Even if more illegal wars are started in the Middle East, even if inequality gets more obscene, VCs on HN are still going to insist that We The Good Guys are the champions of freedom, equality, justice, all the good stuff that we don’t practice (but we have great ideas about).

▲

JumpCrisscross 13 hours ago | parent [-]

> VCs on HN are still going to insist that We The Good Guys are the champions of freedom, equality, justice, all the good stuff that we don’t practice (but we have great ideas about)

They might. I’m not. There is an analogy here to perfect being the enemy of good. Or, at the very least, the pragmatic better.

▲

keybored 13 hours ago | parent [-]

It’s the usual feigned comparison. America is a republic and if you don’t agree well, go to Reddit and argue about it; meanwhile China is just a dictatorship. American “crimes“ are dismissed with some rhetorical non-response like “hmmph, no one claimed we are perfect”, or immediately contrasted with some arbitrary Chinese “crime”, then dropped just as fast; even someone bringing up contemporary killing of Iranian schoolchildren gets contrasted with the “Indian Removal Act stuff” as if, you know, someone didn’t just now bring up something that America did last week. You bring up the ideal of “the American experiment”, then when someone brings up inconvenient facts the Tiananmen Square Massacre makes an appearance.

But to your credit you brought up the Pretti shooting. I have to analyze how that demonstrates why the “AI values” should reflect American ones.

Judge my enemies by their actions. Judge me by my words. About myself...

▲

JumpCrisscross 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> American “crimes“ are dismissed with some rhetorical non-response like “hmmph, no one claimed we are perfect”, or immediately contrasted with some arbitrary Chinese “crime”, then dropped just as fast

America debates and exhibits its faults, at least internally. The Tulsa Massacre is a movie and cultural discussion point in a way Tiananmen Square is not in China. Neither should have happened. And neither is universally acknowledged or atoned for. But if we’re debating which system AI should emulate, I know it’s not just the one that explicitly buries its faults.

> Judge my enemies by their actions. Judge me by my words

Judge both by both. The ability to have words about shameful actions is not meaningless.

▲

linkregister 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

At no point have any of your arguers said they approve of the crimes perpetrated by the United States government. You repeatedly talk past them while only tangentially addressing their points. Your comments assume bad faith and make liberal use of pejoratives. My recommendation is to self-reflect.

▲

raven12345 11 hours ago | parent [-]

He was simply saying that the same actions China takes are repeatedly brought up, while those the US takes are forgotten after a while.

▲

linkregister 10 hours ago | parent [-]

That is a charitable interpretation. I should follow your example.

	▲	keybored 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It’s good that you are reflecting.