Sometimes, I’ll browse MSN News. It’s good to stay informed on what the Establishment Left is up to. Like it or not, it still shapes the opinions of many millions of people. Sometimes, there’s good fodder for a blog post.
MSN, like so many other legacy news outlets, has deteriorated over the years. Most of its science articles are so dumbed down that they’re practically worthless. Many stories are riddled with typos or just plain bad English. The format, especially the “text-videos,” where we must watch a video to read text, is often annoying; if we’re reading text anyway, then why not just publish an article? A lot of the stories are clickbait or very old news. Some of them consist of a few paragraphs of obvious observations that they throw together, probably to meet a quota of stories.
The story titled “Travel | Why I Stopped Visiting Europe—and You Might Want To, Too” is an example of the last category; it consists of five short paragraphs that essentially point out the fact that there’s been inflation. A commenter by the name of John Hermes points this out:
This author really presents weak defense with obscure reasoning. Costs are rising everywhere-and most tourist don’t worry or consider their carbon footprint when planning a trip. Ridicules.
Of course, I wanted to point out that migrant crime might have something to do with the decrease in tourism to Europe.
I tried submitting a comment to that effect, and this was the result:
In the past, certain words would trigger a rejection based on “community guidelines.” I removed the word “migrant” hoping it would go through. No dice:
I ended up with something like this, and it did go through:
However, when I visited the story again, my comment was gone, and this was all that remained of it:
It’s obvious to me that MSN is now using AI to filter content. Instead of looking for specific words, AI is now good enough to figure out what a comment is actually saying, and it acts accordingly. MSN is absolutely phobic about anything negative being said about migrants in Europe, and its AI filter won’t allow it.
In nature, imperfection is perfection. Squirrels aren’t 100% efficient at digging up the nuts they buried earlier in the year – and this benefits them. The result is more trees sprouting from those forgotten nuts.
Imagine what life would be like if our memories were perfect. Most of us would end up committing suicide by age 40. Too many bad memories, regrets, guilty feelings and grudges would destroy us. Forgetfulness is a blessing.
Would any of us enjoy living in a society where the rule of law was perfect, where every infraction was guaranteed to lead to punishment? It would be hell on Earth. Imperfect law-enforcement is perfect law-enforcement.
Similarly, a perfect (or near-perfect) AI is anti-human. It’s stifling and oppressive. If we can’t get around the censors, then provocative ideas are silenced. We become a society of mindless robots.
I sincerely wish I could forget about half the things I remember.
If Earth were perfect, it would have the land topography of Kansas everywhere.
I just noticed it’s been almost 7 years since you’ve posted anything on your blog.
Just scroll down past the pinned one. I don’t post that often anymore.
Great post. I particularly like your thoughts at the end about nature and forgetfulness. Very thought provoking.
I believe similarly that narcissism has its place. If I were to empathize with everybody and everything everywhere I went everyday, I would be unable to live or survive as I would simply die of heartache.
I hope you’re doing well White woman. Regarding narcissism, I think that by definition, it’s EXCESSIVE self-centeredness (or something to that effect). Healthy people find a balance where they care about other people, but not to the point where they neglect their own needs.
It’s interesting you bring this up, because right now I’m dealing with a friend who’s overly concerned with the welfare of strangers, and he does neglect his own needs.
I think we all live on a continuum of that goes from narcissism at one extreme to excessive empathy on the other. Perhaps we can call each point on the continuum a “gender.” Each one would have a pronoun, and it would be our primary identity!