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mwattsunon Ask HN: What is Westworld about? Season 4 starts Jun 26th

Without self awareness, man acts, speaks, studies, reacts, mechanically, like a machine on the basis of 'programs' acquired accidentally, unintentionally, mechanically. He is not aware that he is acting in accordance with programs; it is therefore not difficult to reprogram him - to make him think and to do quite different things from those he had thought and done before - provided only the new program does not wake him up. When he is awake, no one can program him: he programs himself

- E.F Schumacher

mwattsunon Observations on 6 Years of Journaling

Thanks. Part of my journaling is collecting quotes I come across if they are particularly thought provoking or mysterious. I forgot one of the best. I know it's the best because Eastern and Western thought both start here:

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom

- Aristotle

mwattsunon Observations on 6 Years of Journaling

Journaling for me is an essential tool for emotional regulation and self-knowledge. This wasn't always the case because I learned in school to write for someone else. If I'm not writing for someone else then who am I writing for? I'm writing for my future self, but who is that? My future self is determined by the thoughts and experiences I am having now, so if I can understand through writing where I am now in the world then I can make better decisions about where I am going. In effect, writing is a way of programming myself. If I am to be captain of my own ship then I need to keep a log to better learn from past experiences. I've found writing is the best way to collaborate with other parts of myself as Huxley says

If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place.

- Lao Tzu

It doesn't need to be imagined, it needs to be written down

- Philip Glass

I like the feeling of words doing as they want to do and as they have to do

- Gertrude Stein

My fate cannot be mastered; it can only be collaborated with and thereby, to some extent, directed. Nor am I the captain of my soul; I am only it's noisiest passenger

- Aldous Huxley

Good composition is like a suspension bridge; each line adds strength and takes none away... Making lines run into each other is not composition. There must be motive for the connection. Get the art of controlling the observer – that is composition

- Robert Henri

Memory is the major element in cognition, in everything that we call the humanities. If you cannot remember, then you can't think and you can't imagine, and you can't write, and you can hardly read

- Harold Bloom

The characters in my novel are my own possibilities that were not realized

- Milan Kundera

mwattsunon Ask HN: What is Westworld about? Season 4 starts Jun 26th

I figured out what I was missing.

- J) We are meant to identify with the androids. Their struggle to wake up and take charge of their own life is our struggle. The abuse they suffer represents the abuse we suffer at the hands of the corporate masters we serve. The rote routines the robots perform are similar to the rote routines humans perform. We are taught habits of thought and action that we repeat over and over again.

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff [1] and his talk about "inner robot" we must over come first introduced me to this idea. His suggestion is to keep the constant awareness of one's eventual death front of mind to break us out of our automatic modes.

[1] https://gurdjiefflegacy.org/40articles/machines-son-of-god.h...

Steve Jobs Stanford commencement address expresses similar sentiments:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/

mwattsunon Ask HN: What is Westworld about? Season 4 starts Jun 26th

I appreciate you taking the time to engage in a more positive way. I thought about it and realized I made a mistake that I try not to make, which is too many details and qualifiers. It makes it tough to speed read, which a lot of people do. I try to keep it direct with one main point, so I'll ask again in a more direct way:

I think Westworld is about this:

- A) Artificially intelligent robots achieving self-awareness and free will. Dominating humans with their superior abilities. Symbiosis with genius humans to create a human/machine super intelligence

- B) The rise of the technocratic class of people who write the software algorithms and stories that increasingly dominate our daily lives and determine the choices we have available

- C) The thousand year quest to achieve human immortality

- D) Creating utopias in virtual reality that provide near-perfect worlds to live in

- E) Questions about memory and why it haunts us and possibly AI's in the future

- F) The violence and evil that lurks in the hearts of humans

- G) Good old-fashioned action adventure, shoot-em-up stories

- H) Glorification of Western colonial imperialism and the domination of other peoples and cultures

- I) Predatory capitalism that has a low disregard for any form of life

Did I miss anything? I have a feeling I am missing something

The murkiness of my original post came about because I didn't want to give the impression I liked the violence and subjugation of other cultures [1][2] because I don't and find that part distracting. I am much more interested in the AI sentience aspects.

[1] Westworld Sells Colonial Fantasies

https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/westworld-sells-colonial-...)

[2] Westworld went to imperialist India this week and we didn't really need it

https://mashable.com/article/westworld-the-raj

mwattsunon Ask HN: What is Westworld about? Season 4 starts Jun 26th

> this is an idiotic post

Like I said, I've seen Westworld before. I'm reviewing it so don't need to watch the parts that don't interest me. Also, like I said, human aggression like yours doesn't interest me

mwattsunon S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

The increase in rental prices in Santa Cruz reflect that. It's good for my family since we've been there 90 years but I'm currently in San Jose because I can get a nicer place for the same amount. It's not bad because I throw my electric bike on the bus that runs over the hill every hour when I want to go visit.

mwattsunon The balance has shifted away from SPAs

I'm generally opposed to jargon in tech writing so the use of 'holotype' caused me to look it up. I'm not sure it works. For example, by the definition Hotmail should be the holotype instead of GMail, which would be the paratype. (if I'm reading it right, I am not a zoologist.)

How Hotmail changed Microsoft (and email) forever

https://seforum.se/2019/01/08/the-history-of-hotmail/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holotype

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paratype

mwattsunon Elon Musk, Chaos Monkey

This is conventional wisdom, but I take a contrarian position:

"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities"

-- Winston Churchill (allegedly)

I've been following politics since the 1968 of Robert Kennedy (broke my young heart) and my sense is that Americans are fed up with Republican antics and extreme positions. I think it's worth looking at the Goldwater campaign in '64. He was riding a wave of cold war anti-communism hysteria, but got crushed by Lyndon Johnson.

I think similarly Republicans will get crushed in '22 and '24 because Americans have sobered up and realized we have serious problems to confront. Republicans are offering no solutions, only antics. The flim/flam trolling party is over.

That's my feeling and I'm looking for ways to make bets on prediction markets:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prediction-market.asp

mwattsunon Ask HN: Books about people who persevered when no one else believed in them?

Cassandra was a Trojan priestess of Apollo in Greek mythology cursed to utter true prophecies, but never to be believed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra

https://www.google.com/search?q=books+about+cassandra+of+tro...

mwattsunon YC W22 Stablegains is being sued for losing $42M in funds from 4878 customers

I'm gobsmacked at the amount of money people have entrusted to experimental beta software whose behavior at scale is unknown. It's fascinating to watch these systems spin out of control in a new kind of flash crash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_crash

mwattsunon Workers deserve the right to disconnect (2021)

As a retired programmer, the main part of my career was last century so if I could communicate this situation with my 20th century self he would be horrified by (among other things):

1) The lack of privacy

2) Being location tracked

3) The expectation that one should be available for work communications 24/7 for no extra pay

I'm sure he would say something like "Wow, it's too bad America is no longer a free country. We programmers are building the systems that enslave us. We're building our own cages, without asking if we should. In the future out employers will prioritize themselves over our families, partners, children and mental health. What do your kids have to say about this?"

We all dismissed the idea of unions because we were highly paid salaried professionals that employers bent over backwards for, but come to find out, unions are more than about money.

mwattsunon The Worst (2012)

I don't really have a comment except some random associations having to do how people feel about objects and processes. It sounds to me that Dustin Curtis and the HN people responding favorably are searching for material objects that give a certain feeling.

I first heard the word Numinous used by Terrance McKenna to describe objects with spirit:

numinous, adjective, having a strong religious or spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity,"the strange, numinous beauty of this ancient landmark"

Upon further research, I found a related Japanese word "Tsukumogami":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukumogami

"tsukumogami are tools that have acquired a kami or spirit. Today, the term is generally understood to be applied to virtually any object "that has reached its 100th birthday and thus become alive and self-aware", though this definition is not without controversy.

Robert Pirsig wrote a book related to these concepts:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values is a book by Robert M. Pirsig first published in 1974. It is a work of fictionalized autobiography, and is the first of Pirsig's texts in which he explores his "Metaphysics of Quality".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_...

Finally I once picked up a stainless steel spoon at a Portsmouth, Virginia thrift store for a quarter while in the Navy that had "NYC Rikers Island" engraved on it. That was my favorite spoon for a long time.

mwattsunon The Texas electric grid can barely keep the lights on

> Ironically, he ended up running it from 2017-2019

I didn't realize that. I laughed out loud. He couldn't remember the third 'E' department he wanted to abolish.

mwattsunon The Texas electric grid can barely keep the lights on

Football without regulations is Rugby I think. Rugby looks like anarchy, but I don't know the game

mwattsunon The Texas electric grid can barely keep the lights on

Interesting: I assumed Texas wasn't connected to the national grid because they hate the Federal govt (I remember Texas' Rick Perry saying he wanted to abolish the Dept of Energy.) But Michael Lee says it's because they can move faster in building transmission lines for wind energy. No idea if this is true.

mwattsunon Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes

> ITT: People who've never done any research on this issue making very American conclusions

As an American, it could be that I've experienced and heard of active hostility to bicyclists. It seems like a uniquely stupid American thing. I'm sorry if this is also the case in Europe.

mwattsunon Cryptocurrencies Melt Down in a ‘Perfect Storm’ of Fear and Panic

https://archive.ph/dqzNI

mwattsunon “It Is Getting Worse. People Are Leaving”

So if I understand this correctly, shorter trains are better because when they derail they take down less cars? Or are super long trains harder to control in varied terrain? Both probably.

mwattsunon When buying the dip doesn’t work: An analysis of the dot-com crash

I watched on your recommendation and it's a damn fine movie. Thanks.

mwattsunon How Apple overcame its culture of secrecy to create AirPods Pro

It'd be interesting to see a comparison of Apple's "Strictly controlled interface between groups on a need to know basis" and Amazon's "All teams will henceforth expose their data and functionality through service interfaces. Teams must communicate with each other through these interfaces."

I'm guessing most companies have a more leaky abstraction approach

https://gist.github.com/kislayverma/d48b84db1ac5d737715e8319...

mwattsunon When buying the dip doesn’t work: An analysis of the dot-com crash

I lived through the dot-com crash and got out safely after hearing something so ludicrous that I had to ask myself "How insane does this industry have to be for someone to think they can build a high growth internet company out of home cement delivery?" My memory may be playing tricks, but it was something like that.

After 2008 I became interested with crashes throughout history. There are so many fascinating little details that added up to one giant mess.

mwattsunon When is a ‘tank’ not a tank?

Thanks, now I get it. Programmers have these kinds of arguments all the time.

mwattsunon When is a ‘tank’ not a tank?

That's why I qualified "waste of time" with "in my humble opinion."

What I didn't say is that's it's a giant trap that I fall into when organizing my files and that's what I meant when I said it was a waste of time.

mwattsunon When is a ‘tank’ not a tank?

I used to argue in semantic disputes, but they're really only meaningful in a court of law. Outside of that, it's mostly opinion (a waste of time imho)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_dispute

mwattsunon Twitter owner transition: Temporary ban on product updates after Elon Musk deal

In general, I agree with you, but I'm referring to speech in the context of a social network. 4chan is a niche community because it is too rough for most people. Unless Musk wants to turn Twitter into 4chan, he's going to have to get real about moderation and like I said, even 4chan is moderated.

mwattsunon Find books set in your hometown

tbh, I posted this hoping someone would make a better one

mwattsunon Find books set in your hometown

I'll take this as a joke because Faulkner's novels were set in a fictional place: "William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County.

I like the idea. I tried out my hometown and the results were pretty good, but I wanted more.

mwattsunon Twitter owner transition: Temporary ban on product updates after Elon Musk deal

4chan gets me out of my bubble. It always surprises me how some people look at the world, kind of like how Terry Davis and his Temple OS was interesting.

mwattsunon Twitter owner transition: Temporary ban on product updates after Elon Musk deal

Even 4chan is moderated so I think it will be interesting to see how Musk thinks he's solved the moderation problem. I'm confident he would have listened to counsel and not waded into that cesspool without having some sort of new moderation idea that he thinks will work. He says he's a free speech absolutist without ever defining that. He can't rely on the law, because people are free to say all kinds of awful things without breaking the law. 4chan gets away with hate speech every hour of the day.

Edit: This just in, he just defined it and says he will rely on the law.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376