Mitchell and Webb: "Are we the baddies?"

On the topic of evil, this sketch from Mitchell and Webb stayed with me for years. Are we the baddies? ▶ this video Every villain is the hero in their own story, after all.

Its very rare for people do deliberately do bad things. Almost everyone thinks they are doing the right thing. My point (which I think should be apparent in my original comment) is that we should look at doing things "for their own good" has a very bad history. Now do you get it? ▶ this video

Obligatory "Are we the baddies?" ▶ this video for those who don't know this meme (the Dawkins definition of meme)

I guess it's a sign of the times. I was just reading the old speech by John Barlow, in another post[0]. Sort of dovetails with this. I spent the majority of my career at a camera manufacturer. I probably made half of what I could have made, anywhere else, and there were lots of issues, caused by bureaucratic overhead, heavy-handed QA, and cultural misunderstandings. But not once, during almost 27 years, did I wonder "Are we the baddies?"[1]. My first job was at a defense contractor, where we manufactured surveillance gear, and sold it to militaries and spy agencies around the world. One of the reasons that I left that job, was because we definitely were the baddies. [0] link [1] ▶ this video

The title is likely a reference to a sketch: link ▶ this video Although it could be unintentional - the phrase is mainstream now and not hard to produce independently either.

I have read the whole thing but I nonetheless want to focus on the second paragraph: > Anthropic has therefore worked proactively to deploy our models to the Department of War This should be a "have you noticed that the caps on our hats have skulls on it?" moment [1]. Even if one argues that the sentence should not be read literally (that is, that it's not literal war we're talking about), the only reason for calling it "Department of War" and "warfighters" instead of "Department of Defense" and "soldiers" is to gain Trump's favor, a man who dodged the draft, called soldiers "losers", and has been threatening to invade an ally for quite some time. There is no such a thing as a half-deal with the devil. If Anthropic wants to make money out of AI misclassifying civilians as military targets (or, as it has happened, by identifying which one residential building should be collapsed on top of a single military target, civilians be damned) good for them, but to argue that this is only okay as long as said civilians are brown is not the moral stance they think it is. Disclaimer: I'm not a US citizen. [1] ▶ this video

I think it's important to assess the quality of the comments - they aren't bringing facts, just stating opinions; doing so quickly and agreeing with each other. You can test this out - pick a few names on the comments that disagree, ctrl+f, and you'll quickly find one individual with 29 comments at the time of writing all over the thread; with a handful of others with 1-4 responses. This is not actually what the majority of people think and feel. IE; from recent polling > 55%+ of Americans have “very little” confidence in ICE, while 16 percent only have "some". That's ~71% of ordinary US folks; and I would wager many international folks are very clear eyed about the situation. But why don't you see a ratio of 7/10 of top level comments critical? It's reasonable to assume that about half of those people are just keeping to themselves or part of the political middle that feel something is a "bit wrong"; but not quite enough to go yell into the internet about it. For the others, arguing is tiring and doesn't seem to change much. Watching the situation induces feelings of dread, despair or helplessness. On the opposing side, that 29% of people are faced with the fact that they might actually be the "baddies" ( ▶ this video ), and a good number of them are flooding conversations to prove they are in fact "not"... because admitting otherwise would mean they are actually doing something quite morally or ethically wrong by their own or their community standards. Since that would be unthin

Obligatory: "Are we the baddies?" ▶ this video Looking forward to the commenters arguing that this regime aren't the baddies...

> You might want to think about why Petersen wants you to think you’re the Nazi. What change is he trying to effect in our culture, and how does that belief support his desire? Rhetoric always aims to effect some change in the attitude of the listener, and never without some benefit of the speaker. What benefit do you think he's trying to get from it? I'm honestly trying to figure out the nefarious angle and coming up blank. It seems to me like a very similar sentiment to that great "are we the baddies?" sketch from Mitchell and Webb. [1] I see both as an exercise in moral humility. See the Milgram experiment, or the Asch experiment. Most people do cave to pressure from authorities and the group. Everybody believes they're they exception. Statistically, most of them are wrong. [1] ▶ this video

Pointing out this satirical sketch might be a cliche, but: ▶ this video (Mitchell and Webb: Are we the Baddies?)

I think if I were reading a statement like "no nazi bullshit" and thought it applied to me, I'd probably wonder "are we the baddies?"[1]. 1: ▶ this video

Why would one grad student have the same power as 10000 employees of a company? Surely when you're finishing with ominous repetition you must know something's a bit off[0]. [0] ▶ this video