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  If someone does something you think is wrong or bad, ask yourself: what would have inspired them to instead have done the right or good alternative? Look deeper into human motivation, to understand human choices and actions.

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  Intuition is fraught with danger, in a world so different from the one our ancestors evolved in. To the point that many people deny that the ancient past, and our evolutionary history, even exist. Instead of recognizing their own maladaptive behaviours, many people just want to blame some scapegoat, and find some saviour to make it all better. I’m doubtful that people can be trained, at scale, to overcome these intuitive failures. Intuition is a self-preservation system, and the first thing it...

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  It's almost like, if you give anyone your personal data, you give everyone your personal data. Even the government shares your data with anyone who asks. In the future, people will have no control over their identities. Maybe it's the twilight of individuality. We will be reduced to our assigned roles, our unchanging characteristics. Only the ruling class will retain their individuality and rights. Neo-feudalism. The new serfdom. Very few people realize what is happening.

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  Most people see most people as objects. We don't have much choice in the matter. The challenge is to know that they are people, even if you don't have the bandwidth to empathize with them. This is a hard ask. We evolved from non-sentient life. Empathy is a late-stage development. It required sentience (and perhaps co-evolved?). It served those who deployed it assiduously. Is there a selection mechanism that would benefit individuals that showed universal empathy? I can't imagine o...

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  The only thing authoritarians like about democracy is how easy it can be to fool the public into electing an anti-democratic government. It's how Hitler took over Germany. And it keeps happening. People seem unable to understand that democracy is reversible. Mostly becaue they are checked out, and too lazy to do the bare minimum to protect their rights. Complacency can be a terminal disease.

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  I expect people to have irrational expectations, and consequently, to act irrationally and unpredictably. (Including myself, I guess.) I would like to know, if it is possible to know, what reasonable expectations for human behaviour might be. Other than to have no specific expectations at all. Just when you think people are predictable, they surprise you. The difference, really, is whether your expectations are for individuals or populations. Like predicting the motions of particles in a gas...

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  An organization made up of exceptionally skilled designers and builders, led by a self-deluded fool, will build the wrong thing, and fail. #llms

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  Lots of people want a society free of greed and power-mongers. But even if you could build such a thing, you'd have to cope with natural human diversity and replacement. Someone always rediscovers the benefits—real or imaginary—of hoarding power. It's a feature of the human—animal—brain. Every new generation has its share of psychopaths and megalomaniacs. Delusions of grandeur appear spontaneously. A society that can survive internal defections must be able to recognize and suppress su...

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  Most of what happens in software production is a distraction from things of import. It is a game: a conflict between aesthetic factions. Much of the rest is malevolent, designed specifically to abuse, victimize, and extract. Very little is truly helpful anymore. Software development is now mostly pointless at best, pathologically harmful at worst.

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  The sad reality is that a lot of people are obsessed with exerting control over others, for no reason but the thrill of having and exercising power. Power for power's sake. An emotional drive which subordinates the healthy drive to help and care for others. But consider how humanity evolved. (Everything about us must be understood in the context of our evolutionary history!) It is optimal for an organism (or social group) to harvest energy and resources from the easiest—least energetically...

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  How do you equalize the imbalance of power without starting a war? Is class war—civil war—inevitable? Is it desirable? Is it the only realistic option? Or is it just that we are too impatient, and unwilling to look for better solutions? Is it that the revolutionaries lack any organizing principles, other than anger and retribution? Or do they lack any concrete, inspirational vision, other than revenge and abstract ideas of freedom? A better society—a better world—requires more people to activ...

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  Creatine, ketamine, whatever!

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  "When all is said and told, the "naturalness" with which we use our native tongues boils down to the ease with which we can use them for making statements the nonsense of which is not obvious." The essay is nonstop bangers. I am firmly on his side. While symbolic language is no guarantee—and any given instance has its strenghts and weaknesses—it is a requirement to be unambiguous and definitive. The exact qualities required when defining a process. Doesn't matter if the...

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  Does Microsoft destroy everything they touch?

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  Just cracked a bottle of Featherstone Onyx 2020. Any other #niagarawine drinkers on this network?

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  I’m skeptical of basically every theory based on “feelings”. Emotions are your subconscious lying to you, as often as not.

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  Entitlement is a bad look. But all too common. I get it. The world is not fair. But bitching won’t change it. Do something. Even if it’s just inspiring someone with a positive vision. But bitching ain’t that. Only thing worse than pointless complaining is a complainer circle jerk.

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  RE: https://mas.to/@dmacphee/117014790449463409 I haven't read the article, but the quotation alone is worth boosting. I used to work for this person. He has, shall we say, socialization issues. But he also has a (quite small) cult of personality, which prevents many people from recognizing his pathological qualities.

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  I keep waiting for people to share their ideas for how to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Other than a firehose of dire facts, shouting, blaming, and scolding. What was that they say about doing the same thing, and expecting a different result?

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  It's always worth remembering that people are *inherently* selfish. Also, not that good at predicting problematic outcomes of their selfish choices. People are *biased*. They are not reasonable, nor rational, nor open-minded. So many problems arise not so much from that, but form irrationally expecting people to be otherwise.

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  Basing your life and identity on fandom is a risky choice, in the long run.

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  Evil people only have power because stupid people adopt their narratives, take their money, obey their orders, and buy their products. What is the cure for stupid?

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  RE: https://mastodon.world/@davidho/116956653915957598 People saying this writing is slop, without evidence. Whatever, the information is valuable. Our governments should be paying for this kind of work. Except our governments are just as corrupt as these greedy corporations. The site also has a “ledger” of trustworthy companies and their brands. But very USA-centric. I hope it expands to Canadian brands. One problem may be that brands are increasingly easy to generate as new “fronts” for th...

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  Birch seedling in my backyard.

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  I feel bad for the wildlife. Even far from the fires, they still have to breathe the toxic air. #wildfires

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  I can’t get over how “Corsi-Rosenthal box” sounds like a science fiction macguffin for warping time and space. In stark contrast to the simplicity and everyday practicality (in these weird times) of the actual thing.

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  RE: https://indieweb.social/@jbz/116928835677520503 I know it’s uncool to like centralized power generation, but this is bad-ass.

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  RE: https://indieweb.social/@jbz/116922991823197987 Emblematic of… things…

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  Everything consequential is now a collective action problem. Our future is now utterly dependent on whether we can learn to work together. But we have spent decades internalizing an anti-collective philisophy: we should all act as atomic units, driven only by personal appetites, and coordinated wholly through financial transactions. The next few decades may be very painful. How might things improve?

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  RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/116917430203992463 Ignoring the browser, and its interpreters and renderers, which are a few orders of magnitude bigger than DOS and BIOS.