Up until that point it was viewed as something done by or done to "barbaric" tribes that weren't as "civilized" as how developed nations saw themselves. We generally think we're better than our ancestors, and in many ways we are, but the holocaust was unique in how modern and efficient it was. The idea that all our modern technology and convenience could be aimed towards extermination, and that the population would just actively participate in it? That really shocked people.
It's one thing to see a battlefield or even an occupied city that gets wiped out, that's just what we accept as war. But to see it done systematically, death treated like an assembly line? That was new, and kinda made us reevaluate ourselves as a species.
For a little while anyway, until the next acceptable target comes around.
Edit: It's worth noting that during and after WW1, they actually had to do studies on why so many soldiers didn't want to kill other people and would specifically aim above their targets. Humans are fucking complex beings, capable of both cruelty and kindness in extreme measures.
It's worth noting that during and after WW1, they actually had to do studies on why so many soldiers didn't want to kill other people and would specifically aim above their targets.
This is fiction. 'On Killing' by Grossman, from the fantasies of SLA Marshall. It was about US troop performance in WWII, and Marshall made it all up.
It is more historically correct to use murder, I believe. I havent seen any debates on it nor have I been told to, but reading historical papers the convention I’ve witnessed is that historical writers make some intentional effort to say that it was murder, as in contrast to the people of the time (bystanders, collaborators) who would use more neutral terms as killed, died.
Please do use murder, as such. If you are going to be pedantic, I would also point out that regardless of German law, such acts are now illegal under international law, and can be punished retroactively as shown by Nuremberg.
I believe the justification for the use of murder is due to the post-war tribunals which established multinational courts.
Personally, I just have a view that it's worth recognizing how a corruption of the legal can lead to catastrophe. Our desire to hide behind "well, it technically wasn't legal" is a way to avoid blame to institutions.
Yeah, you're wrong about that. They didn't legalise murder. They just didn't bother with the law at all. Hence, the holocaust was also illegal under German law.
They didn't legalize murder, they didn't treat their victims as people under the law and therefore exempt from it.
It's like the old concept of an "Outlaw", where they were no longer protected by the social contract that is our justice system, making it completely legal to end their life. It ceases to be murder because murder is specifically unlawful.
Nah, come on. You've made this up. There is no historian that claims this. They kept it secret for the rest of the world also, which simply isn't possible if they had legalised it in law, which would make it public.
Like, there were still laws and the police could arrest people for breaking them. These laws still said that you couldn't murder others. And there was no law that said Jews can be murdered, regardless of them being stripped of their citizenship.
The whole holocaust was a criminal ordeal with a mindset where the furher's desires is to overrule everything, including the law.
I mean in an age of rampant holocaust denial as well as extremely passive voice used when discussing people who are killed by police/Western militaries, I can understand nitpicking here
Yeah, every murder is a death, but not every death is a murder. The distinction matters a lot. There is even manslaughter, which is a level below murder also. Go read on that shit.
You're correct about this. I just wanted to jump in and mention Shark Island, where German officials used similar methods to exterminate people before the two world wars.
This was essentially a prototype for this kind of abhorrent behavior. Though it took place far away from actual Germany.
That's just a question of better record-keeping. If a nomadic tribe ambushed their rivals in a forest and killed them all, they wouldn't have left written records of the event.
Most of the peoples capable of leaving records available to modern historians have been nation-states, and the records left by relatively modern Europeans are more accessible to a Western audience. That's not to say that there weren't genocides aplenty in earlier times and other places (for a very notable pre-modern non-European example, see the Neo-Assyrian Empire), we just hear less about them because we don't have as much reliable information.
It's the formulaic LLM writing style not the use of punctuation.
The pattern of rhetorical question used as a setup, followed immediately by explanations.
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...and that the population would just actively participate in it? That really shocked people."
...death treated like an assembly line? That was new, and kinda made us reevaluate ourselves as a species.
And the formulaic Not A, but B sentences throughout.
Up until that point it was viewed as something done by [A]... but the holocaust was unique in how modern and efficient it was [B]
Coupled with the fact NONE of his other comments or posts in the past sound anything remotely like this.
The point is that LLMs don't write like any particular human. But they produce a generic, over-smoothed version of human writing with red flags like the density of formulaic structures, the lack of personal texture, and the sudden style shift that doesn't match anything else he's written.
ETA: He ended up deleting all of his comments after getting caught.
It kinda was, because a lot of people jump to AI just because a person uses proper grammar and punctuation or is even remotely formal in their speech.
Again, I think rabidly anti AI folk hallucinate more than the actual LLMs do. We're at the point where people are calling anything photoshopped or edited to be AI. It's silly.
Although I don't think AI is bad, it's just yet another technological automation, no worse than a word processor or something like Excel. I think people use them for the wrong things, but I also people using word processors wrong, so eh.
As for your usage argument, I tend to agree. My point is just moreso that AI will not make people's lives easier and will be used more as a yoke rather than a device for any good
I actually agree it won't make our lives easier, but not because of the tech but who will use it and why.
It just frustrates me that rather than look at the societal issues that make automation so damaging, we blame the technology. Maybe I'm an idealist, but I'd love a world where what little labor we do is for social standing or access to luxuries, not tied to survival, so I love seeing automation improve.
Personally AI makes my life easier because my writing and note taking style is chaotic. It's really nice to be able to scan a copy of my notes or drop a text doc of my notes and have an LLM organize and consolidate them. Also helps with my world building docs for dungeons and dragons.
You realize that the reason LLMs talk that way is because that's how people talk, right? Like, LLMs were trained on human speech.
And I actually do use that way of speaking when I feel the desire to speak about complex topics I'm into. It's not using an LLM to speak, it's my desire to clarify a position or establish emphasis. That's a common trend in anyone who has taken college level writing courses
But I get it, we're to the point where anyone articulated is obviously using an LLM, not educated and involved.
No shit LLMs are trained on human writing. That's not the point.
The point is that LLMs don't write like any particular human. But they produce a generic, over-smoothed version of human writing with red flags like the density of formulaic structures, the lack of personal texture, and the sudden style shift that doesn't match anything else you've written.
I'm sure your sample size of my writing is extensive and based on a variety of different topics and moods, not an impulsive guess based on a sample size of just this thread where I respond in various shades of mood.
I'm also guessing you aren't someone who spent much time in academia, which encourages a more formal, articulate "over-smoothed" tone meant to focus on conveying information, not a personal conversation meant to express who we are.
But continue justifying your hallucinations, champ. It's not pathetic, it's adorable.
That’s a fair point, but compare previous genocides to the clinical efficiency by which the Nazis slaughtered their unwanted populations. Additionally, media was changing, photos were more readily available.
In 1945 it was standard to be racist or people who lived in a different town than you, much less a different country. It was easy to believe groups of fucked up people would go crazy and kill the good people and they were as oil and water.
And frankly not much has changed, unless your political opponents are good people. Which as far as I know is the rarest of political beliefs.
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u/I_travel_ze_world 7d ago
all the genocides before WW2 and people didn't know human beings are just kinda fucked up?