Quote of the Day

Without real data, the human mind ceases to function, and its disparate parts begin hallucinating information that doesn’t exist, and which will often be confidently and violently defended. The modern political Left is a product of delusional psychology that’s hell bent on enacting the worst possible policies because its adherents are fundamentally neurologically broken… and they may not be fixable.

Copernican
November 13, 2025
Urban Bugmen and AI Model Collapse: A Unified Theory

Via a comment from Rolf.

This is absolutely awesome article. I could pull many QOTDs out of it.

The quote above is just one of many dimensions of awesomeness.

It started out with me a little skeptical. The author does not seem to touch on The Alignment Problem, which I think is vital for anyone thinking about commenting on the problems of AI. But as I read further, I realized the author had insight into something much more fundamental than just AI training. Straying into the alignment problem would have been tangential.

I was totally hooked when he started writing about urban populations and their disconnects from reality. I remember growing up and when my urban cousins visited the farm for a week or two. Or working at Microsoft on Windows Phone 7 and people suggested we could just always assume the phone was connected to the Internet. Or people at my current job now asking if I had fun during my week-long vacation the previous week. “I moved 100,000 pounds of dirt, so it was ‘rewarding’ but not really ‘fun’.” They didn’t really know what to do with that information. They could not relate to what that could even mean.

I remember my first week at college in the relatively small town of Moscow, Idaho. There were a surprising number of students from big cities. They were almost disoriented and asked, “What do you do here?” I did not and could not understand the question. They were looking for clubs and social life. Growing up on the farm with anything representing a “big city” over 100 miles away, my reality only marginally intersected with their reality.

I remember about the second time contemplated Barb visiting my little corner of Idaho. Rather than ride with me on the drive over she said she would fly over later and meet me at the motel. “I’ll pick you up at the airport”, I offered. “No, I’ll just take public transportation from the airport to the motel in Orofino”, she countered. I was confused. Was there really public transportation from one of the local airports to Orofino? After 30 minutes or so it was Barb that was confused. “Why can’t I find public transportation from the airport to Orofino?”, she asked. “Probably because it doesn’t exist”, I suggested. This, basically, did not compute in her version of reality.

The whole “Why do we need farmers when food just comes from stores?” joke has a little too much truth in it. People quickly have delusions about reality when they are disconnected from it. For me driving tractor in the field or a truck loaded with grain to the elevator and all the maintenance, repairs, weather, insects, weeds, four legged pests, and government nonsensical regulation is reality. How dare people who have never even worn shoes appropriate for walking across a field express an opinion on the price, quality, or any other fundamental aspect of food.

When people speak of “Locally grown!”, “Organic!”, “All natural!” I just roll my eyes. These people are not connected to reality. The same applies to specifically to electricity production and “green energy” in general, lumber, manufacturing, mining, “the trades”, etc.

If the disconnect of urban people from reality with their deep immersion in an artificial environment limits their capabilities and causes delusions, what can we expect from something trained entirely upon the content of the Internet?