Neoreaction: A Basilisk really is great, you definitely should tackle it soon!

Has anyone checked for kernels of corn growing behind their ears?

Me, about to suggest some actually really good, thought provoking Marvel comics that somehow got made alongside the relentless superhero soap opera: oh wait now isn’t the time, we’re dunking on the AI bro

John McPhee’s so goddamn good, one of the best nonfiction writers out there. The absolute master of nonfiction narrative structure, imho.

And yeah, Deep Time is… a hell of a trip.

Super late response (sorry!), but yeah, history of science is great stuff. And your point about TESCREALS engaging with science fiction over science is entirely spot-on. (Which was me as a teenager. There but for the grace of god go I…)

Btw, if you want to read a FANTASTIC book dealing with people grappling with plate tectonics, John McPhee’s Pulitzer-winning Annals of the Ancient World spans literal decades of interviews with geologists, and you get to start with geologists being deeply skeptical of this newfangled plate tectonics (not dismissive, but not convinced of the breadth of its explanatory power), and work to it being fully accepted science over the course of the book.

Oh geez, just saw this response, feel really bad I missed it- you put a ton of effort into it! (And I’m overwhelmed with work right now, so I can’t reply in the depth it deserves, alas!)

In short, though: Your arguments largely make sense to me, and I’m reasonably persuaded by them! I too also think Kuhn has been treated worse than he deserves- yes, others have surpassed him since, but few of them are as approachable to laymen as he is, and that’s worth something, imho. (I’m also kinder to Jared Diamond than many folks for similar reasons. Yeah, he fucked a lot of stuff up, but he got a lot of laymen- including me, before I started by studies in geology- interested in environmental history, so at the very least he deserves that nod.) And I’d agree that Feyerebend did better than Kuhn! (Maybe not on layman approachability, but he’s not that much tougher than Kuhn- I certainly had no trouble, and I’m a dilettante in philosophy of science.)

Wish I had time for a longer (and very belated) reply, but thanks for the great response!

And is the “beam of pink energy from the future” a reference to Philip K Dick’s Valis, by any chance?

It’s like the classic comic “we should improve society somewhat!” “And yet you participate in society!”

• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn

Bit of philosophy of science is a useful bit of immunization against Rationalist bullshit. Maybe not on its own, but it helps.

Seconding, Mismeasure of Man is fantastic.

Ayuuuuuuuup. Movable feast is a great term for it. Even once formerly ostracized groups get permitted into the in-group, their membership is strictly conditional on serving the interests of those closer into the center of the Whiteness construct. Stop being useful, watch how fast the old hate rears its ugly head again.

Fucking giant water and power guzzling data centers, ugh.

I haven’t seen any numbers on how much Sora cost to train, nor how much it costs to run- I can’t help but believe it’s painfully high.

How delightfully ineffective

(Seriously, what has Effective Altruism ever accomplished beyond buying castles?)

As someone who made decent money off that site back in the day, fuck Steemit. Realizing that my earnings came from Korean folks losing their life savings turned me against crypto for life.

Such a shock.

I absolutely get the “I’d be a good billionaire” fantasy, it’s something I’ve indulged in every now and then- but for me, it’s really more a personal agency fantasy, just one of many ways I like to imagine having the power to single-handedly make the world better. But… in the end, they ARE fantasies, are just cathartic games for me to play when I’m feeling particularly overwhelmed by the world’s bullshit. (And they usually involve giving the money away, hah.) No one should actually have that much individual power. Definitely not me, lol.

It’s the people who defend the exploitative systems that make billionaires possible, for the sake of that fantasy, who really irk me. They’ve genuinely convinced themselves, on some level, that it’s possible to, as you said, keep the billions without being a leech on society. That there’s somehow a chance they could really be that billionaire personally, or even that they’re actually temporarily embarrassed billionaires.

But the laughter it brings us?

Priceless.

I’ve spent way too many pages of my books making fun of utilitarians to stop now lol.

Even Peven Stinker, friend and defender of Jeffrey Epstein, is coming out against EA? Wow.

Goddamnit I wish I’d intended that pun