CritRats!

I think AI risk is a real existential concern, and I claim that the CritRat counterarguments that I've heard so far (keywords: universality, person, moral knowledge, education, etc.) don't hold up.

Anyone want to hash this out with

I know some people who seem (to me) more concerned with receiving VALIDATION for their mental health issues than solving them.

They seem to care most about other people BELIEVING their problems are real.

I'm curious about this.

Like, it's more important to them that people know how debilitating their anxiety is, than to overcome the anxiety.

Or it's important to them that others believe that they're actually depressed, not "just sad."

Or they want people buy into the narrative that they've been traumatized, and might be something like offended if someone minimizes that.

What do we make of this?

1. One possibility is that if solving the problems seems hopeless or even just really hard, you need external support to be able to cope.

If no one cuts you slack because of your mental health stuff, maybe you're in a really bad place, so you need people to believe you.

@JeffLadish I think because the reward structure of being a bio-ethicist rewards saying level-headed sounding, cautious-sounding, conventional wisdom?

Though I'm not sure why that is.

I guess if you want to radically improve the world, you mostly don't go into a field that is about opining on other people's work, you go into something like Engineering and do the work?

I note that Nick Bostrom is what a Bioethicist should be: he thinks hard about tradeoffs and risks, and crystalizes concepts like the Unilateralist's curse and black ball technologies.

But this is starting from a place of "The world could be vastly better. How do we get there?"

I don't know why bioethics doesn't look more like a field of (less smart) Bostroms.

I guess because everyone's disgust reactions are triggered by the actually good proposals, and in order to make those proposals the consensus of the field a lot of people have to bite the bullet and stick their neck out saying "I know this sounds crazy / absurd / vaguely evil...

I was reading something that suggested that trauma "tries" to spread itself. ie that the reason why intergenerational trauma is a thing is that the traumatized part in a parent will take action to recreate that trauma in the child.

This model puts the emphasis on the the parent's side: the trauma is actively "trying" to spread.

This is in contrast to my previous (hypothetical) model for IGT, which puts the emphasis on the child's side: kids are sponges that are absorbing huge amounts of info, including via very subtle channels. So they learn the unconscious reactions of the people around them.

(I say "hypothetical", because all while this sort of thing is in my hypothesis space, I haven't seen clear enough evidence that intergenerational trauma is a meaningful category that I solidly believe it is real.

More like, "here's a story for how this could work.")

On first glance, I was skeptical of this "active trauma" story.

Why on earth would trauma be agenty, in that way? It sounds like too much to swallow.

There's a particular kind of romantic partnership, with a certain sort of person, that I've wanted since I became a self-aware, directed agent at around age 15.

Empirically, this kind of relationship has been hard to achieve. It hasn't worked out yet, at least.

And this sometimes leaves me wondering if my standards are unreasonable.

In years past that desire was often very alive.

These days, I'm rarely directly or viscerally in contact with it.

I sometimes contemplate aiming for some other kind of romantic and/or sexual relationship instead. In part because I might be more effective if I...I don't know, got laid more? But that's not really the thing. More like, if I had someone around whom I could regularly relax.

But mostly, I don't pursue those alternative relationship-setups out of a sense of something like loyalty to myself + a vague sense of wrongness and/or sadness about it. It often feels like giving up or giving in.

[I might elaborate on the wrongness sometime.]

What does Gold- Backed mean?
The Chinese Elders have been accumulating gold for hundreds of years. They are gold-rich. Some of their gold was loaned to the Central Banking System so that it could fund the rebuilding of Europe after the many war-torn years from World Wars I and II

BTW they never returned it but used it to start their financial empire to enslave humanity. This is the Central Bank Banking System./2

Maybe this is why one of the conditions to use their gold for the QFS is the demise and full disclosure of the Central Bank banking system before the RV can take place./3

The Elders have caves of hidden gold and are now using it to gold-back the currencies in the QFS for every country in the world. It is important to understand that the QFS and the money it is about to release is all brand-new currency./4

It was designed by the Alliance to fund the new financial system that will reset all Currencies of the world to Gold-Backed currency./5

Shocking fact: Millennial men are less likely to work than any other age and gender demographic in America.

Today, there are 500,000 young men missing from the U.S. workforce.

Research suggests video games & improved leisure tech plays a role in the problem. 👇 Thread:

Following the 2007 to 2009 recession, 25 to 34 year old men exited high school with fewer middle-skill job opportunities than years prior.

During this time, we saw an increased number of men living with parents & choosing unemployment over lower paying jobs.

It's estimated that 24M millennials live w/ their parents.

1 in 4 living in their parents’ home neither go to school nor work.

What's more surprising? 9 in 10 who lived with their parents a year ago are still living there w/ no plans to leave.

Economists are calling millennial men a lost generation.

According to economist David Dorn:

“If you get to the point where you’re turning 30, you’ve never held a real job and you don’t have a college education, then it is very hard to recover at that point.”

Economists suggest this choosiness is a generational trait.

Forbes interview w/ a high school educated man:

"I’m very quick to get frustrated when people refuse to pay me what I’m worth."
“People feel that they have choice nowadays, and they

Demystifying Ghazwa-e-Hind. A #thread.

A recent video of Shoaid Akhter surfaced in social media creating a lot of controversy where the #Pakistani Cricketer can be seen suggesting invasion of India by using the term Ghazwa-e-Hind.
Radicalization of sportsmen seen off late
(1/10)

Some radical Islamic preachers believes that Ghazwa-e-Hind means a “Holy War against India”. As per this irrational & profane concept, there will be a fierce battle to secure victory over #India.
#Kashmir
(2/10)

#Pakistan-based terror groups, like JeM have been using Ghazwa-e-Hind as a Hadith to recruit, fund and justify its terror strikes as a religious holy war against #India.
#Kashmir
(3/10)

Some machiavellian people claim it is a prophecy that Muslim warriors will wage war against the #India.
Jaish & others falsely propagate that Jihad against India is considered holy in Islam & that those participating in it will be granted an easy entry into paradise.
(4/10)

However prolific scholars says that this is a made-up interpretation of some verse in The Holy Quran to mislead the gullible youth of #Pakistan into picking up arms and fighting its Army's personal battle against #India.
#Kashmir
(5/10)

Thread: This is a long thread about my wife's grand-father: Vinayak Apte.
Born, brought up & lived in Pune. Aptewada, Sadashiv Peth. Qualified as an engineer in 1920s or so. Married around same time.
I promise you this is worth reading, so settle down with your cup of tea....1/n

Around 1921, young Vinayak writes to Mahatma Gandhi expressing his desire to join Bapu & work for freedom struggle.
Bapu writes back saying sending money for the ticket (₹5) & get your backside up here (not exactly these words, but you know what I mean!).
Bapu adds a PS...2/n

"If you change your mind, please return the ₹5 by money order to Sabarmati Ashram" Typical Bapu, you might say! Careful with money.
Vinayak quits his job & decides to go to Sabarmati. Entire extended Apte clan is horrified. Joining that fakir? Giving up your job? Ostracised.

Vinayak goes to Sabarmati with young wife & 2-3 yr old daughter. Wifey not impressed at all, bcoz on arriving there they are assigned to separate living quarters (men & women), celibacy & every1 (incl her, a Brahmin woman) was expected to clean toilets! Horror of horrors..3/n

Wife never forgave Vinayak & Bapu. She had married a engineer & was looking forward to a prosperous life. Life on other hand, was full of austerity. Everyone had to work & was paid a pittance. 5 am wake up.Cook. Clean. Khadi sarees (which btw weigh a ton!) & evening prayers...4/n