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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 4th, 2023

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  • All software is political. What a terrible opinion. If you are security minded, don’t rely on any software you don’t control the source of and haven’t fully vetted. Otherwise whoever developes that code has a back door into your system regardless of what opinions they post on Twitter.

    Moreover, people have rights to the code they write. If I decide that my numeric library shouldn’t be used in missile guidance systems I have a right to demand that. I’ll be ignored, and so I think a person then should be expected to escalate.

    Life is political, and there’s no standing neutrally still on a planet rapidly spinning towards revolutionary restructuring.


  • I’m convinced it’s the whole B-2-B software world at this point. The shit starts at MS (or any of the FAANGS) and rolls downhill to everyone else.

    We’re working on a huge Dynamics 365 thing at work, and one of the third parties we use for automated testing is just… the product seems barebones, is clearly built on top of open source automated testing tool, and is riddled with indicators that barely anyone works there, from the AI help bot to the “submit a ticket and we’ll assign it eventually” approach to all other interactions.

    I looked them up on Linked In and 12 people work there. 8 of them have C-suite or VP titles, and 4 of them are interns from a local university. This is the state of all modern tech: a board room full of investors, a website, and a product barely glued together from FOSS parts by interns. If you wonder why everything feels like a scam now it’s because it is.



  • We should also consider how the efforts of AI can be directed towards solving human aging; if aging is solved then everyone’s time preference will go down a lot and we can take our time planning a path to a stable and safe human-primacy post-singularity world.

    This shit is so funny. It always comes back around to immortality with these people.

    I spent my adult life to this point seeking to understand enlightenment and transcendence, and if you aren’t reading the doctrines of an immortality cult (lots of that in daoism and tescreal, oddly enough) then mostly you come to find that overcoming the fear of death is a big part of it. You can’t have a free and open mind if the shadow of your mortality looms, so you learn to let go of it as one more attachment.

    I think it’s very revealing of what shallow minds these people truly have that the desperate craving for immortality is so naked in their beliefs. That the concept of it goes so unexamined as well (oh we just make everyone immortal and then we all agree to debate and solve our AI problem? Because that would work?)

    Like, how stupid do you have to be to say on the one hand that unexamined AI risk requires a massive effort to run simulations and game theory out the consequences, but then on the other hand to be like “things would be better if everyone was immortal. I will take no further questions on that.”


  • Codex@lemmy.worldtoRisa@startrek.websiteThe Turbo Lift is broken
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    1 year ago

    I think that this is canonically untrue. Federation vessels do have multiple bathrooms or “heads” in military jargon, including personal ones attached to officer quarters.

    However, Memory Alpha does corroborate the version I remember, which is Frakes talking on some behind the scenes special about how there’s only one bathroom on the entire Enterprise-D. Scroll down a bit to the “Background” section. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bathroom

    (And if you’re surprised there’s a MA page for just this topic, I am too, and probably shouldn’t be.)




  • Codex@lemmy.worldtoRisa@startrek.websitegaslight, gatekeep, girlboss
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    1 year ago

    Seems like a technicality: she legally* couldn’t hold a job but was obviously doing the work. (fingersnaps, yassssss nagus)

    Likewise, Garak has a job (tailor, salesperson) and also, allegedly, has real power and influence within the Cardassian spy-network/government.

    The Prophets though, legit, those trans-corporeal bums can go get a real job. “We exist beyond linear time” yeah buddy, I like to get high and sit on the couch too but we all need to eat.









  • As cringe as “wave function collapse” and “uncanny valley” are for the blatant misuse here, “alignment” is just another rich asshole meme right now. “Alighnment” is just a fancy way to say “agreeing with me.” They want employees “aligned” with their “vision” aka indulging every stupid whim without pushback. They want AI to be “aligned” too and are extremely frightened that because they understand absolutely nothing about computers, there’s a possibility a machine might NOT do whatever stupid thing they say, so every software needs backdoors and “alignment” to ensure the CEO always has a way to force their will.

    WFC appears to just mean concepts that he doesn’t understand or doesn’t know about. He’s mistaken the idea that things can be in a complex mix of states for “things haven’t gone my way yet, or I don’t know what I want.” Uncanny Valley he appears to think just means “when I’m uncomfortable and not getting my way.” He, of course, mixes his metaphors and starts talking about “collapsing the valley” which is not a thing.

    Fucking moron.


  • Codex@lemmy.worldtoRisa@startrek.websiteAm I? Who knows
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    1 year ago

    “Personality drift” while you sleep probably does happen, but in small degrees. You don’t think exactly the same as you did 10 years ago. People have been knocked unconscious and woken up with different personalities, so it’s not like people always wake up with conscious continuity.

    Sleep and unconsciousness are more accessible means of exploring these thought experiments than fantasy teleportation devices, but many of the considerations apply. If you’re a strong materialist, then the notion that “consciousness” is special is silly: any body that has your thoughts is “you” and multiple “yous” is fine, they should diverge as each copy has unique experiences.

    On the other hand, many people are not materialists at all. Many believe either explicitly in a supernatural soul, or in a more ineffable “higher consciousness” that science has yet to reliably demonstrate. For these people, continuity of consciousness has severe implications.

    If a person has a brain injury and wakes up as a totally different person, what happens to their soul? (I’m a materialist, so I dunno. Just pointing out that the question does have meaning to people.)