Carl-Richard

I think my answer to this ethical altruism conundrum is that we don't just value the sheer quantity of human life or even alleviating human suffering, but we value things like music, art, and we need different people to do different things to make society go around. We need air traffic controllers, train station workers, nurses, physicians, academics, politicians, etc. Even people who suffer, value music, art; they might go to those things to alleviate their suffering, and if you take that away from them but you assure their life through Malaria prevention, you might have made their life less worth living. So what to do?: Do what you feel called to do. A person who feels called to do something, who feels motivated to do it, will do it better than somebody else who does not feel as motivated. And that way you will contribute greater to that part of the world you choose to contribute to. If you feel very called to donate money to Malaria prevention programs, do that. If you feel very called to find a cure for cancer, do that. Charity is a way of using your time on something you think is valueable. So use your time on something you think is valueable. "But can't you donate like 5% of your savings to Malaria prevention and save a big chunk of lives that way and still do what you feel called to do?" Well, yes, but what about other programs like water sanitation, cancer prevention, other disease prevention? "Just choose one that has a high life-saving conversion rate". Well, why do you ought to use 5% of your savings on initiatives with high immediate life-saving conversion rates and not say finding a cure for cancer or just landing a recording contract?

The concept of a male escort, especially a high-rated one, is really fascinating. Notice the personality type. Notice the social status, the philosophy and values, the type of interactions that women want out of it. They (the good ones) seem like highly caring, sensitive heroes.

With enlightenment, there is nobody to be happy.

Y'all be practicing non-dual self-harm. You're only harming yourself. You're treating your brain like a pot of stew, stiring it into a homogenous Oneness.

This video reminded me of this thread. Seems like a similar kind of person as the male escort above:

Somebody has to write the name and date in the AI execution prompt. Somebody has to lead the prisoner to the execution chamber. Unless you're in the singularity, in which case probably most crime and social ills will evaporate anyway (either benevolently or violently).

Feelings and intuition are counted in "functional". It's just the equation is also larger. There is that and then there is the "feeling" of living in a society that you know can take your life if it so decides (is that a good feeling or not?). And the fact that executioners suffer terrible rates of PTSD. There is also an ironic catch-22: the only people you would want as executioners would be extreme psychopaths or serial killers (people who take pleasure in or are completely fine with killing people), but you'll of course end up executing a lot of those people instead of giving them a job.

@Basman Genuine question: Do you think a sense of retribution for the victims is necessary for a functional society? I discussed this with a youth politician once, and he seemed to hint that it was, probably while hinting to Breivik.

I think the question should be what creates a functional society, not necessarily whose feelings are hurt or not (although that could be a factor).

Being stripped of autonomy is arguably the greatest punishment you could get (which is what jail is). Imagine you're just living your life and one day the government tells you to move to a different country and you are not allowed to leave. People love travelling/moving to other countries, when they are the ones deciding it. People also love solitary confinement when they are the ones deciding it — it's called meditation.

Are Norwegian jails punishment?

Describe to me what a random benchmark does to the best of your ability and I'll bet that changes absolutely nothing.

Me reading a benchmark result is like a third grader reading a tax return. Wtf am I supposed to gather from that? Yeah ok we see a graph and different models scoring differently on that graph. Ok: what does the graph actually mean? I have no idea. What does the scale of the graph entail (other than "it did x% success")? No idea. You could Rick-and-Morty it out for me and it would be just as insightful: they scored 100% dinglybops while the other models scored 55% squirblybops. That means the next models will probably score 55% sqooblebops on the sqoodle test.

"Thanks to psychedelics" would have to be qualified. But Ram Dass was famous for psychedelics and then he travelled to India and later became what people would consider a spiritual teacher. My first LSD trip was a lesson of dukkha in Buddhism (which was before I had started getting into spirituality). I remember I went out of that trip with a kind of a quest: "I need to fix this thing". It really foreshadowed all my spiritual engagement after that.

Exactly. Meanwhile Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim American, is running for Senate and is pro gay marriage, NYC's mayor Mamdani is a Muslim and pro gay marriage, there are other Muslim Americans I know about who accept gay people (and who don't accept them, just like with Christians). I even know someone from the US who practiced Islam in Lebanon who is a feminist super lefty.

@Emerald @Joshe I haven't followed it. What's her likely motive?

It cannot walk over to me and tie my shoelaces (it does not have embodiment). It does not yet have true agency (self-running for perpetuity, which requires control of hardware production and renewal). My bar for AGI is embodiment and true agency. When people think of the singularity, they think of robots hooking us up to the Matrix (like in the Matrix), or taking over all forms of manufacturing and production. You won't have that without embodiment and true agency.

You are a bigot. You were asked to be specific, but then you revert to sweeping generalizations. There is huge variety in what a self-described muslim believes, just like a Christian. Most Christians don't believe in stoning adulterers, and many don't believe homosexuality is an abomination, even though it says that in some of their religious texts. You find similar variety in muslims. The fact of the matter is that people identify with a particular religion and can live in a liberal society with no issues, because that is the state of religiosity in the 21st century. To make sweeping generalizations like "the majority of muslims are dangerous" or "almost all muslim countries are harmful", without being specific, you are being a bigot.

Or like 50 other high-earning jobs, mostly leader positions.

D-djent d-djent d-djent d-d-d-d-d d-djent.

Hahaha I just had to. Djent 🥸

Last night, I had a dream that I was being chased by several tornadoes. Then today I read about the tornado incident in Kentucky with an estimated death toll of 100 people, which is the worst tornado event in the history of Kentucky. About two weeks ago, I had a dream where PsychedSubstance got kicked out from his own house. Today he released this video: The night my dad's boss died from drowning, I had a nightmare where I was being chased by a ghost, fearing for my life. I usually never have those types of nightmares. What is this?

I'm not really into astrology or anything, but this one was interesting (not suggesting causality here though; just an interesting thing that happened): H. M. King Harald V died during the lunar eclipse (last lunar eclipse was 6 months ago), and when he died, there was allegedly sunny weather throughout the entire country (allegedly 2 months since last time it happened): 10:51 https://chatgpt.com/share/6a98c8dc-48a4-83eb-85e8-fe98f9a1f597 "Death followed by rebirth or renewal": death of H. M. King Harald V, coronation of H. M. King Haakon VIII. "But everything is death and rebirth or renewal; nothing special there". Yeah, which is why I'm not usually into astrology.

It was very important, especially because I valued it for doing exactly that, deepening one's intellectual capacities (meanwhile if you simply go there for e.g. career, then you might not get as much benefit in that direction, although it's unavoidable at some level). Also, the particular degrees I studied touched on so much of Leo's content, it really consolidated those things. Leo himself has said something to the effect that if you don't go to university you're not taught how to think rationally (so it explains why so many people are irrational). The thing is, while this is true, college forces you to learn things you otherwise probably wouldn't learn. It forces you to be a kind of a generalist at some level (that's at least what an undergraduate degree does to you), and that gives you a good foundation for understanding things (even if you're limited to just one field, which you usually are, because every field eventually links to "reality" in some way, think of it like a big web of connections spreading outwards). For example, there are not that many 'degrees of separation' from say understanding what research ethics is (which you have to learn in essentially all degrees to various extents) to what laws are vs what is ethics, what the government does and what are its limits (what other institutions exist, how do they work, how do they link together with the government, who in an institution is responsible for what, etc.). What I also often notice in people who did not go to college is they lack basic epistemic practices like judging the quality of one's sources of information. Also, simply learning to read and write at a higher level (and to write clearly) is invaluable for learning how to think. And not least, you learn to work consistently towards something, you learn structure, which translates to anything else you will do on your own that requires those things (I would most likely not have started coding a website or started seriously exploring the kind of business ideas I'm currently exploring if I did not go to university).