I’ve heard (debated) etymology that “man” is gender neutral because in older English, “male” would have been “wereman” and “female” would have been “wifman,” so the “man” morpheme just designated “human” and the prefix designated the gender.

Which does imply that "were"wolves are exclusively male, and a female wolf person really should be called a wifwolf.

“Gee I’m so grateful for all this trauma.”

For me it was the natural conclusion from coming to accept a no-collapse interpretation of quantum mechanics. Before that, the ghost in the machine seemed to me like maybe it could be hiding somewhere in the spooky apparent randomness of wavefunction collapse, but if the universal wavefunction fully and deterministically describes the evolution in time of all particles everywhere, and there are no terms for “thoughts and feelings and free will” in that equation, then they are epiphenomena.

And if we were talking about whether it were real, or whether people believed it in those specific terms, you’d have a point. But since we’re talking about your assertion that major earth religions are “directly excluded” by that definition of “higher beings,” i still fail to see the exclusion.

No one, I think, is in my tree.

I mean, it must be high or low.

Turns out that one was actually universal.

Run command: “Fiat Lux”

Warning: it will take 7 days to complete operation. Continue?

“This had better be good.”

“Fuck it, I’m tired of waiting, I’ll come back on the 8th day.”

“Oh, this IS good.”

“What are these stupid apes doing? Fine, I’ll educate them myself.”

Instantiate avatar: “Jesus_Nazareth”

Which part is directly excluded?

If we had the technological power, would humans run simulations of universes with Planck length precision? Obviously yes. So extrapolating from our one and only example of intelligent life (us), it seems like intelligent life enjoys stimulating universes. If our reality were the result of that kind of project, and the engineers lived outside the laws of physics, I would call them higher beings. And they could be as hands-off or as interventionist as they pleased.

Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

https://youtu.be/OOCdIY_HKM4?feature=shared

You remind me of God in this classic:

A holocaust survivor dies of old age and goes to heaven. When he gets there, he meets God and tells him a holocaust joke.

God says, “That’s not funny.”

And the man says, “I guess you had to be there.”

Aw, come on.

“Cartoonist found dead in home. Details are sketchy.”

“Where’s the best place to hide after committing murder? Behind a badge.”

“Did you know today is the anniversary of the Jonestown massacre? I’d tell you a joke about it, but the punch line is too long.”

Yeah, robots looking at photos of kids that their parents voluntarily posted on the internet is no laughing matter. Way more serious than, say, violent crime. And nobody makes jokes about that, do they?

While I personally wouldn’t want AI inserting trains into photos of my kids without my consent, many kids like trains, and they could add some whimsy to an otherwise uninteresting picture.

This, but unironically.

Give shitty advice, get a shitty summary of your own shitty advice.

“If you’re not sure, better take the safer bet and nonconsensually burden some newly created living beings with the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.”

You are right, this video is clickbait mitigation, not clickbait itself. The haters are just primed to hate at the drop of a hat.

Thank heavens somebody understands the laws of thermodynamics.

This is why I’m playing the game in early access. Each update could be the one that lets you pet the dog! Very exciting.

Semantic stop signs, if you like.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FWMfQKG3RpZx6irjm/semantic-stopsigns