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86
Joined
3 yr. ago

Buy, Sell, Eat, Repeat,

Buy, Sell, Eat, Repeat,

Buy, Sell, Eat, Repeat,

Buy, Sell, Eat, Repeat.

  • That is very frustrating, to be sure.

    However, the ways we've begun to think about sapience are so intriguing, as well. We're beginning to move away from the anthropocentric view that humans are the only sapient creatures. Corvids, elephants, and dolphins probably already make the cut (among other vertebrates) according to the current definition of sapience.

    Ants, too, which makes me wonder about the potential for deepening our understand of group/swarm sapience, as well. True "hive minds", etc. Fascinating stuff!

    So much of our understanding of the natural world comes from comparing creatures to ourselves through surface level observation. The more we can relate to an organism, as we perceive it, the more likely we are to elevate its status or "worthiness", it seems. Now, in the presence of modern technology, we're discovering how little we actually knew about how the world around us works.

    This all ties strongly into historic religious world-views, and elevation of humans to god-like (or god's chosen) status. So much to unpack!

  • Haven't we moved into the belief that many/most multicellular organisms are sentient?

    Sentience is the ability to experience feelings and sensations. It may not necessarily imply higher cognitive functions such as awareness, reasoning, or complex thought processes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience


    The studies on plant ‘cognition’ and their ‘nervous system’ are not for naught. They have produced doubt. Some researchers are suddenly unsure about the status of plants and this doubt is necessary to get researchers engaged in and to acquire funding for research into plant sentience. The question of plant sentience is one of those fascinating question where, whichever answer is true we will all be in awe. If plants are sentient, then we need to rethink much of our current understanding in neuroscience. How could such a vascular system, different in so many ways from our own nervous system, give rise to consciousness? If plants are not sentient, then we are witness to a self-maintaining entity capable of complex cognitive behaviour without the presence of consciousness. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-024-09953-1

    This topic fascinates me. I'm not trying to be confrontational or argumentative, sorry if it comes off that way.

  • Sorry to be a bummer, but that's the truth.

    I hope you do read it! It's not the most brilliant prose ever written, but it's a nice bit of techno-optimism (once you get through the first half) that really impacted me, and my beliefs about what the future could be, when I first read it a couple of decades ago.

  • You are technically correct, which is the best kind of correct!

    I should have been more precise.

  • Absolutely! Thankfully. Just tipping their hand with regards to the ridiculous bullshit they'll try use to prevent a Trump vs Obama situation.

  • Unfortunately, the legislative policy that's being floated in the House is that a president can seek a third term only if their first two terms were non-consecutive. (Source)

  • I tend to think that information should be free, generally, so I would probably be fine with "OpenAI the non-profit" taking copyrighted data under fair-use, but I don't extend that thinking to "OpenAI the for-profit company".

  • Any word on Beepy V2? Migicovsky's been pretty quiet on that lately.

  • You may be right, there. I do tend to excuse comedians, like Monty Python and their ilk, though. I guess it's always contextual.

  • Exactly.

    “Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company.” - Jason Garrett-Glaser

  • How about you spread information about everything the current administration does wrong to sway the public opinion. There is ton of material already and its been day 1. You jerking off to mass murder is working against your goals of a better society.

    When we do that it gets hand-waved away as "TDS" or some equally trite nonsense.

  • I'm not a communist or a socialist, nor did I write the quote.

    ETA:

    After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives was declassified, and researchers were allowed to study it. This contained official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953),[717][718] around 1.5 to 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag,[719][720][721] some 390,000[722] deaths during the dekulakisation forced resettlement, and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported during the 1940s,[723] with a total of about 3.3 million officially recorded victims in these categories.[724] According to historian Stephen Wheatcroft, approximately 1 million of these deaths were "purposive" while the rest happened through neglect and irresponsibility.[725] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#Death_toll

    The population of the USSR in 1924 was ~124m. The population of the USSR in 1952 was ~186m. This gives us a percentage of 2%-1% of the population.

    The revolutionary war saw ~1% of the colonies' population dying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War

    There was a 58% population decline from 1800 to 1890 of natives in what is now the United States of America. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_genocide_in_the_United_States

  • What a ridiculous position. You honestly believe that all socialists and/or communists want to kill the rich and the landlords?

    Or is that just a convenient strawman you've created?

    Communism commits evil when it goes wrong; fascism commits evil when all goes to plan. No one, not even Stalin, ever became a communist in order to do evil, whereas that's the whole point in becoming a fascist. - Julie Burchill