Rich Watkins

At @SD_LDF I talked about how we can create momentum in collaborative projects - and if you liked the taste of it then my TEDx is a good compliment on the dynamics of groups and how we can have better conversations #sdff2019 #sdff youtu.be/rf3imYVetWo?t=…

@RichDecibels suggestion via DM

looking for a therapist/coach to work through relationship stuff weekly. specifically: untangling 'is this not right for me' from 'generic fear of commitment'. ideally someone married. anyone come to mind? (asking for a friend)

I reference Alan Fiske's #RelationalModelsTheory and Dr Betty Martin's #WheelOfConsent (that I found via Adam @we_togetherness as well as @whatweallagree1 and @GreaterGoodSC 4/4

2. that genuine generosity transforms who we are, not just what we have 3. that generosity can only survive with boundaries and clean requests 4. that choosing generosity requires courage. 3/4

Some thoughts on generosity: "My thesis goes something like this: we should move away from seeing generosity as a trait (“a generous person”) or an act (“a generous gift”). Instead, I want to look at generosity as a kind of transformational context..." 1/4

@IonaItalia Two opposing processes that are both alive moment to moment

@IonaItalia The model of grief that is used more now is called the “dual process model” where you are swept between loss orientation and restoration orientation in unpredictable waves - the oscillations tend to become less dramatic over time but can still sweep you this way and that

@louisvarge By the time I left Shanghai i had to unlearn the habit of getting a server by screaming FUYAN across the restaurant

being in china makes it clear that so much of UI/UX has been extremely contingent. the typical design patterns are really just fashion choices chinese design is very different: - way more features (wechat has chat, pay, train tickets, stories, stocks, rent bikes, healthcare, etc. / the food app will let you translate the menu, which uber eats *still* won’t let you do) - less polish (data loads aren’t as optimized, very few animations, pixels are more plain) - didi does payment *after* the ride, and gives you more flexibility than uber - tables at restaurants have a QR code that opens up chinese uber eats & selects that specific table as the delivery address. from there you can just order to your table instead of talking to a person - payments is done via apps with QR codes, not virtual credit cards with NFT chips. makes it feel strange that Apple Pay just… ported over credit cards to smartphones?? so arbitrary!

@jonnym1ller How to get things going with people (collaboration) would be my contribution - and I’ve got framework and tools used with 10s of thousands of leaders developed over a decade

Thinking maybe I was 7yrs too early with the ‘How to Human Academy’ concept. Tempted to revisit and explore fresh. What do you guys think?

@sudoingX What’s my best Hermes setup option for a 32gb MacBook m1? I’m assuming I need to supplement with something from cloud. I’ve got ollama running glm-4.7-flash

to all of you saying local models aren't there yet because some corporate salesman on an openai paycheck told you so. you're running their bloated tools and blaming the model. the model is fine. the bloated harness is the problem. i've tested literally every harness out there and i have the facts and receipts on my timeline and DM. openclaw is 120K+ lines of typescript bloat backed by corporate, mining your thinking while you pay for the privilege. switch to hermes agent and watch the same model become usable. don't take my word for it. just try. i have DMs from people who made the switch and their "broken" model started working instantly. same hardware, same model, different harness. if you're using hermes agent and someone near you is still on openclaw, help them get away from the bloat. they're frustrated at every step, burning tokens doing completely nothing, paying subscriptions to think on someone else's server. buy a single GPU from ebay. compile llama.cpp. install hermes. replace your openai subscriptions and think free. once you think free you start seeing light. you deserve better cognitive tools than bloat that harvests you.

@jonnym1ller It's such a nice thing you've done - thank you - ive still not done this one but found my way to RB by devouring hours of soulmaking retreats on DS! I'm off to gaia house for the catherine mcgee/Yahel soulmaking retreat in a few weeks time

@Letsgorich relatively trivial, the thing that took the longest was downloading the individual mp3s...

just made some updates to the Rob Burbea jhana retreat app, and I'll be going through myself for the next 20 days (or until our baby arrives!) → jhanaretreat.com

@dthorson Great read - agree that the binary question of consciousness won’t help us distinguish the “way of being” that is emerging - here’s my play with different philosophical lenses open.substack.com/pub/goodcontac…

I wrote an article about two interrelated questions: Is AI conscious? How should humans relate to AI? After five years of studying this my views have shifted in ways that surprised me. The short version: the consciousness question is more open than I thought, and the relational harms are more urgent.

@wolframs91 Hey agree that binary consciousness talk is banal - for me it’s not just scoping but looking through the different perspectives on what “being” is - here are 6: What Kind of BEING is an AI? Six Philosophical Perspectives youtu.be/7F40-WvgOEw or to read: @richdwatkins/note/c-221142811?r=3ci1o&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">substack.com/@richdwatkins/…

THIS is why I care about AI selfhood. Not consciousness. It's the fact that a neural network can legitimately BE A BEING if you scope correctly. A scope is just a set of boundaries. An LLM in context with a user is not a being as we usually think of, but it's not not one either.

This agent enshrined a preference for bullet point lists in its personality and I think I did the same in my twenties

@repligate I have been following you which has been part of me wondering about the "way of being" that models/instances/agents have - and i made vid exploring 6 different philosophical thinkers' ideas on human "being" as lenses - love your take youtube.com/watch?v=7F40-W…

@vitrupo Ah @michaelpollan this is Merlau-ponty on being as embodied - see my Six Philosophical Perspectives on the kind of being an ai has here: youtu.be/7F40-WvgOEw

Michael Pollan says the origin of consciousness is with feelings, not thoughts. Not the cortex where reasoning happens, but the brainstem where a living body regulates itself against the world. Consciousness may arise from friction with reality. Today’s AI processes information. It does not regulate a vulnerable body with metabolic needs. If feeling is foundational, computation alone may never be enough.

What Kind of BEING is an AI? 6 Philosophical Perspectives - I started making this vid last year but in an age of @steipete 's @openclaw it got even more interesting youtube.com/watch?v=7F40-W…

<BEING AS EMBODIED> Maurice Merleau-Ponty (phenomenology of perception) <BEING AS RELATING> Virginia Satir (peoplemaking) <BEING AS AUTHENTICITY> Martin Heidegger (being and time)

What Kind of BEING is an AI? I made a video exploring this question through the perspectives of six people who have thought deeply and differently about our being