“ Equity bids us be merciful to the weakness of human nature; to think less about the laws than about the man who framed them, and less about what he said than about what he meant; not to consider the actions of the accused so much as his choice, nor this or that detail so much as the whole story; to ask not what a man is now but what he has always or for the most part been…”
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#Aristotle on “equity” #rhetoric
#philosophy
Why you should quit the coding job and retrain as a philosopher for hire
There’s more to this article than the headline. Nice bit on ethics, which ethics, and ethics in AI. Refreshing to read an article by an actual philosopher.
Recently opened my cafe (last week on Monday) and having to deal with instagram. Thought I would enjoy it in a guilty pleasure sort of way, but I am coming to truly despising it. Not even the put everything public and take lots of inane pictures kinds of way. But the whole you click on a story/collaboration/etc and if you don’t deal with it in real time, it disappears never to be seen again. People are constantly triggering messages and notifications. It’s a bloody madhouse.
#instagram
Opening a cafe is incredibly stressful. Everything takes longer than expected. Big plans need to be continually downgraded. Time and money are interchangeable. But as a person who has earned my money (as opposed to inheriting/acquiring great wealth), and being but a single person involved, there is not much wiggle room.
I know why most people don’t do it. Even just to make a list of everything — which have nothing to do with either coffee or books — that need to be done would be very difficult.
The Green Party had put a moratorium on new data centres some years ago, which I understand has now been lifted. We will certainly sleepwalk into an electricity supply problem on this one, in the grand spirit of humanity backing itself into a tight corner on the basis that with technology we will always find a way out.
It’s a pity that technology is driving more problems than solutions these days.
“Ireland has been cited as a “cautionary” tale in a UN report on the environmental impact of runaway artificial intelligence (AI) growth.
The report highlights the heavy demand data centres place on Ireland’s energy systems, with 21 per cent of all electricity here used for data processing.
That figure is forecast to grow to more than 30 per cent in the next few years”
And still in Ireland we perpetuate the false equivalence between tech employment and data centres.
“His Margites [ancient comedy by Homer] indeed provides an analogy: as are the Iliad and Odyssey to our tragedies, so is the Margites to our comedies"
Poetics, #Aristotle
Don’t rush out to buy this towering comedic masterpiece which Aristotle puts on a par with the Iliad and the Odyssey; the bookshop won’t have it. It’s almost entirely lost.
#philosophy
One of Ireland’s very few liberal arts colleges set to close, with its lands transferred to a technological university.
Carlow College to close after almost 250 years
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2026/05/20/carlow-college-to-close-after-almost-250-years/
Education is becoming ever more utilitarian. We train for work and never for the enrichment of the mind. We forget the point.
To make matters worse, the staff had been led to believe the institutions were to merge, with their jobs intact. They’re all to be made redundant.
#education #humanities #Ireland
“…to young children should be imparted only such kinds of knowledge as will be useful to them without making mechanics of them. And any occupation, art, or science, which makes the body or soul or mind of the freeman less fit for the practice or exercise of excellence, is mechanical; wherefore we call those arts mechanical which tend to deform the body, and likewise all paid employments, for they absorb and degrade the mind.”
Politics, #aristotle
Yep.
Definitely feeling this.
“If young people cannot secure jobs commensurate with their level of education, on top of the fact they are probably still living at home and can’t get homes commensurate with their expectations, their ambitions will be dashed, creating resentment.”
*And* can’t survive on “normal job” wages.
I think there’s a reckoning coming. I think my kids will have to struggle more than I did. It’s a sickening situation that seems to have no solution.
Pretty stressed this morning with a tough day in store, but I got a #wordle in 2, and that has cheered me up!
Wordle 1,777 2/6
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Being opposed morally to AI is all too often conjoined with the position that AI is snake oil and does not work. People want to cloth a moral statement like “AI is awful for humanity” in a scientific statement like “AI just produces slop code that must be reworked (and therefore reduces productivity)”. Then there are these disparaging middle statements like “AI is not intelligent/does not code it just copies and plagiarises” which is a moral statement intended to have scientific heft.
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I understand the antipathy towards AI, and even the “Luddites were right”, but there are large numbers of people on here that deny AI code assistants/agents provide any value at all. I attest from experience that they can comfortably speed up work by a factor of 4 when used properly. I get “there is literally no evidence” and a block.
A weaver can see clearly that the weaving machine is quicker even if they have to redo some work. Have a stance but don’t deny reality. #ai 1/2
“two principles are characteristic of democracy, government of the majority and freedom. Men think that what is just is equal; and that equality is the supremacy of the popular will; and that freedom means doing what one likes. In such democracies every one lives as he pleases, or in the words of Euripides, 'according to his fancy'. But this is all wrong; men should not think it slavery to live according to the rule of the constitution; for it is their salvation.”
Politics #Aristotle #philosophy
“Especially should the laws provide against any one having too much power, whether derived from friends or money; if he has, he should be sent clean out of the country.”
Book V, Politics, #Aristotle
Aristotle was a careful analyst of ancient states, interested in what tended to work or not work. So this advice is pragmatic, not something he regards as inherently just or unjust.
Today, we are ok with the use and abuse of power by individuals with immense wealth and influence.
Was always against these gimmicky “coding courses” in schools, thinking that mathematics, and the standard curriculum, was a better base for <insert future technological skills> than something as specific as coding.
AI has already proven this to be true.
It also calls into question any focus on vocational goals at primary school level over and above the goal of refining the human mind and building character.
#ai #coding #curriculum
Wordle 1,727 2/6
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#wordle