That essay was published in the 60's

He was replying to the parent comment which the poster deleted.

This is what happens when the people building your society's advanced technology have no theory of mind. Too much science fiction, not enough human interaction.

The Social Network is looking more and more prophetic. When your only ambition is success for its own sake, driven by insecurities you can never name, you're going to make things that don't actually serve other people, or only do as an unfortunate side effect of you making money and gaining power.

Hmm? There are a number of top AI people who make this exact point, though, and are trying to drive things toward elevating thinking. There's more that can be done, but quite a bit is a user mindset issue that's just going to have to shake out over time.

You are right that there are a large number of top AI people who are very concerned with the ramifications of AI. I would say there are two core issues.

The first is that these people have often been indistinguishable from the ambitious and power hungry people I was decrying. Sam Altman was able to blend in for a long time by copying the rhetoric of AI safety types. When there is this much money to be made and power to be amassed, it's not hard to pretend to care.

The second is that I have often been disappointed by what the AI safety folks are concerned about. There has been a huge amount of talk about existential risk and not nearly as much about, say, the impact on children if education is outsourced to AI. The obsession with science fiction led to some very out there scenarios that may or may not still happen, but have nothing to do with the very real impacts of AI on people's lives right now. I believe that even the well intentioned have been too detached from humanity as a whole.

I guess I appreciate the explicit realpolitik of it all, but I'm not sure I buy your argument. The US is the world's current dominant global empire, and unlike other leftists, I don't believe this is inherently a bad thing. But I don't think it's necessarily a good thing either. It's just the reality.

I also think your whole unipolar vs. multipolar framework is ahistorical. It's always been more secure living within the cosmopolitan center of an empire, but there's never just been one empire.

I just think your view of history is too simplistic to be accurate or interesting. If/when the US declined as a global power, the results would be entirely unpredictable. They wouldn't adhere to the kind of formula you're describing.

This is an interesting perspective I haven't heard before. Do you have links to anyone who has articulated this further?

"Consensus science" is science.

Yes, though when the consensus doesn't work for predictions then it is a matter of time until it stops being science.

A degenerating research programme.

Not by my prefered definition. I like science being the study of nature through reason and experiment. Reality trumps consensus.

All over this thread people are saying things like, "this doesn't describe somebody who is anti-social, it describes a narcissist" or "I'm not anti-social, I am asocial." And it makes me think about internet discourse around neurodivergence and human diversity (not the racist dog whistle) more closely.

It seems that the models that dominate are ones which sort people into categories that emphasize positive traits and explain away negative ones as, "Society demands X but I just need Y." This is an important corrective to the medicalized model, but sometimes I feel it obscures the degree to which people are malleable. A lot of our behavior is habitual, and if you change your habits, you can change your "personality" without rewriting your own temperaments.

The other problem is one of causation. A group of people could all describe themselves as asocial, but what drives them to that label is entirely different. One legitimately needs less social interaction, one is riddled with social anxiety and has developed a deeply avoidant response, and one just hates people. They may be unified in feeling out of place in some social interactions, but what they need (or even don't need) is entirely different.

I don't know. I couldn't sleep last night and this is all I could think about. What does that make me?

Then why are you posting here? You must require some kind of social interaction. Is arguing with people on HN meeting your needs, or are the alternatives all too scary and alienating to consider?

In general, I am skeptical when anybody says, "I am a ______." We vastly overstate what aspects of our condition are innate and which are merely habitual. I have seen many people with misanthropic tendencies find balance, and many others sink into the mire.

If you keep drinking them, you'll likely acquire a taste. I didn't used to like any artificial sugar flavors, but now I've grown accustomed to them.

It's not "I don't like the taste".

It is "these taste like they're contaminated with antifreeze".

They taste like they've been intentionally adulterated with the stuff they use to stop people drinking poisonous things.

Aspartame has a pretty strong, weird metallic flavor to it, and a lot of the sugar alcohols taste... idk, like a belch after a slightly sweet chemical cocktail? Some taste... airy, or dusty, like an absence of flavor, like there's a gap where you'd usually taste something. Hard to describe but very unpleasant. And the flavor lingers for quite a while. Xylitol is mostly alright tho, sadly it's usually blended with other stuff nowadays.

Personally though I think stevia might be the worst, and it's getting added to everything lately, even stuff with more than enough regular sugar.

Honestly I'd prefer to not taste that, since I think most probably are pretty safe and fine (though I would be glad to see a reduction in sweetness in general). But it's really not a choice, nor have I "gotten used to it" in 40 years, despite it being extremely common.

This summarizes pretty well the three main problems I have. Most things are already way too sweetened, the trend of adding artificial sweeteners to something already naturally sweet ruins something that could be good, and many artificial sweeteners taste metallic and have weird aftertaste.

Its one thing for soda or other sweet items, I get the reduction in sugars there. Its just boggling how many foods people, particularly americans cant eat unless its sweet enough to be dessert

That's exactly my experience. What's interesting is that the taste is also very similar to the taste/sensation I get when I have a viral infection.

You know what, it's exactly what everything tasted like the week that I discovered that grown-ups could catch hand, foot and mouth from their children and also what my toddler was so upset about.

When I drink a non-diet cola, it tastes awful to me; sickeningly sweet. I don't have any problem with diet colas (though I don't like Diet Pepsi, it's slimy to me).

The main point is that it's not that X has an awful taste. It's that different people have different reactions to different Xs. It's not that X tastes bad unless you happen to get used to it.

You're underestimating how gross it was to me at first.

I also found it super gross but after a few weeks of tough endurance, the chemical taste subsided and disappeared. It comes back after a week or so without Diet Coke.

But yeah I could hardly swallow it in the beginning.

Did it taste like the bitterest thing you've ever tasted in the world that made you want to vomit your insides out?

You don't sound much like a nihilist to me.

Existentialism and/or Optimistic Nihilism. I'm a pessimist, myself.

I'm not optimistic. I think an accurate assessment of the world is, in a sense, pretty pessimistic. But I don't see any reason to get worked up about it. It would be very stupid to let my mind tell me that I cannot experience pleasure in the world just because the long term situation looks bleak. I can't control any of that stuff anyway, so why bother feeling bad about it?

Oh so you actually are a nihilist in the sense that Nietzsche meant. That's too bad.

You say that now, but once we perfect AMBAC technology and accidentally release large numbers of Minovsky particles, we will need humanoid combat vehicles to fight our battles!

> Minovsky particles

I love the way these things always have to have names that sound exotic or menacing to English speakers. Where are the Smith particles or the Jim particles?

Well in this case it was made by and for Japanese speakers.

I guess Russians are scary for everyone. Including Russians, I assume.

All of my Russian friends briefly become terrified when they pass by a mirror, and have to regain their composure.

One common personality disorder I see is being extremely defensive when encountering any discussion of human psychology. This comes from a deep psychological fragility.

Classic OAD (Obvious Asshole Disorder)

You couldn't even bother to google an actual disorder! Bah, you insult me :)

>being extremely defensive when encountering any discussion of human psychology

You just have paranoidal schizophrenia and attributing imaginable things to random people you don't like.

Or that even the people who believe they are making meaningful text on the internet, because of the constraints of the medium, are simply socializing in a different way.