> In moderation is again key but doesn't seem to fit into anyone's ideological framework these days.
Well phrased. Too much reasoning these days proceeds backwards from ideological tautology.
Needless overapplication of broadleaf herbicides in pursuit of perfect US lawns has harmed biodiversity. [0]
Herbicide use has also allowed agricultural yields that would have been inconceivable decades ago. [1]
Both of these things can simultaneously be true: there's no need to start from "all chemicals bad" or "all chemicals good" and only accept facts which fit those beliefs.
[0] For anyone who wants to peer into the mountains of madness, ask a Florida lawn company what their recommended annual plan is. There's fertilizer and artificial irrigation (to grow grass at all in sandy, nutrient-poor soil), herbicide, fungicide (in case it happens to be hot and wet at the same time), and then resodding every few years anyway because something goes awry.
The article is bad both as a scientific piece (more name-dropping than detail) and an argumentative essay (thesis and recommended course of action are muddled and all over the place).
If the author writes a whiny diatribe on what could be a slam dunk topic, they're to blame when people take issue with needlessly vitriolic inclusions.
And yet we have multiple comment threads on those "needless inclusions" and none actually trying to refute it on either a scientific or a rhetorical basis, so pardon me if I consider this to be an obvious attempt at retroactive justification based on an emotional response.
Yes. She should have just left if politically neutral. If anything she is making an assertion that republicans are hostile towards "naturalizing" cityscapes and liberals are not, which is just not true. I think all people want to live in beautiful areas and have song birds and butterflies roaming and shit. She deliberately politized this topic for no reason and has potentially done more harm than good because of it.
Yes. I wanted to like the piece, and wanted to share it with my dad who is getting super into natural local landscaping, but I couldn't because he'd be completely turned off by her implication that conservatives are the source of America's fixation on green lawns.
Typically there is no penalty - and contracts explicitly declare that all clauses are severable so that the rest of the contract remains valid even if one of the scare-clauses is found to be invalid. IANAL
I agree with Piper's point that these contracts aren't common in tech, but they're hardly unheard of. In 20 years of consulting work I've seen dozens of them. They're not uncommon. This doesn't look uniquely hostile or amoral for OpenAI, just garden-variety.
Well, an AI charity -- so founded on openness that they're called OpenAI -- took millions in donations, everyone's copyright data...only to become effectively for-profit, close down their AI, and inflict a lifetime gag on their employees. In that context, it feels rather amoral.
This to me is like the "don't be evil" thing. I didn't take it seriously to begin with, I don't think reasonable people should have taken it seriously, and so it's not persuasive or really all that interesting to argue about.
Therein lies the issue. The second you throw idealistic terms like “don’t be evil” and __OPEN__ ai around you should be expected to deliver.
But how is that even possible when corporations are typically run by ghouls who enjoy relativistic morals when it suits them. And are beholden to profits, not ethics.
I think we do need to start taking such things seriously, and start holding companies accountable using all available venues (including legal, and legislative if the laws don't have enough leverage as it is) when they act contrary to their publicly stated commitments.
Contracts like this seem extremely unusual as a condition for _retaining already vested equity (or equity-like instruments)_, rather than as a condition for receiving additional severance. And how common are non-disclosure clauses that cover the non-disparagement clauses?
In fact both of those seem quite bad, both by regular industry standards, and even moreso as applied to OpenAI's specific situation.
This sounds just like the non-compete issue that the FTC just invalidated. I can see if the current FTC leadership is allowed to continue working after 2025/01/20 that these things might be moved against as well. If new admin is brought in, they might all get reversed. Just something to consider going into your particular polling place
That's all well and good until a really bad drought or a plague blows through and people start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the inbred jackass on the golden throne doesn't control the weather after all.
Except, the Egyptian society was quite stable for 3,000 years. Can you imagine the USA existing for 3,000 years? Will there ever be another human civilization that lasts as long as the ancient Egyptian civilization?
My understanding of Egyptian chronology is that Egypt was far from stable for 3000 years. In fact, Ancient Egypt is broken up into the Old, Middle, and New Kingdom periods, separated by "intermediate periods" of a few centuries. Even then, it's generally reckoned around 2500 years from the beginning of the Old Kingdom to the incorporation by the Persian Empire.
But, even during the intermediate periods, the invaders became the pharaohs and kept the old time religion going.
Imagine back when Europe was under the thumb of the Roman Catholic church, but then it went on pretty much the same for 3,000 years. There would be some hiccups along the way, but for the normal peasant, it would pretty much be the same old same old from millennium to millennium.
Isn't the Catholic church becoming the roman Catholic church or vice versa sort of the same thing? Even with the split into Protestant it's still essentially the same core and looking back 5000 years from now it would probably be reasonable to glue it all together as the Ancient Roman-Christian period / civilization.
Imagine today there is not all these different European governments, but just the Catholic church controlling all of the different governments, which are all really branches of the Catholic Church. Their kings are determined by the Catholic church. All of them are under the Pope. Their laws have to be approved by the Catholic Church. Everyone is Catholic. Catholic bishops are more powerful than any king. Etc. And that is the way it is and continues for 3,000 years.
Well phrased. Too much reasoning these days proceeds backwards from ideological tautology.
Needless overapplication of broadleaf herbicides in pursuit of perfect US lawns has harmed biodiversity. [0]
Herbicide use has also allowed agricultural yields that would have been inconceivable decades ago. [1]
Both of these things can simultaneously be true: there's no need to start from "all chemicals bad" or "all chemicals good" and only accept facts which fit those beliefs.
[0] For anyone who wants to peer into the mountains of madness, ask a Florida lawn company what their recommended annual plan is. There's fertilizer and artificial irrigation (to grow grass at all in sandy, nutrient-poor soil), herbicide, fungicide (in case it happens to be hot and wet at the same time), and then resodding every few years anyway because something goes awry.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/yields-vs-land-use-how-has-the-wo...
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