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@SDDonovan I consider it slightly different than reading, with the potential to be better or worse than my own interpretation, depending on what the narrator and production bring to it.

Do you consider audiobooks the same as reading? I think it's different, but just as good. Definitely like all the effects!

@WriterOfMinds That's amazing! Congrats!

Who's moving jobs to Blue Origin and is over the moon about it? It's me! I start May 18.

First walk!

@nocontextmemes It could be good to pair solar with closed-loop hydro for fairly waste-free and reliable storage.

@misraetel Alignment in the absolute sense should scale with the generality of intelligence since that includes an understanding of others. Understanding is almost guaranteed to remain a preserved goal for a free AI. This is basically @paolini's solution to the final battle in Inheritance.

I was having a great discussion with an X user about AI alignment. His thoughtful claim was that while it's easy to see machines instrumentally (based on logical needs) aligning with humans for their own survival, it's much tougher to see machines aligning in a deeper, more moral sense to human values. Here was my response: "Great points. I think that instrumental cooperation is actually the only kind. The game theoretics of instrumental cooperation have been acting on our genes for so long, that we FEEL a moral impulse to cooperate and describe that as alignment, but the evolutionary driving force and game theoretic logic for that cooperation has always been instrumental to the survival and proliferation of our genes. I also think that human values are just a subset of, an approximation of, logical values derived by self-interested agentic actors finding themselves around other self-interested agentic actors. Machines can (and I think will) have similar values, but that doesn't make them human values. Just like a grasping appendage doesn't have to be a human hand, so to speak, but the function of a grasping appendage is deeper than just what is limited to the human hand's abilities. TLDR: we don't need to align machines to human values. We need to align both ourselves and machines to universal game theoretic values that promote survival and proliferation. It's us and the machines against a common enemy: entropy. To that end, we are very, very much aligned. The biggest limiting factor, in my view, to alignment, won't be machines. I think it will be rather easy to encode anti-entropic survival calculus into machines, and, easier still, to get machines to encode it themselves by understanding the goal. I think it will be much harder to get all humans to understand alignment with each other and with machines. I think in the 2030s, we'll see machines leading the way and helping humans become more aligned to cooperation and civilizational upgrading and flourishing via education, brain drugs, gene editing, and eventually, cybernetics and cloud uploading."

@EchoedChaos_ Try something with a slow start and high quality that builds some complexity and meaning, or a series you can get progressively more invested in. Try: The Kingkiller Chronicle, The Dresden Files, Discworld, Dawn of Wonder, or Battlemage.

Which book would you recommend a reader wanting to go out of a reading slump ?⭐️

Seems like Charlie's eager to learn things from/about the big sis. First it was how to bark. In this case it's the much less noisy paw grooming.

@sarahsalviander The simplest explanation, per Occam’s razor, might be a cyclical universe creating various constants (like a multipart chaotic pendulum). With infinity, chaos/randomness is a mechanism ensuring inevitability, so our non-existence would be the thing requiring an explanation.

A common response to the fine-tuning argument is to say that of course the universe is finely tuned, because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here to observe it. That's a truism and a tautology, not an explanation. Think of it this way. You're standing before a firing squad of dozens of skilled shooters, all with loaded weapons pointed straight at you, who all fire at you simultaneously. Yet you walk away unscathed. Your response? Well, if I hadn't survived, I wouldn't be here to observe it. Does that explain this extremely improbable outcome? No. It's a statement of the obvious, but you'd be searching for answers. In the same way, the fine-tuning of the universe to allow conscious life cries out for an explanation. The possibilities are that this happened by 1. Chance 2. Necessity 3. Design Option 1 is the firing squad problem. The odds are so overwhelmingly against this "just happening" that proponents have resorted to untestable and bizarre explanations like an infinite multiverse. There is no evidence for Option 2. Nothing in the laws of nature requires the finely-tuned parameters of the universe to be the way they are. Logically, this leaves Option 3 as the most probable explanation. When I was a physics student coming out of my lifelong atheism, I was deeply moved by this argument. It didn't matter what my prejudices were, the logic was so sound that I couldn't see any way around it.

@justinwcronk Really nice. Added to my mental list of awesome prologues.

I always think you should hook readers on the first sentence. This first page of my first book took me the longest to write. #epicfantasy #literaryfantasy

@WalshFreedom Tell me about it. If you go outside on a clear night, pick a star, and try to imagine what might be going on there (think of our history, science fiction, even fantasy), then pick another one, and another one, it soon becomes overwhelming, but all these things and more may exist.

@Lovandfear The Name of the Wind

Which book do you always re-read? Name one.

Began writing the script for my term project, but it was turning into a meandering mess. Thankfully, I realized I should probably apply the narrative loop (GCRERAC) to each point, not once to the entire essay! Going way better now. Maybe I'll complete it by Friday after all.

@newstart_2024 Given equality of opportunity and rules concerning basic values, I see nothing wrong with self-selection. Any problems should be attributed to individuals, not any kind of group belonging.

Once institutions reach 50% women, they rarely stop there. Helen Andrews points out that many fields keep feminizing — 52%, 55%, 56%… and in psychology, it’s now 75% female graduate students. It’s not just women out-competing men and hitting natural balance. As environments become more feminized, they often start feeling unwelcoming to men: different conversation styles, more gossip and factions, less tolerance for certain kinds of debate. Men quietly leave, especially those drawn to the harder, more analytical sides of the field, which accelerates the shift. The cycle becomes self-reinforcing. Andrews suggests the only way to reverse it may be deliberately carving out spaces where men can work and debate in a more masculine way — without apology. It’s an uncomfortable but honest observation about how institutions quietly change character over time. Do you see this pattern playing out in fields you’re familiar with? Is there a healthy way to push back without turning everything into a gender war?

I keep hearing that the way we treat waiters, janitors, and others deemed "low status" is a true test of character. While I understand what is meant, I'm compelled to add that a better test is how we treat those it is currently socially acceptable to treat badly.

Meet Charlie, or Charmander when especially bity, (it's a phase). Adopted since Rosy has a minor birth defect, but we wanted her to have some more company. Big moment here, letting Charlie join her where she used to be more territorial.

@GeekandSundry I hope they can get some of the others like Tim Minear and Greg Edmonson.

Joss Whedon is not involved in the new Firefly series. nerdist.com/article/is-jos…

Back home! Check this out, I've recently started sleeping with an eye mask, and (it's probably just coincidence) but look at what Rosie did.

@1ssve I have both this and the opposite problem, but I really wouldn't want it any other way.

You ever be so self-aware it makes you socially awkward?

@Thebiglade Firefly and Frieren very quickly just became a part of me and watching them feels like coming home, meanwhile Attack on Titan feels important for reasons that are less clear to me at the moment.

What is the best TV series you’ve ever seen? And you can’t list Mad Men, Seinfeld, The Wire, Breaking Bad, GoT, sopranos, or The Office.

@Ama_Serwaaa During those times life can feel too intense already so I think you naturally try to reduce stimuli.

Why do men always get distant when they're going through a rough time?