On 11/13/23 12:06 PM, glen wrote:
You might want to check the Gurometer. Lex has an entry:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Oe-af4_OmzLJavktcSKGfP0wmxCX0ppP8n_Tvi9l_yc/edit?usp=sharing
While Lex's scores are relatively low compared to some of the wackos
on the list, we are known by association. And many of Lex's guests
score relatively high.
Fascinating resource, thanks! You are a veritable font (fount) of
things like this that I should probably be able to find for myself.
I had to look a little to find a key to the columns of the table, I
don't know if this is the preferred or only one, but it seemed close
enough to be useful for my purposes:
https://techhenzy.com/gurometer/
I haven't listened to enough of Lex's podcasts (did I mention 1-2 hours
each?!) to be able to evaluate what his "coupling" is with his guests...
even without the GuruMeter I felt that theme ("known by association")
from the more prominent/recent interviewees he has engaged... but my
contingent judgement of the *content* and *style* of the interviews
counterbalanced that almost to an extreme. Which is why I brought it
up here.
Implicit but likely opaque/arcane to your own references to community
(self) policing and ?agonism?, I feel (with limited experience so far)
that Fridman may well provide a regulating role within some community
(of Galaxy-Brain Gurus?)...
I doubt I will get the 'round t'uits but it seems like there is a tensor
product to be explored among these folks and their various interactions
with one another... something interesting might emerge? Maybe this
only occurs to me because Lex is more of a coupling agent than a primary
source of any ideas/theories/positions from what I've seen so far. I
haven't investigated the GuruMeter guys enough to understand their
methods but I take it for granted they are not unserious in this work.
On 11/13/23 10:08, Steve Smith wrote:
It seems (maybe only to me?) that "will" is what defines the
intersection of memory and imagination? The free-will-less-ness-ers
among us (ala Sopolsky
<https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/24/determined-life-without-free-will-by-robert-sapolsky-review-the-hard-science-of-decisions>)
may find this an entirely specious thing to consider or discuss
(though without free will, what means "specious" or "discuss" or
"consider" sans free-will?).
I recently discovered Lex Fridman's podcasts
<https://lexfridman.com/podcast/> and was quite surprised by several
things (albeit with very limited sampling... all of his most recent
interview with Musk and a bit of his interview with Isaacson and
about half of the Harari one): I don't significantly disagree with
the general mistrust of Musk in his Autistic-ish style and affect,
but I'd say that Lex brings out the best in him, showing him to be
capable of thoughtful and even empathetic-ish observations. As I
understand it (from my reading of Isaacson's biography of Musk)
brother Kimball may also be a significantly similar "regulating
influence" on Elon. Grimes maybe, maybe not. The other mothers of
his children, same-same... probably each and all of them for a period
of time or within certain frameworks. And again, same with the
children... though maybe projection on my part having been moderately
well-regulated in several modes by my own children during each of
their phases (right up to their current middle-agedness).
As an aside, Fridman's other interviews also all sound potentially
fascinating... though I cringe at the fact/thought of interviews with
Netanyahu, KanYE, Kushner, Rogan... the commentary I've read
around those interviews tends to skew toward "how could you normalize
(amplify?) those A**holes by even giving them the time of the
day???!!!?". Lex's interviews are definitely long-form (1-2 hours)
compared to today's tik-tok/ad-jingle/bumper-sticker/snark-pith
calibrated sound-bitery. I find myself avoiding them for this
reason (not wanting to commit to listening past some of my own
prejudices long enough to hear what they are really about?) but
recognize (and have already begun to practice) that as with long-form
written journalism, I can take it in bits, like I might eat a rich
holiday meal... not try to gulp it down quickly in one sitting like a
TV-dinner (for you X-ers, "Hot-Pocket", and Millenials == "??") for
the mind.
My recent fascination with Deacon's "Teleodynamics", Jeff Hawkins'
take on the structure/function of the neocortex and Ian McGilchrist's
updated take on brain bicameralism (Master and Emissary
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary>) feeds
into this question of the intersection of memory and imagination and
the implications of Transformer Models and other Generative Models in
general. My direct experience with GPT-4 and DALL-E is significant
(many 10s of hours of engagement) but still a drop in the bucket.
There are times when I feel that all I've done is engaged with an
incredibly high-dimensional french-curve/bezier spline and thereby
been able to smoothly interpolate/extrapolate a handful of
interesting (to me) data points into what feels like a powerful
elaboration of what is implied by said curve-fit in the past (unknown
knowns?) and future (unknown unknowns)? When I'm not totally
enraptured by the (apparent?) novelty (relative to my
expectations/predictions) of it's responses I'm generally
disappointed at it's limited creativity... and left puzzling over
the question of "novelty vs creativity".
Bumble,
- Steve
On 11/13/23 10:27 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
It seems to me that neither Musk and Thiel are interested in the
unknown. They are interested in doing things they can already
imagine. For Musk I thought that was because it is how he raises
money. Now I think he is not imagining consciousness in a, say, a
transporter pattern buffer, he imagines life on the Enterprise
bridge in his body. Rockets are comparatively science fictiony for
people that can't imagine transport without a car, so he gets some
points for that.
On Nov 13, 2023, at 10:11 AM, glen<geprope...@gmail.com> wrote:
There's an interesting parallel between the Stross and Gellman
pieces: Stross both laments and implicitly appreciates the
bureaucracy of getting a book published, where Thiel's aggrieved by
the bureaucracy of societal evolution.
It reminds me of the engineering-vs-biology dichotomy (yes, false,
like all of them) I came to appreciate after being exposed to
enough biomimetics (to kill a horse). Some of us see the world and
think about how to change it, build a better world ... or perhaps
destroy the world, whatever floats your inner engineer. And some of
us see the world and are awestruck, hypnotized, baffled by its
qualities (whether beautiful or horrifying). It's easy to give the
latter a pass and denigrate the former when confronted with, say,
butterflies or the Grand Canyon. And it's easy to give the former a
pass when confronted with poverty and war.
But the next time you're at the DMV or arguing with some poor
sucker manning the phones at the IRS, it can be useful to remember
the falseness of the dichtomy. Similarly, when all you want to do
is sleep under the stars and those damned gnats keep homing into
your ears, it can be useful to think like an engineer.
Policy and science fiction aren't that far apart.
On 11/10/23 13:46, Marcus Daniels wrote:
original.png
Peter Thiel Is Taking a Break From
Democracy<https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/11/peter-thiel-2024-election-politics-investing-life-views/675946/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share>
On 11/10/23 11:26, Roger Critchlow wrote:
Text of Charlie Stross' talk to Next Frontiers Applied Fiction Day
in Stuttgart on Friday November 10th, 2023, concerning where the
techno-industrial elite found their horrible philosophies/secular
religions.
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html
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