Even with classified information, part of proper control is limiting things to only people who have a “need to know.” This limits spread of information that anybody can use to puzzle-piece together bigger secrets.

But AI is fucking stupid, and will tell you whatever you want to hear if you figure out the right prompt. So it’s just a matter of time before you get some lateral spillage.

The top secret networks are kind of air-gapped, but I don’t know if they can keep this administration’s idiots from connecting to a commercial cloud. At that point, definite spillage.

Actually, I think what you just mentioned is exactly part of the disconnect we often see between the common people and the ones in power.

The majority of us probably disagree with the cited statements, but then a large chunk of them get convinced to vote for candidates who support the opposite. Like how most Americans will agree with the Affordable Care Act until you tell them that’s what “Obamacare” is.

Or a massive transmutation circle…

It always bothered me how so many Twitter users in Japan just kept using Xitter after everything Musk has done to it, like they’re not even aware. I think the language barrier has been filtering some of it out until now.

But,

I am not afraid of AI; I believe in its future and potential. However, I cannot accept my work being used, learned from, or exploited without my consent.

Boichi, that’s what’s been happening with AI to everybody’s art this entire time!

Fun fact, recorded rhymes are one of the clues linguists use to help reconstruct older pronunciations of words and their changes over time.

Aye, that’s it.

You can hear it in some words like 日本, as ‘nippon’ and ‘Japan’ both feel closer to the Middle Chinese pronunciation than they are to modern Mandarin’s ‘rìběn’.

Also, I hear Chinese students unintentionally (or half-intentionally) slip in Mandarin pronunciations all the time when they forget the Japanese pronunciation that is very close.

Japanese speaking and listening is still harder than reading and writing for me, and I’m guessing it’s the same for you, since you already know 漢字?

Yes.

When talking with the average American back home, there are lots of things you can sense they don’t notice and don’t seem to think about, especially if they’ve never even travelled.

From small things like always being cognizant of time zone differences and phone number country codes you use, to bigger things like seeing how crappy American restrictive zoning laws, suburban hellscapes, and car-centric society are.

Also, from the weeb perspective, going from needing anime subtitles to almost not needing them is pretty interesting.

I live in Japan, and of course there are formal ways to say everything, but in formal and polite situations, people actually try to avoid saying ‘you’ (anata, 貴方) as much as possible. Because even that can feel too personal. I only see it in writing that addresses the reader indirectly, like in surveys.

If you do address or refer to them, you typically use their title/position (e.g., ‘sensei’ for doctors and teachers, ‘Mr. President’), or name and appropriate honorific (e.g., Tanaka-san).

P.S., a lot of what might’ve been archaically formal and polite ways to say ‘you’ have become ironically rude and/or condescending. Like, ‘KISAMA!’ (貴様), kimi (君) (sovereign/lord), onushi (お主) (lord).

If you drive the same roads every day, you can start to pick up on the pattern and timings. It’s when it turns yellow in those times you feel almost too close to stop comfortably but too far to feel you’ll make it that people will “squeeze the lemon” and accelerate through that yellow light, not that I recommend it.

Also glad I don’t have to drive anymore.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t resist.

I’m saying right now it’s neither wise nor warranted, as messed up as it may sound.

When Trump actually orders them to do something unconstitutional, they can refuse it. When he refuses to step down from the end of his term as president and order them to crush the states that don’t ratify his third term, they can remove his ass.

But the things you want them to do right now, while I don’t inherently disagree with, just sound impulsive and foolish.

Are you saying the National Guard should fight ICE right now?

Or are you saying the National Guard soldiers should frag their officers?

Or just the soldiers here and there resist how they can and go to jail for refusing to pick up trash? This one leaves you with a National Guard completely not on your side instead of at least half on your side when you might need it most.

Look man, you don’t know the military well, so it’s easy to criticize the actions of people whose position you never have to imagine yourself in, but it’s like open-and-shut, you go to jail and fail to change anything if you’re not careful.

If they resist, they have to be smart and do it as a collective.

And jesus christ, these guys aren’t being told to attack civilians and kidnap children like ICE is doing, so forgive them a little if they’re having a hard time between deciding if they want to risk being marked a felon by the federal government for life or instead pick up trash while carrying a gun so Trump can scare people a bit because he knows he can’t legally use them for any more than that.

They don’t just mean ‘who’ individually. They’re in that group chat together because they don’t know who or how many of them feel similarly enough that they can reasonably challenge their command.

Right now, the orders are deliberately vague enough, technically legal, and not blatantly unethical so that they can’t refuse it. They can’t disobey orders to guard federal property and go pick up trash from the streets because that’s not something you’ll likely win against in a UCMJ case, even if you know the real purpose of the orders is for Trump to make a show of force.

Also, a lot is up to their officers, who are obligated to disobey illegal and unethical orders. They have to set the climate for the soldiers. It’s really hard for soldiers to speak up if they don’t feel like their leaders have their back.

Everything he touches turns to 💩

Hey you kids, get off my WLAN!

Sharpie enough to control hurricanes.

In that scenario, I agree the pragmatic choice is to save the majority.

But many situations tend to be complex and aren’t as clear as a trolley problem, so I want to avoid falling into the trap of seeing a false dilemma when there’s possibly more than two options.

Those are already arguments for why NASA and space programs shouldn’t exist in the first place.

I remember watching something about the space race, and there was a clip of public opinion during the time of the first mission to the moon, where a man complained that the money should’ve been used to improve the lives of poor Americans instead.

Regardless, for the scenario in The Martian, if money is already being spent and going to continue being spent on space missions in the future, I think you can rationalize it as using money for another or next space mission. They would still gain knowledge from what they had to do to pull off that rescue, so it’s not a complete waste of funds for a mission either.

On the morality point, I’d argue that we should spend the money to rescue any person if we have the money/means, and it can feasibly happen without excessive risk to other lives, otherwise we’re assigning monetary value to human lives. That includes both people in imminent danger, requiring expensive emergency services, and people suffering slower, persistent risks like hunger that require sustained support.

Mark Waters says sales at his Odessa, Texas, tools business, which he describes as a “Home Depot for the oilfields,” are down about 10 percent. He does not regret voting for Trump, saying he is willing to take a personal hit to support the president’s agenda. But he said it is ironic that over the decades he has made a lot more money when the party he despises is in power. “The oil business has thrived under Democratic leadership despite them being true haters of all things fossil,” Waters said. “For whatever reason, I made millions of dollars under Clinton. Then I made even more under Obama and Biden. I have never had a solid explanation.” His business outlook for the coming months under Trump? “Hopefully it won’t be catastrophic,” Waters said.

Almost some self-awareness there. Almost.