Thomas Dickerson @elfprince13@mumak.app

Gosh. The opportunities for trolling are endless.

From #politics to #AI, one of the defining aspects of the time we live in is #bullshit.

Which is why I highly recommend this #book (essay, really) of #philosophy by Harry G Frankfurt. It really will help lead you to an understanding of where we find ourselves.

In Frankfurt's model, bullshit is not about lying, it is another axis of #morality entirely. Whereas a lie is constructed with knowledge of the truth, and is directly in opposition to it, bullshit has no concern with the truth. Bullshit can be true, or it can be false. The creator of bullshit does so without regard to these things.

When an LLM tells you that the human population of Mars is ten billion, it is not lying to you, it is bullshitting. Even if it correctly tells you that the population of Mars is zero, it is still bullshitting. Either way, its "concern" is with the text it is generating, and not with the truth or falsity of that text.

Here are a few quotes to whet your appetite, but you should go read the whole thing. https://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on_bullshit.pdf It's not very long, it'll take you 20 minutes. I like the hard copy, I re-read it frequently and the physical book helps me feel like I am Thinking Serious Thoughts.

"For the essence of bullshit is not that it is false but that it is phony. In order to appreciate this distinction, one must recognize that a fake or a phony need not be in any respect (apart from authenticity itself) inferior to the real thing. What is not genuine need not also be defective in some other way. It may be, after all, an exact copy. What is wrong with a counterfeit is not what it is like, but how it was made. "

"Telling a lie is an act with a sharp focus. It is designed to insert a particular falsehood at a specific point in a set or system of beliefs, in order to avoid the consequences of having that point occupied by the truth. This requires a degree of craftsmanship, in which the teller of the lie submits to objective constraints imposed by what he takes to be the truth. The liar is inescapably concerned with truth-values. In order to invent a lie at all, he must think he knows what is true. And in order to invent an effective lie, he must design his falsehood under the guidance of that truth. On the other hand, a person who undertakes to bullshit his way through has much more freedom. His focus is panoramic rather than particular. He does not limit himself to inserting a certain falsehood at a specific point, and thus he is not constrained by the truths surrounding that point or intersecting it. He is prepared to fake the context as well, so far as need requires."

This was originally written, by the way, in 1984, but it sure reads like it could have been written in 2016. Or late 2022.

Who named it FoundationEssentials and not

Error: Your password must contain at least two characters who talk to each other about something other than a man.

Case in point. I have been photographing ants intensively, across multiple continents, since the start of digital photography 22 years ago. I have a PhD in ant taxonomy. I’m pretty sure I by now have photographed more living ant species than any other person.

And yet, I have not surpassed even 10% of the world’s ant species. Decades in. Less than 1 in 10, of just ants.

https://www.alexanderwild.com/Ants/Taxonomic-List-of-Ant-Genera

A clip from an interview with one of the original SimCity designers, on how the game would have fallen apart if parking lots in the game were their actual sizes in modern cities.

when you are snowed under with email, pray to saint mark allasread. he will intercede on your behalf

Whenever the media starts freaking out about deepfakes and how they will mislead the world, I'm always completely nonplussed. Our public discourse has been dominated by lies and propaganda, on a mass scale, for decades. People can be misled by a scribble on a napkin. I'm not sure it matters that now the napkin looks "super real." #getoffmylawn

this is one thing I like about math: if you don't like the rules, change them

CA DMV, The Game:

For each round, choose one player to be the applicant and another player to be the clerk. Everyone else is in the audience.

The applicant makes up a plate number, and secretly writes down the true meaning of their plate. The meaning may or may not be obscene or offensive (as defined by your local community standards)

The clerk announces what they think the true meaning of the plate is. If the clerk thinks that the meaning is obscene or offensive, they should deny the plate. Otherwise, they should approve the plate.

After the clerk has made their decision, each member of the audience guesses as to the true meaning of the plate; they may choose to agree with the clerk's interpretation, or supply their own.

Finally, the meaning that the applicant wrote down is revealed to all players.

If the clerk has guessed the true meaning of the plate correctly, then the clerk wins the round.

If the clerk has guessed incorrectly, but the majority of the audience agrees with the clerk's interpretation of the plate, then the clerk wins the round.

If neither the clerk nor any member of the audience has guessed the true meaning of the plate correctly, and a majority of the audience does not agree with the clerk, then the round is a draw.

Finally, If the clerk guessed incorrectly but at least one audience member guessed correctly:

- If the meaning is obscene or offensive, and the clerk denied the plate, the clerk wins the round.

- If the meaning is obscene or offensive, and the clerk approved the plate, the applicant wins the round.

- If the meaning is not obscene or offensive, and the clerk denied the plate, the applicant wins the round.

- If the meaning is not obscene or offensive, and the clerk approved the plate, the round is a draw.

Disputes over what is obscene or offensive are decided by a poll of the audience, with the clerk breaking ties.

Edit: A cleaned-up, clarified version of this with better formatting can be found at: https://jordemort.dev/blog/the-license-plate-game/

So, GPT-4 is out, and it’s all over for us meatbags.

https://hackaday.com/2023/03/17/the-singularity-isnt-here-yet/

Last night we were playing a family board game and my kid kept starting their turn by saying "Asia!" I finally asked why they were doing this and they said "because you're saying 'You're up'"

🤦

Who taught them to be like this?

(It was me. I was the one who taught them to be like this.)

The existence of the free church of scotland implies the existence of the malloc church of scotland