HONEST_ANNIE

Liberal cosmopolitan cities can thrive as a subculture society. Not going against each other is the real meaning of tolerance–liking, approving, or supporting is not necessary.

Geographic sorting between fractured and non-fractured is dangerous. One group of people believes there is still a nation-state.

The urban-rural divide in political and nationalistic lines is clear in many countries. In countries with strong religious/conservative urban/modern populations like the US[1], Iran, Turkey it can become very problematic. Iran is probably closest to the civil war due to this fractionalization.

[1] https://www.niskanencenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Wi...

The Brazilian Amazon rainforest released more carbon than it stored over the last decade.

Hanson’s model is an ecological model. It assumes that modeled entities don’t reflect the model and respond to it. With intelligent agents simple ecological modelling may not work. You need to use game theory and strategic thinking.

Assuming intelligent aliens, they know this model.

Assuming stable state alien civilizations, they have countermeasures.

Grabby Aliens might discover immune system against cancer-like civilizations growing without limit. It should hit them early before they are metastasized.

Grabby Aliens might foresee immune system even before they encounter resistance. They might try stealthy expansion, gradual probing first strategy, or modify their behavior in order to survive, .... and so on.

Why I Am Not A Technocrat by E. Glen Weyl https://blog.radicalxchange.org/blog/posts/2019-08-19-bv61r6...

Every Kurzweil's prediction that came true is riding on the advances with semiconductors and networking. Even many of the true predictions are 'on the way' in the sense that they exist but the impact for the society is not there.

Only 2 of them rely on advances in machine learning (real-time translation of foreign languages, personal assistant).

Most of these are consumer tech or interaction with computer advances. Two predictions about education are nice.

All predictions about advances in biotech, medicine, nanotech, etc. have failed.

Good selection. 'Return from the Stars' is more relevant today than it was when it was written. Its a story about sociocultural evolution and Lem clearly has a deep insight.

(the book has tablet computers and e-paper too).

> I realized that the world in which Hillary won wouldn't be a happy world either. Because all of the drivers of the stress we feel today — minus one — would still be very much be present."

TV show The Good Fight Season 4, Episode 1 "The Gang Deals with Alternate Reality has brilliant dark humor take on alternate reality where Hillary Clinton won the election.

spoiler alert ---

(spoiler: Liberal lawyer Diane wakes up in alternate reality where Trump lost, but #MeeToo did not happen. She is representing Harvey Weinstein who is big donor for liberal causes and connections to the WH)

It's bad in the same sense as "No true Scotsman" singles out the Scotsmen.

Selecting easy to remember overly specific representatives is just way human mind works.

What is more immediate problem to solve: AI-to-Zuck or AI+Zuck alignment?

1) AI-to-Zuck alignment problem: Align AI to it's master(s).

2) AI+Zuck alignment problem: Align AI and it's master(s) to the rest of the humanity.

Zuck is just stand-in variable name for any tech billionaire CEO, corporation or governing body, could be people running OpenAI, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, China or Pentagon. 2) seems like the problem for humanity and 1) as the problem for Zuck.

The book 'The Space Merchants' (1952) from Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth describes this type world.

World is run by ad companies (FB, Google,...) who select political leaders. People have to be careful on the street not to be trapped by highly aggressive ads.

As I said in other comment illegality increases harmful effects. Culture among users is also important factor.

Adderall is the new reintroduction of meth into the society.

Illegality increases harmful effects.

Methamphetamines were used legally long time before they became illegal. Paul Erdős was probably the most famous (amphetamine and methylphenidate) user. Using meth when studying was also common.

Methamphetamine derivatives have reentered the society in the form Adderall and other drugs.

Imagine a sci-fi story where you encounter human settlement that consumes solvent that is known to causes violence and accidents and is addictive carcinogen. The inhabitants use various methods to add little taste into it, bottle it into fancy bottles. Sophisticated solvent enthusiasts recognize different tastes and treat solvent fruit juices as the highest form of sophisticated hedonism.

Alcohol as a solvent is very similar to many inhalants as a drug. Closer to paint thinner than nitrous oxide. Similar cultural affection to hallucinogens, pot or even pure methamphetamines would be less harmful.

Some things are hard to perceive odd when it's everyday phenomenon. Women wearing high-heels is be another very odd cultural artifact.

Movies for the large audience must always entertain, but you can entertain different ways. It's hard to describe what the 'Cinema' way is but it's easy to recognize when it's absent.

Here is a short list of things that make blockbuster movies not Cinema:

1. CGI and the visuals are technically pretty, but coming from the same standard tooling or pipeline. You can recognize that it's just more of the same. Examples of something creative: The Fifth Element (1997), Immortal (2004), Sin City (2005), Tron, ..

2. Action scenes are made from standardized sequences, postures and phrases. 5 minutes of action rarely matters for the plot and it's not fun to watch.

3. Dialogue and characters are extremely stereotypical. Power fantasy with some jokes and funny lines.

Some movies are just a part of a format. It requires talent to stick into format and not bore the target audience. Just provide what they want better. Changing director does not change the overall format. Directors are the to perfect the execution, not create something new.

TalkToTransformer for the 1st:

CHESS IS A FUN SPORT, WHEN PLAYED WITH SHOT GUNS.

IT'S BEEN FINE FOR 100 YEARS.

BUT HONESTLY, IF THE REASON YOU CAN'T KEEP A CONFESSION TO A FRIEND IS THAT THEY'VE TAKEN YOUR MONEY,

HOW CAN YOU HAVE A CONFESSION IF IT'S ALWAYS BEEN A LIE?

WHAT MAKES YOU SO MAD ABOUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH?

SO YOU GO TO CHURCH?

NO, I WON'T GO TO CHURCH, I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE GODS THINK.

I HAVE TO BE CONFIDENT, BECAUSE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH,

I HAVE TO BE HONEST.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DOESN'T HELP YOU FIND OUT WHAT GOD THINKS.

I DON'T WANT TO GIVE UP MY HANDIWORKS TO ANOTHER AUTHORITATIVE GROUP.

BUT IF YOU

Who still remembers MegaHAL? The source of wisdom like:

CHESS IS A FUN SPORT, WHEN PLAYED WITH SHOT GUNS.

and

COWS FLY LIKE CLOUDS BUT THEY ARE NEVER COMPLETELY SUCCESSFUL.

Bob belongs to a race that turns masculine when called with a name as it sounds when you read it left to right and feminine when you read it from right to left.

Adams was extreme procrastinator.

He could not self-manage his work once he had wealth and had no need to write for living. Once his editor rented cheap hotel room, removed all distractions and hovered over him until the book was done. Adams worked with Salmon of Doubt 10 years and didn't even manage the first draft.

I find this theory compelling.

Bob the Hacker was running artificial life simulation where the physics was classical Newtonian, space Euclidean and only the surface of the Earth was accurately simulated. When humanity developed better instruments and theories, Bob had to limit the maximum achievable speed so he invented general and special relativity. The she invented quantum mechanics to smooth over aliasing, jitter and other simulation artifacts that humans would eventually recognize.

Unless he keeps tweaking the simulation humanity will eventually realize that the Universe is a kludge.

Howto prove you are a God:

Create a json file

    {"msg":"I am a God. My name is Bob.",
     "sha256":"78A873E..."}

where the hash is the checksum of the file including the checksum. It would be equal to finding fixed point in cryptographic hash function that happens to be checksum to your message.

What you describe is the core issue in existentialist philosophy. Being free means having the freedom to choose the meaning for yourself. That kind of freedom of purpose and ultimate responsibility can be horrifying.

" Meaning is everywhere. There is always meaning. Or at least all things show a disturbing tendency to have meaning ascribed to them when intelligent creatures are present. It’s just that there’s no final Meaning, with a capital M. Though the illusion that there might be is comforting for a certain class of mind. "

-- Iain M. Banks, The Hydrogen Sonata

" Nothing in the world is the way it oughta be. It’s harsh…and cruel…but that’s why there’s us…champions. It doesn’t matter where we come from, what we’ve done, or suffered. Or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be. You’re not a part of that yet. I hope you will be. "

-- Angel, Season 4, Episode 1, “Deep Down“

I'm constantly surprised how three Sci-fi classics together describe the dimensions in the world where we live in. These books combine together to form the parameter space for our world.

1. 1984 by George Orwell: totalitarianism, telescreens, thought police, doublethink, Newspeak, Big Brother and the cult of personality

2. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Using medication to stay happy, psychological manipulation and conditioning, class hierarchy based on intelligence (or perceived ability).

3. The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth. Huge international corporations de facto run the world. States are their front. Advertising is the best paid profession (FB, Google). Ads and products are very addictive and aggressive. Advertising agencies select the new president. People are fooled to believe that quality of the products is constantly improving their life while basic things needed for life are becoming more expensive and out of reach for normal people.

Modern day scifi version:

OpenAI stops publishing their models. There are rumors that Geoffrey Hinton wrote a letter to the president. Deep Mind,Google Brain, FAIR go all silent. AI researchers stop updating their twitter and don't respond to email. Zero publications to NeurIPS 2020 from the best groups. Then someone spots few of those guys buying coffee near NSA's Utah Data Center. That center seems to grow and grow.

In the China Baidu Research goes silent as well.

Strange lights are seen on the desert sky....

The Lebowski theorem: "No superintelligent AI is going to bother with a task that is harder than hacking its reward function" is surprisingly deep.

You can see the theory in action in human history. We have drives programmed by evolution, but we try to to shortcut them. Drugs are deliberate hack for example. TV, entertainment and games can provide rewards faster than effort towards real life goals.

We fully understand that there is difference between the drive's purpose and what we do, but but we don't actually value the purpose of our reward function, only the reward. Catholic church tries to insist that people should limit sexual pleasure to the purpose it was created (by god or evolution) but people don't listen.

Is he underrated?

I have always understood that everyone agrees that he is one of the greatest sci-fi writers ever. His writing and philosophy has depth and he understood the future would be interaction between the society and technology.

Maybe he is underrated in the sense that while he is considered a great, many of his writings are still relatively unknown.

His nonfiction is also remarkable (Golem XIV is technically sci-fi, but it's so philosophically heavy that it can be seen as philosophical work).

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Technologiae

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_XIV

'The Philosophy of Chance' has not been translated to English.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_Chance

I predict that the porn industry will be the first industry to suffer mass unemployment due to AI.

Phase I: Deep learning combined with realistic physics simulation will eventually replace human actors. At some point amateurs can record their movements, then use variational autoencoders to improve their features (bigger boobs, thinner waist, smooth skin) and replace professionals. This is 'Uber phase' for porn and drives down the wages.

Phase II: Eventually AI can mimic complete scenes and adjust the 'plot' to the current state of the observer. Tight sexual biofeedback loop will form.

Phase III: The rapture of the nerds. Fully interactive VR + toolset. In the context of the Fermi paradox, Phase III is the Great Filter.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter