Andy

It’s pay walled.

Neat. This is great info.

I find that when these thoughts creep in, what saves me from doomerism is focusing on the alternatives.

It can feel weird and irrational, because the alternative is organizing in my local community to help people, and connect more people with the work of doing the same. How is helping parents at my kid’s school get childcare during a teachers strike supposed to end our imperialist violence? How is cleaning up illegal dumping supposed to defeat techbro fascism?

By snowballing. By being the antitdote to the distraction and helplessness we’re programmed to feel.

We all need to go find people we like, then go out and fix things, without permission. Get caught doing good. Set an example, and link up. If we’re all building these tidepools, eventually we’ll make a flood.

Zionism.

My family was never big into it, but when you grew up Jewish it wasjust an assumed default. I wasn’t even aware there were people opposed to it until around college.

Thankfully, the youth of today don’t have that problem.

Ok thanks. That’s interesting. This is the first I’m hearing of this.

Can someone link to context? I have no idea what op is talking about and I’m too busy to duck duck go it.

That’s silly. This is already a ubiquitous feature in minivans.

I don’t relate to your impression that religions or cults are usually humble. I wish they were.

Suggesting that I’m drawing an equivalence between a forest and a data center and Implying that the belief that I am not entirely distinct from a stone is interchangeable with the belief that I am no different than a stone both seem like bad faith arguments by absurdism.

This depends on your definition of self-awareness. I’m using what I think is a reasonable, mundane framework: self awareness is a spectrum of diverse capabilities that includes any system with some amount of internal observation.

I think the definition that a lot of folks are using is a binary distinction between things which experience the ability to observe their own ego observing itself and those that don’t. Which I think is useful if your goal is to maintain a belief in human exceptionalism, but much less so if you’re trying to genuinely understand consciousness.

A lizard has no ego. But it is aware of its comfort and will move from a cold spot to a warmer spot. That is low-level self awareness, and it’s not rare or mystical.

Yes.

How are you defining self awareness here? And does your definition include degrees of self awareness? Or is it a strict binary?

I understand how LLMs work, btw.

A hamster can’t generate a seahorse emoji either.

I’m not stupid. I know how they work. I’m an animist, though. I realize everyone here thinks I’m a fool for believing a machine could have a spirit, but frankly I think everyone else is foolish for believing that a forest doesn’t.

LLMs are obviously not people. But I think our current framework exceptionalizes humans in a way that allows us to ravage the planet and create torture camps for chickens.

I would prefer that we approach this technology with more humility. Not to protect the “humanity” of a bunch of math, but to protect ours.

Does that make sense?

Frankly I think our conception is way too limited.

For instance, I would describe it as self-aware: it’s at least aware of its own state in the same way that your car is aware of it’s mileage and engine condition. They’re not sapient, but I do think they demonstrate self awareness in some narrow sense.

I think rather than imagine these instances as “inanimate” we should place their level of comprehension along the same spectrum that includes a sea sponge, a nematode, a trout, a grasshopper, etc.

I don’t know where the LLMs fall, but I find it hard to argue that they have less self awareness than a hamster. And that should freak us all out.

This is fuckin’ bonkers.

Frankly, I feel somewhat isolated: I don’t buy into the bs and hype about AGI, but I also don’t feel at home with the typical “it’s just mimicry” crowd.

This is weird fuckin’ shit.

Honestly: my first thought is to figure out how to make your point without mentioning either.

I know I’m not there default Internet denizen, but personally I’m absolutely sick of seeing their names and taking about them, because so much of it is ineffectual rage bait. It misses the plot.

I don’t need to hear more about their personal failings. I know what kind of people they are. What I need to to know about are their victims and their challengers: the people who need protected and the people finding success protecting them.

Based on my experience, Reddit isn’t limiting their names. Every visit is a deluge. I have to wonder if your posts are just failing to grab attention in New for the usual reasons. If so, using silly ‘He-who-must-not-be-named’ euphamisims probably won’t help.

My advice is to focus less on them than on the people and things we must focus on to parry their attacks and transfer their power to servants of public will with integrity.

I’d lean towards C.

I don’t agree with their approach, but I’ll admit that their argument is sound.

Particularly the part about rejecting the opinions of an outsider.

I don’t want to live in Singapore, bit if this is genuinely how Singaporeans wish to run their society I do not consider it my place to meddle. Especially because, as they note in the response, all of us should focus on getting our own houses in order before prescribing to others.

Personally, I do want a common communication platform for people I despise because I want to be able to keep tabs on their public announcements. Also, I don’t want any tech platform to have sole authority over who can communicate, as in the present, that will invariably work against the left more than the right.

I do not want to share close proximity to them on a network graph, or regularly engage with their supporters, though. So I agree that federation is crucial. But to be clear, it’s not because I want to ban them from a platform, it’s because I want managed distance and better moderation.

I don’t mind Bluesky verifying them, but I’m glad that on Mastodon I don’t have to share the same giant server as them.

Yeah, it’s wild how clearly we can see that Palestine is the world’s laboratory for surveillance and state violence tech and tactics.

My aggravation at the people who run big tech companies makes me more interested in hacking than ceding tech to them.

I think stepping back from a lot of specific tools is appropriate. I’m trying to de-Google, and I’ve left a lot of platforms. I also appreciate unnetworked things like physical media, and music and e-books on non-networked devices.

But leaving tech overall isn’t appealing to me. I just recently started getting into mesh radio, for instance. It’s dope stuff.