apocalypse cw?

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

togglesbloggle:

I still toss and turn about this all the time, by the way- it’s probably the most enduring obsession of my childhood, and a nontrivial chunk of what drove me to things like geology, programming, ratspace, and even stuff you wouldn’t expect like a fondness for time travel stories or Li Po poems.

One neuron is just a cell. Many neurons, arranged just so, is a person. Qualia, interiority, volition, values, all spectacularly inexplicable in physical terms. A whole world of imagination, captured in miniature as a net with just the right pattern of string. It’s so fucking goetic. Arrange these symbols in a circle, and a demon appears, using some dread fire to give meaning to form and animate base matter. “The hard problem”, they call it.

My hard problem isn’t that it works, as such. This, I can accept, although not with full equanimity. It’s that it demonstrates something about the cosmos, because everything demonstrates something about the cosmos, and I cannot for the life of me see through that fog. The universe is not billiard balls and it’s not negative-probability waves moving through fields, because when you arrange symbols in a circle you can summon a demon. That was there from the beginning, latent at the big bang that kicked us all off. But all we have is this one thing, this tiny little biosphere on a tiny little world that stumbled blindly in to the right incantations, and everywhere else we look it’s just billiard balls as far as the eye can see. This is not to say that ‘is there extraterrestrial life?’ is the most important question, though of course it’s instrumental, and the Fermi Paradox is maddening in this context as well. But the deeper question is, ‘why in the everliving tiddlywinks does a universe with a demon-summoning ritual in it pretend to be mechanical except in this one narrow thing?’ Where’s the rest of the magic system?

And now we’re closing in on perfecting the ritual ourselves, not understanding a damn thing of course, only marginally less blind than the evolutionary process that first succeeded in us. We zero in on intelligence, the one part of all this that we’ve managed to make tractable in analytical terms, and use that to bootstrap ourselves toward something that hopefully, hopefully shares all the rest. Demons summoning demons (of course it spirals out to infinity almost immediately, how could it not?), and maybe the new ones will be able to tell us what the universe is and how we happened within it. Makes sense as a strategy, I suppose.

Tags:

#philosophy #that one post with the thing #(yes I *did* dig up this post and the last one as part of the same train of thought) #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #apocalypse cw?

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

derinthescarletpescatarian:

heroofthreefaces:

derinthescarletpescatarian:

stavarosthearcane:

derinthescarletpescatarian:

“If I had time travel I’d kill Hitler” “If I had time travel I’d stop my favourite politician getting assassinated” you’re all thinking way too small. If I had time travel I’d stop Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from dying on the moon due to Soviet sabotage, kicking off the Great Nuclear War and devastating half of the planet.

Good Job.

#this post gets me every time

It’s from two days ago fam how many times could there have been

do you think no one else has time travel

Happy one month anniversary to this post that has not allowed me a single day of fucking peace since I made it.

Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #unreality cw #apocalypse cw?

wuggen asked: 🌻

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

ericvilas:

sigmaleph:

i am currently playing a game called “is the smoke I’m smelling coming from something inside my apartment burning, a neighbour preparing for a barbecue, or the smoke from grassland fires that is currently covering the city?”

so far the answer is always b or c but it doesn’t do to get complacent

(the weather app on my phone currently says “smoke” in the place where it usually says cloudy or sunny or rainy or whatever. it is very dystopian)

This is what it looks like, btw

e2e9928fa9cc5ec9bfd88dff0034d9341bef669f

Tags:

#this doesn’t *quite* fit the remit of #today in Apocalypse Memes #but it has a very similar vibe #somebody please get that poor frog a better mask #weather #fire #apocalypse cw?

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

tanadrin:

so has anyone tried hooking a language model thingy up to a webcam and getting it to talk about what it sees, or does eliezer show up at your house as soon as you propose that and break your arms with a tire iron

Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #AIs #apocalypse cw? #violence mention

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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brin-bellway:

https://brin-bellway.dreamwidth.org/106766.html

@rustingbridges​ replied: “how expired are expired filters anyway. what causes them to go bad”

I’m not sure.

[…]

Some googling *suggests* that shelf lives for particulate filters are mostly a legal fiction, with a side of “the longer it sits around, the more opportunities for it to get physically damaged without you noticing”. Gas filters have a finite capacity to absorb gas which is eventually used up even just with normal traces of stuff in the air (I’ve noticed that the added nuisance-vapour filtration in my P100s stops working after 3 – 4 months of use), which vastly broadens the scope of possible “physical damage you didn’t notice” (a pinhole in the formerly-airtight packaging might do it). (Also gas filters fail open, so using a gas filter you falsely believed to have capacity left in it could severely fuck you over depending on how toxic the gas is.)

I wouldn’t want to bet my health on it, especially since 20 USD for [a primary set + a spare set] every few years is pretty cheap. But I think I’d take a ten-year-old P100 over a cloth mask, if those were my options.

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For disposables, the main problem seems to be the nosepiece and edging, which break down and deform over time and make it harder to seal the respirator properly.

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(For the record, I’ve been replacing my filters every four months or so when I can smell the ethylene or whatever the fuck it is stinking up the walk-in refrigerator at work (I assume nobody else has noticed it because for them it’s being drowned out by the particulate scents), but keeping all of the old filters in their original boxes (which have opening dates Sharpied on them) on a shelf in my bedroom. *Germs* don’t clog filters, but *smoke* does: if–and I would not be remotely surprised if this happens, with the way the world’s been going [link]–I find myself dealing with smoky air on a scale of months with a rickety-at-best supply chain, I may be glad to have those filters on hand.))

Tags:

#replies #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #illness tw? #poison cw? #apocalypse cw?

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

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rustingbridges:

brin-bellway:

rustingbridges:

controversial personal finance opinion: if you have enough wealth you should own some physical gold

financialized gold has most of the downside of real gold and also none of its special upside, so not that

gold does not, as a rule, gain in value, and it’s vulnerable to theft, but it also does not, as a rule, lose in value, and also the rest of your assets are vulnerable to theft too. gold might have a higher risk but diversification is still valuable

in the event you lose access to your financials and have to leave – maybe not likely, but not impossible, apparently something like 1% of humans in 2021 are or have been refugees – gold jewelry particularly is both portable enough you can take it and universally recognized as valuable enough you can trade it. just don’t get it in your teeth

*Is* this controversial, even in the broad form stated here?

I kind of figured that there was broad agreement that there exists *some* level of wealth at which diversification into gold is worth pursuing (for the reasons you give), but that different people’s estimates of what that wealth level is vary by orders of magnitude, and some people would put enough forms of philanthropy above gold on the to-do list that in practice no one would ever reach the gold stage given our world’s current amount of philanthropic fruit to be picked.

(I’m not sure where I would place the threshold: I think it’s probably somewhere feasible to reach, but far enough beyond where I am now that it’s not urgent for me to figure out the specifics.)

a lot of people would argue that you should at some point diversify into financial instruments which abstractly reflect the value of gold, but I think many of those people would say you should not buy actual physical gold.

to pin myself down a bit while still leaving a lot of wiggle room, here’s some points on my Gold Advice Spectrum:

  • if you need your money to be liquid in a normal economy any time soon, don’t buy gold
  • if you have enough money to retire indefinitely on, I think it’s worth having something like a month’s money or so in precious metals
  • if you’re bill gates you should actually should have buried a chest of treasure somewhere

What…what reasons do *they* give for wanting to diversify into gold? You can’t hedge against the collapse of your financial system by buying things that *depend on said financial system*.

I mean, okay, I guess you can hedge against *certain, partial* collapses that way, but it’s far more limited.

I should mention here that I literally wrote a post once titled “Diversification is an important part of building an investment portfolio” [link], in which I frame prepping as being essentially a way of shorting your civilisation: since almost everyone is very long civilisation pretty much by necessity, being also somewhat short civilisation is a good hedge (though I think you should still be net long). I also wrote a comment on a different post in which I called [maintaining stockpiles of soap and canned food and air filters] “pandemic insurance” [link].

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That Gold Advice Spectrum seems pretty reasonable.

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@cthulhubert​ replied: @brin-bellway there’s a certain degree of over-correction against physical gold buying because Alex Jones and some other right wing conspiracy nuts flogged buying real gold for ‘when the degenerate modern economy collapses’.

I mean, that’s traditionally how it works, right? If you think something is going to collapse, you short it and then write a report laying out your evidence and reasoning to try to convince others to do the same. Yeah, I disagree that one should be net short civilisation and think people who do that are setting themselves up for failure and pain, but short sellers are very often wrong and their existence is nevertheless a useful corrective.

(…yes, I think I *did* just draw a connection between the hate that Crazy Prepper People™ get and the hate that short sellers get.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #adventures in human capitalism #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #apocalypse cw?

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~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

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larshuluk:

brin-bellway:

brin-bellway:

brin-bellway:

https://brin-bellway.dreamwidth.org/89538.html

@rustingbridges replied:

tomatoes really don’t travel well

they’re one of the fruits where the supermarket variety is the supermarket variety because it survives the trip, not because they’re good

meanwhile tomato plants are really low effort. if you have favorable conditions you can do literally nothing

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Where are you *finding* conditions that aren’t full of weeds and wildlife-competing-with-you-for-the-food and the occasional blight? A greenhouse?

(…actually, that might not be a bad idea. I *have* heard of people building little personal greenhouses in their backyards, and nothing keeps squirrels from taking one bite out of your mom’s tomato and walking away like a fucking *door*, right?)

Re: surviving the trip, home-grown zucchinis taste about the same but we’ve noticed the shelf life is *vastly* longer. Store-bought zucchinis start to shrivel up and go soft within a few days of bringing them home; home-grown zucchinis can sit in the fridge for several *weeks*. Makes it a lot easier to plan your meals.

Honestly, probably a good part of my problem with gardening is that, because *Mom* loves home-grown tomatoes for some fucking reason, they end up the focal point of the garden and a great deal of my gardening-related labour is thoroughly alienated: I never see the fruits *or* the vegetables of my labour.

A garden optimised for what *I* thought was most worth growing would have zero tomatoes and more garlic and zucchini, with perhaps just enough potatoes to keep in practice so that I can put potatoes in the victory garden. And probably more perennials like mulberries. And possibly mushrooms. And I would want to do a bunch of research and expert-consultation regarding which weeds are secretly edible, since anything *that* easy to grow sounds like something I should take advantage of.

(I’ve been meaning to do some more digging into how to eat dandelions. I’ve heard you can put the new greens in salads and the petals in pancake batter, but I don’t normally eat salads *or* pancakes. Can you just, like, munch on a raw dandelion flower straight-up? Can I fulfil my childhood dream of eating a pretty flower I found in the backyard?)

@larshuluk replied:

Yeah, you can just munch any part of dandelion – I often do that when I’m reading in the garden. Older leaves get bitter and shouldn’t be eaten in big amounts, and roots need cooking. Flower is just fine though.

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Hell yeah!

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This is another area where I like a lot of the things the communing-with-nature people are putting out but for completely different reasons. I want to know more about the natural world around me *so that I can exploit it better*. Which wildflowers can I eat? What’s the name of that one plant where when you run through a field of them it sounds like popcorn popping? Can I eat those too?!

(I never stopped wanting to stick interesting plants in my mouth: I just learned to resist it, to assume everything was poisonous until proven otherwise. And for the most part, nobody ever taught me which interesting plants I didn’t have to resist.)

Let’s get a few other cool edible / semi-edible plants out then :)

I mostly like fruits, since they are easy to identify and I don’t really have skills in identifying leaves. (So you see, I’m not an expert, don’t take this as authoritative advice! Also I’m looking up some names in a dictionary, since English is not my native language.)
Most suitable for central Europe, since that’s my location.

First: Poisoning yourself is very much a thing which can happen! Be careful!

There’s a lot of stuff which has some poison of the same strength as found in apple seeds, and that poison is removed by cooking. If you find these things on the side of the path and you snack small amounts, realistically nothing bad will happen. Cool examples:

– Elderberries
– European beech nuts (different, weaker poison. It is said the taste gets better, too, when lightly roasted. I love them as is already. Taste varies quite a bit from nut to nut, and is not very predictable from the look of it. So if you don’t like it, maybe still try a few more.)
– Rowan fruit (they’re disgusting raw, only bother if you want to cook them)

Then there’s stuff which is not commonly eaten, but can:

– ONLY THE FLESH of yew fruit. These are my favourite, they are planted in many locations, especially near graveyards. The pit is *very* toxic. I usually spit it out.
– Cornelian cherry fruit. Tastes great, take the very dark red ones.
– Blackthorn fruit. Need to be frozen before they become tasty.
– Sea-buckthorn berries. Grows on dunes near the sea, and generally on sandy ground.
– Hawthorn fruit. Taste somewhat like flour, not a great taste on its own. Take the very ripe, dark ones. Can be used to extend jam. Is often planted near fields as a hedge.

As a rule of thumb, all the stuff which grows on abandoned lots is mostly focused on settling the place *at all*, and therefore doesn’t focus much on poison. (Meaning they are great plants to *investigate* for edibility, not “just snack them, what could possibly go wrong?”)

Notably, thistles, stinging nettles, dandelions, many amaranths / pigweeds, plantains are edible both raw and cooked, including roots and flowers. Artichokes are basically thistles. Roots are hard even after cooking and don’t taste great, so I recommend not to bother. For stinging nettles and thistles, obviously remove / flatten the stingy parts before sticking them in your mouth.

Any other advice? Or tips for different regions?

(see also)

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First, a postscript to the previous post:

Okay, better exploitation isn’t the *only* reason I want to know more about the nature around me. It also just bugs me to look at a plant or an insect or what-have-you and not know what it is. It feels…a lot like the feeling I get when I hear my co-workers chatting to each other in languages I don’t speak. Like I’m not a full person, missing a way of parsing the world that a person would have.

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Thanks for the tips!

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>>First: Poisoning yourself is very much a thing which can happen! Be careful!

I have a food-poisoning phobia and am *very* careful. That’s part of what concerns me about this whole food-security concept space, that I’m not as flexible as most people in what I’m comfortable with eating.

(On the bright side, if I *am* comfortable eating something I will happily eat it every day for years on end. I hear a lot of people worrying about the morale effects of having to resort to a repetitive diet in times of crisis, and I really don’t think that will be a problem for me.)

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I did a bit of googling and there do seem to be some local homesteads-and-the-like in my area offering classes and advice to people who want more self-sufficiency. They’re intensely Living in Harmony with Nature types, but even with some clashing values I expect there’s still much to be gained by learning what they have to teach.

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@rustingbridges: >>idk about potatos specifically but I think durable transportable stuff like potatos and onions is the relative advantage of actual farmers. relative to growing fragile vegetables that kind of thing is probably only worth doing to the extent you’re having fun with it

Like I said, the point would be to keep in practice. Potatoes are among the worse things to grow in a regular garden (because you could have just skipped all the bullshit and bought a 10lb bag at the grocery store for like $3 instead), but one of the best things to grow in a victory garden (high calorie-density, stores well, quite a few nutrients).

(…I should probably clarify that I’m using “victory garden” broadly: the disaster-fucking-with-access-to-groceries need not be a *war* specifically.)

Certainly this makes potatoes a lower priority: one would probably not need to grow them in particularly large or frequent quantities under normal circumstances. Indeed, I have enough other safety-net holes to patch that it’s likely not *currently* worth doing at all, completely crowded out by more important tasks.

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@florescent–luminescence: >>We also had a lot of Critters come sample the garden.

Yeah. That’s almost always been a major problem for us, and it was *especially* bad in 2020. We’re definitely going to have to look further into physical barriers: greenhouses maybe, but at least some sort of cage.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #gardening #food #poison cw #in which Brin has a food poisoning phobia #the more you know #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #apocalypse cw? #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see

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