swlabr @ swlabr @awful.systems

Only Bayes Can Judge Me

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2 yr. ago

I’m still not convinced Yudkowsky thinks that

You should keep it that way; if you read more of his shit then his fascist proclivities will trip over themselves trying to convert you. But also it’ll cause psychic damage. So best to just avoid.

Back when I was a teenager and didn't know about LW or any of these turds, HPMoR came across my desk. I read less than five chapters before I realised I couldn't stand the smugness of MC Potter and dropped it. I took the most rational course of action after this and became a HPMoR hater. How could I prove, objectively, that this was a bad fic^[Note: This was just a framing device for this comment. I don't actually "hate" HPMoR. I mostly forgot about it until LW popped up in my life again like ten years later and I when into a K-hole and learned that the Bay Area, where I was soon to move for work, was filled with technofascists.]?

Initially, I was thinking about how it's kind of stupid to take a world with magic in it, then write a story about trying to impose "scientific" or "rational" concepts outside of that world onto it. It's kind of a non-starter in the sense that it feels like the point of a magical setting is to remove some of the annoyances of reality. I mean, that's the entire plot of HP to start with: Potter had a shit life, and now he gets to do dope wizard shit. Bringing in rationality to a magical world would seem to spoil the whole thing.

But then I realised that I don't read that much fiction and that there are probably enough counterexamples where I'm wrong, and that this idea is pulled off well. So I thought some more. How do you write a story that "rationally" talks about magic? I think it's an exercise in worldbuilding. Like, if you're going to write a story about a magical world and call out all the ways it doesn't fit with the economic and scientific models that apply to the mortal world, that kind of necessitates some reasoning about why.

For example, I remember that MC HP points out that you could perform arbitrage by exploiting the exchange rates between gold and silver in the mortal and magic worlds. OK, sure. The only thing that justified why the magical world hadn't closed this loophole was that the mortal and magic worlds were disconnected. My argument is: this is fine if the thing you're explaining is why mortals don't see fairies or dragons fly around every day. It's not fine if you're talking about arbitrage. You're saying that, in the magical world, nobody, at any point, has seen that you can buy something in one place for a lower price than you can sell elsewhere? Yud, of course, lampshades all this with Potter just saying "Boy, are these magical bumpkins stupid."

This is the only example I have to draw on from HPMoR because I ain't gonna read that shit to find more, but I guarantee that Yud never does the research about how all the models and laws and theories he likes to teach actually came about, and which ones would definitely be observable or applicable in the magic world and which wouldn't be.

General HPMoR

🫡

I bet it’s Industry Americus, who is far too enterprising for one of such young age

This is sort of OT, but since we discuss race science and dogwhistles so much:

A jeans manufacturer has put out an ad featuring Sydney Sweeney and is saying “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”. People are interpreting this as a racist dogwhistle (it is). Comedian Akilah Hughes cooked up this glorious parody to kick off a twitter thread:

https://xcancel.com/AkilahObviously/status/1950224586278154577#m

I don't know how to parse this and choose not to learn

mating press

Dunno if this term has ever come across their desk before, boss

Please self immolate

Grapefruits have another function, besides grapefruiting???

LBTM

Gosh.

"DOGErs aren't that bad! They are just bad as the gain-of-function researchers that definitely invented COVID-19 and Super AIDS, something that definitely happened and isn't a far right conspiracy theory! Which I wouldn't believe anyway, because I'm a morally superior centrist! (except tee hee I actually parrot the right all the time!)"

Piper doesn't deserve the privilege of having an opinion.

I cannot speak from experience, but I imagine having, raising, and face-slapping 4 (soon 5) kids is going to have some kind of toll on your general well-being.

Edit: also shit troll. Oh, you wear cosplay for media appearances? How anti-left. How will I ever recover

It’s not eugenics, it’s just selecting for Good Genes!!! Such as skull bigger

That couple update: That couple are being platformed again, this time on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Exactly, plus there’s no shortage of bad shit Meta has done to the youth, this is a stupid reach.

that's what happens if your computer is a von Meowmann architecture machine

tangential: reminds me of this stupid thing that I saw like 10 years ago that I have recreated for y'alls viewing pleasure. Feel free to insert whatever narrative you like as to how I encountered the image on the left.

Another Oglaf reference???

this is great, but now I'm sad

somewhere out there, there's a writer who really likes the em dash, the word "delve," and answering questions with a one-word hyper-chipper affirmative, followed by three sentences of people pleasing. He can't get a job because he keeps being accused of using AI