gerikson

joined 2 years ago
[–] gerikson@awful.systems 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (7 children)

LWer suggests people who believe in AI doom make more efforts to become (internet) famous. Apparently not bombing on Lex Fridman's snoozecast, like Yud did, is the baseline.

The community awards the post one measly net karma point, and the lone commenter scoffs at the idea of trying to convince the low-IQ masses to the cause. In their defense, Vanguardism has been tried before with some success.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qcKcWEosghwXMLAx9/doomers-should-try-much-harder-to-get-famous

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 8 points 3 weeks ago

Yes the rationalists are an incredibly large market and their opinion can make or break an author, sure you betcha

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 4 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks for posting this, it was entertaining.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] gerikson@awful.systems 13 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Expect the "AI safety" weenuses to have a giant freakout too.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

New eugenics conference just dropped

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8ZExgaGnvLevkZxR5/attend-the-2025-reproductive-frontiers-summit-june-10-12

"Chatham House rules" so they can happily be racist without anyone pointing fingers at them.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 7 points 1 month ago

Good on Quora members for debunking too.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

should have gone with "Moldbuggery" Scott

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Here's an interesting nugget I discovered today

A long LW post tries to tie AI safety and regulations together. I didn't bother reading it all, but this passage caught my eye

USS Eastland Disaster. After maritime regulations required more lifeboats following the Titanic disaster, ships became top-heavy, causing the USS Eastland to capsize and kill 844 people in 1915. This is an example of how well-intentioned regulations can create unforeseen risks if technological systems aren't considered holistically.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ARhanRcYurAQMmHbg/the-historical-parallels-preliminary-reflection

You will be shocked to learn that this summary is a bit lacking in detail. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Eastland

Because the ship did not meet a targeted speed of 22 miles per hour (35 km/h; 19 kn) during her inaugural season and had a draft too deep for the Black River in South Haven, Michigan, where she was being loaded, the ship returned in September 1903 to Port Huron for modifications, [...] and repositioning of the ship's machinery to reduce the draft of the hull. Even though the modifications increased the ship's speed, the reduced hull draft and extra weight mounted up high reduced the metacentric height and inherent stability as originally designed.

(my emphasis)

The vessel experiences multiple listing incidents between 1903 and 1914.

Adding lifeboats:

The federal Seamen's Act had been passed in 1915 following the RMS Titanic disaster three years earlier. The law required retrofitting of a complete set of lifeboats on Eastland, as on many other passenger vessels.[10] This additional weight may have made Eastland more dangerous by making her even more top-heavy. [...] Eastland's owners could choose to either maintain a reduced capacity or add lifeboats to increase capacity, and they elected to add lifeboats to qualify for a license to increase the ship's capacity to 2,570 passengers.

So. Owners who knew they had an issue with stability elected profits over safety. But yeah it's the fault of regulators.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 12 points 1 month ago

”Canola” was minted because ”rape seed oil” is an even worse name.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 10 points 1 month ago

They're Internet Native/Terminally Online, so they can SEO their own appearances, plus now they are fully plugged-in to the right-wing hype machine so they're probably turning down appearances instead of chasing them.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 2 points 1 month ago

Bruce Sterling is active on social media but he's pretty forward-looking. I tried complimenting his Heavy Weather from the early 90s and get a self-deprecating dismissal.

Early Gibson short stories are tinged with late 70s SF, not surprisingly.

Incidentally superhero movies are current western SF/fantasy hybrids.

 

Pretty soon, paying for all the APIs you need to make sure your Midjourney images are palatable will be enough to pay a human artist!

 

Also the hivemind seems to have taken against ~~tweets~~Xeets, a stunning reversal from last year when St. Elon was gonna usher in a new Dawn of civilized discourse.

 

Sorry for Twitter link...

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