Natasha Tori Maru

Society is structured to atomise us now, distilled into little worlds, isolated from other humans. Capitalism works with this system as it costs much more to live like this, unintegrated with a sharing community. Maybe I notice it also being born early 80s. I have something to compare the change with.

Do you think this is enough incentive to change behaviour? IMO - to really get the most out of a person, connection must be made and maintained. I think a zoom call can make the connection, but maintaining it is another ballgame. And Leo has expressed he likes to be very hands off with the Mods, and let us use our own discretion independent of him ( which is a method that dovetails well with very invested selection process, do it once, do it right - not as much maintenance in between as we just do our thing without needing management/micromanagement). The caveat being, connection over time can degrade - whether it is connection to Leo (a bit parasocial imo, members have enough issue with this as is) or connection to the teachings.

Mods should just not have any greentext.

It is not like Leo doesn't see exactly how the moderators operate. Moderators serving a term puts additional strain on Leo's workload. He is quite particular with who he selects. Also noting how behaviour changes over time. This is a pattern in all humans.

This is how it works As users get more and more naughty, they accumulate enough points to hit a level they are auto-banned. I will remark that some users have been allowed back, despite this policy. This is based on Leo's discretion. Often, behaviour does not change. Even warning points are not incentive enough. We try to appeal directly to the user, through discussion, prior to points being assigned. Unless it is a clear and deliberate violation.

There's no attempt to engage with the arguments.

Billionaires just create all new sets of survival based problems as they solve all the ones below them. Everyone does this. You trade one set of problems for another as you level up.

The implication that AI is "intelligent" can "decide" or "reason" is that it must experience emotions and feelings, yes? The work of Antonio Damasio (not sure if you guys know this neuroscientist), who ran studies on patients with damage to their ventromedial prefrontal cortex, showed they struggled to make simple, everyday decisions. This part of the brain is important for linking emotion to reasoning. The patients had normal IQ's, intact memory and could reason logically. Emotion provides value - this is why it is critical. Reason provides "what follows from these premises?", emotion provides "why should I care". They work in tandem. So without emotion, reason has no objective function. Reason is calculating and then the emotion is supplying the goal. I would argue that humans interaction with AI is supplying the "goal" or emotion (by providing values, preferences, motivations), and the algorithm/calculation is the AI reasoning. The AI is not generating any feelings/emotions. So a large portion of the humans ground-up reasoning is being outsourced to it. A good example of the above in action: "I'll invest in index funds because they're statistically optimal." Seems rational. Underneath are hidden emotional/motivational values: I want financial security, I dislike unnecessary risk, I value long term planning, I prefer maximizing returns etc etc. The above is also why I consider feelings and emotions to important to all domains of philosophy and consciousness work.

Why You Will Forgive Everyone To add onto this - most people do not understand forgiveness. It is perceived that forgiveness is about the other being. It is not. It is about You. And re-establishing connection to other, and so, reconnecting with ones Self. It also dovetails into the powerful first taste of surrender for many. One has to "give up" their love affair with whatever they get from not forgiving. And make no mistake, there is something we get emotionally and intellectually from not forgiving others. Most people forget about internal addictions. Internal addictions to fuelling anger. Resentment. Hatred. Disgust. These feelings carry energy sensations in the body, and most people are so disconnected from their bodies they need charged states to perceive any sensation at all. But these emotions are signals we are not connected. No good comes from this. Deepen and expand your connection beyond the charged heights of the surface - in turn raise your awareness and consciousness.

You most likely will need to define what you mean by 'intelligent behaviour' because Leo and yourself may be speaking about entirely different concepts. You seem to be pointing toward any organism operating like it's own LLM entrained on its own "experience" data? Wild concept (might not be your stance) to think we are all LLMs skittling around, entrained on experience I think a more defensible statement might be "Intelligent behaviour does not emerge from nothing; it is typically sourced from prior information, whether learned, inferred, evolved biological structures, or innate."

This effect is well documented in other domains that do not even involve "consumption" ie reading a book on epistemology, or watching a video on YouTube. The effect of having viewed something is often conflated with having understood that thing. Speaking about plans and projects has a similar onflow effect, although in a different domain. The act of speaking about the topic, plan, or concept makes us feel we are 1) making progress toward the thing and 2) increases our own perceived understanding of the topic/plan/concept. There is also an element of fluency heuristics we use where familiar information feels easier to process - and then we mistake fluency with mastery. It is usually not until we are questioned critically, or we critically inspect the "how, who, what, why?" of the thing that we see the holes, assumptions, inferences and logic/fallacies behind our understanding of the thing. In particular hidden assumptions - assumptions in general - are ways to strengthen an argument. They band-aid over weak points. Anyway, I digress a bit there...

Agree there is agency in it, but ultimately because the frame lacerates out part of the systems of social reality, one is bound to run into some interesting conundrums and potential traps 🙃

Thinking you can achieve any sort of shattering of anything, is a type of magical thinking rooted in codependence

@AerisVahnEphelia if you own the ethics of it and are okay with it - more power to you. But still. Stolen. 😈

@Carl-Richard Thanks I HATE IT