@self_made_human's banner p

self_made_human

Kai su, teknon?

10 followers   follows 0 users  
joined 2022 September 05 05:31:00 UTC

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


								

								

								
								
									
								
								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Kai su, teknon?

				
				
				

				

					10 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 05:31:00 UTC
				


				
					

					
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


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					Week
					Month
					Year
					
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom New Old Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


will kill




*will try


I wish them the best against someone who has an ASI at their beck and call.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I am a very happy monkey when surrounded by the fruits of modernity.


About the earliest point in time I can see myself stomaching is maybe 7 or 8 years back, so I can whack myself on the head and pick a better med school, while not missing out too much on creature comforts like the internet and smartphones. My childhood is a story of being bored out of my mind, and seeking to remedy that, and it's only recently gotten much better.


In terms of potential demigod Singleton controllers:


Altman, Zuck, Musk, Dario, yada yada. Anyone who has a massive AI division or promising startup and also the leverage necessary to tweak the preferences of the incipient AGI within. Mere wealth, while nice to have, isn't nearly as good as being able to tell your high-powered ML PhDs what to do.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Except those supposed implications weren't mentioned in the OP.




You're new around these parts aren't you? Which isn't a crime at all, we could certainly use new arrivals, but just about anyone who has been here for more than a few weeks knows my clear stance on the CW aspects of the topic, such that I don't feel an explicit need to rehash them.


Besides, like I said, any long discussion of (ideally) high quality is de facto acceptable in this thread, or else I wouldn't have had glorified travelogues make AAQCs. Not that this one doesn't have CW implications, the part about GPT-4's stellar performance in the USMLE making me obsolete as a doctor is only half in jest. Or maybe a quarter. It'll get you too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for November 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I despise the idea that the Captain must go down with their ship. What's that going to achieve? Sure, their duty might incorporate sticking around as long as possible to arrange an evacuation, but when that's done, they don't have any responsibility to feed the fishes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't particularly care Hlynka, if this Thanos snapping managed to take both of us, you included, I'd consider it a net positive!


But I fail to see what the difficulty of Turing-testing random pseudonymous accounts on a text-based forum has anything to with it. Last time I checked, we're both operating according to the laws of physics and biology. Your analogy of how ML works is simply painful.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


unless you're in the camp that thinks that human consciousness is basically just a really complex statistical model running on a biological computer




As someone vocally in that camp, I invite you to demonstrate any other model for what human consciousness could possible be. And it doesn't even matter if the AI is "conscious" if it's intelligent and capable of using that intelligence to forward ends not aligned with our goals.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Simply: lots of work by libs is a sort of gay conversion therapy for straight people. Pride parades, public school education, pride month, trans day of visibility etc. all exist to glorify homosexuality and, explicitly to help straight people easily “come out of the closet” as gay.




I find this a very dubious assertion. It seems to me, both in terms of public assertion as well as mildly uncharitable questioning of their inner motivations, that the aim isn't to convert straight people, but to have people who are already gay (or at least not a zero on the Kinsey scale) to feel free to express their sexuality.


Would many activists prefer that their campaigns result in everyone turning bisexual or gay? Maybe, probably. Doesn't mean that's what they expect.


This is distinct from the odd grifter who painlessly claims to be gay for the sake of diversity points, since it's verboten to question them even if they've never sucked an actual dick in their lives, but even then they're more likely to claim to be trans or non-binary. While some activists might grudgingly tolerate this (or feel helpless to call it out according to the standards of self-identification they espouse), I don't think they approve of it per se.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #3
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I know an AAQC when I see one..


I'm making a point of saving this for later, in the event I want to fire a nuclear cannon of a reply to people performing apologetics on behalf of the Palestinians.


The only place where I'd even modestly disagree is in claiming that Zionism is justified today, in the sense that America and most of the West are good refuges for the Jews and have large, relatively close-knit communities who aren't at real risk of being pogrommed, current liberal tendencies included. Then again, having a patch of dirt and a flag always helps when asserting yourself, so it's not a major disagreement in the least.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I've long felt that something essential was lost from the post-WWII world when we decided to define riots, pogroms, ethnic cleaning and genocide as atrocities that the civilized world could never tolerate, rather than as social technologies that humanity developed to bring permanent resolutions to seemingly intractable problems.




There's good reason that Britain pacified Afghanistan in the 19th century with far weaker supply chains and less glaring technological disparities, while it and the rest of NATO left in the 21st with their tail tucked between their legs.


Violence is the voice of the unheard, but it's also a universal language. If you can't solve most problems with violence, you're not using enough, and quite often, or at least here, a more dispassionate analysis will show that a quick burst of brutal violence obviates the need for more down the line.


At any rate, I think Western countries are cowardly in large part because most of the wars they've fought of late don't matter, lacking the stakes of their populations being genocided or living conditions cratering.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The Problem of The Problem Of Susan
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


They spent half their life in Narnia and then were able to be more or less regular kids again to grow up and not look like isekai protagonists




I consider that itself to be nonsensical, so it's not doing Lewis any favors.


But is arguing about shitty worldbuilding in the Chronicles of Narnia really what any of us want to do haha?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				The Problem of The Problem Of Susan
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ah, I never liked Narnia. The whole franchise was too fucking twee and preachy to appeal to even childhood me.




"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"




To me, the "problem with Susan" seems to be that she's literally retarded. You spent half of your life in Narnia, and then claim it's some kind of funny game?  When you can confirm for yourself by just opening that wardrobe?


Hell, even if you want to fit in with your peers, that is not the behavior of a sane person.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hlynka, to put it bluntly, your claims on that matter were conclusively debunked by multiple posters, yet your approach, instead of engaging, was to stick your fingers in your ears and not respond.


IQ is a good measure of g and also immensely predictive for almost all life outcomes we really care about.


I've seen several posters catch bans for expressing their frustration with your obtuseness, so I'll leave it here before it annoys the mods.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Aww, can't a man enjoy himself sometimes? I'd like to think that almost all my posts are still net positive :(


But as you wish.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
While I'm not a utilitarian (I was credibly convinced that I was misunderstanding the position, I'm just a humble consequentialist with my own bespoke utility function), I completely agree with Singer here.


Babies are not sapient, not for months after birth. The majority of the harm in killing them is the waste of time, effort and grief on the part of the parents. When it's the parents doing the killing, it's morally neutral as far as I'm concerned, or outright laudable if the child has debilitating conditions that are incompatible with a normal life.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Given that my timelines are less than 10 years for a fully fledged technological singularity to be upon us, I see absolutely no way that we continue struggling with demographic collapse for the 20+ years it would take to be truly debilitating, short of something like a nuclear war, in which case we have bigger problems to worry about.




There's no reason to hold to any optimism for any modern native population. Profit motivated immigration + low native birthrates + high foreign birthrates = ethnic replacement.




You're implicitly speaking about Western "native" populations (as if the US even has a native population, they're almost all immigrants!).


As an Indian, I can only chuckle and pour myself a drink, who exactly is going to be demographically replacing us?


Not that I particularly care about the West becoming a slightly more brown shade of brown, I'm only concerned with economic or social collapse, and those are not on the cards.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The main issue is that he was a single issue poster, and after being told to knock it off, he mostly does the very bare minimum to try and skirt it.


As we've said before, Holocaust denialism is not a verboten topic here. Far from it, I struggle to think of any viewpoint we censor, we've got open pedophiles here, and in most places on the internet they'd get banned the moment they even hinted at it.


But his behavior is clearly in bad faith, while at the time @somedude contested the ban, I was the only mod up and checking, I did talk to the others and we're in consensus that his behavior is unacceptable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And it was worth it. LED lights with good CRIs are better in every way that matters when compared to incandescents.


I think it's unfair to the Vegans to imagine that they want the quality of meat substitute to always remain slop, though given their purity politics I think it's only mildly uncharitable.


At any rate, they haven't won that culture war, just managed to carve out a niche from which they struggle to progress further, especially to the wider world that doesn't really give a shit about the conditions the chicken on their table lived in.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Kevin Dolan - 2023 Natal Conference: "In our lifetime, every government, every culture, every belief system, and every family on Earth will pass through a bottleneck -- a bottleneck tighter than the Black Death, predicated on one question: will your children have children of their own?"
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
See, I think it's all moot because human labor will shortly cease to matter. But ignoring that:


The people who are opting for pregnancy in a considered manner, especially those who want to go through IVF and potentially embryo selection, want a baby more than is the norm, or they wouldn't bother. People who adopt instead of accepting being childless probably want kids more than average after all.




Likewise, I would expect implants to suppress the birth rate vs oral contraception, because the implant has to be intentionally removed by a doctor, while the pill might just run out or be forgotten (or "forgotten" with some subconscious drive toward having children).




My exam in about a dozen hours leaves me well prepared to field that point. You know why implants are offered in the first place? It's precisely because they reduce unwanted births.


Some poor 18 year old girl is scared of being knocked up? We give her an IUD. A 26 yo woman, we ask her if is planning a family. No? Or a 36 yo who says she's got 3 kids and not one more? Then an IUD, or perhaps an implant, which can be trivially removed for any reason, let alone if they desire kids.


Leaving aside total birth rates, where I expect changes to be minor, this is also helping mitigate dysgenics. A lower class girl with low time preferences has far lower odds of being knocked up again by her deadbeat boyfriend, and then has every opportunity to remove it when she legitimately feels ready.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Even if people aren't explicitly crunching the numbers (few except rat-adjacent nerds bother), the fact that they implicitly consider consequences and then evaluate their relative weights to trade them off against each other, that makes them consequentialists in practise.


That very aspect is an inescapable part of being a functional agent that doesn't halt and catch fire when it encounters two mutually exclusive or conflicting Kantian imperatives, such as not lying versus letting people come to harm when an axe-murderer knocks on your door and asks where their target is hiding.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Would many activists prefer that their campaigns result in everyone turning bisexual or gay? Maybe, probably. Doesn't mean that's what they expect.




I don't think a significant fraction of them think being straight is bad, and even if they did, that's not likely the reason why they endorse Pride. And the tendency of many gays to take pride in "converting" "straight" men is more of a fetishization of the unattainable.*


Of course, I'm trying to interpret the question I think you're trying to ask, because as of the time of writing, what you said:




What percentage of people going to gay conversion clinics do you think believe themselves be straight be afflicted with something they find undesirable?




Makes no sense! I presume you meant "to be straight to be afflicted".


*Many gay people mock the straights, but or ask questions along the lines of "are the straights OK?" but that's more of an in-group catechism and bitching, rather than a genuine belief that being straight is somehow inferior.


Note that I'm specifically addressing gay men (or maybe lesbian too), the trans activist community has an unhealthy obsession with cracking eggs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 9, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I do not see this as an insurmountable problem, while the "politically incorrect" open-source models still lag behind SOTA, eventually they'll be good enough to give you accurate answers about contentious queries, looking at both sides of the argument, assessing credibility, suppression of inconvenient facts, and so on.


I'm not claiming it'll be perfect, but it might well be better than Wiki when it comes to redpills, and even Wiki is still doing a good job of covering more mundane general knowledge that nobody has a vested interest in messing with.


Things like Bing Chat or ChatGPT with plug-ins already source their claims where appropriate, if a person is too lazy to peruse them, then I invite you to consider how much epistemic hygiene they observe when it's a human telling them something.


What I envision is something akin to an automated meta analysis of relevant literature and commentary, with an explicit attempt to perform Bayesian reasoning to tease out the net direction of the evidence.


This is already close to what LLMs do. GPT 4 has seen claims of the Earth being flat in its training corpus, yet without massive prompt engineering, will almost never make that claim in normal conversation. It finds that the net weight of evidence, especially from reputable sources, strongly supports Earth being round. This is a capability that is empirically observed to improve with scale, GPT-2 was beaten by 3, was beaten by 4.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I wish them the best, you don't treat a tumor by cutting away just the bits that are causing symptoms (severe metastatic palliative cases aside), you chop off as much as you can find.


In both cases, I'm confident the loss in blood and lives will be significantly lower than drawing things out.


I do think ethnic cleansing is such a tiresome term, and so is a definition of genocide that includes cultural redoctrination. Buddy, I tell you, the hypothetical person who does this, it's far worse to murder an entire class of people instead of making them learn a new language and wear new clothes. You're sneaking in connotations, and I'll continue impotently pushing back where I can.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A false dichotomy, because I'm pretty sure OP isn't proposing the killing of literally every Palestinian in Gaza, but only the option of killing Hamas, politically involved activists, and optionally, some of their families. I'd be immensely surprised if even that latter broader case encompassed anywhere near a million, maybe twenty or thirty thousand at most before people learned they needed to shut up.


The relevant calculus of death is (Israeli and Palestinian military and civilians who would die if the conflict was allowed to keep boiling) versus (The same class if a brutal campaign ended all appetite for further organized activity).


It seems eminently obvious to me that the former is comparable to the latter, if only because a ton of Palestinians already die because of Hamas provoking Israel.


Then, of course, a more rigorous approach considers second order effects. Of which there are multitudes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Israel can do all of those wonderful without encroaching on Palestinian territory, tearing down their homes to make space for Israeli settlers. You are presenting a false dichotomy in which Israel must relentlessly expand into the West Bank, or give up its modernity and first-world characteristics.




The Palestinians could also refrain from indiscriminate bombardment of civilian population centers. Or the gangrape.


Let's call it even?




But I need not give them a blank check to do whatever they like. Israel does not need to build settlements in the West Bank to keep their country safe - just the opposite; these settlements create enmity among the Palestinians, and prevent reconciliation.




My check isn't blank either, but it has room for quite a few zeroes on it.




When we zoom out and look at the broader picture, it is the Israeli side that has, in the last few decades, committed more infringements.




While I am of the opinion that historical grievances beyond living memory, or at least the memory of octogenarians, should be buried, a few decades seems like a rather early cut-off. The fact that the Palestinians don't do worse is reflective of their incapacity to do so, not a lack of desire for the same, or else they wouldn't be cheering at the sight of a hot blonde Israeli woman dead with blood and shit on her genitals.


Israel, on the other hand, has both means and motive, so I can give them points for being quite polite about things, for the most part.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
At the risk of sounding like a broken record that goes "AI will fix it", that sounds like a job for AI.


I suspect a model finetuned on the moderation decisions of The Motte will beat the brakes off the typical internet or reddit mod.