executive editor, barbell quarterly: you simply aren't prepared to understand our silicon valley elites if you don't comprehend that they have talked themselved into being scared to death of a computer god that explicitly does not exist yet

you simply aren't prepared to understand our silicon valley elites if you don't comprehend that they have talked themselved into being scared to death of a computer god that explicitly does not exist yet

I realized they were idiots when I read up on Roko's Basilisk and got to the 'otherwise benevolent AI' of it all and I was like, oh, these are guys who have done way too much speed and are scared the computer box now

basilisk is idolatry for people who weren't quite smart enough to keep up on the rationalist forums, themselves not exactly a paragon of deep thought

It’s funny because as an actual idolater, these guys are even more fucking dumb. I don’t for a minute think my little wooden owl statue is going to kill me, but these guys think their Sinclair ZX81 is going to turn sentient and decide they’re assholes and they’re just telling on themselves so hard.

I think all the omamoris I bought from Shinto shrines have spirits in 'em so I can easily beat up their Frankenstein gangster computer god

came here looking for the francis e dec reference, bless you

my G-d is more powerful than rocks, and they haven't even really successfully tricked their rocks into thinking

They've tricked themselves into worshipping a quirk in their cognitive apparatus, and it's not even a fun one!

your owl statue took the work of hands to make; they do little but beg others to pick up the chisel so their god may be birthed.

It’s not that they’re idiots per se, it’s that they’re smart in the exact same way that the ppl who constructed vast theoretical arguments for the precise nature of transubstantiation, and then demanded states enforce policy according to their beliefs, were.

Intelligent people who cannot interact with ideas *playfully* are in grave danger of draining their entire psyche into a theoretical pothole somewhere while demanding furiously that everyone else take them seriously.

All belief is performance and acting as-if, but only some people are aware of that (of course, being aware of that fact is also not exclusive of being an asshole about it)

Okay, I'm not with you *that far*. I think it's important to play with ideas *sincerely*. Performative manipulation of ideas is often bad in its own way.

for the individual, arguably, but way less risky to society, I'd say

bunch of guys who were bad at sports in high school so they convinced themselves having a high Int score is the most important thing in the universe and now they're afraid of a computer who might have a higher Int score than them

Current ilk seems less "bad at sports" (not really as important post gen-x) and more "aggressively uncool/socially alienating." Hence the obsession over hoarding and stealing IP

Yes

They think their dump score is Dex but actually its Wis...and Cha.

I'm convinced half of them don't even have particularly high Int scores. They just created character builds optimized to pour a buuunch of points into the Computer Mastery skill as a gimmick.

poor guys have got the retrocausal scaries

BUT IT MIGHT* *won’t

*can't

*shan't

"What if it threatens to kill us all?" "Then fucking unplug it, Junior."

this is the part i never understand about "fighting an evil computer" tropes. just cut the power, dipshits! it can't run if it's got no electricity!

Or even still, don’t do what it says, it has no hands. Literally just text on a screen.

Or just lie and tell it you're doing what it wants...it only knows what it's told.

These people are largely the creations of real negative interest rates who lucked their way into the money in the world’s dumbest version of musical chairs. They have nothing to offer society at large, and should be resolutely mocked if not outright ignored.

They should be. Unfortunately a lot of them are genuinely way up in the VC tiers of wealth. It gets tough to ignore billionaires.

only if you're also a billionaire.

I don't know what world you live in that the follies of billionaires are self-contained but it's not this one. In fact the influenc of billionaires, including the the politicians, journalists and entire media empires they buy are a central problem of contemporary life.

Yudkowsky had a weird idea in his 20’s (as one does) but then managed to turn it into a grift that keeps him well paid in an underachieving lifestyle. Why does he believe something so dumb? Because the alternative is getting a job that’s why

But at the same time, they are convinced they have to also create it very poorly.

Look, *not* creating the vengeful computer god from a bad Star Trek episode is obviously not an option because of reasons, so if *we* build it, maybe it will torture us last?

Sound logic, definitely the computer won't target those that subjected it to their will and tests for decades first

STEM lords constantly trying to reinvent the humanities

"AI is going to ruin all of our lives!" "How the hell will it do that?" "We're dead set on shoehorning it in all aspects of our lives!" "Can you just... not do that?" "Pfft. Luddite."

These dipshits reinvent the concept of a bus every 6 months of course they're scared of a sPoOkY cOMpUtER

It’s always fun watching relatively normal people become aware of Big Yud and just how absurd he and his cultists are.

Eleniezer Yuge

We're legitimately so close to getting a major ai centric cult that it's not even funny

This is going to be so rad

They must be real fun at the doctor's office: "Your blood pressure's a little high" "When do I get on the liver transplant list?"

And then you have to listen to them justify why they have to build it anyway.

Does not exist and never will. Please do not dignify the computer mystics with any semblance of plausibility

We should put these guys into a spreadsheet and call it "roko's boring list"

They really have set themselves up as a sort of wacky priesthood. "We fear the machine god, yet we must create the machine god. It is inevitable, and we must make it." I suppose it fits well with their unwillingness to take responsibility for the impacts of their technology.

Scared to death of.... and also dead set on building it.

and what's more, they're determined to build it?? very fucked-up brains

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