22
good news, everyone! eliezer is writing fiction again
(www.lesswrong.com)
Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]
Why do both Scotts and Eliezers pseudonyms end with 'ain'? Yvain and Iarwain.
Edit: and small frustration what is up with the lack of timestamps? I know the internet is getting worse and worse with those replacing the 'posted at 22 feb 2022' with 'posted 1 year ago' things (as predicted in the transmetropolitan), or just having sites autoupdate the timestamps to seem current for the google ranking (saw a '2024' guide which in the text still talked about 2023 and had a mid 2023 timestamp, so somebody messed up a script there). But no timestamps at all is a bit odd, the only timestamp I saw was 'Jan 19, 2024, 3:29 PM' and that looks suspiciously like 'now'.
For mysterious reasons they've screened off their own past.
There are hidden timestamps, remove the ".post-footer { display: none; }" CSS from the page and they should appear, but yeah keeping timestamps from us is the worst I want to know when stuff went down.
I don't even really care that much, it is just a small but ongoing frustration with enshittification of everything digital. (and the Rationalists do nothing! You live in SV damnit, do some effective angry protesting or something ;) )
Why protest when you could spend far less energy and just "not be wrong" and "have no stake" by over-fitting your statistical model to the past?
Thanks for filling my 'make up people to be angry about' quota for today.
Always my favorite part of your day.
I'm very good at it, it is one of my core competencies, which synergies well with the mission statement of awful.systems, in this powerpoint presentation I will...
Fake answer: at some point in rat history they thought that Armenian people were genetically superior and decided to take traditional Armenian surnames as their handles, but they both simultaneously and serendipitously bungled the spelling. The names should actually be “Yvian” (pronounced yiv-yahn) and “Iarwian” (pronounced ee-arh-wee-yahn)
Real answer: probably a tolkien elvish name idk
https://www.glyphweb.com/arda/i/iarwainbenadar.php the elvish name of Tom Bombadil.
Could it be that Yud read about Bombadil, thought, “man it’s a good thing this dude is with the good guys, or middle earth would be screwed” and then decided to spin that into a technocult about AI?
Bombadil is a fat dude living in splendid isolation with a beautiful woman, unconcerned about the evils of the wider world. Perfect ideal for Yud.
His story is also vague as fuck, and according to some his more modeled on pixes etc from our world, so it would fit for him to pick an isekaied from our world into lotr char for his isekai from rationalist fantasy world to hell character.
lol, nah he prob just picked the name because it was the most powerful and most mysterious character from lotr. With hints of 'this outside context problem with unknown goals must be appeased at all costs or everything ends' just like agi! Also he seems to be immortal.
"Iarwain", cf. Charles' Wain, wainwright; from the Middle English for "a wagon that transports ears"