Ringo

@ggreenwald When they wear it on their sleeve, oft they do it to deceive

This is similar to how many if not most of the loudest "social conservative" political preachers of the 1980s and 1990s ended up enmeshed in self-destructive and deeply hypocritical scandals of adultery, prostitution and the like. Or how Denny Hastert was GOP Speaker of the most socially conservative Congress in history: then went to prison for crimes relating to serial pedophilia. Beware of those who build their careers and public identities on ostentatious depictions of the moral rectitude of their private lives and assuming God's role of judging the private lives of others. It's usually about their own demons and thus often produces very dark outcomes:

@LynAldenContact It’s like Will Ferrell doing his impression of Harry Caray

Bessent’s resting face while interviewers ask their questions is certainly one to study. Makes me feel like I got to up my resting face game to whatever level this is.

@sockibomb13 There always seems to be support and resistance around $69420. I don’t know how I feel about that. Seems nice I guess

We going to hit a little green candle this month? #crypto

@PhilWMagness @Plinz "There seems to be an interesting law: bad an pretentious language drives out good and simple language" Or: words are used to manipulate, not communicate

Karl Popper on Habermas and Adorno...

@Rapahelz If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a merry Christmas

@dwarkesh_sp @Ada_Palmer Devil’s advocate: not giving away the secrets inspires folks to critically think for themselves, to come up with their own solutions

.@Ada_Palmer explains the big important difference between the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution: "Brunelleschi, who built Florence’s famous beautiful dome, deliberately burned all of his notes and schematics so that nobody else would be able to replicate his work. That is an inventor and an engineer. But this is not a servant of human progress. This is actually a saboteur of human progress - who deliberately makes progress and then tries to cut it off at that point so that no one else can be his peer."

@ThomasEWoods Words used to manipulate, not communicate. "Let me be clear" always means ‘I benefit as long as you believe this next bit’

"Let me be clear" is politicospeak for "don't believe a word I am about to say"

@Plinz @atensnut It’s the difference between watching the world go by and savoring the scenery

@atensnut I am surprised that most people supposedly read a lot slower than 600-900 wpm? Unless the language is beautiful or the text requires a lot of reflection, isn’t it boring?

Were you able to read at 900 words/minute. It gets more and more difficult. I could until the last 20-30 seconds.

@colingorrie @Plinz Ay

Written English has barely changed in 300 years. If you can read Harry Potter, you can read Robinson Crusoe (1719). The Spelling of our Tongue was in the main ſettled ere the eighteenth Century, & the Grammar has ſuffer'd but little Alteration ſince. Yet before this happy Settlement, things were exceeding ſtrange. In Shakeſpeares dayes, ſpelling was much more variable, & you ſhall finde notable differences in the grammar: "thou" could bee intimate or inſulting, depending vpon whom you ſayd it to; to chooſe amiſse had conſequences. Wende we now tuo hundred ȝeer bifore, to Chauceres tyme. It seemeth ȝit as Englisshe, but it nis nat esy to reden withouten greet connynge. Yet tuo hundred wintre er, sone after þat the Normans comen to þis londe, is Englisch on muchel wandlunge. Þe tunges work is tobroken, Frensce wordes comeþ in, and þe writunge is al totwemed. Þy furðor þu underbæc færst, þy gelicor biþ Englisc gesewen þære Deniscan spræce. Englisce bec þæs m. geare ne mæg nan mann rædan buton he sundorlice geleornad sy.

@Plinz I forget who said it but I think it was ‘find smart people who disagree with you’

Philosophers of ethics, sociologists and historians need to be high decouplers. This means that they entertain and seriously explore ideas and understand perspectives that differ from their own values. Since most people do not decouple, this exploration requires protected spaces.

@Falliblemusings @naval ‘The Beginning of Infinity’ is one of the most incredible books I’ve ever read if only for Deutche’s explanation of optimism: problems are inevitable and all come from a lack of knowledge, and all problems can be solved by creating knowledge

I used to think Sapiens was a great book. Sweeping, provocative, the kind of book that makes you feel like you finally understand the big picture of human history. It's on every CEO's bookshelf, assigned in universities, praised as a masterwork of synthesis. Yuval Noah Harari is treated as one of the serious thinkers of our time. But something nagged at me. Some passages felt off. Claims that human rights are just figments of our collective imagination, not real things, just stories we tell ourselves. That nations, laws, money, justice, doesn't exist outside our heads. That meaning itself is a delusion we've invented to cope. That we're far more powerful than ever before but not happier. That hunter-gatherers had it better because they had no dishes to wash, no carpets to vacuum, no nappies to change, no bills to pay. That sounded depressing to me, but was perhaps just the realistic scientific worldview? What it meant to see the world clearly, without comforting illusions. Then I read The Beginning of Infinity by @DavidDeutschOxf. Deutsch has a concept he calls 'bad philosophy.' Not philosophy that's merely false, but philosophy that actively prevents the growth of knowledge. Ideas that close doors rather than open them. That makes problems seem unsolvable by design. After soaking in Deutsch's framework (it's dense, a bit like digesting a delicious whale), it becomes clear: Harari's books are riddled with bad philosophy. They're smuggling nihilism in under the guise of scientific objectivity. Some examples: On meaning: "Human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose... any meaning that people inscribe to their lives is just a delusion." On human rights: "There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings." On free will: "Humans are now hackable animals. The idea that humans have this soul or spirit and they have free will, that's over." On progress: "We thought we were saving time; instead we revved up the treadmill of life to ten times its former speed." The Agricultural Revolution? "History's biggest fraud." We didn't domesticate wheat, "it domesticated us." On our cosmic significance: "If planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. Human subjectivity would not be missed." On the future: "Those who fail in the struggle against irrelevance would constitute a new 'useless class.'" Homo sapiens will likely "disappear in a century or two." This is bad philosophy. It tells us our problems are cosmically insignificant, our solutions are illusions, and that progress is neither desirable nor within our control. It's also perfect nonsense. No one would ever go back to being hunter-gatherers. Would you rather worry about your kid spending too much time on Roblox, or face the 50% chance she won't reach puberty? And our so-called "fictions"? They ended slavery. They gave women equal rights. They solved hunger. They eradicated smallpox. They turned sand into computer chips. They got us to the moon, and hopefully soon, to Mars and beyond. These "fictions" are already reshaping the universe, and over time they may become the most potent force in it. Now compare Deutsch: "Humans, people and knowledge are not only objectively significant: they are by far the most significant phenomena in nature." "Feeling insignificant because the universe is large has exactly the same logic as feeling inadequate for not being a cow." "Problems are soluble, and each particular evil is a problem that can be solved." "We are only just scratching the surface, and shall never be doing anything else. If unlimited progress really is going to happen, not only are we now at almost the very beginning of it, we always shall be." Where Harari sees a species of deluded apes stumbling toward obsolescence, Deutsch sees universal explainers, the only entities we know of capable of creating explanatory knowledge, solving problems, and potentially seeding the universe with intelligence. The difference isn't academic. Ideas shape action. If you believe life is meaningless, progress is a trap, and humans are hackable animals with no free will, how does that affect what you build? What you fight for? What you teach your children? Harari's books sell because they flatter a fashionable pessimism. They let readers feel sophisticated for seeing through the "delusions" everyone else lives by. That smug cynicism is corrosive. And it's everywhere: in schools, in media, in bestselling books. More than half of young adults now say they feel little to no purpose or meaning in life. This is what happens when you teach an entire generation bad philosophy. Less progress, less health, less wealth. Less flourishing. And ultimately, a higher chance that civilization and consciousness go extinct. Fortunately, there's another equally well-written, but much truer, account of homo sapiens, appropriately titled 'The Beginning of Infinity'. And this one smuggles no despair in by the backdoor. But let's give Harari credit where it's due. He is right about one thing: if planet Earth blew up tomorrow, we wouldn't be missed. Because there'd be no one left to miss us, just a careless universe, blindly obeying physical laws. We are the only ones who can miss, but we're not going to. We're going to aim, hit, and keep going. Full credit for the amazing meme to @Ben__Jeff

@bitcloud @katie_dey Opposite for me. Tiny tiny tiny balls rolling around below on the bowl shaped floor, then one rolls up and boom unbelievably big, like getting punched in the face by infinity

@katie_dey It was always "big big big big small small small small" I can still feel it vividly when I think about it.

so called "ball knowers" when they encounter the fever dream ball that is both small and big at the same time

@tomieinlove @Plinz Advanced?

To give you an idea of how far AI has advanced, this is when an early neural network tried to come up with new names for colors:

@Brodiesmith21 Great job, good luck on the second half

Half marathon complete

@DonaldJTrumpJr @JDVance @charliekirk11 More evidence you can’t get your story published these days without a ghost writer

Charlie Kirk’s new book - STOP, in the Name of God - is out today. The left wanted to silence @charliekirk11, but we will ensure his legacy lives on forever! Pre-order now at 45BOOKS.COM

@esaagar People who don’t own homes still pay property taxes via rent

Asking to Grok to try and own me and get owned instead

@koomen @Plinz @johnjhorton Customers are not static

Expected Parrot is a fascinating company. They use customer data to build thousands of representative agents you can survey in order to learn just about anything. Inspired by cofounder @johnjhorton's work on Silicon Sampling at MIT. Congrats John and Robin!

@Plinz Sounds like the soul as a punch card: all program, no data

Identity does not “flow” between instances. The soul is a pattern without identity. If you make a copy of the present pattern, I will be in multiple places at once, each copy diverging because of the different environment, and without experiencing each other.

I don’t believe in an identity that is based on physical continuity. Continuity is always constructed in the present moment. I exist wherever the universe meets the conditions for my existence. Consequently, a future or parallel simulation of my present mental state would be me.

@esaagar I always thought ‘Quixotic’ should be pronounced ‘kee-hoh-tic’ as in ‘Don Quixote’. I will die on this hill

One of my favorite parts about working for myself is having no editor to nix my favorite words: Imbroglio, quixotic, vociferous, trenchant

@TerribleMaps Pringles states need to take a hard look in the mirror if their diabetes will still let them

Most popular potato chip brand by U.S. state