Biologist123

I sometimes think of the internet as an alternative dimension: as mind space; it was Terra Nova and speculators rode in to grab the available real estate. But as the experience also showed us, there are maybe infinite mind spaces, and the job of anyone dissatisfied with the status quo is to open those new spaces where networks can be built around principles other than enshittification.

It’s a fair point, but as a thought experiment, how would you feel about AI writing the essays and simply regurgitating those? Legal but not in the spirit of things I think.

It definitely wasn’t cheating. But I felt it was not in the spirit of the exam system which I believed - maybe wrongly - was designed to test one’s ability to write a fresh essay from scratch under timed conditions.

What would you say about someone getting AI to write high standard essays and simply spend learn those word-for-word?

It’s also not cheating but not in the spirit of the thing I think.

A college-friend from the Unviersity of Oxford, where students write one or two essays a week, got the top first (best mark) in his history degree. Initially impressed, one day I asked him his exam method - where each student must produce 3 essays in 3 hours (or did then) across about 5 or 6 papers. My friend’s approach was to thoroughly research 12 essay questions and pre-write 16 page essays for each paper, which he would then learn verbatim and trot out word-for-word the best fit to each exam question.

This compared to my method of reading widely, learning quotes and ideas and then writing each essay fresh in the exam hall - and I would typically manage about 3-4 pages per essay. (Reader, I did not get a top first).

I relate this anecdote as I don’t really see my friend’s method as being much better than using AI. Although I do acknowledge his 16 page essays must have been reasonably good.

Perfect.

Afrikaners held political power, English-descendents economic power.

I remember Crap Towns, I loved it! And the Idler! Which had an entire section on jokes for which punchlines had been half-forgotten.

Great and thoughtful reflection piece too.

I’d like to add a few other ideas into the mix as for some reason I’m uncomfortable with the idea “you can’t say that anymore” that I wonder if it’s become a thought-terminating cliche.

Firstly, I suspect there’s always been two forms of puritanism: one with power and one without power. We didn’t historically hear much from puritans without power (famously some shipped off elsewhere and founded an empire). And the ones in power? Well a fish doesn’t know it’s wet…and all the other sods now have X accounts and podcasts!

The second point is to reflect on the fact that British humour is a curious thing. You noticed yourself that satire may have curiously little real world bite.

Maybe there’s been a category error: humour isn’t a mechanism for social change, it’s a coping strategy (I live in Luton, not Hull, TFFT). Or worse mechanism for social control. In my brief time in the Uk I noticed that “banter” often chipped at eccentricities or quirks, and served to bring people into line with group orthodoxy.

In short, and to mirror your uncertainties, I’m just not so sure it’s as clear cut that free speech has been curtailed somehow. Or that humour was ever about just having a laugh.

You make the assumption that maintaining the status quo is the norm. In reality, change is the norm - sometimes slow, sometimes fast.

I make this point because I strongly suspect humans become unhappy when their expectations divert from reality in a way that feels costly to them. If our expectation was environmental change, rather than equilibrium, this might change our opportunity set for managing, for example, environmental and climate change. And make us a lot less unhappy.

Thanks, “actively choosing” assumes we have conscious will. Whilst widespread, this belief is alas just an assumption.

If you set up (or more likely inherit) a story that change = loss, you will also onboard a needless eco-anxiety.

Well done in getting this up immediately. Pieces like this BBC piece are either implicit or explicit propaganda to define “nature” as a world without humans. Even the word “freakosystem”, as novel as it is, sets up an implicit good/bad dichotomy.

Edit: If you on-board the assumption that all change is bad, you potentially open yourself up to a great deal of anxiety associated with that change.

I’m now weirdly keen to hear the answer to this. Telenovella level tension on HN.

I can just imagine the experimental set-up…”son, what the f** are you doing”. “Chill out dad, I’m just going to blind fold you and run some electricity through this coil, and you have to tell me where New Bedford is, got it”. “I told you you ain’t getting no inheritance”. Etc

My old man - an old-fashioned cat by anyone’s description — can pick true north anytime, anywhere. It’s made me wonder if he has some kind of internal magnetic compass. And now, having read this, I wonder if this ‘turtle skill’ is latent in humans but only emerges in a rare few.

Wow, this news truly left me marveling at the small insignificance of my life and all those I know against the beautiful reality that fish barf will outlive all the greatest achievements of our civilization.

You’re assuming they tailor to make money, not for the enjoyment of suit-making.

Genuine question: what role did testosterone (added) play in Schwarzenegger’s outsized ambition?

> Social networking platforms are among the most effective tools for mass influence, second only to religion.

Religion is distributed through churches, synagogues, mosques etc, the medieval equivalent of a digital social platform. A social media platform is kinda like the Vatican but x10000000.

If all the externalities were priced in, the model would certainly cease to exist. Several years ago I found a UN report saying the same about business more generally. I’ve recently tried to find it again, but it seems to have been removed.

Fantastic example of a negative externality. Question: if the data costs were internalised, would an advertising-based revenue model be sustainable?

I regularly use the ocean for surfing, diving and fishing and over my lifetime have seen the growing plastic pollution of our seas. I sincerely salute the efforts of this team.

However, it’s also important to recognize that in a closed system (such as our planet) there is no such thing as “throwing away”. And in a complex system, again such as ours, there is no solving a problem, just moving it or managing it.

I’m at a loss as what to do.

But hasn’t it become quite easy to deal with this issue simply by asking for the sources of the information and then validating? I quite like using the consensus app and then asking for specific academic paper references which I can then quickly check. However this has taught me also that academic claims must also be validated…

“Believe in God, but tie up your camels”.

I’d say it’s less Freud than it is Internal Family Systems theory, which posits human personality is multiple. And we’ve somehow learned to suppress voices that we know sub-consciously to be unacceptable, maybe through socialization etc. Writing this, I make the leap to Jung and need for awareness and management of these suppressed voices before they overwhelm us.

I’m conscious I am (maybe we are) fumbling towards statement or acknowledgment of the same thing.

PS I like what you wrote!

I sometimes wonder if the voices are suppressed in the “healthy” population, but to some extent still influential - but dangerous in that they operate out of sight. For reference: non-professional opinion.

I’m neither an Elon fanboy nor a hater. But I do wonder both what he possesses and is possessed by to have created not just a successful company, but era-defining companies plural.

Making money hand over fist.

I’d speculatively propose the reverse: that a change occurred that led to our suppressing these “voices” to our subconscious, where they are still present but suppressed below the threshold of conscious awareness. Interestingly, in parts of the world, these voices persist (eg Ethiopia where a high percentage of people report regularly hearing voices in their heads). Also interestingly, this book you mention was one of David Bowie’s favourites - yes, he of the multiple pop personas.

Good luck with all your less profitable options: have a look at how much lobbying the sector does.

I feel a curious mix of excitement and disconcerted to discover humans don’t really understand what matter is.

Reading the article, I understood so little of it. And I guess it’s because so much of the language is just words chosen through some sort of consensus to represent an abstract idea itself composed of such words-idea-representations which I’ve never encountered before.