I don’t think you understand what “outside my realm of expertise” means. I’m not trolling, so I must be a simpleton. As a simpleton, my general perspective has always been that it should be safe to ask questions about things you don’t understand so you can better understand. In this case, it’s very simple to say “from my uneducated eye, this appears to be a strong source that contradicts; that doesn’t seem to jive with the narrative so can someone help me understand why it doesn’t?” You seem to feel simpletons aren’t allowed to ask questions or grow, so we’re done here. I will take my specialized, domain-specific knowledge (which I’ve forgotten more about than you will probably ever learn) and sit in my simpleton castle knowing that’s all I ever get to know because it’s not okay to ask questions on the internet in a community based on discourse.

I’m was just hoping for a solid rebuttal, not necessarily a fancy one! If you’re able to explain why the criticisms you mention mean that specific study is bad, that would be great! I’m assuming you’re not from China and mistakenly think wherever you’re from doesn’t suffer from similar issues, meaning we can only trust you as much as the article.

It would be great to have some citations for that so I can point to things when I get into these discussions! That was part of what I asked for. You seem really passionate about this so you must have that available to help me out. Thanks!

I’m not sure you read my post if you think I trust any of the studies I linked more than anything else. It might be good to reread it!

It looks like someone else linked one of these studies in a different comment while I was writing my own. I don’t feel as crazy now. I don’t care one way or another; I just want to make sure I can respond correctly! I wonder if the emphasis on fluoridated water is itself linked to industry capture?

I want someone who knows about these things to respond to this 2012 metastudy that ties naturally fluoridated groundwater to neurological problems. I have used this the past decade to say “well the science is unclear;” I found it back then (2013 at the latest) when I was trying to disprove a crank and really questioned my shit. There was a(n unrelated?) follow up later that questioned the benefits. Since this is very far from my area of expertise, I’m not championing these; I just want to understand why they’re wrong or at least don’t matter in the discourse.

(Edit: for the educated, there could be a million ways these are wrong. Authors are idiots, study isn’t reproducible, industry capture, conclusions not backed up by data, whatever. I just don’t have the requisite knowledge to say these are wrong and therefore fluoridated water is both safe and useful)

You started with a straw man tho?

Since we’ve turned this into a gish gallop

1. (original comment) this has nothing to do with Hieronymus Bosch: never countered ergo conceded; whole premise is pointless
2. (original comment) genAI slop is bad: you say capitalism is bad not genAI, I say tech isn’t there and wasting energy is bad; you’ve yet to prove that capitalism being bad (your core argument) means genAI can actually work or that since capitalism is bad burning energy is okay
3. burning any energy for the current model is bad: you say capitalism is bad; this addresses nothing
4. NFTs are bad: we agree
5. making fun of people that swallow genAI proganda is always correct: you conceded the original point and also dropped when I pointed out that making fun of NFTs made things better
6. there is a fundamental misunderstanding about how capable the tech is, proganda aside, and a basic review of genAI art slop highlights this: you do not provide any analysis here; general tech consensus is that AI is very far from doing anything useful
7. your blog contradicts your online persona: you’re trying very hard to be mean here so either you’re writing your blog understanding you’re the asshole in the room that no one disagrees with or you’re incapable of self reflection.

We both agree that capitalism is bad, you provide no evidence aside from ad hominem to contradict the most superficial analysis of your midjourney, and you have swallowed way too much genAI propaganda (coincidentally called out many times and left unanswered) without applying any of your development critical thinking skills. You want to burn energy on dumb shit to support billionaires while saying billionaires are bad, I think that’s stupid and enjoy poking fun at any engineer stupid enough to miss the forest for the trees.

Oh my goodness simpler words would be nice since we’re struggling with “non sequitur” and “strawman” and “basic connections to underlying language.”

I appreciate your summary! Here’s mine:

• (original comment) this has nothing to do with Hieronymus Bosch
• (original comment) genAI slop is bad
• burning any energy for the current model is bad
• NFTs are bad
• making fun of people that swallow genAI proganda is always correct
• there is a fundamental misunderstanding about how capable the tech is, proganda aside, and a basic review of genAI art slop highlights this
• your blog contradicts your online persona

Why is this hell? This doesn’t look at all like any of the representations of hell that Bosch has done so we’ve got a different hell maybe? Maybe the issue was that the midjourney prompt had nothing to do with your joke?

It is crucial to recognize that disagreements generally arise from individuals approaching the problem from different perspectives. I presented my perspective and you went after some straw men. Are there personal insecurities that hinder the expression of contrary opinions here?

The path to comprehending the complete picture involves engaging in dialogue to grasp the trade-offs considered by each person. This only works if everyone is actually engaging in dialogue, though.

What’s the joke? What’s the story? Why am I exhaling through my nose?

Thanks! Your 4D chess was my inspiration. Either you have no understanding of the tools you use, the content they generate, and the billionaire propaganda you’ve swallowed while ignoring every single piece of technical knowledge you have in theory or this whole this was a masterclass we all can learn from. Immediately responding to criticism with strawmen, linking the current tech con to the last tech con, losing track of your personas, all fantastic work!

Should I quote your comments about the same? I love this discussion because the original non sequitur you made seems to apply to these responses! It’s great feedback. I also liked the “tilting at windmills” joke; how clever to ironically misuse a quote from around the same time as the ironic mislabeling of the artist!

Thanks! It’s always better to try to make the world a better place than it is to peddle billionaire vaporware while mislabeling the most basic concepts of art. I’m so glad we agree this prompt engineer is a witless dishcloth.

Zero energy wasted calling out dumb shit. It’s never a bad idea to rip into AI slip, especially in the context of things we can spend less energy on. Browbeating was incredibly influential in the dismantling of NFTs, which you correctly pointed out is just as bad a citizen as genAI turds.

Absolutely! Hyped-up vaporware like genAI and blockchain speculation should be nuked from orbit. Glad we agree this all garbage.

Shit, why not start with all the wasted energy generating the slop first? You’re solving the wrong problem.

I don’t normally get mad at genAI art. This one makes me mad. A huge part of Bosch is the tiny detail. There’s scholarly debate about how we interpret the detail; it’s incredibly wrong to say something is in the style of Hieronymus Bosch without clever little details. This AI garbage just has a bunch of repeated lens flares, age marks, and blobs. Also in the style of Bosch implies something we can interpret, be it a dark take on office work or capitalists teaching us lessons. I don’t know what the fuck we can take away from this.

This is more “someone with the title ‘prompt engineer’ spent three minutes hunt-and-pecking the name ‘Hieronymus Bosch’ into midjourney and grabbed the first image that was sort of muted earth tones” than “remotely in the vicinity of the style of Hieronymus Bosch.”

Thank you! I was pretty fucking sure there was stupidity related to Liam but could not for the life of me find anything in search.

This is pretty far from a proof of any variety. I think the spirit is there and the ideas are great. Spend a little more time on the execution, maybe tie in some Quine, and I think you’d have something.