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Cake day: June 25th, 2023

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  • Because religion evolved to thrive in us.

    It’s like a parasite, and our mind is the host. It competes with other mind-parasites like other religions, or even scientific ideas. They compete for explanatory niches, for feeling relevant and important, and maybe most of all for attention.

    Religions evolved traits which support their survival. Because all the other variants which didn’t have these beneficial traits went extinct.

    Like religions who have the idea of being super-important, and that it’s necessary to spread your belief to others, are ‘somehow’ more spread out than religions who don’t convey that need.

    This thread is a nice collection of traits and techniques which religions have collected to support their survival.

    This perspective is based on what Dawkins called memetics. It’s funny that this idea is reciprocally just another mind-parasite, which attempted to replicate in this comment.















  • Is that an attitude of expectation? No one is obliged to explain their voting behavior to you.

    We can suggest to voters to also leave a comment, explaining how that would lead to an overall more pleasant experience. But you cannot demand replies.

    I can imagine some of the downvotes of this comment come from this attitude, which can seem entitled and inappropriate.


  • Headline:

    TERRIBLE THINGS HAPPENED TO MONKEYS AFTER GETTING NEURALINK IMPLANTS, ACCORDING TO VETERINARY RECORDS

    What are these terrible things?

    Up to a dozen monkeys suffered grisly fates after receiving a Neuralink implant, including brain swelling and partial paralysis.

    First is the case of the monkey “Animal 20.” In December 2019, an internal part of the brain implant being inserted into the primate “broke off” during surgery. Later that night, the monkey scratched at the implant site, drawing blood, and yanked on the implant, partially dislodging it. Follow-up surgery discovered that the wound was infected, but that the placement of the implant prevented treatment. The monkey was euthanized the next month.

    Before that, a female monkey designated “Animal 15” began to press her head against the ground after receiving the brain implant, pick at the site until it bled, and eventually lost coordination, shivering when personnel entered the room. Scientists discovered she had brain bleeding, and in March 2019, she too was euthanized.

    The following year, a primate called “Animal 22” was put down in March 2020 after its brain implant became so loose that the screws attaching it to the skull “could easily be lifted out,” according to a necropsy report.

    “The failure of this implant can be considered purely mechanical and not exacerbated by infection,” the necropsy states.

    As Wired notes, that statement alone seemingly contradicts Musk’s claims that no monkeys directly died from Neuralink brain implants.

    And so would the account of an ex-Neuralink employee, who told Wired that Musk’s claims that the monkeys were already terminally ill are “ridiculous,” even a “straight-up fabrication.”

    “We had these monkeys for a year or so before any surgery was performed,” the ex-employee said.

    The testimony of an anonymous scientist conducting research at CNPRC seems to corroborate the ex-employee’s allegations.

    “These are pretty young monkeys,” they told the magazine. “It’s hard to imagine these monkeys, who were not adults, were terminal for some reason.”



  • As per the article, it goes like this:

    1. AI is trained on publicly available data
    2. AI does not credit or compensate original authors
    3. People don’t like their work being used without
    4. People share less publicly
    5. Public spaces desert

    And simultaneously, AI content of poor quality drowns what is left.

    In terms of arguments, have you heard about control / alignment problem or x-risk?