Almost all are avowedly committed to the ideals of tolerance, pluralism, and diversity in faith; if you were to say that a belief system should be dismissed simply because it is essentially religious in nature in essentially any other context, they would be some of the loudest voices speaking out against you. So why should TESCREAL be any different? Why is it that religion as a whole is fine, but not this religion?

Because a religion passing itself off as scientific is a bad thing? Just spitballin' here.

The Singularity (of hating that we know what those words mean) Is Near

Making an analogy to something more familiar, or to anything that actually happens in real life, is too pedestrian for a true visionary.

(It's just a guess on my part, but given the extent to which conspiracy theorists are all marinating in a common miasma these days, I'd expect that a 9/11 twoofer would be more likely to deny relativity for being "Jewish physics".)

"Computational complexity does not work that way!" is one of those TESCREAL-zone topics that I wish I had better reading recommendations for.

It's fun to stand on the shoulders of giants... and having the standard stuff down cold is the best way to convince experts that when you do have a zany idea, it might be worth considering.

Quoted for posterity/convenience:

in a world of greater legibility, romantic partners would have the conversation about "I'd trade up if I found somebody 10%/25%/125% better than you" in advance, and make sure they have common knowledge of the numbers

(Marriage makes sense as a promise not to do that period; but if so, you want to make sure that both partners are on the same page about that. Not everyone assumes that marriage means that.)

Her: I am never, ever letting you go unless I find someone 75% better. Me: Works for me.

oh hello there Performative Allistic Twitter

It’s not worth explaining because it’s stupid, but Roko’s conclusion was

(jazzy finger-snaps of approval)

I suspect that this is less about using language with which one's audience is familiar to convey a message accurately, and more about making the message sound obviously right and affirming the smartness of the audience because Computer Words.

my "not a cult" T-shirt has raised many questions, etc.

I just can't respect a man who is posturing and arrogant yet still fails to go for the phrasing "to whom you are speaking".

The opening line is... certainly a phrase.

I have been working on a research project into the scale, tractability and neglectedness of child marriage.

Later:

Some studies even showed that child marriage was associated with more positive outcomes, such as higher contraceptive use

Ummmmmmmmmm

Suppose you say that you’re 99.99% confident that 2 + 2 = 4.

Then you're a dillbrain.

Then you have just asserted that you could make 10,000 independent statements, in which you repose equal confidence, and be wrong, on average, around once. Maybe for 2 + 2 = 4 this extraordinary degree of confidence would be possible

Yes, how extraordinary that I can say every day that the guy in front of me at the bodega won't win the Powerball. Or that [SystemRandom().random() >= 0.9999 for i in range(10000)] makes a list that is False in all but one spot.

P(x|y) is defined as P(x,y)/P(y). P(A|A) is defined as P(A,A)/P(A) = P(A)/P(A) = 1. The ratio of these two probabilities may be 1, but I deny that there's any actual probability that's equal to 1. P(|) is a mere notational convenience, nothing more.

No, you kneebiter.