Links 5
A theoretically infinite AI-generated conversation between Werner Herzog and Slavoj Žižek.
Tess Lewis: “Some authors welcome their translators’ intrusions or ‘betrayal upwards.’ Borges, who was well versed in Old English and in Anglo-Saxon poetry, told his translator, ‘Simplify me. Modify me. Make me stark. My language often embarrasses me. It’s too youthful, too Latinate. . . . I want the power of Cynewulf, Beowulf, Bede. Make me macho and gaucho and skinny.’”
Scott Alexander: “A minimum viable product for moderation without censorship is for a platform to do exactly the same thing they’re doing now - remove all the same posts, ban all the same accounts - but have an opt-in setting, ‘see banned posts’. If you personally choose to see harassing and offensive content, you can toggle that setting, and everything bad will reappear. To ‘ban’ an account would mean to prevent the half (or 75%, or 99%) of people who haven’t toggled that setting from seeing it. The people who elected to see banned posts could see them the same as always.”
Harriet Jay: “It amazes me how much casual abuse people put up with and expect as a baseline in relationships, any relationship. It amazes me how angry people are when you place your baseline higher.”
