TechTakes

Any of the big Rationalists get mentioned yet?

Any mention of my name is now often met by a claim that I keep a harem of young submissive female mathematicians who submit to me and solve math problems for me, and that I call them my "math pets".

I see he did the whole 'making an accusation sound more silly to undermine it' thing here, nobody said things about a whole harem of mathematicians, who just solve math problems. Nice steelman. I expect nothing less of somebody who was the subject of seven broadway plays.

(Amazing he basically admits the story is true after that, but continues to debunk the strawman).

and the person who made up the "math pets" allegation claimed no such source

I was about to point out that I think this is the second time he claimed math pets had absolutely no basis in reality (and someone countered with a source that forced him to) but I double checked the posting date and this is the example I was already thinking of. Also, we have supporting sources that didn't say as much directly but implied it heavily: https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/42iv09/a_yudkowsky_blast_from_the_past_his_okcupid/ or like, the entire first two thirds of the plot of Planecrash!

I need you to understand how nearly I added myself to even more watch lists because of that analogy. Avalanche!

Developers of the 12-megawatt facility said it will bring jobs and investment to Nashville, but neighbors aren’t so sure.

The neighbors are right.

On a semi-related note, I recently got around to reading Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future (loved the Mars trilogy and thought I should get to his latest), and this chapter had me wanting to give up sci fi as well, so I will subject you all to it:

I am a secret so everyone can know me. First you must count every part of me, then translate those parts into signs that do not describe me. Together we are shackled, and with the sign that does not describe me you can open me up and read me as I am. People will give you their promises for me, and if wrongdoers try to take me away from you, you can find me and tell the world where I am hidden. I began as a silent speaking, a key to open every door; now that I have opened all the front doors, I am the key that locks the back doors by which wrongdoers try to escape the scene of the crime. I am the nothing that makes everything happen. You don’t know me, you don’t understand me; and yet still, if you want justice, I will help you to find it. I am blockchain. I am encryption. I am code. Now put me to use.

there's plenty to read; an incomplete list of authors just off the top of my head: nnedi okorafor, ann leckie, martha wells, kate elliott, annalee newitz, sarah gailey, malka older, sarah jane anders…

Dunno I just enjoyed the fuck out of "Landlocked in Foreign Skin", like it's been a long time since I pause my life to devour a book in one sitting like this, and given that Drew Huff writes from Seattle I'm thinking they're a USian? And I was really engrossed by Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire which resonated a lot with my experiences as a Third World immigrant, with a certain honesty in portrayal of what it feels like to admire "culture" at a distance from a colony that I seldomly see (I'm on book #2 currently). I'm more of a fantasy reader, but Octavia Butler and Le Guin's sci-fi were absolutely formative to me, and if you ask me one modern sci-fi series I liked besides those mentioned so far, I'd probably say Wayfarers or Monk & Robot. Plenty of good SF authors from the USA whose politics are more or less the opposite of what you describe.

The trick is I read books by queer folk, women and PoC almost exclusively. Absolutely don't regret it, all the fun stuff is there in the margins.

Okay, let's see what the dumbshits are trying to sell this time

(This took longer than I'd liked, because copy-paste is pretty laggy on Cloudflare's shit-ass page)

Built for the rise of agents and machines, NET Dollar will enable seamless, automated transactions without human intervention.

"Agents" are automatic data breach machines, letting them repeat that time they stole vibe-coders' crypto on a larger scale is a terrible idea

The rise of autonomous agents and connected devices is creating a new economic paradigm

Autonomous agents don't exist, and the only "new economic paradigm" being made is one where tech is completely unmoored from reality

These systems need a reliable medium of exchange that can handle high-frequency, automated transactions without human intervention.

See my previous point

Rules, triggers, and workflows can be embedded directly into payments, making them smarter and adaptable.

Went so well for Wolf Game, didn't it?

NET Dollar will work across networks and ecosystems, enabling frictionless, global commerce.

And by "frictionless, global commerce", I presume they mean "sanctions evasion and ransomware"

Every coin will be fully collateralized by a U.S. dollar, ensuring transparency, reliability, and price stability.

Just like Tether! /s

NET Dollar will be made available soon.

How about never.

Doubt that is legal, but yeah good luck suing Thiel over an event like this and keeping a job. Stuff is so fucked. Remember when hackers were proud to leak this stuff, like how people worked together to go after scientology.

Man, knowing nothing else about your coworker, they sound like a completely joyless person. Coming up with fake titles for things is like, such a high fun-to-effort ratio. “Creativity and the essence of Human Experience” by Chat GPT. Boom, there’s one. “Cooking With Olive Oil” by Sam Altman. “IQ184” by Harukiezer Murakowsky. This is so fun and easy that it’s basically hack outside of situations where it is solicited.