening?"
The Kid: "Well, you see, I was just putting it in, and that's where I put it."
The Kid: "Hey, check out my new knife. You like it?"
Foreman: "Nice. Where did you get it?"
The Kid: "Oh, I just bought it."
Translation: "I'm not going to tell you."
The Kid: "Did you hear? They just banned low-riders in South Carolina!"
Foreman: "Oh yeah? Why's that?"
The Kid: "'Cause they didn't want people driving them."
Translation: "I have no clue."
Foreman: "That tree you just planted is in the wrong spot. Weren't you listening?"
The Kid: "Well, you see, I was just putting it in, and that's where I put it."
Translation: "No, I wasn't listening".
Translation: "I'm not going to tell you."
Honestly, I don't think he's thinking that far ahead.
What were we talking about again?
Huh. My latest reply apparent got lost in the ether. When were we going to get new forums software again?
What I said was "Actually, "I wasn't listening" could have been applied to all three translations. Or words to that effect.
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"Not having a place to discuss politics does not make the subject go away. Political opinions and affiliations make up a large portion of peoples' personalities and inform their actions in many ways.
When people can discuss them, everything is more transparent. You start to understand where people are coming from. And, bonus, they're confined to specific threads so people can ignore them if need be.
As-is people are just as pissed off for whatever reason, but have nowhere here to explain why, or be informed by peers with similar interests about other goings on. The political threads here are usually pretty informative, one way or another.
The ban on political threads has basically just put a lid on a kettle. That water is still boiling, and increasingly it's been seeping around the sides of the lid and taking over threads it has no business to."
― Sundakan
One of the guys I work with (a young fellow I've referred to in other threads as "The Kid") has a rather unique manner of speaking, with one of the more common forms this takes being a patented form of "non-answer." A few examples: ....
Well that's terrifying.
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"Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy."
- Franz Kafka
"I fought the law and the law won."
-Franz Kafka
(Ok, maybe not. But I did have a t-shirt I made with this quote and his picture on it. No one ever laughed.)
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"The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint…But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice."
― C. S. Lewis
Time flies like an arrow
Fruit flies like a banana
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When an archer is shooting for fun, he has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass prize, he is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind
Or sees two targets – he is out of his mind.
His skill has not changed, but the prize divides him.
He cares. He thinks more of winning than of shooting – and the need to win drains him of power.
- Zhuangzi
Principal Seymour Skinner (Harry Shearer): "Superintendent, I hope you're ready for mouthwatering hamburgers!"
Superintendent Gary Chalmers (Hank Azaria): "I thought we were having steamed clams."
Skinner: "Oh no, I said 'steamed hams'! That's what I call hamburgers."
Chalmers: "You call hamburgers 'steamed hams'?"
Skinner: "Yes, it's a regional dialect."
Chalmers: "Uh-huh. What region?"
Skinner: "Uh... upstate New York?"
Chalmers: "Really? Well, I'm from Utica and I've never heard anyone use the phrase 'steamed hams'."
Skinner: "Oh, not in Utica, no. It's an Albany expression."
- The Simpsons, S07E21 "22 Short Films About Springfield" (1996)
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"Ultimately, the only thing that will save our country -- and our children -- , is if we choose to love our kids more than we hate each other."
-- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
23 August 2024, upon suspending his presidential campaign
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I couldn't help but add this one to the compilation. Submitted without context:
You can't trust the lamp. It whispers bad things to the cat.
"The satisfaction which no longer comes from the use of abundant commodities is now sought in the recognition of their value as commodities: the use of commodities becomes sufficient unto itself; the consumer is filled with religious fervor for the sovereign liberty of the commodities."
- Guy Debord
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"The only guaranteed way to communicate privately with others is in person."
- Rhyd Wildermuth
METAL BAWXES! THEY HIDE IN METAL BAWXES!
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"Since I’ve personally only read sixteen of the New York Times’ 100 best books of the 21st century, I can’t really comment on these complaints. Was the list accurate? Probably not, if only because we’re less than a quarter of the way through the century in question, and unless something really bad happens there are a lot of great 21st century books that haven’t been written yet."
- Sam Kriss
It would have made more sense for the New York Times to publish, sometime after 2000, a "100 best books of the 20th century".
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"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
― James Madison
The legend never dies.
-Dark Souls
"We are today experiencing the transition from the age of things to the age of non-things. Information, rather than things, determines the lifeworld. We no longer dwell on the earth and under the sky but on Google Earth and in the Cloud. The world is becoming increasingly intangible, cloud-like and ghostly. There are no tangible and arrestable things."
- Byung-Chul Han
Did he say "arrestable things" or "attestable things"?
Did he say "arrestable things" or "attestable things"?
"Arrestable." Based on the context, I'd assume in this case used poetically to mean something which can be grasped / seized / held. Not sure if this was a deliberate choice by Han, or whether it's an artifact of a native Korean speaker writing in German, then having the words translated to English.
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We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell stories that don't go anywhere. Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m'shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt. Which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Now where was I... oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...
Hey! I’m watching you…
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"People are basically irreverent...They want to see sacred cows kicked over. You can’t have Harry Belafonte on your show and not have him sing a song, but we did; we had him climbing out of a bathtub, just because it looked irreverent and silly. If a show hires Robert Goulet, pays him $7,500 or $10,000, they’re going to want three songs out of him; we hire Robert Goulet, pay him $210 and drop him through a trap door."
― Dick Martin
"Politics is the entertainment branch of industry."
- Frank Zappa
"As a cheering crowd, you lose your sense of individuality, you lose your sense of objectivity. Of being able to look at something and go, "I may or may not like this."
- Mike Stoklasa
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"People are basically irreverent...They want to see sacred cows kicked over. You can’t have Harry Belafonte on your show and not have him sing a song, but we did; we had him climbing out of a bathtub, just because it looked irreverent and silly. If a show hires Robert Goulet, pays him $7,500 or $10,000, they’re going to want three songs out of him; we hire Robert Goulet, pay him $210 and drop him through a trap door."
― Dick Martin