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Make up a guy

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Re: Make up a guy

#141

Post by jononomo »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #100
rom-antics wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is a frog's life more bleak and meaningless than a human's life? We can't understand animals' thoughts, but that doesn't mean they don't have them. A frog spends its time chilling in a pond and swimming all day. People pay good money for vacations where they can do exactly that. Sounds like a good life to me. If I was a frog and you turned me into a homeless guy who has to go get a job at an Amazon warehouse to a…

Ridiculous. A homeless guy is going to have a way easier and more comfortable life than a frog He can just hang out in a makeshift shelter and eat whatever free food he finds. He'll be in way less danger at any given time than a frog would be, with a vastly longer and more fulfilling life ahead of him.

When I visited Calcutta in the early 1980s, I saw limbless lepers strewn in the gutters like trash, covered in flies. I guess passersby did give them some free food or a couple of coins from time to time — but they were so despondent they barely raised their heads.

Re: Make up a guy

#142

Post by caskstrength »

subroutine wrote: post #21
codeflo wrote: post #3

I encountered the author’s short story that’s linked in the article, Lena [1], a while ago, possibly here on HN. It’s really great, but be warned. It’s one of the most deeply disturbing sci-fi horror stories I’ve ever seen. To be clear, most of the horror is implied rather than described, which I think only makes it worse. Part of me wishes I had never read it. Highly recommended, but if you’re at all in doubt if you…

qntm (Sam Hughes) is a great, and if you like this style also check out Greg Egan.

+1 for Greg Egan.

Also, check Peter Watts.

Re: Make up a guy

#143

Post by sangnoir »

galangalalgol wrote: post #122
Dudeman112 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unless I’m missing something, it amounts to making a slave race out of someone’s mind scan People most of the time have scope insensitivity, while sometimes it hits home There is always death at a relatively soon point in the real world. The scan slave can be tortured with the worst methods you can think of for hundreds of thousands of relative millennia at will, and it will have happened countless times for differe…

I have always claimed that if I could somehow extract the weights from my brain, that I would release the model under GPLv3. I had fully expected certain instances would end up tortured and violated for eternity though I supposed that unless the weights were frozen, I would at some point break down and be no fun to torment without a reset. That is a death, though perhaps a flexible one, freezing only some weights. I…

> But some of them would get to pick tea leaves on high mountain slopes...

With the scenery algorithmically blanked to marginally improve productivity, your mind-state will be considered no different to an ESP-32.

Part of the horror of Lena is that the readers get to fill in the blanks: we all know how the machine works against real humans today, when the gloves gloves are truly off would be the stuff of nightmares

Re: Make up a guy

#144

Post by thomastjeffery »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #119
ianai wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it. Unless I’m missing something, it amounts to making a slave race out of someone’s mind scan. So I’m someone who never eats animals nor animal products. This is in part from the sheer scale of that industry. But also from simply interacting with non-humans and knowing there’s enough intelligence there for me to honor and be horrified at the suffering or destruction of it. But I’m clearly in the minority here…

> But I’m clearly in the minority here I've actually suspected for a while that it's not such a minority on HN, based on the discussions that happen every time clean meat tech posts get shared. Unfortunately I've only worked with one other vegan "in the wild" so if this is true, I wonder if HN skews more "vegan" because people more likely to post on HN are overall more contemplative. That, or we're just a very vocal…

What you've got here is a political argument between conservative and progressive. To be clear, I mean each term as used explicitly in this context. The argument is whether or not to change contemporary societal behavior.

The natural result is selection bias for any progressive viewpoint, because there is inherently more to be said and more motivation to say coming from the progressive perspective than the conservative one.

Re: Make up a guy

#145

Post by _mhr_ »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #98
yboris wrote: post #94

Related: Better to Never Have Been by David Benatar It's a position of antinatalism . Antinatalist philosophy roughly claims that sentient beings are harmed when they are brought into existence, and it is therefore wrong to procreate. I think everyone ought to consider this philosophy / argument before having children - as to recognize the severity of the act. At the very least, not having children should be the defa…

It’s funny, I never knew of the formal philosophy of anti-natalsim (though, as a human, certainly familiar with the concept of never having existed). Yet, the very first thought experiment I had before deciding to have a child was to, in my head, have an answer for them if they ever asked me “why did you have me?” And make sure it was a really good answer. I do doubt many folks do this but I’d be willing to bet most…

Would you mind sharing your answer?

Re: Make up a guy

#146

Post by kubanczyk »

yboris wrote: post #94

Related: Better to Never Have Been by David Benatar It's a position of antinatalism . Antinatalist philosophy roughly claims that sentient beings are harmed when they are brought into existence, and it is therefore wrong to procreate. I think everyone ought to consider this philosophy / argument before having children - as to recognize the severity of the act. At the very least, not having children should be the defa…

Oh the utter lack of system thinking in that.

Go to the desert, tell the rocks not to sit idle anymore.

Go preaching to stars the futility of converting elements into energy.

Re: Make up a guy

#147

Post by Dudeman112 »

andrewflnr wrote: post #139
Dudeman112 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but in that case would they mind it being harsh, brutal, and short? Given the configuration of their mind's hardware On a side note, I get the impression most people just don't have a gut instinct for just how awful natural life is like for the most part

They mind it about as much as we do, judging by how hard they try to avoid it. It's silly to assume we're so different from animals that we're the only ones who don't like pain and death.

Bacteria also try really hard to avoid being harmed and killed, yet most people don't consider that sufficient for those living beings

Re: Make up a guy

#148

Post by bsenftner »

bsenftner wrote: post #53
ianai wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it. Unless I’m missing something, it amounts to making a slave race out of someone’s mind scan. So I’m someone who never eats animals nor animal products. This is in part from the sheer scale of that industry. But also from simply interacting with non-humans and knowing there’s enough intelligence there for me to honor and be horrified at the suffering or destruction of it. But I’m clearly in the minority here…

The Netflix film from Korea "Jung-e" is this story line, but a "famous hero" female from an ongoing war is the brain model, and as described by the discussions here, every exploitation possible is explored. I won't give it away, but the film is very good. Worth watching, probably as much as reading this 'Lena' story.

So, just bought this author's short story collection. He's ingeniously unhinged, and the stories are wonderful. "Lena" is just the tip of qntm's imagination.

Re: Make up a guy

#150

Post by yboris »

kubanczyk wrote: post #146
yboris wrote: post #94

Related: Better to Never Have Been by David Benatar It's a position of antinatalism . Antinatalist philosophy roughly claims that sentient beings are harmed when they are brought into existence, and it is therefore wrong to procreate. I think everyone ought to consider this philosophy / argument before having children - as to recognize the severity of the act. At the very least, not having children should be the defa…

Oh the utter lack of system thinking in that. Go to the desert, tell the rocks not to sit idle anymore. Go preaching to stars the futility of converting elements into energy.

Are you the kind of person who ignores the moral arguments against eating meat by saying "others aren't going to do it"?

I don't understand the criticism. This is an argument in practical ethics; it doesn't matter how unpalatable the conclusion. It took 300 years for people to catch up the utilitarianism arguments Bentham was making in favor of gay rights (for example).

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