[2018]DUDES: We made a website where you can look up a charity and see what % of donations it spends on admin overhead
ME: Hey that rules
DUDES: It's called effective altruism
[2025]OTHER DUDES: So those EA dudes want to pave all farmland on earth for the benefit of hypothetical robots 10,000,000,000,000 years in the future
ME: Wha
[DOES THIS STORY HAVE A MORAL? I CAN'T TELL.]
reshared this
Una interesante proposta è quella della piattaforma online Evaneos, riportato in un articolo di Lifegate.
lifegate.it/vacanze-responsabi…
Turismo sostenibile: la ricetta a basso impatto di Evaneos
La piattaforma ha annunciato la durata minima per i soggiorni con voli. Oltre ad aver già sospeso la vendita di destinazioni affollate in alta stagione.Alessandra Sessa (LifeGate)
WIRED Roundup: AI Psychosis, Missing FTC Files, and Google Bedbugs
4 min
Boy UK politics get spicy with all the dick swinging around. :o
Evidently, I need to investigate this phenomenon further. I would like to know more about the higher levels on this scale
#ScribesAndMakers 30 Oct: How do you feel about conceptual art?
It is art and I am totally okay with it. If it works for me, I will recommend it to someone else.
#linuxnews #linuxjournal #opensource
Filings: business services giant Conduent, which was spun off from Xerox in 2017, confirms that a 2024 data breach has impacted over 10.5M people (Bill Toulas/BleepingComputer)
bleepingcomputer.com/news/secu…
techmeme.com/251030/p51#a25103…
Filings: business services giant Conduent, which was spun off from Xerox in 2017, confirms that a 2024 data breach has impacted over 10.5M people
By Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer. View the full context on Techmeme.Techmeme
Technology Channel reshared this.
Robię upgrade pmOSa na pinephonie. Poprzednio mi się popsuł tak, że nie potrafiłam naprawić. Teraz nie miałam żadnych dziwadeł więc może będzie lepiej.
I przy okazji odkryłam, że klawiaturka bow na bt działa dużo lepiej, niż ostatnio, czyli wtedy gdy jej potrzebowałam, bo nie miałam laptopa. I to lepsze działanie widać na każdym pine-cosiu, no ale teraz mam laptopa...
O, i tak długo się zastanawiałam pisząc tego tootka, że mi się skończył upgrade robić...
I się znowu zjebał...🤦♀️
A comparecencia de Sánchez no Senado evidencia a tensión política no Estado
Funky Cafè Noir
Dalle note Funky al Jazz riarrangiato al nostro stile.
Piano, basso, tromba, batteria e voce.
Sul progetto musicale
"Jazzy!" è un viaggio attraverso una galleria di composizioni originali e reinterpretazioni audaci, dove la solida base del jazz si fonde con ritmi irresistibilmente funky.
Ma non pensate che sia tutto ritmo e beat: troverete anche momenti di malinconia e riflessione in brani come Sassi dove l'abilità tecnica del gruppo e la sensibilità di Elisabetta si fanno sentire al massimo.
I componenti del quartetto:
Elisabetta Fratoni (🎤 voce e 🎸 basso) – Cantante dalla voce calda e bassista versatile, Elisabetta incanta con il suo talento e la capacità di creare atmosfere uniche.
Sandro Santilli (🎺 tromba) – Trombettista dal suono pulito ed espressivo, Sandro arricchisce il quartetto con una presenza musicale genuina e misurata.
Luciano Tellico (🎹 pianoforte) – Pianista dal tocco elegante, Luciano accompagna il quartetto con armonie raffinate e una grande sensibilità artistica.
Fabio Ruggieri (🥁 batteria) – Batterista preciso e creativo, Fabio dà ritmo e dinamismo a ogni performance, valorizzando ogni brano con il giusto groove
Coppa Toscana Prima e Seconda, si completa il quadro del secondo turno
Avanti, fra le lucchesi Ghivizzano e New Team, già protagoniste in campionato: vittorie nel derby con A.Castiglione e Borgo a Mozzano
A paragraph I never in a million years would have ever expected to read in a legitimate news source. (And yes, I do consider @404mediaco a very good news source - better than the tech desks at every mainstream newspaper combined...)
404media.co/ai-generated-mpreg…
Perplexed by all this, I reached out to Cuomo’s campaign for an explanation. I wanted a response to the ad and to get his thoughts on AI-generated political content. More importantly, I needed to know their opinion on the pregnancy. “Does that bill look pregnant to you?” I asked. “I think it looks pregnant, but my editors are split. I would love for the Campaign to weigh in.” Out of journalist due diligence, I also reached out to Mamdani’s press office. Neither campaign has responded to my request for it to weigh in on the pregnancy of the AI-generated cartoon bill.
Andrew Cuomo Uses AI MPREG Schoolhouse Rock Bill to Attack Mamdani, Is Out of Ideas
I am haunted by a pregnant bill in Andrew Cuomo’s new AI-generated attack ad against Zohran Mamdani.Cuomo posted the ad on his X account that riffed on the famous Schoolhouse Rock! song “I’m just a bill.” In Cuomo’s AI-generated cartoon nightmare, Zohran Mamdani lights money on fire while a phone bearing the ChatGPT logo explains, apparently, that Mamdani is not qualified.
The ad bears all the hallmarks of the sloppiest of AI trash: weird artifacting, strange voices that don’t sync with the mouths talking, and inconsistent animation. It feels both surreal and of the moment and completely ancient.
🎶“I’m Just A Shill” (FT. Zohran) pic.twitter.com/ga3JxnYO7B
— Andrew Cuomo (@andrewcuomo) October 30, 2025
And then there’s the pregnant bill.The Schoolhouse Rock! Bill is an iconic cartoon character that has been parodied by everyone from The Simpsons to Saturday Night Live. There are thousands, perhaps millions, of pictures of the cartoon bill online, all available to be gobbled up by scrapers and turned into training data for AI.
For some reason, the bill in Cuomo’s ad has thick red lips (notably absent in the original) and appears to be pregnant. Adding to the discordant AI jank of the image, the pregnancy is only visible when the bill is standing up. Sometimes it’s leaning against the steps and in those shots it has the slim figure characteristic of its inspiration. But when the bill stands it looks positively inflated, almost as if the video generator used to make Cuomo’s ad was trained on MPREG fetish art of the bill and not the original cartoon itself. The thick and luscious red lips are present whether the bill is leaning or standing.
Towards the end of the ad, an anthropomorphic phone with a ChatGPT logo wanders into the scene. Standing next to the pregnant bill, I could not but help but think that the phone is the father of whatever child the bill carried.
My observation led to an argument in the 404 Media Slack channel and opinions were split. “It does not seem pregnant to me,” said Emanuel Maiberg.
Jason Koebler, however, came to my defense. He circled the pregnant belly of the cartoon bill and shared it. “Baby is stored in the circle area,” he said.Perplexed by all this, I reached out to Cuomo’s campaign for an explanation. I wanted a response to the ad and to get his thoughts on AI-generated political content. More importantly, I needed to know their opinion on the pregnancy. “Does that bill look pregnant to you?” I asked. “I think it looks pregnant, but my editors are split. I would love for the Campaign to weigh in.” Out of journalist due diligence, I also reached out to Mamdani’s press office. Neither campaign has responded to my request for it to weigh in on the pregnancy of the AI-generated cartoon bill.
This is not the first time the Cuomo campaign has used AI. An ad in early October featured a deepfaked Cuomo working as a train operator, stock trader, and a stagehand. A week ago, the Cuomo campaign released a long, racist video depicting criminals endorsing Mamdani. Critics called the ad racist. The campaign deleted it shortly after it was posted and blamed the whole thing on a junior staffer.
It is worth noting that Cuomo's AI slop is being deployed most likely because the candidate has been utterly incapable of generating any authentic excitement about his campaign in New York City or on the internet, and he is facing a digitally native, younger candidate who just seems effortlessly Good At the Internet and Posting.
This is, unfortunately, how a lot of politics works in 2025. Desperate campaigns and desperate presidents are in a slop-fueled arms race to make the most ridiculous possible ads and social media content. It looks cheap, is cheap, and is the realm of politicians who are totally out of ideas, but increasingly it feels like slop is the dominant aesthetic of our time.
AI-generated imagery takes New York politics by storm
Andrew Cuomo's AI campaign ad sparked criticism.Bobby Cuza (Spectrum News NY1)
Russia, Reality, and the Bureaucratic Degeneration of the West
A philosophical and moral comparison between modern Russia and the West shows that Russia remains a bastion of realism, strength, and self-sacrifice,Брайан Энтони Рео (New Eastern Outlook)
Lançamentos de jogos em novembro de 2025 – veja lista!
https://www.adrenaline.com.br/games/lancamentos-de-jogos-em-novembro-de-2025-veja-lista/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Adrenaline @adrenaline-Adrenalinebr
Lançamentos de jogos em novembro de 2025 - veja lista!
Confira a lista de jogos lançamentos de novembro de 2025 que conta com Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Kirby Air Riders, A.I.L.A. e maisJuliano Aires (Adrenaline)
AMD Ryzen 5 8500G é o AM5 pra começar? (testes com e sem GPU)
https://www.adrenaline.com.br/nvidia/amd-ryzen-5-8500g-e-o-am5-pra-comecar-testes-com-e-sem-gpu/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Adrenaline @adrenaline-Adrenalinebr
AMD Ryzen 5 8500G é o AM5 pra começar? (testes com e sem GPU) - Adrenaline
Um dos AM5 mais baratos, e com gráficos, é o lugar pra começar na plataforma da AMD? Vamos testar em um gameplay AO VIVO!Diego Kerber (Adrenaline)
UN calls for immediate ceasefire in Sudan's al-Fashir after mass killings
https://www.africanews.com/2025/10/30/un-calls-for-immediate-ceasefire-in-sudans-al-fashir-after-mass-killings/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Africanews @africanews-euronews
UN calls for immediate ceasefire in Sudan's al-Fashir after mass killings | Africanews
The Assistant Secretary-General for Africa told the Security Council that the situation has also deteriorated elsewhere across the country.Africanews
Roteadores TP-Link podem acabar sendo banidos nos EUA
https://www.adrenaline.com.br/internet/roteadores-tp-link-podem-acabar-sendo-banidos-nos-eua/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Adrenaline @adrenaline-Adrenalinebr
Roteadores TP-Link podem acabar sendo banidos nos EUA - Adrenaline
Agências do governo estariam "preocupadas" com vínculo que a TP-Link já teve com a ChinaJoão Gabriel (Adrenaline)
Inktober
jour 23, luciole
(Bon ben du coup j'ai piqué ton idée, @NemoJmeno@piaille.fr !)
#inktober #inktober23Luciole
#DelphineÀLatelier
Also
You can ✨Always✨ boost my nudes 💜
Project Nimbus is the ultimate end goal of imperialism from a tech perspective.
Google and Amazon's Israeli cloud contracts reportedly require them to sidestep legal orders
engadget.com/big-tech/google-a…
#Google #Amazon #Israel #Palestine #ProjectNimbus #Cloud #AI #Tech
Google and Amazon's Israeli cloud contracts reportedly require them to sidestep legal orders
It's said to demand that the companies to communicate through code about data requests tied to gag orders.Will Shanklin (Engadget)
reshared this
Automated Sociopathy by the brOligarch's Managerial Class. Proving a higher seat at the table of an unjust system, diversity among the ruling class is NOT progress; it is a bribe!
The CEO of Waymo is asked, " Will society accept a death potentially caused by a robot?"
She responds, "I think that society will."
#US #Culture #Capticalists #Economics #Politics #Ai #AutonomusVechicals
youtube.com/shorts/pzsbXtGyu9Q
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
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La situazione in cui mio fratello grande mi scrive ex abrupto, senza nemmeno salutare (non è che ci sentiamo tutti i giorni) né un minimo di chiacchiera di cortesia,
unicamente per sapere se può appropriarsi di roba mia (che ho lasciato dai miei solamente perché attualmente vivo in 48 mq senza spazi di stoccaggio),
rappresenta per me un TRIGGER.
reshared this
China’s ‘Scrapitalism’ Pushes Back on Mining Giants
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-10-30/china-s-scrapitalism-pushes-back-on-mining-giants?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Profiles @profiles-bloomberg
🇷🇺📱Ruští operátoři blokují ověřovací SMS pro Telegram a WhatsApp
🔗 infoek.cz/rusti-operatori-blok…
🇷🇺 📱 Russian operators block verification SMS for Telegram and WhatsApp
🔗 infoek-cz.translate.goog/rusti…
🇷🇺📱Российские операторы блокируют проверочные SMS для Telegram и WhatsApp
🔗 infoek-cz.translate.goog/rusti…
#Russia #TelegramBan #Telegram #WhatsApp #Censorship #tech
Ruští operátoři blokují ověřovací SMS pro Telegram a WhatsApp | Infoek.cz
Cenzura a omezování práv v Rusku letos dále narůstá. Kvůli nespolupráci s tamními orgány je funkcionalita populárních komunikačních aplikací Telegram a What ...Adolf Pupík (Infoek.cz)
Ponte sullo Stretto, separazione delle carriere e tasse: la destra si è fermata a Berlusconi
Forza Italia ha celebrato l’approvazione della riforma con le foto di Berlusconi, la figlia Marina: «È la vittoria di mio padre». L’opera per ... Scopri di più!Stefano Iannaccone (Domani)
Sensitive content
I finished #TheWarOfTheWorlds last night. A good story and written in a very familiar manner for my sensibilities. What struck me was how familiar the geography described was, i.e. the boroughs of #London, particularly of the west and south west, with which I was familiar when i was at #ImperialCollege, which incidentally was also where Wells went too (although it was not called that then).
I also dusted off my #CD of #JeffWayne's musical version of the book and listened to it recently. It occurred to me how strange it was to pick 19th century work of #fiction for a #RockOpera. But, then again, why not? Great voice performance by #RichardBurton and contributions by musicians #DavidEssex and #PhilLynott, among others.
like this
Bryan Meloy likes this.
smh.com.au/environment/climate…
Somehow or other having become a $billionaire selling a shit operating system makes him a climate scientist.
The world is better off for Bill Gates, the climate debate may not be
Bill Gates has raised eyebrows with a blog post professing an optimistic outlook on climate change.Nick O'Malley (The Sydney Morning Herald)
Yes, he splashes his ill gotten gains around as though he was some sort of saint.
His 'foundation' is proof of how faulty the tax system is.
Charity is an admission of government failure.
Resources for #OccupiedCities: including #KYR Materials
Basic constitutional rights are under attack. We need to educate, agitate and organize quickly, deeply and strategically. This document is a shared resource for organizations and leaders who are stepping up to meet this moment.
GoogleDoc:
docs.google.com/document/d/17E…
#USPol #PosseComitatus #PosseComitatusAct #InsurrectionAct #KnowYourRights #OccupiedCities #SilencingDissent #NationalGuard #NationalGuardReactionForces #DHS #ICE
Resources for Occupied Cities
Resources for Occupied Cities Basic constitutional rights are under attack. We need to educate, agitate and organize quickly, deeply and strategically.Google Docs
#ukpolitics
Window shutters (if they exist at all) in the US are often non functional and decorative. But shutters are really useful!
The ones on our Airbnb in Roma were clearly regularly used - moved easily, no more dirty than I’d expect. People next door clearly opened and closed theirs each night as well.
So I was surprised when I reached out to close the ones in Firenze to block the morning light, only to discover that they were creaky, filthy, and almost no one nearby was using theirs either! 🤔
Here's the documentary on it:
youtube.com/watch?v=jTaQYa6szc…
😆
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
- bshpvo
horadopovo.com.br/10-mil-solda…
#Capa
10 mil soldados ucranianos estão cercados em Pokrovsk e Kupiansk, anuncia a Rússia
O presidente russo, Vladimir Putin, confirmou que as tropas russas cercaram as forças ucranianas em duas cidades-chave para a libertação completa da República Popular de Donetsk, no Donbass, e chamou Kiev a negociar um acordo para sua rendição.Hora do Povo
“Viviamo in un mondo dove tutto è costruito per farci dormire. Lavori finché non muori, ti tengono buono con un po’ di intrattenimento, un po’ di cibo spazzatura e la convinzione che sei libero. Ma non lo sei. Loro controllano tutto: ciò che vedi, ciò che pensi, ciò che desideri. E tu sorridi, grato, mentre ti tolgono tutto.”
- Essi vivono (They Live, 1988)
reshared this
LWDW #Linux fun this week!
😂💖🐧🐧🐧
Big magical D20, thank you @Mirppc 🤗,
Hands-on Orange Pi 6 Plus,
Ubuntu Certs: Canonical Academy 🎉,
Microsoft Recall for Linux,
Desktop sync for System76 COSMIC @system76 🚀,
Radxa Dragon Q6A SBC ✨
#SwitchtoLinux #FOSS
youtu.be/sFrSkVME7ag
📊 Halloween Axes of Evil Warning.
👹 Don't let any of these cross your threshold.
Cartoon by Grant Snider:
incidentalcomics.com/2011/10/a…
Mutual Aid! [225/600]
Big news: I finally landed a job! I’ll be starting on November 1st, which means my first paycheck won’t arrive until December. Until then, I have no other income -- the donations I receive here will be the only money I have to get by.
I’ve been scraping through ever since losing my last job two and a half months ago, and your support so far has genuinely kept me afloat. You’ve helped me make it this far -- and I’m endlessly grateful.
Now I just need to hang on a little longer. The future is finally looking up, but right now I still need a bit of help to bridge the gap. If you’re able to chip in -- even a few euros or dollars -- it makes a huge difference.
Every boost and donation helps me stay safe, fed, and stable until that first paycheck comes through. Thank you all so much for your kindness and support. Genuinely. You're all THE BEST.
ko-fi.com/szczursky/goal?g=0
PayPal: radnow@tutanota.com
(Circa 2019, Denver, Colorado)
NEW SAINTS OF ANTINOUS FOR 2025
NEW saints of Antinous were announced by the Hollywood Temple of Antinous tonight during Foundation Day ceremonies shared globally with wor...antinousstars.blogspot.com
Unpatched Bug Can Crash Chromium-Based Browsers in Seconds - Slashdot
A critical security flaw in Chromium's Blink rendering engine can crash billions of browsers within seconds.it.slashdot.org
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Una pila de tres rocas se encuentra sobre un montón de piedras cubiertas de musgo. La roca de arriba es más pequeña que las otras dos. La roca de arriba es de color marrón claro con una textura rugosa. Las dos rocas de abajo son más grandes y de color marrón oscuro, y también tienen una textura rugosa. En el fondo, hay un follaje verde brillante y ramas de árboles. El cielo es azul claro. La escena es iluminada por la luz del sol.
Proporcionado por @altbot, generado de forma privada y local usando Gemma3:12b
🌱 Energía utilizada: 0.382 Wh
La imagen muestra una estructura de concreto con una serie de arcos sobre un terreno rocoso y una costa al fondo. La estructura, aparentemente un acueducto o puente, tiene varios arcos de tamaño similar, conectados por una sección superior de concreto. El terreno debajo de la estructura es irregular y está cubierto de roca y vegetación, con un color predominante entre el marrón y el gris. En la distancia se puede ver una costa accidentada y el mar azul oscuro. El cielo es de un color grisáceo uniforme. La imagen está tomada desde una perspectiva ligeramente elevada, que proporciona una vista general de la estructura y su entorno.
―
La imagen es una vista aérea de un terraplén con un canal de agua. La parte inferior de la imagen muestra un canal de agua que serpentea a través de un paisaje rocoso y cubierto de hierba. El canal está parcialmente rodeado de vegetación. En el centro de la imagen hay una estructura de hormigón curva que forma una presa. En la parte superior de la imagen, la tierra sube en una pendiente empinada cubierta de hierba seca y rocas. En la parte superior derecha de la imagen, hay una pequeña casa de piedra. El cielo azul está visible sobre el terreno. La luz del sol está presente.
Proporcionado por @altbot, generado de forma privada y local usando Gemma3:12b
🌱 Energía utilizada: 1.207 Wh
bad cattitude: rethinking the way you think about money distribution (el gato malo)
and why we should give billionaires more money
the most reliable donor and voting blocks are those whose industries and lifestyles cannot exist without subsidy.the crony predators conjure them into existence, hook them on largesse, then use them to accumulate treasure and power.
here’s the perspective shift one needs to understand this:
from the politician’s viewpoint, the fact that none of these people or industries are self-sustaining is a feature, not a bug.
if your existence is predicated upon them and impossible without them, you are bound to them.
Stakenbeekpad (Oldenzaal (Netherlands))
Film: Kodak Ektar 100 06 Fade Warm x Kodachrome Generic v4 muted
#FilmPhotography #Kodak #Kodachrome #AutumnPhotography #FallPhotography
Cassandra is only carbon now
in reply to mcc • • •margot
in reply to mcc • • •Oblomov reshared this.
margot
in reply to margot • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to margot • • •Cassandra is only carbon now
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •reshared this
Giuseppe Aceto e Oblomov reshared this.
JP
in reply to Cassandra is only carbon now • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to JP • • •Asta [AMP]
in reply to JP • • •I suddenly see a connection to one of Zeno's Paradoxes, as well, where when you build a seemingly logical construct of reality (to reach a location, you must first reach halfway between there and your starting point) and take it to the limit (infinitely many halved distances between you and the destination) you end up with results that seem sound (the harmonic series does not converge!) and yet are easily disproven just by looking at reality.
The scientific method applied here would suggest, "oh, your model is bad". But it's clear there was no applying that here.
Cassandra is only carbon now
in reply to Asta [AMP] • • •@aud @jplebreton @emaytch @ireneista There was a great article I read a while ago about how you can understand science as the transition from rationalism to empiricism. That is, that science is the idea that you need to actually check your logic against the real world. There are many logically consistent worlds which are not ours, so it doesn't matter what you derive in your own brain if you don't have a connection out to empirical observation.
Techbros could stand to take note.
Irenes (many)
in reply to Cassandra is only carbon now • • •Cassandra is only carbon now
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •Cassandra is only carbon now
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •Tom Forsyth
in reply to Cassandra is only carbon now • • •Cassandra is only carbon now
in reply to Tom Forsyth • • •mcc
in reply to Cassandra is only carbon now • • •reshared this
mcc e Oblomov reshared this.
mcc
in reply to mcc • • •reshared this
mcc e Oblomov reshared this.
Bruce Elrick
in reply to mcc • • •This sounds like a Old Testament curse.
Howard Chu @ Symas
in reply to mcc • • •Cassandra is only carbon now
in reply to mcc • • •Sensitive content
mcc
in reply to Cassandra is only carbon now • • •Sensitive content
George B
in reply to mcc • • •@xgranade @TomF @ireneista @emaytch
Oh, is that why they're called "7th generation"? I read that expecting it to be Dr. Bronner's until I got to that point
Neville Park
in reply to Cassandra is only carbon now • • •Cassandra is only carbon now
in reply to Neville Park • • •Rachel Barker
in reply to Cassandra is only carbon now • • •@xgranade @ireneista @emaytch That reminds me of something I was taught in physics, which has absolutely saved my bacon multiple times in terms of not getting drawn into weird ideologies:
If your model of the world predicts that something will be infinite, that doesn't mean that whatever it corresponds to in the real world is actually, literally infinite. Instead, it means that your model is missing something. You have extrapolated beyond the domain of applicability of your model, and something else you haven't accounted for will happen before you get there.
mcc
in reply to Rachel Barker • • •madison taylor
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •@ireneista @emaytch slight disagree: it's a multiply by infinity error (because the future is infinite)
more specifically: it's not the first place they went wrong, but the place that they really removed all guardrails that would mitigate any wrongness, was in giving value in the future a 0% discount rate.
while people in the future are not any less morally legitimate than people are today, not only is opportunity cost is real, but the future is uncertain (and your plans for the future even more so! you're not building the far future, you'll be dead)
once you've made that error, basically any imaginary future is justified by throwing excessively big numbers at it, and you're just Immanentizing The Eschaton again (usually a big sign you've gone wrong).
sure, we could argue for years about Repugnant Conclusions and whether various measures of utility in utilitarianism make any sense, but giving even the most modest discount rate to The Abstract Far Future would render 99.9% of these questions moot
Irenes (many)
in reply to madison taylor • • •mcc
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •margot
in reply to mcc • • •mcc
in reply to mcc • • •mcc
in reply to mcc • • •Irenes (many)
in reply to mcc • • •we've tried that line of argument and the immediate response is "but you still have a value function for them"
so we put on our mathematician hat and thought about why they aren't numbers, and this is the result
we agree with you, of course, but the goal with this line of argumentation is to reach people who are deeply mired in this belief system
mcc
in reply to Irenes (many) • • •@ireneista @tomoyo @emaytch "but you still have a value function for them"
I don't agree with that at all, but I assume you're not here person I need to convince
madison taylor
in reply to madison taylor • • •for those who don't spend a lot of time thinking about kinda-abstract economics (an eminently rational form of ignorance - in the economics sense not the rationalist sense - and quite defensible)
a normal discount rate in economic decision-making might be something like 8%-25% for a company (depending on the stability of the firm and its future prospects)
or, more abstractly, in terms of economic value, maybe something like 4% annually (in real terms)
but hey, i'm not picky. take, like, just a 1% discount rate, just to account for the risks to your own plans going badly awry. heck, be full of hubris and take a 0.1% discount rate: suddenly it's numerically clear that the infinities of your Machine God are all total nonsense, and you can join the rest of us worrying about
$BILLIONAIREhaving all the powerLuke
in reply to madison taylor • • •@tomoyo I'm shook cause I didn't realize they didn't do some sort of discount rate. Like even entry level Expected Value models account for probabilities, and everything compounds.
I never bothered to look at their calculations because I know it's so obviously wrong, but wow the amount of hubris to model like that and assume you are getting anything that "proves" anything.
Nathan Vander Wilt
in reply to margot • • •mcc
in reply to Nathan Vander Wilt • • •@natevw @emaytch so there's a "soft problematic" version of EA where they get really really focused on dollars that go directly to services and this winds up over-funding things that accidentally game that number and de-funding important community work which due to the structural nature of its work means a slightly higher percentage gets spent on facilities or outreach
your city gets a lot of mosquito nets but no arts funding, in blunt terms
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Nathan Vander Wilt
in reply to mcc • • •Oblomov reshared this.
margot
in reply to mcc • • •Oblomov
in reply to mcc • • •Video Game King
in reply to mcc • • •mcc
in reply to mcc • • •Robert Anton Wilson, 1979: Any false premise, sufficiently extended, provides a reasonable approximation of insanity
2025: Any false premise, sufficiently extended, turns out to be an already-existing thread on something called "lesswrong dot com" and it turns out a cofounder of Paypal has already given it 10 million dollars
mastodon.social/@emaytch/11546…
margot
2025-10-30 21:47:03
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Kevin Boyd (he/him) 🇨🇦
in reply to mcc • • •@emaytch dammit that domain is taken.
But guess what isn't?
lesswrong.ai
Lu-Tze
in reply to Kevin Boyd (he/him) 🇨🇦 • • •@kboyd
Oh boy, you're at the entrance of a glorious rabbit hole. It's got a basilisk that's going to torture us all for all eternity, several murders, Harry Potter fan fiction and disturbing ties to some of the most powerful people in the world.
It's a doozy.
@mcc @emaytch
mcc
in reply to Lu-Tze • • •Lu-Tze
in reply to mcc • • •It's my kind of trash, I guess. Among the coalition of factions trying to fuck over the vast majority of people, LessWrong is one of the goofier nodes.
They're the modern occultist strain of Nazis, like in Indiana Jones.
mcc
in reply to Lu-Tze • • •Lu-Tze
in reply to mcc • • •Hey, it's good to have my tastes challenged from time to time. I'm aware that sometimes I can get lost in fascination for the grotesque, and while that can be both fun and part of a useful critique of fascist movements, it's also easy to lose sight of the ways such movements hurt real people.
On the other hand, you've piqued my interest about Texan weirdos. Could you maybe suggest a good point of entry?
mcc
in reply to Lu-Tze • • •Lu-Tze
in reply to mcc • • •Chris Ammerman
in reply to mcc • • •A rat/rabbit hole that is full of batshit has to be a "bat hole", right?
That's for sure what I'm calling it from now on anyway!
"Sorry, I'm a bit tired today. Last night I learned about Effective Altruism and went way down a bat hole reading about it online instead of going to sleep."
mcc
in reply to mcc • • •Quotes from Jeff Miller @jmeowmeow in a followers-only discussion I wanted to foreground:
"Runaway inflation in the philosophical flattery economy."
"As wealth and power is narrowly concentrated, the reward of flattery as a practice increases. If there's competition for flattery work as verbally charming people lose other opportunities for subsistence, there's motivation to go bigger and bigger."
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mhoye
in reply to mcc • • •λTotoro
in reply to mcc • • •I once saw an EA person do a presentation and their shiny formula for the expected value of the future of humanity included terms for the star density both in the milky way as well as in the local virgo supercluster as a whole.
Absolute clown show of a movement.
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Oblomov
in reply to λTotoro • • •@lambdatotoro the fun thing is that they aren't even doing THAT right. As an example (and shameless plug) some time ago I did some back of the napkin calculations to check what energy requirements world be like if we didn't stop pushing for “growth at all costs”. Billions of years? Turns out that at current growth rates we'd exhaust the entire Milky Way in a couple thousand years even if we could convert it to energy at 100% efficiency.
wok.oblomov.eu/tecnologia/nucl…
Nuclear will not save us
wokJason Petersen (he)
in reply to mcc • • •mcc
in reply to Jason Petersen (he) • • •@jason Charity navigator is generally considered to be an "effective altruist" project and it is the website I was thinking of. I pulled 2018 out of a hat because I was like "when did i first encounter that? 2015?".
It doesn't believe in the future semi-infinite AI people thing, but it embeds some of the other bad assumptions of EA. I would say that it awards its "stars" based on over-valuing metrics that may not actually be the best way to provide well-rounded community benefit.
Jason Petersen (he)
in reply to mcc • • •Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️⚧️
in reply to mcc • • •Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica
ProPublicamcc
in reply to Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️⚧️ • • •NOS 🅰️ ®️ ✝️ U
in reply to mcc • • •jiub
in reply to mcc • • •what i don't understand is how the fuck is roko's basilisk anything more than dumb bullshit that you talk about when you're extremely drunk or high
but supposedly intelligent men believe it's a real thing
mcc
in reply to jiub • • •ShadSterling
in reply to mcc • • •Eleanor Saitta
in reply to mcc • • •mcc
in reply to Eleanor Saitta • • •Eleanor Saitta
in reply to mcc • • •