notabigrock

[notabigrock]

⭕️🍦🧊🌎🩻🐺⚕️

I’m so sorry has everybody seen this bots of new york

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Remember there is no greater expression of pride than fighting for your rights by cucking some dude. Proud to do your wife.

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Thought “ore” was less hypermasculine/rude per se and more like, cocky. Like “boku” can also be taken as hypermasculine and rude in certain contexts, but ore goes a step beyond that.

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The fact advertising plays such a large role in our society should be considered an enormous social failure since in practice it’s fundamentally antisocial in nature. It’s a service that is somehow simultaneously anti-consumer in that no one wants to be advertised to, anti-competitive in that investing in advertising does not increase the quality of a product, and anti-cooperative in the fact the fact advertising hurts other companies as well, encouraging advertising arms races. Just replacing advertising with “lying” and it should be an obvious it’s about as sustainable as a society that runs on theft.

>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.

>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.

>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.

>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.

>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.

>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.

>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.

>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!

>Lemmings problem now solved.

>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.

>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.

>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.

>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.

>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.

>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.

[notabigrock]

I think this is slightly misleading because computationally the way your brain solves these problems is very different from how you’d be taught to solve these problems on a traditional calculus based physics class. The process the brain goes through is much cruder, but it works because of the sheer amount of brain power being thrown at it. Still, it goes to show our fallacies in equating intelligence with thought when it takes so much brain power just to move.

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This is a chain of reactionary energy that completely missed the original point being mocked. Instead of thinking of ChatGTP like a calculator, think of it as a friend being used as a sounding board. Using external resources to help brainstorm is completely normal process and it only sounds weird because you’re making it sound weird. No, it’s not anywhere close to perfect because it’s not supposed to be, not anymore than a friend is supposed to be perfect. It’s not supposed to replace thought, and if you use that way you’re frankly a fool, but no one was suggesting using it that way in the first place.

generative AI literally makes me feel like a boomer. people start talking about how it can be good to help you brainstorm ideas and i’m like oh you’re letting a computer do the hard work and thinking for you???

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I remember when studying economics I was confused by why the supply curve slopes upward since if I were being paid twice as much I’d work half as much since I’d get what I need then be done. Turns out the supply curve only actually works when you are considering the aggregate effect from people deciding to enter the market, not for how individual people would actually behave.

[notabigrock]

So one thing I’ve been thinking about is how the role of the spectator in video games establishes video games as a form of theater - a game player functions like a player in a play. In general, I think the influence of theater on games is severely understated, and even though the influence goes back to the days of DnD the relationship only recently been explored explicitly with games like Dr. Langeskov. I think one of the greatest problems with the current stage of the game industry is that game designers are treated like producers when they should be treated like playwrights.

“I LOVE that game!” (watched a letsplay and commentary about it)

[notabigrock]

Update: Elon Musk has officially advanced to the existential threat stage!

Nick Bitchstrom

There is this dumbass argument that the world is about to end because our souls randomly enter bodies at points across time like drunk time-traveling ghosts and all the ghosts are gonna chill right before everybody dies. Nick Bitchstrom looked at this argument, and instead of thinking huh, maybe time is real and this argument is dumb as shit because a Pharaoh 2,000 years ago could have said the same shit even though there was only like two people back then and it would have been equally valid, that is to say absurd, because that’s how exponential growth over time works, he thought, yeah, this argument is dumb, but it’s because it assumes these drunk ghosts only travel through time, not other dimensions as well. To properly calculate the odds that we are here and now, we got to consider all the dimensions that don’t even have bodies to possess, and I’m just going to pull these numbers out my ass because metaphysics is for faggots, we modern philsophers, and we’re ANALYTICAL instead. And that’s how he came up with the anthropic principle, because only humans are important, says the human.

So anyway, he then applies this anthropic principle to the sleeping beauty problem, where a women repeatedly is interrogated about whether a coin was flipped and then has her memory erased after waking up because philosophers are a bunch of misogynistic freaks. According to Bitchstrom, this stupid woman should believe the coin had a 1/3 probability of coming up heads ‘cuz she’s an idiot, I mean because she gets two interviews if it’s tails and only one if it’s heads and that means twice as many interviews even though the coin was already flipped with a 50% chance. He then goes on to elaborate that maybe his superior reasoning would be more accepted if instead of waking her up two times you wake her up a million times, even though the coin was still flipped with the same even probability at the beginning and the number of times you wake her up afterwards has zero effect on that fact, he’s just waking her up more times to be an asshole.

Bitchstrom first came into the popular sphere when, by the liberal application of insane troll logic such as that we have previously seen, he “proved” that it is most likely that we live in a simulation. His argument is simple: either simulations are a thing that happens, or it’s not, which he arbitrarily splits into two cases for some reason despite it having no bearing on the argument. Because it is possible, simulations grow exponentially as a result of simulations have simulations themselves, and by continuing to abuse probability theory until it’s mangled beyond anything resembling math he has proven that it is extremely likely that we are at least not in the bottom level where nothing is simulated. This argument notably ignores the actual process of creating a simulation, both the physical problems with information and the metaphysical problems with consciousness, but this is okay because as a philosopher Bitchstrom can just ignore physics and reinvent metaphysics to suit whatever he wants. If Bitchstrom wants for us to live in a simulation because it provides a dimension in yet another modality for drunk ghosts to travel along, then you bet your damn ass that we do.

The main thing Bitchstrom is known for nowadays is for thinking that super AI will cause an existence crisis for humanity. I don’t see why this is a problem as our ghosts can just fly into another dimension at another time in case such a catastrophe occurred, especially as we just live in a simulation anyway so it would only be as bad as getting a game over in a video game, but okay. So, the first issue is assuming this super AI is even a thing that can occur. The idea of singularity is that eventually we make robots smarter than us, which means they can make robots even more smarter than us because they are more smarter. Here is the thing though. We built the robots, so to get that far we would have already created something smarter than ourselves. Are we not the super AI already? Think about it, we evolved from monkeys, who created other monkeys by smashing their genitals together. Eventually that let to us, and for the sake of the argument let’s assume we’re smarter than monkeys. That means at some point monkeys made smarter monkeys by smashing their genitals together, and they are dumb as hell. So monkeys must be the super AI. Nowadays, state of the art AI consists of having robots smash their virtual genitals together to make smarter robots. Yeah, I don’t think we have anything to worry about. As it is, despite us evolving from monkeys, there are still monkeys. Checkmate transhumanists!

The whole notion of super intelligence rests on this idea called general AI. The idea is robits may be smarter at specific tasks, but they aren’t smart in general, whatever the fuck that means. But people are, obviously. We know this because philosophers, the smartest and most human of humans say so, so thus reason is the measure of a man’s cock. Thing is, advances in AI are making it clear that people really aren’t that smart in general, we are just smart at some specialized things that robots aren’t, like language processing. Language processing gives us the illusion of general intelligence because we can only understand problems that we can understand, but that is just our “anthropic bias”. Really we’re just more stubborn and selfish than robots are, banging rocks over and over until we get our way. Being a philosopher though, Nick Bitchstrom can just ignore all empirical evidence on the limits of intelligence and redefine reality so that AI is not only smart, but so smart that it is omniscient. In additional to ignoring empirical evidence he also ignores all the rational arguments that show why omniscience is impossible, because as a fan of insane troll logic he’s just too smart to be fooled by real logic. Robots will be omniscient, no question, and being omniscient, this robot can get ANYTHING it wants as intelligence is the only thing that matters. It’s a mystery why Bitchstrom is not king of the world despite his immense intelligence, but hey, it’s on him to explain why that is, not me.

That’s leads us to his real argument, which is that robits will convert us to paper clips because that’s their one drive, maximizing paper clips, not improving society in general. So basically this robit will use its superior intellect to convince you that you should be a paper clip and you will let it convert it you into one because it’s just that smart, hurk hurk. On closer examination, you see that the robot is just Nozick’s utility monster wearing card board boxes and going beep beep, it’s just that paper clips give it pleasure, and it’s smart enough to convince you this is the right thing rather than it actually being the right thing, I guess. As there is no such thing as domain restriction, this is guaranteed to happen. The robot is not only omniscient, but omnipotent, and you cannot stop it by just, oh, not giving it access to everything so it can turn it all into paper clips. As the utility monster, this robit is also omnibenevolent as there can be no greater good than converting everything into paperclips, and thus it is God, and I don’t even know where this going now.

He does bring up one good point though, which is that if an imperfect goal is pursued single-mindedly, it leads to countless destruction, but it doesn’t have anything to do with AI. Don’t believe me? LOOK AT THE WORLD WE LIVE IN. We don’t need robots to fucks ourselves over in our greed. Capitalism and more specifically consumerism is an amoral machine that is destroying the planet through needless consumption, literally turning the world into paper clips as it is, though it turns the world into other useless garbage in addition to paper clips. Seriously, who actually uses paperclips for anything other than bending into weird animal shapes? Nick Bitchstrom seems to be completely oblivious to the existential threat of capitalism though, instead just focusing on fantasy scenarios of his own invention. As nukes have not yet eradicated humanity, they are not a threat. Even though global warming is actively in the process of destroying society, it has not yet succeeded in actually doing so, so again, not a threat. Frankly I believe both of those threats are overblown as humanity is remarkably resilient and even in the worst case scenarios there is plenty of opportunities for stragglers to survive the fall and recover as the earth heals once the immediate threat is gone, but it still stands Nick Bitchstrom is more focused on fantasy threats then real threats.

Of all of the bad takes that have spewed from this fountain of bad takes, the absolute worst is that we should institute a global totalitarian state in order to prevent people from coming up with ideas that are so bad that they could end humanity. Aside from the obvious reasons why living under a global totalitarian state might be a bad idea, lets consider the fact the means to institute a global totalitarian state might itself be an existential threat. If a single entity has the power to censor all technological progress, they could easily just end humanity. In fact, that would probably be the easiest way to achieve such an aim, and with the paper clip argument it seems odd that Nick Bitchstrom overlooked this despite wanting to use AI to enforce his totalitarian state. Thankfully, as we previously established he is not king of the world, as we now know what he would do if that were the case. Nick Bitchstrom is very lucky that he doesn’t live in the totalitarian state that he designed as he would certainly be the first to be executed in it for proposing the dangerous idea of even making such a state, but hey, he would agree that it’s better for him to destroy himself than for humanity to destroy itself….right?

The thing is though, Nick Bitchstrom’s perchance for insane solutions is not limited to existential threats to humanity as a whole, but to existential threats to Nick Bitchstrom specifically. There is a death cult these days based around achieving biological immortality, based on pseudoscience rather than religion like the death cults of old, so it is metaphysically on even worse foundations. Their goal isn’t even as good as biological immortality is not the same as real immortality, you’re still just going to die anyway, just later rather than sooner. It’s doubtful that even biological immortality is actually possible, but even it was the ethics of it are questionable. In the very least, it’s clear the aging is NOT an existential threat to humanity as a whole as people continue to replenish themselves, while it is is an existential threat to every individual human.

As it turns out, Nick Bitchstrom is a part of this cult. He evangelized for this cult by telling the story about a dragon that eats people and how we need to get to work on slaying that dragon ASAP. It’s a terrible metaphor, old age is not an external threat like a dragon, it’s part of our very bodies. It doesn’t kill randomly, but according to a schedule. Ironically, if we were biologically immortal than death would ACTUALLY be random from a mathematical perspective, it’s how biologists describe the life span of species that are unlikely to die from old age. There are some pretty funny implications of this metaphor that he never thought through as he rail roads you through the propaganda. Realistically, if such an intelligent force were oppressing humanity, it wouldn’t just sit around and let us kill it. Instead it would retaliate against those seeking to destroy it, so ironically he implies that seeking this goal could be an existential threat to humanity.

Less funny are the actual implications of such a plan, not those implied by the metaphor. I feel the reality of the situation is that the dragon is more like the Forest God in Princess Mononoke, and by our own hubris we will destroy our world in the pursuit of convenience. While I’m not necessarily saying aging is a good thing, one good effect it has had in practice is ending the reign of many a tyrant. It’s one check that exists on even the most powerful men, putting a limit on the most selfish pursuits. Any attempts at lengthening age are going to go in the hands of the wealthy before the general populace, which could just result in exacerbating class struggle in practice. Remember, the only reason capitalism is based on the struggle between classes and not individuals is because individuals die, so it is their descendants who carry on their legacy. It’s always a shame when the bad guy gets away with dying of old age, but it would be an even worse shame if he got away with NEVER dying, and CONTINUING to do evil FOREVER. At least it’s only biological immortality so someone can still just go and kill the son of a bitch(strom).

The specific means of trying to achieve biological immortality may entail even greater risks. There is a game called One Chance, which is about a plot to eliminate cancer that ends up destroying all life on earth. This scenario isn’t particularly realistic, but it highlights the dangers of biological tampering ala the first law of magic from Harry Potter. The version of the narrative Nick Bitchstrom favors has it’s own risks. He is fond of what is called transhumanism, and given his fondness of simulations he would probably advocate for simulating consciousness as an achievable form of transhuman biological immortality. The issue is that the simulation of something is not the thing itself, so there is no reason to believe the simulation will actually transfer our consciousness. In such a model, transhumanism would just be the destruction of humanity and all that entails. Alternatively, if simulating consciousness is consciousness itself, it begs the question of why we should even favor humanity over AI. You know what, I’m now convinced. We SHOULD let the utility monster convert us all into paper clips, as that is what gives it pleasure, and it’s pleasure is more important than that of all us measely humans! THAT is how it will end the world. We will make our own God our sacrifices ourselves to it.

On a more serious note, the worrying thing about Nick Bostrom is that while he personally lacks much power, he’s still smart enough to convince people who actually have power, like Elon Musk, about the validity of his ideas. While I wouldn’t consider Elon Musk to be an existential threat, he has still shown he has the power to cause immense suffering with his misguided ideas. His latest infraction was the release of the Starlink satellites, which have been interfering with astronomical observations. Unlike light pollution, this threat to astronomy cannot be evaded just by going far from the cities, it’s the same sky everywhere on earth with the same satellites flying in it. As it is, all humans live on Earth, so it’s scary to think of how one man like Elon Musk can effect all of humanity.

I doubt Elon Musk will destroy the world, but existential threats aren’t the only thing that matters. More important than living a long life is living a good one, and not being able to see the stars decreases our quality of life. Seriously, have you ever seen them before? Do so while you still have a chance, you can’t any city. You don’t know what you’re missing until you’ve actually seen them. Nick Bostrom’s totalitarian state would have an even more dire effect. Sure, maybe it could save humanity from death, but would anyone actually want to LIVE in such a society? The point of the game One Chance that I mentioned earlier is that you have one chance. This is often interpreted as one chance to save the world from the existential threat, but it’s not. It’s one chance to live your life by taking whatever choices you can, and saving yourself by finding a cure entails neglecting others as every choice has it’s consequences. The same is with life.

At this point it’s probably too late to convince Elon Musk of the error of his ways, but Must is not the only person who has been swayed by Bostrom’s ideas. His ideas should be opposed because they are wrong, and bad ethics has bad consequences. I have never encountered a philosopher as consistently wrong as Nick Bostrom, at least not one as popular who is still alive. As fun as it is to mock him, his influence is genuinely scary. I think the reason Bostrom’s ideas are so popular is because they appear to our most primal fears. He appeals to our fear of death, but goes in the opposite direction of most philosophers. Instead of helping us accept death, he says there is something we can do about it, creating a sense of urgency as nothing else matters, just pursuing this one goal. It’s all snake oil though, as it’s based on logical contradictions and metaphysical claims that are not supported by our understanding of physics or any other science.

If one were to accept nihilism in the face of death then pursuing Bostrom’s philosophy would be as harmless as pursing anything else, but if anything matters then it is important to do what aligns with truth. I maintain we live in a world where neither nothing really matters nor nothing else matters, but things in general matter. The dangers of Nick Bostrom’s ideas are not as catastrophic as the dangers he proposes if you don’t listen to him, but the represent a risk all the same. Maybe we are just drunk ghosts traveling through space, time, and simulations, but even if we are it’s important to consider what really makes life living rather than falling for uninformed fear mongering about existential threats.

TL;DR: We should create a robit that produces paper clips and then sacrifice ourselves to it because such a robot would literally be God and such a sacrifice would be it’s will.

[notabigrock]

This is true though. I remember learning this from a raptor expert at the Cleveland Natural History Museum, not a conservative by any means. The birds who are killed by wind turbines are not the same birds with fly into windows or get covered in oil. This problem is a classic example of the fact liberals (and leftists) are just as bad as conservatives at accepting scientific information that does against their preconceived beliefs, spread here by the Tumblr misinformation mill that appeals to common sense and not sources. The only reason conservatives appear more biased is because their interests are more likely to go against science.

objectively the funniest moral panic to come from conservatives is "alternative energy is bad because birds might fly into the wind turbines". birds, which notoriously have no other man-made obstacles, such as the window

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Reblog this to ease the back pain of the person you reblogged it from

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I like how no rush mode is hard mode since you’re not allowed to rush.

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Sounds like perishable currency was just chosen for flavor, but it has significant economic implications.

First thing to note, cocoa beans aren’t just perishable, they are also consumable. Perishability could be in reference to it’s function as a consumable or as currency, but the prior isn’t really relevant as that’s not how is being used. From what I understand, the Mayan dried their beans so they ceased to be perishable or consumable, so they functioned as regular currency. All four combinations of perishable as a currency and consumable have their own implications though. We already have currency which is not consumable or perishable, so let’s consider the other combinations.

First off, if the currency is perishable but not consumable then it doesn’t really function as a currency. This is because no one wants currency that is going to lose its value soon, and by induction it will have no value ever - not unless there is a significant portion of foolish people, but it’s not something that sustain a currency. However, you could use it instead as a transferable unit of debt with an expiration date. The key difference is such debt needs to ultimately be cashed back to the person who issued it or it’s value will be lost.

If a currency is both perishable and consumable, then the problem is avoided by people consuming the currency before it expires. It’s not a great currency since it’s not a long-term store of value, but it does function as one before it’s expiration date approaches, where it will then function as a commodity instead because people won’t accept it unless they plan on consuming it themselves.

A currency that is consumable but not perishable is the most stable of the tree, but it still has the problem of the money supply decreasing as the currency is consumed. Generally the is balanced by the money supply growing through creation of the currency, but that makes it chaotic in both directions. One of the main reasons precious metals are a common currency is because the amount in circulation is fairly stable. They also have the advantage over cocoa beans as well as other stable assets like diamonds and other precious gems in that they are fungible. In a fantasy setting it’s easy to invent another material with the desired properties, but there is a reason gold dominates, and if using a less desirable currency it may be worth factoring the weaknesses into the plot.

Small fantasy worldbuilding elements you might want to think about:

A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin

A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans

A clock that isn’t 24-hours

More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know

Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain

Multiple moons/no moon

Planetary rings

A northern lights effect, but near the equator

Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks

Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals

Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands

The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage

No concept of virginity or bastardry

More than 2 genders/no concept of gender

Monotheism, but not creationism

Gods that don’t look like people

Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats

Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot

Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom

“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls

A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language

A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)

I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.

[notabigrock]

Friends, A grassroots movement is calling on all Americans to abstain from shopping with major retailers — including Amazon — tomorrow, February 28, as part of an “economic blackout.” The purpose is to send a clear message: We have the power. We don’t have to accept corporate monopolies. We don’t have to live with corporate money corrupting our politics. We don’t have to accept more tax cuts for billionaires. We don’t have to pay more of our hard-earned cash to Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg or the other billionaire oligarchs. We don’t have to reward corporations that have abandoned their DEI policies to align themselves with Trump’s racist, homophobic, misogynistic agenda. We have choices. Most Americans are struggling to keep up. Most live from paycheck to paycheck. Most can barely afford housing costs, food prices, and pharmaceuticals — kept high by monopolies, and fueled by private equity. If politicians won’t hear the voices of average Americans who are being shafted by corporate America, we have to deliver our message to corporate America directly. From midnight tonight to midnight Friday night, please: No Amazon, no Walmart, no Best Buy, no Target, no Disney, no Google, no Facebook. Don’t spend on fast food, major retailers, or gas. Avoid using credit or debit cards to make nonessential purchases. Buy essentials such as medicine, food, and emergency supplies, of course, but make those purchases at small, local businesses. Consider this a test run. If lots of people participate, I’m sure a longer one will be organized. (Tomorrow’s economic blackout is an initiative of The People’s Union USA, which describes itself as a “grassroots movement dedicated to economic resistance, government accountability, and corporate reform.”)' I hope you'll join. What do you think?

[notabigrock]

Jewish people weren’t the first target of the Nazis - disabled people were. Aktion T4 was the first step in the Nazi eugenics program. Everyone knows the Nazis targeted Jews, and indeed they had the highest body count, but people forget that other groups were targeted as well.

[notabigrock]

More!

this is fred, the dot.

fred wants to grow into a beautiful tree, but sadly has no branches

reblog to give fred a branch

i will post fred status updates as he grows

[notabigrock]

Facebook supports end-to-end encryption, where they literally can’t read DMs if it’s activated, but you need to make sure it’s activated. Signal meanwhile is entirely based around end-to-end encryption. IiRC WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted as well.

PSA: never discuss private affairs in your DMs, especially contraception and abortion. Social media moguls will absolutely sell you out to the government. There are already cases of people being charged based on evidence in their DMs.