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as soon as most people wear it "abnormally" becomes "normally".
logically the rare enlightened who refuse to wear it and instead keep their own [spoiler] become abnormal unsuccessful failures, not the other way around.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would you feel with a procedure in which your brain was scooped out like ice cream from a bowl, and replaced with circuits that would do a better job of your life for you? > So it does not, in fact, appear to usurp, subvert or replace the wearer's free will. Ok, the ice cream scooping happens slowly. At what point of atrophy, do you think it becomes easier to revert to what is left of it? You still have free will…
How would you feel with a procedure in which your brain was scooped out like ice cream from a bowl, and replaced with circuits that would do a better job of your life for you? One way to answer that might be to argue the counterfactual. How would I feel if I were born in the state described in the story -- little or no gray matter, but endowed with the promise of a successful, enjoyable life, valued and respected by…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But either way, people's minds do not wither in this story, it explicitly works out fine for them? Huh? "when the corpses of the wearers were being prepared for burial, it was noted that their brains were curiously deformed: the neocortexes had wasted away, and the bulk of their mass was an abnormally hypertrophied mid- and lower-brain, especially the parts associated with reflexive action" You could infer their mi…
OK, so there is a magical device that provides you with deep contentment no matter what. But then, when you die and they cut your head open, the physical, biological brain has shrunk. And that's bad. Is that right? Is this what it's about? Is the story actually arguing something? I have just been literally asking what it even presumes itself to be about. Is it the gloss above? If it's about agency, I don't get it. It…
The story is not about physical brain changes, no. It's about losing yourself. It's arguing that to exist is to make decisions. Following the device too much leads to a life that looks successful from the outside but inside no longer has a person enjoying the success, just a puppet.
I don't get it. First, how is it "better for you" to take the earring off, if "the wearer lives an abnormally successful life, usually ending out as a rich and much-beloved pillar of the community with a large and happy family?" Second, apparently some people do choose to take the earring off at some point, because the story refers to "the testimony of all living wearers." So it does not, in fact, appear to usurp, su…
OTOH people who are still themselves, in the early stages of the takeover, will certainly tell you of their own volition that the earring always seems to be right. Wearing it is presumably highly addictive.
This came up the other day, can someone help explain this to me? I am not quite sharp enough to understand it. Context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48911884
Seems like a fairly direct parable against AI, suggesting that even if it's right it's better to think for yourself.
In fact developed countries are built on top of these "earrings": it's called math (and by extension science in general). If the math is right, it's always right, and it has spared their lucky citizens a LOT of needless misery and wheel-reinvention.
"Thinking for yourself" is overrated if you don't have good framework. See antivaxxers and their "research"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like a fairly direct parable against AI, suggesting that even if it's right it's better to think for yourself.
You mean like LLM AI? Seems a little too early for that no? Either way, what is it right about? In your mind?
I don't get it. First, how is it "better for you" to take the earring off, if "the wearer lives an abnormally successful life, usually ending out as a rich and much-beloved pillar of the community with a large and happy family?" Second, apparently some people do choose to take the earring off at some point, because the story refers to "the testimony of all living wearers." So it does not, in fact, appear to usurp, su…
I don't get it. First, how is it "better for you" to take the earring off, if "the wearer lives an abnormally successful life, usually ending out as a rich and much-beloved pillar of the community with a large and happy family?" Second, apparently some people do choose to take the earring off at some point, because the story refers to "the testimony of all living wearers." So it does not, in fact, appear to usurp, su…
How can you know it’s not the earring giving those testimonies? The story doesn’t say whether they were wearing the earring while being interviewed, but given that wearing it for a long time wastes away your neocortex and turns you into a flesh puppet, I don’t think long-term users are even able to speak on their own anymore. OTOH people who are still themselves, in the early stages of the takeover, will certainly te…
Is there more than one of these earrings? The rest of the story makes it pretty clear that it's a singular artifact. If so, and given that the other wearers certainly weren't dead when being interviewed, the only explanation is that some people just decide it's not for them and take it off. Leaving out the qualification "living wearers" would have left some wiggle room, but that's not what the text says.
It's one of those stories that sounds profound only until you start to ask questions.