• jtrek@startrek.website
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    8 hours ago

    Another facet of what I said above: facts don’t matter. Emotions matter. Which is a stupid way to live, but that’s humans.

    The average person, if you told them like “the square root of 9 is 3, you fucking idiot” isn’t going to believe you. Which, amusingly, shows they are kind of a fucking idiot.

    • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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      7 hours ago

      They wouldn’t necessarily refute the math, but they’d certainly carry from that interaction that math enthusiasts seem like assholes and then not have sympathy when a mathematician is derided publicly.

    • Forester@pawb.social
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      8 hours ago

      Conversely one May come to the conclusion that you are a fucking idiot who doesn’t understand communication

      • jtrek@startrek.website
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        8 hours ago

        That doesn’t change the square root of 9, and it’s stupid to discard facts because the speaker is rude.

        • Forester@pawb.social
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          8 hours ago

          I didn’t say you were incorrect, I said the manner in which you presented your fact was dismissive counterproductive and leads the other party to believe you’re a fucking imbecile

          • jtrek@startrek.website
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            8 hours ago

            Right. But that’s a stupid strategy that leads people to believing what the flashy YouTube video says about eating horse medicine to cure cancer instead of the grumpy scientist who makes you feel bad.

            You’re not wrong in describing how people behave. I’m saying that behavior is foolish.

            • Forester@pawb.social
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              8 hours ago

              I don’t know how to say this without being rude.

              If you understand all of what you have just stated and continue to use an ineffective means of communication…

              You might actually be an idiot, regardless of your intellectual prowess.

              You’re not going to magically make the 85% of the world population that isn’t autistic suddenly fall down upon their faces and worship logic.

              You may know how to play chess, but it doesn’t count for shit if you’re on a checkers board.

              • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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                7 hours ago

                Ok now you just missed their point. You’re taking their description of how they wish people were to mean that’s how they believe people actually are, when they explicitly spelled out the opposite.

                Maybe you’re doubling down on your bit from above, but it scans as a reading comprehension error to my eyes. It happens. :)

                PS sorry to spam you with replies, but you’ve also been prolific in this little clump of comments.

              • jtrek@startrek.website
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                8 hours ago

                I’m not (intentionally) being rude while knowing that it’s ineffective.

                I’m saying the people that believe a flashy YouTube video instead of something uncomfortable are being stupid.

                The solution will never be to get them to fall on their face and worship logic. Nor will it be to call them idiots to their face. (Even though some people are so fucking stupid and full of worm paste that I want to scream at them, that’s not appropriate so it stays inside). The solution, unfortunately, needs to be wrapping facts up in ways that make them feel good. We have to cater to this behavior.

                Here’s a more concrete example. We do code reviews at work. I could leave a comment that says “Don’t sort this list in place. That’s going to cause a bug at XYZ”. Straight. To the point. I could also leave a comment that says like “hey great work here. And a good call to sort the list! I think you might want to make a copy and sort that so it won’t be weird at XYZ. Thanks so much.”

                The latter is a lot fluffier and a little dishonest (it’s clearly not great work), but I have to write more like that. Otherwise people feel bad and whine about it.

                I think this is a factor in why people love LLMs so much. They’re always getting fluffed.