Orange site being orange again... "Pwease don't hurt the fascists feelings 🥺"
this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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I don't like to speculate, but it seems tptacek is not happy about it for some reason: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44291623
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Easy Money Author (and former TV Star) Ben Mckenzie's new cryptoskeptic documentary is struggling to find a distributor. Admittedly, the linked article is more a review of the film than a look at the distributor angle. Still, it looks like it's telling the true story in a way that will hopefully connect with people, and it would be a real shame if it didn't find an audience.
Doing some reading about the SAG-AFTRA video game voice acting strike. Anyone have details about "Ethovox", the AI company that SAG has apparently partnered with?
altman brings the orb to reddit for some reason https://www.semafor.com/article/06/20/2025/reddit-considers-iris-scanning-orb-developed-by-a-sam-altman-startup
This guy is a real self-licking ice cream cone (flavor: pralines and dick)
More network state nonsense is afoot: https://frontiervalley.com/ https://www.thenerdreich.com/startup-seeks-trump-ai-emergency-for-california-tech-city/
They (who?) have publicly drafted an executive order because they want to take over the Alameda Naval Air Station (a superfund site).
Edit: Per the twitter account the weirdo behind this is James Ingallinera.
network state
Great, a new stupid thing to know about. How likely is it that a bunch of people that believe they are citizens of an online state will become yet another player in the Stochastic Terrorism as a Service industry?
I'm using the term a bit loosely to mean "libertarian citadel except with techies". Though I think the phrase is technically supposed to mean a nation that starts out as an online community.
Anyway for some reason these weirdos all have this idea that if it wasn't for all those pesky regulations and people they could usher in a glorious new sci-fi and/or cryptocurrency society. Like look at this example: this B-list CEO in the apartment rental business thinks he'll be the ruler of a fiefdom that brings about AGI, Quantum Computing, a nuclear energy revolution, bladerunner style flying cars, and sci-fi materials. It's delusional; or at best grift.
The canonical example of network state is Balaji Srinivasan's Network School. He owns(?) a building in Forest City, Malaysia (or as he calls it: an island in an undisclosed location off the coast of Singapore). But in a broad sense it's useful to consider everything from Sidewalk Labs to California Forever to the M.S. Satoshi as thematically in the same sort of ballpark.
it's funny to me that these futurist/thought leader/tech genius utterly fail to build their cult compounds where a goofy ass cult like Scientology has blown past them completely
They wouldn't be caught dead in Hemet.
I think the idea is to build the fortified cult compound in the Internet. That way your disciples can lock themselves inside and start flagellating wherever they may be in the physical world.
He owns(?) a building in Forest City, Malaysia (or as he calls it: an island in an undisclosed location off the coast of Singapore)
Sounds like a houseboat. It's a houseboat, isn't it.
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James Ingallinera
Wasn't he one of those "hey techies move into my cultlike terrible coliving / working space / company town" people?
new rant from me about how boosters asking critics to admit that AI is "useful" is not the win they think it is vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRcBCji6XvE audio: https://pnc.st/s/faster-and-worse/94cb1cda/useful-is-nothing
Weird conspiracy theory musing: So we know Rokos Basilisk only works on a very specific type of person who needs to belief in all the LW stuff about what the AGI future will be like, but who also feel morally responsible, and have high empathy. (Else the thing falls apart, you need to care about, feel responsible for, and believe the copies/simulated things are conscious). We know caring about others/empathy is one of those traits which seem to be rarer on the right than the left, and there is a feeling that a lot of the right is doing a war on empathy (see the things Musk has said, the whole chan culture shit, but also themotte which somebody once called an 'empathy removal training center' which stuck so I also call it that. If you are inside once of these pipelines you can also notice it, or if you get out, you can see it looking back, I certainly did when I read more LW/SSC stuff). We also know Roko is a bit of a chud, who wants some sort of 'transhumanist' 'utopia' where nobody is non-white or has blue hair (I assume this is known, but if you care to know more about Roko (why?) search sneerclub (Ok, one source as a treat)).
So here is my conspiracy theory. Roko knew what he was doing, it was intentional on Rokos part, he wanted to drive the empathic part of LW mad, discredit them. (That he was apparently banned from several events for sexual harassment also is interesting. Does remind me of another 'lower empathy' thing the whole manosphere/pua thing which was a part of early LW, which often trains people to think less of women).
Note that I don't believe in this, as there is no proof for it, I don't think Roko planned for this (nor considered it in any way) and I think his post was just a honest thought experiment (as was Yuds reaction). It was just an annoying thought which I had to type up else I keep thinking about it. Sorry to make it everybodies problem.
I thought part of the schtick is that according to the rationalist theory of mind, a simulated version of you suffering is exactly the same as the real you suffering. This relies on their various other philosophical claims about the nature of consciousness, but if you believe this then empathy doesn't have to be a concern.
The key thing is that the basilisk makes a million billion digibidilion copies of you to torture, and because you know statistics you know that there's almost no chance you're the real you and not a torture copy.
I'm the torture copy and so is my wife
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iirc he has a lawyer on retainer in case of another sexual harassment claim.
...Honestly, I can't help but feel you're on to something. I'd have loved to believe this was an honest thought experiment, but after seeing the right openly wage a war on empathy as a concept, I wouldn't be shocked if Roko's Basilisk (and its subsequent effects) weren't planned from the start.
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