I noticed that too, but I suspect that people's GPT-meters may be a bit too hair-trigger these days.
Idea for a study: take a bunch of GPT-sounding snippets from a verified pre-LLM corpus, along with an equal number of typical LLM generated ones. Randomize and ask test subjects to tell them apart. I suspect it would be a bloodbath. (Random chance at best, or heavily biased toward false positives.)
Leaving aside the topics of authenticity and the questions' historical context, it's interesting that the article claims that "most" of the questions are impossible, while >80% have a single clear interpretation. For example, "draw a line under the last word in this line."
I think whether some questions seem straightforward is a distraction. Most of us on this site have been specifically trained on strategies for test-taking, giving us an unfair advantage that we false attribute to intelligence.
> I was preparing for my last major standardized test, the Graduate Record Exam, or GRE. I had already forked over $1,000 for a preparatory course, feeding the U.S. test-prep and private tutoring industry... I wondered why I was the only Black student in the room...
> The teacher boasted the course would boost our GRE scores by two hundred points, which I didn’t pay much attention to at first— it seemed an unlikely advertising pitch. But with each class, the technique behind the teacher’s confidence became clearer. She wasn’t making us smarter so we’d ace the test—she was teaching us how to take the test....
> It revealed the bait and switch at the heart of standardized tests— the exact thing that made them unfair: She was teaching test-taking form for standardized exams that purportedly measured intellectual strength. My classmates and I would get higher scores— two hundred points, as promised— than poorer students, who might be equivalent in intellectual strength but did not have the resources or, in some cases, even the awareness to acquire better form through high-priced prep courses. Because of the way the human mind works— the so-called “attribution effect,” which drives us to take personal credit for any success— those of us who prepped for the test would score higher and then walk into better opportunities thinking it was all about us: that we were better and smarter than the rest and we even had inarguable, quantifiable proof.... And because we’re talking about featureless, objective numbers, no one would ever think that racism could have played a role.
> Excerpt From How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi
The argument seems self-defeating: let's accept at face value Kendi's claim (following the teacher of the course) that students taking the course can expect a 200 point advantage, on average, over those not taking the course, then an average black student taking the course would gain a 200 point advantage compared to an average white student. That doesn't mean the testing is racist (in fact, if true, it would mean the testing is not racist), it means it favours the relatively wealthy. That's an injustice, and a flaw in the testing process, but it's not about racism, but about family wealth.
Of course, there are historical reasons for why the average black family is not as wealthy as an average white one, but the testing is not it - i.e. a poor white family is just as disadvantaged as a poor black family, according to the test - and Kendi was not so disadvantaged, by his own account.
>Of course, there are historical reasons for why the average black family is not as wealthy as an average white one
From what I have been able to understand of writers like Kendi (see also e.g. Robin diAngelo), this statistical fact is itself, inherently, considered to be an example of "racism" (hence terms like "systemic" or "institutional" racism); and the ensuing (supposed) bias of the test towards the wealthy, another one (simply because it is ensuing).
>Most of us on this site have been specifically trained on strategies for test-taking,
I struggle to imagine why you would believe this to be the case. (I say this as someone who wrote, and did quite well in, several high school math competitions without making any particular effort to prepare for them.)
>giving us an unfair advantage that we false attribute to intelligence.
I struggle to imagine why this would be considered unfair, or not an actual sign of intelligence (assuming that the training worked).
I will refrain from providing the bulk of my rebuttal to Kendi, except to note:
> And because we’re talking about featureless, objective numbers, no one would ever think that racism could have played a role.
... Yes, that is exactly why racism could not possibly have played a role. The kind of "disparate impact" that Kendi seems to be alluding to here, is simply not compatible with the lay understanding of the concept of "racism", but only with a specialized academic one; but the potential for moral outrage attaches to the lay definition. The conflation that Kendi attempts is a classic example of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy .
Perhaps a better explanation might be that they're all capable of being considered ambiguous whenever and however the clerk administering the test desires them to be? In that sense, they were impossible because a clerk could reject any answers to that particular question for all sorts of absurd reasons: the line wasn't perfectly parallel to word, it was too far--or too close--to the word itself, the start and endpoints didn't align perfectly with the word, your line curled upwards at the end as you lifted your pen from the paper, etc.
Quite frankly, I doubt they even bothered with even that token effort to find excuses for failing people. They didn't need them. Everyone knew the game; if you were black under Jim Crow, you pretty much failed the moment they forced you to take it, regardless of your answers.
Literacy tests were only meant to give the threadbare illusion of objectivity to their disenfranchisement efforts and make that effort more efficient in the process. It's unlikely any state or county ever bothered to assemble a common "official" literacy test, or that officials ever put much effort into crafting a perfectly ambiguous question no one could every answer correctly. There was no need, and to the extent any did, it would likely have been just to make taking the tests as painful and humiliating as possible to punish the test-taker for not accepting that the fix was in, and to further discourage anyone else from bothering them.
Truthfully, the humiliating aspects of the various disenfranchisement mechanisms were almost certainly quite intentional. Fury over the perceived humiliation of the loss of the Civil War, and the changes wrought by Reconstruction, was the constant underlying theme of Redeemer[1] messaging. Simply regaining political power wasn't enough to slake that anger.
Ambiguous: 1 10 11 20 21 22 26 27
Ambiguous execution (e.g. "draw a line around"): 4 5 7 8 9 12 14
Easy on the face of it: 2 3 13 15 16 17 18 25
Nonsense: 6 23 24 28 29 30
Difficult to execute (e.g. "draw this complicated set of shapes in a small space while under time pressure without making any mistake"): 19
That's just my quick assessment and might vary for you but I probably took more than 10 minutes just to think about this. At best (and I was generous) 7 out of 30 questions are clear.
And that is assuming the questions have been formulated in good faith, which is evidently not the case. Question 2 could mean just as well instruct you to draw a line under the whole expression "the last word" in that line, or a line under "the last word in this line", or just under "line". Who's to say?
That's not the point. The test giver has free discretion to say either answer is correct or incorrect. You could argue that if the intent was to underline "word" that it would have quotes around it, but it doesn't matter because the test is not supposed to be fair or consistent.
Things like this were at the heart of what Jim Crow was in America. Selective and capricious enforcement of the law to disenfranchise and disadvantage black people at best, enable unaccountable violence against them at the worst.
It's not cheating administrators, it's ambiguous questions with multiple possible answers.
As the judge of this test, I interpret your answer as incorrect. I expected the phrase, "the last word in this line" to be underlined. Test failed, no cheating required.
(Note that had you underlined the phrase, "the last word in this line", I would have still judged it incorrect, claiming that "word" or "line" should be underlined. Again, this requires no cheating.)
> If it was this, there would be quotes around those 6 words, just like in your comment.
If there were quotes around those 6 words, it would make the question unambiguous, sure. But without the quotes, my interpretation and judgement is still valid.
> The quotes are needed to change this sentence from its clear meaning to these other ones.
Actually, they are optional for that purpose, not required. Without them, the meaning is ambiguous. Just as you claim your interpretation is the "clear meaning", others have exactly as valid a claim to their interpretation being the "clear meaning".
A that point you might as well flip off whoever it is you're grading, and I get that this is the point of the test, but it's hardly the questions fault. The question has one clear answer.
I get that the idea is that some questions create ambiguity using wordplay or subjectivity, but do you really think this is one of them? Your examples seem like a stretch even in the context of being unfair on purpose.
Yes, because it is well known that these tests were in fact designed to be unfair on purpose (to a specific racial group). So it's not a stretch to think that these "unfair on purpose" examples are realistic.
There are three reasonable interpretations I see. The instruction is clearly to draw a line under something. That something may be whatever is followed by "under", so you underline "the last word in this line". Or "in this line" just narrows it down, so only "the last word" is to be underlined. Or the whole "last word in this line" is meant as an instruction to be interpreted, so it's "line". In that case, be careful not to underline the period, as sentence marks clearly aren't part of a word. Or maybe they are.
Oh wait, it could also refer to "the last 'word' in this line", so you would need to underline "word".
When I was on Android I looked for a period-tracking app but could only find cloud-based ones, so I didn't track my period for many years. Appreciate you.
It feels like they're implying rapid climate change killed the moas in less than 200 years, coincidentally right after human arrival. Nothing to do with being hunted to extinction?
As a kiwi let me tell you, there's a lot of revisionist history happening with regards to Maori in progressive circles. theconversation.com is a VERY progressive publication.
It's absolutely bizarre. I've got a friend working in healthcare in New Zealand and she was given a mandatory class which taught that "Western science" is "imperialist" and that Maori traditional knowledge is "just as valid." For reference, Maori traditional knowledge is stuff like ghosts (taniwha) and spiritual energy (mana).
It's like they're taking the noble savage trope to the craziest ends and just running with it; public outcomes be damned. Some really unhinged ideologues are in positions of power right now.
Any details on that? Having worked in health in New Zealand in a patient facing role for all my working life, I’ve never heard of such a thing. I’ve worked in public, private and research/academic roles.
It makes sense to just call the creature what it is in its cultural context as opposed to trying to put an ill-fitting separate cultural notion on it, imo. If something is a taniwha it's a taniwha, and if someone is curious what a taniwha is they can look it up themselves and understand its a creature from a specific region's folklore.
I feel that trying to rename culturally-specific things that don't have a neat translation, like folkloric beings, is generally always poorly fitting. It's like when the qilin is called a unicorn, when a qilin is a fish-scaled deer or ox with lizardly facial features and no affiliation with femininity or maidenhood. So basically almost nothing like a unicorn.
> At best, the notion of political correctness having gone too far is intellectually dishonest; a fallacy similar to a straw-man argument or an ad hominem attack. At worst, it serves as a rallying cry to cover up the excesses of the most illiberal in our society.
It's also a slap in the face to non western scientists who ended up contributing despite all odds. Imagine telling Satyendranath Bose that the theory of Bose condensates is just as valid as random tribal animism.
Any source for this? I am in contact with a number of health science professionals in New Zealand and they haven't seen anything like this or science denial based on race. Generally you tend to see more science denial from the right wing parties such as the NZ National party. I'm not saying labour or for that matter any political party is "good" - but other than homeopathy and friends - science dentist sits pretty firmly on the right.
Two points: Firstly, the article has zero example of the "native knowledge" in question. Secondly, the Maori are not indigenous to New Zealand, arriving a scant couple centuries before Europeans, and had done tremendous damage to the native environment by the time Europeans got there.
Completely untrue. They are absolutely indigenous to NZ.
I'm so tired of this stupid myth being brought up again and again. Yes, Maori arrived in NZ. They were the first people to do so. They are the indigenous people of NZ.
Unless you want to argue that to be "indigenous", you literally need to have evolved in that place, which is a nonsense argument as far as humans are concerned.
Yes, Maori arrived in NZ. They were the first people to do so.
So you don't count as indigenous if you weren't the first? That's bad news for all the Clovis-descended peoples we now call Native Americans, since they were the second major wave of human migration. That is of course ridiculous, because time of inhabitation is a significant part of being indigenous. If it were discovered another group had beaten the Maori to New Zealand, would that suddenly make them not indigenous in your eyes?
Merriam Webster - Indigenous: of or relating to the earliest known inhabitants of a place and especially of a place that was colonized by a now-dominant group
Wikipedia - Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original peoples
By what measure are Maori not indigenous to NZ? If another group arrived first, they certainly didn't stay, and even by your own measure of "time of inhabitation", Maori have been here the longest (at least 350 years before Europeans).
There's also a lot of reactionary right wing response to anything involving Maori which isn't disparaging or outright racist - as evidenced by the apoplectic reaction from some quarters to merely hearing Maori spoken in the media.
A lot of things I hear described as "revisionist" just come down to lack of knowledge of NZ history - eg: claims about "legal" Maori land sales are usually made by people woefully unaware of the actions and conduct of the Maori Land Court.
My thought after reading the article is that they were hunted to the brink, and then climate change did them in. Somewhat akin to what also (or may in a few more decades) happen to the American Buffalo. Rich Māori having holding pens for the last of the Moa just for curiosity sake is a funny thought.
NZ today is a tough place to stay alive. One of my closest brushes with death happened there in a rapidly rising river that trapped me on a small island for 3 days without a shelter. Once I extracted myself out, the general feeling from the rangers and locals is what happened to me wasn't so rare, except somehow I managed to survived.
This might be a low effort reply, but a bunch of us manage too :)
In all seriousness every country has it's own unique things that locals are very much familiar with and outsiders it's just foreign to.
Australia - predisposed to critters that want to kill you. Checking your shoes for spiders is a thing.
America - well I'll leave the obvious out, but there's some pretty nasty deserts you'd not want to be caught out in, or the odd cat 4 Tornado, or my favourite from last visit, walking past a tree that had head high claw marks all through it (either Cougar or Bear, wtf, that was like a 20min walk from the hotel in boulder!!)
Then there's Canada -40c anyone? That's really not meant for human survival.
The actual feeling of the rangers and locals would've been "FFS, the weather forecasts are pretty specific, everyone knows heavy rain means floods, but at least we're not searching for your body."
Having moved from Australia to New Zealand, I’d say the opposite.
There’s nothing here that can kill you.
No bushfires. No snakes. Very few sharks. Spiders are rare, and white tails don’t kill. It doesn’t get hot enough to kill you. There’s water everywhere, but it doesn’t seem to flood.
I’m assuming your rising river was on the South Island. Definitely plenty of opportunities to get yourself in trouble down there, but you’d have to go well out of your way.
Earthquakes are the only new danger, and they’re mostly in the south / Wellington.
No crocodiles. No camels (car accidents).
Both countries have bikie/gang violence, but I’m not sure that’s a real danger for gen pop.
Floods are pretty regular, but in places like the Hauraki Plains and Canterbury, mostly regional farming areas. Main people affected are farmers, livestock and farming infrastructure.
We don't have many deaths from hikers and trampers. Most are from falls, others from drowning. I'm sure you prepared for the hike, many tourists do not and it's often national news when someone goes missing off a trail.
If you go for long tramps, you take your own food and shelter. And hopefully either an emergency beacon or check the area for cell service.
The fact you were there for 3 days, I assume you either never told anyone where you were - and they weren't aware you were stranded, and you didn't have any method for contacting emergency services.
If you did have a method for contacting them, if you have food, they'll quite happily let your suffer for up to 5 days as they know hypothermia is unlikely, you'll either be a little dehydrated or hungry - but provided you're not injured, they'll let you trek back on your own - they'll only send people out if you don't come back after a few more days. If you were injured, they'd have sent the Westpac helicopter to you within a week (when it's convenient or you're on a flight path convenient to other rescues). Most of the time that helicopter is used for immediate evacuation scenarios (strokes, heart attacks, etc) - and hikers usually aren't in that bucket.
They might be miserable, but being hungry with a shattered ankle, you're not a priority.
>If you go for long tramps, you take your own food and shelter.
I actually didn't bring a tent, as I was on my way to a hut.
> The fact you were there for 3 days, I assume you either never told anyone where you were - and they weren't aware you were stranded, and you didn't have any method for contacting emergency services.
I checked into a ranger station. It was Easter Weekend, so no one was there.
> If you did have a method for contacting them, if you have food, they'll quite happily let your suffer for up to 5 days as they know hypothermia is unlikely,
It rained and snowed the entire time. I was without shelter, and the island I was on was quickly disappearing as the water level of the river kept rising. I attempted to make a shelter out of sticks and grass, only to find the ground waterlogged, so I instead laid on top of it. I woke up in the middle of the night completely surrounded by water. I was so cold, I prayed for death. At the end of the last night, I was clutching onto a tree trunk on the only patch of ground sticking above the water, as waves licked my feet, waiting to be washed away into the river, as I watched logs like the ones next to me float into, and quickly escape the beam of my head torch.
Sorry - that sounds horrible, what island were you on that snows during Easter? Also, always assume some asshole burnt down the hut. Apart from that being a semi-regular occurrence now, it also just .. happens. Assholes book and stay at DoC cabins too. Also lots of drinking and illegal bonfires.
For anyone else who's worried about making a similar trip, please use this govt-made website which talks about what's recommended, as well as has an online service for logging your walks. If there isn't anybody to tell that you're going on one of these hikes, that means you shouldn't go. It isn't optional.
For anyone in other countries without this service - if you're backpacking in hostels, or have a booking at a hotel after - ring and tell the staff before you go. If it's through AirBnB.. Well, I hope you make friends with someone who can check in with you before you leave!
It says the settlers could no longer hunt them as it was uneconomical. Its well known Moa were hunted in large numbers until their were none left. They left that out because its common knowledge to the target reader.
> At the time of settlement, the south had colonies of the large flightless moa. The early settlers rapidly adapted to this temperate climate, living on a diet of moa, seafood and vegetables grown in their garden plots.
> But then the Little Ice Age interfered with this lifestyle. After 1350, conditions became significantly colder in the south. By around 1400-1420, moa hunting became uneconomic and put these fledgling communities under immense pressure. Once again, people had to adapt quickly.
This is plainly misleading. It implies without explicitly stating that the Little Ice Age interfered with their moa-eating lifestyle by making moa hunting uneconomical.
Yeah, I'm confused about the wording here. That is the crux of their entire argument and I would think if they had evidence the Little Ice Age interfered with Mao hunting as opposed to simple overexploitation they would say so.
The first paragraph is misleading enough that I stopped reading; there's no evidence that Thiel has NZ citizenship "as a hedge against the looming apocalypse" (?), and he recently sold that "500 acre estate".
He was given citizenship by a conservative-leaning Prime Minister in the hopes that he would invest in the local tech scene, which he has. The $50 million he invested is not a lot by silicon valley standards but it is a fair amount for New Zealand, and it went to some of NZ's best startups (possible bias, I worked at one).
Because digging up facts is very expensive, and not necessarily engaging to the public.
Ontario Public Broadcasting has this show 'The Agenda' with 'Steve Paikin' where he brings in mid-level and behind-the-scenes people from the bureaucracy people and they talk about granular issues of civic reform in great detail.
If you want to inform yourself on the nitty-gritty details of the new 'Subway Expansion' and why it's over budget, it's all right there.
But it's incredibly boring , and there's very little viewership.
Donald Trump put it really well when he said he would be 'great for news ratings'. It was rubbish, and a lot of people tuned in, it brought in a lot of money.
Add in the economics brought on by the Internet and we have a real problem.
I think it's written by human beings who have a limited subset of knowledge, many times because sources aren't forthcoming or verified, and that if we ever held developers to the same standard that we held journalists, that it'd be nigh-impossible to hire any of them.
The liberty cap is not a distinctive mushroom (small, round cap, brown). The amanita muscaria is beautiful and distinct enough that we recognise it in paintings hundreds of years later.
Perhaps the painter chose it for its beauty, or perhaps because it was both distinctive and psychedelic. No way to know. But the academics claiming that "the plant in this fresco has nothing whatever to do with mushrooms" are embarrassing.
