chris-orgmenta

Lovely piece.

> Maybe it’s just me, but I find it kind of sad to think that you got buried in a grave with no headstone, no marker, no indication of who you were.

I appreciate this melancholy - even a compassionate wistfulness.

Conversely though - For me, it just feels part of an Ozymandian futility. If the suffering of dying + the suffering of others' grief are removed from the equation, it feels like there is an elegance to just dissolve back to the environment without a struggle, in a certain graceful way.

A headstone in that context is a 'struggle'.

To me, graves are for the living and never the dead.

To expand not refute,

> If truth is defined as beliefs which lead one to make decisions that cause you/your society to thrive

This is 'metaphorical truth' to be precise.

But it's only a part of the virality of memes, not the whole.

Propagation can occur not just due to usefulness, but to other factors such as simplicity/replicability, human susceptibility / 'key in a lock' etc.

If survival was purely metaphorical truth, then all surviving lifeforms would be 'the most true' (including viruses being 'true' to us). Which can be argued, at a philosophical level - But then we've expanded the definition so much as to lose relevant meaning at the pragmatic level.

Porcupine throwing quills, and all that.

Agree.

I suppose I should clarify that I am aware that the incident was from '82 and that LDTs are no longer admissible in many jurisdictions, and new legislation came in for tamper-proofing medicine which affected not just the US.

But regardless, argument being "things haven't moved on enough - lie detectors are still used in some places, people still misinterpret what they are, and our supply chain still only discourages, rather than prevents, mischief"

> While in custody, she took a lie detector test, which revealed deception in two key responses[...]

It did not. It revealed that the police failed to trick a confession out of her using pseudo-science.

> James Lewis refused a polygraph.

Sensible move - Especially when journalists interpret LDTs as per above.

> They tried enlarging the pharmacy surveillance photo, but the bigger it got, the grainier it got.

What did Fahner and Zagel actually tell Michael here? Surely not that, verbatim.

Interesting piece otherwise. Our global supply chain is just so fragile and insecure. We may need to rethink everything. For a start, is it not ridiculous that we have unsealed/re-sealable products? I do not want Ibuprofen etc. to be moved to behind-counter, but perhaps a better 'discard if tampered with' seal should be implemented. Will we get to a point where we have to sell fruit in tear-open cardboard mailers? Sounds ridiculous, but depends on what happens in the next decade re: terrorism in general.

Should we not allocate rights based on varying levels of consciousness and sentience as emergent phenomena?

Or they might oppose:

[Elephant Lawyer]: Dear Republican Party,

On behalf of our clients, the global elephant community, we formally request that you cease and desist from using their likeness as a party symbol. The unauthorized use of their image fails to represent their values, interests, and, most notably, their stance on environmental preservation.

Our clients object to being associated with policies that conflict with their dedication to ecological stewardship and community welfare. Therefore, we urge immediate cessation of any elephant imagery in relation to your party. Further unapproved usage may result in legal action.

Sincerely, Counsel for Proboscidea

Thank you, really insightful. Will listen to those episodes, thanks.

You really honed in on the crux of my questions actually - Your original comment immediately made me think of shamans and prophets from an evolutionary biology and anthropology sense (and the arguments that it is a beneficial trait for a subset of a human group to have) and what that all might mean to you.

I think the 'authority' was referring to the Lady not the Voice.

I interpret as "You were in an amenable state (consciously and subconsciously) for her to rewrite your software".

Edit: I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind (thank you for sharing your story):

A) You seem fairly neutral / Stoic about this entire experience, and it was clearly huge and transformative at a deep level. Do you perceive this as having a net positive or negative impact on your life?

B) Do you feel you are able to empathise with 'prophets' through the ages better than most? Not to single out particular prophets, but in general those with the Voice of God that wholly leant into to it rather than managing it (and then preached/spread their words)

Does gait recognition (and body tics / unique movement style) not make this moot?

My sense is that facial recognition is a stop-gap and soon to be superseded, because the tech is there for more holistic 'reads' of a person - And that those subtle things that we humans can't see are actually plain as day and as clear as a fingerprint.

If we cover our face, then the data collected on gait etc. will be more than enough. If we adopt a different gait, then the data on other foibles and styles will then give us away. Etc. (we can't hope to disguise all of these at once)

I see those as the lazy ones that are the tip of the iceberg. A non-zero amount will even be intentionally lazy (analogous to the Nigerian Prince theory), or to get feedback from people flagging them.

I think the sensible assumption is that there is a 'rest of the iceberg' growing rapidly below the surface, and that the horse has truly bolted.

I currently suspect that ~1-5% of the 'people' I interact with online are LLMs. I suspect that a few Redditors and Facebookers are up to about ~10-25% without realising it, caught in 'AI social media eddies'. Older generations especially susceptible.