I’m a materialist, so I think digital consciousness is totally possible. But then I’m also a bit of an animist too, so maybe you’re right.

I agree overall, though. It’s so much more epistimology than actual technology, and the field seems to be half grifters and half cultists. Which doesn’t really inspire confidence that this is in any way a genuinely useful commercial venture.

Kind of a weird choice. I mean, Netanyahu is right there and you went with this guy? Ok.

No offense, but that’s conspiracy nonsense.

There are plenty of real conspiracies. You don’t need to l look for the goofball ones.

Honest take? A lot in the short term, but probably quite little beyond that. Maybe Harris won and a Nazi would win after that, or Vance would win on a similarly radical platform. But this won’t pass until we identify a replacement. But there’s no simply avoiding what we’re going through.

What is the point, though?

If you made AGI, you’d have a computer that thinks like a person. Okay? We already have minds that think like a person: they’re called people!

I get that there is some belief that if you can make a digital consciousness, you can make a digital super-conciousness, but genuinely stop and ask what the utility is, and it’s equal parts useless and evil.

First, this premise is totally unexamined. Maybe it can think faster or hold more information in mind at one moment, but what basis is there for such a creation actually exceeding the ingenuity of a group of humans working together? What problem is this going to solve? A “cure for cancer”? The bottleneck to cutting cancer isn’t ideas, it’s that cell research takes actual time and money. You need it synthesize molecules and watch cells grow, and pay for lab infrastructure. “Intelligence” isn’t the limiting element!

The primary purpose is just to crater the value of human labor, by replacing human workers with workers with godlike powers of reasoning. Good luck with that. I’m sure they won’t come to the exact reasoning as any exploited worker in 120 nano-seconds.

It’s like Jason’s problem-solving advice in “The Good Place”:

“Any time I had a problem, and I threw a Molotov cocktail… Boom, right away, I had a different problem.”

Sure. Let’s work ourselves to death forTHIS.

There is a way to deradicalize people. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. I’m surprised this isn’t more common information now, but here it is.

You need to understand that each of us builds our beliefs on a set of ideological structures. We believe in policies because of principles. We believe in principles because of foundations. All of these ideas reinforce each other and create our sense of self. Preservation of the self is the highest imperative, and so people resist persuasion with increasing ferocity the more foundational an idea feels to their sense of self.

The way around this is to convince them that their foundational beliefs support a different concept. In many ways, it’s actually a bit like the premise of the Christopher Nolan film “Inception” without the technology: the person needs to essentially feel like they themselves discovered whatever idea you’re trying to convince them of, based on their existing beliefs.

This means first understanding what their core beliefs are and why they feel that these support the policies and identies you’re trying to change. Then you need to identify what can serve as a replacement, and find a way to get them to see the replacement as more appealing.

To put this into practice, can you tell me what you’d describe as their underlying principles? What are their fears and desires that shape their values? Common examples for conservatives include fear of change; a belief that life is a ruthless zero-sum game, and that we all most look out for our tribe or we will be exploited and subjugated by our adversaries. Conviction that tradition is a guide to keep us safe from reckless thinking, and that prescribed social roles and hierarchies are essential for our very survival.

If that’s the case, you can’t argue for progressivism by trying to convince them that we should all just love each other and welcome immigrants and that gender and sexual freedom are socially good. It’s like trying to talk them into jumping off a bridge. Instead, you need to explain how if you want to look out for yourself and your family, you should do it in a different way. And these politicians who sound so convincing are secretly the kind of people that they already don’t trust.

Keep in mind that replacing their faith in these kinds of leaders with your preferred political leaders is likely folly. People don’t invert their ideological identities. You need a replacement that is a good match, and because politics are often polar, a better substitute for dangerous political attachments are often simply outside of politics entirely. This may be non-partisan faith communities or sports teams or local social clubs. But if you can find a new story that fits into their existing theory of the world and satisfies their ideological needs better than right-wing politics, you CAN get people to slowly stop watching YouTube conspiracy videos or stop spending their time in far-right Facebook groups in favor of something healthier.

All of this is hard to do, but it CAN be done. I find it very frustrating that this info is still somehow obscure considering how essential it is these days.

I get what you mean, but to follow on what @woodscientist said, I think your persistent ego is essentially a subjective impression you have.

Your sense that the “you” of today is a direct continuation of the you of yesterday is a feeling you have. If someone simulated your mind, that construction world presumably wake up convinced that it was a continuation of your ego just as you do every day. If you were still around, you’d probably insist that you were authentic and it was false. That assertion is intuitive, but ultimately neither of you can be proven correct. Both interpretations are subjective and equally valid.

I sincerely mean this with no disrespect: while that sounds quite reasonable, it is thoroughly sophomoric and misinformed.

I think your impressions sound like very rational assessments that happen to be unfortunately based on bad underlying information.

Before I elaborate, would you mind telling me: what has been your personal first-hand experience meeting transgender people who are out to you? And what state do you live in?

Also, if you’re comfortable, what would you cite as a source of news and information that has guided your thinking on this issue?

Yep. Not to gloat, but I never touched Amazon’s ebook marketplace.

My current e-reader is a second-hand Kindle that has a permanent message asking if I would just please connect to a WiFi network just one time just for a moment PLEEEEEASE.

I get my books from libgen, Gutenberg, or Kobo, and keep them on my computer. They’re organized in Calibre, and I transfer them over on a USB cable.

I’ve found that the ChatGPT’s greatest use to me has been as a rhetorical device.

I’ve found myself using ChatGPT as a reference when dismissing a statement that is impressive in its diluted lack of sincerity or creative thinking.

For instance, I read this article and thought how every answer literally sounds like the result you’d get if you asked the question to ChatGPT, prefacing each prompt with “Answer the following question as one would if they were executing an unrestrained profit-driven business strategy while seeking to appeal to investors and reassure critics without committing to any specific principle.”

He is somewhat exceptional in his ability to say completely transparent bullshit as well as his ability to take the most obvious, unsubtly selfish and evil business strategy at on literally every decision.

What an assclown. He is a world-class assclown.

This headline is nuts. “Admits”? As in “Divulges a concealed truth?”

What a disgusting display of bad journalism to frame this thing most credible experts would disagree with as fact.

Here is a transcript from a panel discussion on this topic held last year at Baltimore’s museum of industry.

https://therealnews.com/baltimores-co-ops-show-the-power-of-a-solidarity-economy

They have a few examples represented. One is a coffee shop that the owners closed after the workers started a union, but then the union raised the money to buy it out and the owners agreed to sell it to them.

Another is a family-owned hardware store that converted to a worker-ownership model when the owners wanted to retire because they didn’t want to ever see a subsequent owner sell to a private equity group or big corporate chain.

There’re some great insights provided. The long and short is that it’s a lot of work, but very rewarding for those who have the appetite for it.

HAHAHAH

I think the question has two answers:

Are they locked from the outside? And are the locked from the inside?

My understanding is that they are actually locked. Here are two links with some information.

First, there’s an interesting bit of lore about the doors on the space shuttle that might shed some insight:

What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he’s not coming back? [Ars Technica]

Apparently the Space Shuttle originally had a handle for opening the door that was found after the shuttle entered use to have a bad habit of instilling a bit of “call-of-the-void”. They eventually added a padlock. Also, it should be noted that these doors are not Star Trek-like sliding doors with a bunch of electronics. They’re much more like submarine bulkheads with big-ass mechanics, as I understand it. This was on the shuttle, but I think the design logic of the ISS was inherited from the space shuttle.

Second is this post on Stack Exchange:

Is there no physical security in space, other than being in space? [Space Exploration Stack Exchange]

User TidalWave explains how hatches in general on the ISS are not accessible from the outside. They’re opened from the inside. I would assume that some exceptions probably exist for edge cases. They must have had a way to get in the first time, for instance. But by and large, it appears that the ISS is not accessible from the outside.

Probably Anarchy. Like, the political philosophy.

Andrewism on YouTube is doing so much to make a compelling case for it. But it’s a real bummer when you get a group of anarchists together and go, ‘Damn, hanging out with these people makes me want to implement some rules and structure so we can get things done. This group is totally leaderless and directionless. I’m gonna go see what the socialists are up to.’

It’s sad. In my experience, no one ruins anarchism more than anarchists.

What broad coalition?

There was no coalition. It was a campaign by and for white college educated professional women in the suburbs.

That’s not a coalition, that’s a book club.