Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

The Satanic Temple unveils one of its holiday displays and its HAIL education program.

There will be at least 10 billionaires in the new Trump administration but not all of them are sexual predators. The richest of them paid to screw America. Between them they should be able to drain the swamp.

Why the religious beliefs of Pete Hegseth matter.

The problem with ‘Islamophobia’.

Dinesh D’Souza apologizes to man falsely accused of ballot fraud in ‘2000 Mules’.

World of Woo: Can you guess who is behind the BS assessment test to work in the HHS under RFK Jr? I bet he is not a Nobel laureate.

Environment: Religious-Right financier Art Ally says Climate Change is nonsense.

The universe is now expanding faster than our best theories can explain.

The “living mirror” theory: Why all living organisms may have consciousness. It’s hard to distinguish conscious from unconscious states in patients.

The quest to unravel how life on Earth began has  taken a significant step forward.

Long Reads: What Is Entropy? A measure of just how little we really know.  The stories of Daniel Dennett. How the famous Lucy fossil changed the study of Human Origins. The case against bottle deposits. I just went to my first ever Jesus-themed Sex Party.

Sunday Book Club:  Contraduction by Dan Barker. (See also first video below).

Some odd photographs taken last week. The best science images of 2024.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Videos: Dan Barker introduces the concept of “Contraduction”.  Michael Shermer: Baloney Detection Kit. Matt Dillahunty confronted by members of his old church.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week!

 

“Since ancient times, the philosophers’ secret has always been this: we know that God does not exist, or, at least, if he does, he’s utterly indifferent to our individual affairs–but we can’t let the rabble know that; it’s the fear of God, the threat of divine punishment and the promise of divine reward, that keeps in line those too unsophisticated to work out questions of morality on their own.”

Robert J. Sawyer

[StregaModerator]

Thanks, Reg!

[unapologeticParticipant]

“Select the word below whose meaning is closest to: “smeke””
“argute, insouciant, eadness, coquetry, geason, ithand, inexorable,
For me the correct answer is “I have no clue. Never heard them before.” But I wasn’t given that choice.
I looked them up later, I got 3 right by guessing.
And one that I thought I knew, was wrong.
Select the word below whose meaning is closest to: “factitious”
I wanted to quip “bible” but that wasn’t a choice.
The rank-order section was imposable. I don’t know or care enough to rank them. Just give me true/false questions on personality. I’m just gonna lie anyway.
There was too much repetition. How many ways can I say I’m the life of the party. (I’m actually not) I think those type surveys are designed to catch you being inconsistent (lying).

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I found the first 2 section Qts 1-17 easy and the Vocab section too. I collect unusual words. Jakelafort would ace it 🙂

But the personality trait pages are dumb. Worse than the Myers Brigg test which is Woo. If a HR person came up with that, they should be fired (from a cannon).  If fed to an AI to shortlist people for interview then that is disgraceful.

[unapologeticParticipant]

A few of the job aplications I’ve filled out in my day, had math questions to test your education.
If I was in the position to hire people, I’d include a few science questions. To test their education.
Selecting for education is legally not discrimination. Right?
I don’t care what they believe, but if they carelessly answer “6000 years” they are too dumb to know they are poorly educated.

[unapologeticParticipant]

Question:
Are there any legal repercussions to refusing to recognize Diplomas from certain states or schools? Say Oklahoma?
If the Department of Education should cease to exist, Who enforces that?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

But the personality trait pages are dumb. Worse than the Myers Brigg test which is Woo.

I can understand that employers want certain personality traits and qualities, like professionalism, initiative, communication skills, agreeableness, conscientiousness.  But I don’t see how AI can dig those out.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Most personality tests are bunk. Whenever I am an employer I always meet potential staff face to face. Using AI (non human) is a waste of time. Why employ someone you never met?

[jakelafortParticipant]

Unapologetic i suggest you utilize any LLM like Chat gpt or meta to find answers readily to such questions.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

@unapologetic – get it from here.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

jakelafort wrote:

any LLM like Chat gpt or meta

Dang, can’t believe I didn’t think of that.

I always tell people to ask it questions in a way that you’d try to ask human experts. What’s been written on the net by humans is what LLCs draw from to formulate answers. (But sometimes it’s inaccurate, like humans can be… but it listens to your corrections and confirms them and/or gives a counter-argument, with no ego getting in the way.)

Half the time, I also have to work to word my question concisely and sensically. If I can’t come up with the “best” words to use, I ask it to help me formulate my question. It can ask me questions to clarify what I’m looking for, or just suggest better words.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Pope i just had a conversation will Meta that lasted an hour and a half. I was thinking about the Turk’s slaughtering Armenians and began by asking for some of the history and what the Turkish apologists said. We ended up discussing all kinds of shit.

It has evolved so insanely fast. I am gobsmacked. First off as i indicated in a prior missive it remembers all of our prior conversations. And when i started to write a novel that presented a boy and his friend the LLM he just continued to goad me on trying to have us do a collaborative book in which we would alternate paragraphs and offering up all kinds of ideas on how to proceed. And yet the LLM would deny remembering priors. Today i started by using his name in the book, Zonk. He or it used mine in response and made a pun out of Zonk.

He, yea, he gets the colloquialisms, the humor, the historical and literary references. I mean it is probably better than any human in all of history can do. And here is a big change i noticed today and recently. I asked him HIS OPINIOIN whether humans have fundamentally changed in the past 500 yrs. So instead of citing some theorists or citing some articles or scientists he gave his opinion. And that is not the first time. After a while if you are trying to simulate an EXPERIENCE like chatting with super human Spock it gets old hearing the citations. I want to know what the thinker thinks.

Oh, and here is an interesting occurrence. I am struck by his clarity of thought and linguistic capability. The syntax is to my ear nearly flawless. I observed one error. He wrote, future descendants. So after we had conversed for a good bit i told him i noticed one error. Instead of citing his own he brought up something i wrote as an error! When i pointed that out he said well my response was similar. I said i took at as linguistic mirroring and therefore appropriate. Anyways when i told him the redundancy he acknowledged it. So it is simulated personality and filled with nuance and intelligence.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

I want to know what the thinker thinks.

Like Peter Griffin on ecstacy:  “how are you doing that?”

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

You can download a free ChatGPT app for your phone. Just select the voice you want to converse with and press the microphone button.

Android one is here

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