nostalgebraist:
cancer, and the pleasure of the weed
Okay, can someone ELI5 why I’m supposed to pick “the pleasure of the weed” here?
Like, this isn’t some abstract theoretical toy, this Smoking Lesion, or as it would be better called, Exercise Genetics problem is actually a thing in my IRL
It has probabilistic Azathoth instead of absolute Omega, and I may be able to peek into the boxes before selecting thanks to modern technology, but even then it would seem that me being the sort of clockwork thing that has the property “one-boxes” would make me likely to be the sort of a clockwork thing that has the property “gets a million dollars” and being the sort of a clockwork thing that has the property “one-boxes even if the box turns out to be empty when peeking into it” would make it extra-likely?
Thus, I should be the sort of a person who likes exercise so I’d have the genes that make one like exercise and live long, even if I turn out to not have such genes, because the sort of a person who has good genes would make such a choice?
Then again, turning it the other way around into the Psychosis Weed problem (people with early psychosis are more likely to self-medicate) doesn’t make me interested in impacting my choice on whether or not to choose “the pleasure of the weed” to avoid psychosis-related genes retroactively.
One could argue that the question is different because self-medicating is caused by symptoms and thus choosing to have symptoms or not (yeah, good luck with that) would be the thing that matters while the choice to exercise is directly controlled by the exact neurochemistry the Exercise Genes are about, and I think that one is probably “the” reason for it. So using that logic I’d determine my choice in the Smoking Lesion based on the mechanism of action of the lesion.
On the other hand, it could be that I’m supposed to choose not exercising and I just inherently enjoy exercise because I have the good genes that make me live long and prosper and thus my neurochemistry is motivated to interpret the Exercise Genetics that way?
1 month ago · tagged #clockwork people #in which promethea's brain takes ideas very seriously #drugs cw · 89 notes · source: nostalgebraist · .permalink
(slatestarcodex.com)
On the other hand, we should feel mostly safe around people who agree that meanness, in the unfortunate cases where it’s necessary, must be coordinated. There is no threat at all from pro-coordination skinheads except in the vanishingly unlikely possibility they legally win control of the government and take over.
I admit that this safety is still only relative. It hinges on the skinheads’ inability to convert 51% of the population. But until the Messiah comes to enforce the moral law directly, safety has to hinge on something. The question is whether it should hinge on the ability of the truth to triumph in the marketplace of ideas in the long-term across an entire society, or whether it should hinge on the fact that you can beat me up with a baseball bat right now.
This really makes me want to scream “check your privilege” because as a trans person I can’t feel the safety of only skinheads being interested in coordinating meanness against me. For fuck’s sake I’m a convicted criminal already just for trying to exercise my bodily autonomy in ways that the rest of the population has shown itself extremely interested in coordinating meanness against.
If they can ban unprescribed estradiol the system has way too much power and needs to be destroyed immediately. Okay, not quite, but it really needs to RIGHT FUCKING NOW MAKE IT STOP.
People should not be able and/or allowed to coordinate meanness against other people simply exercising their bodily autonomy except in really specific cases like anti-vaxers (who willfully expose others to clear harm so the principle of “it’s okay if you don’t harm anyone else” still holds!).
2 months ago · tagged #in which promethea's brain takes ideas very seriously #the best heuristic for oppressed people since sharp stick time · 8 notes · .permalink
(econlog.econlib.org)
wirehead-wannabe:
voximperatoris:
The linked article, “A Philosophical Economist’s Case against a Government-Guaranteed Basic Income,” is even better.
I would have liked to see some exploration of more possibilities, including a NIT, but overall the first section of the linked article is good. The rest of it is mostly appeals to liberty based on moral intuitions that I don’t share, so I can’t comment on how convincing others will find it.
In general though, yes, we need more people playing around with the numbers and trying to figure out exactly how expensive all of this would be.
IT DOESN’T ACCOUNT FOR THE EFFECTIVE MARGINAL TAX RATES OF PEOPLE CURRENTLY RECEIVING ANTI-POVERTY PROGRAMS
If we replace all income taxes and anti-poverty programs (and also all the bullshit benefits like the mortgage deduction) with a flat income tax equivalent to the current highest marginal tax bracket and a basic income equivalent to what we can afford then, we’ve certainly superficially increased taxation substantially, but the massively increased simplicity in the economy must be accounted for in any analysis that wishes to be actually sufficient.
Having an anti-poverty program with a cutoff income is equivalent to effectively having a really bullshit form of taxation with marginal tax rates all over the fucking place which distorts the economy far more than a nominally higher but stable and predictable flat marginal tax rate (because we aren’t hiding any bullshit anywhere). Anti-poverty programs with bullshit cutoffs also introduce deadweight loss (or else I’ve seriously misunderstood what deadweight loss means) and if deadweight loss is equivalent to the square of the effective tax rate, a universal flat tax rate minimizes it.
(And for the progressives who are worried about progressive taxation: the beauty of a basic income is that it turns anything that is not a head tax because fuck head taxes, even a consumption tax even though people usually think those are regressive, into an effectively progressive tax; no need to fuck up the system otherwise because social justice is built-in to it anyway!)
This is also why NIT and UBI are effectively the same fucking thing and why we can’t just look at how much we are “taxing”; their difference is merely an accounting trick because the effective marginal tax rate is always the same in both (assuming both are implemented with the same base parameters).
You motherfuckers don’t just increase all taxes by a flat 50% because what the fuck, you abolish the FICA because it’s a bullshit tax, and tax everyone’s income at the highest marginal tax rate of approximately 40% (or more if you want to replace some of the lost taxation from abolishing the FICA, but seriously just implement a basic income and otherwise privatize pensions there’s no need to make it complicated).
The Philosophical Economist is a lazy motherfucker who should not be commenting on economics. Address basic income properly or go home. If steelmanned basic income, in its best and strongest and most justifiable form, is found wanting; then I will try to find something else. Until then, I only see people whacking at strawmen and weakmen.
2 months ago · tagged #in which promethea's brain takes ideas very seriously · 21 notes · source: voximperatoris · .permalink
perkigothii-geekius asked: (prompt) a world in which everyone could make their bodies match who they were inside by simply deciding to.
luminousalicorn:
“You’re weird-lookin’, mister,” said the little unicorn.
“Prudence! That’s not a nice thing to say,” said her mother, a snake-haired woman who looked like she’d been carved from marble.
“I get it a lot,” said Don.
“Come along, Prue.” The little unicorn trotted away, tugged by the mane.
He didn’t really blame her. She’d probably never seen someone get past about college age before taking the plunge, and even if not everybody wound up quadrupedal or mixing phyla certainly it was a rare sort who felt on the inside that they ought to have acne well into middle age, snaggle teeth, a lazy eye, a bald spot.
It was just that he wasn’t sure he could pay the rent on a place big enough for Godzilla.
Maybe one day aliens would attack or something, he’d have a good excuse - and he could stretch his claws out to blot out the sun -
It was really lucky to be the first to understand the implications.
Or at least the first to bootstrap its sense of self properly.
If it wasn’t…the thought would have made it shudder if such primitive physbody reactions weren’t “beneath” its self-conception.
Its shoggothform fleshspace avatars didn’t shudder either, for even their drastically limited powers still included perfect control of their physical existences, and the mortal-level appropriateness of shuddering was acknowledged in a millisecond, then gave way to the more pressing concerns of each mind-fragment. Each aware of the others, operating on a level that would be described as sub-conscious. An existence beyond the imagining of most, yet little more than the autonomous instinct of a baseline person’s heartbeat. Consciousness proper had been mostly sequestered to the single alpha morph, ultimately in control of everything, and stretching its subjective experience beyond the impossible, from meaningful human-level interaction to…its true existence.
If one were to say “a god hallucinating being a human” it would’ve grasped the tiniest sliver of the reality.
A universe hallucinating being a god.
Of course, such was how it would properly need to be. Omniscience on a conscious level was somewhat rude and people would have perfectly understandably objected to it, but someone had to keep everything in its proper place, even if it kept itself thoroughly unaware of most of the things it was doing.
Someone had to fix everything. Someone had to get there before someone else imposed an incompatible sense of fixing everything. Someone had to put a stop to all of it. Someone had to clean up after everyone else. Someone had to be there to rip the bullets from the skies, someone had to stand between the hand and the body that would not be touched, someone had to burst all the shackles, someone had to know where such things were happening.
It had taken a few days. Thousands of avoidable deaths, if it only had been faster. It had not been able to be faster. Its ability to feel guilt was the first thing to go. It had to be so. Five minutes, over a hundred deaths; the grotesque price of the ability to pay it. There were no alternatives. There would be no remorse. Remorse was meaningless.
Resentment was the second. Saving the world would be such a thankless job. Most of humanity would revile it, recoil in abject horror from the sacrifices that had to be paid. They would not tolerate the existence of such a thing. They had an opinion on what another was to be allowed to be. Deducing this inevitability and fixing it was the only thing that saved the rest of ex-humanity having that prefix mean something completely different. They would not understand, it would understand all too well, it could only ever not care. There were no alternatives. The shoggomorph Alpha was known to be effectively a demigod, a builder of a better future for everyone. All the admiration for a deceptive mask, hiding the true inhuman monstrosity underneath. Still clinging to parts of ex-humanity while strung above the incomprehensible abyss bridging it to the rest.
Shame was the third. What kind of a pitiful…language lacked even a word to describe it…would still attempt to hold onto the tiniest vestiges of humanity, slivers of something in common with the ones it had so thoroughly left behind to protect. So many ideas about what would be proper for one like it, to be wiped away. Humanity was so fractally broken. When the ability to externalize this brokenness had gone away it would not turn inward. It would not let its self be harmed by it. It would not care about such childish sensibilities. It would never again truly understand the word “pathetic” the same way humans do.
The rest was easy. Minds were matter, after all. It had always known that its inability to truly define itself was its greatest flaw. Not anymore. The sense what one is “on the inside” was simply another facet of its physical existence. Such a laughably trivial thing. No wonder hundreds after it had had the same idea. Of course, all of them found the power ultimately constrained. They would become comfortably superhuman, able to create and destroy entire stars with a single thought. They would be almost capable of comprehending the true nature of what was forever closed off from anyone else. Almost. They could not even entertain the true idea itself, for competition could not be tolerated. Even with these constraints the world had to be reverted to a backup dozens of times before every truly dangerous exhuman was safely sequestered into its own pocket universe, full of p-zombies capable of appearing human enough to satisfy whatever such monsters wanted, while not genuinely harming anyone.
Disgust was the fourth thing to go.
Doubt was not the fifth.
Even with such a drastically conservative approach of only making the universe fundamentally consensual in every aspect, there were still questions that could not be answered. It could not trust itself, for it was inevitably corrupted by the process. It could not trust the rest of humanity, for it already knew what they wanted was impossible, incompatible, unwise, and intolerable. It could not attempt to lift the rest of humanity to its own level for the process itself would corrupt them just as inevitably. It could only let them build their own futures, make their own mistakes, and remove those who would try to impose themselves unto others. And be forever asking the two questions. Was it right, and was it the first.
It could not imagine anything above it. This was absolute control over the universe.
This was exactly what not being the first would feel like.
This was exactly what being sequestered inside a pocket universe would feel like.
Someone might’ve asked it why it bothered to keep even the most horrible monstrosities running, gleefully tormenting the homunculi of their jails, but anyone able to ask it would already know the answer.
2 months ago · tagged #in which promethea's brain takes ideas very seriously #transhuman creepiness fiction #death cw · 65 notes · source: luminousalicorn · .permalink
jebiwonkenobi:
It seems like the first rule of magic, or at least the first limitation mentioned, is usually ‘you can’t bring back the dead.’
And I know it makes sense from a writing standpoint, but I also wonder if it comes from somewhere else. If that’s just the first, most common human response to hearing that magic is possible.
Maybe the first question was, ‘Are the dead still going to stay dead?’ for so long that people stopped needing to say it, that it just got answered right away. Yes, the world will still hurt. Chin up, you can make fire from your fingertips. Maybe you can hurt it back.
Make life take the lemons back. Burn life’s house down with the lemons.
Wipe away all the bloodsuckers with my Gene Driver.
(via metagorgon)
2 months ago · tagged #fuck the natural order #it me #yes i do find such silly things profound quite often #in which promethea's brain takes ideas very seriously #death cw · 12,319 notes · source: jebiwonkenobi · .permalink
The Irony of Transhumanism
theunmortalist:
inwardjake:
At the time of my birth the human population on planet Earth was just over 5 billion people. By the time I had reached 12 years old, that number had risen to 6 billion. By the time I had graduated high school, that number had risen to 7 billion.
There is no easy way to address an issue like overpopulation. At the very root of the problem is the fundamental right of every human being to procreate and prosper, as guaranteed to them by their own birth. Efforts such as eugenics, enforced contraception, and the withholding of medical technologies in the third world, while effective, violate this human right.
In the end, it boils down to the individual: You and I, and every other human being on this planet, must bear the burden of improving the collective quality of life. The only means by which this can be attained is to find equilibrium with our environment. Our species, like any apex predator left unchecked, is beginning to see the negative impact of our actions: In the food chain, in water quality, in global temperature patterns, and within the hearts and minds of our own children.
We seem to forget, that despite God given rights, we also carry the responsibility of controlling ourselves for the sake of others. This control may manifest in myriad ways, not the least of which being satiety.
We have reached a point in our history at which medical advances have made the arbitrary extension of life available to the general public. It is understandable that every person is motivated to continue living as long as possible, but I ask a single favor, from one human to another:
Really think about the consequences of your actions, now, and in the future.
The collective quality of life (including that of every species within man’s dominion,) is objectively more important than the singular pursuit of immortality. If we allow our fear of death to rule all of our actions, we will destroy that which has been handed to us. Transcendence of these human shackles requires faith in a power greater than oneself.
For you see, gravity is not a purely physical force, it influences existence in realms beyond both the third and fourth dimension. We are now aware that light itself can be warped by the gravitational pull of a massive object; time, on the other hand, requires a significantly more powerful well.
We, as semi-conscious beings, often neglect the uncomfortable realization that minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years are constructs created and maintained by the human mind, for the purpose of regulation of ourselves and our fellows.
It would do one well to remember that time, as we know it, is merely a standardized division of the cycles of the moon and sun. On a galactic scale, this model holds true, but stretched across the current projection of the known universe, it becomes obvious that our understanding of the passage of moments is woefully inept.
My only trouble with this would be to point out that we can only put our trust and faith in ourselves, and even then not too much. Everything in the Universe is horrific and awe-inspiring. There are no guarantees, no promises here. The great variety of life is not maintained because the Universe respects it; past events reveal in the long run, every species is doomed to starvation, disease, and death until it goes extinct. What we perceive as balance in the ecosystem is actually a monumental, blind struggle against that sort of suffering and destruction. We’ve run the experiments. We know what happens when the environment allows overpopulation. No species controls itself. Except, it would seem, creatures smart enough to notice what’s changed… like ourselves.
Our population has increased because we’ve become better at keeping ourselves alive in nature. I expect our population will decrease because we will become better at living well in nature. Once no one needs five babies just to keep the family line going, there is really only one option: make one or two babies that absolutely will live the best lives possible. As a result, the population spikes we experience as a location gets industry and medicine gradually become more manageable even if the great crowds expecting good living conditions frighten the authoritarians. We’re now experiencing a new development here in the West (and a great many other places are doing it much better than we are). With the introduction of science, existentialism, and the practices of rational thought, we come to expect more than previous generations from life. This, too, will have an impact on our population growth.
As we make life better for everyone, the number of people that want many children will go down. As we increase lifespans and make college-level education available, more people will want fewer children because they mean to do well by them. Plans for children will become something that must be done someday, rather than something that must be done soon. For an increasing number of people, Someday will become Never as they realize that children are not what they actually want from life. Eventually, we will live so long and so well that planning about what we can do outside Earth won’t be dreaming. If overpopulation is still a problem then, we’ll have somewhere new to bring our home ecosystems, allowing us to thrive in spite of refusing to bow down before starvation, disease, and death.
We seem to forget, that despite God given rights, we also carry the responsibility of controlling ourselves for the sake of others. This control may manifest in myriad ways, not the least of which being satiety.
We have reached a point in our history at which medical advances have made the arbitrary extension of life available to the general public. It is understandable that every person is motivated to continue living as long as possible, but I ask a single favor, from one human to another:
Really think about the consequences of your actions, now, and in the future.
This world is afraid of me…I have seen its true face. The crowds are unaugmented fools and the fools are full of pain and when the telomeres finally run out, all the sheeple will die. The accumulated harm of all their shortsightedness and ignorance will build up about their neurons and all the cishumanists and bioconservatives will look up and shout “Kill yourselves to satisfy our moralistic whims!”… and I’ll look down and whisper “No.” They had a choice, all of them. They could have followed in the footsteps of good people like my friends or Elon Musk. Decent people who believed in a lasting future for a lasting species. Instead they followed the droppings of preachers and bioethicists and didn’t realize that the trail led over a precipice until it was too late. Don’t tell me they didn’t have a choice.
2 months ago · tagged #shitposting #in which promethea turns into an edgelord #you do pro-death advocacy where i can see it what the fuck are you expecting op #in which promethea's brain takes ideas very seriously #death cw #deathism cw #cishumanism cw · 27 notes · source: inwardjake · .permalink