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pengstrom

Isn't all money "after tax" though? It all goes around. The exception would maybe be the treasury minting loans.

Everything is unfair. The housing crisis is unfair. Young families struggling to afford a family home is unfair. Having to pay into a pension system you'll never get to use is unfair. Land and housing is different from personal property. There's only so much to go around and we'll have to share. A property tax is one tool to incentivize efficient allocation, and to drive prices down.

I'd say these attempts at arguments (for either position) is how we make progress understanding consciousness.
I think politicians are right to be afraid. Surveillance of this magnitude isn't a ballot-box-level grievance. It's a Guy Fawkes/V-level injustice. They're stepping into territory where the very people they're supposed to stop might instead turn justified.
Re:Study mode on Tuesday July 29, 2025 @02:06PM (#44726498)
The part about history perspectives sounds interesting. I haven't noticed this. Please post any concrete/specific examples you've encountered!
Re:How to Build Conscious Machines on Sunday June 15, 2025 @11:33AM (#44282826)
When you run out of things to occupy yourself with you end up thinking about thinking
Re:How to Build Conscious Machines on Sunday June 15, 2025 @06:56AM (#44281643)
There's this video by an unfortunately rude Youtuber that's actually quite interesting. I find his tribalism off-putting (and ironic), but he's clearly thought about it a lot. https://youtu.be/kse87ocS0Uo?si=Gi5f6uQFeJCrm_hF
Re:How to Build Conscious Machines on Sunday June 15, 2025 @06:50AM (#44281625)
I've never gotten the impression an animal was aware it could change me. Sure it'd make its wants clear until it got what it wanted or got bored, but that's a very primitive form of conduct. The cat clearly knows I can get it more foods between meals. The communication is limited, but I've never seen him come up with a better argument than that he really really wants more food. Dogs are stranger and clearly has a concept of social structure that cats don't. Both from their background as pack animals and deliberate domestication for assisting humans in work.
Re:How to Build Conscious Machines on Sunday June 15, 2025 @06:41AM (#44281599)
Strange. My knowledge of the fundamentals and processes in humans still makes me jelous of the apparent ease others fare in social situations. Clearly there's more to it than it seems. I'd be wary of equating bottom-up and top-down as principally equivalent.
Re:How to Build Conscious Machines on Sunday June 15, 2025 @06:35AM (#44281583)
Does it assume life, or are the qualities that makes an organism act in spite of us, and agency, one and the same?
Re:How to Build Conscious Machines on Sunday June 15, 2025 @06:29AM (#44281564)
I'm more optimistic but cynical. Everybody has the capacity, but can't be bothered for your sake specifically. A highly intelligent person can casually entertain several theoretical notions. A lesser can too, but it requires more effort. Effort that might be better spent elsewhere, or effort that makes social interaction awkward.
Re:How to Build Conscious Machines on Sunday June 15, 2025 @06:24AM (#44281551)
My stab:

2: implicit world. Reacts to but not modeled. 3: explicit world and your separation from it. 4: Model that includes other intelligences of level 3 that you have to take into consideration. World resources can be shared or competes for. 5: Language. Model of others as yourself, their model include yours too. Mutual recursion. Information can be transmitted mind-to mind.

Re:How multiplication is defined in Peano arithmetic on Sunday June 15, 2025 @06:12AM (#44281507)
I think the fact that the initial _size_ of the recursion can be arbitrarily large is where infinity comes in. No matter your resources, there might be (must be?) a recision problem that's too large, that requires too many steps.
Re:Cheap Thrills, an album cover by Robert Crumb (2020) on Monday November 04, 2024 @07:30PM (#42047541)
Jesus. I couldn't finish that documentary. I only knew him by his more popular art, but that film put me off anything he'd done. His family was a mess, and he himself is without a doubt the last person of it I'd ever want to meet. Every single interaction he had with a woman (even by proxy) on screen made my skin crawl. A creep of the highest caliber.
Economics is a social science, the study of how people interact with things of value. It cannot be hard, since it has a feedback loop.
Re:Git Branches as a Social Construct on Monday January 15, 2024 @07:36AM (#39000155)
You're looking at it wrong. We can't change the laws of physics, but we can change society. That's the practical difference.
Re:God Help Us, Let's Try to Understand AI Monosemanticity on Monday November 27, 2023 @06:54PM (#38440330)
I'd say 'in spite'-ness is pretty spot on for life in general
That's true, I might have been a little aggressive on the claiming
I always cringe when I hear evolution brought up as some invented method or mere developmental happenstance. It's a cold, unavoidable consequence of variation, selection and inheritance, in the absolutely most general way possible.

The universe evolves, life just found a way to make it quicker. Then we invented sexual dimorphism to make several selections within a single generation. Our human intelligence allows us to evolve ideas at an even faster rate.

The effects of evolution are in the realms of science, but evolution itself is the superstructure science, and anything else, has "evolved" in. It's time.

"Only a sith deals in absolutes"

Science clearly works because humans have a genuine curiosity to find truth. While every person is flawed and prone to error, the curiosity points in the same direction, rising above the noise.

We've only recently had to even discuss this after the deployment of large scale truth poisoning making the errors non-uniform.

That's sad. I'd assume your love for you sister would make you find common ground in doubt and humility, virtues of both science and religion. Every single human tells themselves lies to feel better, we just call them Justice or Democracy. We're just self-conscious meatbags thrust into existence against our will, after all.
Technically only true for formal systems where you can axiomatically define A = not A, which is principally arbitrary.
Deutsch also heavily argues for explanations as first-class existence on the level of matter. For him, predictions are simply a practical concern. I still fondly remember his dialogue between Socrates and Apollo in dream, where he convincingly makes the point that even there he can find true knowledge about the world.
I mean, the non-schizo proponents for flat earth does approach it with scepticism. It's just that the their required level of proof are unreasonable. Any experiment, no matter how genuinely designed, is exempt from flaws. Science works because the detractors doesn't have the energy to waste decades in the academic apparatus, unlike true curiosity.
Re:The myth of the myth of learning styles on Sunday September 24, 2023 @10:48AM (#37633647)
It's also confusing to talk about learning styles without it's context. They always come from the detached top. Here in Sweden it's primarily used (along with most trends teachers have to stomach) to distract from budget cuts. The initiatives never seem to include smaller classes or more teachers, only mire work for an already overworked profession.
Re:See How Pencils Are Made in a Japanese Factory on Thursday August 03, 2023 @04:37AM (#36983023)
There's this great YT channel of a guy who inherited his grandfather's metal shop, including a drafting table. He likes precision and proper drawings.

https://youtube.com/@InheritanceMachining

I struggle with cannabis addiction on and off. When I'm into it, it means several joints daily for months until I manage to pull my self out of. One day I fear I won't be able to.
In principle no, but you can't get to a functioning state without illegally obtaining the signing keys.
Re:Ancient Greek Terms Worth Reviving on Tuesday May 09, 2023 @04:33AM (#35871590)
So that's why the anti-anxiety drug is called Atarax.
"Now y'all might be wondering what I need all this speed for" is forever etched in my mind. PannKoek is a youtube treasure.

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