Ryan Christensen

I blend Science and Spirit to help purpose-driven professionals discover who they truly are and set their minds free.

And all it takes is a Leap of Faith.

[Ryan Christensen @belief_engineer]

@BowTiedTrance Challenge accepted!

[Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele]

DO YOU HEAR ME NOW?

OWN YOUR
OWN AI
OR IT WILL
OWN YOU.

Wear it, because Dario wants to regulate it.

BUY a damn t-shirt: https://t.co/nTss9TlyYh

[Ryan Christensen @belief_engineer]

Look up "Obliteratus" on GitHub. Done for you model alliteration, which gets rid of 90-100% of the refusals depending on the model.

Yes, they're local not frontier, but local is easily equivalent to Sonnet level these days.

So, totally uncensored Sonnet is freely available to download right now, run privately on your own machine with nobody else having any visibility into what you're doing.

And yes, there's local models that can get close to Opus on some tasks, and dedicated models to mimic Opus reasoning (Qwopus comes to mind).

[Ryan Christensen @belief_engineer]

@Cosmologicmuse @Ayaan @elonmusk Yes! Scott Adams would be proud.

Merch store when?

[Ryan Christensen @belief_engineer]

This is exactly why I use @JoinCrowdHealth. $65 per month base, only responsible for the first $500 of up to 3 major medical events per year, cash prices every time and prescription discounts. $300 per reimbursed for wellness checks.

Crowdfunding commitment is also capped per month - hasn't been more than $100 per month so far for me.

$160 per month on average, about $80 per month for my meds (would be $120+ on insurance). Best I could find on the marketplace last year was $500/mo with a $6500 deductible.

Probably not as good for chronic issues, so the elderly and those with a lot of challenges might not benefit as much. But if you're reasonably healthy it's a steal IMO.

[Ryan Christensen @belief_engineer]

@DigitalFringed1 @PGC1a_RB

[James Ramirez 🇺🇸 @InfanteriaComun]

September 2010 Kunar province, my platoon was in an ambush that ended with at least 30+ Taliban dead. Barely two days later I was in a Peter Piper Pizza celebrating my daughter's 3rd birthday. That's straining the human mind in ways we weren't meant to.

[Ryan Christensen @belief_engineer]

@infantrydort @ShawnRyan762 Would make a lot of sense.

Hell, I was just a DC-based contractor doing CT work, and it was so surreal going from hunting down AQ during the day to happy hour in Dupont a few hours later.

[Ryan Christensen @belief_engineer]

God no, they're not.

I remember an interview between @ShawnRyan762 and Travis Healy. Travis was going into ancient Greek practices where soldiers returning from war had to spend time in the temples getting their heads straight before re-entering society.

They spent a good bit of time on how losing those traditions fucked up a lot of soldiers by throwing them back into the world with no time to adjust or process.

Going back and forth from hell to the "real world" probably causes more problems than it solves. Especially right after intense operations.

Not sure how to build in that kind of pacing and separation, but it's something we ought to look at.

[InfantryDort @infantrydort]

One of the craziest parts about GWOT was mid-tour leave.

You could be in a knock down drag out street fight one day. Then 24 hours later, be on a beach in Miami.

I remember thinking how unnatural it felt.

I don’t think humans were designed for that to feel normal.

[Ryan Christensen @belief_engineer]

This makes @BrianRoemmele's work on "high protein training data" even more important IMO.

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

You have noticed it. ChatGPT feels dumber than it used to. Your prompts that worked six months ago produce worse results now. The writing sounds flatter. The ideas sound safer. The internet itself feels like it is shrinking. Every article reads the same. Every email sounds the same. Every answer sounds like it was written by the same voice.

You thought it was you. It is not you.

Researchers at Oxford and Cambridge published a paper in Nature proving what is happening. They call it Model Collapse.

Here is the mechanism in one sentence. AI trained on AI-generated data gets dumber every generation until it forgets what real human data looked like.

The internet is filling with AI-generated content. Blog posts. Articles. Reviews. Comments. Social media. AI companies scrape the internet to train the next generation of models. Which means the next generation of AI is being trained on the output of the current generation.

Each cycle loses information. Not randomly. It loses the rarest, most unusual, most creative parts first. The researchers call these the "tails of the distribution." The weird ideas. The unexpected perspectives. The things that made the internet feel human. Those disappear first.

What remains is the average. The safe. The expected. The bland.

Then the next generation trains on that. And loses more. And the next generation trains on that. And loses more. The researchers proved this is not a slow decline. Major degradation happens within just a few iterations. Even when some of the original human data is preserved.

They tested it on large language models. On image generators. On statistical models. The pattern was the same every time. The output converges toward a narrow, flattened version of reality that looks nothing like the original data.

The lead researcher put it plainly. "Large language models are like fire. A useful tool. But one that pollutes the environment."

The pollution is invisible. You cannot see which sentence on the internet was written by a human and which was written by AI. Neither can the AI that is about to train on it. And once the tails are gone, they do not come back. The damage is irreversible.

This is not a prediction anymore. It is a diagnosis.

The internet you grew up on was built by humans writing things no algorithm would have written. Strange, personal, imperfect, alive. That internet is being diluted. One generation of AI at a time. And the models trained on what remains are learning a smaller and smaller version of the world.

Model Collapse is not a technical problem. It is a cultural one. The thing that made the internet worth reading is the thing that disappears first.

[Ryan Christensen @belief_engineer]

Interesting paper that explains a LOT... That feels like it was written by AI.

Rule of threes, short choppy sentences with poor flow...

One way to make the point I guess.

h/t @CynicalPublius for bringing it to my feed.

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

You have noticed it. ChatGPT feels dumber than it used to. Your prompts that worked six months ago produce worse results now. The writing sounds flatter. The ideas sound safer. The internet itself feels like it is shrinking. Every article reads the same. Every email sounds the same. Every answer sounds like it was written by the same voice.

You thought it was you. It is not you.

Researchers at Oxford and Cambridge published a paper in Nature proving what is happening. They call it Model Collapse.

Here is the mechanism in one sentence. AI trained on AI-generated data gets dumber every generation until it forgets what real human data looked like.

The internet is filling with AI-generated content. Blog posts. Articles. Reviews. Comments. Social media. AI companies scrape the internet to train the next generation of models. Which means the next generation of AI is being trained on the output of the current generation.

Each cycle loses information. Not randomly. It loses the rarest, most unusual, most creative parts first. The researchers call these the "tails of the distribution." The weird ideas. The unexpected perspectives. The things that made the internet feel human. Those disappear first.

What remains is the average. The safe. The expected. The bland.

Then the next generation trains on that. And loses more. And the next generation trains on that. And loses more. The researchers proved this is not a slow decline. Major degradation happens within just a few iterations. Even when some of the original human data is preserved.

They tested it on large language models. On image generators. On statistical models. The pattern was the same every time. The output converges toward a narrow, flattened version of reality that looks nothing like the original data.

The lead researcher put it plainly. "Large language models are like fire. A useful tool. But one that pollutes the environment."

The pollution is invisible. You cannot see which sentence on the internet was written by a human and which was written by AI. Neither can the AI that is about to train on it. And once the tails are gone, they do not come back. The damage is irreversible.

This is not a prediction anymore. It is a diagnosis.

The internet you grew up on was built by humans writing things no algorithm would have written. Strange, personal, imperfect, alive. That internet is being diluted. One generation of AI at a time. And the models trained on what remains are learning a smaller and smaller version of the world.

Model Collapse is not a technical problem. It is a cultural one. The thing that made the internet worth reading is the thing that disappears first.

[Joshua Lisec, The Ghostwriter @JoshuaLisec]

"Her ego is going to die either way, the only question is if the marriage is going to die with it."

The trouble is, if she kills the marriage, she saves her ego.

i.e., "I had to divorce that toxic narcissistic abuser" and now her little friends clap-clap-clap like seals.

[Pat Stedman | Dating & Relationship Coach for Men @Pat_Stedman]

You absolutely can.

The ability to see a woman's highest self and to love that version of her into existence, is exactly what makes some men superior to others in inspiring a woman's devotion. To see a woman's wounds and struggles, and to see her strength and capacity to overcome them - it is a deeper type of game. It doesn't simply spark tension and arousal, it makes her feel completely and utterly seen.

The feminine grows by praise, but most praise is cheap. It is superficial.

But not belief. Belief is the highest form of praise, because it is manifestation. If you believe in a woman, you make her feel safe to surrender not only her body and mind, but her vision of herself to you.

Which is how you can mold her into the best person she can be. You see her potential, and can now challenge her lovingly when she falls short of it. You will not accept protests from her that fearful and complacent versions of herself are "who she is" because these are betrayals to her integrity. You hold her to account - not through criticism, but through clarity.

This is how you lead as a man: you guide a woman through love and conviction to the future, higher iteration of both her and your relationship with her.

If she turns away, it's because she felt she wasn't worthy. And you were lucky to lose her.

[Jason Andrews | Elite Performance Coach @BasedHypnotist]

I’m a fan of this approach.

IMO better than making it and then finding your wife.

[Ed Latimore @EdLatimore]

"Feelings don't care about facts" is far more accurate than "Facts don't care about feelings."

A prominent flat-earther, popular flat-Earth YouTuber Jeran Campanella, received intense backlash from the flat-Earth community after participating in "The Final Experiment" expedition to Antarctica.

The trip aimed to test the "ice wall" theory by observing the midnight sun—a phenomenon in which the sun remains visible for 24 hours, a possibility that is impossible on a stationary flat-Earth model.

Campanella publicly conceded that he was wrong about the 24-hour sun, stating, "Sometimes you are wrong in life... I honestly now believe there is a 24-hour sun."

He acknowledged that his flat Earth model was no longer valid after witnessing the midnight sun firsthand.

And the flat-earth community (I can't believe that's even a thing) is calling him a shill and a traitor. Because he went and observed a fact.

But remember:

Feelings don't care about facts.

And this incident reveals something about human nature that should worry everyone.

[0xSero @0xSero]

How to filter AI from your search results on Google.

[Joshua Lisec, The Ghostwriter @JoshuaLisec]

I don’t believe they’re crazy. It’s simply their culture.

[CoffeeBlackMD @CoffeeBlackMD]

Most cash pay primary care or “concierge direct”will NOT be 1000s of dollars per month.

You’ll still find some people being silly like that. However, people will start asking what exactly is the value add for 1000s per month which need be tangible and real.

Under $200 will be the what I predict for the usual market rates for the basic service.

[Ryan Christensen @belief_engineer]

Powerful stuff, and an important read.

What @EdLatimore talks about here mirrors my own experience - therapy never did anything for me really.

Hypnosis and psychedelics did.

It's why I became a hypnotist - to help others with the only tools that can.

[Ed Latimore @EdLatimore]

https://t.co/XyWNzcpO15

[Ryan Christensen @belief_engineer]

You'll be comforted to know that it doesn't matter.

It's already done as much damage to do you as it possibly can. Can't hurt you any more than it already has.

The things you recall aren't all of it, but it doesn't have to be. By design. Those are examples of a kind of situation or pattern your mind is trying to understand.

To understand what it means about you, about the world. What it means you have to do to survive and thrive. How you need to move NOW, as opposed to back then.

It's not necessary - counterproductive even - to dig it all up and deal with each and every horror you experienced.

You'd spend most of your life doing that, be miserable as fuck doing it, and never get to actually live.

Your life good? Don't have any major triggers? Emotionally stable and able to manage when life smacks you in the face again? Not seeing any major gaps or holes in your sense of self and ability to live the life you want?

Then you're Gucci.

If there's something else that actually needs to be dealt with, it'll pop up if and when it needs to. And when it does, know that it won't show you anything you can't handle, and won't do it out of spite.

It'll happen because your mind needs your help solving that puzzle so you can get what you want in life.

You can have anything you want in life, as long as you're willing to pay the price. Are you willing to dive into the abyss again, if you have to?

If so, nothing you can't have in this world.

[Ed Latimore @EdLatimore]

Given all of the horrific abuses and traumas from my childhood that I *can* easily recall, I’ve always been haunted by this one question:

What other, much worse events have I experienced or gone through that I have blocked out but are still having an effect on me today?