Hating your enemy is a loser's strategy
400 words, 2 minute reading time
I see this pattern everywhere:
group A hates group B
there exists a solution that would satisfy A’s goals, AND benefits B
group A can’t conceive of it, or if they do, refuses to do it. They care more about seeing B lose than their own team wining
This is bad for society, but also bad for team A.
I saw an example of this today, in the pro-AI vs anti-AI discourse:
It’s a long heated argument about whether or not it’s true that using ChatGPT wastes scarce water resources. Pro AI people say that water is used for heat transfer in a closed loop system, so the water isn’t actually “used up”. Anti AI people say that’s not true of all (most?) of these data centers.
The win-win solution: teach people to run LLMs on their own computers?
Bullying people to stop using ChatGPT isn’t going to work, they’re just going to stop listening to you. If you really believed this was a huge problem, I urge you to consider an easy fix: tell people they can just download a free LLM, no coding or expertise required (https://www.nomic.ai/gpt4all).
We can all agree that running heavy software on my own laptop isn’t going to waste any water resources. People get to keep using an LLM for work, AND you satisfy your goal! In fact, you’re more likely to win, because you’re giving people something that is useful for them too (it’s cheaper/free). It also “punishes” the company you hate by taking away their revenue.
I really think there’s a lot of low hanging fruit with win-win solutions like this. I really think hatred is a losing strategy, “I’d rather lose than see my enemy win”. I’m not even asking you to love your enemy, I’m asking you to focus on winning. If you understand what they want & why they’re blocking your solution, you’ll be much more successful in your achieving your goals.
I hope even my enemies adopt this strategy. It does mean my enemies become more effective (😢) but it also makes them more likely to cooperate, if such an option exists (🎉). Even the former benefits me (my competitors being more effective puts pressure on my team to get more effective too). It’s win-win.
"We can all agree that running heavy software on my own laptop isn’t going to waste any water resources"
No? It definitely does?
https://www.publicpower.org/periodical/article/how-much-water-our-electricity-uses
Basically everything electronic is using some amount of water somewhere in its cycle
I have no clue where she's getting "20 gallons" from. An entire conversation with chatgpt uses 50 centiliters on average, which is about 151.5 times less than 20 gallons
Her claims are false, and even if they were true, her standard of water usage -- if applied to everything -- would basically preclude every part of western civilization. It's entirely reasonable to assume that she either knows that it's false or at least doesn't really *care* that it's false -- this isn't about water, it's about hating something her social circle told her was cringe. It honestly feels somewhat bad faith that you're addressing her claim as a factual one rather than an emotional one?
An example of this dynamic is in the housing debate. Some people want housing to be more affordable, but hate capitalists, so they oppose zoning reform that would make housing more affordable because some companies would profit from it.