On reflection, I think the worst part of Cory Doctorow’s argument in favor of LLM use is this:
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On reflection, I think the worst part of Cory Doctorow’s argument in favor of LLM use is this:
« Doubtless some of you are affronted by my modest use of an LLM. You think that LLMs are "fruits of the poisoned tree" and must be eschewed because they are saturated with the sin of their origins. I think this is a very bad take, the kind of rathole that purity culture always ends up in.
Let's start with some context. If you don't want to use technology that was created under immoral circumstances or that sprang from an immoral mind, then _you are totally fucked._ »
This is a form of argument beloved by awful people. I can’t be pure and perfect, they say, so there’s no point my trying to make better or less damaging moral choices.
Stop buying from Amazon? Walmart and Target aren’t perfectly moral. Stop driving an SUV? Your car pollutes too, and so do buses. Stop using Twitter? Facebook and Bluesky are far from morally perfect, and mastodon.social has poor moderation. And so on.
I see this kind of excuse all the time online. It’s a cousin to both whataboutism and Mister Gotcha. It also rests on a false premise. The idea that anyone is expected to achieve complete purity is a straw man. You’re not having sainthood demanded of you, people are just hoping you’ll consider *reducing* the amount of immoral and damaging behavior you engage in *when there are perfectly viable alternatives*. Sure, we can argue about whether the alternatives are truly viable, but the idea that if you can’t be perfect you may as well not even try to be better? That’s moral bankruptcy.
Mocking the desire for people to behave more ethically as “purity culture” is like mocking it as “virtue signaling”. It says things about the person doing the mocking, none of them good. It’s also deeply hypocritical coming from someone who has gone out of his way to avoid using DRM. Isn’t that “purity culture”?
@mathew When I say "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" i mean to imply "and therefore we should attempt to avoid consumption wherever possible under our circumstances." To date nothing has made it so I *have to have to have to* use LLM's so I won't.
I also hate that some say "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" and mean "and therefore I don't have to take responsibility for my harmful actions" -
On reflection, I think the worst part of Cory Doctorow’s argument in favor of LLM use is this:
« Doubtless some of you are affronted by my modest use of an LLM. You think that LLMs are "fruits of the poisoned tree" and must be eschewed because they are saturated with the sin of their origins. I think this is a very bad take, the kind of rathole that purity culture always ends up in.
Let's start with some context. If you don't want to use technology that was created under immoral circumstances or that sprang from an immoral mind, then _you are totally fucked._ »
This is a form of argument beloved by awful people. I can’t be pure and perfect, they say, so there’s no point my trying to make better or less damaging moral choices.
Stop buying from Amazon? Walmart and Target aren’t perfectly moral. Stop driving an SUV? Your car pollutes too, and so do buses. Stop using Twitter? Facebook and Bluesky are far from morally perfect, and mastodon.social has poor moderation. And so on.
I see this kind of excuse all the time online. It’s a cousin to both whataboutism and Mister Gotcha. It also rests on a false premise. The idea that anyone is expected to achieve complete purity is a straw man. You’re not having sainthood demanded of you, people are just hoping you’ll consider *reducing* the amount of immoral and damaging behavior you engage in *when there are perfectly viable alternatives*. Sure, we can argue about whether the alternatives are truly viable, but the idea that if you can’t be perfect you may as well not even try to be better? That’s moral bankruptcy.
Mocking the desire for people to behave more ethically as “purity culture” is like mocking it as “virtue signaling”. It says things about the person doing the mocking, none of them good. It’s also deeply hypocritical coming from someone who has gone out of his way to avoid using DRM. Isn’t that “purity culture”?
@mathew This sounds to me like a variation of his other take - that there are no individual solutions to structural issues. You can refuse to use LLMs for your own reasons, and the rest of the world are just going to continue using them, and the one to be disadvantaged ultimately would be you.
In short, it doesn’t seem any different from his earlier conclusion here.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/109932407074736182
Fatalistic? Maybe?
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@mathew This sounds to me like a variation of his other take - that there are no individual solutions to structural issues. You can refuse to use LLMs for your own reasons, and the rest of the world are just going to continue using them, and the one to be disadvantaged ultimately would be you.
In short, it doesn’t seem any different from his earlier conclusion here.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/109932407074736182
Fatalistic? Maybe?
@Abazigal The rest of the world will go on using DRM even if he doesn’t, and he’ll continue to be disadvantaged by not having Audible carry his audiobooks, but somehow he thought that was a battle worth fighting. I wonder what’s different this time?
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Let me give an example of how I’m not perfect.
I believe that environmental plastics are a big problem and we should try to cut out plastic packaging. Do I buy products packaged in plastic? Absolutely yes! There are some kinds of product I don’t think it’s possible to find in non-plastic packaging. An example from last week: CR2032 batteries. They’re sold in hard-to-open plastic packages for safety reasons. (They’re also apparently coated in something bitter to discourage kids from swallowing them, which immediately made me want to taste one out of curiosity, but I was able to resist that urge.)
On the other hand, if I’m buying olive oil and there are two bottles on the shelf, and one is plastic and the other is glass, I’ll buy the oil in the glass bottle, even if it’s a bit more expensive, because glass is both recyclable and less harmful in the environment. The canola oil in the kitchen, on the other hand, is in a plastic bottle; I’ve never seen any sold in glass.
So yeah, we can’t be perfect, and I absolutely don’t expect you to be, but let’s all try to be a bit better eh?
@mathew One thing I've learned from your post is that I know how CR2032 cells taste and you don't.
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@mathew One thing I've learned from your post is that I know how CR2032 cells taste and you don't.
@mathew But yes, Cory's response is really disappointing.
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On reflection, I think the worst part of Cory Doctorow’s argument in favor of LLM use is this:
« Doubtless some of you are affronted by my modest use of an LLM. You think that LLMs are "fruits of the poisoned tree" and must be eschewed because they are saturated with the sin of their origins. I think this is a very bad take, the kind of rathole that purity culture always ends up in.
Let's start with some context. If you don't want to use technology that was created under immoral circumstances or that sprang from an immoral mind, then _you are totally fucked._ »
This is a form of argument beloved by awful people. I can’t be pure and perfect, they say, so there’s no point my trying to make better or less damaging moral choices.
Stop buying from Amazon? Walmart and Target aren’t perfectly moral. Stop driving an SUV? Your car pollutes too, and so do buses. Stop using Twitter? Facebook and Bluesky are far from morally perfect, and mastodon.social has poor moderation. And so on.
I see this kind of excuse all the time online. It’s a cousin to both whataboutism and Mister Gotcha. It also rests on a false premise. The idea that anyone is expected to achieve complete purity is a straw man. You’re not having sainthood demanded of you, people are just hoping you’ll consider *reducing* the amount of immoral and damaging behavior you engage in *when there are perfectly viable alternatives*. Sure, we can argue about whether the alternatives are truly viable, but the idea that if you can’t be perfect you may as well not even try to be better? That’s moral bankruptcy.
Mocking the desire for people to behave more ethically as “purity culture” is like mocking it as “virtue signaling”. It says things about the person doing the mocking, none of them good. It’s also deeply hypocritical coming from someone who has gone out of his way to avoid using DRM. Isn’t that “purity culture”?
@mathew yeah but ya see, LLMs are neat.
The weirdest part to me is he is defending using them as spell and grammar checks, when that's been a solved problem for ages. What a waste.
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On reflection, I think the worst part of Cory Doctorow’s argument in favor of LLM use is this:
« Doubtless some of you are affronted by my modest use of an LLM. You think that LLMs are "fruits of the poisoned tree" and must be eschewed because they are saturated with the sin of their origins. I think this is a very bad take, the kind of rathole that purity culture always ends up in.
Let's start with some context. If you don't want to use technology that was created under immoral circumstances or that sprang from an immoral mind, then _you are totally fucked._ »
This is a form of argument beloved by awful people. I can’t be pure and perfect, they say, so there’s no point my trying to make better or less damaging moral choices.
Stop buying from Amazon? Walmart and Target aren’t perfectly moral. Stop driving an SUV? Your car pollutes too, and so do buses. Stop using Twitter? Facebook and Bluesky are far from morally perfect, and mastodon.social has poor moderation. And so on.
I see this kind of excuse all the time online. It’s a cousin to both whataboutism and Mister Gotcha. It also rests on a false premise. The idea that anyone is expected to achieve complete purity is a straw man. You’re not having sainthood demanded of you, people are just hoping you’ll consider *reducing* the amount of immoral and damaging behavior you engage in *when there are perfectly viable alternatives*. Sure, we can argue about whether the alternatives are truly viable, but the idea that if you can’t be perfect you may as well not even try to be better? That’s moral bankruptcy.
Mocking the desire for people to behave more ethically as “purity culture” is like mocking it as “virtue signaling”. It says things about the person doing the mocking, none of them good. It’s also deeply hypocritical coming from someone who has gone out of his way to avoid using DRM. Isn’t that “purity culture”?
@mathew To me LLMs are almost something like cars which are also terrible inventions and a lot of people will go to great lengths why they can‘t under no circumstances give up driving. It‘s like an instinctive version of Adorno‘s "Wrong life cannot be lived rightly,“ a consumer choice.
Which is why the whole argument is meaningless if we don’t manage to overcome the relations of production. It‘s good and right to buy olive oil in a glass bottle but it won‘t achieve any real meaningful change.
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Let me give an example of how I’m not perfect.
I believe that environmental plastics are a big problem and we should try to cut out plastic packaging. Do I buy products packaged in plastic? Absolutely yes! There are some kinds of product I don’t think it’s possible to find in non-plastic packaging. An example from last week: CR2032 batteries. They’re sold in hard-to-open plastic packages for safety reasons. (They’re also apparently coated in something bitter to discourage kids from swallowing them, which immediately made me want to taste one out of curiosity, but I was able to resist that urge.)
On the other hand, if I’m buying olive oil and there are two bottles on the shelf, and one is plastic and the other is glass, I’ll buy the oil in the glass bottle, even if it’s a bit more expensive, because glass is both recyclable and less harmful in the environment. The canola oil in the kitchen, on the other hand, is in a plastic bottle; I’ve never seen any sold in glass.
So yeah, we can’t be perfect, and I absolutely don’t expect you to be, but let’s all try to be a bit better eh?
@mathew When I simply judge what Coy Doctorow is quoted here, then you are criticizing a straw man.
I don't see the moral bankruptcy here. I see simply pledging people to not overdo it.
How many times have I seen and experienced that moral people are creating a toxic environment where everyone needs to be perfect in whatever the target is. Any deviation is harshly punished.
Which is a well-known disease of any activist groups and regularly tears up initiatives.
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Let me give an example of how I’m not perfect.
I believe that environmental plastics are a big problem and we should try to cut out plastic packaging. Do I buy products packaged in plastic? Absolutely yes! There are some kinds of product I don’t think it’s possible to find in non-plastic packaging. An example from last week: CR2032 batteries. They’re sold in hard-to-open plastic packages for safety reasons. (They’re also apparently coated in something bitter to discourage kids from swallowing them, which immediately made me want to taste one out of curiosity, but I was able to resist that urge.)
On the other hand, if I’m buying olive oil and there are two bottles on the shelf, and one is plastic and the other is glass, I’ll buy the oil in the glass bottle, even if it’s a bit more expensive, because glass is both recyclable and less harmful in the environment. The canola oil in the kitchen, on the other hand, is in a plastic bottle; I’ve never seen any sold in glass.
So yeah, we can’t be perfect, and I absolutely don’t expect you to be, but let’s all try to be a bit better eh?
@mathew I agree with you, Cory is just looking at it from a skewed perspective. My personal take is:
As long as you, the individual, have the INNER motivation to strive for "perfection" with regards to anything, nobody has the right to stop you. Give the best you are able to offer.
On the other hand, if you're forced to be perfect by others or by society in general, so it's an OUTER motivation, then ... Yeah it might be the right thing to do objectively, but maybe it's not fitting in your reality which might be really constrained (as explained with your example) ... So don't stress yourself out too much about it. Sometimes its not possible to live a contradiction free live. -
Let me give an example of how I’m not perfect.
I believe that environmental plastics are a big problem and we should try to cut out plastic packaging. Do I buy products packaged in plastic? Absolutely yes! There are some kinds of product I don’t think it’s possible to find in non-plastic packaging. An example from last week: CR2032 batteries. They’re sold in hard-to-open plastic packages for safety reasons. (They’re also apparently coated in something bitter to discourage kids from swallowing them, which immediately made me want to taste one out of curiosity, but I was able to resist that urge.)
On the other hand, if I’m buying olive oil and there are two bottles on the shelf, and one is plastic and the other is glass, I’ll buy the oil in the glass bottle, even if it’s a bit more expensive, because glass is both recyclable and less harmful in the environment. The canola oil in the kitchen, on the other hand, is in a plastic bottle; I’ve never seen any sold in glass.
So yeah, we can’t be perfect, and I absolutely don’t expect you to be, but let’s all try to be a bit better eh?
@mathew Cory Doctorow right now -
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