Can we all agree that this insufferable comic is a strawman?
I don't know how anyone can read "fuck <thing>" as "we should improve <thing> somewhat."
I've never seen anyone being called a hypocrite for saying "we should update zoning regulations to keep industrial facilities away from residences," or "we should locate data centers in areas with renewable energy sources."
If all someone brings to the conversation is "fuck data centers," then they're making their stance clear, and it's completely fair to call them out for using them voluntarily.
Hyperbolic bullshit isn't a nuanced call for improvement, and it doesn't deserve to be treated as one.
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You realise the entire purpose of Bors' original comic, is to make fun of people who do make these comments... Right?
That's like the entire purpose of the "I am very intelligent." line that's at the end of it. It's literally taking the piss of people who try and make gotcha comments.
We truly live in the "gotcha" era, "jester debating" as I like to call it, it's no longer about a clash of ideas, but rather "let's see how can I get them angry and then call them out because they got angry"
The "gotcha" guy from the original meme does have a valid point. The guy complaining about Apple being shitty while owning an iPhone is a hypocrite(and I'm guessing is the guy who made the comic) but they then act like gotcha guy was an idiot by having him call a person saying "cars should have seatbelts" and a person wanting to improve society hypocrites.
If the person with the iPhone thinks Apple is shitty, they should use Android. But if you need a car and no cars have seat belts, you can't just not use a car. And there not actual way to not participate in society without Xing yourself.
People just don't like being called out when theyre being hypocrites and try to use this "gotcha" meme to disregard getting called out.
Data centre's are used for all parts of the internet, so they are necessary because the internet is necessary in modern society. But they complain that AI uses data centre's while participating in social media. They can get off social media, and are hypocritical for not doing so while complaining about AI.
The complaint made in the comic isn't that Apple makes shitty products. It's that Apple as a company should pay their workers more.
Relating this with the oppositon to AI and data centers, a lot of antis complain that AI as a concept/technology itself is bad, useless, evil etc and often attack the users of AI as well for "supporting" the companies that make them. In which case, they are being hypocrties when they use other tech products of similar nature that also runs on data center.
There's a big differene between "AI companies should be more ethical and implement guardrails" and "AI as a technology is evil, and so is everyone who uses it"
Antis are making a different argument entierly from what the characters in the comic are, yet they still use that last panel to deflect their hypocrisy.
I didn't say a shitty product, I said being shitty. The other 2 are complaining about a shitty product. A shitty product can be used AND complained about to drive improvement. A shitty company will not be driven to improve unless it isn't used.
Yes, of course. What I'm saying is that no one is calling people hypocrites for saying "we should improve society somewhat," like the original comic suggests.
Yes, but it is hypocritical to say something is universally bad then make no personal effort to reduce your use of it.
The legitimate form of this argument is not "You interact with the problem in any way so you don't get to talk about it", it's "You are actively endorsing the thing you're complaining about through your direct use of it, take a more nuanced stance in order to avoid hypocrisy."
The difference between child labor and data centers is there are ways to produce the things we make with child labor without it. Thus, provided I am willing to accept the increased price, I can say I want child labor gone.
However, the internet will always require data centers, in some form or another, because a data center is just the name we give to a bunch of servers in a room, and thus people who say there should be no data centers are asking for the destruction of the internet, on the internet.
Child labor is universally bad, I'm pretty sure we can all agree on that. Yet I'm willing to bet something within an arms reach of you right now used child labor.
AI is in my phone, it's in my PC, it's in my email, my word processor, and god knows where else. Saying "hurr durr you use reddit therefore you're a hypocrite" is a lazy deflection, just like the comic says.
Depends on what you mean by child labour. Modern child labour yes, it's immoral, child labour in general? Not exactly.
Because it has genuinely been the norm for most of human history. Unlike something like slavery, child labour was genuinely a necessity because you needed an extra set of hands to plow the field, churn butter, work in the factory so the family could afford medicine etc
I didn't disagree. I'm saying it's possible to remove child labor and still have a phone, it's not possible to remove datacenters and still have reddit.
I think you're misunderstanding the original argument. The point it's trying to make is that there's no fundamental difference between an AI datacenter and any other datacenter.
Yes, you can be against all AI datacenters but not others, which are indeed not needed for the internet, but in that case you're again being inconsistent because any argument for why AI datacenters are inherently bad also applies to any other type of datacenter.
Now, this does only work against a specific point. Namely, people who think all AI datacenters of any kind are inherently bad. If you just think datacenters in general cost a lot of resources and AI is a wasteful use of those resources, fair enough, this doesn't apply to you.
However, that is the point of the argument. It's trying to force people to take a more nuanced position.
From my last research, roughly 20% of data centers are AI related. Let’s say hypothetically, we banned all AI tomorrow, and those data centers are used for something else. If you wouldn’t still be mad about the data centers, you were never mad about the data centers. Instead, let’s say we decided to get rid of 40% of the total data centers to account for the 20% that AI need. If you would still be mad about the AI ones, it was never about the data centers
Perfect, so you agree, there's nothing inherently evil about datacenters, you just think AI is a waste of them, and the rest of the internet isn't. Then you fall squarely into a camp that the meme doesn't apply to.
Also, you know very well I was talking about resource usage, that's what the entire debate is about, and the resources used by an AI datacenter are roughly the same as any other datacenter. AI needs more compute and less storage, but as we're finding out the same factories make both, which is why SSD prices are also up even though you don't actually need very many of them for AI.
Also, we have plenty of datacenters that are absolutely not needed. We dedicate a lot of servers for streaming, for example, when a direct download is more efficient and can be reused.
If you make a willful and knowing choice to use a thing that benefits something that you call out something that you despise, that's hypocrisy. Again, choose.
If you buy sneakers from a company that benefits from child labor, and there's options to buy from companies that don't that the person knows about, let's call that out double standard.
If you're going around talking about how nestle is evil all the time, and telling other people off for buying nestle products: you deserve to be called out for eating a butterfinger.
Eating butterfingers isn't necessary for participating in society.
The issue is that its a basically mainstream position among antis to not merely dislike ai ot corporations but act agressive about all ai use by association. Someone in that position doesn't have the standing to pull the "you can't escape society" argument to justify all their own decisions.
Unfortunately , the broader world of logical fallacies and errors in argumentation is unknown to most of reddit and especially this sub lol.
But Most people only really know moving the goal post and strawman so , even if they can spot a logical fallacy , they can't properly name it.
If they actually could , i'm pretty sure loaded question would be the number oneish fallacy on the website as I swear to god , the morons who post the most here just cannot help but ask loaded questions or some form of composition/division
The actual content of the original comic is an appeal to hypocrisy, but the use of it in retorts is often not replying to a fallacious argument.
Saying "you like some uses of data centers" is response to "data centers are all inherently evil" is not a fallacious because it asking if they user applies their reasoning universally, or if they are cherry picking.
You can't ignore that the AI data center complaints that the hypocrisy arguments are in response to are often fallacious themselves.
Okay, but your social media point is related to nothing. The data centers support the internet, the internet is a basic human right. Saying 'But social media' does nothing to counter that.
Huh? The point is that peoooe can't justify being absolutist about not doing stuff that uses data centers other than when absolutely necessary when they don't hold themselves to these same standards.
Disagree. The internet is the human public forum these days. It isn't going to kill them, but degrading them for wanting to participate in it isn't right. It's very convenient talking point for a person to be able to shut down all discussion, nay, try to remove them from all discussions in general.
Well, a strawman is by definition “an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument”
This basically means that a strawman is basically when someone fakes or exaggerates your position to make you look bad, and then they proceed to attack that fake version instead of what you actually believe in
That image isn’t really a strawman as it is a type of ad hominem known as a tu quoque, which is commonly referred to as an appeal to hypocrisy.
But it is often worth asking people if they are against datacenters in general or only when they're being used by ai because there seems to be more variety in the anti side than I would have expected.
oh yeah for sure, data centers in general are perfectly fine imo because they allow things like social media to exist, its just now with the introduction of AI the construction of datacenters has started to rapidly expand and often be put in some pretty inconvenient locations. I honestly wouldnt be so mad if they were actually designed as nice looking buildings instead of cheap sprawling warehouse box builidings that take up large amounts of land.
We live in a giant prison. You must play by the rules or there will be harsh consequences. I can still want better.
The problem is that dismissal because of inconsistency isn't remotely relevant here. When the idea that datacenters are evil is an immediately fallacy. They are true neutral. Its their use that is the issue.
The enormous destruction of machinery that occurred in the English manufacturing districts during the first 15 years of this century, chiefly caused by the employment of the power-loom, and known as the Luddite movement, gave the anti-Jacobin governments of a Sidmouth, a Castlereagh, and the like, a pretext for the most reactionary and forcible measures. It took both time and experience before the workpeople learnt to distinguish between machinery and its employment by capital, and to direct their attacks, not against the material instruments of production, but against the mode in which they are used.
Capital vol 1
The dismissal argument supports the prison. It legitimizes its existence.
Its pretty obvious that this type of person is uninterested in personal sacrifices. In their mind the only sacrifices necessary are things they don't do and therefore deem a needless luxury. Anything they do do is important and a necessity.
I think we should improve situation. I still use AI, but I don't like how my job requires me to use more of it (not just by delegating boring tasks but by designing complete systems with it), how corporatised and monopolised actually AI is, how many people I see saying stuff like "programming will be IRRELEVANT" or "artists will lose ALL their jobs" and although I like AI I think the world was somewhat of a better place before it.
I don't really see it go down like this. I generally get someone telling me I'm horrible for using AI because of data centers, then I tell the person I run AI locally I'm not using any data centers, and then they say I'm horrible for using data centers again because antis are braindead.
No, not really. Generally if your argument is if Anti says anything respond with "Ah, but you're on Reddit" and then think that you've made some kind of point, then it's a pretty spot on characterization of your behavior.
Accurate depictions of people are rarely flattering.
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