silentiumdrifter-blog

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

One thing I really like about how we use the affordances of tumblr is how reblogging yourself is used to break textposts up. It's not just a novel form of punctuation, it's effectively borrowing a structural trick from comics.

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

"stress" by yoan capote - made of bronze and concrete

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

the name "theresa" is so funny like. theres a what

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

jury-rigged. even keel. by the board. three sheets to the wind. loose cannon. son of a gun. pipe down. taken aback.

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

Not something I thought I would discover, but:

Dancing mat allows you to have the same relationship with a song as with a Dark Souls boss. Highly recommend.

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

no punctuation we read like romans

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

Never got to making this post myself, but the key insane details are summarized here very well. This is Warhammer Imperium level of crazy militaristic excess.

I wanted to make this post last year but I got caught up in events (plus I couldn't find back my sources). But given the recent international events have completely turned away most media's attention from the Russian war on Ukraine, I thought it was finally time to make this post.

Because I want to talk about something truly crazy. Something that shows how deep Russia's distortion, warping and twisting of the Christian religion went - and how back there, we're back to the times of holy inquisitions.

Many people have covered the fact that the propaganda of Putin over Russia isn't just mediatic and politic but also religious. There were many viral reports and TV reports and investigations about how the higher-ups of the Russian Orthodox Church were in Putin's pocket, openly shared Putinist propaganda during their religious offices, declared that the war against Ukraine was a "holy war" that God wanted, that Putin was merely the agent and arm of God - there was this whole thing about the Patriarch blessing the weapons of the Russian soldiers sent to the front, and about him explicitely saying that the Devil and/or the Antichrist was in Ukraine.

But there is something that is even bigger and more shocking than that, and that shows how in Russia war = religion. It is a building: the Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces.

The building of this cathedral started in 2018, but it was only completed in 2020. The cathedral is technically a religious building, but the main reason of its existence is to celebrated the "various military feats of Russia", chief among which - the Russian victory over the Nazis during World War II. The completion of the cathedral was done on the Victory Day celebrating the Soviet Union crushing the Nazis ; and it was opened on the "Day of Remembrance and Sorrow" (a commemoration of when the Nazis turned against the Soviet Union and tried to march over it). There's something about "the resurrection of Christ" in there, but let's be honest, this was built exclusively for and around war.

This building is absolutely grandiose, without a doubt - and its beauty and enormity is a proof of Russia's dedication to its unique mix of religion and military matters. In fact it was considered one of the great monuments of Russia... until the Ukrainian attacks made people reconsider what this symbol ACTUALLY meant.

And the thing with this building is that it was FILLED with carefully-thought war symbolism. For example, take the main dome's diameter: 19,45 meters... To symbolize the year when World War II stopped (1945). [Another source rather claims that the dome's diameter is 22,43 meters but it doesn't change the symbol: the Nazi capitulation was signed at 22h43]. There is a small dome that is 14,18 meters in height - because the conflict between the Nazis and the Soviet Union lasted 1 418 days and nights. And the belfry is 75 meters tall... because 75 years had passed between 2020 and the end of World War II. By the way, did you know that when Russians talk of the end of World War II and how they helped defeat the Nazis, they do not speak of the "World War"? No, they rather speak of "the end of the Great Patriotic War". Because the conflict between the USSR and the Nazis wasn't part of any world conflict, oh no! It was just one specific war against the patry - aka Russia. The total height of the Church is a reference to Saint Vladimir's (the one who Christianized the Rus lands) birth date, etc etc...

Things get better - the steps and floors of the cathedral are made of metal. Metal made from the melted war trophies taken from the Nazis - their weapons an their tanks for example. As such, the Russians will forever walk on the remains of their old ennemies. The church's saints are carefully chosen as the patron-saints of the Russian military: saint Elijah the Prophet, saint Barbara, saint Fyodor Ushakov... All organized in the four sections of the church, each dedicated to a different branch of the army; ground forces, navy, aerospace military and strategic missile forces. There's a lot of depictions of Jesus wielding a sword too.

And then we go to the mosaics... Ah, the mosaics! These mosaics are not about the history of Christianity, but about the military history of Russia, each one depicting a great battle or a great Russian victory. You have several depictions of the orders of the Red Army overthrowing the Imperial forces in Russia, you also have depictions of the Soviet (or Communist) successes during World War II of course - there's the Battle of Stalingrad, there's the Reichstag fire... You also have more recent depictions of soldiers, with a kalashnikov in their hands... And of course, the latest mosaic depicting the latest "Russian military success" at the date of the Cathedral's fundation: the annexation of Crimea.

This mosaic was in fact part of a dual scandal, before while the Cathedral was built, two images were leaked of two intended mosaics - one for the Crimea annexation and one for the (exclusively Soviet of course) victory over the Nazis in World War II (sorry, "The Great Patriotic War"). And the scandal was because on the latter Stalin was depicted, and on the former it was Putin who was on the mosaic. There was a big outcry, and ultimately the artists of the cathedral decided to remove the faces of Putin and Stalin... But not before asking for Putin's opinion first, and then - this is very symbolic - their faces were replaced by icons.

Yeah all of this is kind of overwhelming - but one has to remember that in Russia, the Orthodox Church is on the same level as the various ministeries of Putin. The Patriarch Kirill, who consecrated the cathedral, has as such openly supported Putin's war and politics - invited and present at all of Putin's government meetings alongside his various ministers, the Patiarch has also placed in his sermons the exact same slogans and words used by the televisual Russian propaganda. In spring 2022, he held a whole sermon about how the Russian people had to stand together as brothers again the treacherous and wicked West - and added that the reason the Donbas distrusted the Russian Orthodox Church was because of the "vile phenomenon" of the Gay Pride - and added that it was against the corruption of the West, and the anti-religious "gay propaganda", that Russia was fighting - that it was to eliminate THIS that they threw bombs over Ukraine.

Speaking of that I almost forgot! Very recently the cathedral added a new stained glass to its windows... One made with broken glass shards from Mariupol, collected during the Russian attack.

And let's not forget how the Patriarch promised to absolve all the Russians sent to the front who would die on the battlefield against the Ukrainians (the SAME kind of words that were used in the Middle-Ages for the crusades!) - because, and I quote, "such a sacrifice will cleanse you of all human sin". And at the beginning of 2023 (if I recall well), the Patriarch went as far as to say that if Russia didn't win this war, "someone" (he didn't specify who) but SOMEONE would appear "with the intentions of dominating, and then destroying the world" (aka, the Antichrist). This was later backed up by Dmitry Medvedev, who added that the real goal of the war against Ukrainian was to "stop the supreme leader of Hell" (and this time he dropped names, but several at once - Satan, Lucifer, Iblis).

We are literaly back to medieval crusades and to the crazy witch-hunts. Russian propagandists will stop at nothing to convince people that everything is evil outside of Russia.

"But..." you're going to say, "Not all Orthodox Russian priests can be falling for this crap!". And indeed you are right, there are priests in the Russian Orthodox Church that called out the fact Christianity was about peace, not war. The problem is that the higher-ups of the Church have started a hunt for all priests that advocate for peace rather than war - and they simply kick them out of the Church and revoke their status as priests. The Orthodox priests who refuse to see their faith turned into political propaganda are forced to flee into other Orthodox countries to maintain their status as priests.

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

Deutsche??? In meinen tumblr recs???? Omg

🌸Wir sind überall 🌸

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

did you know that, besides the apple of knowledge and the pomegranate of life, there’s another mystic fruit, one that grants you a sense of purpose?

yeah, it’s the raisin d’être

[silentiumdrifter-blog]

This is actually one of the best explanations of what seems to be completely misunderstood about the ChatGPT and the statistical language models in general.

chinese room 2

So there’s this guy, right? He sits in a room by himself, with a computer and a keyboard full of Chinese characters. He doesn’t know Chinese, though, in fact he doesn’t even realise that Chinese is a language. He just thinks it’s a bunch of odd symbols. Anyway, the computer prints out a paragraph of Chinese, and he thinks, whoa, cool shapes. And then a message is displayed on the computer monitor: which character comes next?

This guy has no idea how the hell he’s meant to know that, so he just presses a random character on the keyboard. And then the computer goes BZZZT, wrong! The correct character was THIS one, and it flashes a character on the screen. And the guy thinks, augh, dammit! I hope I get it right next time. And sure enough, computer prints out another paragraph of Chinese, and then it asks the guy, what comes next?

He guesses again, and he gets it wrong again, and he goes augh again, and this carries on for a while. But eventually, he presses the button and it goes DING! You got it right this time! And he is so happy, you have no idea. This is the best day of his life. He is going to do everything in his power to make that machine go DING again. So he starts paying attention. He looks at the paragraph of Chinese printed out by the machine, and cross-compares it against all the other paragraphs he’s gotten. And, recall, this guy doesn’t even know that this is a language, it’s just a sequence of weird symbols to him. But it’s a sequence that forms patterns. He notices that if a particular symbol is displayed, then the next symbol is more likely to be this one. He notices some symbols are more common in general. Bit by bit, he starts to draw statistical inferences about the symbols, he analyses the printouts every way he can, he writes extensive notes to himself on how to recognise the patterns.

Over time, his guesses begin to get more and more accurate. He hears those lovely DING sounds that indicate his prediction was correct more and more often, and he manages to use that to condition his instincts better and better, picking up on cues consciously and subconsciously to get better and better at pressing the right button on the keyboard. Eventually, his accuracy is like 70% or something – pretty damn good for a guy who doesn’t even know Chinese is a language.

* * *

One day, something odd happens.

He gets a printout, the machine asks what character comes next, and he presses a button on the keyboard and– silence. No sound at all. Instead, the machine prints out the exact same sequence again, but with one small change. The character he input on the keyboard has been added to the end of the sequence.

Which character comes next?

This weirds the guy out, but he thinks, well. This is clearly a test of my prediction abilities. So I’m not going to treat this printout any differently to any other printout made by the machine – shit, I’ll pretend that last printout I got? Never even happened. I’m just going to keep acting like this is a normal day on the job, and I’m going to predict the next symbol in this sequence as if it was one of the thousands of printouts I’ve seen before. And that’s what he does! He presses what symbol comes next, and then another printout comes out with that symbol added to the end, and then he presses what he thinks will be the next symbol in that sequence. And then, eventually, he thinks, “hm. I don’t think there’s any symbol after this one. I think this is the end of the sequence.” And so he presses the “END” button on his keyboard, and sits back, satisfied.

Unbeknownst to him, the sequence of characters he input wasn’t just some meaningless string of symbols. See, the printouts he was getting, they were all always grammatically correct Chinese. And that first printout he’d gotten that day in particular? It was a question: “How do I open a door.” The string of characters he had just input, what he had determined to be the most likely string of symbols to come next, formed a comprehensible response that read, “You turn the handle and push”.

* * *

One day you decide to visit this guy’s office. You’ve heard he’s learning Chinese, and for whatever reason you decide to test his progress. So you ask him, “Hey, which character means dog?”

He looks at you like you’ve got two heads. You may as well have asked him which of his shoes means “dog”, or which of the hairs on the back of his arm. There’s no connection in his mind at all between language and his little symbol prediction game, indeed, he thinks of it as an advanced form of mathematics rather than anything to do with linguistics. He hadn’t even conceived of the idea that what he was doing could be considered a kind of communication any more than algebra is. He says to you, “Buddy, they’re just funny symbols. No need to get all philosophical about it.”

Suddenly, another printout comes out of the machine. He stares at it, puzzles over it, but you can tell he doesn’t know what it says. You do, though. You’re fluent in the language. You can see that it says the words, “Do you actually speak Chinese, or are you just a guy in a room doing statistics and shit?”

The guy leans over to you, and says confidently, “I know it looks like a jumble of completely random characters. But it’s actually a very sophisticated mathematical sequence,” and then he presses a button on the keyboard. And another, and another, and another, and slowly but surely he composes a sequence of characters that, unbeknownst to him, reads “Yes, I know Chinese fluently! If I didn’t I would not be able to speak with you.”

That is how ChatGPT works.