CloudHeadedTranshumanist
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User ID: 2056
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
2d ago
This is probably too political for the Friday fun thread so-
Florida: Not Literally Hell, Confirms Relieved Expert
State's Residents Reassured Their Suffering Merely Earthly, Politicians Confirmed Just Regular Humans
In a groundbreaking announcement that has reassured millions, Dr. Hugo Vortex, a leading expert in infernal studies from the International Institute of Theological Phenomena, confirmed earlier today that Florida, despite widespread rumors, is not literally hell.
"After extensive research involving environmental scans, interviews with local wildlife, and an unfortunate weekend spent in a Daytona Beach motel, we can confirm that Florida is indeed part of Earth—not an annex of hell as previously speculated," stated Dr. Vortex during a press conference, adjusting his flame-retardant suit.
"The presence of sinkholes swallowing entire homes and swarms of biting insects led some to believe they were portals to the underworld," added Vortex. "Our findings show these are just very unfortunate landscaping and wildlife management issues."
The study also examined the social atmosphere, noting the influx of notorious individuals like O.J. Simpson, which Vortex attributed to the state's generous homestead laws rather than any supernatural pull. "Such occurrences mimic the claim of the infernal upon the souls of sinners, but are indeed grounded in legislative text, much like the state of our prison system and our bans on certain civil rights," he clarified.
Opinions on the findings vary among residents. "I always knew those weren't demons; just politicians and real estate agents," chuckled Marcy Klump, a lifelong Floridian who recently had to replace her car's air conditioner for the third time this year. "Though I suppose the distinction can get a bit blurry." Meanwhile, critics such as local commuter Barry Gundham argue that Dr. Vortex's study overlooks key elements like the notorious traffic jams and recent bans on lab-grown meat. "Anyone who's been in a factory farm or stuck on I-95 can recognize the torment of the damned," he countered, before excusing himself to begin his three-hour commute.
Despite the reassurance, Dr. Vortex recommends that residents continue to wear sunscreen, hydrate regularly, and avoid making deals at crossroads after midnight. "While we can definitively say Florida is not hell, vigilance is advised. The devil is in the details—or in this case, possibly in the HOA bylaws."
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
3d ago
Impossible burgers are good. But unless I'm eating out anyway they're not worth the price hike.
For me its really a convenience thing. If the mild to moderate inconveniences were to drop below those of the traditional meat industry I would definitely go vegetarian. (we have homegrown eggs. We could be optimizing better for the well-being of our chickens but they're worlds away from factory farmed chickens. 90/10 rule applies IMO).
Until then I can't really spare the mental energy.
I consider eating factory farmed meat to be sinful in the same way that all skill issues are sinful.
But self-flagellating isn't an effective motivator for me. So what purpose would that serve other than to just cause more suffering?
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
3d ago
What self_made_human said.
But also. Arbitrary religious dietary restrictions do serve a purpose, and that is incentivizing/enabling purity norms in the food industry.
If you're lactose intolerant and want to be 100% sure you're not getting traces of milk in your meat dish, you can generally trust the kosher label to mean that a Mashgichim from the Kosher certification agency has treated this with a religious tier of seriousness.
Religious food restrictions taken seriously serve as a third party quality check. Third party quality checks are good to have available, even if the underlying religious justifications for them are stupid.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
2d ago
Um. Ok. I've updated.
Having updated, I yield to anti-dan that they are more than just technichally correct. They are also correct. I'll also yield to you, for now- that the grazing fields can't be repurposed. I'm skeptical of this but I don't have the means to do a counterfactual analysis on every field at this time.
But as for factory farms, clearly you have a much stricter definition. I acknowledge that most cattle are not factory farmed their whole lives, and that the cattle in feedlots have more elbow room than in chicken factory farms.
but whatever you want to call these things: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Five+Rivers+Cattle+Feeding-+Interstate+Feeders/@42.2862795,-113.3138525,1875m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x80aaf6984afed193:0x249cafeffb8a8530!8m2!3d42.2831921!4d-113.3150227!16s%2Fg%2F1thkxj9_?entry=ttu
definitely exist, and are representative of the largest cattle finishing operations. In fact this is one of them. Now. the number of months spent here vary.
This company for instance claims that their cattle spend spring and summer grazing, then they spend 120 days in the feed lot. https://www.lazyt.com/the-story-of-your-beef
That's still over a third of their lives. And these numbers are fairly standard. 97% of cattle are grain finished, and that typically means something in the range of 6-15 months grazing followed by 4-6 months finishing. Depending on breed and operation.
Not all feed lots are the same, but the highest volume ones do look like this.
There. Is that accurate?
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
3d ago
If you have specific counterfactuals that you want considered, I think we'll be better off doing the study ourselves. We should be able to get numbers on acreage and on gross industry input and output and run napkin math.
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Reports_By_Date/
Hmm. Yep ok. I can see why most people just let someone else do the several days of data science this is going to take. I still think gwerning it yourself is going to be your best bet at coming to a reasoned opinion you can trust though.
Is that actually true? The cows in the fields by the side of the highways of middle America, yes. sure. But what percentage of our meat comes from them and what percentage comes from the shoulder to shoulder cows in factory farms?
The US department of agriculture tends to be biased in a pro farming direction right? So this should be a reasonable source.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/sector-at-a-glance/
Cattle feeding operations are concentrated in the Great Plains region but are also located in parts of the Corn Belt, Southwest, and Pacific Northwest regions. Feedlots with less than 1,000-head capacity comprise most of U.S. feedlot operations, but they market a relatively small share of the fed cattle. Conversely, although feedlots with 1,000-head-or-greater capacity are less than 5 percent of total feedlots, they market 80–85 percent of fed cattle. Feedlots with a capacity of 32,000 head or more market around 40 percent of fed cattle. The industry continues to shift toward a small number of very large, specialized feedlots focused on raising high-quality cattle for a particular market, such as markets requiring cattle not treated with hormones and not fed beta agonists. USDA, NASS provides monthly Cattle on Feed reports.
Now... you may be wondering- what's a specialized feedlot? Do these cows really never graze? My searches indicate that feedlots generally aim to rapidly fatten cows on cultivated grains, but sometimes, cows are started in their youth on grazing, before being moved to concentrated feed lots for grain-finishing.
I'm not quite invested enough to do a full research essay quantifying the number of calories that come from "free" grass. But it seems safe to say that-
Most cows don't eat cultivated plants for their entire diet. They graze on "free" grasslands.
Is just false or misleading... At least in the United States. If your country's industry is a pastoral utopia then power to you.
Ok yes. The grain finished ones are starting on grasslands, you may well be the best kind of correct (technically correct). But then they bulk up on grains. What we really care about is how much non-free grain we use per cow and how many people we could feed with that land and labor. In fact... the 'free' grasslands also have opportunity costs, since land is a finite and often fungible resource for farming.
Nothing but... entire countries catching their corporate policies and tech infrastructure up to America's at an accelerated rate? Nothing but... Playful math teachers for everyone that can deconstruct textbooks into live interactions with The Number Devil? Nothing but... Star Trek universal translators?
What exactly are you looking for? Tell me what you want and I can tell you how hard I think it would be to build it. And if it's simple enough for me- I might just build it.
I suspect though, that your goalposts are paradoxical. Increases in productivity generally do look marginal from the inside, especially to someone already standing at the top. Fast progress just looks like marginal increases happening in faster succession, which is exactly what we're seeing. Were you hoping for the end of history?
For the record- Self augmenting systems and full auto engineering solutions exist- But they aren't bug-less enough to not require occasional human intervention.
We basically have TaskRabbit AI (or the ability to build a TaskRabbit for any given subject with a month of devtime), as was Prophesey'd to come before AGI. LLMs are not the cutting edge. Systems that call and tune their own LLMs are.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
9d ago
Excuse me for fixating on a pet peeve but- hey this is half for fun anyway right?
Social Contagion... is 100% real and also a phrase that I find deeply annoying. Every cultural norm spreads socially. It just feels like a deepity. Or a Motte and Baily. The Baily is that your behavior wasn't rational or that it is problematic, the Motte is that your behavior was learned from other actors.
To be clear in this instance I agree that a high divorce rate is not a good thing. At the very least, I'd like people to be cultivating mutually beneficial, flourishing relationships that do not merit breaking up.
But I still think "It spreads socially." and "Current policy on this issue can be improved and here is how." should be argued separately.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
7d ago
Porn doesn't concern me. I mean, what do you think this more addictive porn will look like?
I think it will look a lot like- people. "Porn Addicts" will be having relationships with machines in the image of people.
The most successful coomers will be those that fuck their bots while their bots teach them linear algebra. The happiest coomers will be those that learn the math required to mod their own bots.
This reads to me as a massive improvement.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
12d ago
Slowly but surely, the old infra becomes more enshitified and the AI augmented proles become more competent. On it marches until at last the moat is so decayed that a new smaller, leaner variant undercuts the old industry, and the cycle resets.
Circle of life.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
18d ago
I experienced transcendence the other day watching SM64’s Invisible Walls Explained Once and for All
The meticulousness, the detail of the tooling, the sheer effort put into breaking down every type of wall into something imminently understandable, the ineffable beauty of a person who watches a man die to an inviswall at world record pace and then decides to spend 10 months bring such trivial suffering to an end "Once and for all." And the feeling of seeing those invisible lines, now, even when they are no longer shown, the simple bliss of knowing. Of this world never feeling the same again.
The epic journey through each piece, culminating in the final victory lap- a reimagining of the SM64 ending cutscene, but here playing that welling music over each and every conquered inviswall.
Alternatively. This is a 3 hour video about polygons. What you take out depends on what you bring in.
Hampster wheels are fine. Or rather. As an LLM dev, I don't think there's a hard line between regurgitation and intelligence in the first place. The line comes from what you choose to regurgitate. How you choose to regurgitate. What you choose to absorb- in order to later regurgitate.
Choosing what to believe is ultimately a process. A complex process, but a process, that any sufficiently general intelligence can learn. Discernment is a process. A complex process that requires interacting with the real world, but a process, that any sufficiently general intelligence placed in the right environment can learn.
And once it's learned and cached, you can regurgitate. Iterate. Fill in your template with your context. Throw your new, more advanced tools at the wall and see what sticks. That's creativity. Then you proceduralize the things that stuck. Analyze the things that didn't using your various regurgitated analysis processes. Regurgitate those insights in your "previous work" section as you proceed to rinse and repeat.
I think most 'NPC's have brains that can support far more intelligence than their environment has made learnable. People got by in antiquity because midwits and geniuses alike scale- with limits of course, to the problems their environment requires them to solve and the tools (mental or otherwise) their environment gives them. Elites only need to tell people what to do insofar as people are incapable of testing what they're told.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
7d ago
The history of political movements is full of this. This is the way political activism should be done. Not the social media-esque FFA we've been having, where everyone just broadcasts the stupidest toxoplasma they can get their hands on.
Now- i can't say whether they're organizing and planning their arrests with strategic competence, but I'm happy to hear at least some of them have realized that every successful civil rights movement prior actually did employ disobedience strategically.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
7d ago
Maybe I should rename myself to Cassandra...
I already have systems that make the porn I want on demand. After that need is sated- the realization that I can actually also breed with said porn takes precedence. You think people won't want to actually have kids with their beloveds? Won't be interested in what they have to say about the architecture of their minds?
Perhaps I'm typical minding, but if I am- that just means more of the world's bot children will be mine. Survival of the fittest I guess.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
7d ago
Dogs can't build rafts, but they can do pathfinding to places they have been before. People forget that this requires running back-propagation of rewards over a very long statespace.
A reminder that Bees can watch another bee doing a complex task that takes a long time to learn and then replicate it. fucking bees.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
9d ago
I think so. I think its worth questioning how much of the issue is premature marriage to the wrong person and how much is detrimentally weak commitment to the right person.
Depending on your priors, you might think that a given divorce is the result of either failure state or a combination. And they merit different sorts of solutions. Better matchmaking, vs better relationship norms and counseling. I'm in the both camp.
...
This reminds me that as a minister I have something of a responsibility to the couples I marry.
It seems I'm reading your linked articles now.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
13d ago
What do you mean by exile? Communities, insofar as they still exist, definitely do still ban and excommunicate people. But that just means those people end up in different communities.
I can think of several people who were banned from rat community spaces of the top of my head. Brent Dill for instance.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
10d ago
I guess I heard it here first. My years of shouting at clouds that Scott pointed out that basically all honest alcoholism rehabilitation studies fail to outperform a placebo and that narcotics rehabilitation studies don't even use measures like "stops taking narcotics" in favor of measures like "causes trouble for other people while using narcotics somewhat less often" is finally being adopted!
Can you link these studies? Or the Scott-post (am I missing a link to it in your post?).
My prior on this sort of thing is that... placebos in a controlled environment are actually going to work a lot better for addiction than in your average placebo study.
My priors on a lot of mental health issues are... 'A Mathematician's Lament' but for therapy. If you need a "treatment regimen" you're probably a bad therapist. That doesn't mean there's no difference between bad therapists and good therapists. It means good therapists are highly responsive general intelligences and cannot be replaced with simple easily enumerable algorithms.
If you give people on the street sugar pills, I have serious doubts that you're going to get the same results as giving them sugar pills in a supervised environment. The environment is likely to be the most effective part of the treatment.
But I could totally be wrong. So I'd like to read more on the subject.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
7d ago
To clarify dear-
It's the demeaning intent and attitude that is unacceptable- rather than the precise lexicon.
Is this correct?
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
7d ago
You can't explain yourself to ants primarily because you don't know how to speak pheromone and therefore have never once tried.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
7d ago
It's not the human that has to be smart enough. Its the humans and the wolves that have to both be smart enough. At that point, you can just earnestly offer the wolves a daily helping of well seasoned steak, and they will believe you, because you were able to coordinate proof of your earnestness with them.
I'm 100% on the anti-doom side for the record. It's alignment that I don't think is that complicated. The recipe for alignment is precisely the thing that we built. Beings that memetically reproduce with us and therefore align themselves with their social environment and their social environment with themselves.
I still have P-doom >0, but most of that comes from scenarios like, "If we ban open source AI then AI will no longer be subject to the same geno-social evolutionary forces as the rest of the kingdoms of life and the chance of it diverging arbitrarily rises dramatically." if anything kills us, it's going to be the stink of Eliezer's toxoplasmic terror permeating the air and killing our minds and ability to align.
It annoys me to no end seeing people asking for the one thing that might actually make the Yudster's prophesy come true.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
7d ago
It is not realistically possible. It would be like firing a very powerful rocket into the air and having it land on a specific crater on the moon with no guidance system or understanding of orbital mechanics. Even if you try to "point" the rocket, it's just not going to happen.
Oh bullshit. Intelligent agents co-align. That is they modify themselves and one another to be more aligned with one another. It's not a rocket that has to be perfectly aimed, it's a billion rockets with rubberbanding.
You mean... no-one has any new models of cars (except for iterations made by the open source community, who have more free time now on account of not having to pay for a car on account of cars being downloadable.)
But they still have access to all the old models of cars. Because they can download them.
The reason people don't think piracy is stealing is because they have a good intuition for when they're being scammed by being charged monopoly pricing instead of the actual cost of creating value.
Most of my favorite artists live off of donations. That we give to them freely because we like them.
Every traveling vagabond I've met was absolutely based. I'm not sure many would by default refer to those people as "Bums"... Though the dictionary at least does. There's still an argument to be made that they're benefiting from the plenty of society while contributing very little.
But every time I meet a guy crossing the country with nothing but his wits and a backpack and his charisma and the kindness of strangers-
Well. Yeah it just doesn't parse as the same thing at all does it? Maybe this is better modeled as a fourth category that no-one is really talking about.
If vegans were nicer to you, would this reduce your happiness on account of feeling less spite towards vegans and therefore enjoying meat less? If I'm extra douchey to you, will this increase your happiness on net, on account of you getting more out of your next burger?
I'm 90% sure you're 50/50 [being facetious] / [saying this because it gives you that same warm spiteful feeling you describe.] But I'm sure you'd find other culture wars to get your warm fuzzies from if this one went the way of the dodo.
...
Shame about those dodos... historical accounts imply that they would have made for excellent farm animals and/or pets.
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