Literally “just push it over there with the rest of the fire and send an email.”

Speaking of movies about high-profile silicon valley grifters, what the fuck is this??

At this point given the absurdity of this combination of people I feel like the reality will likely be disappointing.

It also causes me no end of rage as a parent that this message is coming from this administration in particular since their policies are at least half the reasons why we aren’t getting out in the world more. Like, my family has queer and trans people in it and the administration have explicitly aligned themselves with and empowered people for whom that is a reason we shouldn’t be a family. The cuts they’ve made to childhood vaccine access and the way they’ve boosted antivax bullshit means that my immunocompromised wife can rely that much less on the population’s herd immunity. The ongoing economic fuckery and cost of living crisis that they’ve inflamed through their pointless goddamn war in Iran and general incompetence have greatly increased the costs of getting to anywhere in ‘real life’, especially since the communities we can trust in light of the above are pretty geographically scattered compared to like 15 years ago. But yeah, the problem is the screens somehow.

I guess maybe the sex cult and the ritual magic make the standard grifting seem credible by comparison? Like, E-Dub and company don’t pass the sniff test but Saltman and friends seem like reasonable adults who can’t all be wrong?

There’s a bizarre tendency in a lot of technocrats to basically reject the notion that people in the future will have the power to make different choices. Like, it’s not enough to put together a policy that will solve the immediate problem, no matter how pressing, because if you extend the resulting trend line infinitely it might result in a suboptimal outcome. Combined with the TESCREAL project’s long-termism and obsession with personal immortality it feels like the link to far-right paternal totalitarianism is actually pretty straightforward.

If I were inclined to research and source properly I feel like there could be some meat there that I don’t think Emile Torres and his colleagues have gotten all the way into yet.

Maybe some kind of diagram that showed the links visually, color-coded to illustrate some more details about the connection. Add some photographs for visual appeal.

I don’t think any of the words on that shirt are in the Bible.

Nonzero chance AI kills us before we reach the end of this probably-years-long-process, but we plant trees in whose shade we may never sit.

You know, I didn’t think it would be necessary to discuss the meaning of that line in a space where people ostensibly take long-termism seriously.

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Lol. Lmao.

I guess given the demographics of the diehard Bernie bros this isn’t necessarily a surprising turn, but it’s still disappointing.

Also, hat tip to Dr. Rasmussen for cogently articulating the frustration of the hour. Why in the hell are we talking about whether the acausal robot God is going to endanger our ability to trade galaxies like Pokemon cards when so much of the world is both literally and figuratively on fucking fire?