TheVat

"Grok," Elon Musk's AI, which he has been running on his social media platform, seems to keep turning into a Nazi. https://bsky.app/profile/kthorjensen.bsky.social/post/3lti7lu56uc2n When it isn't suggesting a new Holocaust, it's praising Adolph Hitler... https://x.com/tab_delete/status/1942690597866799405 Or attacking people with Jewish surnames. Grok singled out a user with the last name Steinberg, describing her as “a radical leftist tweeting under @Rad_Reflections.” Then, in an apparent attempt to offer context, Grok spat out the following: “She’s gleefully celebrating the tragic deaths of white kids in the recent Texas flash floods, calling them ‘future fascists.’ Classic case of hate dressed as activism—and that surname? Every damn time, as they say.” (one may wonder if Steinberg was a troll account, designed to provoke the less sentient) And black people have not escaped Grok's artificial stupidity, with a series of posts (since taken down) using the N word spelled out to slur Blacks - this drew the admiration from an actual white supremacist group... https://x.com/TheTowerWaffen/status/1942678406245802050 Given the origin of Grok's name, I can well imagine Robert Heinlein turning over in his grave.

Yes, I realized that I meant oil reserves, NOT coal, in my post, but missed the edit window here. Sorry. Small oil reserve, large coal reserve.

Could be that corporate forces are split - tech bros see deportation as a way to clear the path for automation (the ultimate in cheap, docile and submissive workers) while other corporations and smaller biz fear the economic shrinkage from mass deportation.

China has relatively little fossil fuel production or reserves, compared to other populous nations, and so I would guess they are more motivated to gain some energy independence and not be too dependent on imported FFs. Being a totalitarian society also helps, in terms of implementing large-scale plans to transition to sustainable energy. And they are also achieving some global market dominance in production of PV panels, which will further their geopolitical goals. While regressive nations like the US have been busy fighting with themselves over the inevitable and essential transition, China just cut through all that bullshit, rolled up their sleeves, and are getting the job done. My guess is that China's success, and its implications, will eventually penetrate even thicker American skulls, as people realize how China has cheap power and affordable electric cars (which cars many American consumers have started to notice and has set them wondering why they can't buy a decent no-frills EV for under 20K).

I'm thinking, with regard to creating chaos, that oligarchs try to aim for a kind of Goldilocks zone, where people have enough anxiety to be manipulated but not so much that they withdraw from consumerist comforts and turn their wrath on the oligarchs and the politicians who serve them. When you turn the 99% (in David Graeber's meaning) into frightened peasants, you can get peasant uprisings. Like the Jacquerie in France, peasants have a way of noticing when the leadership is asking them to defend failed and corrupt institutions.

Not a physics guy, but aren't photons massless and chargeless? How would they interact? 🫣

We are currently amazed at the acuteness of our cat Louisa's sensitivity to her new born kittens mewing when they wake up and she's been taking a Mom Break outside. This morning she was in the backyard and I had closed the windows and just left the laundry room door slightly ajar so she could get back in - the kittens were in a towel lined deep box in the quietest corner of the cellar. I went down there to retrieve a canister of oats (we keep a backup food supply down there) and began to hear very faint mewings. In the box they were all writhing around and crawling over each other, awake and hungry. This area is sonically very far removed from the upstairs, let alone the shady back of the yard where Louisa was hanging out by the birdbath. But somehow she had sensed the awakening and was rushing down the stairs as I made my way up. We've seen this happen many times now in the past five days. I'm saving one of them to ship to England - I know @pinball1970 has been eagerly awaiting a kitten. (In-joke)

Stateless groups, i.e. after the collapse of polities or after a diaspora, does sound interesting. Hope OP can post some text for us. Understanding how these could survive and potentially thrive could help people like Kurds, Palestinians, and even very dispersed stateless groups like the Roma. It's also interesting to me personally, because I live around many Lakota (aka Sioux) people who have experienced statelessness in a peculiar way, where they were recognized as a nation but without any real sovereignty over their affairs.

Not really. Just pointing out the difference between a simulation and a naturally existing world. The simulation needs more than just a few rules - it needs to call up particular files which present sensory impressions (large quantities of data) to conscious agents. You can't cut corners if the sim is realistic. The sensorium of each of billions of humans is quite complex with enormous variations of particular types - like @pzkpfw tree example. You walk through the woods, you don't just see the same tree repeated a thousand times - and people would notice, if that happened. Bear in mind that deception, which a simulation is, requires a lot of fake reality. And a lot of monitoring of conscious agents - for example, the system must know that Fred Shmeebly in Twin Falls, Idaho is about to look through a telescope to study details on the surface of the Moon. Those details must be there when needed, to preserve Fred's reality. Yes, propagation delay could be a huge issue in the massively parallel and enormous architecture of a universe simulator, even if transmission is photonic.

This definition of "simulation" is then entirely yours. Generally, it is defined as something which is designed by some intelligence to simulate a world. Natural phenomena don't just randomly build computers which are then creating a simulation - this is akin to suggesting that the electrical activity in the thunderstorm passing over just happens to be simulating a dog kennel in Tulsa. This notion needs a shave from Ockham's barber shop. Yes that is the problem with sheer scale - in a nutshell. (Not that a simulation could not have shortcuts - physics people need only see subatomic particle tracings when they are looking at some readout from a particle collider. Subatomic particles don't have to be simulated for people engaged in ordinary macro world activities. Simulating physics and chemistry takes far less code and processing than real fizz and chem.). What would take a monster chunk of data and processing would be giving billions of conscious beings instant access to files like "pine tree, full details," whenever their gaze falls in that direction. If someone was carrying a field microscope with them, they'd need another file with, say, cambium cells details, etc. The rich/poor divide you mention in "Upload" seems plausible. I have myself imagined such a simulation where the lowest budget version requires you to be mildly myopic and incapable of seeing much details, and there are only twelve basic odors. You want to smell gardenias? There's a surcharge for that.

Seems like the "bottom turtle," which is the RW programmer, will desire a clock speed that provides whatever it is hoping to get from its simulation in what it construes as a reasonable amount of time. From this RW perspective, using lumps of beach sand and pebbles and waiting a billion years would likely not be the option it chooses. Indeed, a sophisticated hybrid (digital/analog) might be devised, especially where the simulation was populated by conscious and intelligent beings. Eventually they would arrive at 42, as the answer. Clearly, Doug Adams was the ultimate output of our matrix.

This seems both plausible and a towering exemplar of American innovation at its finest. Because operating a crank to remove butts is ever so much simpler than tilting the ashtray over a dustbin. Ideally, the apparatus would launch the butts upward and on a trajectory which could be set for the specific location desired. Or they could be lobbed at passing hobos and vagabonds who retrieve them for residual scraps of tobacco?

That's the uniquely disturbing work of Grunthos the Flatulent if I'm not mistaken. We are all mere putty in his hands (or whatever those appendages are). Putty that wishes fervently to die soon. Putty che desidera ardentemente morire presto! As an amateur architect, I remember following this story - I think they called the building the Walkie-talkie. That was when I learned of the famous Carbuncle Cup, which it won that year. The term "fryscraper" was also coined. I should really start a thread on architectural abominations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbuncle_Cup

Sorry for the assuming. I didn't think you were joking, and at first did think it reminded of enigma objects in web ads. On the question of the OP, it looks a little like something that gun hobbyists use to process ammo. Higher rez would really help but I understand you are stuck with this pixelated image.

Can't help but wonder how one would translate Vogon poetry into another language. Imagine being the translator and confronting this bit of verse... Oh freddled gruntbuggly, Thy micturations are to me, (with big yawning) As plurdled gabbleblotchits, On a lurgid bee, That mordiously hath blurted out, Its earted jurtles, grumbling Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer. Congratulations to your son, btw. And may I recommend the excellent features of the humble brick, as paperweight?

Arthur Clarke's space elevator. I wanted that to happen but sensed that the super polymer cables needed, plus other tech details, we're going to be a RW challenge. Or just not feasible getting it off the drawing board and scaled up. And no one or very few anticipated problems like orbital debris.

I was always amused by the notion that doors (i.e the architectural ones) would change in some highly futuristic way. Aside from better gaskets and insulation, we still have the basic door with knob, latch and hinges that we've had for centuries. I think this illustrates that some technologies "mature" and then resist much more innovation (beyond materials upgrades). Nobody whose residential threshold I cross has a door that slides aside or dilates or parts like a membrane or flips upward like a DeLorean or whatever. Bo-ring!

Teleonomy, that's the term I was looking for earlie to make that distinction. Thanks, @exchemist . And teleology, when it does arise, pertains to artificial selection rather than NS. A society could agree that articulate speech is so important (coordinating hunting or plant gathering, say, or transmission of essential memes and histories to young ones) that they reward verbal fluency by codifying special marital privileges and extra shares of certain foods and amenities that enhance child care, thus increasing the fertility rate for the silver-tongued, thus (assuming there are alleles that mediate neurogenesis or what have you in such a way) enforcing a form of AS. Corn (maize) is a common example of AS, but once a species has sufficient intelligence it can develop culture and codes which bring about AS within its own species. This also means the line between sexual selection and AS can become quite blurred in a restrictive human culture.

Amen.To that!

Yes this is why I wanted to advise Luc against using "purpose" as a term. When he remarked, I felt that the meaning of teleology was not understood. A teleological explanation IS one that assigns a purpose to some phenomenon. Purpose comes from conscious minds. When we say a rock has a purpose, we mean that we sentient beings have a purpose for that rock.

There is another side but the question is if there is empirical support for a teleological explanation of any sort of selection. Evolutionary theory, with its present strong empirical foundation seems to be the opposite of a teleological explanation. The former qualifies as a scientific theory, the latter is a philosophical conjecture. It's very important to understand this distinction before proceeding further.

Yes. Flashing on a scene from Raising Arizona where the parole board guy is telling Nicholas Cage they have a name for people like him. "Recidivist! Repeat oh-fender!"

Sounds a bit like a backdoor way to bring back the luminiferous aether.

If you are referencing Operation Valkyrie, I have reservations about threads that escalate to suggesting assassination. (perhaps that's your point?) Such a means of deposing a fascist wannabe could cement a future of autocratic rule, as people rally around a strongman who can ensure order. Peel me a Chiquita. 47 is a white nationalist. He will not be going after the melanin-impaired.

Money. https://news.law.fordham.edu/jcfl/2018/12/09/the-american-prison-system-its-just-business/ I am also reminded of studies that found that violent crime is primarily a crime of youth. People over 30, their number in violent crime statistics plummets. Most violence comes from young people whose emotional impulsivity is high. If allowed to rejoin society, they generally (except for a small percent, usually estimated around 2-5%, who are sociopaths) master impulse control and can lead peaceful lives. OTOH, leave them caged with sociopaths and the mentally ill, and they don't do so well.