Well said.
It is truly sad when someone cannot just turn off something else theyβre not being forced to use. They have laid the groundwork already when they shutdown their brains. Just half a step more to realize they can think for themselves.
I actually did not expect this much hate over an open-weight research (!) release with an open dataset (!). It is really, really sad to see how many people:
a) can't separate science/research from personal political views and judge the work on its actual results
b) celebrate "uncensored" fine-tunes and praise hacks and tricks "unlocked" models can do, yet criticize researchers for releasing a model with a different alignment. Surprise: it is open weights! You can simply choose not to use it. Or fine-tune your own perfectly opinionated LLM that agrees with everything you believe, so you can stay in your bubble forever
c) get absolutely mad at the mention of anything "Western" (often while living in Western countries themselves and facing no gov pressure, repression or censorship)
d) have no idea how the real world works. Not every company or organization is okay using a model not aligned with political or cultural values they share, even if the weights are open and the model is good
e) it is (almost) impossible to train an unbiased language model since it is trained on data produced by real people, each with their own opinions, values and biases. Even the choice of training data and alignment methods introduces researchers' own biases. That is literally the beauty of open weights: you can fine-tune the model to reflect your own preferences and biases instead of expecting everyone else to share yours (and there is nothing wrong with that!)
f) forget that you can learn something even from ideas, papers and discussions you disagree with
It is really depressing to read all this hate. The only benefit of scrolling those replies is that I found a few accounts to block, so hopefully I will never encounter them again, hahaha
appa561 π΄ββ οΈ retweeted
While the mouthpieces of the GOP are talking about who should be the presidential nominee for 2028 the Democrats are getting people to show up at school board meetings, city/county council meetings, and state legislatures to speak up and influence their government.
This strategy has been very effective for them.
Meanwhile, people on the right are watching podcasters and influencers and fighting over if JD Vance or Marco Rubio should be the 2028 nominee.
Your local government has far more impact on your daily life than the federal government does. Get involved, watch what's going on, and speak up (in person or email).
The squirrels, mailman, and the fire hydrants all knew. Only decades later came this grand reveal:
"For 20 years, the most famous good girl in television history..."
...was just a very professional trans dog who understood the assignment. Lassie lifted his leg to pee.
appa561 π΄ββ οΈ retweeted
Cha-Ching!!! π°π€π°
Another settlement with Big Tech (Snap) for teens who were on social media as early as AGE THREE!!!!!
This is a parenting problem. Your toddlers don't need a screen...period!!
This is the new ambulance chasing and children are paying the price.
Here is an excellent explanation of what is going on in Poland.
youtu.be/Z7NC7-2GvcU?si=ZP5vβ¦
appa561 π΄ββ οΈ retweeted
I put an empty bowl on the porch with a βOne candy per child, please.β sign, because Iβd much rather have people think some greedy little asshole stole all the candy, than know that I didn't buy any. π»
appa561 π΄ββ οΈ retweeted
In June 1944, a 56-year-old American general sat aboard the transport USS Barnett, bound for Normandy, and wrote a letter to his wife.
His name was Theodore Roosevelt junior, the eldest son of President Theodore Roosevelt. He had a weak heart and walked with a cane. He had also asked to go ashore with the first wave of the invasion. He didnβt write to Eleanor about the plan or the odds; he wrote this:
βWe've had a grand life and I hope there will be more.β
He was far from the first man to write a letter like that before battle or on the eve of an execution. What we can see is that when a man writes a letter like this, he does not write about his rank or his money; he writes about the people he loves and what he wants them to know.
Some of those pages survive today, and they are the finest lessons in manhood ever written. Here are six of them in the order they were written, and the last one is the hardest to read.
My new article, out now; link in the first comment:




















