blakestacey

joined 2 years ago
MODERATOR OF
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

I poked around the search results being pointed to, saw a Ray Kurzweil book and realized that none of these people are worth taking seriously. My condolences to anyone who tries to explain the problems with the "improved" sources on offer.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Adding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_alignment to the compendium for completeness' sake.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Rather than trying to participate in the "article for deletion" dispute with the most pedantic nerds on Earth (complimentary) and the most pedantic nerds on Earth (derogatory), I will content myself with pointing and laughing at the citation to Scientific Reports, aka "we have Nature at home"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Wow, this is shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_alignment

Edit: I have been informed that the correct statement in line with Wikipedia's policies is WP:WOWTHISISSHIT

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'd disagree with the media analysis in "What Was The Nerd?" at a few points. For example, Marty McFly isn't a bullied nerd. George McFly is. Marty plays in a band and has a hot girlfriend. He's the non-nerd side of his interactions with Doc Brown, where he's the less intellectual, and with George, where he's the more cool. Likewise, Chicago in Ferris Bueller's Day Off isn't an "urban hellscape". It's the fun place to go when you want to ditch the burbs and take in some urban pleasures (a parade, an art gallery...).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Because of course.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You know, just this once, I am willing to see the "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" label and be content to leave the bag closed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Or was it a consequence of the fact that capital-R Rationalists just don't shut up?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 days ago

I suppose you could explain that on the talk page, if only you expressed it in acronyms for the benefit of the most pedantic nerds on the planet.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

feels like they are wrong on the object level

Who actually wants to sound like this?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago

There might be enough point-and-laugh material to merit a post (also this came in at the tail end of the week's Stubsack).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago

The opening line of the "Beliefs" section of the Wikipedia article:

Rationalists are concerned with improving human reasoning, rationality, and decision-making.

No, they aren't.

Anyone who still believes this in the year Two Thousand Twenty Five is a cultist.

I am too tired to invent a snappier and funnier way of saying this.

 

"TheFutureIsDesigned" bluechecks thusly:

You: takes 2 hours to read 1 book

Me: take 2 minutes to think of precisely the information I need, write a well-structured query, tell my agent AI to distribute it to the 17 models I've selected to help me with research, who then traverse approximately 1 million books, extract 17 different versions of the information I'm looking for, which my overseer agent then reviews, eliminates duplicate points, highlights purely conflicting ones for my review, and creates a 3-level summary.

And then I drink coffee for 58 minutes.

We are not the same.

For bonus points:

I want to live in the world of Hyperion, Ringworld, Foundation, and Dune.

You know, Dune.

(Via)

 

Everybody loves Wikipedia, the surprisingly serious encyclopedia and the last gasp of Old Internet idealism!

(90 seconds later)

We regret to inform you that people write credulous shit about "AI" on Wikipedia as if that is morally OK.

Both of these are somewhat less bad than they were when I first noticed them, but they're still pretty bad. I am puzzled at how the latter even exists. I had thought that there were rules against just making a whole page about a neologism, but either I'm wrong about that or the "rules" aren't enforced very strongly.

 

Need to make a primal scream without gathering footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh facts of Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

 

a lesswrong: 47-minute read extolling the ambition and insights of Christopher Langan's "CTMU"

a science blogger back in the day: not so impressed

[I]t’s sort of like saying “I’m going to fix the sink in my bathroom by replacing the leaky washer with the color blue”, or “I’m going to fly to the moon by correctly spelling my left leg.”

Langan, incidentally, is a 9/11 truther, a believer in the "white genocide" conspiracy theory and much more besides.

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