I've been here almost two decades and it is still amazing to me! One of my favourite parts of Australia (and I have a lot of favourite parts)

Me when I think about how my lifelong affection for AI as an idea is poisoned every day by the bullshit pretender they are using to ruin everything I love

Haha yes, the alt text notes that I have refused to feed it and that is precisely why -- learned the hard way never to set the expectation of food, lest they retaliate when the expectation is not met 😂

Very apt!

Great article. The files show evidence they were corresponding and visiting even through 2019, see thread below

Despite the title, I thought this obituary did a decent job of that as well (plus, was written from beyond the grave, a hater energy I can get behind 100% haha)

Spending too much time last night searching around the Epstein files and seeing who exactly was buddy-buddy with him 🤔

Yeah. I think I dislike "trial by social media" because there is no mechanism for evenly weighting all evidence and at least trying to avoid mob thinking.

But it often happens bc there is a vaccuum caused by a lack of a trustworthy system for actually bringing people to justice. I totally get that.

I think I was pretty autistic about the way I thought about religion (and lots of things) as a kid -- never even occurred to me to think about the people and their motivations until I was older. So I didn't notice or internalise hypocrisy.

It just annoyed me because it didn't make logical sense 😀

Very probably!

I also got into trouble for impertinent questions but they weren't about interpersonal dynamics, which I was unaware of. My "tricky words" were about theological issues (e.g., saying the Garden of Eden was an unfair setup and if God was good He wouldn't have made it that way 😂)

Interesting. I was raised pretty religious (Catholic, but in a very evangelical/Mormon area) but was anti-social and disengaged early enough that I didn't really catch onto the social dynamics until I was an adult and well out of it.

And at that point I didn't know what was projection or inference.

Perhaps being an addiction researcher has left you with a more (appropriately) cynical view of humanity that I'm only catching up on 😊

Like, I thought that might happen, but only a tiny fraction of the time at best. That's where I'm rethinking: not a tiny fraction at all

Yeah, that's what I used to figure it mostly was, and I'm sure it is still this a lot of the time.

But I'm now thinking it might *also* be personal worry/guilt, at least more than I used to think it was, in more cases than I used to think were plausible.

It feels uncharitable because I'm sure that in some cases it is.

I don't think "trial by social media" is a good thing -- for anyone -- and to the extent that that's what cancel culture is, it's not good.

But... yeuch. Look at who was buddy-buddy with Epstein, and tell me there's no possible link.

Guesswork was needed because he didn't always refer to people with full names, correctly spelled haha

It was probably not a good use of my time, but I was stuck in a hyperfixation loop. And it's a depressing list.

(Don't want to share here in case I'm wrong; some are guesses that I am pretty sure of but I wouldn't want to slander someone in public on the basis of even a very well-founded guess)