cae_jones
2d ago
Funny story, there. I read Themotte with a screen reader. I kept hearing it as "Scuba Dentist". One day, I decided I really needed to check—that which can be destroyed by the truth should be, and all. Such profound disappointment that you are not commenting between sessions of treating tuna toothaches.
cae_jones
3d ago
FWIW, default Voiceover TTS says /amədʒ/. So English -age, but French silent h.
cae_jones
11d ago
Now I'm wondering ... what could Israel have done differently to not taurch their reputation?
cae_jones
25d ago
I had this problem in a small custom engine that I threw together for my own amusement. I showed it to Claude, and it made a bunch of rewrites that fixed the problem.
Since that can't be applied to Unreal, I'm not really sure how else to deal. I'd probably try to write something to identify when the problem happens and counteract it, but in my example that just made it worse.
cae_jones
26d ago
FWICT, the right believes that Trump is in the process of trying to rig the elections by:
- Deporting illegals, since many on the right believe that places like California and Oregon actually have been making it possible for them to vote.
- Pushing for more gerrymandering, claiming it's in defiance of far more extreme democrat gerrymandering.
- The VRA is currently before SCOTUS, and if gutted, could lead to the loss of several majority black districts in the South.
Additionally, the Putin loophole does not seem to be addressed in the 22nd Amendment. I think Trump running as Vance's VP as a backdoor into a third term would go against the spirit of the 22nd, but whether it's actually forbidden would be something the courts would have to decide.
cae_jones
1mo ago
Richard Paul Pavlick was prepared to take out JFK in 1960, by loading his car with dynamite and ramming it into Kennedy's. He backed out after seeing Kennedy with his wife and children.
cae_jones
1mo ago
I think part of this ties into the contagiousness of mental pathologies. Scott discusses how in countries that have never heard of depression, nobody has depression. Before Columbine, nobody had ever heard of a school shooting, so nobody did school shootings (and even today, outside America, nobody does them).
I know people have harped on this already, but being that the Westside Elementary Massacre happened in the school district next to mine before Columbine, and family and friends were there at the time, I feel the need to contradict the point. How much people get away with terroristic threats always feels similar to all the people getting away with larceny to me, because immediately after Westside, we got authority figures drilling home that terroristic threats would no longer be tolerated, period.
cae_jones
1mo ago
The porcelain people are in the south, in Glenda’s domain. The Winkies are their own thing.
Update on my summer legally-not-a-cult situation:
First, I did not spend $7500 to attend the retreat thing. I did observe the first night as a guest on Zoom (until I fell asleep, anyway), but that was largely just a mix of hype and the same stuff from the workshop I attended.
My friend did not reveal the secret sauce in the "breakthrough"s, but the rest ... sounds like Bay Area group-house stuff: long eye-gazing sessions with strangers, obligatory showering people in affection and praise... there was even a spontaneous cuddle-puddle in the room she was staying in on the last night (of phase 1; phase 2 is the end of this month).
It's painful listening to her wonder and joy at all the emotional expression and physical affection and positivity, meanwhile everything she says is something I've heard before in cautionary tales and I know saying so will probably backfire. Also she straight-up quoted Werner Erhard (with attribution) at one point. I at least take solice in her saying she's probably not doing it again after this. And while I'm no fan of death even for my enemies, the leader does seem to think-he's nearing the end of his life and is looking fora successor, but most of the enthusiasm is centered around him specifically.
Anyway, I'm planning on going to the homecoming after phase2, on the grounds that people feeling unloved is how they fall prey to this crap in the first place.
Oh, also, ad for a workshop I was invited to in July. I really thought something that ... that would be obvious to her, but here we are.
I'm mostly just frustrated because of all the conspicuously vulnerable people who showed up at the one I wrote about in June/July.
cae_jones
2mo ago
I've been getting this feeling like the Left is pulling an ISIS, and basically begging the Right to go full violent conquest on them, so they can get the martyrdom they always dreamed of. Everytime Trump raises a finger against leftist violence, the leftwing politicians and talking heads shout "he wants a civil war! Really this time! Tanks! Disappearing grandmas!" Then the Feds conspicuously don't shoot rioters in self defense, even when it's clearly legal due to lethal force being thrown at them.
Trump is very conspicuously holding back, and it feels like the Left is trying to change that. God help us if they succeed.
cae_jones
2mo ago
I don't think Windows Update fighting me so hard whenever Microsoft says it's update time makes my computer conscious, but it sure resembles intention and ability to act. Or do those terms have standard definitions in philosophy that I'm missing?
cae_jones
2mo ago
Ultrasound is in a weird spot because it's evolving from a "nobody in the ED to can do this" to "we are starting to train everyone from day one to do this because its safe and cheap" but we are in the middle of that process. Wouldn't be shocked if in 5-10 years most PCP offices were doing it.
Wasn't there a story recently about a farmer getting in trouble for doing his own Ultrasound on his cattle? It made it sound like it's taking longer than it should to liberalize for reasons that sound ... guildy?
cae_jones
2mo ago
Wasn't it The Grey King that got the Newberry? I mean, it has conspicuous Newberry bait at one point.
cae_jones
2mo ago
Yeah, this whole thread, I'm thinking, "someone mention that the costs are too high", and you got the closest. If you showed this thread to Trump, he'd probably argue that he's working on pressuring the drug companies to bring prices down. How likely that is to work is another matter entirely.
I suspect that, if prices don't come down, this will mean budget cuts for my workplace, and that will almost certainly result in some unpleasantness with supplies and their quality.
cae_jones
3mo ago
Didn't Epstein get banned from Marlago for sexually harassing a member's teenaged daughter?
cae_jones
3mo ago
If I may be less serious and delve into some Cabalistic insanity, and site Psalm 89: "Thou has a mighty arm, strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand."
So, first, go read Unsong so as to avoid spoilers.
So there's this wordplay that equates Neal Armstrong to the right hand of God. After all, what strong arm has been higher than the Moon? But I'd take it a step further, and go back to the example of raising one's right hand high: when Israel was attacked in the wilderness, and Moses controlled the outcome of the battle by the raising of his hands. Notably, he was old and tired and the battle lasted for a while, so assistants had to prop up his right arm to keep his right hand high and win the day.
People like to point to the early 1970s as the beginning of the decline of the West. Not coincidentally, that overlaps the Apollo program. If we allow that Neal Armstrong represents the right hand of God being raised high, and Apollo is the climax of human achievement (that and eradicating smallpox, around the same time), then it's not so odd that the decline follows Armstrong's return to Earth. Like Moses, the strong arm tired and fell, and so too the tide began to turn against its people. But unlike Moses, we didn't have anyone prop up his right arm to win the battle.
So to answer the question: we're doomed unless we go back to the Moon. And the Artimas program is not encouraging.
cae_jones
3mo ago
It's confusing, because it makes more sense if this is a foreign relations thing... but then why not just say that and only release the names of U.S. citizens and their role in the files? All the people want isto know who to send to the guillotines. We aren't supposed to be the world police according to Trump, so just leave the foreigners out of it. If that is impossible (I highly doubt, given the descriptions of the physical media involved), that would be ... troubling.
cae_jones
3mo ago
Identity politics can't only go in one direction forever. :marseyshrug:
IDK, the Jews and the Philistines have been going at it for at least 3000 years with no signs of stopping ...
cae_jones
3mo ago
IDK, now I'm getting flashbacks to Calc 2 and how useless it was to ask the instructor anything in the interest of understanding. Then sequences and increasingly absurd integrals came along without explnation of the utility ... and that's how I got the worst grade in Calc2. F? OK, retake it. C? Eh ... maybe that's more poor study strats than lack of understanding. But D? They wouldn't let me retake the class and I had absolutely no business moving on because I learned ... hmm, as I remeber, I learned the professor's opinions on Liebnez Vs Newton, and there was something involving a log cabin pun.
Dude's office was right by the CS departments's offices. I frequently heard far more enthusiastic convos coming from there on my way to see a CS prof. Maybe the secret wasn't showing an interest in the subject, but to be a perky flirtatious student? It's been 19 years; just be glad you remember any calculus and hit comment ... ☹️
cae_jones
3mo ago
The upper class in Qing China had some ritual involving a square of white silk, which was supposed to come out bloodstained as proof. Or so I've read in a historical fiction which may or may not be accurate (in which the newly weds deliberately faked the results so they wouldn't have to have sex the first night).
cae_jones
4mo ago
At this point, it's down to my friend calling me frequently to try and convince me to attend "The Awakening" (the $7500 retreat that takes the better part of a month and which was described as kinda like the workshop I went to, but even more so), while I'm trying to figure out what I can do to get her out. She is at least still doing unrelated things with her family, including some traveling soon, which is more non-cult activity than I witnessed when I was there.
Also, after consulting Chat GPT and Wikipedia, I think I need to start referring to it as "Large Group Attitude Transformation" instead of a cult, just in case lawyers get involved. This guy claims inspiration from Werner Erhard, whose ideological successors have been known to sue people for calling them cults. So I am legally encouraged to describe it as not a cult, just an emotionally exploitative money sink of a style that has been condemned by the American Psychological Association for their practices worsening mental health. (This back before the APA became politically captured and started producing therapists who act as money sinks and worsen mental health.)
So ... I would rather not spend $7.5k and request another couple weeks off work for more of that. But everything I've found suggests that being openly negative about it would be counterproductive, and providing a supportive alternative that is outside the group is the best option. The trouble is I'm too much of a coward to just say "Yeah, I'm not going. Can we still be friends?"
cae_jones
4mo ago
Bees make way better communists than humans, and there's way less competition, and they do what man was assigned to do in Genesis, and keep the gardens flourishing. This is actually starting to sound like a good idea. But there are no flowering plants in Space, and we can extend humanbee happiness several orders of magnitude via star-lifting, so either the entity who bebeeified humanity does all the space stuff while Beekind does all the life stuff, or we need to figure out how to make Space Bees work. /🧐
cae_jones
4mo ago
Watching the DR apply the same "America worst" logic formerly typically used by the antiwar left is certainly amusing.
I get the impression that the DR largely is the antiwar left, who got kicked out of the left because reasons.
cae_jones
4mo ago
I'd say it's more "emotionally abusive MLM" than Jim Jones. It isn't the affection that gets me; it's how much it reminds me of the legendary Bay-area Rationalist cuddle culture.
But mostly, after attending a couple workshops and listening to the other people there, I'm increasingly convinced that it's stoking suffering while claiming to improve situations, kinda like what therapy has become, only worse by using charismatic church tactics and emotional intensity to convince people it feels amazing and must therefore be working.
My nostalgia comes from the fact that childhood set the bar at things like family, cartoons, playgrounds, and succeeding at educational challenges. Then those things all changed rapidly and I had no framework on what to do and tried filling the void with memberberries and creative writing failures. I want to go on unfocusedly for several paragraphs, but that'd probably just reenforce it.
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