steveylang
Joined 5 years ago
Karma
133
Submissions
102
Member since
Nov 30
Recent submissions
Comment · 5 months ago
Comment · 9 months ago
The best thing to do is to tell the model itself what you'd like from it, and to help you craft a set of user preferences. Every so often I'll have a new suggestion for it, and it will revise the entire set for me. My Claude user prefs is around 1000 words and probably overkill, but I don't think it hurts besides using a few more tokens to start a chat.
Comment · 11 months ago
Free births without free discussion of experiences and information within the group- what could go wrong?
Comment · 11 months ago
Here's my guess- your post reflects your honest opinion on the matter, with some LLM help. It elaborated on your smartphone analogy, and may have tightened up the text overall.
Comment · 11 months ago
Because historically we haven't handled mental injuries as well as the physical ones. I don't completely disagree with your original points. I think depth, nuance, and accuracy of the conversation matters most of all. There is plenty of superficial, influencer-level chatter in both realms.
Comment · 2 years ago
If you are interested in learning more, there is a podcast series by New York Magazine called Cover Story: Power Trip that goes pretty deeply into MAPS. It is just one perspective on it, but a very valid one. Many of these concerns have been raised within the psychedelic community for years but basically brushed aside by MAPS. It all came out yesterday though.
(my personal opinion is that psychedelics are or can be of great therapeutic benefit, but the MAPS/Lykos clinical trial was definitely problematic.)
Comment · 2 years ago
There might be some deliriant that produces altered states of mind, such that a patient with no MDMA/psychedelic experience could be blinded. That could also potentially work for the therapist or facilitator. If the control was essentially a sugar pill, I think any reasonably experienced therapist or facilitator would easily recognize whether a patient is under the influence of a psychedelic.
Comment · 2 years ago
It only makes sense for Deckard to be a replicant — something that Roy would know, and choose not to tell.
Maybe I should have recognized this earlier, but I really like this point and feel it adds depth- whether or not the screenwriters or Ridley Scott even intended it. It's not necessary for this to be the case for Batty to spare Deckard, it's also possible that recognizing his end was near he wanted to pass something on and/or communicate his life in some way to another.
Comment · 2 years ago
I think the movie is definitely set up with the premise that humanity is a stabled fixed point of reference, with Deckard representing that viewpoint. But once you had Deckard falling in love with Rachel, and then the ending with Deckard and Batty, I think the movie is asking viewers to question this initial premise.
Within the context of a big budget Hollywood sci-fi actioner, I think it's about as reasonably deep as you could expect. None of its ideas are profound or new, but the cinematography and set design were.
Comment · 2 years ago
Replicants can try to fake the appropriate emotional reaction — might even be programmed to fake it to themselves, such that even they don’t realize what they are — but there is always a split-second delay, which the trained operator can detect.
This makes sense with replicants who know they are replicants and are trying to avoid detection (I'm not sure why they would ever be 'programmed' to try to fake detection, the simpler explanation is that they know what the test is and are trying to avoid identification and death.) But it's different for Rachel. She thinks she is human and wouldn't be trying to game the test, yet it takes a long time for Deckard to assess her. So why is that? Either way...
...leading one to suspect that the Voight-Kampff test may not be measuring pure, unadulterated empathy in quite the way everyone seems to think it is....But in Ridley Scott’s preferred version of the film, the central theme falls apart, to be replaced with psychological horror’s equivalent of a jump scare: “Deckard himself is really a replicant, dude! What a mind fuck, huh?"
Those 2 statements contradict themselves, because Deckard himself being a replicant (who actually is never tested himself anyway) is an extension of blurring the lines between human and replicant, and what the Voight-Kampff test actually is testing (which already happens when Deckard tests Rachel.)
I feel like the idea of next-gen replicants like Rachel (and possibly Deckard) that blur the lines further is thematically consistent with the rest of the movie. I don't know what kind of social life Rachel has led, but if she has any friends or social interaction at all some sort of empathy would be needed to pass off as human. These kind of things are not explicit in the movie, which I think is mostly fine as the movie is more about the big picture of what makes us 'human', or what that even means ethically or experientially. The early replicants are basically psychotic so it's easy to have no ethical concerns about them even if they have agency and consciousness. But then what about succeeding versions that do come closer and closer to experiencing regular human existence?
Comment · 2 years ago
These guys were literally just filming themselves playing the piano, when they were approached by people completely outside the view of the camera telling them to stop.
Comment · 3 years ago
That's like at least half the fun! But seriously, there is a great library of community plugins.
Comment · 3 years ago
Besides wanting to keep all the revenue, the NCAA talks up all that sanctimonious crap to justify their non-profit status so they don't have to pay taxes on it either.
Comment · 3 years ago
I have been to two vegan sushi restaurants (I live in Los Angeles), one was okay and the other is surprisingly good. I remember the second place having a surprisingly good salmon substitute, but it obviously wasn't from this new startup since they apparently haven't launched anything yet. I don't need these meat substitutes to taste exactly like the real thing, I just want them to taste good and provide a similar taste experience. The author mentions the 'uncanny valley' of taste- that doesn't bother me, as long as it generally tastes good in a similar setting. I think that makes for an easy substitute so restaurants can provide more non-meat menu items.
I have only been vegetarian for a short while, and was previously a long time meat lover. I don't need meat substitutes in my life (oyster and king mushrooms are a big love of mine now) and they will never be a basic staple, but it is nice to have the option. If you're at or having a BBQ, it's easy to also grill an Impossible burger for example. I used to love sushi and will occasionally surrender to a spicy scallop roll or something like that, so appreciate having vegan options.
My main reason for becoming a vegetarian is avoiding industrial farming as much as possible, with probably sustainability being the second factor. I don't have an ethical objection to humanely raised (or wild) and humanely slaughtered meat, there are some good sources for that although I don't generally find myself seeking them out.
Comment · 3 years ago
I am 100% for decriminalization, but understand it's not a black and white issue. I don't disagree with your point, at the same time there's a part of me that thinks, "You can't outlaw stupid." I feel for the guy in the article, but whether psychedelics are legal or not this guy was just not getting the message (I don't mean metahphysically, I just mean realizing that yes psychedelics are a powerful thing):
> "So my first psychedelic experience was when I was 20 years old in in Amsterdam. I took mushrooms and I had a hell of a trip like because I wasn't aware of dosages and don't know what type of dosage I took."
And then a few years later we get to this-
> "I was planning to do an ayahuasca retreat in Peru, and a friend of mine said why not smoke DMT here. I didn't know that I was doing one of the strongest psychedelics on earth. I didn't have any preparation."
Like I said I really do feel for the guy and hopes he finds resolution, but what was he thinking? I also hope lots of people read his story.
I also think that 'net-zero trauma' poster/slide is pretty cringey. Like you said, it's not that simple.
Given that neither company releases parameter counts, that sort of information would be slow coming out anyway. The most important thing is improvements in actual performance/ benchmark numbers, which allow them to preserve their price points as much as possible.