gerikson

joined 2 years ago
[–] gerikson@awful.systems 3 points 8 hours ago

Looks like it's an endonym, or was at the time. OFC the reason for the Great Trek was that the boers were pissed they couldn't have slaves anymore while under British rule. Charming people all around.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 3 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Wasn't the original designation of Boers (as in the Boer war) a denigrating term?

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Explains his gushing over Scott in the intro.

I still think he makes a lot of good points in that promptfondlers are losing their shit because people aren't buyin the swill they're selling.

In a similar vein, check out this comment on LW.

[on "starting an independent org to research/verify the claims of embryo selection companies"] I see how it "feels" worth doing, but I don't think that intuition survives analysis.

Very few realistic timelines now include the next generation contributing to solving alignment. If we get it wrong, the next generation's capabilities are irrelevant, and if we get it right, they're still probably irrelevant. I feel like these sorts of projects imply not believing in ASI. This is standard for most of the world, but I am puzzled how LessWrong regulars could still coherently hold that view.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hhbibJGt2aQqKJLb7/shortform-1?commentId=25HfwcGxC3Gxy9sHi

So belieiving in the inevitable coming of the robot god is dogma on LW now. This is a cult.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 5 points 1 day ago

Lev Grossman's The Magicians takes a stab at this. In essence it's basically Harry Potter meets The Rules of Attraction, but Grossman does discuss what magicians do after graduation. Public service is big, as are NGOs.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There are a bit different axes here. The tax money doesn't directly go towards alleviating the suffering of family members of alcoholics, nor does it directly lower the effects of drunk driving. The income is a nice to have, for sure, but the stated aim is to be a "sin tax" which makes the bad thing less affordable.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Good news everyone, we will be living with Big Yud until the literal end of time (see comments)

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/owZt48g3GjJHDn5EE/kvmanthinking-s-shortform?commentId=YisxiwcWZq7eMPxSX

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 12 points 1 day ago (3 children)

OK now there's another comment

I think this is a good plea since it will be very difficult to coordinate a reduction of alcohol consumption at a societal level. Alcohol is a significant part of most societies and cultures, and it will be hard to remove. Change is easier on an individual level.

Excepting cases like the legal restriction of alcohol sales in many many areas (Nordics, NSW in Aus, Minnesota in the US), you can in fact just tax the living fuck out of alcohol if you want. The article mentions this.

JFC these people imagine they can regulate how "AGI" is constructed, but faced with a problem that's been staring humanity in the face since the first monk brewed the first beer they just say "whelp nothing can be done, except become a teetotaller yourself)

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 7 points 1 day ago

To be scrupulously fair it is a repost of another slubbslack[1]. Amusingly, both places have a comment with the gist of "well alcohol gets people laid so what's the problem". This of course is a reflection that most LWers cannot get a girl into bed without slipping her a roofie.


[1] is that even ok? I know the LW software has a "mirroring" functionality b/c a lot of content is originally on the member's SS, maybe you cna point it at any SS entry and get it onto LW.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 11 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Nothing expresses the inherent atomism and libertarian nature of the rat community like this

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HAzoPABejzKucwiow/alcohol-is-so-bad-for-society-that-you-should-probably-stop

A rundown of the health risks of alcohol usage, coupled with actual real proposals (a consumption tax), finishes with the conclusion that the individual reader (statistically well-off and well-socialized) should abstain from alcohol altogether.

No calls for campaigning for a national (US) alcohol tax. No calls to fund orgs fighting alcohol abuse. Just individual, statistically meaningless "action".

Oh well, AGI will solve it (or the robot god will be a raging alcoholic)

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 9 points 3 days ago (9 children)

Oh FFS, that couple have managed to break into Sweden's public broadcasting site

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/har-ar-familjen-som-vill-foda-elitbarn-for-att-radda-manskligheten

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 19 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Here's LWer "johnswentworth", who has more than 57k karma on the site and can be characterized as a big cheese:

My Empathy Is Rarely Kind

I usually relate to other people via something like suspension of disbelief. Like, they’re a human, same as me, they presumably have thoughts and feelings and the like, but I compartmentalize that fact. I think of them kind of like cute cats. Because if I stop compartmentalizing, if I start to put myself in their shoes and imagine what they’re facing… then I feel not just their ineptitude, but the apparent lack of desire to ever move beyond that ineptitude. What I feel toward them is usually not sympathy or generosity, but either disgust or disappointment (or both).

"why do people keep saying we sound like fascists? I don't get it!"

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 6 points 1 week ago

The artillery branch of most militaries has long been a haven for the more brainy types. Napoleon was a gunner, for example.

 

current difficulties

  1. Day 21 - Keypad Conundrum: 01h01m23s
  2. Day 17 - Chronospatial Computer: 44m39s
  3. Day 15 - Warehouse Woes: 30m00s
  4. Day 12 - Garden Groups: 17m42s
  5. Day 20 - Race Condition: 15m58s
  6. Day 14 - Restroom Redoubt: 15m48s
  7. Day 09 - Disk Fragmenter: 14m05s
  8. Day 16 - Reindeer Maze: 13m47s
  9. Day 22 - Monkey Market: 12m15s
  10. Day 13 - Claw Contraption: 11m04s
  11. Day 06 - Guard Gallivant: 08m53s
  12. Day 08 - Resonant Collinearity: 07m12s
  13. Day 11 - Plutonian Pebbles: 06m24s
  14. Day 18 - RAM Run: 05m55s
  15. Day 04 - Ceres Search: 05m41s
  16. Day 23 - LAN Party: 05m07s
  17. Day 02 - Red Nosed Reports: 04m42s
  18. Day 10 - Hoof It: 04m14s
  19. Day 07 - Bridge Repair: 03m47s
  20. Day 05 - Print Queue: 03m43s
  21. Day 03 - Mull It Over: 03m22s
  22. Day 19 - Linen Layout: 03m16s
  23. Day 01 - Historian Hysteria: 02m31s
 

Problem difficulty so far (up to day 16)

  1. Day 15 - Warehouse Woes: 30m00s
  2. Day 12 - Garden Groups: 17m42s
  3. Day 14 - Restroom Redoubt: 15m48s
  4. Day 09 - Disk Fragmenter: 14m05s
  5. Day 16 - Reindeer Maze: 13m47s
  6. Day 13 - Claw Contraption: 11m04s
  7. Day 06 - Guard Gallivant: 08m53s
  8. Day 08 - Resonant Collinearity: 07m12s
  9. Day 11 - Plutonian Pebbles: 06m24s
  10. Day 04 - Ceres Search: 05m41s
  11. Day 02 - Red Nosed Reports: 04m42s
  12. Day 10 - Hoof It: 04m14s
  13. Day 07 - Bridge Repair: 03m47s
  14. Day 05 - Print Queue: 03m43s
  15. Day 03 - Mull It Over: 03m22s
  16. Day 01 - Historian Hysteria: 02m31s
 

The previous thread has fallen off the front page, feel free to use this for discussions on current problems

Rules: no spoilers, use the handy dandy spoiler preset to mark discussions as spoilers

 

This season's showrunners are so lazy, just re-using the same old plots and antagonists.

 

“It is soulless. There is no personality to it. There is no voice. Read a bunch of dialogue in an AI generated story and all the dialogue reads the same. No character personality comes through,” she said. Generated text also tends to lack a strong sense of place, she’s observed; the settings of the stories are either overly-detailed for popular locations, or too vague, because large language models can’t imagine new worlds and can only draw from existing works that have been scraped into its training data.

 

The grifters in question:

Jeremie and Edouard Harris, the CEO and CTO of Gladstone respectively, have been briefing the U.S. government on the risks of AI since 2021. The duo, who are brothers [...]

Edouard's website: https://www.eharr.is/, and on LessWrong: https://www.lesswrong.com/users/edouard-harris

Jeremie's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremieharris/

The company website: https://www.gladstone.ai/

 

HN reacts to a New Yorker piece on the "obscene energy demands of AI" with exactly the same arguments coiners use when confronted with the energy cost of blockchain - the product is valuable in of itself, demands for more energy will spur investment in energy generation, and what about the energy costs of painting oil on canvas, hmmmmmm??????

Maybe it's just my newness antennae needing calibrating, but I do feel the extreme energy requirements for what's arguably just a frivolous toy is gonna cause AI boosters big problems, especially as energy demands ramp up in the US in the warmer months. Expect the narrative to adjust to counter it.

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