Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 5h

>luck so terrible people should keep their distance

The anti-Teela Brown

1

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 6h

Great man theory of history out, gross man theory of history in?

1

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 16h

Probably the closest I got to a Nazi phase was playing Nod in C&C.

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 16h

(Maybe seems like a non-sequitur, but I think my point is that I'm not sure language about LLMs is why people think LLMs are sentient. Heck maybe it's often just the case that language about LLMs is why *we think* people think LLMs are sentient.)

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 16h

I know there's a lot of literature about fictional objects, but I don't think anyone worries that someone will be genuinely confused about whether *the character* Sherlock Holmes is a sentient person with free will when we say he solves crimes. And we even cry when our fictional characters "die"!

1 1

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 17h

The Leviathan, an early draft:

A mass of ∀ symbols (the universal quantifier, said "for all") against a mass of opposing awls.

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 1d

But it did work! I used to be a misanthrope. I used to hate everybody. Now I only hate myself.

Leen McBeans 🦇 @leenmcbeans.bsky.social · 1d

Quick reminder that if hating yourself actually changed who you are in the ways you want, it would’ve worked by now

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 1d

The Canadians also famously renovated the White House.

1 3 73

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 1d

There's a whole West Wing episode about how 6e isn't violated in this instance! ;)

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 1d

Agreed, there are no morals for anyone.

1

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 2d

I only saw the first one but my impression of how the genie operated was "if you exist near the genie and aren't an enlightened bodhisattva who has transcended desire, the genie has permission to kill you in a horrible way that is tangentially inspired by something you may have once wanted."

4

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 3d

Please stop telling this lie. You are not using an honest definition of CEO.

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 3d

CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1965: 20-1

CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1990: 75-1

CEO-to-worker pay ratio today: 280-to-1

Trickle-down economics was always a sham.

Nothing has ever trickled down.

1

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 3d

Every academic talk in film:

"Man has ever sought to answer the question: what is 2+2?"

*behind speaker, cave paintings*

"The Greeks thought it might be 5."

*medieval painting of Archimedes in a tub*

"But in the field of additology, we're learning the answer may be 4."

*thunderous applause*

1

Reposted by Ori Vandewalle

Indivisible ❌👑 @indivisible.org · 3d

This is what democracy looks like. #NoKings

2.3K 29K 89K

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 3d

It's 2% of the total population, yes, but a much higher percentage of physically able, healthy adults who knew about the protest, didn't have to work, and didn't fear retribution for being there.

1 9

Reposted by Ori Vandewalle

Ryan Boyd @ryanboyd.bsky.social · 3d

Sorry to be corny but the aerial shots of these crowds are almost indescribably moving and hopeful

16 1.1K 9.4K

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 3d

People who have one heart attack are significantly more likely to have a second heart attack than people who don't.

4

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 4d

Um excuse me Qui-Gon Jinn literally says he's not on Tatooine to free slaves and in fact acquires one as part of a business transaction.

7

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 4d

Yeah but they still somehow dislike 434 of them.

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 6d

So much of what he writes is just: xkcd.com/1112/

Think Logically

xkcd.com

1

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 6d

Also, there have been roughly a hundred billion humans so far but the Earth can probably only support maybe a couple hundred million hunter-gatherers at a time. So in the year 2025 your options are: (a) not existing or (b) having a credit score.

1

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 6d

Is this the earliest example of "but I'm built different"?

1

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 6d

Haven't watched trailer yet, but a very common complaint about DS9 back in the day was that it's not Star Trek if you're just sitting in a space station and not out there, you know, trekking. Nowadays DS9 is considered great, but they also eventually got the Defiant and did some trekking.

1

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 7d

Every time I see someone on bsky describing themselves as working class:

Image of Steve Buscemi wearing a backwards baseball cap, hoodie, and shirt with the text "MUSIC BAND" on it, carrying a a skateboard over his shoulder, with a caption that reads: "HOW DO YOU DO, FELLOW POORS?"

1

Ori Vandewalle @orivandewalle.bsky.social · 7d

Pearls of Wisdom from Eric Trump. If you dig too deep:
- you find yourself (not a Balrog)
- a felon can't live in your house (they might be able to escape?)
- you could end up in Russia (pretty straightforward... from the South Pacific)
- you might travel back in time (some kind of wormhole?)

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 7d

Eric Trump: "We found out that Jack Smith was actually planting classified folders in Mar-a-Lago"