campfireSmoresEaten
No bio...
User ID: 2560
campfireSmoresEaten
1mo ago
Too many eye-witness accounts of the Holocaust to be fake. Too many of them don't seem like the type to exaggerate, even if some of them were unreliable. Not plausible that they could all be lying. Also too high a proportion of people died whose names we know and whose life history we can track with certainty to be an accident.
campfireSmoresEaten
1mo ago
You live in Japan? Are you Japanese? What's your story?
campfireSmoresEaten
23d ago
Fat women can be charming, within a certain threshhold. They have a certain gravitas about them (pun not intended, believe it or not).
campfireSmoresEaten
1mo ago
I will say that augmenting human intelligence is one of those things that humanity seems very close to being able to do, either genetically or technologically, and could happen a lot sooner if people were spending as much time and energy on it as they are on perfecting the art of autonomous killing machines for warfare. Although I do hope Ukraine wins.
campfireSmoresEaten
1mo ago
The progression of the illness
campfireSmoresEaten
5mo ago
One sentence is all it takes:
"Some trans people are right-wing."
Most distaste for trans people from the right is actually just distaste for the left. Just like most distaste for Mormons (or whatever, there are many possible examples) is actually just distaste for the right.
campfireSmoresEaten
10mo ago
I'm back with a new account! Glad to see this place is still active.
campfireSmoresEaten
14d ago
I do kind of suspect that eventually the voters will get at least some of what they want if they continue to win elections. That may be naive of me.
campfireSmoresEaten
25d ago
Russian aggression has a lot to do with why Ukraine's economy is doing so badly, I should think.
campfireSmoresEaten
1mo ago
If existing scientific methods aren't enough to analyze this issue, imagine how awesome it would be if the transgender community and their vanguard managed to push for prediction markets to study this subject.
(I like prediction markets)
campfireSmoresEaten
1mo ago
I don't know that regression to the mean is all that much stronger for African geniuses than non-African geniuses. It might not be stronger at all, for all I know.
Also: in three generations the human race will be either extinct or so radically changed as to make such considerations irrelevant. Or we will be ruled by hyperintelligent but benevolent marmots. (It's the first one)
campfireSmoresEaten
1mo ago
Depression!
The thing that makes the path forward plausible is people acknowledging the problem and contributing to the solution, just like any other problem that requires group action.
I don't think you actually live your life this way. You're just choosing to do so in this case because it's more convenient / for the vibes.
Think of every disaster in history that was predicted. "We could prevent this disaster with group action, but I'm only an individual and not a group so I'm just going to relax." Is that really your outlook?
If there was an invading army coming in 5 years that could be beaten with group action or else we would all die, with nowhere to flee to, would you just relax for 5 years and then die? Even while watching others working on a defense? Are the sacrifices involved in you contributing to help with the problem in some small way really so extraordinary that you don't feel like making a token effort? Is the word 'altruism' such a turn-off to you? How about "honor" or "pride" or "loyalty to one's people"? How about "cowardice" or "weakling"? Do these words shift anything for you, regarding the vibes?
Edit: I'm not trying to be insulting, just trying to call attention to the nature of how vibes work.
People do pro-social things not just because of the fear of punishment for not doing them, but because they understand that they are contributing to a commons that benefits everyone, including themselves.
For the record, it wouldn't be that hard to solve this problem, if people wanted to. Alignment is pretty hard, but just delaying the day we all die indefinitely with a monitoring regime wouldn't be that hard, and it would have other benefits, chiefly extending the period where you get to kick back and enjoy your life.
Question: Are there any problems in history that were solved by the actions of a group of people instead of one person acting unilaterally that you think were worth solving? What would you say to someone who took the same perspective that you are taking now regarding that problem?
And the "Are the sacrifices involved in you contributing to help with the problem in some small way really so extraordinary that you don't feel like making a token effort?" question is worth an answer to, I feel.
campfireSmoresEaten
3mo ago
Why is that stupid?
campfireSmoresEaten
5mo ago
This is the internet era, who you would prefer to interact with in person is as irrelevant as who you would prefer to converse with by telegraphy.
(somewhat joking)
campfireSmoresEaten
14d ago
Do you think they'll mellow out as they get older and become libertarians? Or will they just be consumed by nanobots along with the rest of the human race?
campfireSmoresEaten
23d ago
Reminds me of this great Etgar Keret essay:
https://etgarkeret.substack.com/p/boohoo-to-you-too
(Israeli short story author, one of his stories was adapted into an indie movie called Wristcutters: A Love Story which you may or may not have heard of)
campfireSmoresEaten
25d ago
But that only started once it became clear that Russia was belligerent. The US didn't want to destroy Russia just for the sake of it, they wanted to do that because Russia was a threat to the system of the world.
campfireSmoresEaten
25d ago
The difference is that Russia is still doing it. And to a lesser extent so is China.
so what will they do?
How hard do you think it would be to decapitate or disfigure the regime without nukes? Like a heart attack gun, but for a country. Drones, lasers, hacking, etcetera. There are many ways to escalate, NATO only has to convince itself that just one of them doesn't require that much courage to pursue. The plans probably already exist, just as a framework, created as practice in the art of developing tactical plans rather than out of expectation that they would ever be used, but they do exist. I'm not saying this will happen, but if Russia does push NATO too far then these options will be seriously considered.
campfireSmoresEaten
4mo ago
Oh, ok.
campfireSmoresEaten
2mo ago
This sort of extremely sarcastic and antagonistic writing style is against the rules of this forum.
campfireSmoresEaten
3mo ago
Your argument is premised on the assumption that continued AI development only holds a partial risk of human extinction. You're not disagreeing with the airstrike plan, you're disagreeing with the premise that it follows from.
You're also assuming that airstrikes would escalate to nuclear war, but that's a less glaring error.
The choices are: airstrikes -> you might die in nuclear war, no airstrikes -> you definitely die from ai, along with all humanity, but you say that you don't care about that so I don't know why I'm bringing it up
campfireSmoresEaten
25d ago
I don't think it's fair to say that Ukraine antagonized Russia. They insisted upon their sovereignty. They refused to be bullied. They refused to be conquered. That's not antagonizing, that's sticking up for oneself.
The fact that dissent is suppressed is a piece of evidence, but not a conclusive one.
Edit to elaborate:
The question "why is saying this unpopular thing illegal when saying all those other unpopular things isn't illegal?" has more than one possible answer.
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