Posts by ceoln@qoto.org
(DIR) Post #AZyXSmI2ElAF2KiZs0 by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T00:43:56Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemoThere is no “it” which is a single bill that is either good or bad; that is an inaccurate oversimplification of what is going on here, and does not at all capture the situation. I’ve tried to explain that several times. The defense appropriations bill is just one version of one bill of a set of bills that need to be passed to keep the government open.If you’d like to find out more about the actual situation that the OP was commenting on, the Axios article I linked to might be a helpful start.@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZyXjTzlVe7hDg8cE4 by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T00:46:55Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemoI had the impression that you were saying this independence was a good trait in everyone, bad people as well as good (since you seemed to be saying it’s something we want even in for instance extreme right Republicans). My mistake. :)And again, the reason you don’t find the logic adding up is that you think this is about one vote on one bill. It isn’t. At all.@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZyYpxFTl5ztdh8bZY by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T00:11:49Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemoHere’s an article that goes into some of that:https://www.axios.com/2023/09/18/mccarthy-democrats-spending-bills-avert-shutdown@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZyYpxtXMA2Xdvsb0i by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T00:22:28Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemoAnd sorry, not “Mitch”, I meant “Kevin”. I can’t reliably spell either last name, but apparently I can’t keep the first names straight either. 🤪@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZyYpyfkSubY3SR69o by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T00:32:02Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemo(And it’s also not just 5 Republicans; that’s the number that voted against the procedural thing to advance even their own DoD funding bill. But there are more than that keeping McCarthy from sticking to the bipartisan agreement, threatening to remove him as leader if he proposes anything a Democrat will vote for, etc. The party is a mess. And “independent thinking” isn’t helping. :) )@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZyYq0T3n3dxcgVzeq by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T00:35:56Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemoOn the subject of “why don’t the Democrats just vote for it?” From https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/19/house-republicans-spending-vote/“That scene was remarkable to veteran lawmakers who have never seen the minority party provide the votes to pass the rule vote, and it greatly irked the far-right wing of the conference, who have since pledged to oust McCarthy if he leans on Democrats again. That perspective has forced Republicans to only pass bills through their narrow-ranks.”That is, the party is so unstable that if McCarthy allows to the floor anything the Democrats will vote for, especially if it wouldn’t pass otherwise, he may be replaced by someone who will promise not to do that.@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZyZgeYvxpkn26MlyC by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T01:08:51Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemoThe quotation marks are intended as a sort of grouping operator, calling out a summary of, in this case, a salient aspect of the discussion, not a literal repeat of anything anyone said. If that’s off-putting, I’ll try to stop doing it.Once again, there is no “it”; there is not one single vote on one single bill involved here. I’m not sure why you aren’t getting that.But let’s pretend that there really is just one single vote in question. Consider the possibility that the bill is bad, and the five Republicans voted against it because it WASN’T BAD ENOUGH. That is, I hope obviously, not ultimately a good thing. Perhaps that helps the logic add up? :)@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZya1NbAEO3uV8ICLg by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T01:12:36Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemo“Yup, a great example of the harm of group think. Another example that argues against your case.”Um. But the people doing it are the people that you started off praising for doing what they thought was right, and independent thinking. But now it’s group think? I think we’re sort of going in circles now. :)@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZybe4c4qrH2rpja1A by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T01:30:47Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemoI disagree that there is anything good about dissenting from an immoral party in an even more immoral direction. Simply causing trouble does not cause the party to have mechanisms for change and dissent in any significant sense.I don’t recall you objecting to the word “extreme” before. And in any case, they are extreme. They voted with the Democrats not because they agree with them that the bill cuts too much; they voted against the bill (actually against the rule to allow the bill to advance) because they didn’t think it cut enough. They’re extreme.And no, the discussion thread is not only about one particular rule vote on one particular defense appropriations bill. But I doubt I’m going to convince you of that.@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZyc8cOlnq0kL24hEG by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T01:36:18Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemoIt seems at this point that we just think about things too differently to make much progress in this discussion; you will remain convinced that I am doing mental gymnastics around a relatively simple situation, and I will remain convinced that you are focusing on one simple aspect of a much more complex situation.It’s been interesting, though, if only in that I did some reading to satisfy myself about some of the details of the current budget mess. Turns out it’s even worse than I thought. 😝@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZyeNhoo8LTTOrZkUC by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T02:01:27Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemoOkay. :) Maybe it’s that you tend to focus on small specifics, and I am more out in the generalities.The people who voted against that rule (because the bill didn’t cut enough) are a subset of the people who are threatening to remove McCarthy if he puts forward a bill that might pass with D votes. And those two things are part of the same crazy swing of the GOP to the right and to obstructionism.I guess there is a sense in which the votes against the rule were “independent thought”, and the pressure on McCarthy not to compromise an inch is “group think”. I just don’t find it a very interesting sense, I guess, since I see both things as part of the same overall phenomenon, being done by the same basic group of people.@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZyevABBi1i8urzuJU by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T02:07:30Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemoYou have very selectively quoted from the OP there. :) It was about more than just that one sentence.And lol, I guess there is a sense in which their independence “resulted in good happening”, but it’s an awfully silly sense. And it’s not like if that rule had passed the bill would have ultimately passed; this is just political theater and power plays within the GOP, so the defeat of the rule did a very minimal amount of good.I think it’s much more significant that their “independence” was in the direction of evil, even if it did block a slightly bad thing (for not being evil enough). I don’t think this is evidence for this particular kind of “independence” being a good thing.I think we do have a fundamental disagreement there, but I doubt we’ll convince each other either way.@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZyiGLXexUxc6GIjAm by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T01:38:34Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemo(Surely you do, at least, grant that voting against a bad bill because it wasn’t bad enough, is not praiseworthy? Sorry, I can’t help asking…)@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZyo2fu93NIyvNgNZg by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T03:49:42Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemoThere was no indication whatever in your comment that it was entirely about that one sentence in the OP, and not about everything else the OP said. But okay.Their independence even on that one vote was in the direction of evil, in the sense that they voted against the rule because it did not make enough cuts. The ultimate effect of that attitude is most likely to be negative, even if it had a small positive effect in this one specify case. The larger impact is the more important.I don’t think we agree, in that you think (or you have said things that I interpret to mean) that independent thought is a good thing even in bad people; that a bad person who is an independent thinker is better than a bad person who isn’t. I don’t believe that, myself.If the discussion were only about whether independent thought is a good quality in a good person, then we would have no disagreement. But that is not what your comment said. If that’s what you intended to say, then fine! :)@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZyohc4AEHM2tPtDYO by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T03:57:05Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemoIt is not 210+ Republicans who are threatening to remove McCarthy if he puts forward anything that will pass with Democratic votes. It is a specific nasty subset of the house GOP, and the votes of those 5 members on the Defense appropriations bill rule were part of the same overall movement. Describing the one as “independent thinking” and the other as “group think”, when in fact they are part of exactly the same overall phenomenon, is not IMHO useful. They are not two distinct and different things; they are two visible symptoms of the same underlying thing.@georgetakei
(DIR) Post #AZypuXey1VlswfphJ2 by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-09-21T04:10:38Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemo“If it werent for independent thought your only hope would be a veto from biden…”Also no. This wasn’t a vote to pass the bill, it was just a rule vote to advance it toward consideration. The bill would still have to have survived amendment, passed an actual vote, gone through reconciliation, and so on.
(DIR) Post #AadnfSIZbGk2pKaBu4 by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-10-10T22:28:35Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@freemo Those are... parts of the Mediterranean Sea. 😁
(DIR) Post #AbyCv2nM9ZMpbavCwi by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-11-19T16:26:09Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
I thought #qoto had stopped doing this! :)
(DIR) Post #AcDCAZczB98bC9JLay by ceoln@qoto.org
2023-11-26T22:10:11Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jaj0_0 Do you have a source on this? It's delightful. :)
(DIR) Post #AhGQVskiB7ZulvflM8 by ceoln@qoto.org
2024-04-26T00:52:53Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
I've had occasion to ask an AI about a thing twice lately (a recent online phenomenon, and a book recommendation). Both times I asked both Gemini and ChatGPT, and both times one gave a reasonable if bland answer, and the other (a different one each time) gave a plausible but completely fictional ("hallucinated") answer.When do we acknowledge that LLMs, and "AI" in general, aren't quite ready to revolutionize the world?#AI #LLM #LLMs #ChatGPT #gemini