gerikson

joined 2 years ago
[–] gerikson@awful.systems 8 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] gerikson@awful.systems 13 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Expect the "AI safety" weenuses to have a giant freakout too.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

New eugenics conference just dropped

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8ZExgaGnvLevkZxR5/attend-the-2025-reproductive-frontiers-summit-june-10-12

"Chatham House rules" so they can happily be racist without anyone pointing fingers at them.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 7 points 1 month ago

Good on Quora members for debunking too.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

should have gone with "Moldbuggery" Scott

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Here's an interesting nugget I discovered today

A long LW post tries to tie AI safety and regulations together. I didn't bother reading it all, but this passage caught my eye

USS Eastland Disaster. After maritime regulations required more lifeboats following the Titanic disaster, ships became top-heavy, causing the USS Eastland to capsize and kill 844 people in 1915. This is an example of how well-intentioned regulations can create unforeseen risks if technological systems aren't considered holistically.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ARhanRcYurAQMmHbg/the-historical-parallels-preliminary-reflection

You will be shocked to learn that this summary is a bit lacking in detail. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Eastland

Because the ship did not meet a targeted speed of 22 miles per hour (35 km/h; 19 kn) during her inaugural season and had a draft too deep for the Black River in South Haven, Michigan, where she was being loaded, the ship returned in September 1903 to Port Huron for modifications, [...] and repositioning of the ship's machinery to reduce the draft of the hull. Even though the modifications increased the ship's speed, the reduced hull draft and extra weight mounted up high reduced the metacentric height and inherent stability as originally designed.

(my emphasis)

The vessel experiences multiple listing incidents between 1903 and 1914.

Adding lifeboats:

The federal Seamen's Act had been passed in 1915 following the RMS Titanic disaster three years earlier. The law required retrofitting of a complete set of lifeboats on Eastland, as on many other passenger vessels.[10] This additional weight may have made Eastland more dangerous by making her even more top-heavy. [...] Eastland's owners could choose to either maintain a reduced capacity or add lifeboats to increase capacity, and they elected to add lifeboats to qualify for a license to increase the ship's capacity to 2,570 passengers.

So. Owners who knew they had an issue with stability elected profits over safety. But yeah it's the fault of regulators.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 12 points 1 month ago

”Canola” was minted because ”rape seed oil” is an even worse name.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 10 points 1 month ago

They're Internet Native/Terminally Online, so they can SEO their own appearances, plus now they are fully plugged-in to the right-wing hype machine so they're probably turning down appearances instead of chasing them.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 2 points 1 month ago

Bruce Sterling is active on social media but he's pretty forward-looking. I tried complimenting his Heavy Weather from the early 90s and get a self-deprecating dismissal.

Early Gibson short stories are tinged with late 70s SF, not surprisingly.

Incidentally superhero movies are current western SF/fantasy hybrids.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I wonder how much of "the cyberpunk movement" in SF was authors getting sick and tired of "woo" psi powers etc. For me personally it really felt like a breath of fresh air.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 6 points 1 month ago (6 children)

I don't know anything about Abe apart from him being a right-winger. Was he also very very worried about Japan's birthrate (just like Hackernews is)?

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 8 points 1 month ago (8 children)

"Gross thrice-married orange man wants you to bonk more" is gonna be a hard sell but rest assured, his pals in tech will make sure their ad selection supports it.

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