Basman

@Leo Gura What does the mind course entail?

I don't agree that AI should be afforded the same priviliges as humans relative to creativity. Your counter-ai suggestion isn't bad and perhaps should be implemented regardless of the future legality of AI art, I think a much better solution would be to make it an opt-in system, where artists have to opt-in for their art to be used and possibly get compensated for it. That would resolve this whole controversy by the root.

@Leo Gura Its reductive to equate AI and humans as the same, especially in this context. There's a difference between an artist and companies breaching copyright for profit while competing with the artist who's work they depend on. Even if AI arguably gets "inspirered", the scale of production of art programs in the context of using "stolen art" is worth discussing and not dismissing out of hand. I want to stress however that depending on how you use it, the use of AI art becomes more or less ethical. The closer you are to using what the AI generates whole sale as the finished product, generally you'll be more in the gray of things. Though it can depend on the context and for what purpose it is being used. Just to be clear, I'm not mad that AI exists and that it can paint. I'm mad at how it is being utilized. On a side note, I have noticed that the people who most staunchly defend AI, the way that it is being used right now, tend to have little to no experience with art and are largely male. They come of as not appreciating what art does for the people who make it. At least to me.

As an artist, I feel with the beef but not with AI itself. How it sources it data that it trains on. The fact that it uses copyrighted material without the consent of the artists. AI gets given too much credit IMO, as if its a person who gets inspirered. In these debats, it gets antropormorphized. These "inspiration" arguments are a bit of red herring, because AI doesn't have feelings. It doesn't get "inspirered". It's not creative. It is generative. It is a machine. You wouldn't call a car athletic just because it goes fast. You wouldn't call a toast iron a "chef" just because it grills cheese. The main difference between AI and humans is that AI is dependent on its data set in order to function. That is not the case for humans. People still come up with things regardless of input. And even then, the inspiration that humans take from other artists is a part of a long-term process and history. It involves emotion and livelihood. AI doesn't have that (because it is not a person). I don't empathize with defending the way that AI art operates currently, because the bottomline is that it simply doesn't have to use copyrighted material in order to function. It could work exclusively on royalty free material. The reason it doesn't is because it would take a lot longer before it could prove itself as a technology and it would make less money. Also, for something to be considered fair use, it can't compete with what it sources from. It is hotly debated right now whether or not that is the case in courts right now, which much of the future legality of AI generation will hing on.

While the articles is rather alarmist, I do agree we need to atleast talk more about AI and its ramifications. When I first read the petition, I did wonder to myself whether or not 6 months is enough from the point of view of the petion holder. Like, it seems a little optimistic maybe for a developing piece of technology with potential ramifications so far reaching that its hard to say where it'll stops. That's atleast worth 12 months. We might be on the precipous of a historical moment. I think that we should get a competent government on the case so that this development is not purely lead by private company vision. I'm not sure what, but some boundaries should be set. Do something. The Silicone Valley motto of "move fast, break things" is comparitvely petty when it comes to phones and shit compared to AI. We heading into the uknown. If you move too fast, you might end up breaking the whole planet (and not just the self-esteem of teen girls).

Fear serves the important function of keeping you alive. Fear helps you stay alert of and avoid perceived dangers. It helps us trigger flight or fight responses when we are in danger. Fear is instinctual and a natural part of being an animal. Fear gets a bad rep though, because typically associated with crippling fear. rippling fear tends to be irrational and shaped by our formative experiences turned maladaptive as we become older. Like the fear of rejection or dogs. Often children become fearful of something if the people around them are afraid of it. I remember I used to be afraid of dogs simply because I had a family member who had cynophobia. There are things that are perfectly valid to fear, like getting run over in traffic. But there is a difference between being respectfully cautious and being crippled by fear. We tend to trust our fears unquestioningly regardless of their truth. Fear is fundamentally the perception that you cannot handle a given thing. You implicitly know what you fear. It is one of the bases emotions in humans. Just ask yourself "what do you fear?".

I agree with the petition in that policy makers and government needs to be proactive relative to AI development. How can government help ensure "good AI"? What are some ways that disruptive and unpredictable emergent capabilities of future AI can be better managed?

https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/

@Wolfgang Winterkaise Sorry if I came of as stand-offish in my last post. Yes, the point of wealth inequality is a serious issue but is much more tangental on the type of government and rules and regulation in place rather than money in of itself. How much you pay in taxes or free social services available are examples of raising the living standards of the poorest (such as free college, health care, workers rights, etc.). I don't believe that self-transcendence is necessarily diametrically apposed to self-enchancement. It depends on why you are seeking power. For example, some politicians have a genuine passion and vision for their country while others go into politics for what they can gain from it for themselves.

@Wolfgang Winterkaise You might be demoizing money a little. There has always been power indifferences and hierarchy. That is been the case atleast to a certain extent before money was really a thing and will most likely continue to be the case in the future. You have to consider what the alternative is. The primary function of money is not fraud but to facilitate trade without needing to offer tangible goods. Money is perhaps one of the greatest human inventions if you consider where it took us as a species compared to where we came from. Before money, you traded by giving something tangible to someone else that they wanted in exhange for something you wanted (I give you 1 cows for 10 chickens). But that trade is highly contingent on both parties having something the other wants. If either one of the parties don't want what the opposing party has, then there is no trade. Then you don't get your needs met through trade. Physical trade is highly dependent on uncontrollable variables. Money solves all that very elegantly. With money you can "buy" instead of trade, which ends up facilitating a much greater scope of cooperation and deeper degrees of specilization. Now you can be an expert in a niche field without having to worry about growing your own food. Without money, we go back to the stone ages. While it is true that we have to make money in order survive and that we are in a sense slaves to money, that is no less true then that we are slaves to survival and the desire to live. Money is miles better than no money. And again, you can specialize and choose how you want to make money. There wheren't many option for how you wanted to survive pre-money. You either tended your crops every day, or you die. And god forbid if there was no rain that season. Now you get to whine on the internet about capitalism while munching on frosted flakes. The vast majority of goods you depend on have been made by others, facilitated via a transactional process that only money could allow. That's human ingenuity right there.

@Zion Power is to have the ability to master a situation and influence others. Power is attained either via good fortune (born to wealthy parents fore example) and/or positioning yourself in your society such that you have authority over others, thus power. Strenght is the ability to deal with hardship and have a decisive impact on a situation and goal. Power and authority is often dependent on fictional institutions and concepts that are collectively held (money, nations, leadership positions in an organization). Without collective fiction, power comes down to brute force and strength as a leader out of a local group. Power is in a sense created. How many institution exists that exists simply to A person in power is distinguished by: Authority over others and influence (can make others do/believe things). Makes decisions that impact the world in tangible ways. Leadership and responsibility to maintain certain collective/institutional goals. Their position holds a certain prestige. wealth. For someone to be powerful, someone else has to be powerless. Therefor power is a resource to be gained, atleast over yourself.

Sounds like unhealthy perfectionism to me. I recommend you read up on the concept of wabi-sabi.

I don't know if it matters, but she might have autism. Gender dysphoria and non-binariness corelates positively with being on the spectrum.

A great speech. Joshua Graham is a rare steel man of mormonism.

@Jannes sure, sentience, while still inherently biased to a degree, is less biased than relatibility or ecology. It is limited though in the sense that every living creature is technically sentient and when you posit questions where have to choice between a whale or 800000 shrimp for example, then measuring sentience can fail to lead you to any meaningful solutions. Though it still matters and informs our thinking. You can try and measure to which degree an animal is sentient and from there prioritize the most sentient animals. For example, mammals are considered more sentient than bugs, who are considered more sentient than plants. You'll pull a weed without second thought, but a bug you'll maybe feel atleast a little sorry for stepping on. Considering sentience is not a stance of direct action perce but of observation IMO.

I think the question of ethicacy relative to killing animal is somewhat relative and depends a lot on the human bias towards relatibility. We are mammals and we relate to and find other mammals cute. Insects and gastropods less so. If wolves looked like cockroaches, there would be a lot less people protesting wolf hunting. You are going to feel stronger about killing a whale than 800000 shrimps on an emotional level. But you could take a purely ecological approach instead, where you measure the importance of the animal to the food chain. Shrimp are lower down the food chain and are an important source of food for a wide range of animals. Depriving the ocean of 800000 shrimp would mean 800000 shrimp less in the bellies of starving sea animals. You could say the same about the whale since there are many animals that live of whale meat but shrimp are more fundamental in the food chain.

Cheating is only a problem if your partner has an issue with it, which is true for most relationships I think. That said, if I had the dream girl, I wouldn't want to cheat on her. I like sticking to one. If you can get all of your needs met through this one person, why wander?

@Something Funny I believe it is fundamentally a need to be enjoyed as a person that is amiss here. Parents usually fulfill this need for their children when they play with them, talk with them leisurely or simply spend quality time with them. The experience of joy derived from your mere existance. It is hard to get that as adult the same way unfortunately. It is something you gotta learn to cultivate yourself somehow. I can relate to the pain of feeling like nobody enjoys you for who you are and that you have that you have to grind just to get what you want, however. It is not helpful thought to whish you had it easier. Girls might have it easier one way but they also fundamentally have different needs and insecurities which don't apply to you the same way (and which you probably don't want). Just keep it rolling. Do things you find meaningful and makes you happier as a person. Just keep in mind that your brain still growing. Trust me, as you inch closer to 25, you will suddenly feel a lot more level headed.

We operate on a social-contract of preserving the lives of societies members. The legal right to your life extends to babies, regardless of their ability to understand that. That is the simple reason why infanticide isn't acceptable. As soon the kid is out the womb, there's no room for doubt about its personhood. That's a person and its far too late for an abortion. Even if there was legal juristiction to kill newborns with certain health issues or genetic defects, who exactly decides what is just or not? It's inherently subjective, therefor it is better to have the standard operating procedure of preserving life for its own sake as a standard operating procedure. Everybody has a chance of happiness in some way. Also, cutting cost arguments can be a slippery slope, since it is easy to overstate the cost of anything that you don't care about.

I really enjoyed the recent happiness video. It was quiet illuminating and made me reflect on how I lead my own life in terms of my goals and activities. However, one thing that I miss are the attached work sheets. They helped out with integrating the knowledge with my own experience. It made it much easier to work with these topics than having to try and find the exact moment where certains questions are made in a 2+ hour long video. Are worksheets ever coming back?

Most people behave just fine and you never notice. It's only when people are being inconvinient that they stick out. Same with stupid people on the internet. They represent a vocal minority. The majority of internet users never leave comments on anything. About 10% of Twitter users generate over 80% percent of all tweets, just to illustrate. I think being understanding can go a long way if you care about changing your perspective around "idiots". It is generally due to ignorance and a lack of education that people behave stupidly. They're imperfect people in an imperfect world. I can't fault you though for feeling annoyed at stupid people. Just don't let it get to you. Maybe you just need a vacation.

Most human suffering is due to a lack of resources. Raising the standard of living would help people become more spiritually attuned if anything. Its worth considering that people who attain a sense of awakening from suffering or just in general might have a predispotion towards spiritual growth. To what degree does genetics play a role for example? There's no guarantee that suffering will awaken anyone (which it tends not to IMO). Addiction to suffering, or negative emotion, is a documented phenomena. In short, it's a cyclical pattern of thinking and interpreting through the lens of a past trauma. That cycle is maintained by fear and uncertainty of your ability to handle something outside that lens. Suffering in this sense can breed familiarity, which is itself comforting if you're particularily fearful of the outside world. The tragic part of an addiction to suffering is that it keeps you away from the kind of positive experiences you want. A lifetime of trauma will wreck your trust of the world.

I agree that women are on average are more attracted to lean athletic bodies over "the rock" tier muscles. It's more about definition, especially in the upper body (broad shoulders) and fat percentage. That is a much more realistically obtainable physique for the average guy compared to something like the Athlean X "super hero" physique. Also, in self defence grappling can be effective if going up against a single opponent but has the issue of leaving you open to attack from others. It's generally always better to escape, so techniques that give you an opening to escape are the best IMO. When I practiced Wing Tsun many years ago, there where certain techniques that allowed you to escape a grab and push your opponent away in one motion.

There's always a party in Amsterdam especially during the weekend. Besides the open sex trade, a significant amount of the people in the centrum area are themselves tourists and just looking for some fun. However, accomodation close to centrum can be very expensive. Most tourists find accomadation in the southern area of Amsterdam and take the metro into town.

I agree that Leo's style of speaking can come off as arrogant and confrontational and that he's generally a bit informal. It has its ups and downs. On the one hand, it dramatizes his topics to a certain degree which makes them more interesting and allows him to better convey their seriousness. On the other, it can be a bit too much at times and engender judgementalism. He speaks in length about how he can come off to others, his arrogance among others, in this video: It's pretty eye opening as someone who's been watching his content for years and no doubt been affected by him on a personal level. Definitely made me consider more how I treat the information I consume on a critical level.