Appreciations of the day

[Anastasia]

Mario Maker 2 just made my day, awesome.

[Anastasia]

My new computer runs incredibly fast, it's awesome.

[Dracos]

Zoom Zoom Ko.

[Arakawa]

For the most part, Mario Maker 2 was announced and not that far off, June 2019 for it.

The true advancement will come when Mario Maker can be used to make a better Mario Maker. Then the better Mario Makers will recursively make even better Mario Makers until the universe attains infinite Mario.

It makes sense because Singularity and Exponential Curve.

[Arakawa]

I am gradually nearing my 1,000th post on Soulriders. I think I may be able to do a Thing for it.

Probably some Silicon Valley rationalist-transhumanist millionaires will get roasted.

I joined here on account of Brian and partly for Brian's sake I am slowly continuing. I seem to remember he did not like rationalist-transhumanists, or at least he did not like the philosophy. It produced that absurd Haruhi fanfiction where no one behaved remotely like the characters.

[Anastasia]

Sounds like it could be fun. Also congrats on the posts.

I know I've done a few things for Brian's sake. You never really forget, sometimes it comes and hits you.

[Kaldrak]

I am gradually nearing my 1,000th post on Soulriders. I think I may be able to do a Thing for it.

Probably some Silicon Valley rationalist-transhumanist millionaires will get roasted.

I joined here on account of Brian and partly for Brian's sake I am slowly continuing. I seem to remember he did not like rationalist-transhumanists, or at least he did not like the philosophy. It produced that absurd Haruhi fanfiction where no one behaved remotely like the characters.

Early congratulations on your soon to be 1000th post.

I also joined here because of Brian, but I stayed cause I like all of you. ^_^

What is rationalist-transhumanism anyway? I'm not familiar with the term.

You never really forget, sometimes it comes and hits you.

Oof.

Yeah.

[Arakawa]

What is rationalist-transhumanism anyway? I'm not familiar with the term.

To me, rationalist-transhumanism is a Bay Area religious-cultural export that is influential, but not nearly as fun as Jennifer Diane Reitz, or that one guy who invents entire fictional planets with lush ecosystems full of cat girls.

There is a dude called Yudkowsky who made the implicit religion of Silicon Valley mid-elite types (the kind of people who believe[d?] Facebook will Save Humanity) seem very silly by stating all the implicit stuff explicitly. Not very influential, but he kind of distilled the weirdness and sanctimony to me. You can look at his Blog. Or, a while ago I dissected his equivalent of a Chick Tract in this overly detailed review: http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,101858.msg1025430.html#msg1025430

It produced Catharsis.

(Hmm... random possibly-wrong thought on re-reading... doesn't Haruhi's huge emphasis on Tanabata *kind of* make her Shinto already? Yes, I know that much of the great personal resonance for her is due to the John Smith thing, but it's actually hard to go through so much ritual setup and not have it have an effect on your view of the universe.)

To fanfic people, Yudkowsky would mostly be known for writing Harry Potter and Methods of Rationality (HP:MOR) which is longer and more interesting. Precocious Harry sciences his way through the superstitious magical world. It's more fun when he uses Science to figure out magical things no one thought of, and less fun when he uses Science to figure out People things, because unlike magic we routinely deal with People in the real world, and the conclusions of Yudkowsky Science about People sometimes seem facepalmingly different from people's actual experiences of how People work. And I seem to vaguely remember HP:MOR!Harry is a bit of a sociopath because of that. The fic is nevertheless good enough to be a vaguely-possible reread if I get more curious about it.

I did not like Yudkowsky because he was smug and his philosophy was a factor in badly messing up one of my IRL friends. My friend would only act in accordance with Science and say things like "I have concluded I should get a girlfriend, because I have read psychology studies that prove romance is good for mental well-being." (Serious WTF.) Needless to say, his first time procuring a girlfriend on such premises resulted in unmitigated chaos. I guess he finally has a stable career nowadays in San Francisco, though? He is currently absorbed somewhere within the vast Elon Musk research empire. Elon Musk is a guy who thinks (or pretends to think for marketing purposes, I dunno) that the universe is a giant computer simulation, BTW.

(Also, my erstwhile friend did not read any fictional literature except for HP:MOR which he adored and tried to get me to take more seriously. ah, memories)

I seem to remember Brian did not like Yudkowsky... I am guessing because, at the core of it, Yudkowsky writes a more competent version of the same preachy author tracts as Skysaber. But Skysaber comes across as more likable.

[Anastasia]

Oof.

Yeah.

Yeah. Like Brian has his birthday in his forum profile, which means every late March, it shows his birthday coming up. This year would've been his big 4-0, I see that every March and it hits me all over again.

Also, completely agree with dislike for rationalism and transhumanism. Fics like HP MOR always seem to come down to one ubermensch showing everyone how awesome they are. Like the world's a mathematical formula and they're the ones smart enough to solve it, yeah?

[Arakawa]

Fics like HP MOR always seem to come down to one ubermensch showing everyone how awesome they are. Like the world's a mathematical formula and they're the ones smart enough to solve it, yeah?

It's really interesting how dissimilar this is to actual people's actual experiences of contributing to Science or engineering. This is no longer the world in which a Lord Cavendish figure single-handedly plans deep physics experiments, and his impartiality can be counted on mostly because he's doing it for the lulz.

As a scientist now, at best, you can take pride in doing your role well as just one member of a large and well-planned project requiring 100s of people to execute, like building a particle accelerator, or sequencing the human genome.

At worst, you take pride in playing the publishing game well -- coming up with papers of incremental, disconnected trivia to advance your career, each bit of trivia carefully crafted to please the whims of your peer review committee too worried about the deadline to consider any deep scientific ambitions. In the 'at worst' scenario, impartiality and even honesty become a luxury that you're constantly asking yourself if you can afford as you try to out-publish the other guy.

Likewise, as a consumer of science, there are no ubermensch figures for you to look up to. There is the 'scientific consensus', which is decided by groups of people, and I guess the idea is that they reign in the excesses or biases of any single ubermensch maverick. That's the theory, the practice seems to be that committees can also have a much harder time changing their minds than individuals, and some theories (e.g. plate tectonics) are alleged to have gained traction only after everyone whose career was invested in opposing the theory retired or went away.

I guess, given how the bargain of modern Science actually requires you to be just one component of a big machine, the disappointment fuels endless fantasizing about a world where Science is something that lets you become a Connecticut Yankee who can single-handedly build World Domination (or Tesla Batteries, or something) in his garage.

The former idea of Science gives you knowledge, but the latter imaginary one gives you Agency. And in a world where we know about 100s of threats and problems both small scale and large scale but don't even have the options to set up our own lives decently (that goes double if you devote yourself to Science but end up on the starving postdoc route), Agency is in much greater demand.

But at that point, what does that have to do with Science, and couldn't I just as well fantasize about being a magician, or superhero, or something? Then I don't get as confused about how the real world works, and I can have a whole variety of inventive situations without having to come up with tedious explanations about how they are possible because Science.

[Dracos]

I'm glad you've stayed around, Arakawa.  And you're an awesome guy too, Kaldrak.

[Kaldrak]

You're pretty awesome yourself, Drac. :)

[Dracos]

I got promoted today.  Wasn't expecting it.    More title :)

[Anastasia]

Congratulations, Drac. Hopefully it comes with more title and more money, right?

[Kaldrak]

I got promoted today.  Wasn't expecting it.    More title :)

Congrats, buddy!