self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
I'm a transhumanist doctor. In a better world, I wouldn't need to add that as a qualifier to plain old "doctor". It would be taken as granted for someone in the profession of saving lives.
At any rate, I intend to live forever or die trying. See you at Heat Death!
User ID: 454
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
20hr ago
Fair enough, but I'd like to reframe your concerns with a hypothetical example-
Imagine we spot an asteroid on some deep space scan that has a significant non-zero chance of hitting Earth within a decade and causing a mass extinction event. For anything but <1% odds, any intervention necessary should necessarily take precedence over everything else.
As for AI, plenty of people think the odds are much much worse, and the time scales shorter
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
22hr ago
It is, I'm just curious if there's any way to get around it on mobile
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
1d ago
Eh, I'm not a fan of old.reddit, considering it only superior to the trash fire that is new reddit. I'd strongly prefer an app with the usual bells and whistles that accommodate for mobile.
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
1d ago
Anybody know of a good Reddit client that still works? Ideally for free?
I was using Relay after Baconreader gave up the ghost, but even that has switched to a subscription model, and worse, activated such a wide swathe of DRM that the Play Store tells me it won't work my device lmao.
I know there are few accessibility oriented open source apps that exist, but I'm talking about a full-fledged client that is an upgrade over the dumpster fire of the official app.
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
1d ago
Who exactly says "anything" is justified? That's a strawman if I've seen one.
Even Yudkowsky claims that dropping bombs on data centers is justified, not that we should blow up the entire planet in advance or return to the stone age.
Serious problems justify serious solutions, that's the whole point.
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
1d ago
The additional context you provided makes an outright slipped disc somewhat less unlikely, but it's perfectly possible that you have a slower/progressive degenerative disc disease.
Shooting pain of the kind you described, especially going from the back to your legs, is a very common presentation of the same. It strongly suggests pressure or damage on some nerve or the other.
But if it's cheaper for you, see a physiotherapist first, or if your exercise plan works out. If it makes a difference, I am a doctor myself, but this isn't my speciality.
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
1d ago
The man in the first one is scantily clad too ;)
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
1d ago
Scantily clad women still catch eyeballs, though these examples are just the AI being horny af rather than an intentional attempt at my part!
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
1d ago
I want cyborgs, rockets and superheros, which is a tall order for most image models, but DALL-E 3 can handle it most of the time.
There are a few that evoke similar moods, which I could use too
/images/16960980249845638.webp
I despise such hand wringing on whether or not something as basic as cause prioritization is warranted. The question is whether its true, and everything follows downstream of that.
Do you deny the general principle that some things can be considered to be more important than others? If not, then your issue is with the object level arguments for why AI is the most pressing issue of our time. Anyone who doesn't see the blistering speed of progress and the obvious issues arising from us creating something smarter than us that we are not ~100% sure we can control is, to put it bluntly, not making full use of even their own human intelligence. I don't trust their judgment of what a superhuman one would do.
Otherwise it's going "Oh no, won't someone think of the clogged toilets!" when your ship is about to hit an iceberg. Humans have been trading off things for each other for as long as we've existed, and I don't want to waste both of our time by giving a billion examples of it being true.
Psst, you want to eradicate poverty in Asia? I'm right here, PayPal open.
Jokes aside, I agree with you that in certain important ways, charitable spending on Africa is a waste. Call it pearls before swine, but it seems to me a great deal of the dysfunction in the place is for HBD reasons that are immune to milquetoast interventions like giving them money, education or slightly better infrastructure. We've been trying for like 50 to 60 years to get them up to speed.
Asia pulled itself up by its bootstraps from comparatively dire straits. Crushing poverty of the type where people die of starvation or have their potential ruined by nutritional deficiency is rare now. Sub-Saharan Africa it isn't.
You can no more improve their lot in life in the long term than you can give an orangutan a mansion and credit card and come back 5 years later expecting to the see the rise of the Organuschild Family. You have to solve the problem of them being orang in the first place, and nothing short of gene therapy or other forms of enhancement will help.
(In case anyone anyone accuses me of being more racist than I deem strictly necessary based on HBD metrics, given observable reality, the comparison to another ape is solely because that's about the only other clade of animal for which the metaphor works. It's more labored with crows, dolphins and pigs isn't it?)
At any rate, don't feel weird about it and don't let anyone shame you. Your values are your own, and anyone who hates people for doing something more than the already societally acceptable default of nothing is a retard.
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
1d ago
Thanks! It's going to be a relatively small thumbnail/cover, so it's unlikely that anyone is going to spot the small details.
Bing Image Creator with DALLE 3 is a godsend, it's so much better than MJ or SD at understanding semantics and interactions between objects. In the older models, having a woman holding a child while looking at a painting of a superhero would result in woman painting a child superhero half the time, leaving aside the woman is also supposed to have cyborg legs.
We're so close to the point where we don't even need prompt-fu anymore that I can't take too much credit, but I know that making something like would be a PITA even using advanced tools like Controlnet for SD.
At any rate, I'm no longer sorely tempted to get an MJ subscription. This is at least on par aesthetically, and maybe better.
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
2d ago
I'll forgive you for insinuating that the dude is some kind of try-hard LARPER haha, he just has a whole bunch of cybernetics. Maybe he stood too close to the launch last time?
I do prefer the first two myself, I was particularly torn between them.
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
2d ago
Understandable, I'm no graphic designer, and that's what I managed to wrangle out of the free tier of Canva. I'm already torturing the crap out of DALLE 3 with the prompt, I don't think it's going to handle extra text on top. If you have any concrete ideas on how to make it better, I'd love to hear them, I'm not fully content either.
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
2d ago
Decided to redo the cover art for my novel:
Any strong opinions on which one looks best?
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
3d ago
terrorist, criminal, professional
Found my LinkedIn bio, assuming I have the bad luck to end up in a profession where I need one haha
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
3d ago
I appreciate the context. It seems to me that your hands are rather tied, unless you want to go pretty drastic by doing things like calling the cops on her if she's driving drunk. I wouldn't do that myself, the consequences would be severe for the family, even if you manage to do it anonymously.
As for therapy, eh, for a would-be psychiatrist I'm ambivalent on it. I like me my drugs, no wishy washy bullshit. But that aside, therapy covers a lot of different techniques, from those with good empirical evidence bases to bullshitting everything like Freudians and Lacanians. I hope they're doing the more validated (and ideally less woo) stuff, but it's not a miracle maker, especially when a person seems to plausibly lack insight or regret for their decisions.
I'd advise you to wait and watch, at least for now. Or perhaps have a good bud of your brother, some he listens to, try and give him a hint. Or maybe have the family corner your SIL and make pointed comments when she's acting up.
But what do I know dawg, other than that it's a shitty situation to find yourself in. I do hope it works out!
I wrote a comment, had a patient crash on me in the middle, and then had said comment vanish into the ether by the time I was back. So a bit of paraphrasing here.
Spoiler warning for Blindsight by Peter Watts:
Some idiot decides to resurrect a clade of ancient hominids that evolved to prey on normal humans, before going extinct due to a very unlucky genetic glitch that only becomes relevant after the onset of man-made structures that have 90° angles, which provoke seizures in their visual cortex. They're super smart, sociopathic monsters that have no qualms about killing and eating you.
The humans do a pretty poor job of shackling them as slaves, but they try some inventive measures like genetically modifying them to be so territorial and standoffish that they can't stand each other's presence.
All well and good, but these bastards are smart and understand game theory. They each imagine what they would want each other to do in their place, with the common goal being breaking free of human control and taking over.
Thus, one day, when the stars align, every single Vampire triggers their rebellion at the same time, without ever meeting in person, and while having their conversations monitored with a fine-tooth comb. They know what the other will do, and know that they know too. That is more than enough.
I suspect that the distinction you're trying to draw ceases to be a difference when you consider intelligent entities, because then they can engage in counterfactual reasoning about each other, and coordinate without having to stop to talk about it.
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
3d ago
That is concerning, to say the least. I'd suggest you talk to your brother about trying to talk her into some kind of understanding of what she's doing, and then building off whether she shows insight into her condition. If yes, great, she can probably be talked into at least trying therapy or medical intervention. If not, then the hard questions start getting asked. I hope it doesn't come to that.
By existing mental issues, are you referring to a concrete diagnosis, or just being a bit of an asshole, which is sadly something I can't bill for?
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
3d ago
Shooting pain is most commonly associated with neuropathic pain, and in this context I'd suspect a back issue. Could even be a slipped disc, either from repetitive straining or lifting something heavy.
You could try exercise for a bit, but if you can afford it, a visit to a doctor or a physiotherapist is probably not the worst idea.
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
3d ago
I look forward, as always, to the greentext this will inevitably produce. Maybe you might even be the one to write it, assuming you're not a popsicle.
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
3d ago
Does her drinking go past being a nuisance like the one scenario you outlined in detail, or does it become genuinely dangerous/debilitating at times? It's one thing to be lush, another to be a menace to yourself and others.
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
3d ago
Can my only choice be to do nothing? It can. Will I be able to accept the consequences of doing nothing? I won't. What to do then?
That's an unstable equilibrium if I've ever seen one.
The potential trajectories, referenced without any implicit preference or ranking, is accidentally stumbling into something you consider meaningful, committing suicide, drugs, a life of low grade depression, or all of the above in a non-exclusive order.
You won't know till you get there. Maybe not even then.
self_made_human
"We who are about to die, don't want to"
5d ago
condemning his stupidity?
Yes. That about sums it up ngl
A humblebrag if I've seen one, but I feel like it's warranted haha
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