@djc i think the scenario here is drifting away without the sharp pain of visibly dying. so even if a loved one one actively engages with will (at least for a little while) be hard to simulate, loved ones who reply eventually to mails and messages, even answer the phone, but don’t talk long, stay distant, might be harder to distinguish from the real thing. the goal is just (false) proof of life, to pass a turing test wellness check, not actively take over a person’s relationships.
@LesterB99 but would people who otherwise might be deterred from planning plan? are you saying a person would already have your be so motivated that nothing would deter them? what if it’s not so hard, if letting your avatar “sub” for you becomes a pretty normal thing?
@LouisIngenthron but of course if they themselves are trying to fool you, the changeling will have the password.
@LouisIngenthron (i agree outside of the morbid domain of suicide agreeing to verbal passwords is an oddly practical way to defy all kinds of mischief and as you say just sadness that could come from being simulable. it’s already useful in the context of ransom scams.)
@mycrowgirl yeah. masking is hard work! but it can perhaps be automated. suicide is unethical for the damage it does to those left behind. but gently fading from an in-person human to an avatar of occasional digital interaction is normal now, what we do to one another all the time. if the former can be masked as the latter, is it still as unethical?
when you can simulate a self so well even loved ones can’t tell it isn’t you, what’s that going to do to the suicide rate?
"You actually end wars by making peace too valuable to miss out on." #VenkateshRao #vgr https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/war-rooms-and-peace-rooms ht @akkartik
is mid cringe or basic? (surely it's not based.)
Text: The rigor and exactitude of social sciences offer real advantages, but it is easy to overstate them. Social science is quantitative, precise, analytically sophisticated — and thus seems far superior to the educated guesswork of drawing lessons from history. Yet the models of social science are quantifiable and analytically manipulable only because of their reductionism — that is, because of all they leave out. The model is not reality: its relationship to reality is analogical. Accordingly, when we are presented with two different models that yield very different conclusions, how do we determine which is the better fit to current circumstances? In exactly the same way that we decide whether this or that historical precedent is more relevant — by judging which analogy is the more apt. Social science provides us with new concepts and new techniques as the basis for making analogies, but ultimately the best social scientists, like the best historians, practice the art of developing, refining, and exhibiting well-informed good judgment.
in my cultural revolution there are snuggle sessions.
they say money doesn’t buy happiness, but very wealthy people seem a lot more excited to fund research into longterm life extension than the rest of the population.
Vila @llimllib's essential notes: "A really lovely, well presented table of all the unicode characters" https://symbl.cc/en/unicode-table/#basic-latin
the buried lede is we are one step closer to human-like AI. the bots have figured out how to shit.
from @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/03/keyword-swarming/
"The delay in the use of puberty-blockers is presented as a precautionary concern over irreversible change, but it looks a lot like a desire to preserve childhood innocence by paradoxically embracing puberty." #DavidTimoney https://fromarsetoelbow.blogspot.com/2024/05/zones-of-interest.html
When will AI switch to proof-of-stake? https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/05/northern-virginia-fact-of-the-day.html
This post is unhinged.
so next month begins the summer of love, right?
@FlashMobOfOne You too! Pleasure to chat, agreement isn’t everything!
@FlashMobOfOne I think quite the opposite. Peaceful political activity accomplishes pretty much everything actually virtuous and desirable. There is perhaps some role for the threat of disorder, but its actuality beyond a very limited degree provokes segregation into warring camps and fascist hierarchy. All that rioting discredited the post George Floyd movement. Once nothing happened in the immediate aftermath, there’s nothing politically viable to build from.
@FlashMobOfOne I guess I disagree. Armed protests would either be violently crushed, or if widely accommodated while violating the law, would so weaken state authority any hope of a decent society would be impossible. if you’re an anarchist, you’ll see that last as nonsequitur, but i think anarchists very badly mistaken. i do not support Waco / Bundy style resistance, and think “sovereign citizens” who occupy Federal land unlawfully should be held to account.
@FlashMobOfOne are Columbia students not largely rich people? do you see the Palestinian cause as somehow socialist/redistributionist? do you think armed challenge of state authority Waco / Ammon Bundy style a path forward for your values and causes that you support?