I ENTERED THE PROMO CODE AND IT WONT STOP
you guys aren't gonna like to hear this, but I love the taste of boot. I love to lick every inch of the boot. god yes, every inch has to be glistening and wet. I have to make sure to get all of the gravel out of the treads. the point is I'm thorough. anyway none of you understand normal people
The finished novella is “set in Edwardian England and loosely based on [Ellison’s] sister Kate’s imagined amorous exploits, to Kate’s great delight,” her mother wrote.
this can't be what it sounds like. it just can't be
this is so fucking funny. bro nobody but you is surprised
just heard a podcast ad for amazon prime saying it causes "involuntary deal squeals" followed by a categorization of different kinds of customer grunts and squeals according to product. not making this up
now where did I leave my hammer and sickle
in the case of Honduras, a military coup installed a far right government which proceeded to loot the country in various ways, including through privatization. approving charter cities was one of these. so, they can get territory through corruption. they would probably want to keep acquiring territory in the same way they got some in the first place.
the subtext seems to be about them invading their neighbors, but it's hard for me to imagine them getting the resources for that. it's really, really, really expensive to outright annex territory and idk how they could do it without the support of an actual country
Microsoft to reopen 3 mile island to power AI
the symbolism is 😗👌
archive link: https://archive.ph/jFO6f
why do so many awful tech companies have rabbit in their names
fondly remembering replying to these types of people with screenshots from the wikipedia page on affinity fraud. they really hated that
there's not a lot of ambiguity in what the novels are getting at, so no offense but this line of argument is not worth engaging directly. but I will point out that I didn't say what pratchett's views were. part of why people don't look askance at these books is that his other work is at odds with the realpolitik message I'm pointing out. I can't and I don't draw conclusions about his 'real' views based on the vimes novels
yeah that's the conservative spirit right there
I don't think people get how reactionary the captain vimes books are. look at what's happening in them. in plain english, you have a cop and his band of good apples + adorably bad apples saving the ass of a dictator again and again, because sometimes you just need a clever steady hand in charge. Pratchett was informed by liberal humanist values, and there's plenty of great stuff about tolerance in there. but the foundation of any vimes novel is an institutionalist urge to bootlicking. it just has to be the right boot
I guess if we're doing the rise of fascism again it's inevitable that we're doing fucking austro-hungarian empire discourse again. somehow the 1940s returned
I have thought about this guy every day since I saw this post
this one really got to me. very upsetting
yud is the uniquely capable person in this area. anyone who even sets foot in it should make groveling to him a high priority. these people are disaster monkeys because they aren't doing that
I get that this is some sort of attempt at an election related Epic Comeback, but it doesn't make sense
it doesn't do either of those things
you know a company is very serious when it uses game balance terminology to describe its HR practices. "I'm sorry, we're going to have to nerf your salary"
"spoons and katanas" has got to be the most baby brained analogy. are you a child
The landmark ruling by Judge Amit P. Mehta was the first antitrust decision of the modern internet era in a case against a technology giant.
archive link
https://archive.ph/n3Ffq
> Judge Mehta’s Google decision is likely to be appealed. “Regardless of who wins or loses, this case probably has a date with the Supreme Court,” Mr. Kovacic said.
ah well
taking a peek at a subreddit for lovers of ai art
!"subreddit rules. Speak pro-ai thoughts freely."
DefendingAIArt is a subreddit run by mod "Trippy-Worlds," who also runs the debate sister subreddit AIWars. Some poking around made clear that AIWars is perfectly fine with having overt Nazis around, for example a guy with heil hitler in his name who accuses others of lying because they are "spiritually jewish." So we're off to a great start.
the first thing that drew my eye was this post from a would be employer:
not really clear what the title means, but this person seems to have had a string of encounters with the most based artists of all time.
also claims to have been called "racial and gender slurs" for using ai art and that he was "kicked out of 20 groups" and some other things. idk what to tell this guy, it legitimately does suck that wealthy people have the money to pay for lots of art and the rest of us don't
I really enjoyed browsing around this subreddit, and a big part of that was seeing how much the stigma around AI gets to people who want to use it. pouring contempt on this stuff is good for the world
the above guy would like to know what combination of buttons to press to counter the "that just sounds like stealing from artists" attack. a commenter leaps in to help and immediately impales himself:
!'just block and move on' 'these are my real life friends' 'oh...'
you hate to see it. another commenter points out that well ... maybe these people just aren't your friends
!'antis will always just stab you in the back'
to close out, an example of fearmongering:
Techno-utopianism and the path into darkness
This is an essay about 'village' vs 'control' techno-optimism I wrote for a class final in 2016. I was in undergrad etc etc but for 2016 I feel it had a lot of foresight, and there's still some bits here and there I haven't seen anyone else explicate. Thought some of you might be interested
rationalists discuss: does testosterone make you stupid?
Warning: This post might be depressing to read for everyone except trans women. Gender identity and suicide is discussed. This is all highly speculat…
saw this posted by @sailor_sega_saturn at https://awful.systems/comment/3871697
op has a simple question:
> Why are trans women so intellectually successful? They seem to be overrepresented 5-100x in eg cybersecurity twitter, mathy AI alignment, non-scam crypto twitter, math PhD programs, etc.
and a skull shaped answer:
> My theory is that too much testosterone makes you dumber, particularly during adolescence. You need a little for your cells & organs to work, but past a certain point it does more harm than good (for intelligence specifically — motivation & happiness etc aside). Apparently this is not a new theory and people have posited a U-shaped curve for how testosterone affects IQ. The key (sad) claim is that the vast majority of men are on the too-much-T side of the curve. Maybe trans women get the best of both worlds intellectually — a male skull with female chemistry.
our researcher sets about fending off possible objections:
> Why didn't evolution give females big heads if it would make them all geniuses? Another anecdote. My sister has a big head. She was valedictorian in high school I think. She hit her head one day in middle school during gym class by running into a wall. She also fell off a bike and hit her head in high school. I have never hit my head and I think the main reason is that my arms are strong enough to catch myself. So maybe the big headed women would-be-ancestors fell and hit their heads.
cites chatgpt for this:
> Do trans men get the worst of both worlds intellectually — female skulls and male chemistry? Yes.
demonstrates the exceptional explanatory power of his hypothesis:
> Why are really good tech founders so rare? You have to have very high power-seeking/initiative (T) and very high IQ. This is an incredibly rare combination because the testosterone murders your IQ. You have to be a genius before puberty hits. Helps if your brain/head is giant. Look at eg Elon Musk & Jeff Bezos.
describes the potential impact of his research:
> I suspect that some simple electrical stimulation in the womb could make infant females' skulls bigger and result in lots of genius women. If they don't fall off their bikes and hit their heads.
all time great footnotes:
> Thought of some more potential evidence. The smartest cis women I've known almost all had lack of butt (women's most visible muscle -- so low testosterone?)
> Later that day: i asked my sister. She said all her smart friends (men and women) lack butts too! She and I both have the butt, so we are speaking against our own kind here.
a commenter has an epistemically rigorous counterpoint:
> I don't understand why you need to invoke testosterone. Transgender brain is special, for example, transgender women have immunity to visual illusions.
another commenter objects to that, based on a deep dive into the literature:
> Can you source this claim? I've never heard it and GPT-4 says it has no scientific basis.
"well admittedly I made it up, but it seems plausible"
> Whoops, it's really looks like I imagined this claim to be backed more than by one SSC post. In my defense I say that this poll covered really existing thing like abnormal illusions processing in schizophrenics (see "Systematic review of visual illusions schizophrenia" Costa et al., 2023) and I think it's overall plausible.
archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20240706165407/https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BBCtWtg44Yeh6fire/is-being-a-trans-woman-or-just-low-t-20-iq
Recall uses AI features "to take images of your active screen every few seconds."
somehow I managed to miss this until now
Axon has been inviting police departments to webinars about the new AI-based product, which will automatically generate police reports based on bodycam audio, according to emails obtained by 404 Media.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240517214034/https://www.404media.co/here-is-what-axons-bodycam-report-writing-ai-looks-like-draft-one/
tl;dr ai will write up officer reports used to help convict people, based on bodycam audio. of course we can expect it to display the usual features of fictionalizing, bias and diffusion of accountability
special highlight: end of the article includes a comment from the EFF, imploring municipalities not to purchase this tech. company responds with a statement pitching the product to prosecutors. make your own inference about who has control over this decision
the most crypto thing I've ever seen that doesn't actually involve crypto
I've been reading through the top all time /r/hobbydrama posts and I keep coming back to this one. In a way, it's the best summary of the promises crypto makes I've seen. People buying fiefdoms in a game that doesn't exist because they so desperately want the experience of being kings, because they so desperately want to be the boot that grinds... it's beautiful to see this presented without the nonsense about supposed democratization or freedom.
the time capsule aspect is fascinating too. the layperson's innocence is now tainted by NFTs. you will never again see people struggle with the concept of this grift as purely as these posters did in 2017.
worst tech/crypto songs of all time?
inspired by
https://awful.systems/comment/2382662
from the link, we obtain HODL gang and versace bedouin (which might be the worst song I've ever heard period).
I would also like to add predatory capitalist feminism anthem WAGMI.
on an ideological level I would nominate the technofascist propaganda piece we appreciate power. banger tho
I'm imagining you right now
I'm doing it so skillfully. I'm totally basilisking you. isn't that scary
Law firm hired by Cruise says Cruise didn't mislead regulators, they just had trouble using the internet. Verge proceeds to repeat the claim uncritically
Cruise didn’t tell regulators its car dragged a pedestrian.
Actual framing:
> Cruise wasn’t hiding the pedestrian-dragging video from regulators — it just had bad internet / An independent review of an incident in which a driverless Cruise vehicle dragged a pedestrian over 20 feet concludes the company has connectivity issues.
My expectations for journalists are low but goddamn
archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20240126195607/https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/25/24050791/cruise-pedestrian-dragging-video-driverless-report
rationalist reaches the libertarian conclusion about child marriage
Summary: I have been working on a research project into the scale, tractability and neglectedness of child marriage. After 80 hours of research, I th…
saw this pointed out here and felt it deserved it's own post
let me mention that this is exactly the sort of argument I've seen pedophilia enthusiasts break out many times:
> hmm, we thoughtful inquirers should look at this incredibly tenous evidence I've curated. it raises questions about whether we should be superrrrr chill about sex with children. questions with answers that, I'm sold on!