Philolsophy

[mickthinks]

Weinersmith’s humour sometimes seems to flail, and never more than it has here. “Wouldn’t it be funny if God and heaven were shamelessly sexist!” Well … no, not really.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Ism

* JoeP checks post again

[fragment]

Originally Posted by mickthinks

Weinersmith’s humour sometimes seems to flail, and never more than it has here. “Wouldn’t it be funny if God and heaven were shamelessly sexist!” Well … no, not really.

Seems more like comedically pointing out a problem with the common "judge people by the standards of their time" attitude.

[seebs]

Do we come into the conversation with an expectation about the nature of the subject matter, which expectation is then surprisingly subverted by the last line? If so, it's probably actually sorta funny, because that's basically how humor works.

[ceptimus]

[mickthinks]

Originally Posted by fragment

Seems more like comedically pointing out a problem with the common "judge people by the standards of their time" attitude.

But from where does that comedic alchemy arise if not the introduction of a misogynist God and a heaven for men only?

[Miss Shelby]

Originally Posted by mickthinks

But from where does that comedic alchemy arise if not the introduction of a misogynist God and a heaven for men only?

The “misogyny “ of God arose when Eve fucked us by manipulating her man.

And Satan is a woman by the way.

My first sentiment I say in jest but definitely not the second.

[fragment]

Originally Posted by mickthinks

But from where does that comedic alchemy arise if not the introduction of a misogynist God and a heaven for men only?

That's part of the comedy, but not all of it.

I wouldn't describe the premise of Blazing Saddles as simply "wouldn't it be funny if a town in a western was really racist towards a black guy?" There's more going on.

Fair enough if you have a sense of outrage against injustice that over-rides any comic effect you personally feel. That's certainly why some comedy doesn't work for me, but I don't miss the intended joke, and I understand that the balance might sit elsewhere for others.

[seebs]

I think "wouldn't it be funny if God were sexist", well as an actual thing happening, not especially, but as a subversion of the trope that God is morally wise, it's pretty funny!

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

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[JoeP]

OK that's good

[seebs]

there's a tumblr post about how if you start out shipping two characters, but then replace them with AU versions and then change the characters, is it still the same ship?

and my personal contribution:

take the "ship of theseus" question, only, instead of a ship, it's an axe, and instead of theseus, it's my grandfather. is this now the same philosophical question?

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by seebs

take the "ship of theseus" question, only, instead of a ship, it's an axe, and instead of theseus, it's my grandfather. is this now the same philosophical question?

I'm guessing the axe thing is first the blade is replaced, then the shaft.

This reminds me of an IBM pricing deal (that I was told about when I was working at IBM so it must be true) - instead of buying a whole new mainframe, which would be a capital expense and taxed a certain way, it could be done as an "upgrade" (replacement) of the case, followed by an "upgrade" (replacement) of the internals, each time retaining the same serial number and being classed as operational expenditure. The mainframe of Theseus.

[ceptimus]

I once visited the engineering works of a steam railway preservation society. For several years, they had been building an all-new replica of a once-famous, but long-ago scrapped, steam locomotive.

One day, a visitor turned up with an old steam pressure gauge (a sort of clock-faced instrument that mounts in the cab of the loco, and displays the boiler pressure). It had been fitted to several locomotives during its life (they were regularly removed for calibration, servicing and recertification), but the accompanying calibration history logbook showed that at one time it had been fitted to the locomotive of which the replica was being built.

The engineering works manager had called a group meeting on the factory floor.
"Congratulations team!", he said, "We're no longer just building a replica - this project has now become a restoration!"

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

One pressure meter and ten tons of bondo. Choo choo, motherfucker.

ETA: Oh yes, this reminds me. Send Cep any Pokemon postcards from railroad locations.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

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[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Oxford shuts down institute run by Elon Musk-backed philosopher | Elon Musk | The Guardian

[Stephen Maturin]

the effective altruism and long-termism movements

What the actual shit is that?

racism . . . sexual harassment . . . financial fraud . . . “Blacks are more stupid than whites” . . . N-word

Oh.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

What the actual shit is that?

Oh.

That's probably the best summary I've heard.

[seebs]

i know some EA people who are genuinely really good people, and they are... very sad about a lot of stuff related to "EA" as a movement.

like, there's some people who just genuinely want people to be happy and think it would make sense to be methodical about pursuing this, and do things like "measure results of your actions and maybe make better choices if these weren't good"

that said, yeah, the movement-as-a-whole is... yeah.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

Oxford shuts down institute run by Elon Musk-backed philosopher | Elon Musk | The Guardian

I have just found out that the paperclip maximiser concept was originated by the above-mentioned Elongated Muskrat-backed philolsopher, Nick Bostrom.

I am now in need of a different model for hypothetical dangers of AI.

[Ensign Steve]

You could get into Tom Chivers, who said essentially the same thing but better. "The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made of atoms which it can use for something else."

[seebs]

anthropic's old blog post on ai safety

They're talking a lot about risks that aren't just "what if AI kills us", but things like, to use an entirely non-hypothetical example, "what if dishonest people use AI to make hundreds of really shitty mushroom foraging guides and you trust one of them and lose your liver".

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

It feels like blogs for recipes or how to repair household appliances now have thousands of words of fluff padding this way.

But I had a math problem I was having trouble working out and ChatGPT talked me through it so that’s cool.

[fragment]

Originally Posted by seebs

like, there's some people who just genuinely want people to be happy and think it would make sense to be methodical about pursuing this, and do things like "measure results of your actions and maybe make better choices if these weren't good"

I suspect there are a bunch of interesting questions about how to measure, what to measure, and at what point you're doing so much measurement that it's wasting a bunch of resources that would be more effectively used just scattered around without much analysis.

This post inspired by Govt reports.